My 2 days in another world

Thursday and Friday I worked the Michael W Smith and Melinda Doolittle shows at Rolling Hills. It was awesome!! 

It all started Thursday when I picked up a 15 passenger rental van at the airport and drove to the church. By 11am I was driving one of the crew, Clay, to get chains for his equipment truck and then over to the hotel. I had time to kill before my next pick-up so we grabbed coffee at Starbucks at Pioneer Square. 

At 11:45 I picked up Kelley (Melinda's assistant, friend and one of the back-up singers) and headed to the airport to pick-up Melinda. As Kelley was waiving her down, I sat there thinking, "I can't believe I'm about to pick-up Melinda Doolittle!!"

We picked her up and headed to the church. They were both VERY nice!! And it was fun visiting with them a little. We got to the church and I got to sit with them and some of the other crew while eating a late lunch. I sat next to George Huff (sp?) who was on American Idol a season I didn't watch so I had no idea who he was and tried to make conversation by asking, "what do you do?" or something like that and later felt a bit silly when I found out who he was.

Oh, and in the craziness of the day I had left my purse at Starbucks!! Yikes!! I realized after I got back to the church and called over there and someone had turned it in and Clay was nice enough to go get it for me (even though it meant he had to carry a purse a couple blocks). Crazy!!

Things got underway with rehearsals and then box office opened and then doors opened and the show started. I ran out at 9 to pick-up the bus drivers from the hotel and then got back and was privileged to tag along when the promoter took almost the entire group to a nice dessert near the hotel. That was cool!! But I didn't get into bed until after 1:30!!

Yesterday morning I picked up Kelley and Melinda at the hotel at 9:20 and took them to a radio interview, which they were nice about letting me tag along to (I felt like entourage ;). It was cool to see how it all worked. They taped it to edit and air later, which I was able to catch later in the day. Then I drove them by Borders to pick up a book.

After I dropped them off at the hotel I killed 45 minutes by grabbing a quick bite at the Nordstrom cafe. Then I picked up Melinda, Kelley, and Michael W Smith to take them to the Ronald McDonald house and I GOT LOST!!! Talk about pressure! I felt so bad but eventually got them there. But not after taking a couple sudden u-turns across 4 lanes of traffic in a big van. Not sure I made the best first impression. After I dropped them off I took the time to make sure I knew how to get back to the hotel, which I'm glad to say I did without getting lost. 

I made another trip with Clay to a different hotel closer to the venue and one with bus drivers before making a run for bus stock (food) before the show and got to see the inside of the crew bus helping put the food in there. I was impressed with how clean it was. 

Last night there a couple more pick-ups and I got to sit in on part of the show and both nights I helped with the meet & greet line, which I enjoy. The entire thing was really cool!! 

During the intermission of last night's show I passed Melinda's dressing room and she asked me to come in for a second and showed me a huge bouquet of flowers that a fan gave her and told me she wanted me to have them (that was when I took the picture that's posted). So now I have a huge, beautiful, and wonderfully smelling bouquet of flowers on my coffee table. 

By the time I did the last run to pick-up the second bus driver last night, things were almost completely wrapped up at the church so I said a few good byes and then headed back to the airport to drop the van I had bonded so nicely with over the past 36 hours. 

I just finished cleaning my kitchen and am about to head to bed, with Mark!! Finally!! He went to bed about 20 minutes ago because it's like 4am his time and he really hasn't slept. He was gracious enough to stay awake through my work Christmas party. I have 1 or 2 more pictures to post when I get them. It was a crazy fun 2 days, but am glad to be slightly more back to normal. Although I love working those shows, the coolness of being around the artists is still very novel. By the way, the show was fantastic!! Both Michael W and Melinda really rocked it! And it was really neat to get to know her and will probably be one of the firsts to purchase her new album when it's realized February 3rd.

And that's all I have to say.