"We erase crime!"

The meeting with Doug Jones was incredible. He's such a great character, and I can tell he is really into what he does. It's great to meet someone so passionate about his craft. He has been in a lot more roles than I was initially aware of, to my own great delight. He was that big moon head guy in the old "Mac Tonight" ads for McDonald's, which means I have an action figure of him on a skateboard somewhere at home. He was also Billy Butcherson from Hocus Pocus. You know, that zombie with his mouth sewed shut. I can remember being a kid and thinking what a good job I thought the actor did in such a small part. Who knew he'd be the first one I'd meet in L.A.? Of most excitement to me was the discovery that he got the bit part of Pencil Head in Mystery Men! I cheered when he said this. His career is really taking off now with his involvement with Guillermo Del Toro and his familiarity in the world of movie monster creation. His future may yield yet more great roles, including Frankenstein's monster and certainly some part in The Hobbit.

Yesterday went by way too fast. We had an Expectations sessions where we met for the first time in our mentor groups. We mostly talked about what we wanted, what we were afraid of, and what our plans are. My mentor is Rebecca Ver Straten-McSparran, director of the program here, and she really encouraged me to continue pursuing my JD and MBA degrees, particularly the law degree. Apparently, JD's are made of gold in Hollywood.

In the afternoon, I watched Godfather Part II, which I found good but not better than the first as many have said. I guess that contributed to the short feeling of the day. I went for a swim to cool off, ate a quick dinner, then worked on my screenplay. Tory and I tried to see District 9, but they were sold out, so we just roamed The Grove with a group of friends who happened to be over there already. We bought some ice cream, went back to Jess' apartment, and put in a movie. Unfortunately, that movie was I Am Legend, which I've seen twice (two times too many), so I went back to my room to watch Brazil with my roommates instead, a film I am a much bigger fan of.

We're about to head off to the Kodak Theater, home of the Academy Awards. I don't think I'm allowed to take pictures, so if you want to see what it looks like, you'll just have to look up the website.

Things are about to take off here, so I just ask everyone to pray for me. It's a fast pace around here, and I can imagine it will be easy to forget why I'm here and who I am representing. My prayer has been for success, but only one defined by subservience to the will of God in all I do. No matter how well I do here, I don't think I could ever be content if I didn't know that I was doing what God wants me to do.