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.