Scattered Thoughts

Wow… The last week of events was… interesting.

Let's just go through the things that sucked…

When I got to the airport, my ride didn't show up until three hours after I arranged for him to be there.
There was a huge storm that spawned four tornadoes near the airport and the camp.
The food sucked.
The home camp staff was worse than the food.
Everyone at the camp was related.

That last one isn't something that went wrong, but something I found disgusting.

I didn't learn much, simply because I have a lot of experience with the climbing stuff.

There were good times to be had, but you'll have to wait until later to hear about them, if I talk to you.

I'm tired, so this post is short, I'll write more later.

Quote of NCS in Nebraska – "Damn we fucked that shit to death!" – Talented Todd Whitley talking about the discussion that was had about the Climbing standards at the Climbing Inspector's training.

Later, y'all.

Ok, so I've determined that I really do have ADD.

This morning, I was trying to type an e-mail to Denny Pratt (the director of the camp school section I am teaching in) and my parents were talking about/to me. It definitely took me 5 minutes to finish a complete sentence. I could have typed a less coherent sentence in less time, but I figured that it should be as coherent as possible.

I leave for NCS this morning at noon (that's just a few three hours away). I'm going to try to get my return flight changed to Friday rather than Saturday just to make my life easier and less tireing.

If you want to get a hold of me, or just chat for no reason, hit me up on the AIM name tlmasonaea. If I have cell service, I'll get the message and we'll talk, if not I'll get the message at some point and I'll give you a call or something.

That's all for now. I'll post again when I return.

Just thought I would write a little something about my pre-NCS thoughts. I guess these are my expectations for the next week, or they could be called my fears…

I'm afraid that this week will be boring to me. After being through the COPE section of NCS, I don't know how much I will learn from the Climbing section, especially since I've been climbing for a good period of time. I guess it'll be good to refresh my memory of all of the COPE and Climbing standards and procedures, but I don't know how many new skills I'm going to acquire by attending.

I'm hoping the people in my section are fun to be around. As a general rule, climbers like climbers, but in a scouting setting, the people running a climbing facility aren't necessarily climbers, rather scouters filling a void. I fear that they will be a bunch of old men just wanting to do something different/fill a void at a camp they have worked at for years. I generally enjoy sections more when they are filled with people my age.

I'm also not looking forward to the possibility that I won't have cell phone reception at the camp. Not having cell phone reception means I won't be able to keep in touch with anybody, specifically Erin. That would suck major.

I'm also freaking out about teaching the Trek Leader section the next week. I haven't had the time I want to prepare for the section. I wish I had a lot more free time to just sit down and write out plans. I'm taking my Trek Leader binder with me to Nebraska in hopes of working on it on the plane and in the airport while I wait for my flight home.

I don't often freak out before travel, I usually welcome it. I guess I'm nervous because I'm traveling alone to a place where I know I won't know anybody. I'm sure everything will be fine; I just wanted to get some things off of my chest.

For those of you concerned, here is my flight information:

To Omaha

Flight/Class: US Airways flight 6935/Class W operated by UNITED AIRLINES
Depart: Indianapolis, IN (IND) – May 22 at 2:45pm
Arrive: Chicago-Ohare, IL (ORD) – May 22 at 3:59pm

Flight/Class: US Airways flight 7093/Class W operated by UNITED AIRLINES
Depart: Chicago-Ohare, IL (ORD) – May 22 at 5:10pm
Arrive: Omaha, NE (OMA) – May 22 at 6:40pm

From Omaha

Flight/Class: US Airways flight 6962/Class W operated by UNITED AIRLINES
Depart: Omaha, NE (OMA) – May 29 at 6:45am
Arrive: Chicago-Ohare, IL (ORD) – May 29 at 8:08am

Flight/Class: US Airways flight 5964/Class W operated by UNITED AIRLINES
Depart: Chicago-Ohare, IL (ORD) – May 29 at 11:00am
Arrive: Indianapolis, IN (IND) – May 29 at 12:01pm

That's all…

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – Hallelujah – Rufus Wainwright

Heroes of the Day – My parents for sticking with each other the last 25 years. Congratulations on 25, and may you have 25 more!

Darwin Award for the Week of May 16, 2004
This week, I have to award myself the Darwin Award. While I was mowing last Wednesday, I managed to get the Exmark stuck inside the fenced in area next to the Inlow. I managed to get it pinned up against the fence so that I was unable to recover by myself. Keith had to come pull me out with Old Kate and her wench. It was good times

Quote of the Day – "Is Wednesday a Tuesday?" – Me… Haha. I was trying to ask Erin if June 2 was a Wednesday, but that's what came out. I guess that shows how lame of a day today was. Gotta love Shelbyville… ::rolls eyes::

Current Mood – – Restless, I hate coming home. It's way too boring.

Until the next post! It'll probably be after my two weeks at NCS.

So I watched the sunset tonight and it brought me back to some recent good times.

Some things that were going through my mind while sitting on the rocks, watching the sunset were:
– I so can't wait until camp starts.
– I miss Erin more than any of you can know.
– I wish I were able to share the sunset tonight with her.
– I have to go down to the water and just relax more often.
– My summer is going to rock.
– I don't ever want to stop working at camp.

Ah… How I would give anything to cuddle up with Erin tonight.

Current Mood – – Melancholy…

Wow, I didn't think it would have been this long since I blogged last, especially since I've been on campus just about every evening since my last post. I've just not been in the mood lately to blog.

But today was a good time.

It all started pretty normally, I woke up, ate breakfast, worked for Keith in the morning, mowing everywhere I could fit a mower . The afternoon was the best part.

We moved all the docks into place for the summer.

Now that doesn't sound too interesting, but you have to realize, we all came from normal ranger work, i.e. mowing, moving picnic tables, etc. Naturally, we were all wearing work clothes. If you've ever moved the docks at Ransburg, you know that there is always a "wet man" so to speak.

Well, Craig and I both were the wetmen.

Still not that interesting of a story, huh?

Ok, here's the interesting part.

While we were working on these monstrous pieces of floating problem solving, the almighty weather creating entity decides to blow up a thunderstorm. This rain hurt, especially on a bare back/chest. Not only did the rain hurt, but it was a full blown thunderstorm, lightning, thunder, the whole bit. The wind made the docks a little tougher to manipulate, but we did fine.

The rain only lasted about 5 minutes, then it was sunny, but the lightning was still striking right over AP ridge.

We finished the docks, and I went for a swim.

We then lifted the Black Perl out of the water to empty her starboard pontoon. We filled it with water by placing all of the anchors on it. The lightning started picking up again as a HUGE cumulonimbus cloud started creeping our way.

The nice thing about this cloud is that it decided to leave us alone, and hammer ridge 4 with lightning and rain. Meanwhile, Keith and I are standing next to an aluminum pontoon boat sitting on shore, we're the only ways that a lightning strike could reach the ground, naturally. Matt, Craig and Dustin were tasked with taking the AP pontoon boat (which has a broken engine lowering piece) out of the water after we were done with the Perl.

All of this while there was lightning over AP ridge and over on ridge 4.

It was a good time.

That's my story for the week.

In other news, I need a new phone. Mine sucks. I'm getting a Nokia 6800, hopefully Thursday before I leave town for NCS.

That's all for now, folks!

The End-of-the-Blog Rundown

Song of the Day – Silent Steeples – Dispatch

Event of the Day – Moving the docks in a thunderstorm

Event of the Week – Staff Weekend WE GOT ALL THE CANVAS SET UP!

Quote of the Day – Luke: Is that all you did today? Move ten picnic tables?
Matt: And killed a turtle!

Current Mood – – Sore from a long day of work.

Until the next post…