Uniforms

Before it gets any later, I should show what our unis look like. Answer: terrible.

A Little Late

Here's Liz's three strikes from Week 1

The Blame Game

I just waited twenty minutes in the barber shop only to be told I couldn't get a haircut because I am a military contractor and not military personnel.


Why can't contractors get their hair cut?
Because there are too many on base currently.

Why are there too many contractors on base?
Because they are doing construction.

Why are they doing construction?
Because the two bases in New Orleans are merging.

Why are they merging?
Because of the Base Realignment and Closure process.

Why is this necessary?
Because the US wants its bases to be more efficient.

Why do they need to be more efficient?
Because European "allies" have placed too much of a burden on the American military.

Why have they strained the American military?
Because they didn't get on board with Gulf War II so the US has to do the job alone.

Why is the US fighting Gulf War II alone?
Because terrorism needs to be stopped.

Why does terrorism need to be stopped?
Because its harmful for children and other living things.


As we can see, it all boils down to either the Europeans or bin Laden. Take your pick.

In the immortal words of Alan Garner, the barber wouldn't cut my hair because we live in a time "after 9/11 when everyone got so sensitive".

Thanks a lot, bin Laden.

^ a way people wouldn't have to die in war. Its called the Dark Shield. Its a shield made out of a black hole. To make it, first you need...."

^ Camper: "Someone in my family died in the Vietnam War" Me: I'm sorry. They did a very brave thing by dying for their country. Camper: Yeah. I thought of

Campers would pick Alvin and the Chipmunks over Ratatouille, Wall-E and Princess and the Frog.

Broken AC means our schedule has been rocked on this last week of camp. Gonna improvise. Kearney concert tonight. 4 more days.

Click HERE for pictures

For the visual learners out there, I have a public album on Facebook of all pictures I've taken this summer. The album just maxed out at 200 photos which is perfect seeing as I only four more days remaining here and probably won't be taking very many more.

If you don't have Facebook, no problem. You can still view the album by following the link.


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052214&id=1580130069&l=f90dcf760b

My To-Do

This is my last week so I have a few loose ends to tie up:

- Get a chaperone to show me the flight-line so I can shoot photos
- Visit the library to see the photos submitted for the contest (including mine)
- Finish souvenir shopping at Mardi Gras Wholesaler
- Mat Kearney concert on Tuesday night at the House of Blues downtown
- Work on homework papers (should be writing those instead of this)
- Pack all my stuff

PS: I could post about what I did this weekend but I'll wait until I am home. I swear there's a good reason for this.

Day from Hell

Wednesday was the day from Hell. I don't like thinking about it more than I have to so I'll keep this short.

- On Wednesday's, my campers are supposed to go on a field trip. Seeing as the week's trip was moved to Friday, this didn't happen. Strike One.
- On Wednesday's, the older kids are supposed to go swimming. Seeing as the pool was hosting the base-wide luau at 3 (which we were attending), regular swimming wouldn't happen. Strike Two.
- It was a black-flag day meaning we couldn't take the kids outside on account of the heat. Strike Three.

By 3:00 (15:00), we were all stressed out and exhausted. Our boss had recruited us to work the carnival games so we counselors were excused from our regular work to go over and wait for the kids from all over the base to start showing up. Outside, it was hot and sticky. To make it more difficult, we were issued some appealing, brown, Hawaiian shirts, palm frond hats and plastic leis. I was in charge of the Tic-Tac-Toe game. It involved a lot of bending over to pick up dropped wiffle balls. My belt broke. It started raining. The tent leaked on me. Needless to say, my smile was pasted on.

At 4:30, I was dismissed to attend to my soccer camp duties. I stripped off my shameful uniform to expose my slightly less shameful Camp A uniform (remember, khaki shorts, tucked in t-shirt, and high socks. The uni hasn't been redesigned since Camp's formation in the 1980's). At soccer, I was met with the pleasant surprise of being the only coach. See previous post for details.

Afterwards, I had time enough to play some basketball. My hands were cold. I told myself I wouldn't leave until I made 10 three-pointers. It took a half hour. Then I worked out, headed back to my room and had time enough to check my phone and put down my things before I realized I needed to be assisting with making decorations for next week. I went to where the group was working and pitched in. It was dark by the time we were finished. I went home to write a paper. Then my day was over.

Longest day of camp yet. Looking back, I'm lucky to have had a day like this to make all the other days look absolutely wonderful. At least I learned something, right?

Soccer and Finality

For the foreseeable future, these will be my last full updates while in New Orleans. Someone asked me yesterday how long I've been here. "Nine weeks", I told them. They then asked when I go home. "One week", I told them. I paused to think then added, "This time next week, I'll be home". Saying it made it sink in. The feeling is still sinking but I don't think it will fully settle until I am actually leaving this place.


SOCCER CAMP

Last week was a busy one. A few weeks ago, I inquired about an advertised soccer clinic that was taking place on base. I offered to help and was told someone would contact me about opportunities. I should have known that just because I am dealing with military personnel doesn't mean that I am not dealing with people. That is to say, they are just as forgetful as anyone else and so it was no surprise that on Monday, three hours before the scheduled start of the camp, I was frantically calling to get the details on the event. Turns out, the heat index of 106 was too extreme for us to have camp so Day One was cancelled.

Day Two went off without a hitch. With the camp moved indoors, about 40 kids ranging from age 6 to 12 showed up. I arrived thinking my role would be something along the lines of assistant. If any odd jobs needed doing, I would be there. Turns out, I was one of two adult volunteers. Coach Jimmy introduced himself and we devised a plan for the day. We would warm the group up and then split them into a younger and older groups. Within the older group, we would split again based upon skill level. Jimmy would take his son's group (the more advanced group) and I would coach the intermediate team. My group had 12 campers. We worked on dribbling drills for the day and then played a couple of games before releasing the campers for the day. This came after my group decided upon a team name for the week. For whatever reason, they decided to name my (Coach Rocky's) group the Rockies. Go figure.

On Day Three, about half the number of campers showed up. I combined the two older groups and we worked on passing drills. Coach Jimmy didn't show up. Neither did his son.

Day Four, Coach Jimmy was again absent. I worked the campers on shooting and we played some fun games before I released them to their waiting parents. For some reason, the parents all decided to wait on the bleachers and watch. This was fine by me except for what was the unintentional side-effect of making me very nervous. Its one thing to coach a bunch of kids buts it another thing entirely to coach them while their parents are watching. One wrong move on my part could have sent a flustered adult running onto the gym floor to rescue his or her child. Yikes.

Day Five was games day. In what was a serious gamble on my part, I decided to have the kids play "crossfire" wherein I kick balls at them in an attempt to get them "out". If you are "out", you join the kicker and aim for the remaining campers. Again, one wrong move could have sent a camper face-planting into the unforgiving gym floor but I was starved for activities so I worked with what I had. At the end of the day, I gave the remaining campers (there were only about 9 total at this point) my "what soccer has done for me/can do for me" speech. I told them I got to go to Germany to see World Cup. "You mean you played in the World Cup? Which team were you on?". Ahhh, the innocence of children. Certificates were distributed, photos were taken and snacks were devoured. Thus was the end of soccer camp. It went pretty well, I think. I don't think I did too bad for getting thrown in the mix, the way I did.

Went to see Despicable Me on Friday. In one scene, the main character's mother karate chops a punching bag, sending it flying. Mumbles the camper next to me, "despicable momma...". Another scene takes place in a bank called the Bank of Evil. Camper says, "despicable bank...." Chuckles were suppressed.

A Quick Pun

Stated by our guide on a bus tour last weekend:

"It's been five years since Katrina and for the people who live here, its been a whirlwind"

Ouch.

Signs spotted along the road yesterday: "Our vaccuums sucks more than BP" and "NOLA Transmissions: Get Your Shift Together"

Kid 1: "I wanna sing You'll Be In My Heart beacause all campers will be in my heart". Kid 2: "I don't wanna be in your heart! I don't wanna feel the blood!"

Field trip in a couple hours with the campers. Gonna see Despicable Me, eat lunch then go swimming. This is the easiest job I can imagine.

Snuck on the film set of The Green Lantern. Watching Ryan Reynolds do some action scenes. Pix to come.

Taking Shots

This summer, I have had a silly little personal goal. Until now, I haven't talked much about it but there is a reason I have been on the court so much. I have always wanted to have decent basketball skills and so what began as a personal dedication has become a fun hobby. Its hard to say if I've improved - I hope I have - but the manner in which I've progressed is something I want to mention.

I've had all summer to look up guides, consult friends, talk to coaches, even seek out a trainer. However, I've done none of these things. I like to compare it to those jazz musicians who are completely self taught. Sure there's a proper way to play the fiddle, but what do they care? I haven't played organized basketball since I was 11 years old and any ball I've played in the interim has shown the complete deterioration of any skills I may have once had. That last part is generous. I remember my crowning moment in my basketball career was when I made a three pointer in a game. It was extra special because I didn't know which line to shoot from so I took it from three feet further back than was necessary. I also shot it like you would throw a soccer ball: both hands, overhead. Just goes to show how completely my soccer upbringing affected any sport I played. For God's sake, I've been playing basketball in Sambas all summer. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

Today was special. I had a breakthrough. What I could have learned from a five-minute YouTube tutorial finally clicked after two months of daily gym sessions. After observing some young guys playing ball at the opposite end of the court, I noticed they were landing on the other side of the three point line when they took their shots. Until today, I had been jumping straight up and down, landing in the same spot that I'd started. I tried their method. It worked. Next thing I knew, I was going head to head with Jordankobekareemshaqlebron. I hope this is the breakthrough I've been looking for. Until now, I've had a few false alarms. I've stumbled upon things that've helped but nothing that helped me go 16/30 like this did. Maybe my hands were just hot.

Weekend Preview

This weekend, the plan is to go downtown. We will be staying Friday and Saturday nights in the Holiday Inn. We'll be going on a Katrina Tour on Saturday and the Natchez Riverboat cruise on Sunday. On Sunday, I'll also be going to mass at the cathedral downtown (like last weekend) and looking for my beloved and missing Mariner's hat. I'll Let you know how it turns out.

Hot Hands, Cold Hands

My occasional report on the happenings within the NAS JRB Fitness Center Gymnasium continue below.

Outing Number One happened a few days ago. I was shooting hoops by myself when I was asked by two others if I wanted to join a game of 21. This is more or less the game I described in a much earlier post (props if you know which one I'm referring to!). The three of us lasted through a few rounds with my score never rising above 10. Before long, the game swelled to eight people. At this point, my hopes of rebounding had been dashed and shooting was simply out of the question. As I've said before, my shot quality seems to decline exponentially based on the number of eyes that are watching. I'm like the Invisible Boy in Mystery Men. You know, the one who is only Invisible when nobody is looking? That's my shot. It only goes in when I'm the only one around.

Because of this, I became more of an observer than a participant. Fortunately for me, I was in for a treat. Our eighth player was a man I've seen at the gym many times before. I saw man, and not guy, dude, bro, broham, cat, or any other synonym, because that's exactly what he was. The mustache on his face caused Burt Reynold's whiskers to take an early retirement. He was so tall, I rejected the possibility that it was a coincidence that a guy wearing an air traffic controller's shirt followed him into the gym. A mere glance at this behemoth brought me to an understanding of why wishful rappers say that they "command respect". This was all before he even touched the basketball. When he did, I felt like I was at a Harlem Globetrotters practice. Shot after shot fell straight through the net and withing five minutes of his entrance to our humble little game, he was one point shy of winning. On his way to this absurd hijacking, he put on a display like none I'd ever seen. At one point, the guy loitering around the hoop with me, waiting for loose rebounds tapped me on the arm and said "Look". I looked. Michael Jordankobekareemshaqlebron was dribbling nonchalantly in the far corner of the three point line. Three guys surrounded him on defense. My neighbor lazily added, "He's gonna shake all three of 'em". Almost unsurprisingly, he did. All it took was a quick head fake, a stutter step and the fastest pull-up I've seen all summer (not to mention a dash of accuracy mixed with some well-aged muscle memory) and the ball floated beautifully down through the net. And into my outstretched hands.

Not long after, an ambitious soul decided to take on our resident professional one on one. I'm sure his reasoning held that because he was half the age and maybe twice as fast as his opponent, he stood a chance. What ensued was an impressive duel that lasted much longer than any of us expected. The adversaries danced around the three point arc, battling back and forth. Tricky dribbling and fancy footwork finally brought them to the same corner where the three other unfortunate souls had met their demise. Their battle crescendoed and Michael Jordankobekareemshaqlebron found his opportunity. Taking a step back from the line, he pulled a fast spin move that put him another two feet back from where he started and one foot closer to the baseline. An easier visualization would be to say that he was standing in the very corner of the court with absolutely no angle of a shot. Reaching deep into the recesses of whatever black magic juju that fueled him, he let loose a high-arcing shot just as his defender reached up in vain to stop him. The ball fell perfectly through the net. The gym erupted. Every last person in the place was hollering and hooting, myself included. I can honestly say that I have never seen a person make a basket from that place on the court and he had done it. Appropriately, his opponent instituted a self-imposed time out and watched in disbelief as the next round of the game began.

Epilogue: I had the honor of competing mano-a-mano with Jordankobekareemshaqlebron today. In order to tip the scales in my favor, I kept our competition a secret. I did this by counting the number of three pointers that he made while tracking my own progress as well. This was possible because by some lucky accident, he decided to share the basket I was shooting on. Surprisingly, his shot seemed a little bit off but I'm sure it wouldn't have been had he known I was keeping track of his misses. y first game consisted of a "First to 10" match. I found myself leading 7 to 9 (granted, I was shooting many more shots than he) but, unsurprisingly, I went cold and he won.

IMAX

Our second most recent field trip was to the Audubon Aquarium of the America's IMAX theatre where we saw Deep Sea narrated by Johnny Depp (or was it Depp Sea narrated by Johnny Deep?). Either way, we ran into our fair share of obstacles. This is typical. In Camp A training, we are told time and again that the most important quality a good counselor can have is to be flexible. That way, when you miss the intended showtime of your field trip's IMAX movie, you can keep the campers entertained by putting your leg behind your head. While we waited for the 11 o'clock show, we sat in the atrium of the building and played games, sang songs and milled about. I took pictures for the Dessertfest slideshow and took photo requests from the campers - Mr. Rocky Road! Take a picture of me! Take a picture of the alligator skeleton!

The movie itself was a trip. It was in 3D so all of us were decked out in our stylish (and circa 1950) special-effect glasses. Our group of 40 took up and entire row of the theater. When the film started, I was reminded why the 3D movie craze hasn't faded away like everyone thought it would. Every image on the screen was (cliche warning) jumping out at the audience. A quick glance down our row confirmed this as 80 small hands reached for the screen to pet or snatch the illusions in front of them.

Lunch was had out at the typical place. Three times now, we have eaten at this park that sits behind the aquarium on the banks of the Mississippi. It is fairly ideal except for the birds. From their behavior, it is clear that we are not the first group of ignorant souls to happily stumble upon this "perfect little picnic spot". I imagine tales of bountiful scrap-feeding have been passed down from generation to generation of seagulls and other opportunistic river birds. Fearlessly, they have dive-bombed us on each of our three field-trip lunch breaks at the park. Why do we keep coming back, you ask? The answer is simple. We have Jack. Jack is six years old. He is also a scarecrow. And a Jedi. And a robot. And a train engineer. Pretty typical stuff for a six year old but Jack is unique because he takes the role to heart and carries out each minute detail of his chosen role. Today, for example, we had four separate lightsaber battles. I digress. On this particular day, Jack stood proudly (and loudly) in defense of our precious lunch break. These birds didn't stand a chance against his pasty outstretched arms and his Cheeto grease covered face. His bravery made our lunch possible, and for that, we salute him.

Swamp Tour

Yesterday, we went on the much anticipated swamp tour. In a last minute change of plans, the entire camp went instead of splitting up by age groups between Wednesday and Thursday. As usual, I'm not sure the duration of the ride because I was asleep. However, I was awake to see the camper next to me slide off the side of her seat and halfway into the aisle before awaking in a start. If you've seen Inception, you know why this made me think about that movie.

The tour itself was pretty interesting. Our tour guide was extremely immemorial and bland. He seemed tired, bored and the sign informing us that tips were welcome seemed more ironic than sincere. We did, however, see lots of wildlife. I took pictures (as I always do on field trips) but not many came out properly as I took the day to experiment with manual focus. Surprisingly, the alligators we saw were less interesting than the graveyard grasshoppers. These monsters were four inches long, jet black and looked like they meant business. Four inches may not sound like a lot but go look one up on Google. If you're too lazy, look at your palm. If you held one, it would overlap no matter how you positioned it.

Back on shore, we headed straight for the shaded lunch area. Before we could eat, a table of kids began screaming like the Dickens and running around wildly. One of the grasshoppers was lurking on the underside of their table. Their reaction is unsurprising. I would freak out too if a bug the size of my face decided to eat lunch with me. Lunch - and the rest of the day for that matter - was relatively uneventful. I slept on the ride back. The camper next to me nearly fell out of her seat again.

The word "twilight" has been ruined. I love twilight but I don't love Twilight.

Facebook

Here is the link to my album of photos I've taken since I've been here. It is viewable to everyone regardless if you're signed up for Facebook.

That being said, if you follow the profile badge on the right side of the page, you'll be taken to my profile. The blog is sufficient to stay updated on life in New Orleans but my Facebook is more often used and more versatile. Check it out if you want.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052214&id=1580130069&l=f90dcf760b

Goin' on a swamp tour this morning with the kidlets. Hope nobody gets eaten by a gator.

PLANTATIONS

Today, we took a weekend field trip. After seven weeks of life in the South, we finally got the history lesson I had been waiting for. We woke up early and drove about an hour northwest of the city to visit a plantation. Mindy drove us and she and I packed our cameras, ready to get some shots of the grounds, buildings or whatever presented itself.
The plantation we visited was a restored property dating back to the 1830’s. The history of the house and the families was interesting but for your sake, I won’t repeat it here. One feature was one of five of the world’s original swivel chairs. From that description, it sounds pretty lame but the magic of presentation had everyone in the tour group flitting about in a tizzy like they were looking at the Mona Lisa.
We chose this particular plantation for its preservation of the original slave quarters and schoolhouse. Small buildings in poor condition (in keeping with historical accuracy) they were in stark contrast to the opulent plantation home. Inside was a register with the names, lineage, and price of all the slaves who worked on the plantation. One of my fellow counselors pointed out the fact that all the information available on the individual was included. Name, lineage, and price? Is that how you describe a person?


DESSERTFEST

To begin, I should address the two most common questions about Dessertfest:
1) What is Dessertfest? The short answer is Dessertfest is a performance put on by people involved with Camp A for parents of people involved with Camp A.
2) Why is it called Dessertfest? It’s called this because it’s a potluck style event where each parent invited is asked to bring a dessert with them to share after the performance.
Camp A counselors take part in two types of Dessertfests. The first comes after the completion of the training sessions before counselors are sent to their placement sites. Parents of the counselors are invited to see what exactly their kids will be doing during the summer. They are subjected to “blitz” (our high-energy morning songs), skits, and closing songs (think Kum-bay-ya). While on site, the counselors who formerly participated in Dessertfest host the event. This time, the campers are the ones performing the songs and skits and the counselors are the ones in the back of the room biting their nails hoping nothing goes awry.
There is only one of these Dessertfests every summer so we do our damndest to make sure it goes right. Tears are shed (as is blood – safety scissors are an inaccurate name) as we counselors add the daunting task of making twice the regular number of decorations for the week to our already hectic workload. The stress permeates the office while campers miraculously remain oblivious to the mounting tension. Our theme was Alice in Wonderland. We painted three full color, bedsheet size murals and crafted countless knick-knacks to display around the room. Our director sacrificed Friday’s pooltime to put the finishing touches on the room before the parents began to arrive and when they did, everyone in the room was ready to pop from the anticipation.
The important thing about Dessertfest is no matter how much preparation you do, Murphy’s Law still holds. The speakers will cut out unexpectedly, campers will say “nay-da-mur-ator” instead “enlarging machine” (this actually happened. I won’t try to explain the mind of a 7 year old) and people will talk when they’re not supposed to. That being said, Dessertfest is also the time where the elusive “magic” that gets mentioned so often in our training happens. I had picked two campers to present closing songs for the end of the event.
One camper I selected, whose mother passed away less than a month ago, stepped forward into the circle we had formed around the camper’s parents. “Hello, my name is Brittany”. Camp A’s response, as always, “Hi, Brittany, welcome to Camp Adventure!” Her response came haltingly but genuinely, “I’d like to dedicate ‘God Bless the USA’ to my dad”. A collective “awww…” came up from the group but it was easy to sense the heaviness in the air as everyone was reminded of the real reason Camp Adventure exists.
The song ended and before anyone could dry their eyes, my next camper stepped forward.
“Hi, my name is Jamie”
“Hi, Jamie, welcome to Camp Adventure!”
“I’d like to dedicate ‘My Wish’ because my wish is the my mommy will come back from Iraq”
Those who could hear her soft voice were shaken. Her father got up from his seat and held his little girl in his arms as she cried. For the counselors, it was hard to watch one of our most resilient, respectful, and stoic campers break down and it was all anyone could do to follow the lyrics.

Go figure

Up early for a nice long early morning walk to Mass. Follow up with some trap shooting, and hopefully get a tour of the airfield. Not bad.

The Vindow Viper

Went to see Inception. Parked next to this bad boy which is a good strategy. If a burglar is on the prowl, is he gonna choose a midsize hatchback with sports equipment in the backseat or a Viper with all manner of expensive trinkets in the glovebox?

Hypnosis

This is from a hypnosis show I saw on base a while back but I'm just now posting it. Pretty poor quality but a good story: this woman was hypnotized and told that after she woke up, she would pose for anyone who wanted a picture. If they took too long or the picture was bad, she was told to either yell at them or say "take it again... My eyes were closed". I got the latter response on this picture. The post-hypnosis trance lasted about 2 minutes, time enough for me to snap this.

Hurricane rumors goin' on. Possible evacuation? This could be interesting

Camper Quote of the Week: (following Soak the Counselor with waterballoons) "Mr. Rocky Road, I can see your man-boobs!"

The difference between what I should write and what I have time to write has reached a critical status. I don't like letting this happen but it sometimes done and then all my entries result in an intro consisting of apologies for late posts. That's poor form.

My last full post was eight days ago. Since then, I've had a weekend and a mildly eventful week. The weekend consisted of a laid back Friday. Surrogate Mother and her family left for vacation leaving the Camp Adventure team to house and pet-sit. Bird-Bird, Cat-Cat, and Drew Bledsoe (yellow lab) were all very well behaved until Cat-Cat decided to express his frustrations with being cooped up inside by pooping on the kitchen floor. Other than that, having use of the house was nice. We made dinner in a proper kitchen and watched a movie on a nice big TV. Like I said, laid back. Good bonding time with the two new counselors after their first full week.


WEEKEND

Saturday, was laid back as laid back can be. I slept in then went to Hooters to watch the Germany-Uruguay third place match. Back at base, I hung around the house and waited for dinnertime. Watched another movie with the crew and then went to bed.

On Sunday, we woke early and everyone prepared for church. Typical weekend except for the fact that I somehow got the mass time confused so we had to wait an hour and a half for the next service to start. No problem though. Afterwards, the three others who had gone to the chapel on base were at the house making breakfast in the kitchen. French toast was on the menu and I helped out. Everyone enjoyed it, we cleaned and left for downtown.

Driving was an experience. As we reached the edge of the Westbank, our driver realized our severe lack of gasoline. We pulled over to a service station, I got out to pumped and instantly screwed up my face like I had just put my nose to the kitchen floor after Cat-Cat had been through. Something was wrong with our car. The unkept roads of New Orleans are famous for their waist-deep potholes and so we chalked the smell up to the water on the roadway splashing onto the bottom of the car. Hitting the road, our driver then noticed a difference in braking. Her noticing a difference consisted of a gentle tap on the brakes, not getting a response, pushing harder, still not getting a response and finally slamming the brakes down, sending my skull into the dashboard. Pulling my head out of the glove compartment, I cheerily held the line about the car's underworkings being wet and agreeing "oh, that must have been the wet brakepads, that's all". Across the bridge we trundled and after a few more nervewracking minutes, I offered to drive on the way back. Seeing we didn't have far to go, I kicked my reassurance-cheerleading into high gear. "We're almost there!", "Hey, I don't think I can smell it anymore!", "At least we haven't died yet!". Then we realized the parking brake was on.

We parked and went to the Tropical Isle to watch the World Cup final. The two new counselors went to explore the French Quarter. Arriving at the bar, I had to sweet talk my way inside: "But I'm military", I said. When that didn't work, "I'm not drinking, I'm only watching the game". Still nothing. I swallowed and looked the mid-day bouncer (this breed is about half the size of the more irritable and intimidating evening bouncer) right in the eye "Look," I said, "I was here last week and there wasn't a problem". He let me in. I was pretty happy about that.

We watched the game. I could gladly recount all the drama of the match but the quote at the end of the game summed it up nicely: "Red over Orange in a final full of yellow for some very black and blue play".

We were joined by our fellow counselors who had braved the torrential rains to meet up with us. We all went to the Hard Rock Cafe (my first experience there) for dinner and then to a few stores for browsing. Once finished, we drove back to base, decorated for the coming week and turned in for the night.


WEEK

This week has gone fast so far. Monday, I went bowling with my group. Favorite quote

New Camper: "Are you my first grade soccer coach?"
Me: "No...why?"
NC: "Because you're handsome like him"

Finally, a camper who won't tell me that I'm fat or that I have a belly. I made coffee on the alley's machine and offered some to Miss Mint. A camper overheard me and, combining the Christmas in July decorations with my offer, reached the conclusion that I am Santa Claus and Miss Mint is my wife, Mrs. Claus.

Tuesday was rough. The day started out fine when we went to the Liberty Center to watch "Night at the Museum 2" but in the afternoon it started to fall apart. My group was supposed to go swimming but due to "high levels of chemicals", the pool was closed. Next thing I knew, I had 20 hyperactive 7 and 8 year olds running around inside with nothing to do. We decided to let them spend some energy outside on the playground. The phrase "Black Flag day" was thrown around (means its too hot to go outside) but we were in a crisis. Some kids burned off their energy. Others just burned. By the time the day was over, everyone was chugging water and laying helplessly on the floor. Our plan had worked.

Jersey Chasin'

When telling stories, some of the most fun to share are the ones involving celebrity encounters. This is one of those.

Going on now is, the U-20 Women's World Cup. For the non-soccer fans reading this, I should explain that the tournament is exactly like the World Cup that just concluded in South Africa with a few key differences namely 1) it is held in Germany and 2) the players are all women, ages 20 and below. It is just as competitive as the more well known cup and every bit as inspiring. It is not some rag-tag event, thrown together every few years but is the preeminent showcase of young women's soccer talent the world over. It is a tournament that is prepared for by the players, coaches, organizers and everyone in between.

Having established that, I can proudly say that I know one of the players. Natalie Garcia, a friend of mine from school and a member of USD's women's soccer team is currently in Germany playing for Mexico. To think that towards the end of the year, I was kicking the ball around with someone who would take the pitch a few months later as one of the best young female soccer players in the world makes my head spin. I can say from experience that "Garce" (not Grace... Garce) has a burner of a shot. I should know. I had the misfortune of trying to stop one of them.

This isn't Sports Illustrated or ESPN Magazine so I won't go into an expose on Garce's introduction to the game or her most memorable sporting moment or her most influential coach or her shoe size or her favorite slushee flavor but sharing my pride should be enough. For once, I think I'll root for Mexico.

PHOTOS (sorry about the lack of links... Blogger isn't very link friendly. Copy and paste into your nav bar and ya should be good to go)

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/102894908/FIFA
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/102884528/FIFA
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/102895644/FIFA
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/102895633/FIFA
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/102884617/FIFA
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/102884641/FIFA

VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol348RNHahc&feature=player_embedded

Home run derby goin' crazy. Eatin' dinner and lounging.

Mrs. Hippy

Sorry for the late update. Yesterday turned out to be crazy what with new counselors showing up and all so I didn't get a chance to write.

INDEPENDENCE DAY

This past weekend, we traveled to Mississippi for Independence Day. As usual, I slept in the car and when I woke, we were in Gulfport. Our hotel was about five miles from the beach which is the first place we stopped. The beach wasn't the cleanest I'd seen but it also wasn't the most crowded. We set up camp and lay out in the sun for a long while, reading, sleeping and getting burnt. When I woke, I was covered with sand (the wind had picked up) and so I went to the water to wash off. I thought to myself as I waded in that this was the first time I had set foot in the Gulf Coast since I had been to Florida as a little kid. That was at least ten years ago... probably longer. Sadly, the murky brown of the Mississippi coast wasn't comparable to the perfect blue of Florida's, but then again, there wasn't an oil spill on when I was younger. I saw a fair share of tar balls washed up on shore. If I have understood correctly, the hole spouting all that oil is only a few inches wide. Amazing that all the tar I saw up and down the beach came from there.

We packed up and checked into the hotel. Sapped of our energy by the sun, we stretched out on the beds and watched a movie on HBO. When it was done, we snapped back to reality and realized we had better eat before it got too late. We went to Sonic - my first time there - and I was pleasantly surprised. I had a BLT and a Coke with coconut flavoring. Not bad at all. Next, we staked out some real estate on the beach boardwalk near where we had been earlier in the day. I set up my tripod and began shooting. The shooting I was doing was nothing compared to the shooting everyone around me was doing. The south seems to either lack or disregard laws concerning fireworks. This is a change for me. In the Northwest, purchasing good fireworks is a hassle to do and setting them off must be done in private. In my experience, if a cop sees you launching things into the air, your humble July 4th operation will get shut down faster than you can say "missing fingers". Here though, anything goes. People shoot them off in public like its nothing. Cops stroll by as revelers blast all manner of high explosives into low-earth orbit. The ear-shattering airborne matériel seems safe compared to the handheld stuff. Pop its are thrown at people's faces, sparklers are jabbed like fencing rapiers and Black Cats are retained till the last second so that when thrown, they'll explode at eye level. No lie, I saw a guy get shot in the back with a Roman Candle and nobody batted an eye.

It was into this mess that I waded. I felt like I was living some strange version of D-Day in an alternate reality. I was heading towards the beach to from it, at night instead of day and I was armed with a camera not an M1 Garand. The beach was entirely filled with people going crazy with their arsenals and by some small miracle, I found an open area in which to set up my tripod. For what seemed like the next hour, I shoot (as best I could) the world-class fireworks show taking place at the end of the pier. When finished, I returned to my camp and the crew of us headed back to the hotel for the rest of the night.

The next day, we went to the outlet mall after checking out of our hotel. Not much to say other than Hurricane Alex continues to bring unrelenting rain despite being blown out for a few days. Our last stop on our way out of town was the Hooters near the freeway. We got some lunch and enjoyed ourselves. As we were leaving I snapped a couple pictures of the exterior on a hunch.

I slept in the car on the return journey. Updated the blog and went to bed.


COINCIDENCES

The next day, my hunch turned out to be founded. When we were leaving Hooters, I remembered that my roommate from last semester, a Frenchman, had visited the South on a previous visit to America. I couldn't remember which state he'd been in but on the off chance that it was Mississippi, I thought I'd take some pictures of the area. I also remembered that he'd been to a Hooters while visiting the South. Seeing as I had just visited a Hooters in the South, I thought I'd take a picture of the place to see if it jogged his memory. Turns out he had in fact visited Mississippi, just as I had. He too had been to Gulfport and we both had eaten at the same Hooters. Keep in mind that this was not previously planned. We ate there because it was close to the freeway. I am visiting the South - not even Gulfport, specifically - for 8 weeks and I traveled 1000 miles to do so. Guillaume spent a month here travelling all the way from France. Strange that we would have been to the same place.

Another coincidence arose just yesterday. New employees arrived and before we went out to grocery shop, I spoke with one of them. Turns out she went to Burlington-Edison High School. I went to Mark Morris. Both are in Washington. We both graduated in 2008. Our teams met in the state basketball tournament in the Tacoma Dome in 2007. She goes to WSU where many of my friends go. We have a mutual friend whom I went to high school with and who she played sports with. And as fortune would have it, we meet 1,000 miles from home and will be working together for the next six weeks. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Too Tired

I had a good weekend in Mississippi. Instead of writing about it though, I will go get my laundry and go to sleep. New hires arrive tomorrow. Should be a good day.

A Visit

MOM

It was a good weekend for visitors. Ms. Moose Tracks' friend from home came down on Tuesday night and stayed until today. This weekend, mom was also in town. Apparently, New Orleans is a popular destination on Independence Day weekend. Illustrating this point is the fact that we could only find one hotel in the entire city with an available room. Granted, booking a week in advance lessens your chances of finding accommodation, but no less... one hotel? Also, it was a 30 minute drive from downtown so its not like it was conveniently located. I'm not complaining and I don't think mom would either. It was clean, cheap and we had our fun in the city.


MINDY'S

Our surrogate mother, Mindy, invited everyone over to her house for a big shindig on Friday night. Said shindig was to attended by Mindy's immediate family (4 of them), extended family (9 of them), Camp Adventure family (5 of us - my two coworkers, Ohio friend, my mom and me). It takes a true host to tack on five extra guests at the last minute but for reasons unknown to me, Mindy did it. This made for a very merry bunch of sweet-tea drinking, rice-and-beans eating, loud conversation-having guests packed in Mindy's home. By fitting so many people into such a small space, making new friends was inevitable. I met all five of Mindy's nieces and nephews in attendance as well as their parents. Heck, I think I met just about everyone. Mom was late to the show because of a directional mix-up which took her (and her rental car) 50 miles northwest of the city. Once she got there though, she made up for lost time. As I've gotten older, I've become more aware of social situations. Instead of approaching them from the perspective of "how should I behave here?", I have added in the nuance of wondering "how do other people feel about this situation?". When I'm talking with someone, am I coming off as an idiot or as genuine? Is the other person getting a conflicting message from my posture/gestures than from what I am saying? Is the topic I am speaking of interesting to the other person? Do I have food on my shirt? In my teeth? It may sound like I am being self-conscious but I am fascinated to think what is going on in someone else's mind. This is what I was preoccupied with as I walked to the front door with mom. In my mind, I knew there were 17 people inside that I had already met. I even knew a few of them quite well. Mom, however, hadn't met a single soul in the house. I know if I were in her shoes, I would be reluctant to stay very long. My concerns didn't have time to turn into formulating solutions for awkward social situations because mom rushed in with the force of Hurricane Alex and began introducing herself, shaking hands, smiling and being generally sociable. The woman should run for president.

Dinner was great, as usual and the little kids liked me enough to part with about a half-dozen of their prized Silly Bandz on my behalf. If you don't know what these are, Google them. Or just imagine the Pokemon craze in the form of rubber band bracelets. We said our goodbyes, especially to Mindy and her family who would be leaving for a week long vacation. We're watching their house while they're gone. Mom drove us back to the hotel to get our overnight stuff and we all piled in the rental car. Mom and I dropped the crew off downtown so they could hit up the casino and the two of us found our way to the freeway and then back to the hotel for the night. I ate some reheated Popeye's chicken I had picked up at the center earlier that day and instantly, the words of one of the ladies I work with rang in my head: "Oh yes! Take some chicken home! Its great anytime of day... I've even had it in the morning and it works wonders as a pick-me-up!" There I was, at 1 am, reeling and rolling on the bed, cursing the congealed mass of fat that lay heavy in the pit of my stomach. Pick-me-up, my ass.


SATURDAY

Mom and I woke early on Saturday to head downtown and watch the Germany-Argentina game. We parked near the WWII museum and walked to Canal Street and back to the Checkered Parrot where I had gone with Sarah Mary last weekend. Again, we had the buffet, and it wasn't long before Germany had scored their first goal. For the entire game, mom and I talked soccer, reminisced about Germany in 2006 and drank coffee. We were the loudest fans in the place which isn't saying much seeing as we made up two-thirds of the soccer fan contingent.

Afterwards, we walked in the direction of the car and visited the WWII museum. I could write about the place for longer than you would care to read so I will spare you the details and say the European Theatre portion is great, the Pacific Theatre portion is even better and the special 4D show in the Victory Theatre is the best. Having spent several hours in the place, it became clear that this is NOT a good field trip for kids. This is problematic seeing as it is on our schedule of field trips. That list may need to be reworked.

Following the museum, we dropped off our swag from the gift shop in the car, mom almost got run over and we walked back in the direction of Canal Street to catch the St. Charles Streetcar for mass. We did and a few minutes later, we were on the campus of Tulane University at a cathedral mom had seen the previous day while touring the Garden District. Despite (or perhaps, because of) the mass being in a beautifully adorned cathedral, my mind wandered. I find it ironic that the priest of one of the richest parishes in New Orleans can be equally as bland as one who presides over a humble congregation numbering below 100 on a small military base. Father Billy, however, with his midsized church in Belle Chasse could command your attention while reading from the phonebook.

After mass, we toured campus. I took pictures and enthusiastically liberated Mardi Gras beads from the lower-reaching limbs of trees. Once we'd seen enough, we caught the trolley back towards Canal Street and walked a few more blocks to the Hilton by the river and to Drago's. En route, I heard someone behind me say, "Good job today!" Even though I couldn't see them, I knew they were talking to me. Pretty soon, the voice was at my side and a shrimpy guy in glasses was bustling to keep pace with mom and I. One's first reaction to a stranger striking up conversation with you whilst walking is that they are crazy. Its too bad that this is the case, but it is nonetheless. Turns out, my new friend was simply commenting on the fact that I was wearing a Germany jersey and he was referencing the game from earlier that day. We talked soccer for a while and he updated me on the game between Uruguay and Ghana. I thanked him and he turned the corner and was gone in a second.

Dinner was good, again. I got a lobster for cheap and entertained myself by savagely cracking it open and scooping out its insides. Apologies to my vegetarian readers. I think I have become more savage in my eating habits of late.

For dessert, mom and I braved the mass of people wandering the streets of downtown. Essence Fest brought an influx of people, most of them drunk thus very loud. In the French Quarter, we got some beniegts at Cafe du Monde and ate them while sitting on a fountain and watching the world go by. Once finished, mom got dad a gift at a local cigar factory and then we faced a long march back to the car. I didn't realize how tired I was until we got to the car. Our last errand - a grocery run - turned out to be impossible as Wal Mart was closing as we arrived. This was a blessing. I don't think I would have made it.

Mom dropped me off at base and we said goodbye. Six more weeks and then I'll be back in Longview. Just two weeks ago, I would have been hard-pressed to contain excitement at the prospect of going home. New Orleans has grown on me though. I could never live here permanently but it is impossible not to enjoy the people and new opportunities.

Showed Up

Today at the gym, I decided to switch my routine. I would practice my shot in the gym first, then hit the weights. As soon as I walked in the gym, a man who, based on his height and build, I am pretty sure was Lebron James hollered to me, "Yo! Ya lookin' to hoop it up?" When I declined his invitation he persisted so I put my things on the bench and walked over. I have never been very competitive. This is disadvantageous to sports even if it is a simple pick-up game after work. Compound my lack of sporting spirit with my unparalleled tendency to freeze-up when competing in front of strangers and its not hard to see that I wasn't expecting much out of myself. Because the last time I played basketball against people I didn't know was in 7th grade, it should come as no surprise that I managed to go 45 minutes without making a basket.

I did rebound, though. My initial excitement at this was soon tempered when I realized my competition was letting me get the rebounds. I know what you're thinking: "Aww... they felt sorrry for himmm". I would stand there eyes up to the rim and wait like a bottomfeeder waiting for scraps. When they came my way, I would flail at them and if I was lucky enough to hold onto one, I would dribble it erratically away from any threats. One such case didn't quite go my way so I headed out to the three point line to defend. I only had such bravado because the guy with the ball was the only person in a 200 yard radius that I had a weight and height advantage on. This turned out to be meaningless. In all of three seconds he had blown by me on his way to the hoop. One of the older players took the scenario as a teaching point for his younger friend. "Hey, did you see his (referring to me) feet? He was like Michael Jackson! If you'd even held up or stutter-stepped he would been flat on his ass! Man, I know you beat him but if you just did something fancy,he woulda been right on the ground!" The younger looked at the older slyly as if to say, "I know, but did I even need to?" The sympathy had progressed from giving me a chance to preventing me from being humiliated.

The game we were playing wasn't exactly pickup. It was more similar to something I've heard called Shooting for Change. When you make a basket, you get to shoot again until you miss. Missed shots are possessed by the person who rebounds them but until you cross the three-point line, anyone can try to swat, steal, swipe or smash the ball out of your possession. I was robbed several times in this manner. Another more subtle aspect of the game is defense. If you want to challenge someone to defend you while you have the ball, you can pass it to them. Passing them the ball (or checking, as I've heard it called) seemed to be a courtesy so when I got my first rebound, I cautiously dribbled to the three-point line, saw nobody was going to steal the ball from me and casually checked the ball to the nearest person. Everyone's eyes went wide and their mouths formed O's as I realized what I had done. The cocky white boy who hasn't made a single shot yet just challenged Naval Air Station JRB's equivalent of Dwight Howard to a one-on-one drive to the hoop. The ensuing confrontation was anticlimactic. There was no Gatorade-ad-worthy drives, no furious elbows and intense grimaces. Instead there was just me striding straight for the hoop with no stutter-steps or flourishes and floating the ball straight through the net. Yes, I had made my first basket. Yes, I had done it in traffic. Yes, I had taken on a defender twice my size with forty times my skill and prevailed. I had no delusions, though. Again, the tough-talking, hard-walking court-lords had let the pipsqueak in. They'd let me have my fun.

My Birthday

June 29th, 2010 was a particularly good birthday for these reasons:
1) I woke up. Any day that starts this way is a good one.

2) My coworkers had decorated my door with all kinds of arts-and-crafts style decorations wishing me a happy birthday. There was construction paper, yarn and Elmer's glue a-plenty.

3) The moment I walked in the door of the Youth Center, I was mobbed by kids. They all screamed "Happy birthday!" in unison then proceeded to hand me card after card. All were handmade and all were misspelled. Some of my favorites:

- "Happy Brthix Birthday Day" (and on the inside) "You are the Best in the Wolad. You Rock and Roads. Thank you for being my best Buty"
- "World Grates Colstle"
- "5 Rules about Mr. Rocky Road" (that's me, by the way) "1. Love Mr. Rocky Road 2. Respect Mr. Rocky Road 3. Like Mr. Rocky Road 4. Thank Mr. Rocky Road 5. Have fun with Mr. Rocky Road"

4) We went on a field trip to see the New Orleans Zephyrs play the Iowa Cubs. For a minor league team, they have one nice stadium. Any time you get to go to a ball game for free on your birthday is a good day.

5) Because the base pays for our field trips, the ticket was free. So was the lunch at the game. Included: hot dog, chips and chocolate milk. Everyone got one. I sat there munching and thinking to myself "when's the last time you got a free lunch AND a free baseball game?"

6) The Zephyr's hit a grand slam. Cue the noise. Our campers were definitely screaming the loudest.

7) Ms. Mindy (woman whose house we went to, hereby known as adopted mother) secretly orchestrated a happy birthday wish to be on the Jumbotron. I was blown away. I didn't actually see it because I had to take one of my campers to go #2, but the fact that someone I have known for barely a month would do that for me just shows me how incredible she is. I don't think I have met anyone as generous and thoughtful as her (besides my REAL mother, of course. Hi mom!).

8) We met the mascot. He looks like a beaver but is in fact a nutria. For those that don't know, a nutria is like a giant rat that lives in the water. Or if you're Jake Westrup, its a giant demon-monster bent on killing you.

9) Back at the center, my adopted mother presented me with... wait for it... a soccer ball cake. It was homemade with chocolate cake inside and buttercream frosting on the outside. It was a perfect half-orb and was even sitting on a bed of green frosting. When I was marvelling at the perfection of the ball's "stitching", Ms. Mindy had this to say: "Oh doing it wasn't so bad. I just printed out some pentagons and hexagons like a real soccer ball has then transferred those shapes to cardstock, cut them out and traced around them with the dark frosting". If you're keeping track, thats at least a four-step process just to apply the frosting. Keep in mind, this doesn't even include all the other steps I'm sure she went through; buying special ingredients (who has green frosting laying around?), forming a perfect half soccer ball shape, actually BAKING the cake. I'm no cake boss but when you work a full time job and have a family of four, I can't imagine making a cake of this magnitude is a simple off-the-cusp task.

10) The rest of the day was free time so the kids all decided to adorn me with pipe-cleaner jewelry. At one count, I had 64 pipe cleaners on my person. That includes all ten fingers, both wrists, my neck, a pair of ppipe-cleaner glasses and multiple headdresses. I'll post a picture when I have one. Each time I was brought a new piece of jewelry, it was accompanied by a sing-song "Happy birthday, Mr. Rocky Road!" Enough to make a cold-heart like mine melt.

11) Habachi. My first experience at a Benihana's style restaurant came last night when we went to Fujihana. What looked like a typical stripmall style eatery turned out to be an upscale habachi restaurant. We arrived at nine so the place was pretty slow but it was still a riot. We never caught our chef's name but he had some good one-liners.

- (flipping a butter paddy onto the stove) "Look! Japanese butterfly!"
- (rolling an egg at one of our dinner party) "Look! American eggroll!"
- (spinning an egg, catching it on a spatula and flinging it into the air) "Look! Japanese Eg--"
- (realizing the egg didn't land in his hat as planned but instead broke on the front and was dribbling down) "Awww..."
- (after doing an impressive spatula flinging routine) "Wanna see that again? Come back tomorrow night"

An offhand comment that it was my birthday must have been noticed because four employees emerged from the back banging drums in an almost Reggae fashion whilst singing happy birthday. Free dessert ensued as did photos and a sly pocketing of the birthday candle as a memento of my special day.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

As I told my campers at the end of the day, my birthday was a particularly special one. The love I felt came from the genuineness of my gifts: a homemade cake, a handmade card. Even though I didn't see my name on the Jumbotron, the fact that someone would consider even researching the possibility of doing that for me, let alone following through with it amazes me. Thirty days ago, I hadn't even seen my coworkers in person. Yesterday, they set decorated my door and bought me dinner.

Do Ya Lov' Meh?

Liz getting punked.

Alison Krauss

Some great street performers doing Down To the River. Makes me think of O Brother, Where Art Thou?

A good timewaster

http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix

check it out

Birthday present

Part of my gift from one of the ladies I work with was a collection of newspaper headlines from when the Saints won the Super Bowl. Next to the display is the flag she gave me. Also threw in a nice steel water bottle. Nice.

What a World

EVACUATION

There have been a few pressure changes in the Gulf. If one of these develops into a tropical storm, it could turn into a hurricane. As a nice man in the Coast Guard told me, "once they start turning they don't stop until the run into something". This is a nice thought. If we have a hurricane (and based on what I have heard about the abnormally early hurricane season, I think that we might) we have to evacuate. For people in the military, the evac site is Ft. Worth, TX. They go there and continue doing military things. Camp Adventure, however, would go wherever we feel like going and literally wait for the storm to blow over and then come back to New Orleans. To me, this scenario sounds like a surprise vacation only there is potential that nothing would be left standing when we would return.

WEEKEND PLANS

With my birthday coming up on Tuesday, my co-workers and I decided we'd celebrate by going downtown for the night. We got a $50 hotel room a few blocks from Bourbon Street and used it as our base of operations. We got there Saturday morning and left Sunday morning. The one bed/couch combo served as more of a staging area than anything else.


US-GHANA

I dropped my things off at the hotel and power-walked to Bourbon Street to find a bar to watch the game. Fortunately, every bar was showing it. Unfortunately, it was 1:30 in the afternoon so there weren't many people to watch the games with. I found a seat at the Tropical Isle and ordered a shrimp Po Boy. It was $9.50. I felt disgusting not only after eating the sandwich but also during the act of eating knowing that I had just been had by the devious coalition of bar owners of the French Quarter. The game was intense. We looked good for the most part, I thought and we never gave up but it wasn't enough. After a comeback goal and 120 minutes of soccer, we lost and our World cup run was over. I walked back dejected and took a 2 hour nap.


TROLLEY

In a daze, I woke up to a phone call from the co-workers. They were on the way back from the mall and wanted to take a trolley ride. I met them downstairs and we climbed aboard the next available streetcar. It was the perfect (and cheapest) tour of the city I could've hoped to find. It consisted of a grouchy streetcar operator shouting at me to get on and pay, sitting in a rickety bench seat, being deafened by the groaning, clanging and rattling of the streetcar, periodically getting slapped by stray branches reaching through the windows and marveling at the size of the houses in the Garden District. For what seemed like ten miles or so, I looked out at house after house each looking distinctly southern but also entirely unique from all the others. The architecture of each was completely original and I could tell this was intentional to prevent any conformity in the "keeping up with the Joneses" neighborhood.


SARAH MARY

Sarah Mary is one of my best friends. She used to go to USD but transfered to LSU after freshman year. She lives in Lafayette, LA which is about 2 hours from where I am. This weekend we met up and had a great time catching up, sharing meals and having a generally good time. She was one of the five people to share the hotel room we got and was great company as we roamed Bourbon Street. Neither of us had any intention of getting into anything illicit in any of the dozens of bars so we just walked. It was a relaxing night and Wayne and Kenyetta (co-workers) joined us. Some of the best entertainment (after the live music which we - being 20 years old - weren't allowed into the bars to hear) was people watching. I took a picture of one of the more excellent examples: homeboy dressed to kill but passed out in a pile of garbage bags.

This morning, the two of us went to the Checkered Parrot to watch the England-Germany game. We got there at halftime and snagged some of the breakfast buffet. The guy we sat next to was from London. I was wearing a Germany jersey. He spoke to Sarah Mary but not to me. Germany spanked England 4-1 and we wrapped up our meal. I really enjoyed it all. Even after spending the entire evening together the night before, Sarah Mary and I still had catching up to do. We met the rest of the group and walked to the French Market so Liz's friend Paige could see it. Cafe du Monde and it's world famous beniegts (sp?) were calling our names so we stopped in. Sadly, the place was busy like you wouldn't believe so we said forget it and wandered instead. Sarah Mary and I went with her cousin back to the Garden District where Sarah Mary's car was parked and then went back to the hotel and the French Market to retrieve luggage and travel buddies, respectively.

After dropping everyone off at base, Sarah Mary and I went to mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help where I have been going every week. It was a special mass meaning it was packed meaning we had to stand in the back. For two hours. There must have been 20 priests there plus the archbishop of the diocese. They was even a Skype link to Ireland so people there could see Father Billy's 25th anniversary mass. It was quite the production to say the least but I was glad Sarah Mary could join me for church. Back at USD, that was one of the only times during the week that we could both be certain that we'd see each other. In the midst of a crazy college schedule, something like that was pretty rare.


PLANS

Next weekend is July 4th. Mom is coming into town and the coworkers and I have made plans to go on a trip. Friday and Saturday will be spent with mom seeing New Orleans and Sunday and Monday will be spent out of the state. The original plan was to go to Destin, FL but apparently, those beaches are closed now due to the oil spill. Maybe we'll go to Houston. Who knows. I miss Longview and San Diego. I picture someday having an event like Father Billy's anniversary mass that would bring my friends from each city together. Sarah Mary and I spoke about something like this. This time in life is formative but there is no stability unless you make that your top priority. I think about all the things I want to do in the next few years and I realize that each piece of the puzzle adds up to life in a half-dozen different cities. I want to spend time with the people important to me but I also want to do these things around the world. I can't have both.

Giant cockroach in my room

Huge spider in my room

Gulf coast sunsets...

... are quite nice. And this is a picture of one.

True story

Yesterday, we were making cards out of construction paper and various other art supplies. One of the five year old girls showed off her card. It was heart shaped and had "Let's Have Sex" written in the middle. Another one of her cards had a similar inscription only it included a "to" and "from" subheading as well as a picture of a boy and a girl lying in a bed. When asked what she thought sex was, her response: "when a boy and a girl lie in bed and french".

I'm not even going to go into an analysis except to say that the tot comes from the most normal, stable situation so you can't chalk this one up to a messed up situation at home.

Still sayin' the darndest things

During closing, we sing calming songs to conclude the day's activities. Today, I sat in the circle right next to Suzie Q. While we were singing/signing R. Kelley's "The World's Greatest", Suzie leans over to me and whispers, "stop singing". I ask why. Her response: "Because you sound weird".

This is the same girl who told me I could make a teddy bear with all my leg hair.

Not bad for a microwave

Closest I can get to a homecooked meal in my room. Peas, hummus, pita, buffalo chicken. Wash it down with Arizone green tea.

Chucky Thunderthrift and Cat Cat the IHOP Drunk Baller

TANTRUMS

Last week was a good one for tantrums. A certain camper (let's call him Chucky) really enjoys a daily man-cry. The waterworks are the last thing any of the counselors want to deal with but we do it anyway. Each person has a different approach. I reason. This tactic doesn't seem to work too well so I'm looking to change it this coming week. That'll keep Chucky on his toes. My favorite tantrum from last week stemmed from another camper calling Chucky a crybaby. A counselor took him off to the side to calm him down and during a lull in the large group's game, the following could be heard:

Counselor: Why are you crying, Chucky?
Chucky: BECAUSE HE CALLED ME A CRYBABYYYYYYYYYY
Counselor: ...


FIELD TRIP

Another highlight of the week was the Children's Museum. We took the entire crew of 5 through 8 year olds downtown for some field trip fun and I must say, even as I come up on 20 years, the Children's Museum was still a total riot. My favorite was the hula hoop that sat in a hollowed out tire filled with soapy water. A system of pulleys allowed you to pull the hoop upwards while standing in the middle to create a bubble that would surround you. Simple and mesmerizing. The kids got to put their mitts on just about everything in the museum and even one of the more problematic kids seemed to behave better at the museum.

We took a break and checked out a play/book-promo. Junie B Jones and the Stupid, Smelly Bus was in town. All the kids got "signatures" (stamps) in the sticker books and were so stoked. We kept going through the museum and pretty soon it was lunch. A thunderstorm had conveniently ruined our plans to go to the park to eat so we went back to base instead. On the ride back, we had an intense discussion about the nature of thunder: is it God bowling or is it God dropping something?


WEATHER AND OTHER BENIGN TOPICS

Thunderstorms here are like nothing I've ever experienced. They start in the afternoon and last for about an hour. They can successfully ruin plans in the span of about 30 minutes as that's about the time it takes for them to form and arrive directly over the spot you are standing. This resulted in two swimming pool rainouts last week. When this happens, you get a bunch of kids pent up inside for 2 and half hours. Not fun.

One storm resulted in lighting striking across the street from our building. At the time, I was leading a game of Velcro ball toss and over the shoulders of the campers I saw the lightning and then with no pause heard the thunder. Most times it goes flash...crash. This was flashcrash or even FcLrAaSsHh. Believe me, its better in person. This particular strike caused someone who works in the center to tell me the story of the time they avoided getting struck by three feet.


THURSDAY

As far as I am concerned, my weekend started on Thursday. A little known fact about New Orleans is that the best entertainment is not on Bourbon Street or the French Quarter or a Saints game or looting after a hurricane. No, the real fun is in the thrift stores found in the suburbs. This was my Thursday afternoon and after much deliberation, I settled on a simple jacket vest that more resembles a lifejacket than sensible attire. It was $1. Half off. I can smell always smell a deal.

We followed this up with some authentic Cajun cuisine. The Travel Channel seems to have missed Chevy's as the home of real Louisiana cooking. Our host - the one who loaned us the car that first weekend - appointed me driver so she could have a margarita with my coworkers and we all chowed down on some filling Mex food.


FRIDAY

We had dinner at said hostess' home. It was great. It was also the first home cooked meal I have had since I got here which was nice. Home cooked is an understatement. I think there were six different things to choose from so it was more like Thanksgiving. How she made all that food in the 90 minutes since we got off work is a mystery. I also chugged three glasses of her homemade sweet tea. Gotta love the south. Her husband who is in the Coast Guard joined us and I was surprised to hear that they had visited Astoria, Oregon. I posted a picture on this here blog a few days ago of Cat Cat who, surprisingly, is a cat. Cat Cat is a fat cat and a rad cat at that. The photo really speaks for itself.


SATURDAY

The rest of the crew went to Mississippi to check out the beaches. I stayed behind to watch the World Cup. Cameroon's game was the most interesting by far. Both sides played terrible defense which made for some wild attempts on goal. Definitely kept my attention. Japan-Holland was a little too early for me but I still caught the goals.

After soccer, I went to the gym and then to mass. The miserable walk I mentioned last week wasn't nearly as bad this time seeing as the sky was covered in thunderheads. Like anyone in their right mind, I walked right towards the lightning storm I could see in the not-so-distant distance. I thought a lot about what it would be like to get struck by lightning. Would it be like in Watchman where that guy's armhairs prickle? Could you discharge the coming strike by touching something conductive? What if you touched the person next to you? Would they get the shock? Would it turn into a high-stakes game of hot potato? Fortunately I got to the church before any of this could play out. At mass I sat next to a 7 year old in a Saints jersey. He insisted that I take a hymnal so I could sing along. Then when it was time for Father O'Riordon to bless all the fathers for Father's Day, this kid, who I could tell was staring at me from the corner of my eye, furrowed his brow with a questioning expression and pointed at me as if to say, "You're a dad right? Stand up!" After mass, I went to shake Father's hand and thank him. Like a ballplayer might do, he turned our handshake into a arm-wrestling style clasp and pulled me in for what felt like a congratulatory embrace. Then he said, "Hang in there man". It was nice to get a response other than a head nod from someone I don't really know.

At night when everyone got back from Mississippi, we went to IHOP at 2 am after picking up two of our crew from a screening of The Karate Kid. In a questionable move, I drank three cups of coffee. That was enough to keep me awake for our ensuing citizen's report of a drunk driver. While waiting for a drawbridge, a black coupe in front of us tried to drive through the tunnel that was closed for the night. Realizing the mistake, the driver threw it in reverse, ran over a barrel sized traffic cone, and almost hit an SUV in front of us. They then proceeded to drive in the wrong lane up to the bridge. We called the cops and next thing we knew we were in the parking lot of a bar a mile or two down the road. The cops (four of them) had pulled the driver over. And she was stumbling about looking like she was lost. As our driver explained what we had seen, drunkie wandered to the front of the car and looked like she was getting ready to undo the button of her pants. We all thought the same thing: "oh my God she's gonna take a piss right here in front of everyone". Fortunately, this didn't happen and the last thing any of us say was Ms. getting frog-marched into the back of a squad car.

There's a lot to this story. On one hand, my first feeling about the incident is not one of doing a good deed. It is more the thrill of being involved in official police business even if it is a routine DUI stop. I know what we did was a good thing but at the same time a DUI is a serious thing and even if this was drunky's first DUI, it could really hurt her in the future so I feel bad for her. Lost jobs, trouble getting approvals, punishments, the list goes on.

Stayed up till 5 and watched Car Wash on HBO. Total waste of time but I was helpless to the caffeine.


SUNDAY

Woke up early. Watched more soccer. Happy to say I caught the best game of the tourney so far when New Zealand tied world champs Italy. Take that, you divers. This match is why I have been staying in to watch sports. You can't predict which game will be the upset or the blowout or the turning point and today was one of those games. I even got a chance to talk to Christian over the phone during the first half which is something I miss. Because of the time of the matches, I scrapped my original plan to go skeet shooting at the range on base. Maybe next weekend. Went to the gym instead and its time to brag: I have been working on my shot at the basketball court at the fitness center and today was my day. I felt like I was hitting everything. I think it marked a turning point where something I have been working towards for the past three weeks is finally coming together. I've found that sense of accomplishment in the gym is a very big part of my day especially after being wound up by the kids. The rest of the day consisted of a quick Wal-Mart run, decorating the center for the upcoming ocean theme and laundry. Gotta have a clean uni for tomorrow.

This is a huge cat

Went for dinner at a friends house last night. This is Cat Cat. He is 19 pounds.

Ideal choice of name

Saw this on our way back from dinner after going to the thrift store. Down here, if something has an "o" sound, it is spelled "eaux" but pronounced the same. I'm geauxing to love it here.

Thrift Store 6

Ugliest sweater I've ever seen. 'Nuff said.

Thrift World 5

I hung onto this shirt for a long time and even called a friend to find out the backstory on Sallassie. As I heard the Wikipedia entry read to me over the phone I was totally confused as to why this guy would be on a shirt but when I heard the word "Rastafarianism" I remembered. Haile Sallassie is considered God incarnate by Rastas. After that, I put the shirt back with reluctance. Had I worn this thing, I would've looked like a Class A poser.

Thrift World 4

The back of the Olu Dara shirt.

Thrift World 3

It was a struggle not to buy this one. For one, I love Nas' music and Olu Dara is Nas' dad. For two, there's the back...

Thrift World 2

Suddenly, President Bush's much-maligned vacation habits seem justified.

Thrift World

Thursday, we visited a thrift store a few miles from base. The place was cavernous but filled with shoppers on account of the 1/2 sale. There were approximately 3 miles of tshirt racks and too many good ones to take home so I took pictures of my favorites instead.

Films, Tom Sawyer, Bataan, beachless and sawker

FILM

On Friday, loaded up in the MWR (Morale, wellness, recreation) minivan and drove to the movie theatre. The plan was for two of us to catch a late show of The Killers and the other three would go see Get Him to The Greek. Following, we would theatre sneak to an even later showing of Prince of Persia. This didn't happen seeing as that show began around 1 am. GHTTG was hilarious and awkward like every good comedy should be. Back at base, we called it an early night.

Last week, I got Crazy Heart via Netflix. Great film. It was the perfect thing to unwind with after a long day's work. Makes me wanna be a performer/ride around the country in a pickup.

TOM SAWYER

... would be proud of us for our Saturday night shenanigans. The plan was to take the ferry across the Mississippi to get to downtown New Orleans. Easier said than done seeing as we took the wrong ferry and ended up about 15 miles downstream from our destination. Took the ferry back across and ended up just driving downtown to deal with traffic, parking, and the like. Something tells me Mark Twain would be amazed by the fact that 100 years after his death, a group of clueless college kids could cross the Mighty Mississippi twice in under an hour via ferryboat.

Dinner was good. Parked in Harrah's Casino structure (10 stories tall and completely full) and ate at Gordon Biersch. Finally had jumbalaya. Something tells me its not authentic until you eat it at a place that's not a chain.

BATAAN

I brought this one on myself. Unimpressed with last week's mass, I intended to go to Our Lady of Perpetual Help which is just a couple miles up the road from the base. Unfortunately, it was a horrible walk. Even with short sleeves, shorts, sunglasses, water and plenty of time, the short walk felt like a trek deserving to be covered by National Geographic. The only thing preventing this from actually happening besides the lack of any NatGeo staff on hand to document it was the incredibly boring scenery. This consisted of lots of overgrowth, cracked concrete and loud chirping crickets. I didn't pass a single person on the way there. Something about this brief 40 minute walk was incredibly depressing. I think it was a combination of the heat and the loneliness of the place.

Mass was nice. I plan on going back. Fr. Billy O'Riordon could probably have matched his successes as a priest as a TV pitchman. After mass, I saw one of the kids in the Camp program. He seemed out of it. Probably because of that post-mass lobotomy feeling I remember having when I was a kid. I spent a lot of time debating whether to ask someone for a ride home or to just tough it out. I ended up not toughing it out.

BEACHLESS

Later that day, the plan was to go to the beach. We loaded up a cooler, packed towels and a squirt gun and set put. In typical fashion, I feel asleep in the backseat. When I awoke two hours later, we were in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart by our base. Apparently, all the roads to the beach were closed so we spent about an hour, many gallons of gas and all our patience driving around the shores of Lake Pontchartrain only to be utterly let down due to the lake access roads being closed. Tensions were high and I went off to replenish my groceries by myself.

On this topic, New Orleans has the worst roads I have ever seen. From what I've seen, its normally been hard to determine what was hit by the hurricane and what wasn't. The beach day wasn't the case. For the few moments I awoke to look out the window, I thought to myself that this is probably as close to the Third World as you'll see in the US. I saw a fair share of bent rebar and those roads, man... those roads are terrible.

SOCCER

After going to bed at 2 am on Friday, I woke up at 6 to watch World Cup soccer. The South Korea game was great. Levels of tiredness were not. I made a schedule of all the games I can potentially watch during the times I am not working. Also signed up for auto score updates via text on my phone. I am beginning to realize how addicted to sports I have become. Then again, World Cup is (as one of my co-workers said) "kinda my thing". I would've loved to be watching the US-England games with friends but at least I got to see it. I think I stood for the entire second half, biting my nails, praying the US didn't give up any goals. They didn't and I'm very happy. On multiple occasions, I found myself jumping up and down, fist pumping and clapping. All by myself in my room, mind you.

Up early. Walking to mass which apparently is 40 minutes away. I think we're going to the beach today. Shibby.

Ferry

Taking the ferry across the mighty Mississippi for dinner.

New Orleans Skyline

Sitting in the back of a minivan on the way to see Get Him to the Greek and then theatre hop to see Prince of Persia. Also just saw an armadillo. Positive vibes from the crew and I'm pumped for USA vs. England tomorrow. C'mon you Yanks!

Could CPK market these in a lonlier way?

Trip to the zoo

WEDNESDAY

I took my group of kids (the ones who didn't go golfing) to the zoo. There were only 6 kids from my group and about 15 total, the rest of them coming from the 5 to 6 year old group. There were enough staff on hand so each only needed to keep track of 3 little ones and so we set out. Like a good counselor, I slept on the ride there. Once there, we realized it was blistering hot. Not good. Little ones were getting tired real fast and kept calling out for lunch breaks, bathroom breaks, sno ball breaks about every five minutes. Overall they did pretty well and I managed to take a couple hundred pictures that hopefullly, I will be able to use at the end of the summer in my paperwork for camp.

Things I particularly like:
- Gorilla running around with garbage on his head.
- Orangutan helping baby orang climb onto a log.
- Kids reaction to peacocks walking around the zoo
- Sheer fright of the toughest kid in my group when walking through the reptile house and the animatronic dinosaur exhibit.
- Spraying kids with water from my Camelbak. Ensuing amazement from kids.

Here be pictures: