I'm on the website!

Well, I've finally made it onto the Mini-Yo-We website! It's not really that big of a deal, but I'm excited. I am hidden away deep in the site on this page, only to be overshadowed by the picture of my ex-girlfriend who is prominently displayed in the top-left corner of every page but the front, but that is another story for another time. It's okay, though, because all I need to do is wait another year-and-a-half for the site to be redesigned.

My job at Mini-Yo-We is the greatest. Well, everything except the pay, but that's not my biggest concern. Being at camp during the year is so different from the summer. No people complaining about being underpaid (even though 2007 was the first summer workers were actually paid, past years we were only able to earn from fundraising), no people complaining about the new rule that has everyone angry at whomever they wish to blame, usually the Director. There is a wider variety of groups that come, from school groups to Youth Retreats to a group of ladies who come to sew for a weekend.

The only thing that I don't like about Year-Round programs at camp is that the groups aren't in the whole time. There are times when no one can be found in the whole camp, and that gets a little spooky. Luckily, I have DOG to keep me company.

This year I'm learning how to do everything that has to do with camp. Getting my NLS should be fun (not!) and useful, but I think the most fun will be getting my Chainsaw license in November. It should be awesome.

The staff up here are great, but not really my age at all. The guy who is closest to my age is twenty, which is close, I guess, but he hangs out with Shane a lot. Everyone is awesome up here, though. Even Mike A.

I'm missing ATF this weekend, which is alright. Apparently all it is is one big ad for Youth Missions, which I have some different views on, but there are a lot of my friends who are going, all of them friends who I have not seen since the summer. It's alright, though. We have a group of seventy in right now, which got a little hectic on the administrative end of things, having only two staff working in year-round ministries right now, but we managed to get enough people to work.

It's pouring outside, and I'm tired. Plus, there's not much reason that I should not go to sleep right now, so that's what I am going to do.

Starcraft = Amazing

I started playing Starcraft today. I have to say that it is very addicting. As addicting for me now as Star Wars: Rebellion was for me back in the day. I think I played Starcraft for about 5 hours today at the very least, taking a break only for lunch. Pathetic, I know.

It's difficult to understand exactly why it is so addicting. Maybe it is because of its futuristic ideas or maybe it is because the other two guys at my house got addicted first. Whichever it is, I am going to have to find a way to stop playing it for excessive amounts of time or else it will just plain consume me completely. I'll probably turn into a Zerg or something.

I have also gotten sort of re-addicted to Age of Empires: Rise of Rome, but I have figured out the cheats for this one (and by "figured out" I mean I searched for them on Google) so anytime it gets a little boring, all I do is put in the cheat to get me the car that goes around shooting missiles, and then it kills the game for me because I just spent 2 hours setting up this huge society but didn't feel like going and ruining the other 7 societies that were pitted against me.

Also: NHL 08 for PS2 is better than I first thought, but not by much. They practically copied the gameplay part of it from 06 and changed the rosters, controls and music. Plus you have to go and find a code on the internet that will allow you to get the new jerseys for this year. It's still a fun game to play. NHL 2004 was still the best NHL game made by EA Sports, aside from NHL '95.

Pre-season Looks Good When You're an Sens Fan

Well, it's just one of those days. A day when it's great to be a Sens fan, and not so great when you like the Leafs. It's still pre-season, but Ottawa looks like they'll still be a strong team this year, despite losing in the Stanley Cup Finals last year.

Ottawa is a perfect 6-0 this pre-season after tonight's 5-4 overtime victory versus the Montreal Canadiens, with the Captain Daniel Alfredsson scoring 3 goals and adding an assist for a 4-point game, and with all 3 of the Senators' feared scoring line separated from each other. I personally think that this should show just how good of a team Ottawa really is, regardless of who is on their top line.

In other news, the Toronto Maple Leafs came up short in a 4-0 loss to Detroit. I don't know how far the Leafs will go this year, but if they don't get off to a good start this season, it could be golfing early again for the 3rd straight year.

Helping the World One Click at a Time

As I was going through the Internet, I came across a site called Ripple, a site devoted to "saving the world one click at a time."

All you need to do is click on one of the four give buttons, and you are then shown some advertisements. They take the money they earn from those advertisements (all of it, not just a small percentage) and donate it to the charity that you have chosen.

They also give you an option to help out by simply searching the Internet from their homepage. They earn a percentage of the money from the advertisements that are on the results pages, and that money, too goes to charity.

There are currently four different programs that you can help. One providing water, one providing education, one providing food, and another one to finance loans for those that are currently living in poverty.

All in all, I think that it is a great idea. There are currently six advertisers on board, but hopefully that will turn into more advertisers as the word gets out further.

Toronto's "Building Year" Days Are Over?

Well, you can hear it right here. My boss, a very determined and hopeful Leafs fan says that the dynasty is now built. No longer will we hear fans saying that the past season was just a "building year". In fact, in this video he implies that the Toronto Maple Leafs will not only make the playoffs, but emerge from the finals holding the Stanley Cup.

That's quite the promise from a fan who has watched his team miss the playoffs for the second year in a row.

A funny thing happened after this, though. See, I am an Ottawa Senators fan, and hearing this being said, well, I was quite entertained. Miracles have happened in the past, but I cannot see this prediction coming true. Being surrounded by Leafs fans, I have found myself making a few bets on what will happen this season. Not large ones or anything, just betting against Jason Blake getting a hat trick against his former team, and that the Ottawa Senators will make the playoffs, and also that Dany Heatley will get no less than 5 hat tricks this season. Bill, my boss, realized this, so he went proposed another bet: the Toronto Maple Leafs would win 75% of its games against Ottawa. I'm not sure if he was being sarcastic or not, but regardless, I took it. As soon as I upped the payout from 5 to 20 dollars (seeing the success of Ottawa in the past two seasons, how could I not?), Bill suddenly decided to back out.

Interesting.

So I proposed a new bet. I bet Bill 100 dollars that the Ottawa Senators would be the team to win 75% of the games in the 8-game series the teams will be playing this season. Funny enough, he didn't take it. I think he was just scared of losing, because there is a good chance that it would happen. It has happened before. The 2005-2006 season, Ottawa won 7 games out of 8. Next season Ottawa won the season series 5-3.

We'll see what happens this year, Bill. But if things go like they have in the past, it could be a fast 82 games before the Maple Leafs' season comes to an abrupt halt.

Removing the Docks 2007

The coolest thing so far this year was removing the docks from the South Camp waterfront. It wasn't exactly the hardest job that I have done so far, but it was one of the most time-consuming ones, next to setting up the two stupid portable garages that were "easy set-up, easy take-down", but that is a completely different story.

The best part about taking out the docks, though, was that there was a crane there! Not the animal, but the huge machine that can lift much more than I can. It was awesome! I think it could lift a maximum of 36000 somethings. Pounds or tons, I forget which. I have a video of the crane in action. It's not too exciting and it is rather long and probably not worth watching, but I have nowhere else to put it.

So, yeah. The dock day was pretty fun and exciting. We also moved some giant canoes aka war canoes from Boys' Camp (the big dragon viking one with the brown dragon head, I don't know what they were thinking) and Chemawa (the plain, red one that isn't very exciting). They were so heavy. Whoever moved them up onto shore had them really high up on shore. Mix that with rainwater filling up the insides of the canoes, and the fact that they were already heavy enough to begin with, well, they were just insanely hard to get back into the water to move them close enough for the crane to pick them up. It took me and Alex about half an hour just to do that simple little job.