Coming and Going

This was a super busy week.  I'll try to break it down by day, but it's hard to remember all the details even then. 

Monday- I kept the score book for Fairview's baseball game against Posen.  Posen is forever away and the game ended with a disappointing 7 run rally by Posen in the bottom of the 6th.  With 2 outs Luke Harris actually struck out 3 in a row, but because the ball got away on the 3rd strike each time, the runners all advanced.  I still enjoy keeping the book and getting to know the guys on the team.

Tuesday- A full day spent working on the girls side of the Bath House.  We did a lot of the framing, but ended up leaving for the day with more to do.  The boys side is very near completion, so we're hoping to wrap it up in this building soon.

Wednesday- First day of zipline training.  We had some visitors from downstate including Brad Smith and Stephen Sovis to join in the training.  It went a lot faster than last year, which was good.  It's fun to get a couple zips in, and to refresh on the procedures of sending people down the lines.  We had enough time that afternoon to do some work too, so I did some work for the roof on the East Side Dining Hall. 

When it rains really hard we get water running from the shingles and it actually wraps around the outside of the building and sprays onto the porch.  So Mike Baker showed me how to make some metal strips that take the water another couple inches from the siding, preventing the spray onto the porch.  Here are some pictures of the ancient looking equipment we use to bend and cut the metal.

We have a wide variety of aluminum.  We were hoping to use a brown color, but all we had was the plain aluminum.

This is the cutter.  You place the metal at the appropriate length to cut it, then step on the petal down below.

This is the bender.  It takes your cut piece, pinches it in place for half of it, then bends it with the other half. 

This is an actual 3 foot strip that will be put under the bottom edge of the shingles.  Because it is so silver it stands out a little more than we would have liked.  The important thing is it works to push the water just far enough from the porch so that it doesn't work its way back into the building.

Thursday- Second day of zipline training.  Several of us scored 100% and I was able to join that club this year, and the skills test was a breeze.  I hustled back to Battle Creek right after the training finished.  Since we were released from training so early I was able to see Mrs. Lindow (a high school teacher from the Math and Science Center) and go out to eat with my Mom at Finleys.  After getting stuffed there I watched the Red Wings lose their game 7... and that's all I have to say about that.

Friday- The 10th Annual Water Festival!  I've helped with this since it's inception in 2002 when I was a junior in high school.  We end up with about 70 volunteers to organize almost 1000 kids throughout the morning.  Each class goes through 2 classes that teach them about water.  How they affect it, how they can protect it, and how we can clean up after ourselves.  Then each class goes to Billy B, a singer who helps the kids loosen up while singing them songs he's adapted for learning about water.  One example is "Here come the flies in black" which is adapted from the Men in Black song by Will Smith (which he adapted from something else).  The song teaches about Blackfly's and how their presence indicates the health of a natural water system.

Right after the Water Festival I hustled right back to camp.  I spent that night playing some frisbee, swimming, watching movies, roasting marshmallows, and playing Monopoly Deal in that order.  It's an indication of how busy this week was that I can list off that many things and I feel I don't have room to go into details.  It was definitely a lot of fun that night, and neat to spend time with all the guests we had up for the night.

Saturday- The second Co-Labor Challenge.  Following up on the water theme my crew was tasked with dealing with the soil erosion water is causing on some of our steep paths.  We had 3 sites, and my crew worked like scalded dogs to fix every one of them up.  The general idea was to place 12-13 foot sections of telephone at an angle to the path.  We dig a trench for the pole, but leave much of it sticking out so the water hits it, then runs away from the path.

So if you imagine the water running straight down the hill (away from us) in the first picture, the water bar carries it away to the right.  Then the water momentum is broken up by the large rocks at the end of the pole as you can see at the top of the second picture.  We placed 6 poles in at Thunder Express, then covered the path with gravel. 

We did the same thing on the path from the West Side Dining Hall to the Waterfront, and at the Bandshell on the East Side.  Except for the telephone poles.  Since we didn't have any we just filled in the paths, and tried to get some of the larger rocks in strategic locations to help prevent washouts.

Sunday- Sunday actually starts on Saturday.  Right after work I jumped in the car with the Harris' and we headed down to Detroit.  We met up with more of their family and stayed in a condo in downtown Detroit.  The plan was to check out town, eat in Greektown, then watch a Tigers game.  Relentless rain changed our plans as we were eating at "The Pegasus" and we saw the game was cancelled.  So we traded that out for a trip on the Detroit People Mover and then a visit to Great Lakes Crossings on the way back up to camp. 

Great Lakes Crossings is what they call an "outlet mall".  I would have thought that means they have relatively cheap things because they skip going to a retailer like Target or Kohls.  What it means is that they multiply the prices by about 10, then cut them by half.  So you see a suit jacket that's marked down to $500 from $1000.  Either way it leads to me not buying anything, and spending some quality time with Randy on the various seats and benches scattered throughout the main hall.

So that was the week. We arrived back at camp at a decent hour and I changed the oil in my car with Luke Harris.  Because of the HUGE generosity of the Harris' I didn't spend any money on the Detroit part of the trip.  I did have to put 2 tanks of gas in my car, but I felt it was worth supporting the Water Festival and seeing Battle Creek for one last time before summer. 

So here we go.  A couple retreats, then Workshop!