Here are some pix for the day 1.  I purposely tried to select pictures where the kids’ faces weren’t clear or were in profile since they are technically not my kids so I can’t give permission for them.  If any of my silent readers from my church object to any of the pictures, please let me know and I will remove the offending pictures, thanks!  I felt it safe to put up the faces of my older crew though- again, I will remove them if there are objections.  As (almost) always, click for larger images.

I guess if I am to not forget important details about camp, I will have to post a little more often.  I have been working more lately (for less, may I remind you, during training) and when I have been off I have not felt like posting much.  Anyway, on to day two.  My alarm was set for 7:15, but I woke up at 6:45 due to my junior counselor who wanted to take a morning shower.  Personally, I’m an evening shower person when at camp- taking my shower after lights out.  It is good to get out of the clothes I have sweated in all day and wash the day’s residue off.  So David got up at 6:45 for his shower and I tried to get back to sleep, which I think I did ten minutes before my alarm.  Okay then, everybody up, I finished getting shaved and dressed and headed off to the senior morning staff meeting.  The kids got dressed, teeth brushed, and headed to the flagpole raising with David.  Jim went with his boy Diego to the flagpole.  Not much to say about the meeting- we talked a little, prayed, and the kids came in for breakfast.  We sat down in our spot from dinner last night (which by the way would be our spot for the entire week, for the first time in five years) and chowed down on our hot breakfast, eggs and sausage I believe.

Bleah.  If I keep writing in this sort of detail I will never finish the post.  Here, let me post the daily schedule and try to focus on the highlights:

7:30 AM Wake Up
7:50-8:00 AM Flag Raising
8:05-8:40 AM Breakfast
8:45-9:45 AM Spiritual Check-Up (Teaching)
10:00-10:45 AM Physical Therapy (Game)

11:00-12:00 noon Instructionals
12:15-12:50 PM Lunch and Mail Call
1:00-2:00 PM Bed Rest
2:15-3:15 PM Instructionals
3:30-5:00 PM Canteen and Free time
5:15-5:25 PM Flag Lowering
5:30-6:15 PM Dinner
6:30-7:15 PM Physical Therapy (Game)
7:30-8:30 PM Spiritual Check-Up (Teaching)
9:00-9:40 PM Canteen and Campfire
9:40-9:55 PM Cabin time
10:00 PM Lights Out!

Right after breakfast, as you can see, was the teaching time.  Well, as you probably learned from last time, this starts off with worship.  Actually, it starts off with an up front game where someone from each team comes up and plays a crazy game such as eating strange food or toilet-paper wrapping.  I don’t remember what the game was but overall this week they weren’t as exciting as in the past.  Did I mention that this whole time was outside?  They built a sort of amphitheater a few years ago with tiered bench-seating and step-logs.  Aside from the stage, it fit rather nicely with the woods around it.  One of the worship songs was a song that would become the theme song for the week, sung at every worship time- ten times over the week.  I don’t recall the title, but it’s about sharing our faith and in the chorus they yell “we won’t be quiet” (about our faith) and “we won’t deny it.”  I don’t much care for the music, but the lyrics were sound.  As for the teaching time, the first memory verse was given, Romans 12:2- “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” In fact, this is our theme verse for this summer given the release of the second Transformers movie.  We were back in Luke 14 and talked about the brain.  Well, the mind, but “brain” fit better under the medical theme.

So with that done, our team along with another team were told to get on swimming gear for the game and meet on the game field for a game of wipe-out wiffleball.  This is a game where the kids get wet.  Really wet.  They had a hose connected though a filter to the nearby pond affectionately known as leech lake.  Lots of leeches- and some water moccasins.  No swimming in that pond.  So with the hose they would wet down the slip-n-slide between home and first base (a giant inner tube that was safe to slide into.  All other bases were toddlers’ wading pools filled with water.  The hose was also used to douse the batter between pitches, and sometimes the kids waiting to bat- no mercy.  We won the game in the end after taking an initial beating, and lucky for us our two instructionals were at the swim front so the boys wore their swimming trunks until free-time in the afternoon. This year the camp received two pontoon boats, at least one of which was for free.  God has blessed our church many times over with such gifts, including the camp itself.  So John, one of the camp directors and family pastor at my church met us at the swim front (the boys had to check in with their numbers and “boat in”) with one of them.  The ride was beautiful what with the sunny day and things to see.  There were some swans, a dam, a couple of islands, and more.  All this in the giant pond.  Yes, pond- apparently it is man-made and referred to as pond rather than lake.  Hmm.

Well, the afternoon brought us the first bed rest time.  This is a Michigan law that every camp has to follow- an hour of bed rest each day to keep campers from heat exhaustion and the like.  During this time kids were required to stay in their beds in the cabin.  They were allowed to read, play a quiet game with someone in the next bed, or sleep.  David and Diego chose to sleep.  I cleaned a bit which would become a daily ritual.  We actually won cleanest boy’s cabin for this day.  They jokingly (I hope!) called it least disastrous when they informed us.  Following bed rest we hiked back to the swim front for canoeing.  Not much to say here.  They learned how to get in a canoe and how to paddle.  We were out for a good twenty minutes or so following instruction.  I got in a canoe with two of my red-banders (non-swimmers) as required for them to go out in a canoe.  It was a nice time.  Then it was free time.  Guess where they spent free time?  The swim front!  Since we were already there and already in swim gear it was easy.  We had to “boat out” then “swim in” since boating was done.  Besides swimming, kids got to play “nuke-em,” baggo, or tetherball; lounge around on the many chairs, or get a snack at the canteen.

After dinner it was time for the final group game and lesson.  The game involved a giant basket and a lot of balls.  The object was to get as many balls in the opposing basket more points for the big balls!) as they could.  I have no idea who won that game.  The lesson pretty much went as day one.  The focus was on Mark 4 with the parable of the soils, with the focus on the hard soil, or hard heart which those who have not come to Christ have.  Those who hadn’t accepted Christ yet were encouraged to talk to their leaders.  Small group again (yes we had it in the morning too even if I didn’t mention it) and it was time for the evening free time on the big court.  I know the schedule mentions a campfire, but that was only for two of the evenings- one for the girls, one for the boys.  Monday was time for neither.  Tonight most would leave a little early to hit the showers, though one of my cabin decided he would go for morning instead.

This is a long post, so pics to follow in another post.

They have lost all creativity.  We keep saying that, but every time we think they can’t go any lower Hollywood surprises us.  Did you know they are making movies based on board games like Candyland and Battleship?  I’m sure I must have heard about it before and forgot- it was part of the article on the latest movie based on a game.  A video game.  Yes, we know how those go- from Super Mario Brothers to Street Fighter they tend to be flops, but at least the games they are based on have some sort of plot even if the movies twist it beyond recognition.  How is this for a movie though- Asteroids.  That’s right- they are now making a movie based on the 30-year-old arcade hit (video below if you aren’t familiar with the game, such as you’ve lived under a rock or are under 15 or so years of age 😉 ).  But that’s not all.  We can easily imagine a studio just picking this up and figuring it’s worth a try, but how about four studios?  That’s right- not one, not two, but four studios had a bidding war over this movie.  I have to say, I hope that’s a good sign but I have my doubts.  Click to read the story at the Hollywood Reporter, or just read below- it’s certainly short enough to post here:

Days -2, -1, and 0 were getting ready days of course.  Day one however is where it begins.  Past years have had a check-in time of 10:00AM.  Not so this year.  With a brand new 8:00AM check-in time I dragged myself out of bed early and got a ride over to the bank lot across form the church.  While I didn’t really care much for the early call time, it did give us a couple extra hours once we got to camp.  The chaos of checking in seemed less this year for whatever reason.  I know numbers were down due to the you-know-what, but even considering it seemed pretty tame.  Parents checked in the kids, picked up tags, saw the nurse, carried the bags to the appropriate bus, waited for departure.  During this time I had the chance to say hi to three of the kids in my cabin and their parents.  Another one I found out would meet us at camp while the fifth I didn’t know at all, leaving it a total surprise when I finally did.  Around the final prayer and departure time, I finally met him as he was pointing to some bags that hadn’t yet been loaded on.  I looked at the tag and saw the bags were for someone in my cabin.  I turned to him and saw he was the fifth boy- Diego.  I later found out that the bags were for his stepfather who was coming with him.  This was no ordinary boy either- he was in two leg casts (to straighten his legs- they weren’t broken) and was… small.  Ever watch Little People, Big World?  Yes, he has that condition.  After a prayer with the parents and campers we hopped onto the buses and we were off.  We gave them about a half-hour of chat time and then the first movie went in.  All the movies were Disney of course- rated G animated features.  Ratatouille was first and it engaged at least 95% of the kids.  Wall-E followed.  Too bad the bus DVD player had no remote as Wall-E had a couple of nice shorts in the extras.  Halfway through the bus ride we stopped at a rest-stop so the drivers could take a quick pit-stop.  Yeah, leaders too. 😉 ()Kids were stuck on the bus, but the movie was kept playing so most didn’t mind I’m sure.  Having forgotten my lunch (it’s always something, right?) I scrambled here to get overprice vending machine offerings while still trying to pick up something extra for the kids in the same boat as me.  Other leaders chipped in too.

So 3½ hours later, or 4½ when you take the time change from CDT to EDT into consideration, we arrived- about ten minutes after Wall-E ended.  We got to the usual drop off point- and kept going.  Yes!  No walking a half-mile to the camp, partly down a 40º incline (or back up that same incline at the end of the week for that matter!).  We were greeted with large welcome signs from the staff, waiting for us on the game field.  While the bus was unloaded and the luggage carried to the cabins we were given an introduction speech.  The week at camp was officially underway!  We split for the cabins so the kids could get ready for their swim tests, then headed for the swim front.  For one of only two times during the week the gate was swung open so we could enter without checking in.  At all other times the kids were required to check in to the swim front to keep track of who was there in case something happened.  I had told Diego’s stepdad that we would start out with a sandcastle/fort competition when others were doing their swim tests, two cabins at a time.  Wrong!  Just because we had the previous four years didn’t mean this would be year five- oops.  Instead, we played a friendly game of nuke ’em, a volleyball variation where instead of hitting the ball it is thrown up in the air.  If it isn’t caught by the other team, the person on that team who last touched the ball trying to catch it, or the one who it fell closest to otherwise is out.  The game is over when one team is out.  At the end of our swim test during this time, three of my kids had red bracelets for non-swimmers.  Diego was one of course as he did not even take the test because of his casts.  This was definitely different for me with more than half my cabin wearing red bands; in the past I have always had only one or two.

So with that done, we changed out of the swimming gear, went to the court on top of the hill by the girls’ cabins for more instructions for the week, then hit the lodge for dinner.  It looked like this year they turned the tables 90 degrees from previous years, but other than that it was the same as previous years.  Following dinner was the first lesson.  This week’s theme was Code Blue: Having a Heart for God, so all the lessons were based on this theme.  The main passage of scripture was the parable of the seeds and the soils they landed on or in.  We broke out for small group, and what was another first we never broke into smaller groups.  In the past I have had 7-10 kids in my cabin so the kids could be split into two groups since every cabin had at least two leaders, but with only five kids we just stayed together with all three of us leaders taking turns leading discussion.  My five kids this year all had been raised in strong Christian homes, and they all had stories to tell of accepting Jesus.  I have had others in the past that had not and have even been able to lead such kids to Christ, but this year it was all about living the Christian life with all these kids which I will be the first to say is a struggle.

As the last part of the night the kids had some “free time” which for this age group is staying in one area free to play whatever games they wished in that area.  This was their first opportunity to hid the canteen, a short bus painted like a bee where they could buy candy and pop (Gatorade and water as well).  This first night was also where I received my first scars which still populate my arms to an extent of mosquito bites as I was eaten alive.  After this I would remember to put on bug spray…

The students were given a choice on whether or not to take a shower- the only night I gave that option since they didn’t do much activity that day- and then we prayed, turned out the lights, and this post finally ended. 😀

I am back from camp and have in fact enjoyed a nice afternoon with C & L, who are in the area for tomorrow’s Chicago vs. Chicago game. There was a new indoor mini-golf place over at Stratford Square mall which we were told just opened last week. I’ll take their word for it since it has been over ten years since I have been there. Following 18 holes of golf (out of 54) we decided our eyes were getting tired of the black-lighting (the whole place was lit that way with the neon paints) and proceeded to have some dinner. Deciding against the one real restaurant which L said seemed like an Applebee’s after looking at the menu, we opted for the food court. I had Chinese, they had Sbarro’s and some pretzel dogs. All of us had blue raspberry lemonades from the pretzel stand which was quite good. Instead of going back to play more golf, which we could have as the fee C paid for us covered the entire day, we talked for a bit and walked around the mall which surprisingly was still quite active with seemingly less than 5% vacancy. I guess maybe I am used to other local malls, not counting Woodfield in Schaumburg, that have closed in the last several years. We stopped at a pet store and C & L found that they could happily own a glorified mutt with a fancy name for the bargain price of $1600. No, I didn’t accidentally add an extra digit. Not $160 or $600, but over a grand and a half! Ouch. Well, that was pretty much it. They had to go shortly after and so we went our separate ways.

What? You wanted to hear about my week at camp? Well, that is coming soon. As for the title, C talked me into updating Live Messenger with the newer Live Essentials version and I noticed I could install a Writer program to write my blog posts. Right now I am seeing this post exactly as it should appear on my blog page once published- grey background, full justification, and lowercase title included, unlike the WordPress editor on which I would have to click a preview button to see how it would look. It seems pretty nice and barring any difficulties I will probably give this a longer test run with added pictures and whatnot. There seem to be things that I don’t think the WordPress editor even has. I’ll see how it goes. Well, until later…

Edit: Well, that didn’t go well- I needed to edit the post straight away.  It added a bunch of #160s and forgot to encase the paragraph tags in <> symbols so the post had extra p, em, /em and /p characters included in the text.  I guess there are bugs to be worked out- oh well.

Would you take one look at me and say, “Send that boy to camp?”  Well, whatever your answer that is precisely where I am headed.  Six days in Michigan taking charge of 5-7 nine- and ten-year-old boys.  There are roughly 100 campers going this week and we are headed there a couple hours earlier than last year.  Previously the buses were scheduled to leave at 11, now it is a bright and early 8:30, which by the way is when you should see this post (central time).  However, we are headed home early as well- Friday after dinner instead of Saturday morning.  As usual there are some new things to see when I get there, but probably the most anticipated is seeing the buses go all the way down to the game field so we don’t have to walk a mile to get to our cabins.  Ahh…

I suppose I will have to write up my tale when I get back just for you readers 😉

I was thinking about writing up my week ahead of time, 3-5 posts for the week using the delayed posting feature, and then see how accurate I was at the end since I have been there four times before after all, but I ran out of time.  Sorry about that.  It’s not as if I have gone a week without posting before.  Sigh.  Well, assuming I survive, see you in about a week!

A few months ago I made a post about a mystery painting.  That mystery has not been solved, but on that post I used a graphic with a somewhat suggestive van in it.  In fact, when searching my clip art collection with the key word “mystery” that was one of  the results.  I chuckled when I saw it then proceeded to use it.  Fast forward to last week when on my way to work this little beast turned out in front of me- no not literally in front of me thereby cutting me off, but in the other lane.  If you didn’t get the suggestion last time, you are sure to this time.  All that’s missing is the name on the side and a great dane sticking his head out the window.

Speaking of that mystery painting, I finally got around to taking a picture of the signature.  If you know it, please let me know:

I haven’t really lacked the time in the evenings so I guess I must.  At this rate, no one will miss me in a week when I head to Michigan for a week of camp with the tykes who weren’t even born yet when I started working in the kid’s ministry.  So what have I been doing?  Well, as I noted a week ago, I started training for my new job.  For four of the five days this week I was driving out to a number of dealerships north of here, the furthest an hour away because those are the places Rene, the one I am training with works.  After this week I am wondering if I will really earn much more at this job than subbing.  As it stands, I would have to take pictures of 75 cars a week in order to earn the same amount.  If my dealerships are as spread out as hers then I will be on the road for several hours per week.

Here’s what a typical day looks like.  Arrive at the dealership with a printout of all the cars on the lot that the dealer has upped to the web that are still missing pictures.  Search for the cars in the lot, noting that several are being detailed (cleaned) or repaired, or just waiting for one of the two to be done.  Those vehicles will have to wait for another time.  Once that is done, which can take a half hour or more if the dealership is large and has many cars to be done, it is time to get the keys for the ones that can be done.  This is where we find out that some of the cars have their keys already checked out to someone else.  Now we have to talk to those people or get the keys from another source if necessary, like the dealer bags which have the information and second set of keys for each car.  Finally, we can start doing the work for which we’ll be paid.  One (or two since there are two of us for now) at a time we bring the cars up, search the options in them so the right one get marked, print out dealer stickers with said options listed as well as mandatory-by-law warranty stickers.  Next (or first, depending on the person) several photos are taken, skipping or minimizing any major defects- these are 99% used cars after all.  One of the common photos to be skipped is that of the engine if it’s really dirty.  What is up with today’s car engine by the way?  Most of them seem to have a plastic covering whose sole purpose is to make the engine look nice when the hood is opened, usually sporting some model number as well.  Seems like a waste of money if you ask me, but someone somewhere must have determined that this is what people want, otherwise why bother with the added expense?  So with the pictures done, the car has to be returned- I prefer one dealership which insists on doing this themselves as they park them “perfectly” using two people- and a new one retrieved.  When finished we print out a receipt which is signed by the contact in the dealership and one copy given to their department that handles the finances.  Then it’s on to the next dealer.  We do two or three in one day, but I suppose the ones making the bigger bucks are doing more.  I bet theirs are closer together.  As for Rene, she has a personal goal of 100 cars per week which doesn’t earn much more than I make as a sub during the school year.  That goal was not met this week.  Thursday the daily goal of 20 (five days, 20 cars each equals 100- get it?) was met almost all at one dealer, but Friday we only did I think 11 cars.  I don’t remember the other two days I was with her, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t do 20 both days.

This job of course is all outdoors, which for me means the added expense of sunscreen without which I would burn to a crisp.  In fact, after Monday which was mostly cloudy I still was quite red after I didn’t use it.  Monday also had a huge downpour while we were at the third dealer.  There had been some light rain earlier in the day, but at the end it just came down in sheets.  An umbrella didn’t help one bit as it was accompanied by high winds.  Since we were taking photos at the time, we ended up in that vehicle.  Too bad it was a very old vehicle with few options.  The defroster couldn’t keep up with the constantly fogging front window.

Well, I’ll tell you more about the job in another post I’m sure, but for now I am tiring of writing so- until then!

No, Sci-Fi channel (or should I say SyFy?) didn’t renew Stan Lee’s reality show for a third season.  But apparently 106 5th and 6th grade students in Berwick, Maine wanted to be superheroes.  Or at least dress up as them.  After a university in the UK set a Guinness record of the most people in one room dressed as superheroes with 103 students and staff members a teacher at Knowlton School decided to try and break the record.  Their new record, if their attempt is accepted (i.e. no one else tried for the same record with more people), might be short lived though as the university vowed to take back the record if anyone were to break it so whether or not they will be in the next Guinness World Records book depends on how quickly this university can respond.  It may well be that the teachers at the Maine school were clever with their timing as summer time means break time so it may not be until fall or later when the university tries to take back the record.  For the full story (with pics!), click the link below:

‘Superhero’ students gather in Berwick to set new Guinness World Record

It looks like this may truly be the end for the summer, but it is also a beginning.  I was able to secure jobs for the last three days.  I even had a job for this morning, but I canceled it when I was still awake at midnight and it required an earlier start.  I stupidly took a nap yesterday afternoon so that affected my being able to get to sleep.  Monday was an extension of Friday as it was a two-day assignment.  It was a light-duty assignment since it was an assistant position.  I was pleasantly surprised though to find the assistant I subbed for had a paid lunch-duty assignment, so the lower-paying assistant assignment was offset a little by this.  Too bad my Wednesday assistant assignment didn’t have such a thing.  It’s the end of the year though, so I take what I can get.  The two assistant assignments differed somewhat in that the first was there for a group of five kids (four actually since one has been out of school for the last couple of months) while Wednesday my attention was focused on just one boy with autism.  For the first I was on hand for the rest of the class as needed, which wasn’t much being the end of the year, and for the second I stayed around this one boy, but did help his neighbor too who needed it at times.  Across from him was another boy with albinism- the second I met this year.  As seems to be standard with this condition, he had vision problems which required extra-large textbooks and he had to wear sunglasses and a hat outside.  There really wasn’t a lot of academic work being done on these last few days as the grades had already been turned in.  There was a lot of cleaning and turning in books and extended recess times.  There was a lot of letter writing in one of the classes (imagine writing a letter- at least half a page each- to every student in the class.  They were doing only five a day, but still very monotonous.  They also did math speed drills, practicing the times tables.  I also did a lot of copying.  Well, at least I was paid.  It was also a rest in a way which is perfect for this time of year.  Tuesday was completely different.  You already know about the fire, but aside from that it was a very normal teaching day with math, reading, and so on.  I didn’t do much teaching though- a lot of facilitating.  Get them started on something, and off they go as I walk around keeping them on task.  I saw one of my now-former weekend kids, but only for math.  The teacher I subbed for did advanced math.

As I write this I am still trying to secure a job for tomorrow, but I won’t be surprised if nothing turns up.  One district is already out of the running.  Monday however, I start on something new.  I will be training to take pictures of cars for ads.  Actually, I think I mentioned this in another blog post so I won’t repeat it, but now I have signed the contract and have an official starting date.  He is even allowing me to do my usual week at camp, which is coming up in less than three weeks.  Training can last three weeks to three months depending on how quickly I learn the ropes.  This should become my priority over subbing, but I will probably still do maybe one day a week, more in winter if there are less cars to do.  I will see.