Day 80

despite shooting in the rain and a sudden wave of sickness and pinkeye among staff, today was smooth. grey clouds hid salt spring island for most of the day and everybody's footsteps squished in soggy earth. some days must be dark and dreary. between the massive jellyfish at the beach and sticking around the office to capture and edit highlights for tomorrow, it's all been good.

i started packing today, as well, because tomorrow we run one more q-town and show the highlights i made tonight and then after lunch i am out of here. on the way in to canada, i remember guessing that i'd be here for eighty days. now, halfway through the summer of weekly camps and twice removed from forty days of advance crew, i see and appreciate the balance even the numbers have achieved. now tomorrow i leave to take this valuable time away and come back refreshed. i'm looking forward to reaching day one hundred.

Day 61

i had a little 'into the wild' moment this afternoon. after finishing editing one section of the dvd and waiting for another sequence's clips to import, i left the office and followed the path behind q-town. this path soon turns into a narrow trail that snakes through dense forests and huge ferns. the trail leads all the way down to the point, but i stopped at about halfway and decided to make a shelter. this must have rekindled some kind of boyish excitement because i spent the next forty-five minutes collecting logs and branches and moss to form and fortify a solid sleeping area between two boulders. the end product was impressively strong and sturdy. i'll probably go back to take some pictures of this later on this summer and maybe even test it out for a night.

i got back to my office and waited the remaining few minutes for the import to finish. we finished editing the dvd before dinner this week. last week's project wasn't done until midnight and it takes an additional four hours to duplicate all the needed copies. although i've learned that it's never safe to feel safe when you think media is going well, i have a feeling we won't be up the entire night this week. we screened the final product and made it to dinner only a few minutes late. i'm going to keep a copy of this edition.

tomorrow they go home. already. reviewing shots from earlier in the week gave us all a sense of amazement in the way that time has begun to speed up as we continue to flow better and better in our work. i really like all this.

Day 44

a gut feeling has led me to post a few minutes before dinner starts. after the meal and the evening events, our three-man video crew is gonna finish shooting the big music video. i've been told i'm a camera operator for this so that's what i'll do. i just finished spending the afternoon putting together the highlight video of staff training over the past few days. it will be shown in tonight's q-town. q-town.. q-town...

we'll be working late so i might get back to add or edit this. this is the director's cut.

i have acquired an rei nalgene bottle. legend has it that this bottle, most recently left behind by my friend tim after his sudden return home to new zealand, had been owned by one of my roommates and, before that, by another friend here. this second friend had picked it up after tim had left it behind once before during a past trip or departure. rumors circulated that tim picked the nalgene bottle up during a previous adventure from another traveller. now it's mine. i've washed it several times, so stop worrying about germs because i know you are, and someday i'm gonna find out where this bottle had indeed been before tim.

this has been the perfect tangent to fill up the last few minutes before dinner. time to finish the day.

edit: just shot the music video. incredibly intense. goodnight.

Day 38

we just got back from the staff 'special event' day. the first part of it included going to see a movie. rumors that had included prince caspian or perhaps indiana jones as likely options were shattered, completely blindsided in-fact, when we all started to realize that kung fu panda was more than a preview. or extended preview. wow. we watched kung fu panda.

the good news in all this was the realization of satisfaction in the hard work i'd put in editing the advanced crew video over the past 48 hours. after a long day and night and then a pressured morning today, the renders and burnings finished literally just in time to grab the hot and precious dvd and hop on the bus for our trip into victoria. they played my video twice before the regular beginnings of previews and then, of course, we all saw kung fu panda. it was really exciting to see my work in a theater and i received good feedback and comments about the video from many people, so the late night and overall intenseness of the past day and a half was well worth this experience. i'll try to post the video on this blog soon.

the rest of the day continued with eating pizza on the parliament lawn. this would be the same lawn that our video 'parliament jam' had occurred several weeks ago. we wandered around the city for a while afterwards and i happened to score some free starbucks from a generous soul before we all, quite eagerly, boarded the upper, open level of two, double-decker tour busses for the final part of our day's event. little did we know that this victoria city joyride and picture-frenzy would turn into a nearly two hour long, temperature plunging experience that included visiting land far, far away from the original downtown victoria turf. between the two previous personal adventures and then today's epic upper-deck journey through the city's capillaries and windy extended divisions, i feel that i have a pretty solid knowledge and grasp on victoria.

it was a long day and it was exciting. trading ipods with australians was really interesting. i didn't listen to a ton of them, but 'the cat empire' seems like a solid funk/jazz/samba band from down under. look it up if you so desire. i'm gonna try to put out a more complete music post soon complete with links and such. i've also been trying to change up some of the pictures on here but blogger has been difficult. i am trying.

my bleary eyes are still rolling after the day's excitements and activities and especially intense bus rides, but i've made it to day 38.

the following was included as part of the ending of the a.c video:

"the community has been built

  these relationships have been formed

  the vision is ours to share

  we stand prepared

  look back no more"

Day 37

i spent all day in my office preparing for something big. i can't say what, yet, but i'll let you know when it happens. i started editing a special project earlier this morning and am still in my office rapping up after midnight.

tomorrow is a staff outing day. we're supposed to do something exciting as a group and it may or may not have to do with the secret project of today. that's all i can say. i'll keep you posted.

i've been in this yellow loft of an office for well over twelve hours now. i have some new pictures on the wall too. good news. i'm leaving now. soon.

Day 28

the weekend family work day happened today, so i did most of the shooting for the daily video since the main video guy is away for a few days. after a full day of shooting, i had a mad couple of late afternoon hours to capture and edit the material into a coherent and interesting video that was scheduled to be shown that night after dinner and games.

it got intense, and for an early moment i wasn't completely sure it was all going to get done, but the creative flow went smoothly and i rushed to the meeting place in time to find that the premiere had been pushed back forty-five minutes. better that then the opposite alternative i suppose. the people clapped and a church group asked for a copy of the video after it finally showed, so i think it turned out alright.

by the way, there are a few videos now on the bar on the right side. youtube.

Day 19

success. i finally figured out a way to get the mini dv to capture with the audio. it took rigging up some half-broken equipment, but i've been able to start editing the great prank documentary. this is tremendous news and literally made my day.

this week has really flown by quickly as well and as i went off after dinner to read and drink coffee with a rocking chair, i couldn't remember any period in my life where time had gone by so fast while managing to remain so constantly good and whole. tonight after dinner, some of the camp's challenge course rides were opened for the staff so most of us took a ride on the massive vertical-drop swing. the adrenalin rush experience really didn't match the intensity of the overall hight and speed of the ride for some reason, but it was still a fun time.

since 'blue like jazz' has been finished and passed on, i had begun the re-read of 'searching for God knows what', miller's second main, yet not as wildly successful, output. however, this has been temporarily postponed by a book called 'the irresistible revolution' by shane claiborne. both authors share modernish ideologies and adhere to a similar style of the recantation of secularized, christianity-based stereotypes, but, as can be expected, do so in different manners of wordsmithship. claiborne, a perfect example of the worthlessness of judging a person by appearance (just look him up if you're curious why this would be at all relevant), offers adjective-conservative and edgy sentences that still seem to remain as relevant as miller's introspective, train-of-thought guided raconteur. this is simply a matter of alternative vs jazz genres- if music were applicable to books and writing. i'll let you know if any of this changes as the chapters develop.

finally, i appreciate the several contacts of approval i've had over the past few days concerning the contents of this little blog. thank you. hello london and everyone back home.