While I'm not doing anything noteworthy, some reruns.

Sometimes I write a post and then for one reason or another don't publish it - sometimes it seems like a bad idea at the time, sometimes something better happens, sometimes I can't make it work and give up, sometimes I just forget.

Since I'm probably not going to be doing much of anything for the next couple of weeks, I thought I'd post some of them now - I suppose they're more interesting than tales of me doing laundry and fighting the Doberman- sized dust bunny under my couch (and if there's something anyone needs explained, now is a good time for me to do it).

Here's one from October 2005 titled "Cable" (I don't remember which show, though. It happened downtown, so it might have been N.C.I.S.):

Sometimes it seems like 90% of what we do is move cable from point A to point B and back again.

Cable weighs a lot - a cable cart, loaded with 4/0 (our heaviest cable and the type that carries the most power), weighs about 600 lbs. Since cable carts have four pneumatic wheels, this load is fairly easy to push (as long as one is on flat ground. Even the slightest incline with a loaded cable cart sucks.).

Until one has to turn.

The maneuver used to turn a loaded cable cart is to lean one's weight on the handle bars, thus lifting the front wheels of the cart off the ground - it's much, much easier to turn if it's up on two wheels.

I don't weigh very much, so when I do this I kinda just hang there with my feet kicking in the air - much to the amusement of anyone watching. Even folks who don't work on set understand that this is really, really funny and that they can feel okay laughing about it.

Today, as I hung there, bouncing my weight on the handles of the cable cart, trying something - anything to get the damned thing to move (while one of my co-workers kept urgently asking over the walkie if I had that cable he needed yet), a passing homeless guy pointed at me and laughed.

I can honestly say I never thought this would happen to me. Even in my darkest teenage moments, never once did I envision a future in which I'd have to list 'jeered at by transients' as a workplace occurrence.

As he passed, I shrugged and said "Hey, gotta pay the bills."

"Yeah, but like that?" he asked, as he continued on down the street.