All of My Friends With Their Hands in the Air Screamin' "Party of Here! Party Over There!"

Have you ever been to a party where you wonder "What the heck were they thinkin'? This party needs some EMTs cuz it's dead!" Well, the party we threw this weekend had a built-in dojo cuz it's was totally kickin'!

We threw our Chicago-based wedding reception where we invited 100 guests of which each could've invited one other person for a total of 200 people. I estimate about 60-70 showed up throughout the night. We had set up a projector with various slideshows showing both the serious and very non-serious side of what went down in Cancun along with the professional wedding video. People laughed, smiled, and happily cried watching the videos/pictures. We also had a DJ bumpin' the tunes while interspersing the occasional karoake hit performed by various talented folks. The Nielsen girls took the stage and took the party by storm with their great voices while yours truly got the party goin' by bustin' a move a la Young MC with a little heart and soul via my man Huey Lewis. The food kept being rolled out and people snatched up thir favorite pieces of chicken, shrimp, cheese, pretzles, sweets, and who knows what else they served. It was great seeing people out of their element dancing to "Don't Stop Till Ya Get Enough". I never thought I would see IBMers move so quickly to the dance floor!

This party went well beyond our expectations (righteously so)! Thanks to everyone who came out and had a good time. I especially thank those that gave us a little somethin' somethin' to add to the house/bank account ;-)

Currently listening : And in This Corner... By DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince Release date: By 17 October, 1989

Bad To Good In The Ring of Just One Phone Call

I was having a trying day yesterday. Had a person that decided that we, due to their absence on previous meetings, had the duty and will to fill them in on everything we've spoken on in the last few weeks, which really ticked me off. I asked myself, "Man, didn't you set your Meeting Tivo? This is all old news!" I also had the Silent Lurker on the call. They're the type of person that joins a call unnanounced and listens in to capture intelligence to promote some secret, global agenda. Well, Lurker messed up and became audible due to a misunderstanding of what we were trying to accomplish. Damage controls were put into place to calm everyone down and restate the goal of our meetings.

I admit that my anger was completely my issue and I chose to hold onto that anger instead of seeing it for what it was. I was afraid that I wasn't going to do a "good" job of getting through the meeting, and that others were trying to steal my thunder/circumvent me on a task I had to take care of. So, I see it for what it was now and learned from it. But yet, I was in a bad mood.

Well, that changed after I received a callback from one of my recent auditions. I got offered two parts in an up and coming play! Wowzers! I felt my ego and spirits rise up quickly. I was like, "Hey, things are pretty good!"

Things were always good but I made them seem worse than they really were. Goes to show how things in this cosm we call life are completely up to us to create. I created both a bad day and a good day for myself. I think I'll stick to manifesting the good days cuz it feels good; feels even better when I get offered roles in something I love to do

The Global Unifer

Most people who know me well know that I'm not much into sports. The only Chicago-based team I like is the MLS favorites the Chicago Fire. My affinity for soccer (or should I say futbol ) stems from a few places such as my heritage, the simplicity of the game, or the fact I played it for 3 years as a kid. Therefore, every 4 years is a lot of fun for me because I get to live out the life a sports fan for 3 weeks and talk a lot of smack just like most guys do after their team loses against somebody.

This year has been more fun because I deal with a lot of Europeans at work. There's nothing cooler than getting into a meeting and trading our thoughts on the World Cup for the first 15-20 minutes! That's why we're the biggest computer company in the world! Globalization in all aspects. I love defending the US team against it's European critics on these calls:

"Ehhhhh....zeh Amerikahn team....eeehhhhhhhhh....zay are not gon' to ween because ehhhhhhhh....sock-uh eez not az popoolah az eet eez in Europe...and zeh team needs more ehhhhhhhhhh....time to get more experiance.....zat is wut I zink."

Calls go so much more smoothly after hashing out the effects of temperature on the ball after being kicked 2000 times. Very cool. Glad we can all come together on something at least once every 4 years.

Currently listening : Soccer Hits By Groove Machine Release date: By 24 February, 2006

Watch "Anonymous"!

Hey everyone:

I've posted Gone Blue's first pilot production of "Anonymous". Feel free to watch it here or on my main profile page. If you like it, drop some love or embed it in your profile!

Peace,
Nelson

Two For Two

Yesterday I got the opportunity to attend two auditions. For the first one in the morning, I got there 20 minutes early, did 15 minutes of warm-ups then joined the group for a group warm up to get an inkling of whom I would be doing scenes with. Everyone was really nice! I hit the stage 5 times and did really good scenes. I'm happy with my audition.

Later last night, I attended another audition along with what seemed probably 60-80 other people over the course of the night. My group was probably 35-40 deep. The director made sure everyone felt as comfortable as possible by having everyone introduce themselves at the very beginning, thus, we could all be more comfortable as well as have bragging rights that we "auditioned for XYZ with ABC" (nothing like alphabet descriptions to describe an audition to other people). So, I got paired up with two other folks and off we went with script in hand to read, learn, and act out a very, very, hilarious scene where everybody's lines and emotions end in innuendo. We pulled it off and had a great scene. I performed a little lounge act afterwards at the director's request and watched others perform their individual talents.

We went out together afterwards and it turns out one of the guys I auditioned with is also from Texas! We reminisced about San Antonio and Austin and had a pretty good time. I was joined by a lass I had auditioned with for Conservatory and we played catchup/Conservatory tips & advice for a few moments. Her recollection of my audition was so different than mine. I remembered my first scene being ok and she remembered it being awesome Hey, who am I to argue with her!? LOL. So, it was cool to get some props by someone I auditioned with.

I feel pretty good. Tonight I've got a party to attend so I will take some time to celebrate my 2-0 audition day. Regardless of the outcome, it was a good day.

Currently listening : All Because of You By U2 Release date: By 03 November, 2005

Note: This was originally posted on MySpace with comments at:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&FriendID=16074757&blogMonth=6&blogDay=16&blogYear=2006