Life of Kyle Prohaska

Which way Big Guy? I'm Game!

The past two days were pretty uneventful again, JUST KIDDING!  Nah it was great.  Monday morning I woke up to an email from Affirm Films asking for a few things.  No “hey we would like to distribute your film” but no “take this trash and go away” either ;)  So that’s good news, just gotta be patient and give them what they ask for until they assess things properly and make a decision.  It’s a business just like any other, no reason to get involved with someone bad for business, so they can mull over it all they want!

I’m waiting on a call from The Chapel still in regards to that ministry position.  I’ve given it a lot of thought, talked with a friend or two, and I’m just being patient there as well.  It’s Wednesday when I’m writing this and it’s only one week after initial meetings so that isn’t a lot of time passed.  Just like Affirm, I want everyone to give things serious thought and consideration before making a move.  Just like I don’t want my film to go to someone God doesn’t want, I don’t want to go into ministry if it’s not His Will either.

God is teaching me a lot of things in the past few months.  There have been many lessons to be learned, and changes to be made.  Although I have done my fair share of horrible things this Summer in mind, spirit, etc. just as everyone else has…He has been merciful and shown me the errors I’ve made.  Man I know obediance is a CHOICE and not something you “try,” but it’s hard to do it sometimes.  I’ll be honest here and tell you all something that is no secret amongst a few close friends, and if your a guy you can relate.  This world is mighty tempting, in more ways than one.  The fight is in the mind, and it’s a daily struggle.  Magazines in gas stations, ads on Facebook which are VERY revealing and unncessary, the internet overall, just clicking through TV channels can cause some serious issues.  It isn’t just a guy thing either, but you know exactly what I’m talking about.  I told my buddy that driving through Vegas on the way to Los Angeles was a really difficult time.  I got stuck in traffic and there are pornographic billboards every 50ft on the left and right.  This world is so difficult, and any man who claims to be 100% free of it’s snairs is a liar.  Purity of mind is where I struggle the most, and I would appreciate some prayer in that area of my life.  It’s a problem that trickles down into your life, your friends, and if it escallates into truly dangerous territory, it can destroy marriages, relationships with future children, and all things inbetween.  I think temptating for me hits hard when it’s time to start making decisions.  The enemy doesn’t want me to have clarity in my decision making, so it’s times like now that I really need prayer from anyone who reads this, that I would stay strong.

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2)

That being said, the past two days have been pretty fun.  I’ve met a load of new people, had a lot of fun, crashed at a friends place (which I haven’t done in years actually), and just enjoyed some great fellowship.  That is one benefit of this ministry position is the social health it’ll bring me.  I really need some daily fellowship, and with this I’ll get it at work and out of work because I’m closer to folks I want to get to know a lot better.  I’m not interested in weekend buddies, I want to grow some seriously deep and meaningful friendships with people I care about.  I’m looking forward to seeing if this ministry job is God’s Will or if He wants me to wait, stay in Ransomville, and stay at Niagara Frontier Bible Church.

Another cool development is I sold a few pieces of film equipment for some good prices and just last night spent a chunk of it on some computer pieces I need.  I have 8GB of RAM coming in the mail as well as a new GPU (ATI 4870) for my Mac.  That combined with the Intensity Card I just bought, will have me all set to do what I need on the film smoothly.  The graphics card I have now is doing OK with these dual screens but a new GPU will give me a serious boost, as well as FCP performance, and the RAM will help me a lot with multitasking which has been an interesting task combined with the RAM I have now, and the fact the graphics card is trying to handle what’s open, and the displays at the same time.  Until you break down what your throwing at your machine, having 13GB RAM in your computer doesn’t make much sense…

So yea, other than that the Standing Firm edit is coming along well.  Just plugging along… I’m excited to see what the rest of this year brings, and the year to come!

Saturday: This past weekend was a great time.  I met a lot of new people, started developing some new relationships, heard some awesome preaching, had God rock my world with His truth, the list goes on.  Yesterday (Sat.) was great because I didn’t really do anything all day.  It was just working on stuff at home until later in the evening.  I heard Eric Barton had something going on at his house so I drove an hour out to West Seneca to check it out.  It was just a get together.  Fun times overall.  We played volleyball, ate food (yes…), played some games, even gathered in the basement later on in the night to take communion and sing a few songs.  It was great, I really feel comfortable and at home with everyone.  We ended the night on playing Loaded Questions which turned into a laugh factory.  My cheeks hurt by the end of the night.  I got home pretty late again which I knew was going to make sunday morning a challenge but o well.

Sunday: When I woke up I almost thought of just skipping today, lol.  I never do that but I was just so amazingly tired from a weekend of craziness.  Two extremely late nights in a row with little sleep will mess you up.  I got up as late as possible and headed to church with a Slimfast in my belly (love those things).  Pastor brought it home today, talking about compromise.  Afterwards I didn’t get to talk to many people and everyone cleared out quickly so I was kinda bummed.  Some folks I only see once a week and I missed them :/  After church I headed over to The Brickyard to take my mom to lunch.  We just talked a little bit and had some great food.  Not heavy conversation just relaxing.  We don’t do that too much so it was a nice change.  Afterwards I just went home to relax for the rest of the day.  One thing I did do today was make my first hardware purchase in a while.

There are a few things I do need to buy to finish this movie properly, even though money is extremely tight.  I picked up a Black Magic Intensity Pro which is an input/output card for the computer.  This will allow me to playback my edits from Final Cut Pro to my 50in Plasma AND my 15in CRT that I used to use for color-correction.  That’ll make viewing anything I work on from this point on much easier to preview.  The greatest need was outputting to a monitor I could trust for color.  You can’t color correct on LCD’s and trust them, not even close.  Color isn’t even my biggest concern as most of the film is well balanced and we dialed in the white balance manually to our tastes.  The greatest issue is our black and white levels.  I need to make sure the film is a good mix of contrast and brightness.  That’s hard to do on an LCD especially and every TV looks a bit different so finding a good balance of these values is important.  I look forward to adding this piece to my machine and seeing how everything works out!  The next step is more RAM and a new Graphics card for this computer.  My GPU (Graphics card) seems to be pushing it pretty hard to keep these two 24in screens up and running.  It’s a lot of work for a card, and doesn’t leave a whole lot for processing power in applications.

A good weekend by far, time for a good week  I hope to get a call from The Chapel today about a possible position of some kind.  I’ll be honest I’m hesitant to work in ministry again.  I don’t mean ministry as a whole, but paid ministry.  Somehow getting a pay check for your duties changes things.  It’s a struggle for me, and I just know what working in that kind of environment can be like sometimes.  Being a tech guy, you tend to get pretty closed off in your little cave too which is where I’ve tried to work my way out of for a while now…including my own bedroom.  But I do recognize the fact that I need a certain amount just to pay my bills, I don’t expect to see a dime from Standing Firm for at least a year (and that’s if I sold it TODAY), and unless I get at least two web jobs a month (each paying $1000+), then I’m going to be going backwards…and that’s not a direction I like to be going.  I need something steady that can give me a paycheck, and I don’t have a lot of options.  Something like The Chapel is my only one besides working for myself when it comes to staying in the Media/Art realm.  I would rather stay there than put in an application at a Starbucks, ya know?

We’ll see what God tells me to do.  By no means will I pounce on the first thing that comes my way.  This year above all has taught me to be patient and wait for His answer.

Today was great.  I spent time working on the Parable website after I got up and spent  the majority of the day on and off editing that as I was given notes.  The site is nearly done, and ready for launch.  I’m looking forward to putting this one on my resume.  Around lunchtime I headed to Lewiston because I wanted a subway sub.  The day before I had a Slimfast for two of my meals during the day, and I wanted some real food.  So I get my car washed first and in front of me is the field in Lewiston where the Peach Festival is already setup and ready for use this weekend.  When I pulled out of the car wash I saw some of the guys that travel with it standing outside.  One was a mexican guy on the phone who pulled his shirt up and was rubbing his belly in front of everyone, yuck lol.  I grabbed my sub at subway and headed home.

When I got in the door the house smelled good.  Mom was cooking bacon (which I haven’t had in ages!) and I took a deep breath.  Bacon smells awesome when it’s cooking, I think any man could agree.  She made a huge BLT and there I sat eating my subway sub, lol.  It was good though and for the first time in a while I finished the whole thing.  Afterwards I continued to work on that Parable site until around 6:30 when I headed over to CORE at the church.  What a great time that was.  Lots of people I never would’ve expected to show were there.  It’s funny because last year, it was almost always the same group, and now we’re getting people all the way from Vintage which is a shock to me but a welcomed one.  Derek spoke tonight and did a fantastic job.  He was a little nervous on Tuesday not knowing what he should preach on and waiting for God to give him something, and he did give him something good eventually.  Derek is a good speaker, and I think that’s because he has a lot of passion for what he says.  Not that some others don’t but he communicates that passion well and presents his message in a way that gets your attention.

Afterwards I hung around for a bit and talked to people, all the while resisting the ice cream they had sitting there for a snack with M&M’s and chocolate on it…ugh.  I headed over to Jenny’s party with Jason and got hungry on the way but resisted.  I had this idea in my head I would be getting fast food at 1am…and was fine with that.  The party was great  It was Jenny’s “coming home” party I guess, to welcome her back to NY.  She’s from Germany and went home for a visit so we’re glad to have her back.  Everyone was singing karaoke, and we played this game where you were given a thing, place, statement, etc. and would have to describe it but couldn’t say the actual words and people had to guess what it was before the buzzer went off.  We played that for hours, like 2 and a half I think.  I got some of the worst words possible.  At one point I got “Frick & Frack,” “Xandu,” and “Dagwood Bumstead.”  What the heck is that!  LOL.  Either way good times and me and Jason split at like 12:30 or so.

On the way home I stopped at Burger King for a whopper (mmmm) and Jason went to Taco Bell for some chicken taco he was raving about.  Fast food at 1am…what’s sweeter?  I hadn’t eaten a ton during the day so it was OK  I’m still 200lbs, no big deal ha ha.  Overall the day was great, and tomorrow will be another day of fun and work.  I’ve had a lot of days like that lately and I think it’s starting to grow on me.

When I woke up this morning, I was dead tired.  I had gotten 6 hours of sleep, and the previous days had me getting about that if just a little bit more.  Tonight will be the night to sleep for a LONG TIME.  Joan Golda came over to get some help on a website.  She’s always so fun to talk with and just help her with stuff.  She said I helped her a lot so I’m glad, and my reward…two cases of Slimfast.  I had already had a box in the fridge and she randomly showed up with two more boxes, ha ha.  Looks like I won’t be touching cereal for a long time.

After she was gone it was about 2pm or something…idk.  I just talked with folks, had a long conversation with my mom (hadn’t had one in a while), and worked on getting the film ready to render before burning it to a DVD tomorrow morning.  I feel pretty good about the trailer.  I did get some negative feedback just before I left for Vintage but out of the 12-15 people that have seen it, only 2 have given some overhaul type comments so I think I’m good.  In the past everyone had a quibble or the same things to say, so I think I’ve found something in the middle ground.  I’m pretty happy with it, and most others seem to like it just fine.  We’ll see in a day or so.  I’m hesitant to post it officially because I like to sit on things and give it more thought.  I prefer to be completely sure before putting something out there that represents my product, it’s just good to do that.

Around 6pm I headed to Wilson for a small group with some friends which was nice.  It wasn’t like the official one but a kickoff where we just learned what was going to be studied and shared things with each other the rest of the time.  I learned a lot about the folks I’ve been hanging around for months so that was a plus.  I’ve met a lot of new people lately, and I’m glad.  There are plenty of healthy relationships that can be built around here, I just need to dig a little deeper.

Vintage was solid, and I made an effort to go talk to way more people when it let out.  Even folks I sorta knew I walked up and said hello to.  I signed up for an E-Group which is a small group that meets just before Vintage so that’ll probably X out the other one I went to today in the future.  That’s ok though, I’ll live.  You can only do so much  I’m bummed though that I have to miss the E-Group retreat which is on the same weekend as a friends wedding.  What a great way to meet new folks and spend time with others I don’t know as well…but I’ll have to miss it.

Applebees after Vintage was great.  Sat with some new folks this time and floated around to other tables before leaving.  I make sure I make the rounds before I go just to say hi to everyone and catch up.  There are some great friends that I hope to know better in the next year.  If I’m in NY to stay then they’ll be some changes.  Time to get more aggressive and build some lasting friendships…

Overall a pretty great day of social activity  Tomorrow I mail of Standing Firm to Affirm Films and see what they say.  I’ve been waiting over 2 years for this moment and it’s finally here.  The film isn’t even done, but this is a big step.  The post office lady will have to rip it out of my hands, but I’ll live.

G’night folks.

Today was a fantastic day, a day of friends.  Church was in the morning obviously, but that was only a fraction of my day.  Robby preached this sunday and I’m glad I was here to see it as last time I missed him.  Before he preached though we showed the Theatrical Trailer for Standing Firm.  It was a bit nerve wracking for me (as always) to see my work up on a screen.  The church projector is horrible too, so that always annoys me.  Only in the dark with the settings proper does it look ok.  People clapped when Cooper’s face showed up on screen, which was awesome.  As soon as the title showed at the end everyone cheered and clapped, which felt pretty good.  Rob immediately after started preaching and was effected quite a bit by the video (which he didn’t know was going to play).  I’m glad we have a trailer now that works well.  I’m so picky about them and I love them just as an art-form, so creating one I was happy with and others were as well took months of trying, stepping away for a while, and coming back.

After church I headed to Tim Hortons with Scott and Gary, which was a rare treat.  We don’t do much together, and it was a good time of just chatting and fun.  Me and Scott had a Facebook status battle via our phones insulting each other where all the world could see, lol.  It was hilarious to say the least.

When I got home I debated whether or not to head to a birthday party for a little while and just caved and went.  I’m not a big fan of living an hour or more away from other friends I have.  It prevents me from doing a lot more things with people.  Even folks that are more local I see a time or two a week which is fine but I’m pretty much stuck down here in the sticks.

When I was at Josh’s Birthday party I met some new folks and spent time with new ones.  Before lots of people showed up a few of us went down in the basement and prayed for VOC which was going on at the moment over at the University of Buffalo.  I showed my trailer to the folks I was praying with and that turned into more than an hour of questions and software/hardware related talk lol.  Even out of that came a job possibility I had thought about a while ago but because I was moving, forgot about.  They encouraged me to put in a resume at The Chapel at Crosspoint and just see what happens.  I gave Becky Enser my DVD that had the trailer on it to take to work with her and sent me resume a few minutes before I wrote this entry.  I guess I’ll just wait and see.  It couldn’t hurt to give it a shot right?  I promised myself I would never work in ministry again, as it can be brutal at times…but if that’s what God wants, then hey!  It can’t hurt to send the resume in and see how things go right?  Plus I don’t see myself shooting another film until Spring 2011 anyways, so I either need a butt-load of web/graphics work to keep myself afloat, a film or two to work on (someone else’s crew), or a steady job of some kind.  What better than one that I can continue to build a resume and be around great people at the same time?  Did I mention this is a church I wanted all along to premiere Standing Firm at?  Interesting…

Overall the birthday party was fantastic.  I met a lot of great people, had a lot of fun, and look forward to seeing everyone again soon.

Nick gettin his groove on

Today was a random day of fun again.  Most of the day was just work and odd things done at home.  I did work on the trailer quite a bit during the day trying to finalize things as best I could.  I got a call from a friend to go out and do something so I figured I would get out of the house again.  We went to go play some Putt Putt and ate some food.  I’m normally pretty good at that but came in third.  We played at Skateland which is an old roller skating place in Lockport.  I’ve been there so many times for years on end.  It looks exactly the same, not a thing changed.  During putt putt I snapped a pic of Nick dancing to the Jamaican music they were playing, haha.  Afterwards we headed to Pizza Hut which was fattening but sooooo good.  Their pizza is OK, and it’s horrible for you.  Has a different feel to it than other pizza.  It’s not like really good NY pizza, and it’s not that crappy cardboard pizza kind like Papa J’s or Dominos feels like…it’s in-between.  When I got home it was hard work on the trailer until 3am or so.  I had to get up at 9 because Joan Golda was coming over to get some help with a website.  I changed the beginning of the trailer, worked with the audio a bit more, and legitimized the trailer a tad more.  The ending graphic added some legitimacy I think.  Some of those little subconscious things that help something register as pro or like a “real movie,” are typically overlooked.  That’s a shame given the fact you can open up any recent trailer and see what things look like, lol.

It was a long night but I got some good stuff done…and I didn’t get much sleep either.  Six hours isn’t enough.

Yea you heard me…chillaxin.  That’s sorta been the mentality lately.  Just hanging with the family, watching a movie or two, and doing some work on the side.  I finally got my TV out of the box and set up in my room again for the first time since May.  It pained me having a new 50in Plasma sitting in it’s box in the spare room when I moved, I think I teared a little.  I didn’t do an entry yesterday because there wasn’t much to tell but one thing we did do was watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when it played on TV.  Seeing that movie in HD was nice  I also forget what a great story that is.  The ending really is a great twist and a touching moment.  Good old message but as strong as ever.  Character, integrity, and kindness triumphs over the greed, disrespect, and evil of the rest of the world…good stuff.

One thing I’m excited about is I finally have a trailer for Standing Firm.  Only one person had the suggestion I take the trailer a total different direction but that’s ok.  I think I finally found something that I’m happy with and that others like.  I tweaked it a little, evened out the dialog, mixed the music a tad, and color corrected some of it.  It’s not 100% final or anything, but I’m hoping to show it on sunday morning before Rob preaches tomorrow.  That’ll be cool for everyone to finally see something… The rest of the day was just tweaks and small changes to the Parable Cinema site, Standing Firm edit, Kevin came over and we chatted about some business things, etc.  I was looking forward to later because we had CORE which is the name of the college aged group at my church.  This year we’re at our church and not at peoples homes, and it’s every friday instead of every other.  We had a good group for kickoff night, and a lot of faces there I didn’t expect to show.  It was good times, and I met some new folks which is always cool.  We all went to Applebees after and shared some laughs.  Overall just a great day, and the weather has been beautifu

Another thing I didn’t mention is during the lesson God really confirmed for me that the next idea I had for a story is what he wants.  The message that night had everything to do with what kind of story I wanted to tell, and the song he played that went with the lesson was perfect.  It carried the uplifting emotional tone I want.  As everyone made their comments to the questions he was asking them, I jotted down notes and sat the rest of the time all ancy with my knee going up and down.  I had a big fat smile on my face just realizing how awesome of a story I had in mind.  Here’s a taste I suppose.  If you had one last thing you could tell someone, what would it be?  What changes when it’s a Christian vs. Non-Christian?  Things like that.  I don’t want to give away the story idea until I flesh it out and get a good solid idea in my head.  Either way it will involve the issue of death somewhat like Standing Firm did (more exclusively for Standing Firm in terms of the theme/message), but in a different way.  There’s also the issue of friendship and manhood, something I really want to do a story about.  Ok I’ve said enough…lol. Either way I just love the calling God has given me.  Nothing gets me more excited than to just think about telling a story that can change folks and do some good.  It also allows me to flesh out things that I’ve thought about for years or things I missed out on.  Sorta living it and expressing it through the film for personal reasons on top of the others  What a treat…

Vintage Live & Outside (VintageTruth.com)

Well, I’m home. I didn’t post in the last day or so because besides “and I drove 900 miles,” there wasn’t much to be said. I could’ve written about the creepy gas station guy, but that’s not enough for an entry (although knowing me, it could’ve been). Either way today was a great day. I woke up pretty late as I didn’t fall asleep until about 5:30-6am after unpacking my car. That was murder by the way. I grunted and groaned the whole time lugging all the crap up the stairs. Some of that stuff is really heavy, like my Mac. Thank goodness I save the boxes of everything, because packing all the stuff without it would be scary.

There wasn’t anything to eat in the house and honestly, I didn’t care one bit. I wasn’t hungry at all, probably the side effect of not eating much in the past 24 hours. I’m 200lbs people, I won’t waste away. The house is in decent order but my bedroom and the spare room are a bit of a disaster. Perhaps I should call FEMA? I need to get all my stuff out of the boxes and figure out where to put it all. I got a call from Brandon Rice @ Coram Deo Studios (No Greater Love) to talk about that website job I mentioned. I called him back after getting my computer setup and my desk situated. That’s always the first thing out of the box and in order, my computer. It’s not even because I love it so much, but it’s one of the most annoying things to unpack. All the cables and hook ups and getting the plastic off the monitors and those hooked up (DVI connectors are a pain to screw in with small stubby fingers like mine), etc. I think the site will come out great, and I’ll fill you in on more when I actually get the first piece online. It’ll just be a splash page, but at least you’ll have something

The rest of the day was just getting situated. I headed to Lewiston to get some groceries for the next day or so. I gotta say, it just doesn’t feel like home until it’s 75 and sunny, and I pull into Lewiston with oldies blasting in my car. I’m not going to have a lot of days to do that, it’s getting cold here already. I grabbed some “essentials” like mt. dew, slim fast (breakfast), muffins (breakfast), cream soda (of course!), hot dogs, hot dog buns (wheat…mmm), milk, honey nut cherrios, and I think that’s it. I don’t live on much, ha ha.

Vintage Live & Outside was later so I got ready and headed to Getzville for that. It’s always a good time! There’s so many folks there I love to see each week. I gotta say if there was anything about staying in NY that wouldn’t be so bad, it’s all the friends and stuff I have here. The rest of the night was great although I did catch myself in a large amount of odd conversations. I hate it when that happens, you feel like such a retard. Anyways, tons of folks went to Applebees afterwards (as usual) and hung out. I was there late this time, past 12 easy. Just sitting, laughing, and enjoying others company. That’s what makes Tuesdays so great for me. I love Vintage not just to worship and hear God’s Word, but I get to see so many folks I don’t normally see during my week. Living in the sticks 45mins+ away from everyone else makes it tough.

So yea, it’s good to be home. Time to get settled for good this time. I’m finally going to get that 50in Plasma of mine out of it’s box again and get it setup. I’m not going anywhere. If I got a call tomorrow for a job in LA I wouldn’t take it. I’m here for good I think. I’m going to refine the Standing Firm edit a bit more in the next week and get a cut off to friends for feedback, then it’s going to Affirm Films. Enough waiting…and we’ll see what they say. I got a call from their VP about 5 mins before I headed back to NY from Memphis and told him it was going to be on it’s way. I hope they say “we want it.” and help us get this thing out there for people. Speaking of which, I had a great time my last night in TN when I sat down with Joyce and George Bradshaw (who I was staying with), and showed them pieces of the film and some of our interviews. I think they really enjoyed what they saw and were excited to see it. I look forward to sending them a copy

Well…time to get to work, finish getting unpacked, and wait for my parents to get back from Georgia in the next day or so. I can’t wait to see them again!

So…today not much happened.  I didn’t go scouting, I didn’t have any meetings…etc.  Today was more of a stay at home and work day.  I did some website duties, made a few phone calls, and start going through the script making notes.  That’s all I did most of the day until about 6:30 where I was supposed to meet with David but that fell through so I headed over to the college group at Calvary.  I was sorta glad I got to do that as I have a habit of neglecting my social health when I have a project going on…

It was a fun time, I think I’ll make some good friends here before I leave (if I leave, lol).  It was more conversation and joking around, talking about the Word and all that jazz  Some folks were heading to Kirks grandmas house to swim, so I tagged along.  I didn’t swim though, I couldn’t take my shirt off, haha.  I’m still a bit too chunky…

It was fun times though just laughing and talking.  We did find out that Rob Erickson looks like spock…which was hilarious.  I’ll post a pic next post or whatever maybe.

Just a relaxing day overall.

I went to Niagara Frontier Bible Church back home since birth, so I’m pretty used to the way things go over there.  Moving to LA back in May was odd because I knew I would be going to a new church, new congregation, new teaching, new everything.  I didn’t end up staying there and had moved back home as most of you know, but now I’m in Memphis for The Grace Card and have yet again another church to call home.  It was just as weird as my first day at Reality LA (church in Hollywood).  I stood around without much to do since I didn’t know anybody.  I said hi to a few folks I had met but for the most part it was awkward.  An usher came up to me and we chatted for a while which was nice.

There were a lot of folks looking at me I think, lol.  No matter, I eventually went to go sit with Joyce (Bradshaw) where she normally sits, the front row…ugh.  Of course I was on the end so your just wide open on the right for people to see you.  I’m still dealing with a lot of paranoia stuff from childhood and it sucks sometimes because I can’t always enjoy myself.  The worship was fun and the message was solid.  I think I’ll like going here until the filming is over.  Afterwards I saw David walking around and talked with him for a moment.  There was a college aged group they have that meets on Sundays so I headed home to just hang out until then.  I was one of the first folks there when I arrived and just played ping pong by myself until folks showed up, lol.  In case your wondering how that’s possible you push the table against a wall

Rob Erickson showed up and we played each other until things started.  He’ll be playing Blake in The Grace Card so it’s nice to start building a friendship there as we’ll be working together a lot in the coming months.  The time with the group was nice as well, just light conversation and laughs as we spoke about the message from the morning.  Afterwards folks were going to play Ultimate Frisbee outside and I didn’t have shoes or anything so I ran to go get them back home.  We didn’t play long but that didn’t mean I wasn’t sweaty.  Running back and forth down a field for 20 minutes will get me going, lol.  Folks were heading to Rob’s house because I guess they all had some trip to go on tomorrow.  Little did I know what everyone was in for.  There was a concrete fireplace that they were going to use all the guys to get off the trailer and setup in the backyard.  Before all that though we were all in Robs kitchen and most folks weren’t there yet so we were just talking.  They asked me questions about what I was doing in Memphis, where I might be going, how I got started in stuff, I showed them pieces of Standing Firm (which they really liked), and talked about the last 2 years or so of my life.  Robs mom was a little upset hearing about the deaths that happened so recently but she was ok

When everyone showed up they started working on this fireplace.  These concrete slabs were hundreds of pounds, with the large enclosure piece of it easily 1000+.  It was hilarious as we slowly figured out how to move this thing and get it where it needed to be.  This was a memory building experience for sure, something I’ll remember for a while, ha ha.

I headed out soon after (it took well over an hour to get that thing put together…and it was only two pieces) and took a shower.  I had powder and crap all over me from the concrete.  I think it’s safe to say I made a lot of friends tonight, which is a good sign.

I wonder where God will want me at the end of the year.  I want to find somewhere I can settle and call home.  Somewhere I can get work and if need be travel from project to project but I still want a home somewhere.  My parents sounded pretty sure that in the next few years or so they’ll probably end up down in GA to live.  They’ll keep the house in NY but my mom will probably head down to Georgia for good sometime in the future.  Nashville wouldn’t be such a crappy place to stay I think.  Odds are most of the work I get will be internet based, or project to project, but it’ll be nice to have a place to come home to that I can call my own.

I was trying to figure out with Kevin (co-owner Praise Pictures Inc., and Co writer/producer of Standing Firm) what we might do for the business.  I have other revenue streams I want to start throwing into a company name but Praise Pictures is in NY and all sorta of other annoying things.  I’ll have to figure all this out soon so I can get start being smarter about where my money goes and why.  It’s tough because I don’t want to leave NY, I love the people there.  There just aren’t any jobs up there…not for someone like me.  Even if I travel for some jobs, I’ll be so much farther away up there.  I have a better shot at getting jobs more local in Nashville than I do back home.  Thousands of people leave the Buffalo area per year, and that makes a lot of sense.  I’ll miss everyone a lot  I don’t know, just trying to figure out where God wants me to go more permanently.  I don’t want to be packing my car every few months for very much longer, it’s a really crappy way to live.  Your never somewhere long enough to invest in people very much.  I’ll certainly never get to date anybody if I plan on leaving a month after I arrive somewhere, right?  We’ll see what happens in the next few months, I’ll get an answer sometime.