As you may know, I was fortunate enough to work at Tyler Perry Studios this month in a recurring guest star role on THE OVAL, one of the first tv projects to go into full production in the new era of Covid-19. TPS has put employee health and financial well-being above all other concerns by finding ways to put people to work, insist on strict protocols while doing so, and practice humane values that flow directly from Tyler Perry himself through the entire company: I have never felt more welcome as an actor, or as a personal guest, than at TPS! We were fed, entertained, given all the tools we need to work, and kept safe. It was a phenomenal experience.

A week after returning home from TPS, I also had the good fortune to get away for some scuba diving, off of Morehead City, N. Carolina, with a group from Dive Connections, in Charlottesville, VA. I’ve done a lot of diving with these good folks and count Chip Earle, the owner of Dive Connections, as my mentor as a scuba diver. Marilou Maglione, a highly experienced scuba instructor, led our group on dives that included one of the most astonishing I’ve ever been on. The wrecks off of N. Carolina are numerous–representing hundreds of years of seafaring along the Atlantic coast–and the wildlife varied. We swam with giant barracuda, numerous Sand Tiger sharks, played with octopuses, and speared a few of the numerous flounder. It was a great trip I hope to repeat soon, perhaps in October.