Jaffe Update 4: A hard bike

As I alluded to in my previous post, the last few days have been a blur. Now that we're at the halfway point in our trip, I can easily say that we've seen a great many fantastic sights, and met a quite a few great people (and some not-so great ones as well). Just yesterday we biked up Kirkstone Pass, a mountain pass that is 2 miles long and a 1/4 mile vertical. I had to stay in the lowest gears possible just to keep moving, and took breaks every 100 vertical feet or so. It said that it was a 13% grade, but that was likely an average.  My guess is that it started out at 0-5%, then upped to 15-20% about a mile in. If you want to bike up a 20% grade, try going up Old Mill, the alternative route to the Mayfield Hill. Oh, and then multiply that by 10.

In any case, last night we stayed at the Ambleside Youth Hostel, which I recommend nobody stay there; honestly, the worst place at which I've ever slept. But you can read more about that in a review Jacob plans on writing tomorrow. Today we are heading out to Birmingham via train. I hope we get there alright.

Jaffe Update 3: A mid-trip reflection

NOTE: I intended to post this yesterday, but I had no internet access. While I did type it up, I couldn't put it online.

Thus far in my trip, I haven't exactly had much time for introspection as this blog asks me to portray. My daily schedule is: get up; eat; make sure everything's packed into four tiny bags; bike; drink; bike; drink; bike; eat lunch; bike; drink; bike;...arrive at the destination; settle into the place we're staying for the night; find dinner; type up my blog (http://hellersteinrecursionexcursion.blogspot.com); sleep; repeat. You might say that I could do that introspection while I eat, but I'd retort that Jacob's there and we chat. The only other opportunity I have for this introspection is when I am typing up my blog, but with that I'm mostly trying to remember the people's and place's names (often unsuccessfully), recount that which happened accurately, and be witty. Not much space for reflection there, don'tcha think?

In any case, the most I can say about my experience is that it's been busier than Mary's: they had time to go swimming, ice skating (!), and visit museums, while all I can do is sleep and eat. Tomorrow is my day off, so I might be able to do something else then. I suppose I should've made this trip longer, so that we could truly stop and smell the roses. If I ever get the opportunity, and decide that I want to do another bike trip, I'll be sure to double the total time and spend a day in each destination.

Restaurant Part 2

The past three days I have spent working at Cedar Creek Grille.  On Tuesday, I worked as a bus boy clearing tables and changing table settings.  I shadowed a bus boy that worked at the restaurant named Justin.  He was a really nice guy and showed me a lot.  He had me walk around with him for the first half of the day and then the rest of the day i spent busing the tables on my own.  The next day I spent the day with Justin again, but this time I took the food from the kitchen out to the customers.  And finally i spent Thursday working as a host again.  So far i have found that i enjoyed busing and hosting the most.  It has also been a very pleasant surprise that everyone I have been working with has been very welcoming of me and very friendly.  Next week I am going to work in the kitchen and learn a little bit about cooking the meals.

Mama Dee

Today i had the pleasure of meeeting a women named Mama Dee! When I saw her she had notes and brief case because it seemed as if she meant business! When I spoke with one of my service mentors named Cocoa, he even said, “Oh, I didn’t think she was homeless, I thought she was your teacher!” with a face full of shock.

When Mama Dee and I started to converse we covered a variety of topics. One of the first things that I asked was why did she take notes. Mama Dee told me that she was a advocate for the women shelter named Norma Herr, she was one of the few spokes persons for the women at that shelter.  These women feel as if they speak out they might get put out.  Mama Dee told me, “I am known as Mama Dee to a lot of people because I have always been the type of person who likes to help people out, and this is why the lord sent me here”. She also told me she has daughters who offered her place to stay, but Mama Dee refused the aid.”God has a plan for me and it is my job to follow in his footsteps”, said Mama Dee with a sign of determination in her voice.

Update 3: Minutiae

 A lot of the time I spend with Mr. Simms is spent just talking with him about what he does on a day-to-day basis.  Today, he explained to me a big part of his job is simply doing little things for his clients.  For example, setting up promotional events, checking to see when his client will receive their offseason bonus, maintaining a strong relationship with his clients by texting them once a week, etc.  The high-profile things an agent does, such as signing a new client or getting a new contract for his client, don’t happen that often.  The majority of his time is spent doing whatever little tasks his clients need him to do.  Mr. Simms also made a point to tell me that they only sign 5 or 6 new clients each year.  While of course it is a very competitive business, with many different agencies typically competing for one player, Mr. Simms really stressed that they like to represent players who seem like high character, hard working guys.  It was really surprising and refreshing to hear that in a league where typically money trumps all, Mr. Simms was able to balance that with choosing the “right” guys to represent and not spreading himself too thin.  He explained that he took on only 5 or 6 new clients each year in order to maintain a personal relationship with each of his clients, and that is something that is really valued by most guys in the NFL.  Even in the NFL, one of the biggest businesses in America, Mr. Simms is able to keep a grounded, down-to-earth feel.  I have also continued to work on the prospect list, working through the top 15 prospects at each position to learn more about their backgrounds.

Update 4: A Conversation with Mr. L

On Wednesday, Bryce, Lena, and I met on campus at the Upper School to pull props and costumes and to meet with Mr. L. We were able to find a few of the things we needed in the upstairs balcony, but we still have some searching to do. Since Mr. L wasn't available until after around 11, we worked out blocking for all of the songs and went out to lunch. I happened to have gift cards, so I treated Bryce and Lena to Subway.

Unfortunately when we got back, Mr. L still wasn't in his office, so we had to wait for him until we could do anything else. Luckily, he didn't disappear forever and we had a nice chat with him when he came back. He showed us what kind of lighting was possible in the auditorium and we gave him the music to the show so that he could see what it was like. He told us that we should come up with a basic idea of what we wanted the lights to look like and that he'd work with us on it next week.

After our meeting and through today, we finished a rough light plot and completed our press release that we're planning to send out soon. One of the cast members, Joanna, has a degree in Arts Management and works in that field at Cain Park and agreed to help us with the publicity aspect, which was really nice of her. We're still waiting on the final poster from Phillip, but he said he should be done tonight. Fingers crossed!

Update 3: A New Cast Member

On Monday, we had our second rehearsal, but it was the first for one of our cast members. We also had our on-site visit. I almost didn't make it to rehearsal that day because I accidentally missed the shuttle to the lower school. Luckily, I was able to catch Jenny on her way out after track practice and she was nice enough to give me a ride down to the Lower School.

Rehearsal went alright. Ms. Samet seemed to enjoy sitting in and was overall pretty pleased with the situation, I think. The only downside to Monday was that one of our performers wasn't as prepared as we would have hoped, but I think they should be able to pull through. Now I see why Mr. L always liked the people who learned all of their music and lines going into rehearsals. At this point, Kelly is definitely the person who knows her stuff the best, but I'm not particularly worried about the rest of the cast either.

I should really get better at posting these blogs on time, but by the time I get home after our rehearsals on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, they always seem to slip my mind. Maybe when my track season is over (mine might end this week), I'll remember, since I have less to worry about.

Chapel: Middle School War Flashbacks

Thursday morning started bright an early at Hawken Lower School. We sat in on the last chapel talk of the 2013-2014 school year, which was strange for me, considering that I haven't attended a chapel talk since I was in eighth grade myself. It was an interesting talk about Stand Your Ground laws, and at the end we stood up and announced our project. Hopefully some of the middle school students will come see Edges. Several teacher approached us afterwards and expressed interest in coming to the show as well.

After chapel, we headed over to Peet's, our usual meeting spot, to work. I had coupons for free caramel macchiatos and had already consumed a double cappuccino before leaving my house. Needless to say, I was jittery for about an hour, and am now barely awake. At our meeting we also assigned ourselves specific jobs. Up to this point, we have split up the duties of producer, director, and stage manager, but we think that it will be more productive for each of us to have a specialty. Bryce will be directing from now on, because she is most comfortable in the role due to her assistant directing experience with HPS, Rose has the most backstage experience, because she took stagecraft sophomore year, and I will be producing, because I enjoy talking to strangers. We have had a productive week so far and are looking forward to rehearsal tomorrow. 

4: Making Plans

Today was definitely our most productive day thus far. We met at school to start pulling props and look at the stage and really see what we could do with blocking, lighting, and sound. We realized that this is a show that didn't really need that many personal props, which is good because there is less for us and the cast to keep track of. We also knew we needed to make the stage smaller because as is it is way too big. Mr. L was really helpful today because he gave us ideas with spacing and design of the set that we didn't even realize we could do. Instead of just having a black curtained background we be able to move the cyc closer downstage and that would become the new back of our set and we'd be able to light it in many different ways.

This is what a cyc looks like:

We were also struggling with where we'd put the band because Gary needed to be able to see the cast but not block the audience, Mr. L told us we could put the band on stage which would be great for sound and not block the audience. He also brought up a concern that we had and that Ms. Samet voiced through email, that we weren't be assertive enough with the cast and taking control. Mr. L suggested we do a small divide and conquer where each person becomes a "head of a department". One person would be the director and they'd be the go to question for blocking and things having directly to do with the cast, one person would be the stage manager who would deal with cast and crew and making sure everyone is where they need to be, and one person would be the producer who would deal more with public relations and publicity. I think this a really good idea because before we tried so hard to make sure everyone had and hand in everything it took much longer to make sure everything got done.

Since today we finished blocking the show and created a mental set, next on the agenda is to create a lighting plot for each song. Mr. L will help us cue next week and we are hoping to be able to get a rehearsal in at the Upper School so the cast can start getting a feel for the space and the set. We still need a drummer but we are very close to getting one.

3: Samet Stops In

On Monday's rehearsal Ms. Samet dropped in to see what we had been doing so far. We were able to show her our program and poster. Ms. Samet gave us some good ideas for publicity and for organizing all of our work. She was also able to stay long enough to actually hear some of the singing. This rehearsal we had Kelly, Joe, and Joanna. We were confident in Kelly and Joe and last week Doug really surprised us with how prepared he was so we were nervous adding a new person into a mix that was already working really well. Unfortunately Joanna was not as prepared as we had hoped. Luckily Joanna has a great voice and once she gets where she needs to be she will be great. The unpreparedness hindered our rehearsal some because we really don't have enough rehearsals for the cast to learn their songs from the start, we need them to at least know the songs go and some of the words all we really have time for is polishing during rehearsals. One of the hardest things I feel we have had to deal with learning how to be leaders with our cast and actually have/show authority. It is really weird to be a bunch of students directing adults. I hope we can figure this out soon because it is really important that the cast is confident in our abilities to direct.

Making a Business

For my project on Monday I met with Mr. Doody at his office where he taught me about creating a new business.  He started my telling me about the 5 P's of marketing.  1. Product 2. Price 3. Place 4. People 5. Promotion.  He really focused on number three and four when talking about it.  He used two businesses in the area to talk about the Place part.  He compared Waterway to another car wash on Washington Street in Chagrin.  Waterway's location makes it very visible and accessible because so many cars drive through that circle, and that is why they are able to charge $30 for a carwash.  While the carwash on Washington Street only charges $5 dollars per wash and yet it is always empty because not nearly as many cars drive that way each day.  And the People part he told us if you're going to start a business, pick a location where the people living there have disposable income.  He also empathized that whatever you are doing, to be successful you have to be the best at that particular thing.

Never A Dull Moment

Bishop Cosgrove today was eventful as usual today. After I finished gathering information for this brochure that I am helping the Bishop Cosgrove Center revise, I went to the cafeteria to volunteer. Keep note, there is never a dull moment in the cafeteria. Today I was in charge of making the fruit punch for today’s lunch and I had to help pass out drinks to people while they get their meals. I returned to the loud noisy people playing dominoes, rolling up tobacco or people who just like to converse loudly. One of the most astonishing things I saw today is the lack of thank you the workers and I received for feeding them. You would expect that a lot of them would say this considering the rough position that they are in but yet appreciation from them today was rare. Also for my first time today I saw a woman go into labor! While I was in the midst of passing out endless rows of cups full of fruit punch, I saw this lady standing on the wall gasping for air while one of her friends was dialing 911!  I kid you not, this was a very unusual experience for me because everyone else in the cafeteria continued to go about their business.

Update 2: The List

The project I have been working on over the course of the weekend and today has been a spreadsheet of all the clients of Mr. Simms’ company, Players Rep. The information I have to find is the players’ college, high school, and hometown.  Mr. Simms explained to me that a big part of having success in the agent business is having connections.  Now one of the main ways Mr. Simms makes connections is through one of his clients knowing another player in the NFL through either growing up in the same hometown, playing together at football camps, or potentially going to the same college.  If one client knows another player, he can give Mr. Simms some sort of contact with that player, whether it be a phone number or email, and this is one of the main ways Mr. Simms expands his business.  The background information on Mr. Simms clients is key because if he can find any sort of connection with the players who are going to be in the NFL draft in 2015, it can give him a direct in with the new potential clients.  After I finish making the list of Mr. Simms clients, I will begin to make a spreadsheet of the players to be drafted next year with similar background information.  This list is something Mr. Simms said that he updates all year long, and I am giving him a solid foundation.  Anything I can do to help.

Negative Splitting

Negative splitting is one of the most difficult concepts to explain to developing swimmers.  What’s even harder is getting them to successfully execute a negative split set.  Negative splitting a race means swimming the second half of a race faster than the first half, contrary to how the body would normally perform. 

 “The reason swimmers generally don’t negative split a race is due to the mental component of swimming: specifically, a loss of concentration.  98% of it is loss of concentration, and the other 2% is due to actual physical fatigue,” coach Tim says to me at today’s practice.

Yes, that means if a swimmer goes off into la-la land, he or she will not negative split a race.  Negative splitting doesn’t even require a swimmer to be in peak condition.  Negative splitting is solely due to swimming smart.

Tim tells me the set ahead of time: a 50 (2 lengths), a 100 (4 lengths), a 200 (8 lengths), a 400 (16 lengths), and an 800 (32 lengths).  “I don’t want them to kill themselves on the 50.  It’s all about control.  The 100 should be an okay effort.  Then for the 200 they should start to build it up.  The 400 should be good.  Very good.  And the 800 should be an all-out sprint.”

I provide sendoffs for the respective lanes, depending upon age and swimming ability.  “Stay long and in control for the 50, otherwise you’ll be in trouble for the 800 if you sprint it,” I tell some of the younger ones, who have a tendency to eagerly start a set quickly, regardless of its intended speed.  “Grab hold of the water and really catch it with your hand and forearm.  But you should be thinking about moving your body forward, not your hand backward.”

Getting ready for the main set!