Hello, and welcome to Bloggerstock, an online blogger festival of sorts! My name is Alexandra and I have a blog called the Tsaritsa sez. For this month’s Bloggerstock challenge the topic is “Do over.”

I’ve written on the topic of regret before and thought I had it figured all out. I’m in a happy relationship, I live in a fabulous city, I love my friends and family, what would I have to regret? If the choices I made in the past, even the mistakes, brought me to where I am in life now, why should I want to change those choices? For instance: yeah, I probably should have gotten rid of that shitty trash-talking friend years ago, but if I had done that I would have never gone to San Francisco that weekend and met my now boyfriend.

But then again, what about the little mistakes I’ve made, or the things I could have easily done that wouldn’t alter my position in life right now, except for the better.

I perhaps should have applied myself harder in school, gone out for more extracurricular activities, taken more internships, applied for more scholarships. It’s not that I didn’t do well in school– I always got high marks in my classes and graduated with honors– but I mostly skated by. I didn’t like studying so I didn’t do it. I would leaf through a book in preparation minutes before a test, just because I didn’t feel like reading it. Most of my essays in high-school and college were written the night-before the due date. I wonder if my life would be any different now if I had actually read The Faerie Queene in its entirety. Maybe I’d have a higher-paying job? Maybe I wouldn’t be on unemployment right now.

Another thing I would want to “do over” is my inclination to get angry or pissed off whenever the mood strikes me. At times, my anger is fully appropriate, like the time I was sitting in a taqueria enjoying a burrito when a woman spat her beer all over my face. That was indeed a time to get angry and use the “cunt” word (I might have also used the “old hag ugly bitch skank” word, too). But other times my anger is not warranted and directed at the wrong person and I end up looking/acting/being a jackass. I can’t think of any particular time where I got angry about something trivial that I regret, but in general it’s an issue I’m working on. Yelling at my boyfriend and calling him a jerk because I stubbed my toe while getting out of bed is just an example.

So, to wrap up, I regret having a bad attitude (sometimes) and regret being so damn lazy when I had the chance to apply myself. I also regret dating some of the losers I dated in the past, but that’s a whole other blog post right there and I don’t even want to get into that right now. Forget I said anything.

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Enjoying Bloggerstock? If you want more information or to see who else participated this month, please visit our website. If you would like to read my post, you can find it over on Lily’s blog: Is it too early for a martini?

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For the past few days I have been trying to track down a phantom problem.  It is only phantom in the fact that I can’t reproduce the problem outside of the show.  That, I suppose, makes it definable is an intermittent problem.  This of course, is the most difficult of problems to diagnose and to solve.  Certainly a very frustrating problem.

What is the problem?  Well, I have a moving light that seems to intermittently decide to just quit.  For those of you who are not theatre people,  or don’t work with many moving lights, this particular fixture uses an arc discharge lamp.  That means that the light is created by maintaining an electric arc between two electrodes.  It is very similar to the arc that is used in arc welding except that it is contained inside a lamp.  Here is a photo of the lamp, just so you can see what I am talking about:

So, a few day ago this problem showed up.  We made it through tech and most of the first week of performances before the problem began.  The fixture drops the arc (douses out) and displays a lamp error message.  So my initial thought was that it was a bad lamp.  While this is rare, it is possible, and the least expensive problem to fix.  In fact, with a lamp this “young” (only 99 hours into it’s 1000hr rated life), if the lamp failed I could make a warranty claim for a new lamp.

Unfortunately the lamp seems to not be the problem.  I installed a brand new lamp and the problem persisted.  Thanks to my friends over at controlbooth.com I had lot of other suggestions of things to try.  Some are not really feasible at this point in time, but after the show closes I can try them.  Today I actually got up in a focus chair to string a new circuit for this fixture that takes it off of the dimming system to eliminate any power issues that may have occurred there.

Well, I have been unable to solve the issue, which leads me to believe that the problem lies in the fixture and not the lamp or the power feed.  This probably means a more expensive fix, but I am sure that I can have it fixed.  Though I would certainly take any advice any theatre folk may have!  Such is the nature of life in the theatre.  I just like to look back on my favorite quote about the theatre from the movie Shakespeare in Love:

“…allow me to explain about the theatre business.  The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster!
…Strangely enough, it all turns out well.”

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I find that when we get deep into production, my eating habits get tossed aside.  It is possibly worse for my wallet than for me as I still try to eat decent foods, but no matter how you spin it, it isn’t the best of habits.  I like to cook and I like home-made food, but I often find myself on a schedule that doesn’t leave me enough time to go home and make something.  I also often end up needing to eat at odd times due to when I need to be at work.  Ah, the joys of working in theatre.

Look at a day like today.  Fairly typical for a production week.  I tend to have breakfast sometime mid-morning, usually consisting of cereal and a bagel.  Sometimes, when I think about it I get some bananas to toss in my SpecialK.  I don’t usually eat lunch, and then, since I have to be at the theatre at 5:30 I end up eating an early dinner or a rushed dinner.  Dinner usually comes from someplace local to the theatre.  Every now and then, when I think about it, I will throw something in the slow cooker in the morning and then run home and grab a bite.  Sometimes, when I am lucky and our schedules are not similar, Ruth makes dinner, which is great.

I know that I have at least one crewton who will read this and tell me that I should just bring more “fuudz” with me to work.  It isn’t that easy, though it should be.  I am often more diligent about not eating out when I am not in production.  I keep lunch stuffs in my little fridge in my office regularly.  It is really just dinners that I need to figure out better.  I haven’t quite worked out how to re-work my schedule so that it is more conducive to creating better food habits.  Aside from  leaving earlier in the day or making some of our calls later in the evening I don’t have any great solutions.

Beyond that, things at the theatre are going quite well.  I have done two of the three photo shoots for Hamlet and I have also done photos for the U of U Department of Theatre’s production of Alcestis.  We have started to think about our next show, Dracula and I am expecting to get the plot and paperwork tomorrow.  No rest for the weary yet, just heading from one big show to a bigger one!

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I am vey much a sci-fi and tech geek.  I am a gadget guy and many of the TV shows that I follow are found on the SyFy channel.  I love to have the new toys (though I usually wait for the second generation of new devices) and I do try to find a use for them in my life.

Recently I dug up an old Sci-Fi show that competed with the likes of StarTrek:TNG for three-and-a-half seasons.  It was a show that many criticized, though I watched it religiously when it originally aired.  What show you ask.  SeaQuest DSV.  Set in the “near future” which happens to be only a few years from now.  I thought that it had more potential originally, and I think that the concept could still be viable today, but there is probably a reason that I don’t make such decisions.

What I did notice while re-watching the show is how they predicted technology.  It has been a recurring theme recently that many tech blogs have talked about, how sci-fi shows may actually drive the R&D on some of the pieces of technology that we use today.  Looking at SeaQuest, one of the things that stood out was from an episode where they visited one of the main communications network hub.  They talked about the great potential that fiber-optic networking had.  Fast forward to today and we now have companies that are bringing fiber right into our homes.  We are now piping huge amounts of data including HDTV, high speed internet, and voice communications into homes over tiny pieces of fiber optic cable and we are far from the bandwidth limits.

Watching SeaQuest today, though I don’t know much about submarines, much of the technology is believable.  All over the ship you see large, wide-screen displays which, at the time were probably created using a rear-projection technique.  Yet today it is commonplace to see large flat panel video displays.  Much of what they use on the show doesn’t seem like it is far out of reach from where we are today.

Then look at the birth of the tactile tablet computer like Apple’s iPad.  I know that I have seen this mentioned on some tech blogs, but it is basically a working version of the PADDs (Personal Access Display Device) used on StarTrek:TNG.  All thing considered, iOS might almost be a little more sophisticated than anything we actually saw LCARS (Library Computer Access/Retrieval System) do aside from fly starships (though I am sure there is an app for that!).  The groundwork is being laid though and we may meet or surpass some of the technology like that imagined for shows like StarTrek:TNG and SeaQuest DSV.

The here and now is certainly an interesting time to be living in given the current rate that technology is progressing.  While we may not quite be at a place where we can just slide data from device to device like in Minority Report or Avatar, but we are getting there.  With apps like “Bump” you can literally bump two iPhones together to send information between them.  It isn’t quite perfect, but it works.  Do we need the level of connectivity we are headed towards? Who knows, but the ride is pretty cool.

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This is a traditional greeting for the Jewish High Holidays (Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur).  For those who live with their heads in the ground (though this is probably no one who reads blogs) or just don’t live places with a large Jewish community, today was Yom Kippur, the closing holiday of the High Holidays.  It is a day of repentance, atonement, and remembrance.  Many Jews will mistakenly tell you that it is the most important holiday on the Jewish calendar.  While it is good that people  think this, I do think it is part of the problem with what I call “once-a-year” Jews.  Cest La vie, everyone should observe their religion in their own way, I have just always thought it was goofy to only come to services at this time of year.

The High Holidays are a time to reflect on the past year and try to make the new year better.  It is also a time of great pomp and circumstance at most synagogues.  It is probably the only time of year that most synagogues require you to have tickets to get in the door and a pass to park in the parking lot.  Some congregations go so far as to have reserved seating and getting seats closer to the front “costs” more (in dues or donations).

The Holidays are also a time when congregations give honors to people, usually people who have either given of themselves or given money.  I do a lot of volunteer work to help with organizing and leading services, especially over the past six months while we were looking for a new Rabbi.  Also, during the holidays my shul runs both a conservative and reform service, but we only have one rabbi and cantor so I was asked to help lead parts of both services (on different days).  I am happy to help, I feel like it makes the holidays mean a little more to me, knowing that I am helping others have a good experience with them.

So this year I get my package with my tickets and parking passes and such, and included in that are two additional pages.  Both are notifications of honors that the congregation gave to me.  The first, however, was for the part of services that I was asked to lead.  I would not really have thought too much about it save fore the fact that it was the same form letter used for the other honor that I was given.  Leading services was something that I volunteered to do, the other honor was given to me as recognition.  Both letters, in the same envelope, asked that I make a donation in recognition of these honors.

This is the thing that gets me every year, I give of myself because I don’t really have money to give, I volunteer to do things like lead services because the congregation needs help, and then twice in one fell swoop they are asking for more money?  Tradition or not, it bugs me that this is how it works.  The people who they honor who give money will most likely continue to give whether you ask as part of the honor or not.  I understand the thought process, but it has never sat well with me.

All that aside and despite the fact that I had to race to work after all of the High Holiday services, I felt good about the holidays this year.  As I said before, helping to lead services, helping to facilitate the prayers of others makes the holidays mean much more to me.  In both Jewish tradition and in my personal life, music means a lot.  Leading a congregation in song is one of the highest forms of prayer.  It was a beautiful service this morning, and walking out knowing that the congregation felt good about  the service is a nice feeling.

My mother likes to remind me that it is never to late to become a rabbi or cantor.  While I enjoy studying my religion, I am not sure if that is for me.  I have said before on this blog that I don’t know if I could really be a spiritual leader full time.  I think the way that I have balanced my life works pretty darn well.

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