News

Good blog posts should be a lot of things. They should be pithy and insightful, engaging and delightful, interesting and thought-provoking, whimsical, and spiteful. In all, though, they should be revealing.

I could read a thousand blogs before I came across one that did anything to tell me Why. Any blog can tell you What. Why is a much more elusive subject. I'm treating this post as an exercise in writing about Why and What. First, I'd like to write about Why.

Jen Rose is the best reason I have in this world for doing the best I can at everything. She inspires me to try just a little harder, because there is no greater reward to me than her smiling confidence that I am wonderful. Heaven forbid she finds out the truth. :) Still, as unfocused as I am with my life and what I'd like to do with it, she provides me with constant support and affection. These things might not steer the ship, but they sure as hell keep wind in the sails.

When I met her in college, I really didn't know what to make of her. She was tomboy-ish, but no less feminine for it. She was brilliant, but approachable. She cared. She graduated ahead of me, yet she didn't do what so many of us do when we change our titles from "Student" to "Alumnus" -- she stayed in touch. She would write in her journal, send emails, and visit often, despite living hundreds of miles away. I once considered her as a long shot to ever date me at all.

Especially after she dated my roommate, and especially after she moved away.

Ah, but time spins on, and I met her again for the first time last spring in Houghton, Michigan, of all places. She went up there to see me. She traveled all that way to take extremely cold showers, help with a Brothers Retreat, and spend time with me. That last part astounds me. She has no definition for "too far" when it comes to being with the people for whom she cares. She has worked so hard to keep our long-distance relationship running. Harder than me, that's for sure. I can't keep up with her. Despite getting no sleep, commuting in obscene traffic, dealing with four cats and two dogs, and working for the grand-daddy of all bureaucracies in the Federal Government, she still found the energy to date a lonely, self-pitying Roanoker afraid to leave home.

Why she is all these amazing things and Why she would choose me are both mysteries to me. Why a good-looking gal would get caught up in a relationship with me is beyond me.

But ultimately, that's Why I asked her to marry me.

And that's What I'm writing about.

You'll have to ask her Why she said yes.

Invasion

One of the aspects of my job about which I haven't written much is that I'm the volunteer coordinator, on top of everything else I do. When I was out of town a couple of weeks ago, the museum apparently entered into a contract with the Roanoke City Court-Community Corrections department. Resultantly, we've had a daily influx of people looking to fulfill community service requirements at the museum.

Initially, this doesn't sound so bad. We're guaranteed that these folks have not been convicted of violent crimes, or crimes of theft or vandalism. Mainly, this is the traffic violation crowd. Moreover, we're guaranteed that they'll show up for work. So, there are some benefits.

The biggest downside, however, is that I was caught totally off-guard. When three of them showed up my first day back to work after vacation, I had absolutely nothing for them to do. I actively pursue volunteers for the museum. I utilize volunteer websites, I call schools, church groups, and community clubs. I send out fliers to various public venues, and I arrange for small groups to do projects that I have pre-prepared. This system works great for me, and has yielded good results for the museum. The mother of all monkey wrenches got thrown into my system by this immigration of speeders and parking ticket collectors. Had I known they were coming, I could have had some things for them to do, but, we've had two per day on average, and right now I just don't have enough.

To ice this particular cake, the Executive Director has been out of town since I got back, so he's been zero help at trying to tell the court that we're swamped. I would do it, but I don't even know who the contact is, and my phone calls have all met voice mails that have obviously not been heard, or cared about. The ED is back tomorrow, and we're scheduled for a meeting on this, thankfully.

Meanwhile, with school out for the summer, the parents of some of our Junior Volunteers have assumed us to be a babysitting service. They drop their kids off when we open, and pick them up on their way home from work. Never mind if I don't have enough for five 13-year olds to do. There they are. I've got to make some phone calls on this. I never thought I'd say it, but we've got more hands than we know what to do with right now.

Objectively, there are worse problems to have.

What am I paying for?

I went to see a movie today, as I've done nearly every Independence Day as long as I can remember. Seeing it only reminded me of something I've meant to write about for quite some time.

I recall that, as a kid, I would see three, maybe four movie previews before the actual film started. I'm fine with that, and I kind of enjoy seeing what's coming. Moreover, I know that this helps keep ticket prices down as trailers are essentially paid advertisements by movie companies. Now, though, in addition to my three or four trailers, I've got ten minutes of advertisements. I ask why.

In the past few years, the prevalence of these ads has grown along with ticket prices. I can only assume the ads do the same thing as the trailers -- make money for the movie producers and distributors to keep prices down to me. So why do my ticket prices still go up as the number of ads goes up?

I suppose we can point to rising production costs. CGI, as widespread as it is, ain't cheap. Movies rather routinely post $100 million budgets and more. Once you factor in movies with things that fly or explode, you can just start multiplying those numbers. I get that movies are expensive to make.

But I'm growing very annoyed. Today I saw ads for Cadillac, Coca-Cola, and the ABC Family television network. This was before five movie previews followed by -- this still has me baffled -- a two-minute video extolling the virtues of the digital projection technology used in this particular theater. If that weren't enough, I get the obligatory theater ad, though "ad" is a generous term for what seems like little more than a video montage about how cool the cinema is.

Total running time for ads, trailers, digital projection thing, and cinema ad: 19 minutes. My movie was supposed to start at 4:00. At 4:19, it started rolling.

So, really, with my personal ticket payment, and with my concession donation ($10 for a drink and popcorn can only be considered a tax write-off, really), what exactly isn't being recouped by the movie producers and distributors? What aren't they getting from a national average of nearly $20 per person that they need twenty minutes of advertising to off-set?

What am I paying for?

Career change... er, addendum

After discussions with The Girlfriend, I've had to acknowledge that while my current job is probably the most fun job I'll ever have, it isn't the last job I'll ever have. I always knew that, but I guess it's one thing to know it and another to realize it. So I'm considering a career addendum. Not a change, but a supplement.

I love my job and want to take it as far as it will take me, but in the non-profit world, career growth is not always tied to financial growth. There is, however, a lucrative additional potential for income not at all related to my career, and totally related to my dusty college degree.

I've been arranging complete scores for Patrick Henry High School's marching band (or at least for their front ensemble) for the past three years. Prior to that, I arranged a full score for Indian High School in North Carolina. Do I get paid for these things? You bet. Could I be paid more? Surely (I've gotten better at arranging with each one). Can I expand my offerings to other schools? Abso-friggin-lutely.

I've done the math on it, and it looks like this. I can arrange a score for front ensemble in about three weeks. Variables such as instrumentation changes or mid-season tweaks can throw those figures off a bit, but three weeks is about what it takes for an eight or nine minute show. If I were to hire myself out for this, I could produce at least four scores each year for that year's season, probably more. Most marching bands don't go to camp until August, and most directors don't pick their music until March or April, so I'm figuring 12 weeks interim at three weeks per score. If a director picks his/her music early, there's no reason I can't get started sooner. For a conservative estimate, let's just say four scores per season.

I'm currently billing at $30.00/hour for this, and each score probably comes in at around 20 hours of work, so that's $600 per score, times four scores, and there's $2400 I could make in three months totally in my spare time.

Now, if I were to expand my offerings to concert and/or symphonic repetoire, I could stay busy year-round. I could work on commission, or I could just arrange things in my free time and have them published and collect the royalties as they may come. Win-win.

I'll have to think on this more, but I'm cautiously excited.

NoVA

I'm headed to northern Virginia this weekend to visit the little woman. I made an interesting discovery whilst in college about that area. Despite a nearly universally accepted abbreviation -- NoVA -- no one I've met yet in northern Virginia refers to the region by that abbreviation.

The Chevy Nova failed to succeed in Latin American areas, but initially, no one knew why. Turns out the translation of "No va" in Spanish means, "doesn't go." Go figure. This would be slightly better than naming a car for sale in the English speaking world, "Hits Things."

Speaking of failures, I saw an interesting clip from MacGyver the other day. I was just flipping through the channels, but I saw MacGyver mixing some household chemicals together to create a make-shift smokescreen to cover his escape from some bad guys. He throws this stuff down and watches the smoke come up. Satisfied, he turns, walks around the corner, and gets shot in the face, falling out a window. I thought MacGyverisms always worked! What happened?

No, there isn't really a point to this post. Enjoy, anyway, and have a good weekend!

Competition

See, the thing is, competition isn't really for me. I usually check my competitiveness at the door for everything except debates or discussions. But games never really did it for me. Now, I'm faced with an interesting dilemma. For reasons that shall become apparent, this post isn't going in the VMT blog. Quite the double-life I'm living these days.

The O. Winston Link museum is a fantastic museum. Its facility is top-notch (as most newly-renovated facilities are), its exhibits are well-designed, and its subject is relevant to the area (although I still feel it should be a gallery at VMT or at the Art Museum, but no matter). There's just this one little thing...

Their gift shop sucks. Yeah, they've got rail merchandise a-plenty, lots of reproductions of Link's prints for sale, and the obligatory Link-branded hats, shot glasses, and t-shirts. Only, they're missing something... customer service.

I've been in their shop at least five times. Not once was anyone present to help me find anything, and the one time I wanted to make a purchase, I had to walk into their office and tap someone on the shoulder to get her attention. Maybe I only come on bad days, but this is a bad first strike.

Perhaps to [over]compensate, they've begun stocking our merchandise. They've got t-shirts and DVDs featuring VMT's own #611 and #1218. I understand that the appeal of those engines in this area is relatively universal amongst those that know about them, but I can't quite figure out how t-shirts bearing the images of those locomotives enhances or supplements the educational experience a visitor would get from touring the museum.

The shop lacks character, but only for a lack of trying. They're in a great building, the shop is well laid-out, and their subject material, once again, should be an inspiration. I should be able to buy postcards, magnets, key rings, and puzzles with Link's pictures burned proudly into their sides. Instead, I have to buy the same items with only the logo of the Link museum, or a very modern picture of one of VMT's locomotives.

Here's the one that really kills me. They sell silver and gold charms OF THOSE ENGINES. They're not at the Link museum; they're at our museum. What's more, they're hocking them at a minimum of $55 (for the sterling silver) and up to $250 for the gold! Are you kidding me?!

I reached my competitive breaking point when I found out about this. I got a vendor out in California to reproduce the engines in sterling silver at a cost so that I can sell them for $19.99. Same quality (if not slightly better), but less than half the price. The Link can stuff that in whatever they like. If they're not going to respect their customers, I will.

I've made it my mission to make their store irrelevant when it comes to anything other than O. Winston Link-related merchandise. Every two weeks, I'm going to visit their store. Anything they carry that isn't related to Link and is related to VMT's collection, I will carry it and undersell them. I won't carry anything having anything to do with Link -- that's rightfully theirs. But I'm going to let everybody know about this, too. Competition, you see, is good for consumers.

Even if it isn't really for me.

Mile High Music-king

I'm headed to Denver on Thursday for the Museum Store Association Conference and Expo. I'm pretty pumped, but this is essentially my first real business trip. I traveled a bit when I was the National President of my Fraternity, but this is the big time. I come bearing business cards and credit references -- look out, Denver!

The weather forecast is a mixed bag. Continued cold through Friday (with a chance of snow) and into the 50s for the remainder of the weekend. I also have no idea what to pack. My casual attire is jeans and a t-shirt, neither of which fit quite right (I like `em loose). My work attire is fine, but not the most comfortable for long days of conferences, networking, and shopping.

Also, while the museum has offered to pay for my meals and parking, I've made arrangements to leave my car at my girlfriend's house in Northern Virginia (I'm flying out of Dulles) and my personal goal for the weekend is not to buy a single meal for myself in Denver in the hopes that potential vendors might wine and/or dine me. I'm fine with either. Yes, the Virginia Museum of Transportation is a pretty small catch in this particular sea, but I'm trying to create brand identity here -- impress me, vendors.

Meanwhile, my girlfriend and I celebrated our one-year anniversary on Monday. I know you don't read this, but happy anniversary, darling! Every day with her is better than the last.

Anyway, that's all for now, probably until I get back. Peace, love, other things.