Here comes summer again. If it's anything like last year, I won't post much because I'm so busy. I'm gonna sort of miss the after-school stuff... in the last couple weeks, I've had a lot of fun with them. Friday's game of Frisbee Golf seems to be the height of it for me. We just made up our own course as we went and had a great time entertaining ourselves.

Summer looks good, though. We had our all-camp staff training on Saturday and, yet again, it seems like a fun group of fairly competent and excited people. I also met a cool girl who is running a one-week digital photography camp. Hopefully we'll be able to hook up again over the summer, even if it's just for me to stop into her camp. She was really excited about the fact that I had just ruin a photo club with the age-group she's gonna have this summer. I think her camp runs on a week where our kids are out with the groups, so it's probably very possible.

Our LIT program is sort of undefined, but only in a scheduling kind of way. We know what we want to do with them, just not all the "whens" and "hows" yet.

In other news. The band's album is almost done. It's been more than a year since we started the recording process, but now all the recording and (probably) the mixes (haven't talked to Steve since last Tuesday). That just leaves mastering, artwork and duplication. Weee! I should have an album to give/sell people this summer!

Money is still weird. I got tax returns this year (shhh, don't tell anyone what I said about not filing my '02 taxes in the first post on this blog) and that's kept me afloat for the past month or so. Luckily, my computer and musical equipment has been holding up, so I haven't needed to dip into the tax refund money yet... though I might grab a chunk for an air conditioner because it was practically unbearable here on our last hot day. Although, I am bringing the computer to work this week to finish up the computer club, so it'll probably break again ... and then all the money goes bye-bye :)

At least I'm ready for it.

Yeah, right... a full-time assistant for Andy. I was dreamin' ...

So, the school year is almost over. Yee-haw. I survived. Looking back at it now, one of the reasons that I wasn't too upset about not getting the director position turned out to be a darn good reason... not having time for ropes. I love ropes. It's back in season again and I frickin' love it.

The summer looks interesting, I'm co-running the LITs this year with someone whose name I keep forgetting. I hope when I start working with them every day I'll break that habit. We've got a bunch of ideas thrown out there, but basically we're tearing down the whole structure from last year and starting over. So there will probably be some trial and error.

I'm not even thinking about the fall yet. Maybe over the summer, some awesome position will present itself as being available... and if not, maybe they'll take me back. We'll see.


In other news, Wormtown.org is down. I "upgraded" the account and they moved it to some new server. That server apprently had a different version of MySQL or something because the phpBB board that they provided started "blowing up the server" (direct quote from tech support). I tried to play nice by doing some research into the board and finding out if there were some settings I could tweak... and, after a 20 hour wait, they let me try the phpBB gurus' suggestions. They didn't work though, so they suspended the account again fairly quickly... then after another 16 hours or so they said they'd move the site back to where it was (my suggestion) and now they can't seem to find where they moved it to... and the DNS is still pointing to where it was when it was "blowing up the server" and I think they're going to "blow up my brain."

Well.
I guess it was bound to happen. Everywhere I work, my supervisor leaves. The only exception was the first summer camp, where I actually took on the supervisor position at the beginning of the year and it wasn't a surprise. The only other time I've made it to the supervisor position was at TelecomNOW... and then probably because I was the only one left and therefore the only one qualified. I learned my lesson there, though... never hire someone who's almost as smart as you but has more technical qualifications because they will steal your job and fire you.

So the second position at the new Y, the one I took so that I wouldn't starve during the winter, has followed the path of almost every other Y job I've had. My director left about two months into the school year. One of our supervisors came and worked with me to fill in for her. That supervisor thought I was the obvious choice for the newly opened position... an then all the technicalities and bigotry came in and they hired someone else who had more technical qualifications, instead. And, yet again, that person doesn't seem to have the experience that I do and I find it hard to work under them. She's not a bad person and she's not a bad childcare person, but she just doesn't give off a sense of confidence and experience and the kids can tell and they're either eating her alive or quitting the program. The ones who are quitting are mostly doing so because the former director was really, really good and had tons of cool things for them to do.

Oh well.
Maybe Andy will need a full time assistant next fall and I won't have to work for these fools again.

heheh.... I thought I was busy in the summer. and then the fall. Little did I know the winter would turn into the super busy time when the attempt to fill in my hours was phenomenally successful.

Anyway, got a webcam recently. So I guess it's time for a new link:
Ta da! enjoy.
Gotta get some sleep for work tomorrow morning, so that's all you get.

wow. It's fairly obvious when I don't post for a month or so that I've been busy.

Ropes is going really well. I like the days we do high ropes better than the days we do lows, but only because I have to think up tons of new stuff every time I do lows. Once I get into a groove, I think it'll go better. Should I already be in a groove? I dunno... it's hard to find a group of activities that I'd want to do with each group that fits the bill for teaching the right teamwork qualities in the right kind of order.

The after-school stuff is going well, too. Running clubs is really beyond what I expected to be doing, but it's cool... I like it.

The biggest difference I've found working for North Attleboro is that I do a lot of things alone. I don't have a lot of help... I just get sent off with a group of kids. It's very different from every other situation where I've worked with kids. I haven't decided whether I like that part of it or not.

tomorrow is the last morning to sleep in... no biggie... I got up in the morning all summer. I can do it

Wednesday, ropes with middle/junior high school kids starts. I am SO looking forward to it. Especially working with Andy and stuff... and the other kick-ass staff. And I get to see just how long a day it's gonna be. And how bad I smell when I get to MSFC.

Also starting to get psyched for Wormfest on Saturday. Woot!

trying to fix the PC today.
attempting to do it without spending any money...
Really afraid I won't be able to restore anything from the old hard drive.