Well, there's this

Not to be confused with this...

Honestly, what's more beautiful?

 WELL

Here it is

You wanted to see it.

In all it's glory.

Yes you are 

in fact

looking at the infamous

B@&#$^#! Key

In order to save myself from the wrath of a certain re-enactment security guard, I'm choosing not to post the actual names of the images and places we were at. Somehow, deep down, I know she'll be out there scouring the interweb for these photos. But I just cannot let that happen.

It has been quite some time since the last blog posting has in fact posted. I believe it was near the beginning of summer actually, so with with the end of summer past us, a new president elected, and christmas coming closer with every crappy fall movie ad out on tv, I think it may be time to give some updates.

And speaking of movies, I'm trusting that everyone in their right minds saw "The Dark Knight" this summer. The movie is the #2 biggest grossing movie ever, and Mike and I were so lucky as to be living in a big city at the right time. On a random early July afternoon, My friend and fellow Discovery colleague Andy and I were headed south on Wisconsin avenue driving to get some props for another puppy shoot. Suddenly, a large, oblong, dark vehicle appeared to our rights, parked outside the Regal Movie Theater. 

It was of course, The Batmobile!

Andy and I were only able to snap a few pics from the car, but later Mike and I returned, cell phones in hand, and shot a little montage of the new extreme BatPod (the motorcycle).

We clipped it all together and you can watch it here on YouTube (over 7000 views to date!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ki3yCgvxV7s

Anyway, I wanted to use this posting as a precursor and a teaser of what's to come.

With the election upon us, I decide to document my travels around the Washington DC during election day. What followed was a mini adventure, culminating with my battery dying and the TV at the bar we were at dying as well.

But one thing still lives, and that's this blog, or at least it's going through a rebirth. 

So Look for Jeff Allen's Election Special! coming very soon.

All for now, from DC

 

Cheers!

DC Living

It's been about 2 or 3 months, so time for an update! Above you is a gigantic Panasonic FILM camera. Mike and I had the pleasure of stumbling upon a Russel Crowe movie being filmed in downtown Washington DC. The film, entitled "State of Play" was being shot at the same Metro stop where Mike gets off to work to work at the illustrious "Custom Shop Clothiers", Farragut North. The day started relatively normal for me, I had woken up and traveled to Sears Optical for a contact lens check up at about 2 pm . About 10 minutes before I entered the store, I receive a phone call from Mike. "Jeff my friend", he said excitedly, "It is very important that you get down to the Farragut North stop immediately".
"Why?" I replied. "Lets just say that Russel Crowe is filming a movie directly across from the custom shop. Yeah, pretty important."
"What!? That's amazing!" I said. "I've got to do this eye appointment real quick and then I'll head straight down."
"Ok, very good."


50 minutes later, still waiting in the optometrist's chair, I'm finally shown to the doctor. 30 minutes later I'm pulling into the Americana Finmark, our new condo that's 8 steps walking distance to the Forest Glen Metro stop.
I quickly run up the three flights of stairs to our apartment, open the door, run in and find my camera. Moments later I'm out the door, opening the secret gate that gives our condo residents VIP access to the Metro, and I"m on the train.
















I pop out of the Farragut North stop and meet up with Mike on the street level. The first thing I see is a giant crane stretching hundreds of feet above L street. Atop this crane is a 20K Arri Professional Lighting film light. 20,000watts. Enough to make a city street at night appear to be daylight.
Mike and I decided that for the next 9 hours we would spend gawking, staring, and otherwise trying to infiltrate the "State of Play" infrastructure. First off, we planted ourselves at a conveniently located Starbucks (though that's really an obvious statement, as Starbucks' are always conveniently located, especially in DC.) We had an insiders view of the whole arena. The street level view gave us unlimited access to the entire street setup for the shoot. On the other side of the glass were the logistical and artistic minds behind the film that were its inner workings. The DP and gaffers were setting up the next shot literally 8 feet from us. The line producer and the Assistant Director were working with the extras and some other crew members about placement and timings. One of the producers stopped into our Starbucks and started up a conversation with a Washingtonian waiting in line. From this convo, we learned that Crowe was going to be returning across the street in about an hour. Good, we thought, we'd be able to have an encounter with the Gladiator. This day might turn out to be profitable.
Unfortunately the Starbucks closed at 4pm, and minutes later every gawker was kicked out of the store. Mike and I decided to cross the street and find a new place to plant ourselves for the next Crowe sighting. It came sooner than later, and actually quite discreetly. One moment the crew members were setting up the next shot, and the next moment Russel waltzed out of a nearby building, crossed the street, and sauntered about 20 ft from Mr. Kelly and myself. Thinking on my feet, I quickly brandished my camera and snuck off a few pics of Mr. Crowe. Seconds after I snapped a few pictures, a nearby crew member made several announcements how no one was to take pictures of Mr. Crowe, because he "doesn't like it". Really I think they just wanted to avoid having phones thrown at passersby.














The Washington Globe was apparently the newspaper that Crowe's character works for in the film. They had posted a huge Washington Globe sign over the Bender building, which is a parking garage, and like that, they made Crowe's newspaper office headquarters.
By this time, it was around 6pm and getting a little dark and cold, so Mike and I made the decision to head back to the condo for some dinner, with the plan of going back down afterwards to catch a glimpse of Rachel McAdams. After a hasty meal of black beans, corn, onions, and garlic (The Number One), Mike and I suited up and hopped the train back to the Farragut North Stop.
It was dark by now, and the humongous 20K light was illuminating an entire city block. We wandered over towards a group of extras for a bit, then walked right through the "set" a few times. It's pretty crazy how open the "set" was, since it's just a city street in DC. The crew can't really stop people from walking through since it's a fairly prominent street in the city, and Washingtonians must have their way. Mike and I took full advantage of this rule, and the triumphant moment happened just minutes before they had wrapped for the evening. The entire day, Mike and I had been discussing how amazing it would be if one of us took it upon ourselves to confront Mr. Crowe face to face, simply say "Russel, what the @#$#?" and proceed to shove him in the chest. The events that would transpire next would be almost to unfathomable to think of. Most certainly, Mr. Crowe would shove back, and most likely with a shot to the face. We're talking about Russel Crowe here, the man does not suffer fools. We're also talking about national media coverage, instant street credit as being "the guy who shoved Russel Crowe, and definite jail time.
The moment finally came.
They had just wrapped a scene where Mr. Crowe and Ms. Adams have an encounter on the street. Russel had wandered off somewhere momentarily. "Mike." I said. "Let's just walk right through the crew, just so we can say we did it."
"Um." Mike pondered.
"Let's do it."

We walked across the street and headed for a group of crew members joking about something that happened in the last scene. Ahead of us were a few fairly large black men, most likely security. Behind us and to the sides were grips, gaffers, DPs, Ads, PAs, best boys, LDs, the director, and some extras. We kept walking a few steps, when all of the sudden, a figure appeared out of the parking garage and turned to walk straight toward us. I recognized his wool trenchcoat from before. His confident and composed walk was all too familiar. At this moment, Mike was head down, in the midst of telling a story about how he had seen the batmobile in Chicago when he was there with his brother. My eyes looked up at the appearance of the man. His steps seemed larger and more spread apart as he neared us. In fact, the whole scene feels like it passed in slow motion. His eyes started to turn from the ground in front of him and gaze toward Mike and I. Then, Russel Crowe brushed past Mike's shoulder, and our eyes crossed. He held his look for a moment, and I just stared, dumbfounded. Then he turned his head and strutted past us. Mike finished his story, then slowly came to terms with what just happened.
"Was that Russel Crowe?"
"Yes, keep walking."

We turned a reached the end of the block and dared to look behind us, thankful that no large security men were following us.
"Russel Crowe just bumped shoulders with you!" I exclaimed. "And he looked me right in the eyes!"
"I think we just acheived total victory." Mike stated.
We ran back to the Metro, catching the last train to Glenmont for the evening. When we arrived back at Forest Glen, the Security guards were already starting to close the gates for the night.
When we arrived back at the condo, we sat down on the couch and cracked open a couple Yeungling's. I think we both agreed, the Wacky Adventures of Mike Kelly and Jeff Allen were still just beginning.

Out with the old, in with the new

Me and the big guy, Mr. Clark Bunting

It's 3:53am in Maryland and I can't sleep. I've been told that when you can't sleep it's usually because your mind won't let you relax. Its too occupied with thoughts and ideas and energy and it simply won't back off and let you take a rest. So as I toss and turn in bed I contemplate my life and I decided that my mind has always been occupied with thoughts and ideas and energy. I guess my mom hit the target when she always called me an on-the-go-guy, I think I never truly stop thinking about stuff.

So on the topic of sleep, here's a fun fact for the day. Sleep, according to Dr. Oz, is key to growth and vitality. It allows your body to rest and produce hormones only produced during sleep cycles. These are key to helping you live longer and reducing stress.
Tidbits like these are gems working on Discovery Health shows. I find this quite refreshing as it keeps me somewhat versed in the jargon for discussions with my dad or with Erin. Terms like "central adiposity" and "cardiometabolic syndrome" are little chunks of knowledge I've pick up along the way.

I've heard that when you make big purchases that there's often a period afterward of guilt and depression. For instance, the first night of sleep in a newly purchased house is almost impossible with thoughts like, what have I just got myself into? floating around in your head. I think they say the same thing about marriage...

Thus I think the real reason I can't sleep is the fact that about 8 hours ago I purchased a 1200 dollar queen mattress set from Macys.

OK I got a good deal on it, the mattress set was on sale for 497, plus I got an extra 20 % for signing up for a Macys card, so I ended up paying only 480ish with shipping (65!) and taxes, and six months no interest.
The dilemma was do I pay to have my old mattress shipped from Michigan to Maryland, which was going to cost a minimum of 300 bucks for the cheapest freight, and take forever, and probably charge a handling fee since that mattress is currently jammed upright in the storage locker in the basement of my old apartment. OR do I just cough a couple hundred more and buy a new and improved mattress that will probably last me ten years. I believe I made a good decision, it ships to my new house in about a week.

So I've found a new house! Finally , finally, finally I'll be waving goodbye to this cat infested, vacant, lonely, dirty house and the laziest roommate and his relentlessly lazier kitchen cleaning habits. I'm moving 15 minutes closer to Bethesda to the infamous city of


CHEVY CHASE

Yes, it's true, there is a city actually named Chevy Chase, and yes, it was around before the actor, and yes, he did actually steal his stage name from this city, apparently because it's just that cool.

And I couldn't agree more.


Though I doubt I'll be having my own Griswold family Christmas party anytime soon, I do plan on having my on little blogger party of pictures as soon as I move into the new place.

My new roommate/house owner is Nicholas, a 24 yr old guy who recently graduated from school. He works for a company that feeds into NASA, and with his newly found income decided to buy a house, with his parents, and rent out the other two rooms to help pay the mortgage. I think this is a great way to start out buying a house, especially when you're young and don't have a family yet. He seems like a really cool dude, has a sense of humor, which will be a change from stone cold Matt, and appears to be, most importantly, clean.
Needless to say, I'm looking forward to out with the old, and in with the new.

Cheers

Acronyms

A few weeks ago a fellow PA (production assistant) at DS (Discovery Studios) had set me up with an AP (associate producer) of a local production house. This particular production house does a lot of shoots with Natgeo (National Geographic Channel), the ASAA (American Sleep Apnea Association), nonprofit groups, and lots of corporate video. This shoot that I'd been solicited for was for the ASAA. The video we were to make was about a man who has sleep apnea and how it can affect him in different situations. Thus when I was summoned to be a PA for the first shoot, I figured the shoot would be rather mundane, seeing as how it involved sleep.

I conferred with my producer at DS, Wayne, about whether it was worth it or not to skip out a day of copying DVDs for my internship and go out on a field shoot in a million dollar art studio home in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Maryland and get actual hands on experience.
The decision was a tough one, but after an immediate decision on Wayne's part telling me to go, I decided, immediately, to pursuit this venture.

Thus on the tuesday before Thanksgiving I awoke at 6am, put on jeans and a black polo (standard attire for a PA) and shortly thereafter drove to the set. Now, I've PA'd before on certain gigs in Lansing, Detroit, Washington DC, and NYC, and I'd have to say that none of them have been less than a genuine learning experience. In Lansing I PA'd for a children's film festival training day attended by all of 5 eager kids. In Detroit I've shot (twice now!) an Indian dance show with an audience of thousands of NRI's (Non Resident Indians) and straight of the boat-ers donning turbans, eating massive amounts of curry, and being some of the most hospitable people I've ever encountered. In DC I've helped out on Puppy Bowl, which, if you're new to the world of Jeff Allen, is Animal Planet's spinoff of professional football (almost like the XFL, but not quite...). NYC PAing was the home to Doctor Oz, Bodies Exhibit's and NY Bagels.

The American Sleep Apnea Association, though a fairly large organization, did not strike me as being terribly exciting, but as always, I'm up for anything.

I arrive at the Maryland mansion (not to be confused with Maryln Manson), walk into the thick oak doors of the house, and enter an artists paradise.

Enter the part of the post where I should, for the sake of the viewer, post pictures of this so called artist's paradise. Unfortunately I did not have my camera that day. So just imagine a household that Picasso would have hung the paintings, Frank Lloyd Wright would have been the architect, Salvador Dali would have been the inspiration for the sculptures and color scheme, Liberace would have been proud to have called the musical insturments his own, and Babe Ruth would have hung out in the sports room with his and his 100 pro friends' rookie cards.

NAVY

Two weekends ago I took the long and treacherous road down to Virginia Beach to visit my longtime friend and former-co-boat-owner, Adam King. The main road from Washington DC area going South to VA is I95. It should be call I9.5 if we're talking speed limits. What google maps told me would be a 3 hour trip turned into a 5 hour parking lot extravaganza. Luckily I had the new Foo Fighters CD to accompany me (thanks baby!) and lots and lots of abhorring VA drivers. After passing through the Bridge Tunnel that stretches across the Chesapeake I arrived on the Virginia Beach side of the eastern coast of the state. Adam lives in a house relatively close to the OCEANA NAS base where he plays Navy...is in the Navy, sorry.
Adam is an Aircraft engineer of sorts and he works on the ejection seat systems and the environmental control areas of the F18 Superhornets. The planes are made out of a composite, mainly plastic based, but renders them extremely tough and durable, kind of like hundreds of layers of seatbelts stretched out and compiled into a multi-million dollar fighting machine.There's not a flat surface on the jet; every square inch has a slight curve to it which helps to evade radar.
Unfortunately Adam took it a little too far and turned the beast on unbeknownst to me. Luckily I work at Discovery channel where I learned the best way to evade a jet engine, which is screaming.


Adam's squadron is the Jolly Rogers, and apparently they have won more awards and achievements in things like safety, efficiency, and best squadron numerous times. How could you not with such a mascot?

More Discovery

I figured it was time to upload some more pictures of whats been happening at Discovery in the past couple weeks. This one above is inside the Discovery Creative and Technology Center, or DCTC. In this location, many of the the various discovery shows are edited in Post-Production. Tapes are stored and logged here, the building has its own insert stage (kind of a compact studio), and over 50 edit suites are housed, all within this building.

Probably the most exciting thing I've done here in the past weeks was shoot a segment for animal planet, Puppy Bowl, which I touched on in an earlier post. I've attached this video of an insiders look into PB. You'll find how awkwardly silent it is. The scene being filmed is the Kitten Halftime show, another show highlight, and personal favorite.
The cats, in my eyes, looked either irritated, slightly scared, or just downright confused. But take special note at how meticulous each person is behind the scenes. The video is almost dead quiet.

The lighting people, my buddy Phil being one of them, wrench their arms back and forth while operating the spotlights. The camera operators shoot with care and precision. The grips standby at a moments notice to jump in and aid. You'd think these people were filming an Opera. It was really a cool moment, and the whole shoot was a great experience.

Puppy Bowl

His name is Justin, and he's single, cute, and available. I recently attended an Animal Planet shoot entitled "Puppy Bowl". Now, for those of you who are out of the know, "Puppy Bowl" is one of Animal Planet's widest watched programs of the year. It airs concurrently during the superbowl.... a bold idea when one considers the amount superbowl ads cost each year, (the more people watching i.e. ratings, the more the network can charge for ad spots.)

I showed up on monday morning not knowing really what to expect. My producer had just told me that I was going to be a PA (production assistant), which usually involves anything from helping out on set, lighting, changing batteries, giving various input, to what I ended up doing, shooting a scene by myself.

Videos!

I wandered around The Taste of Bethesda!
on saturday and there was this great latin band playing
great salsa music. Most of the players were from equador.
Check out the gringo dancing at the end!

Now accepting reservations!

Come see me! I would love to show you around the DMV, there is a ton of stuff to do and lots of cool places to see, so friends and family, let me know a weekend you can come out and we'll go from there!

Congestion and the American Dream

It never ceases to amaze me how things come in pairs.

Today I made a last minute trip down the Capitol Beltway to watch a bout between our very talented Detroit Lions and the Washington Redskins ( a game time decision, as it were!) However, I think you'll find the game itself is the least interesting part of this story. The drive from my house in Kensington to Fed Ex Stadium in Prince Georges County is 18.6 miles according to google maps, so over an hour on the beltway....

Like at any modern massive sporting event, or anywhere around the DMV, parking is damn nightmare. As I pulled off of the beltway, it was about 1:30, (left just after noon) and the game was already underway. I pulled into the vast expanse of permit parking lots, all appropriately sorted by color. Many scalpers littered the area and try to flag you down to sell off their remaining tickets. Thus begins the haggle.
Now for those of you who don't know, I immensely enjoy the haggling process. I believe this fetish started when I was in Rome for WYD 2000. I would haggle street vendors just for the thrill of trying to get the lowest price, never intending to purchase what they were selling. I would haggle tshirt sellers to flower vendors, trying to drop prices from 2 dollars to one. My first big haggle was for a plate of the Colleseum. The vendor started the price off at 100 american dollars. As soon as I expressed an interest in the piece, the vendor was hooked, trying anything to sell off the plate too me. We started going back and forth, he'd ask what I wanted to spend, I'd say I wasn't sure, he'd throw out lower prices, I'd say still too steep. Eventually his lowest price leveled off at 50 American. Not wanting to drop a half Benji on this plate, I utilized my trump card of haggling technique, and simply walked away. It took about 15 seconds until the man chased me down, plate in hand.
I bought the piece for 15 dollars.

Thus the sight of scalpers ignited my senses, and I pulled off to one man waving me down. I rolled down the window and asked what he had. He had multiple tickets all over the stadium, starting at 80 dollars. The game was already a half hour or so underway, so I told him his prices were a little steep and asked what I wanted to spend. I said no more than twenty. He dropped to forty. I started to pull away. He held onto my window, saying twenty was ok, he could do twenty. Strategically, I had only ten dollars in my wallet, and upon opening it and showing him my funds I said sorry, I actually only had ten. He said ten was fine, he could do ten. He dropped the ticket on my seat and I handed him two fives.

So I was off! ticket in hand I just needed a parking spot. It turns out you must also buy a parking pass from the scalpers as well, as I found out from a parking attendant. So I pulled over to the next nearest scalper. He was only selling tickets and parking passes in pairs, thus no use to me. On to the next scalper. He had one starting at 60 in the red lot ( about 20 min walk to the stadium). I said way to pricy, he dropped to 40. I told him I had no more cash, to which he replied, " Nigga watchyou gone do with no cash!" and walked off.

My friend was absolutely correct, so I sped off in search of a spot in the nearest residential neighbor hood. Now like many neighbor hoods around the DMV, even to park in the street requires a parking permit. Seeing as how I do not live in Prince Georges county, I lacked this pass. I drove and drove, passing houses that quickly started to dimish in value, passing a police station, passing project houses, and landing at a neighborhood that appeared not to have a street sign designated spots of pavement reserved for cars with permits. I parallel parked the lumina, hid my valuables, and walked to the stadium.

A half hour later I arrived at Fed Ex Stadium.
The stadium is a massive three story structure, home to escalators, corporate boxes, Budwieser, Miller light, scantily clad cheerleaders, and thousands upon thousands of Redskins fans, or as I like to call them, raging misplaced pirates.
Redskins fans should be the Webster's dictionary entry for the phrase "out of control". Like so many east coasters where football comes first, these fans live for Sundays. My ticket was in the "12th man: Stomp With Pride!" section. I was flanked by couples paired with jersey's and budweisers to my left and a group of 12th Man stompers paired with tatoo's and miller lights. When the Redskins make a first down, the section blows up. Fans start chants like "You Suck, You Suck!", "Bullsh@t! Bullsh@t!" and my personal favorite, "F### Detroit!"

Needless to say, the fans of Washington were rewared for their passions with a blowout victory. The Lions were 3-1 going into this game, but after this disgusting loss, their record drops to a shameful 3-100000.
But enough about a this collective scream fest, back to my car, if it's still there. The walk back took me past Prince Georges County highschool, which is directly outside the stadium, Jericho Baptist Church, also right next to the stadium, and loads beyond loads of cars and pavement. eventually I reached the residential neighborhood where my car was. I saw multiple cars with tickets on their windshields, so I was expecting the worst. As the house values diminished I knew I was getting close to my car. Up and down a few hills, passing children playing football in the streets, various baptist churches here and there, a police station to my right, a project house to my left. I began to feel stares from people on the street, mostly out of curiousity I presume. After the 5th block of project houses, I was almost to my car when an undercover police car pulled over to the side of the road and turned on his flashers. I stopped walking as the officer rolled down his windshield to speak to me. "Hey, are you lost?" he questioned me. I quickly replied "No, just walking to my car." He turned his head toward where I was walking and then back to me. "In this neighborhood?" he rebutted. It was then that I noticed that I was the only white person I'd seen in blocks, except for this officer. I looked around me for a quick second and gave him a shrug. "Yeah." The officer gave me a quick once over glance, as if to remind me that I was sticking out like a sore thumb, responded, "Ok." and sped off. I reached my car, the pair of us unscathed, and headed off to the Beltway for an hour and a half drive back.

Prince Georges County is one of the poorest counties around this area and notorious for being dangerous. Low-income housing, close quarters, and beat up cars lay only a short walk from the loaded corporate stage at Fed Ex Field. Its an interesting duality. How can these two separate entities exist within blocks of each other? It reminds me of crossing over into Detroit from Oakland county. The neighborhood where I parked my car drew memories of Nicaraguan streets in parts, where houses have iron doors, cars old and new are parked on lawns and behind houses, and the kids play in the playground that is the street. Yet practically next door is a beacon of cleanliness and hope. The dream of becoming famous, of being on the field, having thousands cheer for you, the hope of escaping your birthright caste. For one day a week, people from these poor neighborhoods travel up the hill to the stadium to cheer on their team, but really its more deep than that. At the heart of watching spectator sports is a hint of vicarious illusions, the thought that, maybe some day it could be me on that field, or me on that jumboscreen, or me winning that camera given to the person in section 223, row 22 seat 2. Could this be possibly the heart of the American Dream? Give me my 15 minutes?

To quote Hunter S. Thompson,
“For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.”

1st Week

Is outta the WAY! WELCOME to the lobby of Discovery Headquarters. Greeting you is a giant caste of a TRex, made from an actual TRex bones at some major University.
Next to him is his little friend Mr. Triceratops Head (I hope I have my dino spellings right.)
This lobby is like a mini
Curious Kids Museum. Along with
the two dinosaurs, there is a
display of the Discovery USA Biking team, for the tour de France, featuring an actual bike, jersey, rider profiles and photos, the handmade chopper (motorcycle) by Paul Teutel Sr., and a humongous mechanical gizmo that is hard to describe. I'll have to get a picture of this contraption, but basically this thing transports little wood, ping pong sized balls up a twisting column an sends them down random paths to the bottom, traversing through hundreds of different tracks, doors, springs, jumps, etc...
This photo is in front of the main entrance to the headquarters. You can actually see the Discovery building from the Red line train which gets off in downtown Silver Spring..This is one of three buildings Discovery has in the D.C. area. I actually don't work in this building, but I did have orientation there on my first day. The building is only about 6 or 7 years old, so it's super new and hip cool ( such was the description via our intern coordinator.) It actually is amazing. Walking through the building you feel like you're in some posh Clubhouse for an upscale esoteric organization. The first floor boasts 2 cafe-like areas, electric scooters, and a full service wellness center. Yes you can wander out of the onsite coffee shop with your morning headache and stumble next door into the wellness center for medical diagnosis and treatment. Apparently Discovery is one of the Top 100 Fortune 500 places to work, and a 2007 Working Mother Best Company for Working Mothers, I'm assuming a lot of that had to do with our Day care service (and plans are in progress for a huge playground for the kids in the courtyard of the building). Yes this is big place, and the whole building is "green", meaning lots of CFL's, recycling bins, and my personal favorite, nonflush toilets ( a water saver....think about it.)
Discovery's second building is called the Discovery Creative and Technical Center, located about 4 blocks south of the headquarters. About half the size as HQ, this building is still ginormous. It features over 50 professional editing suites, each suited with 2 monitors, plasma screen tv for preview, computers, and thousands of dollars in editing equipment, another cafe, full time deli workers (my Latino amigos!) , and an escalator (apparently just to look cool).

Of course I do not work in any of these corporate paradises. The last location is located on the 8th and 9th floors of the Bethesda Towers, in Downtown Bethesda, MD (about 10 minutes from Silver Spring.) Parking is 8 dollars a day, the building is loaded with personal security guards, and of course, non flush toilets. I work in this building with my fellow Discovery Production Studios Co-workers. I have my own cubicle, computer, phone and extension, and age group (yes everyone is at least 10 years older than me.)

Well I need to go take more pictures of the DMV. Next might be some DC pictures.

CIAO!

The New Place!

Pictures of the new place in Maryland.... that's right Maryland.






Here's my street, nice and green, with the Lume parked right out front.


The main room connects into the kitchen with a swivel door and that little window.

The kitchen was trashed when I moved in, apparently one of my new housemates, Matt, is quite the bachelor.

It took about 22 hrs for me to give up and clean out a space for myself.

The rest of his stuff is on an adjacent counter, waiting....

Needless to say, I was a little spoiled living with Jon.

Here's my room, actually quite large. It connects into my private bathroom, which is two parts.

The Sink area is the bigger part, and also part-time desk.

I presently don't have a place for my computer and since the sink area was so huge, it's filling in.

My Tub/Shower and Toilet area are also fairly large.
I like the wood paneling in the bathroom.

It gives the place a kind of cabin feel.


I've got a ceiling fan in my room, 2 decent sized closets, and two entrances.

You can see the view from inside the shower room to out through the sink area and my bed is peeking out of the main room.


I've yet to meet this elusive Matt... He lives in the Basement in a really large room, completely trashed.

I did meet my neighbor upstairs, Steve. Steve works in Computers, is from PA, has a wife and kids, and travels home on the weekends.

During the week Steve leaves at about 7 to catch the Metro into DC and gets back 12 hrs later to go to bed.

I figured I'd put his computer skills to the test and made him help me connect to the internet.

Around my area there are tons of shops and restaurants.


Target, JC Penny's, Giant, Qdoba, Starbucks, Safeway, Starbucks,
and Starbucks are all within a 15min or so walking distance.
They love their coffee out here.

I'm going to keep organizing stuff, but sometime soon I'll post some pictures of the city and where I'll be working.
Adios!

Vegas

Is insane.....

Kyoto!

KYOTO! This was our second most visited city next to Tokyo and it was beautiful and old and full of Temples. This one is Kinkakuji, the Golden Temple, in NW Kyoto. Apparently a monk burnt down the temple in the 1800s and they rebuilt the temple with gold 4 leaves thicker than the original. On sunny days it's nearly blinding, and the reflection in the water is just as magnificent.

The pond surrounding the temple was full of beautiful multicolored Koi, which are everywhere in Japan. In some people's backyards, a koi pond can often be found usually next to a rock garden.