WESTWARD BOUND!

This is our first “blog”. We figured this would be the best way to keep all of our friends and family in the loop ... PLUS you can all see pictures.

Our flights couldn’t have been smoother and for the first time our bags didn’t get lost! (although paying to check 4 large bags hurt the piggy bank… ouch). We had a 3 hour lay over in Denver… my now favorite airport. We killed the time at a Belgium restaurant in the airport. A guy named Jake was our bartender and upon our arrival at the bar shook our bands and introduced himself – I was borderline shocked at the extreme hospitality and then realized people only get nicer the further west you go … which means I should get nicer. Here’s to sunshine and smiles.

We landed at 7:30pm, got our rental car right at our terminal at the Burbank Airport (p.s. if anyone plans to someday come visit us… fly into Burbank, it’s WAY closer to us), picked up some things at Target, stopped by our friend Jared’s house, ate some Chinese, and then headed to our new apartment around 10pm. Since we landed after the leasing office had closed, our leasing agent agreed to leave our apartment unlocked. And what do you know we show up and the door is locked! So back to Jared’s house we go to spend the night. THANK GOD he lives less than 5 minutes down the road from us. It’s so nice having a close friend so close nearby. ANYWAY, the next morning I got dropped off at the leasing office with all 20 million of our bags and was able to get into our place, while Alex went to his interview with John Keane. Which, by the way, HE GOT!!!!

YES, ALEX GOT THE JOB!! Alex is now the music editor/assistant to the composer for CSI: Las Vegas! Alex has always dreamed of working with John Keane. Ever since he got to Berklee, Alex tried contacting him and sent him his music every year for critique. I, along with all of you, knew he would get it. I just knew it! The interview was yesterday (Wednesday) and today was his first day. There is a lot he has to learn, a lot of Pro Tools short cuts and troubleshooting that he isn’t familiar with – but anyone who knows Alex knows he will absolutely rise to the challenge. I’m so excited for him!! He’ll already prepared 4 temp tracks that will be on next week’s episode. Yeah … I don’t really know what that means either. But the way I semi-understand it is like this: the director, composer, and sometimes Alex meet and come up with the places in the show where music will be and decide what kind. This is called “spotting”. Alex then takes the spotting notes and goes to John’s HUGE database of over 3,000 cues (a cue is the filmscoring equivalent to a “song”), picks the appropriate music (that was previously written for other episodes) according to the spotting notes, and edits it into the scene, and then gives it to John, who then writes new music over it. This saves SO much time. And once Alex gets the swing of things, they will be able to finish an episode a day. CRAZY STUFF!!!

And as for me I am not yet employed. We have no internet until Thursday 10/9, so I’m a bit stalled…. But I’ve been able to use Jared’s internet here and there and something should surface in a week or two.

Our apartment is GORGEOUS!! WE LOVE IT!!! There is a HUGE porch that connects the studio (2nd bedroom) and the living room, gas fireplace in the living room w/ a beautiful white mantel and dark grey slate at the base. We have a beautiful new kitchen and bathroom. The cabinets are white and recently referbished, carpets are brand new sand colored. It’s perfect for us just starting out. The only bizarre thing about the place is that all of the light switches are like two and a half feet high from the ground. Alex is convinced it was at one time a “little person” apartment. He can’t even get his head under the shower head – no lie! It comes up to his neck. It’s actually funny. It reminds us of Bill Murray in Lost in Translation. Now we just are waiting for our stuff to arrive. Its torture not having my kitchen stuff! Last night we went to Ralph’s (LA version of Shaws) the Grocery store to get finger foods for a few days. We bought a bottle of wine and while standing in the check out we realized we need a wine opener. So we bought one. We get home and as I’m about to open the wine, it dawns on me that I have nothing to drink it out of. And no, I did not drink it out of the bottle - I should have though:). We also neglected to get plastic plates and utensils, so today for lunch I microwaved frozen pesto pasta dinner thing and ate it with a pairing knife.

We’ll get a hold of this thing sooner or later.

Until then….


LOVE YOU ALL,

sd

(P.S. Pictures to come soon!)