This was an extremely busy Saturday.  I’ll openly admit that I got up very late this morning.  It wasn’t until 11 a.m. that Heather and I officially got out of bed and started our day.  Our children were very nice and let us sleep in.  It’s so great to have kids that understand when mommy and daddy are tired.  I was able to get outside and mow the lawn today.  It was a beautiful day and a great day to get outside to mow the lawn.  I began to realize how big our property really is.  I can’t mow the whole lawn with a push mower in one afternoon.  I spent three hours mowing and barely started the second parcel on our property.  I also found a mess of other things that need to be cleaned up in our back yard.  Our neighbors managed to talk to us today while I was out there and they were excited to see the people on this property actually taking care of the yard.

It got late and Heather had to go to work, which was fine with me.  I went downstairs and kept working on my Helm’s Deep set.  I have a feeling that Helm’s Deep will be done sometime in the near future.  I should be done with the painting stage by June and putting the finishing touches on this summer.  I’m excited to be able to keep working on it now that the musical is over.

Okay, it’s time to talk about Chapter 10 of “Darth Maul:Shadow Hunter” by Michael Reaves…..

Chapter 10:  We follow Lihnn as she sees Monchar leaving the bar with his bodyguard.  Lihnn sights Maul who is also following Monchar.  Lihnn layed back and ran through options in her mind.  We then switch to Maul’s point of view.  Maul feels the presence of another being with the Force (probably Mawhi Lihnn).  Maul watched Hath Monchar make his way to a unique area of living quarters.  We then switch points of view back to Lihnn.  She watches as Maul approaches the domicile.  She watches as Maul uses a lightsaber to cut a hole in the durasteel door.  This concerned Lihnn because she didn’t expect to have to deal with Jedi.  This made her more cautious in her duty.  We then switch to Lorn and I-Five as they make their way to meeting Monchar.  I-Five tells Pavan they have one hour and twenty-six minutes before their “stolen” cash is caught and straightened out.  I-Five suggests skipping small-talk, with Monchar and getting right to business.  We then switch back to Maul’s point of view as he busts the door to Monchar’s new quarters. We then switch to Lihnn’s point of view as she scours the building with her blaster drawn.  We then switch back to Maul’s point of view.  Maul engages Monchar’s bodyguards and dispatches of them rather quickly and brutally.  Maul puts his lightsaber away, lowered his cowl and told Monchar they need to talk.  We then switch to Pavan and I-Five arriving at the residence.  Lorn noticed the hole in the front door, but I-Five tells him to ignore it.  We then switch back to Maul torturing Monchar for information.  Monchar lets Maul know that only Pavan knows about the impending invasion.  Monchar also reveals that Pavan is showing up here to pick up the holocron.  Maul kills Monchar by cutting off his head.  Maul notices a safe on the floor and cuts it open.  As he does so, he is discovered by the bounty hunter Mahwi Lihnn, who has both blasters drawn.  Maul is caught unguarded but reacts quickly as Lihnn fires her twin blasters at him.  She drops her blasters in the foray, so she decides to user her wrist-rockets.  Maul dodged the rockets by cutting a hole in the outer wall and jumping to the streets below.  We then switch to Lihnn’s point of view where she is amazed at Maul’s ability to move so quickly.  By the time she realizes that Maul was gone, it was too late and the rockets had already been launched.  We then switch views to Lorn Pavan as he is knocked down by the impact of the explosion of the rocket.  Pavan wakes up in a daze and draws his blaster as he heads to the room where he was supposed to meet Monchar.  Pavan realized that Monchar had been killed and knew he had to get off the planet both because of the explosion and because of the bank-heist I-Five set-up on the computers.  As Pavan went out of the room, he stumbled acrossed the holocron.  He picked it up and ran down the hall as fast as he could.

Well, it was a busy Friday and well worth it.  We had our final performance for the musical tonight and the kids and tech crew did a wonderful job!!  It was a stellar and almost perfect performance by both cast and crew.  I was very proud of our kids and was almost bragging about them all night long.  After the performance, we went to “Ruby Tuesdays” as a staff (those involved in the musical) and had a wonderful time just socializing.  Heather went with me and for the first time in a long time we had an opportunity to have an “adult” night out.  We haven’t had that in a long time!!  It was nice and we may get spoiled having done it.  Ah, we probably won’t go out like that again until next year at this time.  Got home really late tonight (midnight) and crashed with Heather.

Okay, so here is the review of Chapter 9 in “Darth Maul:Shadow Hunter” by Michael Reaves……

Chapter 9:  We start by following Lorn and I-Five as they enter the Dewback Inn.  Pavan asks I-Five to leave as he is afraid that droids are not welcome.  Pavan sees a Neimoidian in the corner, but is strong armed by a Transdoshian as he goes to sit down with him.  Monchar introduces Pavan to his bodyguard Gorth, then they get down to business.  Then we switch points of view to Darth Maul.  Maul finds Monchar almost immediately, but is noticing that he is now talking with the human Lorn Pavan.  Maul decides that both will now need to die.  We then switch to Mahwi Lihnn’s point of view as she enters the Dewback Inn.  The bounty hunter recognizes Hoth Monchar almost instantly.  We then completely switch points of view to Darsha Assant.  Darsha is feeling lost now and wonders if Master Bondara had been right about her not being cut out for the mission.  Assant decided she would not call for help, but would get herself back to the Jedi Temple on her own accord.  We then switch back to Pavan and Monchar.  Hath Monchar informs Pavan of the impending blockade and also tells him all of the information is recorded on a holocron.  Monchar wants to sell the holocron for a half million Republic credits.  Pavan thinks it’s too much money, but agrees to an exhchange.  Mochar gives Lorn one hour to procure the funds and meet with I-Five and discuss how they are going to get ahold of that kind of cash in an hour.  I-Five then brings forward an idea of breaking into a bank electronically and do a phantom transfer.  Pavan decides it’s worth the risk and they set out to find a data transfer pad.

Tonight was the debut of our musical and the students did an incredible job!  There were some technical glitches, but the students kept chugging along which I was really impressed with.  It just shows how great a training they receive from the director and assistant director.  The first technical clitch came with the CD that we went to first use.  Evidently it was scratched and when we were playing it for the performance it started to skip.  Luckily we had a copy that was perfect and simply changed out the CD.  The other technical glitch was simply a mistake.  Our lead character’s mic pack managed to fall down his pants and into his pant leg and when he went to recover it, he accidentally switched it off.  So, that was easily solved at intermission by duct taping the button into place.  Tommorrow night we’re going to duct tape the pack to his body to make sure it doesn’t fall off.  Hey, every debut has it’s glitches and in the grand scheme of things, these were really minor.  We’ll be good tomorrow night.  My tech crew did a great job tonight and I was really proud of them.  Many of them said they would love to come back next year to help out and I hope that a few of them follow through on that offer.

Time to talk Star Wars and Chapter 8 of “Darth Maul:Shadow Hunter” by Michael Reaves….

Chapter 8:  We start this chapter off wtih I-Five waking up Lorn Pavan from a hangover.  I-Five uses some sound therapy to make the headache go away.  Then they both look at some messages they received while Pavan was in his alcohol-induced hangover.  One was from Yanth the Hutt about the holocron.  The other message was from a Neimoidian that said he had information and needed to talk to Pavan.  Pavan and I-Five agree they need to meet with him.  We switch to Mahwi Lihnn who as come up short looking for Monchar, but is heading to the Dewback Inn.  We then are with Darth Maul as he tails Lorn Pavan and I-Five.  Maul feels as his time and talents are being wasted by training on scum of the earth instead of killing Jedi, but knows he must do his Master’s bidding.  Pavan and I-Five enter a tavern with a rampant Dewback as a symbol.  Maul’s own senses were excited as he entered the tavern as well.

Okay, it’s Wednesday and it’s my night “off”.  Although, one of the mics was ruined at the rehearsal last night, so I spent most of my night trying to get it fixed.  I thought I had it fixed and found out today that it’s not fixed at all.  I’m a little frustrated as this wireless mic has never really seemed to work very well at all.  If you’re curious, the mic that is giving me a hard time is an Audio Technica Freeway Series Wireless Lavalier Mic.  If you’re ever looking for mics, DON’T buy one of these.  Even NADY’S have a better quality than these mics and are much cheaper for their impact.

I’m also exhausted today because Heather worked till two this morning as always and I had a hard time falling asleep without her in bed.  It always seems to happen on Tuesday nights especially.  Our pastor came over tonight and we had a great discussion.  He finally got a chance to check out our home and was amazed at how large our house really is.  A lot of people say that.  When you look at the front of the house, it looks like it might be a two or three bedroom home.  But when you look around the house, you see the two additions to the home and realize that it is really a four or even five bedroom home.  We got to bed late tonight (12 a.m.) and I’m not sure I wanted to do that considering that the musical’s debut is tomorrow night.  All well.

Time to talk about Chapter 7 of “Darth Maul:Shadow Hunter” by Michael Reaves…..

Chapter 7:  We start off this chapter back with Darsha Assant as she squares off against the Raptors gang.  Darsha scared the gang off by revealing her lightsaber, showing she was a Jedi.  As Darsha and Oolth regrouped they realized the skyhopper was no good and Darsha’s comlink was no good either.  Out of nowhere, a sniper begins to shoot at them.  In her scramble to get Oolth to safety they accidentally ran acrossed a nest of Hawk-Bats which swarmed over them.  Oolth lost his grip of Darsha and fell ten levels to the street.  Darsha fell as well, but managed to divert her gravity spiral to saver herself.  She was now alone with no communication, or transportation and having failed her mission.

Okay, well it’s Tuesday and the second day for the dress rehearsal of the musical this afternoon.  It’s not a half day which is going to make today tough.  I am just still exhausted from yesterday and getting home so late last night, but I should have known it was coming, but I was still a little unprepared for it.  Anyway, today was a good typical day in the classroom and the rehearsal seemed to go well for the musical tonight.  I am really looking forward to having the night off tomorrow night so that I can catch up on some sleep and getting some work done around the house.  I think I’ve figured out how to use the dry ice to create the smoke for the musical by the end of rehearsal tonight.  I’m going to just simply have to use more dry ice.  I guess the more is the better and the bigger the chunks the better off the smoke that I get.

Okay, onto talking about Chapter 6 of “Darth Maul:Shadow Hunter” by Michael Reaves…..

Chapter 6:  We start by following Hath Monchar in the tavern he is in.  He thought about disguising himself, but decided against it.  He then orders a drink.  We then switch scenes to Mahwi Lihnn, the bounty hunter hired by the Neimoidians.  She wears armor that doesn’t look like armor and is armed to the hilt!  Lihnn was at Monchar’s apartment on Coruscant.  She didn’t expect to find him there, but figured she’d get some leads.  She found nothing at the apartment, but decided to start searching local restaurants that sold Neimoidian food.  We then switch scenes to Darth Maul.  Maul grabs a taxi to the tavern where he thinks Monchar is.  Maul questions the bartender and finds out Monchar was in there an hour ago asking who he could sell information to.  The bartender tells Maul that he dropped the name Lorn Pavan.  Maul pressed the bartender, but he didn’t know where Pavan could be found.  Maul left the bar and began to think about how pain had become his instructor since he joined with Darth Sidious.  Maul decided that he would kill anyone to stop the leakage of the news of the blockade.

“Just another manic Monday” (okay, so I like to quote songs).  It really was a busy Monday for me and the cast of the musical.  We had a half day of school, but I did teach three of the four periods in the morning which made for a long morning.  My wife forgot to bring the costumes in this morning, which I think made the director of the musical a little nervous (rightfully so), so she brought the costumes in at the end of the day.  We also got fifty pounds of dry ice for the musical and we seemed to have a better practice today.  I’m really pleased with how the musical seems to be coming together.  I think the audience will be very entertained on Thursday and Friday night.  So, if you’re reading this blog and will be in the Binghamton area on Thursday or Friday night, head over to East Middle School to see Aladdin, Jr.  Okay, enough of my shameless plug for the musical.

Heather left the rehearsal early to take Austin and Tara to Scouts and then came back to pick up Ruth and I to go pick up pizza.  We got home around six thiry and ate dinner and Austin got dropped off around seven thirty and ate dinner and went to bed.  Heather had to go to the dance company she’s working for and do some work there for about a half an hour.  She got home and we crashed from nine p.m. on.  We barely stayed awake to watch “CSI:Miami” and then went to bed at 11.

I want to make two addresses to everyone who is reading these blogs.  First off, blog.com has changed their format.  I have some emails of people complaining that the “Read More” button is gone and the blog inputs are longer.  Yes, that is the case, but that is a choice that blog.com has made and not me.  Also, yes, I am putting out about five or six days at a time right now.  That is only happening because of me being at school each night until five or six o’clock for musical rehearsals.  I write my blog inputs on my free-time at school (which doesn’t happen very often) in Microsoft Word and then transfer it to the blog when I have an opportunity.  Anyway, when the musical is over, I will keep up with my day to day blogs (which will be after Saturday).

Okay, onto talking about Chapter 5 of “Darth Maul:Shadow Hunter” by Michael Reaves…..

Chapter 5:  We then switch to Darth Sidious.  Sidous thinks about how greedy the Jedi are with power and resolves the new Sith doctorine:  one master and one apprentice.  Sidious wanted nothing to get in the way of the fall of the Jedi, including Hath Monchar.  We then switch scenes to Darsha Assasnt in the Crimson Corridor.  Darsha takes her skyhopper into the deepest, darkest depths of Coruscant.  Darsha made her way to where the Fondorian, named Oolth, was hiding.  Darsha encouraged Oolth to move quickly.  Oolth warned her about a gang of vile villainy called Raptors.  When Darsha got back to her hovering skyhopper, they found the craft crawling with Raptor gang members.  Darsha acted quickly, bringing the gang under her control with a Jedi mindtrick, when out of nowhere, a scream rang out because Oolth was getting attacked in the shadows.  Darsha lost control of her mind trick and as she went to reach for her lightsaber, the members of the Raptors gang was on top of her.

Well, got up early as always to go to church.  It always seems like such a short day because my wife works till two a.m. which makes it hard on me.  But I know I keep beating this horse to death!!  Anyway, went to church and had a good service this morning.  We celebrated one of our members’ birthday.  They hit a “bench mark” age, and I won’t repeat what age for his own volition.

Anyway, we picked up Ruth from camp on the way home and she was exhausted.  Heather and Ruth left right away to go to Norwich to meet my in-laws and get them their Girl Scout Cookies.  I understand them wanting the cookies since I have had co-workers constantly asking about where their cookies were.  Hey, what can I say?  Those Girl Scout cookies are popular!!  Heather accidentally gave her sister/mother too many cookies, so now they have extras to sell.  All well, I don’t think they’ll have problems selling them.

Heather got home and we all took a nap in the house (since most of us were up late – Including Ruth).  Heather and I got up and started to work on getting ready for the week.  I organized some things for the musical this week and Heather did some sewing work for the musical as well. We decided to stop working at eight o’clock so we could watch “The Simpsons”, “The War at Home”, and then switched to HBO to watch “The Sopranos” and “Big Love”.  We knew tonight would be the last night to be able to watch some of our regular T.V. shows.  We knew this would happen because of the musical.  Let’s just say that our V.C.R. will be in overload for most of the rest of the week.

Okay, time to talk about Chapter 4 of “Darth Maul:Shadow Hunter” by Michael Reaves…..

Chapter 4:  We start this chapter back on The Saak’ak.  Nute Gunray and Rune Haako know they need to find Hath Monchar before Sidious contacts them again.  Haako suggests hiring a female bounty hunter by the name of Mahwi Lihnn.  Gunray agrees.  We then switch to Lorn Pavan and I-Five talking about their recent loss and it’s financial impact.  Pavan is drunk and disparaging about how the Jedi ruined his life.  I-Five manages to get Pavan home where he falls asleep in a drunken slumber.

Well, a busy and tiring Saturday.  Heather and I got up later than I think we really wanted to.  We didn’t actually get out of bed until ten a.m. and our kids were nice enough to just grab some cereal and watch T.V. and not bug us until then.  Of course it helps that my oldest daughter went to camp last night.  It’s gonna be kinda weird not having her around for the weekend.  I’m interested in how Austin and Tara are going to handle the situation without their older sister.  They were pretty much bored all day and unfortunately so was I.  It rained all day and I had plans on going outside and rehanging our tire swing and trying to secure the railing on our deck more so that it isn’t hanging by a thread.  SO, I got a chance to work on my Helm’s Deep set more than I thought I would and got a lot more done.  I got a chance to plan out how I’m going to do the next couple of sections as well.

I also got a chance to get addicted to Star Wars Legos for a little bit again this weekend.  My son and I played for about two hours and had a blast.  Tara wanted to watch a “chick flic” upstairs, which was okay with Austin and I, so we went downstairs and watched NASCAR racing tonight and then Austin went to bed a little early tonight as we have church tomorrow and a long day.

My in-laws called tonight and decided out of nowhere that they were going to come down tomorrow.  Although I usually don’t have a problem with them coming down, this weekend was going to be difficult.  Heather and I haven’t cleaned the house at all in over a week and didn’t plan on cleaning the house for another week.  The place looks like a wreck and we just aren’t ready for guests.  Luckily, Heather talked them out of coming and found out they just wanted their Girl Scout cookies.  So Heather said she’ll drive to Norwich tomorrow and meet them to give them their cookies after church.

I got a chance to get onto Ebay today and finally convince Heather to let me get an MP3 Player.  We managed to find a 1 GB MP3/Flash drive for under fifty bucks!  Gotta love that.  Hope that we get it sometime soon.  I agreed that I would get the player if I agreed to start walking every morning once the musical is over.  Of course I had plans on doing that anyway, but this will just give me more motivation.  Gotta love modern technology!  Okay, time to talk about Chapter 3 of “Darth Maul:Shadow Hunter” by Michael Reaves…..

Chapter 3:  We start this chapter in the Jedi Temple.  Darsha Assant was before the Jedi Council to discuss her potential to become a Jedi Knight.  Adi Gallia, Plo Koon, Eeth Koth, Yoda, Mace Windu, and Yoda sit on the council.  Her Twileek Jedi Master, Anoon Bondara, was there to support her as well.  We get some background on Assant and find out she is from Alderaan.  She is ordered to go to the Crimson Corridor and bring back a member of the Black Sun.  He’s being granted safe passage for information.  Assant and Bondara leave the chamber and get on the elevator.  Bondara reveals that he believes the mission is too difficult and too dangerous.  They leave and prepare for her mission.  We then switch to The Infiltrator landing on Coruscant with Darth Maul inside.  Maul was told Hath Monchar had an apartment in the upscale part of Coruscant.  Maul gets chased by a police droid while on his speeder bike.  He avoided the droid and managed to get to a bank terminal in the Coruscant Customs Bureau Building.  Maul searched through bank records, and security grids for Monchar.  He tracked a blurred image of a Neimoidian to a local tavern.

Yeah, it’s Friday, and I’m completely exhausted.  I came home and my wife went to work until two tomorrow morning and I’ll be honest, I crashed on the couch for an hour after we ate dinner.  I got some more work done on my Helm’s Deep set and also managed to update some grades and finish grading some of the final exams that were made up today.  My classes were starting to get a little more rauchous today, but I think it’s just because my students are starting to get to know me more.

I was excited to get some more work done on my Helms Deep set and feel that I may not get much more work done on it this week.  I am making great strides on the set, but it doesn’t look like I am because visually it isn’t great strides.  I know it won’t be long until the set is complete.

Heather and I still didn’t get a government check today.  We’re only a week away from the maximum time they can keep their money and we are really nervous that we’re not going to get our money.  We don’t know why, but it could be for any number of reasons!  It could be the money I owe for education, it could be any of the credit companies I owe money to.  But, Heather and I thought we resolved all of that when we got involved in the mortgage of the house.  But you never know who will lay claim to any money you have.  Man, not having that second car is really going to be a killer next week!

Okay, onto our overview of Chapter 2 of “Darth Maul:Shadow Hunter” by Michael Reaves…..

Chapter 2:  This chapter occurs on Coruscant.  We go to the underside of Coruscant.  The area that is considered the dredges of this planet.  Lorn Pavan and his droid, I-Five, are meeting with Zippa, a Toydarian and Bilk a Gamorrean.  Zippa reveals a Jedi Holocron cube for which he is asking twenty thousand credits.  Lorn asks if it’s authentic, and Zippa gets himself into trouble by accusing him of being a closet Jedi Knight.  Some dealing is done and Lorn buys it for twelve thousand credits.  Just as he goes to take it, Zippa leaves the booth and orders Bilk to kill Pavan and I-Five.  I-Five “screams” and forces the Gamorrean to drop his blaster, which I-Five kills him with.  Pavan’s upset that he lost his money AND the holocron.  Pavan then reveals to I-Five that he believes it was a sith holocron.

Okay, well today was a half-day of students at school and I got a chance to catch up on some work.  I got more students to take the test at lunch break yesterday and I have a few more coming in tommrrow.  Hopefully I’ll have a chance to finish grading them this weekend and finally wrap up my gradebook.  Anyway, I get a chance to catch up on my work and start to work on the Special Edition #2 of “The Jedi Council Speaks”.  I’m hoping to record that this weekend.  If not, I may be late getting that Podcast out on time, but I will work my hardest to get it out.  I probably should have held off on this Special Edition, as it is happening WAY too close to the musical at my school.  But hey, I seem to do better under pressure.  At least that’s what my wife tells me.

I had students in my room the second half of the day and we all watched “Ewoks:  The Battle for Endor”.  My poor students had to endure that movie, sorry for doing that to you guys (that was the tech crew that had to stay after school for musical rehearsal).

We got a chance to “play” with dry-ice today.  We found out that it won’t set off the fire alarms, so we were able to use it for the musical for the Genie coming out of the lamp.  Plus it just looks totally cool!  We used it for rehearsal and I need to tweek the concepts but I know I’ll have it ready for next week.  I was a little upset that three of my students did not show up for rehearsal tonight which makes it harder on the rest of the crew.  I’ve told them that if they miss another rehearsal, they won’t be allowed to be part of the tech crew.  I need to have everyone there in order to run a viable rehearsal.

I rushed to Taco Bell to get dinner and then got over to school for SMASH rehearsal.  We got there early, so we took the kids to the playground as a reward for having to be dragged to the school every night until five o’clock.  Anyway, I went to go to SMASH rehearsal and found out we couldn’t have rehearsal and had to hang out with the director to let other students know that rehearsal couldn’t happen.  We also decided to cancel rehearsal until the week after next.  That’s a load off of my mind so that I can concentrate on the musical until then.

Well, tonight we are going to start discussing our next book, “Darth Maul:Shadow Hunter”.  So, let’s go to our overview of Chapter 1 of “Darth Maul:Shadow Hunter” by Michael Reaves

Chapters 1 – 15:  Part I:  Mean Streets

Characters:  Darth Sidious, Viceroy Nute Gunray, Daultay Dofine, Darth Maul, Rapier, Chain, Cudgel, Hatchette, Lorn Pavan, Zippa, I-Five YQ, Bilk, Darsha Assant, Adi Gallia, Plo Koon, Eeth Koth, Yoda, Mace Windu, Anoon Bondara, Oolth the Fondorian, Hath Monchar, Wahwi Lihnn, Yanth the Hutt.

Planets:  Coruscant

Ships:  Saak’ak, The Infiltrator

Chapter 1:  We start this chapter aboard the Neimoidian spacecraft Saak’ak.  Lord Sidious has summoned his Niemoidian minions to answer a holographic call.  Sidious notices that only three of the four (Gunray, Haako, and Dofine) are present.  He asks where Hath Monchar is.  Gunray tells Sidious that Monchar is sick.  Sidious then goes on to explain his plans should the trade embargo fail (by hiding large armies of droids in trade ships).  Gunray is obviously distressed at this missing lieutenant.  We then switch to just watching Sidious.  He knows that Gunray lied to him, but he’s not sure why.  He decides to call on his apprentice, Darth Maul.  We then switch scenes to Darth Maul.  He is practicing his sith skills by training with four droids:  Rapier, Chain, Cudgel, Hatchette.  Each name describes the favorite weapon of said droid.  Long story short, he kicks their ass!!  Sidious appears and informs Maul that he is pleased at how he handled the situation with the Black Sun.  Now he wants Maul to find and kill Hath Monchar and anyone he has talked to.  He doesn’t want the news of the trade embargo to get out yet.