They pulled a white sheet off the bed, got a screen projector from Victory Point Church, yanked a DVD player from out of the house, unhooked all the stereo wires & cables and brought it all into the woods on the North side of Holland.
So what was being done with all this stuff? About 13 people from the age of 21-24 all settled down in chairs behind a fire and used everything to watch the movie - A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
It was a wonderful night and we were amazed at how awesome we all were for watching such an great movie on such a clear night. Not more than a couple minutes after the movie we all decided that we should act this movie out in downtown Holland.
The idea came from conversation that took place a couple weeks ago. We were discussing how much Holland needed more excitement in it’s downtown. When you go to other cities in larger areas there’s always something cool going on. With Holland being such a small town none of that was happening.
Now instead of thinking someone else should do something cool downtown we decided to be the trend starters.
Here’s the tricky part
All but a few of us have had little to no acting experience and I’m convinced any acting skills. Many of us had just graduated from college in fields very far from stage drama. As for myself, I sit on a computer close to 10 hours a day and being theatrical isn’t one of my strong points. Ask me what I think about the W3C’s new XHTML 2.0 recommendations and you’ll have an earful.
Despite the challenge we all decided to go for it and just make it a good ‘ol time.
The play is going to be this coming Sunday at 7:30 and will probably run around an hour an a half. We’ll be reading the scripts due to a lack of practice time but elaborate costumes and slipups will make the whole experience a wonderful one.
So if you’re around downtown Holland this Sunday at 7:30 feel free to walk on over to see what’s going on. We’ll be performing in an open park in between the bank and the old Mole Hole store. I’ll try to get the crossing street later but if you walk down 8th street you’re bound to see us.
Side Note
The Holland Sentinel will also be doing an article to let the Holland community know what, when, and why in God’s name we’re doing this. Pictures will most likely be included either in the article or a follow up.
update:
The Sentinel story is now online but it’s only a quick blurb. They titled it Shakespeare reading staged.
Shakespeare reading staged
A group of area young people is staging an impromptu reading of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” Sunday in downtown Holland.
The organizers, many recent graduates from area colleges, will meet in the pocket park next to National City Bank on West Eight Street at about 7 p.m.
While lines won’t be memorized and the few costumes might appear a little haphazard, organizers are inviting anyone interested to join in. Extra scripts will be available.
For information, call (616) 490-7172.
posted in The Holland Sentinel
Update II
I threw up a small gallery of the event at www.viewmi.com/gallery/midsummer_nights_dream/. Take a peek and feel free to leave some comments if you so choose. Don’t mind the duplicate pictures - it was sent through a batch process
posted on June 20, 2003| 4:14 PM EST
When two people come together in marriage they commonly will take off and do a little bit of traveling/vacationing. Many will be exotic and go off toward a secluded island, others will travel Europe, some spend time skipping off toward other states, whereas others keep it pretty simple and stay at a nice cottage on the lake.
For us we definitely want to leave H-Town but don’t mind staying in Michigan. A place in Maine (or any state other than Michigan) would be really nice but money is always an issue when trying to take off.
One idea we had was to rent an RV and just start driving either toward the East or the West. This sounded like a lot of fun but ends up getting rather pricey with the RV rental and then gas. We found a couple other places but they all ended up being to much money once air fair was included.
We’re not terribly picky but want to stay in either a cottage, condo, house, etc… no hotels. Just aren’t fans of them at this point, I guess.
So I thought I would ask ya all for some ideas. Maybe you just got back from a wonderful trip and think it would be perfect for 2 lovebirds. Maybe your family or parents have gone on vacation somewhere or you just oddly enough always have the gift of pointing out the perfect spot for people to vacation. Either way - drop your ideas off and everything will be considered.
posted on June 17, 2003| 11:06 AM EST
Last week one of Holland’s main water pipes broke due to some miscalculations from a city contracter. The pipe that broke was 1 of 3 main pipes that bring Holland the majority of it’s water with this particular pipe bringing close to 15 million gallons of water a day to the South Side of Holland.
On top of that the pipe broke right by Holland’s main bridge that connects the south side with the north side. If you’re from Holland or have every been to Holland you’ll quickly find out that this bridge can’t be plugged up. People need to get across that bridge and in mass quanity.
Monday morning I was a part of the group of people that needed to make it across that bridge. I’m usually running late and hold ups in traffic don’t sit well when you need to be to work in 5 minutes.
What seemed like hours later I finally pulled into the Sentinel parking lot and strolled into work 10 minutes late.
When it was time to go home I had to retrace my steps across the bridge only this time it took me over 30 minutes to get to my house. That’s 30 minutes to drive a little over 2 miles.
After hitting my sterring wheel, listening to random crap on the radio, and yelling at other cars trying to cut in line I decided that I wasn’t going to take my car to work the next day. My bike has been sitting in the hallway for a little while and had only been used to run here and there for small trips to the store. Tomorrow I was going to leave my car in the driveway and pull out the 2 wheel.
I got to work that next day in 15 minutes and got home in about the same. Since then I’ve been able to drop that time and get to and from work in close to 10 minutes. In fact, my roommate and I had coffee downtown and when it was time to leave he hopped into his car and I onto my bike. We ended up at home on the other side of town at the same time. I would have beat him but my chain came off halfway through my ride.
So What Now?
I would really like to continue riding my bike to work. It’s such a refreshing feeling early in the morning and it wakes me up for when I get into work. It’s been almost a whole work week and I haven’t taken my car to work since that horrible day on Monday.
So if you see some guy whipping down the streets then just be kind to him and try not to run him off the rode. He’ll appriciate it.
posted on June 13, 2003| 9:04 AM EST
So this is my website, huh? It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to update it with new content. Mostly because I’ve been extremely busy with a couple projects at work but also because I have other things to do like mow my lawn, fix up the house, hang out with friends, and many other things.
It is however always nice to come back to theparagon.ORG and type out what’s been going on and how things have been.
Parade of Homes 2003
The HBA’s (Home Builder’s Association of Holland Area) yearly Parade of Homes starts today and will be going until the 21st. Along with the HBA’s publication of this event The Holland Sentinel has also put out their own publication and website. The only difference between our website and the HBA’s website is that we have Virtual Tours of each home, an Interactive tour map, home resources, better design (desiged & coded by yours truely) and ours is live TODAY. The HBA’s version of the site won’t come out until July 1st. That’s long after the event is done and over with.
NewBride.NET Magazine
Along side the Parade of Homes 2003 release I’ve also released NewBride.NET. NewBride.NET is the main category to the New Bride Magazine publication that comes out bi-yearly. The site itself is rather small but offers great articles, local resources, clean design, and an easy way for Engaged couples to submit their announcements to The Holland Sentinel.
So as you can see I’ve been rather busy these past couple weeks. Along with these projects I’m also responsible for many other things on the New Media Department’s list. However, these 2 projects required a bit of my time. Now that they’re in full flow I’m able to finish up some other things that have sadly sat on the back burner for so long.
posted on June 12, 2003| 2:58 PM EST
After quite a bit of thought on my recent job offer Jodi and I decided that it probably isn’t the best time to be taking off and starting a new job in a new place. I had to make the sad phone call this morning but they seemed to understand and realize the situation.
After a small bit of talking I ended the conversation with my gratitude and said to think of me again for any future endeavors they may have down the road. To that they agreed to keep in contact and wished me the best of luck in the upcoming marriage.
So, I’m still looking for a new job but Jacksonville, Florida isn’t the place right now. Possible something around the Michigan area will pop up. In the mean time I still have a job and that’s more than I can ask for in today’s troubled times.
posted on June 2, 2003| 5:27 PM EST
