24 Days

Ahhhh, I know "Annie" performances are in full swing when I don't wake up until 11:45am the next morning. After the 7pm performances, people are usually so jazzed (including me) that it's hard to get to sleep. Last night, select members of the cast and orchestra went to McMenamins to eat. I decided to pass because the real fun happens when everyone follows tradition and heads to Abby's Legendary Pizza after a Saturday performance..... which would be tonight. A friend of mine in the cast threatened me with a Facebook rant if I didn't show up at McMenamins last night, so I'm currently waiting for that. It's back to the grind tonight, and a matinee tomorrow.

Favorite song of the moment: On A Night Like This by Dave Barnes.

*REMINDER*: For everyone in the vicinity of Roseburg, OR, come see Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at Music on the Half Shell this coming Tuesday evening! I'll be there dancing and having fun, so I'd love for you to come and join me. The group is great. They're incredibly talented and really have a stage presence. Check out their website.

27 Days

I love music.

  It feels so great to be contributing to an operation with so many other talented people. "Annie" is going to be a great musical for UCC's Musical Theater Festival this summer. Not only are some of my friends among these talented people, I get to meet new artists each year I participate.
  This year, I'm saddling up to play flute, clarinet, alto saxophone, and soprano saxophone. It's been a real pleasure taking on the task of Reed 1, despite the fact that there are no double reed parts (cue the astonished gasps). The rehearsals get longer as opening night draws near, but that doesn't mean the hilarity decreases. Antics ensue each night and we all have our fair share of laughs. This evening our orchestra conductor, Jason Heald, was mid-sentence when he said, "...hold on" and proceeded to climb out of the orchestra pit into the house. Now, I don't mean walked up the stairs to backstage, I mean literally went up a wall that seemed to have no visible footholds. It probably helped that he has at least 8 inches on most of us in the orchestra pit. We were all left with slightly bemused, yet amused looks on our faces. It's the little things, you know? :)

Annie plays at UCC for the next two weekends (July 28th-31st and Aug 4th-7th), Thursday-Sunday. Sunday's show is a matinee. Times are 7:30pm for Thursday-Saturday, and Sunday at 2pm.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been making a list of places I would like to travel while abroad. I'm hoping to get to a decent amount of them. Some are touristy, while others are a little off the beaten path.

Barcelona, Spain
London, England
Rome, Italy
Santorini, Greece
Bath, England
Inverness, Scotland
Prague, Czech Republic
Moscow, Russia
Monaco
Nice, France
Margraten, Netherlands
Paris, France
Venice, Italy
The Black Forest, Germany
Istanbul, Turkey
Cairo, Egypt
more to come.....

I can't believe it's less than a month until I leave for France. Insane! I'm really hoping to be able to get addresses from the people who want me to write them, so I can send them postcards. It's always nice getting something in the mail besides junk and bills (which, I guess can be classified as junk too).

About my blog, I'm really flattered that people actually take the time to read it. I've had people come up to me and say they enjoy my blog who didn't even cross my mind as someone who would read it, let alone know about it. So for you reading this. Yes you. Thank you so much, and I will try to make it as interesting as possible with what I write and what I share as far as photos, websites, videos and more.

You know what song is awesome? Take A Back Road by Rodney Atkins. If you're not into country, my apologies. It's just a feel-good song. Another one of my favorites is from the end credits of the movie Tangled. It's called Something That I Want by Grace Potter. This is definitely a song you can get up and dance to.... if you're a girl. If you're a guy by all means, bust a move - although you might face judgment if you're in the company of other guys. Just a warning.

Well, I think this post has gone on long enough. In the words of Tigger, TTFN, ta-ta for now!

Mac OS X Lion!

Got Mac OS X Lion today!

And flirted with a tech support guy who helped me fix some problems that Lion caused with iPhoto. Fun times.

Victoria!

As I get ready for work today (and then proceed to call and see if we're actually working instead of just waiting for the berries to not be wet) I figured I might as well lay on the bitching.....

Aside from work (which is a whole other inconvenience) I'm asked to babysit Nikki, a dog I sitted for 10 days at the beginning of July. Now, you may ask, "Why are you complaining about that! You get paid!" - it is not just the job I'm complaining about. If work decides to call me in, I'll be working from 9-5 then I'll need to head straight to rehearsal for the southern Oregon Music Festival's production of "Annie", for which I am in the orchestra pit. After that rehearsal (that gets over at 11pm at the earliest) I head straight to the dog and spend the night with her. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. For a week at Nikki's, then another week actually living at my own house. Oh how I long for the comfortable nights in my own bed. It's a rarity these days. From dogsitting overnight at a different house, to handing my room over for house guests (as is the case right now), I have almost started to forget what my room looks like!

Now onto work.
Because it's blueberry packing, we rely on people to pick the blueberries. Simple enough. But when it rains, the people who do such job aren't able to pick them. That means all the packers just standing around all day until they (hopefully) get called in. That was my situation all day yesterday. I never ended up getting recruited. Also, they seem to have an incomplete phone tree, since I drove 20 miles in to the blueberry barn and then was promptly told "We're not working today, didn't anyone call you?". Of course they called me! I just wanted to come in and act like an idiot, put all my things away and get ready for a long days' work of mindlessly sorting blueberries on a moving conveyer belt. Of course they called me and told me we weren't working! (-_-)........

Anywho, onto more happy things. I made and uploaded a geocache onto the website. :)

Now for the reason for the title of this post. I have an awesome ladyfriend who, not too long ago, landed in Denmark and will be residing there for the next year. She's pretty stressed out with everything, so I send her warm fuzzies through the air, and I hope that you would take about a second and a half out of your day to do the same. It's amazing what positive influence well-wishes have on other people :).

Just about anything is more fun than getting up early and waiting to see if you work or not. Even searching for compression socks.

**UPDATE**
I called Norris Farms, and after having been hung up on once, I'm told they don't need me until 11am today and that they'll be going really late tonight and probably a lot of other nights (think midnight or later). And to think, I could have gotten more sleep today. Drat.

Poitiers, France

So I've decided to research and compare the weather in Poitiers, France (where I'll be living) and Roseburg, Oregon, USA.

POITIERS

January	Avg Low: 36°	Avg High: 46°	Avg precip: 1.76 in
February	Avg Low: 35°	Avg High: 48°	Avg precip: 1.24 in
March	Avg Low: 38°	Avg High: 55°	Avg precip: 1.02 in
April	Avg Low: 41°	Avg High: 59°	Avg precip: 1.54 in
May	Avg Low: 47°	Avg High: 67°	Avg precip: 1.48 in
June	Avg Low: 53°	Avg High: 73°	Avg precip: 1.23 in
July	Avg Low: 56°	Avg High: 78°	Avg precip: 1.41 in
August	Avg Low: 56°	Avg High: 78°	Avg precip: 1.06 in
September	Avg Low: 51°	Avg High: 72°	Avg precip: 1.44 in
October	Avg Low: 47°	Avg High: 63°	Avg precip: 2.13 in
November	Avg Low: 39°	Avg High: 52°	Avg precip: 1.89 in
December	Avg Low: 37°	Avg High: 47°	Avg precip: 1.76 in

ROSEBURG

Month

Avg. High

Avg. Low

Mean

Avg. Precip

Record High

Record Low

Jan

50°F

35°F

42°F

4.97 in.

72°F (2005)

9°F (1980)

Feb

55°F

37°F

46°F

4.10 in.

78°F (1995)

3°F (1989)

Mar

60°F

38°F

49°F

3.81 in.

85°F (2003)

24°F (1985)

Apr

65°F

41°F

53°F

2.75 in.

95°F (1998)

26°F (1968)

May

71°F

46°F

58°F

1.82 in.

102°F (2001)

29°F (1972)

Jun

78°F

51°F

64°F

0.92 in.

106°F (1992)

36°F (1977)

Jul

86°F

55°F

70°F

0.44 in.

111°F (2009)

41°F (1977)

Aug

86°F

55°F

70°F

0.67 in.

110°F (2002)

41°F (1973)

Sep

81°F

50°F

65°F

1.07 in.

105°F (1998)

34°F (1970)

Oct

69°F

44°F

57°F

2.27 in.

101°F (1991)

21°F (2002)

Nov

56°F

40°F

48°F

5.42 in.

78°F (2002)

12°F (1978)

Dec

49°F

35°F

42°F

5.42 in.

73°F (1980)

3°F (1990)

So Poitiers is located on the 46 degree Latitude and Roseburg, on the 43 degree Latitude. For a comparison, I'll let you know that Portland is on the 45 degree Latitude. Since I've lived in Portland, I know what that weather can be like, and latitude plays a part in it. Here's Portland's report (pardon the different report layout)....


                      JAN    FEB    MAR   APR  MAY  JUN   JUL    AUG  SEP  OCT  NOV  DEC

Portland
High Temp	45.5	50.1	55.5	60.8	67.0	72.6	78.9	79.1	74.2	63.0	51.4	45.5
Low Temp	36.7	38.5	40.7	43.5	48.5	53.2	57.3	57.9	54.6	48.1	41.8	37.3
Precip	6.24	5.07	4.51	3.10	2.49	1.60	.76	.99	1.87	3.39	6.39	6.75

So it seems that Poitiers is a little colder than Roseburg by a couple degrees on average, and it's closer to Portland's average weather. Good to know that I won't need to pack much differently than what I would be wearing here. :)

I hope it snows in Poitiers at least once. 

And now.... to watch something on Netflix!

What I'm currently listening to..... Adele: 21