December 2007 - Life of Ben (part 2007)

Hi Everybody!

Well, another year flown by far too quickly. Life in Providence goes swimmingly. A good chunk of this year has been spent working hard for Apple and Trinity Rep.

It has been a tremendous year with Apple (and not just because of a new-fangled cell phone). I was able to escape the sales floor to become an official Creative. Most folks know of the Genius Bar at the Apple store; whereas the Genii work on technical support issues, we Creatives are software trainers. I work with up to eight customers a day in one-hour lessons and we cover any projects or questions the customer may have on their Mac. Getting to meet new people and find out about their interests--then showing them the tools they have to enhance their passions--makes the job incredibly satisfying.

With Trinity, I have had to cut back my hours to fit in Apple’s schedule, but I still love to pitch in whenever I can. The company has produced a string of excellent productions over the past year. I encourage anyone visiting the area to come join us for a performance. You will not be disappointed.

Over the summer, I participated one more time in the Brown/Trinity Playwright’s Rep, a summer stock theater company the takes three new scripts into full production. As with years past, I found that working with Michael McGarty, my closest mentor from college, was a very fulfilling experience. We produced an excellent scenic and prop design for each of the three shows over a very short, four-week production schedule.

Outside of work, there’s been a lot of good time for kicking back, finding friends, and working on various creative and comedy projects. Within my own projects, there are quite a few irons in the fire right now--everything from a web-comic to various scripts for stage and screen. I think 2008 will see some of the projects come to fruition--that is quite exciting. In the meantime, I encourage you to checkout conflationary.com, a website I am working on to document the best (or worst) in English-language conflation.

And of course I’m still in love with those roller coasters. In August, I took road trip with Carole Ann through New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania to visit four fantastic amusement parks (for me) and a myriad of awesome children’s and science museums (for Carole Ann). It was awesome trip. For anyone traveling to eastern Pennsylvania, I highly recommend Knoebel’s, a family-owned amusement park with free parking, free admission and free entertainment. It is not your typical amusement park by any means, but it does have an excellent collection of three classic, wooden coaster designs.

In a bittersweet moment in October, Carole Ann admitted that she wanted to take time to live for herself outside of our relationship. So after four wonderful years, we have amicably split. It’s been a challenging couple of months for me since that decision, but I am very optimistic for the new year. I am looking forward to taking some time to focus on me, as cliche as that sounds, and I am definitely enjoying my time finding new friends and re-discovering old friends.

So there you have it. Overall, life is very good! Definitely don’t be a stranger if you happen to be in (or near to) Providence. Happy New Year, everybody!

Much love,
Ben