existential fashion disaster

Things that I’d like to accomplish back east:

• help Mom with stuff for the Yard Sale
• visit Camp Foskett
• visit the Hock Teen Center & Camp Elmwood
• catch The Bangles @ the Woodstock Fair (sweet)
• take pictures @ the Woodstock Fair (hopefully better than theirs)
• see some Wormtown music (maybe a Wormtown Wednesday)
• hang out with whoever says they miss me

Northeast Stuff to acquire and bring home:

• Devil Dogs
• Peggy Lawton Cookies
• Coffee Syrup
• Moxie & other Polar Sodas
  

Find and bring home:

• folding chair with footrest
• last year’s Nalgene bottle with the good lid

Before I leave:

• make sure I have coverage at the Y
• get new sneakers
• load up iPod with audiobooks/new music
• get new iPod mount for car

What’d I forget?

Picked up a new camera last week: Panasonic DMC-FZ50K 10MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Black), haven’t uploaded anything from it to any galleries yet, maybe this afternoon. I’m getting used to it; it’s a pretty good replacement for the UZi. I’ve taken a LOT of camp photos with it. I spent most of today putting together a posterboard’s worth of prints and a slideshow to be presented at Parent’s Night, tonight.

Spent the night with the older campers at their big camp up North on Monday night. Did some normal camp stuff… lots of swimming, some archery, some s’mores, some staying up late and being obnoxious. It was a good time; bringing city kids out to the woods is always fun. The other male staff seemed more out of his element than any of the kids, though.

Last weekend was Six Flags with the discount from Sarah’s mom’s job, which was a lot of fun, even though we didn’t go for park completion by riding every big ride, like I’m used to doing. This coming weekend we’re going to a Renaissance Fair and I’ve got the whole weekend off from the Y… looking forward to a real day off.

My car went in yesterday for it’s 30k mile service, which was a tad expensive and forced me to take the train into the city for the first time. I had to catch a bus from the train station, and it took me some time to figure out that I’d gone completely the wrong way for my bus stop, but the experience was pretty good, overall. I could ride into the city if I had to. I still prefer driving, though.

I’ve got to do some decorating for the Parent’s night, but if I get some time off, some new photos might show up in the various online galleries.

Got the fish tank set up with an eSATA drive. Attempted to seal the acrylic to the frame… made a big mess. clean-up of big mess and possibly finishing the project may occur this afternoon. I’ll make a stop at Meijer, on the way home from work, to check out their tank decoration supply.

Another fun week of camp… there some photos on Flickr and Zooomr (same shots). I enjoy the camp photographer role quite a bit. Next week’s trips include Lamb’s Farm and an Ice Cream Factory. Wee!

Spent July 3rd at the Taste of Chicago and stuck around in the record breaking crowds long enough to catch some fireworks. We all stayed at a hotel in the city that night and went swimming in their 19th story pool, the next morning.

Inner city camp is a new kind of experience. It’s still camp, it’s still summer, there’s still songs and activities and such but having no real home base means we take a lot of trips… some walks to parks and playgrounds and a lot of field trips (on school buses with seatbelts!) to interesting places around the city. It feels like an extreme version of those school-vacation-week camps that I’ve been part of in the past. It’s also a much more liberal and less restricted camp, in terms of contact with the kids; I’m finding it hard to break out of the mold of the Y camp no-unnecessary-touching behavior/style. Another mind-blowing difference is that we provide the lunches for the entire camp and staff, every day. The food’s not bad, either. I need to start bringing my camera every day, the camera-phone is probably not doing these scenes justice. Oh, and I went in Lake Michigan for the first time, on Tuesday, with the campers. It was cold.

Fish tank computer is going slowly. Booting off an external drive is proving more difficult than it seemed. It wouldn’t be an issue, except that I’m trying to preserve the Windows XP OS from the Gateway. I believe Linux would happily boot off a USB drive. I don’t think the machine is quite powerful enough to attempt OS X x86. I attempted a few portable XP installations, with no luck, and I think I’m going to give in and go eSATA instead. Otherwise, it’s in good shape. It runs, and the tray fits into the frame and acrylic piece that I cut to shape (which snapped into two pieces, but we’ll solve that with the silicone sealant). We decided that a blue light was necessary, so I picked one up, and then found that there are blue lights in one of the fans and the power button and the external hard drive enclosure. The machine might need a blue-themed name, when it gets finished.

The Serenity screening was very fun, it was definitely a different experience on a big screen. I knew the fan base was extreme and had obviously accomplished some great things, but the Done the Impossible documentary was pretty informative and really pointed out just how special they all are. We got a couple of Sarah’s friends hooked on the show and have been watching Firefly from the beginning with them.

The Adventure Education season ended. The overnights went well, I put some pics up. Now I’m in my break between that and summer camp season. I decided to work for the camp run by my boss from adventure ed… not because there seems to be any team-building or teens or anything else I’m into, but simply to keep that connection alive. My other option was driving skate camp for the Y I’m working for, the ages would’ve been better, and that’s my only regret in turning it down.

So what have I been doing on my break?

Watching a lot of netflix movies and movies in the theaters. I watched From Dusk Till Dawn for the first time, and I think a couple other Robert Rodriguez flicks are in my queue. Saw Pirates 3 as well: not bad, but was lacking the cleverness of the first and the crazy chase scenes of the second.

Playing a lot of Super Paper Mario. I keep dying in the flopside pit of 100 trials… got all the way to the end last time and freaked out at the boss battle and messed up.

On the family front, my Aunt Rosemarie died. She was my Dad’s older sister. I wasn’t terribly close to her. She always seemed pretty kooky to me. I’m pretty sure she’s the only aunt who ever fit into that crazy old relative who gives you weird sloppy kisses category. The family’s talking about spreading her ashes, along with her husband’s, on the East coast… maybe sometime this summer.

Not much else is going on. Lots of relaxing, which is good. Threadless is having another one of those week-long sales where they release new shirts every day. If you’ve been waiting for the sale to pick up that clever shirt, now is the time.

Sarah’s got an interview at Calumet, this week. Think good thoughts, send her the good vibes, wish her luck… whatever your style is … much appreciated.

My Lenscrafters visit didn’t go as smoothly as I’d hoped. They would not put lenses into either of my old frames. The black plastic ones were “too dry” and might snap, or something like that… and the older ones were “too hard to trace.” I find this one harder to believe, since I had the lenses in those replaced a couple weeks after buying them, due to a giant scratch from a car door to the face. I’m gonna do a little research and see if this is some sort of scam by Lenscrafters. After shelling out the big bucks, I have some new frames. I’ll try to get some pictures up, soon. They’re all metal, so I shouldn’t get that “too dry” line again, and there’s no wire/nylon, the frame goes all the way around, so the “tracing” shouldn’t cause a problem, either. Of course I’m concerned about breaking them, since I broke just about every other pair of all metal frames I’ve ever owned, even that pair that felt heavy and unbreakable. I also keep getting the nose pads stuck in my hair when I pop the glasses up onto my head for a sec. I got too used to the plastic frames, I guess.

Digging into the moneys for glasses didn’t hurt too bad, since the money right now is constant. It’s only like this for about another month and a half, though. It’s March, almost April, and I don’t have a summer plan yet. The last time I waited this long was when I left the Woonsocket Y for Hockomock. That was a great switch, but was only possible because Bill Lawrence was a kind and generous camp director who saw a guy with 6 years of camp counselor experience and decided to give him a chance. I did find a Y to work for out here, so I don’t lose the retirement fund money… but I don’t know if their camp offerings really have a good fit for me, and they haven’t begged me fill one of their slots, yet. I’m pretty much a legal Illinois driver, now, though, so I could offer myself to the climbing or skate camps. My boss at Adventure Ed runs some sort of camp in the summer, too. It probably pays better than the Y, and almost definitely pays better than the resident camp up north with the Outdoor Ed Director position, simply because it’s a residence situation. I also haven’t heard anything back from them. Another co-worker mentioned working for him with Kayaks and Canoes… it’s different, but he’s a cool guy and I wouldn’t mind that kind of work, even if it’s just to broaden my horizons a bit.

Life otherwise is good! I saw Body Worlds 2 yesterday, at the Museum of Science and Industry. It was a little creepy, but pretty interesting. I was intrigued by the weird back muscles that seemed to overlap each other. We found it funny that there was a lot of intact genitalia, especially on some of the people put into very strange [and very revealing] poses. There was a lot of stuff written on the walls on the way in about confronting death and accepting it and not making it taboo… perhaps there should’ve been a panel dedicated to being ready to see a lot of genitalia, as well. The rest of the museum was pretty cool, and fairly genitalia-free. Our tickets included an OMNIMAX film. While we were waiting to get in, we talked about how much better than IMAX those three little letters could possibly make the experience. We were fairly awestruck by the theater itself, which was like a cross between an IMAX and a planetarium, the screen was rounded and went up over our heads and out about as far anybody’s range of straight-ahead vision. When the first full-screen image came up, there were a lot of whoahs and ooohs.

Flea Market tomorrow… and maybe a picnic if the weather is good? Looking forward to it.

So much has happened since this stupid site got moved. It is officially on a new server now, and so far, things seem ok. We’re on newer versions of Wordpress and Gallery and I’ve reinstalled most of the plugins that were on here before… so we should be back in business.

So, to fill in:
I did a fairly good job cleaning up, but a few weeks of general living has cluttered the place up again… so, some more cleaning is in order. So I’ll get on that this week, between work and stuff. This week is the last week of camp. Technically, it’s called “Last Chance Camp” since some of the schools are already going back. So, we have a smaller staff and less options, usually, but we’ll see how it is when I get there tomorrow.

Olivia came to visit. She stayed an entire weekend… came to work with me a couple times. We played some scrabble. We went to the zoo. Olivia learned more about her camera. It was fun. I’ll get the pictures from the weekend up soon. As you may have guessed, from the last blog, I’ve gotten a zooomr account, to try it out. I like it quite a bit. I’ve only dabbled with flickr, but I like it better, so far. I still like using my own gallery better than storing elsewhere, but I’ll probably do a bit of both for a while.

Sarah is coming to visit soon! It was gonna be just a weekend, but we just extended it to a whole week. We’ll have to work around some of my work schedule stuff, but a longer visit is awesome! My grandmother’s sister’s 100th birthday bash is definitely on the schedule, and some touring of my old haunts in the Dudley and Worcester areas, as well as western Mass, if time allows. If you’d like to meet the lovely Sarah, and experience the awesomeness that I fell in love with, let me know, and maybe we can work something in.

My three part plan of action isn’t going quite as smoothly as I’d hoped. Andy’s old position is now being combined with some sort of full-time, all-year camp director position… which makes it too much job for one person… but I put in a resume, anyway. But I didn’t even get an interview. So apparently, that’s not gonna happen. While I could just stay where I am and continue doing what I have been for the past few years, I don’t think it’s gonna get any better with a boss that’s overwhelmed with camp stuff. The ropes department already loses a few bookings and days of work each year, now we won’t have anyone who’s main concern is getting us more work. So my old step 2 was to contact Charlie about working for him or finding another program that works as much as the one I’m in now… but that may get bumped down by trying to find some work in the Chicago area (yes, where Sarah lives ). I’ve already got some feelers out to a couple Y people out there… nothing looks amazing yet, but I’ll update here.

I think that’s enough for now. I’ll post again when I get pictures from the weekend with Olivia up.

I am home. Camp has started. I am exhausted. I didn’t have a break today… got on the bus a little before 8am, worked with three of the older groups doing some basic team-building, sort of working my way up in intensity throughout the day… no break for lunch … did the bus thing after camp and got back to the Y around 5.15pm. I think the next two days are supposed to be almost as fully booked, too, except we might actually have lunch breaks. It looks like it’ll be a good summer. Staying up late and barely getting any sleep and then driving for 15 hours and getting a few hours before work might not have been the most logical decision, but falling in love seems to have that effect, even on those who claim to be very logical.

This recent trend of posts is kind of a rarity for me in the summer. Don’t be surprised if I disappear a little. Work will wear me down all day and I’ll spend most of my time after work in mega-relax mode… listening to music and trying to figure out when I can get back to Chicago.

I made it and I don’t think I forgot anything important. I’ve spent a couple days here, now, and the rain has been either looming overhead or happening almost the whole time. Making fun outdoor plans has been difficult because of this, but it’s been a great time, so far, regardless. I get the feeling Sarah may not think so, but she’s a great hostess/guide. I really enjoyed our dinner & a movie thing the first night. And sitting around and watching movies all day yesterday was a good way to avoid potential rain. I had dinner with her family last night, too. It was really entertaining, and very tasty. Hopefully we’ll get some pictures today, if the rain ever stops, definitely tomorrow, though, as that’s our planned adventure to downtown. They just moved me from one room to another at my hotel because of a leaky toilet. It was pretty bizarre, but otherwise the hotel has been everything I expected it to be, and the frickin’ huge bed is way more than I expected it to be. It’s really nice to have this break, not thinking about work, and knowing that when I do get back, things will be in totally different gears, as we start summer camp. Trying not to think about the fact that I only have a few more days here…

A few years ago, I was back at the first camp I worked at, running some ropes course stuff for a weekend rental. It was a big family picnic and seemed like a mix of fairly decent family-types and neanderthal idiots, as all the weekend rentals are. I had all my ropes gear with me, a few harnesses and carabiners and such… all stuffed into my big beautiful bag. This bag was a custom-designed bag from Timbuk2; a giant messenger bag, with a nice padded back made from a semi-waterproof waxed canvas material, a leather “boot” around the bottom and all sorts of extra pockets including a padded compartment made for laptops. It seemed to be indestructible and almost bottomless. And while I was carrying a ladder and half of the equipment down the hill to the storage shed, it was stolen, with all my equipment in it.

That was tragic, mostly because of the bag, and not the gear. Timbuk2 had stopped making that model of bag, earlier that year. I could no longer get a back with the padded laptop compartment, or the leather boot around the bottom, or even of that exact size. But I managed to find someone on eBay selling a few of them. They were ugly colors and Ballistic Nylon instead of Waxed Canvas and didn’t have the boot option or the extra zippered flat file pocket… but they were the right size, so I bought one.

That bag was decorated with sharpies by my campers almost immediately… I didn’t mind, I figured it’d make it less likely to be stolen with drawings of rats and beavers on it. I also wrote my name and phone number on the inside of it, with a super permanent industrial sharpie. I was back in business with a big ugly bag. I used this bag for everything for quite a while. I always carried it around camp during the summer days. On trips, I could fit my laptop, two or three days worth of clothes and cleanliness essentials as well as all of my camera gear in it. When I worked out at the ropes course, I could fit a full day’s worth of team building props and toys into it… and Ropes is in full swing right now, so that’s the way that bag has been, lately, full of props and supplies for a day of team building.

Unfortunately, the building we use to store our participants lunches and bags, and to eat our own lunches, and for bathrooms, is not ours alone. It becomes the camp office in the summertime. This past weekend, an overzealous employee decided that the camp office needed to be cleaned out and proceeded to throw out everything that was in it, including my bag full of gear. Irreplaceable props, that I’ve used in my team building curriculum for years are now in a dumpster somewhere, probably still in my big orange bag. My big orange bag with the drawings done by my campers and my NAME INSIDE OF IT … is at the bottom of a dumpster somewhere.

When the YMCA says that they instill respect into all of their programs, they apparently don’t mean respect for other employees, departments or the property of those employees or departments. I feel utterly violated, and bagless.