Dream.

My life goal is to open a camp.

The simple explanation is that it will serve youth-at-risk from September - June and be a *regular* / *traditional* camp for the summer. Of course, no camp that I create will in any way be regular or traditional, but that would be the simplest explanation. In addition to a summer camp for children, two weeks out of the summer (one in June and one in August) will host adult camp, a time for the rest of the population to relive their youthful glory (and occasionally sneak out late at night to cause trouble). Ideally the facility will be a conference center as well and host weekend groups year round.

I was inspired by projects such as Nature's Classroom and NorthBay Adventure, both of which meet school requirements for a 4 - 5 day *field trip* program (the latter serving youth-at-risk in Maryland).

Everyday my imagination creates a more detailed picture of this *camp* experience. Based on experiential education techniques mixed with a fairly sophisticated ubiquitous technological back end, our mission will be to inspire everyone to make better life decisions and see that there's a fork in every path...

Get ready for Camp V.

Oh I see...

I really want to write about the potato canon, but I don't have a lot of time and I'm on someone else's computer (!)

Hm. Here's a chant:

The Binary Chant [done in military style]
1010101
(repeat)
1010101
(repeat)
10
(repeat)
10
(repeat)
10...10... 11!
(repeat)



Enjoy ;-)

Commercial Break

A fairly common element of Summer Camp is the *Talent Show*. At my previous camp, this event came only once at the very end of the summer. There were 2 days: kids and staff. The oldest campers would sometimes be invited to perform their skits / whatever again at the staff show if they were a big hit.

The kids talent show was broken into 2 chunks as well, as the youngest campers deserve to participate, but cannot possibly take an entire afternoon sitting. They would do their customized event somewhere else and then join the rest of camp for the last hour or so.

Anyway, I was the MC along with my constant sidekick, Bryan. The first year I did MC duty, I wanted to regulate time - which meant that I needed my own little group of mini-skits to use as filler. Another director and I found a couple of CDs of old advertising jingles from television and... well... basically used the interstitial time for ad placements. Of course, it normally included dancing around incredibly silly and then smearing the product all over ourselves... I think that I ended up chugging ketchup one year because of this...

But the whole thing was very humorous, well-received and successful. The reason I bring any of this up is because I am seeing "They Might Be Giants" tonight and they happened to cover one of the songs we used (completely coincidentally!). The song is called "The Middle" and is a Public Service Announcement for safe road crossing...

Hooray!

New Song!!!?!?! "Crazy Moose"

I was just sent this CRAZY / AWESOME song from a camp in... um... well, I have no information on the camp, beside that the caretaker is crazy... crazy-awesome... like the song!

CRAZY MOOSE

This is a repeat after me song (This is a repeat after me song)

WITH ACTIONS (WITH ACTIONS)

There was a crazy moose (audience repeats each line after you sing)
Who liked to drink a lot of juice
There was a crazy moose
Who liked to drink a lot of juice

[CHORUS:]
Singing way-way-oh
A-way-a way-a-way-a-oh
Way-oh-way-oh
A-way-a way-a-way-a-oh

This moose’s name was Fred
He liked to drink his juice in bed
This moose’s name was Fred
He liked to drink his juice in bed

[CHORUS]

He drank his juice with care
But once he got some in his hair
He drank his juice with care
But once he got some in his hair

[CHORUS]

Now he’s a sticky moose
Full of juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuice...
On the looooooooooooooooooose!

[CHORUS]

[*update*]
Here's a link to the video from my new friends out in Washington!

The Fastest Growing Game Show Sensation...

I don't have a lot to write today - mostly because I'm completely overtired. I think (perhaps) I may be coming down with something... or maybe I should just adjust my bedtime!

During the Morning Announcements, I liked to host a game show that includes the tag line "The Fastest Growing Game Show Sensation." I believe (and I may be corrected by one of my old employees) that the first appearance of this idea was somewhere in the woods during an activity area. I started with "Win Pete's Money," a nature variation of a show called "Win Ben Stein's Money" and then eventually came to "Will it Float?" a popular time-waster from "The Late Show with David Letterman."

Anyway, the kids loved "Will it Float" and in actuality they just loved the idea that it was the fastest growing game show sensation (in Germany, it turns out).

Further down the road, I used the line for a game during "Wet and Wacky Day" which I used basically as an excuse to soak counselors... and then it became a Morning Announcement ritual.

The game changed constantly. Sometimes it was a trivia question... sometimes something else. Last Summer one of the more popular games was... hmmm... Food, Animal or Both... or something like that. The question was posed in German and generally it was anyone's guess what the answer was!

[more 2 come]