californiaaaaaa....here we cooooome.

ok, first off, i would like to clarify that i hate the OC and the title of this blog entry was used not because of that dog turd-of- a- show, but because it was appropriate for the coming week.

now thats out of the way....WOW, it has been a hectic but great week.  this has been the week i have been hearing about since day one.  The week containing to two most dreaded shows production wise on the whole tour...atlanta and nashville.  Atlanta is Third Day's home town and Nashville, well....its nashville.  Both cities just have ridiculous amounts of people who think they expect special treatment, whether that be because they work at a record label or they knew the brother of the bands former drummer...(which doesn't exist).  Needless to say, there was a lot to be done when it came to comp tickets.  

We did the birmingham show which went really smoothly, then it was on to RALEIGH!! i was so excited to be there and to see stocks and walker!!! I was setting up all day thinking about how soon it was until they were there...then they called...they were out on the lawn with a bunch of emily's youth and i got to go up there and hang out with them! it was so refreshing...as much as i love it out here, the one thing i really miss is seeing people i know and love, and these were the first i had seen in a while and it seriously was like a HUGE breath of fresh air...i got to take them both back stage and show them the bus and where i sleep and then walker and i watched my favorite part of switchfoot's set from side stage...i think he loved it.   he kept saying "this is such a blessing..." and i think he was talking about him but it reminded me of how much of a blessing this whole thing is to me....its easy to get into the daily swing of things and forget that just over a month ago i didnt even know this tour was happening, much less think i would be out on it! God is sooooo good!

 i finished a bunch of my work early so i could go out and just enjoy some time with them on the lawn watching the show, and it was great! i felt like a rockstar with all of the kids from emilys youth group being like "man do you travel with them?" but we all know, im not rockstar. :)

that night wrapped up and we said our goodbyes, and it was on to atlanta and nashville.

atlanta wasnt as bad as i thought it would be for me, really the only stress was that one of our sponsors is based out of atlanta so i was getting calls like "hey we need to have prime placement here since its our home town" and thats all well and good, except for the fact that there are 2 other sponsors who get better placement because they contributed more to the tour....but i did my best and everyone was happy...it was a good show because the venue wasnt huge and tickets sold well since its third days home town so it was pretty packed out...

nashville....ohhhh nashville...music city.  well this day started like any other day but was as far away from any other day you could think of by the end.... this was one of 2 venues on this tour that are indoor venues rather than ampitheatres....it was a nice change....everything was closer together and everything was inside....in the air conditioning :)  

all my sponsors were great and it was  relatively easy day for my job, PLUS i got to go off campus for lunch for the first time the whole tour with big mike....he is in charge of third day's fan club stuff....we went and got wings and it was AMAZING!

then the people came...lets see, there are about 1 million record labels, 1 million radio stations, 1 million recording studios, 1 million producers, and 1 million promoters in the nashville area and im pretty sure each and every one of them sent a respresentative to the show and they allllll came back stage...it was a mad house! but the worst thing is, they werent going anywhere, they would just come backstage and stand and talk and want to be seen....crowding our hallways. there was one point where i was trying to get out of the production office to meet our habitat family and i am not exaggerating when i say that i literally could not get out of the door way because there were too many people in the hall. ridiculous.

well this continued the rest of the night i guess until people realized that standing in a hallway for an extended amount of time while the artists are all either on stage or in their dressing rooms can get kinda boring....oh yeah! and there was a camera crew shooting third days performance for their management company so they had a sweet little set up of tables and computers....RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HALLWAYS FROM HADES.

well it started to clear out and the night started wrapping up and my job became easier and the night ended. good show.   

it is now wednesday and i am awaiting my flight to phoenix and then the california run! where i get to see pat and dana! yes!

well i think think this blog is long enough so im gonna go.

now get out there and buy a mike huckabee backpack.