Fri 10th – 580 Stairs & A Whole Lotta Nuttin’!

(The attached photo is the view upwards from my spot possie during plotting!)

Myself & Kev (separately) counted the stairs today – silly thing to do as now it feels like an even longer climb! I’ll be doing slightly less than Kev (it’s 240 to mine) as he crosses over the top to his spot but, as part of safety & the ‘buddy’ system, I’ll walk with him to the top and then watch him clamber down to his spot and stand and enjoy the view & breeze before making my way back down. Today was the 2nd time up, the first time being what we’re calling an ‘Up & Over’ before climbing up for the rehearsals. So, at the mo’, myself & Kev are doing 1,000 odd steps a day. Like I said, now that we know the numbers – my calves are about to explode!

Was very humid up there tonight. As in just sitting brought on rivulets – nice! Up there for nigh on 5 hours and all we really did was try and focus all the domes the same – which is silly as the Caller used the one dome to compare all the other domes…. When you’re in a theatre, this may make sense, but when there’s 16 of you scattered throughout the Stadium from Arena level to 70m above and the stadium, is, well, stadium wide, the same dome being the standard for each one…? The width of the stadium takes away a fair amount of intensity and then you’ll end up with all different edges, focuses & looks! It should have basically been a pass the parcel kind of deal! What would I know! Eh!

Get the feeling there’s a bit of a tone creeping in…? Well, for the 5hrs up there I would have turned on my dome for the ‘focus check’ (!) and then for a weird game of target/fading practice! All very strange! Then we packed up and came on down! No real rehearsal to speak of. We saw one scene/look, “Rocky Outcrop”, on ‘The Field Of Play’ (as it’s called) when we arrived and then the Smurfs rehearsed their scene changes – which of course you don’t dome and then they set up another scene, “Asia”, and then decided that they wouldn’t actually do anything with it! An hour after they decided this, we got the call to power down and head on home – just in time to miss the bus and have to wait for an hour..! The main hassles is that they are trying to get us in on the Tech Reh so we’re not completely at sea later on but because things are behind, everything changes at the drop of a hat!

On a far lighter note – the Smurfs have been taught how to do a Mexican Wave! Tonight, when waiting to do their scene change rehearsal, they were all lined up, in & around the set and the crew yelled down from 5 to 1 and then there was this ripple of blue across the whole set & stadium – did about 3 rounds and the crew gave them the biggest cheer & round of applause! Looked really good from my possie – looking forward to seeing how the real action will turn out. Dome games were also had tonight – as practice, we followed people around as they walked across the Field. Doing this is very wise as a 2mm movement at the dome can be a 2m movement on the ground! Anyway, as we were ‘playing’, a few techs, seeing themselves in the spotlight, put on their own mini song and dance routine! Not that I’ve ever instigated, participated or encouraged this kind of activity in the past! My fav was the two guys with brooms who did the whole Hard Hat & Broom routine and then the guy on the pushbike who raced across to be a part of the action, only to be ‘attacked’ by the brooms! Laughed very hard – 2 of the ‘performers’ took a bow! Humour is definitely the best medicine for ALOT of people at the moment!

We’ve started doing overnighters now – 2 guys stayed on tonight after we knocked off and were supposed to be on til 0600 – they’ve just arrived back and it’s only 0230 (see what I mean about sleep patterns..?). I’ve got tomorrows shift – here’s hoping it’s as short lived as tonights! Monday arvo we’re off on a dessert overnight trip! Should be cool. We get to visit an inland sea and also drive dune buggy’s! My first real Qatarian adventure! They have a zoo – a few people were talking about it today, said it’s actually not to bad. I have also discovered that Orry, is not an Orry but that Orry is an Oryx! A white mountain goat type thing that grows symmetrical horns, so, if you see it from side on, it appears only to have the one horn! I can’t remember what their Arabic nickname is but it means ‘Clear Ones’ as they’re all white, although they do have a black diamond on their nose! There’s an Oryx farm but I’m not allowed to pat or ride them..! Boring! They used to be wild across all of Arabia but are now nearly extinct and are bred exclusively in Qatar! Having one as the mascot is kinda like the Easter Bilby’s I guess! Worked! Got me passionate about the Oryx!

Kev & I heard tonight that as of Tues arvo we’ll most likely work 6 days running all the power & control cables for ‘Lucy’. I have no idea if I’ve told you this already – I’m pretty sure I haven’t because we’re not supposed to tell anyone anything about what we know as there is a heap of ‘World Firsts’ for this – one of them possibly being not being ready on time (that’s not true, that’s just me!) One (watch me be on the next plane home the moment I post this) is the World’s largest ever TV – 125m x 70m, all made up of LED’s. Because they’ve wanted to keep it all secret, for months they’ve all had code names, the LED screen being ‘Lucy’. They’re gonna be long days for me & Kev, working from a crane, in a bucket, running cable (or so we’re told!). Like the rest of Doha, I’ll believe it when it happens. They have mentioned a little more money and, without being greedy, if we were to do the job in Melb, we’d be paid better – especially when they want to work us 0700 – 1900 each day, before we go and push a dome..! Nothing is in concrete yet so we’ll see what happens – our strongest chip is that we’re cheaper than flying over new crew and paying them a full wage! Who knows, it could all fall in a heap! The fitness régime looks like it will soon be forced upon me rather than by choice!

Well, I’ve managed to stay awake late in the vain hope of being able to sleep lots tomorrow if I have to work all night but I bet I’m up early! Take care where ever you be out there (me, sentimental…?) and catch you next time – that is if anyone is actually reading this!