Technology Wigs Me Out

One of the most horrible feelings in the world is the nausea-inducing panic of losing something that’s necessary to function and is a pain in the ass to replace.

Note that anything necessary to function is usually a pain in the ass to replace, although the key to the shed in the back where you keep the ladder that you only need once a year is an exception.

Since gas prices are rising (again) here in Southern California, I’ve opted to commute on my bicycle whenever possible in order to avoid pump-induced nausea and anger.

I really do enjoy riding the bike. Not only is it more economical, but I see a lot more interesting stuff when I’m not sealed in the car singing along to a certain teenybopper pop icon who keeps putting his feet into his adorable almost post-adolescent mouth.

The downside of bike commuting is that, in a way, it’s not as easy as driving. Instead of picking up the purse and locking the doors, I have to dig the locks (plural, since I’d like to keep said bike) out of my panniers, find a place to secure the bike, make sure anything that can be stolen is removed (bike computer, water bottle, super expensive blinky headlight that can blind astronauts in space), and then schlep the whole mess into wherever it is I’m going.

Sometimes I forget a step and leave something on the bike. Usually it’s the computer, but sometimes it’s the water bottle – call me paranoid but I feel weird about drinking from it after it’s been out in the world unsupervised – and sometimes it’s something more important.

The other day, I ran errands for most of the day, making numerous stops to pay bills, grocery up,  work in the garden, plot the demise of those goddamn squirrels, etc..

When I got home and discovered that I needed olives (hey, it’s not a martini without one), I dug in said panniers for my wallet.

Nothing. I dug again.

Still nothing.

I did that thing where I slapped my pockets.

Nothing.

Fuck.

So,  since I’m a sensible adult, I did the right thing and immediately called and cancelled my debit card.

I then sat a moment, thought about where I’d been and decided to retrace my steps.

First stop, the Whole Foods in Westwood.

Where the very nice lady at the customer service desk handed me the wallet that some kind person had turned in. Including the cards.

Awesome.

The worst part is that, since I technically did the right thing by cancelling the card, I couldn’t even be mad at myself. Just sheepish and grateful that there are still a few honest folks left in the cold, cruel world.

This morning, I went to the credit union and enquired about a replacement debit card, expecting to get the thing about waiting 10 days while they mailed it, etc.. Also, I wondered if they’d give me a refresher course in how to write a check, since it’s been so long I think I forgot.

“Sure thing!” the teller responded. “Fill out some paperwork and I’ll print one out right now.”

Wait. Print?

Turns out, they can print cards now. Actual credit cards. That work.

They didn’t even charge me a service fee.

Freaky.

Filed under: life in LA, Los Angeles, mishaps, Non-Work, Off-Topic, Photos, bank, bike commute, bike computer, cars, debit card, garden, lost, panniers, transportation

Wait, what happened?

I was lucky enough to get a day of work last week, and figured I’d have the check in the mail and all would be good, and then today I got a call that I can honestly say I’ve never gotten before in all my time working in the film industry.

“They” lost my start paperwork.

When one starts working on a new show, one must fill out a packet of start paperwork. It’s always the same thing. Deal memo, some sort of confidentiality agreement, which name one would like for one’s credit*, any applicable equipment rental (if one has specialized equipment for which production must pay – like a dimmer board, certain tools for installing fixtures, etc…), and the promise that one won’t sexually harass one’s coworkers. Much.

The best boy didn’t specify who lost it, but I’m assuming it was somewhere in one of the maze-like offices on the lot where, apparently, paperwork goes to die along with dreams.

So, I need to redo the impressive pile of paperwork that I originally worked my way through last week.

That’s one seriously tree-killing pile of redundancy, but the upside is that I’ve gotten another day of work out of it (Boss: “You’re driving up here anyways, you might as well work.”).

Hooray!

*Despite my constant efforts to get a joke name (I.P. Freely, Heywood Jablowme, Michael Bay, Prince Albert of Cannes) as my credit, it’s never happened. They always just use my real name.

Is it too much to ask that my IMDB read “sometimes credited as…”

Filed under: mishaps, Photos, Work, dammit, drama, entertainment, paperwork, snafu, studio

You can never find one when you want one

My garden, while only about a mile from where I used to live, is currently 8 miles away.

Interestingly, it takes the exact same amount of time to drive as it does to bike, and since the bike doesn’t burn $4 a gallon gas I usually prefer to ride than drive.

But lately I’ve had this shoulder issue, and it seems to cycle (no pun intended) between ‘getting better’ and  ‘won’t this thing ever stop fucking hurting’.

Today’s physical therapy appointment wasn’t until noon, and since I’ve been in a ‘getting better’ phase, I decided to bike instead of drive. Hey, I’m unemployed and gas is expensive (for the US).

So I hopped on the bike and headed out. I swear I behaved – I didn’t lean on the handlebars and I stayed off of the drops. I got to the garden fine – no pain and I felt really good. I dumped my veggie scraps into my compost bin, watered the seedlings (leeks, rutabegas, parsnips, beets and celery that looks like it’s not going to come up), admired the out-of-control fava beans (looks like I’m in for another 50 lb harvest from my tiny plot), and weeded for a few minutes.

I then headed out as I needed to be at the PT place.

About a mile into the return trip, I started hurting. Bad.

I then, for the first time in my life, decided to do the sensible thing and catch a bus back home.

I found a bus stop and sat. And sat, and sat and sat.

With the clock ticking (can’t be late, don’t want to anger tiny Asian woman who is torturing me), I decided that I couldn’t wait any longer and started riding, figuring eventually a bus would catch up to me and then I could give my poor shoulder some rest.

Except no bus came. I kept looking over my shoulder, hoping I’d see something – anything. Any bus would do.

Nope. Nothing.

Normally, when I’m biking, I have to avoid being flattened by a bus approximately every five minutes, so the complete lack of buses just when I really needed one was maddening.

Every time I looked back and didn’t see a bus, I’d let loose with a torrent of language that would likely shock a sailor. At one traffic light, a police car pulled up beside me, and the nice officer asked me what the problem was.

“I’m hurting and need to catch a bus, but now I can’t find one.”

“So.. they’re just like cops, then?”

Yes, indeed. Just like cops. Only not on a frantic manhunt which involves several innocent drivers getting shot up.

I finally saw a bus two block from my apartment.

Bastards.

Filed under: cranky, humor, life in LA, Los Angeles, mishaps, Non-Work, bike, buses, cars, compost bin, crime, gardening, Los Angeles, manhunt, police, transit, transportation

My weekend in photos

Filed under: computer, mishaps, Non-Work, Photos, computer, frustration, Frys

And why wouldn’t it?

Today was our last day in our ‘hero’ house, so we had, in addition to the day’s work, some scenes to re-shoot (one because the producers didn’t think our stunningly beautiful lead actress looked ‘pretty enough’), and about a million inserts.

The call sheet looked like a Tolstoy novel before editing, and we all knew it was going to be a long day – even if they wrapped on time, we still had to load our truck. In the rain, of course, because why wouldn’t it be raining on the day we had to clean up and load our truck?

After several weeks at a location, you get comfortable and stuff spreads out despite efforts at housekeeping, so there’s a massive last-minute expedition to hunt down the scattered gear and organize it (Boss: “Why are the tweenie* doors on the back of the toilet in the bathroom?” Me: [pause] “I. Don’t. Know.”)

After they finally called wrap – at the last minute before the producer stomped on set and pulled the plug, because why wouldn’t they use every minute they had to finish the massive call sheet – we were cleaning out the house, happy to be done with the place, but trying to work as quickly as we could as the siren call of home and a hot shower was too much to resist.

The homeowner had thoughtfully provided wooden ramps so we could wheel carts up the low stairs into the house, as I was carrying one of the aforementioned tweenies down the ramp, I slipped on the wet wood and landed right on my knee.

Of course. If I’m going to get hurt at work, why wouldn’t it be right at wrap when my co-workers really need me? I’m told I screamed like a girl when it happened, although I have no such recollection.

Our medic iced the knee, gave me some painkillers and some paperwork to fill out (in that order. Hope I did it right), then wrapped it (the knee, not the paperwork) so it would hold weight and I hobbled out to help load the carts.

One of my co-workers had slipped on the same ramp a few hours before and injured the opposite leg, so we joked that between us we made one complete electrician.

I’m icing the knee now in the hopes that the swelling will go down – I’m officially in 10 hour turnaround (the elapsed time between when one is dismissed for the day and when one must report back to work the next day), so I can’t ice for too long.

That sleep thing needs to happen.

Tomorrow’s work is in a hospital, so if the knee really hurts I know where there will be a doctor or three.

Call time: 9:30 am

Wrap time: 9:30 pm

We closed the doors of our truck at 11:00 pm.

*The tweenie is one of the workhorses of the lighting department. It’s a 650 watt light that’s small enough to hide easily, but puts out a nice amount of light, and no matter how many of them we order, it’s never enough.

 

Filed under: hazardous, locations, long long drives, mishaps, movies, Work, accident, home, hospital, medicine, rain, siren call, tweenie, wooden ramps

The non-exploding explosion

Sometimes, despite one’s best efforts, lighting equipment malfunctions – sometimes quietly, and sometimes loudly.

Most of us are used to small fires and medium kapows. They’re an occupational hazard (along with bad knees, the occasional shock and UV related eyeball damage) and it doesn’t seem to us like we downplay them, but we do, especially when compared to the reactions of witnesses from other departments.

Today, just after lunch, one of our security guards tapped me on the shoulder.

“One of the lights just exploded!”

Now, when someone tells me that a light exploded, the first thing I see in my mind’s eye is a column of flame shooting 20 feet into the air and shards of twisted metal and glass covering the blood soaked corpses strewn about the vicinity.

So, of course, I’m going to try to find out more information before I get any closer to that hot mess.
“Which light?” I asked.

“The big silver one!” he replied, gesturing frantically towards set.

Oh, that’s just fucking great. The ‘big silver ones’ are 18,000 watt  HMIs. I’ve seen one of those explode before. The column of flame wasn’t quite 20 feet high, but there was a lot of broken glass and I cut myself, so… blood.

I decided to follow-up before reacting.

“Tell me exactly what happened”

“The silver box made a loud noise and smoke came out!”

So, not really an explosion. More the aforementioned medium kapow. The silver box is the electronic ballast, and although they can have problems, actually exploding isn’t one of them.

It was probably coincidence. Or a squirrel.

I ventured over to set, reset the breaker on the ballast, and then the self-preservation instinct kicked in. I walked over to the lamp head and tried to strike it*.

Sure enough, there was a muffled “kumpfh” and a puff of something that might have been smoke, but was mostly bad smell from the ballast, followed by the lamp not igniting.

Okay.

So no one’s dead, nothing’s being consumed by an out-of-control inferno, and no one’s bleeding. Much.

Whew.

Makes having to tell the gaffer we’re down a light seem, well, no big deal.

Lucky for us, the kapow happened just as we were given  permission to downsize our HMI window barrage, so it all worked out well.

*One can strike, or turn on, an HMI from either the ballast or the head itself. Usually it depends on what’s easiest or, at the very least, not malfunctioning. You’d be surprised how often striking from the other end works.

Filed under: hazardous, locations, mishaps, Work, 18k, ballast, electronic ballast, equipment malfunctions, explosion, fire, HMI, hot mess, lamp head, light, oops, silver box, television, transportation

Traffic

I will never understand traffic patterns in Los Angeles if I live to be 100.
Yesterday, as I was drinking my morning coffee and watching the amazing commercial-free BBC Olympics feed via a proxy server (NBC will never stop sucking, so why fight it?),  the best boy of Doctors in Love texted me wanting to know if I could come in to cover someone who called in sick.

The answer, of course, was yes, but since Doctors in Love shoots almost, but not quite, all the way across the city, I figured I was in for an incredibly annoying two-hour drive.

Not so much.

I threw on some clothes, headed out the door and didn’t get stuck in any traffic at all.

I’m not kidding. 8 am – the height of rush hour in one of the most traffic-clogged cities on planet Earth and there was no traffic. At all.

I travelled from my house to the set in under an hour.

This, or course,  made me nervously scan the sky for horsemen as I drove onto the lot.

Finding none, I parked, grabbed a walkie and proceeded to have a wonderful day working with people who I like a whole lot and don’t get to see nearly often enough.

Then, driving home at 10 pm on a Tuesday, I got stuck in traffic for an hour and a half.

Filed under: life in LA, long long drives, mishaps, studio lots, Work, bbc olympics, Commute, morning coffee, rush hour, traffic, transportation, travel, Work

I’m not sick, I’m just full of pool water

There must be something going around.

I can assume this because all of a sudden everyone around me is completely paranoid about anyone being sick, even slightly.

Today, I spent an hour in the pool attempting to correct my piss-poor upper body position, which meant keeping my head down much further than I’m really used to, which resulted in an unfortunate amount of pool water filling my sinus cavity.

So much water got up there that I’m reasonably certain even my parietal lobe got some swimmies.

So, after sitting in the steam room and showering, I meandered back to my locker and began to get dressed and pack up my stuff.

Since I still had some water sloshing around in my skull, I was sniffling periodically, and the lady three lockers down would glare menacingly at me each time I did.

Finally, she turned to me and hissed “Stay home if you’re sick! What about the rest of us?”

I tried to assure her that it was just a sinus meets pool water issue, but since she hurriedly grabbed her stuff and moved across the locker room, glaring at me all the time, I’m guessing she didn’t believe me.

In other news, I’ve got two days of work this week due to a very good friend being a mensch and helping me out.

I love everyone right now. Even the angry lady.

Filed under: humor, life in LA, mishaps, Non-Work, health, medicine, vacation

Two weeks

 

That’s the thumb, two weeks later. It’s not this blurry in real life, but my cell phone won’t do close-ups and I overdid it at the gym today so I’m too tired to really care.

 

I’m not sure if I can credit the fast heal to my body or the MSM that The Sweater Queen recommended I use.

Either way, I’ll take it.

It’s still a little tender, but I can go to work tomorrow and not have to worry about it opening up or exploding or causing a riot or something.

Filed under: mishaps

Hurriedmidweekupdate

Ah, how quickly fortunes change.

Monday morning, I was sitting in the living room drinking coffee while reading the paper and figuring out how I was going to space out my “I need work” calls when the phone rang.

It was the best boy of Doctors in Love, wondering if I could come in right away to cover someone who got sick (not seriously, he’s okay now) and had to go home.

I said yes as I was pulling on my pants and running for the door.

I love working on Doctors in Love. It’s a great crew of wonderful people and one never gets beat up too bad. Because of my late call ( I arrived just after lunch), I worked for six hours and got paid for eight (union rules state that I can’t be paid less than eight hours, even if I work less).

Score!

While I was throwing on pants, I got a call from the best boy of Yet Another Cop Show who wanted to know if I could work Tuesday through Thursday.

More awesome. Another crew of wonderful folks who I really like, and much, much closer to my house than Doctors in Love, which shoots all the way across town. Also, I went from zero days to four days in under half-an-hour.

I was to work the set on Tuesday, and then switch over to the rigging crew Wednesday and Thursday. Which, of course, was fine. Work is good. I love work.

Except that they called wrap at 1 am on Tuesday, and call time for the rigging crew was 6 am this morning. After a discussion with the UPM, they decided to ‘force’* my call, but not too much, as I was told to come in at 8 instead of 6.

Which was fine, except that even though they cut me loose right at wrap (yay for gaffers who end the day in a small setup), that still meant getting in a van to go back to crew parking, driving home, taking a shower (can’t sleep if I’m dirty and smelly), getting to bed, settling down, etc..

I fell asleep at 2ish, and had to wake up at 7 to get to work by 8.

So, not much sleep. Lucky for me, we only worked 10 hours.

Right now, I’m trying to stay awake long enough to update the blog and shower before I pass out.

Oh, and the thumb looks much, much better:

Thumb, a week later

It’s still sore, but not as bad as it was. If I bump it against something, I don’t curl up into a ball and cry. Much.

* Normally, one has to have a certain amount of time between when one is dismissed from work for the day and when one has to report back the next day. This amount of time, called turnaround,  can vary depending upon circumstances, but generally is not less than 10 hours.

Filed under: hazardous, locations, mishaps, movies, Photos, up all night, Work, cut, injury, thumb, Work