Well I Suck

SO
I said I was going to be better about blogging on tour. GUESS THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN!

I am not going to go through and fill in everything I have missed since I last wrote SO I will just give the main points?

___FLORIDA___

Me, Kevin, Jonny, and Margo went to the Astronaut Hall of Fame in Cape Canaveral while we were staying in Melbourne. It was pretty cool. Jonny was most excited about the G-Force Simulator...

I could not participate due to my massive motion sickness.
Across the street there was the American Police History Museum and Hall of Fame. There was a shooting range and helicopter rides so we wanted to go... BUST. The shooting range was closed and they had "lost their contract" with the helicopter... but there was the fantastic gift shop..

amazing

We adventured down to Ft. Lauderdale on one of our last Florida days. I decided to take a break from the sun and go read my time magazine under a shady palm tree. within seconds of sitting down an elderly gentlemen made my aquantence and proceeded to talk to me for a good half hour. Everytime there was a lull in conversation he began a completely different one, everything from places he had lived, to airlines he liked, to the weather in Florida. Unfortunately about half way through the conversation the wind was blowing my magazine pages about and I looked down to straighten them and saw it... sitting there... staring me in the face... standing out against the sand and the dark blue bathing suit...big... old... BALL! so gross.

___McLean___

So after leaving Florida we drove to McLean by way of Lumberton North Carolina. McLean was great for me... I went to Tysons and bought a new jacket, Michael came down the first day and we went to my dads house for dinner. The next day we did a show and afterwards I hung out with Casey for a bit. Then Michael came back down and we went to Gordon Biersch for dinner then watched TV and fell asleep, it was great. The next day my dad came to the show and then we were off to Wilmington, DE

___Wilmington, DE and Staten Island___

Wilmington was cute. We went out one night for Dave's 27th birthday and had a very nice dinner. It was sad to see how damn cold it really was getting... significantly colder than even normal fall weather for the North East.

Staten Island was... interesting. I made last minute plans to meet Adam and Ann in the city for dinner. Well it took over 3.5 hours of crazy shuttle drivers, ferries, getting on the wrong train and ending up in harlem, to actually make it to Ann's place in the Heights. We had some good chinese and talked about people I used to know. good night, but stressful.

---BALTIMORE---

How could this not be great?! I was home for 5, count em 5, nights. ohhh man it was fantastic. It was kind of hard because it made me feel like I had been on vacation for the past 3 weeks and now I was home when it was really the opposite. But it was great all the same. I couldn't even really tell you what we did until the last day... a lot of sitting around our house, watching football and food network, and just enjoying each others company in our house. I did some halloween decorating. I really REALLY wanted to clean up the yard a bit and plant some more bulbs up front so I would have some fantastic flowers come spring but it was very cold and rainy the entire time I was home. The last day Alison, Michael, Mike's mom and grandma came and saw my show, they seemed to really enjoy it, then we went out to Lunch at applebees. Afterwards Michael and I spent the afternoon getting our house ready for people coming over for dinner. That night Eric, Brian, Margo, Lindsay, Jonny, and Dave came over for a spagghetti dinner. It was a really great time. I rarely....scratch that...never have friends over to the house since, lets face it, I dont really have any, so it was nice to have people over. Brian also brought over two PUMPKINS that we carved. I wish I had taken pictures but once Brian puts his up I will steal them.

So that leads me to being here in Virginia Beach. My mom came up and we had dinner and did some shopping and then she came and saw the show this morning and then had lunch with me margo and jonny before heading home. It was good times. The shows went mostly well, sadly there were some technical glitches this morning, but the venue is beautiful and the people that work there are nothing short of FANTASTIC. particuarly the wardrobe people, which are the techs I always have the most access too.

Tomorrow we are planning on going out for Halloween which I hope will be fun, though I won't lie and say I am very much looking forward to going home at the end of November.

TOUR!

Well Here I am out on the road, currently in Orange Park, FL (a suburb of Jacksonville). I have promised that I will be better about blogging on tour and hopefully I will live up to it.

I currently can not post any pictures on this blog to make it more interesting, sorry, but I left my camera cord in Baltimore so I will retrieve it from Michael in 11 days in McLean and then pictures shall be available.

SO! The beginning. We began by driving about 16 hours in two days to Sarasota with a stop in South Carolina on the way where I saw a bumper sticker that said "nuke Iraq" reminding me how much I love people. Sadly, the long hours of Air Conditioned Van Driving made Margo a sick little girl :(

So upon arrival in Sarasota Kevin and Lindsay joined us (both had auditions preventing them from enjoying the first 16 hours of driving and met us down there) and we had a full fun happy group. Tuesday morning Jonny and I ventured to Siesta Key (about 7 miles south of Sarasota) to Rent bicycles for our days in Sarasota. My logic to this was there were about 4 places of interest as well as downtown Sarasota within 2-5 miles from the Hotel and it seemed, by renting bikes, we could go to as many of these places as we pleased without worrying about Van usage and get some fun outdoor exercise while we were at it! I sent a text to everyone in the group, as is customary, but Jonny seemed to be the only one to agree with my logic. So to the bike store we traveled! The man at the bike store was very nice and helped us select two "beach cruiser bikes" on the logic that road bikes can only go on the road but beach cruisers can go on the road and the beach. We didn't intend on going to the beach but it sounded like a nice thought. That is until we decided to bike to the Aquarium 4.7 miles away over a very large bridge in a headwind... gears would have been nice. But damn it was good exercise. We saw all sorts of fun fish and petted sting rays and overall had a very nice time. Pictures to come later.

So that night Me, Jonny, Margo, Rudy, and Jeffery went to downtown Sarasota and had some Mexican food. It was quite tasty. Sarasota is a very very pretty place but I find it funny that the majority of dining downtown is Italian. Curious.

Anyway the next morning we had our first two performances of Tour at the very pleasant Van Wezel building. We mentioned constantly that we would be happy just planting ourselves for a couple weeks and doing the show there. The building was great, the staff was so smart, kind, and accommodating it was really a pleasure. The audiences were HUGE though I am not sure entirely as responsive as our DC children's audience, they still seemed to enjoy it very much. It was a pleasure.

Upon returning to the Hotel we dissapointingly realized that a trip to the Dali museum in St. Petersburg would not be happening because of Van usage and time and such so me and Jonny decided to get the most out of our bike rentals before their return and biked downtown to have lunch. We wanted to go to this homey looking Irish Pub called O'Malley's so we walked up the stairs to its second story home and stood there for at least 5 minutes wandering around calling out "HELLO" to no response. I even peaked in the Kitchen, and there was noone. Potentially the most awkward thing I have ever seen. So we went to a little, slightly more expensive, place called Patricks which was very nice. We then drove our bikes back over to Siesta Keys and returned them. That evening, after not being able to make any decisions, a group of us decided to venture back downtown and see if anyone was at O'Malley's this time. SURPRISE! they were. We enjoyed a late dinner, but they were in the process of changing the menu so most things we ordered were not available. And then the manger was trying to clean out a drain and upon opening it unleashed the smell of unholy hell. But he gave us a free round of Washington Apple shots as an apology and the food we did order was very enjoyable. Afterwards everyone wanted to go to this gay bar, but Jonny inquired to their underage attendance and they were strictly against it so I went back to the hotel. Luckily, it was a bust anyway and everyone was back by 11pm.

I spent the evening chatting with Michael on the phone and putting all my receipts in order for tax purposes before nodding off to sleep for our departure this morning.

We drove to Orange Park today (250 miles back in the direction we came from, one of the unfortunate aspects of touring is by no fault of anyones due to availability at venues we end up backtracking a little bit from time to time. for example on the 20th we are in McLean then we go to Deleware and Staten Island then back to Baltimore then Virginia Beach then back up to Mass.)
It seems like a pleasant place here. The people at Panera were possibly the nicest people I have ever encountered in my life and they commented on the pleasure of my pleasantness as well. One thing I do like about the south is the southern hospitality. They can be a bit blunt though... a woman got on the elevator with me in Sarasota and the first thing out of her mouth was "so who are you voting for". Awkward.

Everyone else has just departed for the Gym, and the Technicians are at the space doing Load In. I am staying here to work on a voice over for Michael and then who knows!

Ciao from Orange Park!