Doin' Sugar video links

These YouTube videos and almost all of the pictures in this book were taken by me with an iPhone 6S Plus. My hands tend to shake which is why some of the pics are blurry. Other pictures were taken by Jo Alderman or other sources properly attributed. (I hope)

Walk Through The Historic Cocoa Village Playhouse before the Last Performance of the play Sugar - YouTube

Frank Hogg audition singing Happy Birthday 2/2/2016 for Sugar - YouTube

Caroline Hinton's after party for Sugar 4/3/2016 - YouTube

Kenneth Hjortsberg singing Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline at Lou's Blues Karaoke night 3/30/2016. - YouTube

Katie Hjortsberg singing at Lou's Blues April 3rd, 2016 Karaoke night. - YouTube

Sugar Cast Singing for Frank Hogg's 71st Birthday 3/25/2016 - YouTube

Charleston (I think) with Emily and Amanda Stevens and Aron Meggs at the end. - YouTube

Some links to more pictures on Facebook:

Meri Beth Misch - Shenanigans, laughter, smiles and tears for our...

Doin' Sugar: I'm doing a play for the first time based on the film, "Some Like It Hot!" - Kindle edition by Frank T. Hogg. Arts & Photography Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Doin' Sugar: I'm doing a play for the first time based on the film, "Some Like It Hot!" - Kindle edition by Frank T. Hogg. Arts & Photography Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.





Yup, the book is now available... Enjoy!

Wading through photos

I will include several dozen back stage photos I took while doing the play. Things I never knew existed and things that I think are interesting to see. What I discovered doing the play is that what the audience sees is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg. What goes into making it is fascinating. I'm told the Cocoa Village Playhouse is very unique and as close to a real Broadway Theatre as you'll find outside of NYC.

I have over 600 photos so it's turning into a real project just deciding which ones to include. The other thing I think is interesting is what the girls look like before and after they have their stage makeup and costumes on. Sometimes it's hard for me to tell who is who.

Back to work if I'm going to make that deadline...

My Second Book, "Doin' Sugar" is almost ready

Doin' Sugar is about my recent experience doing the play, Sugar, based on the movie, Some Like It Hot. I never did anything like this before and I wanted to document everything about it. I think you'll find it very interesting. My target release date is the end of April 2016.

It's been awhile...

I think about posting something here but have never gotten around to it. I'll be heading south for the winter and I'm thinking I'll have time to do some thinking and writing. In the meantime I thought you might get a kick out of my journal about working on my house for the last two weeks...

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11/25-11/27 Monday through Wednesday mostly what I did was try to stay warm. My gas heater is working well but it's cold out and I don't use it to heat the back while I'm sleeping. It was 52 on T-day morning. However, I did repair and paint the old exterior door John gave me that I'll use for the garage door in the back. I brought it in the LR to repair it and because I had nothing else I wanted to do I painted it... My new tankless water heater came in and as soon as it gets a bit warmer I'll work to put that in.

11/28 T-day with Jo at Katrina's house. Good food good weather.

11/29 Black Friday. I didn't go anywhere. But I did order a new MacBook Pro. I'm hoping the better display will be easier on my old eyes. Today I installed the two back doors and now I can secure the house when I leave. I carried the new water heater to the basement and will work on that tomorrow. It was 45 and sunny today. I could hear lawn mowers in the neighborhood. Probably mowing leaves although some of my lawn could use mowing. I think I'll mow a little bit on Sunday. Just to clean out the gas in the tank and so I can say I mowed my grass in December.

11/30 Saturday. 7AM, 25 out, 51 in my bedroom, 62 in LR. A new low but I don't feel cold yet. I turned on the electric heater back here and turned up the fire as I walked by on my way to the john so I expect it'll warm up shortly. Supposed to get above freezing by noon. By then the sun will not be on the east wall where I have to knock a hole in the cinder block for the water heater vent. Maybe the sun will make it warm enough so I'll check it out. For now I'll just have breakfast, watch TV and then collect the tools I'll need...

12/1 Sunday. 50 inside this morning but it got up to 54 outside by afternoon which was really nice. I'm getting used to these cold mornings. I chiseled the 5" hole in the cinder block for the water heater exhaust and it about did me in. I did have just enough energy left to tar the vent boots on the roof which I hope will fix that small leak when it rains really hard. But I was beat after all that and took the rest of the day off.

12/2 Monday. 58 inside this morning, 35 out. (I forgot to close my bedroom door) My right arm is sore from holding that chisel for so long yesterday. I spent several hours on the phone and net ordering parts. Otherwise I just took it easy for once. It was overcast and without sun my ambition drops to near zero.

12/3 Tuesday. 55 inside, 40 out. Feels normal now. Cloudy but a little sun. John is coming over about 11 and we're going to take the dump trailer with all the construction trash (mostly roofing) and pile on my 55 boxes of shingles down to Katrina and Dirk's parents farm and dump it in their big hole. Saves me the trouble of wrapping those boxes in plastic and dumping fees. I weighed one of the boxes and it was 50 pounds. I would have had to handle (move, lift) each box 4 times otherwise. I'm hoping John and Bobby will do most of the lifting and I'll only have to help load some of it. BTW 55 times 50 pounds is 2,750 pounds and I've already lifted them twice. No wonder my back hurts... John and Bob showed up at a little after 10 and we loaded all the boxes of siding, all 55 of them and took them to the farm where we met Katrina, drove down a long heavily rutted (I said they weren't ruts, they were canyons) and got rid of all that crap. With the garage and basement free of those boxes I straightened up the garage, mowed the grass and leaves to run the gas out of the mower and took it, the tiller and a whole bunch of stuff down to the basement. I can put my car in the garage now!  

12/4 Wednesday. 61 in, 50 out, going to be a nice day. It got really warm and nice as the day wore on, mid 60's and sunny. I went down and mounted the new water heater in the basement and installed the vent. That was heavy work as it weighs over 50 lbs and I had to lift it several times to mount it on the wall. But that's done and now all I have is plumbing.

12/5 Thursday. 64 in, 48 out, overcast. But now it's noon and kinda gloomy out and I have absolutely no mojo to do anything. I'm just kinda puttering. I went to the basement where it was cold and dank so I decided not to do the water heater today. Last week I bought a 8 pound turkey breast thinking it would fit in my little oven, it didn't so I borrowed a crock pot and have it in there now, tented with tin foil because it's too big to put the lid on. I may or may not have turkey for dinner... Ah, the sun just came out and what a difference that makes... It was still chilly in the basement so I avoided doing anything down there. Instead I cleaned up outside and hauled a bunch of stuff to the curb. The turkey seems to be cooked but i don't have anything to go with it. I mostly wanted it for the leftovers anyway. That about sums up this not very productive day.

12/6 Friday. 64 in, 58 out. Rain forecast for the day but it'll get to 65 they say. It's going to get really cold after this so I better get to doing the water heater today... No sun = no ambition. I know I should do something in the basement but so far nothing... The weather almost got better, the sun almost came out and my ambition almost came back. Other than walking around the yard I haven't done a damn thing.

12/7 Saturday. 39/60 temps. Rain and overcast. Winter storm warning. Talk of freezing rain with near freezing temps. I'll head over to Lowe's and get a bunch of stuff to install the WH in the basement and maybe try running a heater down there. Or I could do stuff in the house like work on the other china cabinet or paint the bathroom doors. Or not. No sun, no mojo... And as it turned out I didn't even go to Lowe's. But I did move a bunch of stuff to the new addition, tools and supplies etc. And I did a few things in the fix up area, but not much. Getting really cold out, windy and just not nice. 

12/8 Sunday. 33/52 Seems much colder because of the dampness outside. Supposed to sleet today so I have no plans of going out. And at the moment I have no plans of doing anything. Seems my mojo went south for the winter so I better go after it...

the Landfill Harmonic Orchestra

the Landfill Harmonic Orchestra - YouTube

Been a long time...

since I posted something. I'm still alive, just busy with life.

Trying something new

I recently got an iPad mini. My reason was to try to see if I could replace my laptop with it. So far it's not quite there and I still need my laptop for a few things. But the iPad is getting close. For example I can post to my blogs with it, I'm using it now with a very nice app called Blogsy. In some ways Blogsy is better than doing it the old way on the MacBook and I'm going to see if I can completely switch to the iPad from here on. I'm also going to try to do much if not all my writing on the iPad. Right now Pages is very good start and they are working on getting Schrivener ported to iOS. With that and a few other things the iPad will be able to do it all.

 

That's my hope anyway.

 

Posted with Blogsy

A Test To See If I Can Live For Free

Not freedom, free as in no cost. Well, no, you can't but maybe you can live well by spending much less, eating better, being more healthy and enjoying life. Some years ago I realized I was working two weeks each month just to live at the house I was in. That money was not invested, it went to costs, taxes , etc. It was out the window never to come back. Sure it was nice at the lake and all but it just took too much to be there. I downsized and moved to Virginia. My current house is ¼ the size of the lake house but I am as comfortable if not more so and whenever I want to look at a lake I can drive 10 minutes to one.

Now I'm wondering if I should downsize even more. While it doesn't cost much to live here it does take a lot of my time. I have to mow the grass every 4 days and there's always something to fix, paint, make , etc. If I could afford it I could just, "Call the guy" to do it but then I'd have to work to afford it.

I told you all that to tell you this…

I've been thinking about selling all my, 'stuff' and my house and car, buying a used motorhome and living full time in that. The idea has a lot of appeal. I could travel and see stuff I'll never get to see otherwise. I could stay at campgrounds on lakes or in the mountains or desert. I could live in Florida in the winter and north in the summer. I could go anywhere, do anything and not have all the shortcomings of living in one place.

But…

Can I do it cheaply enough? Will I enjoy it or is this just a pipe dream? Only one way to find out is to try it.

I'm going to go to Rocky Knob National Campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a week and see. I'll have no cell service, no internet, not even a TV. How will I survive??? But during that week I'll take notes about all kinds of things I'd need to know to do this permanently. How much water, how much propane fuel, how much gas, etc. If this works out okay then I'll try it again but for two weeks and see how it goes.

There are a lot of people doing this and all seem to love it. It may not be for me but I'll know more next week than I do now and I'll let you know in more detail than you probably want to know just how it worked out.

Look for an update to this on or about June 4th.

App Glut

The App Store has around a half million apps, a lot of them free and I have done my best to get far too many of them. I have 291 in iTunes but only 228 on my iPhone. I don't know what most of them do. It's gotten to the point were when I hear of a new neat app and I attempt to download it I find I already have it.

I 'almost' downloaded, 'Path' just now but I realized that with such a non-descriptive name I would soon forget what it is, does or that I even have it. And if that isn't bad enough I also have 632 songs, 1,019 photos and 34 videos. I rarely use my iPhone to listen to music so why do I have 632 songs on it? Simple, because there's room for them. Even with all that I have 6.5GB free, that's 6,500MB or enough for 2,000 more songs and still have room left over. Now you can get an iPhone with 64GB which is TWICE what I have now! Imagine what it'll be next year or 5 years from now. What in the world are we going to do with all that room?

I was watching a show on TWiT.tv about new stuff and they mentioned a neat app for the iPad called, "Paper". At first I assumed it was a way to eliminate paper in an office or something along those lines. No, it's a drawing program! I guess, "Draw" was taken. My point is that there are so many apps that descriptive names and icons are pretty much useless. There is no easy way to know what any of these apps do without running them. It would be nice if Apple or Google could find a easy way around this.

In the meantime I'm going to start deleting extra apps... As soon as I figure out what they do.