IceWolf's Ramblings

Photo Gallery!

Alex — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 04:35:30 +0000

As we near opening for our next show at the theatre I usually find myself with more free time, though I think that this time around my time will be taken up by getting ready for my honeymoon. This mainly will involve cleaning the apartment and packing. I am really looking forward to this trip. It is the first real vacation that Ruth and I will be taking alone together. It Should be really fun and I am sure it will feel like it was too short.

We also basically just got back from our trip to Disneyland with Ruth’s family. That was a lot of fun, and it has been quite a while since I have been to Disney. Ruth and I flew out and met the family there to spend outs first day at Knott’s Berry Farm. Smaller than Disney with big rides, but also way bigger lines. We stood in some pretty long lines to ride the rides. We actually took to calculating how many people the rides could move in the amount of time we waited in line. We actually waited around 3 hours for one roller coaster that was about a 20-second ride.

After Knott’s, we headed to Co Co Ichibanya (aka Co Co’s), a curry house that is starting to make a US presence, coming from Japan. Co Co’s was the Jones’ favorite curry house in Okinawa, so they will go out of their way to go there when they can. I don’t have anything to compare to, but it is darn good food!

Then it was on to Disneyland where we had two days in the parks including staying till about 1:45AM on New Years. Disney is a lot of fun even when it is wall to wall people. It is the place where everyone has fun, and if you take a moment to plan your day, you don’t have to spend forever waiting in lines. We managed to break the Pinocchio ride, as soon as we got in the car, bells started ringing and lights started flashing and they had to evacuate the ride. Then the fog rolled in so thick you could barely see 100 feet in front of you. We couldn’t see the New Years fireworks, but we did managed to get stuck in the crowd. We got to fight against the press and then this great little old lady helped us jump the ropes when the cast members weren’t looking so we could get out of the crowd. Good times were had by all.

Sunset lights up Balanced Rock at Arches National Park

Of course the other big thing is my photo gallery opening that was last week. For the month of January I have a display of Utah Landscape photography up at the JCC here in Salt Lake. It was very exciting to lay out all the prints and see them big and up on the wall. I don’t have the space to really look at more than one at a time at home. The opening reception seemed to go very well, there was a good turn out and I have since received a few emails asking about the images. If you are in the SLC area you should stop by and see the prints, otherwise you can see the images on my website.

Icewolf's Ramblings by Alexander Weisman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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Where have I been?

Alex — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 08:39:27 +0000

Ok folks, it has been quite the long stint since I last posted here. Every blogger says it on a regular basis, but life has just been totally crazy. My last post was in May, before I went to camp, before I got married, and before the current season at the theatre. It was almost before the summer really started and now winter is starting. I have been kind of bad about lots of things in the digital world of communication though. I have been very slow at responding to emails, I have been behind on processing and sorting photos, and apparantly I am behind on getting videos together from the summer to go online. Then there are the actual things that I havent been doing, like going to the gym. Great.

So, will this just be a feeble attempt to try to get things moving on the blog again? I have no idea, but it doesn’t hurt to try.

So, if you got through that first paragraph and didn’t have a “wait, what?!” moment, you probably either already knew that I got married this summer, or you just missed that part. Yes, since August 25 I have been happily married to Ruth and life is pretty good. The wedding was beautiful, and everything seemd to go smoothly despite being out of the state at camp for the two months leading up to it. We held the ceremony and reception at the Alta Lodge and we were happy to celebrate with friends and family. Good times were definately had by all. The weather was beautiful, the montains were beautiful, and the over atmosphere was great. With a ceremony that we wrote ourselves, we were married by a mutual friend in one of the most beautiful places I can think of. Don’t believe me? Here, see for yourself:

Here we are standing under the canopy that was built by Ruth's father, with our friend Warren officiating our wedding.

Working backwards in time from the wedding, the summer at camp was not one of the best. Maybe that is why I refrained from writing during it. I don’t know that I will say too much, though there is plenty to say about it. The camps were under new ownership as of this past summer, and for some that transition was not so easy. Suffice it to say, I saw some good friends mistreated in a very public manner and it got dragged out for the better part of the summer. While I managed to spend the summer flying under the radar, there were grumblings about me as well. Camp can be strange like that, it is just unfortunate and really hard when friends get hurt.

So let’s not dwell on the ugly past. The theatre season is in full swing so life has been very busy. Getting Annie up and open was a killer, but now there is a little room to breathe. So in the mean time I have been prepping a bunch of my photos for my first ever gallery display! I will be showing photos at the JCC in SLC for the month of January. This is pretty darn exciting. I have the prints on order and should get them soon and I am really excited to see them. I am having all the prints done on metal with float mounts. The test prints I had made earlier look amazing, it is a really cool finished product. It would be hard to show what the prints look like in a photo, so any of you who find yourself in the Salt Lake area during January should stop by and see the gallery!

With that, I think that I need to stop staring at this computer screen. I have spent a lot of time in front of it in the past couple days. Besides being warm in bed sound much nicer!

Bloggerstock May 2011: Before there were blogs…

Alex — Tue, 31 May 2011 14:00:30 +0000

It is that wonderful time again when a small but fierce group of bloggers attempts to take over the blogsphere for a day with Bloggerstock! Well, I like to think so anyway. This moth happens to be the one-year anniversary of Bloggerstock, which is pretty exciting. This month I have the pleasure of hosting the founder of the Karaoke Blog Ring of Death, and the blogger behind Sara Swears A Lot. She is always entertaining and often her writing does the title of her blog justice.

I won’t dwell on the theme for this month, basically the idea was to dig through your old journals and pull out something fun and share it. I will let Sara share her take on the topic. So, without further ado, here is what you have been waiting for:

The theme for Bloggerstock this month was “before there were blogs” AKA in the old, dark age that sucked. I was lucky enough to find an old notebook from when I was in 4th grade. Most of it was boring as shit, because apparently I was the lamest 4th grader in the history of ever. But one entry made me realize that I’m the exact same girl today that I was ten years ago.

“My friend Josie and I got into this big argument and aren’t speaking. I’m mad at her. But then I thought two things. Who am I going to play with? WWJD? I talked to her today. We both said we were sorry at the bus stop. Besides, who’s pool would I use (J.J.) Just joking. I like her because she’s just fun to play with. She’s a very good friend.”

Riiiiiight, 4th grade Sara. That’s super believable. If that J.J. hadn’t been there, I might have thought you were being a selfish brat, but nevermind!

I also like how your first thought is that you’ll have no one to play with, and your second thought is pondering what Jesus would do in your situation? I’m not sure how often Jesus got in fights with friends who had pools in their backyard, but let’s be real for a second, 4th grade Sara. Everyone loves a pool. And I’m pretty sure Jesus would have done the same exact thing in your situation.

If you’d like to read what K. Syrah (www.shoesneverworn.com) has to say for Bloggerstock this month, check her out on my page! And a big thanks to Alex for putting so much work into this blog ring. I know it’s way more stressful than it looks!

With any luck, if you are looking for my post on this month’s topic, you can find it over on Bobby’s blog. If you enjoy bloggerstock and would like to learn more about it or get involved, you can just pop over to our site Bloggerstock.net. Any information you could want is there.

With that, happy blogging!

Mother’s Day

Alex — Sun, 08 May 2011 14:00:54 +0000

Happy mother’s day Mom!

I have to saw, I have an awesome mother. Sure, there have been and probably will continue to be times that we don’t see eye-to-eye, but never the less, I love my mother.

Of particular note, this year she qualified for and ran the Boston Marathon. Not only did she run the marathon, but she ran it is a great time. I was a little bummed that I couldn’t be there to stand out on Comm Ave near my grandparent’s house like we used to do on marathon day when we were kids.

My mother does lots of cool things. She has done some pretty cool trips in the past few years. She has ridden the Trans-Siberian Railroad, gone to somewhere in Africa (I forget which country), and most recently Patagonia. I hope that at some point I will be able to do things like that.

Of course really the important thing is that I have to thank my mother for the fact that I am ever here to write this. I do my best to make my mother proud every day. I know that there are things that I do a certain way because that is how I learned it from my mother. The biggest thing I think that I have not done that my mother wants me to do is get a haircut. I probably could use one, but not short like she think she wants. It’s my hair, I’ll wear it how I want.

So, with that, here is to my mother!

JustHost – if that’s all you need

Alex — Mon, 02 May 2011 15:04:39 +0000

About a year ago I started surfing the web looking for a web host to host my blog, my fiance’s blog, and eventually the Bloggerstock website. Spent some time on Google and I landed on JustHost.com. They gett pretty high ratings when you search for hosting reviews. Almost always in the top 10 if not in the top three. They offer a pretty darn good price for unlimited everything (which isn’t truly unlimited), and they make some pretty bold claims about their customer service right on their homepage. They even provide a “secret link” at the bottom of their page which if you click, will get you a discount on a few months of hosting (oops, it no secret anymore). In my humble opinion, all this comes with a giant BUT….

Over the past year I have not really had any cause for concern with my web hosting. Everything was working, the sites were up, and life was pretty good. The backend was a little tedious, but many hosting companies use the same c-panel software, so there was no reason to really care about that. Once I had the sites set up and working I rarely went into the back end other than to make backups.

Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I started getting emails from JustHost.com telling me that my account had been suspended and that I was violating there TOS. How? Well, apparently something in my account was using too much processor time. Somewhere in the TOS is a little line that tells you how LIMITED you actually are when you pay for UNLIMITED. Of course, instead of just putting a CPU limit on your account, they actually just suspend your account if you spike over 10% CPU usage. They don’t provide a means to monitor your CPU usage, nor do they give you any warning. It’s just BAM! “Sorry, we suspended your account.” Of course this means that you can’t even log in to make adjustments to try to correct the problem.

The first time this happened, I replied to the email and the tech asked for my IP address so that he could open up access for just me. Response time was fairly quick, within an hour or so. Fine. He also sent some suggestions, but nothing really useful. I followed all the suggestions he gave, and they re-opened my account. However, they forgot to reset their monitoring software so within two days I was locked out again for the same exact case.

This time, I called their 24/7 support phone number. Guess what, I got straight through to a real person! But, hold the phone, this person could not do anything but tell me that I should send an email to their support team! WHAT!? So, I tried their online chat support. Again, got right through to a support person but the answer I got was exactly the same, I had to email support. Can someone please explain to me what the point of having on call support people readily available if they can’t help? I would rather sit on the phone for an hour to talk to someone who can help then instantly talk to people who can’t.

So, I fire off more emails to support. It took an entire day this time to get a response. In fact it seems like it took a little threatening to leave their company. At this point they said that it had been a mistake, that they had not reset the monitoring software and that my account would be re-opened immediately. While this made me feel a little better, I was still very frustrated by their support system.

Which brings us to the end of last week and this weekend. Once again I get an email about server overload and my account being suspended. I am sorry, but while I would love to have tons of people visiting my sites, it just doesn’t happen. I haven’t changed the code here beyond updating to the latest version of WordPress, so I just don’t understand what changed. In any event, since friday, my account had been suspended and despite my multiple emails to JustHost.com support, I received to a single response until the wee hours of this morning. I talked to two online chat techs who both claimed to elevate my case to highest priority, but nothing came of that.

One tech actually told me that the only way you can ever talk to a high enough level support person is through email. I am sorry, that is just no kosher. If I can’t actually talk directly to someone who can help me then your support system is flawed. I don’t care if I have to wait, I would rather wait if it meant getting the service that I need.

So, with a few quick clicks I had a brand new hosting account with GoDaddy.com. With a little bit of fighting with JustHost.com I was able to get them to give me a download link for a site-wide backup of my account. The domains that I purchased through them are being transferred to GD, and my blog is up. My fiance’s blog is back up, and bloggerstock is coming back soon. My account with JustHost will be cloased, and in theory I should get some money back. I better get money back or I will make their lives miserable.

Moral of the story, don’t always believe internet rating sites, and don’t use JustHost.com unless all you need is hosting for a super simple website and you don’t want any kind of customer support. They are temptingly inexpensive, but not worth the frustration in my book.

While I don’t normally advertise on my blog, I kind of want to rub this in JustHost’s face. So, to show how happy I am with Godaddy.com:

Bloggerstock: Photo Inspired

Alex — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 20:27:24 +0000

Well, it is that time again, time for Bloggerstock. Unfortunately the bloggerstock website is down and my site, once again was down for a bit. This post was posted and then lost into the ether. So, here it is again. Hopefully I will be able to get the bloggerstock site back up in the near future, but dealing with the support department of my old web host is like pulling teeth. So we shall see. I will put a page on my blog here that has information about next month’s bloggerstock for the time being so check back for a link.

With that business out of the way lets get to the real heart of today’s post. The post you are about to read was written by a good blogging friend of mine and a bloggerstock founder, Kris from Because or Why Not. She is a great writer and I am excited to host her here. If you are looking for my post, you can find it over on Nyx’s blog.

The theme for this moth is photo inspired. The photo is actually one of mine, but if you want to read the real story behind it, you will have to read my post on Nyx’s blog.

This is the inspiration for this month's bloggerstock topic

Other little girls like playing house and tea parties. Their favourite things were brushing their doll’s hair or dress-up in the courtyard. And Alice, well, Alice was one of them. At least she was supposed to be. Her Mother would buy her gingham dresses and pink hats. She had play dates with these other girls. Ones where they would beg to play with her blonde curls and the porcelain doll she brought from home.

Alice was mostly alright with this. She didn’t mind Maddie or Candace or Sally. She’d talk them into playing tag or pretending to climb mountains instead of going shopping. Although, it only worked sometimes. The rest of the time she role-played the oldest daughter of a Mother and Father and did things like got ready for school.

Oh, yes, school. She liked school. She liked climbing on the big yellow school bus and beating the boys to the best seats. She liked making a circle with a stick attached as carefully she could. She liked when her teacher, with her red lips, told her she was “very bright” for knowing those shapes said “aaaah.”

But this was the weekend. Those days when her Mother promised her there was no school. Days when she went out to the courtyard to play with the other girls. It was alright, for the most part. But today the oldest daughter forgets that she’s supposed to be going to dance class. She wanders away. Past the edge of the grass, across the cobblestones to that break in the wall. The one where she can see a little bit of the river and the laundry hung on a balcony. Today it’s brights, all orange and yellow and red.

She likes to look far away, Alice does. She likes dreaming of the river bank and what might be beyond. A bad habit. A hard habit. And one she’ll never break. She just doesn’t know it yet.

Where does the time go?

Alex — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 19:01:21 +0000

It is hard to believe that the end of yet another season at the theatre is coming to an end. This is going to mark the end of my fifth season at the Pioneer Theatre. That is five years living in Salt Lake City, five years out of college, and five years living in the real world. Five years is not a super long time, but it is nothing to turn your nose up at either. It is kind of hard to believe that I am getting information about my five year college reunion. I probably won’t make it to that since I just went this year to the big theatre reunion, but we shall see.

I often write about how time is such a funny thing. Usually in relationship to camp, but it applies in all things. Here we are at the end of the season and it feels like the beginning was so long ago, a distant memory. At the same time, we actually have to go on a little longer since they added a show, but it will probably just feel like business as usual until we get to the end of that.

At this point I have been feeling like I just want to move on to that last show. Not because I want to be done with the season faster but because I just want to be done with the current show. We are currently working onSunset Boulevard which is to be followed by RENT. There is just something about Sunset and the way that it has all been fitting together that has made it just a nightmare to work on. it is a huge show, but nothing terribly out of the ordinary as far as musicals go for us. It just feels like it has been a constant fight.

We were off to a flying start when the designer got into town early, I was even able to make time in the schedule to go to a Passover Seder. Then the whole thing ground to a halt as hurdle upon hurdle was thrown in the way. It felt like there was just not enough forethought that went into planning some things with this show. I know that I am not the only person who feels this way as our new Sound Designer had to deal not only with the sound but also with projections for the show. needless to say, we all have been spending long hours in the theatre and he was still there working when I left at 1AM last night (this morning). Having a day off today could not be a more welcome thing.

I suppose that work cannot be completely fun all the time though I do try to have a good attitude. It doesn’t always happen, especially when I am running on not the best nights of sleep and frustrating situations. I still try really hard not to just grump around at people, but I know that I do from time to time. Of course the next day I get a good night sleep and come in with a much better disposition which drives everyone else nuts since they are grumpy. Go figure. Sometimes I just have to remind myself that at the end of the day there will just be a whopping pay check with lots of overtime.

On the other hand, I take a day like today off and think about all the things that I still need to do. I have two shows worth of photos to sort and get posted online. There are a bunch of theatre department students who want them. I have wedding things that I should take care of, like calling our photographer or checking the address list. Yet I didn’t really do anything today except make breakfast and watch Stargate Universe. That is how a day off should be right? Plenty of time for everything else, just not today.

Hosting Issues: Need Your Help

Alex — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 05:08:28 +0000

So, I have been having some ongoing issues with hosting of my blog and some my fiancee’s and my other sites. We are in the playing with migrating web hosts and I have move some sites to a new host already. Suffice it to say, this weekend was an interesting weekend. I learned that even with the great support that my original host claimed to have, they were not very impressive. I might write a real review later after we decide if we want to complete the migration or not. I have 30 days to decide if I want to stay with the new host or not.

It just really bugged me that even though I got right through to a real person on the phone, there was nothing they could do to help me except tell me to email support. I couldn’t get a direct contact information for one person to deal with, so there was never a time when one hand knew what the other was doing. All a big mess really.

So, what does that mean? Well, what would be really great is if some of my readers would take a couple minutes and poke around through the blog and tell me if they see anything not working right or if things are silly slow or anything. Basically, I just need more eyes than my own to look at things and give feedback, it will help me to figure out if it is worth staying with the new host or if I should leave things as they were. Besides, you might find an old post that you like!

I appreciate the help!

Handwriting: A blog meme

Alex — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:00:42 +0000

This post was inspired by Kris over at Because or Why Not. She posted the meme and I thought it was a great idea. She didn’t tag anyone, but said that if we were interested, to mention her, so I did (besides, I like her blog).

I don’t know if this meme has a particular name, but essentially it is about making the blog a little more personal by answering a few questions and writing them out by hand. Many times in the past I have mentioned that I enjoy writing by hand. I write letters all summer to friends. I used to write home to my girlfriend-now-fiancee, but now she works at camp. So, if any of my readers want a letter, all you have to do is writ to me. The address for the summer is here on my blog somewhere.

So, yeah… Dying art of handwriting. Pick up the pen all of you and write something, don’t just bang away at the keyboard!

The meme goes like this: Pull out a pen and paper and answer the following questions in your own handwriting…

What’s your name/your Blogger name?
What’s your blog’s name/URL?
Write “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy red dog”
Favorite quote?
Your favorite song?
Your favorite band/singers?
Anything else you want to say?
Tag 3-5 other people

So here is my handwritten page (the scan isn’t the best, but it should be legible. if you have any problems I will upload a higher res version):

The post on yellow legal paper handwritten by me

Changes in the Air

Alex — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:00:42 +0000

Ever summer since 1994 save for three I have been at summer camp. I have blogged plenty about camp in the past so it shouldn’t be hard to tell that I love camp. I was a camper at one camp (Yavneh), and a counselor at two (Micah then Indian/Forest Acres). This summer I am heading back to IA/FA as I had planned all year despite the fact that we have an extra month of work at the theatre and I won’t get to camp until a little bit late. It is a bummer, but it isn’t the end of the world.

The interesting thing is that just this past weekend Indian and Forest Acres changed owners. For the past couple years the camp was owned by friends of my family who have now sold the camp back to one of the previous owners. This of course is a very interesting set of conditions. I know the “new” owner as I worked with him the first summer I was at IA/FA. I even played guitar with him at campfire. He is a good guy and I am sure that camp will do well back under his direction. At the same time I am sad that our friend is leaving this camp. I am sure there are mixed feelings about the change in command throughout the camp community.

In some ways, it seems like an odd time to make a move like this, only a few short weeks before camp starts. It shouldn’t really affect anything like staffing or enrollment for this summer as that should mostly be finalized. It will affect the day-to-day operation of camp over the summer, hopefully in a good way. IA/FA had deep rooted traditions in their 85+ year history and as long as there is someone at the helm that understands those traditions camp will be great. The new owner certainly is someone who understand the nature of camp.

The most important thing of course is the kids. The younger kids who didn’t know the “new” owner before probably won’t really know the difference. In some ways the owner director doesn’t matter as much to the younger kids. The older kids who have been at camp for more than four years will probably see/feel more of an impact. However, as long as the staff gives them a great summer with lots of great activities, it will be great for them. While I am there for the kids, it is good to know that the good friends that I have on the staff will almost all be back for another summer so it should be great for everyone.

No matter what it will be a busy summer. Between the extra show, camp, and planning a wedding I am sure that I will not want for something to do!