And Then There Were None opens on Friday at Waukesha Civic Theatre. I’ve been so busy lately that I hadn’t realized that I hadn’t posted an entry about it yet. As you may remember I appeared in this show in September, 2007 when the Village Playhouse of Wauwatosa and the Brookfield Players staged it. At that time, I played Rogers, the butler. I love murder mysteries and I liked that show so much that I suggested the show to the WCT Play Advisory Committee last year. It was recommended by them and approved by the board of directors and it found its way into the current season.

Hoping to try my hand at a different role, I auditioned for the show but, alas, I must possess those quintessential butler traits. I am again playing Rogers. I must admit that learning lines is much easier when all you are doing is refreshing them in your memory. On the other hand, it is harder to give the role a different look as you tend to fall back into old habits.

I am lucky to have the opportunity to work with a few people that I have never worked with before, many of them veterans of Soulstice Theatre. I am also pleased to able to work with three individuals that I worked with on the first show I ever appeared in, Arsenic and Old Lace. Hopefully, I’ve grown as an actor since then. One of my cast-mates, Jenny Kosek, and I have appeared on stage in three separate shows now. I’m sure that Jenny is getting sick of doing shows with me. I really enjoy working with her; she is such a fine actress.

I am again privileged to have Mark E. Schuster as my director for the second show in a row. Mark can add to the dubious honor of being my only male director to being my only repeat director. He obviously has a larger threshold of pain than many others. Kidding aside, he is great to work for and makes the rehearsal process as enjoyable as it can be.

Please come out and see the show if you have a chance. It runs October 23rd to November 8th. Check out this great cast:

My mom, Marlene A. Magoon, passed away on Wednesday. She was a wonderful wife, mom, and grandma and she will be missed by many. She shaped the lives of my sisters and me in ways that cannot be described. She pushed me to do well in school and in scouting. I don’t know if it was because I was her baby or maybe because I was a bit of a mama’s boy, but she and I shared a special bond for a long time. When was in the Marine Corps, she and I would have long talks on the telephone (which I’m sure didn’t please my Dad when the phone bill arrived).

Mom was always a fighter and she battled many medical issues throughout her life. She survived quadruple bypass open heart surgery at 37 and an angioplasty at 47. She conquered cervical cancer just after I was born and breast cancer later in life. About five years ago, she suffered a stroke that left her wheelchair-bound, but even that didn’t slow her down much. Although her mind and will continued to remain strong, her body just couldn’t keep up. She fell and broke her hip on Sunday and she body couldn’t recover from the trauma of hip surgery.

I will never forget the fun we had playing scrabble, yahtzee, or solitaire long into the night. Nor will I forget the artistic passion that she had when it came to flower arranging and decorating our home. Because she was a full-time stay-at-home Mom, she was always there for us. She did more for us kids than we will ever know. And when it came to doting on her grandchildren, she was the best. She had great love for all of us.

Goodbye, Mom. I Love You!

The Dramagoons have discovered a new hobby that has become a fun activity for our entire family. Back in August we started Letterboxing. What is Letterboxing, you ask? I could try to explain it in my own words but here is the definition that is posted on Letterboxing.Info.

Letterboxing is growing hobby that combines elements of hiking, treasure hunting and creative expression into an activity that the whole family can enjoy. Participants seek out hidden letterboxes by following clues that are posted on the Internet, and then record their discovery in their personal journal with the help of a rubber stamp that’s part of the letterbox. In addition, letterboxers have their own personal stamps which they use to stamp into the letterbox’s log book.

Since mid-August, we have gone out and found boxes on six separate occasions. This is a really fun way to get out and enjoy the outdoors and get some exercise without feeling like you are just going on a boring hike. A.J. and Erin really enjoy tramping through the woods and hunting for the boxes. We actually have to make them take turns looking for the boxes.

Normally, letterboxing is a fairly solitary hobby. The person that creates a letterbox doesn’t meet the people that search for their box. Their interaction takes place via stamps and trail names in each other’s log books. Occasionally, however, letterboxers will get together to meet, exchange stories, and do a little letterboxing together. On Saturday, we attended our first letterboxing gathering, Boxacon 2009.

The event was held at Minooka Park in Waukesha. The event organizer, with the help of several others, placed dozens letterboxes all over the park. Upon arrival, we were given a packet of clues to follow. Most of the boxes followed a SciFi theme, thus the name Boxacon. Unfortunately Kristi had to work and couldn’t join us but the three of us had a really great time. The kids enjoyed meeting, talking, and exchanging stamps with the people that had created some of the boxes that we had found in the past. Plus, we got to go out and find more boxes. We ended up spending almost five hours at the park.

If you are interested in checking out letterboxing as a hobby, visit these two websites: Letterboxing North America and Atlas Quest.

Erin is now taking band lessons in school. And like her brother, the trumpet player, she has decided to play a brass instrument as well. Erin is now the one and only baritone player in her grade school band. I have to give her a lot of credit for deciding to play an instrument that is half as big as she is. Luckily, Kristi has agreed to drive her to school on band days. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to wrestle her instrument case on and off the bus.

She has only been practicing a week and she is doing a great job already. We are extremely proud of her. We have quite a musically talented family. Kristi and I may have to start learning to play the trombone and French horn so we can start a family brass quartet. We could be called the “Brass Knuckles”… or maybe the “Brass Monkeys”!

Lately, I have been swamped with so many things going on that I haven’t been able to take the time to update the blogosphere. Therefore, I will endeavor to catch up with a few delayed entries.

A couple of weeks ago (two days after the A.C.T. Summer Showcase), I took Monday off and we went down to Six Flags Great America. We are not a “coaster” family but Erin and Kristi don’t mind the tame ones and A.J. and I enjoy all but the most extreme ones.

The whole family rode the Whizzer (roller coaster), the Columbia Carousel, the Sky Trek Tower, and the bumper cars as well as caught the Bloopers show in the Pictorium. A.J. and I also spent time on three more roller coasters: the Demon, the Viper, and the American Eagle. The crowds were minimal because it was a Monday and we had a really good time.

As we were driving home, I realized that the last time I was at Great America was when I was in high school in 1983. I remember that on that trip, I rode the Whizzer, the Demon, the American Eagle, and the Sky Trek Tower and I took in a show at the Pictorium. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Sometimes I see the strangest things when I look out the window while at work. Today, I was talking with one of my co-workers and he happened to be standing so that I could see the “Sunburst” statue behind him. Some activity around the statue caught my eye. A group of people were hula hooping and dancing around. Another co-worker, Scott Smith, has a Flip Mino camcorder that he keeps with him for occasions like this one. I notified him about what was going on and came over to investigate. Scott recorded the following video of the event.

Apparently, the group was part of a Hula Hoop exercise program. It seems that they were demonstrating to raise awareness of their program and recruit new members.

09:09:09 09/09/09
It happens once every one hundred years and it is unlikely that I will be around for the next one so I decided to mark the occasion with a post. I hope you are all “dressed to the nines” while on “cloud nine” today.

*** Updated with obligatory Sesame Street reference ***
This post has been brought to you by the number “9″ and the letters “K” and “M”

On Saturday, Erin took part in the A.C.T. Summer Showcase at Waukesha Civic Theatre. It was her third Showcase in three years. This event is the result of two weeks of theatre arts classes presented by the theatre. This year, Erin only took the acting class and, therefore, participated in just one piece on-stage. She and some of the fellow member of her class enacted a short sketch called Sibling Rivalry; a humorous game-show style comedy about pitting brothers and sisters against each other to score points. Erin played the angelic side of the brother’s conscience. It was very funny. I was extremely proud of her. She spoke loud enough for all to hear without shouting. She spoke clearly and with emotion. And she even held for laughs when they came (which is very hard to do sometimes).

Congratulations to Doug Jarecki and the rest of the instructors for a great job again this year. The show was very well done. All of the kids involved should be very proud of the effort they put forth.

Back in April, I volunteered to help out at the WCT Gala. At the gala, I bid on and won two tickets to a main stage performance at the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre (for an extremely reasonable price I might add). Last week, Kristi and I decided to use those tickets to see the Sunday performance of Around the World in 80 Days. I can’t believe what I great time we had. First of all, the Cabot Theatre in the Broadway Theatre Center is a phenomenal venue. And we were lucky enough to get great seats; fifth row center.

The show was great. There were five members in the cast to play almost forty roles. One actor, Matt Daniels, played only one role, that of Phileas Fogg, and he was amazing as the stoic, refined gentleman. Two actors, Marti Gobel and Chris Klopatek, played a couple of minor roles each but mainly one character throughout. They were awesome as well. And the remaining two actors, Norman Moses and Robert Spencer played about twenty characters each. They were hilarious. I can’t imagine how frantic it must have been backstage with all of the costume changes. With their different accents and costumes they really made the show.

The other awesome thing about the show was the set. It was created with the Steampunk style that is associated with the works of Jules Verne. It was really cool to watch them transform it into the various locations and modes of transportation in the show. The three members of the run crew were also dressed in a Steampunk manner and they added to the humorous nature of the show.

The Milwaukee Chamber Theatre is a little more expensive than the shows we normally go to, but, in this case, it is well worth the extra money. You should definitely go out to see this one before the end of the month. For those with a little ingenuity that want to see the show for a cheaper price, they are having a Steampunk Night on Thursday, August 20th and anyone dressed in Steampunk attire gets in for half price. That night, they are going to have pre-show activities and a Steampunk band, Eli August, in the Skylight Bar after the show. Check out this flyer.

On Saturday, we made our annual family pilgrimage to the Wisconsin State Fair. We enjoyed all of our favorite destinations while there. Our first stop is always the animal barns. Every year, we visit a different set of animals. This year, we focused our attention on the horses and the cows. We even stopped in to see the Clydesdales and their world famous beer wagon provided by Anheuser Busch.

After the animals, we made our way to our favorite stops; cream puffs, mini-Journal Sentinel newspapers, Wisconsin Products building, and DNR area. We made a departure from our usual rounds this year. We stopped off to see those fabulous racing pigs. That is not an event that we need to see every year but it is entertaining every once in a while. Along the way, we continued a tradition that we started last year.

Our new tradition is that everyone in the family has to eat something on a stick, it has to be different than what anyone else has, and, if possible, it has to be different than what that person had the year before. Erin kicked off the tradition by having a chocolate dipped frozen banana on stick, otherwise known as a Monkey Tail. She really enjoyed it. A.J. quickly followed her by eating two slices of chocolate covered bacon on a stick. This was heaven for him as it combined two of his favorite foods. Kristi had a deep fried Reuben on a stick that she said wasn’t the greatest but the cheese was okay. I finished us off with two different items on a stick. I started out with pork on a stick; which was good but not very unique. As we were preparing to leave, I found chocolate dipped cookie dough on a stick. Wow, that was sweet.

We finished our trip with a trip across the park on the SkyGlider, a glass of Herb Kohl’s 25 cent milk, and one game each at the Midway. The kids came to the conclusion that the Midway is a rip-off and we have removed it as a traditional stop. All-in-all it was a successful trip to state fair again this year.