I think I should tell you. I love wrap. 

1. First, when you are wrapping a project, gravity is working with you. You are no longer trying to get things up, you are bringing them to the ground, where they naturally want to be.  This makes work much easier. 
2. you aren’t measuring or figuring out stuff when wrapping. You must’ve had it figured out when you put the dang thing up. You know what to do. 
3. Wrapping always takes less time. 
4. you never are searching for things when wrapping. You are putting them back where they belong. 
5. People all smile during wrap, mainly because we all know it is almost over. 
6. Unscrewing out is easier than screwing in. Just is. 
7. It’s an attitude thing. You have done the job (hopefully well) and now you are pulling down your good work. 
8. There is a clear end in sight. This becomes truer as the day goes on. 
9. I love loading the truck. I have been planning this the whole time. ABW (always be wrapping) is my mantra. 
10. When that door on that truck closes. You are really done. There is nothing more to move. You head to your car and go home. Bliss. 

Whatever. I haven’t been writing. It annoys me and I always feel less myself, (and less a man) when I am A.W.O.B. (Absent without blog). 

Done apologizing. 

I flew into Baltimore on the top of a huge thunderstorm. Who’d have thought that flying to work for the Do Lab would be a break from work in LA. As I got onto the plane, I breathed a sigh of relief. The UR Votes Count thing that I was working on for the weeks before this job had been really stressing me out. Once I got on that plane, there really was nothing I could do about that (and to Adam, Art and Eric H’s credit, they haven’t called me once about the project). I was on a red eye. Two hours of fitful sleep. Tops. 

I arrived and dickered with the schmarmbag rental car agent. Of course, i got put in the phattest ride they had. A Town and Country minivan. A godsdamned bimbobox. It was pretty banged up and a powder blue that was sure to pull the soccer moms of the Maryland suburbs. First things I do when I get out of that rental car lot is get lost. I lead myself on a tour of the roughest neighborhoods of Baltimore.  But you know how it is when you haven’t slept. It’s not even me driving. It an autopilot. Some other guy. I miss the hotel, when I turn around I find a whole foods and a starfucks. Civilization. Baltimore suddenly aint so bad when I have a grande triple soy latte in my hands. I even have time for a shower. 

I meet up with Jedi and Tristan in the lobby and we go to work.  We measure three, four times. We lay out giant squash and onions. I spend the day pounding metal into earth. I feel like a blacksmith. I find my rhythm. I hit my toes with the hammer.  We work until 10pm, when the Hulk Hogan biker clone locks us in. But the hardest work, the figuring out part, is done. It’s gonna be great. 

I return to the Raddison. And my huge hotel room. My bed is a king and either side has it’s own control for softness. It’s epic. Free Internets, a plus. USA Today at the door when I wake up. A great AC. I decide pretty quick that I am going to skip All Points West in NJ. I may as well kick it here. It’s pretty cool. 

The next day we are in at 10 am, right when they will let us in, after they have run the horses on the Pimlico racetrack. Today we finish the onion frames. We have the right tools. We have the right lift. It’s going really well. Then we realize that we are missing the key part of the Lumies that make them look so cool! So I am off to meet Y2 halfway between the other crew and us. The Do Lab has another team doing a much bigger installation at the All Points West festival. I have an opportunity to drive some more across the great state of Maryland. And then Delaware, to visit where my debt us kept. It’s a fun trip. I get back after nine and we decide to do one last day. There’s not much left. 

The last day we get up the Lumies, without having to pound in a ton of stakes or lay down guy wires, which is the hardest part of that. They go up instantly and they look perfect. Everything goes so smoothly. And just as we are wrapping up our day, the storm comes. We go and catch a movie. The Mummy 3. It was terrible. Painful terrible. 

The next day we go down to check the structures in the wind and end up going to the Inner Harbor, we mix with the tourists and anime cosplayers. It’s a surreal day. Strangely, the day among the toursts exhausts me more than working at full speed! We go back and check the lighting of the site. It looks amazing. 

Today was the first day of the Virgin Mobile Festival. I gotta say, it was a just okay kind of festival. The festivals we go to back in LA are so much better. Coachella, so much bigger and brighter. LIB, a dreamland compared to this. I am spoiled. But I am going to honest when I stumbled upon The Swell Season from the movie Once. I was so pleasantly surprised! They were so charming and cute! As an encore the two of them jumped down into the audience and did a little irish sing-a-long. It was so wonderful. I’ve been listening to that Once sountrack so much I knew the words to every song. Its been a while since that happened. Duffy and Underworld were also pretty amazing. I got some pretty cool pictures of the Foo Fighters. I also gotto hang out with some east coasters! My friend Kathy who I never get to see came out for the show with a couple of friends. And I got to hang out with Stryk, a great guy who I met through Wolfie. Overall it was a great day. 

Tomorrow is the last day of the festival and we will start breaking down as soon as Trent Reznor lays down his blood soaked guitar. I still don’t know the details of my return flight. I should probably figure that out soon.

I also need to meet Richard Branson and find out where he is camping at Burning Man.