Greetings from jetBlue!

From: Dusty
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 9:10 pm
Subject: Whoo Hoo!

I did it!! I've passed my tests and my final and now I'm officially a real Flight Attendant!! woo hoo!! haha. I can't believe it- no, really- I can't believe it. haha. I still don't think that I'm a F/A or that I'll be working on a plane and living in JFK. haha.

I got information on my first IOE flight (a graded flight) today!! I'm flying from JFK to LAS and back! The good thing is that I'll be doing it with my soon-to-be-roommate, Aaron. I don't know how that happened, but it's cool that I'll have a familiar face on my flight. That starts on the 4th of Feb. I think it's cool because I've never been to LAS before and well, there ya go- I get to be in LAS, even if it's for a 20 min turn-around. haha. Too funny!

Our February scheduling should be coming out in a day (maybe tonight) - I have no control over that since we weren't allowed to bid. But by Friday, the March schedules should be up where I can bid for my days off. I think I'll go for Tues and Wed each week (we get 12 days off- the other day I'll let Crew Services pick). We'll see how it goes!

Hope all is well!!
Dusty

Greetings from jetBlue!

From: Dusty
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 8:48 pm
Subject: It's Almost Over...

Well, I have successfully passed all my exams with flying colors! My test today I got a 98 and my CPR drill went without incident. Yay! Now the only thing left is our oral final exam on Tuesday then it's all in the clear for graduation on Wednesday at Noon!!!!!!!!

I got my name badge today! haha.

Oh and I have a crash pad in NY already lined up. It looks good from the pics that I've seen and I'll be with a bunch of us newbie jetBlue peeps. About 8 of us are all crashing at one place so it will be nice and kind of like family. It is a new property and there is ample parking spaces (on street) and I wouldn't have to move my car around for street cleaning if I were to drive it up - not sure what I'll do with my car other than possibly leave it at IAD for when I come home, though I can only get free parking at one airport. haha. Hmmm.

Hope all is well-
Dusty

Read-Thru, The Velveteen Rabbit

This afternoon, we all got together to discuss The Velveteen Rabbit. This production is part of The Little Theatre of Winston-Salem's New Horizon Series, which is a two week festival of stage readings of shows by NC playwrights. Because it is such a wonderful story, we all agreed that we'd like to breathe more life into it than just reading the story on a stage.

After reading through the script, we discussed that even though the Narrators have the majority of lines, the other actors must create their characters physically. They will have to use their body and movement, action, instead of dialogue. So, of course, we had to play some theatre games. How would you walk if you were a rabbit, a horse, a mechanical toy, etc. I am not a fan of these games, but I participate for the kids.

Already, there is one kid who is going to annoy the bejesus out of me. He's the kind of kid who announces to everyone, often while someone else is speaking, that he has no problem learning lines, can speak in a multitude of dialects and voices, and corrects others who have made a mistake. He's also full of ideas. I will admit that he is talented. I just don't think courtesy was part of his upbringing. Maybe I can help him with that?

Mark your calendars now. We will perform March 7 and 8. Performances will be in the lobby of the Arts Council and at the main library.

Greetings from jetBlue!

From: Dusty
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 11:04 pm

Things in jetBlue land are still great. After the big emergency equipment test snafu where most of the class failed, we had our retake on Monday. The test before that I made a 97 and the last test we had I made a 90.

Today we had our evacuation drill tests and I was lucky enough (being sarcastic here) to have been given the Embraer simulator for my demo and an unplanned water ditching. The sarcasm - because water ditchings have more command words to yell plus you have to put on your life vest and do some additional things to the slides. (In the simulator, you have to 'pretend' with the slides as they don't activate them for this drill.) On these drills you would have been given either a ditching or a unplanned land evacuation (crash) with an added bonus like a pregnant lady at the slide or the slide was too steep, etc. You had to be on top of your game to call out the correct command.

Anyway, mine started off a bit rocky- I was in the back of the E190 (FA#2) and it was my second time doing a water ditching. I started off my evacuation ok- the commands were coming out good (not tongue tied). I had a bit of a time getting my life vest on as well as placing my hands on the aft handle in order to open the entry door... and I also forgot to inflate the pretend 'slide' too. hahaha. But by the time I got to the service door I knew it wasn't going well and I gave up and called it quits so I could do it over. I did it over and passed. Nothing major - many people got it on their 2nd try.

Now we have just 2 tests left and we're done! It's hard to believe that next Wednesday I'll be getting my wings. Wow. A new hire class started yesterday - about 90 new Inflight Crewmembers! Woo-hoo! 2nd class for 2008 and now my senority has been upped a bit! haha.

Lots of hugs and love,
Dusty

Happy Birthday, Myla!

Article in the Go Triad

From bayou to off-Broadway
By Leslie Mizell, Special to Go Triad

WINSTON-SALEM -- It's a long way from Louisiana to New York, but two bayou playwrights with shows opening in Winston-Salem next week found success there at a very early age.

The Little Theatre of Winston-Salem is staging Larry Shue's "The Foreigner," a modern-day classic comedy, opening Feb. 1. That same night, the Stained Glass Playhouse will debut Judi Ann Mason's "Livin' Fat" for Piedmont audiences.

Actor-playwright Shue, a New Orleans native, debuted "My Emperor's New Clothes" off-Broadway in 1968 when he was just 22 years old. However, he wouldn't find real accolades until nearly 15 years later when he wrote a pair of comedies, "The Nerd" and "The Foreigner," as a playwright in residence at Milwaukee Repertory Theater .

"The Nerd" premiered in London in 1981 and had a successful Broadway run in 1987; "The Foreigner" spent 18 months off-Broadway and won the Outer Critics Circle award for best play.

"The Foreigner" of the title is Charlie Baker, a painfully shy Englishman who is vacationing with his friend "Froggy" LaSeur at a Georgia hunting lodge when soldier Froggy is unexpectedly called up for maneuvers.

Stranded with a bunch of strangers, Charlie pretends to be a foreigner who doesn't understand English. But far from isolating him from the lodge owners and guests, his inability to communicate means he finds himself taken into their confidences and becomes the unwitting witness to their secrets.
One secret becomes particularly volatile, and Charlie suddenly finds himself helping his new friends protect themselves from the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

Sadly, "Wenceslas Square " (1988) would be Shue's fifth and final produced comedy. The playwright died in a plane crash in 1985. He was 39.

Mason was born 10 years after Shue in Shreveport, La. Her writing career was off to an auspicious start when she received the Norman Lear Award for Comedy from the Kennedy Center while a student at Grambling State University.

Like Shue, she first found professional success at 22, selling a script to the long-running TV comedy "Good Times" in 1978. Since then, she has worked as easily in comedy as drama, and for television, stage and movies alike.

She also wrote scripts for "Sanford and Son," "A Different World," "Beverly Hills, 90210," and "I'll Fly Away."

She penned films "Sophie & the Moonhanger" for television and the Whoopi Goldberg vehicle "Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit" for the silver screen. In between, she found time to write three dozen plays and youth musicals, including "Eddie Lee Baker Is Dead" and "A Star Ain't Nothin' But a Hole in Heaven."

"Livin' Fat," which the prestigious Negro Ensemble Company debuted off-Broadway in 1976, is set in that recession-ridden era. Times are tough for the Cooper family. Although money is tight, their affection for each other is limitless.

Everything changes, however, when son David Lee, a college graduate forced by the economy to work as a bank janitor, interrupts a robbery. In their haste to get away, the thieves drop a $50,000 bundle of money, which David Lee grabs and hides from his employers and the police.

Now the religious and law-abiding Coopers are faced with a dilemma: The money would allow David Lee's father to quit one of his jobs, his mother to stop cleaning other people's houses, his grandmother to enjoy her golden years, his sister to go to college, and himself to get a fresh start and marry his girlfriend. But can they sacrifice their scruples enough to benefit from ill-gotten gains?

Contact Leslie Mizell at LAMizell@aol.com

bee-u-ti-ful!

The general office for SETC is located at Revolution Mills Studios. Having to come here absolutely makes the hike to Greensboro worth it!

The Cast of The Velveteen Rabbit

The "no news is good news" philosophy is a double-edged sword for actors. Sometimes you never hear anything, find out by checking an online cast list, or you hear from other actors.

The Velveteen Rabbit auditions were Saturday morning. Not hearing for four days after an audition is usually not a good sign. I just figured that Reed decided to cast kids only. So, imagine my surprise when I got an email announcing the cast:

Boy - Gerrit
Rabbit - Elizabeth Wallace
Narrator 1 - Charli
Narrator 2/Mechanical Toy - Adam
Narrator 3/Uncle- Jeremy
Narrator 4/Aunt- Cheryl Ann Roberts
Nana/Boat Toy - Katlyn
Fairy - Jasmyn
Horse/Doctor - Sam
Bunny - Annemarie
Bunny - Britton

I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be a part of this production! And yes, I am the oldest cast member!

Some News

Beginning on Wednesday, I will be working part-time for the Southeastern Theatre Conference. I'll be helping to get everyone ready (office staff and those auditioning) for the annual convention in Chattanooga. I'm excited!

An Afternoon at the Theatre

Mallorie and I went to see Movin' Out at the Greensboro Coliseum yesterday afternoon. We both loved it!

The storyline: Long Island in the 60's. Sweethearts Eddie and Brenda break off their high school romance, as James and Judy get engaged. Another member of the group, Tony, picks up with Brenda shortly before all of the boys head off for Vietnam. James loses his life on the battlefield, leaving Judy shattered. Tony and Eddie return home with feelings of loss and alienation. Tony and Brenda's relationship becomes more and more complicated, while Eddie slips into narcotic abuse. In a drug laced fantasy Eddie follows the image of Judy which steers him in the right direction and he soon finds solace. Meanwhile, Tony and Brenda renew their love for each other. The friend reunite to discover they have all found their way back home.

Due to the endurance needed for Eddie, 4 dancers rotate the role. We saw Andrew Pirozzi as Eddie, and he was awesome. Understudy Shayna Harris played Brenda. She was very good as well. John Corsa played Tony and when he and Shayna were on stage it was magic. I was not impressed with the dancers who played Judy and James. Kyle Martin was our Piano Man, and there were times when he sounded very much like Billy Joel.

The opening number, "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me", was slow to begin. Once the band warmed up, they maintained the needed energy throughout the show. While some of the dance numbers were spectacular (Tony "skating" across the stage in his hi-tops, Eddie's leaps through the air), some were not. Some of the dancers had timing difficulty, so their performances weren't as clean. And some of Twyla Tharp's choreography was just unusual.

Still, it's a very impressive show, and Mallorie was thrilled to have seen it with me. We listened to Billy Joel's Greatest Hits on the way to the coliseum, so she was familiar with a few songs I had grown up listening to. And I couldn't help but sing along to some of the songs.

Auditions, The Velveteen Rabbit

If you've ever visited my Myspace page then you know that The Velveteen Rabbit is my favorite book of all time. As part of this year's New Horizon Series, and in conjunction with the ACT program, The Little Theatre of Winston-Salem will be staging an adaptation of Margery Williams' book. Auditions were this morning, and I was there. As a matter of fact, I was the oldest person there! (Well, except for some of the parents waiting for their kids.) I was amazed by the turn-out. There were small kids up to high school ages. And there were several boys auditioning.

I knew I wouldn't be asked to read for the Rabbit or Skinhorse; those parts would go to the kids. The script calls for 4 narrators who "age" during the course of the show, so I figured I could play Narrator 3 or 4. There's also a Nana.

After playing some "theatre" games to warm up the kids, Ryan grouped us together and we began to read. He hadn't picked a side for Nana, so I mostly read for Narrator 3 and 4. I really was amazed by the talent of some of the kids! Which might mean that I won't get cast at all. There was certainly enough talent to cast the show completely with kids.

It really doesn't matter if I get cast or not. I love working with kids, and I love the story so I thought it would be really fun. Even if I'm not cast, I will see the show.

Greetings from jetBlue!

From: Dusty
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2008 6:03 pm

Thanks for the positive thoughts- it worked.... I got an 88. Low, but thankfully passing. BUT the test was a bit screwy since many of us weren't sure exactly how and what to study. The learning course we took about the equipment was taught in a different way than the study guide and to add to it- we had to know both planes. Would you believe that about 30 people failed the test today? That's INSANE. One of my friends from class was among those failed and I was worried that he wouldn't pull through on the retake (cause you have to have 100% on the 2nd try). But luckily the instructors decided that there was a problem with the exam and decided to make it invalid for all and we'll be tested again on it next week. Whew. My friend is saved. But it also goes to show that we need to study more because it's not the easy stuff like last week that we're learning about.

Today we got our badges! LOL. Check it out! I'm finally 'CREW'!!!!!! What do you think?

Love ya,
Dusty "jetBlue Crew"

Greetings from jetBlue!

From: Dusty
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 8:13 pm

Well, our base assignments came out today and JFK is my home base! Woo Hoo! There weren't a lot of slots open for that- maybe 15 of us got it and we're the oldest, so that's good to know where I rank in seniority with this class. The rest got BOS as their base. BOS would have been another excellent choice- maybe even better since it is expanding more and there is more need for reserves there, which would push up seniority and status quicker. But whatever, I don't mind. If I fly over 100 hours a month, so be it- I'll be making money. LOL.

It's a bit scary- I have my emergency equipment test tomorrow on both aircraft. I can kind of wrap my brain around it, but when I look at the 'pickle' (drawing of the plane) I get all nervous that I won't know where the equipment is located. haha. But no worries- I know I'll be fine. :-) Did I tell you this school teacher in my class said that she used to tell her class that they need to be like the little train that could and always say "I know I can" rather than "I can't"? I told her that was perfect advice because when you think you can't do something, you end up believing it and you won't pass, but if you remain confident and positive, you'll feel better about studying. At least that's the way I feel here. I try to remain positive and when I start to feel negative, I counter act.

Today I went down the escape slides of the A320 and the E190! It was fun! haha.

I see that a BA 777 ran off the runway at Heathrow!! Scary, but it just goes to show that Safety is first and that what we're learning now in class is HUGE for what we're doing in this job.

What's new with you?
Dusty

P.S. Tomorrow is the test and a pool drill where we have to get into a raft! LOL

So Excited!

I just finished printing my tickets!

Greetings from jetBlue!

To: Dusty
From: Cheryl Ann
Date: Jan 16, 2008 10:19 AM
A 95 is a good score! You are averaging a 98 for an overall grade, and that's well above the bottom line of 80. You are doing well on your tests and I'm very proud of you!

Ah yes, safety, safety, safety. The real work begins.

I talked with mom yesterday. She said jetBlue doesn't have a base in Dulles. Have you found out where you are going to be based?

Love ya,
Cheryl Ann

From: Dusty
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 5:50 pm

Yea, no base in IAD- I knew that but I thought on their map it looked like there was one. LOL. I put down JFK as my choice and will probably commute to work using a Crash Pad for a short while until I figure out how that goes, etc. I had seriously thought about FLL as a place to move to- how cool would it be with the beach? But there aren't enough reserve flights in and out of FLL, so the money isn't that good. JFK really is where it's at and by Sept they'll have their new gate opened up. We'll see. I have no house so it's easy for me to do whatever. LOL. But NY living? Ummmm dunno.

I'm proud of myself too and I remain positive on these tests. At first when we go over the lecture in class I get overwhelmed because it looks difficult and I size it up by the amount of pages, etc, but when I read it - it's simple. But now with the evac drills, that will be a bit challenging. I can do it- it's just the whole- I have to act it out in front of people. haha.

Dusty

Another Random Posting

This was found in my newly acquired copy of a used script for Once Upon a Shoe, a musical for children. Interesting comments if you are thinking of staging this wonderful show.

Random Posting

This was found between the pages of The Tap Dance Kid.

Greetings from jetBlue!

From: Dusty
Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 8:38 pm

Today I made a 95 on my Airbus A320 test. boooo. I wanted a higher score, but whatever, it's higher than an 80, which is our bottom line score. I missed 3 questions and noticed that one was because I didn't 'read' it as good as I thought. But now I know. haha.

Looks like the fun is over and we'll be getting into heavier things. We went over the Safety side of the job today. Eeeek. It's tough! It's really not all about serving drinks as much as it is always watching out for who can be your 'able bodied person' to help you out in the event of an emergency landing, whether it be on land or water. There is a TON of procedures to learn about all these things! It's crazy, but then again I knew it was all about Safety and we all know it's nothing more than a tube of metal flying at 500 mph! haha. I'll get through it!

Hope all is well!
Dusty

Greetings from jetBlue!

From: Dusty
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 7:29 pm
Subject: Two Down and Several More To Go!

Well, I made a 98 on my second test! I missed one question. Whew! Tomorrow I have a test on the Airbus A320. It's got a bit more stuff, but I think I can handle it. haha.
Still excited,
Dusty

Dyin' to See This

I first heard about Movin' Out in 2003, when it was nominated for several Tony awards, including the Best and Featured Actor/Actress categories. What made the show especially noteworthy, even in its nominations, was that there is no dialogue. The story is "acted out" through choreography.

I grew up on Billy Joel and I love the art of dance. As such I've been dying to see this. I missed it a couple of years ago when it toured in Charlotte. Good news! It's going to be in Greensboro this Saturday and Sunday!

Told through the choreography of Twyla Tharp and more than two dozen of Billy Joel’s songs, it's the story of lifelong friends through two turbulent decades that change them and the world around them forever. Songs like “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me,” “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” and “Pressure” all come together to weave a musical backdrop which beautifully complements Tharp’s innovative choreography. The songs and dance take audiences through a poignant narrative comprised of three main elements: post-World War II idealism, the Vietnam War and its subsequent unrest, and finally, survival.

Many will recognize the main characters, as they come straight from Joel’s lyrics. There’s Brenda and Eddie from “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant,” Tony and Sergeant O’Leary from “Movin’ Out,” Judy from “Why, Judy, Why,” and James from “James”—and their story is told completely through dance, with no dialogue whatsoever. Movin' Out is “a story told without language,” Tharp says. “The movement and the action tell the story—the experience, the emotional resonance, comes from action rather than language.”

I'll be purchasing tickets no later than Tuesday, so let me know if you'd like to go with me!