(53) Northridge, CA Shows & San Diego Area

Thursday, March 26th: We had two shows at 9:30am(91) and 11:30am(92). They went over very well. The weather was beautiful and I really wanted to go play basketball but unfortunately no one had a ball. Today was also Rudy’s birthday. Caroline and Jill had gotten him a cupcake cake and candles, so at the end of mic check, Eric and I lit up all the candles and took it on stage. Everyone sang happy birthday and Rudy blew out all his candles in one breathe. After the shows and load out, Caroline, Margo and I went over to the local mall and did some shopping. I got a new pair of shorts, since I hadn’t brought any on this leg of the tour. That night, my cousin Hannah, who I had seen in Seattle but actually lives outside LA, picked me up and we went to see “The Watchmen.”

Friday, March 27th: We drove 153 miles(16,380 total miles) down to Poway, CA and had a load in. Everything went pretty well with the load in except for the lighting board. It was a type of light board that we had only used once and we had never tested the computer disc from it. Well, it turned out that disc didn’t work. One of the local guys spent almost all of load in trying to get the files off the disc and then trying to convert other files that we had to match this file type. It was really scary for a while. If none of the files had worked, we would have had to rewrite the entire show. We already have the information to do it, but it takes a good 5-6 hours to write in all the cues. Caroline, Jill and Rudy had left early to pick our new performer, Scott Lupi, and Rudy’s Girlfriend, Janine, from the airport. Eric and I finished up and Jill came back to pick us up.

Saturday, March 28th: I went out for coffee with Kate Olmstead and Pete Thornbury who I had gone to college with. We had coffee and played with Kate’s puppy, a wire haired dachshund, and caught up on life. In the afternoon, we loaded into the vans and headed to the venue for a put-in rehearsal with Scott Lupi. It went well and we all went on break before our show at 7:00pm(93). After the show and load out, almost everyone in the company, and all the significant others in town, went into downtown San Diego for drinks because it was Kevin’s last night with us. We started at a bar called Gaslamp Bar and Grill. Then we headed down an Irish Pub where people drank some more and hung out for a bit. Finally we ended up at a place call Jimmy Love’s which had an 80’s cover band. This was by far the best place we had been. We dance and drank for another 45 minutes or so and then headed back out to the hotel. We were all a little sad that we hadn’t started at the last bar because it was so much fun.

Sunday, March 29th: DAY OFF! I slept in quite a bit more than normal because we weren’t home until 2:30am or so. At 10:45am, Carolyn and her boyfriend Michael, were heading into San Diego so I hopped a ride. They went to the Natural History Museum and I met up with one of my oldest friend Alex Jarman. We walked through the Rose Garden and then through the Botanical Gardens. Then we headed over to the San Diego Art Museum where Alex works. He is the Manager for Public Projects which means he works on programs based around what is being displayed in the galleries. These include docent tours and a summer film festival. He gave me a personally tour of the entire museum. We even went down to this office where he and his assistant work. It’s so strange to see how we’ve become these grown up professionals. We got some lunch and went down to the large outdoor organ in the park. They do free concerts there on Sunday afternoons so we ate and listened to some great music and a really sassy British Organist! After that, we walked the 20 minutes or so back to Alex’s apartment where I met some of his neighbors. We hung out for a bit, walked around the neighborhood and then hung out a while longer until he drove me back up to the park where I met up with some of the company who had gone to the zoo. That night, I did my laundry and had a compy date with Michelle before going to bed.