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.