It has been over a month since I last blogged. Kinda sounds like something you'd hear at an "Blogger's Anonymous" group meeting, doesn't it. Life has been busy.

Three weeks ago, Meyrick had a severe case of the croup. The soft tissue around his trachea swelled and cut off his wind pipe. Poor kid turned blue. We called 911, gave him mouth to mouth, then the paramedics had him airlifted to Primary Children's Hospital. He's fine now, but that was a scary experience.

We're in the new old house, and have almost completely unpacked. We love the place, but boy will I have a lot to do in the Spring!

Drood was successful, but the audiences remained sparse. We opened a Radio-on-stage verison of it's a Wonderful Life not quite two weeks ago. Neeva is playing Zuzu and loving it. Mirinda is operating the light board. I tried my darnedest to not get involved in the technical end, but got dragged in at the end when the SFX guy was dismissed for missing too many rehearsals. Even so, I ended up doing the program, which is now 24 pages on 60# magazine stock!

The Jordan SD split passed, while our voucher bill failed at the poles. Herriman is prosecuting their lawsuit, but I don't give it much chance of success.

I'll have to fill in the rest of the details at another time

Posted in Empress Theatre

Joline Walgamott and I attended the Magna Town Council meeting last night, and we asked for a $2,000 grant for a new intercom system for the Empress. It was approved unamimously. We've got a pledge of another $2,000 in matching funds from the Osborne Family.

Posted in Grandpa Shirley's Ice Cream Parlor

We've moved into the new house! The big, old house on 8000 W, with the half acre lot. It's ours! The rest of this post is just streaming thoughts; more of a journal entry than anything else.

Well, we still haven't signed the papers, but we are in. And it feels great. That extra 700 square feet and that huge yard feel so nice. Everyone in the family feels like they've finally come home.

Moving day was an experience. Daryl made arrangements for a 26 foot truck from his work. I drove him to get it, then went to buy donuts and juice for our crew of helpers. While I'm getting the donuts from Roger's Bakery in Magna, my phone rings. It's Amy, and she's all antsy because the only "crew" to show up is Daryl and Lessa's friend Garret. I look at my watch, it's only 8:45. Fifteen minutes before I told anyone we were going to start loading.

Once I get back to the old house, Daryl and Garrett have already started getting boxes loaded. About 9:00 members of the High Priest group start showing up. Eldred Heaton, Dana Williams (our former Bishop), Gerry Poulsen (the current Bishop), Dirk Groen and a couple of other men. Mark Petersen is the only Elder to show. (Bit of a dissappointment, but not a big surprise). As we're loading, Kirt Lamb shows up with Pizza and soft drinks. (If there is anyone in the Colony ward I'm going to miss, it will be Kirt and JoAnn.)

About 1:00, we had the truck ready to roll, both of the big passenger vans loaded to the gills, Eldred's and my pick-up trucks full, but we still had plenty left. We staged as much as we could before we rolled with the first load then rolled to the new house. Per the contract, we wouldn't get "possession" until 3:00 PM, but we'd made arrangements to stage in the garage while the Baileys moved out. Both RJ and Laura had long since moved on their own, but their two sons and one girl friend were still living in the house, and were resisting the move. The one son got into an argument with his mother, and actually spit in her face. I didn't see it, or there might have been a call to the local sherriff's office. I could have a friendship with Laura and RJ, but I wouldn'd give two bits for the sons.

I had told the Elders' Quorum President in the new ward that we'd be there about 2:00, and we arrived at the new house a bit early. Eldred had driven his pick-up and broght Dana Williams and his son, but otherwise it was just us to start unloading amidst the altercation between Laura and her son. But that soon changed. Right at 2:00 the Elders started to show up, along with the young men and young woment from the ward, and a couple of other folks. Michael Harmon and Leeland came over, and even Sam(antha) Whittington came and helped for awhile. We unloaded in practically no time at all.

After we unloaded the big truck, both vans and Eldred's pick up, we took the big truck and Rollo's van back to the old house for round two. We completely filled the big truck a second time, and still didn't have all of it. This trip, I drove my pick up; which nearly killed it. The water pump is failing (and needs to have the timing belt replaced along with the water pump, so it is going to be expensive to fix) and the engine temp went right to the red line. After I got it to the new house, I turned the engine off and let it cool down. When I went back to start it again, it was compleatly dead! I thought at first that the engine may have siezed, then realized that it was electrically dead. Battery terminal had come loose.

By this time, the Bailey's had left and we had possession of the house... But they didn't leave us any keys to the outside doors. Which was OK, because with the way the Bailey boys were acting, I wanted to change the locks as soon as possible.  One of the basement doors had been broken and was unusable since we'd looked at the house, and it looked like several others had been kicked.

By the time we finally had everything, we had filled the big truck twice, made five trips with the vans, and done two pick-up loads from the old house. Yesterday Amy picked up one load from Rod's office. She got the dining room table and the love seat, as well as some boxes. It felt so nice last night to finally have enough room to have our entire family sit around the table for dinner. There was even room for Grandma!

There are still two or three trips to Rod's office to make before we actually have everything at the house! I can't believe how much stuff we have.

We've got the cable hooked up for internet, and we've decided to do TV since Amy's brother gave us a nice 52 rear projection TV, and we're doing VoIP over Comcast for phone (as soon as we find a phone to hook up to the modem). Bryce was outsmarted by the closed captions on this TV, got frustrated with it and was going to throw it away.

Amy had Lessa's boyfriend, Billy, and Mirinda's boyfriend, Michael, go with her on Monday to get the TV while Lessa was having her wisdom teeth extracted. I wasn't sure the TV was going to survive as they had to disassemble it and it had a bit of a rough time going down the stairs. When the cable guy tried to hook up to it, he couldn't get it to work (other than a blue screen), but once Amy and I got a new universal remote and we fiddled with it a bit, it works perfectly.

Since we'd staged everything in the garage, and one of the garage bays has no door, I had asked Mirinda and Damia to move all of the electronics into the house. They decided that my 21in monitor was too heavy and didn't move it or tell me they hadn't moved it. When I brought it in on Wednesday so there'd be a computer for the cable guy to hook up to, it was dripping with condensation. I'm hoping it will still work when I hook it back up.  I'm still searching for some of the other pieces, like the KVM switch. And I haven't found all of the hardware for my desk yet.

Amy is wanting to start school stuff as soon as possible, so the computers will become a priority so Mirinda can access the On Line HS. I'd rather wait for a bit so I can finish the family room a bit more, but I guess that will have to wait until summer. We've decided to put the two family computers in the family room,  near the north walls. One will go into a little alcove in front of the storage room and by the boys room, and the other will go to the side of the storage room. 

The family room is huge. We have almost all of the book cases in there (only the short blonde ones are not) and still have plenty of room for the blue love seat and my recliner and a coffee table the Bailey's left behind.  I'm going to have to do some framing on the south wall to cover some water pipes and we'll want to sheet rock the east wall. The west wall is unfinished sheet rock, whcih goes around to the north. For reasons unclear to me, the storage room walls are sheathed with plywood. The floor is bare concrete, but it is clean and in much better shape (despite the age of the house) than what we had in West Valley. There is no ceiling, but the Bailey's had put up some sheets over part of it. It will be interesting to see how long it takes before I can get to finishing it. (There is a ton of stuff ahead of it.)

I'll have more to say about the house as we go on. There are going to be lots of projects.

Posted in Life, the Universe, and Everything

Yesterday, Amy, the kids and I attended Spencer 2nd Ward for the three hour block. This will be our new ward after the move is completed. Last night we attended a dedication ceremony for the new meeting house that will house Spencer 2nd and Lake Ridge 10th Wards. Having attended several different wards lately, I find it interesting to compare the spirit of the different congregations.

For the non-Mormon's among you, Latter-day Saints attend three meetings each Sunday and we normally attend a particular "ward" based on where we live. Everyone attends a Sacrament meeting. This meeting includes partaking of what we refer to as "the Sacrament,"  a symbolic re-enactment of the Last Supper, very similar to Communion as celebrated in many other churches. During this meeting we also listen to speakers either chosen from the membership of the ward or assigned from the Stake. The middle meeting is Sunday School; members are attend classes based on their ages. The third meeting is "Priesthood" for men and teenaged boys (this is further segregated into quorums), "Young Women's" for teen girls and  "Relief Society" for adult women. Children under 12 attend "Primary"

It was a bit odd, but when we visited Lake Ridge 3rd Ward Sacrament meeting by accident (while we were looking at the Gettysburg house), we didn't feel right. Both Amy and I felt out of place in a way we've never experienced before. We've visited other wards before for Missionary farewells and homecomings, and other special events, but we'd never felt this out of place before. It just felt wrong -- then we discovered that we were in the wrong ward. We had set out to attend a meeting in the Lake Ridge 4th Ward. Once we figured that out, and moved to the right meetings, it felt right. We thought at the time that it was because we were attending the wrong ward, but now that we are not moving to the LR 4th ward, I'm less than certain.

For the last few months, the Colony Ward (the one we're moving out of) has felt spiritually flat to me. The speakers and lessons haven't connected with me at all. I've not felt personally inspired in my own teaching in Elders' Quorum, and I have been so bored with Sunday School that I've taken to sitting in the Foyer rather than sit through the class. I just haven't felt that Colony Ward offered anything to me.

Lake Ridge 4th Ward felt like a better  fit than Colony, but it still wasn't offering me any inspiration. We know a lot of people in LR 4th, and we were welcomed into the congregation; Amy even sang in the choir the second time we went there. But when we learned Jose wouldn't sell to us, we just played hooky rather than attend either Colony of LR4th.

Spencer 2nd Ward however, feels like home. It seems to be brighter, the people seem closer and more approachable. I found myself wanting to go to Elders' when I had to sit with Meyrick in the new Primary class (only to learn later that the teacher is the Elders' Quorum President's wife. There's some more of that syncronisity and irony.)  I not only took Ephraim to Gospel Doctrine (my Sunday School Class) but I enjoyed the lesson immensely.

The conclusion I draw from this is that there is a specific congregation that the Lord wants me to be in. And that it is Spencer 2nd Ward right now.

The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting this morning that Herriman et al has decided to appeal Stewarts ruling on their 14th amendment case. It will be interesting to see how they try to establish that Stewart misapplied the case law. I hope they are paying the outside attornies handling this case for them on consignment. It would be a tradegy for these lawyer to actually make a profit from the taxpayers when this case falls out of be completely.

According the the paper, the ACLU may get involved in the case.

Having said that, I am actually happy that they have decided to appeal. There are some issues here that need a judicial ruling, and I'm actually hoping that the case eventually comes to deciding the question based on who controls the growth rate. That will put things right back into the area where the developers need to be held accountable for the impact of the growth.

This is another of the pitfalls of a partially free-market, partially Socialist economic stucture. The free market part says we shouldn't regulate growth at all. Unfortunately, we socialize the infrastructure costs, especially for education, and force the existing tax base to pay for the costs associated with the growth. Does this not require that the growth be regulated?

Posted in Empress Theatre

I've been somewhat remiss in not blogging our current show. Tonight will complete the second week of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. There has been so much going on with the show, our move and a movie shoot outside of the Empress, plus a couple of other minor diversions that I've not had time to write anything for a few days.

While Drood has been playing inside the theatre, a local film production company, Salty Productions, has been shooting a made-for-Disney-channel movie on the outside. The movie, which has a working title of Dadnapped, is using the Empress and Magna Main Street for principal exterior locations. If I have it correctly, the Empress actually becomes the "scene of the crime." The plot revolves around a McGiver type kid trying to rescue a writer dad who has been kidnapped from a comic book convention. The Salty crew have completely redressed Magna Main Street from about 8950 W to 9180 W as the town of Mercury. I will try to get some photos of the set uploaded at some point.

Mirinda and Damia have been picked up as extras for the shoot, and spent Thursday and Friday of last week with the production crew. They missed out on a chance at 4 more days because they didn't act fast enough getting Amy's or my permission. Stacie Brown and Travis Olson and several other homeschoolers or Empress kids have also been involved in the shoot.

Having all of the Empress kids involved in the shoot, combined with the filming going on outside the theatre on Friday was near maddening. First, Salty dressed the front of the building and put a "plug" in the window/door area where we normally put our now playing poster. Not a problem, except they covered the only door that operates with a key. I went out early Monday morning to do some touch up on Drood and couldn't get it until they moved their plug. We had them install a lock on the back door.

With all of the teenagers from the Empress being extras in the movie, we ended up thinking we'd have some personnel issues for Friday's performance. Mirinda was scheduled to usher, so we planned to let Lessa cover for her while I ran the light board. Except that Stacie (who is my stage left Follow Spot Operator) also needed a substitute (which she didn't tell me about until Friday morning!). Adam, the other follow spot operator,  wasn't an extra, but he was working in Park City and expected to arrive late, and Heidi had scheduled with me in advance to miss the performance. Douglas had his last client call in Layton, and didn't get away from their until after 5:00. I didn't find out that Michael Harmon was an extra in the film until I got to the theatre. It looked like it was going to be me and Kelly, plus Carrie Cripps who we'd called to come assist.  Three people to cover six positions! (Not to mention that we had to get the audience in without distrubing the shooting out front, and Douglas has let Chaz and Joel borrow the head amp we've been using for the stage monitors and we I had to get it wired back into the system and readjusted.)

Here's how it played out: We ended up with a couple of extra ushers, so I pulled Lessa back to lights. We put Carrie on the mixer to cover Michael. I took sfx playback. We trained someone to operate the followspot last minute, and Douglas managed to make it in time for the show to start. He took the other follow spot.

Adam arrived shortly after the beginning of the show and took over his follow spot. Salty released the extras about 7:30, and we got Stacie back to take over the follow spot Douglas was running. Carrie stayed on the mixer (Michael never did show up... he was getting a bite to eat and kissing on Mirinda. Hmmmmmm) I stayed on sfx.

One again, I think marketing has dropped the ball. We have a professional director (John Williams) and a pro to nearly pro cast, but our audiences for the first two weekends have been sparse and mostly comp tickets. We should be packin' 'em in.

Posted in Education Politics

Two stories in this mornings Deseret Morning News: a wire story about sexual abuse in public schools; and the second a closer look at the same issue in Utah. According to the AP, there are more than 2500 cases of teacher sexual misconduct each year:

While some educators lose their licenses for theft, substance abuse or fraud, an Associated Press analysis shows most suspensions or revocations are related to sexual misconduct. Utah's incident rate is more than double the national average.

This is just one more indictment of the faulty structure of the public education system.  Lets put our children in a concentrated population that will attract pedophiles, and then try to screen out the pedophiles that apply for the job! Even if we manage to perfect the screening process, we are still creating an artificial environment that will skew the natural neuro-chemical responses of the teachers and other staff.

Take a normal, sexually healthy man and put him in an environment where his senses are assaulted for several hours each day by nubile underage students that are biologically suitable for mating, but legally underage and socially and morally unavailable. It is unreasonable to not expect the normal biological drives to affect the man's neuro-chemistry, with the attendant affect on his reasoning ability. It is amazing that sexual misconduct happens as infrequently as it does.

Posted in Grandpa Shirley's Ice Cream Parlor

The loan on our new house funds tomorrow! We should be moving this weekend!

Any strong backs in the Salt Lake area are encouraged to come by and help.

We decided to attend church in the new ward (Spencer 2nd) yesterday, and learned that the ward is also moving to a new building; yesterday was the last meeting in the old building, and the dedication of the new meeting house was last night. We'll be within walking distance of the new building.

In the meantime, I have to report on the depth of serendipity we've encountered lately. The local Catholic Church, Our Lady of Lordes, in Magna, hosts an annual spagetti dinner. When I was a kid we always went as a family. Amy and I decided to attend this year. While we were there, I ran into an old school mate of mine, Victor Marquez. To run into someone I know at a social function in my old neighborhood is not so incredible, but... Victor is on the board of directors at the Grand Theatre, and he is the Broker representing the sellers of the house we're moving into.

Posted in Education Politics

The federal judge hearing the Herriman challenge to the division of JSD, Judge Ted Stewart, ruled on Oct 11, 2007, that Herriman is unlikely to succeed in its constitutional challenge to the division of the largest district in the state. He declined to issue the requested injunction.

His ruling was fairly predictable based on the existing case law, but as one might guess, there are those that see his ruling as partisan or activist. Meanwhile, the east-side JSD cities have asked to intervene in the suit.

Here's where it now stands: Herriman, et. al., have been denied the injunction, but are "considering their options" of whether to appeal Stewart's ruling or proceed with the wider lawsuit. The AG is defending the law and has a very strong case built on existing precedent that Stewart has already determined is likely to prevail. The east-side cities have moved to intervene because they have additional defenses resulting from their "taxation without representation" and "legislative due process" complaints that would ensue if they were not allowed partition into a new district.

Herriman's challenge: overcome the presumption of constitutionality and the existing case law, establish that there are actually damages or the significant potential of damages sufficient to warrant relief, and that they can't mitigate this damage. Then they will need to counter the east-side's case that not allowing self determination will violate their due process and other rights. That's a pretty large burden, under the circumstances.

Posted in Education Politics

The Tribune didn't publish my OpEd, so here it is:

 

Granite School District get D Grade in Academics

 

Mark Twain said that “there are lies, ****ed lies, and statistics.” With the release of the 2006-07 school year Annual Yearly Progress results, the truth of this aphorism is brought home in light of the “spin” placed on its results by Granite District. Granite is relying on the complexity of the results to pull the wool over the public’s eyes.

In an email sent to various patrons, Granite makes the statement, “If less than 95% of a group takes one test, the entire school does not make adequate yearly progress.” What Granite omits is that this requirement only applies to groups with 40 or more students. They also leave out the fact that this requirement is included because a school could cheat by sending its poor performing students home on test day. Out of 41 schools that failed AYP, only two failed because of participation: Granite and Hunter Highs. Both schools failed whole school participation, not based on a single subgroup.

The other 39 schools failed to meet academic standards.

Granite is quick to point out that failure of any subgroup within a school will fail the school, but they neglect to point out that each school has four shots at passing each subgroup. For example, the target for math in elementary schools is 71% of students proficient. If the test shows that more than 71% are proficient, that group passes; if a sub-group is close, but not quite above 71%, then the group passes if it falls within the “confidence interval” or statistical margin of error. For example, only 64% of the “Limited English Proficient” students at Cottonwood Elementary were proficient in math, but they were statistically “close enough” that they “passed.”

If the subgroup can’t make the target within the confidence interval, they may pass if they can show progress toward the proficiency target from the previous year according the “safe harbor”10% rule. Using Cottonwood as an example again, only 53% of the Disabled group scored as proficient (goal of 77%), but since they had improved from 48% in 2005-06, this group passed.  

At Copper Hills Elementary, three groups passed based on this Safe Harbor rule by scoring within the confidence interval.  The Hispanic subgroup scored 59% proficient in language arts compared to 60% last year, but this was “close enough” to a 10% improvement. LEP students “improved” from 59% to 58%, and Students with Disabilities “improved” from 38% to 34%. In math, the LEP students went from 57% to 58% (hardly 10%) and disabled students “improved” from 49% to 40%.

When we look at a failing school like Hillsdale, which had two “No” boxes, we see that only 6 out of 10 subgroups have enough students to matter; two groups (Asian and Pacific Islander) passed in the confidence interval on Language Arts; Caucasian, Hispanic, LEP,  Low SES, and Disabled made Safe Harbor in the confidence interval; in fact, no group with 40 students passed the proficiency target. Hillsdale failed on a whole school basis because the “confidence interval” for the whole school would not let a 59% proficiency masquerade as 77%, nor let it pretend to be a 10% improvement over last year’s 64%. This school received only two “No” boxes: Whole School in Language Arts and Hispanic in Math, but only one of the “Yes” boxes was based on the subgroup actually making its target: 74% of Caucasian students proficient in Math, (goal of 71%). Of the remaining 17 academic checks, six passed by the safe harbor rule, with five of those in the confidence interval, seven passed the academic test in the confidence interval, and 4 groups had populations so low they weren’t counted. According to the Granite email, 21 schools have more “No” boxes than Hillsdale, seven shared the 2 No box status, and only 13 did better.

When Granite’s scores are compared to the state averages, whether by whole school or by subgroups, Granite scores below the average in every group but two. Graded on a “curve,” this is a ‘D’ grade for Granite.  

 

Posted in Education Politics

AYP results are out for Granite School District. Granite has sent out an email touting how many "yes" boxes they managed. But they don't say how many of those yeses are really NA's, have astericks next to the yes, came from safe harbor, or are safe harbor with an asterick. I've submitted an Op Ed to the Tribune on their spin factor. If it gets published, I will link to it, otherwise I will publish it here.

In the meantime, here is the break down on what all of those options means:

NA means either there weren't enough students in the group to count for participation purposes (<40) or enough to count for academic purposes (<10)

Yes* in the academic column means they didn't really pass the proficiency target, but were within the statistical "confidence interval" of passing. The smaller the group, the larger the confidence interval. This permits many minority groups to pass with scores well below the targets. A school with small minority populations that are underperforming will pass where a school with a higher percentage of minorities with the same proficiency rates will fail AYP because the confidence interval is smaller.

Yes in the safe harbor column means that the group did not make proficiency targets, but showed 10% improvement from the previous year. Basically, a yes here says that the group was so bad last year that improving by 10% still wasn't enough to reach the confidence interval of the proficiency target.

A Yes* in the safe harbor column means that the group didn't make the 10% improvement, but fell within the confidence interval. Again, the smaller the group, the larger the confidence interval. It is not only possible for a group to post a decline in its proficiency rates and get a pass in this manner, but there are many schools in Granite School District that have done this.

At Copper Hills Elementary, three groups passed based on this Safe Harbor rule by scoring within the confidence interval.  The Hispanic subgroup scored 59% proficient in language arts compared to 60% last year, but this was “close enough” to a 10% improvement. LEP students “improved” from 59% to 58%, and Students with Disabilities “improved” from 38% to 34%. In math, the LEP students went from 57% to 58% (hardly 10%) and disabled students “improved” from 49% to 40%.

 

One school, Hillsdale, passed every single subgroup except Hispanic in Math, but not a single one of them actually exceeded its proficiency target. Every group had an asterick or was in safe harbor. The school failed language arts whole school, and the Hispanic Math result would have failed them anyway, but when GSD is touting their "yes box percentage" this is absurd. This school got "yesses" in 95% of its boxes. Granite is claiming that, district wide, they got yesses in 95.2% of their boxes.

I'm not impressed. Not at all.

Posted in Education Politics

Herriman has filed a suit challenging the Jordan split referendum.  All of the other JSD west side cities have either jumped ship (Riverton & Bluffdale) or decided to pursue their own split options (West Jordan & South Jordan). Herriman will have to overcome the presumption of constitutionality, a raft of case law on the issue that the AG has already discussed, establish standing (which is going to be difficult with just the referendum on the ballot and not passed), and overcome the countervaling constitutional arguments of taxation without representation and self-determination.  

Posted in Grandpa Shirley's Ice Cream Parlor

Its 83 years old. It sits on a half acre of land with fruit trees and grapes. Its closer to the Empress than Gettysburg or the pink house. It has over 2800 square feet of floor space, four solid bedrooms and two others that could be used as bed rooms, a large dining room and a mud room, and a lot of unfinished space in the basement. It has a 2 car garage with a workshop in the middle. The house is in good shape, the yard is fairly well landscaped (the garden area is a bit weedy and there's a kinda cobbled together chicken coop, but the lawns are mowed and the trees are healthy.) And it backs onto an undeveloped 40-50 acres. So how come its $16,000 less than the pink house and $11,000 less than Gettysburg?

Well, there's only one bathroom. The kitchen was last updated somewhere around 1924 and lacks a lot of the amenities. Its on a busy street and isn't fully fenced. Its not as well maintained as Gettysburg, and it isn't zoned for horses (we think).

Makes me feel vindicated on my assessment that the pink house was only worth 185,000.

Posted in Education Politics

South Jordan has joined in the fray to divide Jordan District. If it goes as I believe it will, this November, the east side of Jordan will form one new district, West Jordan City will form a second. Then in the spring primary next year, South Jordan City will break off. That will leave Herriman, Bluffdale and Riverton.

Granite, meanwhile remains stuck. Millcreek is too large for the cities to override the county and get it on the ballot. So we wait. Granite has decided to hold some public hearings without agenda at the local high schools to allow patrons to voice their opinions. Interestingly, there won't be a hearing at Hunter High School.  GSD is still playing this as a public relations issue; they haven't figured out that it isn't about school closures, its about academic failure.

Posted in Grandpa Shirley's Ice Cream Parlor

Jose's agent, Maria, has given up on getting to him. She's pulled the signage down and is asking her broker if she can unilatterally withdraw the listing. So we're moving on, officially. We're looking at three other houses in that area this evening before we go to our Ballroom Dance class. One is a 2800 sq ft 5 br home on .49 acres priced at $183,900. Sounds promising. down side: it only has one bathroom and it is on a busy street (80th W)

I've a hunch we're not done with Jose yet, though.

 

Posted in Empress Theatre

Midsummer Night's Dream finally got the audience it has deserved for the entire run last night. It was one of those "feel the energy in the air" sort of nights, even before the audience was seated. The performance was not only flawless, but the actors were all in top form. There were a couple of additions to the chase through the forest in the beginning of the second act, and the Pyramus and Thisby scene had people laughing so hard I thought we'd have to carry them out in stretchers! Standing Ovation and three curtain calls.

After the show, Laura said she claims dibbs on any future Shakespeare at the Empress. All of the actors I spoke with want to come play in our sandbox again. This is great news (especially since there are some strong male actors in this troup!) I don't know how we'll work it; whether Laura would get a stipend for directing while we produce, or if we'd split gate as we did for this one, but I think we have a winning combination here. Much Ado About Nothing in on the schedule for next year.

In other news, the Empress is going to be a movie star in her own right. Salty Productions will be shooting on location on Magna Main Street next month. I can't go into a lot of details yet, but the Empress will be featured prominently, and will get some nice "in kind" and cash donations from the project.  It should be interesting: they'll be shooting movie outside, we'll be performing plays on the inside.

Notes for future reference on MSND:

The stage right cutaway hollywood flat was too tall. Couldn't see Titania's bower from some seats on the sr side of the house.

Cutaway drop worked really well. If we create one of our own, we need to make it fit the stage better, and go around the roof truss at center. the cut-away part should be a bit higher for projection.  It might also be a good idea to add some light behind the drop, this would be a great place to use borders top and bottom.

Projection worked really well into the opening in the cut-away. The moon/clouds in the forest scene worked especially well. Note to the Bard: You can't have a "new" moon for Thesus nuptials and moonshine in the casement. I can't believe Shakespeare had a continuity slip like that!  The clouds for Peter Quince's house and the forest morning also worked well. The Parthenon projection worked for Thesus' palace, but it was not fully visible to all of the seats, esp on the right side.

Using the Purple and Blue spots for the enchantment scenes worked well, but I think if we do something like that again, I'd want to dim the general lights for each one like with did for Oberon's disenchantment of Lysander.

We need to get lights on the down stage stairs, and the back row left side. (although if I get my way, that will be closed off for the light/sound booth semi-permanently.

Next comes Drood, and the big challenge there will be moving the light and sound boards to behind the left side seating.

Posted in Empress Theatre

We opened Midsummer Night's Dream last Friday. The show is working fine, and Liz and I were able to get the lighting into something decent. If I had more time I'd make a few more changes, but overall, I'm satisfied with what we've done.

Unfortunately, Vivian didn't do so well on the marketing for this one. Opening night we only had about 20 people in the audience. The Saturday matinee had a similar crowd. Saturday night was maybe 30-40 folks. Monday we didn't quite fill half the house.

Posted in Grandpa Shirley's Ice Cream Parlor

It just keeps getting better. As I posted previously, Jose gave us a verbal acceptance on Sept 6.  Shortly thereafter we had a nice electrical storm, and now Jose says his phones don't work (and he isn't fixing them). Maria, his agent, has been camping out on his door step every night trying to get him to sign the offer, but he's "been working overtime" and doesn't come home. She did catch him once though... but he was too drunk to sign anything.

Posted in Empress Theatre

Douglas went out of town the night Birdie closed. I didn't hear from him for several days, so I went ahead and ordered stuff to light Laura Bedore's Midsummer Night's Dream. Douglas called me while I was picking the stuff up at Oasis and informed me that he'd made arrangements with Kenny Chapman Sears to do lighting for MSND.

Douglas, Kenny and I met with Laura last night. I explained my plan, and Laura liked it. Kenny is going to implement it. And I get to watch the show with my wife. How cool is that.

Now lets just hope the Kenny and Douglas are smart enough to realize that projecting a moon on the back wall motivates the direction for the moonlight through the trees from the same direction... Something tells me I'll get called a couple of times before we're done with this show.

Other dreams: As I was coming to work this morning, the thought occured to me that our goal at OHPAA should be to create a performing arts center/annual festival that will rival Cedar City's Shakespearean Festival. I think we've got the talent for it; the rest is just logistics and marketing.

Damia started going around the neighborhood yesterday looking for odd ways to make money. She's set a goal to earn $1200 to buy a harp. She did pretty good, I think she ended the day $18 toward her goal. about 7:30 last night Roger Baumgart came over and said that Linda (his wife) was making a list of jobs for Damia to do. Then Roger dropped a bombshell. He asked if Damia would consider a guitar. Damia wasn't interested, but Mara said she would work to earn a guitar. Mara now has a lovey six string acoustic guitar and an electronic tuner. The Wimmer Family Orchestra is growing...

Amy on piano, Lessa on violin, Mirinda on flute, Damia on harp, Mara on guitar, Peter wants drums. I suggested that Neeva might want to try Tenor Sax like her namesake. Meyrick doesn't know yet, but we're speculating on a horn. Who knows with Ephraim. We're just gonna have to get my accordian fixed!

I can just see us all (or rather them all, I'll probably not be part of the orchestra) playing at Grandpa Shirleys after a show at the Empress; and with Grandpa Shirley's in the old Dyches building, there'd be room for a fairly good audience space.

Here's is how I visualize things happening: I've written $136,000 payroll into the operating budget for OHPAA for 5-6 full time staff positions. I've also written $50,000/year for 2-5 years into the capital projects budget for someone to manage the grants and projects. OHPAA will be able to put anyone they want into that last position, but I'm thinking it will be me. That will allow me to step down from DTS and work on the theatre projects and get the Dyches building renovation underway. This will be good for OHPAA and will facilitate getting Grandpa Shirley's up and running.  By the time the funds for the grant manager are gone, OHPAA will be stable, Magna will be in ascendence economically and probably incorporating, Grandpa Shirley's will be profitiable, and I will be working where I need to be for the rest of my life.

All I have to do now is generate $750,000 for the capital budget and set up $278,000/year in operating funds. Piece of cake!

Posted in Grandpa Shirley's Ice Cream Parlor

Rod just called. Jose has given us a "verbal yes" on the latest offer on the Gettysburg house. He can't actually accept the offer until Monday, however. It seems he's been ill, applied for Medicaid, and putting his house under contract would have affected his Medicaid eligibility. Good grief.

Latest update: Since our current hose won't sell at $190,000 with all of the work it needs, and we can't sell it for less than that without losing money to the prepayment penalty, we decided to work an arangement with Rod and an investor. Road and the investor will buy our current home subject to the existing loan and turn it around on a lease option.  They will also buy the Gettysburg house and give us a lease-option on it. When the prepayment penalty period is up, they will either sell the WVC house or refinance it to get it out of our name. Then we will buy the Gettysburg house on a VA loan.

In the meantime, Rod ran a preliminary title report on our current house. It seems ORS has filed a lien against it. Lets see, I won the court case (because Stephanie didn't want to face welfare fraud charges), I've paid every cent of owed support since, and Rio and Chani are both over 18 and I'm no longer obligated to pay child support. Don't ya just love the ORA efficiency.