May 4 | Home For A Rest

My good weather luck seems to have finally given out. First I had Mexico, then unusually good weather in Moscow and London. Now I'm home again and it's cold and damp. But, I leave early tomorrow morning for Dallas and it's going to be in the eighties, so I'm not doing too bad.

It's true, that travel can be exciting. But sometimes it's more fun to have been there than to have gone there. In other words, it's great to see the sights and have the memories, but the process is grueling. Even tomorrow I have to get up at 3am to catch a 6am flight. Getting up at 3am is ridiculous. One time I woke up and realized that the ice in my bedside drink hadn't even finished melting and I said to myself, "That just isn't right." Jane laughed.



I'm going to Dallas for two reasons. First, we to do casting for a photoshoot and television commercial for a client in Calgary. That's right, we're an agency in New Jersey flying to Dallas to shoot a commercial for a client in Canada. What can I say, it's the only place we could find where there is mature wheat at this time of year. The concept is shooting models in the middle of a wheat field. Can't say any more. The next day we have one final scout of the locations. I've been told that the fields suffered some frost damage and I don't yet know what that will mean to me.

The second reason for going to Dallas is to present creative to a new client there. Just coincidence, but the timing fell close enough that it made sense to combine the trips. Since we were planning on staying over and taking the client out to dinner, I leave Tuesday, do the casting, location scout on Wednesday, present to new client on Thursday, come home Friday.

The following Tuesday, I go back to Dallas and am there for ten days. There's a lot of pre-production work to be done. Wardrobe. Props. Technical scout. Fittings. Working with the art department (set designers), director of photography, producers, etc....

I hope to buy cowboy boots.

The worst part of all this is the packing. I like to have everything I need, or might need, so I tend to overpack slightly. Just slightly, as of course I'm quite practiced. But, for this trip, I need my camera equipment, sound equipment, tripod, laptop, portable drives, battery packs, not to mention clothes both for casting and scouting (shorts and flip flops will do since it's 85°), but for client meetings (slacks and sportcoat or suit, depending). Toiletries. Portable DVD player for the plane, along with headphones (and I have to charge it first). Book (you never know when you have time to kill). Journal (how do you think I remember all this shit). Boxers (this is a bigger deal than you might think. When you're traveling as much as I do, laundry is constant). And whenever possible, I try not to check bags. In this case, is inevitable because of the size of some of this stuff.

And especially when you're tired and just finished unpacking, it can be difficult to wrap your head around the task. I've been home for weekends every two weeks, or something like that it seems. Get home Friday or Saturday. Leave Monday or Tuesday.

But there are upsides. We stay in nice hotels. Sometimes we're in First Class, but not always. We eat well and generally have a good time entertaining clients. Plus we get to see other parts of the country and the world. But not as much as you might think. Unless we have time off for ourselves, which is rare, we're working, not sightseeing. So, like in the case of Moscow, we spent our time touring shopping centers, not Red Square. Which is why all my photos are of retail and dining, and very few tourist attractions. Yes, I've been to Moscow, but name the top ten tourist destinations there and if I'm lucky, we drove past them.