So much has happened since last we spoke. I went to summer camp, Burrito got sick and almost put me in the poor house, battled a hairy water demon (twice,) Disney wants my body, and I dated my cousin!
Summer camp was FANTASTIC! It used to be I'd have to lead worship, and be a counselor with a cabin of ten or so boys. This time, however, they let me just lead worship. I played guitar the whole time, and had fewer responsibilities. It was nice! Before I'd drive up early, hustle to unpack and set up the gear (music and stage equipment) Run a quick sound check, THEN finally meet my cabin boys, explain to them that they had to be PERFECT and go on ahead to places without a leader to guide them. (I'd have to run to chapel all the time, setting up, rehearsing and sound checking.) Then I'd run back to chapel for worship, eat dinner, give a Bible devotional, have lights out by 10:15, then stay with them until the counselor meeting at 7:30. Then I'd repeat that for five days, break down the stage, load up, drive back, and unload at the church.
This time was much better. I still had all of the Chapel duties, but wasn't responsible for ten children at the same time.
We went to camp sugar pine, which is just before Yosemite. It should have taken 5 hours to drive. We left at 5:30 am, with a slow moving trailer. My passengers and I decided we should travel on ahead in order to pick up food for everyone to expedite the trailer's journey. They had a blow out 40 minutes behind us and for some reason, couldn't get in touch with AAA to get the thing repaired. We had to return to them. Here's a video of how fun that was. The trip instead was ten hours long.
I took some cool pictures! Here are some of them:
Nathan (the bass player) and I after The Hunt.
The leaders all hide at night, and the kids have to find them with flash lights.
I was harnessed under a bridge. Just like this:
Even though our journey to camp was ten hours, some of the drive was quite nice.
There was this short hike that led to this great waterfall!
Being a councilor is really cool because you get to impact the kids lives all week long! But as you have direct authority over them, discipline is taken really personally. As a staff member, the kids know I'm in charge of their councilors. They have more respect for you right off the bat, and they want to get to know you more. They were able to impact my life!
Underwater cameras are a lot of fun, I pretty much gave my camera to anyone who wanted to play with it, and they took some great pictures!
There were ladybugs EVERYWHERE!!! At home when one lands on you, its a sign of good luck. At camp they are pests! I probably squished no less than 20.
Before I left for camp Burrito got sick!
One night I got home to discover Burrito laying at the bottom of his cage unable to move with vomit down his chin. He just looked up at me as if to say, "You're my owner... do something." Panicked, I rushed him to the nearest emergency pet clinic. A few hours (and $400) later he was home as right as rain. Here's what happened.
Bacterial Infection. When your body needs to fight an infection it produces more white blood cells. Human bodies can usually handle this. But Burrito only weighs 2.4 lbs. So with the increase of white blood cells there was a MAJOR decrease in glucose. Basically he had a hypoglycemic crash because of the infection.
The early days of his treatment he was with my friend and neighbor Jon, while I was at camp. He was just fine. He had two people to love on him as if he was a new pet. They pampered him, and medicated him as if he was their own. I've been back now, and I think I kept him on his antibiotics a little too long. He is having trouble maintaining a good glucose balance. He's had two crashes. I threw him into a sink full of cold water to revive him and boost his adrenaline. He didn't like that too much, but it gave him enough energy to eat. After eating he's totally fine. I'm gonna switch up his diet a bit. Try to give him more of what he needs than just kibble.
Lately I've been frustrated with my room mates. They don't seem to care about maintaining our apartment. I certainly don't do a lot of cleaning, myself, but I'm hardly home enough to make a mess. For the times I am home, I'd like to not have to wade through trash, to get to my room, nor do I much like sitting on the toilet reading a magazine... (I'd rather read a book, you see. But the magazine is a multifunctional necessity. Reading, and smashing any cock roaches the scurry past my feet!)
It's getting really gross, but I always wonder if its worth bringing up. anytime you ever confront a room mate with negative living habits, you're met with defensiveness. The last time I asked Joe if he wouldn't mind doing the dishes more often so they don't pile up in the sink. He looked at me like he didn't understand there could possibly be a problem with that. I explained to him as an example, aside from it just looking clean and comfortable, the kitchen sink is a great place to give Burrito a bath every two weeks. I can't do that if there's a pile of dishes in the sink. I'd do them without a problem, but I don't want to do them every bath time, and I shouldn't have to do a huge pile of them when I don't even cook that often. He replied with this question, "Isn't it a little weird that you bathe him in our kitchen sink?"
... Sorry if I'm getting ferret germs all over your dirty dishes Joe. If Burrito was an human infant, I wonder if I'd get the same reaction about the kitchen sink. Isn't it normal to bathe a small living thing in a shallow tub that happens to be at stomach level?
Speaking of bathing, our shower has a nasty habit of getting clogged. This is in part from small left over bars of soap being washed down the drain, hair (both human an animal), and an unwillingness to maintain the drain. When it slows down, I'm the only one who will buy liquid drain-o. (I'm also the only one who buys hand soap and toilet paper.) If I don't maintain the drains, they will eventually clog to a stand still. The day this happened, drain-o wasn't working, so I needed to borrow an electric plumbing snake from my friend after work. I work, borrow the snake, and come home in the afternoon, to find that someone has taken yet another shower in the knee deep grimey water... That's totally disgusting, and dirty, and I don't understand how anyone could do that and not think, "Enough is enough! Something needs to be done about this."
This is me after a two hour bout with the drain... I'm not happy.
This is the hairy drain monster. He's mainly comprised of Sach's black hair, and Mallory's blonde dog hair.
My room mates were very appreciative. Joe said, "Good job, man! Thanks. I was gonna call Manuel (our apt. maintenance man) today to take care of it, but it looks like you got to it before me."
When it comes to big cleaning projects, Joe always says, "I was gonna take care of that today, but..." I do appreciate that he thinks about cleaning, but I'd prefer he actually cleaned after he thinks about it.
A week after these pictures were taken I had to snake the damn drain again!
Many of you know that its been my personal dream to write music for Disney ever since I got out of high school and realized I wasn't going to be a rock star. This is my unattainable dream. The dream that I've considered to always be out of my reach. Well, unbeknownst to me, my reach has grown a considerable amount since then. I have a friend at church who's unattainable dream is to be a disney heart throb. (He fits the bill to a T.) Well his manager has recently put him in touch with people at Disney, and they really like him! They are waiting to record a demo, and if Disney likes that, then they'd be keen to sign him. In the past we've discussed the possibility of me writing for him, and at summer camp, I was poking around with this song, I've had for a while, and he really liked it. He has asked if he can record it for his demo! This means I'd be writing for Disney! I've been working with him to make this song a little more kid friendly and Disney appropriate, but I'm not sure it's gonna work, so I'm going to purpose a new song entirely. We'll see how it goes. Keep your fingers crossed.
That's all for now, I'll continue with the cousin story soon... it's pretty pathetic. You'll love it!
-Randy
Welcome back. We've missed you. By that I mean I've missed you.
ReplyDeleteThose are some good stories. If you are able to sell your soul to Disney remember your moderately talented brother that toils away at his mundane technical job and wants nothing more than for Disney to throw money at him.
Well, my dog just farted so I'm going to take her out back so she can create a small mountain of poop on the nicest part of my lawn.