Author: Joe White

Forgot to mention in my Vegas trip report an unintentional test of my Sony-Ericsson T616 cell phone. Friday afternoon we were out in the hot tub, adn of course I had my cell phone with me (I had already fielded two calls from clients that day). I reached to move my phone out of the way so that I wouldn’t drip on it as I left the hot tub, but somehow I managed instead to deposit it in the hot tub. I immediately took it out and took off the battery, then got my pocket knife (which I hadn’t meant to bring on the trip, but had left it in my backpack from an earlier bikeride and it somehowmade it through security) and disassembled it, and put all the parts on the dashboard of the car. Sometimes desert heat can be your friend. I reassembled it a couple of hours later, and it had some problems with the screen, so I took it back apart and let it sit some more. I put it back together that evening, and it worked fine, and has ever since.

I say test #3, since this is not the first time I’ve gotten a cell phone wet. The first time was when Mike, Poncé and I managed to sink my little boat in Lake Austin…my Mototola StarTac did not fair too well after that. The second time was while I was working at Rice. I was doing my laundry, and heard an odd thumping sound in the dryer. I had left my phone in my jeans pocket. I did the whole disassembly and lay it on the dashboard (though not as dry as Vegas, Houston summers can be rather warm) while I was at work all day. I came out at the end of the day, put it back together, and had a working cellphone again.

I really get a sense of accomplishment when I complete the New York Times crossword puzzle. They increase in difficulty through the week; I’m not happy unless I can finish Monday’s in less than 10 minutes, and I’m ecstatic if I can finish Saturday’s at all (I did this week, with some help from Roy on the bus to College Station). Sunday’s is different: it is about Thursday-level difficulty, just bigger, and with a theme to many of the answers given in the title. This week’s was “Moving the Bar,” which I didn’t understand until I had gotten a few of the answers down…they were all phrases that had a letter ‘H’ changed to a letter ‘N’, hence, moving the bar. I particularly liked 22 Across: Clingy duchess? SARANFERGUSON.

David wanted to go to Vegas to see if he could get into theWorld Series of Poker; i had been talking with Greg about finding some time to go out there, adn we settled on the first weekend in May. Unfortunately Greg had to bow out, but David and I were still game (sorry), so this past Thursday morning we left my house at 4:45 am to drive to Intergalactic. We both bought through Priceline, and ended up on the same outbound flight, United, with a change in Denver. Got caught up on some sleep on the first leg, and finished Mort on the second. We got into Vegas around 11am, picked up the rental car (which somehow got changed into a red Mustang!), and drove to the Strip. We decided to try Ginseng Bar BQ II for lunch, and found it quite tasty, if a bit expensive. I dropped David off at Bellagio, then drove to the Merrill Lynch office to make the deposit I forgot to make the day before. It turned out to be across the street from Texas Station, so I ducked in there for a bit to get my feet wet. Left an hour later $200 richer…not a bad start.
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Each year, a whole mess of theater companies in town get together and hold joint auditions for the upcoming year. Each year, I forget about it until it is too late. But not this year. June 12 & 13 at Stages, by appointment only, register by June 4.

Here is the full info, and here is the audition form in .pdf.

This is a non-musical audition (drat), but many of the companies do musicals, and have call-back auditions later. This’ll at least get you on their radar.

My friend Maìre O’Brien was in town for an audition with HGO this week. I picked her up at Hobby Monday as was taking her to Goode Company Barbeque (motto: “You should give considerable thought to thanking your lucky stars you’re in Texas.” Agreed.). As we pulled up to the stoplight of MacGregor and 288, there was a guy with a sign saying “Hungry…please help” and some other things. The odd thing was, he was talking on his cell phone! He tried to turn so we couldn’t see it, but I just started laughing. He grinned, shrugged, and continued talking on the phone.