My favorite parts of buildings are the places that few people see, but that fulfill critical functions. Such entirely utilitarian spaces have their own elegant simplicity, unconstrained by aesthetic design considerations. I also love love climbing stairs, ladders, and anything else I can use to get high up off the ground; that's been true since as far back as I can remember.

I was at the high school doing some more work on lights today and shot a few photos from the front-of-house position, a catwalk that spans the width of the auditorium about forty feet above the seats.





I was a little happier to be working by myself. When a student was with me last time, I was pretty nervous. It's no reflection on him; it's just really hard for me to watch someone muscle twenty-pound, multi-hundred-dollar lighting instruments around over open air. I feel more in control when I'm the one handling the equipment, though I still made sure that no one was sitting in the seats directly under me. The thought of breaking expensive things is a little worrying, but the thought of accidentally killing someone is terrifying.

My dad (right) teaches high school theatre. Here he is on the stage at Indian Trail Academy in Kenosha, where he and I joined a number of other people in set preparation for an upcoming show.





I was helping hang lights. It'd been a while since I did any work in technical theatre. It was fun; I miss it from time to time. I'd never have guessed, back when I was in high school and doing community theatre work with my dad, that he would eventually be doing this professionally and that I'd still have the chance to work with him sometimes. This little bit of continuity makes me happy.