Friday, June 27, 2008

Welcome to Provo

Today for work I traveled to Provo, Utah for the next show I'm working on Stadium of Fire. It marks the first time I've traveled for work, and it was pretty interesting. At the airport I met up with my bosses and a co-worker, then we hopped onto a little plane to head East. I think as far as airplanes go there are two types of people: aisle people and window people (I'm sure there must be middle-seat people, but I have yet to meet one). I'm definitely a window seat person. I like looking out the window to see the views from above. You can learn a lot from high up, like:

• There are a lot of people with pools in LA
• The I-10 looks much better from above than on and directly behind a parade of cars. 
• There are some beautiful mountains just North of LA. 
• Golf courses take up roughly about the same size as five or so neighborhoods
• Hills mean nothing for urban planners

The plane ride was short, and we soon arrived in Utah. We all hopped into our Lincoln Denali and started our trek to Provo. It was fun traveling with my team. We kind of felt like, well, a team. Like we were storming into this small town on a mission. We arrived at the hotel checked in then grabbed a quick lunch. There wasn't much rest time, as my boss had me bring my laptop to lunch so that I could work at the table  :/  

I am amazed by the internet, it is amazing. You can literally do almost anything with it. As an abstract idea we are having dancers hide behind a sheet to replicate famous photographs through time representing moments in freedom: end of WWII, the civil rights movement, the Berlin Wall coming down, etc... As my job I needed to track down these photos, and acquire them in high resolution form. So for example I needed to find the picture of the protester at Tiananmen Square blocking the tanks. So with that I googled a loose description, found the picture. Found out the picture is referred to as "The Unknown Rebel", discovered the photographer Jeff Widner. I found his website (check out his portfolio, he's got a lot of good stuff), and discovered he now works at the Honolulu Advertiser (Awful name for a paper, but at least they're honest). Yellowpages.com search for the paper, then called directly and got in touch with Jeff. Spoke to him, and got the photo use for free. My big victory of the day. 

But it's amazing how much information we can drum up with a few clicks of the keyboard and taps of the mouse. In the large scheme of things I think the internet is going to be an incredible tool for the future of mankind. I think it'll open communication between cultures, and bring people together. We will learn more about each other, and get a greater human understanding of one another.  Others will learn about human rights, and we will learn about those who infringe upon them and challenge them.  

Sorry, random tangent, back to the travel theme. I'm excited to be back in the Southwest. I think the four corners might be my favorite corner of the world. I love having snow capped mountains looming over me in the distance. I love that I can peek out my balcony and see a dark night sky with stars. I'm hoping I get to play a little while I'm here, but I don't have any expectations on that front. I know we're here for business, and there is a lot of work to do before our event. But I'd better head to bed, speaking of work; it awaits me only a few hours away- Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight weekend. 

1 comment:

.breakmedown. said...

I'm really excited for you to have this oppurtunity to travel with work. One of the most amazing things I've chosen to do with my life was to travel and it's really amazing what you can do with a phone that accesses the internet on jobs.. haha welcome to the craziness of production