Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

I guess I should say "Happy Black Friday"...but Belated Thanksgiving sounds better. I hope everyone had a nice day with friends and family.

Yesterday was the first time I had been away from home for Thanksgiving, and to be perfectly honest, it was a little rough. I had most of the day to myself...which basically ended in me watching alot of videos, talking to friends back home, and thinking about alot of different things.

One of the major things I was thinking about, was obviously, what I was thankful for. I am thankful for way too many things to sit here and list on my blog, but I will give you a condensed version:

To anybody who has helped in my process of coming to California and persuing my dreams, thank you. My move out west has not been an easy one, and frankly, with huge talk of another strike and things happening in Hollywood the way they are, it will likley become harder before it gets easier. I am thankful, however, that I've had the opportunity to come out to this strange new land (and by that, I mean California) and fight for what I want to do. This is a challenging industry to even THINK about getting into...but I seriously could not have done it without the strong support system I have back home. Having this strong support system is what makes me miss home so much...which at times, is confusing...because it makes me want to be home when things get rough. I know that this is what I want to do....the problem, is creating my own system and 'flavor', if you will, for doing things that is different than everyone who came before me. With the industry changing so much, this is both easy and hard at the same time...but with time, things will happen.

Thanks again to everyone who has always been on my side...supporting me and keeping me motivated.

Sara's Visit to Hollywood

My friend Sara, (from back in South Milwaukee), came out for the weekend to visit me here in California! We had ALOT of fun and did tons of things. Here's a few highlight pictures.

More California Wildfires

More pictures of the recent California wildfires. And we thought the last set of fires was bad...HA! It smells like a BBQ outside...

Close pictures courtesy of my American Red Cross connections.

Titanic Exhibit

When I was home for my long weekend helping with the High School play, I had a chance to go to the Milwaukee Public Museum's TITANIC Exhibit. I had gone once before to this traveling display in Chicago with my dad, and I LOVED it. When you enter the exhibit, they give you a boarding pass telling you who you were on the Titanic. I was with Laura, and we both had different class tickets. In the end, she ended up living and I died.

Either way, here was our cool Titanic picture. (Yay for cheesy photoshop at the museum)

Happy Birthday To Me :-)

As many of you know, yesterday was my birthday - and I celebrated here in California by hanging out with a few friends at Applebees in Hollywood. Here's some pictures:

According to Jim Series Finale

Hard to believe, but the series finale of "According to Jim" was this evening. The show lasted 8 seasons on air...making it one of the longest running sitcoms on ABC. Tons of celebrities were in the episode....which made it extra special. Here's a few pics from the event:

Some of you are probably thinking, "Gee, Kyle...all these celebrities around you and not one picture with any of them." Well, tonight was a HUGE party...and while I did get to stay 'hi', talk for a few minutes, and shake hands...they clearly had other things on their mind. Alot of this Hollywood stuff is more 'the experience' than it is 'the proof, pics, or postcards'...and that is definatley what tonight was.

That being said, the 3 pictures above are me with the children stars of "According to Jim" that you may recognize from many different other things, as well. Over this past season I've had the chance to hang with and get to know the kids pretty well (since they are nice, genuine people who are willing to talk with you, hang out, etc). Tonight they found me and wanted to get pictures and play some games and such during the after party. It was alot of fun. One of them even said if it wasn't for me, the party wouldn't have been as exciting for them (since everyone else was so busy getting drunk). The kids also talked for a little about how sad they were that the show has ended....for all of them, this has been something they have been doing since they were barley old enough to talk and walk. In the end, it was a very LONG, but nice night and I had a great time.

Red Cross Reviews

Every time I complete a Red Cross class, a survey is given to all the students.

Below are some of the more....amusing answers I have recieved.

HSM 3: VIP!

I have tickets to "High School Musical 3" - The VIP Experience at the "El Capitan Theatre" at Hollywood and Highland this Saturday!

I'm pretty excited.  This video shows you a small preview of what is expected in HSM: 3.

No autographs, please.

Pumpkin Carving

Hello Everyone,

Sorry for not posting more recently. Things have been crazy with the fire, work, trying to find time to sleep, etc...

This Sunday, my friends from school and I decided to get together and carve some pumpkins. Here's a pic or two from the event:


I found this really nice pumpkin at the pumpkin place...but it was too heavy to carry, so I downsized.

Take a breath of fresh air!

Just don't take that breath in Southern California on the 405 near Kyle's apartment...


(Picture taken on my way to work today)

It is SOOOOOOOO dry and SOOOOOO nasty here. Alot of you know I REALLY don't like chapstick....but today I stopped at Walgreens to grab two tubes of it because I really need it...

Good News: Most of the fires are contained
Bad News: The big one that is closest to me (that I helped with) is still only 20% contained.

Is it hot in here or is it just me?

A little over 24 hours ago, a huge fire broke out in Santa Clarita...a city about 15 minutes from where I live. (For those interested, Santa Clarita is where I teach my film classes).

Tonight I came home from my day working and running errands to find that my desk was half covered in ashes. My window was only open the smallest crack.

I turned on the news to find that there was a huge fire occuring in the San Fernando Valley...that had been created from the original fire in Santa Clarita. From my house, you can see the fire off in the distance, and from Northridge (where my friends stay at the dorms), they cancelled school today because of the air quality. They have even told us that the air quality in Van Nuys is getting bad, and we should close our windows and such....and if we go outside, take a mask.

I recieved a phone call this evening to go in and work at the Red Cross...so tomorrow could be an interesting day. We have the first of the film festivals for my school that evening, but I will be wherever I may be during the day helping with evacuation efforts.

Here's a picture from near my house of the fire:

Hollywood Celebrity Convention

Hello, everyone! WOW - I have been busy latley. Between school and jobs and everything in-between, things have been quite crazy.

As some of you may have heard, this past weekend I went to a Hollywood Convention in Burbank, CA. At the convention, numerous stars (many that were stars 'back in the day') were in attendance. I went with two of my friends from college - Adam and Stepahnie - and we had a GREAT time.

All of the pictures from the event, including the autographs I managed to get, can be seen on the following link: http://ppshollywood.com/Hollywood%20Convention/

Almost every picture has a story behind it, so if you are interested in learning more, shoot me an e-mail and I'd love to share.

Here's a few pictures you may wonder about when going through the album. I have described them a little more below:

The guy from "The Monkees" - Micky - talks with the original Lois Lane and gets her autograph.

Alan Ruck - "Cameron" from Ferris Buller - is standing with us at the corner waiting to cross the street after getting lost in the hotel with us in an attempt to LEAVE to hotel to grab a bite to eat at the local McDonalds.

Bill Farmer - the voice of Walt Disney's Goofy - signed the FIRST EVER "How to Hook Up Your Home Theatre" poster to me :-). For those that don't know, I am a HUGE fan of this animated short.

CHUCK Filming

As many of you know, my favorite show on TV right now is "CHUCK" (on NBC). Today I got word that they were filming near my house, and needless to say, I flew over to the film location to get some stills and such.

Here's two of the many awesome pictures I took. Notice any celebrities in the 2nd??

To check out the rest of my pictures from this exciting event, check out:

www.ppshollywood.com/Chuck

Clean House

COMING SOON!

Choke

Today I was a one-day employee with the popular production company...FOX Searchlight Pictures. The reason? My American Red Cross class was held today at UCLA...and was sponsored by "CHOKE" - a new movie coming out this Friday. "CHOKE" is a movie being produced by FOX Searchlight.

It was pretty neat, since...
1) I was teaching college kids and

2) The entire lecture hall that I was teaching in was COVERED in posters, free giveaways, etc. We got a ton of T-shirts and prizes that we got to distribute to everyone.

In the eyes of FOX, this was a FANTASTIC marketing plan. Why? Because...


A) THEY paid for all these college kids to go through the class for FREE.

B) If you couldn't catch the play on drift, they wanted us to really emphasize are unit on CHOKING....for the movie...called "CHOKE"....

C) Not only was the class free, but all the college students got a TON of free stuff that they can wear, hang, etc... that will advertise the movie to other friends.

D) I'm sure 99% of the people in the class will go see the movie just because it was advertised so heavily in our class....I know I will be!

So if anybody wants a "CHOKE" T-shirt, posters, keychain, doorknob, bookmark, or card...let me know...I got a ton of them.

Time to CLEAN HOUSE!

I recieved a phone call today from "E!" Productions...in specific, from the show called "Clean House" that airs on the STYLE network.

They got hold of my resume and cover letter and were very impressed. They have hired me for this week Friday and Saturday on a shoot they are doing. A PAID PA position! YAY! This job really has the ability to lead into a more steady lineup of paid PA positions, so I'm excited.

For those of you that are thinking "what the heck is Clean House?"...it's very similar to "Extreme Home Makeover" on ABC...the people come in, tear apart their house, and make them a brand new, very nice house.

I'm excited!

The Emmy's - Part 2

Here's the pictures from the Red Carpet of the 60th Annual Emmy Awards:











More to come after the show! I'm excited to see who wins :-)

The Emmy's - Part 1

Yesterday, Jared and I went to the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. This is where they do all the fancy stuff for TV and run 'The Emmy's. Somehow, we got lucky, and nobody was at the building.

Below are some highlight pictures. More details to come. I am actually heading out the door (again, with Jared) to head downtown to the actual event to get some awesome pics! Wish me luck!!!!

First Day on "Last Call"

Well, my first day of production of "Last Call" went really well. The job (like many in this industry) is very hot and cold. One minute, you'll be bored as heck...waiting for the production meeting to be over. The next, you have so many things to do, it's hard to keep track.

Overall, I learned alot thus far and I am looking forward to the rest of this week (and the rest of this season, for that matter) on the show. No real big talents have come through yet, so I am awaitng more excitement in that category....so far it's been Eddie Izzard and John McCain's daughter - with the ever popular secret service by her side every step of the way.

The one BIG thing I did on Monday night was ensure that the show went on air. As some of you may know, the show airs around 1:30 in the morning - starting in New York and working it's way back to L.A. - riding the time zones as it travels. In order to broadcast in NY on time, they need the show an hour or so before the actual broadcast time so that we can "beam it" from LA to NY. Well, because Monday was our first day of the new season - we were about an hour or so BEHIND schedule, so after the show, there was a rush to get the show edited so it could be ran to the studio where it needed to be (so they could beam it).

To make a long story short: We had 10 minutes to get the tape from the "Last Call" stage (Stage 9) to the Editing Bay (near Stage 1). The distance between the two buildings is not short...and we don't have access to cars. Guess who got to run the tape with LESS than 10 minutes to the OTHER side of the lot so the show could air on time??? Yep...I did. :-)

Ah well, guess this new job comes with benefits...weight loss!

Today and Tomorrow

Quick update:

Today - Long, LONGGGGGGGGGGG, class at the Red Cross. Like...2 hours over the expected time limit long. Yeah, that sucked.

Tomorrow - Busy day starting at 9 AM until 9 PM working on "Last Call with Carson Daly"...I'm super pumped, because it's a shooting day!!

I will likley be dragging my feet tomorrow evening...so if you don't hear from me until later on Tuesday...don't take it personally. I'll try to update this with all the excitement that is bound to happen tomorrow as soon as I can.