Museum event!

On July 11th, the Southern Museum is having a "Night at the Museum" event, based on the movie, for a fundraiser. Everything in the museum will be coming alive. It should be fairly cool.

Here's the web page:
http://www.southernmuseum.org/se_night_at_somu.html

There will be (among a LOT of other things) a pretty good Star Wars presence there. I know there will be several Stormtroopers, and if I can work out the logistics of it, R2-D2 will be there - that's the fully drivable remote controlled one I built. So come see us!

R2 repair

This picture amused me ... R2 burned out a foot motor at a charity event. I finally got it fixed, and have tightened the chains to boot so he drives much more evenly now (I hope!)

This picture is after the foot has been rebuilt and remounted, and I'm preparing to solder the wires back in so the remote system in the body will control the motor ... I think it's the nerd equivalent to working under the car.

Fanboys

The movie Fanboys is finally coming to Atlanta! As fanboy, I'm pretty thrilled.

Several of us are going to be doing things at the UA Northpoint Market movie theater (6500 Northpoint Parkway, Alpharetta, GA) tonight, I think from around 5 to 7. There will be several R2 units and multiple stormtroopers.

So come see us!

Antinomy

A while ago I got published in a magazine, and was bragging about it in this blog. Well get ready to hear it again about the same magazine. Just deal with it. I'm all excited still.

WEB LINKS!
http://www.antinomymagic.com/issue14.htm

Plus this one says it's articles from "some of the sharpest minds on the magic scene". They probably were not thinking of me at all, but I choose to believe they DID.
http://www.magicproshop.com/antinomy-magazine-book-p-12161.html

WOOOO! I'm all psyched!

Stormtrooper son

My armor was out ... my three year old son was fascinated by it ... so what can I say.



There are more pictures of him here. This was a pretty exciting moment for the boy I think ... he was delighted about this!

Toys for Tots

R2's first public appearance went great! We helped collect a lot of toys, R2 performed pretty well all in all, and I'm just delighted!

Here's two Marines with R2 ...

Toys for Tots - Best Buy!!

I messed up - I will be out with R2 collecting toys on Sunday, Dec 21st, but it is at the Kennesaw Best Buy, not Toys R Us! Still on Barrett Parkway, though.

Folks should be there from 11 to 4:30. I'm not quite sure when I'll be there, but I will shoot to be there from 12 to 2 at least - depends somewhat on R2's batteries!

Best Buy Store 501
850 Cobb Place Blvd Nw
Kennesaw, GA 30144

Toys for Tots

I almost forgot to post about this! On Sunday, Dec 21st I will be collecting toys for Toys for Tots. I will be at the Barrett Parkway Toys R Us in the afternoon.

The 501st will be there, so there will be multiple stormtroopers and other costumed characters. I will NOT be coming as a Stormtrooper - I am bringing R2-D2!

So if you want to come see R2, Stormtroopers, and who knows what else - I'd sure love to see you there!

(I'd been planning on having R2 talk through my normal sound system ... which won't be there ... this evening and for a few upcoming ones I am frantically trying to get a remote controlled sound system installed!)

I'm in print!

I got a magic magazine I really like in the mail yesterday. So I opened up the envelope, took a look at the cover and my name was on it.

THAT'S RIGHT! I'M IN PRINT!

I submitted a routine to these guys a while ago, never heard back, and figured that meant they thought I sucked and had no interest in my routine. So I was totally surprised to see that not only am I in the magazine, but my name is on the cover! (Along with about 10 other guys, but MY name is on top of the list!) So I'm just thrilled.

The magazine was Antinomy - I'm in issue 14 which isn't on their site yet it seems. But soon!

So that combined with me being in the Kidabra magazine a few months ago and I'M FAMOUS! WOOO!

Which basically means last night I spent 15 minutes running around the house with the magazine crowing about it while Karen tried to continue faking enthusiasm. It was a fairly awesome moment.

So McDonalds is totally awesome.

First, they have STAR WARS toys! Way cool. So we went there today so that my kids Xander and Piper could have happy meals. Which featured R2-D2 on the box! AND they had a R2 toy! A little R2 bobble head! Can you get any cooler? I think NOT! It was great! Except Xander wanted the toy. Can you imagine? Heck no! It was R2! I almost had it, too, except that my wife stepped in and said Xander had to have it. Mean! So I'm sending her back tomorrow for more.

It's OK, though, we went to play on the big play set and we were the only ones there. And I noticed a sign saying adults too! So I took off my shoes and Xander and I played in the big playset for a long time. I always wanted to do that and it was JUST AS COOL AS I ALWAYS THOUGHT IT WOULD BE!

So when I left I placed a dollar slightly out of sight way up high in the play set. I figure some little kid that evening was going to have a nice surprise later.

Magic competition

Last weekend I went to a magic convention. I had a pretty nice time, got to see some magicians I like, and entered the stage competition with R2. It was his big public debut, so that was fairly exciting!

It was HARD getting R2 there and back. Getting him in and out of the car is a three person job. My wife and I did it once by ourselves, but that was even harder. Getting him on and off stage was hard. We had to go first because of some issues there. His front foot loosened and the slightest crack stopped him, so since it was a segmented stage he couldn't move much. But it went great. I didn't win (the guy that did was AMAZING) but I did well, had a good showing, and I made some friends out of it.

It turns out that you really CAN'T see squat when you're on a big stage with spotlights on you, by the way.

I liked having a competition act. I think I will keep competing, but I think I will come up with a new act that doesn't have R2. It means I won't have that noticability factor that R2 gives, but ... well, it won't take massive help to get him there and on stage, either!

Trophy!

I finally got around to photographing the trophy I won for Magician of the Year! Frankly it's not a great picture so I'll have to try again, but hey. Plus it shows of the backdrop I'm taking to shows now!


I'm still very pleased to have won that - it's quite an honor.

Needless to say my son, who was outside running about at the time, had to get in on the picture ...


I think this picture is my favorite:

Magic Convention

I just came back from a international magic convention in Kentucky. It was a week long and I got to see a LOT of magic acts from guys I've wanted to meet for a long time, so it was great. I saw some stuff that blew me away, too!

This guy won the competition they held:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=N5Ke822_syY
Recorded it is so-so, but trust me, live this was an ASTOUNDING act. Smooth and just brilliant card handling. The other standout act to me was this one:

http://www.greatkaplan.com/moviesO.html
He was very funny and a very nice guy as well.

For me ... I now have curtains! I have wanted them for a while. This means my living room show will have a stage curtain backdrop, which looks really nice and helps really transform the room.

I have been using a raccoon puppet for a while and I got a new puppet ... it is quite a few steps up from the raccoon puppet. I need to rescript the routine around the new puppet, though, so that will be a while before it goes into the show!

Jackson County

I did a show last night in Jackson County which went pretty well. I had a really fun time doing it and I put in a new (short) piece that ended up going quite well, so that made me happy.

It also occurred to me that there is a better placement for my sound system ... I think I'm going to rework R2-Q5 innards to put the new system inside him. I use it to make him talk, so it makes more sense to be in him anyway. Wish me luck finding time to do that! I need to build a wooden framework to hold the system as well as the receiver in R2-Q5, so it won't be quick, but it'll be nice when it's done!

Repairing R2-Q5

R2-Q5 needs periodic repair ... so I had the dome off, the innards out, and ... well ...

Fun with photography

I forgot one anecdote about the pictures we took last night that are in my last post ... we took the pictures outside for the light. While I was setting them up, two folks came by to talk to us about their church, they were giving out lightbulbs (which was rather clever I thought) and wanted to tell us about their church.

So I did what came naturally. I levitated them.

The levitation was right there and all set up for the pictures - so I asked one of them to sit on it, which he did with good humor even though he wasn't sure what I was up to, and I levitated him. He wanted to see what it looked like, so I levitated the girl he came with. While I was getting her on it a handful of their friends came by to see what was going on. It ended up being quite an enjoyable few minutes!

New pictures!

I took some pictures of the magic show ... well, actually my wife took them for me. It's handy to have a photographer wife! These are on the magic page now, but I thought I'd write about them anyway.

First, the serious picture ...


Lots of props, nice. We rearranged things a bit ... my son, Xander, was fascinated. Every time he saw a new prop he'd yell "Look! Look!" and run over to check it out. It was actually kinda fun.


We finally opened the car door (we did this outside) and he was delighted to get to sit in the driver's seat and steer. He says that RULED.

This is me clowning around with a chicken ... I ended up really liking this one.


And a few people sent me pictures of me performing ... that made me really happy. So I put some of them up. Here's two of my favorites ...

Spice Radio

Well today was something. I was in Norcross doing a show. I passed Planet Bollywood, so I stopped in (they remembered me! I was very pleased.) I walked around afterwards, I had some time to kill before my show so I thought I'd see if there was a nice place to eat there. I passed a place that looked interesting, they had several signs about being a booking agency and lots of Bollywood posters. It looked like they did larger acts, but I've performed backstage before (at the Dalton Arena) doing stuff for the VIPs, so I figured why not and went in to drop off a business card and say hello.

They had a radio station in there as well - it was these guys: http://spiceradio.desibuzz.com/

They really didn't have anything that fitted my talents, but they were VERY pleasant people, and asked if I'd like to go on the air. So sure, why not! I was not prepared to go on the air and I didn't have anything ready, but when an opportunity drops in your lap ... go for it!

The DJs, Hassan and Bulbul, were really nice, gave out my phone number, and I did a few little tricks for them. The tricks I did weren't really good ones to do over the radio, but ... hey.

So that was a really fun thing to have happen - thank you SO much to those folks for giving me that opportunity!

Music

I've been working on adding music to my show ... I've been working towards that for a while, but deciding where to use music and what it should be has been a slow road. Hopefully worth it, though.

I have a secret fondness for Bollywood musicals ... I grew up watching Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly with my folks, and while they don't really make stuff like that anymore here, a while ago I discovered Bollywood does! So I am working on two music tracks - an American one, and an Indian one. It's fun and I'm enjoying it - it'll be a blast when it's done!

Restaurant Magic

It's been a while since I table hopped at restaurants - that's how I got started, though, going from table to table at restaurants performing magic. I still do them from time to time, but not regularly any more. I did a table hopping job on Easter, though, and I was really looking forward to it - I did it last year, it was fun and everyone was nice, and I like restaurant magic. It's really close and personal, and if I might be immodest, I have some pretty darned good stuff to perform.

It was a BLAST. I had so much fun it was just amazing - and I think it showed as everyone seemed to laugh and have a great time right along with me. The concierge told me a lot of folks asked about me when they left - so I feel even better about that!