Manchester...

I'm typing this blog from a hotel suite near the airport in Manchester, NH.  What the hell am I doing here? Don't worry about it. I'm getting to it. I just first want to make reference to that bit about me being the time management ninja. I time managed. I ninja-ed. And all went according to plan.

The gig with Ryan and Jordana went swimmingly and was super fun to boot (there's some video on FB). And, already in awe at how the previous weekend timed out, in that I was able to use the disruption of the blizzard to our rehearsals as a way to push forward on the News Literacy Project's music, I was supremely awed at how it just happened that the night of the gig, I finally got word from NLP that I could push ahead on the project. See, I had been waiting to hear some direction from them, and frustrating though that can be sometimes, it was quite a boon in that I could meanwhile focus all my energy on rocking the F@$% out at the show and, as soon as it was done, shift my energy to writing the music for those educational videos.  The timing of everything was impeccable, in that nothing was simultaneous. It was all sequential and I could devote all my energy to one project at a time.

Fast forward: My boss had previously mentioned to me the possibility of doing some field work as I had shown some interest in getting out there and trying something new. He did, in fact, also mention that these things can get sprung upon him at a moment's notice and, bada-bing, bada-boom. But I was surprised that something came up so quickly.  They needed an audio tech out in the field for the coverage of the New Hampshire primaries and my boss offered it to me.  After all, I can audio. I can tech. So I said hell to the F@#$ yes! Then, the day before I was finally going to get time to finish the NLP music, I get a call that, rather than go out on the 5th of February, they wanted me there as soon as the 1st and still until the 10th.  !!!

The girlfriend didn't like it but I obliged because when else? (Incidentally, this is something my boss says to me and my colleagues a lot...when else?)  So, I had two full days to wrap up work on the music for NLP and pack my bags before I had to catch a plane to Manchester. And I knocked it out. Just under the wire. I didn't even have my flight booked until two days before it was supposed to happen and I had to borrow a bass guitar from a friend to get everything done.  Sidebar: I'm buying a bass guitar soon.

What a freaking whirlwind this year has been already, am I right? Sheesh! But I am loving it. You know how much I love travel and adventure.  Day 1 was pretty intense already.  I flew in yesterday and went straight to the anchor location for set up and then had dinner with one of the producers and the photojournalist. Then I had to go check into my hotel (a suite with a full freakin' kitchen!) because I had to be up at 3:30am for a 4am call time. Our first hit was at 5:30am.

They had us set up inside a cafe for New Day (CNN's morning show) and we had to basically turn that place into a news studio, complete with lighting, in the space of a few hours the night before. But CNN has an entourage of professionals that are on this shit and everything looked great. Meanwhile, I was thrown in on an audio board I'd never seen before with a set up I heard described to me in an email I read while waiting in La Guardia International Airport for three hours because airlines still can't get their shit together. So, that was quite fun. Once I got my feet wet, and twiddled some knobs, I started to feel much more comfortable...but then comes the shit storm of audio issues that you get when you have too many hands stirring the pot. Ultimately, we got everything on the air and I got the hang of what I was doing.  And I remembered that, on some level, I enjoy this work.

After we took everything down though, I started to realize that I had no idea where I was going next. And I think that is going to characterize the rest of this week. Last minute assignments. This is why they gave me a rental car. Tomorrow, I finally found out, I'll be heading to Derry, NH where there will be a town hall style Q&A session with both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (one candidate after the other) and I'll be running the audio. Which means I will probably be pinning a lapel mic on both candidates.

It's amazing what can happen in the space of a week. More to come!

Obligatory end of year post...

Approximately 12 hours ago I was riding in the dark and the pouring rain to Indianapolis International Airport.  Yeah, that was about 5am.  The cheap flights are always early in the morning. But it's a mark of how well I'm doing that I'm not only traveling to see my girlfriend's family but also my own in a few weeks.  Yes, I may still be buying the cheaper plane tickets but I'm traveling twice for the holidays.  CNN has been treating me well over the last few months and money's not as tight as it was before I started working all three jobs two years ago.  Finally.  I'm really enjoying getting to work there not just for the view out my window that I can't stop posting pics of.  The people I work directly with are great, my boss is great and I'm meeting incredible people in all the other departments and learning that I can find opportunities to expand my duties there.  Sometimes they even find me.

I'm not sure I can post the last voice over I did for them but I swear I'll alert you...no wait! Here it is!
So, that was a lot of fun to do.  The job seems to get better every day and then some opportunity like that jumps in my lap.  A few weeks ago I was looking up new music for GPS with Fareed Zakaria using Turner's massive music library at my boss' request.  And I even helped translate an interview in French with one of the survivors of the attack on the Bataclan club in Paris for Anderson Cooper's show.  Apparently, I've effectively used all of my degrees at my job now.  What?!

Anyway, don't think this means I'm giving up on being a composer. Oh god, never. One of the things I can count on is one of the handful of directors I've worked with that have varying degrees of prolificness eventually calling me for a job.  I got a VO and a separate music job from the same guy last week just before leaving for my short vacation in Indy.

I will say that things were a little touch and go for a minute there as I was focusing on CNN and not really devoting time to it. Also my laptop was on the fritz.  All that is fixed now thanks to my friend with whom I had been trying to write music with.  He and his wife and I jammed together a bunch in the summer time but when their respective semesters started school just kept getting in the way for them.  Turns out though, he's a whiz with Macbooks and I happened to need a new hard drive installed and a memory upgrade.  And thanks to all those slips and disasters I had in the past, my diligence when it comes to backing up my data paid off.  I was back up and running within a few days or so once we did the install together.

And just in time too.  Mohammad came through with a quick music gig, a track for his directing reel and I busted it out in record time cuz that's how I do.  The VO for the sizzle reel (separate job) was, inevitably, a mock movie trailer voice so you can imagine I had fun with that one.  One thing that I really want to do next year is chase things like that down instead of this sitting around and waiting for them to come to me. Obviously, that's going to require a different approach and perhaps some outside encouragement.

So, what else happened during this fine year of 2015? Well besides a lot of traveling and a new job, I now have a partner in crime who just moved in with me back in November. And that's been real nice. No more roommates, I says.  And guess what else? We get to travel together, beyond going to see relatives.  Next stop is Guadeloupe this March.  A French speaking Caribbean nation...with an active volcano. Sounds right up my alley.

Another thing, I plan on doing next year is writing more in the blog...which requires having more things to write about, so look out for that.

Colorado...

This is seriously becoming a blog about travel.  Lately on the music and voice over fronts I've been languishing or just straight not doing much and waiting.  I've gotten a few royalty statements in the mail, I occasionally hear about the progress of The Life and True Love, the last two projects I worked on, I'm still trying to get back together with the couple I was jamming with but life and New York City get in the way.  And I even auditioned to be one of Voice Bunny's on demand voice talent but got a reality check instead about the mediocre state of my set up at home (too much room noise...too muffled, etc.).  But I've got plans to take over the closet in the other bedroom in my apartment once my girlfriend moves in in November.

That said, I'm getting a new feel for how much I truly do love to travel.  Traveling never lets me down.  When I get out there, no matter how much I've built up a trip in my head, I still have incredible experiences even if they don't live up to what I expected.  That is to say, I'm always pleasantly surprised because I always find something new, whether or not it's what I thought I might find.  And I come back vibrating with a new energy and enthusiasm about this place I've just seen, ranting and raving about it like I'm the first person to discover that place.  And I feel so alive.

Here's Colorado.  My friend from Carbondale planned out a whirlwind trip for us, showing me the finest her state has to offer, taking me to some of the highest places in the state and sometimes even in N. America.  We did a lot of driving and winging it when we needed to, shifting plans to accommodate our whims, having adventures and close shaves, climbing mountains and taking pictures to prove it.

On the list of sites:

We first hit Downtown Denver, then caught a show at Red Rocks Ampitheater (holy crap, what a beautiful venue), Sound Tribe Sector 9. They put on a fantastic show.  The next day we drove over Independence Pass then came through Aspen on our way back to her hometown, stopping briefly at a wine, beer and spirits tasting close to where my AirBnb was on the last trip.  We found a nice local cider, picked up some food and then went back to her place where I cooked us some steaks.

The following day, we took a yoga class at True Nature, a beautiful yoga studio and meditation center, which was followed by a singing bowl and gong meditation for an hour and change.  Then she took us back to Snowmass Village to hike the Rim Trail, a hike that was offered during Wanderlust but that I didn't take.  It was cool to be back in the village and the hike was a perfect way to acclimate to the elevation.  It features a pretty steep uphill climb for the first half hour to this ying yang feature:

...followed by an easy jaunt along the ridge with sweeping views on all sides and a few more climbs bringing you to an elevation of about 10,500 feet. After the hike we wound our way down to Aspen to have dinner at Pyramid Bistro and catch a show at Belly Up.

The next day, after a yoga class at another yoga studio, Kula, we got on the road again.  Back over Independence Pass to head down to The Great Sand Dunes and eventually back up to Breckenridge to crash for the night before heading up to the trail head for Grays and Torreys Peaks, the 14ers we had chosen to hike, doing a double summit in one day because we could.  On the way over Independence Pass again, crossing the continental divide yet again, we stopped to view Mt. Elbert, the highest of the 14ers.  Note the fall foliage which had begun changing color in between this ride and the first one.

Then we got on our way past Salida and Buena Vista, down the longest stretch of straight road I've been on since driving to the Outer Banks of NC on Hwy 70.  But what awaited us was nothing short of amazing. The sand dunes can be seen from miles away, butting up against the mountain range, and boast the tallest sand dune in N. America.  When you're upon them, they dominate the landscape, and what a weird landscape:

After playing around for a while, kicking up sand and acting like kids, and just enjoying the surroundings and the quietude (it was seriously dramatic how quiet it was when the wind wasn't blowing...it felt like a sensory deprivation tank or something), we sat and debated our options for the rest of the evening. We were trying to make it as close as possible to the trail head at Grays Peak that night so we could set out and be on the trail as early as possible the next morning. Originally, the plan had been make it all the way to Leadville or even Frisco, and we had been leaning toward Leadville for most of the day as we had lost some time getting out of The Roaring Fork Valley later than expected that morning, so everything had shifted. It was already going to take us almost four hours to get back up to Leadville and it was early evening at that point.  It was so long of a ride we almost considered going all the way back to Carbondale to stay at her place that night.

We scrapped that though because we hadn't even eaten dinner yet. We had our eyes on a steak restaurant in Leadville called Quincy's that only serves steak for $9.95 (seriously, the only decision you have to make is how you want it cooked and how you want your baked potato). Luckily, the restaurant had a location in Salida that was closer so once we got back out on the highway it looked liked we just might make it there before closing and have only an hour and a half left on our journey to Leadville.

We still made it to Leadville after all the hotels had already closed their front desks for the night and had to hit a couple of them before we found one that would book rooms after hours...and of course, we got the last one at the first place that would open up for us.  Good thing too because it was midnight at this point and we had to be up at 6am the next morning!

The following morning, we packed up and got on our way, with a short stop for breakfast in Frisco, making it to the trail head by 8 and setting out around 8:30.  The weather was dreary, cold and windy. Not a good prognosis for a day hike but we were prepared.  Or at least I thought I was.  My sweater, scarf and hat would eventually prove worthless against biting temps in the 30s, steady 40 mph winds and, yes, freaking snow and sleet. The climb was a bit brutal as such and we had driven up to 11,000 feet or so, so we still had about 3,000 feet of rise before we reached the top.  At one point I had to borrow a layer of clothing from my friend. Every 10 minutes or so, I'd have to stop and catch my breath and the higher we got, the longer I had to stop before I felt I could go on.

Due to the weather, we had discussed the possibility of turning back just to prepare ourselves for the disappointment of not being able to climb to the top.  But neither of us were keen on that idea. We came to climb. If anything, we debated turning back after Grays and forfeiting the opportunity to do the double summit.  But then something amazing happened.  I mean, I knew it would happen, to be honest.  I'm ever the optimist, so I knew we'd get some clearing.  There were breaks in the clouds and the winds had them moving off extremely quickly.

As soon as we hit the final stretch, one big gap opened in the clouds and as I stepped up onto the summit, I gasped as I saw clear views for miles and miles.

This was something I didn't get with my Concepcion volcano hike at the end of February. And the rush was enough that the two of us turned to the other peak, Torreys, barely a half mile away down a path that ran along the saddle between the two peaks, and said, "Why not?" We snacked and took selfies and set out, scrambling down the side of Grays and, slowly, back up the much steeper side of Torreys.  (Watch in this video when my friend pans around...the first peak you see is Grays, which we had just come off the top of; the one you see when the camera turns 180 degrees is Torreys).

At this point I was starting to notice how numb and red my hands were. I'd had them clenched inside the pockets of my jacket for too long and needed to move them around and warm them up.  We paused so I could do so and then beat the last stretch of scree reaching the top to find even more spectacular views.

The hike down was slow and easy once we were off the main slope of the mountain and we saw loads more wildlife on the way down, including scurrying pikas and the yellow bellied marmot who crossed our path and then proceeded to stand up on his hind legs and watch us for five full minutes before going back to his business.  My phone was dead or there'd be pictures. I only saw one mountain goat the whole time, far away on a ridge on our way up to the top. He promptly lumbered down the other side before I could snap a pic though.  

At the bottom, back at the car, my head ached, probably from dehydration and not elevation sickness, but I felt great otherwise. After devouring lunch we headed back to Carbondale by way of Glenwood Canyon, looking forward to an evening of lounging and Netflix.  

The final full day of the trip we blew off a lot of the planned activities in favor of trying to have a lower key day and fit in Maroon Bells which we had missed a few days back due to cramming too much in in one day.  We were going to ride bikes down Glenwood Canyon and hike to Hanging Lake but neither of us thought we'd be in any mood for physical activity after hiking two 14ers in one day. So, instead Maroon Bells it was.  In Aspen, you buy a bus ticket and they bus you up the valley into a protected wilderness site where you can take the picture that everyone takes: 

I mean, it is pretty gorgeous. We got some interesting facts on the way up from a knowledgeable guide who knew everything from local history to local geological facts to local wildlife. When we arrived, we opted for a short loop hike through the woods to take it all in and then wandered back to the bus stop.  Unfortunately, we had just missed a bus and had to wait an additional thirty minutes for the next one which set us back quite a bit (although we heard some fantastic Wild West trivia from the same guide on the way down). 

That night we were trying to make it all the way back to Denver to see another concert at Red Rocks (we found out at the STS9 concert that Counting Crows were playing at Red Rocks later in the week so we bought tickets right away).  Making it back there required one more trip over Independence Pass, so we loaded up on coffee in Aspen when we finally got out of Maroon Bells, then headed out. The time was dwindling away and, though Counting Crows had a few opening acts, we did the math and figured there was a slight possibility we'd miss some of their set if we didn't book it. Let's just say that Independence Pass was both thrilling and terrifying this time around.  

One last stop in Breckenridge for legendary crepes my friend raved about, barely set us back in terms of travel time, because where there is usually a colossal line, there wasn't a single soul waiting. Giddy at our fortune we chowed down on crepes in the car as we made our way past Breckenridge back to I-70.  We hit very few traffic snarls from there on and I finally saw the Milky Way out the car window. Arriving at Red Rocks, we found that they were between sets still.  We found our seats chatted for maybe two minutes before Counting Crows walked out on stage, almost as though they were waiting for us to get there.  

So, a perfect end to a near perfect last day.  If not for the crummy hotel I booked outside of Denver, we'd've been totally solid (we booked a non smoking room and it turned out all they had ready when we got there was a smoking room...people can still smoke in hotel rooms??).  But at the point we were so tired we just crashed.  And the following morning I had gluten free buttermilk pancakes in Denver before heading off to the airport and parting with my friend.  

What a trip! Crazy adventures, tall mountains, beautiful vistas, and three separate concerts.  And lots of driving.  Couldn't have asked for a better time and now I have reasons to go back.  As I always do. And I think I might actually have a mountain climbing addiction at this point. 

Climbs, volcanoes and other trials...

The sneakers I've barely worn since Nicaragua still have black sand in them from the volcano.  I'm wearing them again as the weather starts to warm up consistently. The other day, as I kicked them off, a pile of the stuff spilled out onto my bedroom floor.  Days later, though I pounded them together upside down, I still feel the grit under my toes, reminding me of this:

Yes, I climbed to the top of that thing.  That being the Concepcion volcano on the Isla de Ometepe, a central destination of my late February trip to Nicaragua.  The one I had heard was a 10 hour hike. Part of my initial aversion to hiking it in the first place and the reason I had chosen, months earlier, to hike Maderas instead. The smaller, extinct volcano on the island's south side, was advertised as an 8 hour hike, which I'd heard people testify to scaling in a mere 5 hours.  But whatever, when I arrived on Ometepe, I was almost content to nix the idea of any volcano hike and just sit and enjoy this:

...instead of trying to cram in more activities in the short amount of time I had there. Not so much that my three day romp around Granada and the surrounding environs had taken it out of me.  No, it was just that beautiful there at Finca San Juan de la Isla that I thought, after all the hard work I'd done to afford the trip, I ought to just take it easy and enjoy the rum and the fried plantains with cheese and the sound of the lake and the birds and the hammocks and all the beautiful people I met there, most of them Canadians, some of them local hotel staff who were immensely kind and very open to helping me with my Spanish.  Also, cost was a factor. I was either going to have to find people to go in on hiring the guide, pay him the full amount myself, or go through an unappealing ordeal of phone calls and emails and attempts at Spanish to set up a tour with one of the many other options open to me.  I opted to just wait it out and see.

I met a couple from Edmonton, Canada and another from Toronto, my first full day there.  The Edmonton couple were recounting the story of their attempt at Concepcion the previous day, a feat they told us took them only 7 hours. The Toronto couple listened intently as they were planning on doing it themselves the following day.  I asked if I could join, figuring this was the sign I needed to make my decision.  The path of least resistance. They had already booked the guide and they were happy to let me join them. And I'm so glad I did. 7 hours seemed much more reasonable.

Why did I wait all this time to recount my tale? I don't know, part of me wanted to wait to blog again until I had some good news to share on the music and voice over fronts and even about my various day jobs; all the things that have been brewing there. I do, as a matter of fact, finally.  But in the meantime, life just got away from me and I didn't want to just type up a blow by blow of the whole trip. I had journaled it elsewhere for my own purposes, after all.  But also, I had to think through what it all means to me in terms of what happened to me on that mountain.

Guys, this was the hardest hike I'd ever experienced but I felt so damned alive at the end of it, like I could physically do anything and perhaps mentally do anything as well. Anything at all. Volcan Concepcion is 5,280 feet tall and perfectly cone shaped, making the hike relentlessly steep.  Hiking to the rim of the open and active crater took us a solid four and a half hours and the descent took another 3 hours.

The terrain was ever changing and kept our interest, with stunning views and exotic plant life, but the climb was brutal and taking a toll on us after only an hour, my calves burning with the exertion of continuous ascent.

My new friends and I brought liters upon liters of water that we carried with us, along with lunch that the hotel had packed (unfortunately, the only gluten free foods they could give me were plantain chips, some of their homemade cheese and a few oranges, pre peeled, of course).  We took frequent breaks but always kept going, determined not to stop or slow down for too long.  Although at times, individually, I'm sure we all felt like turning around. Something in me, personally, said no every time the thought came up.  I felt as though climbing this mountain symbolized something for me.  I had to keep going.  Maybe just to prove something to myself.  Maybe because I had set out on some mission and wanted to see it through to the end. Being able to conquer something despite ridiculous odds, to keep going when others would have stopped (another group that was supposed to have set out with us, was delayed and, upon our descent we learned they had quit after just an hour...no one else was on that mountain except us).

We passed through fields of plantain trees and rock strewn pits, and as the mountain steepened, we entered a dry forest with a sandy path that our feet slid into, making each step that much harder.  Everywhere was a chance to turn your ankle or slip. Every other tree branch we tried to grab onto for support had thorns protruding. Rocks were always loose, so part of what set our pace was having to be so sure of our footing each time we took a step. At some point along the way, the danger of what we were doing slowly became clear to us.

We left all the stunning vistas behind as we entered a white cloud and the wind began to blow relentlessly.

We were now in a cloud forest of mostly low shrubs, plants with giant leaves and more and more rocks to slip on.

Coming up out of that we entered a new terrain, unlike anything we had seen before.  Plant life had all but disappeared and all of us, except our guide, had to crawl up on all fours.

This was where I fell behind a little and had to keep talking to myself, telling myself I had to keep going. After all, regardless of whether I made it to the top, I still had to go all the way back down.  This realization was the most harrowing thing after everything we had gone through, knowing that, even after we reached the summit there was still a long road before we could finally rest. In a way, though, it helped knowing that no matter what we decided, we still had a long way ahead of us.  It would have been barely any relief to stop and go down at that point because the ordeal of descending such a steep slope was just as difficult, and ascending the 500 odd feet that we had left to climb would not have added all that much to our troubles. Only actually reaching the top could have lifted our spirits enough to power us for the rest of the hike, though.  That and lunch.  But only after we had reached the top, we agreed.

It was during this last stretch that I felt that something come over me again.  Something that told me to just go despite how hard it was.  I could feel my companions' spirits breaking a little.  I felt like each step was harder than the one before. I would get in five or six and then have to pause.

At one point our guide shouted down to us to get out of the way because there were rocks tumbling down.  Adrenaline pumping, not knowing, at first, exactly why he had told us to get out of the way, we scrambled sideways along the rocks as quickly as we could.  Someone who had hiked up on their own before us, had loosed a few rocks and sent them down in our direction unintentionally.  Seeing this bloke from California walking upright down the mountain past us like it was nothing was the last straw (you can see him in the shadows just out of sight in the above pic of my two Toronto friends).  I could smell the sulfur gas from the crater by now.  Knowing we were so close to the top I powered through, one last burst of climbing, grabbing at rocks and propelling myself upward, quicker than my body could signal the pain in my muscles. Behind me, Kelsey was saying she was done and ready to go down.  The wind was blowing her around so that she couldn't straighten up for a second without getting knocked over.  Just then I looked up and saw our guide perched on the edge of the crater.  I lifted myself into place right next to him and peered into the crater.

"No, c'mon! We're here.  It's right here, you can make it!" I shouted down to my companions.  I practically begged Kelsey and Ryan to come peer in the crater with me.  300 meters deep and 3 acres around at the bottom, and all of it obscured by sulfuric gas and clouds. She took one look and declared, "Nope!"

We all collapsed for this photo and agreed after a few moments of basking in our victory, that we should climb down out of the wind and eat our lunch before heading back down.  Without any shred of visibility there wasn't much in the way of views to take in.  I watched some YouTube videos of other people's hikes when I returned home, though, and concluded that, had we hiked up on a clear day, it would have been absolutely terrifying but exalting and gorgeous nonetheless. Here's my panorama when we came out of the cloud.  Close enough:

But what did I learn about myself from this climb? For one thing, that I'm strong and I can show determination and accomplish something big if I have my mind set on it.  Something I'm doing on a daily basis here in NYC but that I tend to forget. The other thing it taught me is to just keep going.  The last few months have been harrowing in their own way.  No stunning vistas, no payoffs, just waiting and waiting for one or more things that are up in the air, to show me some kind of sign I'm on the right track.  It's hard, even though you know you've done things and set other things in motion, to just wait for them to give you some sort of feedback.  It's hard to not always feel like I could be doing more. But then, that one thing happens that may or may not be a true accomplishment but that tells you that, yes, you're doing fine, you're on the right track, keep going.

It happened a few weeks ago.  An agent with whom I had spoken over a year ago, who had told me that I sounded as though I had some regionalisms in my voice, called me to tell me she liked the new demo I sent her and wanted to send me out on an audition for a job she thought I'd be good for.  Yes, an agent liked my demo.  So I went out there feeling pretty damn good, knowing that, even if I didn't get the job, it was still quite an accomplishment and felt like a nice step up to a new plateau.  The next day, another agent that I'd met at my voice coach's salon emailed me to say she loved my demo (exclamation point) but that she couldn't accommodate me as they keep a very short list and there isn't currently a space for me. There are still more steps to take up onto even higher plateaus but just to know that I have things ahead of me is exciting.

"The Life" finally had its premier screening a few weeks ago too and everyone in the cast and crew showed. It was amazing to see how many people were involved in bringing that thing to fruition and how many cared enough to come out for the screening.  Some of them hadn't even seen the whole thing yet so we got to see some candid reactions to the finished product which made it all the more worthwhile. Great things are ahead for this project, almost none of which I can speak on definitively and it's likely to be like this for a while but suffice it to say that I'm happy with the progression.

And I even had an opportunity to help out with the music on a web series called Redheads Anonymous that is getting all kinds of attention lately.  I played some guitar and bass parts on a song for the second episode which you can watch here. Huffington Post did an article on it and episode 2 even won Indie Series Network's Web Series of the Week award.  It's going to be a great affiliation, and they may yet call me for more music.

At any rate, I'm still feeling pretty good about this year so far. And if any of you are interested in seeing the rest of the pics from the trip to Nicaragua, I've posted them here.

Volcanoes and monkeys and a quick update...

The East River has ice floating in it and it's 2 degrees F, with a wind chill of -15.

I think it's time to get out of town.  They're threatening snow/ice/rain whatever in the forecast on Sunday when I'm supposed to fly so I'm a tiny bit nervous.  I don't think anything will get cancelled. Worst case scenario, I'm delayed and I miss my connecting flight and the airline puts me on the next flight and I just have to call my hotel and have them send the cab driver a little later in the afternoon and maybe it's a tiny bit later when I finally touch down at my hotel in Granada, where it's likely going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 degrees F.

It's going to be fine. I'm so excited about this trip, as long as I can get there some time on Sunday I'll be happy.  This is the first time I've done anything like this.  Completely solo (as in, traveling solo, not meeting anyone when I get there, no one dictating what I do or when), very little Spanish under my belt (just enough to get by), everything planned to a T.   I'm going to have a blast.  I'm hiking volcanoes and learning to surf and exploring ancient petroglyphs and visiting coffee plantations.   And hammocks.  Lots of hammock time.  Maybe a massage...of course a massage!  Horses. Sea Turtles.  I'm going to see some freaking monkeys if it kills me.

So, yeah, despite all that excitement, I admit. There is a little nervousness.  But it's abating for the most part.  I mean, I've prepared for a lot here.  I even bought Skype credits in case I have to call someone while I'm there (I'm trying not to use minutes there at all because Verizon charges $2.89 a minute in Nicaragua while Skype is only 23.5 cents).  If I'm worried about my Spanish not being sufficient, a lot of people will speak English (hotel staff, ex-pats, etc.), I have Google translate, Duolingo, even a Learn Spanish in 7 days book saved in my Kindle app.  Puedo escribir en español right now if I really wanted to.

Before I run off to Nica land for a spell, though, I really wanted to drop in and update on what's been going on in the music/voice over/TV world.

The commercial I wrote music for?  It won that competition so now I'm going to get royalties when it starts airing on the web in UAE, Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in March.  Awesome, right?

The new voice over demo is in the hands of one agent and one casting director so far.  The casting director I met at Marla's voice over class just the other night, an old school guy who likes to listen to all of his submissions on his car CD player (necessitating a scramble to find my old CD labels and a case I could put the disc in).  The agent is a co worker's agent over at Access talent (a place that was on my list of places to submit to anyway, so when he offered to pass my demo along, I said, "hell yes!") When I return I will submit to about ten more.

And lastly, I have an interview at CNN today for a full time position.  Please wish me luck.

For now, that is all.  I will most likely update again after I touch down in Nica.  Expect some video this time around.  I'm going to be peering into an active volcano in a few days. You're gonna wanna see that.

2015 things...

It's 2015 and I'm doing things.  I've got a really good feeling about this year.  I wanted to wait until a few more things seemed certain before popping my head up and checking in here.  But I feel like talking about at least this:



I finally got around to updating this with the new coach I've been working with.  Two of my old spots are on there and then four more that my coach wrote for me.  We managed to wipe out recording them in under an hour as well, which makes me happy because it's going to be cheaper than I had thought.  And the engineer at Gramercy Post turned it around super quick too so I managed to get it posted up online the next day.  All in all, I was pretty pleased with the process.  Now, Marla and I are going to sit down this week and talk about getting it out to some agents she knows.  So excited for that.

And on top of that, the pilot episode of "The Life" will be screened next month and meanwhile the director has hired me to write music for a light-hearted commercial he's been tasked with directing for a competition.  Some piano tune that I'm currently zeroing in on.  So, I've got music work and potential voice over work and something else on the horizon of which I won't speak just yet.  ;)

And then, in a few weeks, I'm going back to Nicaragua, on my own, for my first solo trip ever.  And by solo, I mean, I'm traveling there alone, staying there alone, exploring alone.  I've been boning up on what little Spanish I know, using an app called Duolingo, talking with my co workers who have been and have even set up meeting a co worker's friends on Ometepe.  I have all my hotels and cab rides booked (I will not be riding any public transportation in the country) and I've got plans to hike several volcanoes.  Pictures and video will ensue.  It's going to be an adventure.  A great adventure and I'm going to have lots of stories.  I cannot wait.

That's where I'll leave it for now.  Every year, I do the whole New Year's Resolution/Where was I last year post, but I feel like waiting on that just a little.  I have things I want to do this year differently than last year but whether or not I'll be able to sort of hinges on that thing that's on the horizon that I won't mention yet until it's certain.  Suffice it to say that I did a lot of things career-wise last year and the year before that worked and I'm going to keep doing them.  And all of that workout more, drink less stuff will be in there too.

I might even blog more but we'll see.

Hitting the ground running...

And we're back in.  Vacation was great, adjusting to the new work schedule has been smoother than I had imagined, and I just saw one of my favorite artists in concert at the Beacon Theater.  Tori Amos.  I could just die it was so good.  But we'll get to that.  Also, I just met with a new voice over coach for a consultation and I have good feelings about the future.

Every night now, I try to get myself into bed around 9:30 - 10:00pm and I wake up at 5:30am.  I spent my vacation sort of slowly acclimating myself to the schedule, because, let's face it, mountain sunrises in NC are worth waking up for.  That and everyone in the house was going to bed around 10pm anyway.  By the 1st of August, upon my return I had absolutely no problem getting up and going to work and surviving through the day without feeling tired.

Another aspect of my routine has changed as well, now that the Brooklyn Yogaworks studio is open.  A much shorter ride to class for starters but also, taking all evening classes has totally flipped my days on their side.  Now, I'm working first, then doing VO gigs, depending on the availability of auditions, and then going to yoga, eating dinner and going to sleep.

I'm looking forward to seeing how I'll manage the next music gig but now my focus has shifted back to VO until that comes along.  I mentioned an agent I was waiting to speak with only briefly a few weeks back, but didn't elaborate.  What happened was, right before my vacation, I got in touch with him and got some advice and pointers from him.  While it was mildly discouraging, I did glean a lot from the conversation and made sure I walked away from it with some clear direction for my next steps.  I pulled a few names from him of coaches I should work with, classes I should take.

So, I picked one that I researched pretty heavily and who had worked with Jane Lynch before and ultimately reached out to her after I was settled back in post vacation.  The consultation was yesterday and it went really well.  I went in there expecting to get torn apart because, after all, I'm well aware that there's something I'm lacking.  After speaking with the agent, it came clear that it's obvious to anyone in the business who hears my demo that I need more acting training.

I did not get torn apart however and in fact, had a lot of fun with the new coach.  She had me fill out paper work and whatnot and then we chatted a tiny bit about what I've done and she told me she can already hear what it is I need to work on.  So she stood me in front of a condenser mic hooked up to her iPad and threw some copy at me and I just dug in.  Her direction was not uncommon but something about the way she explained things made it sink in so much more quickly and before I knew it I was really nailing the copy, and incorporating all her directions with ease.  I think that impressed her and, as we were finishing up, talk turned to all the agents she'd like me to meet once we get working.  So I signed up for a package deal and a handful of coaching sessions over the course of the next month and a half, even marking my calendar for a day when one of these agents is going to be there specifically to listen to her other students.

Psyched doesn't even begin to describe it.  But, oh yeah, Tori was amazing.  And the Beacon Theater was an amazing venue.  She played only two songs off the new album and the rest were scattered from just about every other album, with a heavy selection from Little Earthquakes and From the Choirgirl Hotel.  I'd always heard about how her concerts are like a religious experience for some.  This crowd was no different.  The were appropriately boisterous during the wild parts but they always shut the f*ck up immediately after their outbursts because they, like me, wanted to hear every single note she sang.  For me, I was just on the edge of my seat listening, overcome with glee when she'd break into a favorite song of mine.  I've always found her melodies and vocalizations hauntingly beautiful.  A favorite moment from the show was her closing with Hey Jupiter.  Listen to the song, especially the part where she vocalizes at the end of the chorus in "oohs."  I almost cried it was so beautiful.  And just her up there singing and banging on her Bösendorfer alternately swiveling around to the keyboard behind her (at one point it was an organ they wheeled out during a changeover), sometimes playing both at the same time (she had a microphone at each instrument and would sustain a note at the end of the line as she switched mics to hilarious effect), occasionally slamming the lid back on the piano for emphasis (and scaring the shit out of most of us when she'd do it).  She even busted out a cover set in the middle of the show, including Faith by George Michael, Blue Jeans by Lana del Ray and Wicked Games by Chris Isaak.  Add a four song encore and I was satisfied.  One of the best concerts I've seen in my life.

There are other things on the horizon that I'll keep secret for now but I will mention that I have already secured my hotel reservation for Costa Dulce for next February, the real start of my trip planning.  For now, even though I don't work until 10am, I think I'm going to drift off to sleep and dream of being a voice over god.

Planning ahead...

I really like to plan ahead.  It's just something I do.  Which is why I'm taking a break at the mid point of my work on this film score, to do a little Nicaragua planning for February 2015.  Going to the Apoyo Lodge I stayed at last time on the last night, ending the trip at Costa Dulce but then, hiking a volcano in the middle somewhere.

Hiking up a volcano sounds completely crazy, but don't worry it's an extinct one.  This has been the centerpiece of this trip from its inception, when a co worker heard me talking about my last trip to Nicaragua and told me about this island in Lake Nicaragua called Ometepe that I should go to. The island consists of two volcanoes, one active, one extinct, joined buy a narrow isthmus, covered in coffee plantations and ancient petroglyphs and accessible only by ferry from San Jorge or Granada. Putting this crazy adventure in the middle of my trip and being able to get rides to and from the ferry dock from people I already know in Nicaragua (our hosts at both the Apoyo Lodge and Costa Dulce) seemed like the best idea.  But, the Apoyo Lodge is booked through the 24th, a day after I had hoped to arrive, then there's a one day gap before another group is considering booking it.  This wouldn't be a big deal except I'm trying to align my trip with something.  I want to wind up at Costa Dulce on the 27th or the 28th when a friend may be there.

Going to the volcano island straight from the airport in Managua is not an option.  It's too far and there are too many modes of transportation required (cab-ferry-bike-feet).   But going to the crater lake for just one day before going to the volcano island defeats the purpose almost.  Another reason for starting there this time is that we didn't get but half a day and one night there the last time...and that wasn't nearly enough time for such a gorgeous locale.

I mean, papaya trees on the property, a resident yoga instructor, a beautiful outdoor yoga platform and a 23,000 year old crater lake in which you can float in an inner tube.  How can I miss out on that? 

So, in typing this out, I realized what makes the most sense is to start my trip on the 24th, the one day that Apoyo is free and stay there one night, travel to Ometepe the next day, spend the same amount of days there as I was going to originally, then go to Costa Dulce, arriving there on the 27th or 28th, spend 3 nights there and then go back to Apoyo and spend 2 more nights.  

Perhaps.  I have to write the Apoyo people a few months from now closer to the dates to see if anything has changed.  And see if I can even stay there on the last few days of my trip.  I still need to type an email to the hotel on Ometepe that I've zeroed in on, though, so there's yet more planning to be done.  

Anyhow, this and budgeting for the trip has gotten me excited about my little light at the end of the tunnel.  Sure there's fun to be had between now and then, summer weather to be enjoyed, other trips to take.  But it's nice to have the thought of going back and having another adventure to tide me over until then.  And to help me with bracing myself for all the work that's ahead. A month and a half more of CNN, still working at truTV, the current film score and all the other potential projects coming up.   

Voice over is on a bit of a hiatus, or maybe just a lull, while I figure out things.  I let my membership to Voice123.com lapse and may not subscribe again for a while, so I won't be doing as many auditions.  I'm waiting to hear back from an agent though...and man I hate talking about that because it's probably nothing and I don't want to get my hopes up.  I had a co worker here at NY1 in Creative Services send my demo on to a few agents in the city and only one got back to him, so far, just saying that he wanted to give him some feedback on my voice.   Whatever that means.  

At any rate, I have a wedding to go to tomorrow so I'm going to actually take an entire day where I don't do any work on anything.  Which is cool because I was thinking I'd need it, what with all the extra freelance work at CNN and truTV, and then this came up.  A friend of mine from the college days was planning on going to our friend's wedding out on Long Island and asked to stay with me in the days leading up to it and asked if I wanted to go, too.  So I managed to get the day off from CNN and bought myself a suit.   I'm not looking forward to traveling back from Long Island late at night...nor am I looking forward to wearing a suit in hot weather.  But I do want to look good.  

Not much else to report tonight.  Just wanted to get all that out.  Maybe I'll have some insight into my writing process on the next blog.  For now though, I'm just going to enjoy a too short weekend and an old friend's wedding.   

Killing procrastination and thinking about trips...

I learned something today.  I can overestimate the scope of a task.  But I can also bypass my own thinking.  At the start of this week, I had a semi impromptu guest and, rather than worry that I wasn't going to have enough time to do what I said I would do on this project, I just hung out with my friend who I hadn't seen in over a year and got very little sleep.  A few days later, when she left, I started to panic that I was behind schedule and assumed I wouldn't get done half of what I said I would in the time I had left.

To clarify, I told the filmmaker I'd be able to get him some samples by the end of the week of a beat that he wanted for one scene and a piano theme that we discussed the tone of during our spotting session on Sunday afternoon.  Having shunned my work for the first three days of this week (somewhat shunned...I did a good bit of work on the beat while I was at work a few nights in a row and did come up with something that I like), I started to panic a little.  I knew I'd need the piano to work on the theme and wouldn't be able to actually sit down and play it without waking up my cousin until this afternoon.  I even tried to use my keyboard and listen in headphones the other night but, as I mentioned, it's a little messed up right now.  I said to myself, "well, I guess I'll just tell him I won't be done by the end of the week and push it back a few days." After all I'd have the weekend to catch up.

I was pleasantly surprised, though, to realize that I could come up with something of a theme for this film in the limited amount of time I had just today.  And I was able to stretch my ideas to cover some of the underscore in one of the first scenes while working on it more tonight.  So, boom.  I just surprised myself.

And you know how?  I just got started instead of letting myself get overwhelmed with the weight of what I still had left to do.  I just sat down at the piano and started playing.  And god, it felt good.

Now, I can relax a little.  Maybe have a glass of wine when I get home and put my feet up.   The rest of the weekend I'll spend mixing the beat that I wrote for the other scene.  But that can wait until I'm at home and have my monitors and headphones at my disposal.

Earlier tonight, in my down time, I started to look at flights to Nicaragua for next year since I decided on my dates.  Even found one for $378 round trip (although it leaves from Newark International and includes an overnight stay, each way, in Miami).  I figured out that it would still be cheaper, especially if I took the path to Newark Penn Station and the shuttle to the airport from there in lieu of taking a cab or a car service.  The hotels in Miami would add to the cost though and probably make that itinerary ultimately no better than the next option I saw which also left from Newark but returned to JFK and had no overnight layover.  That one was $550.  I've been keeping all this in a Google doc along with my planned itinerary.  Apoyo Crater Lake, then the island of Ometepe and finally Costa Dulce for one last night.

So that's what I do.  I think waaaaay ahead.  I've always been that way.  Even as a kid.  When I knew we were going to the beach, even though it was months away, I would always be asking my parents about it.  "What floor are we staying on? What are we going to do when we're there?" Etc. Etc. I probably annoyed them a little.  But I was always eager and still am.  Besides, there are benefits to being so into planning things.  First it helps build excitement and also, see cheap plane tickets above. I'm also tracking them using this site: www.yapta.com.  Get into it if you haven't.  It will alert you when the price of your tickets drops so you can buy them at the cheapest possible price.  Hurray for penny pinching as well.

That said, I need to get out of here.  Wine awaits.  Weekend awaits.  Music and fun awaits.  Also work but we'll get to that.

Focus on the Narrative...

It's cold in Cape Cod and how the wind howls!  I stepped outside earlier today to go and see if the CVS two doors down from this house was open and had to hold the hat I borrowed from my dad on my head to keep it from getting picked up by the wind.  I was only going to seek out tissues because this head cold has forced me to consume almost every facial tissue that was in this house when we arrived yesterday.

So far, despite having the sicks still, I've had a great time.  Today was a long day of just hanging out in the house and meeting relatives from my mom's side either whom I've never met or wouldn't remember meeting.  Been awful nice to not leave the house all day except for a fruitless trip to an already closed drug store mere steps from the house.  Oh and one slightly longer walk earlier in the day before everyone arrived when it was weirdly warmer.  I think it's helped me get over this cold a little.  Even after taking last Wednesday off, I think I must've relapsed as I have been coughing and coughing and blowing my nose incessantly.

The good thing is my voice has come back up a few notes in pitch and is not squeaky despite the veritable assault of four days of non stop coughing.  The voice over gig is slated for Tuesday at 1pm and I was told in the audition notes "younger, edgier, not voice of god."  You should've heard me Thursday and Friday at work.  People would ask, when I answered the phone, "Tim?" as if I'm the only one whose voice could possibly be that low but acknowledging that something definitely wasn't right.

Yes.  It was me.  Barry White had nothing on me.  But it wouldn't have been appropriate for this read.   Well it might've worked but the point is that's not what they said they want...and after all I have the range...on a good day.  The job is an ad for a new Bourne novel called Bourne Ascendancy.  Kind of an exciting gig, really.  And I really hope I can keep getting gigs like this.  I need stuff to pad my promo demo because I really only have one job and a few solid recordings from coaching sessions that I can include on there now.   The promo demo is something that I've wanted to get rolling for quite a while...really since that first promo gig, "Scarlet," that I did in November 2012.  They've got to be the most fulfilling jobs I do.  Ask anyone who's ever watched network television sitting on the couch next to me.  Whenever a network promo or movie trailer comes on, I mimic the voice style and ham it up.  I love it.

Of course, sounding like those guys is not the only thing that gets jobs.  As my coach and I have discussed in our sessions, it's about sounding believable.  Thinking about the words and not just how my voice sounds.  You can start to obsess over it and then you forget things like properly breathing and a phrase or two could drop out at the end and you have to do a retake and things get slowed down and the director gets impatient and the whole experience can be unpleasant and then they never hire you again.  Okay, that's like, worst case scenario, but you get the idea.  Focus on the script.  Tell the story.

Focus on the script.  Tell the story.  Replace script with narrative and it's good advice for both of my endeavors.  "The Life" score is the same.  If the music is not helping to tell the story and is just there because of some convoluted obsession with canvasing the visuals with aural support, then its effectiveness could be minimal to nil.

Thankfully there's a tiny bit less pressure on the scoring because I can watch the scenes over and over, retreat for a day or so and come back to it and ask myself, "is this still working?"  It's remarkable how I've actually become dissatisfied with my first takes and wanted desperately to go back and fine tune it.  At first, they sounded great (even the director liked them) but now they sound like music playing in the background.  I know that that literally is what it is but you don't want it to sound like music playing in the background.  I'd rather people not notice my music at all until the parts where it's supposed to shine.

At any rate, my first takes now sound childish and elementary, so my second takes sound like gold now that I have a clearer idea of what I want for each scene.  The opening cue is a great example.  I had music playing from the start of the scene and it was basically a structured song with a chord progression and a melody, albeit stripped back.  Just an electric guitar with delay strumming whole note chords and my token backwards guitar melody.   The mood of the music really struck a chord (boy, I really didn't want to use that phrase just then) with the director so we moved forward with it. That cue ended up being on the cut that went to the Boston screening.  But there was something wrong with the audio channels from the dialogue track and when it got burned to DVD some of the character's lines in that scene were completely missing.  So we just had background noise and my music.  So, now all of a sudden, my music is laid bare, flaws in my performances and all.

But what was most compelling was that, on my second listen, I started to realize that a continuous musical idea was not fitting this scene.  The first thing you hear in the opening scene is music.  And once you're hearing it you can't unhear it.  So, all of the other things you're supposed to be noticing about the scene are diminished (especially when the lines of dialogue are missing).

The solution, I figured, was to strip it way back.  I tried an idea with all the audio I had already recorded.  I got rid of the strums on the delayed guitar and didn't even bring in the backwards melody until a few seconds into the scene.  The I let it fade before the main character's dialogue starts.  Then the music, as it was originally orchestrated swells up once the dialogue is done and carries us into the next scene.  This is an oversimplification of what's going on but, let's face it, I've never liked writing about what music sounds like.  Whenever I had to do it in graduate school, all attempts came across as asinine and contrived.  Program notes.  Pssht! Hated that shit.

But, I digress. Essentially, on the first pass, I got the mood right.  But it took a second pass and a mishap at the screening for me to return to it and reevaluate, attempting to also hit the mark with the music's timing and cadence.  It's all about feeling the rhythm of the scene itself and figuring out how to make the music match that rhythm.  Focus on the narrative.  Tell the story.

That's all for tonight guys.  Tomorrow I'm hanging out with my 94 year old Uncle Norman again and my dad's sister, Aunt Suzy before they drop me off in Boston for the bus ride home.  4 hours in a bus and I only have one episode of "True Detective" left.  Wish me luck.

Spotting...

I'm gonna do it.  I'm gonna start another blog entry with "It's late and I should be sleeping..." So here goes:

It's late and I should be sleeping.  But honestly, when you've got Nicaraguan rum and Jamaican style ginger beer and a head full of hope and thoughts of the future, it's hard to settle down.  Plus I had some work to do.  It's probably a little too soon, as the final cut has not been polished, but I've been spotting for "The Life." Mostly independently of the director and the production team so far, but George and I have chatted a tiny bit about it.

My process is usually this: (and I've gotten some of this from a lot of industry people who say this is their method, and it works for me)

I start by just watching the film/movie/episode/whatever one time through without any thoughts about music.  Then I add a second viewing where I'm also not writing anything down but I let thoughts about music start to creep in...incidentally this is why I hate it when editors put in temp music...most of the time.  It messes with my conception.  I couldn't get a Latin vibe out of my head for an early feature film I scored about 10 years ago because the director himself had put some canned Latin loops in the opening scene.  Anyway, on the third viewing I actually make notes about what scenes can use music, coming up with names like "So and so takes a walk in the park" which sometimes end up as the actual title of said music cue.  Still no time codes at this point, though.  This is the point at which I like to sit down with the director and ask their thoughts and usually get shot down on a few things.  Then and only then do I actually sit down and start riffing while watching the film...quite possibly the funnest part of all.  This is when it really starts to take shape.  Incidentally, I really like it when a director has strong opinions about where and when and how music should go...okay, not always how.  Sometimes I just want them to let me do my thing.  But you can't have it your way all the time. 

Further refining of ideas comes and then I start to nail down starting and ending time codes so it's not all "music stops when so and so walks out of frame."  Then it comes down to actual production which is where the real magic happens, the fun part.  Who am I kidding?  It's all fun. That's why I do this.  And why I've been dying to get started on this project. 

In my spare moments over the past few weeks, while I've waited, I've started to dream up my next vacation.  And yes, it's to Nicaragua. Again.  But I've been approaching it with the same zeal with which I approached the trip to France I planned in 2007 for my parents and my aunt.  After all, planning is so much fun!  Maybe that's why I also like the planning stages of composing a film score.  I like organization.  But at the same time, I love that feeling of uncertainty right before implementation.  That "how is this going to go?"  That fear of failure and desire for success.  It's positively exhilarating.

The Nicaragua trip won't take place until next January more than likely (because it's contingent upon my accrual and usage of vacation hours) but I have my sights on an island comprised of two volcanoes, one active, one extinct, in Lake Nicaragua called Ometepe that a co worker informed me about.  I found this site which I have fully digested now, and through which I've almost chosen a hotel.   I also plan on starting the whole trip back at the Apoyo Lodge on the Apoyo crater lake because they host three day yoga retreats there all year round.  Then, I go to Ometepe and hike to a crater lake where I can swim, explore the island and take in the petroglyphs and then, when I'm fully exhausted, I get Gonzalo to meet me in San Pedro and drive me back to Casa Ola where I will stay for the remainder of my time...and finally learn to surf. 

It's gonna be one incredible year leading up to all that though.  It has to be. 

Shock to the system...

In 5 days I'll be on a flight to a foreign country with some mosquito spray, sunscreen, summer clothes and a yoga mat.  I've been getting myself psyched by reading weather reports for Nicaragua and wondering how much of a shock to my system a 75 degree difference in temperature will be.  No, it's not even that it's going to be all that hot in Nicarague (mid 80s for highs, mid 60s for lows...all. week. long).  If you're reading this and you're in the U.S. right now, there's a good chance you already know how cold it is in most parts of the country.  This cold snap has been at the forefront of conversation and news reporting for the better part of a week and, while it is annoying that some people still have to be told that weather is not climate and that a single cold weather event does not negate global climate change, I'm more focused on just getting through it for the prize awaiting me at the end.  And since I obviously don't need my summer clothes at the moment, I took the liberty of starting to pack a suitcase with them. I seriously cannot wait.

As of today, I know a few more facts about this trip, as per a recent email from the organizers:  there are 8 people coming on the trip, myself included, minus the two teachers; only one of them is a guy besides myself; and we're all going to be on the same flight from Miami to Managua.  Tomorrow morning, I'm going to the 9:30 yoga class with one of the teachers who's leading the retreat, so maybe I'll meet some of the others then.

When I get back home tomorrow, I have until 2:30 to sort out a handful of other things related to the trip; calling the banks to let them know I'll be using my bank card in another country, calling the airline to make sure things like my gluten free in-flight meal for the return trip are sorted out, and various other errands. I really haven't thought of much else this week besides that...and organizing my iTunes library now that I have an iPhone.  That was a surprise...8 refurbished phones in a row that all went south on me and Verizon finally offers me an early upgrade (almost didn't approve it after the fact too, which pissed me off).  I have a few other gadgets related to said iPhone coming in the mail and I'm hoping they'll show up before I have to leave on Sunday.  One of them is a much needed case, another is a solar powered battery pack.  Perfect for the trip...but not terribly necessary.

I swear, planning a trip is one of my favorite parts of traveling.   Learning about a new place, finding out what's to do and see there.  The anticipation building until the day you leave, the slight nervousness that you'll forget something or oversleep the day of your flight.   All of this has reawakened a sense of adventure in me that I'd almost forgotten I had.  Sure, moving to New York was adventurous...but this is a whole different kind of adventure.

So, yeah, not much else is going on except the excitement of the Nicaragua trip until tonight when I got an email with the newest cut of the full length trailer for "The Life."  It's looking good so far and I'm psyched to hit the ground running when the episode is finally ready for scoring.  Not sure how long that'll be but I know that if this round of edits of the trailer passes with everyone on the production team, then the editor will move on to cutting and re-cutting the episode.

As much as I'm going to enjoy this trip, it will be nice to get back into a routine in a few weeks and really start working.  As previously stated, I've not really bothered to get back to work since the start of the new year.  I've made a few to do lists and done some heavy thinking about my approach but purposefully gave myself a break between my holiday travel and this trip so that I could really focus when I got back.  And so I could really truly relax next week.  I've had to actually reassure myself multiple times that it's okay to take a break.  I'm still trying not to think about how long it's been since I've submitted a voice over audition.

But there'll come a time for all that, when I get back here to the city, refreshed, slightly more tan, having deepened my yoga practice and cleared my head with a week full of meditative quiescence.   For now, I sleep...and dream of tropical weather while the wind howls outside my apartment.

Reflection delayed...

Barreling towards the end of the year and finally finding time to reflect.  It's been a fun trip to NC this time around and I have one last night before I pack up and head back.  And once I'm back, it's not too long before I'm gonna be heading to Nicaragua.  14 days.  So, naturally I'm far to excited and nervous about that to really think too much about things like freelance work.  And even though my plan was to sit down and take a look at the upcoming year's goals during my stay here, I didn't really accomplish any of that.

So naturally I have a lot of things on my mind with regard to that.  I spoke once before about not stressing too much about trying to find work but rather just being ready when the next opportunity comes along.  Now, I kinda think that I should really be finding a balance between these two extremes.  I can look for work and spend time between jobs making sure I'm ready when an opportunity presents itself.  Sitting around and waiting doesn't sound like a good strategy no matter what you're doing.  I would rather be proactive and identify things that I can be doing to help myself out between jobs.  Working on tracks that I can license, writing music for the guitar looping project, trying to find a space and time to rehearse/jam with the drummer (this has not happened yet this year)...also, working on revamping the voice over demos and the marketing plan.  So there's a lot to do there.  A lot to keep me busy.

But I'd really like to talk about goals.  And not just goals for the sake of goals but targeted goals that take into account how over ambitious I was last year with some goals and how on point I was with others.  Which goals did I accomplish and which goals did I fall short of accomplishing?  Which ones did I neglect entirely?

There's a real pressure not to just do what I did last year, even if some of my moves were successful.  So I find myself sitting here reading old blogs and reflecting, as I do.  Another thing that has crossed my mind is that in order to focus on some things, I may have to leave a few things by the wayside.  I can't even wrap my brain around all that right now.  So, I think my first focus in the new year is going to be contacting producers, both voice over and film, to touch base and maybe scare up some work.  That's the big thing that I still don't have a lot of under my belt.  Work.  I mean, my website looks good, if I do say so myself, but I feel like it can never hurt to have more current material on showcase.   I could have had two feature film projects last year but both of them slipped through my fingers.  Not that I'm remorseful for that.  It was a great experience and it taught me that getting heard of is only part of getting the job.  You gotta be on your game and stand out from the crowd.   Which is a tad frustrating because it feels like it's out of your hands to some extent.  You can only do so much.  I mean, really, let's look at this: you can put together a stellar reel but you have to sort of pay attention to what other composers are doing and find ways to stand out from them with your work.  And you can have your hands in a lot of things, to get the attention of a lot of different kinds of producers for a lot of different kinds of projects, but then can you really be stellar at any one thing if you're spreading yourself so thin?  But then do you have to really choose just one area, be it electronic music, orchestral music, or pop?

All this floods my mind when I start to think about this.  And then I start to think about the licensing agency and how they haven't heard anything new from me in months.  The good thing is, there was one last piece of music that I never sent to them because I never finished it.  I liked so many aspects of it but it was missing something and I never really put my finger on it.  I revisited it a few days back and I think I have some ideas.  I may want to try some things I was afraid to before and get some restructuring underway.  I have ideas occurring to me out of the blue that I'm not sure why I didn't have before.  It's a good feeling, at the very least, to have a project I can get started on now without waiting for some job to come along.

Anyway, voice over is a whole different beast these days.  I haven't had a job since the summer.  By comparison this year has been a lot more meager.  But I did get my first out of the blue calls for work this year along with the attention of an agent...never mind the fact that she told me I sounded too regional on one of my spots and to watch for that.  I'm not too bummed about either because for one thing, that agent was way too hard to get a hold of for someone I'd like to be working with to find voice over work.  And for another thing, my lack of work in this arena can probably be directly attributed to me filling up my schedule with freelance TV work.  CNN and TruTV were great boons to my financial well being this year and are solely responsible for almost doubling my salary for the greater part of the year and finally, this trip to Nicaragua.

I think it's important, in the midst of all this stuff to remember that I worked hard this year and now I'm going to go and reward myself.  I need this.  Too much work and no play, make Tim something something...

So, I think instead of stressing over all of the above, I'm going to focus on the Nicaragua trip and then get started on all of it when I get back.  I think I'll leave New Year's Resolutions and game plans for the New Year untouched for a few weeks until I come back from Nicaragua with a tan and hopefully no tropical diseases.  At that point, I'll touch base...I may even send pics from the beach.  So stay tuned...

50 Days 'til Nicaragua and a goal...

I bought a plane ticket yesterday to a country I've never been to before.  My passport still hasn't been renewed and I have yet to put down the deposit on this Nicaragua trip because my money has not cleared my paypal account yet.  But somehow, it's starting to feel real.   I'm actually doing this.  About f***** time.

That's the best part about having worked 50-60 hours a week for the better part of this year.  I can do things like put money away, save for a trip, buy an HD TV (one that I barely get to watch) and start thinking about financing a new guitar.  And the yoga retreat is sort of the pinnacle even though I'm committed to waiting until I've fully paid for said trip to start thinking about the new guitar.  Traveling in general is something that I've missed and now I get to do it like I've never done before, in ways I never thought possible.  Completely out of pocket and solo.  An adventure like none other I've experienced.

I sort of wish I hadn't bought the plane ticket already, though, because now I've restricted myself to staying only for the duration of the retreat.  Meanwhile, a co worker of mine, who's been to Nicaragua, gave me some tips to go check out this island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua composed of two volcanoes, one dormant and one active.  Something that would take far longer to accomplish than the allotted time we have on the trip for excursions.   Perhaps for another visit.   But then, who knows.  Maybe I could work it out.  We'll be staying south of San Juan del Sur on a private beach and the ferry to the island, Ometepe, is in San Jorge, a half hour drive from San Juan del Sur by the looks of it.  I guess it's a matter of having enough time to adequately explore the island.

So that's several goals of mine in sight, traveling to Central America, traveling solo again, and finally experiencing a yoga retreat.  I want to talk about a smaller scale goal, though, partially in reference to my last blog entry about carving out time.  I thought about how I was complaining about not having the time to advance my voice over career the way I'd like to and how there's a small space between saying I wish I could do something to just f***** doing it.  So I thought, "why not set a goal?"  It wouldn't have to be a large goal but any amount would be a move toward something quite substantial in the long run.  How about just saying every Monday, I will do voice over auditions, or I will do at least two a day, Monday, Wednesday and Fridays?  Or I will just be consistent and do a certain number every week, no matter when I do them?  I think it's going to go something like that.

That's how it starts anyway.  Maybe I can say at least every other week I will submit voice over auditions between now and the end of the year.  And slowly ramp up the rate at which I submit them until I can't let a week go by without submitting something.  The idea is that I'm being consistent with my practice whether or not I'm getting jobs every week.  And it's not wholly unfeasible to think I could accomplish this.  Heck, I did it with yoga.

Anyway, I got a lot of insight from this video:



While some of the things in this video are a bit intuitive to the point that I found myself saying, "hey, I already kinda do that!" I did find a lot of things that are relevant to my situation and that could be helpful.  I'm thinking mainly of the bits about just getting started on a task.  This part in particular resonated with me:

"Your willpower is simply not enough...in fact, some studies suggest that willpower is an exhaustible source that can be entirely used up...instead of convincing yourself to simply try harder, a more methodical approach is suggested.  The first step?  Get started...it may seem obvious but studies have shown, starting a project may be the biggest barrier to productivity.  Before starting, our brain visualizes the hardest parts to come and instead tries to simulate real work by focusing on small mindless tasks..."

He goes on to talk about the Zeigarnik effect which shows that if we don't finish something we experience discomfort until we do finish it.  In a way, that's the thing that propels us to complete something, having started it and left it unfinished.  I've certainly felt this in the past once I've started a project.  It begins to consume me and I start to want to devote time to it.   But starting is the biggest hurdle.   Also, it tells us that one of the reasons we procrastinate is because we tend to visualize the worst part of something when starting a task and thus get overwhelmed and perhaps abandon it.  Later on in the video he talks about breaking things up into small, manageable tasks to avoid this and that's, again, what I've instinctively done at times before as well.

Ultimately, I'd like to get my voice over practice back up to a level of prominence in my life on par with what I currently devote to yoga.  With yoga, the situation was slightly different.  I basically got a good deal on a membership to a studio and felt like I had to take advantage of it.  Then I started to really like doing it and consciously made it a priority.  Now I can't live without it.  It's certainly reasonable to think I could do the same with making voice over a priority.  It's just a matter of figuring out how to start.  So, I'm taking those steps this week.  And, in a way, I've already started.  In the past few weeks I've auditioned to more than I have in months.  Just the act of getting back into doing it on a regular basis has shown me that I can squeeze them in and that it is definitely doable.  I even discovered that Sound Forge, the software I use at home on the PC is now available for Mac.  Having that on my laptop will definitely up the quality of my auditions when I'm on the go which will afford me so much more time to do them.

Anyhow, for now, I structure and I plan.  Another tidbit from that video that I realized I already do is making lists of things to do instead of trying to multi-task.  :)