Daniel's Summer Blog

I got up nice and early today to journey to Macon County, (not the second westernmost county in the state as previously thought, Clay is between it and Cherokee) to go be moral support for a friend who passed through their beautiful county a little too quickly. We parked in the general downtown area, and with plenty of time to spare decided to find the District Court on foot. It was not so hard to find, as it is the biggest and most obviously governmental building in the area. The building is brick both outside and inside, quite a lovely motif. The first thing you see when you walk in is the cashier where you are going to pay your fines. You will learn later that they accept neither checks nor credit cards and therefore you must pay in money order or cold hard cash. You then learn that the elevator in the back leads to floor 4 where your courtroom is. Thankfully, it is not aka old courtroom 9. You wait until you are let into the courtroom, in the process walking through a turned-off metal detector. You sit and wait another half hour until the judge walks in. No one announces him or rises, and he is just wearing a suit. After him walks in the ADA who gives a quick once-over of everything that is going to happen. Then you just line up and get crammed through the system. Most people don't even talk to the judge. The ADA pretty much agrees to you pleading "guilty to a lesser infraction" then you pay a small fine and more than double that in court costs (after you get cash from one of the three banks around the block). Arrive back at camp, only to discover you are not needed until after lunch. The END!




Predictions:
Good triumphs over evil, massive sacrifices in the process. Harry plus one more of the trio dies. The twins are too much fun to kill off. Ginny lays the smack down, rock-style. Neville exacts some form of revenge. Things are brought in that we would never even dream of (the snake freed in the London Zoo book 1?). Wormtail still owes Harry a life debt. He will not repay it. However, he will waver, hesitate, think and perhaps that will cause his or one of his allies' downfall. McGonagall becomes headmistress, Hagrid and Slughorn become heads of house.
Snape could go either way. He is easily the most interesting character, I think/hope much will be revealed about him, for example, his feelings towards Lily, why he turned traitor etc.

One thing is for sure, it will be awesome.

See you on the other side.

I spent my day off doing laps. I did a lap around Lake Burton looking for the marina (which we evetually found, but too late to rent a boat) and then later a lap around Lake Rabun when I missed the turnoff for our dinner restaurant.
Otherwise, my day was quite enjoyable: a brunch at Black Rock Mountain State Park, at a beautiful overlook north to the Blue Ridge Mountains and neighboring cities. Then I met up with teh mom and got new cellphones (the lady was nice enough to bring the brand new phones that had just arrived - conveniently enough the ones I had been looking at online - and we got them BOGO which is always great. Afterwards we went to the Hills for HP5 which was an OK movie, but I, in all my foolishness, hoped for a 6-hour, Dale-narrated, loyal to Rowling's word epic movie. It was not. Oh well. There are other thoughts to tide me over.

I slept on the Odyssey last night, it turns out the zip platform can comfortably fit six or more staffers, despite their tendencies to try and push me off my sleeping mat.

Day off tomorrow, I am thinking boating and boggarts, a nice mix if I do say so myself.

Camp is running a 5k later in the summer, it might force me to actually engage in some form of cardiovascular workouts - more as the story develops.
The interweb at camp went down briefly yesterday, which though inconvenient, actually made people work all day instead of playing on the facebook. If only it would go down Friday, Saturday and Sunday until I have finished reading a certain bit of literature, I would feel much safer. It might even be to my benefit to purchase some earplugs and blinders until I have the book and an isolated but secure location.
The ESPYs were on last night, but due to some contractual obligations, ESPN had to delay broadcast until the Cardinal's 10-2 whuppin' of the Phillies was complete. Incidentally, it was the Phillies' 10,000th loss, the first team to reach such a plateau, most likely in any sport. The Braves are tipped to be the next team to accomplish this feat, though not for another few seasons (9,600-some losses).

Tick-Tock . . .

Now that I have given you 11 days to see the Transformers, we can resume our regularly scheduled blogging. The transition between sessions is softened when you don't have to deal with drying, folding and packing all of your kids' belongings and then unpack a fresh set two days later. Instead, I was blessed with the opportunity to wash ropes, inspect gear, and generally avoid the packing/leaving atmosphere. I also threw bags onto the U-haul and made sure that they stayed separated by tablecloths delineating buses. Why? Because the next morning the luggage crew reassembled to unload the U-haul, (a planned move, I swear) and put all the bags under the four buses. They deal was that if we fit them all on their proper bus, we would not have to drive the U-haul down to the airport and back, and frankly that was all the incentive we needed. The cargo holds were filled to capacity and we enjoyed the fruits of our labor by sleeping when we could have been driving/unloading more bags/sweating in the heat. Great Success.
Speaking of successes, this shabbat is very important. My mom is coming in to camp. And that other thing. Some book. Some million pre-orders on Amazon. I'll let you know more when I figure it out.

I managed to wrangle a 24-hour day off this week, so I took the opportunity to visit David in Clemson, which is really just a hop, skip and a jump away from camp. Naturally, when I drove in I got lost (SC is not so good with signage) and took a scenic tour of Clemson University. I don't know who Mr. or Mrs. Clemson was, but they left an incredible amount of money to the school. Driving through I saw infinite lush green lawns and huge newly-built edifices all around campus. Quite impressive.

Speaking of impressive, I saw Transformers this morning, it was amazing. You should stop reading this and go see it right now. Seriously. Go.