The Last Four Months

I don't have any excuse for four months of blogging negligence. All I can say is you may understand once I'm done with this update (or some may call it an illustrated novel). I will do my best to keep things in chronological order from past to present, but I want to start first with the most recent of events. My nephew was born Friday, September 28th to my brother Nate and sister(in-law) Robin. Nathanial Michael Banks was four months old but never got to live outside of his mother's womb. I called Nate randomly Tuesday the 24th to ask him something and he told me that Robin was going in for more testing as they could not find a strong heartbeat on the ultrasound. I went home and started to pray. I pussyfooted around for a while not sure what exactly to pray for. Then I started to pray for a heartbeat. I prayed that the doctors (as awesome and capable as they are) made a mistake and there had been a strong heartbeat the entire time. I prayed for a while, I don't know how long, face down in my living room. I spent the next few hours in and out of a continuing prayer for my unborn nephew's life. My dad called that evening and it was a short call. Their baby had died. I hung up and cried. Sean, Melissa and Robin (my roommates) eventually got back and I didn't really feel like hanging out. So, being 1,200 miles away from where I wanted to be I went down the street to a bar and took strong advantage of their happy hour. I never asked God why it happened, because I believe He did everything He was supposed to do, and it is unknown factors of the human side of the world that causes these things to happen. I did wonder why He chose not to fix Nathaniel's heart (or abdomen as I now understand), because it wouldn't be any stretch to His capabilities. I write all this because it was my honest reaction to the news, and because I just read Robin's blog for the first time in a little while. If you want to understand full strength and faithfulness in God and His ways, please read Nate 'n' Robbiesue. It's strengthened and affirmed my appreciation for God's gift of family to us. At times I hate being so far away from my family, but I talked to Nate yesterday and felt really close to him. He even gave me brotherly advice :) Nathanial Michael's funeral was Tuesday, Oct. 2nd. I wish I could have been there. Don't really know what else to say at this point, except that I'm proud of them. Nate and Robin really seemed to have been strengthened by it. I love you all, and I love you Nate and Robin.

(So, this wasn't the illustrated novel I promised. Long story short, I moved to Denver. Click here to view the new chapter of my life)

Warning...

My next blog is going to take up the ENTIRE PAGE! You think I'm joking...

May!!!

So, the Reader's Digest version of my May would go a little something like this...
I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain twice, saw Wicked again, met up with former roommate Zac at Downtown Disney two nights in a row, and worked a lot. All I really have are pictures from Six Flags.

[Deja Vu wizzing by]

[Sean won Scher a giant Scooby Doo with only one throw of a bean bag at a pyramid of cylinders]

[I won Nina a tiny Tweety Bird, a monkey and an Uncle Sam light up hat]
[Sean and Scher on Viper]
[Nina drank %2000 of her daily recommended Vitamin A]

[Sean imploding Tweety's face]

[After a long day of rollercoasters]

Yes, I went to see Wicked for a second time. This time I went with Megan and afterwards we met up with Andrew, who used to be the sound engineer at Pepperdine and is now the Assistant Sound Engineer for LA's Wicked. He took us on a tour of the stage pointing out more of the technical aspects of the show than our last tour with a cast member. We talked for a while then continued our conversation at The Frolic Room, a bar next door to the theater. The three of us talked till 1:30, Andrew telling stories of touring the country with the production of Les Mis, and telling us how much goes into sound now a days.
Early last week we met up with Zac at Downtown Disney. The first night we went to ESPN Zone for burgers, wings, dips and beer. The next night his family treated us to an Italian dinner. Zac moved out over a month ago and is living at home in Phoenix for a bit until he moves to Cleveland to attend Case Western grad school for theater.
Last week I worked an event for the Chrysalis Foundation's Butterfly Ball. It was a 600 person served dinner for the company that helps train the homeless to find jobs. The inspiration for the film The Pursuit of Happiness, Chris Gardner was presented an award for Inspiration of the Year by Brett Ratner and Chris Tucker. Tom Cruise was also a presenter. American Idol and Dreamgirls star Jennifer Hudson performed, as did Mary J. Blige. Those in attendance included Charlie Sheen, James Caan, Joaquin Phoenix, and half the casts of Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy.
I'll be going home to Portland June 20th through the 26th for Aaron's wedding!!! So crazy. I'm very excited to come home again and be apart of my best friend since kindergarten's wedding.
So to wrap up, here are some random pictures I forgot I took with my phone...

[Megan and I on the Pantages Theater's stage!]

[I worked an event at the Citigroup Center downtown LA on a roof like area of the building.]

[At the Historic Adamson House in Malibu]

I Need to Update More

So, of course a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. After each day there is always something I could write about, but I'm usually exhausted by the time I can. Once again I will have to rely on pictures to do most of the talking.

THE BEACH!
[Anaka, Nina, Jason and me]

Anaka and Sean were in town from Austin for Pepperdine's graduation. This day we decided to go to the beach, get diner then go to Pepperdine Improv Troupe's (PIT) final show of the year. Then we went to Denny's. Some more pictures from the beach...

[The Santa Monica Pier]
[Nina and Jason getting hit by the first wave]
[Oh crap.]

GRADUATION 2007!
The day of the graduation we head out to Malibu about 9:45am. Ceremonies commenced at 10:30am. Our friend Tim sang the National Anthem. Laura Bush gave the commencement speech.
[Michael, Ryan, John Michael, me and Kristin. My roommates from Freshman year!]

[Brooks (grad), Sean, Zac, Tim (grad)]

After Graduation, Kari (who graduated) invited of few people to have lunch with her family at a Thai restaurant on PCH. Then that night she and Scher threw a graduation party at Adam's

[Kari and Zac. Yeah, that's an earing in his ear.]

[Anaka and Kari posing]
[Lauren, Me, Brian]

I've been working a lot lately. YAY! I'm tired though, I'm going to bed. I'll finish this post later. Take that!

Okay I'm back but just to say we lost our cat of 19 years on Monday. Any memory I have of my life is life that Comet was a part of. It will be weird to go home and not see him and pet him. He was a constant presence in our lives for so long, always there ready to love (or be loved more importantly). He lived a LONG good life, and he will be missed dearly.

Comet: 1988 - 2007

WICKED

(Wednesday, April the 18th went as follows)
[Edena Espinosa as Elphaba (better known as The Wicked Witch of the
West) singing "Defying Gravity". She was incredible!]

The Pantages Theater in Hollywood holds a raffle every night of performances for Wicked. They give away 26 tickets in the front row for $25. Last Wednesday, Ashley, Samantha, Amanda and I went to enter our names in the drawing. We got to the theater an hour early so we and ate at a restaurant called Birds a few minutes away. I'll tell you what happened there in a minute. We ended up losing the raffle, but before they drew the last name they gave another offer. Side orchestra seats for $45 dollars "for that night only" (so they said). We did that. After the raffle we had 2 hours to kill before the show, so we got appetizers at the Hollywood and Vine Restaurant. Then, OFF TO SEE WICKED!!!
The show was AMAZING! Ashley let me borrow her CD a few days prior to get as savvy with the music as I could and it made it all the better. For those who may not be familiar with Wicked, it's basically the true story of The Wicked Witch of the West (Elphaba). It's the story of her birth, life in college, where she roomed with Glenda "The Good Witch", and how she got labeled as being "wicked". The two initially despised each other, but then grew to be good friends with rocky times. The relationship and dynamic between the two characters, directly due to the performers was so clever and fun. The way they played off each other had the audience dying. You could tell they (the actors) were having a blast on stage. I LOVE IT! It's so clever and very very funny, and the music is so perfect and even beautiful at times. "Defying Gravity" is probably the most memorable and famous song from the show, and rightfully so. I love theater. I really do. Please go see as many shows as you can whenever you can!

[Megan Hilty as Glinda singing "Popluar". She was absolutely hilarious!]

The day before the performance, one of the ensemble members (Brooke) came to Ashley's dance class at Pepperdine. Ashley told her that she was going to see the show the next night and Brooke told her to come to the actor's exit after the show and she would take her on a tour. So we did! We went to the back and got a tour of the stage and backstage. She showed us costumes, props and set pieces. It was awesome. And the stage was tiny! It looked huge from the audience. While on the tour I got to tell Carol Kane (who played Madame Morrible) "good show". I also ran into Andrew as he was leaving for the night. He was the sound engineer at Pepperdine when I was there. He left to do the national tour of Les Mis, then got the Assistant Audio Engineer position for Wicked. I talked to him for a couple minutes on the stage. It was incredible to see the detail put into everything. Brooke said all of the ensemble members had costumes worth close to $30,000! Everything was crammed into the side stages; set pieces, props, costumes, waiting rooms, technical gadgets and such. Just incredible.

[Carol Kane playing Madame Morrible, Elphaba's University headmistress]

[Ashley and Amanda in front of The Pantages]

[They didn't like me taking pictures before the show. Oh well...]

Oh yeah, so about our meal at Birds. It was me, Ashley and Amanda sitting in a booth near the front door. We're talking and eating, then Ashley looks up and says "That's Quentin Tarantino." I look at her very seriously and say "Don't tease me about something like that." She says "I'm not." I turn around and Quentin Tarantino is standing there as the waitress grabs a him a menu. He sits at the booth right next to us and as I'm eating I am all but staring at Tarantino right in the face while he reads his magazine. The girls and I are in shock, giving each other quick glances and trying to play it cool. YEAH RIGHT! In my head I'm working up the nerve to tell him what I've been telling everyone else I know, that Grindhouse was the funnest experience I have ever had in a movie theater. We finish eating and the girls get up to go to the bathroom. I get up and take 3 steps to his table where he lifts his head and reaches his arm out to shake my hand almost immediately. I shake his hand and say "hey man, sorry to bug you but I've been telling everyone how seeing Grindhouse was the most fun I've ever had in a theater." He said "Oh thanks, we worked really hard to make that happen." I'm freaking out inside, but say "Yeah, it was kind of long so people would get up to go the bathroom but they would come running back." "Oh thanks man, what a cool thing to pass on. I appreciate it." I shake his hand again and since I'm a dork say "no, thank you man." He goes back to his magazine and I wait for the girls to come back from the bathroom. And that was my second encounter with Quentin Tarantino.
I am such a nerd!!!

It was a crazy full and exciting day.

Disneyland!

Starting the day after I got back from Portland, I worked all but two days for two and a half weeks. After that, I had several days off. Thursday, Melissa (Scher) and I went to Disneyland! Her friends were in town from Sacramento, so we went to meet up with them at the park. Zac was supposed to go, but wasn't feeling too well that morning. We got there a few hours later than her friends, so we started on a different ride schedule.
We met up with them a couple of times, then really ended up going our own ways to rides we hadn't been on yet. But we went on a couple rides as a group, and had dinner that night all together at Downtown Disney. Scher and I had it down at the park, we rode everything we wanted to at least once (except for Splash Mountain which was closed, and Thunder Mountain which broke down when we got in line.) Space Mountain was awesome!
They were playing Higher Ground by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and instead of the coaster taking place in Space, it was set up like a rock concert. We did that one twice. We started the day on it, and ended the day on it.
When we bought our day tickets, they informed us that Southern California residents get 30 days to come back and go to the other park for free! So Scher and I looked at each other and said "What are you doing tomorrow?" We got about 5 hours of sleep, got up and went to California Adventure. We did the same thing with her friends that day too, meeting up a couple times, then towards the end to ride The Hollywood Tower of Terror all together. We did every big ride there that day, most at least twice. Thanks to Fast Pass and Scher's motivation to run, we did The Tower of Terror 3 times, The Maliboomer 3 times, and California Screaming (the roller coaster) 5 times! Of course we knew where the cameras were...

[What's that Scher? Was the roller coaster that good?]

They were playing Around the World by the Chili Peppers on the coaster, it was awesome. We were one of the last groups to ride the coaster that night before closing. It was a great way to end our two days at Disneyland.
Then Saturday happened and it was like we were coming off a two day high. Needless to say, we were a bit depressed. Scher was due at work at 7am, but woke up at 7:15. I just moped around the apartment. Scher had given up alcohol and movies for lent, so that night at Midnight, we went to Adam's place to watch Serenity in HD and have a glass of port.
I slept in Sunday. I almost went to the Bel Air church gathering at the Hollywood Bowl for Easter Service, but I really did not want to be in that size crowd for church. I was just looking forward to service that night at The Rock Church in Manhattan Beach. The service there was great. I love the worship, and the pastor there is really cool. After service we went straight to see Jason in a long form improv show. It was a good long weekend.

March Madness:
A Photographic Update

Well, seeing as it has been over a month since my last update, you can imagine the potential this post holds for being excruciatingly long. So, I'll simply put pictures with captions. If you would like me to delve deeper into any particular matter, which I would love to do seeing as I have done a lot of fun things lately, please leave a comment and I will write you back. Leave your e-mail too, I would love to call, but if you've noticed the time stamps on almost all of my posts, I tend to be free around midnight :) Love you all, enjoy the pictures!

Home to Portland/Clint's Wedding:
March 13th - 18th

[Me and Tash]

[Clint, not me]

[Devon helping Clint's dad with his tie]
[Bride and Groom]

[The getaway car, we hoped]

Glen Campbell concert:
March 10th, 2007
[Me, Glen Campbell and Ashley]

[Father - Daughter shot]

[Glen, Jimmy Webb on piano]

[Me and Ashley backstage]


Random Goodness:
Within the last month or so

[Dinner at the Campbells, and I helped! My first fried okra!]

[For Lauren's birthday, since she is the resident cake baker, everyone who came had to come with a cake and/or cookies. Awesome.]

[Ashley one day when we were bored: "Let's go kayaking!" Her niece and nephew and our friend Ye joined in on the excursion.]

[The night of Glen Campbell's show, and Ashley had a sketch show as well. We all met up at Mel's Diner to end the amazing day.]