San Clemente, CA. 4th of July, 2008

Fog in the morning... Fire at night. No day could be better! The Beach and Hills are hidden by the fog... it's only about 300 feet away!

The Flying Monkee Pyro Team for 4th of July, 2008 at the San Clemente, CA. Pier.





Mmmm... fire. Red and Blue Peonies.











We are in the middle of the pier...we have 5's, 6's, 8's and 10 inch shells and cakes to one side of us and 2.5's, 3's and 4 inch finales and even more cakes and waterfalls off the side of the pier on the other side of us. With each boom the pier shakes...the smell surrounds you...above you a whole new strange and beautiful universe. I am a THUMP JUNKIE!!

When the product goes off in the air it is beautiful but I think that it is even more beautiful when the shell is fired out of the gun...It truly is a thing of beauty!

Day Two: The Charles Bridge

The Charles Bridge with Prague Castle in the background.



I love this picture with the seagull on the cherub's head.







Me on the Bridge.










Silhouette of one of the many statues on the bridge.















Prague Castle with the district of Mala Strana beneath it.

View of the Vlatava River from the Bridge.

DAY TWO: February 11, 2008 - Old Town Square

First thing we did in the morning was pay our apartment bill in cash. The lady didn't speak any English but we ended up saving about $20 by paying in Kc (karunas: Czech Crowns) instead of Euros). The total bill was 245Euro or 6, 651Kc which equals $378 for the entire week for the both of us!! Not bad.

We started walking west (I think) and found that Old Town Square was only a few short tiny blocks away. Everything in Prague is walking distance we discovered.


Tiny cobble-stoned streets. You pass thru an archway or a small alley and POOF! you are in another beautiful world surrounded by amazing architecture and so much history.










The black house with white etchings on it on the right hand side of the picture is the house that Franz Kafka grew up in. He is the author of such works as "Metamorphosis", "The Castle", and "Capital Punishment". Metamorphosis is probably his more well known work...it's the book were the main character goes to sleep and when he wakes up the next morning he has turned into a giant cockroach and his and his roommates learning to live with the situation. Very strange...but good.




This is the famous Astronomical Clock. Every hour it dances a little ditty...the 12 apostles dance by the two blue windows and Death rings his bell while holding his hourglass to let you know that your time is slipping by....I have close-ups of the clock which I'll post later...

The pointy thing in the background is the Tyn Church. I can't remember what the building in front is but I do remember that legend has it that in order to get it built the owners sacrificed a peasant child and buried the body under the foundation.








This is a sculpture of Jan Hus. He was on of Europe's earliest Christian Reformers (even before Martin Luther by a century!). Jan Hus taught philosophy at Charles University and later became the Dean while also preaching at the Bethlehem Chapel where sermons were given in Czech rather than Latin. Years later when political and religious crap boiled over Jan Hus was convicted of heresy and was burned at the stake in 1415.




Old Town Square (Staromestske namesti) has been Prague's principle public square since the 10th century and was it's main marketplace until the beginning of the 20th century.










Church of Our Lady Before Tyn is an early Gothic church. Very pointy. Night or day as long as Ellen and I could see the pointy top of this church we knew where we were and what direction to head to get to where ever we happen to be going at the time. It was quite helpful!








I took this picture as we were deciding on whether or not to take a dinner cruise/tour that evening. The ticket booth was to the left. We did finally decide to take the tour/dinner cruise called "Prague By Night" which was a 45 minute bus tour then a 3 hour dinner cruise on the Vltava River with live music. The cruise cost about 1200 Kc which is about $70. More picture of that to come later as well.


I do apologize for taking so long to update this site...but finally...Day Two in Prague has been started!!

Kids In The Hall: Live as We'll Ever Be

Got to see Kids in the Hall on May 8th when their tour came to The Grove in Anaheim. LOVE THEM! Granted they have aged...not all aged very well either but it does not matter because they are all still funny enough to make you snort!

I squish your head!











Wouldn't be a perfect night without the Chicken Lady!

Mother's Day at Huntington Botanical Gardens

Ma came to visit me in the end of April 2008 (she needed to get away from the Winter in Idaho and get some warm California Sun). Since it was between her birthday and Mother's Day I took her to the Huntington Botanical Gardens and treated her to "High Tea" in the Rose Garden Tea Room.

The Gardens were beautiful as always and the finger food, tea and fresh scones were delectable!


Got to love the wild life!










Ma in the bamboo forest. It truly was a wonderful day!

Fantasmic Rehearsals

Sorry it's been a while since I've updated this site. I've been a bit busy with rehearsals for Fantasmic! Here are a few photos from the rehearsals with the new lighting I helped install for the show. I do apologize that the photos are a little blurry but I was taking them without a tripod, without a flash and while I was running a large super trouper followspot.

This is of the dragon sequence...it has changed a bit since this photo...too bright in the photo...darker now which is much better.


Programming the opening sequence...we added some star gobos in the end...




The Evil Queen at her cauldron cooking up some mischief for Mickey Mouse.


It's soooo sad...this sequence is so bright now that the petals are infested with aphids (otherwise known as "performers") and the snake called Kaa has mutated into a centipede and now has a couple dozen spindly legs that sprouted out the bottom of it's belly.


This looks weird....mostly because the lights you see should be hitting the Mark Twain River Boat...but this nights rehearsal we did not use any of the boats or the barges...so the lights glanced over the river with nothing there...rather amusing really.
Opening sequence...Mickey makes the water fountains come alive. What an imagination he has!


The Evil Queen calling on the Magic Mirror to tell her how beautiful she is. Notice the lighting bolts...
The most evil of all...Maleficent! She appears in red flame...exits in green flame...flies into the air and then metamorphosis into...
Bucky the wonder Dragon!
Pretty little flowers.














Where pink elephants dance the night away.













This is one look of the opening sequence...but not quite the final look. Take away the star gobo on the mouse from the follow spot and we'll call it good.

The show re-opened on March 7th, 2008. The crew does NOT like the way the show looks now. To us it looks like the show is now played under colored work light...but the guests seem to like it and I guess that is what matters.



I promise I will post again soon about my trip to Prague. I've been so busy that I just haven't had the time to do much. Just work and sleep and doctor's appointments (I'm back seeing my knee specialist for my knee injury that happened at work. He has put me back into physical therapy.).

Tagged like a Billboard!

Okay, I've been tagged

A: The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B: Each player answers the questions about themselves.
C: At the end of the post, the player then tags 3 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Here's all you never wanted to know:

Ten Years Ago today:

At this time I had officially been living in San Clemente, California for 6 months and 11 days having moved here with my best friend Dan Marcum. I had just started a calculus class at Saddleback College (in Southern California) which was the last math credit I needed in order to go to the University of California, Irvine which I had already been accepted to on the contingency that I complete this math credit before the Fall of '98.



5 things on my to-do list today:
1. Finish this "Tagged" thing-a-ma-jig.
2. Go to Disneyland
3. Have lunch with friends at the Ariel's Grotto Restaurant in Disney's California Adventure.
4. Watch Remember....Dreams Come True Fireworks
5. Sleep

Snacks I enjoy:
1. Honeycrisp Apples are like candy to me. (Too bad it has such a short growing season).
2. Dipping the apples in a mixture of Raw Almond Butter and Raw Tahini Butter (sesame seeds)
3. Avocado and Cilantro Hummus with whole wheat pita bread toasted that I get from the farmer's market down the street. MMMM...yummy.
(by the way Heidi...any food item you can fit into your mouth without a majority of it hanging out can be considered a snack!

What would I do if I were suddenly a Billionaire?
1. Pay off my school loans and car.
2. Buy a house.
3. Invest a large portion into my retirement accounts.
4. Buy a theatre for myself and my theatre design friends so we could have a place to create real theatre again.
5. Help my family and friends including starting a trust fund for all my nieces and nephews to insure they have funding for their college education.
6. Travel EVERYWHERE!!!

3 of my Bad Habits:
1. I clutter a lot
2. I don't file my mail/bills nor shred them as often as I should which leaves my desk a mess and rather...dare I say it...cluttered.
3. I procrastinate way too much.

5 Places I've lived
1. Lake City Seattle, Washington
2. Redmond, Washington
3. Bellevue, Washington
4. San Clemente, California
5. Santa Ana, California
6. Anaheim, California

5 jobs I've had:
1. Retailer at a clothing store
2. Waitress/Server
3. Pyro
4. Stage Technician
5. Lighting Designer/Master Electrician

5 things people don't know about me:

1. I love to take naps.
2. I love cheesy 80's films/TV shows from when I was growing up.
3. I sleep on my couch more then my bed because of a bad back.
4. I don't drink alcohol.
5. I don't own a hairdryer.

This was rather hard...but there you go.

Now except for Heidi no one in my family blogs...and neither do my friends really...so let's see...ummm I think we will have to make a few exceptions with the rules...hope that is alright with everyone. So I tag my brother Aaron Nelson (his wife did it and she tagged me...now let's learn about him...although I'm sure it will take him a while to do fill it out), my friend Ellen King (who has a blog but hasn't been too it in so long she can't remember where she left it) and my mother Sue vanLeeuwen who does NOT blog...but I figure she can do it in a email for us at least...

DAY ONE: February 10th, 2008; Eating Above Praha

This is the Henry Tower which is along the "Royal Route" from the Prague Castle (which is on the other side of the Vltava River). After the concert on the staircase Ellen and I were starving as we hadn't eaten anything since 11am that morning and it was now after 9pm. So we walked around trying to find something that looking good and interesting and we came upon this tower. On the 7th and 8th floor is the Restaurant Zvonice Jindrisska Vez (I have no idea what that means). So we went up and got a table and had a wonderful meal (probably our most expensive...but the atmosphere was great and the food was delicious!).
The Henry Tower is a Bell Tower...and this is it's bell...still the original bell from way back when. It doesn't ring anymore...which I was thankful for as we were sitting right next to it for our meal.

It was a cozy, Gothic bell tower in which we ate and there weren't many people there...which was nice because it wasn't loud and obnoxious.

Ellen and I both had hit our heads at some point during the evening because of the low beams...not hard...but enough for us to remember to duck next time.

I ordered a green iced tea and this is what I got. It was German and it was delicious. I don't quite get what the green beans on the label have to do with green tea but tasty is tasty.

I ordered the herb crusted Pike perch with lime potato pure. It came with the mini zucchini and carrots too. The potatoes were AMAZING!!! I did find a piece of plastic on my fish tho...and it was a little on the dry side...oh well.

Ellen ordered this dish...some kind of meat thing. I can't remember what it was...I just remember her liking it a lot.

And of Course if there is bacon on the menu Ellen is going to order it. This is a Bacon Salad.

Because of the plastic that was on my fish the restaurant gave me a dessert for free...can't remember what it was called (as it was in czech) but the translation was something like "traditional czech pancakes with forest fruit, a Carmel basket and cream". What it was like was like sponge cake or pound cake with berries on top. The Carmel basket is that decorative piece on the side (which tasted as good as it looked) and the cream was not ice cream, not quite sour cream...more like a heavy butter cream. It was very good.

The Lime Potato Pure was still my favorite of this entire meal tho...mmmm...got to make me some of that!!

DAY ONE: February 10th, 2008; Concert on the Inner Staircase of the Museum Hall

After the National Museum closed it's doors to regular guests we stayed. We had tickets to see the Czech String Chamber Orchestra under the artistic leader: Ondrej Krbec dipl. um. play on the inner staircase of the Museum Hall.

It was a sextet (2 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 bass, 1 pianist) playing Mozart's "A Little Night Music", Bach's "Air", Vivaldi's "Four Seasons", Braham's "Hungarian Dances", Monti's "Csarda's " and my personal favorite (plus he was a local and is buried there) A. Dvorak's waltz's and his "Humoreska" (Humoresque).

So we sat on the stairs themselves...not the most comfortable and not the best view...but it was all about the acoustics and the music! WOW! It truly reminded me why I loved playing in symphonies and chamber orchestras and really made me miss doing that...I might have to pick it up again...if I can strengthen my ombature again to where I can play longer and more than just a scale or two.

Here is a little video so you can have a little taste...it's not the one I wanted to post...the one I wanted to post was too large of a file and it couldn't be posted so this one will have to do and the others will have to wait until we see each other in person for you to hear. Wish you all could have been there in person to hear this...

DAY ONE: February 10th, 2008; The National Museum of Praha

Now this is a model! A wonderful model of the National Museum of Prague. It looks as if it was carved...not molded but carved with knives and sharp little instruments. Amazing detail...it just needs color.

Here is the beautiful National Museum of Prague. It sits at the end of Wenceslas Square and is beautiful at night.






Me...in front of the National Museum and the statue of "Good King Wenceslas".






A much better view of the statue of St Wenceslas and the National Museum.



The architecture on the museum is amazing! Plus the pieces molded out of gold add shiny bits of color.

The inside of the museum is just as beautiful as the outside of the building. Fresco's everywhere...marble staircases...ornate ceilings. Wish the collection of stuff in the museum was as interesting as the building itself...oh well.

Almost every ceiling was like this one...ornate and frescoed...but with different paintings.

This is a hand-made scooter from Uganda. Care to take a guess as to when it was made?? Go on...guess.

Ready for the answer? It was made in 1970! Got to love Communism.

Ellen took this picture...I love it. It looks like he is looking at his reflection.

"I like big butts and I can not lie..."

This song came to mind when I saw these little statuettes. I thought they were so funny.

The best exhibit in the museum was the one inside the giant foot. Most of it was not in English but was we were able to glean from it the exhibit was all about feet...activities done with the feet...from feet growing in the womb to astronauts landing on the moon...feet feet feet in all cultures, time periods doing all kinds of different things. Strange...but quite interesting.