You see there is this group of people. They sit upon a platform only two feet squared. I believe they are disturbed people. High above the valley, fraught with a longing to popup out of nowhere to scream in your ear. You see, these people are the alarm clock people.

I’m up now. I hate getting up this early. I hate using the shower in the basement. Maybe I don’t really hate getting up early or showering in the basement. I do know that I would like to be in my old apartment near the warmth of the Phoenician sun. The basement here is solid concrete. Sheesh. The cold air sits there until someone disturbs it and then it attacks. First the feet, then the legs. Pretty soon you realize that you’re cold.

The Worst is stepping into the shower. Imagine walking into a block of solid ice. Sure, the hot water heater stands only feet away, but the water battles the cold until finally, finally the heat prevails. Perhaps the temperature might reach zero degrees Kelvin. That is cold. It’s so cold, it’s not cold.

We had our usual breakfast again this morning. I haven’t had any abnormal bodily function attacks lately so I think the fiber in my diet has improved everything. I forgot to mention that I’ve been having bananas with my cereal. Just now I realize d that the only reason I haven’t had bananas won my cereal is that there hasn’t been anyone preparing them. I then came to the conclusion that if I want something, I have to get it myself now. Dad used to cut my bananas for me. Now, I do it.

Al and Alex were on time as usual and we headed out to our first school, Northampton High School. I met Patrice and Loretta when we got there. They were my personal setup crew. James had some other guys or something with him to setup the screens. Loretta and Patrice were cool. The only uncool part about it was that they didn’t get to see the show. They were seniors. Seniors are old; they aren’t an investment. That’s a crock of crap. If I recall correctly, the problems addressed in our presentation are problems and issues that I myself have just begun to face. It seems as though the program is tailored for a young crowd when it comes to pure entertainment and an older crowd if you speak of content. I wish the seniors had gotten a chance to see it. They helped us setup. At least they could be given permission to view it. Oh well.

Our first show went well. James fell asleep and I had to catch his cue. Man, I’m tired of that. Every day he slacks off and misses his cues which means I have to spend time watching his butt. I’m not a baby-sitter. The second show started with a real bang! (Yeah right). Again, James and his eternal brain-fart succeeded in forgetting to cue up the film clip. Great. So now we’ve started the show with only two minutes or so until the first clip and he doesn’t even have the film loaded yet. But, thanks to my keen sense and quick timing, I stopped the tape only millimeters away from the start of the show. When Al finished his ad-lib, I hit start and the show popped up right away. Whew! Nice going James. Rah Rah!

One of the things I haven’t been able to understand this week is why we haven’t had any people to help us tear down. I know it has something to do with the fact that Al isn’t good at leading people or telling them what to do but I don’t see why the clients don’t follow through with their ends of the deal. It is in the contract to have at least 6-8 helpers to setup and tear down. If I were in charge, like I usually am when we’re not with YFC, I would raise a fuss and get people there to help us. I have. I’ve even gotten kids that were just standing around in the halls to help us. Some do and some don’t. I don’t know. I guess it all boils down to whether or not you want to get things done quickly.

After we had loaded up we took off for our next school, Wilson High School. This school was cool. The auditorium was unbelievable. I’d say that it was, by far, the best auditorium we’ve seen yet. After all, the school was just built over the summer and it cost a pretty penny ($23,000,000).

The lighting system was incredible. There was a series of small buttons that all fit on one plate the size of a normal light-switch plate. When you touched one of them, the lights would slowly fade from one mode to another. First the lights on the ceiling, then the lights on the floor, then the hall lights and overhead spotlights, then they would blend together in different combinations. I had a field day. They obviously wanted to make an auditorium they would be proud of. Not to mention the rest of the school. There were security cameras all over the place to protect immaculate floors and walls, bathrooms, hallways, classrooms, and al sorts of other luxuries. They had a great computer system which controlled the clocks and the intercom system. All in all it was a pretty amazing sight.

The only disadvantage to their auditorium, at least a disadvantage to us, was that it was small. It wasn’t a huge auditorium. It would hold about 300 people but that’s not a whole lot. The stage was about one foot too short for the screens which meant we had to angle them, no big deal. The aisle, in fact, the whole seating section was on an incredible angel which meant our equipment would slide forward, which it did. I had to rig up some fasteners out of our duct tape to hold everything in place. I didn’t want to lose anything to the seats in front of us. That would suck.

When our setup was complete, the kids came in and we put on a perfect show. No problems. Half-way through the show, Alex called my attention to the girl in the back row. She was sleeping with her head resting on her hand. I took a piece of tape, inconspicuously, and make a tight ball out of it. I then hurled it in her direction and stood looking at the screens as if I hadn’t done it. The only problem with covering up for your actions is that you miss the reaction of the person you affect. I don’t know if I got her or what. She had roused and was watching the show again but I don’t know if it’s because I got her in the head with the piece of duct tape. Oh well.

We didn’t have a tear-down crew at first. After the announcements and dismissal of the students, they usually disappear since it is after school anyway. There were two guys from the football team who were more than eager to help us out. In fact, they had this idea that if we take three million trips to the van we’ll burn more time so we won’t have to go to football practice. Nice move guys. How lazy can one be? I probably would have done that too after seeing what the football team was doing while practicing.

As we drove away, James took his stupid CB microphone/intercom thing and…excuse me…James was leaning against the wall next to me doing nothing. My guess is that he was waiting for me to finish so he could play some stupid waste-of-tome games on my computer. Sorry buddy. I’m a little annoyed with the way he waits around for me to “lead” him around so he has something to do. Sheesh! Anyway, he was saying stupid things on this stupid intercom that he bought for his ridiculously old CB radio. He still hasn’t used it yet. Here’s a kid who wants to save money and become a cargo pilot?!?!?!? For whom he has no idea and he’s spending good money after bad to buy things that he won’t even use. Sound familiar mom?

Well, I just spent the last half hour spell checking and grammar checking this entry. You wouldn’t believe what I learned. I now know that the people that created this program are boneheads. Well, not actually. They have every possible rule of grammar and they use it when you ask them to. I don’t know how many suggestions this program gave me. Forget it. I’ll type how I type.

Oh, we’ve been eating out at the fast food restaurants between each school. The first day we hit McDonalds, the second day was Burger King day, and the third day we ran for the border at TACA TACA TACO Bell! Yum.

Our work day went okay. Now it was time for the relaxing part. We had until 6:00 to goof off (6:00 was our scheduled dinner time). I wrote the first part of this entry and took a twenty minute nap. The alarm buzzed me out of one of those weird states of consciousness where you know you’re awake but you have absolutely no control of your thoughts or actions. That’s when the body jumps or jerks when minute occurrences frighten your subconscious. Something like that. Anyway, I remembered that I had planned to call Laura and Jackie. They’re still in Wilmington doing their YFC thing this week and we want to meet them in Philadelphia on Saturday. I asked Mrs. Dorrow if she’d mind if I make a long distance call to Wilmington and she said that I could. They weren’t there when I called but they did show up right before I hung up. I got to talk to Laura and we planned on meeting them at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia at noon on Saturday. Cool! Something to do. James had planned n the indoor rock climbing thing on Saturday but it costs $45. He’s nuts. He wanted me to leave him there all day while I go to Philly and meet the girls. No way. I would have to drive all the way back to get him. I explained to him that this might be the only chance we have to meet up with the girls before we went our separate ways again and that there would be more than enough time to waste money on indoor rock climbing. He saw my point. I finished up my talk with the girls as I noticed that we were about to be late to dinner. We cruised to the van. James wanted to drive so I let him. He hadn’t driven for two and a half weeks and when he got in the van and headed out to the main road, he still didn’t know which way to go. Shit. We’ve been to Al’s six times and he still didn’t know which way to turn out of the Dorrow’s area. Anyway…

We ate at Al’s again but he wasn’t there tonight. He had some sort of meeting with some of the kids from the high schools and churches around Bethlehem. I can’t imagine what driving would be like without a guide. Allentown and Bethlehem and the other areas around are crazy. The streets must have been laid out by the people of Walnut Grove. Thanks Charles. Every night after leaving Al’s house with full stomachs, we pass the street where we’re supposed to turn. Every night this week we’ve gotten lost on the way home. Amazingly enough, we always find our way back. Mrs. Chassard cooked stew and muffins and we ate and ate. I drowned in my own digestive juices. Yuck! The food was great. We also had Hot Cocoa for dessert, and on the way out I had my helping of Halloween candy corn. I grab a few every night to wash the taste of dinner down and refresh my teeth with the horrors of the sugar monster.

I’m tired now. I’ve been sitting here for about an hour writing my life as a Camfel Production Technician and I want to go to bed. I’m up tomorrow at a bright and early 5:00 AM. That is all.