Keeping Busy

Well, time flies quickly when one is at work. I have finally finished working Stadium of Fire and I now have time to relax and get back to life. I have no idea the hours I’ve worked or what I will be getting paid. I’m a special case because I get paid by one company, was gets handed over to another company for work. It doesn’t always work out very well because I should only work 10 hours a day, but with lighting, we work longer then that. Therefore, I have submitted the hours I was at the stadium, but I do’t know if I will actually get paid for all thoses hours. I’ll find out when my paycheck is mailed to me.

It was a great experience! I hung out will all the old guys I knew from the two previous years. I worked with the lighting crew the whole time, and got some more experience and learning fro it all. For the show, I was one of the four spot operators, and to help out, I assisted the spots in calling parts of the show that I knew. It went well enough. We did lose power to a spot halfway through the show, but it didn’t cause too much problems thankfully.

I find that Stadium of Fire is more stress then it is worth. It is already going around that one does not want to be a lighting designer for the show because it is way too frustrating. They can’t begin designing until the sun goes down which puts in all nighters, then they usually have to wait for rehearsals to finish before beginning, which doesn’t happen until past midnight each night.

I felt so bad though because we had an amazing sillouette number that really would rehearse all night to get it perfect, but when the time came, to perform, it was cut. I don’t know if it was due to a problem with the screen, or if there wasn’t time to do it. The dancers put in so much work and it was an amazing patriotic number. It’s aweful that they were unable to perform it.

For strike, I was put in charge of cable world so I stayed in the tunnel with all the cases and directed people to where all cables should be place and the organization of cases for all the lighting equipment. I got three other girls to assist me and I put the men to work. It was slow at first as we had to pull the cables from the stage and field, but it went quickly. People kept coming to me with questions and equipment, and I was able to easily give them idrection. It was great to know I am finally learning how to be a leader. When all cases were packed, I enjoyed ordering the people of which cases to roll to the parking lot first. I was running around, giving directions of which case needs to go and we had such a huge group of labors, it was a constant flow until all cases were out and loaded. We finished up at 4:30am.

Now, the wise thing for me to have done would to go to bed, but I wasn’t tired at all. I stayed up until 6am looking at tour pictures that were just posted for the group. I was then very tempted to jump on a bus and begin heading north, but thought sleep was a good idea. Unfortunately, as soon as I fell asleep, it was impossible to get me up again. I didn’t get out of bed until 2pm. I was so frustrated with my lack of self-discipline because I wanted to be on my way to Roy before noon. Grrr …

I did catch the 811 bus at 2:55, then connected with the Sandy Trax, then onto the new FrontRunner. It was a fun trip that only took 3 1/2 hours. I was able to spend time with family - aunts, uncles, and cousins. It's been so long since I've seen some of them, one family I haven't seen for at least eight years. I spent the night in Roy, then was able to return to Provo with my parents Sunday evening.