Well, THAT was a long month!

Beg pardon for not filing for a while...

But to say things have changed in the last 30 days would be an understatement!

But we are making things work. Having six weeks of vacation banked sure helped!

Having friends to drop resumes places, or edit a resume, or give me advice or just send nice notes has helped even more.

Less than a day after my sacking I heard from a former co-worker, who now works at KTLA. He wanted a resume, which he delivered to the Operations Manager there. Two days later I was in the Ops Manager's office, and was on the schedule the next week as a per diem hire, and have been getting four or five days a week since then. Working in local again was not in my future plans, but everyone there is SO nice, and they seem to be happy to have me there. They will get my 100% effort, and it's keeping me busy while I look for the next network gig or until I decide to make the investment for a gear package.

Another freelance shooter, after hearing of my situation, has offered me her extra work and, more importantly, use of her camera package when she is not using it.

And The Boy has been keeping me busy, too. D Casey Hart is officially an actor. While I was in Germany, he auditioned for a part in The Canyon Theatre Guild's production of A Christmas Carol. He got the part of "young Scrooge" and worked hard at it. So we all volunteered and helped build sets and work behind the curtain, and I borrowed a camera from a friend and taped the show a few times for the director (anybody with a Macbook pro with Final Cut that I can borrow for editing?). I helped Casey and the young actress in his scene work on their characters and their motivation and how to avoid traps actors fall into when they are "acting" as opposed to being in character... junk I learned oh-so-many years ago that I though I would never use again.

The show's run has just ended -- 21 shows! -- but we don't get much of a break. Before ACC even opened, he auditioned for the next show, Willy Wonka.

Willy Wonka  is a musical.

Look... I love The Boy, but let's be honest; he's got my sense of rhythm and is almost as tone deaf. And 90 kids auditioned, most with real head shots and CD's that their budding Dina Lohan parents had paid thousands of dollars.

The Boy sang Happy Birthday, acapella.

And unlike the 80 kids that went home with their expensive head shots and CDs, D. Casey got a part.

Okay, the part is in the ensemble. But it's a part, something most of the kids didn't get.

And I am NOT turning into Kit Culkin. After the first week of rehersals we quit sitting in the theater. I made sure Casey knew what he was supposed to do and what what was expected of him: this is not theater day camp. It's a real show with actors and a director who, while volunteers, are taking this seriously. He did what he was supposed to do and more. He never missed his cues. He always made his quick costume changes in time. When the other kids in the show were brats, he stood out by doing the opposite, and by shutting his mouth and listening when he was supposed to by projecting and taking direction and being a proper actor.

All of this is good for me, too. Keeping busy keeps my mind off of how CNN ended. It keeps me from thinking about the pain and the hurt that comes with putting in so much work and effort and time, of going so far above and beyond what was expected of me and doing so much more than what was put out by some others in the same job category, and still getting bounced... for being sacked for reasons that are completely untrue.

So I keep busy. And I keep telling myself that Everything Happens For A Reason. God or Jehovah or Buddha or whatever we call our higher power has a plan. The plan doesn't often just drop from the sky (and oh, how I wish it did); we have to go and find the plan. As much as I loved working at CNN, there is something better out there for me. And I'm not a complete idiot; I know that, with the current bureau management (Fred Grullon excluded), I had gone as far as I could go at CNN, and was somewhat lucky to get as far as I did.

So perhaps I needed the push.

So until the plan is discovered, we've made a few sacrifices; no more gym membership, fewer meals away from home, more brown-bagging at work. I've had to bite the bullet and upgrade my cell to a smart phone to get e-mails anywhere (that's already paid for itself, by the way).

Hopefully I'll run into many of you in the field soon, or see you in person. Until then, keep in touch and I'll try to update this space more often.