Shopping for real

So I went shopping today for real. There was none of that "as seen on TV" stuff involved, except at Spencers, and well, what do you expect from Spencers?
Anyway, today was the annual trek I make with my friend Wobby to do the last minute Christmas shopping. I'm usually done, and come to think of it, we usually do it on Christmas Eve. It's more fun to see the masses of humanity on the 24th, for some reason, as they go after those last minute gifts. I had a list of zero things to get, and he had about three, all at the same store.
We hit the mall early, about 10:30, and it was already building quite the crowd. I haven't been in a mall for more than a hit and run on one particular store in years. Today we ambled though.
We probably annoyed the heck out of the other shoppers, because unlike them, we were in it for the adventure. And those shoppers were so not mellow like they are on Christmas Eve. I guess this is the frantic weekend, where they try to cram it all in, whereas the night before Christmas, they've given up on the stress and figure they'll get what they get, even if it is a holiday sweater sold at 90% off. Attitude makes the difference, is all I'm saying.
Wobby and I must have spent an hour sniffing candles in Illuminations. Then we went upstairs and sniffed some more at the Yankee Candle Company. I think my nose malfunctioned though, because by the time we made it to TarJayyyyyy (that's French for Target) I couldn't even smell the popcorn. That was nearly tragic, but my nose recovered, thank you.
So yeah, shopping on Christmas Eve seems to be more fun than shopping the weekend before. I'll have to do a comparison study and find out. Meanwhile, Merry Christmas everyone!

Great eggs every time - I'm so excited!

Please note right over there, by the red arrow, it says to add the required amount of WATER and use the switch if you're tired of boiling eggs.

Scuse me, but isn't that how you boil eggs already? And you don't have to store the damned thing under your kitchen counter either.

Also, who makes boiled eggs for parties? Because I want to go and see that party. Please can I be invited? Please?

Fun Factory Butter

Just so you know, I've never found butter so hard it destroyed my bread. Because you know, when I take it out of the fridge, where I store my butter, instead of the deep freezer, I give it some time to warm up before I spread it. And if I absolutely cannot wait, Hints from Heloise taught me how to nuke a stick of butter ever so delicately to get that nice, soft spread.

Now give your daughter back her playdoh toys and stop drinking gin while you cook dinner...

A six year old will do it for less money

That's right... you can spend 9.95 plus 6.95 on packaging and handling. Please note that it does not say SHIPPING and handling... you're paying 6.95 for the box. God only knows what they're going to charge you for the shipping, since right over there, you can pay an additional five bucks for express processing.

It's like getting front cuts in line at school!

The Slanket!

It says right there, down at the bottom, that this is the best blanket... ever!

Hey, if I use a lot of periods... and exclamation marks... can I claim that this is the best blog ever!!!!!!

Yeah, doesn't work that way, does it?

More crap no one needs to own

As if the damned snuggie wasn't enough, it turns out there is another one just like it, going head to head. I give you... the slanket.

Seriously. It’s gone too far. Just too far.

And now my boyfriend is threatening to give me one. He’s threatening to be single, is what he is, if he does that. Actually no. He’s not. He’s threatening a real, straight up “we’re getting married” with a specific date and all, if he does that, because I'll put him on the spot faster than a four year old does Santa Claus.

Who knew the as seen on TV stuff equaled marriage proposals? But then again, he’s the man who straight up told me that he’s actually used Ginsu knives, so he should expect this.

So the discussion of the aforementioned snuggie and the slanket (what the hell is up with that name, anyway?), I had to go look online. And naturally, there were some shopping suggestions made just for me. Including this one: caulk away.

You know what I use to remove old caulk? A six year old. That’s right. Whether I want the old caulk removed or not, the six year old niece is just going to get right in there and “accidentally” pull it off. Especially if I act like I don’t want her to. Hey, it’s free labor, right? And I saved $9.95 plus ten thousand dollars in shipping and handling too. Bingo, baby, is all I’m saying.

And if the Smart Spin supposedly holds all my storage needs… why am I paying U-haul several grand a year?

Also, what the hell? You know someone ripped off their kid’s toy box for the original idea for this little gadget. And who really neeeeeeeeeeeeeds star shaped butter?

Being me, I’d expect the market for these products would go down in a tough economy. But I’m dead certain that this sort of stuff is absolutely flying off the shelves, because it sounds good. It’s hyped well. And if it breaks in 2 weeks, well, I can just go back to using the pots and pans I have to boil my eggs…

As Seen On TV

So in case you haven’t heard, I committed economic suicide and quit my job at camp just before Thanksgiving. I’m back in Texas, where I’ve come to learn I was paid so little that I could have qualified for food stamps. So as it turns out, it wasn’t much of an economic risk as I thought it was going to be.

Anyway, I’m back in Houston and have been getting my stuff sorted out. When I came home from Iraq, I sort of sorted it, because I moved to North Carolina shortly after I got back. This time around, I’ve been a wee bit more thorough, but not much, because I don’t really know where I’m headed to next, but that isn’t the point.

The point is… what the hell do we need a snuggie for?

Seriously, when did it become impossible for us to put on a sweater in our house that we now need a giant blanket with arms in it? Great big, baggy, oversized arms, no less.

And you want to convince me that this is good for my nieces, too? Hell, the little one would be swallowed whole by this thing. One size fits all? I don’t think so.

It’s a robe people. Worn backwards. It’s like a hospital gown on steroids, actually, because the damned thing doesn’t meet to wrap around, like a robe does. And I’m just saying that the action shot they have of the family sitting on metal bleachers outside all wrapped up in their fleece monstrosities…. You know that little old lady was bitching to high heaven about freezing her ass off and the little girl has some serious wounds under hers, too, from tripping over the damned thing.

And someone, somewhere, is making money off of this sh*t. C’mon people, we’re in a recession, but we’re not desperate enough to buy this crap. Just make a home made gift certificate for one home cooked meal, or a foot massage. Trust me, it’s a way better deal all around.

This as seen on TV crap has got to go is all I’m saying. Wasn’t the bedazzler good enough? Now we have to have the GeMagic tool. And just how hard is it, really, to turn a light switch on or off that we now have to have a remote control operated one that works through walls?

Now I can see the potential for mischief with that last one… but as a rule, it’s just not that freaking hard to go to a lamp and turn it on. Or off. Or on again. And if you really struggle with the little toggle switch, get a touch lamp. My grandma had one back in the 80s, and seriously, the dog could have worked that lamp with his nose. A remote control… not so much.

Time to turn off the tv, I think…

Cranky, not cranky

So I was obviously irritated as heck after talking to the cable company. (Yes, I know it's the satellite company, but it takes longer to say, and isn't as satisfying.) After all, Stephanie Plum, and the entire Trenton clan all swear and curse out the cable company throughout the course of a book, so if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.
But really, that's not what brought me back. Today I had a fun encounter up at Yellow Dog Designs.
We get a lot of donations of in-kind items here, and it really helps us operate well at camp. And Yellow Dog came through with an offer the other day, which landed on my desk. I'm not complaining right now, but almost everything lands on my desk.
Shoe laces. All sorts of them.
That was fun.
And then when we called and found out we could drop by and get some for trick or treat treats, well, it was a short trip up to Greensboro. Where we were greeted by a yellow dog.
Named Sugar.
And then a black dog named Batman.
And then another black dog named Will.
And then an itty bitty dachshund who's name I can't remember.
And then another yellow dog.
It was a lot of fun to walk into a business where the dogs come to say hi. And then I leave with a car packed with cases and cases full of shoe laces. Heh. That rhymes.
Will was my favorite dog though. He's a big black lab, bigger than the other labs there, and when he's happy with you, he growls. I decided to think of it as talking, because it wasn't a mean growl, what with the tail wagging and the perky ears. When he was a puppy, it seems he got confused and started equating big growls with being happy. The owner said it was the guys in the shop who got him trained oddly way back when, and no one tried to fix it.
So I was standing on the loading dock eye to eye with about 100 lbs of growling, writhing, delighted dog when I rubbed his ears. And it's a little odd, I will admit, to be growled at and licked at the same time, but that's just part of Will's charm.
I offered to dog sit.
I was given dog collars, lanyards and shoe laces instead. I can't complain.

Oh, so you meant it was 24 months, but you said 12 months...

Stupid, stupid Directv.
Stupid.
The camp is now providing cable tv into my house, because "they didn't know" my house never had it. So that got fixed. After I paid for satellite at about $700 bucks from January until now. Nice timing, camp, really. Nice.
So I call Directv to cancel my service, expecting a fee, because I wasn't doing my 1 year commitment. And then I find out they're telling me that I have a 24 month commitment.
That's when I went ballistic. Because I know that the dude on the phone I talked to way back in January, who had to deal with me after Directv lost my account installation information, told me it was a 12 month commitment. Tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelllllllllveeeeeeeee. Twelve. 1-2. Twelve. And I checked with him.
Yep, still twelve.
So I went for it, and had the installation done.
And now, when I call to cancel, I'm being socked a massive fee because the tweaknuts down there say I have a 24 month commitment.
No way in hell would I have made that commitment, given the fact that I was on a new, low paying, unknown job. I had no idea how long I'd be here, and though I HOPED it would be for years and years, I wasn't betting the farm on that.
But that's okay, because Directv bet the farm for me.
Know what it costs to cancel your service? Twenty bucks a month. That's not much, really. It just means I don't go out to eat twice each month, and then it's paid off. But three hundred dollars at once, to cancel, is really hard to swallow.
And there's a hell of a double standard going on, too, because it IS possible to merge 2 accounts. Say mine and my significant other's, once we get married. No, I'm not getting married. What I'm saying is that the idiots at the satellite company will allow me to merge my account with my spouse's account, but I can't merge my account with my parents' account. What's the difference, really? It's probably some obscure legal technicality along the lines of same sex partnerships, but I don't want to think about that.
All I have to say is that North Carolina has not been kind to me. It's cost me a small fortune to work here at a camp making no money. This can't go on.
And if I ever get my hands on a directv executive, I'll be exacting my three hundred dollars worth of fee out of his hide. More than once, just for good measure.

It's been a busy few weeks around here. I started this little episode two weeks ago, as we finished up a family weekend, and ended up surrounded by 800 motorcycles here at camp. I didn't get much farther than the vroom, vroom though, when I got a call on my day off telling me that the order from one of our esteemed arts & crafts donors had arrived, and that I had 6 pallets of supplies sitting at maintenance, with a forecast of rain in the coming days.

I have to tell you, six pallets of anything is huge. But it wasn't just those six pallets. I also got tagged to organize a volunteer crew who came to help get ready for the garage sale we had at camp this past weekend. Didn't know about them but that was another 6 pallets of supplies, in a different location. That was the day I was shuttling TV reporters down into camp, too, as a helicopter landed with some NASCAR peeps here to shake some hands. I imagine the list of people who have to hang up on their mom on the phone because of reporters and helicopters are few and far in between when it doesn't involve a natural disaster.

So I had some volunteers for 6 of the 12 pallets. And then I had 2 co-workers who busted their butts with me to get the arts & craft supplies into the craft building. The rest of the team... not so much. Everyone on the team did get together on Friday to help development set up all the stuff I'd previously helped organize for the garage sale fundraiser camp has. I've never seen so many die cast cars, of all sizes, in one place. And then the day of the garage sale, I fielded a million phone calls, like "how does the popcorn machine work?" and "do we have a hot dog costume?"

The machine works by heating up a kettle, to which you dump in corn and oil and let it do it's thing. And no, we don't have a hot dog costume. I can hook you up with a Slim Jim costume, a pizza slice, a milk shake, or an order of fries, but we don't have a hot dog. "Are you sure?" I'm positive. "Hey, how does the popcorn machine work? They just asked me to make some and I don't know how." Turn it on, let it heat up, dump in the seeds, dump in the oil, repeat as needed. "How do we play music in the ... (pick one) dining hall, the bowling alley, the theater or over the jumbo tron?" I'm pretty sure I worked that day, even though I was off.

This week started off calm by comparison. I had a busy Monday, with an unproductive trip to the eye doctor. (They were busy, and people who had appointments after me complained so they got to go first.) I rescheduled. And then a group was coming through from some foundation I've never heard of, for some sort of tour or something, that no one cared to deal with, so it got handed to me.

And that's when angels began to sing and the sun beamed down on me, making up for all the crap I deal with here, on a regular basis. You see, I'm the "go to" person for just about everyone, even though there are people above, below and beside me who should be handling these issues... but they don't, because they can't. So I get crap from all sides to deal with, usually on the fly. And I can deal with it. But. Not my job.

Back to the angels though.... the group that came through wanted to know about what we do here (not an uncommon question). And how we do it. And what they should do. Somewhere in the 3 hours we spent together, I got invited out to learn to ski with them. And I think I got offered a job several times, too. It seems they pay their staff in 1 day what we pay in a week. And they're in the freaking Colorado Rockies!

I'll be brushing off the resume, writing a letter or two, and a strategic plan on how I can benefit their organization. Because the best thing of all is that they are combining care for all my military troops and their families, in addition to kids with special needs. The military side is something I started writing back when I was in Iraq, seeing a need even then. And here it is, landing in my lap again, asking for my help.

I told you the angels sang.

The Road to Hell

Man, I haven't written in forever. I've had some good intentions, but they're just paving the road to hell right about now. I figure my personal road is a ten lane superhighway at this point. It's a toss up though, whether the traffic is flying along at 80 miles and hour or snarled in gridlock that will last for the rest of my life on that road.
Anyway, camp ended in August, and I think I did a pretty good job this summer. I didn't have the urge to kill anyone, which is saying something, since I was surrounded by kids who were holding on to the last of their teenage behaviors with a death grip. More importantly than not killing anyone though, is that the kids had fun. Every time I saw them, the campers were having fun. I'm not so sure I did, but I figure that's just because I'm one of the responsible people who are busy fretting over all the details. And around here, there are a lot of details.
After camp I dashed home to Texas for a bit, which made me realize that I miss living in the suburbs. I know, I know. How can you possibly miss living in the suburbs? But I do, because there, I have easy access to all kinds of crap, whether it's a store that sells sunglasses, or Thai food I don't have to drive three hours to find. And a broadway play. Even if I don't go to all that stuff, I miss the access to it like hell. Round about these parts, here in Central North Cackalackee, I can't even find a used book store. Thank God for the internet is all I can say on that one.
And holy crap. I'm watching a movie, in which my boyfriend's son has a few scenes as an extra or something, and dannnnnnnnnnnnng, do they look alike. At least we know what Sam I Am will look like when he's older, and even if I am biased, I think he'll be pretty good looking. Wonder if those strong family genes are going to carry on to the little Sam that's on the way. Not sure the planet can handle three of them at the same time, but we'll find out soon enough.
Even with the hurricane, I bet my favorite Tex Mex dive is still open and going strong. Heck, they were probably only closed for a day or two, before they were back to dishing up some great food to fill hungry bellies. The family came through okay, and everyone is bunking at my parent's house, which is sure to be interesting. I'm kind of glad I'm not there for that one, no lie. I'll be home for Thanksgiving. That's plenty close.
So yeah, I'm going to pack it in and go for a drive on that superhighway to hell of mine rather than blathering on about a thousand other things. It's about the only road I can go for a drive on, with the price of gas right now.

I'm a weather junkie

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I’ve been busy as hell. A well-meaning friend of mine pointed out that I might as well have fallen off the planet for all of the communicating I’ve been doing with the outside world. I assured her I was still on the planet, even though I live in a bubble.

No really, here at camp, we live in the bubble. That means we keep the outside world at bay for most of our staff and all of our campers. They’re here for barely 5 days, so they can survive a week without cell phones and I-pods. Me though, I step in and out of the bubble every day, because I live for the weather.

It’s my job to determine whether we’re on the regular schedule, a back up schedule, or the weather schedule. The weather schedule can be called because of thunder and lightning, but it can also be called because of a nasty heat index. And I must say, we’ve had some nasty indices, topping out in the 110’s, lately. As if that wasn’t enough to throw camp into a tizzy, we’ve had some thunderstorms come to visit lately.

And that’s when my cell phone and walkee-talkee blow up. I can’t communicate fast enough with the rest of camp to head off the phone calls and radio reports coming in at me. I usually burn through 2 radio batteries in the course of a day, and most of my cell phone. In a storm though, I can burn through all of that in under an hour, which leaves me a bit stunned. It’s a whole lot of program to rearrange, to keep 128 campers and at least that many staff safe and having fun.

The worst was last week. We had some outside guests coming into camp to do something special for the campers and a bad storm moved in during the afternoon. The entertainment counselor called me crying, because it was raining, and she needed it to stop. Yeah, I’ll get right on canceling that storm for you. I have the national weather service on speed dial, in my cell, which means I can check the weather, but I can’t cancel or change it, no matter how we’d all like to wish otherwise.

Anyway, after a couple hours of bad storms, and power outages, the weather cleared. We had dinner about 15 minutes late. And our special guests arrived.

Because the US Army’s Golden Knights came to play. They made a couple jumps into camp, thrilling the campers and staff alike. Sure, the humidity was at about 98%, and the temperature was around 112, but we spent the evening outside staring into the sky. The camp was miserable, because for the first thirty minutes of trying to breathe swamp water in place of air, no one knew what was happening, and then the first skydiver came down, flying the POW MIA flag under his canopy.

And then it was on.

The good news is that we’re in our 9^th week of camp. We only go to 10 sessions, which is at least 2 sessions too long, but we’re almost done. And when we’re done, after I take a week of vacation, I should get back to regular communication, I hope.

Camp is good

It’s been a very busy month. We’re starting our fourth session tomorrow, and things are going pretty well. I can’t say they’re going great, because there are always downs, but there are several ups, to balance it all out.

I mean sure, we had a lousy week at boating, with one kid clocking himself in the head with his own canoe paddle, and then another kid falling in the lake while trying to climb into a boat, and then the next day a counselor tipping a canoe over and clocking another camper in the head. That wasn’t a fun place to be, for me or my staff.

Over in Adventure, at the 55 foot tall Alpine tower, we found ourselves short staffed, so I ended up helping out all morning on Monday. No big deal as my schedule can handle it, but sadly, my sunblock could not, so I nursed a super secret sunburn for three days, which I called “dry skin.” Sunburn around here is a cardinal sin, so the few people who knew had to keep it quiet from the medical team. And then little bottles of sunblock with an SPF of about a million started randomly appearing on my golf cart and in my backpack. That was some entertainment.

Arts and crafts had a great week, though, because I got approval to buy a ton of blank leather bracelets, for our oldest campers to make. They hate arts & crafts, as a rule, but they liked doing the leather tooling, so I kept pleading for it. And the big boss came through, which should make for some fun times over there. We also got a new donation of about a million markers, which I’ll be regifting to another camp, because we just can’t use them before they dry up.

Things are rocking and rolling in sports and rec, now that we turfed the third counselor out to be a cabin counselor. She had a whole lot of drama which made session 1 and 2 a bunch of misery for her coworkers, and not much fun for me, either. By comparison, things were smooth sailing this week. And the kids had fun. Plus I got an email request asking what supplies we need donated for the Superdome, so I spent today coming up with a list that will cost several thousand dollars, but really give us some great gear.

On the downside, since I supervise the most counselors as the program director, I’ve been asked more than once to play the heavy with some of the cabin counselors, too, when their unit leaders can’t get the right behavior change. I hate those types of meetings. It gave me a bunch of anxiety.

Which led me to another type of anxiety I experienced for the first time this week. See, at the closing campfire each session, a professional company comes in and launches fireworks for the campers to enjoy. The normal pyrotechnician, or whatever they’re called, wasn’t here this week, and his back up guy was in place. The back up guy didn’t have quite the right timing, so the fireworks to me looked like a whole bunch of incoming fire and outgoing C-RAM rounds. And that’s when the shakes began. Stupid Iraq still bugs me almost a year later.

But camp is good. Yeah. Good.

It's raining, it's pouring... okay it's not, but it might!

Mmm, that’s better. Things are down to a manageable level of chaos around here, and I think I’m doing pretty well. Not perfect, of course, because I am far from perfect, but I’m getting things done when I say I will. I’m not leaving anyone twisting in the wind, and I’m getting people trained to do what they need to do this summer.

Today was the perfect day to train them all on weather procedures. I’ve mentioned to them in the past that I’m the person who will make the weather call. But today we had a pretty good chance of some bad thunderstorms in the afternoon as a cold front blew in. So when we were all gathered in the theater this morning, I was center stage with the microphone, going over some weather procedures.

They’re pretty much common sense, but there’s nothing common about camp. I was telling them that if they hear thunder or spot lightning, that they should call it in to me immediately. At my extension. Which is forwarded to my cell phone. Which lead to the perfect opportunity for a trio of counselors to sing the song they’d made up about my phone number.

Keira’s desk phonnnnnnnnnne,

Keira’s desk phonnnnnnnnnne,

2-0-3-4, Keira’s desk phonnnnne.

Apparently you’re in, you know “innnn” when they make up a song about you. Granted it’s just my phone number, but still, I’ve been told that it means I’m not only liked, I’m well liked.

Which is a good thing because tonight when I had to go out in the rain to three different areas and send all the counselors up the hill, I was pretty stern. I wasn’t mean, I was just authoritative, so that they’d know to truck their butts up the hill immediately, since I didn’t want them off the hill to begin with, but I gave in when they started whining.

But yeah. A song. Heh. And the entire camp sang it, twice.

90 Miles an Hour

Holy Batman, have I been running at 90 miles an hour. I got back from Texas on the same day that a group of camp counselors arrived here, and it’s been nonstop ever since. It was pretty nonstop before I left, actually, too, but this is verging on ridiculous.

I can’t remember when exactly it happened, but I’d say around the third day of camp, one of the staff got sick. Hell, it was my roommate who got sick, and the camp nurse called me while I was up in Greensboro at Wal-Mart to ask me to be a good roommate and bring her some ginger ale. Seems the roommate was throwing up big time.

Seems the roommate was also patient X. And while she probably wasn’t the one who actually contaminated everyone, in the end over 25 people got sick over the next three days. We had a serious case of the Norovirus in camp, and it had everyone blowing chunks, tossing their cookies and spewing violently for hours on end.

I had the good fortune to avoid the illness, but I was one of 5 healthy people who kept the camp running throughout it all. It’s a fact that I did 3 people’s jobs, including my own, and kept us on track. It seems like it was a month ago now, though, because when we finally got everyone healthy, it was time for my 30 program counselors to arrive, and I had to immediately see to their training.

Two days after that, the rest of the counselors arrived, and it was time to start their training. And now I’m rapidly rewriting the activity schedule to try and satisfy the departments who need a specific schedule, while keeping the rest of the camp on track. That’s 19 program areas for each kid to visit throughout 3 days, and that ain’t easy.

Since it’s not challenging enough, I’ve got a cranky lifeguard who is way too big for her britches trying to railroad me into making the schedule changes on her agenda. So I had to derail her little train a bit and take away the boating counselors, because I think running the pool will be more than enough for her this summer. Actually, right now I’m not even sure she’s competent to do that, but a trial by fire will answer that soon enough.

Once camp gets started in June, things should normalize a bit. When they do, I’ll try to write more because it is a really spectacular place. There’s just no time at all, as I’m pulling 17 hour days regularly. But I live in hope that it will settle down soon.

And they let her be a lifeguard?

So I’m back in Houston this week to teach a water safety instructor class. I have to teach that course every 2 years, minimum, in order to stay certified as an instructor trainer. Since getting that IT rating was such a pain in the butt that I make certain I teach, and having spent a year and a half in Iraq, it’s time right now, this instant, to teach.

I packed up my office and brought a ton of work with me, because the start of camp is next Saturday. Well, staff training starts next Saturday, but still, I have to have everything ironed out and on the schedule by then, even though the first campers won’t arrive until the 1^st of June. Anyway, I caught a plane back to Houston, my dad picked me up at the airport, and then we met my mom a couple blocks away, where I all but threw him out of the car and headed across town to teach less than an hour later. Awesome parents, to say the least.

Friday night’s course went well and my friend Tweetie Bird came to teach with me. The WSI course is pretty involved and has a ton of lecture to do, so we like tag teaming it, for our own sake. It’s also great to see her again, since she’s here and I’m there, most of the time.

Saturday morning we’re back at the pool and had just put our class in the water for the first time. It’s an indoor pool and they were jumping up and down complaining the water was cold while I pretty much gave them a chance to settle down. We started swimming a few practice lengths of strokes they needed help on, and while I was down toward the deep end on deck, mind you, I noticed the lifeguard instructor who was teaching another class out of the corner of my eye.

Becky was giving the pool the hairy eyeball, which meant something was up with her student who was in the water. Then, about a half second later, I’m giving Becky the hairy eyeball as she enters the water. I make the split second decision to head over to her, stripping off the jacket I was wearing and entering the pool, too, as the back up lifeguard. It seems that she had a little lost Dory in her class, who managed to surface under the bulkhead, swim through the tiniest of crevices, and become caught inside. She could breath, don’t fret, but she wasn’t getting out of there on her own.

Long story short is that it took three lifeguards, a whole lot of steady, smooth talking to calm Dory down, and about ten minutes to get her out of the bulkhead and then out of the pool. Little lost Dory didn’t have a scratch on her, but she was quite hysterical for a bit, which I can relate to. I left it to Becky to calm her down, and I swam back to my class once the chaos was over.

Did I mention I was in cargo shorts, with big pockets, a t-shirt and my tennis shoes? That sucked big time, but otherwise everything went well. And heck, in today’s session, I stayed dry all day.

Oh, and Dory told me, “I almost died again this morning! I was coming off the freeway and I knew the light would be green so I didn’t stop… And it was red!”

Ugh.

Rubbing Buddha for good luck? Really?!

Greaaaaaaaaaaaaat. It’s now been reported that masturbation can help prevent prostate cancer. Like guys needed an excuse to do that more often.

And no, sex doesn’t have the same effect.

Stupid Australian researchers…

They just made it more difficult for any woman who’s still single and interested in men, of course, to convince a man to settle down. What is the allure of sex when the guy can spank the monkey in the name of cancer prevention?

Also, does that mean they’ll spend a little less time working out at the gym, reducing the effects too many steroids and supplements have on their bodies, in order to have enough, uhm, we’ll call it “energy” to do their prevention, uhm, we’ll call that a “workout” too?

It’s going to be tough to tell what this latest study means for the world, but those crazy Aussies have guaranteed that guys between the ages of 20 and 50 years old, which is the prime dating range for everyone with more brain cells than hormones, will be busy committing assault with a friendly weapon….

Fish hooks galore!

It was a good week this week. No one else quit, we didn’t have 4 outside groups visiting camp in 3 hours, and no one pulled the fire alarm. I’m not sure I ever mentioned that, but a few weeks back, a young camper wondered what the fire alarm handle was all about. Then there was a lost camper drill at 2 am the same weekend, which turned into 4 teenagers sneaking around, so yeah, this week was easy by comparison.

I’m pushing hard to get ahead on the things to do before summer camp starts. Every day though, summer camp comes one day closer, and every day, a dozen new little details land on my desk that need attention right now. A friend of mine reminded me the other day though, that I’m good at organizing chaos, so I’m really not sweating it.

Texas is calling my name, too. I’ll be home to teach for a week at the beginning of May. Trying to shoehorn that in was a little stressful, but it all came together yesterday and it won’t cost me all of my vacation time, either. That’s a huge relief because the boyfriend will be home in November, and I’d like to get to spend more than a day with him. And now, it’ll work.

Life is good. Even though my hand is sore from squeezing pliers on the all the fish hooks I smooshed, and I have mud all over my shoes from helping at the barn during the thunderstorms today, life is good. But I won’t say no if anyone wants me to mail them about 10,000 fish hooks to debarb before summer…

Somebody order a pizza

Earlier this week a co-worker of mine quit. She was a really tough person to work with and had pretty much caused most of my misery since I arrived here, so I wasn’t sad to see her go. I was, however, frustrated with all the tasks she had left undone. It’s inevitable when people quit though, that the work they claim to have been doing is actually not being done.

So anyway, her departure, plus several staff vacations, left our program team really short for the family weekend we just had. And now I’m up in the office using the real internet for a few minutes, while wearing my boyfriend’s sweatshirt and his way too big fuzzy Crocs. I’m going to get the files I need, post this story, and then head out to find some place with a drive through, because no way in heck am I cooking dinner tonight. Cooking dinner would involve grocery shopping, you see, and that’s not going to happen.

It’s not that I have anything against groceries, or cooking, but it was a whopper of a weekend. We had 32 amazing families in camp for the physical disabilities weekend. Aside from some wheelchairs and walkers, though, the smiles are all the same. It was pirate weekend, too, so Friday night saw all of us dressed up. I was sporting a lovely hot pink pirate beard, too, which our videographer got on camera. And then the video editors made sure to put it into the weekend DVD everyone left with. I think I’ll be Pirate Pink Beard forevermore at this point. Heheh.

We played games, danced, bowled, fished, rode horses, made pirate loot bags, snot, slime, and painted wooden letters that spelled out our names. We painted the miniature ponies fun colors and took the llamas for walks. We went after a hole in one on the putt putt course as fast as we could and got lost in the maze after we climbed the tree house. We climbed in and out of race cars, practiced our pit stop tire changes and raced on the video simulators. We painted our hair funny colors, did our nails and our make up too. We ate cotton candy, ice cream and popcorn. We built model rockets and launched them later that afternoon. We looked at amazing Model A cars that came to visit. We watched a Mad Scientist make a gummy bear burst into flames. We watched the fabulous Hot Dog Daddy O’s put on a rocking good show, and then we put on our own rocking good show, too.

Weekends are busy around here. But they are awesome. And even though there were only 3 of us on staff handling things, with all the amazing volunteers we had here, we never missed a step. I’m excited because summer will be more of this amazing pace. There will be more staff to help, certainly, but then again there will be more work to do. I know, though, that it’s going to be awesome. I’m sure I’ll get overly tired, overwhelmed, excited, happy, sad, frustrated, thrilled and a thousand things in between. I’ll also get bitten by bugs because that’s mandatory at camp. It’s going to be a fun ride from here on out.

I’ll try to get a picture off the video, so you can see the pink beard, but no promises on when that will happen. Meanwhile, just think of it as reaaaaaaaallly bright.

Camp camp camp

There have been a lot of small changes going on this week at work, and now I’m pretty much heading toward “overwhelmed.” I’m not overwhelmed yet, but I can see the potential to head there rapidly. So instead of doing the stack of work I brought home this weekend, I made some down time for me.

Sure I still had some telephone interviews to do, because they’re unavoidable right now. And I had to go to 2 fabric stores on Saturday morning to find material to make costumes out of for summer. But other than that, I ignored the pressing need to rewrite the woodshop tool use policy, as well as to do a calendaring of all the hundreds of tasks which need done between now and the beginning of May.

Today is Monday though, and while the program team is technically “off” I’m going to try and sketch out everything so I can get with our volunteer recruiter and see when it might be good to schedule some hands in to help. The arts and crafts building needs a serious bit of love from some women’s group full of organizational ability. The theater needs a new set designed, by some people who are good at that sort of thing. The costume closes also need a serious overhaul, because a lot of the things in there are tattered and torn. The gym equipment needs sorted and the Fab shop needs a complete overhaul.

I know it can all be done. I know it WILL all be done. But right now, staring at the wrong end of the list, it’s a bit daunting. Because I also have two weekends at home in Texas to teach, a family weekend here at camp, and several staff training days to fit in this month. And the interviews. Always the interviews.

Each person we interview gets a phone call to set up a telephone interview. Then we read the application and autobiographical essay, which takes about twenty minutes. Then we call them for the interview, which takes about an hour and fifteen minutes. Then the answers from that interview are reviewed, which takes another half hour or so, and a second interview is scheduled. That one only takes an hour, and then those answers are reviewed. If the candidate is up to scratch, then a third interview, which is about ten to fifteen minutes long, is scheduled and an offer is extended. Hiring someone around here is exhausting. But it is how we get the best staff possible for camp.

So a lot to do today. And my first interview of the day is now, so I’d better get to dialing…

Matt Maupin

I spent a long time in Iraq, and now it’s tough for me to read the news some days. I still have loved ones and friends who are my military family over there. And so when I saw the headlines saying that an Ohio soldier’s remains were identified, it was one of those times when I couldn’t click on the link.

It’s for the same reason I only watch happy movies and TV shows right now, I guess. I’ve had a whole lot of negative going on, including “boyfriend in Iraq” stuff, so reading the news there can be pretty grim on a personal level.

So when I finally did click on the link and found that it was Matt Maupin’s remains, I rocked back on my heels.

You see, back in Iraq, I ran a Matt Maupin computer lab, so the troops could contact home. We had three of them on base at Anaconda, and they were the most popular places there. And they were all possible, because Matt’s parents donated the computers themselves.

That’s right. In the middle of worrying over their son who was missing in action, the Maupins pulled together nearly 90 desktop computers and monitors and shipped them to Iraq. And the troops used the hell out of those machines.

Every monitor displayed Matt’s picture on the backdrop. Every computer lab bore his name. Every soldier who logged on remembered “gone but not forgotten.”

I can’t imagine that will change, either.

Peace be with you, Matt Maupin, and with your family as well.

Drama Schrama

I know, I know. I haven’t written, again. I swear I’m going to get back into the habit of it, though, eventually. Maybe.

The thing is, about a month ago, I flew home to Texas for a quick vacation. That was great, and we had some big fun. I’d been struggling a little bit at work, due to some personality issues, and so going home was just the break I needed. Plus Mom and I went shopping for some wicked cool costumes for me, I got my hair done, and hugged on the nieces a bit. There’s never enough time with the nieces, unfortunately, because they’re as busy as I am.

After that weekend, I came back to work recharged and struggling a bit less. I know I’m no picnic to work with sometimes, but I also know I wasn’t the one initiating the problems. I certainly might have overreacted to them a bit, but not to the extremes I was accused of by the other parties. It was a vicious circle, but the circle was lessening because I realized the drama just wasn’t something I needed to engage in. I decided to set a goal to communicate less, because I have a wicked bad habit of explaining things to the death. It’s something that will help me here at work, and probably in life.

Anyway, that next week back at work was good, better than it had been, because the week before I left, I wasn’t sure I was coming back from Texas. It was as if there were big attitude changes from more than just me, though, and it made it easy to have fun. I don’t expect work to be fun constantly. That’s just not going to happen. But I don’t expect to be miserable either. Sure, I was tired of being on the phone, because I was conducting three to nine telephone interviews a day for potential summer staff, but that wasn’t misery. That was part of the dirty deeds which have to be done to get through camp.

So I interviewed a lot, and then we had a family weekend. Then I got the call in the early part of the week about Uncle Tim, and it was a scramble to get to Pittsburgh and back. When I came back on Saturday, we were in the middle of a family weekend, so I immediately went to work after the seven hour drive giving me a 17 hour day. And then, because I’m still a “new hire” and don’t have any vacation or sick time yet, I had to put in ten and twelve hour days Sunday through Wednesday. Because on Thursday, I was cutting out at lunch time to fly home for Easter.

But right before I left, there was an announcement made that my boss was leaving the camp. Not necessarily by choice, either, and that he’d be gone a week later. So sure, bosses come and go all the time, and it makes some chaos. In the camping industry, though, it’s a problem when the camp director is leaving two months before the summer camp staff start to arrive. It’s a problem when the summer camp staff expect to be working under the person who hires them, only to find the rug pulled out from under their feet before they arrive. So there was a ton of drama there, as we all rallied together and counseled them that they come to camp for the magic, not any one particular person.

There were a great many other mis-steps that happened along the way this past month. Some of them were huge, some were small. Every single one of them though, has brought me to the point where I committed to work through the summer, to make it the best possible summer here. And then I’ll re-evaluate the situation and see if being here is still a healthy thing for me.

For now though, I see a great summer ahead, for all the kids. A lot of work for myself, but nothing I can’t handle. Because the potential of this place is amazing. The potential in myself isn’t too bad, either.

In remembrance

I haven’t written in a while and I was going to be all over it today, as I had the day off. And then I got a phone call from home telling me that my favorite uncle passed away. So now I’m scrambling to clear my schedule and get to Pittsburgh tomorrow. It’s all worked out, though, and I’ll be there to say goodbye to Big Tim.

He was a great man. Life wasn’t always kind to him, and he didn’t always make the best choices back in the day, but he continued to grow, to improve and to correct his mistakes. I only knew him later in his life, after he got over the rocky years, and he was a great uncle to me.

When I was skydiving, he was thrilled, and would tell me about when he tested HALO rigs for the Army. He had a lot of broken bones back then, but it never stopped his love of skydiving.

When I went to Iraq and had some attitude problems come toward me from the troops and co-workers, he told me how to handle them. Usually with a straight forward “f-off” and then continuing with whatever task I was doing, now that I think about it. But having someone say that was a huge support.

When he’d visit Texas with my aunt, he’d dance with the dog teaching her to do a little shuffle step she’d only do with him. And he’d steal cigarette breaks out on the back porch, pretending to hide them from his wife, who pretended to not see what he was doing. His kids would do the same song and dance with my aunt, with everyone having fun pretending to not do or see what was going on.

Big Tim retired from teaching this winter, and left us suddenly, peacefully, last night. There was no sign anything was wrong, no indicator he was ill. The big man upstairs just decided he needed someone to argue politics with, though, and called him home to Heaven a bit earlier than we’d all have liked.

You will be missed Uncle Tim.

Love,
Keira

Mmm mmm good

I hit the wall last week. I’d had enough of barely-out-of-the-teens girl power struggles, missing Texas and being bored. When my boss failed to show up for a meeting we’d scheduled, when he finally ambled around and asked how I was, after talking to the aforementioned almost-teens, I was not in a good mood.

We walked down to a private conference room and I dropped a whole lot of stress on him, along with a few tears, because getting here to camp hasn’t been an easy road. It wasn’t all drama and bad stuff, but it was the first chance I’d had since arriving to open up about the behind the scenes issues, which definitely needed aired. He was unaware of several of them, and we both felt much relieved about my own awareness, as well as my plan of attack.

Because really, it’s got to be very stressful to have the person you hired to take over the camp program this summer be all, “why am I here if I’m just going to sit around doing nothing while people play childish games with me whether I want to participate or not?!”

When he came down off the ceiling the real discussion between us rolled on, and it was good. Very good.

And then when I was doing some grocery shopping up in Greensboro at the Super Wal-Mart, I came across Blue Bell ice cream. Blue Bell people, the best ice cream in the country. No really, it’s printed right on the ice cream cartons. Fresh churned out of tiny little Brenham, Texas, and delivered fairly close to my door here in North Cackalackee.

Yeah, I can stay here now. It was looking dodgy for a few minutes though, but thankfully that passed.

Family Weekends

Amazing things happen at camp when there are campers here. There aren’t always campers here though, and that’s when this job becomes full of politics and strife and leaves me wishing I was anywhere but here. I know that I’m just going through those feelings because I’ve had such huge changes in the past six months of my life, but it has left me more than a little frustrated.

As I was saying though, when the campers are here, this place is amazing. Family weekends are what we are running this time of year. They start on a Friday evening and go through Sunday just before lunch. And we cram a bazillion activities into them, trying to appeal to all the different desires of each family.

Around 2 pm on Friday, the volunteers, or vollies, as we call them, arrive at camp. They come from all over the state, and others fly in from all over the country. We have regular vollies here who do our airport runs and pick up the other vollies and then camper families later in the day because if you want to come to camp, and you meet the requirements, we’ll help you get here.

So the vollies arrive and then it’s time for their orientation and training. The program team, of which I am a part, does all this stuff. We take them through the medical needs, with the help of our Body Shop (that’d be the medical clinic) staff, as well as all the traditional stuff. Then we split out into specific job functions and show them what they’ll be doing in their area. I do arts & crafts, the woodshop, the maze and mini golf. Others are learning about procedures in the Fuel Stop, where we eat, or what to do at the Horse Power Garage (the barns), Fishing, Archery and of course, being a Crew Chief. Program Chiefs run the programs. The Crew Chiefs run the families.

Back into the theater everyone goes and we review the stuff the Vollies learned in their few hours, learn some dances that we do after breakfast and dinner in the fuel stop, and then head up to cabin row to meet the families. Sometimes we do a parade, waving streamers and pompoms and cheering as all the cars arrive. Other times, when the weather is nasty or 25 families are waiting eagerly in the parking lot, we meet the families at their cabins.

Vollies and families meet up, get settled in and head down to the Fuel Stop, and the weekend begins. After the dinner dance party, led by the program team, which is a huge stretch for me, we meet everyone in the theater. And there, the program team puts on a show that involves singing, dancing, acting silly or serious and whatever else we decide it needs. All the while our professional videography crews are shooting footage. Bright lights and a camera in my face are a bit hard to ignore, but the laughs and smiles in the audience make it all worthwhile.

Saturday starts bright and early with Pole Position before breakfast. The activities vary, but always include the Fab Shop. It’s our resident beauty salon, where we can turn your hair any color and make it stick up in all sorts of fun shapes. You can put on all sorts of glamorous make up, paint your nails, and get all dolled up. You can make your parents and Crew Chiefs look silly as can be. It’s just plain fun. And the boys spend more time there than the girls.

Breakfast and another dance party get the rest of the camp moving. Then it’s off to the races, so to speak. All the program areas are open, including fishing, crafts, horseback riding, sports and games, and whatever else we can think of. There are 4 different activity times throughout the day, called Turns. Turn 1 and 2 are before lunch and 3 and 4 are after lunch and Recharge Time. Recharge time is a really important thing because even a day at camp leaves you wiped out.

Dinner involves another dance party and then everyone is off to the Pit Stop for dessert. Dessert is hosted by a bunch of volunteers and includes a soft serve frozen yogurt, cotton candy and popcorn. There’s also one last chance to visit the Fab Shop before it’s time for Stage Night. Stage Night is an all camp talent show, where people do whatever they can think of or want to on the stage. It’s some pretty amazing stuff, to be sure.

Sunday has an optional worship service in the morning in place of Pole Position, and then breakfast. After that there is some sort of free choice or all camp activity. It’s never the same thing twice, because we might have a visiting entertainer like a magician or a band to come and play. And then there is a quick bout of t-shirt decorating, before we have an all camp game of kick ball in the brand new Superdome building. The Superdome is so new it doesn’t even have it’s sign yet, and hasn’t been dedicated but we play in it anyway.

Finally, it’s one last trip to the theater, where we do a camp closing and the camp director shows the DVD that the awesome video crew made over the weekend. Then everyone heads home with lunches to munch in the car, and promises to come back this summer. It’s one heck of a weekend, to say the least!

Camp

I've been busy getting settled in here, and things are getting better ever day. I'm over the hump of being new and have tons of work to do. But I finally had time to get some pictures here of the camp for you all to see.

Fried brain, fried brain, cheese and baloney....

I’ve been busy getting settled in here at camp which has left me worn out through and through. It’s not a bad thing to be so overstimulated all you can do at the end of a day is sit on a couch and stare at the TV. Or a wall. Or the inside of your eyelids. Right?

Anyway, being new here involved fighting with a satellite company. It’s easy as pie to buy the service. It’s difficult as hell, however to get the service installed. I shoulda just paid to fly my brother over from Texas with his stash of dish installing tools and had him do it. It would have been kinder on my nerves to do that than to wait out the stupid, stupid, stupid computer glitches they had over at the satellite company. “Lost my install info my a**,” is all I can say.

And then there was the vaccination history. As in, “can you get us your childhood vaccination records?” The answer to that is no. And that shot record in my passport just isn’t quite thorough enough to work here. The great staff down at the Body Shop, which is our medical center here at camp, did say that I’m definitely better vaccinated than 98% of the staff, but I still had to get a few extra sticks. There was the flu shot, and the TB test, of course. Then I had to get a new tetanus shot, just in case. And I also had to get a titer to see if I’m immune to measles, mumps and rubella. I am.

Good news is that I also have grown an inch since I was last measured. I showed up at 5’10” in my socks, which I’m not quite sure I believe, but I’ll take it. It’s not like I was at that crucial stage though, where an inch of height meant I couldn’t ride all the rides at the amusement park. Still, an extra inch – nice.

There was also the snow. I’m standing outside with some of the other staff during a family weekend a couple weeks ago, and my boss assures me, “It’s never this cold here! Ever!” That white stuff on the ground and my constantly runny nose are begging to differ on that one. But I’ve finally gotten what I think are all the right clothes for the weather here, and now I’m no longer burning up or freezing cold at any given time. And yes, I know all about layers, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy wearing them. The snow was pretty cool though, since it only lasted a couple days.

Camp is pretty cool. I know I keep promising pictures but it just hasn’t been something I’ve had time for. I have a hideous internet connection at home, and I don’t have time at the office. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find 10 different ways to feed peanut butter to my staff this summer, as we are a peanut free camp…

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto

Out here in race country, the shops are three times larger than the houses. And the houses are falling down, while the shops gleam with shining new paint every season. Different places have different priorities, to say the least.

It’s cool though. I’m learning my way around in the boom town of Randleman, and the surrounding area. It’s not too hard as there are a whopping 4 main roads here, which connect or cross each other, but I’ve missed a turn once or twice already.

I do most of my running around up in Greensboro, though. There’s a better selection of stores there, and better prices, too. Still though, compared to Iraq, even the small town of Randleman is a huge improvement. And I don’t want to give the impression that it’s bad here, at all, but the night and day comparison between small towns and small cities is very obvious.

I have a bit of adjusting to do, all around, I’d say. There’s the whole moving to the new town, on top of the really new job. And as I’ve learned, most recently, on the new job, I need to slow down, settle down, and just stop trying to do stuff. Not that doing stuff is bad, but that I don’t have to know everything instantly. That’s a huge change from my last few jobs, and I hope I can make the adjustment.

Around here, there’s a whole lot of talk about the culture, the model, the Program, with a big P. We talk about those concepts. But we don’t actually talk about the “thing” that needs to happen to make those concepts real. That confuses me, but I’ll get over it, I’m sure. I think they’re more relaxed here about tangible sharing, and prefer to use the indirect learning method. But I could be completely mistaken about that, too.

All I can say is it’s going to be interesting around here. I’ll keep you posted.

Yeeeeeeehawwwwwwww

It’s been a busy week here at camp, and I like it!

We had a family weekend last weekend, which meant I was off from Sunday afternoon through Tuesday morning, in order to get my time off. That was a little odd, but it was cool. I went grocery shopping and cleaned the place on Monday, then chilled out with NCIS season 1 on DVD. Before I knew it, I was back at work on Tuesday.

Every day here is different than the day before. Iraq was a little like that, but we had a fairly repetitive schedule over there. It wasn’t bad at all, but still, every Monday was poker, Tuesday was 8 ball and stuff like that. Here, we might be sitting in the office on a rainy, snowy, sleety day like today. But tomorrow we’ll come in to the office an hour late, since we’ve got families coming into camp, and we’ll actually start in the theater to do some skit rehearsal.

I know routine will settle in a bit during summer camp, but when you factor in over 120 campers, plus all the counselors and volunteers to match up, even if you’re running the same schedule week after week, it’s going to be different every time. In that case, routine is the thing that gives you a fighting chance.

Anyway, it’s cool. I’ve had lots of you asking how you can help with the camp. Also had lots of you ask questions about programming, as in do you really run camp during the non-summer months?

Yes, we run stuff all year. It’s a bit different during the off season as it’s family based activity. But it’s 9 or so weekends each during the fall and spring. And we always need volunteers. Especially guys. We get 4 female volunteers for every 1 male volunteer. During the family weekends that’s never a problem as a family can have any gender volunteer. During the summer though… big problem. So guys, if you’ve got a week of vacation you can spare, or a company who will give you some time off to do good things, and are 19 and older, send in your volunteer application today!

As far as costumes and clothing, great response there, too. You guys are amazing! I won’t tell you what to send, but instead to be mindful that we are a latex-free camp, so any sort of masks and such are going right back out the camp gates. We just can’t take the risk with our camper’s health that way. And also remember that the cheap Halloween costumes are just that – cheap. They get one wearing and then wind up being torn, tattered and ripped, so they wind up in the trash fairly quickly. Not a problem though, if it’s a cool costume.

My aunt and I were talking and she said a co-worker of hers has clothes from his parents, which means they’re coming out of the Way Back Machine. Vintage clothes, like funky bell bottoms and crazy vests are awesome. Just whatever you think a kid, or counselor, would like dressing up in is what we’re looking for.

So yeah, that’s it for now. It’s time for me to go to bed because tomorrow is Friday and that means another family weekend is coming in. Lots of fun to be had all around as we get “Back in the Saddle Again.”

Tirrreeeeeeeeeeedddddddddddddddddddd

Time flies when you’re learning a new job. I do intend to write a little more often, once I’m past the “I’m so new I don’t know what to do” phase of work. It’s really hard right now to do more than just absorb everything without being completely overwhelmed. Okay, I really AM completely overwhelmed, but that’s okay, because this place is like that.

We had a whole lot of team meetings this week, discussing all the aspects of the summer camp program to bring me up to speed. It wasn’t done just for me, but it sure has helped me to get a handle on where the big program is along with where the little programs are. See, the big program is the entire camp. The little programs are all the parts and pieces that make up the big program. It’s one of those “the sum of the parts makes up the whole” things. And that means there’s a ton to learn.

So we’d meet, discuss, share, and make some decisions. Then we’d go back to our offices and do a little bit of the business side, before we’d meet again. My vocabulary here includes some words that I’m sure to beat to death like model. We have a camp model, a behavior model, a program model, etc. We also have a work model though, that has us changing up what we’re doing every few hours, which is great. It means you aren’t spending an entire day at the computer and telephone. But at the same time, it means you aren’t spending an entire day at the computer and telephone, too, so you have to learn to really budget your time.

And then there’s the challenge of my first family weekend going on. A family weekend is when we open the camp up to campers who have a specific medical condition, either chronic or terminal, and their families. They show up on Friday evening and stay through Sunday morning. We run all sorts of program activities and events for them, through a ton of fabulous volunteers. Victory Junction wouldn’t function without volunteers, actually.

Anyway, everyone has a ton of fun, sings some songs, gets on stage and hams it up, does a ton of dances in the Fuel Stop, and whoops and hollers along the way. I’ve made it now to Saturday night and just have to get through tomorrow morning before I can rest. It’s been a heck of a first week at work, is all I can say!

They pay me to work here?

So I’ve been at camp for three days now. It doesn’t seem like it, but then again it does. We’ve had a lot of open discussions, here on the program team, and learned a lot about everything. It’s really been great, and time has just flown by, which is tremendous.

There is so much going on here, that is so much bigger than I am. The camp services seriously and terminally ill children, providing a normal summer camp experience for them. We also provide a weekend camping experience for these same categories of kids, and their families, during the non-summer season. So, we do week-long program during the summer, and weekend programming the rest of the year. It’s not an every weekend thing, but it is steady and regular, which is cool.

Right now, being new, I’m learning it all. This weekend there is a family weekend and we’ve got 16 family groups coming to play. I don’t know what it’s all about, but I’ll catch it on the fly. Meanwhile, today we did a tour group of junior high kids, and I went along for the trip, learning a bit along the way. We’ve got amazing facilities, though, and I’m constantly in awe that they think I’m good enough to work here.

No really, I’m not modest. I know I’m talented and have some stuff to add to the program, but the idea that they are going to let me run it just baffles me. I’m in awe of this place. I know you will be too, when you finally get to see pictures of it. I’m working on those pictures, too, but first we had fog, then rain, then other business to take care of, but I’m carting around the camera now, so it’ll happen soon.

A blue phone? Seriously?!

It was a rigorous first day on the job. I did some paperwork, got a name badge with my picture on it, cleaned out some supply closets and some offices, logged on to the camp email system and took my golf cart operator’s test. I am fully qualified to drive an EZ Go golf cart now, and I don’t even have to wear a Kevlar helmet this time around. Nice!

Today was the most relaxed, easy first day I’ve ever had. I loved it. The attitudes of everyone I work with were cheerful and friendly, in a completely sincere fashion. You can always tell when people are way over the top with their “friendly” to the point that it grates on your back teeth but that didn’t happen here. And everyone stressed that we work as much as we play, and made certain we took a few breaks throughout the day to fit in some fun stuff, so it wasn’t full of drudgery.

At one point fairly early on, I was handed my Nextel phone. It’s a freaking NASCAR edition, too, with Rusty Wallace’s #2 on it. I’m going to see a ton of racing stuff come through, I bet. It’s cool, but eventually it will get old, I’m sure. For now though, it’s fun to get all the little hot wheels cars, sunglasses and other gimmes that they keep tossing my way. I plan to gather them up, put them in a box, and eventually mail them off to parts of Iraq, just because I can.

Anyway, it was a great day. We even went down toward Ashboro and had lunch at Chili’s. Tomorrow we’re going to discuss all sorts of last summer, and see what trouble we can identify and head off for this year. Gonna be good. Yeah. Good.

the dishes?!

Some guys used to live in this house and it shows. Even though the maintenance staff repainted and did a bunch of repairs, and the ultimate roommate ran a vacuum and spruced the place up, you can still tell guys lived here. For instance yesterday, when I opened the dresser drawers in my room, I found about two dozen old, worn, mismatched, clean (I hope) guys socks sitting there. Girls wouldn’t leave stuff like that lying around. Even if we didn’t want it, we’d still throw it out rather than leaving it behind.

There were odds and ends in the bathroom, too, and throughout the rest of the place. The biggest kicker though, is that there is a stack of side dish or dessert sized paper plates about eight inches high in one of the cabinets. And that’s it. There are no other dishes, bowls or whatnot in the place. I’ll rectify that tomorrow. What a pity I hadn’t noticed it before I went to Greensboro yesterday and gave Target way too much of my money. I could have given them a few extra bucks for a festively colored set of heavy plastic dishes that would last for a while.

At least this way, I can consult the Ultimate Roommate and see what color she thinks we should get. She’ll probably go with yellows and oranges, which are on my less favorite end of the color spectrum, given what I’ve seen of her taste so far, but that’s cool. It’s just a bunch of semi-disposable dishes, after all. Because once the season gets going, all I’ll do here in the house is take a shower and fall asleep. The camp kitchens over at the Fuel Stop will be doing all the cooking during the busy times.

But really, the plates? I know there were plates in here six weeks ago because I saw them. Ditto on the sharp knives. So the guys who lived here would take dishes but leave behind the tired socks. I suppose that makes sense, in some sort of whacked out male way.

From Texas to Disney to Camp

Eight days ago I woke up in Texas and hopped in the jeep with a ton of stuff. Stuff I thought I’d need along the way or at the end of my journey. Today, I reached the end, here in North Carolina, at the camp. I fell straight asleep last night, with only my pillows and teddy bear around me, leaving the rest to be unpacked today.

You’d be amazed how much a jeep wrangler actually holds, when it has to. I’ve dragged everything out, and it’s sitting on the bedroom floor of my room here in my cottage I share with one other person nestled snug inside the village that is at the tail end of camp. That was a seriously long sentence, but it’s where I am. Most resident camps have one or two permanent houses, with the “permanent” part being dodgy. This one has a full village, sturdy and new, clean and well made, ready to house year-round and visiting staff whenever they are needed. They are bright, cheerful and cozy, not to mention well equipped.

And they have a view of the camp, overlooking the horsepower garage and drifting down into main camp, a short walk away. There are even golf carts parked outside, to help the staff move through camp when they are carrying things, but I’ll try to walk more than I drive, because the place isn’t that huge.

Anyway, I came in last night, verging on midnight, and I wasn’t certain how well marked it would be. And the answer is that it is highly visible, through tasteful lighting that glows in the trees. Even in the dark you can’t miss the water tower painted like a hot air balloon with the camp logo on it. The second driveway is just as easy to find, which is marvelous. Getting settled in here over the weekend will be nice and easy and give me a chance to find my footing. Spending a week at Walt Disney World had me all revved up, and now I get a calm time to switch gears.

Disney was great, of course. I had rented a huge house over six months ago, when I was still in Iraq, so we’d have plenty of space to share with and avoid each other when we weren’t at the parks. We all haven’t been in one place in years and years. My big brother moved to Pennsylvania, and when he and his family came down to Texas to visit, I was in Iraq, so it was a nice time to enjoy each other. The parks were crowded as heck, though, but that’s to be expected since everyone and their brother were on vacation from school. It was still lots of fun and we all just waited our turns in line.

I’ll get pictures of camp and pictures from Disney up soon. I am in the middle of the woods though, and bandwidth is difficult at best. I’m now using a wireless network card through my cell phone company to try and connect, but I might have to put an amplifier on it to get a better signal. We’ll figure it all out though, as the time comes. Meanwhile, I’m off to unpack…