I forgot to mention that I have found one activity I really enjoy and that is acting. I responded to an ad on craigslist for a part in an indie film. The director, Thierry Pasquiou has a company called Itchy Movies (www.itchiemovie.com) and they are pretty low budget but he does a good job.

Anyway, the movie I auditioned for is called "a Simple Smile" and it is about a woman who loses her job and the impact it has on her life -- both positively and negatively. I play the "bad" guy as I am the boss who fires her! It is a pretty traumatic scene and was very interesting as it was filmed from multiple camera angles. We repeated it six or seven times for each angle. Its a challenge to maintain the intensity when doing it over and over again. Kelly Jo Horton, a professional actress, plays the lead role of Ruth. She did an excellent job and I found it relatively easy to play off her. i.e. she reacted well to what I said. Hopefully she felt the same way. The director seemed pretty happy with my performance as he complemented me the next day when I played my second role -- this time as a down-and-out sleeping off a drunken binge! Of course you can only see my back as it would be a bit ironic (although perhaps poetic justice) to have the "boss" from the previous day suddenly out sleeping on the street.

One aspect of the "boss" role that was a bit awkward was that the real Ruth, the subject of the movie was at the shoot. She was sitting in the seat across from me as they shot the first part of my doing the "firing". She couldn't leave as there were lights and tripods blocking her exit. After a couple of takes I finally asked her if it felt uncomfortable for her to be sitting there where I had to focus. She said it was a bit painful. She was able to escape shortly thereafter.

My scenes are done now so I am looking forward to seeing the final product.