Saturday Already?

Saturday all ready? May 31, 2008

Alright, it’s been over 18 hours and my chemicals have been the same! Yay!!!

Went down to the pond today and discovered that a 8 inch long piece of wood came off the dock on the right side and while I was on the dock there was a crash and a bang, when I turned around to see that two canoes had fallen off the top rack of the little shelf that was built for me. This was how my canoe area was set up.

The two top canoes got blown off the rack and landed in between the three canoes, which is crazy because the second one had to be lifted over the division bar. I went over and flipped them over so if it was to rain it wouldn’t collect water. (Good idea since it is raining right now) and so they were upside down right now. I walked around the pond on a cute little trail that went all the way around, and I was surprised to see a fork in the road that met up on the other side of Promise.

It was just complicated enough for Brownies or whatnot and a quiet easy trail for older girls. It has three bridges, I was a huge fan.

Kotke

I should post a map of camp:

Small Map…

Not drawn to

scale,

Not drawn to scale but pretty much the same set up. I could’ve come up with such better names for units. Sure. Fine. Whatever.

My pH is going to drop more and that somewhat makes me more happy! I would love for it to go down to 7.2 ish.... but that’s asking too much. Oh I was supposed to tell you about the weather, I have been officially sanctioned to look at the weather every day, so I thought I would get in the habit and comes to find out that the National Weather Service has issued a severe weather warning for like every county in the state (we are in Charles County FYI), uhh good to know right? Well I forwarded it to Goof and then 20 minutes later I got one for a Tornado warning, Holy freaking sweet!! Forwarded it to goof and I went in search of Cheetah, just in case we had to move into the tornado shelter in the dining hall we would be together. We walked back to the office, in retrospect I guess it wasn’t a good idea because of the lightning going all over. . . . whatever, the rain was amazing and it was up and down and the trees were swaying in the wind, talk about crazy because they look like toothpicks. That lasted like an hour or so and there was some hail ( like five pieces) and thunder/lightning all over the place… exciting….

I went to check my chemicals after the storm ended and supposedly fresh water is supposed to drop the pH… yeah right it was still at 7.6 and .75 and so my chlorine is going back down…jerk!!! There is mud everywhere and its I’m not much of a fan of it… makes things slippery.

I now am living in Laurel, because we had to move the younger girls to Holly 1 and 2 and Deer Crossing, so I’m going to be awakened if there’s a problem... Yay! Not really. So basically I live in a room with a curtain because of the office we share with Bob the caretaker. We do have a comfy chair and carpet, a large kitchen and what not. I’m now roomies with Cheetah and pretty secluded, except for sick children knocking on my door, what am I to do? Take them to Cedar is what it is, then care for them.

We’ll find out as it happens. I’ve been working on pre camp junk and I’m pretty content with what I have now. I still need to work on Clean Communication and Gossiping, Super Nanny: Behavioral problems, rainy day activities… each with another person. I did do the ones coming to the pool/waterfront, but I did that like three months ago. I really need to shave my legs, just fyi… I also need to vacuum the damn pool, I’ve been holding off…but the wind blew a ton of small leaves and large leaves into it, also need to scrub the beach with the brush, dirt collects very VERY easily. Oh Pool. Yeah the fountain that should’ve been like 5 feet… yeah its lucky to get a foot out of it, so not really a good idea and I can’t complain because I didn’t pay for it.

Hum. I don’t have much to write today because we didn’t really do much. I want to go find my PFD’s but again no one has keys for anything, nothing at all.

Conqured!

Conquered! May 30, 2008

So I woke up early and took a shower no excitement there and I thought why not go test the chemicals…. Guess what? It was at 7.6 and 2.0 J I should probably add chlorine stabilizer, but I have to read the instructions first. That won’t probably be until later, we are going out exploring, yay! I wish this damn cough would go away, that would make my life grand but no my lungs disagree. The CVS/pharmacy is going to think I’m a drug dealer because of all the stuff I bought, Tylenol and some stupid store brand that makes my chest feel funny… STOP THE DAMN COUGHING, that’s all I ask for.

I have these Ricola natural honey whatever and they taste really funny, but without a choice I’m stuck piling it in and in and in until I whatever and I’m supposed to eat two once an hour… yeah I had like 12 yesterday in the span of four hours…. I’m waiting for the cough suppressant starts to work.

Alright, it is now 7:15 at night and we went in search of places where the girls are going on ‘trips’ the first one we went to a lighthouse and to a pier. At the visitor center, we got to see some stuffed real animals (like an otter and a furry white rat thing) Next to that they had a scatology thing, ‘Know your Poo’ kind of idea. Yeah didn’t look at that too long. Next to that there was a gross fish tank with dead bodies (fish bodies) and crabs and whatnot, the water was so cloudy . I guess the place was a confederate base during the civil war, not a bright idea because the union could’ve easily trapped you in the bay…. Honestly think these through! If I was in the confederacy, not saying that for their reasons because I’m anti slavery, but I would of killed the Union. RESPECT MY AUTHORITY and that had to be one of the best South Parks ever. From there we went to a beach saw the Chesapeake Bay and Gumbo found this skeleton thing that I took. We went over this crazy bridge that just went higher and higher and higher and got longer longer and even more longer…. SOOOO cool and went through this city it was small and like Washington, I wanted to see the science center called Solomon's Island (The bridge made Cheetah and Gumbo sick, it was soooo cool)….

Oh I forgot to tell about the freaking groundhog squirrel beaver thing, it was huge! I wanted to take a picture but we were in the car, from there we went to St. Mary’s City where it was the first city in Maryland, where they have the actors (SOUTH PARK AGAIN!!) and we didn’t get to see anything much because we didn’t want to pay for it… There was archaeology all over and an exhibit where the guy from the Smithsonian wasn’t there I would’ve been glad to go the Smithsonian to talk to him. Anyway I am all over the place and in the end we ended up in La Platta because Calvert Cliffs wasn’t where it was supposed to be (You know with sharks and whales and other junk because Maryland was under water and receded and animals died) and we ended up at this lake with a huge bridge and a random lake with high leaves, like in that Hooked Wii game.

We did a lot of driving…. I mean REALLY, Really a lot. All over the bay and OH we ate Wendy’s and the guy who served us is over zealous for serving us and boy was he annoying. “I’m not going to help you, I want to help her….Uh no…” to the point where it was almost mean… he had one fogged glass…IT WAS PISSING ME OFF!!! And he was very dismissive and trying to be funny about it, not working much. I'm getting pretty fed up with Wendy's in Maryland...I mean in WVC its always so fast and whatnot..... whatever.

Uh we ended up coming back to camp and when I check the chemicals again it was at an amazing 7.6 and 1.0... YAY and the angels rejoiced as the heaven opened up and prayed... that is the first time I've been consistent on chemicals... since I've been here :)... I'm happy now. We'll see how it is tomorrow.....

I'm sunburned... not so happy. I didn't realize that until like uhh now. All the walking around the light houses and docks and near water and bridges.... I really want to go to Calvert Cliffs sometime soon, the archeology around there must be crazy.

We had our first 'staff' meeting about Precamp, it was fun.... and I totally turned around my 'what is a girl scout' thing from Jepordy to a "Who wants to be a millionaire' theme, I really wanted to do Match game 76 or a Newly Wed Game. How hardcore is that? But it wouldn't work with my topic. . .. . . .Well after that it was two hours after and they went to Wawa and I got to finish this...my doctor exploded and so I had to swifter the floor or whatever......

I'm going to go to bed... 12:40 am, we've had a long day...

Music: In the Ghetto, Lisa Marie and Elvis

Two Day Absence (May 29)

Two day absence May 29, 2008

Ok…. I apologize, things had been super crazy!

Day before yesterday we had the opportunity to take the metro from Branch Station all the way to Falls Church, VA (with a train transfer in the middle somewhere). If you don’t remember JAG had taken place there. You know David James Elliot, Catherine Bell, John M. Jackson? Well not only that we saw signs for Alexandria, which is where Harm lived and I saw a sign at the Metro for Rosslyn, where Bud and Harriet lived, and I didn’t get to see Georgetown, but I still have a boat load of time. We had to go get the van and then the truck, which was an hour away from the freaking van. Well we get the bright idea to go find Potomac Mills mall to go to Old Navy and get flip flops (forty five of them) The lady was like is there any left? Very rudely might I say, she said some other mean things but I couldn’t remember it. Oh on the way home we crossed the bridge and in the distance you could see the Capitol Building, it was amazing!!

Went to a Ledo’s Pizza…. Yeah an experience on its own, got this tortellini thing that had mushrooms and ham, it was…meh. From there we did go to Old Navy, IKEA (I have never had a bad experience there, but I was tired and grouchy, well that’s because we drove for TWO hours looking for this mall and Gumbo had never driven a 15 passenger van before so she was uber tense and so I had to pretend I knew what was going on and keep her calm… she didn’t do too horrible, I mean she didn’t kill us and for the most part kept calm…. Anyways IKEA, I didn’t know they had a managers special area and if I was at home, I would of bought the IKEA chair for 39.00, I know amazing… but no… L From IKEA we went to Walmart, at which I sat in the car and called Cingular, honestly the most worthless people in the universe, anyway I got the internet on my phone again and we went to Dollar Tree, then to IHOP in Clinton at 10:45 at night…. From there to camp where we worked on getting the camp ready for council, where we cleaned the office and set up Laurel Lodge for Cheetah, which included setting up the tables and chairs and shelves… I will be happy to never set up a shelf again in my life. Oh forgot to end with the ), whatever. I started screwing in the hooks for the first buddy board, my under the sea one, it had like 200 hooks…. Yeah, not a happy camper, let’s say that I have Calluses on my hand, uncomfortable much. It the end it looks beautiful and I don’t have to paint the last two.

Anyway back on the list….We didn’t go to bed until somewhere near 2:45 ish and had to wake up at 8 and get cleaned up for council. I checked the chemicals on the pool and they were at 7.0 and 2.0… I has happy that my chlorine went up…but my damn pH, so I was the genius and added pH enhancer to the pool-oh yes such a smart idea without a scale so it shot up to 7.8 and my chlorine fell off the wall and was like 1.0..but I think it was because there wasn’t a whole lot of chlorine in the chlorine fill. Hooked Kirby up to it and yeah, the lazy bum wandered around the ramp for 4 hours and picked up the pieces he wanted and moseyed around the pool, trying to flip himself over. . . me and him are going to have a nice little chat and hope he cleans up his act. So the pool remained a steady 7.8 until this morning where it was 8.0… So I asked Jen to get me a scale so I can measure more correctly, but that’s a later story.

We were banished from camp so Denise could talk to Jen (Denise is Jens boss) and we went in search of a car wash, but Gumbo was too picky and that didn’t get finished and so we ate at the SLOWEST Wendy’s in the history of the universe and we went to the Mall and I bought some clothes from Old Navy. I thought I was buying shorts, but it turns out to be a skirt so I will wear it home on the plane for Cam’s graduation or something, I also bought a tank top, Brown shirt that was really cute and a black one also.. J happiness in clothing. Went to Wawa which is a gas station that we’ve been to like 50 times since I’ve been here, not that I’m complaining I think it’s a great store. We were there like 3 times yesterday.

Went to Baltimore to get Cheetah, it not joke took an hour and a half to get her luggage and stuff in order leave, we ended up eating at Chili’s in time suck. (Waldorf, If I didn’t say it earlier) hum… I got a chicken sandwich, it was alright. We finally got back to camp and got to sleep… yay!!

Woke up early today to go to the Red Cross Chapter of Southern Maryland, ok you think GLSAC is bad, they are based out of a trailer. A FREAKING TRAILER, surrounded by RC Ambulances. Well I walked in and the guy is like Hi! We gave our greeting and he called for Deborah Story who was an older woman, no one who worked there was under 60 (Even the old man vacuuming to where you couldn’t hear ANYTHING) she asked me what I wanted and I said I needed to get my authorization extended, the man talked down to me and said ‘that’s some big words.’ What am I seven? The lady took my cards and saw GSLAC and was like where is that chapter? I said that I was from the Greater Salt Lake Area Chapter, and they all got excited. It’s like they never seen a person from Utah before….did I forget to hide my horns? She asked me what I wanted, I told her to teach LGT and she was like no, that pool is to small… uhh the book said it only has to be 7 feet deep, I got that mine is 7.10’’. I didn’t get to say that of course as we got in the car she chased after us and was like where’s your CPR card? I was like LGT includes CPR, its implied. “Well I wanted to make sure you did self examination” I was like, I did something and randomly the RC sent me a card, but I left that one, would you like me to call them? “No, I will” Alright Bi-otch, So I had to wait 2 hours till Clint or Nate got to work… Honestly two hour differences are super lame, because by the time they get to work, I will have a whole boat load done. …Well I got a hold of Clint and asked him about that, at which he brought up the brick needed to be 20 yards, maybe. My pool is between 18-20 yards so If I swam diagonal it would be a tad longer. I mean I didn’t swim 20 yards for it, no big deal for LGI. Had a nice little chat with Clint about my pH being a bitch and my chlorine being stupid, he laughed of course he would I don’t know why I’m surprised. *Random thought of the moment: Why didn’t Paris Hilton continue her music career? I’m a huge fan of her** I think he misses me. See you on the fifth kind of things….. Oh and 2 dollars to put you in a database? WTH? I don’t get it, because Ms. Deborah said that they are part of this program so if one of my guards come over and say I need a card, they can easily look it up, honestly and like 12 dollars for the ‘course packet’ which includes disks… I JUSTS WANT SOME FREAKING CPR MANNEQUINS!

I asked Jen for a scale, to correctly add my chemicals, a shelf to put my chemicals on them (They are probably going to make me get a yellow box) with a lock, but children should be in there anyways… in a storm I would put them in the shower house… uh bad idea, I’d put them in uhh… they wouldn’t be in the pool if a storm is pending. *Shrug* anyways I finally got a hose reel now I need to mount it somewhere, honestly people. Whatever, got some water toys but nowhere to store them, it would be nice to have like a large tub, maybe I’ll get one, because those freaking noodles are going to get tossed in the trash, gah I hate them.

I helped Cheetah set up Laurel Lodge, well do inventory and surprisingly I did like four tables by the time she finished her second. Skills I suppose, I got back and put together my shelf and took the chemicals yeah… 8.0… so take that bi-otch I added 3.75 pounds of Muriatic Acid and ha four hours later it was at 7.6. Hopefully it will go down to 7.4 ish, god would be on my side for once. I put the chemicals on the shelf and plus put all my testing stuff or whatnot. I wasn’t able to fit the TA enhancer or the Ch enhancer and I wasn’t moving the chlorine…it’s safe in the corner. They didn’t give me much room and I wasn’t too impressed by that, not in the slightest but I’m not complaining. Anyway I checked it again and it successfully remained at a perfect 7.6 and .5 it will go up tonight because I didn’t have any sticks in the shindig. Turned the fountain, it’s kind of lame to say the slightest.

So tomorrow I’m going to attempt to tip the two canoes who some genius stored face up and get the water out of them… ooh yay. Maybe someone already did it, because some dude was making me hooks for them (or some kind of stand, I’ve yet to see it) Super excited much!

I haven’t really been down to the waterfront yet, I went twice. Once to count boats (9 canoes ((two girls each)) 9 Kayaks (One girl)) and two busted rowboats) and I went down there and ended up hiking in my flip flops on the ‘yellow trail’ which turned in the ‘orange trail’ whatever, there was this really cute creek running through it and we walked in it… and climbed over trees and walked over bridges and got lost, because there was a fork for one trail and another… I don’t know, I just followed and instead of ending back at the pond, we ended behind Oak Ridge, it was cute and whatnot. Placebo is a weird a band… just FYI.

That was pretty much the last two days and today in a nutshell…..

Oh we had dinner at Mexico Restaurant sweet deal right there.

J

Music: Soul mates, Placebo

Memorial Day

Memorial Day, May 26, 2008

Is it possible to OD on cough drops? I swear I am about to….. My head hurts, as does my back, sinuses and ears and I feel like I’m about to die…. No kidding, we slept in til 11:30 and I’m still tired. We spent 4 hours putting together the fridge shelves, explanation of why my back hurts and why I’m freezing. I still need to work on those damn buddy boards, but no I am working on my precamp stuff and watching Celine Dion music videos. Comes to find out we have had a communication error on the buddy boards… I asked portrait or landscape and she said landscape, well I was wrong and did it landscape. It should’ve been portrait. I asked somewhere between three and four times and she kept saying great, good whatnot-thus the annoyance.

I drew the aerial view for the pool on the one and obviously she isn’t happy with it (we’ll see if Amy can add some artistic flair to it), I told you I wasn’t very artistic… I can mix colors really well but other than that, I’m a HUGE fan of my under the sea theme it has Chico, Nemo, Purple Fish and Tex, the dolphin and grass and what not… I think I’m going to add another fish to the family. I’m going to write the units on it today. (Holly ½, Deer Crossing Aspen and Oakridge) Now currently I have five more fishes-Adam, Becky, Charlie, Debbie and Eddie. J now only left to do is label it and hooks…..

I made spaghetti, surprisingly good and edible. I was worried.

I don’t have much to write today, only because all we did was get those damn shelves done…good riddance. Though I am sad that I didn’t get to go to grandpa’s grave this year….I grew fond of going up there and cleaning every grave with in the span of fifty feet, it makes me feel useful. I might run up there eventually in order to do it. I need to go check the chemicals on the pool and see if they are stable enough for swimmers….

Sunday, Sunday

Sunday, Sunday May 25th

Alrighty, it’s the first Sunday at camp and I just painted the first Buddy Board for the 3^rd time and the other two for the 2^nd time and finally they are coming along, soon I will be at least able to decorate the first on and add a third layer on to TWO and Three. I have been thinking of names for my water crafts and its coming along, good thing with the ponies a lot of them had their names with them. I have 9 canoes and 9 kayaks I need to name…. names include: zipper, thor, and that seems to be it right now. My pool is having some mental problems where the pH would be like 8.0 (that’s what it was last night when I checked it) and there would be no chlorine in the pool. I’ve been running it on full blast until I get it up to two. In theory I’m supposed to add some kind of acid in order to get the ph down, but as you can guess I don’t have any. I added some chlorine sticks into the feeder so maybe that will even out.

It seems like we accomplish stuff and then there is more and more to do. Like getting the office ready, honestly took us like three days and I can proudly say that it’s coming a long fantastically. Door knobs, honestly why do we need to put them on the outside? Maryland is weird like that. Uhhh we haven’t done trail markers yet and we still have to build the shelving unit for the walk in fridge and freezer, which I hear is going to be a major bitch. Buddy boards as I have mentioned are coming along swimmingly.

So I’ve been gone for maybe three hours and I’ve almost finished the one completely and started the second one, I am currently waiting for the paint to dry. So I didn’t know what to do, I’m not the creative child, we all know that. So I ended up doing a model of the pool, it doesn’t look so bad, just uhhh cartoonish. I need better brushes to place the unit names on them. The second one is ‘under the sea’ and thus painting the board blue is what happened. J its going to have sea weed and fish and a seahorse named Chico maybe a treasure chest and bubbles… I can handle that if I had decent brushes, I hate those foam ones because they tear and they work like Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, they work until they break and then you’re screwed because mom wants the bathroom cleaned and there is no more erasers=Hell.

I’m glad that I got all my stuff done pre coming to camp, its one less thing to do before staff comes. Well Tuesday, because council is coming and inspections on Wednesday, at which I watch them take care of the pool and see if it passes, I do need to check on where my other backboard is and all my tubes… because currently I only have one or two respectively.

Oh and comes to find out what the real use for a butter knife is……for butter. Not tomatos and not for onions. Yeah… good experience, good experience.

Lets see….. Ma de tacos for dinner, it was yummy for how cheap it was. Ran around camp for two hours putting stuff where they need to be, i.e. Dining Hall (cafrits) to Laurel (A&C) or Office to Laurel or Office to Promise… yada yada yada, you get it. I’m supposed to be working on my precamp junk but meh… I feel the need to blog or what not.

I’ve been listening to music all day and that makes me super happy!!! Comes to find out that I have some good tunes on it that I hadn’t heard before.

Ok, my spewing for the moment…. WHO CARES ABOUT ASHLEE SIMPSON AND PETE WENTZ? I bought the People magazine