Hello Blogosphere, it’s Luke. Yes the same Luke that despises the word blog and all blog suffixed, prefixed and derived language. I especially dislike when blog is used as a verb but then again it’s even worse as a noun. And don’t even get me started on blog as an adjective or an adverb.  To be brutally honest the word blog is onomatopoeia for the act of losing one’s lunch which is an excellent metaphor for what happens on most blogs. For Adam I have made an exception as his blog is not the leftovers from a pub night. Also this is the first time I have been asked to blog so perhaps it’s a case of not being invited to the cool kids table (What is it like at the cool kids table? I gave up trying to get there years ago but I have this lingering pondering as to what takes place there. I suspect it’s like New Year’s Eve; a whole lot of build up and then the ball comes down and you’re stuck in traffic for 3 hours).
This isn’t really my first post as I had to celebrate the Apollo landing yesterday but now I’m ready to take the reins as Adam and Amy enjoy the world’s largest tide and other east coast oddities (like the oddities who live on the east coast). I have to say I’m delighted to have been asked to post at all as most of the things I’m asked to do require advanced training in TCP/IP. As much as I enjoy being able to assist people with their technological nightmares often I am the one dimensional window into Windows and people are surprised to learn that I even do other things let alone am talented at them. That is one of the reasons I love to help at Camp Omagh so much (and am so annoyed when I am dragged to the office to fix camp’s terrible computer). When I’m at camp I’m free to help with all kinds of things that are in no way connected to my regular life. It’s a week where there are no limits, no boundaries beyond what I place on myself. I didn’t really intend to post about camp but I have camp on the brain so I suppose it was inevitable. It will be consuming my life over the next month as I’m helping with activities for both week 3 & 4. With that much camp to organize I find myself drawing from some highlights from years past.
Two of my favourite ideas have been:
- Plunger Olympics. Like the real olympics only using toilet plungers (new ones but I didn’t tell campers that). It included plunger golf, plunger lacrosse, plunger toss, plunger relay, plunger luge, plunger regatta, synchronized plunging and plunger biathlon. The day was capped off with a flaming plunger lighting the camp fire in the great tradition of Olympic ceremonies.
- Animal Staff Hunt. Staff Hunt could only be more boring if they played old Margaret Thatcher speeches over the camp PA. Campers get bored and staff gets bored so I decided to spice it up. I marked a trail in the conservation area, staff hid along the route dressed as something and I lead the campers along to find everyone. As they were found staff joined the hunt. I was dressed in safari grab and the staff dressed as everything from Cookie Monster to a Scottish Cat.
As I have 2 weeks to fill this year I shall steal some ideas from Amy:
- Scavenger Hunt. This was based on the University of Chicago scavenger hunt and has little to do with actually finding things. It’s all about creating, improvising and performing. The list was 103 items long (itself a clue as one of the questions was what is special about the number of items on the list. 103 is prime for those keeping score) and included gems like: make a graph of fun vs. time, a rock opera starring Paul Moore, a cabin theme song and me decorated for a wedding (as the bride). As added fun to have an item inspected campers had to come to a judge and say “Excuse me, I am a wayward waif from cabin _______ and I was wondering if you would condescend to consider the following.” Several campers couldn’t say that and ended up saying “wayford waif” which was even funnier. The judging is purely subjective and really points can be earned for just about anything.
- Choose Your Own Adventure. Often at camp the week goes by so fast people don’t get to participate in the activity they were really looking forward to. Choose your own adventure is exactly what it sounds like. Staff all run different events of their own choosing (everything from frisbee to reading time to euchre) and campers go do whichever one tickles their fancy.
An oft overlooked part of camp is the reinsertion to regular society. When returning from camp you are exhausted and exhilarated. Usually you go directly to bed but one year I went to the movies. I knew at the time it was a bad decision but like so many mistakes in life to truly appreciate the scope of a a bad idea the only option was to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Either 2 or 3, I don’t remember which. It remains one of the worst films I have ever seen but that didn’t have anything to do with my sleep deprivation. It was just a bad movie. I was suffering from lack of sleep and probably other things like oxygen so what I remember could bear very little resemblance to real events but as far as I am concerned things unfolded this way: I was with a large group of people and it was opening weekend so we had to stand in line for quite a while before the theatre opened which was fine. A little hot but fine. After we made our way to the seats several people burst into the room dressed in period costumes. There were two men dressed as pirates complete with swords and tri-pointed hats. Accompanying them were two women whose torsos bore the telltale shape of having been stuffed into corsets. They had obviously been hired to make the movie experience that much more enjoyable as they began to put on a little show. None of this was all that odd until I noticed the women were bound and chained. At that point I was certain it was going to turn into a snuff film because the pirates (who I was beginning to imagine were real pirates who had wandered out of the 18th century) began to auction the women off to the audience for popcorn and chocolate bars. The terms of the deal were not immediately apparent so I was wondering which exact laws they were trying to violate. Was it simple prostitution or was this, in keeping with the 1700s, the slave trade come to Waterloo Region? To this day I have no idea what was going on as the pirates disappeared as quickly as they had arrived once the auction was complete (that’s right, they sold the women for I think popcorn, a kit-kat and a large coke). I am unsure which is the more disturbing thought; that all this actually took place or I hallucinated the whole thing. Either way it has serious implications as to the nature of reality.