So, a little side project that I have been working on:

Overview -
I work in the theater industry, doing the job of a technical director. It's along the lines of a construction site foreman, with not enough staff, materials, or time - all in all, a lot of fun :) That said, tracking things like the budget and payroll are time consuming tasks that I just don't want to spend the time on. So, I came up with a better way. I call it TDTrac:

TDTrac is a web based show budget and payroll hours tracker, built by a TD, for other TD's, freelance designers, and anyone else who finds it useful. TDTrac is completely free, released as open source. We also offer hosting plans for a nominal fee (no domain required!) so you don't need to pay for webspace elsewhere.

TDTrac Features:

  • Track as many show budgets as you wish
  • Budgets can be organized by vendor, category, or even amount spent
  • Track payment pending budget items - things ordered but not cleared through any account or credit card you use
  • Track reimbursable budget items through the reciept of payment from your reimburser
  • Track as many active or inactive employees as you wish
  • Track which employee hours have been paid and which are outstanding
  • Configurable hourly or daily pay rate for budgeting purposes
  • Configurable hourly or daily pay methods for accurate work force accounting
  • Allow your employees to add thier own hours, while being notified on your next login
  • Optionally allow your employees to add budget expenses, or even view the current budget


You can find out more by checking out the site I launched for it here: TDTrac.com - there is even a live demo.

And so ends my first show for the new school year. Smallish design (as dictated by the distinct lack of stage space), but it was very pretty. Great group of people out at the college - I rather enjoyed this one, which is a good thing. Only real downside on the whole thing was that an installation of new overhead equipment coincided with the tech of the show, so it did not go as smoothly as it could have / should have - buuut, we got through.

perhaps if i'm not incredibly lazy later I'll post some photos of this ...
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Well, lots, and not so much at the same time.

As far as work - got Joseph... opened without many problems - photos to follow sometime soon i hope.

In the B$ world?

Recently completed some changes in the contest system.
I have 2 large projects on the back burner right now - more on those soon - just need the energy and time to really run with them first :)

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Well, no real shock that it's been months since my last post.

Since then:

1.) We produced Annie (a show about the little orphan girl). It went over quite well - used a set built in the late 90's, so that was a bit of a challenge to bring it up to standards and make it look again, but overall I'm happy with the results. Photos to follow soon.

2.) Current project - A Lyrical Christmas Carol - this one featuring a motorized turntable - something I've never gotten to work well in the past - on the up side, ...
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