Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig.

"White Line" or "Light Wine", which one?

WARNING: This is going to be a mellow post today! Traditional goofiness will return tomorrow!

Greetings, one and all. I have returned. It's been a great week away, actually. The camp was very good, in my estimation. Leaps and bounds better than last year.

It started out on a funny note - my main purpose for being there was to video tape the week, so I could edit together the camp video, which is my custom. I got about 3 minutes into taping on the first afternoon, and then my video camera stopped and gave me a message, saying it needed the heads cleaned. I had no way of performing such a procedure, so video taping was out. Plan B was the old "powerpoint" route, which was nice, because there were tons of other people taking pictures. So I was out of a job... which freed me up to do stuff. Lifted some pressure that I didn't really realize was there.

So I got to relax a lot more, got to do some things I normally wouldn't do, such as play some paintball, participate in the water balloon fight, I even went down the "slip and slide" a few times, on a lark, in my jeans/t-shirt. It was really fun, actually. I think there is video evidence of this... Rebekah and Mrs. D both taped me sliding, I think. When I track it down, I'll post it here, as if anyone would be interested...

Better than the freedom to actually enjoy myself was the fact that I did, in fact, get a lot of my underlying angst straightened out. I feel like I'm in a much better place, if you'll pardon how "touchy-feely" that sounds. There was a lot to think about from the various speakers - I won't say which I liked better than others, because it's moot. What nailed me might not have been for everyone else, and vice versa. My least favorite might have been someone else's fave, so I'll avoid lists.

Another plus: last year's camp theme song (actually, the theme song from the past several camps) is a song that pretty much drives me crazy. Dancing Generation, by Matt Redman. Usually, it is sung at every worship service (or close to it), and it has a way of quickly getting on my nerves. This year, they did play it, but not until this morning, which was the final day. So it didn't bother me at all - even when they played it a second time right after the first. It had been such a good week that it didn't bug me.

I got peppered pretty good with paintball pellets on Thursday. I'd never played before, and it was fun. I just kinda stomped around absorbing and dishing out punishment, eschewing the whole "creeping and hiding" approach that seems so popular. I figure, I'm here to shoot people with paint, and that's what I'm going to do. Mixed results. I'd post pics of my battle wounds, but they are pretty unappealing, so I will spare you. What I don't get is that everyone else seems to get these nice little circular welts where they were hit, but mine get all bruised-looking and multi-colored and extend way beyond the impact zone. I wonder why that is? Maybe I have thin blood or something, I don't know. Or maybe I'm just too pudgy. I didn't really feel the shots at the time of impact - I honestly thought, with three shirts on, that I wouldn't have any marks on me at all when it was over. Took my shirt off and found out how wrong I was. I don't care. I'd do it again in a minute. Ultimately it was fun, when I didn't have to keep surrendering to a bush any more...

I'll gather all the pics and video clips I can this Sunday from everyone and edit together a slide show this week sometime. I'll probably post the results here as well.

Left camp this morning with Daughter #2, and discovered that wifey and my other two daughters were at the beach all day. I figured, there's no need to go straight home, really. So we stopped off at the movie theater in Mira Mesa and watched Pixar's new film "Up" in 3D. We would have seen the regular version, but it didn't start for 90 more minutes and the 3D version started right then. So in we went. The 3D gave me a nice headache, of course, but the film itself is terrific. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. It's absurd, of course, but there are lots of great moments and great characters. My favorites were the dogs with the collars on that enabled them to talk. Funny stuff. The 3D effects were cool, but unnecessary. Not sure they were worth the extra ticket cost.

After the film, we ate some grub, hit up Starbucks (Yay!) and drove the heck home! By that time, my headache had reached that stage where the only solution is an ibuprofen, ear plugs and my comfy chair for 90 minutes. Works every time.

So, I decided to pay to subscribe to that Squarespace site, so Wagnervana Beta is live. I added a link to the side bar to your right. I'm going to continue to flesh it out, and then figure out how to make Wagnervana.com link directly to it. I have to tinker with the page for the webcomic... some of the later, bigger ones don't display big enough to be legible, and the thumbnails leave a little something to be desired as well. I'm going to add my entire devotional up there as well. I love the web-building tools - they are so easy to use. It makes me all warm and happy on the inside.

So our Turkish rug that sold recently at auction was featured in an article again (about the auction itself, actually) at HALI.com. It's so cool to know that such an awesome, talked-about piece had our fingerprints all over it (so to speak). It's like being a part of history, in a way. I tell ya, if we had unloaded it for a couple grand last fall and were seeing that rug now, having sold for what it did, and all the talk about it, it would be a bitter pill indeed. I'm so grateful for the way it played out. Mom and I are going to try and get some more info about the ultimate buyer, but according to the article, it came down to a bidding war between to rug dealers from Milan. How cool is that?

Our refrigerator died while I was away. Yeah, I know certain other famous people died while I was gone also, but their deaths, while sad in their own way, didn't directly effect me. So in our kitchen, as we speak, is a terrific nice new fridge, ready to be spilled on/in and to chill hidden left-overs for weeks on end. It's so big, too! I could sleep in it! I may have to, if I get into so much trouble with the wife that I'm not allowed to sleep on the couch anymore...

I'm about two-thirds through The Lies of Locke Lamora. It's still solid, and fairly well-done. The characters are good, though the flow is still too herky-jerky for my taste. It still bounces back and forth between past and present, and it never ceases to be jarring. I would love to take the time to shred the book and reassemble it in chronological order. But it's worth reading. I think I'll carry enough momentum at the end of this book to move me into Book 2, which I already have (bought books 1 and 2 at the same time, back in Albuquerque). Should give me plenty of time to read both, before Best Served Cold comes out at the end of July.

I mentioned before that I bought Scrabble for the DS. It has officially angered me. It has a fairly devastating bug. It has some fun little side games you can play to hone certain skills, but I much prefer to play full games against a tough computer opponent. In this game, I can play against a tough computer opponent, and it can give me a hard time - until I get a bingo (use all 7 letters, getting a 50 point bonus). When I get a bingo word, the computer resets itself to the easiest level and finishes the rest of the game doing 2 or 3 letter words, for 2 to 5 points at a pop. It either stomps me or turns into a toddler. It's frustrating. It can drop 7-letter words all over, but when I do it, suddenly it's lobotomized. Lame, lame, lame.

Well, I told you tonight's post was going to be mellow and boring. That's just how I feel tonight. It's been a great week. I know it's more entertaining to read my hot air when I'm in a manic mood, but for now, this is all you get! No videos, no funny pictures, no movie quotes, no daily trivia... see? I can be normal too!

Well, who knows what tomorrow holds? Until then, remember... um... hmm... what was I supposed to remember again?