The Menagerie...

Exhausted and sunburned after a day at Amazing Animal Productions. We got up close and personal with a wolf, a leopard, a lion, a tiger, three chimps, a baby boar, a hawk, and one hyperactive puppy. There will be many pictures to come, but suffice it to say it was a day well spent. I'm ready for sleep and rest, but this is our prep week to go to the Grand Canyon, so we're not going to get any rest at all. Lots of packing and planning to do, and Friday is the big day for our quasi-vacation/runaround.
Hopefully I'll come back refreshed with some new story ideas. I've got so many things going on with web design that writing time is getting scarce. I'm getting ready to start another round of agent/publisher shopping and also designing my website for Monkeywright Designs (I told you I was branding this thing!). Business cards coming soon and hopefully we'll get rolling nationwide on affordable web creation!
Now, to sleep, perchance to dream of chimps...

For the kids...

Friday was a killer. On my feet all day helping to set up the first gala fundraising event for the Coalition for At-Risk Urban Youth. Beverly Hills Hotel. Hollywood stars, silent auctions, dinner, dancing, too much to do.
But by the end of the night, we did it, and did it well. The event was a huge success, and best of all, I no longer have to spend my days getting ready for this event.
In other news...
Monkeywright Designs rolls along, with the debut of davekt.com. The Animal Agency is up next, and promises to be the grandest work yet...

Two weeks to go until our trip to the Grand Canyon. Before that, we'll be going back to see Cody and the animals to update the pictures on amazinganimalproductions.com.
Sounds like the site's doing wonders for them.

Walking for the Cure.

So, this weekend, Aleks and I took part in the Revlon Run/Walk for Breast Cancer. It was a grueling 5K trek... actually, it was a stroll through the streets of LA with thousands of other people. I walked in memory of my Grandma, who lost the battle. Hopefully the cure is moving closer.

It started with a gut-wrenchingly bad intro from Marcia Gay Harden and Felicity Huffman of Desperate Housewives. Well, Huffman was okay. But Marcia was giving some crunchy "close your eyes and send out positivity, good energy, moment of silence" nonsense. I can say this because I have two theater degrees, so I've lived through it, and it was just...bad. Then came a lot of moving survivor stories, followed by a great performance by Chaka Khan! That's right, she's still alive!
(PS - whoever hired that annoying radio/TV guy with the grey hair, bad Oakleys, and annoying patter, please remember - we'd rather walk in silence)

Soon enough, we were lined up at the start. Some confetti cannons erupted, giving the atmosphere of the end of a KISS concert, or a political convention, or... something. It was enough to make people slow down from their already painful pace, so the beginning of the walk was more of a shuffle. About 1 mile in, we noticed a large contingent of people pulling off at an amazing church on the corner of ... well, we didn't get the address, but it was an amazing church.

Best moment of the walk for me, other than walking into the Olympic Coliseum and seeing the torch lit up. I knew that if I was ten years younger and it was twenty-odd years ago, and I was some sort of athlete who was good enough to qualify, and the crowd was larger, and the Bangles weren't playing on the field, this would be exactly what being an Olympian would feel like. I did get a gold medal for finishing first, though. Don't believe any of the other 50,000 people who show your THEIR medals. Mine is the only true one.

Speaking of the Bangles, they were pretty good. Older, paler, and slightly out of tune on some songs, but still rockin'. They were followed by some local band who stumbled out of the gate with a bad cover of "Hey Ya!" but recovered nicely with some Motown covers and disco.

We followed this by arriving late to our Marriage Encounter Weekend reunion weekend, but still scarfed down some cookies and caught up with everybody. If you're married, I cannot recommend Worldwide Marriage Encounter highly enough. Whether you're happy as clams, bitter as Elizabeth Taylor and whoever, this weekend is nothing but good for your marriage. ATTEND AND BE HAPPY!

In other news...
One more day in the weekend to go and lots more to do. amazinganimalproductions.com is fully active now, awaiting some minor tweaks and some additional photos. Go check it out! I'm proud of my work. I have a couple of actor websites about to post as well. If you know someone that wants an economical and pretty website, point them my way...

Weekend O' Marriage...

Things I did this weekend:
1. spent the entire weekend with my wife.

Period. That's all. How cool is that? Hasn't happened since... well, it's been a long time since we've just been able to focus on each other and not our 1,000,000,000,000 projects. So, this week, I'm finishing script punching with Adam, finishing Adam's website, updating the amazing animal productions website, and generally going crazy. I need a break. It was helpful having a half day of work today because of the immigration rallies. I didn't get out early to march, but rather because the march was scheduled to come straight down Wilshire Blvd and threatened to trap our cars in the garage all night. I haven't seen much coverage beyond a few fleeting seconds here and there.

Who did a better job of roasting our president at the Washington Correspondents' Dinner? Stephen Colbert or George Bush. Funny stuff all around. Would probably be funnier if the subject matter didn't turn my stomach quite so much. But W has quite the sense of humor.

What else is new? Well, by the end of the summer, there will be a lot of new stuff happening.

PS - my wife is also listed at the top of the supporter list for the LA Polish Film Festival.

Aleks's website, Polka Photos, is now active! Get yer wedding shots here! Hurry!