The Work Begins!

I’ve finally made it to DC! I’m more or less settled in my studio apartment(provided by The Kennedy Center) and have worked a couple of days.

Sunday, September 7th: I got to the airport on Sunday night and the first thing I learned was that my flight had been delayed. Unfortunately, it was delayed enough that I would have missed my connection flight to DC. So, JetBlue put me on a different flight, from San Jose to New York and New York to DC. It was kind of a rough flight because my stomach was a little upset, possibly because I’ve been waiting so long to start this new job. I only slept for about an hour and a half. The plane landed in New York and I took a shuttle to my next boarding gate. I sat down and went to take my book out(The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien) and realized that it wasn’t in my bag. I immediately knew that I had left it on the plan and bolted back to the gate I had just came out of. There was a security woman who helped me track down someone who could go back onto the plane and get my book. As we were standing there, the gate supervisor came out with a couple of books and a magazine. He asked me what my book was called and I said “The Hobbit” and there it was on the top of his stack! The flight from New York to DC was pretty uneventful. It was only about 45 min in the air and my stomach was feeling better so I slept for most of it.

Monday, September 8th: I flew into Dulles Airport which is just west of Washington, DC. I took a shuttle to the light rail(which is called the Metro) and took it to the Foggy Bottom-George Washington University stop. The Metro here is exactly like the BART in the Bay Area. Same turnstiles, same tickets, same trains except for the brown/orange/yellow colors that look like they’re from the 70’s. Even the Foggy Bottom-GWU stop looks like one of the Berkeley stops! It’s about a 2 ½ block walk from the station to the apartment. I dropped off my stuff and walked 3 blocks north to the Trader Joes to get some food. After that I called my boss, David Paige, and walked the 3 blocks south The Kennedy Center. David and I took the 26’ box truck and drove to the warehouse to pick up the set. It’s funny to drive a truck in DC because there are so many road restrictions that it takes a long time to get to a highway. Mostly this is because they don’t want you driving past some important buildings. So we picked up the set and took it to the shop that is going to do a little refurb on it then headed back to The Kennedy Center and finished off the day.

Tuesday, September 9th: The performers arrived today and we had a small meet and greet. Then the performers started rehearsal and I got down to work. Right now it’s a bunch of paper work and contacting people. Nothing too exciting for this first week, that’s for sure.

Overall things are going well. I’ve just about adjusted to Eastern Time mostly because of my red eye flight.

Hope all is well! Take care!