Very funny day.. We left LA this morning on a 6:50 flight and already I was starting to get a ton of email. facebook, blog  and twitter feedback about the show. The shows casting producer.. and our spiritual guru and cast shrink Kristi has warned us all about getting too wrapped up in reading blogs and reviews about the show.  She says its not healthy.. you’ll always find folks who don’t liek what you did. I’m trying to keep to that.. but damn it’s hard. It’s so interesting reading stuff that’s out there.. Last night I was watching the Twitter feed for stuff about the show.. it was running almost 50:1 positive to negative.. but it was still hard ot read those negatives.. Same thing on Facebook. there are soem great comments on my Facebook and on the FB page for the show.

Some of the feedback and comments were pretty funny.. 

One reviewer called the show “preventative entertainment”..
Many on twitter called me ‘the naked dude”.   onr friend called me the naked Santa claus guy
One person mentioned that my shower scene was  far scarier than the shower scene in Psycho.
(everyone wants to talk about that last scene.. I’d be mortally embarrassed if I didn’t  think it was so funny !)

So far the reviews are pretty good.  some mixed but mostly very positive. I did see that we were the fifth biggest show on all cable last night with 1.2M households.. I guess that’s a good start.. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that folks will continue to like it..

I’m trying not to think of it right now.. I have so much on my plate it work and elsewhere that I can’t be obsessing about the show now.

So in that spirit.. I’m changing topic.. We had a productive burning man meeting tonight. Homer and dave have the bent pipe segments required to build the 20 foot diameter wheels for the Time Cycle.

Dave spent the evenign cutting out the spoke brackets out of 3/8″ steel using his magic water jet.. What an amazing tool. Here it is cuting a bracket.

Everyone was pitching in. Ben worked on the ski lift chairs and then did soem griniding on the brackets in prep for welding.

Seth. Diane and I held the pipes and brackets while Homer MIG welded them on. At this pace, we’re hoping to assemble the wheels this Saturday.. It should be fun !

Speaking of fun.. Sue P.. just sent us this picture pf Gabe with friends Dylan and Matt up in High Cascade in Oregon. Gabe’s been calling every day to tell us how it’s going.So far hes’ having a great time.. Man do I miss him !

Note.. Myspace just lost a long blog post for this most amazing day.. I don’t have the wakefulness to retype it now 🙂

Let me just say that It’s 1:15 AM Im now sitting on Thom and Leslies very wonderful porch sipping soem scotch.. my first drink of the evening. We just came back from watching the premier of The Colony.. and I loved it.. .. (I wasn’t sure that i would !).. I also  watched myself naked in the rain in front of several million people.. Not bad for a days work.. (Actually.. I’m not working , I’m out here burning two of my few remaining vacation days).

I’ll add tall the pictures from the day tomorrow when I’m not so mad at my laptop.. Let me just include a few for now

Here’s Thom kicking off the evening

A quick shot of the cast (+ Diane) on the way to the bar..

A vire of the 100 or so folks gathered to watch the premier..

And the closing scene of the show.. What ?!?! Hoenstly.. I was so hot, dirty and smelly by the forth day that as soon as I heard it raning I was outdoors with clothes off.. then I turned around and saw the camera…   But.. I said to myself.. “they’d never show that on TV”.. Ha.. !  It’ll be interesting to see how folks react.. But I can tell you one thing.. I wan’t acting.. that felt wonderful !

Here’s the corwd as the credits rolled..

And an hour of of hugs and backslaps  immediately after

OK.. I need to be awake in 4 hours to get home to work.. so I’ll sign off now.. I’m very interested to hear form folks what they thought of the show.. or let me know if oyu have any questions. I think I’m goign to like most of this.. but I’m sure soem parts of watching are goign to be hard.. right now.. it feels good !

Gnite all.. Gnite Sam.. (you made a cameo in the samstone shot !)
-me

Absolutely wonderfull day.. I’s takign today and tomorrow off to participate in the premier of our show tomorrow (10PM EST/PST, 9 PM CST, 8PM MST) on Discovery.

Diane and I have been hanging out with the folks I met makign the show. Last night we stayed at my friend Vlad’s .. We woke early and got to spend the mornign with Vlad’s family.. Theyr’e such wonderful folks.  Here’s Vlad with his daughter Bettina and her son Caid.

 As we talked about life .. I niticed this wonderful rainbow thta was coing from a prism in the window. It inspired to take these shots of the samstone I’d been carrying around all week..

Around 11 after doing soem of my work, we left Vlad’s cool house and headed for the bay.

It was about an hour ride..Once there, Vlad showed us the boats he owns and sells. the firs stop was this beutiful 72 footer called superfluous.. It was amazingly luxurious. We hung out there for a while eating and drinking..

We then dorve a bit down the road and loaded up on Vlad’s 2 foot speed boat.. and took it out for a nice spin..

We saw the old Queen Mary.. !

It was great having he cast all together before tomorrows premier.. we’re all nervous and very excited !!!

Someone brought a People magazine.. which had a tiny blurb in it about The Colony.. as well as a menacing picture of Morgan.

On the way home we found a small group of Sea Lions sunning on a buoy.. They were just chilling in the sun ..

The rest of the trip was a variety of Gilligan’s island sing alongs and Titanic reenactments.. which are obligatory on any boat trip as far as I know.

I jammed a samstone in the wall of the doc as we got off the boat.. It was a good place for it.

We all then crammed into vlads car for the trip back to his office…

Then the long trip back to Sherman Oaks in Morgans’ small but sexy car..   Speaking of small and secy.. we past a dealer for Tesla Automotive.. the worlds coolest electric car named after Nikola Tesla, my hero @

We took a short stop to drop off Allison and check out her apartment..

and her famous shoe collection..

Around 7 we made it to Thom’s house.  Thom produced the show.. He and family have very graciously invited us to stay with them until the show premeir party last night. We all hung around in their beautiful yard and talked about stuff from the show.. It was reeall y nice sitting around talking .. it got me even more excited for tomorrows premier..   Even so.. I don’t really want to have any expectations for how it will go.. but can you really help having expectations ? I’m trying !

OK.. All for now.. We need to get some sleep.. We’ll be wathing tomorrow night..Let me know if you watch.. and what you think !

Nite all ! Nite Sam
-me

OK… now the secrets out so we can come clean. I’m in California this weekend to hang out with my friends from the Colony. The premier of the show is this Tuesday and we’re all nervous and excited. We all wanted to get together for the launch of the show.

Diane and I showed up here yesterday and our good freind Scott came and picked us up from LAX. We got to spend a day and a half with him and mary.. which was a great bonus for the trip  

Scott went with us to friend Gadget’s 50th birthday party last night. Gadget and his wife Scarlett live in a cool old warehouse (another warehouse ?!?) in LA. THey have a great group of freinds, artists, tecnical folks, burning man freaks.. all sorts.. WMany of our colony freinds were there.. and they did not knwo that we were plannign on being in LA. It was a winderful suprise !.. Here’s rogan and Gadget the birthday boy !

Scott enjoyed meeting these othe rfreinds of ours, too.

The theme was ‘down and out’ .. so we all came in down and out clothing. I simulated my clothes from the colony (all tan with a filthy apron).. Amy came as a 20’s girl..

Vlad and Edite were looking regal..

Joey and Alison looked sharp as mobsters.

Around 11, Scarlett lit 50 candels for Gadget..

The cake was a beautiful fire hazard.. we toasted gadget and he blew out the cake by rapidly spinning it around his body.. very nice.

the he and scarlett made a few funny statements.. then we jumped back in to the party

A few of us were leaning agains t a wall when we realized it wasn’t a wall at all. it was one of the props that Gadget had built as part of his show ‘make it big’.. we were leaning against the worlds largest toaster. This thing really worked.. it perfectly toasted a single 200 pound piece of bread !

We left gadgets about 1.. which was a few hours before it supposedly got crazy 

We went back to Scott and Marys and got a great night sleep. We woke this mornign .. took a longish run.. then came back and played with Scott and Mary’s cute dog Rilo.

Eventually we got it together and headed down to Venice beach.. What a trip.. the place was mobbed and hot.. but excellent for peolpe watching.. It was even just fun watching Mary and Scott !

around 4L30 we headed about a mile further down the beach to meet up with another friend, Laura who was playing volleyball.. We didn’t really want to play.. so we just walked on the beach.. here Diane and Mary pulled ahead for me to discuss the plot in the latest Harry Potter movie. I didn’t want to hear it since I’ve neither read the book nor seen the movie.

Around 6:30 it was time to head to Vlad’s. We transferred our bags to Mikael’s car.. then he took us on the scenic, less trafficked back-roads of LA to get to Vlad’s. It was fun riding with a native.. we even got some authentic road-rage !

We got to Vlads about 7:30.. It was very much as I imagined it.. it was full of all the things that vla d loves.: warm people, good food and hunting trophies : !

By abotu 10 all of the colony folks were there except morgan and leilani.. We missed them.. It was great to catch p with all the others !.. Here I am with Alison ..

.. and Amy…

And Johny wacko-jacko V.

.. and mike monkey man R.

and our wodnerful host, Vlad. it was great seeing Vlad surrounded with his family.. whcih he clearly loves.. and all of his fun stuff !.

Here ‘s Joey and Allison..

And George !

I can’t tell you all how nice it was to be back with the Colony crew. We all got so close in the making of the show.. they’re all such good friends to me now.. That friendship will get us through whatever comes next for the show.. (I hope !)