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I did something I almost never do today.  I yelled at boss at camp.  I wouldn’t say I’m intimidated by Bill but I don’t like being yelled at least of which by him.  But today I saw that he’d written a formal letter in comic sans and snapped.

Me: You wrote a formal letter in comic sans?
Bill: Well, it wasn’t completely formal, I wanted it to be casual.
Me: Then use a simple sans serif font like calibri, verdana or helvetica, not comic sans.
Bill: What?
Me: Comic sans is the frat-boy of the font world “it says, look at me!  I’m fun and formal!  I’m in Office, wo ho ho!  It’s like the leisure suit of fonts, the mullet,the Brut by Fabrige.  Sure maybe it’ll impressed the dullard but do you really want to be seen in public with the piano key neck tie of fonts?  I thought you were better than that.

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While sitting at dinner today someone mentioned that they had orange drink and rice pudding together so I immediately had a bowl of orange drink mixed with rice pudding and began downing it.  At first it felt simply like I was eating a melted creamsicle that had been attacked by a Korean padi farmer and thought nothing of it.  The kicker was the aftertaste.  Much like a combination of vinegar and dime store marmalade with a hint of rancid mayonaisse.  I later found out that he’d merely drank the orange drink after eating the rice pudding.  I should listen more closely.

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Units can request a site by completing a reasonably simple form, but some of the responses are… interesting:

“Reason for Request: Medical Need
If a request is for a medical need, please explain: Medical Need”

Site are requested by choosing from a drop-down menu, and a unit requested the following:

“First Preference: Please choose one
Second Preference: optional
Third Preference: optional”

During the early days during testing I encountered some problems such as people not realizing what the form was for despite the phrase “site request” being used 20 times:

“Comments: I want to talk to Mikey”

Scouting, beating a path of technology into the 20th century.

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I only heard the Admin side of the conversation but I think what’s excluded is obvious.

Answerer: Yes, he’ll be expected to sleep outside in either a tent or Adirondack.
The tents are canvas.
The Adirondacks are wood and have three walls.
The cots are canvas too.
The Adirondacks have wooden bunks.
Wood.
Yes, they’re supposed to have three walls, and also have roofs.
A towel would be a good idea for the pool.
I understand you don’t like being outdoors, your son will be fine.
Yes, it’s perfectly normal for him to enjoy being outside.
Honestly, I’ll be impressed if he showers twice.
The latrines can be scary at first but as soon as he sees someone else use them he’ll be fine.
No, you’re not asking too many questions.
I’ll be here to answer any questions for you.
*Hang-up* Well, there goes my lunch break.

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I’ve gone to camp for about 10 weeks but this summer hope to keep posting at least semi-weekly rather than the month long drought last year. Of course, I don’t think there will be nearly as many plagues and I’ll only have one job. As per an agreement I’ve made, I shant disclose names and need to keep everything reasonably family friendly.

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One gets used to a certain colonic rhythm on the commode. Go, go… flush. Wipe, wipe, flush and so on. If one has a somewhat regular diet and a consistent flush volume these rhythms are as natural as geese migration. I have recently switched from home-life to camp-life and am facing the double switch to small cans and a different diet and have frequently been struck by the change in fecal harmony. It’s now go, flush, go, flush, wipe, flush, flush. Which you can see is quite inefficient and I consider mildly ironic as low flow toilets are supposed to reduce the number of flushes. But if it takes 1.2 gallons to kill the beast and one has a 1 gallon tank versus a 1.5 gallon tank there is quite the waste.

The camp toilets have a second impediment to regularity in their sound. Most toilets have a distinct “I’m going to clog” noise that like the cry of a baby to its mother is instantly recognizable to its maker. My camp crapper makes this noise regardless of input and it took me several nights to calm down after the adrenaline rush of “get the plunger!” and the resultant spike in heart-rate. I figured after eight years these things would become second nature, sigh.

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Today at 2:00 PM EDT, Steve Jobs was to hold aloft the 3G iPhone fortified with vitamin GPS, video-conferencing, MMS, cut and paste and Bluetooth and he was going to become the first man to die from the concussive blast of so many people shitting themselves in amazement.  He’d have been held aloft as a martyr of innovation, someone who like Prometheus had stolen sacred functionality from the gods and paid the price.

Instead, he has given birth to wind.   I now have to wait until July 11th for merely a step of innovation rather than a pole-vaulted leap.  Sigh…  My work and camp coworkers who’d known how thrilled I was helped me get through my loss.  Thank God for friends.