randdoodle
Originally uploaded by enappe27.
Project 365-randdoodle
2
Category Archives: rand
Ookla rocks Mohawk, and other weekend highlights
Wow, what a crazybusy weekend we had here!
For those who may not know, we had a documentary film crew in town filming lots-n-lots of Ookla for the Filk Film Project. Three of the four crew members–Jim Hanks, and Erin and Darrin Kean–were here. Jim’s wife Karen wasn’t able to make the trip.
They arrived in Buffalo Thursday afternoon, and filmed Rand’s poetry class Thursday evening. On Friday, they went with Adam to one of his Amazing Me school presentations and then followed Wolfram to his job.
On Friday night, the guys had a short rehearsal. I came out and snapped a few photos with my phone.
We ate an absolutely insane amount of food over the weekend. Saturday morning, Rand and I took Jim out to the Original Pancake House for breakfast before bringing him to Squeaky Wheel, where the crew graciously did a Q&A session with a documentary filmmaking class of high school students. The kids were interested and inquisitive, and it was a lot of fun to watch.
After Squeaky Wheel, more food! We tried Pano’s, but it was pretty busy, so we went to Gabriel’s Gate instead.
Later that afternoon, we headed out to Duff’s in Orchard Park, where Adam has a regular gig drawing caricatures. A cameraman from channel 7 met them there to do a quick interview.
And then we ate again. Some more. I just had a snack…many wings were consumed. I didn’t take any photos at Duff’s.
Following Duff’s, we had an open evening. Erin had said that she wanted to see Children of Men. A quick peek in Artvoice let us know that it was playing at the Dollar Fifty Movies. (That’d be the Movieland at Walden and Harlem. Side note–the dollar fifty movies now cost $3. But still, pretty cheap.) So Erin, Darrin, Wolfram, Rai-an, Rand, Jim and I went to see the movie, which was utterly amazing. It deserves its own post, so I’m going to save further thoughts on the movie for that post.
Sunday, breakfast at the Pancake House again, then out to Lockport to Watchmen Studios. The crew wanted some visuals of the guys recording and ended up with some fun stuff.
Then, lunch. Rand and I took the crew to Towne, which was a mostly pleasant experience but for our, um, slightly-less-than-smart waitress. Luckily, we weren’t in much of a hurry. 😉
The guys had a sound check at around five, which gave me a great opportunity to get some photos. I experimented with the different flash settings on the camera. Here’s a blurry Rand.
The concert was fantastic. Mohawk Place was literally packed with friends, family and fans who came out to support the guys. jennimi wrote a great post about the concert, which did indeed rock. Thomas posted some photos at his cameraphone blog, and Lady Turpentine bravely put off her homework to come out. 😉 Celia has some photos up here. I don’t think I could possibly begin to name everyone else I saw/talked to at the show.
At the end of the evening, one of Rand’s coworkers and one of her friends were excited to meet Jim Hanks, not because of his famous brother, but because of his work as Geoffrey the Giraffe. Who knew there were Geoffrey fans out there? 😉 That was fun to watch, and Jim was incredibly good-natured about it. (Jim Hanks could not be a nicer guy. Really.)
The weekend was long and exhausting, but I had such a great time. Jim, Erin and Darrin are all just the most wonderful, sweetest people you’d ever want to meet. It was too bad Karen couldn’t make it, because I’d have liked to spend more time with her as well. 🙂
Whew! Now I recover and try to grade papers…
Project 365-Darrin filming
Project 365-Jim, Adam and Joe
Reminder–Ookla at Mohawk Place this Sunday!
Show at 7 pm.
My original post here.
More info on the Ookla website.
Come out and see Ookla! And me! and Tom Hanks’ brother!
🙂
Canada, eh?
Spent a lovely couple of days at FilKONtario. I’ll tell you more about it later. When I’m less tired. Also, when I’ve finished the Toasted Cheese newsletter. (it’ll go out tomorrow, I swear…)
Meantime, here’s some fun for ya.
You can read jennimi’s account of Friday night’s Ookla concert and also see some of her photos.
You can see what books I finished last week here.
And you can see what I posted last week while I didn’t have access to blogger here.
Big interview week…I’ve got three teacher recruitment day interviews on Tuesday, and an interview for a JV cheerleading coach position on Friday. Whoohoo!
Oh, and if I have a chance, I’ll post to the wordpress blog during the day today.
Later. Happy April!
A whole year? Already? :)
When the world takes you down
you can always depend on me now
and I’ll forever be around
to tell you I need you…Something True, Einstein’s Sister
One year ago today, my life was changed forever.
Of course, I didn’t completely know that at the time. 😉 That night, meeting Rand in person for the first time for drinks and darts at Brew Pub, I couldn’t have known how I’d feel today.
I knew he was interesting, funny and smart. I knew he was someone I would want to have in my life. I knew that I wanted to see him again.
A week later, after our second date, I wrote about our meeting in my journal.
He hugged me good night, and I left smiling.
I have to agree with one of his aunts, whom I just met the other night…he gives the best hugs. Just one of the many, many things I adore about him. Here are a few more…
I love his intelligence, his humor, his wit.
I love his passion for the people and things he cares deeply about. I love listening to him “nerd out” about music, film, religion, comic books…etc…
I love his singing voice.
I love his kindness, his generosity, his open-mindedness.
I love his friends and family.
I love the way he takes care of me, without ever making me feel like I need to be “taken care of.”
I love his eyes, and the way those eyes look at me.
I love the way he “gets” me…whenever he’s recommended a book, a movie, a TV show (on DVD, of course!) to me, I’ve not once been disappointed.
I love his silly, playful side.
I love the calming effect he has on me.
I love the way he truly appreciates me.
I love all of these things, and so, so much more, and I am so thankful that he is in my life.
Honoring a soldier
Tuesday night, I had the opportunity to attend a dinner honoring Rand’s brother David. David was awarded New York State’s Consipicous Service Cross for his service in Iraq.
There were news cameras everywhere. All of the Buffalo and Rochester stations came out to cover it. The best Buffalo coverage was, by far, on Channel 2. (Go here to see the report)
I’ve only recently had the opportunity to get to know David, but it’s difficult for me to reconcile the warm and incredibly funny man that I’ve met with the soldier Time magazine wrote about back in November.
Thomas has a wonderful post up at his blog, talking about David. He’s also posted the article that appeared in yesterday’s Buffalo News.
Oh, and a side note about the dinner…David’s 5-year-old son could not have been cuter. It was like he received special instruction on how to be cute on TV. Adorable. 😉
Love in my tummy
So yes, Valentine’s Day was simply lovely…Rand and I had dinner at Rue Franklin. We started with some appetizers…mine was a tasty pasta dish with rabbit (yes, rabbit) and bacon, and about a pound of butter. He had an arugala salad and also some sea scallops (I’m almost sold on sea scallops…this is the second time I’ve tried his, and they were quite yummy…). For dinner, we both had the filet mignon, which was absolute perfection. I had a chocolate raspberry truffle tort for dessert. Mmmm…
*my apologies to my dear roommie for not sharing details, but the first time I saw her afterwards, she was half sleeping, and so I just gave her the bare-bones description!*
Our waiter was someone I actually recognized…a couple of years ago, Jen and I went to karaoke at the Tudor Lounge and spent most of the night talking to this guy. He went up and simply rocked “Rock the Casbah.”
“I think I know our waiter,” I told Rand.
Before we left, I stopped him and asked if he’d ever done karaoke at the Tudor Lounge. He got a sheepish grin on his face and said “Yeah.”
“Okay, that’s how I know you,” I said. Hee!
After we’d ordered our meal, Rand asked me if I noticed how the wait staff is trained to stroke the man’s ego…I hadn’t. “When you ordered,” he told me, “he just kind of nodded and said okay. But when I ordered, it was ‘Oh, yes, excellent choice sir.”
I did notice this when we ordered our dessert. Rand ordered fruit sorbet, followed up by “Yes, a perfect way to finish off.” Heh. Interesting things that I don’t notice…probably because I don’t do much fine dining. 😉
I also received a beautiful bouquet of roses.
I gave Rand this adorable little book:
And ordered a DVD that I knew he wanted. Unfortunately, the DVD hasn’t come in yet, so he got an IOU.
I also got him the “Romance” edition of magnetic poetry. To make it a little extra-special, I bought a magnetic dry erase board and wrote a little poem for him. It was a big hit. (Maybe I can get him to take a photo of it for me?) 🙂
(aside…how cool is magnetic poetry? and this? I didn’t even know there was such a thing!)
I hope everyone had a pleasant day!
More on my adventures in substitute teaching later…
More than just holding hands
What’s it like
when all your dreams come true?
When your life
is given something new
and you begin to live the way you’ve always wanted to?
Happy Valentine’s Day, baby! 😉
