Personal Achievements - Page 33

Not sure if this qualifies, but I was sought out and asked to be interviewed for the Chicago Tribune for an article about the recession and it's impact on charitable giving. I did my best to steer the conversation towards the zombie apocalypse and the concept of ebola infected velociraptors, but the poindexter "journalist" wasnt having it. Now my bile has escaped from the Political Discourse forum and is liable to reach the general public.

Anyway, my mom thinks its a huge deal. I keep reminding her that nobody reads the papers anymore.

I didn't know that the Trib had anything but columnists anymore. I can't get enough of that Mary Schmich.

Thank you! It feels very strange. I discovered right away that I do not like being called Dr., but having some time to myself for the first time in many, many years is nice.

What's funny is that my PhD is in political science, and I still couldn't get anyone to listen to me during the midterms. Oh well.

Man, I have so many movies to catch up on.

Took the GREs yesterday.

For the two essays, I just barely ran out of time to finish the first but felt pretty good about the second.
For the multiple choice, I got a perfect 800 verbal/800 math!

I know I posted this in the Chewer Comedians thread, but I finally did my grad show! We had a really good crowd of around 100 at the Ice House and everyone killed. I didn't go the whole six minutes because I axed a joke at the last minute because I wasn't comfortable with it for multiple reasons, and I know I've still got a long way to go, but just going up and doing it was a huge load off my shoulders and pretty exhilarating. It's one of the first things I've chosen to do in a long time that just felt right. Also gave my information to some bookers at the Comedy Store/a few places around Hollywood so they might hook me up with some stage time! I might also try to get in on the Eagle Rock Comedy Festival after I talk to my teacher again tonight.

I wrote a few things last night when I got home and I'm going to be just working on new stuff, tweaking that along with my material I did last night (adding tags and whatnot) and testing it out at open mics for the next month so that I can get together a solid 10 minutes. It's been a blast and I've had a great support system consisting of good friends and other, more experienced comics as well as fellow newbies.

Way to go, Jake!

Yeah, way to go! I'm looking forward to the youtube.

It wasn't until recently that I learned that Jake was working in stand-up. Really amazing, Jake. I can't even IMAGINE going up in front of a crowd to do such a thing. Balls of brass!

As for me... this isn't really a personal achievement, but more of a personal shame I was finally able to overcome.

Just over a year ago, a friend of Rain Dog's commissioned a drawing of his son and daughter that he would eventually tattoo onto his arm. I took it on for no charge. I batted some ideas around with him based on what he wanted. His son was into video games like Halo. His daughter took taekwondo and calisthenics. He wanted both of them mid-action in a drawing that would go around his forearm.

I am not a concept artist. I simply don't have the imagination or design sense for it. It intimidates me. Not only do I go into periodic spurts of productivity, but I got locked up. I got lazy and unmotivated and kept on pushing it back. Back back back. Back back back. Failed starts and stops. Rain Dog's friend was totally nice about it too, which made my self-loathing even worse, hahahahaha.

But recently, I did some storyboarding work for a chewer named Jacob (he doesn't post too much) through RyanS's recommendation. It got me working and it felt good to have a tablet pen in my hand again. So I took advantage of it and plowed through over 2 days, starting from scratch and keeping in constant communication with the client.

This was the final result. It's not a huge deal, but it really feels like a huge weight was lifted off my mind.

AND IT'S AWESOME!

Anderson was a major gent and got me an interview with Alan Menken. Here it is, here.

Now, if you don't know, I'm studying Musical Theatre. I've been in school for it for 4 years. I've been performing it in various capacities since I was 5 years old. It's what I want to do. It's my life and my dream, and it's largely due to this man and his work. So the chance to interview him? Yeah, that was awesome.

Holy shit. I would've lost control and started singing the many Disney songs I grew up with to his face! That's so great.

Yeah, he's lucky it was just a phone interview. If it were face to face I would have subjected him to at three different versions of an audition for the Newsies stage musical.

So, Damn Near Dead 2 is out. It's available on Amazon, or better yet, support your local independent bookstore. It's one hell of a collection and I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

This is the cover in case you've forgotten:

Welp, I graduated tonight. Got my Associate's in Social Science, and a very proud collection of family members and faculty I've known for a long time. Of course, this was tempered somewhat by my family's incredulity at my interest in obtaining my Bachelor's in either History or Anthropology, but hey. It's not fully decided yet; I just would've preferred not being treated like a Philosophy major.

Congrats!

Got a good review for my independent feature "Baystate Blues". You can read it here: http://bit.ly/eLBw2K

If you're interested, you can read other reviews and find out more about the film at: www.baystateblues.net

I've officially lost 10 inches from my waistline over the course of about 11 months just through diet and exercise. I'm 6 foot 7 and broad shouldered so I'm never gonna be skinny, but this is me probably at the smallest I've ever been. I've started playing Rugby again for the first time in about a decade.

Double-digit inches? That's awesome.

I graduate from the Certified Nurse Aid program tonight! Next thing I have to do is take the state certification exam.

Good work, gang, especially Spike's. I can barely put into words how much better I feel now that I've dropped all that fat I had and can now fit into 36s again.

Same with me, although I'm back in my 34s (and loose in them!). Although I'd wager I'm shorter than you, Jake, (5'9") so it's probably similar losses.

I still have some flab I'm trying to take care of and shape up, but the bulk and bulge of it has gone down tremendously as of last year, and aside from a small relapse (relationships make it way too easy to flab up again), stayed off.

In the last seven days I found out we're having a girl for our second child, I bought an engagement ring, and we bought a house and moved into it.

HOLY SHIT.

That's fantastic. Congrats on all three counts!

Thanks! All at once baby!

god Chris stop screwing around and do something with your life already

There's some awesome stuff in here as of late. Huzzah for Dylan, Chris and Spike! Good job, gentlemen.

eh. yawn.



meh.

As of today, I'll probably be posting a lot less in here.

I've been hired as a part-time writer at Ain't It Cool News, writing articles and news blurbs, starting in February, although there may be a few things coming before then.

I know most of you don't care for the site, but it's my home, and I love the people there and I'm happy to be working for Harry. It may be a silly dream, but it's mine.

Thanks.

Congrats Nordling!

Awesome that you're going to be writing for AICN. Congrats!

I thought you already were writing for AICN? But if this is a "finally gettin' paid" type deal, congrats! Try to fall on the Beaks side of the equation over there.

HOW COULD YOU DO THI---

Congratulations!

I've been on CHUD for a decade, as of today. Holy shit.

I have lost another half a stone which means my total weight loss is now 4 stone.

Only two more and i reach my target weight!

If this keeps up with all you all slimming down, CHUD could lead the world in overturning the fat nerd myth. Er, reality.

You're inspiring me to keep up with my own weight loss. Congrats.

Congrats, Nordling! Having been tangentially familiar with you on here and AICN over the years, I actually know how awesome that must be for you. Enjoy it.



So I kicked fucking ASS on my evaluation yesterday. And it was all the sweeter because I didn't know it was coming. The company has been chaotic lately with an insane influx of new work (always good) and they just popped in at 5 like, "oh head down to _______'s office for your evaluation." It was jarring and I was so fucking nervous because obviously, I wasn't prepared at all.

But then I walk in and after being braced with all the "now I'm a hard grader, blah blah" stuff I just got showered with a bunch of praise and really high scores. Also was told some would've been higher but she just couldn't since I've only been in my new position for less than 6 months.

Feels so nice being told that a) you're doing a top-notch job especially considering that you're new and shouldn't know how to do a lot of it so well, and b) that your co-workers and higher ups that you interact with all had great things to say about you. Because of the surprise and all I was a little moved by it.

And the end result: fat bonus. Nice.

2010 can be summed up as follows: breaking up with my girlfriend of five years, having to move my things out before I had an apartment, finding an apartment, moving my things again, losing my cat to a rare and always-fatal illness, other traumatic events not to be detailed here.

So I am ready to report some good news.

After interviewing twice for two different openings at a medical reference company and getting neither position, said company called me out of the blue on Friday to offer me the job.

Without going into specifics, I have been "underearning," to put it mildly, since graduating college lo those many years ago, and this new position goes a long way toward rectifying that. I am thrilled they see the potential in me I always knew was there. Plus, while not technically a library science position, it puts me on a career path much better suited to my Master's degree than closed-captioning ever did.

So thanks, Chewers, for keeping me entertained during downtime for the past three years, but now I'm actually going to have to work during the day.

ohandilost20pounds

Congratulations, Bendrix!

Glad to hear things are looking up, Bendrix!

Sweet!
What position?

Congrats!

I'm trying to get re-motivated for weight loss since I haven't gotten off the baby weight yet. I have a little more than 2 stone to go to get to my target weight, too.

I play Rugby League and I'm the Right Centre. More of a defensive, rather than offensive, position.

Haven't checked this thread out in a while. Congrats everyone. Nooj, that drawing is KILLER!

Went to my first cast and crew showing of a film I worked on. Just going onto the Fox lot was an amazing experience. Unfortunately the rain made it almost impossible to spend too much time walking around outside, so that was a bummer.

The other down side...the film?

Gulliver'sTravels.

I hope to hell what I'm working on now is way way way way better.

Not completely personal but what my organization did last week:

http://www.920rqw.afrc.af.mil/news/s...p?id=123236446

The girlfriend is now the fiancee. Happy new year!

Congrats Misfit!

So this is a bit of a story but I figured this would be the place for it.

As I'm sure none of you know, I am an electronic music enthusiast/dj/promotor in my city and me and my buddys decided to throw a huge new years party. Big venue, 800 person capacity, 25 djs , 5 of which were out of town headliners (3 of which were international). So everythings going great until we find out that our insurance company decided that 'our venue was to 'hot' to insure' (backstory: there was a bigger party at this place a couple of months ago, 2300 people and it got shut down by cops, big write ups in teh paper etc..) which would have been good to know 3 months before the show instead of 2 weeks.

So we scramble and find a newer venue which had a third of the capacity, which unfortuently totalled the same amount as our advanced ticket sales. This basically put us in a position to have to deny all the out of town reserved tickets we had on hold (couple hundred) as well as negating any higher priced door sales (our bread and butter without liqour sales).

fast forward to 4 days before the show, we actually luck into finding a second bar just around the block (both back doors opened into the same ally on either side of the block) whose size made up our lost capacity, and also giving us the distinction of running a party at 2 places with 4 rooms. We ended up with 600 people through the doors.

What started out as a gong show turned into one of the biggest and most successful shows of my promotional career as earning a lot of respect from a lot of crews and companys in this city.

2011 is going to be an insane year i can feel it already

100.2 on QWOP.

All of your prior achievements are meaningless in the face of this.

It's been a weird little dream of mine but I'm finally on IMDB.com. So if you get bored look up Nick Wesley... Now if I post a photo of myself is that over doing it?

Just did that Nick.  Congrats!  Looking forward to see the the list grow and grow...

Congrats, NIck!

 

And Jarvie -- that rocks! I have never organized anything that big but I know how much fun it is when you have a last minute venue change on an event and it totally jacks with your plans. Keep up the good work! Glad you got recognized for being able to solve the problem in a creative way that worked well for everyone involved.