Boogers

What took me so long? Well, snuggle up with a cup of hot chocolate and let me tell you a story...

Once upon a time I grew an extra bone in my face.

We spent a long time together, me and that extra bone. But, alas, some medical professional came along and told us we weren’t supposed to be together. So, he stole my extra bone from me.

What you just read is basically the preface to the rest of my life. After multiple doctors threatened to peel my face off to no avail, I had my extra bone taken out of my sinus cavity through my nose. It was as fun as it sounds.

I won’t go into gross specifics about the procedure, though I am kind of proud of some of the fun facts. Suffice (Sufficed? I’ve never really seen this term written) it to say, when it was all said and done, I looked like Sloth from The Goonies.

Let’s talk about what effect the guy above can have on kids. Some, I made hide behind their parents. Others, I was transformed into a Pavlovian experiment on paranoia. Seriously, every time he saw me, the kid would say “Paranoid” and reach toward my eye. He thought it was hilarious when I flinched the next week when he said “Paranoid” and didn’t lift a finger. Still others, I provoked to ask in a crowded elevator, “What happened to your nose?” I have to give credit to the pain medication for keeping me from responding with something that would have caused her father to rip another bone out my face.

That elevator took me to my first follow up doctor’s visit. This is where I learned how a sinus doctor really makes his money. I’m not volunteering to pay more, but those guys don’t make enough money. For the past month, I have periodically visited the good doctor, and he has proceeded to pull enormous items out of my nose. It’s like my sinus cavity is Mary Poppins’ purse.

I’m absolutely positive there was some point in my life where I wanted to see how big a booger I could pick out of my nose. If only the current version of me could visit that 4 year-old version, some of these things are big enough for me to autograph and give one to the young me to put in a trophy case.

This, like so many of my posts before, ultimately has no point. That said, there are a few of things I’d like you to know before you leave…

First, you ever listen to your own voicemail message and think, “Is that really what I sound like?” Well, I haven’t voicemail tested it, but the post-surgery voice in my head sounds exactly like Phil Vassar when I sing along to the radio in the car. No matter whose song is on.

Secondly, there’s a lovely anesthesiologist at Vanderbilt. She’s very good at her job – I don’t remember any of my surgery. However, if my life was a Scream movie, she would be Ghostface. She might very well haunt me for the rest of my life… I’m lying in the bed pre-surgery, only a paper towel gown between Ghostface and the natural me. She then tells me what she’s going to do to me once I’m out. It’s nothing dirty at all, but it’s in that vicinity. And it rhymes with quatheterization. At least I was unconscious for that experience. I was also unconscious when Ghostface terrorized me again by paralyzing my legs. Legitimately. Now, I’m all for not moving during a surgery, but I think a stern talking to would have gotten the job done. Instead, I woke up with no pain in my head, but my legs felt like a piece of chewing gum in a vampire’s mouth. My legs didn’t work right for 2 weeks.

Finally, yes, my nose is straighter now. Thanks for noticing.

The Beats Go On

So you bought a pair of Beats by Dr. Dre. Congratulations. Personally, I would have bought some $10 earbuds at Wal-Mart and made an extra mortgage payment, but to each his own.

[Note: I understand there is an earbud variety of Beats. The following applies only to the Princess Leia version.]

I’ve spent my fair share of time in airports, and besides the charter buses that take NFL teams from the hotel to the stadium, I’m pretty sure there’s not a higher per-capita rate of Beats than at an airport. So, from a biased observer, before purchasing your Beats, please consider the following suggestions of things that don’t go with your Dre earmuffs...

1. Business casual attire. I’ll give you the extremes, suits and sweats, but the middle ground is not up for debate. A tucked in polo shirt and a pair of Beats are, in fact, mutually exclusive.

2. Bifocals. I started to write glasses. Then I remembered the Usher edition Beats that come with the oversized sunglasses attached. Then I considered writing prescription glasses, but that would exclude some of the urban prep population which has surprisingly proven that Beats can go with a sweatervest.

3. A baby. If you have to choose between diapers and Dre, clearly the baby will take the diapers for granted and crap on them anyway – go with the headphones.

4. A ponytail. Unless said ponytail is made up of dreadlocks.

5. A WNBA jersey. Absolutely nothing goes with a WNBA jersey.

6. An off-brand compression shirt. I don’t care if Ray Lewis walked up to me in an airport with his Beats on. If he was wearing a BCG compression shirt, I’d laugh at him. Ok, that’s not true.

7. A guitar case. I know what you’re thinking: “Why shouldn’t a hippie get to listen to Phil Keaggy on the headphones of his choice?” Have you heard the old round-peg-in-a-square-hole analogy? Stick to your square short sleeve button-ups.

8. A cd player.

9. A large carry-on bag. Stop carrying-on large bags.

10. An EZ Smoker. I’m all for folks kicking the habit, but these things look ridiculous. If you puff on your EZ Smoker while wearing Beats by Dr. Dre during an earthquake, you increase the likelihood that you fall into an abyss between two tectonic plates by approximately 384%. Are you willing to take that risk?

I can't stop you from buying expensive headphones, but I hope to gently urge you not to pair your new headphones with any of the aforementioned items. On behalf of the entire population, thank you.

Miami (Ad)Vice

I just returned from Miami, which apparently is Spanish for North Cuba. When you go, you should learn Spanish and drive a really expensive car, and you’ll fit in wonderfully... I am genuinely surprised I didn’t have to clear Customs to get back into Nashville. On to the highlights…

Homeless folks in Miami don’t sell newspapers. They do carry around giant paper cups. As a gentleman walked in front of our rental car last night, the greasy rich guy in his convertible coupe next to us did something that I can’t quite come up with an appropriate adjective for. As we pulled up to the red light, he was already stopped, top down, dog riding shotgun. As the paper cup headed his way, the guy rolled up the passenger window… on his tiny convertible… with the top down. This action achieved his desired result I guess, and he followed it up by shooting a sly smile towards our car. It was just weird.

You know who wouldn’t have stood for such an act? The nun we met down there. “Sister” was chosen to give us the tour of the catholic facility we were working in. As she led us around, we caught her fiddling around on her iPhone. Someone thought aloud, “I didn’t know the sisters were so well connected.” Her response? “It’s going to take me a while to get used to it. I really miss my Blackberry.”

To emphasize the size of the room we were in, Sister exclaimed, “You have to think about how many Hispanics it takes to take someone to the hospital… It’s at least twelve.” As we moved on to the psych area, “I’ve already reserved my room here.” All jokes aside, Sister closed out our tour by lighting us up with a 20 minute sermon on the Good Samaritan. Then she offered us mints, but we had to take 3 in honor of the Trinity. Sister exclaimed that some people try to take 4 for the gospels. One of our group replied, what about the 12 apostles?

While I did not experience a hurricane in Miami this week, I did, a la LeBron, take my palette to South Beach. I ate ceviche for the second time in my life. To sum up that experience, it’s like sushi – after mama bird chews it up first. I also consumed half a shot of Cuban coffee. I don’t like American coffee. I also don’t like Cuban coffee. Good news is that Cuban coffee comes in a communion cup, so there’s less to dislike. The final of my unique eating experiences was dinner Wednesday night. We worked late and were all tired, so we decided to stop at Fresh Market to pick up some dinner. Turns out, it takes 45 minutes to get a $23 dinner at a fancy grocery store. Then you have to heat it up in your hotel microwave that was in its prime when Johnny Carson was still on TV. I turned the knob to 15 seconds, walked away, and returned a minute later to find the plastic container melted and the knob on 15 seconds.

Overall, a fairly uneventful trip. However, I did have a revelation in the airport that I will share with you next time.

Last Day of the Church Camp Memoirs

Last post about camp - I know, it seems like forever to me too. In case you missed it: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, and Day 5.


Day five is the last day of camp for the younger kids. We have family night where we invite up all the parents and siblings so they can see a little bit of what camp was like for their kids. The real reason we have family night is so we have an excuse for the parents to take their little kids back, leaving us with the ones who are capable of taking showers without being reminded, the ones who don’t immediately begin weeping at the sound of an airhorn, and the ones who know that may not really be the Lion King in that square.

Prior to family night, we put the campers through the proverbial ringer. After breakfast, worship, and class, we have the annual Tug-O-War competition and the Big Blue Ball.

If you thought kids don’t start lacing up their cleats (or enormous hiking boots that provide no competitive advantage whatsoever) for Tug-O-War, you’d be wrong. After approximately 20 matchups, we crowned a champion. Then we moved on.

The Big Blue Ball is a 6 to 7 (depending on how much time you spend filling it up) foot tall inflatable blue ball. Technically, the object is to push the ball back to your team’s cone, knocking it down, and earning points for your team. In actuality, if you are over the age of 15, you have one of two distinct goals: 1) Try not to sweat by standing as far away from the ball as possible and maintaining your swagger (I’m pretty sure that’s the modern day equivalent of “looking cool”) or 2) Run at the ball as hard as you can in hopes of paralyzing the person on the other side of it. This will be one of my favorite parts of camp each year until the day someone actually gets paralyzed by the Big Blue Ball. (LINK TO LAST YEAR’S POST ON CODY’S TRUCK) There were only two or three shots worth noting: One dislocated a rib (who knew?), and the other sent one of the youth ministers parallel to the ground. Good times.

That was the morning. After lunch and guys’ creek time, we dusted off the Slip-n-Slide, in its new old location. More slope, less air, more rocks to run across, less rocks to slide across. You win some, you lose some. News from the Slip-n-Slide: a concussion-free year.

Straight from the Slip-n-Slide, we headed back down to the creek for the mud pit. The mud pit is patch of dirt that we dug up probably 4 years ago. One of the counselors considers this mud pit his baby. He tills it annually and, this year, he brought up a fire hose, paired it with a water pump provided by one of the other staff, and we pumped the mud pit full of an endless supply of creek water.

For the first year ever, I didn’t get in the creek or the mud pit all week (aside from standing in up to my ankles, holding the fire hose to fill it up). Some streaks have to come to an end (though I’m still not going to spend my own money on a Starbucks drink).

After all that, we reunited camper and parent. I’m sure the parents thought their kids hadn’t bathed all week. That was probably true for a couple of them. We showed the lip-dub and the camp slide show, announced the Campers of the Week, sang another round of “Ish Convish Conductor”, crowned the team champions for the week, and shipped off the young ones.

We then had some free time before we cranked up the Thursday Night Devo. Part of this time was given to the Lipscomb counselors to give their pitch for the alma mater. As they provide free labor for the week, it seems only fair we give them half an hour to convince our East Nashville kids to drop $80,000 on an education. As the rest of the staff broke from our meeting, I hustled up to the mess hall to see if I could catch the last of the presentation. I walked into a dance party. Lipscomb: Clearly not as conservative as Freed.

The Thursday Night Devo is a devotional for the older kids that’s at a little deeper level than the rest of the week. As the week’s theme was “By Faith,” the event began with blindfolds and packing the kids into church vans. As the youth ministers approached from attempting to disorient the kids by driving around in circles, one van pulled up singing “Ish Convish Conductor.” Seriously, this song is the musical equivalent of the plague. The ministers unloaded the unseeing on the softball field and told them to find “an object.”

There was no object.

A couple of exercises in faith later, the kids removed the blindfolds and realized they had somehow ended up in the middle of the woods. A couple of the staff had built a fire. As we arrived, it was burning green. I’m no expert on fire, but the burning in my throat confirmed my suspicion that the green flames probably were not a good thing. Poison Ivy of the lungs, all around.

Five songs into the devo, the fire was all but out. No big deal. Just makes it easier to see the stars. A few songs later, we sang “Light the Fire,” and God threw us a bone and rekindled the flame a little. No Elijah consuming the rocks kind of thing, but kind of cool nonetheless.

The devo ended a little before 11, and the kids were given free time for the rest of the night. Usually, bedtime is set at 3 am on Friday morning. Because, if you had just spent a week of sleep-deprived activity that is designed to be both physically and mentally draining, what else would you want to do besides stay up until 3?

More dance party was followed by the annual counselor basketball game. Due to my foot being about as sturdy as instant mashed potatoes, I pulled out my referee shirt and whistle to ref the game. Before halftime, I retired. Mostly because I had only called 3 fouls, wasn’t really interested in the game, wasn’t really feeling the growing competitiveness amongst the staff, and loved being told how terrible I was at reffing. Church camp. Plus, there was an angel sitting on the sidelines willing to scratch my head throughout the game… Pretty easy decision.

I went to bed early, at 2. I went to sleep less early, at 4:30. Thanks, guys.

In short (via long, quite long), it was an awesome week with awesome people. Thanks for reading... Next time will be totally unrelated.

Experts Did a Study

Let me expand a little further on this Hollywood Squares thing that has been mentioned previously… We have one counselor contestant, “Madeline”, who takes on a different camper contestant each day. The squares are filled with counselors or counselors dressed as characters. I wrote all that simply to list off some of the characters we have included. See below.

Dorothy of Oz fame, Monkey Man (pretty simple: a guy in a gorilla costume), someone impersonating one of the preachers who was up here with us, the Chiquita Banana lady, SPATA (this was a guy dressed as someone from 300), a silent fireman, Mario, Luigi, the Lion King (a lion costume with the Burger King guy’s head on top), and a Spider Monkey (Monkey Man wearing a Spiderman mask)… Not a bad lineup.

Yesterday was the day we were introduced to “Ish Convish Conductor.” Imagine Hanson’s “Mmm-Bop,” but in some mashup of Russian, German, and Hindi, and set to the tune of “Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” For those who were there, you remember. And now you will have this song stuck in your heads for the rest of the day. You’re welcome.

Yesterday, a couple of the girls began their quest of setting me up with one of the girl counselors. Yesterday, I discovered teenage girls have no off switch. I don’t intend that to sound mean; in fact, bless their hearts. These girls spoke to me at every opportunity and never spoke of anything other than their girl counselor target for me. So, Mom, I have a confession to make… Kidding. I will not announce true love via a post on here [NOTE: still uncomfortable with the term “blog”].

Looking ahead to today, those girls decided to write me a note from Girl Counselor. As one of my duties is daily mail call, I received my note while Girl Counselor was sitting across the table helping sort mail. It’s one thing when guys try to write like girls. It’s a whole ‘nother animal when girls try to write as other girls. I was sitting on about a 15% chance the note was real. I went with the odds. Within 10 minutes, one of the campers approached and admitted she wrote the note because she was “scared, and didn’t want me to think it was real.” Wimp. Bless your heart.

What else happened yesterday? Well, we filled up a few hundred water balloons. Some with soap. No pickle juice balloons this year. We used all of that in the Super Soakers. We made shields for the night games. These shields were supposed to be used to block a water balloon. We made the shields out of cardboard and Gorilla tape. We then charged kids points (the fake currency of choice) to buy the shields to protect themselves during our convoluted game of capture the flag. For the record, I am of the opinion that if you can’t get out of the way of a balloon, you can’t block said balloon with a cardboard shield. The suckers bought every one of them.

Finally, we closed out the night with an older kids’ devotional. We had it under a new pavilion they had built at the top of camp on the soccer/softball fields. While normally, I would want to not have a roof over my head at night up there in order to see the thousands of stars that span your view, last night was cloudy, so I was game. Turns out, not only was it cloudy, but the camp was surrounded by heat lightning strikes in the distance. It was pretty amazing to have praise time with a constant lightning show going on all around. Aside from the fact that the shelter basically served as a sauna (or perhaps one of those heat boxes you see on movies like Cool Hand Luke) in the 95 degree heat at 10:30 at night, it was a pretty awesome devo. Another day down…

Primer for tomorrow: Blue Ball.

Slipping with Miss Olympia

So today it caught up with me. I was physically incapable of rising and shining early this morning. Thus, I slept in… All the way until 7:30. Since I’ve put off writing about yesterday until 2:00 today, we’ll see how this goes.

I began building up my base burn (similar to a base tan, but for pale people) at the beginning of the week, but it hit its stride yesterday morning. The day was fairly uneventful until the afternoon. One of the other counselors and I were responsible for setting up the slip-n-slide (SNS). We made a bold call and moved it to a new site from the location it had held for 4 or 5 years.


You see, we use billboards for the SNS. [NOTE: One of these billboards includes a picture of Mr. and Miss Olympia scantily clad (see biceps above), so it’s always a good time to roll that one out.] This year we had 3 billboards, a one billboard improvement over last year. So we decided to move the SNS from the steeper 2-billboard location to the longer, more eventful 3-billboard location. The new location includes a lovely dip halfway through as opposed to the run of the mill free-fall at the old.

To say the SNS move was met with resistance would be one large understatement. We were trash-talked by campers and counselors alike. Most of this was probably because a vast majority of the camp population was incapable of making it to the bottom. Honestly, the potential enjoyment was higher for the large kids than the small ones, but even then it seems only one person could get air on the aforementioned dip. As a result, we’re moving the SNS back tomorrow.

The second of my three point sermon involves Ultimate Frisbee, yesterday’s free time game of choice. In a surprising turn of events, no one cried. There were some emotions running fairly strong, but everyone came out alright. Lesson learned from Ultimate: When you’re barefoot, it’s not worth trying to tap your toes in bounds. For that reason alone I had to backspace over “no one bled” earlier in this paragraph. [Editor’s Note: On the day after camp ended, I was walking to my laundry room when I blasted my pinkie toe on the door frame. After the queasiness subsided, I realized the last week of my life has been an effort to turn my right foot into instant mashed potatoes.]

Finally, we closed out the night with another camp standard: a variation of what we have so wittily titled Numerical Seek and Find. Basically, the kids have to find all the counselors in a specific order using only yes or no questions. This one we spun off as the Amazing Race. It lasted almost three episodes of the actual show... Five if you have TiVo and skip the commercials. Don’t worry though, the kids never complained about running around outside in 90 degree heat for almost 3 hours. If this were the 90s, that sentence would have been followed by the word “psych.”

That was the clean stuff. While we all know church camp is generally a wholesome environment. However, most of us are also aware that that environment can serve as a conduit for shenanigans. If you’re easily offended or like general hygiene, do us both a favor and stop reading. For the rest of you who have toughed it out, allow me to share a shenanigan.

The following has been edited to fit your screen and for content. Asterisks do not indicate profanity. This story includes some instances of both fiction and non-fiction. I will identify the fiction and non-fiction at the beginning, but it is up to you to make the determination after that.

We went to church camp [non-fiction]. There were pterodactyls flying around everywhere [fiction]. When we arrived at camp, we discovered the middle school boys’ cabin had a small **** in the *****. Nearly a perfect circle, it measured probably 6 inches in diameter. [NOTE: That’s a 3 inch radius and the area would be 9π. Free math lesson for the younger audience.] It only took the high school guys until Tuesday to decide what to do with said ****. Clearly, that decision was to drop a ***** in the ****. I mean that quite literally.

Piecing together the several reports I was given, the middle school guys returned to their cabin after lunch and checked the **** as they had done every time they returned to the cabin. Only this time there was *** in the ****. Further investigations led to the discovery that the **** itself was not the original destination of the aforementioned ***** ********. It was coined “an extraction job.” The contributor used the standard ********, donned the rubber gloves required by Kentucky state law to be in the cabins, and retrieved the jewel. He then placed the trophy in a plastic bag and moved the product to the cabin next door, dropping it to its final resting place.

Editor's Note: As we look into the future, via the past, there was no hint of retribution for the asterisk act above. Back in my day... well, nevermind.

The Day the Stone Rolled Away

Yesterday started off like any other day of my life: hosting Hollywood Squares in front of a giant tic-tac-toe board full of counselors, a monkey, a self-proclaimed lion king, and some guy who answered to Speedy Gonzalez and spoke broken English (and broken Spanish). Like I said, just another day at the office.

We busted out one of the most underrated toys ever for the team game time yesterday morning… Some 150 rubber duckys joined us on the fields. It was after the kids had cleared the rubber ducky station that the “adults” began to realize the true joy of an endless supply of rubber duckys. They’re like little decorative grenades. If I ever have to have rotator cuff surgery, you may point to August 1st, 2011 as the responsible party, sans responsible parties of course.

Last night, we played two of the games we’ve played ever since I was a camper. Play-Doh Pictionary and Counselor Scavenger Hunt.

If you’ve never played it, I don’t expect you to understand the controversy that is inherent in Play-Doh Pictionary. Suffice it to say, when people smell Play-Doh, they instantly flash back to 3 years old, and the world is out to get them – campers and counselors alike. I got to make the list of items that would have to be created with the magic putty, including Justin Bieber, Play-Doh (a personal favorite since no hand gestures were allowed), and a rock. Hours of controversy later, someone got some points or something for their efforts.

As we have done it for years on end, it was a seamless transition from Pictionary to the scavenger hunt. The premise is simple – all the counselors hide, and the campers try to find them to earn points for their teams. Of course, if there’s ever a group of smart campers, they’re not going to find us, they’re going to incapacitate the directors who stay back to track scores, and they’re going to take over the camp. Another year of avoiding a mutiny is a success in my book.

Normally, I’d get decked out in my Threat Level Midnight gear, but for the past two years, the seeking just hasn’t been up to par, so I donned my silver shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops. Mistake.

They had built a new pavilion at camp this year, so I thought it a great idea to hide in the rafters. As is the case with all good decisions, I dragged someone else into the mix. Once we got up to the pavilion, and I topped a picnic table and did a pull up to get into the rafters of the 12-foot tall shelter, I thought (and professed aloud) that this was no longer a good idea. I claimed I didn’t believe any campers would come this far out, so we could just hide out on the ground level and never be found.

Once I helped the other counselor up into the rafters, I settled in for the 30 minute wait until victory. The last words from the guy in the ceiling before the campers approached were, “I’m in a good spot. I feel good.”

Ten minutes later I was found. This was most likely because I was lying on a bench in the middle of the unenclosed (apparently that’s a word) structure, trying to sleep. As any good counselor would, after some brief banter with the kid who found me (and tried to talk trash), I headed back to the Mess Hall, sure to not sell out the guy in the attic.

Of course, I come back to find a majority of the counselors complaining about how much better the seekers were this year. Noted… Now, some of you kids may be reading this and taking notes on where to find a counselor next year. Keep reading.

After the game was over, I headed to my car to go save my fellow counselor whom I had left in the rafters without a flashlight. As I begin my approach, I turn on my hi-beams and see a pair of feet dangling from the sky. His walkie-talkie has fallen, and he is still without a flashlight as I had had to provide light for his ascent.

I have never received a warmer reception. He’s in rough shape. His walkie-talkie fell, and he had decided to wait out help or plummet to perceived paralysis. Lesson learned – when you get someone into a pickle, at least go back to make sure they get out.

Finally, the night ended with some good ol’ fashioned cabin wrestling matches atop the 3-inch Lysol-coated mattresses. We began in the little kids’ cabin. Two of those little 2nd graders went at it like Bret the Hitman Heart and Shawn “Sexy Boy” Michaels. Surprisingly, no blood or tears, though there was some legitimate anger.

We moved on to the middle boys’ cabin. As I made my way through the door and into the arena filled with chants of “Tap Out!”, the smallest middle-schooler in camp had himself a legit MMA chokehold on the biggest middle-schooler in camp, complete with legs wrapped around the big guy's torso. After two minute of struggling to get himself up off the ground, the big guy finally got up and went for the body slam. Once he got him airborne, another counselor stopped the bout. While I am of the opinion that if you, of sound mind, agree to the fight and have some success in it, you are entitled to the results, it probably wasn’t a bad thing that the smaller guy wasn’t put through the wooden floor.

A couple of rounds later, I made my way back to my cabin, leaving the high school boys to continue watching and/or participating in the wrestling. When they returned to the shadow of my wing, those who the night before had been quite weary of each other, mostly silent but not quite hostile, had bonded and were reliving the joys of the night. The good news is that the boys bonded. The bad news is the awkward silence was replaced by a united front of high school boy conversation. An hour and a half after they re-entered, I fell asleep. Five hours later, I woke up… Now I’m off to wake them up. I’m trying to decide if dirty jokes and flashlights to the face are sufficient... Quid-pro-quo, Clarice.

Day Two, Day Two

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following post was written days ago, but in real life... I got cut off by a minivan tonight. Angry, I pulled up beside them to see that it was 2 nuns. Just made the night that much better. Home cookin', windows down, and nuns who can't drive.

Sunday rolls around. The agenda is straightforward: breakfast and filming. Before I finished my Chick-Fil-A sandwich, the shirts are ready and an offer is made on my tye-dye apparel: $10 and the other guy’s shirt, which happened to look every bouncy ball made before 1995.

Offer rejected. I didn’t go to one of the finest business schools on the planet for nothing. Well, I didn’t go to one of the finest business schools, but it was fine enough to teach me two concepts useful in this situation. The second was supply and demand – my shirt was better than everyone else’s, I could name my price. This concept was preceded by one of the concepts that built the foundation of modern society – outsourcing. Another thanks to Madeline, my personal tye-dyer.

Time to film. Well, time to walk through it a few more times and then try to film. A little background on this adventure…

Each year at camp, we have a theme. Usually this theme involves at least some of the staff to dress in ridiculous costumes. I have yet to be outside of the “some” mentioned in the previous sentence.

For the music video, it has been decided that some of the favorite characters from the past will be included. One problem: the lip-dub concept requires one continuous shot, and some of the cast have played several roles over the years… While we did re-visit the outsourcing well, more often than not, it was decided that those playing multiple roles should continue to do so and just sprint between parts while changing clothes. Cool.

The expected production time was set at an hour. I took the over. It was quickly changed to an hour and a half. I remained faithful to the over.

16 to 24 costume changes, half a container of baby powder, and 37 minutes later, we were done. Color me impressed. I’ve never been happier to lose a bet. Chicken sandwiches for all.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is probably a bad idea...

If that didn't work, try clicking here. If that doesn't work, give up - it wasn't worth it anyway.

Our efficiency left us with no more tasks to accomplish before the campers arrived. Naps, thin pickle slices, and a couple of hours of iPod shuffle all filled the void. This would be the last time the shuffle all would be allowable for fear of the occasional questionable lyric.

As I mentioned, the kids arrived early and often. We didn’t let them inside until 3. The early bird may get the worm, but if you’re early in the middle of the day at the end of July, you may also get a heat stroke.

Registration commenced. I posted up on the second stop in the assembly line. The joy of this spot is that it’s merely a hardcopy version of the excel work done at the first stop. As such, I was of no importance, and it gave me a way to start trying to learn all the kids’ names. [Note: You may read that as me taking a genuine interest in the campers. Or you may read that as me looking for those random few seconds of joy when you approach a kid, call them by name, and know full well they have no idea who you are… After reading that again, I feel I should promise not to trade in the Altima for a white van with no windows.]

After registration and before dinner, the first camp couple was formed. If there’s one thing church camp is good for besides stitches, capture the flag, and swimming in water that will probably give you a staph infection, it’s breeding long-lasting relationships.

Remaining highlights from Sunday included one counselor wearing a luchador mask for the duration of the afternoon a-la-Rey-Mysterio, the two most popular kids in camp arriving (the youth minister’s 18 month-old twins), the first two visits to the first aid kit, an episode of Family Feud where we learned that a squash is allegedly a fruit, a pretty sweet night time devotional illuminated by the Christmas lights adorning the Hollywood Squares set, and some minimal cabin conversation that may have revolved around that crazy lady in California who was quite familiar with the garbage disposal.

If you missed it, click Here for Day 1.

Taylor Christian Camp - Episode I

Welcome to the first mini-series ___(10 trick points available)___ has offered. The goal is simple: The following few posts will be a replay of each day of church camp. If you were there, this will give you an opportunity to see the other side of some of the more interesting events. If you weren’t there, this will give you an opportunity to see what camp is like since you used to go – you know, before you had air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and flashlights.

I had this idea that I would get up every morning to write this and discuss the highlights of the previous day. That way, I could be guaranteed a hot shower and a few minutes of uninterrupted time each day. Breakfast is at 8:15. It’s 6:38. I’ve already showered, shaved, and brushed my teeth. [NOTE: Who knew that one little eggshell mattress could do so little to hide the discomfort of a 3-inch 45-year old mattress?] I’m pretty sure I could write 15,000 words before breakfast. Keep reading. It won’t be that long.

So, let’s catch up. Yesterday was Sunday. The kids were supposed to arrive between 3 and 5. A vast majority of them got here at 1:45. However, camp doesn’t start at registration, young ones. On the contrary, camp started long before.

We came up Friday night to start getting everything ready. We unloaded two trailers full of food, lumber, sound equipment, 6-ft inflatable balls, and rubber duckys. We dabbled around camp for a while and then went to sleep. Friday was relatively uneventful.

Saturday, work began at 10 am. The agenda included building an 11-foot tall Hollywood Squares set sturdy enough to hold 9 staff members [Editor’s Note: the last day of camp revealed that the set could actually hold at least 15 people], manufacturing a Plinko board, erecting some PVC pipe structure, constructing a Family Fued faceoff table, and some girl work. Let the sweating commence.

There were about 12 of us up here at that point, so we split up and got after it. The short straws, of which I was one, headed down to begin constructing the Hollywood Squares set. We did everything but fell the trees for this thing. Honestly, it went very smoothly. Of course, this is compared to previous years where we spent countless hours constructing a saloon without the proper parts, and trying to make a cabin resemble a pirate ship using only junk we found in a dumpster.

2 hours in, the first level was built and, though untested, strong enough to hold a Prius.

Lunchtime. Campers, a little insight into the other side here… For the first day or two of camp, the counselor diet consists of Chick-Fil-A sandwiches, thin little pickle remnants, pickle-stained bread, and your choice of mayonnaise or ketchup. Why anyone would choose ketchup in this situation is beyond me, but it happens. Lunch involved sandwiches one and two of my weekend.

After lunch, we continued our plywood journey to the sky, careful not to jinx it by claiming aloud what we were all thinking – “This is actually working. We might get this done in a semi-reasonable amount of time.” After training my trigger finger to work with an electric drill that was apparently designed to be used by Bruce Willis in “Armageddon,” level two had been achieved and was fit for a Royal Rumble. In retrospect, my numbering system is off, as the ground was level one, so this meant we were pretty much done. It was approximately 3:00. To call this a victory would be an understatement similar to proclaiming “The Annexation of Puerto Rico” as just another play in Little Giants.


After helping and/or hindering some other projects, we set out to conquer our last two Saturday tasks…

First thing’s first: Let’s film a lip-dub. If you’re not familiar with a lip-dub, this was my introduction to the concept.

So we begin our walk-through of TCC’s lip-dub production. After a couple of run-throughs, we decide we don’t have enough daylight or general hydration to complete this today. A bottle of water and a shot of procrastination for everyone… We’ll take care of it tomorrow.

Task two: Tye-dye our camp shirts. In an episode of thinking outside the box, someone suggested we get white camp shirts this year and tye-dye. Fantastic idea. Everyone gets to pick the color of their shirt, and no one is to blame for the failed concept except the children themselves.

So we tye-dyed our camp shirts… I say “we” tye-dyed shirts. One of the other counselors [NOTE: For the newer readers, I try not to use names on here so as not to offend, incriminate, or aid and abed. Thus, we’ll call her Madeline] who was well-versed in tye-dye actually made mine, and bless her for it.

We made some game show signage, giant X’s and O’s for Hollywood Squares, and drank a ridiculous number of Sprite in an effort to produce 24 empty 12-oz. bottles. Then we slept… Longer than we would for the rest of the week.

Welcome to _________

You may hum "Welcome to the Jungle" while you read this. Of course, if you live in Marshall County, it's probably still playing on repeat from the football stadium.

Not to say things weren't working out on the old site, but it wasn't all roses either... I got a keen feeling that some of the more conservative members of our little community were uncomfortable with the concept of checking one for tickmarks. [NOTE: I considered putting a conservative joke in here, but a) I didn't want to have to clarify that when I say conservative, I am in no way referring to politics and b) I couldn't think of a proper joke.] The name change also may have had something to do with me feeling slightly uncomfortable when trying to explain the concept of a tickmark as something other than a mark that a tick would leave on an individual's body.

Plus, this is easier to tell people when they ask me what my -ahem-blog-ahem- address is.

We'll open things up with some bullet points. These will serve as a guide for any rookies and a refresher for the veterans.

Things you should know to make your experience here a little easier:

• If you're looking for a theme (e.g., travel, sports, current events, Lil' Wayne's effect on modern school children, etc.), might as well go on and hit that "Next Blog" button.
• If you like profanity, naked pictures, or posts written while intoxicated, you're asterisks outta luck, though I can't promise you won't be able to say "That's what she said" after an occasional sentence.
• I'm not a professional writer. On the contrary, I'm an auditor. As such, I'm probably the most interesting person you know. [NOTE: If you don't know me, awesome. Invite another random person to stop by.]
• I am still uncomfortable with the term "blog," referring to myself as a "blogger," and/or using "blogging" as a verb.
• I've tried my hand at this before. See?
• A majority of my posts are written from airplanes. There are several reasons for this... Among them: interesting things happen in airports and airplanes, if people see me typing on a plane they'll think I'm important, and what else is there to do (aside from the obvious lite rock playlist on the iPod) on a plane?
• I have a girl's name. I'm kind of proud of it. At least my parents built in my sense of humor via my birth certificate. I wouldn't have nearly as many funny introductions if my name were Tom. Though, I probably would get less mail addressed to "Ms. Sanders."
  
• I have a tendency to get wordy. I acknowledge this, apologize, and am working on it.

Thank you for choosing [Insert final name selection here]. Please make sure your seatbelts are fastened and your seats and tray tables are in their full, upright and locked positions. Also, please ensure all electronic devices are turned off and stowed away, save for the one you're reading this on.

I literally just decided to try to implement trick points into the refreshed site. 10 trick points to the person who comes up with the name for this thing.