All posts by kr

Another secret skill revealed

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IMG_1426.sized.jpgThat’s right, I’m going back into the vault to reveal another secret, well not really secret so much as I just haven’t talked about it, skill that some of you didn’t know I had.

I am a professional frisbee golf player.

What? Stop laughing, really, I am.

For the last four or so years I have played competitive Frisbee® golf. It’s usually referred to as disc golf cause Frisbee® is trademarked. Those Wham-O bastards. It just so happens that I have some proof of this one too, but we’ll get to that.

Do you know what I’m talking about? Well the object is to throw your disc from point A, the tee, to point B, the hole, in the fewest number of throws possible. And the hole isn’t really a hole in the ground, it’s an above ground basket that is designed to catch discs, like in the picture above. Sound silly? Well it is a little bit. But no more than regular golf. And it’s not nearly as expensive or frustrating.

There are different kinds of discs just like there are different kinds of golf clubs. There are drivers, midrange and putting discs. Some that go left, right and straight. Some are good for rolling on the ground or throwing overhand like a baseball.

My friend from work, J., and his wife got me and M. out to the local course to play a few years ago. I had played a few times in high school but not very much. For some reason this go around I was hooked instantly. We were going out there about three times a week and it’s about a 45 minute one way drive to the course. We played tons that summer and starting in the fall we found out about tournaments.

The international disc golf organization is the Professional Disc Golf Association. They sanction tournaments all over the world. But for various reasons, in the southeast the tournaments are sanctioned with the Southern Nationals tournament series. The SN is simpler to deal with and there’s a SN championship at the end of every season that pays out pretty well to amateur and professional players.

I started at the lowest level of competitive play, the Novice division. This division is meant for first-time tourny players and people who are new to the game in general. My first tourny I played Novice but I had been playing casually for a few months. Well I won that one. W00t!

I moved up to Intermediate Amateur. After a while I started winning some of those tournys too. Some of them had 30 or 40 people in my division. So next I moved up to Advanced Amateur. This is the last level before going pro.

Advanced Ams generally have most of the skills of a professional, they’re just not as developed or as consistent. And putting is probably the biggest dividing factor between ams and pros.

My first tourny that I played as an Advanced player, I won. That did not make some of the more “seasoned” Advanced players happy. I decided at the start of the year that no matter how good I got I was going to stick out the entire year in the Advanced division. I would travel around and play tournys all over the south and see how I stack up on different courses playing against different people.

To make a long story short, I did pretty well. I traveled all over and had a ton of fun. And spent a lot of money.

The Southern National Amateur Championships came around and I was listed as the favorite to win. Let me tell you, I have never known pressure like that before. I put some of it on myself but there were a lot of people picking me to win.

The format would be three full rounds and then only the top third (or half, I can’t remember) of the field would play a final nine holes. The horn sounded for the start of the first round and. I. choked. At the end of the first round I was six strokes off the leader and about 22 people were ahead of me. Not good, but not insurmountable.

I came back strong the second round and shot about the second best score for the round. Unfortunately for me the leader boy shot the same score so I was no closer to him but I did jump ahead of a lot of people.

I was about the third card down (four people to a card) for the third round on Sunday morning. Once again, I shot the second best score for the round. Leader boy didn’t fare as well and I cut his lead to three strokes. I was in third place going into the final nine.

At the end of the third round, when I saw the standings and that I was only three strokes out, I knew right then that I would win. It was the coolest feeling in the world. I knew that if I didn’t win it would be because the two people ahead of me would step up and play really well in the finals and I might not catch them. But. I knew I could do it. I had total confidence in my abilities at that moment and throughout the remainder of the tournament.

During the regular season play, I caught a lot of crap for staying in the Advanced Am division when I was doing so well. I got called a sandbagger more than once. But I knew that sticking it out was the right thing for me to do and I think because I stuck it out and learned how to win in all types of situations, it allowed me to have that feeling of total confidence when I needed it most. Had I moved up to the pro division earlier and started taking my licks from the pros, I would have learned a lot but I don’t think I would’ve learned what I needed for that moment in the championships.

Well it came down to the last hole of the finals, but I won. And it was a great feeling.

At the awards ceremony, after I accepted the first place trophy, Jim Orum, the father of Southern Nationals disc golf, announced that they were starting a new award that year call the Amateur Player of the Year. It’s tradition to name the award after the first recipient. So if you take up disc golf in the south, practice hard and play lots of tournys, you might win the Kary Rogers Amateur Player of the Year Award. How cool is that? I can imagine years from now some future recipient wondering why he’s winning a girl’s award.

Truly one of the best days of my life.

So I play pro now. Two weeks after the Am championship was the Pro championship. It’s also a tradition for the Advanced winner to get a paid entry to the Pro championship. I went and played and tied for last place cash, which isn’t too bad for my first outing in the pro ranks.

I’ve had a lot of fun the last four years and met a lot of great people. Luckily MSU just recently installed a disc golf course on campus so it doesn’t take three hours to drive and play in Columbus anymore. If you’re local to Starkville and you want to play sometime, let me know. We’re going to have regular outings at the course on Thursday’s at 5:45pm starting this week. I’ll be happy to show you around the course and I’ve got plenty of extra frisbees.

Oh yeah, the proof. Check out this highlight reel:

These are some clips from two tournaments I cut together from SouthernShots! courtesy of DiscAppear productions at DiscGolfDVD.com.

This is it. Probably. But I really doubt it.

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If you read this site with any regularity then you know why I haven’t been updating much. And I think this will be the final word on the musical revue I have spent the last month rehearsing and performing and which was my introductory experience into the theater.

Warning. This will quite possibly be insanely long and boring.

I was bitten by the hey-you-lazy-slob-sitting-on-the-couch-why-don’t-you-get-up-and-go-do-something-fun bug some number of months ago. In my case it was the acting/performing species of bug. I called my doctor about the bite and he said there was no medication I could take; I could only heed the bug’s bite and do what it wanted. What a quack, he doesn’t know anything is what I thought.

I attempted to find my own cure and I tried everything but nothing really scratched the itch just right. I started this blog and that helped but it didn’t cure me. I went knocking screen door to screen door in my trailer park reading Shakespeare to whom ever would open their door to me, but all that got me was a ferret bite, two empty Jack bottles thrown at my head and me being blinded by seeing too many femullets with nothing on but a bra-less wife beater. *whimper*

I apologize for that last link.

Eventually I called up my friend B. to ask what was going on at the local community theater. I found out they were having auditions for a summer musical revue in like 4 days. Well that leaves me lots of time to find a song and prepare I thought (sarcastically). Especially since I’ve never sung a solo in front of people before and never had a singing audition before or been on stage for that matter. But I was determined to give it a go and find out if I could do it or not. I covered the audition here and here.

The last weekend of June we had a “bootcamp.” We ran through as many of the songs as we could to get a feel for what worked, what might work given more effort and time and what absolutely didn’t work at all. Rehearsals started in earnest on July 5th (I thinks). In general we met Sunday through Thursday evenings with a set construction work day on Saturday. That’s a lot of rehearsal time you might think but keep in mind our first performance would be July 28th. And there were piles of music to learn.

Well, anyway, I showed up to rehearsals like a good little soldier and sat quietly in my seat and sang my little heart out. I get the impression now that everyone was afraid I was really shy and was worried how I might do on stage since I never opened my mouth during rehearsals except to sing.

I’ll admit it takes me a little while to open up to new people. Some people just don’t get me and my brand of humor and personality so I’m usually a little shy and quiet at first. Actually I probably opened up a lot sooner to the theater people because of this blog. Somehow someone found out about it. I think I had it in my email signature for a very short period of time, like half a day. And I corresponded with someone in the theater via email. And let’s just say it made the rounds. And I was found out. Oh, apparently the new guy does have one of those personality things. After the Amazing and Totally Awesome Sound EFX post, there was really little point in me holding back any longer.

This also happened to correspond to the time we started actually getting on stage and working out the blocking. It suddenly became a whole lot more fun for me. See, sitting in a chair for hours on end working on music didn’t prepare me for the experience on being on the stage. I’ve sat in a chair for hours on end working on music before, that’s nothing new. But being on stage, oh baby, that was new.

Now I’ve performed in some way or another my whole life . Church choir, school concert and marching band and other singing groups, but this was completely different. I wasn’t another faceless kid with a horn to my face or stuck out of the way in an orchestra pit or part of the backup singers for the music leader. I was on a stage with really bright lights and I was in your face to either suck or stand out.

And I don’t like to suck.

Soon I started hearing things like “applause whore” associated with my name. Well I was offended. I was just trying to do a good job and show that I’m having a good time. Then I found out that being called an applause whore isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Well maybe we should come up with a new name. I nearly cried myself to sleep that night. Not really, but it was a bit alarming at first. I think it’s a compliment of some sort.

Meanwhile, I’m starting to get to know the people that I’m performing with and find that they really are a friendly, cool buncha folks to be around; they were just waiting on me to open up so that they didn’t seem pushy. They are all friendly, helpful, complimentary, encouraging, patient, cool, beautiful people that I am a better person for knowing. If you are an SCT person reading this, then I mean YOU. I am talking about you. Are all theater people this cool or did I just luck out on my first go at it?

My biggest regret in all of this is that I DIDN’T JOIN SCT SOONER. I’ve spent years sitting on the couch when I could have been helping to create a new and exciting show and hanging out with terribly cool friends. These people are everyone. Doctors, financial professionals, technology geeks, educators, home makers, media professionals, etc etc etc. Yet they all have a love of coming together to create something greater than themselves and they do it beautifully. I have been honored and privileged to be a part of it. And dang it, I want to do it again.

Like I said, I’ve never been on stage before but I found out something through this experience. I am completely comfortable there. I don’t get really nervous. Sometimes, I might be over-the-top but it’s because I want to do things that I think are funny or awesome and I hope the audience would think so too. Is doing a James Brown kick-slide-split over-the-top for a curtain call? Probably so, but dang it I would think it was cool if I saw somebody do it. I didn’t plan on it, if anything I was going to do it during Footloose but I chickened out. The spirit just moved me and it had to be done right then.

Ok, this could go on forever so I really should wrap it up. Just a couple more things before the summary.

You know, it’s not that hard to learn some music and where to stand when, but putting all the small details together to make an impressive show is something that I can’t fathom doing. And Pattye Archer, the Director, pulled it off with aplomb. How does she do it? I don’t know. She has help, but wowzer did she put on a great show. Thanks Pattye, the show was great and so are you!

To all the SCT cast and crew: Thank You. From the booth peeps (Ty, Chad, Dave, Michael) always hitting their lighting and sound cues, to the stage managers (Ellen and Alison) having us all straight back stage so we knew what the heck was going on, to the musicians (Becky, James, Boogie Daddy) for learning a jaw-dropping amount of music and making us sound good, to the box office and reception volunteers for all the work and cooking they did, to Jansen for everyone’s fab hair (especially mine) and to the cast:

M.J. – You are terribly cool and talented. Teach me everything you know!
Cherri – I love your voice, it’s so classic.
Maddy – I’ve so much enjoyed being your stalkee, I can’t wait to see you in the next show. Maybe you’ll be the stalkee this time!
Tess – You are very funny and interesting. Thanks for being my Cleopatra.
Brian – We’ve known each other a long time and have done a lot of things together, I’m glad to add this chapter to our friendship.
Casey – Fellow newbie and applause whore! You are so fun and talented, I hope to see you in future shows.
Thomas – My sister. Your skills range all over the theater, I have a lot to learn from you.
Michael – A man of serious talent. It was a blast, thanks for the tips and I’ll share my Gold Bond with you anytime.
Bonnie – I’m still amazed at how fast you can get all the way around the building and back on stage. You were great!
Cindy – You have a lovely voice. I had fun singin’ in the rain with you.
Paul – You played so many great roles in the show. It was fun watching you. It’s obvious you have many friends who love you at the theater and I can see why.
Lyle – Outstanding voice and character abilities. Terribly friendly and supportive. I hope to learn a lot at your side on stage in the future.
Kyle – My secret pal. You were fabulous and I hope to see you on the stage again.
Marianne – Beautiful, talented, a little crazy (in a totally good way). And so much more.
Andrew – Very entertaining on the stage and backstage. You never knew what he might do. And I’ll try not to kill you with the back door anymore.
Molly – My Elvis dancing partner. The Pretzel just can’t be beat. Thanks for including me and being so friendly.
Krista – The trophy girl. And I totally made out with her. Well not really but it was close. You were so enjoyable to watch on You Lost That Loving Feeling. Your expressions were priceless.
Marcus – The trophy girl’s man. I did not make out with him, at least not that I can remember. Dude you have serious acting skills. Your impressions and accents are sweet.

And last but not least:

My wife – Thanks for being patient with me as I was out playing with the other kids. I had a lot of fun but I came home late many nights. Next year you’ll have to join me! I love you!

Whew, if you made it this far, I’m sorry but don’t you have better things to do?

Executive Summary: I was bitten by a bug that required me to sing and dance in front of really bright lights. In doing so, I met scores of very cool and talented people that I hope to stand in front of really bright lights with again. I wish I would’ve done it sooner and if you didn’t come to the show you have no idea what you missed, which is good because if you knew what you missed you would cry for 40 days and 40 nights.

I will post some pictures when they are available to me.

That Oompa Loompa looks familiar

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Probably cause they’re all the same person!

I saw Willy Wonka tonight. Yes, I know it’s not called Willy Wonka but Willy Wonka is more fun to say. Willy Wonka. See? Willy Wonka. Haha.

I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. I went straight to Wal*Mart to buy something afterwards. What does that mean? Read the archives! Dang!

Actually I went to buy the soundtrack. I’ve liked Danny Elfman for years and this soundtrack rocks. The Oompa Loompa songs are really great. Too bad Wal*Mart sucks and they didn’t have the CD. They did have the original Chocolate Factory soundtrack though, so I bought that instead. Pure Imagination is pure childhood memory goodness.

The basic storyline is the same as you’d remember from the first movie (I haven’t read the book so I can’t comment on that). It deviates at the end and at first I was disappointed in the way Charlie won the prize by default. He’s the only kid left so he wins. Yippee. I like the way he wins in the first movie better. But. There was a reason this was changed. The story takes a different yet interesting turn to focus on Willy Wonka’s (teehee) relationship (or lack thereof) with his father. A large part of the focus during the story was spent on Willy Wonka’s (haw) childhood. So it’s not all that surprising when the ending comes.

John Depp’s Willy Wonka (guffaw) at times is very funny and at times very disturbing. Sometimes I like him, sometimes I didn’t. Fair enough.

The movie is different from the original but if you have a special place in your heart for the Gene Wilder version, I think you will enjoy this movie too.

Go see it at your favorite movie viewing establishment and tell them I sent you. No, you won’t get a discount but hopefully I’ll get some free stuff or something.

Weekly Update

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Sad, I know. A weekly update. Pathetic.

Ah well. Next week we’ll return to your usual programming here at IMKH. Why? Because the show will be over. Done. Fin. And it’s kinda sad.

I’ve had very little time to sit on my couch and think of new useless and silly things to write about in the last few weeks. Why? Because I’ve been hanging out with the totally awesome people at the Starkville Community Theater almost every night. I’ll post about that later.

The hair is holding up well. I’ve invested (and I do mean invested) in the tiniest little flat iron you’ve ever seen. It allows me to have punk-rock hair everyday! My parents will see my hair tonight for the first time since I straightened it as they are driving up for the show. I wonder how they’ll react. I’ve had the curly hair for a really long time, like, my whole life and they’re the ones that gave it to me. I’ll report back on the parents’ opinion.

Since my parents are visiting this week, we went into panic cleaning mode. We went so far as to rip up the carpet in the living room and hallway area to replace it with laminate flooring. We have cats, you see, (and a dog) and the carpet had reached its limit in terms of wear in only three short years. And it was nasty. So we proceeded to replace it. Ourselves. Three days of work. I had to take off Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon just to get it all done. But it came out nice. I might post some pics of the process later.

I’ve got a couple ideas for posts to work out next week and I haven’t forgotten about the new instructional video.

Gotta get the ice beam to beat Mother Brain, Yo.

Now Showing…

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SCT goes to the movies.

From time-to-time I’ve mentioned the musical revue that I’m in this summer, mainly as my excuse as to why I haven’t been updating as much as I would like. We’ve been really busy with rehearsals and this week is an exception. We’ve been super-duper busy. The show opens Thursday night. Yikes! But I feel it is coming together and it will be a knock-out show.

The theme is music from the movies. We’re taking favorites from popular movies throughout the last several decades and giving them that special I-don’t-know-what. James Bond, Little Shop of Horrors, Disney favorites and Fame just to name a few. The set is done, the lights are up and the musicians are ready. Come relax and enjoy an evening of toe-tappin’, tear-jerkin’, soulful singin’.

You need to be there. The best part is, the tickets are FREE! That’s right, you won’t have to pay a penny for a ticket. All we ask is for a minimum of $25 donation to the theater. What? You think that was sneaky? It is a fund raiser after all, you cheap skate. So come support your local community theater. And you won’t find any better entertainment around.

Here’s the schedule:

  • Thursday, July 28th
  • Friday, July 29th
  • Saturday, July 30th
  • Thursday, August 4th
  • Friday, August 5th
  • Saturday, August 6th

The show starts at 7:30pm each night. There will be a champagne and dessert reception following each show.

Surely, out of these six evenings you can find one to come check out the show. I don’t care how far you have to drive or fly; you can see me strut my stuff on Footloose, sing the Elvis ballad “Love Me Tender” and many other exciting tunes. And if you think I’m talented, you ain’t seen nothing yet; I’m the least talented performer in the show! Now that’s not to say that I’m not talented (of course, see Awesome Lessons) but that we have an amazing, gifted cast that will knock your socks off.

So drop what you are doing and call the box office for your reservations: 662-323-6855

I’m in a band!

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Actually I’m not but I could be with my new rock star hairdo. Check it.

For the first time in my life, I have straight(ish) hair. I’ve been thinking about doing this all summer and, well, I did it. This is not so much a Look At Me The Attention Whore post as a This Is An Important Life Event post.

The guy who does hair for the theater shows has a place in Columbus and he’s fabulous. Go to Jamie’s Salon and ask for Jansen (my bad if I misspelled that). Anyway, I talked to him a few nights ago at rehearsal and he said Come on in, I can totally do that.

So one of the other guys from the show, Lyle, was going to get his hair Jansenized too. I caught a ride with him and it was boys’ day at the salon.

It’s really different as I’ve never seen my hair like this before so it’s going to take some getting used to. I mean, I’ve only had insanely curly hair my whole life. Though the more I look at it, the more I like it.

And, of course, I have before and after pics. The “before” is from December. Since then, I’ve lost a bunch of hair and a bunch of weight. For all following pictures, clickify to biggify. (I didn’t really wear my hair like this out in public)

and

And a couple of quick, one-handed “after” snaps. (These aren’t very good, maybe I’ll to get some better ones up)

and

Oh boy! Summer hair fun. Do other people get an unexplainable urge to mess with their hair during the summer? The past couple of summers I’ve sprayed A Touch of Sun in it to lighten it up. Well I topped that one this year.

Who knows what it’ll look like in a couple of days. I ain’t got no hair doing skillz. I usually wet it and put anti-frizz crap in it. It takes all of 13.7 seconds. I think this will take more work. And I can’t get it wet for three days. I actually have a shower cap to wear in the shower. Teehee.

Podcasting on IMKH

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Survey says: Stinks

I technically wasn’t going to podcast. It’s really more of an audioblog thing I had in mind. I tried, really, I did. I recorded a couple different archive posts and I’m just not happy with them. I recorded that dang shark post about 5 different times.

After a couple of evening’s experimentation, here are my thoughts on my audioblogging skills:

  • Apparently things sound much funnier in my head than when spoken aloud. Turns out I have a completely different style of speaking in my head than I do out of my mouth and it doesn’t translate very well
  • I sound like I’m from Mississippi. There could be a reason for that
  • The built-in mic on my Powerbook isn’t the best for quality audio recording. This is a cop out reason

I’m not totally giving up, I might do some audioblogging in the future, but I ain’t real keen on reading old posts.

BTW, As you know, I have l33t photoshop skillz. And now you know that I also have mad picture-taking skillz cause I totally took that picture.

Insert Title Here

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Ok I’m just gonna write some stuff and go with it so put on your seat belt. It’s 5 minutes with Mr. KaryHead.

How the heck did I get that name? Mr. KaryHead. What does it even mean? Well I’ll tell you.

Once very long ago I was helping with Vacation Bible School at church. Don’t know what VBS is? Sorry, I’m moving on. So I was helping with the chillin’s recreation time. Me and some friends. We had fun with the kiddies. They chased us, we chased them, we slid down the slide, they slid down the slide, we bounced rubber balls off of their heads, they most certainly did not bounce balls off our heads. They were too short for that sort of thing.

One day I did something one of them didn’t like. Maybe I pushed him down. Nah, that doesn’t seem right, I wasn’t mean. Maybe I didn’t let him win Duck Duck Goose. Yeah. Cause I will never play the patsy with kids when it comes to Duck Duck Goose. I play fo’ keeps, yo.

So anyway, this kid, who apparently couldn’t run around a circle of his seated peers as fast as I could, says something like You ol’ Mr. KaryHead.

You know how kids will insult you by adding ‘head’ to the word? You ol’ poophead, for example. Or You ain’t nuthin’ but a farthead. You see the theme here? Well that’s the kind of insults kids use. At least they did in my day, who knows what kind of awful words they would use today. You might be callin me Mr. LimpDickHead if it were kids today. Jeez. Inside Mr. LimpDickHead just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

For some reason the slow-running-Goose couldn’t come up with a good bodily function word to add ‘head’ to in his frustration. So he used my name + head. My friends thought it was sooo funny.

I’ve been known as Mr. KaryHead ever since. Sometimes just KaryHead if we’re on familiar terms.

Good night.