First off, Happy 21st Birthday to the red-headed step child… Mr. Batchelor… I thought we were going out tonight, but Bouse informed me that it we are going to do it another night.

Had my meeting with Ruth & Josh this morning. Ruth told me all about things we all already knew… That they took over the website and the marquee… She thanked me for all of my work, and asked if I still had any keys to ASB… So I took my keys down to Nan and my ring is now a lot lighter!

I’m looking at the bright side of things… I’ve been trying to diminish down the relationship with ASB for a while now and have been thinking about “breaking” it off, but I guess now it has been done for me. It was nice to hear from Jan this morning though that I have been missed already (with the marquee & website). It’s been so nice not having to deal with the daily ASB stuff and marquee for a while now. Hopefully this will give me more time for other things now. Although, Josh still wants me to come in and do training for the guys and walk him through some of the stuff, so I don’t know what’s going on there, but it will be interesting to see.

Met Pyro & Chad for lunch at the Firehouse and then it was off to school. I had a really hard time staying awake today, I guess cause I was up a little earlier than normal this morning. I got a 96 on my Calc exam from last week. Their was another 96 in the other class and a 97 in our class. What was bad about it was that everything that I got wrong was stupid stuff, like missing negative signs. Bus Writing was fun as always… Sat there basically doing nothing. Fortunately I found the wireless network today, which I swear has never been there before and was able to spend some time online.

On my way home tonight I stopped at Costco as I was completely out of Kisses & M&Ms! One hundred and fifty or so dollars later I came out of Costco with all sorts of fun stuff – and I didn’t even get any of the stuff that I was thinking about getting that I actually needed – like another filing cabinet, file folders, paper, etc…

After Costco was Wal*Mart as I wanted to pick up some more black Jeans (the damn things fade too damn quick!) and some strawberry yogurt smoothie thingies as Major Market is always out of them. We won’t be having any problems like that for a while now as I got 14 of them tonight and we already had about 4 of them. The freezer is full!

I really think I need to stop watching television and just get everything from Netflix. Our cable looks so horrible around here and I find the shows just aren’t as interesting when you have to wait a week between episodes. 24 is still doing good, but I find that I’m not as glued to it as I used to be.

I still seem to be fighting with Aimee for whatever reason. I don’t even know why anymore, but I’m tired of it. I’m not going to give in and meet her list of demands… Seriously, who gives their “fiends” a list of demands they must meet if they want to be their friend? I think I need a negotiator! Any volunteers?

Here’s the list for those interested:
THE LIST….   
all off these items must be fully completed by Scott Paul Chester…no exceptions
i reserved the right for 7 needed items but there may be more to come…just wanted to give you a head start!
 
1.  Bring over the desired VHS tapes that are from FUHS that I want to copy.
2.  ipod which you said…!
3.  chose applebees and buy my dinner   !
4.  call more than once a month
5.  give up your calls at the bob cause I want to work
6.  wash and wax my car and chads truck
7.  make a cd of songs that you think will mean something to me and explain why he choose them
8.  b.t.w.  i heard there was a lingering Apple computer in your bedroom!

Granted, the list isn’t that out of line for something that friends would do, but I just don’t get it…

Can I just go back to being ordered around be squeakers??? That life is so much easier! I miss you Squeakers!

Tomorrow I’m going to try and get through some of these piles around here and run payroll for the nothing that people turned in today… I guess that just means that they don’t want to get paid! I have lots of reading to do for school too, so its just going to be an all around fun filled day… Of course, I did try to invite someone out to dinner tomorrow night, but she doesn’t seem to want to talk to me.

Nothing much really to report today. Didn’t get nearly as much done as I would have liked to, but what else is new. Didn’t make it to Church yet again…

Did another show of the Little Mermaid at the Bob. No sugar highs this time. Just the show – and didn’t even take one picture. It’s going to be weird not going in tomorrow to do a show. I think I’m gonna miss it… or at least the people…

Finally got pictures of Miss San Marcos online.

The week, or maybe month of birthdays starts tomorrow. And I have to go back to school tomorrow. Back to class and a couple days without Riley directing my every move… whatever am I going to do? :’(

Spend almost all of the day at the school doing shows. Everything went great – Riley is awesome… I tried calling the CHP out to take care of the baseball cars – as usual parked in the fire lane and refusing to move – but they didn’t want to answer the phone. I couldn’t get a hold of Steve as he had the day off, but I was able to talk some other firefighters into coming down to the school in a truck and the next time I looked outside, there was no one parked out there!

Took bunches of bunches more pictures tonight – nothing of the show, just the backstage happenings. After her dinner break Riley was acting like she was on a sugar high and I think it got to most of the crew, myself included. I think we barely made it through the second show this evening.

Another one tomorrow, and lots of homework and paperwork to do… What happened to resting on Sunday? Maybe next week… (That is really starting to sound familiar too!)

Now that my “sugar high” has worn off, it’s time for me to get some sleep so that I can try and make it through tomorrow!

Finally got to sleep in today, at least a little bit, and it felt good. I still had a hard time getting going this morning, but finally decided to get myself down to the high school to take care of some things – talking to Brooke, checking in with Norma, editing music for Gip, etc. Chad & I went to La Caseta and that was basically the first half of the day.

I came home and worked on going through the pics from Miss San Marcos. I got through about 300 of them and picked out 94 to go on the site, so while not as many turned out as I was hoping, i still should have a decent number. I’m going to try to get through the rest of them tomorrow morning and get them online.

Then it was back to the Bob for the first real show of CYT’s The Little Mermaid. No problems to report, at least nothing worth reporting. I think we’ve got this show down now… Had fun taking more pictures and showing off the ones I took the other day.

Went to the cast party afterward at Stadium Pizza in Temecula. Something different than Fridays – where I must admit we haven’t been for like forever!

Anyway – if you want to come see the show, it’s playing this weekend and next, so hurry up!

Nothing really fun to report from yesterday. Did the 8th grade student orientation in the Bob in the morning, drove to school, finished writing my essays for religion, took my math test, and all the other boring school related stuff.

This morning go to the Bob for the first school day shows for CYT… Basically final dress rehearsal… I spent the first half hour searching the theatre for my gloves that I knew I left there somewhere yesterday. Finally found them locked in a cabinet with cables. (I left them there when I was searching for patch cables.)

Then we decide to let everyone in and things are going good for a while… Until Chad decides to do something with the lights and he starts freaking out that the board has gone bad because all sorts of random lights are on and we can’t turn them off on the board or the RFU. I reset the racks, nothing. But I can control them at the rack so that means we aren’t totally gone. After wiping the board and playing with all sorts of other stuff, Matt decides to bring down all the faders on the arch. panel in the booth… All the lights suddenly turn off!

Let’s see… someone started a little camera competition the other day during rehearsal – people running around with cameras. I pulled out my little camera to torture the kids, and told them that I would bring my real camera if they weren’t careful. So this morning I brought my D100 down there to take some pictures – basically just an excuse to blind the entire stage crew with the flash. In any event, took lots of pictures today… mostly just to be annoying. (sounds like me, huh?)

I tore a dress, or at least part of a dress off a girl today when I took the scrim out and she obviously had come in contact with it somehow… I’m pulling out two scrims and hear this big RRRRRIIIPPPP… Not good… I turn around, look and see fabric hanging from the pipe and keep going… I had a hard time keeping myself from laughing hysterically for the rest of the show.

Brought a drop in during a scene when it wasn’t supposed to be there – but it wasn’t my fault… I was just doing what Riley, the stage manager, told me to do… It was confusing though, I will admit that much!

I asked a 14 yr. old (Hayley) to marry me today… She said no… I even explained to her that I had the dress and was ready to go right now… Didn’t work! The story behind it is: I had a wedding dress in my hand for Ariel for the last scene of the show and I kept getting weird looks from the crew. (I help Ariel into and out of two of her dresses for the show…)

There was more, but it’s getting late and I can’t remember…

Batch, Chad, Kelly, Pyro and I went to Cheesecake tonight for dinner as we haven’t been for a while and needed to go as I promised it to them (minus Batch, plus Bouse) for helping with the winter formal nominations the other month.

I got my pricing today from Da-Lite, so if anyone needs any Da-Lite stuff, hit me up!

Now I’m going to bed and I’m sleeping in tomorrow morning, so DON’T call to wake me up!

Apple – iPod mini

The second generation iPod mini lineup features a new 4GB model priced at just $199 and a new 6GB model priced at $249. Both iPod mini models feature increased battery life of up to 18 hours, USB charging and an ultra-portable, lightweight design available in four vibrant colors.

Apple – iPod photo

Updating the iPod photo lineup, Apple introduced a new slim 30GB model, holding up to 7,500 songs, for just $349 and a new 60GB model, holding up to 15,000 songs, for $449. iPod photo features a stunning high-resolution color screen for displaying photos and enhancing the entire iPod music experience. Both models hold up to 25,000 digital photos and can import photos from your digital camera via the new iPod Camera Connector for instant viewing and slide show playback on iPod photo.

Thanks Jessica! This can be the topic of my third essay that I need for tonight!

This is one of the best explanations of why God allows pain and suffering that I have seen. It’s an explanation other people will understand.

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects.

When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: “I don’t believe that God exists.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the customer.

“Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn’t exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can’t imagine a loving a God who would allow all of these things.”

The customer thought for a moment, but didn’t respond because he didn’t want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop.

Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt.

The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: “You know what? Barbers do not exist.”

“How can you say that?” asked the surprised barber. “I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!”

“No!” the customer exclaimed. “Barbers don’t exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside.”

“Ah, but barbers DO exist! What happens is, people do not come to me.”

“Exactly!”- affirmed the customer. “That’s the point! God, too, DOES exist! What happens, is, people don’t go to Him and do not look for Him. That’s why there’s so much pain and suffering in the world.”

Did another rehearsal tonight for CYT. We’ve still got a lot to work out before the show opens on Thursday, but it will be there. I wish I could be there tomorrow for final dress, but such is my luck.

Aimee stopped by today and did some more “yelling” at me… Well she didn’t really yell at me till after I left, but oh well…

Now I’ve got to get to bed so I can get up early in the morning and write some essays before going to work and then school… Tomorrow is going to be a long day!

First a little catch up…

School is still school, nothing fun there. It ain’t BYU-Idaho, that’s for sure!

Spent a lot of time lately editing dance music and airbands music and still have a lot to do. Fallbrook has finally decided that the grass isn’t level – and therefore they are going to do airbands in the gym at lunch. I’ve heard that they’ve lost all but one of the groups now… What idiots…

We cleaned all the fixtures at the Bob… Now, that’s what I call fun.

One of the nights we recorded voice overs for Miss San Marcos. That was kind of fun… I think we need to build a recording studio.

Another week of school, nothing fun there again…

Matthew & Susan attended the 8th grade parent night presentation last week in the Bob… It’s really scary to think that my little brother is actually going to try to go to high school next year… I don’t think he’ll even make it through the day. Of course, he won’t have a phone – or even know what to do – so he’ll be stuck there all day long, crying in a corner or something…. Maybe I should try to be more optimistic, but it’s hard to believe.

On Friday I ended up helping Chad & Richie try to solve some problems at the City of San Marcos for the Miss San Marcos Pageant. The fan on their dimmer stopped spinning and the dimmer therefore decided to go into self protect mode. We decided to rent some dimmers, so we went and dug out the city’s generator. A couple hours later, after a new tire and some air & oil we were finally off. Then we got it all hooked up, and Batch discovered that the voltage was fluctuating way too much to hook dimmers up to it… Back to the drawing board… The fan on the dimmers would work if you started it, so let’s just hope that it keeps running and go with it…

Saturday was the loadin for CYT. Pyro, Bouse and me standing around watching a bunch of parents work… Talk about boring… and of course no one knew what was going on so we didn’t want to jump in and try to mess things up even more. Then of course, the power decides to go out… (Because of the tornado that went right by my house…) While I’m up checking on the ELTS (emergency lighting) and the dimmers, Bouse & Pyro go outside to check on the electrical room and God decides to dump some buckets on them… They were soaked! The rest of the day went better….

Went down and took pictures of the Miss San Marcos Pageant while pyro videotaped. I still have to look and see if I got any decent pictures.

Sunday I got roped into doing a wedding on my first “day off” in quite some time. I figured it would be raining, so easy wedding, no big deal… Oops… I get there, tell them it’s pouring and that we’re going a chapel wedding. The bride says outside at all costs. I wait it out for a half hour before finding out I have a singer ready to do a sound check. So I lug everything that was up in the grand hall sound room because they needed the keyboard and stuff for Saturday’s wedding, back down to the Gazebo. I get soaked in the process and it just keep raining. I finally get everything setup outside… and it’s still raining pretty good for CA… I say… send the singer down and they decide that we’re going to do the wedding on the veranda… Come on people… I told you this 2 hours ago!

This morning I worked on homework and tried to get some other stuff done before going to the Bob to do CYT. Since Nate is gone, I volunteered to run the rail for the show. It’s actually fairly fun, although has some long periods of boredom… All the crew kids are either completely bored or stressed out, and the spot light operators need to learn how to SHUT UP, but other than that the show seems like it will be good. I’ve been having fun meeting some new people… the stage crew… and chatting with some of them… My new nickname is “Jingles” because they were trying to figure out what to call me when my phone rang. And then when I was walking back from talking on the phone they heard my keys jingling.. So that’s my new nickname…

I’ve spent the last three days at the Bob, having nothing but fun… .

Thursday I came in to deal with music for dance and to take care of airbands stuff, and then did Flo’s final rehearsal in the afternoon/evening. I came to find out somewhere along the line on Thursday that Ruth wants us to do airbands in the bowl at lunch instead of during the evening in the Bob. I can’t believe what is going on at that school — These people are driving me crazy!

They are seriously going to waste $2,000 on a show at lunch when we could break even or make money or even loose less money doing the show in the Bob. What are these people smoking. I miss Ghelber so much… He wouldn’t have sat down for this, and would have stood up and made everything right. Ruth seems to be out to ruin activities all together and I just don’t get it. In any event, I told Josh and Travis that it was going to cost them about $2,000 to do a show in the bowl at lunch, pretty much all of that for staging alone. And that is assuming that they are able to get a deal on the staging, cause I’m sure if they were to call Kleege in it would cost about $4k! I’m getting so sick and tired of that school, maybe it is time to move on…

On the upside, Flo’s show was actually fairly decent, but it isn’t a show to see more than once. After seeing it twice it started getting really old and there was a whopping 3 rail calls in the entire show. Scrim out, Scrim in, Scrim out.

Also on the plus side, we may have found another interested tech. Arianne ran lights for the show and seems interested in maybe doing some more. Of course the problem is that she needs a job, and we generally can’t offer the steady paycheck that most people (myself included) want, but maybe we can find some calls to use her on.

Went to the Bar Thursday night and got to see Donna. Went to Outback last night and left a 24 (or so) cent tip cause the service was so horrible. Was going to try to get lots of homework done today before going to work, but spent most of the day doing stuff around the house and doing payroll for CBC. Now I just need to get my homework done, which means I’ll be busy doing it tomorrow unfortunately.

17 year old female seeking job in Fallbrook for a couple months. Doesn’t want to work anywhere that she would burn herself. No coldstone or baskin robbins.

Any ideas?

Jack took a long look at his speedometer before slowing down: 73 in
a 55 zone. Fourth time in as many months. How could a guy get
caught so often?

When his car had slowed to 10 miles an hour, Jack pulled over, but
only partially. Let the cop worry about the potential traffic
hazard. Maybe some other car will tweak his backside with a mirror.
The cop was stepping out of his car, the big pad in hand.

Bob? Bob from Church? Jack sunk farther into his trench coat. This
was worse than the coming ticket. A cop catching a guy from his own
church. A guy who happened to be a little eager to get home after a
long day at the office. A guy he was about to play golf with
tomorrow.

Jumping out of the car, he approached a man he saw every Sunday, a
man he’d never seen in uniform.

“Hi, Bob. Fancy meeting you like this.”

“Hello, Jack.” No smile.

“Guess you caught me red-handed in a rush to see my wife and kids.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Bob seemed uncertain. Good.
“I’ve seen some long days at the office lately. I’m afraid I bent
the rules a bit -just this once.”

Jack toed at a pebble on the pavement. “Diane said something about
roast beef and potatoes tonight. Know what I mean?” “I know what
you mean. I also know that you have a reputation in our precinct .”
Ouch. This was not going in the right direction. Time to change
tactics.

“What’d you clock me at?”

“Seventy. Would you sit back in your car please?”

“Now wait a minute here, Bob. I checked as soon as saw you. I was
barely nudging 65.” The lie seemed to come easier with every
ticket.

“Please, Jack, in the car.”

Flustered, Jack hunched himself through the still-open door.
Slamming it shut, he stared at the dashboard. He was in no rush to
open the window.

The minutes ticked by. Bob scribbled away on the pad.

Why hadn’t he asked for a driver’s license?

Whatever the reason, it would be a month of Sundays before Jack
ever sat near this cop again. A tap on the door jerked his head to
the left. There was Bob, a folded paper in hand Jack rolled down
the window a mere two inches, just enough room for Bob to pass him
the slip.

“Thanks.” Jack could not quite keep the sneer out of his voice.

Bob returned to his police car without a word. Jack watched his
retreat in the mirror. Jack unfolded the sheet of paper. How much
was this one going to cost?

Wait a minute. What was this? Some kind of joke?

Certainly not a ticket. Jack began to read:

“Dear Jack, Once upon a time I had a daughter. She was six when
killed by a car. You guessed it- a speeding driver. A fine and
three months in jail, and the man was free. Free to hug his
daughters, all three of them. I only had one, and I’m going to have
to wait until Heaven before I can ever hug her again.

A thousand times I’ve tried to forgive that man. A thousand times I
thought I had. Maybe I did, but I need to do it again. Even now.
Pray for me. And be careful, Jack, my son is all I have left.”

“Bob”

Jack turned around in time to see Bob’s car pull away and head down
the road. Jack watched until it disappeared. A full 15 minutes
later, he too, pulled away and drove slowly home, praying for
forgiveness and hugging a surprised wife and kids when he arrived.

Life is precious. Handle with care.

Well Day 2 was much better than Day 1, but of course still no BYU-Idaho!

Math was freaking boring… Going over limits and stuff… I think it would be safe to say that at least I figured it out the first time and we didn’t need to continue going over it for another hour!

Poly Sci looks good. The teacher looks like a good character.

My religion class was interesting to say the least… To start off, I walked into a television studio and at about the time for class to start, the instructor popped up on a TV monitor. The instructor was at the El Toro campus with a class full of kids there broadcasting to us at the main campus. We were still able to interact with him, so it wasn’t just a one way thing, but there was a delay and the connection quality wasn’t that great. They were clearly using their Internet connection to stream the video. The class itself looks good, but is going to be a lot of writing.

So now I’ve just got to figure out if I want to take the religion class or the film class and drop the other one, unless I decide to keep them both…

Can’t think of anything else to report and it’s way past my bedtime, so goodnight to all!

Watching a boring movie, so I figure I better do my writing for the day so that I can get to bed…

Went to the Bob and focused lights for the student directed drama show, then edited some airbands music, got the mail and came home. Got yelled at by Aimee for a while and then tried to get some work done.

Looks like we will be Da-Lite dealers tomorrow, so if you need a video screen… let me know! Still trying to complete this lighting sale with George and get everything else going, but there just doesn’t seem to be enough time in the day. I can’t even keep up with the emails each day… I just keep getting more and more behind! So… if I owe you an email… sorry… I will try to sort through the “business” ones and get to the personal ones one of these days.

I get to go back to school tomorrow… how much fun for me… We’ll get to see how much math I really don’t remember. Then I get to take that Political Science class I was going to take in Idaho, and then this development of christian thought (or whatever the title is) class… We’ll see how the day goes! Probably another waste of a day for me!