Waiting for the Download to Finish

It seems my vaunted RoadRunner internet access slows down, dramatically slows down, after 5 p.m. so while I'm waiting for Countdown With Keith Olbermann to download I thought I'd post some general randomness during the wait.

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The Polar Express is up and running.

MobileMe Gallery is here.

I'm supposed to be helping out as an actor but getting to practices while trying to meet all my obligations at the Orchard has not gone well - in fact, it's not gone at all.

I did get down there to shoot pics of the first weekend - they actually came out quite nicely.

I remember watching the Summer Children's Theatre put on by the Tulsa Arts Council, back when I was in Fifth and Sixth Grade - it was "the Wonderful Village of Vim" and I still remember the "Dancing Dragon" song ("You've got to love that dancing dragon, till you reach the top...").

I also remember the pain of wanting to be on stage so much, wanting to be a part of all those cute (very, obnoxiously cute and pretty) kids - I think all of them came from the Soc schools in Tulsa ("Sosh", long "O" - if you've ever read "The Outsiders" you know what I'm talking about - set in Tulsa, no less). I followed the show as its portable stage went from park to park, biking into areas I didn't even knew existed, just to see it.

Today such a child might well get dragged up on stage - I'm pretty sure Reba Short, our Artistic Director, would see to it - back in the Sixties a Native American kid, even a starstruck one, was a non-person.

Now, I help run a theatre and a Children's Museum. What goes around comes around.

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There is a team of people, police mostly, who do nothing but check the streets on cold nights like tonight - it's 23º out - and get homeless people into the shelters. It's not all that bitterly cold but those nights are on the way. I saw them outside my window tonight, over in Bosnia, trying to talk a ragged man into the back of a cop car, trying to get him out of the cold.

It's very dark out and the wind is fast and cutting. I hope they talked him into it.

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Looks like the download is finished. Part of me wants to hear what the latest outrage is, part wants to go our for a walk in the bitter cold. Part wants to just go to bed. Tomorrow I'm working from 1 to 10 p.m. and it should be a hoot - more and more it becomes "all hands on deck" as the Holiday Season rumbles gamely on.

Strange to be a part of it.