Daniel's Summer Blog

For all of staff week as well as the first ten days of campers, there was no hint of rain, just unbearable sun beating down on us all. That all changed Thursday, which turned out to be something a a harbinger of doom. It rained briefly on Thursday, and then camp was treated to an awesome display of Mother Nature's power with a loud storm full of cloud to ground lightning strikes and deafening claps of thunder. The tower staff holed up in the laundry closet which offered us fairly good cover and more importantly a good view of the storm which lit up the sky like Miroslav Klose. The rain forced us into the Hadar Ochel for Kabbalat Shabbat which helped the acoustics, though made it quite crowded and difficult to move around, even more so to daven. The rain continued intermittently on Saturday and Sunday with a another particularly spectacular downpour and lightning show on Saturday night. Now on Monday, the rain slowly begins to drive us insane as camp has turned into mud and there is no more lightning, so camp proceeds as usual, only far wetter. On the other hand, it was raining when I rolled out of my room this morning which allowed me to wear my rain boots all day, receiving some compliments, some insults, and one attempt to steal them.
My day off coming up is proving to be a bit complicated, but I hope it turns out to be three grown men going to see Cars. We will see.
I continue to marvel at my friends who are my age or close getting married, it really makes you think that I might be maturing into an adult. Thankfully my rain boots protect me to some extent from all that.
USA Soccer is a joke, I wish Israel had made it, because they could have ruined some people, if not make a name for themselves.
Just when I thought I had abandoned programming forever, I appear to have been vaading with Gesher alot lately. I have countered my hindering voice of dissent and jokes with actual helpful input for their programs.
Next time: Random thoughts
I can't be Token anymore.

This weekend was the campers' first shabbat at camp. I spent most of shabbat worrying about driving down to Atlanta. The plan was that I would leave camp immediately after Havdalah and drive down to my friend Avi's house in Atlanta. She was actually in Germany, (World Cup!) Paris and Edinburgh, but her family graciously agreed to host me even without her and to drive me to the airport at the ungodly hour of 4AM. So I tried to drive out of camp only to find the back gate, from which I intended to exit, chained and locked. So I three-point turned and headed towards the front gate, used less this year because of the massive construction going on near it. On the way to the gate I ran into our security who informed me that the front gate was indeed open. As I approached it I saw that he was right, sort of. The gate was certainly unlocked, but some genius had arrived after shabbat and thus the gate was already locked and he was unable to drive into camp. Logically, he parked right in front of the gate so that it could barely be opened enough to let one car squeeze out by driving through the mud, which was exactly what I had to do in Gert's pimping Volvo that does not pick up radio. Once clear of camp, I foraged down the moutain, the only source of light my own headlights, silently fearing that I would wind up in the middle of nowhere with no visible roadsigns. Eventually I made it down the moutain only to realize that there are no lights on the highway south until one hits I-85, which is pretty far along. The drive was dull, but thankfully no one was ont he road because they all had better things to do on a Saturday night. I went to bed at 2am and then woke up 90 minutes later to the airport for my 6AM flight.

I met up with my parents in Charlotte and we all went to Hillel and Sharon's wedding in Cleveland. There were Jews, Food, Deisers and rabbis. There was dancing, socialization and even napping during the Sheva Brachot when the FHJC Cantor took about half an hour to sing one. It was a good though exhausting trip. The drive back was also uneventful. I feel like I am leaving things out, I will put them in if I ever remember them.

Airport madness yesterday, shopping day madness today. Camp is in its beginning throes of not agony, but the general buzz of activity, insanity and wholesome learning. I managed to not lose any of the children's luggage, but there is no doubt in my mind that more of it will be lost than found as the session progresses. The lost treasure of Moctezuma is more likely to be found than some of these kids' belongings.

Finally, and I hope permanently, our staff is complete as planned and we will soon grease the non-existent wheels of the tower into the mean lean kid-entertaining machine that it is.

I have been do my best to be nice to all my friends who are in the occasionally uneviable position of power. This is not only to make their jobs easier but also to build a stash of favors that I will in all likelihood never call in and never need. Also, it's not as if I have anything better to do. Yet. I can only assume that in the few hours that I do not see Sam, he is accumulating as much work as possible for his staff, just so we can shake the tag of satlanoot.

I am going to Cleveland this weekend, for a good friend's wedding and therefore will regale the masses with stories of that upon my return.

I need a new call sign because Assaf is darker than I am.

For the first and probably only time in my life, I rode all the way down from Greensboro to Clayton without stopping. This took roughly 4 hours and another half hour to do errands in town and go up the mountain. Camp is hot already, but the temperature is only going to increase as the summer continues. I am all set up in my non-bunk housing, which looks to be fun. I have not done any actual work yet, but I did already put my hand in bird poop, said "arriven" and was yelled at by some of the more venerable staff members for driving over 5 mph in camp. I am sure that the work will pile on soon, particularly since there will be two (2) days of tower training tomorrow and the next day.

There is much screaming outside, which can only mean that the airport bus has arrived and that everyone is doing the old meet and greet. Hoo-Rah.

Daniel