Bad Hair Day on Planet Earth

One of the many side projects I have been working on over the past few years is a book / memoir being written by my teacher, friend, and employer, Barbara Ruzansky, tentatively entitled Bad Hair Day on Planet Earth. 

We're starting to get the social media going for the soon to be released / published project - here's TheBHDproject Instagram page to start. I'm sure other marketing material (website, crowd-funding, etc.) will be ready soon. 

I'm not editing the book (that would be Ali) and not doing layout (that would be Caresse) and not seeking grants or funding (that would be Miranda). I was ostensibly brought on board for socail media purposes, but I'm probably not going to have time or aptitude for that (being rather Instagram resistant). No, my role on the project has been kind of shaman or guru - coming up with ideas or alternatives or concepts that more often than not end up being implemented. 

Not going to write too much about the book project right now. But I intend to put together some thoughts over the next few weeks and months about the process of putting the book together, of influences, concepts related to the book, etc. that might find their way into the book marketing and support channels. Let's call this a scratch pad for these.....

Pandemic Projects

An in-progress list of the things that have kept me busy, employed, and dare I say it, alive during the past 18 months. 

First, I've live-streamed a bunch of yoga classes. Starting with an iPad on a tripod, and evolving over time to include:

• Lights (I pulled the kirtan lighting package out of storage and set up a bit of a stage) 
• Sound (I employed a wireless headset for the instructor for better sound, carefully sanitized between uses) 
• Facebook Live, migrating to 
• Youtube, migrating to 
• Vimeo
• Got the studio up to speed on Zoom, working with instructors who were able to teach from home, and setting up in-studio resources, including
• A Zoom cart - which started with back to back monitors (one for instructor one for operator, who had to sit through class in the room) and adding external cameras and mics
  
• Transition to HDMI cameras and an amazing little switching box that is as close to being a TD as I'll ever get. We used that for Zoom classes (initially) to prove the concept and test the hardware / cabling, before
• Permanently mounting the HDMI system in Studio A (with a control area in the office), and bringing the zoom cart back to life for independent use. Set up includes a remote monitor (for the instructor), some specialized microphones, and provision for bluetooth headsets, direct music from the room sound system, etc.

So right now, we've got a full blown, 4 camera system in Studio A (we livestream all of our in studio classes) and a rolling Zoom cart in Studio B (which I'm still tweaking, hoping to be able to livestream Studio B classes, as well as do zoom only classes)  

And other (sort of related) projects: 

• Cleaned out the long abandoned (10 years) studio storage room
• Cleaned out the shed behind the studio
• Orchestrated the great paperwork purge of 2020, Katie and I were able to send 40 banker's boxes to the shredder.
• Dug out the studio planters and made ready for flowers (they look lovely) 
• Picked up a new hose and reel (ours got swiped early in the pandemic)
• Purchased and supervised the installation of large roller shades on the east side of Studio A (where the morning light makes live streaming challenging)
• Purchased a collection of orange traffic cones (imprinted with WHY, the studio brand) to replace the crappy buckets full of concrete and fence posts doing service as parking lot dividers. 
• Assembled an old wire cart to use as a prop rack 
• Developed a system to set props aside for 72 hours between use (the better to ensure COVID safety on surfaces)
  
• Purchased dozens of white pillowcases (to cover bolsters) for yin and restorative classes
• Laid out little removable stickers on the floor(s) a dozen or so times, to facilitate social distancing and keeping students from blocking camera angles

My mantra over the past 18 months: never let a perfectly good pandemic go to waste.