Technical

I am a techie. No… not a “Treckie”. I have no close fitting lycra top with the Star Federation emblom emblazoned on my chest. I don’t go to conventions and speak Klingon or discuss why episode 23 was a revolutionary moment in my life and how I’ve now committed my life to the warrior code.

No…. I am a techie, a technical person. You can keep your fantasy conventions, give me large amplifiers and stacks of speakers and throw in a huge video projector while you are at it.

At the end of this week I will be running a large “Christmas at the Park” concert for around 10,000 people. With clipboard in hand and a communication headset firmly attached to my head I will direct my team to a flawless performance…. hopefully. I say hopefully because I know it won’t be that easy. A stage that big, with that many performers and instruments leaves plenty of room for disaster.

Last year it was the wind that was nearly our undoing. The large scaffold tower that held a projection screen was pounded by the wind and during the afternoon we noticed that the back was beginning to lift out of the ground and the tower was starting to lean out over the stage! Needless to say there was a quick phone call made to get the scaffold riggers back to fix their work.

At another gig recently one of our young video crew was so engrossed in the shots he was getting of the band performing that he stepped backwards off the stage. To his credit and the ongoing respect of his peers, he managed to keep the band in focus until the moment he hit the ground!

Anyway, only a few days to go and so far disaster is nowhere in sight. Maybe the large (and very expensive) LED wall mounted on a truck that we have hired will suddenly burst into flames and engulf the crowd in a blazing inferno. Maybe the stage will suddenly tilt up and send the band into a tangled heap of limbs, trumpets and plywood. I’ll keep you posted.

love and paint

Some of the guys I work with had a gunfight today. Not something reminiscent of the old west with two adversaries facing one another, bow legged, across a dusty street, with their triggers fingers twitching in anticipation over their pearl handled six-shooters. Nor was it a scene from South Central LA with warring gangs popping caps in the asses of their enemies. No, this was a fun morning of paint-ball.

The primal urges of man percolate to the surface at times like this. Caring, sensible individuals are reduced to salivating hunters.

The funniest thing to do to a friend is to convince him that he’s on your team and then ambush him and let loose with a torrent of paint balls aimed at soft parts of his body. The bumps, bruises and broken skin is to be displayed later as a badge of friendship… “look how much my mates care about me… they shot me in the groin!”

Damn… I wish I could have gone with them!

meth lab

My nose is itchy and my eyes are watering. I have Hayfever and I’m not enjoying it one bit. I try to avoid taking pills, tablets or sprays as much as possible and some years I manage to get away with it…. but not this year. This year I’m suffering.

So I decided today to go to the Pharmacy and get something to relieve the symptoms. It was with trepidation however that I made my way to the counter to ask for those little white pills, with last year’s experience still fresh in my mind.

I had casually sauntered up to the Pharmacist, carefree and relatively happy, and placed my order for one nasal spray and one box of 10 tablets. Then the questioning began… why did I need them? Was I sure I needed them? Why was I asking for this particular brand? It seems that Pharmacists had been getting pressured by Police and government about the supply of certain drugs over the counter that could be turned into Class A party drugs. Maybe I was a drug maker with a meth lab in my kitchen!

It seems ridiculous when you consider that the products I was asking for don’t contain the critical ingredients anyway and I was buying such an insignificant amount. Some party it would be, even if I knew how to manufacture the stuff! Even so, I was transfixed in the steely glare of the woman behind the counter as I was forced to write my details into her little notebook. Honest as I was, it never occurred to me that I could have written a false name in the book with no one being any the wiser.

So today I was wondering if I was going to once again be treated like a criminal, a shady underworld corrupter of youth. But today was different… no questions at all, just took my money and wrapped my two little boxes in a white paper bag.

Today’s paper has a story of the police intercepting a quarter of a million pseudoephedrine pills hidden inside furniture from China. My one box of hayfever pills doesn’t really measure up does it. Unless…. my bank card details are right now being traced and….

the return

My cat came back… but unlike the old song, it wasn’t “the very next day”.

I recently moved house and took my cat with me. It seems however that he wasn’t as taken with the idea of a move as I was and at his first opportunity he disappeared. That was three months ago and I’d assumed that he had either taken up with a more caring and less transitory owner or… he was fertilizer.

So it was with surprise that I received a phone call last week to tell me that my cat had turned up at the old house alive and well. He was a bit skinny. I guess birds and mice or whatever else he’d scavenged weren’t as nutritious as his normal fare.

Back into the cat box he went and back to the new house. One can only wonder what thoughts passed through his feline mind when the box opened and he found himself back in the house he’d escaped from! Three months of deprivation and hardship for nothing!

On a more scientific note… if a cat weighs approximately 4kg after an epic journey, eats normal food for 24 hours afterwards and then, um, evacuates his stomach contents on the kitchen floor… repeatedly…. Is it possible for these gastric expulsions to weigh more than the cat? Ripley’s may be interested… such a little cat, such a lot of mess.

Some people get to party at night, some people engage in intellectual musings with their peers. On my knees on the kitchen floor in the stench of cat vomit, I envy those people.