Today is the last day of June & it’s also the last day of the first half of the camp season here at Cockrell River Camp at El Rancho Cima. I must admit — it has been a long month filled with long weeks, long days, long hours, and not enough sleep. Has it been rewarding & enjoyable? Most assuredly. Has it been a great deal of work? Oh yes. Would I make the same decision again? Absolutely. Do I look forward to sleeping in my own bed & seeing all of my friends and loved ones on a regular basis? YES YES YES!!!
Thankfully, last night’s merit badge work didn’t take nearly as long as the previous two weeks. As opposed to going to sleep at 4 am in Week 1 and 5:30 am in Week 2, I was able to go to sleep at 2:30 am last night (aka this morning). The benefit of a single-user system is that I control any & all data that gets inputted into the system, drastically reducing the propensity for errors. The downside of being the only user in that single-user system is that I had to do all of the work, meaning that I had to take care of the 900+ classes taken by all of the Scouts who attended camp this week. But, in the long run, this is work that I can do & do well, so I’m taken care of accordingly — I never want to appear ungrateful to my summer employers because they’ve been great.
“Maybe now with the state of the music industry they’ll start spending less on albums and people will go back to reality. They should put up a plaque in every studio that says, “The Beatles recorded Revolver and Sgt. Pepper on four tracks.” That’ll clear everyone’s head.” — Jack White of The White Stripes
If the above quote doesn’t get you interested in all that Jack has to say in this interview with Pitchfork Magazine regarding recording, touring, the state of the American music scene, and so much more, well, then you have no musical soul. Enjoy!
(BTW — this interview has really made my birthday. Coupled with the Joanna interview from last week, Pitchfork has been rather nice to me recently. Now, if they’ll just give me a job….)
Oh, and if you have yet purchased Icky Thump, the band’s new album, then you’re missing out on a great record.
It’s just past 5:30 am and I’m finally finished with the merit badges for Week 2. We definitely had more boys this week, but I feel that the doubling of the number of attendees in the “Blanco Blast” (compared to last week) is most assuredly the reason I’m up later than I for Week 1. 16-hour days are a joy to work!
You see, what I’ve been hired to do for the summer is monitor the online merit badge registration system and process all of the paperwork for each merit badge; i.e. prepare a master print-out of every class taken, what boy took the class, what troop the boy is from, and whether or not he finished it here at camp. The master print-out (created on Excel) becomes part of Council records while I also create a print-out for each troop to let the Scoutmasters & the boys know what they have earned here at camp and what they might lack in completion of a merit badge. Thus, I’ve scoured through the records for 450+ boys and all of the merit badges they’ve worked on for the week and prepared a spreadsheet for Sam Houston Area Council and each troop that attends. And I do this for every week of Summer Camp.
Don’t get me wrong — I am being taken care of, as I have quite a crucial job, even if it keeps me in the office and NOT walking around and working the camp like the other staffers do. I did get a chance to get out & teach the Citizenship in the Nation merit badge — those two afternoons were the highlights of my week so far. On to the weekend (or in my case Noon Saturday to Noon Sunday)!!
Me on any given Sunday afternoon, Monday morning, or Friday night at Camp
