Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Leaving with a different perspective

In the many years that I have toured and traveled for work it has never been easy to leave home. Nobody wants to leave a partner, friends, or your own bed.
But now that we are expecting it has made that feeling a lot more intense. I have a new respect for all my friends who tour and have to leave their kids at home for weeks or months. I mean, our baby still has a few months before he/she comes out and it was hard to leave. For all those who have to leave their families for work I salute you.
I started this trip on a red eye flight out of SFO on a Sat night and ended in the Bahamas about 9 hours later.
All things considered it was an easy trip. I have been living in the Bay Area for over 12 years now so I have grown accustomed to the mild climate. It is hot and humid here so just walking around the resort property wore me out. Granted it is 1/2 mile between the stages I am working but still I was just walking and I was struggling with the heat. My 1st day here was spent finding my way around and going to meetings. Any hope I had of laying by the pool faded pretty quickly.
There was much speculation over the quality of production we would encounter here. It has been a mixed bag. The quality of labor has been better than expected but the equipment management has been less than stellar. We are pretty confident that the equipment we need is somewhere on the island. However, most of it is still left from the last show that was here and therefore has to be sorted from the strike we did the day before. Adjusting to the work pace has been a struggle also. Things just take more time here.
Today is the big push day. We will have 3 different venues loading in at the same time. I am managing 2 and assisting on the 3rd. I will have to rely heavily on the local production crew. I am hopeful that equipment management will improve and that we will see more gear arrive at the right time in the right place.
But hey it could be worse. We have not had a hurricane. Yet.

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