We really are having a good time... I swear.. What I'll be looking at the next four days Driving along the 101! Snow covered mountains Dad and I in Santa Maria before we leave

Today marks the first of four days on the road to Houston. Dad an I started out at 9 am from Santa Maria and have arrived in Palm Springs around 6 pm. I was amazed by the number of accidents we ran into along the way. I think I counted four total accidents. Everything was running really smoothly until we ran into the 126 / 5 south interchange. We didn't even get onto the onramp when the traffic stopped. After about five miles we came across the accident that everyone was slowing down to see. I was amazed to find that my car gets approximently around 30 miles per gallon. Dad doesn't think it's accurate, since the car is loaded down so badly. So, I probbably get better milage than that. I dont' even know what good milage is, so I'm happy with whatever as long as it's milage. The trip really wasn't very eventful except for right at the end. Dad had the idea to drop by a casino. I spent $20 and came out with $121!! Can you believe it?! I won $100 dollars on my first spin on a slot machine. After that I won $30 on another and told myself I wouldn't go below $20 on the payout. I really wanted to play poker but they didn't have the kind that I enjoy playing. More than anything I miss Danielle. I really wish that she was on the trip with me. Most people would cringe at the thought of driving four days with a significant other for some reason. But Danielle and I have been lost SO many times and haven't bitten eachother's heads off before. We would have tons of fun. I love the fact that I look forward to driving around and doing things that could possibly be really stressfull with her. She doesn't stress me out when it comes to difficult situations. Now, there are times when we are both heading to the same goal and we want to go different ways to get there, but thankfully we're both heading the same direction and we able to talk our way through it.

Only two days until I drive out of California and off to Texas. The last few days away from Los Angeles have been really nice. I've been to the Carlton about three times. Once to visit with friends, once with my Mom and finally again to visit with friends. It's beautiful inside. Finally, a nice place to go in Atascadero. I went to get my car checked out today for mechanical safety on the trip to Texas. Apparently I have about $1,000 worth of things to fix. I op'd for only $500 for a timing belt change. Thankfully my parents were able to help me, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do it. I'll do the rest of the changes once I can afford to do them one by one. I miss Danielle. She's in Kansas and I'm here in California. I know I'll see her for a few weeks in February, but it seems far away. I also know that she's going to be miserable at the Dream Center without her friends and without me. I'm going to be in Texas with a new job, a new place and the beginning of a new life. On the up side, Danielle will be leaving the Dream Center around the middle or end of February. One way or another, in April we'll be together forever and that's what matters. As the time draws near to leave and start anew I'm both excited and nervous. It's exciting talking with people about my new job especially if they know about Lakewood Church. It's also kind of nerve racking because I'm not exactly sure what I'll be doing in Texas. It's a big job with lots of potential.

The moving company came today. Before they arrived Clay, Danielle, Lonwabo, Mz and I carried the various things to be moved up to the blacktop. I have to say that I am so blessed, I couldn't have done this without their help. Overall it was a really easy move. We really don't have that much stuff. I've been waiting for a quite a while to get the computer quote from Matt. It's kind of frustrating. I'll be leaving Los Angeles for Atascadero the 23rd. Danielle and I will leave the Dream Center and head for LAX. I'll wait with her at the airport until she finally gets on that jet plane. I don't think it'll be hard now but I know when I'm there with her it'll be really hard to say goodbye. Thankfully my Dad has graciously given her a round trip ticket to visit me, so she'll be out for two weeks in February. I leave with my Dad Dec 30th for Texas. This thought is absolutley crazy to me. Not that I'm leaving with my Dad, but that I'm leaving in general. Thankfully my Dad has all of the "legs" of our trip planned out. We'll have some 7 hour drives in there, but it's not anything we can't handle. I still don't know how I'm going to feel once I finally arrive in the city of Houston and check into the extended stay hotel. I know everything won't really sink in until I'm there for a little while. I don't even know what to expect. What will I be doing, exactly? Will I have meetings with tons of people regarding the new department? Will I meet Joel? Will he be involved in my department? It still continues to hit me that my God, they're pouring alot of money and time into me. I mean, this department rests on my shoulders. At the same time, it's very comforting that David said that if I hit a homerun that will be a very good thing for me. I'm going to hit a homerun, dammit.

On Monday the moving company comes to take all of my precious stuff away for storage and later retrieval! Thankfully Danielle and I don't have much to move and we have people to help us move us lack of stuff. Lakewood decided to have me drive out instead of fly out and have my car towed. This is a very good thing for a few different reasons. I'll have my car when I visit home, so that means no bumming rides from friends. I don't have to worry about someone else taking my car. The best part is that I'll be driving out with my Dad. We've made it into a four day ride. We'll go from Cali to Phoenix, from Phoenix to El Paso, El Paso to Sonora, and finally Sonora to Houston. This will be the longest amount of time I've spent with my Dad in a long time and I'm really looking forward to it. I know he'll be taking some awesome pics, I'll be taking some awesome pics, we'll be just drivin' along singin and weaving all over the road. Well, maybe not the last part but we'll have fun. The next few days will pretty pressure filled. Part of the reason is I'm getting "Senior-itis", meaning I'm gettng ichy to be done and get out of here. Tomorrow Clay and I will be shooting the end scene for "Graves Method". After that the moving company comes in the morning. Later that day (Monday), Clay and I will edit. Even later on Monday I'll be hanging with James for a little while. Tuesday we edit and Wednesday we'll edit. Thursday though I'll be taking off to home. Three more days. Throughout all of this Danielle and I are starting to realize that we won't be seeing each other for about four months, then we get married. Crazy, isn't it? I know it'll be ok though. Finally, it's starting to hit me that I'm going off to Houston for this new job. I got a call from Matt today regarding the total cost of the equipment list I put together. He said it come out to around $30,000. That's insane to me, but it's what it takes to put together the kind of work I'll be doing. Wow. I'm so blown away at how God has blessed me so much. Not because of the money, or the job or even Danielle. I never knew I would end up going where I'm going and doing what it is I'm doing. I never knew I would end up marrying who I'm going to marry. Amazing. Thank you Jesus.

Quantum Post

It's been far too long since I've written anything on here. I used to really enjoy blogging moments and memories from my life. Now that I write this, I realize that I still do. So let's get started. The biggest news of all is that Danielle and I are going to be married on April 16th! Last night we went to Target to register for our wedding. It was an awesome thing because most couples go nuts when they shop together, but not Danielle and I. Her taste matches mine and when I pick something out she very graciously says it's terrible. Just kidding. Be both agree on the things we would like to have in our house 99% of the time. I do have to admit that when we were scanning in various appliances and such I felt really weird about it. I mean, we were walking around the store basically going "I want that, and get me that.." I know that people want to get you presents for your wedding, but it still felt strange for some reason, wandering around asking for things. Secretly, I do hope we get what we asked for (we really need the stuff). On the other hand, what we were looking at was practical. Kitchen stuff, cleaning stuff, bedroom things. We didn't scan in MP3 players and lava lamps etc. I do have to say that our place is gonna friggin' rock. Today Danielle registered at Bed Bath & Beyond. So, we'll go gallivanting around BB&B scanning like crazy again. I'm actually looking forward to it because we'll be designing the look of our future place together. Fun stuff. I've heard some horror stories about wedding planning and wedding processes over the past few weeks from various people. I can't say enough how thankful to God that I am for the blessings in my life and Danielle's life. First of all, my parents have blessed us beyond measure. They've given us way above and beyond what we had expected. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't have a wedding really. One amazing thing that happened was on our visit to Atascadero for the weekend a while ago, we secured 95% of the essentials for the wedding. Location, photographer, catering, flowers etc. We got such a hook-up from my buddy at Players restaurant in Atascadero, Glen. He totally came through for us. The location was exactly what she wanted too. My focus is that during this time Danielle doesn't get too stressed and that everything goes the way she wants it to. I've done enough weddings to know that if the bride, and the mother of the bride, are happy then everyone is happy. But it's also far beyond that for me. I just want her to be happy period. Not for the sake of everyone's enjoyment but so that we truly enjoy each other and the day. Finally, I've got so much to do before I leave. I have to get my stuff from Atascadero up to LA for the move to Texas. I have to edit as much of the film as I can. I have to register the rest of the stuff for the wedding. Get tuxedos fitted, finish the GCU video for Action House, figure out how the HECK I'm going to afford new auto insurance. It's crazy. At the same time, God has never left or forsaken me. I have never been in want or need. I serve a big God. It's going to be alright.

Time marches on.. So, here's the update since forever ago. The most important thing that's happened in my life is I asked Danielle, my girlfriend, to marry me on November 11th. We were at Hearst Castle in Cambria. My Mom, Dad, Step Mom, Step Dad, Sister, her boyfriend, Danielle's sisters and parents, and everyone else was there. The greatest part was everyone but Danielle knew that I was planning on asking her when did. I gave her my Great Grandmother's ring that she wore all her life. I had it polished and reset. The great thing was that Danielle had been praying all her life that her engagement ring would be: 1. An antique 2. A family heirloom 3. Set with a saphire Crazy, huh? More later

Time marches on.. So, here's the update since forever ago. The most important thing that's happened in my life is I asked Danielle, my girlfriend, to marry me on November 11th. We were at Hearst Castle in Cambria. My Mom, Dad, Step Mom, Step Dad, Sister, her boyfriend, Danielle's sisters and parents, and everyone else was there. The greatest part was everyone but Danielle knew that I was planning on asking her when did. I gave her my Great Grandmother's ring that she wore all her life. I had it polished and reset. The great thing was that Danielle had been praying all her life that her engagement ring would be: 1. An antique 2. A family heirloom 3. Set with a saphire Crazy, huh? More later

Today is day three of casting for our film, Graves Method, and I do have to say it's getting tiring. Althought I'm only sitting there, I find myself exhausted at the end of the day. We have a good pick of people for callbacks tomorrow. We'll take a look at what we have, then cast the sucker. Today Clay said "Enough auditioning, I want to cast this thing and start shooting." I am SO there with him. I'm really excited to get these people we picked into the callback. We set out the headshots today and looked at our picks and realized that our film rests on these actors shoulders. If we don't get the performances, or if they don't bring them, the film falls on it's face. There's no sex, violence, action sequences or blowing stuff up. It's all characters and acting. I do believe it's a well written script that tells a good story, and that will pull through. I also believe that Clay and I can direct this sucker. It's crazy working with Clay sometimes, we both think so similarly. The notes he gives for auditions are the same as mine 99% of the time. When we write, we're pretty much on the same wavelength as well. On another note, I got off the phone with the guys at Lakewood church today. Bottom line, they want me! They'll fly me out to look at apartments, pay to move me out etc. I should be getting a package in the mail next week with a formal proposal (I feel so GIDDY.), and other paperwork. It looks like I might be out there mid to late November. The film wraps on Nov. 5th. We might do some pickups, we may not. I love making movies. It's just so good.

Today we did a "table read" after Clay's acting class. A table read is where you get a bunch of actors together to do a reading of your script. Overall, I'd say it went very well. It was great to hear the dialog going back and forth. Nothing really stuck out at me as being bad, in fact I really enjoyed it. On another note, I've been sick the past three days. My throat has gotten ALL messed up. I'm at the point where I can't really talk at all. Danielle has done and amazing job of taking care of me. She's made tea, gotten me cough drops, and made me feel great when I don't feel so great. The amazing thing about her is that if I'm in a terrible mood I feel better just from being around her. Not only that, but she doesn't even metion the fact that I'm in a nasty mood, she just recognizes it and helps me get through it. Rock!

It's been a crazy couple of days. First of all, it looks like I'll be going to Houston Texas the weekend of the 25th to visit Lakewood Church. That's a very exciting thing. They're flying me out and everything! Golly gee! God blessed me with a Palm Zire 21 recently. The amazing thing is that Danielle, Clay and I were praying for God to help me get more organized in my life. The next day he provided the Zire! Awesome! Allready things are much better and I'm alot more organized. Just because of a stupid little PDA. Clay and I wrote for over 12 hours yesterday to finish our film. We'll be putting together a budget and production schedule this week. The great thing is that Maggie said she would help storyboard the movie. It'll be great to work with Maggie again. Thankfully, she's only in Long Beach and not Paso Robles. This script was 31 pages, which means the movie should be about 35-45 minutes. That's quite a leap from our first film. The first film was only 10 pages and was about 11 minutes. Awesome stuff. As I continue to develop films and work here in Hollywood I really have to consider if moving to Texas and working with Lakewood would be a good idea. I still feel peace about it, but alot depending on what I see and what they say when I visit. I don't want my creativity to be stifled. I would like continue to work on short films while at Lakewood. I do get the distinct feeling that they would hope I would express myself creativly, which is important. So many things to consider. I'll keep in prayer about it.

It's been a pretty eventfull since I last wrote. This week alone is going to be pretty crazy/sexy/cool. I got a call from John at Lakewood about this Thursday. Apparently the director of ministries, or something like that, is going to be in town and would like to meet with me. I'm waiting for a call back so I can find out exactly when they want to meet. That way I can ask for a certain part of the day off. This Friday I'm playing bass in the Stephen Petree Band. This will be my third gig with them so far, I think. I do play with Steve every Sunday at Overcomers church, though. I either play bass or drums. This Friday I'll be playing bass (my third instrument in the order of experience). The gig is at the Dream Center coffee house. They have a live band every Friday night and I really think we'll be one of the better ones to have played there. I also recieved a call from John at Lakewood (no, that's not his full name) saying that they want to fly me out in September. It looks like I'll be flying out the third weekend at this point. To me, this is a very good sign. I'm excited about the job and I'm also peacful about it at the same time. There are a few factors that are at play in this cornerstone in my life. One of the biggest is my relationship with Danielle. I have to consider how this will affect our relationship. Anna said something to me about long distance relationships and I'll sum up what she said with this: distance either deepens or dissolves a relationship. I really feel for Danielle. Many of her friends are leaving the Dream Center for different reasons within a very close proximity of time. That's got to be hard for her. Everyone she knows is here. I couldn't imagine getting off of work and not having someone to go to after a long day of dealing with crap. I must remember to pray for her. Danielle's family is going to be visiting in October. This is a very good thing. Her two sisters and Dad will be flying in. When her Dad arrives he will, apparently, hug her for a very long time, cry, then hug me. I'm really looking forward to meeting her family. I haven't talked with her Mom yet, but she sounds like a wonderful lady.

Today I met with John and a few of his associates from Lakewood church. But, let me back up a little bit. I received a phone call from John Wednesday afternoon saying he was going to be in Anaheim that day and Thursday. He wanted to know if I could meet with him while he was down. I told him I would work it out. After talking with Cliff and Craig they agreed I could meet with him Thursday morning at 7:30. There were a few problems associated with this descision. The first was I was doing a shoot Thursday afternoon at 1:30 pm. So that meant I had to get from Anaheim to Los Angeles by at least 12:30. Anaheim to LA is at least 40 minute drive without traffic, which means it's a 1 1/2 hour drive. The other was I would have to get up around 5:30 so that I would be at the hotel to meet John on time. Thankfully my Uncle Kevin lives in Anaheim and was kind enough to let me stay with him on very short notice. In fact, I met up with him at an Angels baseball game. We had a great time. They were very hospitable and it was all good. I arrived at the hotel about 15 minutes late because of traffic and parking (or lack of) at the Marriott. I assumed there would be a standard parking lot. But no, they have to have a parking structure or valet! Insane! So I park and rush to the hotel. They had allready eaten so I ordered a Denver omelet and ate about 5 of the potatoes orgaten. That was it for breakfast for me. I spent my with with John and his three associates talking about the job, my experience and life at Lakewood. In the middle of our conversation we were joined by a guy whose name was Decon I think. The reason I'm confused is because when he introduced himself his last name sounded like a first name so I got the two messed up. I later found out that Decon was the guy that gives the "OK" or "no" for my job. We had a great converstaion. After breakfast John asked if could go with them on their scouting trip. We visited Angels stadium again then "The Pond" in Anaheim. It was kind of strange because I was just in Angels stadium the night before. Weird. At the end of the day they gave me $100 to take care of my expenses going to Anaheim and back. Danielle was also kind enough to lend me $35 the night I had to leave. She also let the seam out of my pants so they were long enough. She is so amazing. All in all I felt really good about the meeting I've had with the guys at Lakewood and am looking forward to seeing what God has in store for me.

My girlfriend, Danielle, is awesome by the way.

Over the past few weeks I've been talking with Craig Johnson at Lakewood Community Church. They are looking for a 20 something year old to fill a new position in their media department. The position would involve developing various media "teams" to produce events and videos for the various church functions. This person would work with the Youth and Children's ministries, as well as other ministries. So, I've had two very good conversations with Craig. The first one was to let him know that I heard about the opprotunity. The second was to talk with him and John. John does alot of the media work for the "main" service at the church. We had our second conversation today around 1 pm. John asked me a ton of questions and I answered all of 'em. I told him about my background in media as well as what I'm currently working on. They were both very impressed. As of now, things are looking quite good. They are going to call me later this week and discuss the position a little bit more. If in our next conversation they don't bring up having me come out I'm going to bring it up. I'll pretty much tell them I'd like them to fly me out so I can visit the church and get a feel for the enviroment I'm going into. We'll see what happens. The amazing thing is how awesome God has been through all of this. He's given me peace when I've asked for it and been gracious in my weakness. The hardest part is the WAITING! The waiting is driving me crazy. They'll call me by the end of the week. WHEN!? AHH!! I must know! It'll be ok, though. I have plenty of things to keep me occupied.

This Monday we shot the first of many scenes to come for our film. This shoot was complicated for a couple of reasons: Number 1: We were being forced to shoot because the location we were shooting was being moved out of, and therefore unavailable soon. Because of the rush we didn't have a completed script yet so we had to shoot general shots. We were pretty much trying to portray a feel and mood rather than any spoken dialog (because didn't HAVE any!). Number 2: The "crew" we had consisted of Action House interns. Which was good and bad. It's good because the film department is at Action House to help train the interns. It's bad because most of the interns there didn't have a tremendous amount of experience shooting film. After we got rolling a bit things started to move along a bit smoother. On the other hand, we had some really cool stuff happen. First of all, John Ineno from CBS has agreed to help us on this film. John is a cool guy for many reasons. One reason he's so nifty is that he knows EVERYTHING there is to know about High Definition media. High Definition is one step below film as far as the quality ranking goes. John originally showed up with a Beta camera to shoot that night. It turned out there was something wrong with the camera, so he had to go back and get a High Def camera. This is VERY GOOD! High Definition is THE thing to be working with right now as far as Indie film goes. This was very exciting for me, but I kept my cool. We'll begin pre-production again in about a month or so.

Today is a very exciting day. Myself and a handfull of interns are going to shoot our first footage in the new movie. We're shooting at Clay's house. At the moment, we don't have a finished script, but we need to get this footage shot before Clay moves. So, Michale Cruz (one of our interns) has been doing an AMAZING job as a producer for the film. He's been orginizing, preparing and doing a great job.

Last night Danielle and I saw "I, Robot" which I liked very much. But that's not the point. As we were exiting the movie theater, I had a very "Hollywood" experience. I step out of the double doors and saw before me: men. Lots and lots of men. I look left, men, right, men. They're walking past me etc. But I'm getting a really strange vibe. REALLY strange. As we continue to walk by, my keen sense of observation picks up that everyone is wearing a lanyard. So, I grab a glimpse of what it says: "OutFest". AH HA! A CLUE! Everyone in the line outside of the movie theater (the line went around the block) was gay. After we finished walking past them, I had to lean up against a pillar to really take in the moment. After that, I just had a really good laugh. Danielle was looking at me like I was nuts.

What an amazing month it's been. Danielle and I are "official" and that is a very good thing. She is truly amazing. Imagine dating your best friend. A best friend that never assumes anything, gets upset over stupid things, wants to change you, and likes you for you who are. That's what Danielle is. It seems as if we have done alot of things that can be pretty relationally straining so far. She came to visit my parents. We spent a whole day at Magic Mountain together (I've heard horror stories from couples about theme parks). The thing that I enjoy most about our relationship is that we have very open communication. I can talk with her about anything. I can share with her things that bother me and things that don't. The great part is that she reacts the same way to both situations. She doesn't overreact or get defensive when I talk with her about things that bother me about her or whatever. We've also made the desicion not to kiss. The cool thing is that we decided this seperatly before we even got together. I can be hard at times, but since we are both commited to it, it makes the process easier. We spent the 4th of July at Clay's house. It was great. We even made an orential chicken salad. Everyone loved the salad. Clay and I are working on our second film. The processes has been a slow one, but we are making progress. We'll be meeting tomorrow in the morning to write. We decided to write in the morning becuase we're both exhausted by the end of the day. I've put the interns on a project. They are going to make a thirty second and one minute commercial about a remote controlled car. They have one week or pre-production and four days of production. By the 24th everyone will be done. They have been split up into four groups. I had a good time setting up the groups because each team member has different strengths and weaknesses.

My friend Rowan went to an auction and won two tickets for "Farenheit 9/11". He got one for himself, and one for me. So, last night we went to the Directors Guild Of America to watch the Los Angeles screening. What a Hollywood star-studded night it was for me! I'll start from my immediate left then move back. To my left was Jesse Bradford, I regonized him, but I couldn't remember from what (I think he didn't like that). Directly behind me was Jason Isaac, you may recognize him, I did. Moving on there was Ethan Hawk, Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman, Edward Norton, John C. Reilly, and many more. It was a truly surreal experience, and each one of them shook my hand. Not. Although the film was biased to say the least, I enjoyed the film immensly. Michael Moore did an excellent job of presenting a case to the American public in a way that I could understand. There were times that I laughed, cried and got very upset at times. One thing that caught me as funny is that Bush spent 42% of his time in office on vactaion. That's four months of vacation. He spent the entire month of August in Texas or something like that. That's insane. Afterwards, Rowan and I went to Denny's to chat about the film and life and stuff. I'm going to visit home this weekend. I'm going to bring my film, "Fatal Illusion" so everyone can watch. I'm also going to take Danielle with me. We'll visit my Dad, Mom, friends, the beach. It's going to be fun and relaxing.

Many things have been happening in my life. Season three of Action House TV is wrapping up this week, we are working our next film which will be shot in July, I'm going to start on Clay's website, and I've met a wondeful girl. Her name is Danielle and we've been dating for one week. I can truly say that she is my best friend. We met around two months ago and started hanging out. She works and lives here at the Dream Center doing Accounting and Marketing. She's from Kansas City. She's also a woman of God, which is awesome.

So, in a few minutes I'll be meeting with a girl I've met here at the Dream Center. We've been hanging out for about a week and a half now. I really enjoy spending time with her and we've developed a relationship. Her name is Danielle. I'm praying that God's will would be done in our relationship. I haven't dated anyone in about 4 or 5 years I think. It's been a long time, one way or another. So for me to say that I'm a little nervous is being maligned. On another note, we've started working on our next film. We'll be shooting in July around the 12th. This film is going to be around 20-30 minutes. Last night Lars, Clay and I went to the "Cat and Fiddle" off of Sunset in Hollywood to start the writing process. It was actually a really cool place to meet. We felt like kings of the film industry. This one should be interesting.

So, tomorrow is the big concert. But first, I went to "The Magic Castle" with my Dad on Thursday. I had a fantastic time! The highlight of the evening for me would have to the Irma, the resident ghost. She played the piano and even took requests. Dad apparently stumped her, so he rocked her face off. In order to enter The Magic Castle you have to wear a coat and tie, or a cocktail dress for the ladies. In addition, you must also be 21 years or older to enter. Ever since I had heard about the Magic Castle when I was around 16 I've been waiting until I was old enough to get in, so going on Thursday was a treat. The shows were outstanding. We went to a pre-show in a smaller room. The magician who performed had been on "The Jerry Lewis Telethon", but despite that he was awesome. After that we headed to dinner then the main performance. There were two acts in the main performance. The first was a comedic routine, the other was just pure magic. After that I went to the close up show, which was my favorite of all the shows. The magician who performed was from England and has performed for the queen. He did some of the most amazing slight of hand with cards I have ever seen. I practiced the bass yesterday night. I plugged in, turned on Steve's CD practiced my little heart out. I was pretty happy to find that I could do almost every song of the top of my head. I'll be rehearsing this afternoon into the evening with Steve and the band. I'm really excited about the concert. I have a few friends coming, so that'll be encouraging. We may even have a special guest musician come. The past week only Anna and I have been the resident Staff at Action House. Well, Cliff and Craig have been here, but we work down on the 2nd floor with the interns. It's been a tough week for Anna, and I can understand why. I've been burning the candle at both ends but as this week winds down I look forward to next week. I'll be meeting with Clay on Monday so we can start hashing out the next script. As I've said, we start shooting our next film in June. In the mean time, I'm working on about four different websites at the moment. Fun times.

Remember when I mentioned all that equipment that was dropped off? Well, here is about 1/4th of it. These are four of the five beta decks.

I've been meeting with Stephen and the band the past two nights to rehearse for the Sunday night concert. I expect there will be at least a few hundred people there. The process of learning a song on the bass guitar and learning a song on the drums are very different endeavors. On the drums you learn rhythm and sections, on bass (or any other non-rhythm instrument for that matter) you learn notes. So, I have to learn to memorize music now, which I never even did while playing guitar for worship because I had the music in front of me. All in all, I'm really glad I'm learning to play bass. The thing that makes it all easier is that the music really rocks out. It's rockin', fun, purposeful music. Stephen has been really patient with me and even called me on my way back from rehearsal tonight to tell me I did a great job. He even mentioned how impressed he was that I'm learning so fast. Tonight is going to be a long night. I have to get the Plus One show finished so I can dub tomorrow. Thankfully I know what I'm doing and it should be a fairly painless process. I just finished the intro montage, which was going to take a long time. Now I have to add B-roll to the interviews, music then adjust the audio. After that is titles for the music videos, the AHTV logo. Finally, I master the audio then put a filter on the video so the networks can accept it. After all of that is said and done, I'll goto sleep, dub it onto DV in the morning then begin the dubbing process for the networks. Wish me luck!

So cool stuff. Just next to me are four beta decks, valued at $10,000 a piece. This is good for a few reasons. 1. We'll be able to dub the show and take 1/4 of the time to do it. 2. It's just so cool to have $10,000 worth of stuff to play with! Just knowing that I'll be able to dub the shows out in only three runs is SO awesome. We dub for eleven networks at 1/2 hour a dub. That adds up to alot of hours. Now, we can run four copies at a time. My Dad called today and said "okey dokey" to the Magic Castle. I'm stoked! I hear they have great food and it'll be great to spend some time with my Dad. It sounds like we'll be visiting my Grandma before we go, which is awesome. I had a great time when I visited last. Today I worked with Mallory on getting her show out. I let her do most of the work by herself. In other words, I didn't hang over her shoulder and poke around what she was doing. She did really well! We ran into some snags around the finish of the show, which is natural. It happens every time. Tomorrow I have the big rehersal with Stephen and the band. I tried to get some practice time in today, but got pulled away to fix the show and the beta decks. I'll try to pratice tonight.

Tonight I met with Stephen again to rehearse. In case I forgot to mention it, I'm in Stephen's band now and we have a concert on Sunday the 23rd in the evening. If you are reading this, you should come. Moving on. I learned a new song called "Walk The Waves". At first, I wrote down the chords for all the different parts. Eventually I wasn't even looking at the chords, I was learning it as I went. I realized that I enjoyed this way much more than I did the other. I began to feel the music rather than just read the chords. I do have to say that my brain hurt afterwards, though. Tomorrow I go running again. I'll take it kind of easy since I ran pretty far yesterday. I love this trying to be healthy thing. Tonight for lunch I had a grilled chicken breast with brocolli, cottage cheese, fruit and water. It was freakin' tasty! Then, on my way back to the Dream Center from Steve's church, I picked up some "Propel" energy water and a protien bar of some kind. I could have gotten a Coke and Snickers, but then I would have ruined what I'm working towards. Earlier, while having dinner with Sally, I went to reach for a roll that was lefter over from our meals. "No! You don't want to eat that" Sally exclaimed. "What for?" I asked. "You'll ruin all the healthy stuff you just ate." She explained. I hadn't realized that by doing that I would have ruined it. It kind of changed my perspective on things. We'll see how it goes. My Dad is going to take me out somewhere on the 20th of this month. I'm really excited, but I haven't thought of a good place to go yet. Now that I think about it, I haven't been to the Magic Castle yet. On the other hand, I don't have a Divers license 'cause I lost my wallet recently. I'll check the DMV website tonight to see if I can get a new one. One way or another, I know we'll have a good time. I hope he lets me use his camera without being all anal about it. Alright, enough. I'm going to finish this movie and goto bed.

Just a quick post. Dear me: you ran 4.some-odd miles yesterday! More to come.

I go running around Silverlake in about an hour. I have to say this so that my mind is prepare for the journey that lies ahead of me. I'm going to be taking a friend of mine along. Hopefully I'll be able to round up another person so I don't have to wait with Kristina if she falls behind. Kristina is a cool girl, she's from Europe and will be staying at the Dream Center for a year. The whole reason she is here is to check out the various ministries and go start a Dream Center on her own. More work today. I finished the AHTV promo for Cliff. It's due tomorrow, so I'm glad I finished it in time. Now I burn about 10 copies so he can hand them out to various people. If we don't get sponsorship for our show, we'll have to put it on hold. So, I'm not sure what that means for me. I realized again the other day that this is what I'm doing with my life. It's not a bad thing, but at times I forget. I mean, most people my age are in college right now or have some kind of a job that pays a ton better than mine does. But I don't care about the money or anything like that. I get to do what I love to every day. It does get stressful and overwhelming at times, but I do love it. Sally went off a little bit today about how she's really tired from working and other stuff. It was kind of hard to listen to since I'm at Action House every single day of the week. I live here for goodness sakes.

    Oh yeah, I also ran around Silver Lake again yesterday night. I beat Anna and Pastor Manny (only because he was keeping pace with Anna). I ran it in about 20 mins this time. After we got back from running, we went to the gym and worked out for about 30 mins. It felt really good and I'm looking forward to running again tomorrow.

    What a way to start the day! I had rehersal with Stephen and the band last night because we played at a Christian High School this morning. For my first time playing with the band, we had a crowd of about 1,100 students. Every grade from Junior High up to High School. I had a great time, and did pretty well considering I learned the music just the night before. We played six songs back to back. After we finished playing, kids came up and asked me to sign on Stephen's CD, this was a weird thing for me. Such a cool experience. The weird thing was we were "it" for the high school's chapel. Meaning, we played then chapel was over. We thought there was going to be someone coming up to say something, but he just came up and said "Ok guys, thanks for coming let's head off to class. Be sure to say thanks to Stephen and his band." We're also going to play on the 23rd at Stephen's church. It's going to be a full on rock 'n roll show.     Yesterday I went to the Foursquare Media office to finish the Life Pacific College commercial. I did the rest of the VO's and headed on my merry way. I really hope I'll do some more work with them in the future.     Before I take a break to visit home for a few days, I have to get some of the DOVE award shows out, which should be a challenge, but not much of a problem. Apparently, John Ineno is brining over like seven Beta decks for Action House to use. That means we can get the show dubbed off in half the time. No more super long dubbing sessions. Praise God.     I met with one of the interns yesterday. He's pretty much taking over alot of what Billy did. The great thing is that we've asked each other to help keep ourselves accountable. We're going to meet on Sunday evenings and pray, as well as check up during the week. I think God is going to start some really awesome stuff. We've been talking about prophecy and healing, because we feel God has laid it on our hearts. This intern is from South Africa and has had the privelege to be used by God to prophecy and heal people. I can't wait to see what God has for me.     I spent a good two hours on Monday worshipping and praying. I had such a hunger for God after I had met with my accountability partner. It was awesome to take some time out of my day to connect with God and get into his presence. He's making a change in my heart.

So many exciting things for me to write down so I can remember them later!       I'm in Nashville right now at the Dove Awards (now known as the Gospel Music Associate Awards). We are on our last day of shooting and it's been an exciting and sometimes frustrating ride. Before I write about my time at the doves I want to talk about events leading up to it.         A few days before I left for Nashville Lars and I auditioned for a role over at FourSquare Media. It was for the part of "Jonathan Allen" the host of a tour of Life Pacific Bible College. I felt I did pretty well with the delivery of my first line, but I botched up the second paragraph. It was a first Audition for Lars, which was pretty exciting. I think Lars has amazing potential and will make it really big someday. Regardless, we left and I almost forgot about the audition until I got a call back about two days later. They told me that I got the part and they were going to pay me $300 for the shoot! Although that sounds like a quite a bit for a few hours of work, it's actually really low for this kind of job. One snag was the shoot was on the 28th (today) and I wasn't getting back from Nashville until the 30th. Well, I informed Sally about the problem and she was frustrated like I was, but helped me make the nessicary changes. It cost $100 to change the ticket and that set me back a bit. Sally got on the phone with the people from FourSquare Media and had them cover the cost of the plane ticket, I was so stoked!         So I head off to Nashville and I'm doin' my thing when I get a phone call that they changed the shoot again to the 30th (which is the day I get back from Nashville). So I tell them all the flight info and they go ahead and change the flight again for me and cover the cost. How awesome is that? The cool thing is that I had recently gotten my car towed and the amount they are paying me covers the cost of the tow, I serve a very big God.         Now, I'm in Nashville at the Holiday Inn Express waiting to interview Jill Paquette. When we are done with her we'll probbably do another interview or something then head off to the Awards ceremony to shoot all kinds of backstage stuff. If I remember correctly, Michelle Williams will be co-hosting with Sally this year so that'll be a blast.         Last night we went to BB King's to see (to name a few), Toby Mac, Rachel Lampa, Natalie Grant, Michelle Williams (who was AMAZING), and this awesome jazz group. Today we interviewed "By The Tree" in the hotel lobby at 9:30 am. After we had finished the interview one of the guys said "So, you want to make our music video?" Which was kind of a shock to me because when she was talking about it I was playing around with her and pointing at myself as if to say "Drop my name, yo!" Because they don't have a video yet. For a group to have four CD's out and no music video is no good. So, when I get back I'm going to listen to some of their music and pick a song to do, or maybe get in contact with them and start talking about what song they may be interested in. I hope that works out. I also got to see Eric Welch (he directs music videos and I admire some of the work he's done). I talke with him and told him about the movie I shot with Action House. He gave me his contact info and asked me to send it to him.         This year we brought a lighting kit, boom mic, two cameras, wired lavs and plenty of tape, so it's been nice working with all this equipment.         That's enough for now, I'll write some more later.

The show I was dubbing got out just fine. We ended up getting the five networks that MUST get out to the post office just in time. Good times. We leave for Nashville in four days. Just four. We'll be there for the entire week and do about thirty interviews. It seems like alot, but it's actually going to be a great week. Fun times. I'll be sure to bring my camera so I can remember stuff. I slept today after this mornings staff meeting until 2:30 pm. I feel much better now. Tomorrow I plan on getting all the things done that I've not been able to do because of all the shows we've been working on. I'll install the RAID on the new server, prepare for the Dove Awards show, get Michael working on editing his first show so he'll be ready for the Dove shows, and much more. In fact, I think I'll make a to-do list. We got new desks for our offices today. Lars built mine and I just finished setting it up. It has a shelf above the main work desk and little baskets along the frame. They also got this cool box thing to put stuff in. It's a box with shelves in it. It has (from the bottom up) one long shelf, another long shelf, and a row of three smaller box like shelfs. I have no idea what I'm going to put in there.

So, crazy times. We went to "The House Of Blues" to shoot Skillet, Pillar, Big Dismal, Grits and 12 Stones. I parked in the 7-11, which is where I parked last time we went to the House Of Blues. So, we shot the concert and had a great time. I accidently ended up in a mosh pit and I tweaked my neck a little bit, which leads me to this next point. I woke up the next morning (Sunday) and was barley able to move. My neck and back hurt pretty bad, so I called Stephen to tell him that I wasn't going to be able to play bass that day. He laughed and said "that is the lamest excuse I have ever heard!" I couldn't believe he said that. I've been playing at his church for about a month now and haven't missed a single Sunday. Also, I've only ever been late because of traffic, every other time I'm on time or early. I can see how it's a problem to not be able to show up and call the day of, but bottom line it wasn't like I didn't go because I didn't want to. I've pulled another all nighter with the TV show. This time, however my effort has been in vain. John Ineno brought a different beta deck over, and I was told it was better than the one we rent so I used it. Well, I came to find out that John's beta deck wasn't recording the tapes properly so we had to start all over again, which sucks. Hopefully we'll be able to get the shows out the MUST be to the networks by this Wednesday. Last night wasn't so bad though, Shannon came by and we hung out while I finished up editing the show. Good times. She brought me some "Morning Glory Carrot Muffins" and they were by far the greatest muffins I have eaten in a long time. Now I'm having Michael, one of our interns, re-dub the shows. I'm sticking around to help him out in case there are any problems. I did find myself getting frustrated, but God is good and faithful.

Long day! Long and awesome day. I picked up at Nikon D1h from a guy named Ernie on Wednesday. I did a shoot for Ernie a few weeks back at a Latin Christian music thing. I hated the shoot, but because of it I met this guy. And because of that I was able to do some photography for Dream House. I didn't really mind using a digital camera. It was nice to be able to see my shots as I took them, but there were some funky things about it. Overall, it was a good shoot. I did the shoot for Dream House after Church. After that I was suppoused to meet up with Sally to film some behind the scenes footage of Michelle Williams music video shoot. When I got back to my car I found it with the battery DEAD. LAME! I do that SO often! I called up Sally to let her know then I got ahold of Kathy to jump the car. While waiting for Kathy I tried to get the thing into neutral, to no avail. So we tried to get Kathy's car manuvered next to mine. After many tries and the help of "momma" (the parking lot security lady), we found ourselves about a foot short for the jumper cable. I jumped into Kathy's truck, went to an auto parts store and picked up some jumper cables. I'll pick up one of those portable battery things soon too, but they're like $80. Thank God for the Dream House shoot (I got paid for that). So I finally get the jump and meet Sally at the shoot. She takes off and Billy and I stay. We ended up gripping for the shoot and I still shot the behind the scenes footage. I'll never forget this one thing. It was a late shoot and at one point a guy in the apartments near the shoot starts yelling at us because of the lights and music. At one point he yells "Selfish empire!" and that's it for him. So funny. Time for sleep.

Today, with Pastor Manny, I ran 2.37 miles in under 19 minutes. :D

So much to say. I haven't been writing because things have been busy lately. First, work.     We're meeting on Thursday afternoons to talk about and plan the "Action House TV Awards". Yes, we actually want to start an awards show. It will be for Movies, Music and Entertainment. Now that I think about it Movies and Music are forms of entertainment, so it might be time to re-think that slogan. Anyway, we're going to go all out for this, invite artists, actors, directors etc. We're going to hold it at Angelus Temple here in Los Angeles, so that covers a tremendous amount of cost. I'll probably end up directing the event. I'm excited because this could be very awesome.     We are leaving for Nashville in two weeks! So exciting! This year should be a bit more relaxed than the year I went as an intern. We have around 30 interviews as opposed to 50. We also submitted an equipment list for the trip which includes a new light kit, wireless mic/receiver, and boom mic. If we get those, stuff will be awesome. We've interviewed everyone that is going to be there, so they know us and love us which is very good. I've also come up with an ingenious plan for preparing to edit the shows we shoot. I'll bring Sally's external hard drive, and my laptop to import the footage for editing while we are STILL in Nashville! YAY! That will save us tons of time. Plus, Sally's external has plenty of room for doing something like that.     On another note, the DV deck we got back recently is busted already. Lame lame lame lame!! So frustrating! Hopefully, we'll have a solution soon. Thankfully the other deck we sent away for repairs came back the day we had problems with the first deck. Now, let's head over to the film making portion of my life.     I sent off a script to Maggie so she could put together some conceptual art. Thanks Magz! You seriously rock my face off! The script isn't completed yet, but I have enough to bring to Lars and Clay so we can start writing some more for a 30 min screenplay. It's a pretty good story, I think. I'll post the art when I get it from Maggie. Other than that not much is going on with films right now. I need to just start writing and shooting stuff. Let's tune in now to Brian's personal life.     I saw "Dead Poet's Society" lately. After watching, I seized the "Carpe Diem" concept. For example, there is this girl named Katie who lives here at the Dream Center. I've seen her around and said hello every once in a while but haven't gotten to know her. About a week ago, I was sitting in the cafeteria with some of the Action House crew when I saw her at another table eating alone. I said, "Excuse me boys, I need to go carpe diem." So, I got up and sat down with her. We had a great conversation and I got to know her a bit. So, that was good.     More recently, I took some interns out to lunch. While we were eating we saw a cute girl sitting at the counter in the restaurant eating. I called the waitress over and told her that I'd like to buy the girls lunch (got that one out of my Dad's playbook, you rock, Dad!). So the waitress let her know. When she was done eating she came over to the table, introduced herself and told me she worked in the evening at the that restaurant and that I should come in sometime. So, I will. Good times.

God has been opening up the flood gates of blessings on me :). For some reason, God has decided to bless me financially lately. Tithing.. I guess it is important. I did a shoot today at a Christian Spanish concert. I was told I was only going to recieve $80 but the guy gave me $125 instead. I was there for about 8 hours, so I guess I did pretty well. It's been a pretty crazy couple of days. We got the "RJ Helton" show out, which is good. Michelle Wiliams is next. Our next shoot isn't until the 16, I think. Skillet, Grits and a ton of my other favorite artists are going to be at the "House Of Blues", so that's going to be SCHWEET. I played bass again at Sally and Stephen's church this morning. We rocked out and had a good time. I'll be playing bass again on Easter Sunday and possibly getting paid for it. I'm so busy so much of the time, it's crazy. I was lying in my bed last night and having another "This is what I'm doing with my life" moment. I just stared at the ceiling and Tonight I go to see "Hellboy" with my friend Charlene. I hope it doesn't suck.

I've been up for 22 hours, but it's ok. And then suddenly it's not. I should explain. We're trying to get a show out today and I've been up working on it. It's taking so long only because I went out last night, which I'm going to write about because I don't want to forget. Tuesday was a typical Tuesday. Staff meeting at 8:30, then work until forever. I was working with Mz and Mallory on their shows. Mz's show is the one I'm working on dubbing right now. But Tuesday was also different. Shannon wanted to meet up with me at 4:30 to go visit her college for some kind of suprise trip. Thankfully it was a crazy busy day so 4:30 came fairly quickly. I met Shannon at the girl's home that she works at. We took off with her friends Andy and Liz, both of which I am good friends with now. We arrived at the college. This was a weird thing because I had stayed at the very same college about a year ago because I was shooting a documentuary on a ministry. I stayed at the very same college we were visiting that day. Small world. Anyway, we headed to the cafeteria and grabbed some food. As we ate I met Shannon's college buddies. Everyone was very friendly and outgoing, it was cool. I was really just enjoying watching everyone and being quiet. From the cafeteria we jumped into Shannon's car and headed out. It turns out we were going to a church where Hillsong United (a worship band/youth group) was having a concert. Unfortunatley all of the seats in the sanctuary were full so we went to the overflow areas. The worship was awesome! I only knew a few songs, but I really enjoyed myself. After the show we headed back to the college. Shannon had a dance class so I hung out with Andy in "The Cove". "The Cove" is the hangout spot of the college kids. It has two pool tables, a air hockey table, foosball, a Xbox, Playstation 2, a Gamecube and more stuff. I played pool with Andy, Tom and some other guy who's name I forgot. We had a great time. My team ended up winning and I didn't even know it. It was great. While I waited I got to talk with some of Shannons friends which was awesome. They are all really great people. When Shannon got back Andy, Shannon and myself headed off to Denny's for some food. After we were done there we dropped Andy off and headed back to the Dream Center, but first we made a quick stop. This is where things got really awesome. Shannon brought me to a place where she had brought some of the girls from the Teen Discipleship home. Apparently one of the girls was quitting drugs cold turkey and needed to get out of the house, so Shannon brought her another girl to this cliff overlooking San Dimas. When they arrived the girls got out and just started to yell at the top of their lungs. They would just scream and pray and scream and pray. It's really what they needed apparently. Shannon told me that the four of them really became close that night. So, she brought me to her favorite of places in all of Southern California. There we stood, overlooking the city in all it's splendor. Our little legs chattering in the cold night. Then, suddenly, the sprinklers hissed on. It was awesome. I started laughing as we bolted for the car. I was running down a path when I saw a sprinkler up ahead and changed my course. Shannon yelled at me asking what I was doing, but I just kept running. She headed down the sprinkler path and got nailed. It was great. We had a really good laugh. I won't forget it. Now I'm stuck in the Sub room TRYING to dub off this Rj Helton show. I'm running into time issues and technical difficulties again. Hopefully this show will get out in time. Thank God that he's on my side. Forgive me Lord for not placing my trust in you.

The Rebecca St. James show is GONE and DONE! Finally! That took way too long. It was a good experience, though. I learned about alot of the techincal bugs that seem to be coming up with every show. So I'll be going to Nashville with Sally and the crew this year for the Gospel Music Awards. Good times. I've put in a request for new equipment for the trip (and future shows). We hope to get a Lowel lighting kit (the intervew specific one), a wireless mic and reciever, and a shotgun boom mic. We'll only being doing around twelve interviews during GMA instead of the usual thirty. We leave at the end of April to Nashville. Upcoming events! I'm supervising the editing of two of our shows right now. The first is the "Rj Hilton Show". Rj was on American Idol, he was a finalist. The other show is the "Michelle Williams Show". Michelle was in Destiny's Child. She loves Jesus and was totally stoked about our Internship program. We'll see how they come out. Stephen has decided he wants me to play bass at his church from now on, so he gave me his old bass to learn. I've pretty much got the basics down and I know how to play the songs he'll be playing on Sunday and that's a good thing! It looks like my musical instrument count is up to a semi-solid three. Guitar, drums and now bass. I'm a freakin' rock 'n roll band! I'm still hangin' with Shannon. We've been having good times. She wants to take me to some place on Tuesday, but she won't tell me where or what it is, so I'm excited about that.

It's been a long day into the next day. I spent the morning with Billy and the DreamHouse guys. They were shooting a music video and I had a great time. I even had some useful suggestions. God's been good to me. I recieved my tax info from Players and the goverment owes ME money, which is nice. I had a wonderful time back home. It was great to see my family for the weekend. I miss Erin allready. Every time I hang out with her she rubs off on me a little bit and I like it. It amazes me how comfortable she is with being herself. I love it. And she's so insightful. But it's a different kind of insightful, she sees thing in a whole other way. She can really put herself in others shoes and see their perspective on things. ... I have to goto bed now. I'll finish this later.

I leave on Saturday morning to go back home for my sisters birthday. Before I go back home, I have to finish the Rebecca St. James show because we dub on Wednesday. I've realized that I can edit a show in one day at this point. That's pretty good, I guess. This Tuesday Action House did the Youth Fuego service. Youth Fuego is the youth group here at the Dream Center. It's comprised mostly of inner city kids that come from pretty rough neighborhoods. It's been awesome to see how these kids lives get changed. For the service I did a few things. The first thing I did was freestyle. Freestyle is when you rap without knowing what lyrics you're going to say. Apparently, I was the favorite. I said some pretty funny stuff. I also did lighting for the drama we did. I was thinking about how I'm getting into hip-hop a little bit. It's kind of strange, but if I hadn't of rapped that night then I would have not been able to minister to this one kid. During prayer time at the end I walked up to him and he recognized me from the stage. He was happy to see me. I asked him if he could pray for me and he was a bit taken back, but I could tell it meant alot to him. Because I was on the stage rapping that kid had respect for me and it allowed me to minister to him. It was awesome. Last night Shannon came over to hang with us in the lounge. After everyone left, me, Shannon and Marcella watched "Catch Me If You Can". We had both seen it so we would chat about the movie as it played. It was really nice to be able to talk with someone about movies. After the movie was done Marcella left and we chatted until late in the evening. We just talked. It was nice. I'm going to be working on the Rebecca St. James show tonight until late. Shannon gets off around midnight. I hope she's not too tired so I can take her out to get something to eat :).

I got my tire reparied today. It took freakin' long enough me to get around to it. The sad thing is that I had the stupid key for the special lugs the whole time! I was in the middle of getting the new ones put on when I was looking through the glove box and there it was, the key. So, they let me put the old ones on and didn't charge for the new ones they were going to put on. So I have my car now. Yesterday I went with Action House to the LA Convention center. We're performing at an expo there. Apparently they have seating for around 8,000 or so people. Not even half that many showed up yesterday. Billy, myself and MZ were going to freestyle rap during the event but the Action House segment was on a time crunch so they cut us out. It was alright because I ended up running communications with Matt in the production truck. Good times. Tonight Sally invited me and Rick to go to a hip-hop/R&B concert. It's suppoused to be pretty cool, so that should be fun. I invited Shannon to goto the Getty on Monday, we'll see what she says. We haven't put it in concrete yet. I hope she says yes :) -BRiAN

Today was.. long. I spent a good portion of the night dubbing and had to continue because I was just plain 'ol tired. Eventually, I did get the dubs done and the show out, but it was a hassle. Things just seemed to pile up. We have a big expo tomorrow at the La Convention Center. At one point I was assigned to do a count down video then I wasn't. Today I was again. So, I finished that but there were all kinds of technical bugs in between. Now that I look back, it's not so bad. Regarding Shannon. I hung out with her and about four of our now mutual friends last night at the picnic tables outside. I couldn't have asked for a better night. The weather was amazing. Shannon is a truly good, nice, person. She really has taught me alot just hanging out with her the past few days. I'm amazed by her ability to strike up a conversation with ANYONE at ANY time. I thought I was a social person, but man! I'm beginning to think that, and this feels weird as I think about it, hopefully I can say this correctly. I think that she thinks of me just like she thinks of anyone else. I had this feeling from the beginning, so I've been careful to not invest myself emotionally into this relationship alot. When I realized this about her the other night I was glad to find I wasn't too hurt. Despite all these things, I've invited to take her to the Getty on Monday. I think she would really like it and I just like hanging out with her. On another note I WILL get my tire repaired tomorrow and I WILL deposit my deposits! I WILL! -BRiAN

Monday was a particularly good day because of this girl. Her name is Shannon and we went to downtown Hollywood. I met shannon Sunday (refer to previous posts). I was just minding my own business and eating my lunch when she asked if she could sit down with me. How could I say no? We had a wonderful conversation. She's going to Bible college and majoring in Psychology and Sociology. She's originally from Pennsylvania. During our chat over lunch she asked what I did on my days off, I of course said "what days off"? heh. I told her about playing cards for Starbursts with the interns and working mostly. She asked if I wanted to meet up with her and some of her friends on Monday to hang out. Absolutely I did! So we parted ways. Monday couldn't arrive fast enough. I showed up on the black top around 12:05 (not exactly on the dot.. oh yeah I'm smooth!) and she was the only one up there. Apparently her other buddies didn't show up. They've done this the past few Mondays she said. Flakes. So we tried to gather together some people with no avail (which was great). We went downstairs, I grabbed my cameras (thanks Mom!) and we walked to the bus stop (after visiting 7-11 for the essentials.) I had never taken the "Metro" before. It was pretty cool. We spent the whole trip talking to the bus driver about where he was from, what he did, what he wanted to to etc. His name was Larry and a lady that went on his route alot bought him a dictionary which he was very proud of. He loved semantics (the study of words), so we had a pretty stimulating conversation about words. Shannon thought I was brilliant. We said goodbye to Larry as we got off the bus. Shannon said that I was "Really intelligent, but in a way that doesn't make other people feel stupid." That was cool. I was blown away at how she was so friendly and interested in everyone as they got on the bus. She would greet them all as they got on or got off. This also began to worry me. I couldn't tell if she was friendly with everyone like she was with me. I couldn't and still can't tell. I don't think I like that. Then again, I've only hung out with her once so far. We proceeded down Highland Dr. towards Hollywood Blvd. I grabbed a few shots which I will upload. I think they'll come out. We grabbed photos here and there then we came upon two guys hanging out on the steps of the "Hollywood and Highland Mall". And there we stayed. I took a picture of one of the guys 'cause he wanted me to and Shannon jumped right into conversation with 'em. One of the guy's name was Derick the other was Sah-lah (or something like that). We just hung out on the steps and talked with these guys for about 45 minutes. I would snap the occasional shot and listen. They were both from New Jersey. Derick came out to California to get away from home pretty much, and his friend.. well I don't remember why he came out. Derick was looking for a job and Selah was getting into modeling. Shannon was totally friendly and very interested in their lives. Both were unsaved and we got to talk with them about Jesus a bit. It was awesome how God used the photography as a witnessing tool. Again I had that apprehension about Shannons instant friendship with total strangers. Maybe it's my insecurity or not, but the "social butterfly" type of girl is kind of a red flag to me. We'll see. From the steps we walked with our new found friends down to man's Chinese theater to look at the famous foot/hand prints. I got a couple of cool shots on the way over and Shannon did too. She took a picture of me at the Frank Sinatra spot and that was cool. We kept seeing the same shots so that was neat too. After that Shannon got a phone call and had to head back to the Dream Center. Derick wanted to talk with me about headsets so I gave him the Action House phone # so we could get in touch. Shannon and I headed back to the bus stop on Sunset. We played eye spy with the numerous signs at a tiny shopping center across the way. We talked about some pretty serious stuff like how many kids we wanted to have when we eventually got married to whoever. I told her that I wanted thirteen and I knew the names of all them already. Really? Yeah! I listed off thirteen names off the top of my head, she was bewildered. I was kidding. The bus arrived so we sat down. Shortly after we got on the bus a Mexican guy sat next to Shannon. She drummed up a conversation right away. She found out that a friend of his had been shot only a few days ago. Where he lived, how long he had lived in the area. Everything. I was amazed and worried again. Soon he got off and another man got on the bus. She got up and moved next to me so the guy had a place to put his bags. Thank God for bags. We talked some more. She asked about the scars on my arm. I told her the story as she took my arm in her hands and looked over my funky scars. I told her about the other scars on my hand as she looked over that with her fingers. That was cool. Nice moment. We got off the bus and headed back to the Dream Center. We got back just in time for dinner. I went back to my room to put the cameras away and she went to her room to put her stuff away. We met up again and ate dinner. That girl uses so much pepper you wouldn't believe it! Apparently eating pepper and hot stuff helps increase the metabolism. After dinner we talked about sociology again and our day. We went outside to the picnic tables and talked some more. I explained why the sky turns orangish/redish during sunsets and was once again amazed. Monday was a good day.

So yesterday was really eventful! Lemme give you the run down. Stephen picked me up at 8 am to play drums at his church. This was an awesome thing because ther is a professional drummer named Zoro who goes to Stephen's church. Currently, Zoro is playing for LENNY KRATVIZ! The guy is incredible. Well, I played drums and he played the congas. During the last slower song we really got into a nice groove thang baby! After all was said and done, he said that I "Did a great job." Good times. After this I came back to Action House and began to prepare for the Rebecca St. James shoot at 4. I wrote up the questions, segmets etc and gathered all of the equipment together. I couldn't find the JVC for a little while which really freaked me out, but eventually we got it and started to chage the batteries. Also before going one of the guys on the shoot crew accidently caught the wrong bus. So I had to grab another guy before we left to go with us. We took off late but made good time on the freeway. We arrived in Irvine and met up with Rebecca. Unfortunatly, we only had limited time with her so my ideas and plans flew out the window, which is totally cool because it is definatley not the first time on a shoot that's happened. We brought her out to the people in line and asked her questions with them and had her sign stuff. It was great. After that we went back inside and did some more interviews. I got her on stage and all that good stuff too. Wanna hear a funny story? Alright. I had ran backstage because I heard she was going on soon. I found her, flipped on my light and asked "Will I mess you up if I shoot you about to go on stage?" She said no. "Ok, because we wanted to get you going on." She said "That's great" and IMMEDIATLEY began to sing. Like, she was getting ready to sing ask I was talking to her. I almost crapped my pants because I was afraid I was interferring with her performance but she was totally cool, it was amazing. We finished with Rebecca and came back to the Dream Center. This is when things started to get interesting. Sally and I went to go see Stephen (her husband) play with a band he's in at some bar down the road. It was freakin' weird man. The people in there were all 80's grunge rock lookin'. But it was a bit different. Apparently it's called "Electroclash". Whatever it was it was crazy. The guys had this long, dark, helmet hair rockstart thing going on. The girls were.. well it's hard to describe. It was kind of liked dressed up but more rock star/grunge/hardcore. Light makeup, dark eyes. Losta skin though. One way or another it was a cool experience. So I grabbed Sally's camera (because they wanted me to shoot them playing) and did my thing. At first I was a bit intimidated and nervous but I quickly got more comfortable. I think I'm going to cut together a little music video or documentuary for them. I got back around 1:30 am tired but really excited. I had a great time. Stephen also told me he wanted to teach me bass so I could play with his church. Yesterday was a nice break away from the motonony of the Dream Center. On the way back home from Rebecca St. James I called up some friends and chatted which was nice. I'll be visiting home for my sister's birthday, so that will be nice too.

Tonight I went with Billy to go see Starsky and Hutch with Lars and Scott. When we arrived the movie had been sold out so we walked around "The Grove" and then go something to eat. The Grove is like.. well it's Paso Robles, really. It's Paso Robles within Los Angeles. They way the layed the thing is is perfect. Shopping in one section, food down another "alley". Sweet sauce. I had the Rottelio with Sausage then a chocolate souflee! Mmm. The best meal I've had in a long time. Skipping back a bit, Lars and Scott saw an Intern (that is soon leaving us) at The Grove with a guy! This guy is apparently her BOYFRIEND! Which is SO wrong because interns are NOT allowed to date! SO. Scott grabs his little digital camera and gets all international spy in the situation. He grabs a few pics and scurries off. In the process, this intern sees him and tries to hide etc.. sad times. Anyway, we brought the pictures back and enhanced them. So, we'll see what happens with that. I've been kind of lame latley. I told my friend Maggie that I was going to call her back like.. three days ago. I have yet to and I suck because of it. With this stupid flat tire and the THREE SHOWS that are being edited. Not to mention that ALL of our freaking equipment that we need is breaking down all around us. Life is just kind.. hectic. So, Maggie if you see this, I suck and I'll call you. On another note I had a wonderfull conversation with a perfectly charming girl today. We're going to meet up on Monday with a group of friends and hang out. Her name is Shannon and that's all I'm going to say about that right now.

Well shoot! I got a flat tire yesterday. What makes the situation particularly complicated is that the rims I have apparently have special lugs on them. Not any ordinary lugs that some goofball who drives a tow truck can take off. Oh no! These are lugs that need a special key that I probably will never get because I bought the car at a dealership that never mentioned a special tire key when I bought it! But it's ok. There is a auto repair place literally a stones throws (if you get just the right angle and if the wind blowing really hard) down the road. So, tomorrow I'll give 'em a call and get things setup. I've been playing drums for Stephen at his church the past couple of weeks. It's been a really awesome experience. So far when we've played it's been me and him. Just a guitar and the drums. Surprisingly, the sound is really full and rich. We click pretty well and understand where the music is going. He's told me a ton of times that "You listen really well." Which makes me feel good. It makes sense because the six or some odd years I've played for my church I've been trained to do just that, listen really well. The past couple of times the Spirit of God has really been flowing during worship. People are worshipping in freedom and truth, which is an awesome thing. This Sunday I'm going to be playing again for him. Not only THAT but Rebecca St. James is coming Sunday to do a show! This makes me VERY happy because she is so beautiful and has... ready for it? An ACCENT! Not just any accent but an Australian accent! Praise GOD! I love accents. Man I love 'em. But I'll play it cool and be.. cool. Anyway, that should be fun. I also found out that Sally is allowed to have one camera man on the Shout Fest Tour that she'll be hosting for three months. So, I'll be going to Sally every weekend for three months to shoot her at the Shout Fest tour! We'll fly out ever weekend to some state to rock out with Christian musicians. Good times. Exciting stuff.

Well, we found out the time slot for our film! Unfortunatley, the way the film festival guys did it was really.. lame. When we first checked the films time-slot it was in the 7 pm awards ceremony! That means that it made it to the top 12 of 50 other films. We checked again the next day and it (as well as about six others) had been moved out of the 7 pm slot. We are in the 3:30-5:00 pm slot which is before the 7pm awards ceremony. But, we do know for a fact that we did make it with 12 other films to the top judges to be looked at. In other words, for a first go on a film we did really well. I have to wait until Saturday the 28th to go see it at the church with everyone else. In other news, John Ineno (the head of HD for CBS) came by Action House yesterday and taught us how to make XLR cables! I made about three or four of 'em. It was a blast! I thought I was going to be no good at it beacuse it was all hands on with saudering and wires and stuff. But, I ended it doing really well overall. So good times. Right now at Action House all of our decks are down. We have no way to import or export footage. Which means that 99% of what I do comes to a screeeeeeching halt. I'm trying to put together a new opener for out TV show, but I can't do any of that because I can't import footage to work with! AHH! On top of that, it seems that one of our computers is sending some electricity or something through it's firewire card. Which means it's blowing out all of our equipment that uses firewire (the cable that we use to import and export footage). So, we can't risk plugging anything in until we figure THAT out. It'll all work out.

In two days I will find out the time slot for the film. This is an important thing because it lets me pretty much know what the judges thought of it. The later the time slot, the better. Until then, it's back to the grind. The TV show is starting up again and we've got some great artists lined up. We'll also be going to Nashville in April for the Gospel Music Awards. On another note, Clay, Lars, Ryan and myself are going to be meeting at Clay's house on Mondays to keep the ball rolling as far as more projects go. It looks like our next project is going to be a mock-u-mentary. I can't say what about because it's a really good idea and I know people will steal it. Finally, if you didn't catch Mel Gibson on NBC last night then you missed out! It was truly and amazing interview. He proclaimed the gospel remarkably and answered the questions poised to him profoundly. It was amazing. Mel (with God's leading) is really paving the road for Christian films. -BRiAN

The film is... DONE! We dropped it off last night almost two hours past the deadline. It's really good. More later.

Film festival update! SO much has happened. For a good two days I couldn't get an idea. TWO DAYS! It drove me nuts. Finally, while sitting at dinner with Jess, Josh and myself we came up with something. I wrote a script in a matter of hours and presented it to Clay and Lars. They loved it, but there was one problem. The script called for a kid as a character. It was brought to my attention that it's darn near impossible to find a kid that we need, then it's darn near impossible to direct him. So, no big deal. After all the agonizing over a script then finally getting this incredible story, we just have to start all over! FINE! AHH. Actually, things turned out better than I expected. We did come up with a new idea. This time we wrote around the resources we had. We cleaned it up. Wrote, rewrote, condensed, and rewrote ad. Infinitum. So, now we have a new script. Tonight I write it. What's it about? A thing. heh. I'll give this: It's called "Fatal Illusion" -BRiAN

Scripture: Prov 19:3 "A mans folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord." Line of dialoge to inegrate: "The light went out." Prop that must be used in the film: A toy bunny that was given to us. The night I got the scripture I was so excited. I'm still excited. But I'm also frustrated. I haven't come up with a solid story yet. Which is ok. I expect that by the end of today or tomorrow we'll have a story to work with. Once the story is in place everything will really start to roll. I shine more as a director than a writer.

Well, tonight is the big night. Myself, Craig, Billy, Pastor Manny, Clay, Cliff and hopefully Lars if he's feeling better, are going to Bel Air Presbetirian to get our scripture verse and theme. I think I'll call Carly and ask her to post what they are tonight. I could hardly sleep last night, it was like the night before Christmas.. in January. One thing that was on my mind was the same thing that plagued me as I thought about film school. What if I can't live up to what I think my creative potential is? What if I get the verse and theme tonight and I draw a blank. I expect that to happen at first, but what if I can't carry the vision once we have an idea. The cool thing about this whole process, though, is that God is in control. Also, the word of God is living and active. Which means I'll have a little squirming baby piece of scripture to work with and help to grow into an intersting film. Plus, we're not doing this for money or fame, we're doing it to give glory and honor to God. -BRiAN

Today has been, by far, one of the top three best days of my life. It started at 8:15 am. Myself, Billy, Craig, Lars, Yoshiko and Clay went to a film makers seminar in Bel Air. The 168 film project hosted it with lunch and everything. There were speakers on writing, pre-production, casting, lighting and makeup. It lasted from 9-5 and was awesome! After that things got a little strange, but ultimatley good. We have a new intern by the name of Faith, and a yesterday I was told we were having a birthday party for her. I thought this was strange because her birthday isn't for a looong while. I had all but forgotten about this birthday thing until Craig got a call on his cell phone. He told me that the interns were calling to make sure I was at the birthday party. I told Craig I was thinking about not going, but he told me they wanted to really make sure I was there, so I said alright. Billy wanted to leave the seminar around 4:30 so we could get to the Dreamcenter to eat dinner around 5:00. We showed up at the Dreamcenter around 5:15 and barely made it into dinner. As I was eating Billy mentioned that he was going to make an "apperance" at Faith's birthday party and reminded me once again to be sure to make it on time. I told him I would try and kept eating. As I was almost finished he stood up and asked me if I was done. I told him I was and he grabbed my tray (which doesn't happen very often). At this point I started to wonder what as going on. Billy and I left the cafeteria and headed toward the lounge. As I got there, everyone started arriving. Maya (one of our interns) said: "Thanks everyone for coming to Faith's birthday party. But, actually this isn't her party. It's a party for someone who has been doing alot for us latley. He's helped us whenever we've needed it and has always been there. We decided to throw it for him because he's been so willing to take the time to help us learn. Brian, we want to say thank you for teaching us so much and taking time out of your day for us. This party is for you!" I almost cried. I was so suprised and humbled by the generosity of the interns it was amazing. I had just finished teaching a five day course and it had totally worn me out, so to see the fruit of my labor was incredible. God really suprised and blessed me. This has been a great day.

*horns* UPDATE! *horns stop* Ok, so. I've entered Action House into a film festival. You can find out more about it at www.slate1.tv It's called "The 168 Project". We are SO going to rock this festvial. I've been teaching a basic camera/composition class since Tuesday and I finish Friday. I know I get the love of teaching from my Dad. I think I'm doing a pretty good job of it. I've had hand-outs and test and everything! This Saturday I'm going to split the interns up into groups to go off on their own projects. We'll see how they do. Ok, about this film festival. These are the basics: You have one week to produce a 10 minute short film. You base your short film on a theme and scripture verse. We get these two things on Jan 28th. The actual production week is Feb 4th-11th. We have everything we really need at Action House, so that's good. I saw the winning short film on the website and all I have to say is we are SO going to rock!

On soilders commiting suicide in Iraq: "The issue of suicides so worried the military that the Army sent an assessment team to Iraq late last year to see if anything more could be done to prevent troops from killing themselves." That just doesn't sound right to me.

"You can't eat dolphin's, they're intelligent!" "Not this one, he blew all his money on lottery tickets"

I hear the faint, pleasent jingle drifting from the keychain of life It is there that the keys to my happiness are securely fastened

Today was kind of frustrating. I had planned to start working on shows that had mistakes in them from the last season (not shows I worked on, I'll tell ya THAT right now, mister!). As I began to get my crew together problems started happening. The digital video deck we use turned out to be broken. I just couldn't get the darn thing to talk to the computer. The fileserver was acting weird, had to trouble shoot that. People were having computer problems all day. An old intern came by and needed something put onto a tape, which was nearly impossible because the deck isnt' working so that took most of the day. I was suppoused to make copies of the wedding video I did for Stephen, but again, no deck. We have two digital video decks and the firewire (the part that connects the to the computer) is JACKED. It was like this ALL DAY. But, I did end up going to "The Standard" with Pastor Manny and Lars. We originally went to play pool, but we ended up on the roof where the bar is just hanging out. Pictures to follow: Lars on the roof of the standard Lars and Pastor Manny in waterbed cone things - Ok, these deserve explination. After you walk up some steps you see on your left what looks like cones with three big holes in the sides. THese are connected to a base and inside of them are white waterbeds. They are the most comfortable and cool things I have seen. Perfect for chillin' out in. Your view is the city below "The Standard" View from the roof of "The Standard" Nice way to end the day.

So, I'm back at Action House, sitting behind my little desk with my little computer. I found out that I came back about a week earlier than I needed too. This means that I have a chance to create a new opener for the new season. Everything is so new and shiny, awesome. Christmas memories begin here. I realized this year that I got everything I asked for. And I really didn't like the overall process. Sending off e-mails to parents asking for things and expecting them to just get them for me. It seems so selfish. I know that my parents and family don't mind I don't have much money to get them nice things too, but of course I feel bad about it. I wish I could get awesome stuff for 'em. Overall, I am glad to know that I was able to spend time with them. And what's up with going back home and spending more time with friends than family? I found myself staying at my old house with my old roommate more than at my Mom's house (where my clothes and stuff were). Weird. Lame, really. My sister wanted to hang out with me allot. I like hanging with her. One day we hit three different thrift shops. Like a whirlwind, baby! My Mom wanted to go jogging with me one morning, but we both got up too late. My Dad and I hung out the day before I left. We played pool and he scratched on the 8 ball, but he racked on me the rest of the time. The more I hang out with my Dad, the more I realize that I get allot of my personality from him. The humor, especially. I love my Dad. I love my Mom. I love my sister. We have a whole new batch of interns coming in this week. It's going to be a really exciting and fun time for them. We'll see how many make it. Unfortunately, before the new year, we had to let go of about three interns. Action House is a pretty hard program for some people to get through. Early mornings, stressful situations, last minute projects and lots of humility. It's such a big picture thing for many it's easy for them to loose sight of the big picture and focus on their worries.