Day 83

grey rain cancelled the game today. too bad. we chilled around and went around town and browsed and 'faffed' around. we came back to the house ready to cook steaks for our last dinner away from camp to find that kirk's mom, who works at one of the supermarkets, had gotten wind of our plan and had steaks on the grill already. awesome. his dad, the prof, showed us a couple of his published books and we all sat down to a solid steak dinner. after this, we saw the new batman movie and ended the night playing a chill board game called 'ticket to ride' where you build railroads across europe.

this has been an amazing adventure and new experience and overall refreshing time off. even the vibe of being on the mainland right now was a not-so forgotten, yet subtle, accompaniment to our journeys.

tomorrow, it's back to the island.

Day 69

the third week of camp ended in routine fashion. the q-town camp songs are so stuck in my head now that i felt a little stir crazy as they were being blasted across the field of departing campers.

the camp directors organize a weekly bus that goes into town for staff to take to get supplies. tonight they were going to see the new batman movie as well, but the thought of riding with a bunch of talking people to pay money to experience a formulated evening was not exciting to me at all.

jen's brother was playing at a coffee shop in nearby nanaimo. the music didn't start until 7ish, so we took off to the canadian version of borders. 'chapters' was filled with the smell of new books and a built-in starbucks. after some coffee and a scan through the fly fusion magazine, i found my place in the music/photography section. they're always together in whatever bookstore i've ever gone to and i think this is great.

i stood alone in front of the shelves of band and artist biographies and realized it would take about twelve years to be satisfied in this section, so i picked up the scrapbook of john lennon. this is an amazing recreation of mementos and copies of original song scribbles. i'd read the bob dylan one back at borders in the usa. i bought a new edition of a music magazine since it was cheaper. we stopped at a sporting goods store where i found some sweet clearance shirts that not only were needed but helped to fix yesterday's issues. the recognition of the smell of left shoes all pointing one direction on a sales wall was a scary and sudden reminder of the terms like over-pronation and motion control and adidiprene and gel. we got out of there soon after this.

the bands were playing at a place called the buzz and was laid out in a J pattern. the door was at the bottom left tip of this shape, the counter was on the inside left of the curve, and black wooden tables and leather seats and folding chairs scattered the long stalk that lead to the brick-backgrounded stage. the musicians often bounced on and off stage after songs as they played covers and some originals. i had a so-called 'canada moment' in this shop.

outside, on the right side of the stalk, there was a patio where people congregated at a wooden picnic table to talk over the music. someone had a couple small puppies and a little girl in a sundress and two small boys dressed in p.j.s chased the little animals around the concrete. across the median and street was a suburban subdivision where a canadian flag flapped on a pole in some backyard. back inside, most of the girls wore sundresses and many guys had beards or dreads or plastic-framed glasses. after walking in and standing around a bit, a barista came from behind the counter and offered me a free latte. the people i was with thought she was hitting on me, but i think they'd pry just made an extra on accident. free is free and i like free. anyways, this canada moment revealed a truly vagabonded utopia.

i'm back at camp now, sitting next to a piano keyboard on a dimly lit stage. the bus rolled in a few minutes ago. it's been a good day. tomorrow is 'staff development day' and sunday starts the next junior high camp and a new week of teaching video editing and shooting and such. i'm ready.

Day 62

i've fallen slightly behind. this is friday, which was a huge day, but i can only give a quick overview because a new week of camp starts in less than an hour.

juniors one ended and the eerie silence rolled in once again as the kids trickled, faded, and were gone. the week's speaker, a teacher and magazine editor (flyfusionmag), and i had some good conversations over the week and i'm really excited about some opportunities we discussed to work together in the future. ask me if you're interested in hearing more. i could use prayer and help to figure and take these next steps.

we had the rest of the day off so the four of us went back into victoria. we longboarded and skateboarded the streets and a couple empty parking garages. i can't even begin to explain the thrill of gliding across the spiraling platforms from the top of the building to the bottom exit. afterwards we chilled at a camp friend's place. its the same downtown complex that avril lavigne lives in apparently. there's a labyrinth of parking tunnels and remote controlled gates underneath that houses incredible cars. even the elevators need a keycard. it was intense. new coldplay and some matt costa played as we stood on the balcony in the cool ocean breeze with the view across the water towards downtown victoria and the ships. perfect chill between busy weeks.

i have to go shoot now.

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.