Well, so I only updated twice. But I did actually get all the pictures that I took up… and they all have captions too! Click on the Gallery link over on the menu… or you could be lazy and click here: http://www.digimuzik.com/gallery/issLA

This morning, our choir had to hit two sound-checks in about 90-ish minutes. Unfortunately, the subway ticketing system didn’t work so hot for us. Once we did get to a couple of places, though, they were really nice and sounded excellent. A coulple of fast-food stops later, Nick and I ventured onto an LA bus to experience mass transit on the road, rather than the rails. Now we’re back in our hotel with nothing planned except an hour of rest until 8:00 tonight.

Continue reading My first Los Angeles bus ride →

Well, we made it here just fine… Uneventful trip up to the airport…. Security was a cinch there, so no biggie. We made it in plenty of time, so we had a 2.5 hour wait at the airport. Kinda wish I hadn’t eaten a couple sandwiches on the bus, because that pizza looked gooood. The plane ride was just as uneventful. Most of the choir was seated together and we actually had room to stretch legs. I slept for an hourish on the plane, so that helped a bit when we arrived in LA at around 1am central time. Baggage was returned very quickly and our bus was waiting outside. I secured the jump-seat in the front stairwell for myself and viewed the city on the way to our hotel from the driver’s perspective. I actually got to help him with the MapQuest directions… but we did make it here (to the hotel) on our first shot.

Yes, the hotel is tiny, and the rooms are pretty small themselves. The beds are nice, soft and queen-sized. Comfy, but they take up the whole room. About two feet between the side of my bed and the windows, and 4 feet from the foot of the beds to the wall make for not much room to stow our luggage.

There’s also “technically” a wireless access point around here somewhere. Of course I can’t reach it from my bed, but I can from the desk two feet away. Hopefully we can get the real, wired Internet running in here in the next day or so.

Well, my plan was to ride the subways with Dr. Rodde at 9:30…. but it’s almost 8 and I’m wide awake. Guess I’ll go find something to occupy my time with.

… with non-stop snacking. Yesterday 4pm – 4am was my roommate’s long-awaited Lord of the Rings extended edition marathon. And I made it through the whole thing. Well, I think I may have snoozed for 10 or 15 minutes at the beginning of Return of the King, but I didn’t miss much.

Ugh. We had SO much food on the counter and in the fridge though (6 others came and lasted through all three movies). Though I did mostly have animal crackers and water… so there’s a small plus in favor of my health. It was probably all the bread I ate, though, that did me in. I’m not really sick or anything, but I plan to take it easy for the rest of the day. And thanks to ISU’s “highly-connected-campus,” we lost a section of the Internet again. Tom says the only thing left to do is sleep. But maybe I can get some things done around my room. Or at least finish the Left Behind series (had to wait a week on book 11).

Today I got to play with a bunch of techie stuff at Cornerstone church. It was awesome! Well… pretty cool at least. I spent the morning recording a bunch of old messages and equipping hours to my hard drive. I thought that’d take awhile, like it did on Sunday, but it was going really fast. Plus I was using two comptuers, so I was bouncing around those for most of the morning.

I also got to take apart the DVD duplicator to figure out why one drive wasn’t working for someone. I didn’t really do much except for unplug it and plug it back in. I burned 5 Cds and it seemed to work fine for me. Maybe that’s all it needed.
Continue reading Day at Cornerstone →

This weekend with Amanda went great! Though we spent over 10 hours watching movies/TV, we did manage to get out for a bit without spending too much money.

Friday night we stayed in and watched Ocean’s 11 with Tom and Jody. Late-night movies make for a tired Benji, so I zonked out on the couch immediately afterwards. My first task Saturday morning was to finally get my car fixed (at the suggestion/prodding of my parents). Amanda and I wandered around Hastings and Borders looking at DVD sets of old TV Shows. Next up on my list: the first season of Mork and Mindy… only $32 at BB! Continue reading I hope you aren’t really what you watch… →

Neither is firefox when it crashes as I’m trying to make an update 🙁 . Let’s see if I can remember everything….

I headed to Darlington this weekend for the first time in ages. Amanda and I had a great time watching movies on an 80″ screen (aka: the wall), cruising around the tri-state area, and dining out at Reds, one of our favorite places near her because they give you big plates of fresh veggies, crackers, dip, and bread before they even take your order. Unfortunately, something (maybe the big chunks of garlic scattered all over her chicken and steamed veggies?) didn’t agree with Amanda, and she spent most of Sunday feeling pretty miserable.

I had fun taking care of her, pampering her and reassuring her that she’d survive. She thought I was crazy, but it was kinda nice to be able to make her comfortable and do what I could to help. By the time I left, she was feeling better and even, as I heard later, kept a bowl of soup down. Now it was my turn.

I finished all my homework this weekend, so I had nothing left to do besides fall into bed, exhausted after my long 3.5-hours-in-a-straight-line drive. Soon, though, I felt myself being uncomfortably hot, then uncomfortably freezing. Surprise, I had a 101-degree fever! Eventually, I finally got to sleep, fully expecting to wake up at 5:45am (75 minutes before my report time) and call in sick to work. I woke up at 6:40, thanks to my non-funcitonal Nokia alarm, 40 minutes too late to call in without being late. Thankfully, my fever was gone. Though I felt terrible, I managed to surive the shift. Classes were a different thing… didn’t happen. I plan to try and get a couple hours of sleep now before my afternoon shift, so I don’t miss that either.

Church, Eat-‘n-Puke, Bookstore, Driving, Popcorn, Driving, Rental Car Issues, More Driving, Unpack… not.