Day 107

these youth campers are cool. my starwood dv crew is solid and i have the seattle dude as my assistant for the week, so it should be good.

tonight we played the first episode of our secret project created especially and only for this week- a silent film that uses some of qwanoes footage from thirty years ago. this, mixed with new footage that's been digitally treated to appear as 8mm film projection, received a great reception. having been able to rewrite and alter and record some of the music for a few crucial parts in this old time recreation has been one of the biggest work highlights of the summer. hands down. one part was an adaption for a commonly recognized camp fanfare and the other was the reworking of the super hero introduction that's been used for many years in the regular episodes. like i said, none of this had been really done before. good times.

russ, my boss, came up to my office today in the break during the morning qtown and we did a quick play of a song he wanted to do that morning. he informed the rest of the band and we went up and we did the song on the spot. the campers dug the harmonica and one of the counselors told me that one of his kids carries around a harmonica too and wants to learn from me. that's a really exciting opportunity that's been presented so i'll be working on that connection as the week continues. tomorrow, russ and i are going to each wear johnny cash sunglasses and do ring of fire and then the regular harmonica-part song to open morning q-town.

finally, some music.

Day 57

there's a whole new scenery and vibe with the junior kids. they move more, scream and laugh more, and seem to take contentment in recognizing one another by name. their mannerisms are kind of like an easy song that transposes from light laughter and high voices to smiles and awkward running.

i ran the basketball court in the morning today. the hours went by quickly and i got to meet and shoot hoops with a lot of the kids. a couple of them were more talkative than others and one guy named lucas promised to tell me how his adventure that would happen after lunch on the challenge course had gone. i look forward to seeing him, possibly on the courts again tomorrow, to hear about it.

i spent the afternoon getting video for daily highlights and the weekly dvd. i rode on the back of the speedboats and captured the campers riding the tubes and the other massive inflated rides across the waters and currents. i played harmonica again for the same song as before in q-town. now i'm going to get a few shots of the fireside meeting and call it a day.

Day 54

marathon. it's two in the morning and we've barely started burning the dvd's. the other two are in the next office finishing the weekly dvd and i'm in my office working on burning and labeling my campers' compilation. i had started much earlier tonight and managed to get about 98% of my starwood work done. i finished designing, printing, labeling, burning, copying, and stuffing the dvds and pulled one out of the final stack to double check quality. good decision, bad outcome. that's the way it had to happen, i guess, and it sent me on a frustrating adventure that is still going strong. networks and disconnecting and reconnecting and converting and starting to make a new dvd menu from scratch and sending conversions back over to other computers are only a portion of the mayhem. i'm not even going to continue to relive the pain of the past several hours, but the end is in sight for me. after this, i'm gonna go and help finish burning and stuffing the hundreds of weekly dvds for the rest of the campers.

today was the last whole day of camp, though, for junior high one. all my video campers came back to finish their projects during their free time today. i'm really pleased and impressed at the amount of knowledge they were able to control and exercise for the mere five-plus hours we spent together. the quiet girl thanked me and said she learned a lot. the director girl and her friend said in their credits that they 'can't wait to do more video-making together when they get home.' the boys had a good time as well and both groups turned in solid projects. if it hadn't been for time constraints tonight, i was planning on showing one of the projects for the daily highlight during the last evening q-town.

speaking of q-town, i finally got a taste of the action on the other side of my light board and media booth. one song is kind of country-sounding, so after working it out with russ before hand and deciding which two harmonica keys i'd need to cope with a mid-song key change, i got to play harmonica on stage for the opening song. there had been no real practice and i had no on-stage monitor, but the people that could hear said it went well. it felt really good to play something again.

my hands have printer toner on them, but there's finally a stack of filled dvd cases sitting next to my left elbow. i'll finish stuffing the fronts tomorrow morning before the campers leave after lunch.

one week down, seven more to go.

Day 33

i woke up early today atop the climbing tower and had a shower before making it to the first breakfast i'd made it to in a few weeks.

some of my macbook pro's problems were solved after an afternoon in isaac's office. he's a good guy with a bushy beard and a massive interest and knowledge in macs and computers in general. not only was final cut pro studio reinstalled in completion, but quicksilver and a clutch, new picture-managing software was added. it was a good time as well.

tonight there was a bonfire at the beach for the staff. after marshmallows had been roasted and songs and testimonies had been released amidst the gentle lapping of waves, the three of us jammed for a couple hours to a fading fire and faithful few. working on recent songs and playing new things in the fire-lit shore was the most chill thing. seriously. no worries. this was part of the point of the initial bonfire, we were all told, because once the summer camp starts there will be little to no free time left for the staff, let alone the entire group.

the phosphorescence actually does sparkle in darkness when you use a stick to stir the water.

we visited the fridge after getting back from jamming on the shores and found the cook had left two bowls, one of chili and the other of barbeque beef, with 'joe and friends' written across the saran rap. between software help and extra food, things have been coming together really well even aside from the big picture of camp being assembled and prepared for this weekend's massive open-house of at least 72o people. weeklong camps start soon after.

its after midnight and my gear is still up at the top of the climbing tower from last night, so that's where i'm going right now. i don't think the hammock worked out too well for dave last night, so i'll be alone up there tonight. goodnight.

Day 22

today i was able to get a hold of a friend's caravan and the four of us took another drive into victoria with full batteries, a better camera, and our own purchased mini dv tapes for the independent project "uncovering the unlived." after spending the night discussing questions to ask the people we approached for this 'documentary concerning matters of society' (cough.. cough... society! society!! society!!!), we took to the busy streets of a clear and mild sunday afternoon.

we saw many things, including the same sitar player who had played a bit of 'norwegian wood' when i had asked him the previous day. there was a weekly flea market where another permit-holding busker (apparently you need to audition to the city counsel for this privilege) sat on a short, beat-up suitcase and hammered out rock and roll and blues on his guitar while playing harmonica on the neck and keeping beat with a single kick-snare. i don't feel special anymore. anyways, i happened to stop right as some random skater dude walked up to the musician and asked to play some cross-harp blues duets. the moment was perfect, i flashed my own harmonica that was effortlessly produced from my left pocket, and the three of us nodded and performed an impressively coordinated blues set complete with individual solos. this was the first time that i'd really played with a busker. as soon as we started, i handed paul the gl2 to film from his spot in the gathering crowd.

after the jam and applause, the random skater dude faded back into the streams of daytripppers and i stood back to record some more of this guy's music. upon his next break, paul and i were granted with a short interview concerning matters of society, music, and inspiration to include in the documentary and then we too faded into the masses. we ended up talking to another busker who played a song after the interview for the camera. this pattern of picking interesting-looking people to talk to continued as we blew along the sidewalks and streets in the mild ocean breeze.

later as we sat in the van for a snack, i noticed from the driver's seat that the utility pole in the sidewalk had a blank "hello, my name is..." sticker on it. i'm not sure i can describe the exact flashes of idealization in my mind, but i jumped out of the car with the video camera and had paul come over to stand near the pole. these next few sentences will come to life if you read them outloud. begin narration. "the camera trailed down along the community of rusted staples before resting over the image of the sticker, to which i added the voice-over 'hello, my name is.. pole.' after this short pause, the camera drifts to the new zealander who looked into the camera and said 'ello, my name es.. pole.'" end narration. if you can imagine those two shots while saying those two lines over each location, i think you'll understand why it took us about eight takes to get through the short scene. we were in hysterics on the side of the road next to the randomest set of 'poles' in the city. one afterthought- i think i can attribute this conception to the connection of familiarity with my heritage.

finally, we took a two-dollar coin and applied super-glue to one side and then went to chill inside starbucks while the coin sat on the pavement other side of the glass window. i was really excited about this as i had always wanted to do this for a long time. the camera rolled and other coffee drinkers sat alert to the events about to take place on the busy sidewalk outside. the four of us sat and discussed how some things in life can't be spent desperately searching for but instead all we can really do is be ready to react to these situations as we move through life; all the while society wandered and circled the streets outside, oft treading over an opportunity that, ironically, could not even completely parallel our analyzed analogies for life and love and the such.

i'm not sure when i'll start editing the past couple day's footage because i plan on adding to this project, but hopefully the prank documentary from earlier in the week will be on youtube in a few days. i'll keep you posted.

Day 13

this week has gone by fast, both for myself and the other staff it seems. i've been continuing to collect and edit several activity videos in preparation for this summer's use. for the first time, however, i have grown slightly discouraged with the matter of my office.

it is one of the farther ones from the main area and is at the foot of a mountain, which is nice and good, but it is also built inside a large, white tent where all the summer rallies and such will be held, meaning there's really no fresh air to supplement the dormant scent of new wood or no way to coax anymore light through the single window of my loft.

after dinner tim and i climbed this mountain next to the office. we sat upon the peak and constructed a small rock alter at the toppermost of the poppermost and observed the distant mainland mountains and talked about camp and life and such. this was suddenly interrupted by subtle, yet defined and consistent, twig-snapping and leaf-crunching in the lower area where we had come up. the padded steps grew steady and we crouched down to see if we could spot whatever was moving slowly closer.

the sun was starting to fall behind the tree line under our peak's perch and a cool dusk rose from the water below. i imagined a cougar pouncing from the shadows and onto my back or suddenly latching to the side of my neck as we looked down into the darkening forest. we began our decent that would inevitably lead us past the source of the prowling. before getting too far we both paused and counted to three and then shouted. i blew some shrill notes in my harmonica for good measure. then we sprinted down the rest of mountain, stopping only a few short times to observe fresh paw prints in moist earth as (imaginary?) cougars stared with yellow eyes from every windblown bush below and creaking limb above.

Day 12

it's hard to believe that this has only been the twelfth day of this summer in this new place. so much has happened- new friends, awesome adventures, hard work, and seeing God work through only one short family camp are only a few of the things i can think of at the moment.

today two new zealand guys, shaun and paul, arrived to join staff and tonight we all went into town to go to the super wal-mart, the only 'super centre' in western canada apparently. after the store and climbing some mountainous hills to watch the sun set, we went and jammed with guitars, harmonica, piano, and jimbay. very good. i missed sleeping out on the dock again tonight because i don't feel like walking all the way down there after midnight to pitch a tent in water-surrounded darkness, but it'll happen soon enough.

i've finished another small video today. there's more to do tomorrow and i'm really looking forward to the summer now because, even though it will turn into week after week of almost non-stop action and work, the ability to apply and thrive in the big picture will really have been dependent on this time to settle, prepare, and commune. this has been the twelfth day.

Day 4

i could feel the humid, deep, salty air growing cooler tonight as i sat atop the bobbing blob perch at the end of the long pier. the wholeness of oxygen made me want to open my chest somehow and breath with entire concentration. a faint fishy smell reminded me of sea world and i began re-reading don miller's 'blue like jazz' with a great zeal that had previously been strangely difficult to conjure. the soft glowing skies were matched with perfectly still waters. somewhere behind and out of sight, a trickling creek fell to the beach in a whispering crystal orchestra. an unspeakable load fell from my shoulders in the surreal stillness after considering that i as an individual, not humanity or corporations or society, was the cause of most of the problems i think i have. as miller's pages turned and the grey waters were punctuated with the heads of sea otters, the consistent tranquility was broken by a sound that made my very chest pull into itself. across the waters i heard a rolling

"bfffewe.....bfffewe......bfffewe......"

and i stared until i saw three orca whales emerge, spray, and then sink along the distant surface. they continued spraying and moving across the horizon and each exhale reached my ears just before the trio dipped beneath the glassy silver once again. i put the book down and began to play simple melodies on my pocket harmonica with a deep appreciation of the significance that beautiful simplicity can bring to a moment.

before all this, earlier today, i started my job training. i'm gonna be teaching and helping kids to shoot and edit their own mini videos of their week at camp while also working in the flow with the other two video guys to produce each week's documentary-ish recollection for the kids to take home of their camp experience. nick and ryan have just graduated from vancouver film school and are really passionate about their visual arts. i'll probably learn a great deal from them. most of the rest of my afternoon was spent watching past summer's productions and getting familiar with the cameras and computers. both went a long way in providing vision to the previously seemingly heavy duty.

there's also a couple of school groups that are renting the property for the likes of day trips and weekend retreats and, although they are almost completely on their own, we still wash their dishes and such. tonight's dinner was a totally organic creation of rice and pumice and other things that rabbits and hippies like to eat. it was quality, however.

finally, nalgene bottles cause cancer apparently. at least canada thinks so. i guess all the granolas will be faced with a huge decision- kill the environment with disposable, plastic bottles or kill themselves with toxic, environment-friendly containers. now would be a good time for someone to step up and make a new, organic water-bottle. just a thought.

tomorrow i will pack my canned salmon salad and trail mix granola bars and will climb the mountain. the forecast shows the brightest weather yet so tomorrow should be good.