Category: Daily Life

Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.

Posted on by — 5 Comments

Knoxville’s Riviera Stadium 8 Grand Opening Celebration

Knoxville Riviera Theatre
Photo taken 8/18/07 by patti74_99

The new Regal Cinema on Gay Street opens this week. I will be juggling from 5pm to 6:30pm at the Opening Night Celebration. My understanding is that it is a street party although the first press release I read implied invite only. Same press release, different location.

Ah! Here is some better information. Looks like the events within the theatre are invitation only while a street party is being held for the public. I will be juggling in the street party. Watch for the fire! Michael Messing will be performing magic and there should be other entertainers.

On Monday, August 27, the Regal Riviera will host an Opening Night Celebration. On this evening, there will be an invitation-only party to celebrate the new theatre and recognize those who made this theatre project possible. The public is welcome to enjoy a “Street Party” on this evening as well. This free event will be held on Gay Street just outside the new Riviera. The “Street Party” will feature a live performance by East Tennessee’s own RobinElla and a ceremonial ticket tearing to commemorate the opening of the new theatre.

The exciting week of promotional events continues on Tuesday, August 28, Wednesday, August 29 and Thursday, August 30. Everyone is invited to these Preview Events for $1 movies, $1 popcorn and $1 soft drinks with proceeds benefiting local charities. Through September 30th Riviera patrons will be able to enter Regal Cinemas “Rediscover Downtown” Sweepstakes to win a $2,000 prize pack: $500 Regal Cinemas Gift Card, $500 Mast General Store Card plus $1,000 to spend as you like downtown. No purchase is necessary. Sweepstakes rules are available at the theatre.

On Thursday, August 30 there will be added entertainment available at the Riviera Stadium 8 with a free fireworks show presented by Pyro Shows. The night-time sky will light up at 9:30pm with a spectacular display choreographed to popular movie theme songs simulcast on WIVK 107.7 FM. The “Salute to Cinema Fireworks Show” will be easily viewed from all across downtown Knoxville with additional fireworks accentuating the Regal Riviera’s marquee on Gay Street.

[Source]

I think it is very interesting that the site of the theater is the same as the 1920’s Rivieria Theater. Good move Knoxville! From the Knox Heritage site:

510 South Gay Street – Riviera Theatre (1920)
Art Deco, two story brick with corbelled cornice, projecting engaged pilasters. Chicago window in central of three bays, flanked by two smaller windows. Vertical mullions divide top side and all windows are topped by transoms divided vertically. Flat roof. Altered storefront. GONE-Demolished in 1988.

The Riviera was built in 1920 into an existing Victorian building that stood on the east side of the 500 block of Gay Street. It featured a Wurlitzer organ and the innovative “Typhoon” ventilation system. It seated more than 1,000 and was hailed as “a shrine of the silent art.” It christened what would be more than half a century of movies with DeMille’s silent film, Conrad In Search Of His Youth.

Like most theaters, the Riviera featured its share of live entertainment, from dancer Ginger Rogers to early jazz bands like the popular local orchestra Maynard Baird’s Southland Serenaders.

In 1927 the Riviera showed what was almost certainly the only big-studio film shot in this area during the silent era, Stark Love. The star of the controversial film, which included a brief nude scene, was Helen Mundy, a reluctant actress whom the director had discovered in a downtown Knoxville soda fountain. The movie was a national sensation for about a week, hailed by some critics as one of the great films of the year; then, like its ambivalent star, it was forgotten.

The Riviera burned in 1963, sending an audience who had come to watch the special-effects adventure film Jason and the Argonauts fleeing into the street. Except for the façade, it was considered a near total loss but, remarkably, was restored, less grandly, in a matter of months, and reopened with the Audrey Hepburn/Cary Grant thriller, Charade. It continued showing films until Adios Amigo in early 1976, followed by a series of second-run films the following summer; after that came a dozen years of broken dreams, as one developer after another proposed reopening the Riviera as a performing arts center, a dinner theater or an “ultramodern” office building. Though there was a sentimental effort to restore the theater in the 1970s. The rear of the building, for years, displayed a large black-and-white mural of Charlie Chaplin, clearly visible from James White Parkway.

The building was torn down around 1988 with little comment. The site is now paved for a parking lot.

[Source]

They should update that bit about the parking lot. Cinema Treasures has another reference to the 1920s Riviera. See you in the streets!

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The Boy Scouts tried to kill me today

Sarah passes her swim test with photographic evidence

I was debating not going on next month’s boyscout outing. I enjoy the outings very much! But they can be expensive and money is heavy on my mind right now. I came to my senses and decided not to deny the boys. As a matter of fact, I’ve offered to include Sarah in the weekend’s activities. So next month, Tommy, Noah, Sarah and I will go to Camp Pellissippi for a canoe derby. We will have canoe racing and see how many people we can fit into a single boat and so forth. It should be much fun.

Scouting is very safety conscious. To do activities like this in scouting requires a medical form stating one is in good health. Water activities require a swim test within the past 6 months. My test was this morning. Just before I got in the water I slammed down my last swig of coffee. I had to do 6 laps with power strokes and then 2 laps with a resting backstroke. I was doing fine and had the lungs and strength to do a lap without even raising my head although my 2nd and 3rd lap included taking breaths just to not wear myself out. At the end of my 3rd lap, it hit me! A feeling like indigestion! I couldn’t get a full lung of air! What I wanted to do more than anything in the world was a world class belch! Have you ever had one of those? Maybe you just chugged a carbonated beverage and then you feel the need to burp but its stuck in your chest just below your sternum? If you can only work it out, the reverberating bass tones emanating from your mouth surely would shake walls and register on the Richter scale. Those last 3 laps were horrible. I wanted to be polite and not burp but I wanted to be able to get some air and not look like I was struggling to do a simple swim. What a terribly uncomfortable feeling!

I passed. I blame the coffee for the tough moment!

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Accident Update

We were rear ended on Thursday. The girl’s insurance company called me asking that I take the van to the Knoxville Collision Center on Lexington who assured me that there was no damage. To make sure he wasn’t just brushing me off, I went so far as to quipped, "The insurance company is paying via direct bill. Are you sure there isn’t anything you want to fix?" He explained in detail how my bumper was normal and that the car was structurally sound. "Can’t fix what’s not broken." Wow! Did we ever dodge a bullet! I feel horrible that the girl’s car got smashed in the parking lot while we waited for the police to arrive.

Posted on by — 13 Comments

Hit from behind

We were on Lyons View Rd, where the wealthy houses are, and a garden truck backs into the road with the aid of a home owner motioning to stop traffic. I’m not going to drive through that large truck nor race around the back of it so I slow to a stop only to heard the dreaded squeal of tires. Some college girl decides she wants to park in the back of our van instead of the parking garage at the mall where she was heading. So much for the joyously good mood I was in. When I heard the tires I released the brake and accelerated a little so the impact was minor. I’m sure we will be sore and I am worried about the children but we turned down the ambulance and have decided not to see the doctors. The bumper hangs a little lower on the back right corner but it is almost unnoticeable. I heard the squeal. I just couldn’t find her in the rear view mirror. Something was wrong. I should have been able to see this coming and move out of the way!

She couldn't stopDamage not really noticableHe backs into her doorThe Benz made this dent in her car

We pulled into the Cherokee Bigotry Club because state law says if no one is hurt we clear the scene. Their big parking lot made sense. I point at some damage on her car and she says, "that’s from a different one." While waiting for the police to show up, a Mercedes Benz backs into the driver’s door of the college girl. That’s when I started looking for the cameras because surely this was a joke! After waiting a bit, the old guy in the Benz who owns a construction company doing work at the country club lectured us about being on private property and drove off. I took a moment to give him a few lecturing words of my own before he drove away.

Dammit. Now I have to spend the next 5 years berating myself and trying to figure out what I could have done differently to prevent this!

Update: I should add that when I called non-emergency I got no answer so I had to use 911 which the automated system put me on hold.

Update: Body shop said the bumper did its job and there is no damage to repair.

Posted on by — 5 Comments

Perhaps I could handle boredom

I have been working for myself for 10 years. I have made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of lessons. I have had feast and famine…lots of famine. All in all, I have had to work my tail off to survive as a consultant. Recruiters and headhunters periodically call me to see if I would be interested in full time employment. Ha! I work more than full time right now! Sure I could cut back to work for a corporation that provided such novelties as health care and vacation time. The recruiters have made it clear that I am the last ColdFusion application developer in Knoxville that does not already work for Scripps, Bush Beans, Clayton Homes, Jewelry Television, or SAIC. Naturally I accept the interview but I have to be careful. A consultant’s clients are fickle. If the client thinks you will not be around to support them, they will choose a different consultant. And since I make the details of my life very public through this website, you can bet my clients know what I am doing with my time!

I am very happy with the work I do and the clients who work with me. As a professional, I do entertain interviews with companies which offer health care and benefits but I could quite happily continue life as a consultant until I die. Recent interviews have proven that may very well be my destiny.

The grass is always greener over the septic tank. Corporate 8 to 5ers working their 40 to 50 hour exempt salaried positions long for the wealth and flexibility of the expensive hourly consultant who apparently can take weeks and months off at a time. The starving consultant tired of dealing with penny pinching deadbeat clients longs for the security and simplicity of cubeville. Consultancy is easy to begin. You have a skillset and may even have a potential client base (unethically borrowed from your current corporate surroundings). The water is deep and there are no ladders out of the pool. In the beginning, when you jump in, people may notice and offer you a hand or even give you the chance to quickly get out, returning you to the sanity of your Herman Miller furniture after having tasted the brutal waters. Over time as you try to dog paddle, and build your ship which will undoubtedly sail you into early retirement, the corporate world shuns you. After a decade you become unhireable.

Cat in a bathConsultants quickly become feral. If a consultant rejoins a corporation, that consultant might pee in the plants, or bite a client! Approaching a cube with an ex-consultant is risky because they might be naked, in their pajamas, or not there at all having come into work at midnight and taken the day off. How is an OCD micromanager to deal with such unpredictability!

Over the past two plus years I have entertained a handful of interviews and not received a single offer. Instead I have had such gems as:

You interviewed great! We were really looking forward to working with you but you failed the personality test.

That came from a 1300 person office. I am really hoping that they meant "we make sure all of our employees are clones" and not "we really think society would benefit if you had yourself locked away."

We think you would be bored in this position.

You know, if the job was easy enough that I would find myself bored, perhaps I would have time to do some professional development for myself or process improvement for the company. Maybe I could actually work normal hours instead of every waking moment! Or maybe I could write one of those business plans or websites for myself that I have wanted to start over the past decade. I think I could handle bored.

Every consultant we have ever hired has left within 6 months to go back into consulting.

There might be something to that one. Of course, it could be that company’s environment just is not conducive to a consultant type. Or perhaps consultants truly cannot make the transition back into 8 to 5 work. I have always said that an entrepreneur can be an 8 to 5er but not all 8 to 5ers can be entrepreneurs. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe entrepreneurs have to be entrepreneurial.

We are concerned that you would be uncomfortable in our structured environment.

Consultants are feral and icky. I have worked sitting on the floor of a closet. I have worked on desks that were made of doors laid across filing cabinets. I have had my own office and I have worked in cubes. Currently I work in a basement with a spider infestation. Throw it at me! I can take it. I think what they might really be saying is "you are a rebel and we don’t understand you. We are afraid you might be disruptive to our structured environment."

What did interviewing do for me? I think it has secured my position as a consultant, assured my current clients that I will be around for a long time to come, and inspired me to work harder to provide for my family those things, such as health care, vacation, and retirement, that a corporate job normally provides. Sure, I will continue to accept interviews for maybe one day a perfect fit will come along, but the grass is no longer that much greener on the corporate hills.

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Sleep less but when you do sleep hard

I am doing one of those things right now where I am trading a few years from the end of my life for some time now. Trying to sleep a little less and work a little more. But it catches up to you and last night I think you could have poked me with a stick and I wouldn’t have moved. So all the time I planned on working while others slept has to be moved to today.

I am trying to make the older children more responsible for themselves. That means I may wake them (once) but they are really responsible for getting themselves out of bed, dressed, fed, and off to the bus. Noah likes to get lost in his reading so this morning he left 15 minutes late. He hasn’t returned so perhaps he got lucky and did not miss the bus. The older two are allowed to go to school an hour late on Wednesdays which means I need to carpool them. They seem more on top of things. They were very concerned that I made them late last week so I expect no problems today (unless I make them late again).

Now, for better sleep:

  • Nap every single day
  • Avoid taking a hot bath
  • Make your room cold
  • Exercise intensely
  • Limit red wine
  • Expose yourself to bright light/sunlight soon after waking up in the morning
  • Don’t watch TV
  • Block out noise
  • Find a bedtime ritual that works for you
  • Do what it takes to manage stress in your life
  • Keep pen and notebook next to your bed

[Source]

Be sure to read 11 Unconventional Sleep Tips: How to Get to Sleep and Stay Asleep for the details and explanations.

Improve Memory by Reducing Stress Click image to read. See King Features for more comics

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Rough day for the bus

School Buses

Tommy is a senior this year. His whole school career he has either been driven to school or ridden "the short bus." A special needs bus with 7 to 13 students with a variety of handicaps and disabilities (along with no trained aid – soapbox issue) is far different from a full size bus with..oh, 40 to 60 students. Tommy is riding the regular bus for the first time in his life. So far it has been a good experience. This morning however, he miss his bus by 30 seconds. Ran up the street just in time to see it pulling away. That had to be frustrating to a person who is used to a bus pulling up in front of his house and honking the horn then patiently waiting while he rose from bed, dressed himself, grabbed a Poptart, and leisurely hobbled to the bus.

This day continues to be hard for Tommy bus-wise. Apparently a student got on the bus without a note authorizing that student to get be on that bus. The bus is returning to the school and a small riot is occurring on the bus. An irate Tommy called to complain to me. Obviously, he had joined in with the other students to raise voice and gripe. I think I talked him down from such a mistake. This is a difficult situation for an Aspie.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Such an inappropriate dad

Tommy's first backpacking trip

Tommy missed his bus this morning so I had to drive him in. On the way to school I asked him about his camping trip this past weekend and how he was feeling. Now I like esoteric humor and double entendre and often for my own entertainment include references in my conversations that simply are missed or go over people’s heads without changing the flow or meaning of our discussion. I entertain myself this way. I asked Tommy if he used the latrine in the woods then to be clear I added, "Did you shit in the woods?" I was making a reference to this book and realizing that Tommy would not have a clue I corrected myself, "Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that." and Tommy interjected, "There’s a book with that title." He got it! He caught the hidden reference! Tommy never ceases to amaze me.

Posted on by — 2 Comments

Dear Sarah

I know you are a flighty teenager with boys on your mind and you know everything. Yes, parents are stupid. It is a miracle that we were able to figure out how to put tab A into slot B and produce a child whose intelligence far exceeds our own. I understand that we, as parents, somehow managed to live a very sheltered life and that in your mere 14 years you have accumulated far more life experiences and wisdom than we could ever hope for ourselves. Of course, we also went straight from our own mothers’ birth canals to adulthood so we in no way can relate to your teenage predilections (look it up). Now, I know it is a condition of our own ignorance that we lay such importance on silly, mundane things like putting clothes in the laundry instead of leaving them on the floor. Being organized helps our simple minds which is why we ride you so to live a clutter free and structured life. Do it for us! I can overlook the laziness of the clothing; however, please be sure to unplug your hair straightener. Being a dumb adult, I might grab the wrong end and burn myself. More importantly, being a toddler, with a decade left before he knows everything, Evan might burn himself. Oh, and since you already know everything and one day will be living on your own, certainly you can appreciate the fire hazard this tool presents. Wuv ya!