Reporting to Mini-Camp

Reporting to Mini-Camp

Good morning! ... I said good morning! ... When I said that in previous summers, 180 kids would shout "good morning" right back at me. Now I have 45 kids staring at me asking me why I keep yelling at them. It's not nearly as good for my ego. But then I beam them in the head with a big sponge ball and that brings my ego back up. You'd think they'd learn to just shout "good morning" at me. Stupid kids.

So yeah, it's another year of day camp. I had last summer off and I gotta say that I really missed the kids. Not so much the angry parents. Or the health inspector. Or the pink eye. But the kids (at least 30% of them), I sure missed. And this camp is so much smaller than the one I'm used to. I miss the complete chaos of 180 kids running around one basketball court with balls, hula hoops and tiny body parts flying everywhere. And Mike has got this camp run so efficiently that there is no chaos. This is no fun for me. I need the chaos. And I'm no longer the camp director. So I'm trying to figure out exactly how I fit into this camp. I kinda see myself as the camp's uncle. Like I'll go and play with the kids and talk to the counselors and stuff, but if anything really goes wrong, I just give them back to Mike. Here. This is your kid. You handle it. Mike on the other hand is pretty stressed out, or at least busy, as evident from his quite serious question he posed to me on the first day of camp last week...

Quote of the Day 6/14/06

"Dustin, is it still Monday?"

-Mr. Mike


Reminds me of when I turned to Ruchelle earlier this year and asked her if it was still 1998.

Making faces back at the kids,

Uncle Mr. Dustin.


Still Standing Right Here...

Stupid Squared

Stupid Squared

You need to read this one. Especially if you liked the one where I lost my keys in my pocket. The following are posts on Erin's myspace page exactly as they appear because I think it's funniest this way.

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6/1/2006 5:50 PM
Hey cutie! Always happy to host my east coast contingency here in the exact focal point of nowhere. Especially one that looks like you do in that penguin suit. Well, good luck with your big job decision. Call me when you figure that out. Hopefully my phone will have dried out by then. I left it in my jeep overnight and a thunderstorm hit us. Guess I should have left the top on. It's in the oven right now. I hope that's a good idea.

6/1/2006 6:02 PM
I know it sounds stupid, but a buddy of mine at work who knows a lot more about stuff like this (you know, compensating for stupid mistakes by making bigger ones) told me that as long as I remember to take it out before somebody started to pre-heat the oven, that it should be fine. OK, Kim needs her computer back and I should go check on the phone now anyway.

6/2/2006 4:58 PM
Don't know about chess. I still don't have anything in my house that isn't better at being an end table than a computer. And I can't even play by phone since I baked mine in the oven last night. Apparently "warm" doesn't mean 250 degrees. :(

6/3/2006 4:12 PM
Yeah, it looks about like you'd think a cell phone baked in the oven for 20 minutes would look like. I'll send you a picture. What the hell was I thinking? I burnt a pizza in there just Tuesday night. I'm gonna shove it up Don's ass when I see him again. But strangely enough, when I plugged it in, the screen lit up and said "battery required" or something like that. Unfortunately, the battery won't fit in there in the phone's current shape. Maybe if I cooked it a little while... (and the circle of idiocy keeps turning)


Quote of the Day 6/3/06

"You should tell that guy he's not allowed to give advice anymore."
-Soon to be ex-roomie Kim

Yes, there is a way I actually did that. Maybe one day I'll tell a story about when I did something smart.


Suspending my brain's pay for the rest of the week,
Dumbstin.


Still Standing Right Here...

Nerds Untie!

Nerds Untie!

Let's just call a spade a spade. And I'm even late for the month too. Sorry to my loyal fan base and thanks for holding up your end of the bargain, being just annoying enough with the "what happened to the quote?" "why did you take me off the list, you prick?" and "you realize nobody likes you anymore since you stopped typing to us" to get me to try to remember what my life's purpose is again.

Now this message is going to be two things at once. I have a lot of computer nerd friends on here (I mean that in the best way possible for people I'm asking favors from) and I need one of them to recommend a good computer. Here are the specs: I need it to be able to play Worms and online poker but nothing stupid like Everquest or Doom (I mean stupid in the most loving way possible). I need it to run Photoshop and iTunes and obviously stuff like Wordpad and Calculator if possible. I do NOT need it to download porn anymore. I think I got it all and I'm not too impressed with the new stuff anyway. And I need a CD burner and an internet connection of some kind.

I still have my old Frankenstein computer and it was worth the $200 I got it for from Powdered Toast Man, but if you don't reformat it twice a year, it won't let you be connected to the internet and use the mouse at the same time (he's not kidding). And that's just the beginning. And since my neighbors moved out, we can't steal their internet anymore anyway. And in case there are any cops or people seriously ethically opposed to that out there, you can replace the word "steal" with "get off your moral high horse, you aren't any better than anybody else." So that's why you haven't heard from me. After slaving away all day on the kickball field (and the bars), I just can't hang out in this damn place for another freakin second. Not when Deal Or No Deal is on 19 days a week. Anybody sick of them slamming down the little glass thing and saying "No deal!" yet? How long can that possibly be interesting?

Oops. Off track there a bit. Anyway, if somebody out there can hook me up with that computer for somewhere in the neighborhood of $500, I'll give you a cut of whatever I can sell the ole POC PC for. Thanks. NERDS UNITE! Ha. When I originally wrote that, I wrote "Nerds untie!" That's funny.

OK, I want to write this one about the Indy 500 before we get to far away from it. I was talking with Mikey Con-Man who recently moved to Indy and got to meet Mario Andretti because of his line of work (serving fish to old rich people). We were talking about the sunburn that people got from going to that race for 7 hours or however long those silly things (I mean that in the most fun type of silly possible) last. I told him that the blacktop basically functions as the focal point of the sun on days like that, but he brought up the point that nobody he knows was really on the blacktop, which was an excellent point.

Quote of the Month 5/06

"If you were on the blacktop, you'd be red alright. But it wouldn't be from sunburn."

-Mikey Conover


It's a good starter quote to get me back on track (pretend that wasn't an intentional pun - actually two - and you may still respect him).

Computerless in Southwest Ohio,

Dutty.


Still Standing Right Here...

ElimiHate

ElimiHate

This QOTD is Rated R for offensive language and sexual content

I was at a bar the other night and this show called ElimiDate came on the TV. For those of you fortunate enough to not know what that is, it's a show where four girls go on a date with one guy (or vice versa) and as the date goes on, the guy (or vice versa) gradually eliminates the girls (OK, you get it) one by one until he has only one left and this girl is fortunate enough to be declared the winner and I'm not sure what happens next, but I know from the one and a half episodes that I've ever seen that it is usually the sluttiest girl of the four so one can only imagine. I hate this show. I hate the concept of it. It's disgusting. It's kinda like if you took what little class there was in The Bachelor and flushed it down the same toilet that the "game show" Deal Or No Deal flushed all the strategy down. So yeah, dumb show that I would have never even thought to turn on if I was home, but I understand why it has a following and I know why they would play it at a bar at 2am.

So I find myself glancing at the TV and all of a sudden, up pops Ms. Heather! Ms. Fucking Heather! She was a counselor for me for like three years at UMBC Day Camp and I think we even hooked up once. Actually, I think I made that up. But it's easier than telling people here that we almost hooked up but we were both pretty trashed and then I was going after her friend too who I found out too deep into the courting process had a boyfriend and I'm pretty sure that I wound up sleeping alone thinking about my new "fence riding" theory. But if I'm pressed for time, I'll just say that we hooked up. Actually, she's on this list. Heather, write me back sometime to help jog my memory.

So yeah, there she was on TV. Sure it was just a stupid MTV Generation Y show, but she was on national television trying to beat out three other guys to... do whatever winners do on that program. And after they show the four chicks, they showed the guy. And it was my idiot friend Eduardo Van Machos (name changed to protect the guilty)! You gotta be kidding me at this point. I was going nuts at this bar. Like I wasn't screaming enough about the chick I didn't really hook up with, but now this guy shows up on TV? There's no way any four females should ever be competing for him, let alone on national television. The girls in my volleyball class would fight over who got to play on the other court. Nobody else on the club team would room with him so I always got stuck with him on road trips. OK, I'm embellishing a bit because his job was always to be the butt of my jokes, but nonetheless I have lost a lot of respect for the people they pick to be on that show. Well when I think about it, I don't really know what I was expecting. I think I was better off with people I didn't know on the show. Then I can at least pretend that they are better than me and deserve to be on a date with four hot chicks trying to.. you know... win. You know I love you Eduardo. Even if you did vote Heather off first. She's too classy for you anyway. Well, that information is based solely on the fact that we never hooked up. Maybe.

And I never hooked up with Eduardo. No semantics needed with that statement.

Sorry to say, but I never found out how it ended because there was no sound and I was being kicked out of the bar (it was closing, I wasn't throwing olives at people or anything) and I had to drive a friend home to his wife and kids who I later found out is no longer allowed to be my friend. I've seen enough of Eduardo hanging all over girls at our national volleyball tournament in Charlotte anyway (and the local high schools). And if the end was anything like those experiences, it will directly contradict my theory about what really happens at the end of ElimiDate.

Unfortunately, I don't have any material written down about the plethora of stupid things that Eduardo has said over the years, but I can chronicle a few of the stupider things he's done in past years over the next few days. So I'll start with Charlotte again. We were at a party with the Xavier women’s volleyball club team and Eduardo was getting a back rub from this hot chick and things were heating up between them. Now, our volleyball club was like a cross-section of our school at UMBC. There was Eduardo, Ryan and myself at this party able to hold a conversation and interact with people of both genders. Then there was Neil and Amir, two of our - let's say socially awkward - friends who don't get out much. Which is fine with us and they were fun to hang out with, but it came back to haunt us (Eduardo). Oh, and meanwhile, the other half of our team had been back in the room since 8pm. So about 45 minutes into the backrubs and the running hands through hair and kissing on the neck (check out Eduardo’s moves on syndicated TV if you get the chance), Amir, who has been sitting on the ottoman for the last 2 hours just grinning, blurts out...

Quote of the Day 4/17/06

"Wait, Eduardo. Don't you have a girlfriend?"

-2004 Cock-Blocker of the Year, Amir

Whatever Eduardo's actual status was with the girl who hung around him a bunch, it was all the same to Amir. And it was a bit too late to try to explain that to the Xavier girl who had already kicked him in the nuts. But hell, it made my week.

1999 Cock-Blockee of the Year,

Coach.

Still Standing Right Here...

Play is a 4 Letter Word

Play is a 4 Letter Word

So one of the most exciting and unpredictable tournaments in NCAA basketball history just came to a close tonight. Unfortunately, the climax was the worst part. Kinda like how Signs was awesome for about an hour and a half and then Wakeem Phoenix beat the alien to death with a bat. And I just don't ever feel like spelling his name right, in case you were gonna jump on me about that. The whole George Mason story was great up until Saturday where they looked like Brick Mason. And some people said when they got to the final four that you couldn't have scripted a better story than if they won the whole thing. I disagree. I am going to prove that you can. My screenplay will have an 11-seed win the NCAA tournament, but also save us from evil robots and a Category 5 hurricane. There's your script!

Yeah, anyway, so they're done. As is LSU, so there wasn't even a guy with a nickname in this final game. And I just couldn't care less about this Goliath vs. Goliath match tonight. It's like watching the Williams sisters in the finals of the French Open. What's the point? Well, I suppose I could actually care a little less. Like at least it's not soccer. Or American Idol. Or the last 5 seasons of Friends (yep, I think he successfully offended everybody). But hey, at least Duke didn't win, right?

So I'm going to this party, er... I mean conference all this upcoming week starting tomorrow for college recreation professionals. A bunch of people who do what I do for a living from all across this country and a few others will be in Sunny Louisville all week long swapping stories and maybe swapping some other things if I come back and there's a hanger on the door. And we can toss around terms like "informal recreation coordinator" and "sport clubs assistant director" and everybody there will know what we're talking about. But I realize that it's kind of difficult to explain these things to people that aren't in our profession. Erin recently asked me what I was doing at work. I told her that I was in charge of the Rec facility that day and that means that I walk around and make sure that everybody is happy. When she asked what I was doing that night, I told her that I had a basketball game with the Free Agents. I know; it's a rough life. So to sum up...

Quote of the Day 4/3/06

"Oh, I think I understand. So basically, you play games and talk to people."

-Erin


And I'm demanding a raise.

Puttin bread on the table,

D Rec.

Still Standing Right Here...