AWOL

I was AWOL yesterday for the Oregon jobs report.  The news is unsettling, losing jobs after five months of gains, but I think there is a good chance that this is a blip and not a new trend.  Still, oil price increases, in part due to trouble in the middle east but more fundamentally due to increased demand as the world economy resumes growing, the disaster in Japan and generally tepid recovery US growth are not helping.  

The reason I was AWOL yesterday was that it was the day Leverage took over my house.  I have to say, all joking aside, that I was pretty staggered at the scale of the endeavor.  There are a lot of people employed by the show: actors, directors and cinematographers sure, but also lots of painters, traffic control personnel, security, caterers and so on.  I don't know enough about the strategic environment to say if the tax breaks they get make sense, but I have revised my own impression of the size of the economic impact they have.

I will also say that while it was pretty much a whole-scale invasion of my property, it was a great experience and the entire cast and crew were incredibly gracious and accommodating to me and my family.  I am sure it is pounded into their heads to do so, but it was still great to hear everyone from the stars to the gophers thanking me for letting them use my property.

My boys were enraptured by the filming of the fight scene in our yard.  I am not supposed to blog about the show especially as it relates to plot, and I shall not, but now that I have seen the show (I watched a few episodes so I would understand what was going on) I don't think I am giving anything away to say that at least one fight occurs as fight scenes are a key component of every episode.

I am happy to report that, after watching a few episodes, the show itself is pretty good.  My sons are now big fans and my five year old is (in his mind) on a first name basis with the shows star fighter dude, Christian Kane.  He kept saying, "oh there is Christian" nonchalantly, every time he saw him later after the filming of his scenes was done. Pretty funny.

And lest you get the wrong impression, my house was, in the script, described as a 'modest house.'  Indeed.