My final Monday turned out to be the one of the busiest days I had while down in the States. To kick things off, the gang met in Jonathan's studio for playback of "The Pact I & II". But before I could finish listening to both episodes, Rob Jorgesen pulled me out of the playback to help him record some dog sounds for the upcoming radio theatre production of "At Home in Mitford". Focus on the Family had originally hired professional "dog actors", and were going to record them in California at the same time as Odyssey a couple of weeks earlier. But as it turned out, these professional actors (humans who could make dog sounds) were very expensive, and there was no way to justify the cost. So once returning back to Colorado, a memo was sent around asking for volunteers to come forward with their dogs so they could record them for the show. Barnabas the dog was such a crucial character in Mitford that there was no way the show could be done without the dog sounds and time was really getting short. Fortunately, many dogs answered the call. And not only did they answer the call, but they were all amazing in their own way. In fact, each dog seemed to have a special ability such as barking, whining or growling. So Rob narrowed the dogs down to the best three and decided these would be the dogs who would bring Barnabas to life.

So Rob led me to the new foley room where we were going to record the growling from a dog named Rue. It was a strange experience, but it was so much fun. The dog's handler would hold a ball in front of Rue, and she would growl into Rob's microphone. Rob would run around the room getting it from different angles, while I would sit and record the sounds into the computer. As the microphones are particularly sensitive, Rob, the handler, and myself all had to be very quiet while the sessions were going on. It was crazy, but after about 45 minutes, Rob had all the samples of the growl he needed.

Then before lunch, Bob Hoose, Marshal, Nathan and myself met with John Fornof to read over his outline for "The American Revelation I & II". An outline isn't so much a script as it is a scene by scene breakdown of key moments for an episode. The outline for "The American Revelation I & II" happened to be 10 pages long with a list of references in the back for where most of the historical information was found. Looking over the outline, I still don't where wear the whole "Oink" business started (the phrase that Marvin uses quite a lot), but it certainly wasn't mentioned in the original outline. Too bad... I would have liked to have had my say on that! We all gave John our feedback and he returned to his cubicle to get started on his script, while Bob, Nathan, Marshal and I headed to the Chapelteria for lunch to discuss what was going to happen with "Whit's End Connellsville".

At this point in time, it was already decided that a family was going to take over Whit's End Connellsville, but other than the fact they were black, nothing else about the family had been decided... including what circumstances would lead them to take over Whit's End. Phil Williams, a collaborated for "The American Revelation I & II" had suggested to the team earlier that if were looking for a name to give the new family, "Washington" would be appropriate as 93% of people with the last name Washington are black. So Marshal laid out on the table his plan for the episode: The family would consist of a Mother and Father (both of whom would be strong leaders for their family), and three children: A teenage girl, a boy in between, and another younger daughter. The father, whom Marshal started calling 'Ed', would be the owner of a toy shop, who had been bought out be a larger company. The company had kept him on as he was the 'face' of the company and literally had his face (which was the logo) on all of the products that were released. Unfortunately, he was cut out of the decision making process and when a young boy seriously injures himself after attempting to imitate one of their new toys, Ed is completely heartbroken. He chastises his bosses for their poor decision making, and they claim it wasn't their fault... but will do their best to spin the story so they don't come out the bad guys.

Ed, not liking what he hears, visits the boy to apologize to him. The parents recognize Ed and he lets them vent their frustration on him. Back at home, Ed discusses with his family that he doesn't think he can go on being used as a puppet. He has a clause in his contract that he can pull his name and face from the products if they aren't up to his quality, and he is seriously considering doing it. But without a source of income, he and his family would need to pray that a new job would present itself.

The following weekend he visits Whit's End with his family. Whit has known him for years, as Ed was the "Toy Man" and used to visit all the time to give kids the latest products to play with. When Whit wonders why Ed is so sad, Ed reveals he quit his job. Whit, currently looking for someone to take over Whit's End Connellsville, asks Ed to come and take a ride with him while Connie covers the shop. After showing Ed around the new Whit's End, Ed is excited... he thinks he would be great at it, though Whit cautions he wouldn't be able to pay him nearly as much as he was used to making. Ed understands and goes home to pray about it... after much struggle, they decide that this is what God is calling them to do.

Not quite like you remember it 'eh? Well, Nathan, Bob, and myself all gave our feedback on Marshal's story idea. Bob suggested a few changes that should be made to the story's twists, and I brought up that Odyssey already has too many teenage girls and we needed to hear stronger teenage boys. I also recall suggesting that while Whit's End has an inventors corner, Whit's End Connellsville should have a toy room. Make the shops entirely different entities: let Ed run it the way he was most comfortable with and make it his own. Marshal seemed to like that idea and incorporated it into the story. I also insisted that Ed was a terrible name and thought the new character's name should have multiple syllables. However, that name eventually stuck and has since really grown on me. That's what the collaboration process is all about... different ideas and opinions thrown around to come up with a better show!

That afternoon (this was a busy day remember!) I once again met with Rob for a second set of dog recordings. This time we had a dog named Kirby who specialized in whimpering. We sat down ready to record with the microphone in hand. But a funny thing happened: The dog wouldn't whimper. We tried for about ten minutes and got nothing out of the dog. So the owner and her two children went behind the porch door to hide... sure enough, Kirby approached the screen door and began whimpering. Rob was getting some great sound and suddenly the dog wasn't having fun any more... he started attacking the door to find (perhaps rescue) his owners! Rob did his best to pull him back, but the microphone foam got knocked off and he was scratched in the process. It wasn't a violent dog or anything of the sort, but Rob realized he had to give the dog some distance while we recorded. It was wonderful fun and afterward I had a new found appreciation for what kind of things the sound designers are willing to go through to make a good show!

On Tuesday I had a bit of fun with Kathy Wierenga, who didn't know that the Odyssey team intern was also the webmaster of "The Soda Fountain". I emailed her asking her to confirm or deny a list of upcoming storylines, such as Mitch and Connie's eventual break up, the Washington family taking over Whit's End Connellsville, or that Eugene Meltsner had fried his brain and would be returning to town. I was sitting at my desk doing some clip listening for "Inside the Studio" when I heard her yell "What!". She called Marshal over to her computer to show him the disturbing email on her screen. Marshal looked at the sender "Shadowpaw" and bit his tongue. He then called Nathan and myself over to examine this "horrible security leak". We got into a discussion about who could have let this information out, and Kathy said we must have a mole. Sensing the commotion going on, John Fornof joined us and Kathy informed him that Shadowpaw from the Soda Fountain had a lot of big storyline information that he was going to release on his website. John looked a bit frustrated at first and then put two and two together... he paused, looked at me, and tilted his head. I put my finger to my lips to let him know he should remain silent, and he did so with a smile.

Kathy, wanting to squash any and all leaks, began constructing a reply to tell this "Shadowpaw" that he was wrong. She began her email:

You are way, way off. Nice try.

Marshal, in a moment of inspiration seized her keyboard and said that he, as the producer of the show, would take it from there.

By the way, we've been to your website, and it's stupid. We don't like you. Go away.

Kathy laughed at Marshal's joke... and nearly broke down in tears when Marshal pressed "SEND". She constructed a new email to apologize, but Marshal once again added an insulting comment at the end and pressed "SEND". This continued a few more times until Kathy was very frustrated with all of us. Marshal promised not to do it anymore, and Kathy finally wrote a sweet and short letter asking Shadowpaw not to print anything, "because things change all the time". And with that... our fun stopped.

Sorta. I didn't tell Kathy that I was really Shadowpaw until the very last day of my stay, by then she said she had figured it out... I still don't know how... but I suspect a mole!

So Wednesday came along and I got to do some last minute foley sessions with Jonathan Crowe for "Live at the 25!". It was great to actually be able to play around with the acting bit, and hilarious seeing the expressions Jonathan had on his face while pretending to be particular characters. He takes his work very seriously. I also discovered some rather surprising news. I arrived home that day and was showing pictures I had taken to the family I was staying with when the mother pointed at a picture of Jonathan and said "I'd recognize that little red haired man anywhere!". After a bit of probing, I discovered Jonathan and his family had been in touch with them when he first arrived in Colorado Springs. The funny thing is, Jonathan was aware of this my entire trip and never once brought it up.

Thursday I did some shopping at the bookstore and picked up all the Radio Theatre productions. Minus "The Last Battle" which the team gave me for free along with an original version of "A Christmas Carol" which has a different opening theme song. I then met with Bob, Marshal, and Nathan for a read through of Bob's upcoming script "The Case of the Disappearing Shelbi!" It later morphed into "The Case of the Disappearing Hortons" after it was suggested having a new character missing wasn't quite as dramatic as a familiar one. We also got a copy of Marshal's outline for "Toying With the Future", which was roughly the exact same plot as Marshal had described to us earlier with a few changes to the structure of the family (Marshal decided on two boys and one girl), and a few changes to how Ed loses his job. It wasn't until I heard "The Toy Man" on the radio that I realized how much changed in between the time I left and the time the episode was recorded... re-tuning an episode is an ongoing thing until it's in the can. Shortly after, I got a ride with Rob Jorgensen who was driving Dave and Bob to "The Egg & I" for Paul McCusker's birthday lunch. Over the meal, Paul and the team discussed cuts they were going to make to "At Home in Mitford" to shorten it up a bit. In fact, it was decided they would cut a character completey out of the broadcast... even though the character had already had all her lines recorded and edited into the voice tracks. It goes to show you it's never too late to make drastic changes to a product to make it better.