Category: blog

The plane lurches from side to side, then pitches violently forward. Strangely, nobody in the cabin screams. Anne grips my hand tightly, and I reassure her (and myself) that this turbulence will pass just as soon as we get over the storm.
Fifteen minutes later, after climbing through the first major winter storm we’ve had here in Southern California, an experience which can be compared to riding in a wagon over a deeply rutted and poorly maintained dirt road, or sitting on a raft in heavy seas, we break through the clouds and level off.
We’re on our way to San Francisco, where I’ll be co-hosting The Screen Savers.
From above, the clouds look soft and inviting, betraying no hint of the violence we’ve just passed through. We cruise in relatively smooth air for another 40 minutes, and finally land in Oakland. I’m not crazy about flying, and I’m always happy to be on the ground.
After a quick walk through the terminal, we meet up with Steve from Tech TV, who will drive us into the city. We step out into the gloomy December morning, into the Bay Area that I have always loved: cold, windy, cloud-covered. The heavy black clouds we’ve just flown through decide to get in one last assault, and dump a hard, cold downpour on us as we walk through the parking lot to the car.
The drive into the city is quick and uneventful, and as we cross the Bay Bridge, I recall the months I spent shooting Flubber on Treasure Island. Those were good times, and it’s nice to revisit them in my mind for a few moments.
Steve drops us at our hotel, and tells us he’ll be back at 6 to take us to dinner.
Anne and I walk through The City, finally ending up at Union Square. We head to the top of Macy’s, so I can look out over the square and pretend that I’m in “The Conversation.”
Back when Gene Roddenberry was alive, he talked about The Enterprise being a character in the show, and even being the “real” star of the show. I always wondered how something like a spaceship could have a personality, but standing here, on top of Macy’s in the cold and rain, looking out at all these old and new buildings standing side by side, watching the throngs of holiday shoppers swarm across the square, past the giant Christmas tree, I get it. San Francisco is truly a wonderful city.
We meet Steve and his fiancee for dinner, which is quite lovely, and head back to our hotel, where we both have the worst night’s sleep in years. The rain beats down on the window-mounted air conditioner, its steady plink-plink-plinking competing with the sputtering and hissing of the radiator. After two hours, I have come to truly hate this radiator, though it is the only source of warmth in the room. Anne is fighting a cold, so she tosses and turns the entire night on the too-small bed, and end up spending much of the night staring at the ceiling, cursing the radiator.
When morning comes, we have just enough time to grab a coffee and a muffin before I have to be at TechTV for a production meeting. I kiss Anne goodbye, remind her that if she goes shopping that we only have one small carry-on bag (a reminder she ignores), and hop into a cab.
I spend the rest of the morning and early afternoon preparing for the show, and having meetings with the execs at TechTV. I really like them, they really like me, maybe we’ll work together someday.
Suddenly, the day is behind me, and it’s time to tape the show. I run over my teleprompter bits, read over notes for the interview I’ll be doing, and familiarize myself with the numbers for the different cameras, and the names for different parts of the set.
Everyone keeps asking me if I’m nervous. I am not, but this constant questioning makes me think that I should be nervous, so now I’m nervous because I wasn’t nervous.
I don’t want to let myself get all worked up, so I talk to the cast. Megan is funny and sweet, and calls me “dreamy.” Patrick knows so much more about computers and technology than I ever will, and though I am totally intimidated by his knowledge, he puts me at ease the whole time I’m there. Morgen Webb is just too !@#$^&ing hot for words. And smart, and friendly. I blush a bit when I talk to her.
I get to finally meet Chris Pirillo, who I’ve talked to countless times in e-mail, but never actually seen in person. I instantly like him, and know that we could have fun hanging out together.
At 4PM, we start the show, and everything is going well, except for one small thing: the way the camera points, I can’t read the left side of the teleprompter for the whole first segment. I manage to stumble through it, but I really feel like I’m sucking. But it’s live, so I push through it, and hit a groove. The show is really, really fun. All the people are super nice (cast, crew, producers — everyone is just awesome. Very different from other jobs I’ve recently had) and I’m just having fun. Though the show lasts 90 minutes, it seems much faster, and before I know it, we’re done.
The audience is dismissed, and we gather with the producer to do a post-mortem on the show. This is my favorite part of any live show, whether it is radio or TV or theater. This is when we sit down together, talk about what we did well, and what we can do better. It’s what sets the live experience completely apart from film or tape, this ability to constantly learn from day to day and move closer and closer to perfection.
The notes are given, but I won’t recount them here. They belong to the people who made the show.
Anne and I say goodbye to everyone, and meet Loren and Kelly for coffee before we have to get to the airport.
Here’s the thing: I really, really, really like Loren and Kelly, and I just hate it that they live so far away. There is a severe shortage of Good People in this world, and I wish that I could spend more time with these two. I take some comfort in the knowledge that Southwest can put us at each other’s doors in under two hours for under 100 bucks.
Anne and I make it to the airport, check ourselves in, and grab a sandwich. It’s been just over 24 hours, but now it feels much longer, and we’re ready to go home and sleep in our own beds.
Our flight is called, and we travel home beneath a full moon, above a blanket of moonlit clouds. It is quick and turbulence-free, and by midnight, we’re back in our own house.
While Anne gets ready for bed, I check my email, and there are nearly 50 messages waiting about Screen Savers, and every last one of them praises my performance on the show. I am really moved by the compliments, and feel very proud of a job well done.
I fall into bed, and sleep soundly, straight through the night.

Before I get to the good news, I just wanted to thank everyone who sent me kindness yesterday. While not getting invited really felt like a slap in the face, it is certainly not the end of the world, by any means.
Now I’ll be seeing the movie for the first time with my friends, in a regular theatre, with a “real” audience, which will be cool.
The good news: a few months back, Chris DiBona approached me, and asked me if I’d be interested in joining the Board of Advisors for a new game company he was forming.
I said yes, and I’ve managed to be useful already, which is cool. Their first game is a MMORPG called Rekonstruction.
Anyhow, the press release went out today, and I thought I’d pimp it.

One of my old spacesuits is being auctioned off on eBay. I’m not sure why, but it makes me feel a little sad.
I’m sitting here, about to write a little entry about it, when my phone rings. It’s a friend of mine, asking me if I’m going to the Star Trek X screening.
“Yeah, on Wednesday,” I tell him.
“No, it’s tonight,” he tells me.
“Tonight? At Paramount?”
“No, it’s in Westwood, tonight,” he tells me, “I just talked with Marina about it.”
Oh no.
That feeling I have gotten so many times before, when I was the only cast member not asked up on stage at the 25th anniversary party, when I was the only cast member not recognized at the screening of “All Good Things…” begins to well up. I feel a little sick.
He wouldn’t do this to me, right? Not now, not after the conversations we had when I was working on the movie, not since the phone call informing me of the cut. This must be a mistake. Past is the past, right? We’re cool now. There is no way he’d exclude me from this.
But he did.
He did it to me again.
I want to cry.
I tell my friend that I have to go, and hang up the phone.
I sit there alone and cold in the kitchen. I can hear Ryan watching Sabrina The Teenage Witch in the living room.
I can’t believe this is happening to me. When Rick told me that my scenes were cut, he assured me that I’d still be invited to the premiere, and that he’d see me there. I was excited to see all my friends again, and share in those moments with them. Be a part of what will really be the final mission.
It turns out that the screening I was invited to will be at Paramount on Wednesday, and pretty much anyone who works at Paramount can attend. It’s not the premiere, and none of the cast are going. There’s really nothing special about it.
I seriously, desperately hope that this was just an oversight. I desperately hope that this is totally out of Rick’s hands, and that he’ll tell me that he’s sorry if it ever comes up. I desperately hope this isn’t personal. I want so badly to believe that it isn’t. It sucks to be overlooked, but it sucks less than if I’d been intentionally not invited.
It sure fits a pattern though, huh?
I just — I don’t know what to do. I don’t even know how to feel anymore.
But I’ll go with hurt for now.
Really, really fucking hurt.

Oh man, I am so $!@%^&ing sore from doing the yard this weekend. I gave myself tendonitis in my right arm (yeah, the poison oak one…I swear, this arm is going to try and secede from the rest of my body) so it is swollen up to almost twice the size it normally is…I look like a freak, but in a good way.
In the continuing saga of writer-slash-actor: My manuscript is still with my editor. He’s given me some very useful notes already, and I’m hoping to have the whole thing back by the end of this week. Sadly, it will not be ready in time for Xmas. 🙁
On the actor side, I have an audition today for “The Polar Express,” which is being directed by Robert Zemeckis, and stars Tom Hanks.
Yeah, I’m thinking the same thing you are, “Tom Hanks and Robert Zemeckis? Why the hell are they asking to see me?!”
I have no idea, but it should be an interesting experience…I haven’t auditioned for a major motion picture like this in quite some time.
Oh, and I have punk rock blue hair right now, because I figured there wouldn’t be any auditions until after the first of the year…uhh…oops.
The second shipmeent of 8x10s goes to the post office in about 30 minutes. If you ordered last week, you should get yours in a few days. I’ll get to work on the third shipment (orders received since Thursday) when I get back from my audition this afternoon, and they should all go out tomorrow or Wednesday.
UPDATE 3:53 PM PST: Well, I totally punted the audition. The pain in my body from the weekend is so severe (my arm is so messed up I can’t even grip my steering wheel in my car, and my back has been spasming all day long) that I just couldn’t focus, at all, and I sucked.
Shit.
I saw the tests for the movie while I was there, and I’m pretty sure that I’m not allowed to talk about specifics, so I’ll just say: this will be an amazing and beautiful movie. What I saw was a perfect 3-D rendering of the art in the book.
When I left, I walked down the hallway with my head hung. I’m really sad, not because I’m missing out on a job, but because this movie is just going to be so beautiful, and so amazing, I really wanted to be part of it.

Back in spring, a pipe in our front yard’s sprinkler system burst. We tried to water the lawn by hand all summer, but we failed miserably and it died.
Long story short, we decided to put in new sprinklers and grass, and the whole process took the rest of summer, and all of autumn.
Yesterday, thanks to the the shockingly popular 8×10 sale, we finally laid down the sod, and turned our horribly ugly dirt lot into a beautiful front lawn.
Anne and I could never have done this on our own, and I want to publicly thank my friends and family who came over and spent their Saturday putting down almost 3,000 square feet of grass:

• Darin. You arrived at 7AM, and stayed until the sun went down. In addition top helping out, you kept me calm, each time I was sure we were doing it wrong and everything would die.
• Shane. Even though you had a wedding to attend in the afternoon, you came and helped. Your Cal Tech brain was most useful in ensuring we did our work as efficiently as possible. Good call on “The Buddy System.”
• Jeremy. I didn’t know you had to work in the afternoon and evening, but you came and helped anyway. Thank you for making me laugh hard all day.
• Jenn. I still can’t believe that you worked while we all ate lunch. You were the last person to leave, and you helped me clean up the driveway. Thank you.
• Mom. Finally, you have first-hand experience being that “ditch digger” you always warned us against becoming when we were kids. 60 feet of trench is 59 feet more than I could have done on my own.
• Michelle. The layer of sod, the leveler of ground, the bringer of Krispy Kremes.
• BURNS! You helped us all morning and well into the afternoon, and then went and worked a long shift last night. You’re always there for us when we need help, except for that one time you forgot…but after yesterday, we’ll never speak of that time again.
• Dad. I’m glad that you didn’t kill yourself surfing, and that you came all the way to our house from Rincon. The caution tape clearly and politely says, “Stay the fuck off my new lawn, you little creeps” to all passersby.

As I stood in my driveway last night, looking across my beautiful new lawn, I felt a pride in my house that I haven’t felt in over a year. It just looks beautiful, and we never could have done this without the help that you guys gave us…and that’s the best part of all of this, IMHO: you guys all gave up your Saturday to help us out, and you all worked harder than I ever expected. You guys are awesome.
Thank you.