So I'd say Happy Memorial Day, but that's a bit of an oxi-moron don't ya think? So it's Memorial Day and I have had a hectic week! I mean it's been over a week since I've posted!!!!
I don't even know where to begin!? My week was so hectic. I guess it started on Wednesday.
Wednesday: My dad went down the doctor because he wasn't feeling good and had some chest pains. I guess they were pretty concerned and got him in right away for testing. He had a minor heart attack the day before and was experiencing the affects from it. This whole day I wish I could have wiped off my memory. I had already had a rough lunch and then to come back to hear my dad had a heart attack pushed me over the edge and I had a hard time not crying. The girls in the office all prayed for me. After work I went to visit with my dad at Kaiser and he seemed fine. He even teased that he'd pay $50 for the first person to bring him a double double from In & Out. He said he'd tack on an extra $30.00 for a chocolate shake. Yeah right dad, ;) the jokester! But at that point I wasn't as afraid for him. I knew he was well enough to joke. They wanted to keep him overnight and do a stress test the next morning.
Since I was already down there I went to Sam's. I had borrowed 'Finding Nemo' since Sam's ex had taken it along with her belongings from his house (apparently she thought it was hers). So Sam and I watched that and I got home later than I would have liked.
Thursday: Since my manager knew it was an emotional day for me said I could come into work late. I decided that it would be a good time to go get my oil changed in my car since I would be driving down to Del Mar the next day. I didn't get to work till about 10. I didn't mind since we had a staff meeting down in LA that would run late and would make up for the lost hours. I found out my dad was able to go home from the hospital because all the tests came back negative! The power of prayer! Thursday was (if I remember correctly) a pretty mellow day, hectic because of rushing to get everything done by 2:30 so we could head out to LA, but pretty good. I rode with Sam and Jason and it took us a half an hour to find parking in downtown LA near One Wilshire. I took pictures so I'll post them as soon as I can. It was interesting being down at our new location down there. It'll be nice to see it again when it's completely set up. I know Carlos (the support manager) wasn't too thrilled with the setup. They had transferred the queue down to that location with nothing set up for the techs. It was a big mess for them since they had to take calls while we were having a meeting. I felt bad for them. :(
After the meeting I decided to hang out with Sam since I would be leaving for the weekend. Again it was a late night.
Friday: I woke up 2 hours late. I wanted to be up by 5am but didn't get out of bed till 7 which put my whole schedule back two hours. I left my house at 11 stopped by work at 12 and then got to Oceanside at around 2pm and dropped my stuff off at Holly's place.
I got to Del Mar around 3pm and checked in, got my staff shirt and had enough time to check out the booths that I'd be working around to get an idea of where everything was at. I ran into my friend Scott who owns
Souldog clothing Co. It was really cool to see him again. There were A LOT of people there! I started my volunteering schedule at
Bob Smiley's table. He is a Christian Comedian. I had never seen him but he seemed like a really cool guy. He seriously has that accent if you go to his page you'll hear it. I worked from 4pm - 9pm and I missed
Anberlin and
Jars of Clay! :( So I stayed for the late night shows.
Warren Barfield performed who was impressive; just him and a guitar and a lot of personality. It made for a good starter show for me. I decided to stay and see the
Bob Smiley show. He was really actually funny. His website doesn't really do him justice. After that I went home. It was about midnight and I got back to Oceanside and in bed at about 1am.
Saturday: I had to be back for my shift at 9am. I woke up at 7am and rushed out the door. I got there in just enough time. I was put on
Jadyn Maria's booth. It was pretty dead because barely anyone had arrived. The concerts didn't start until later in the day. So I was pretty bored. I got done with my shift at 1pm and went to check out
Warren Barfield again with
Todd Agnew who was really good and did mostly worship songs! I ended up trying to find a place to sit in the stands but everyone had them saved for their friends. I met Gena Surowski which ended up being my adopted mother for the rest of the festival! She had a grandson with Cerebral Palsy like my nephew Derek and so we hit it off right away and she let me sit where her husband would in the disabled area since he wasn't able to get off of work. They own a store
Pete's Music. I had a permanently good spot for every show that followed at the Grandstand Stage which of course was where all the main people played! I have a picture and I'll post it as soon as I can. So I got to see
Jeremy Camp who was really good! He had his wife come on stage and sing with him which I thought was cute. I saw
Jaci Velasquez who I had heard on
Air 1 and have liked her music but I was very unimpressed with her performance. Maybe it was just an off day.
We had a bit of a break and then came
tobyMac who happened to be my favorite entertainer of the entire festival. I mean there are the big guns that close out the shows but for his style of music I was rather entertained during his entire spot! I have video clips and hoping to post links to them, they'll be REALLY large but this band is the only reason I thought to post the links on my site! I had a lot of fun with this band! Then
Jeremy Camp came back on for worship and Bob Lenz (doesn't have a site) was the speaker for the evening.
The closing band was
Audio Adrenaline and of course ended the night with a bang! They are long time performers and didn't dissapoint at all! The whole crowd was into it! I got home and in bed earlier this night, I didn't really want to stay for any of the late night performers.
Sunday: I was able to sleep in till about 9am and got ready at my leisure. I left Holly’s around 11:00 I believe and went to lunch and got to the fairgrounds early enough to take my time for the first show I wanted to see which was
Thousand Foot Krutch and a motorcycle stunt show! I have to say that I was more impressed with the motorcycle stunts but then again my taste in music has gone definitely more to the mellow side since I broke up with my ex who was in a hardcore band. But the stunts were awesome and I will have to show off those pictures and video as well!
My shift started at 2pm so I made my way back to the exhibit hall and was put on
Pillar's booth. This was the most fun I've had because I was finally placed in a popular bands booth! Not only that they performed while I was working and ended up offering a presale contest to over 8,000 fans in the stadium! Needless to say after their show the line was seriously out the door to fill out the form! I had so much fun in the chaos! It was great! I even got to sneak out to see them perform (since I hadn't ever seen them before) and I really liked them! After my shift I was able to get back to my adopted mom's seat and hung out with them for the rest of the festival. I saw
Relient K who I liked! Then
Josh McDowell was the evening speaker. Then the
Newsboys closed out the evening. They had an awesome (AWESOME) set and had an amazing message!
But when all was said and done I was anxious to get home! I rushed out to my car and stopped off in Oceanside and grabbed all my stuff and made my way back home. I actually did it in fairly good time! I got home around 12:30 and crashed HARD!
I had a blast at Spirit West Coast! It was definitely an adventure in itself being all by myself. I'll have to post pictures later because it's gonna take me forever to get through them all. And I will definitely volunteer for next year if the time allows!
Monday (Memorial Day): I woke up around 9am and showed my mom all the cds and t-shirts and sweatshirts I bought and the pictures I took. I showered and Sam came down to hang out. He had spent the weekend up at his aunts house so it wasn't much to stop off at my place. We went out to eat and then did some shopping. I had him come with me to check on the house that I'm watching while the family is on vacation. We got back to my place and I showed him all the pictures and video. He showed me his pictures of his aunt's farm animals. My favorites were of the sheep! I'll have to post the links when I can. He had to head back down so he could get home and there was a bunch of traffic from the weekend. My dad offered to let him stay the night at our place which shocked Sam and I both! But he decided to try his luck and ended up having a fairly smooth trip home. All-in-all it was a great weekend!
Well it's REALLY late and I have to get up early tomorrow. I had a great weekend and today was a great end to my weekend!
Goodnight!
posted by Charity at 5/31/2004 09:38:00 PM 
