An Unexpected Loyalty Program

I’m note entirely sure where the idea came from, but Maya launched her own loyalty program yesterday. I answered a question from her and was rewarded with a coupon for 100 Maya bucks. Later during the evening while I was watching soccer, Maya asked for a snack. Since I paused the DVR and made her something, I received 1000 Maya bucks for my troubles. Both my wife and Milo are similarly amassing small piles of Maya bucks for various reasons.

When my wife and I inquired about about how we were to use our Maya bucks, we were informed that they can be used to “purchase” various commodities and services from her. In fact, we were told to refer to the program booklet which was quickly written up and provided for our reference. It seems that 100 Maya bucks can be traded for setting the table or having her play in her room for 1/2 hour. Not so bad. 1000 Maya bucks can be used to have Maya undertake a new habit for a week such as putting socks in the laundry basket or putting her lunch box on the counter at the end of the school day. 1000 Maya bucks is not enough incidentally to cover such things as eating her entire supper for a week, cleaning up her whole room once, or to go to the basement alone.

Here is the list of things I’m checking out for the Maya bucks price:

– Putting on a new pair of underwear each day for a week
– Returning my hairbrush to the bathroom each day
– Not singing in the car when her mom is in it (5 minute interval)
– Flushing the toilet after each use for one day
– Keeping a clear path to her bedside each night so I can walk her back to bed without fear of a crippling injury
– Turning down the microphone while she is singing (2 songs)
– Not arguing about which coat/mitts/hat should be worn to school (once, oh God, just once)

Wish me luck in accumulating my fortune.

Dear Hostile Soccer Father…

Dear Sir, (I use the term loosely)

I’d like to express to you how little I appreciated how at today’s game you stormed up to me at half time and started yelling at me in front of the kids and parents.  The way you thrust your brawny chest into my face and looked down at me through your manly mirrored sunglasses was rather threatening and something that belongs in a prison yard not a soccer field.  I am well aware that it is disappointing when your child sits out two rotations during a game.  Of course, since I am rotating the kids about every 4 – 6 minutes, I doubt that I inflicted any lasting psychological damage on her.  In fact, I rather like her and think she is a good player.  Unfortunately, when she refused to go on the field and play in goal, I was forced to make some extremely quick on-the-fly changes and didn’t feel that the other 11 kids on our team plus the 12 kids on the opposing team should be forced to wait while I adjust to the fact that she didn’t want to be a team player.  The fact that this is the 12th of 13 games this season and it is the first time you’ve felt the need to bully me; well it makes me think that up until now I’ve done a pretty good job.  In case you were unaware, I am a volunteer and no one else on the team felt willing to step up and either coach or help me out.  You may be ignorant of the fact that managing 12 excited 8 year old kids without any assistance is no small feat.  On professional teams, which I figure you think your kid must be on, there is a whole crew to keep everything going along smoothly.  Here in house league… there is no such entourage.

In closing, I’d like to encourage you to step up and do something to help the team and not stand at the side line feeling superior and pointing out things you don’t like.

Sincerely, Coach Civil Servant Dad

IMTA Log: Day Five – Awards Dinner

The end has finally come.  The last event of IMTA NYC 2013.  It will be the first time we’ve actually had a proper dinner since we got here and I think the whole agency is starving.  The best thing about having a dinner with models is that no one is fighting for the extra buns on the table.  Here’s to those avoiding carbs.  Our meal was excellent and I have to commend the NY Hilton for a great meal and superior service.  I was impressed that they served 2000 meals and everyone got theirs hot.

Geoffrey Chapman Agency fared very well at the final awards banquet with 3 people winning honourable mentions (top 10 in their categories), 2 scholarships and one top 5 finisher.  Hooray for George, Riley, Milo, JoAnne, Nick and Melinda for their achievements.  Here are some photos.

Steve and Nick discuss the best route to storm the stage.

Melissa floats along the red carpet.

Milo and my wife pose with the winner of the “who’s our next daddy” competition – Justin.

Melinda off to LA with a full scholarship to something…

More awards for our group.

IMTA Log: Day Five – Callbacks

Congratulations to all of us from Geoffrey Chapman Agency.  Everyone in our group got some callbacks from agents and managers.  Riley got the most with something like 28 callbacks and Milo had a very respectable 13.  His callbacks were mostly in the talent category and a split between NYC and LA based agents.  Wonder what a callback is like?  Imagine about 1000 people in a large room full of tables.  It’s hot.  Most tables have line ups of between 3 and 200 people all waiting to see that very desirable agent or manager.  Then you basically start to speed date.  Some have forms to fill out, some want to see you act out a scene or a monologue, some need you to sing.  The NY agents/managers tended to be the owners or presidents of the firms while the LA reps were just that.

I’ve got to say that everyone was very polite and tried to keep things moving as much as possible.  Most of Milo’s best responses were from NYC based agents so we’ll have quite a bit of work following up once we get home.

IMTA Log: Day 4

Today was a big day for everyone.  All of the competitions were open so there were audiences for each one.  A new element of pressure.  As a parent, I think it was harder on us than on the contestants.  Until now, it’s been a leap of faith to send the kids off to compete behind closed doors.  Today we got to see how well they actually did, how quick the judging was and we got to size up the other competitors.  The level of talent here is so high.  Everyone here deserves to be here.  Milo competed in Monologue, Sitcom and was a finalist for singing at the Talent Showcase tonight.    After the showcase came awards for individual competitions.  Here are some photos.

 

Milo rocks with his 3 awards.

Steve shows off his star.

Alejandra and Melinda ready to rock.

Nick – modelling superstar with 5 awards!

Riley accepts congratulations for her win.

George accepts congratulations from his many admirers.

IMTA Log: Day 3 photo essay

Milo poses with the beautiful Jessica (left) and Melinda (right).

Sofia, Jessica and Riley ready to rock the runway!!

Geoff is our master.

IMTA Log: Day Two

Day two at IMTA has been pretty exhausting.  Exhilarating but very long and it’s only 6pm.  I must be getting old.  We started the day off with a great seminar on the business of acting in LA.  Lots of great questions and some good insider tips.

We had lunch at our favourite Cafe Metro.  But before that we saw the women’s jeans competition and rushed back for the men.  Here are some photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Justin is the hunk above this photo.

They may look like models, but actually my wife and I got some quick plastic surgery last night.  You believe me, don’t you???

Milo competed in head shot and screen test today.  He really stood out among the boys in his category.  I’ll post the video clip on YouTube soon.

Tonight we are off on the Circleline tour of Manhattan.

IMTA Log: Getting to NYC

One in the morning came right on time today according to my watch, however if Milo’s level of anticipation is a measure of time then 1am arrived about 10 hours late.  Kid is so wired I don’t know if he will sleep once while we’re in NYC let alone today.  There has been a massive thunderstorm going on for several hours and I’ve enjoyed watching X-Men and X-Men 2 while waiting for the right time to leave for the train station.  My wife has made about 6 attempts to sleep, each time disappearing into the bedroom for a while and then coming back out more frustrated than the last time.  But none of that matters now since 1 am has arrived and we are leaving for Buffalo train station.

The torrential rains escort us all the way to the US border and we spend the usual amount of time convincing Milo that today is not the day we want anal searches for the whole family.  And as usual, he finds our efforts incredibly amusing and cause to tease us with more and more horrible ideas for border chat.  We pass through the border with our virginity intact Thank God!  Trusting the GPS to lead us to the Depew station, we tour the outskirts of Buffalo on this dark, rainy night.  Now here’s where caution turns to folly.  We get to the station by about 2 am.  The train is scheduled to leave at 4:35 am and things don’t look too comfortable.  Oh well… it’s not that long until 4:35 am.

It seems that the rains that failed to trouble us did trouble someone.  Our train.  Niagara Falls, NY got flooded out and lost power.  The train is now expected to arrive sometime around 6:30 am.  That’s a real kick in the morale.  The next several hours was spent watching Milo pace and agonize over the late train, the large over-indulged family wearing path to the vending machines until someone makes a McDonald’s run and the hoola-hoop toting wedding goer’s cleavage playing peek-a-boo as she tried to lay down across 3 chairs.  Frankly, it was all so sad that I’m ashamed to even be writing about it.

Finally, about 7 am, we board Amtrack train 280 and leave for NYC.  With a bit of sleep and a snack later, I expect we’ll be ready to storm the Big Apple.  Travelling west on this train, I’m looking out at the back side of small town America and I can’t help but wonder how many other people have sat on similar trains headed for NYC thinking that they’re leaving all this behind and heading towards fame and glory.  We’ve joined a special club, I think.

Photo Essay: My Soccer Team

What’s Been Goin’ On

If you’ve been wondering where the heck I’ve been and what the heck I’ve been doing… well, you’re not alone.  I can’t believe that it is July 17th already.  What happened to all that time?

Transitioning from school days to summer daze hasn’t been smooth around here.  For the past 10 years, we’ve launched off on vacation as soon as the school bell stopped ringing.  This time we’ve been taking a more measured approach and we leave for various parts in two days.  Milo and Maya have been working on their arguing skills.  They’ve moved from their Master’s level studies and are well on the way to their Doctorates.  It’s been such a delight to watch them develop new and improved ways to irritate each other… I didn’t know there were special techniques for car, hot tub, TV watching and for during washroom use.  My wife and I have started to carry cards with numbers from 1 to 10 so that we can score each effort.  Oh yeah, we’ve taught the kids how to pour drinks for us.  It may just save their lives.

We’ve been getting Milo ready to compete in New York City at the International Modeling and Talent Association show.  This has meant finding a new singing teacher and working to nail down monologues, commercials and sitcom scripts.  I really appreciated the part where the new music teacher mentioned to Milo that he really ought to explore some dance like ballet and the little bastard smiled at her sweetly and told her that it was his life’s wish to learn ballet.  Oh, I almost fell down the stairs since we’d been trying to convince him to enroll in some dance to no avail.  So of course, off we went to find a ballet teacher… and who can justify putting their son in ballet and deny their 7 year old princess… so that meant both kids.  Ouch, that hurt the wallet.

Milo’s acting coaches have been after him to feel more emotion during his monologue.  He’s doing a piece from Hansel and Gretel and can’t seem to channel the horror that a kid would feel abandoned in the woods for the second time by his father.  I’ve almost been forced to blindfold him and drop him off somewhere!  Finally last night we had a break through when I frustrated him to the point of tears and then made him channel the emotion into his monologue.  My wife’s stress level is looking like a meniscus.  One more lost email, undelivered photograph, new demand for audio files slightly different from yesterday’s file etc, etc, and etc then BANG, she’s a gonna blow.

Only two more days of prep and then the die is cast.  I’ll be blogging from the Big Apple next.  Pray for our sanity and some success too.