Classes have been taking up most of my time, so I've actually slowed down a little bit with meeting new people. However, I did finally visit with YWAM LA last night. They had an awesome time of worship and also Fred Markert (a ywam veteran) gave a great talk on how Jesus is really the answer to solving most of the worlds current problems be it corruption, AIDS, famine, or poverty. It was quite refreshing to be around YWAMers again. =) I miss you guys. This past weekend of shooting was pretty interesting. I got be a burglar in one shot and a drunk bum wandering LA in another. Hopefully I'll get a copy of the films soon so I upload some clips to Google Video. Speaking of which, I helped my friend Allan Turner-Ward upload is reel to Google Video the other day check it out: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7630917745652713475 . I met this Limey a week or two ago. Awesome guy. I really hope his career takes off.

This is so much fun, it's ridiculous. Nevertheless, riddle me this all you psychology majors: why is it that every morning or day before, I don't want to go to class? I want to come up with some excuse to take the day off and just relax. Why? I learn a lot. It's incredibly exciting and challenging. I have my moments of embarrassment, of course, sometimes video taped. =) But that shouldn't phase me by now. Hmm... Btw, I was in two student films this weekend. Nothing huge. Just some short short silent black and white films. If you go to video.google.com and search for "nyfa" you'll see some examples of student projects. Not very exciting, but definitely a good learning exercise. This past Sunday in my first film I trip on a curb, mess up my leg and watch people pass by me not offering to help and just look at me like I'm some kind of freak show. The filmmaker said she got the idea because it actually happened to her. :( Sohh ssad. In the...

The wave of cool new people to hang out with just doesn't end! I am overwhelmed and grateful for all the people that God has brought into my life over the past 2 weeks here on the West Coast. People who don't even know me except for my website have opened up their homes to me and helped me get rides to various small groups and events. Since I last blogged, I connected with a Christian group producing a short film for the 168Project.org Film Festival. They get one week (168 hours) to write, shoot, and edit an 11 minute film on a bible verse given to them at the beginning of the week. The festival airs the entries on March 11 (my birthday =) ) Just from volunteering as a grip on this project I learned a ton and met a lot of Christians working in various parts of "The Industry". I'm living some really cool guys up in Pasadena, CA now. Tim McGinnis heard through the email grape vine that I was looking for a place to stay and him and his roommates are lettin...

It really exists. I've heard about Hollywood and Santa Monica Blvd, and Bel Air, and 90210 and The OC. They're not just television fantasies. They really exist. It's nowhere near as glitzy though. Quite to the contrary, they have ugly people and crazy people and pretty people all the same. They have Satanists, and wiccans, and scientologists and Christians all over the place. Hollywood isn't as secular as I had stereotyped. It's chaulk full of all kinds of religions including Christianity. This morning the Satanist was explaining how the lady with the Tarot cards is probably demon possessed. My routine this past week has been some quiet slightly adventurous days exploring the mass transit system of LA, and the evenings have been filled with meeting just and insane number of Christian artists, actors, screenwriters, directors, musicians. There's groups all over the area for Christians in "The Industry". By the way, Mosaic church is really...

I'm headed to Burbank, CA early Saturday morning to get ready for a month long acting for film workshop. I decided to go two weeks early and do some exploring and research before I started classes. I'm leaving out of Richmond, so I don't think I'll be stopping by CrossCurrent before I go. :( Please let me know if you have friends in that area. I still haven't settled on a place to live in the area yet. And also let me know of any good churches or Christian fellowships in the Burbank area. Oh yeah, if you're on the West Coast over the next 6 weeks come visit me. My school is at 3801 Barham Blvd, Los Angeles, CA. I'll still have my cellphone with me so getting in touch with me should be easy.

Discover the ease of maintaining your website once you turn it into a blogger driven template. I did this for my own website: http://www.darianhickman.com and now adding new content is a breeze. I started playing with Blogger in 2004 and fell in love with how easy it was to put up new content. The only hard part was creating a template that worked well with all the content I already had on my existing website. Hire me to turn your existing website into a blogger managed site. It could cost as little as $200.00 depending on the complexity of your site. In addition to the main page I'll edit 5 other pages of your site to feed into Blogger. Case Study: YWAM VA (http://www.ywamva.org) Their old site was all in flash and very hard to update. Out-of-date content would stay up on their website for months as they waited for benevolent geeks like me to come help them out. Also since all of their text was embedded in the flash document it wasn't getting indexed by Google. For awhile my...

I changed my ticket.  My flight arrives Sunday morning at 11:14 am.  By the time I actually get off the plane and get my bags, CrossCurrent will probably be over.  Who wants to pick me up? I got in some quality conversation with God tonight praying on the roof of the YWAM townhouse here in Buenos Aires.  A few things came clear then.  I'm coming home this weekend, and I'm getting ready for the month long acting-for-film workshop I applied to before I left.  New York Film Academy holds workshops monthly at Universal Studios in California.  The one I joined starts March 6, 2006. Pray for my finances; tuition is $2500 and finding a place to stay for a month near Universal Studios could cost $1000 on short notice.  Since I've blown all my savings on app fees and plane tickets and notorized documents from Brazil, this is now a nontrivial sum of money to produce.  Also a bigger prayer request than that is: pray this new training will shift people'...