Tag Archive for 'camp'

busy summer, as usual

Published on July 12, 2009 in Computers, Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Camp is going well. I’m taking lots of pictures, again, but we haven’t made any decisions about where to put them, yet. If any go online publicly, I’ll be sure to post a link. I bought a timbuk2 backpack to help alleviate some near-constant back pain. It’s a great bag and quite comfortable. I still love my big messenger bag, but I’ll save it for team-building programs.

I’m also back to trains and other public transportation for the summer and have been listening to a lot of music (and Half-Blood Prince, lately, in preparation for the movie). I like how the commute in the summertime gives me a chance to reconnect with my music collection. I’d still love to replace my phone (which still turns itself off quite a bit) and my iPod and the GPS with one device… but I don’t know if I should wait for the Garmin phones to come out or just cave in and get an iPhone. So I’m still nursing my phone along and carrying both.

The wedding and trip out to Maine  was fun. I haven’t really had a chance to go through those pictures and pick out the best ones yet, but again, I’ll post a link, when I do. I don’t think I have another day off until camp is over… though, I may take a Saturday, next week or the week after. I’m LOVING my Macbook pro. I haven’t completely set myself up on it and decided what programs I’m going to use for photo work and web work to replace my windows favorites (Paint Shop Pro and Homesite 5.5). It’s an awesome piece of hardware, and I’ve already used it to do some stats work for adventure ed. and it was almost a pleasant experience. I’ve definitely gotten used to the trackpad and the multi-touch-ness.

I’m also eating a little healthier. When I’m picking out meals, I constantly think of the Dead Milkmen song “nutrition,” which is fun to hum, but it’s kind of a silly song. I’ll get more into the reasons for this sudden health-consciousness when I’ve completely wrapped my head around it.

‘tween vacations

Published on June 15, 2009 in Computers, Family & Friends and Photo. Closed Tags: , , , .

‘Tween season is ending. Camp orientation/training started today. Got a a good relaxing week in Wisconsin complete with Bingo, lots of Uno, a round of Mini adventure golf, a few boat rides, lots of good eating and a fair amount of laying around doing nothing. There are pictures. There will be yelp reviews, soon.

Macbooks down in price! Great timing! Cheap upgrade to Snow Leopard, too! Now, convince me not to switch to AT&T and get an iPhone … or convince me to switch, turn-by-turn GPS was one of the things holding me back from the iPhone and I guess that’s not an issue for much longer. I need a reliable phone ASAP. I’d love to wait for an Android phone on Verizon, but the chances that Verizon will cripple its coolness (app store and free access to all of googleness) is almost guaranteed… or convince me to wait and risk a few weeks of camp with a phone that turns itself off a few times a day. If I go all apple on hardware, will I be tempted by the apple counterparts to the Google stuff I use and love?

Looking forward to a trip out east next week… hope Sarah and I can shake our weird ailments before then.

upgrade anticipation

Published on March 22, 2009 in Computers, Photo, Random Thoughts and Web. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I have a time frame for the macbook upgrade. If I haven’t done it by June 25th, it will happen that day. The fact that it is going to happen makes me hate the loud fans and uncomfortable weight of the Dell even more. I don’t actually hate the Dell, it’s had a bunch of good years, but it is time for the upgrade.

I don’t have a timeframe for the phone upgrade. I was waiting for the nuvifone, but there isn’t a release date for that yet, and the main reason I was leaning towards it was the GPS-centric nature of it. The word on the street is that the new iPhone OS will enable using the Google maps in other applications and allow turn-by-turn directions. I don’t know if I can go Apple in such a big way… but the iPhone does have great customer satisfaction ratings and such. My phone turned itself off three times, completely at random, on Thursday… it is definitely time for that upgrade, but it also might not happen until the summer.

I don’t know if it’s actually going to be an upgrade, but we’re supposed to switch from Dish to U-Verse next month. Our DSL is currently with AT&T, and it can’t even handle streaming Netflix movies… I don’t think we ordered any more speed, so it probably won’t change, but the girl who set up the install sure did try to convince us that it was a newer, better, more exclusive dsl line. As far as I’ve heard, U-Verse is just TV over DSL. It’s pretty likely that we’re actually trying to squeeze TV and the internet over the same pipe and actually downgrading. We shall see.

This site’s wordpress code is due for an upgrade, but I don’t have any desire to do that. All of my little plugins are working fine. Maybe, if I get a little more into tumblr/twitter/etc. after the phone/macbook upgrade, I’ll feel the need to tweak the code here to keep up with more mobile updates.

My car doesn’t need any upgrades… I guess Doug’s van is dead, though. We peeked at some craigslist ads for similar vehicles in our price range, but haven’t started actively looking at anything yet. I’ve been using the Sirius in my car much more often, lately. I got an eMail from Sirius and I was tempted to buy the latest portable radio while I can still “lock in” the current rates. Who knows if Sirius will survive? I’ve done my part to support them. I resisted the urge by telling myself that the radio I had put in my car works fine and I don’t need another portable music player… I like the idea of combining a couple devices, not adding one to carry around.

My camera also doesn’t need to be upgraded, but I haven’t used it much, lately. When I had time to be taking pictures, I was mostly playing video games. I’ll bring it along on the field trips for work and maybe that’ll respark my desire to shoot. Maybe a new toy would help… Or maybe I should get a Diana+ for myself, since it seems to be getting all the cool attachments and add-ons lately.

Upgrade fever is similar to Spring fever. All of our vacation planning is definitely keeping the typical spring fever symptoms at bay… unless vacation planning is a symptom of spring fever. Mom’s coming up during my spring break, we’ve got a family vacation planned for early June and a wedding back east in late June… and we’ve yet to pick out a show, but we plan to hit APT/Theater in the woods again this summer. I guess there are a few weeks between the team-building season and the camp season that I haven’t thought about, yet. There’s always video games…

cameraphone memories

Published on November 30, 2008 in moBlog. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

It started at the beginning of the month, when I parked my car in a way that was eerily familiar. Then a couple weeks later, the christmas trees arrived, and another familiar scene unfolded. I got my phone out again and tried to snap a similar picture. Then a scene/memory [/event?] from Thanksgiving of 2005 reappeared. That may have been the last time I saw gas below $2. I’m kind of amazed that it’s down below $2 again. I was tempted to find a similar sign and try to recapture that picture on my phone… but the tree one wasn’t as good as last year’s tree pics, so I decided against it. I think I just need to have my camera with me all the time, in November. Now I know, for next year. Unless, of course, whatever phone I replace mine with has a really good camera… doesn’t seem likely.

I think this would be a good time to mention that I’ll be at Mom’s house the weekend after Christmas. Sarah and I will only there for a few days, but we might have a little bit of free time if anybody wants to get together.

bus head

Published on August 9, 2008 in Family & Friends, Music, Photo and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , , , .

Last weekend, we went to Wisconsin, partly to fulfill our yearly tradition of seeing a play an American Players Theater and partly as a weekend getaway in honor of Sarah’s birthday. We spent the whole weekend in the Mt Horeb and Spring Green area. On Friday, we stopped in at our favorite little chocolate shop and then got dinner at the adorable Italian place we ate at last year, before heading up to the theater to catch Widower’s Houses.

Saturday, we spent the whole day in Mt Horeb, starting with breakfast at a great little place called Schubert’s. Then we took in the activities and sights of National Mustard Day. We didn’t actually participate in the activities or eat any mustard or mustard-themed food (Culver’s Mustard Custard?). But we did wander and take pictures and shop all the cute stores, including the gift-shop half of the Mustard Museum. Then we popped back into Schubert’s for milkshakes and rosettes. We also did some quick visits to the gift-shops of Little Norway and Cave of the Mounds. We bought some geodes. I’m not sure if we cracked them open yet. Then, after a little chillin’ at the motel, we got some yummy dinner at a place with a HUGE menu.

Sunday, we used the third part of our tickets to the House on the Rock tour. We did the other two parts last year. This was definitely the darkest part of the tour, but it was very cool… it started at the huge carousel and included the doll carousels, lots and lots of dollhouses and the amazing organ room. On the way home, we picked up some cheese and meat and ate at a Panera Bread rip-off called Atlanta Bread.

Pictures Here :)

It was nice to do a little road trip. I’ve been doing public transportation to work most of the summer and I’ve missed driving. I had kind of forgotten about the phenomenon that, back in high school, in the music groups that went on many trips, we called “bus head.” The theory was that sometime after two hours being enclosed in the same vehicle, something in your brain shut off. We found that it didn’t matter if it was a school bus or a nice comfy chartered bus or a van or even a car. Once you hit that point, you had “bus head.” We discussed it with our band director; It takes a long time to recover from “bus head.” We didn’t want to plan any trips with long rides and immediate performing, even if it meant leaving in the early morning. We needed at least two hours. We could unload equipment during those two hours, but we definitely couldn’t do any rehearsing or make any decisions or be expected to engage in any activities that involved a lot of thought.

Luckily, my drive to work usually stays just short of “bus head” inducing length, and the public transportation route involves changing from train to bus or “El” about halfway through. I actually drove a couple times this week. Wednesday, I got together with a couple guys, after camp, and played some music. I think it went pretty well, if it turns into something I will definitely let you all know. Thursday, we had our family night (that 60 inch TV was what my camp photos slideshow was being displayed on) and then some of the staff went to Whirlyball. I had no idea what Whirlyball was until I saw it. It’s kind of like like Jai Alai or Lacrosse, in bumper cars. It was fun.

One more week of camp left. This week includes a sleepover, possibly another trip to Eli’s cheesecake world, a visit to Independence grove and another cookout… so lots of excitement.

can I get a 60 inch monitor for my house?

Published on August 7, 2008 in Computers, Photo and Work. Closed Tags: , , .

60 inches is big!

updates on recent trips and stuff, soon, I promise!

upgrayedd

Published on July 27, 2008 in Family & Friends and Web. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I upgraded the blog to Wordpress 2.6 today. I started the process at work, at the Y, which I was worried about, since the computer there is a little slow and I don’t have any of my backup versions of files there. It went fairly smooth, though… basically only left the custom, random header image thing to do here, and a little debugging. This will serve as my Livejournal crosspost test, since that is a new/old plugin… development on the one I had been using seems to have ceased. I guess this will also test all the other new and old features. There’s a new Flickr plugin, too. It’s been a good n’ geeky day.

We’re going to see Step Brothers tonight with our recently engaged friends Jess and Jason. It looks like a typical Will Ferrel flick, which is usually a good take, and we used our $5 coupons from the opening night of Hancock… so it’s totally worth the price of admission, pretty much, no matter what.

White Mazda 5 Next weekend is our Theater in the Woods/Troll/etc weekend. I’ve definitely been looking forward to it. That also means that I have a four-day work week for camp… which is awesome. Not that camp’s hard, but it is a little draining. Only three weeks left, now. It also means that I get to do some more driving. Taking the metra/cta into work all summer has been fun, but I miss driving, and this should help make up for it. I guess I have to be more careful, now that I’m on my extended warranty. I didn’t know it was going to cost me a $100 deductible every time I needed something fixed for the next 50,000 miles.

Current Mood: (chipper) chipper
Current Music: Mr Bungle - Chemical Marriage

summer: exhausting, but fun

Published on July 13, 2008 in Photo, Web and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Camp is a much easier than adventure ed, but the hours are longer. We (the adventure ed facilitators) complained amongst ourselves about not being paid for all the time between classes, but those hours were nice, relaxing breaks. Breaks just don’t happen in the summer. I don’t have to think nearly as much; I’m barely doing any programming at all, only running or playing games a couple times a week. But all the running around and gathering supplies, moving lunches, taking pictures, etc. keeps me busy all day and makes me exhausted by the time I get home. I should be taking more days off, especially these weekend days doing front desk at the Y. I took next Sunday off, since it’s the day after Can’t Stop the Serenity in Chicago… and I’ve got the the first weekend in August, including the Friday, all blocked out for our theater / trolls / house on the rock weekend. No more 15 days in a row, this summer.

In other news, I’ve found a new feed aggregator that I like: Swurl. It has a much more blog-like design, and the timeline feature is really neat. Here’s my swurl. I also got a new camera bag. The one that came with the Pentax owed me nothing, since it was, essentially, free… it finally got too beat up to be used, so I got a Crumpler 6 Million Dollar Home and it fits a lot of stuff.

still good at losing stuff

Published on June 28, 2008 in Family & Friends and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

I have survived the first week of camp. It’s very similar to last year. A few more kids and a few more staff; a little more structure, a little less “free to wander” time. I should still be able to get a lot of pictures. I don’t have a schedule of what field trips are during what weeks… or if we’re repeating any of last year’s trips, but so far, it’s been good. Riding the train and the buses to work has been ok. My cool bus pass card thing fell out of my pocket on the way to work on Thursday, though. Unfortunately, we had a staff meeting and the extra time it took me to get some cash out and break it into small bills, so I could pay for the bus, made me too late to get to CTA headquarters to get my replacement card until the next morning. I got spoiled on that card really fast; carrying cash is really annoying. I also managed to lose my hat in the same day. I’m really good at losing stuff. It’s possible that I was simply getting more and more exhausted each day of camp. I feel like I’m either getting sick or my occasional seasonl allergies are attacking my throat. Thursday morning may have been my low point. I did manage to stay awake and alert enough to take a ride out to REI and get a new hat after work on Thursday night… which I don’t think I could have accomplished earlier that week. Friday, I stayed in the city and met up with Emily and Brett and Sarah and had dinner at a place called Earwax (which was yummy) and shopped a little at a bookstore. I was still exhausted after a few hours, but more awake than those first couple days. Hopefully my body can adjust.

Today, we took a drive up to Wisconsin. We stopped at the Jelly Belly factory on the way and picked up some candy. Our main draw up there was a couple breweries that make good root beers around Milwaukee. We managed to visit both of them and bought four cases of soda between them. We also ate at a great German place that had a very tasty Sauerbraten. We walked across the street and picked up a bunch of sausage and cheese.

And now, I’m feeling a little bit more tired than I think I should, given that it’s only 9.30… so it’s definitely not just camp that’s got me so exhausted.

summer happens

Published on June 20, 2008 in Work. Closed Tags: , , , , .

Just got through the camp training for this year. Lots of returning staff, which is a good thing. I’m an assistant/floater again, and there are four of us this year. There are also more kids, but hopefully, as we get into the swing of things, I’ll be able to break out and take a lot of pictures, like last year. One big difference is that I won’t be driving into the city, all summer, unless some special circumstance comes up at camp, or I find a band that wants to practice on a weekday evening. I did some trial runs on the trains and buses, this week, and I think I’ve figured out all my options. The rides don’t take any less time than driving, but much less gas, and will give me a chance to really listen to much more music. Camp will keep me pretty busy during the week and pretty tired in the evenings, so I will probably not blog much. This is normal summer procedure for me – I’m not dead. If I die, I’ll let you know.

Not driving a lot in the summer has put the new GPS device decision on hold… which is fine, since I can’t decide on a unit, now. XM NavTraffic is the clear choice for traffic service, but only older portable units have it, and I definitely don’t want to replace the head unit in the Mazda. Maybe by the time I’m driving a lot, again, another traffic service will have improved or NavTraffic will score some new portable placements.

I’m too tired to remember what else I wanted to blog about. Summer is already kicking in.