It is said that your body is your temple and that every man's home is his castle. I have been thinking a fair bit about my body recently. Every summer for the past 4 I have gotten out of shape during the summer. This is fine, my training cycle for ultimate was based on taking it easy and resting during the summer, starting in late August and peaking in May. It the past this has mostly meant losing muscle. My metabolism has always been fast enough that I didn't really get fat. For the first time this summer I started to notice the first signs of the innevatble 20's metabolism slow down. I was lazy and eating poorly and I managed to start to get a little bit of a belly, now mind you it wasn't that much, but it was there and I took notice. It seems I have reached the point in my life where I can no longer get little exercise, eat like crap and stay skinny. I feel that is a real milestone, though not one to jump for joy about I suppose.
Luckily my schedule has opened up and I have started working out again going for 3-4 mile trail runs and doing a bunch of push ups and core exercises that I like. This is what I think is interesting about the human body and athletics; in about a week I was 75% back to looking like I did at the beginning of the summer. The last 25% will take a little while longer but still that is amazing. This is interesting for two reasons; first, it is amazing how quickly our bodies react to change in neccesity, it took about two days of hard work for my body to realize that the time to store energy was over (add fat) and that it needed to prepare to do hard things again (add muscle). Somewhere in my brain years of transitioning from preparing for winter to needing to escape sabretooth tigers kicked in. Evolution is neat. Also considering how long it originally took me to get in the kind of shape I am in now the first time I can't believe how quickly I am able to get it back now, in 10 days I go from doing sets of 20-25 push ups to 45-50. That is pretty crazy considering it took me months to get from one point to the other the first time. There is just something the brain/body does when it breaks through a wall the first time, after that it just knows what it needs to do again. This has always seemed especially aparent with distance runners. You often here marathoners talk about how hard their first one was and that even though they didn't train for the next nine months after and felt like they were back at square one they were able to get back into shape in a fraction of the time. Obviously their is some sort of biological statute of limitations on this (after 20 years I think your body has kind of moved on) but still I think it is amazing.
So onto my castle. This summer has represented the longest stretch of time that I have kept a domecile consistantly clean and neat my entire life. I'm kind of proud. I was living with a roomate for most of the summer and I was actually the cleaner of the two, though we were close. I am now living by myself which is the past has been my messiest but I have actually been doing even better. The exception being a part of my cabin which is used by my staff to do work. One of the staff the other day even mentioned, unprovoked and off topic how neatly my clothes were put away. For those that have known me a long time, which consitutes many of my few readers you know what a big accomplishment this is for me. It's nice, I have to admit. Still it isn't easy. I have decided that anyone that says it is easier to consistantly clean then to let it get really messy and then clean is a liar. In pure time spent it is more efficient to wait until the mess is large and then clean up a bunch at one. However, I will agree that even though it takes more time to clean consistantly it is still a better idea because of the utility gained. Imagine cleaning consistantly is %150 of the work of waiting until it's trashed. When you clean consistantly you have at least a fairly neat domecile ~100% of the time, whereas if you wait until it is terrible then say 25% of the time it's neat, 50% of the time is pretty poor and 25% of the time it's awful. In the end it is worth the extra 50% of work because you overall situation improves so dramatically. I will try to keep it up after camp, that will be the real test, but I am confident. I was going strong last fall but then do to a number of reasons I let off. I would really like to be hold on this year, I really think it would make me a 'better person' whatever that is.
Now I just gotta start eating healthy.
Joey
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Tennis
So right now I am working as tennis camp director. This is not nearly as impressive as it sounds. A more accurate title would be Assistant to the Director. CL runs some specialty camps for the last two weeks of the summer; CO-ED Camp, Tennis Camp, Family Camp, and Golf Camp. I was assigned to be Tennis Camp 'Director' which basically means I oversee the counselors and do whatever is asked of me by the real Director who has been doing this for 35 years (he only comes for Tennis Camp). He is actually in charge and oversees all the tennis coaches. He's a good dude and is very passionate and committed about the program. He has been doing it a long time and is pretty stuck in his ways. Some people in the past have struggled coming from spending all summer making decisions (like I have) to having to just follow orders and carry out ideas, many of which seem silly. It doesn't really bother me that much. He works really hard and I respect people that work hard and I respect that level of commitment to something. So if he needs me to make to type a form this exact way and copy it onto blue paper but then change it because a camper wants to be called Ally instead of Alisha then I'm not that bothered. I just do it. In the end it is much less work then I have been doing all summer and for the first time I have consistent free time. I've been doing some travel planning, buying some stuff, working on my final report for the summer, exercising, reading, and playing Risk with Blake and Wig.
There are two 5 day camps and we just finished the first and started the second today (which is crazy). Not all the kids were that sweet during the first one, especially some of the older guys. However, there were some great one too and most of them are staying for the second session while the others left. I have especially enjoyed getting to know the girls. There are some really cool ones and I enjoy getting to build relationships with girls, something I rarely get to do. I thinks pre-teen/early teen girls are absolutely hilarious and I love talking to them about all sorts of stuff; 5th/6th grade relationships, teen pop (Miley is so my girl), or our favorite part of Bomb Pops (the white part for me, it's lime). That has been the best part for me for sure.
So I got 5 more days which I am looking forward to. Then almost everyone that is left will leave. I will stick around for 3-4 days doing odd jobs, possible painting then leave with Blake on the 29th or 30th before bumming around in the twin cities for 2-3 days. Selling shaved ice at the fair fell through but that is okay, I will still likely take a trip there. Should be a gas.
Joey
There are two 5 day camps and we just finished the first and started the second today (which is crazy). Not all the kids were that sweet during the first one, especially some of the older guys. However, there were some great one too and most of them are staying for the second session while the others left. I have especially enjoyed getting to know the girls. There are some really cool ones and I enjoy getting to build relationships with girls, something I rarely get to do. I thinks pre-teen/early teen girls are absolutely hilarious and I love talking to them about all sorts of stuff; 5th/6th grade relationships, teen pop (Miley is so my girl), or our favorite part of Bomb Pops (the white part for me, it's lime). That has been the best part for me for sure.
So I got 5 more days which I am looking forward to. Then almost everyone that is left will leave. I will stick around for 3-4 days doing odd jobs, possible painting then leave with Blake on the 29th or 30th before bumming around in the twin cities for 2-3 days. Selling shaved ice at the fair fell through but that is okay, I will still likely take a trip there. Should be a gas.
Joey
The End (Kinda)
So it has been a while since I did an update type post (or any for that matter) but I have commited to focusing on the present even if it means skipping some of the past. So I will just mention one quick thing that happened at the end of the summer. So regular camp ended a week ago and that meant the first big departure day for staff, mostly America staff (there are only 7 Americans left working from ~30) though some internationals as well. Plus people that are staying move camps and such so even though it is not the actual end for everyone, it is for many people and is a symbolic end as it is the last time were all together. Afterwords people start leaving at different dates so there really isn't another huge goodbye, just a series of smaller ones. Anyway we always end with our staff circle which is the same way we end OSD at the beginning of the summer. The idea is to give people a chance to give thanks to the group or certain people. Anyway during my first two years ('04 and '05) there was a good deal of crying. The past two years have seen little to no crying. This has definitly been a reflection of the quality of the staff experience which has in my opinion been down for a few different reasons that I won't elaborate on now. Anyway it had been such a great summer that I had really hoped that crying would return (Blake and I had talked about it consistantly throughout the summer). I wasn't dissapointed. Of course everyone didn't cry, but many did and yours truly got a little misty for the first time since the '05 circle (first time since '05 in the staff circle, I've shed a few tears since then that's for sure). So that made me feel pretty good.
Also as I was saying goodbye I was really surprised by how many people referenced small things I had done for them in beginning of the summer, mostly something I said or a note I wrote to praise them. It was mostly people I didn't work with much and maybe didn't know as well so I was surprised they even remembered (I had forgotten about some of the moments). What I came to believe is that the reason it made such an impact was that it came from an unexpected source. Everyone expects to be praised at least occasionally by their supervisor, so when it happens although it makes you feel good, a certain part of you (I know I think this way) inevitably feels like they are just doing their job (they are to a certain extent). However, when it comes from someone who has no responsibility for you, someone who isn't responsible for noticing you and yet they do and take the time to tell you or write it down, that makes an impact. That tells you that you must be doing something right. At least that is what I think. I'm sure this idea has been better presented in innumable management and leadership books but I really noticed it on this occasion.
Incedently I have decided that even when I right a lot at one time I am going to make it into more, smaller, focused posts to make it more digestable.
Joey
Also as I was saying goodbye I was really surprised by how many people referenced small things I had done for them in beginning of the summer, mostly something I said or a note I wrote to praise them. It was mostly people I didn't work with much and maybe didn't know as well so I was surprised they even remembered (I had forgotten about some of the moments). What I came to believe is that the reason it made such an impact was that it came from an unexpected source. Everyone expects to be praised at least occasionally by their supervisor, so when it happens although it makes you feel good, a certain part of you (I know I think this way) inevitably feels like they are just doing their job (they are to a certain extent). However, when it comes from someone who has no responsibility for you, someone who isn't responsible for noticing you and yet they do and take the time to tell you or write it down, that makes an impact. That tells you that you must be doing something right. At least that is what I think. I'm sure this idea has been better presented in innumable management and leadership books but I really noticed it on this occasion.
Incedently I have decided that even when I right a lot at one time I am going to make it into more, smaller, focused posts to make it more digestable.
Joey
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Book It. Part 1: Recent Reads
So I have been doing a lot of reading this summer. Especially before camp started and for the last month. I've actually sacrificed a fair amount of sleep so I could read. Also as I have mentioned most of my free time is spent reading. Today I had a great conversation about books with another staff member and one of our 16 year old campers (16 years old, but mature beyond his years, very intelligent and well read for his age). I enjoyed talking about books I read recently and in the past so much that I have decided to do a post about it. For one maybe some of you will be inspired by my short book reports and decide to read it. Then we can talk about it and that would be sweet. Also I sometimes forget what books I've read, and why I did or did not like them. Maybe if I do this consistently I will be able to look back and know. So let's start with the books I've read recently. If it is a series of books I will just talk about them as if they were one.
Books I've Read in the Past Few Months
Lonesome Dove Series (Larry McMurtry)- The Lonesome Dove saga has 4 books of which the first written was Lonesome Dove and the Pulitzer prize winner for fiction. After LD was written Street of Laredo which I have not yet read came, followed by Dead Man's Walk and finally Comanche Moon. Within the story they go chronologically DMW then CM, then LD, then SOL. Like most people I ready LD first. After that I started at the beginning reading DMW then CM. I will likely read SOL by the end of the year. LD is absolutely amazing if you value great characters on the background of reasonably simple plot. It is about 900 pages and almost nothing of any plot consequence happens for the first 250. It doesn't matter. McMurtry uses that time to start building the foundation for one of the greatest group of characters in any book I've read. Many of the characters are trite on the surface. Gus; the smartalack who never shuts up, who loves women and drink, detests hard work, but is keenly talented and in a pinch has a heart of gold. Call, the stoic hard working leader who cares about his responsibility and doesn't mince words, Gus' clear foil, him and Gus make up the two main characters. Deets, the uniquely competent and loyal member of the troop, the only black man in the group, who would do anything for anyone. It goes on. McMurtry takes these and other superficially archetype characters and adds a depth and genuineness that makes them some of the most memorable characters I have known. The story is simple, a group of former Texas Rangers, the semi-famous leaders of which are Gus and Call, now getting old have decided to take a herd of cattle to Montana to try and strike rich. The primary plot is their journey from the town of Lonesome Dove where they have lived to Montana which includes trial and tragedy. One of the things I like about this book is that often death happens as it does in real life, quickly and without great drama. It makes the book much less predictable, though when something happens to a character you have truly been endeared towards McMurtry gives it it's due. Throughout the book casual reference and stories are made about Gus and Call's glory days as Rangers. When I finished the book I was left with two things; a quiet sadness and a strong desire to read a tale that would shed light on those glory days.
That is where DMW and CM come it. Both are good but only CM comes anywhere close to LD. DMW takes place when Gus and Call are first starting as Rangers (about 25 years before LD) and is good but feels like it was written purely to set up the book that one truly wants to read after reading LD, Comanche Moon. Virtually all important surviving characters from DMW are still in CM which starts about 10 years later and finishes after about another 10. It does in many ways leave you fulfilled in filling in the gaps of Gus and Call's life, particularly their love life, both minor tragedies unto themselves. Unfortunately I lost the book with about 100 out off 800 pages left and had to wait two weeks before finishing it as I rushed through it in a bookstore not wanting to buy it again. It kind of ruined the end for me I think. Maybe I'll read it again someday. I think I may read LD again before I read Streets of Laredo. LD is really just that good and reading CM makes me want to go back.
Enders Shadow Series (Orson Scott Card)- Ender's Shadow was the parallel novel to the highly acclaimed and well known young adult scifi book Ender's Game. Incidentally if you haven't read EG you really should, it is a modern classic of youth literature. Ender's Shadow was a parallel novel, it followed mostly the same story but from the perspective of a different character, one that was moderately important in EG, Bean. Both books tell the story, taking place in the Earth of about 200 years in future, of a group of children who are sent to 'Battle School' where they learn to command armies to hopefully aid in an expected 3rd war with the only known other sentient species in the galaxy, nickname the 'Buggers'.
There are three sequels to ES; Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the giant. They all take place in about a 10 year period following the aftermath of that war and are focused on the geopolitical situation of this future earth. The characters are mostly derived from characters in EG/ES and are not it's strong suit. Outside of Bean himself, there are only a couple characters that are particularly intriguing and even then not the strength of the book. What makes this a fun read is watching the evolution of the political situation on earth as being manipulated by a number of different people. In this future construction essentially all of nations of the earth are the same as they are now but the balance of power is somewhat shifted though many things are still the same as well. Basically there has been a loose unity in the nations of earth due to their need to challenge a unifying enemy, the aliens. With that enemy no longer a significant issue, once again the power plays between nations start and war seems almost certain. These are super fast reads written on a pre-college level but plenty clever to keep adults entertained and engaged. A good number of twists and turns plus Bean is a worthy protagonist who you do grow to care about. I enjoyed them and would recommend them to anyone that enjoyed Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow more than I would recommend the sequels to EG.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies (Jared Diamond): This was the first non-fiction book I read this summer. It won the Pulitzer for non-fiction a few years back. It feels like a member of a growing class of books; books written by academics on academic issues, often combining disciplines, but meant for layman's and at least somewhat readable. The point of the book is to answer why certain societies in earth dominated over certain others. Diamond quickly argues that in recent times (recent being 1400s-present, sufficed to say recent is a relative term) the reasons have been primarily that certain societies either possessed superior weapons, carried diseases that they were largely immune to but others were not, possessed other superior technology which could include not only machines but thing like writing, science, complex government or some combination of those. He uses the symbols, Guns, Germs and Steel for these ideas. Showing that these were the short term reasons for their success is gone over quickly. The majority of the book is spent trying to explain in his opinion how certain societies (in general the Eurasian Societies) got those things in the first place. It is more history than anything, but not a traditional Euro-Centric history, New Guinea is discussed more then all of western Europe combined and the US gets hardly a mention. He refers to a number of different reasons some of which are: variety and nature of plants suitable for agriculture and animals for domestication, whether a land mass has an east/west or north/south primary axis, and other factors. Although he claims it is something else it reads pretty much like environmental determinism to me, not that that is a bad thing. I enjoyed it and it had some ideas that I already had and some others I did not. I think the part I enjoyed the most was learning more about the process of domestication of plants and animals. Towards the end of the book it seemed to get redundant as he just goes from one case study to another proving the same points. I skimmed the last 50 pages. As it has been highly succesful there has also been a great deal of criticism surrounding the book claiming things like: his ideas are stolen, the question he is asking is simpler then he makes it out to be, it just repackaged enviromental determinism and others. All in all I would say a good read if you have an interest in sociological history or just like to learn stuff. I would be lying if I called it a page turner though.
A Song of Ice and Fire Series ( George R.R. Martin)- This is a series that Blake has been trying to get me to read for two years. He loves it and I can see why. It is on the surface just another fantasy series but it is actually quite unique for two reasons. One is that although it is set in a fantasy world a great deal of the book is a very complex political thriller with a good deal of twists. It is by no means the story of some single minded quest for right and good. There are few completely evil characters and only one significant character who has been shown to be always virtuous. It is mostly a world of greys. As the books go on you become more familiar with the different political situations of more places and the universe of the books becomes slowly larger. The other thing I like about these books is their unpredictability, particularly when it comes to mortality. It seems it most fantasy books there are a few characters which about a 1/4 the way through you can be almost positive are going to make it. That is not the case here, no one is sacred and characters that seemed essential can die or leave in a flash. Likewise characters that were merely background or were just casually mentioned can quickly become focal points of the story. Each chapter is from the perspective or a character. For each book there are about 8 of them that get the 1st person treatment. Each book about two of those are changed. I have read the first two: A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. Four have been written of an eventual six. They are very entertaining and quick reads for their length (~800 pages). I intend to read the rest of the series.
Stargirl (Jerry Spinnelli): I just finished this ultra fast youth read (I can be a sucker for kids books, a few of my campers are reading it right now). It is by the author of one of my all time favorite books, Maniac Magee, a book I read around the 3rd grade and have read about every other year since. Spinnelli has a talent for creating wonderfully endearing characters, people you can't not root for. Stargirl is written from the perspective of Leo a high school Junior. At the start of his junior year a new girl comes to school, Stargirl. She is a wildly unique girl, either ignorant or unconcerned with social norms, caring and nice to a fault, and has a sweetness to her that for me is hard not to fall in love with. Leo has the same problem as he falls in the love with her and her with him. At first the school (it takes place in a fictional suburban outskirt town in Arizona) embraces her and she has a dramatic positive effect on the school, but eventually they turn on her, and Leo. It is a story about non-conformity and young love and some of the difficulties that come along with both. What makes the book is the Stargirl character, supposedly loosely based on Spinnelli's wife, she is an ideal, and a fun one. I really enjoyed this book and found out there is a sequel which came out last August (Stargirl was written in 2000) entitled Love, Stargirl which I intend to read.
Stumbling on Happiness ( Daniel Gilbert)- This is another in what I also think is an growing type of books. They are a more specific group but these are also academic produced books that are highly digestible (more than Guns, Germs and Steel for instance) and are just fascinating reads on human nature and the human condition. Books like Freakonomics, Blink, or The Tipping Point. This book I am currently reading and love. It is about the objective scientific nature of happiness. It attempts to describe fundamentally and empirically what makes us happy. It strives to disabuse people of some highly intuitive notions of what makes both them and other people happy. A great deal of the book is focused on how the human brain works in general in creating memories and imagination and how that relates to our happiness and perception therein. It also talks about the nature of feelings; is thinking you are happy the same as being happy? The author is a physiologist by study and practice but the books samples from many disciplines. It is interesting, clear, and sometimes genuinely funny. It is not a self help book and is not in anyway designed to help anyone achieve happiness. I look forward to finishing it.
Up next will be similar write up on some of my all-time favorites. First I have to figure out what makes the cut.
Joey
Just Finished: Star Girl, Clash of Kings
Currently Reading: Stumbling on Happiness and The Uncommon Reader
On Deck: A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire) and The Tipping Point
Books I've Read in the Past Few Months
Lonesome Dove Series (Larry McMurtry)- The Lonesome Dove saga has 4 books of which the first written was Lonesome Dove and the Pulitzer prize winner for fiction. After LD was written Street of Laredo which I have not yet read came, followed by Dead Man's Walk and finally Comanche Moon. Within the story they go chronologically DMW then CM, then LD, then SOL. Like most people I ready LD first. After that I started at the beginning reading DMW then CM. I will likely read SOL by the end of the year. LD is absolutely amazing if you value great characters on the background of reasonably simple plot. It is about 900 pages and almost nothing of any plot consequence happens for the first 250. It doesn't matter. McMurtry uses that time to start building the foundation for one of the greatest group of characters in any book I've read. Many of the characters are trite on the surface. Gus; the smartalack who never shuts up, who loves women and drink, detests hard work, but is keenly talented and in a pinch has a heart of gold. Call, the stoic hard working leader who cares about his responsibility and doesn't mince words, Gus' clear foil, him and Gus make up the two main characters. Deets, the uniquely competent and loyal member of the troop, the only black man in the group, who would do anything for anyone. It goes on. McMurtry takes these and other superficially archetype characters and adds a depth and genuineness that makes them some of the most memorable characters I have known. The story is simple, a group of former Texas Rangers, the semi-famous leaders of which are Gus and Call, now getting old have decided to take a herd of cattle to Montana to try and strike rich. The primary plot is their journey from the town of Lonesome Dove where they have lived to Montana which includes trial and tragedy. One of the things I like about this book is that often death happens as it does in real life, quickly and without great drama. It makes the book much less predictable, though when something happens to a character you have truly been endeared towards McMurtry gives it it's due. Throughout the book casual reference and stories are made about Gus and Call's glory days as Rangers. When I finished the book I was left with two things; a quiet sadness and a strong desire to read a tale that would shed light on those glory days.
That is where DMW and CM come it. Both are good but only CM comes anywhere close to LD. DMW takes place when Gus and Call are first starting as Rangers (about 25 years before LD) and is good but feels like it was written purely to set up the book that one truly wants to read after reading LD, Comanche Moon. Virtually all important surviving characters from DMW are still in CM which starts about 10 years later and finishes after about another 10. It does in many ways leave you fulfilled in filling in the gaps of Gus and Call's life, particularly their love life, both minor tragedies unto themselves. Unfortunately I lost the book with about 100 out off 800 pages left and had to wait two weeks before finishing it as I rushed through it in a bookstore not wanting to buy it again. It kind of ruined the end for me I think. Maybe I'll read it again someday. I think I may read LD again before I read Streets of Laredo. LD is really just that good and reading CM makes me want to go back.
Enders Shadow Series (Orson Scott Card)- Ender's Shadow was the parallel novel to the highly acclaimed and well known young adult scifi book Ender's Game. Incidentally if you haven't read EG you really should, it is a modern classic of youth literature. Ender's Shadow was a parallel novel, it followed mostly the same story but from the perspective of a different character, one that was moderately important in EG, Bean. Both books tell the story, taking place in the Earth of about 200 years in future, of a group of children who are sent to 'Battle School' where they learn to command armies to hopefully aid in an expected 3rd war with the only known other sentient species in the galaxy, nickname the 'Buggers'.
There are three sequels to ES; Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, and Shadow of the giant. They all take place in about a 10 year period following the aftermath of that war and are focused on the geopolitical situation of this future earth. The characters are mostly derived from characters in EG/ES and are not it's strong suit. Outside of Bean himself, there are only a couple characters that are particularly intriguing and even then not the strength of the book. What makes this a fun read is watching the evolution of the political situation on earth as being manipulated by a number of different people. In this future construction essentially all of nations of the earth are the same as they are now but the balance of power is somewhat shifted though many things are still the same as well. Basically there has been a loose unity in the nations of earth due to their need to challenge a unifying enemy, the aliens. With that enemy no longer a significant issue, once again the power plays between nations start and war seems almost certain. These are super fast reads written on a pre-college level but plenty clever to keep adults entertained and engaged. A good number of twists and turns plus Bean is a worthy protagonist who you do grow to care about. I enjoyed them and would recommend them to anyone that enjoyed Ender's Game or Ender's Shadow more than I would recommend the sequels to EG.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies (Jared Diamond): This was the first non-fiction book I read this summer. It won the Pulitzer for non-fiction a few years back. It feels like a member of a growing class of books; books written by academics on academic issues, often combining disciplines, but meant for layman's and at least somewhat readable. The point of the book is to answer why certain societies in earth dominated over certain others. Diamond quickly argues that in recent times (recent being 1400s-present, sufficed to say recent is a relative term) the reasons have been primarily that certain societies either possessed superior weapons, carried diseases that they were largely immune to but others were not, possessed other superior technology which could include not only machines but thing like writing, science, complex government or some combination of those. He uses the symbols, Guns, Germs and Steel for these ideas. Showing that these were the short term reasons for their success is gone over quickly. The majority of the book is spent trying to explain in his opinion how certain societies (in general the Eurasian Societies) got those things in the first place. It is more history than anything, but not a traditional Euro-Centric history, New Guinea is discussed more then all of western Europe combined and the US gets hardly a mention. He refers to a number of different reasons some of which are: variety and nature of plants suitable for agriculture and animals for domestication, whether a land mass has an east/west or north/south primary axis, and other factors. Although he claims it is something else it reads pretty much like environmental determinism to me, not that that is a bad thing. I enjoyed it and it had some ideas that I already had and some others I did not. I think the part I enjoyed the most was learning more about the process of domestication of plants and animals. Towards the end of the book it seemed to get redundant as he just goes from one case study to another proving the same points. I skimmed the last 50 pages. As it has been highly succesful there has also been a great deal of criticism surrounding the book claiming things like: his ideas are stolen, the question he is asking is simpler then he makes it out to be, it just repackaged enviromental determinism and others. All in all I would say a good read if you have an interest in sociological history or just like to learn stuff. I would be lying if I called it a page turner though.
A Song of Ice and Fire Series ( George R.R. Martin)- This is a series that Blake has been trying to get me to read for two years. He loves it and I can see why. It is on the surface just another fantasy series but it is actually quite unique for two reasons. One is that although it is set in a fantasy world a great deal of the book is a very complex political thriller with a good deal of twists. It is by no means the story of some single minded quest for right and good. There are few completely evil characters and only one significant character who has been shown to be always virtuous. It is mostly a world of greys. As the books go on you become more familiar with the different political situations of more places and the universe of the books becomes slowly larger. The other thing I like about these books is their unpredictability, particularly when it comes to mortality. It seems it most fantasy books there are a few characters which about a 1/4 the way through you can be almost positive are going to make it. That is not the case here, no one is sacred and characters that seemed essential can die or leave in a flash. Likewise characters that were merely background or were just casually mentioned can quickly become focal points of the story. Each chapter is from the perspective or a character. For each book there are about 8 of them that get the 1st person treatment. Each book about two of those are changed. I have read the first two: A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. Four have been written of an eventual six. They are very entertaining and quick reads for their length (~800 pages). I intend to read the rest of the series.
Stargirl (Jerry Spinnelli): I just finished this ultra fast youth read (I can be a sucker for kids books, a few of my campers are reading it right now). It is by the author of one of my all time favorite books, Maniac Magee, a book I read around the 3rd grade and have read about every other year since. Spinnelli has a talent for creating wonderfully endearing characters, people you can't not root for. Stargirl is written from the perspective of Leo a high school Junior. At the start of his junior year a new girl comes to school, Stargirl. She is a wildly unique girl, either ignorant or unconcerned with social norms, caring and nice to a fault, and has a sweetness to her that for me is hard not to fall in love with. Leo has the same problem as he falls in the love with her and her with him. At first the school (it takes place in a fictional suburban outskirt town in Arizona) embraces her and she has a dramatic positive effect on the school, but eventually they turn on her, and Leo. It is a story about non-conformity and young love and some of the difficulties that come along with both. What makes the book is the Stargirl character, supposedly loosely based on Spinnelli's wife, she is an ideal, and a fun one. I really enjoyed this book and found out there is a sequel which came out last August (Stargirl was written in 2000) entitled Love, Stargirl which I intend to read.
Stumbling on Happiness ( Daniel Gilbert)- This is another in what I also think is an growing type of books. They are a more specific group but these are also academic produced books that are highly digestible (more than Guns, Germs and Steel for instance) and are just fascinating reads on human nature and the human condition. Books like Freakonomics, Blink, or The Tipping Point. This book I am currently reading and love. It is about the objective scientific nature of happiness. It attempts to describe fundamentally and empirically what makes us happy. It strives to disabuse people of some highly intuitive notions of what makes both them and other people happy. A great deal of the book is focused on how the human brain works in general in creating memories and imagination and how that relates to our happiness and perception therein. It also talks about the nature of feelings; is thinking you are happy the same as being happy? The author is a physiologist by study and practice but the books samples from many disciplines. It is interesting, clear, and sometimes genuinely funny. It is not a self help book and is not in anyway designed to help anyone achieve happiness. I look forward to finishing it.
Up next will be similar write up on some of my all-time favorites. First I have to figure out what makes the cut.
Joey
Just Finished: Star Girl, Clash of Kings
Currently Reading: Stumbling on Happiness and The Uncommon Reader
On Deck: A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire) and The Tipping Point
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
In a good place
We just had our Prep 4 Data Meeting. I am in a really good place mentally. I just found out that Pjay (one of my best friends) just booked a flight for New Zealand leaving Oct 4th. So Ben Gray and Pjay will for sure be there. It is nice to know I'll have at least a couple friends. I'm starting to get really pumped about that. Europe is also getting closer, that should be great. I love Europe and can't wait to see Hana. That has been more in the background of my mind as all the preparation for New Zealand has led me to focus on that. But 2.5 weeks in Europe with such a great person will be amazing, plus there is still a chance some other friends of mine are going to drop in. Also as an update to my long term plans Pjay and I have decided to commit to living a dream of ours. Next September after the 100th aniversary celebration Henry (Pjay) and I are going to bike from Vancouver, Canada to Mexico. A bit over 1800 miles. Should be about 40 days of riding and 20 of chilling out. I'm excited already. It should be a true adventure. So that makes my updated life intinerary
Aug 25th: Leave Camp
Aug 26th-Aug 31st: Hang out in Twin Cities possibly selling shaved ice at Minnesota State Fair
Sept 1st - Sept 19th: Europe with Hana
Sept 19th-Sept 24th: 3 nights in Phoenix, one in Tucson (21st?), one in LA(23rd). Fly to NZ
Sept 26th - Mid May 2009: Work and live it up in New Zealand
Mid May to Sept 3rd 2009: Camp? More New Zealand? Something else?
Sept 4th-Sept 7th 2009: 100th Anniversery Celebration at Camp Lincoln. Be There.
Sept 15th ish-Nov 15th ish 2009: Bike from Canada to Mexico.
Nov 16th - ? : The rest of my life
So I feel great right now. The best I've felt in a while. One day I may look back and regret not saving my money or getting a steady job and settling down. I'm not sure. But I will know that at least for a while, I was incredibly happy.
Joey
Aug 25th: Leave Camp
Aug 26th-Aug 31st: Hang out in Twin Cities possibly selling shaved ice at Minnesota State Fair
Sept 1st - Sept 19th: Europe with Hana
Sept 19th-Sept 24th: 3 nights in Phoenix, one in Tucson (21st?), one in LA(23rd). Fly to NZ
Sept 26th - Mid May 2009: Work and live it up in New Zealand
Mid May to Sept 3rd 2009: Camp? More New Zealand? Something else?
Sept 4th-Sept 7th 2009: 100th Anniversery Celebration at Camp Lincoln. Be There.
Sept 15th ish-Nov 15th ish 2009: Bike from Canada to Mexico.
Nov 16th - ? : The rest of my life
So I feel great right now. The best I've felt in a while. One day I may look back and regret not saving my money or getting a steady job and settling down. I'm not sure. But I will know that at least for a while, I was incredibly happy.
Joey
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Time OFF Part 2
So it is now 700pm. I have about 3 hours left to my time off. I can hear the music of the Rally Day Dance and a large part of me is tempted to go join. However I know I need this time to myself to prepare for the next two weeks. Plus, come on, I got bloggin' to do.
My second year at camp the time off situation changed a little. A small change was made in that it evenings out went from 1015pm-1230am. This was a fairly small change, but in showing how everything is relative at the time time we didn't know how we were going to be able to go anywhere in just 2 hours. Now I don't know what we ever did with 3. The biggest change was that instead of screwing around in the parking lot from 1015-1045, you left at 1015 now. You had to have plans when you got there or make them quick.
The more significant change was related to a change in special day. Camp went from having 6 special days a session to 4. It makes sense and I understand why they did it. They tried though for that summer to keep it to 3 days off per session, there was no EE now and all the days off were 28.5 hours. That presented a problem with the present system. So the solution was that you had special days off with half the staff and you had just regular camp days off with 4-7 other staff. The system had its good points and faults. Its primary good was that it kept three days off. However there was a long list of bad points. From a programming aspect having certain staff pretty much randomly off, meant staffing activities was much more complicated. From a staff perspective you didn't have a group of people you always had time off with so it made it harder to build strong relationships. Plus you have a day off with 4 other people who might be alright but you didn't really want to spend a long block of time with.
For me it was pretty good relatively speaking. My time off that year was defiantly not as good as my first year. Still I was generally lucky. I only had day off with a small group that wasn't that good. It was still nice, just didn't do that much. It was my first day off that I ever slept on camp. The days off except for two are generally less memorable. There was no more Molly so no more Molly's cabin and consistency that that meant. There was no more clique, at least not nearly so defined a one. Molly did come up once and a few of us that had come back that year did go to her place but it was not the same. Time off was good that year but did not have the meaning to me it did my first year. I think every year at camp so far there has been something that has made love this place. But it is always different. My first year it was my friends, my second year it was the kids and the job.
I will tell you about two that stand out though. During first session on one of the small days off there were 4 of us off, Scooter, Scotty O, Andres, and myself. but it was a great 4. There was also a girl I had met from girls camp, Jessica who came with us. Jessica is a bit of a story all to herself so if you've never heard you can ask me sometime. I will always remember this day off for a few reasons. One of the staff in my cabin apparently had a studio appt. that he loaned out for people on days off if they wanted. He warned me that is was really messy and there was no power right now, but a free place is a free place. So we left camp with 5 people in my 4 seater car and somehow Andres (the Colombian) was elected to drive. It made sense at the time. We stopped at wal-mart and bought 200 tea candles so we would have light. The drive there was fun, though cramped. We had some trouble finding the place and Andres was driving in true Latin-American fashion, we were a mix of terrified and in fits of laughter. We eventually got there though. Messy is my room at college, this was just disgusting. There was crap everywhere, you could hardly walk. We took a broom and swept all of his possessions to one side of the room. We then lit the candles. We started playing a drinking game called 'Moose', very popular with Scooter and I from back home. Andres and Jessica were awful and drank the lion's share. It was a fun night and 4 of us slept on his futon (after turning it over for all the good it probably did) and Andres ended up in the closet. The next day we went to Valley Fair and again had an amazing time. Jessica and I really got to know each other, nothing happened though, she had a boyfriend, but we really clicked none the less. We spent two hours going through the lazy river just talking. The whole day was great again though.
The other day was session. Myself and some others really wanted a great session break since there weren't as many big group days off. So we planned to those Duluth Spirit Mountain cabins. We got 4 of them which meant we were completely isolated. We invited everyone, though not without charging money. Everyone came too. It was packed. It was a night of rejoicing and debaucheries (not myself, others) that I will not mention in this family friendly (well semi- family friendly) blog. It was the party that everyone wanted, and maybe deserved though. It was still in my 5 years the largest single gathering of staff I think there has been. It was inclusive and there was something for everyone. It was everything you could ever want in a camp party. For me my greatest pleasure just came out of seeing everyone have so much fun. It wasn't really quite my scene but I was happy none the less.
The end of my second year was really the end of the time at camp where my time off would be a significant part of my experience instead of a background thing. Moving to the admin team my third year changed that a lot. There were some nice days off during my third and 4th year but they don't make for especially good stories. I stayed on camp most nights aside from a few outings. Days off became about relaxing not going out and having the time of my life. Camp became about work and learning, not as much friends and parties. It didn't happen all at once, my third year I still got my crazy on a little, but it diminished rapidly through that year and my 4th to a point now where even my admin friends make fun of me for being such a loner on my time off.
The truth of the matter is that what camp means to me has changed as well as who I am here. My first two years on admin I felt like I was really a counselor who was now on admin. Now as weird of a thought as it is to me, I have spent more time on admin then on staff. I'm not a counselor who is now a division director, I am a division director who was once a counselor. I have the best relationships with the staff that I have had since joining the admin team but it is different. I have friends but I am still peoples supervisor first and friend second. I get invited to hang out a pretty good amount, but I like to give people there space. I don't want them to have to worry about what they say around me. I want them to be able to vent and gossip and I don't want the burden of knowing about it. When I hang out with staff they think its cool, but a part of the reason that it is cool is the novelty of hanging out with Joey.
So I spend most of my time just reading, sometimes I go out to eat with staff, sometimes I eat with myself. The admin time off is a little different so partially because of that and bad luck I haven't had any time off with any other admin. I went to the cities with staff once, but I just can't really be myself, at the least not the me that I would want to be. So I read, and I've read a lot. And its nice. But it gets a bit lonely sometimes. Don't worry about me though, I'm good at being lonely. Just like anything I take the good with the bad, and I'm happy. Just like everything else though, it is a different happy then it once was. Not worse, just different.
Joey
My second year at camp the time off situation changed a little. A small change was made in that it evenings out went from 1015pm-1230am. This was a fairly small change, but in showing how everything is relative at the time time we didn't know how we were going to be able to go anywhere in just 2 hours. Now I don't know what we ever did with 3. The biggest change was that instead of screwing around in the parking lot from 1015-1045, you left at 1015 now. You had to have plans when you got there or make them quick.
The more significant change was related to a change in special day. Camp went from having 6 special days a session to 4. It makes sense and I understand why they did it. They tried though for that summer to keep it to 3 days off per session, there was no EE now and all the days off were 28.5 hours. That presented a problem with the present system. So the solution was that you had special days off with half the staff and you had just regular camp days off with 4-7 other staff. The system had its good points and faults. Its primary good was that it kept three days off. However there was a long list of bad points. From a programming aspect having certain staff pretty much randomly off, meant staffing activities was much more complicated. From a staff perspective you didn't have a group of people you always had time off with so it made it harder to build strong relationships. Plus you have a day off with 4 other people who might be alright but you didn't really want to spend a long block of time with.
For me it was pretty good relatively speaking. My time off that year was defiantly not as good as my first year. Still I was generally lucky. I only had day off with a small group that wasn't that good. It was still nice, just didn't do that much. It was my first day off that I ever slept on camp. The days off except for two are generally less memorable. There was no more Molly so no more Molly's cabin and consistency that that meant. There was no more clique, at least not nearly so defined a one. Molly did come up once and a few of us that had come back that year did go to her place but it was not the same. Time off was good that year but did not have the meaning to me it did my first year. I think every year at camp so far there has been something that has made love this place. But it is always different. My first year it was my friends, my second year it was the kids and the job.
I will tell you about two that stand out though. During first session on one of the small days off there were 4 of us off, Scooter, Scotty O, Andres, and myself. but it was a great 4. There was also a girl I had met from girls camp, Jessica who came with us. Jessica is a bit of a story all to herself so if you've never heard you can ask me sometime. I will always remember this day off for a few reasons. One of the staff in my cabin apparently had a studio appt. that he loaned out for people on days off if they wanted. He warned me that is was really messy and there was no power right now, but a free place is a free place. So we left camp with 5 people in my 4 seater car and somehow Andres (the Colombian) was elected to drive. It made sense at the time. We stopped at wal-mart and bought 200 tea candles so we would have light. The drive there was fun, though cramped. We had some trouble finding the place and Andres was driving in true Latin-American fashion, we were a mix of terrified and in fits of laughter. We eventually got there though. Messy is my room at college, this was just disgusting. There was crap everywhere, you could hardly walk. We took a broom and swept all of his possessions to one side of the room. We then lit the candles. We started playing a drinking game called 'Moose', very popular with Scooter and I from back home. Andres and Jessica were awful and drank the lion's share. It was a fun night and 4 of us slept on his futon (after turning it over for all the good it probably did) and Andres ended up in the closet. The next day we went to Valley Fair and again had an amazing time. Jessica and I really got to know each other, nothing happened though, she had a boyfriend, but we really clicked none the less. We spent two hours going through the lazy river just talking. The whole day was great again though.
The other day was session. Myself and some others really wanted a great session break since there weren't as many big group days off. So we planned to those Duluth Spirit Mountain cabins. We got 4 of them which meant we were completely isolated. We invited everyone, though not without charging money. Everyone came too. It was packed. It was a night of rejoicing and debaucheries (not myself, others) that I will not mention in this family friendly (well semi- family friendly) blog. It was the party that everyone wanted, and maybe deserved though. It was still in my 5 years the largest single gathering of staff I think there has been. It was inclusive and there was something for everyone. It was everything you could ever want in a camp party. For me my greatest pleasure just came out of seeing everyone have so much fun. It wasn't really quite my scene but I was happy none the less.
The end of my second year was really the end of the time at camp where my time off would be a significant part of my experience instead of a background thing. Moving to the admin team my third year changed that a lot. There were some nice days off during my third and 4th year but they don't make for especially good stories. I stayed on camp most nights aside from a few outings. Days off became about relaxing not going out and having the time of my life. Camp became about work and learning, not as much friends and parties. It didn't happen all at once, my third year I still got my crazy on a little, but it diminished rapidly through that year and my 4th to a point now where even my admin friends make fun of me for being such a loner on my time off.
The truth of the matter is that what camp means to me has changed as well as who I am here. My first two years on admin I felt like I was really a counselor who was now on admin. Now as weird of a thought as it is to me, I have spent more time on admin then on staff. I'm not a counselor who is now a division director, I am a division director who was once a counselor. I have the best relationships with the staff that I have had since joining the admin team but it is different. I have friends but I am still peoples supervisor first and friend second. I get invited to hang out a pretty good amount, but I like to give people there space. I don't want them to have to worry about what they say around me. I want them to be able to vent and gossip and I don't want the burden of knowing about it. When I hang out with staff they think its cool, but a part of the reason that it is cool is the novelty of hanging out with Joey.
So I spend most of my time just reading, sometimes I go out to eat with staff, sometimes I eat with myself. The admin time off is a little different so partially because of that and bad luck I haven't had any time off with any other admin. I went to the cities with staff once, but I just can't really be myself, at the least not the me that I would want to be. So I read, and I've read a lot. And its nice. But it gets a bit lonely sometimes. Don't worry about me though, I'm good at being lonely. Just like anything I take the good with the bad, and I'm happy. Just like everything else though, it is a different happy then it once was. Not worse, just different.
Joey
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Time OFF Part 1
So it is 539pm on Saturday. This means that officially I have been off for the last 9 minutes on my day off. Woot. Time off is an enormous part of camp. It has a unique importance because there is so little of it. In a normal full time job in this country you get two days off for every 5 you work. In addition, you are only at work for 8 hours a day. At camp you there are only 2 days every two weeks that you can leave for more than about 1-3 hours the entire day. Time off is scarce, therefore coveted, and therefore can some of the most memorable parts of the summer. There are 3 important categories of time off. Technically there are a couple of times throughout the day where if you are not on duty you can go off camp but it is for such a short time as to not be that significant.
The first of these is the day off. As it stands now days off are from 530pm to 1000pm the next day so 28.5 hours. You get two of these each 4 week session. There is also a ~25 hour day off between the sessions.
The next is early evenings or EEs. These are from 530pm-1230am the same day or 7 hours. You get two of these every 4 week session.
The last is nights out. These are from 1015pm-1230am the same night or about 2 hours. You get these about every other night.
That is the way it stands now, but it wasn't always like that. Back in the day (before I was here) on nights out you didn't have to be back until flag raising so you could go out all night it you wanted. This was changed for obviously reasons as it did not exactly promote good staff behavior. I suppose I'll get to what my time is like now but that is the boring part and I would hate to start with the boring part. So instead I'll start by talking about what my time off was like 4 years ago my first year as a counselor. My time off that year was without question the overall best and a big part of the reason why I fell in love with camp and came back for a second year.
I still remember my first ever day off fairly vividly. Back then you had 3 days off per session, the first two were only 24 hours though. I had no car, was still making friends but defiantly did not have a crew yet. I had heard though that one of the returning counselors, a guy named SK had some cabins in Duluth. I managed to secure a ride with someone. I think we all went out to dinner somewhere first. We stopped at liquor store and myself and four others in the car all bought different twelve packs of beer and mixed them up. The drive up was fun, I had never been to Duluth but that wasn't really it. Back then every day off seemed like an adventure. You felt like anything could happen. You were with young like minded people as excited as you were with some money to burn.
We got to the cabins, they were called 'Spirit Mountain Cabins'. Apparently they were ski cabins in the winter and rented cheap in the summer. We had three and they were big. Still no where near big enough to accommodate the number of people there in a traditional ways. I don't know how many there were but it must have been at least 40 or so. It was great. It was drinking and dancing and girls and guys and the type of camaraderie you can only get with a bunch of young drunk people that don't yet truly know each other but are all convinced they like each other.
As the night went on and I kept drinking all 140 pounds of me became pretty intoxicated and things get pretty fuzzy. However at one point I was sitting down and a girl who I had noticed early but who's name I did not know. Despite the complete lack of charm I must have be exhibiting I somehow managed to convince her to sit down and we started kissing. From what I understand we weren't exactly pretty about it but hey, I was young, drunk, and it was camp time off. With only 24 hours at a time there isn't exactly a lot of time for romance. That isn't to say that romance can't come. I've known people who married their camp girlfriend. But it doesn't tend to start that way. Eventually myself the girl found a nice spot of floor and passed out just like many other people, though there were certainly others who were still going strong. In the morning one of us awkwardly left first and at some point I came to terms with the fact that I still didn't know her name or just about anything about her.
My car along with some others ate breakfast at the nearby Perkins and drove back to the Brainerd Lakes Area. We caught a movie with a bunch of the other staff. The girl was there, we clearly avoided each other. In our now sober and embarrassed states we both just felt awkward. Not regretful, just awkward. I don't remember what the movie was but shortly after we went back to camp.
I eventually found out what the girl's name was and a day or so later decided to write her a letter via 'Lincoln Mail', (staff and campers can write letters to the girls camp without postage). We got to know each other a bit and it was good. Please though let me right now disabuse you of the notion that this is going to be a story with a romantic ending, happy or tragic. Eventually she invited me to go to the cabin of a friend of hers for the next day off. As it happened this was the cabin of Blake's (I was just getting to know Blake) friend Molly. So some people I had been becoming friends with would be going. It was nice to go on time off knowing what I would be doing. A lot of people would just kind of show up at the parking lot and try to figure it out. Once again we got dinner, got beer, and headed to the cabin. This cabin was much closer (~30 min. away) but much harder to find. We did eventually make it though. We got there a lot early than the last time. This was much different experience than the last time though. It was a private cabin on a long narrow lake. Pretty nice, 3 bedrooms, a good sized living room and kitchen, a dock with a pontoon boat and some wave runners. Much less people was also a nice change. There were about 10ish guys and about the same number of girls.
It was a much more relaxed time and I wouldn't say I enjoyed it more or less but it was great. By this time I was really starting to realize that I had fallen in with a great group. At one point a couple of us went into the basement (I seem to remember it being Hans and I, but I don't know) and saw that it was filled mostly with tools, boating equipment and beer. So we named it the man room. The man room at Molly's cabin would become a thing of legend amongst us. At any point during the party and of the guys could yell out, 'Man Room' and all the guys would have to go downstairs and drink beer and talk about Man stuff. It was hilarious. The rest of the night was just drinking, more camaraderie, and in the end myself and the girl hilariously though it may be, ended up sleeping on a futon in the man room. The morning was nice, people came too eventually and we hung out, did some waverunnering, and got breakfast eventually.
After that the order of exactly when days off happened gets a little fuzzy. There were a number more at Molly's Cabin and they were always great. The best and worst part of those days is that although I wouldn't have put it in those terms at the time they were incredibly cliquey. We had a group and we stuck pretty closely to it. There were some exceptions but we really didn't go out inviting people. A big part of this is that it wasn't our cabin, we were guests and it wasn't really our place to invite people. However, if I'm honest they aren't that many people I would have really wanted to invite. It was nice to have a consistent tight nit group to really get to know and spend time with.
There were other days off too though. I think there were three that we didn't spend at Molly's, and two were great, one was alright. The first was a trip to the twin cities. This was a more diverse group and we were all kind of split up the night before which wasn't that much fun. We had trouble finding hotel rooms because of a huge soccer tournament but eventually found a place to crash. The next day though was amazing. We went to Valley Fair (an amusement park in the Twin Cities) and we had a blast. We were with a huge group that would congregate and split off at times but it was all great. There were running jokes, amazing coincidences, hilarious events, some fun rides and a convenient water park. It was perfect. What makes days off great is the necessity of making the most of your time.
During session break when everyone was off there was a huge party at a hotel. There were three rooms on three floors, one was mine. I was lucky that another room became the party room. I was also lucky that I left that room to go to sleep right before the cops showed up. A few people got caught for underage drinking and had to go to court, though in the end they got off with a slap on the wrist. There was one final memorable day off a different friends cabin. This person had a cabin on the same lake as camp. 4 off us decided to walk through the lake to get there. It was a whim, but a funny whim. It was good size party and had a theme which for confidentiality's sake I wont disclose.
We also had one early evening per session that year but no one really cared. You were with a small group and they weren't that fun. What was important though were evenings out. Back then they were from 1015pm-115am. It didn't seem like that much time then but when I think back I don't know what we did with all that time. We would consistently stay our till 1245 or 100 though. Most of my friends were under 21 which meant that we would spend most of our time going to Applebees. One of only two places open late that you could go to if you weren't of age. It was great though. They had 2 for 1 appetizers so you could eat a lot of okay food (which was much better than camp food) for pretty cheap. Every night we would pile into this old green minivan Blake had and for the 15 minutes there we would just bitch. Mostly we just bitched about staff we didn't like. We were all solid hardworking staff that 'got' camp. It bothered us to have to deal with the slackers and the idiots. So we would just vent and get it off our chests and it was great. Then there would be a huge crew at applebees and we all just mixed in. It was a good community building experience actually. I miss it a lot. Then afterwords we might go kill some time at the 24-hour walmart and buy stuff that we may or may not have needed. Really it was just an excuse to hang out more. We just liked each other. I do agree with the decision to change it to 1230am back on camp though. That extra 45 minutes of sleep makes a difference. There are some people that can preform on 6 hours of sleep and some that can't.
I don't think I'll ever forget my time off from that first year. It was such a huge part of what made me love camp. I can't describe quite what it was like but the nearest thing I can come up with is this; it was like being on one of those great trips where your with amazing people you love and everyday is an adventure no matter what you are doing. In the end me and that girl just kind of fizzled out as those things often do. To this day I think my first summer at camp was the best one of my life and I questions whether that will ever change. It is amazing though what a huge impact just 7 of those days and a few late night hours had on my summer.
Joey
The first of these is the day off. As it stands now days off are from 530pm to 1000pm the next day so 28.5 hours. You get two of these each 4 week session. There is also a ~25 hour day off between the sessions.
The next is early evenings or EEs. These are from 530pm-1230am the same day or 7 hours. You get two of these every 4 week session.
The last is nights out. These are from 1015pm-1230am the same night or about 2 hours. You get these about every other night.
That is the way it stands now, but it wasn't always like that. Back in the day (before I was here) on nights out you didn't have to be back until flag raising so you could go out all night it you wanted. This was changed for obviously reasons as it did not exactly promote good staff behavior. I suppose I'll get to what my time is like now but that is the boring part and I would hate to start with the boring part. So instead I'll start by talking about what my time off was like 4 years ago my first year as a counselor. My time off that year was without question the overall best and a big part of the reason why I fell in love with camp and came back for a second year.
I still remember my first ever day off fairly vividly. Back then you had 3 days off per session, the first two were only 24 hours though. I had no car, was still making friends but defiantly did not have a crew yet. I had heard though that one of the returning counselors, a guy named SK had some cabins in Duluth. I managed to secure a ride with someone. I think we all went out to dinner somewhere first. We stopped at liquor store and myself and four others in the car all bought different twelve packs of beer and mixed them up. The drive up was fun, I had never been to Duluth but that wasn't really it. Back then every day off seemed like an adventure. You felt like anything could happen. You were with young like minded people as excited as you were with some money to burn.
We got to the cabins, they were called 'Spirit Mountain Cabins'. Apparently they were ski cabins in the winter and rented cheap in the summer. We had three and they were big. Still no where near big enough to accommodate the number of people there in a traditional ways. I don't know how many there were but it must have been at least 40 or so. It was great. It was drinking and dancing and girls and guys and the type of camaraderie you can only get with a bunch of young drunk people that don't yet truly know each other but are all convinced they like each other.
As the night went on and I kept drinking all 140 pounds of me became pretty intoxicated and things get pretty fuzzy. However at one point I was sitting down and a girl who I had noticed early but who's name I did not know. Despite the complete lack of charm I must have be exhibiting I somehow managed to convince her to sit down and we started kissing. From what I understand we weren't exactly pretty about it but hey, I was young, drunk, and it was camp time off. With only 24 hours at a time there isn't exactly a lot of time for romance. That isn't to say that romance can't come. I've known people who married their camp girlfriend. But it doesn't tend to start that way. Eventually myself the girl found a nice spot of floor and passed out just like many other people, though there were certainly others who were still going strong. In the morning one of us awkwardly left first and at some point I came to terms with the fact that I still didn't know her name or just about anything about her.
My car along with some others ate breakfast at the nearby Perkins and drove back to the Brainerd Lakes Area. We caught a movie with a bunch of the other staff. The girl was there, we clearly avoided each other. In our now sober and embarrassed states we both just felt awkward. Not regretful, just awkward. I don't remember what the movie was but shortly after we went back to camp.
I eventually found out what the girl's name was and a day or so later decided to write her a letter via 'Lincoln Mail', (staff and campers can write letters to the girls camp without postage). We got to know each other a bit and it was good. Please though let me right now disabuse you of the notion that this is going to be a story with a romantic ending, happy or tragic. Eventually she invited me to go to the cabin of a friend of hers for the next day off. As it happened this was the cabin of Blake's (I was just getting to know Blake) friend Molly. So some people I had been becoming friends with would be going. It was nice to go on time off knowing what I would be doing. A lot of people would just kind of show up at the parking lot and try to figure it out. Once again we got dinner, got beer, and headed to the cabin. This cabin was much closer (~30 min. away) but much harder to find. We did eventually make it though. We got there a lot early than the last time. This was much different experience than the last time though. It was a private cabin on a long narrow lake. Pretty nice, 3 bedrooms, a good sized living room and kitchen, a dock with a pontoon boat and some wave runners. Much less people was also a nice change. There were about 10ish guys and about the same number of girls.
It was a much more relaxed time and I wouldn't say I enjoyed it more or less but it was great. By this time I was really starting to realize that I had fallen in with a great group. At one point a couple of us went into the basement (I seem to remember it being Hans and I, but I don't know) and saw that it was filled mostly with tools, boating equipment and beer. So we named it the man room. The man room at Molly's cabin would become a thing of legend amongst us. At any point during the party and of the guys could yell out, 'Man Room' and all the guys would have to go downstairs and drink beer and talk about Man stuff. It was hilarious. The rest of the night was just drinking, more camaraderie, and in the end myself and the girl hilariously though it may be, ended up sleeping on a futon in the man room. The morning was nice, people came too eventually and we hung out, did some waverunnering, and got breakfast eventually.
After that the order of exactly when days off happened gets a little fuzzy. There were a number more at Molly's Cabin and they were always great. The best and worst part of those days is that although I wouldn't have put it in those terms at the time they were incredibly cliquey. We had a group and we stuck pretty closely to it. There were some exceptions but we really didn't go out inviting people. A big part of this is that it wasn't our cabin, we were guests and it wasn't really our place to invite people. However, if I'm honest they aren't that many people I would have really wanted to invite. It was nice to have a consistent tight nit group to really get to know and spend time with.
There were other days off too though. I think there were three that we didn't spend at Molly's, and two were great, one was alright. The first was a trip to the twin cities. This was a more diverse group and we were all kind of split up the night before which wasn't that much fun. We had trouble finding hotel rooms because of a huge soccer tournament but eventually found a place to crash. The next day though was amazing. We went to Valley Fair (an amusement park in the Twin Cities) and we had a blast. We were with a huge group that would congregate and split off at times but it was all great. There were running jokes, amazing coincidences, hilarious events, some fun rides and a convenient water park. It was perfect. What makes days off great is the necessity of making the most of your time.
During session break when everyone was off there was a huge party at a hotel. There were three rooms on three floors, one was mine. I was lucky that another room became the party room. I was also lucky that I left that room to go to sleep right before the cops showed up. A few people got caught for underage drinking and had to go to court, though in the end they got off with a slap on the wrist. There was one final memorable day off a different friends cabin. This person had a cabin on the same lake as camp. 4 off us decided to walk through the lake to get there. It was a whim, but a funny whim. It was good size party and had a theme which for confidentiality's sake I wont disclose.
We also had one early evening per session that year but no one really cared. You were with a small group and they weren't that fun. What was important though were evenings out. Back then they were from 1015pm-115am. It didn't seem like that much time then but when I think back I don't know what we did with all that time. We would consistently stay our till 1245 or 100 though. Most of my friends were under 21 which meant that we would spend most of our time going to Applebees. One of only two places open late that you could go to if you weren't of age. It was great though. They had 2 for 1 appetizers so you could eat a lot of okay food (which was much better than camp food) for pretty cheap. Every night we would pile into this old green minivan Blake had and for the 15 minutes there we would just bitch. Mostly we just bitched about staff we didn't like. We were all solid hardworking staff that 'got' camp. It bothered us to have to deal with the slackers and the idiots. So we would just vent and get it off our chests and it was great. Then there would be a huge crew at applebees and we all just mixed in. It was a good community building experience actually. I miss it a lot. Then afterwords we might go kill some time at the 24-hour walmart and buy stuff that we may or may not have needed. Really it was just an excuse to hang out more. We just liked each other. I do agree with the decision to change it to 1230am back on camp though. That extra 45 minutes of sleep makes a difference. There are some people that can preform on 6 hours of sleep and some that can't.
I don't think I'll ever forget my time off from that first year. It was such a huge part of what made me love camp. I can't describe quite what it was like but the nearest thing I can come up with is this; it was like being on one of those great trips where your with amazing people you love and everyday is an adventure no matter what you are doing. In the end me and that girl just kind of fizzled out as those things often do. To this day I think my first summer at camp was the best one of my life and I questions whether that will ever change. It is amazing though what a huge impact just 7 of those days and a few late night hours had on my summer.
Joey
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