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Friday, June 04, 2004
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Oklahoma Trip Blog Continued
Days 4,5 & 6 From the Oaklahoma trip - I finally had more time to write some more for the oaklahoma trip. I've been so busy with the video I never had a chance to do it.. but now that the video is done I can work on it! =) Enjoy. I still have more to come.. One more episode
Monday May 10th
As time goes on I'm starting to forget things that happend for each day. I'm just going to try my best. On monday I ended up being the alarm clock for the girls. Since on sunday thier clock alarm didn't work I decided I would go over and wake them up in the morning. We ended up all meeting for breakfast downstairs at around 8:00. Then just before we went off to start the work for the day we met as a group and talked about our devotions that morning and kind of figured out a game plan for the day. I didn't want to be cooped up working on the computers the entire day so in the morning I started out working with the girl scraping and painting the benches up on the hill. It sure was a nice day outside to do that in too. I ended up getting a fairly good tan while I was out there. I wasn't out there the whole time though.. I probably only worked out there maybe 3-4 hours at the most. The rest of the time I was stuck inside fixing the computers in the office. They had one computer that was Running Windows XP and it was soo slow. I don't even know how they got windows XP to successfully install on that thing. I told them that if they wanted it to run well and be relaiable XP would be an unacceptable option for a computer of that age. I suggested downgrading it to windows 98. Brian gave the ok on that so I just had to wait for the user of the computer to give me a list of things to backup before I erased it all and started over. While I waited for that I was back outside painting benches. (We had about 48 or so benches total around camp to do). Once I finally got the list of things I started to work on the computer so more. It was pretty bad it gave me problem after problem. First the CD rom was bad on the comptuer so I had to end up using the CD-rom out of another comptuer temporarily to get windows installed. Then just little issues popped up all over the place. Brian had three other comptuers of the exact same type that were in the same situation as far as being very old but attempting to run windows XP. So once I finally ended up getting that one computer done. It was easier because All I had to do was make a copy of the hard drive from one computer to the others. That worked well because it took me a good 5 hours to get the first one up and running exactly how they wanted it. (mostly due to dialup internet). But once I had that up and running I was able to get each of the others up and running in less then one hour for each one. But still it made one long day of work considering the painting scraping and computer work combined. The staff there at the camp always did a great job of taking care of us though. The food they made was very very good. I don't think I've ever had camp food quite like it. we always took time during the work day to eat a good hearty lunch and then close out the work day with dinner. My computer job was never done when it got dark though, I was down in the office until around midnight on monday finalizing the computer work. I had the network to configure and all kinds of little things like that. I wish I could remember what the rest of the team was doing that evening while I was fixing the computers.. but as you probalby guessed.. I don't remember. I do remember after finishing up with the computer I went and sat in the hallway and read my book for awhile. Allie came out and joined me for a bit but she didn't stay too long. I was reading a really good book called "wild at heart" and I was determined to get it finished by the time the week was over.. so even after allie left and I was the only one out there in the hall I probalby stayed there a good hour or so after that. I didn't get to sleep until right around 1:30 that night. So anyway.. that pretty much covers it..
Tuesday May 11th
Tuesday morning I woke up early again and made sure the girls were awake, then proceded to get ready for the day. That morning we just ate a quick breakfast and pretty much started work right away. A group of soldiers that just returned from Iraq were planning on staying there at the camp for three days. They arrived there at the camp that morning. There were still quite a few benches left to go around and paint so the girls started on that. Mike returned to building his waterslide, and I returned to repairing and setting up computers. Periodically while the computers were doing thier thing I was able to get out and help the girls with some more painting. I made pretty good progress on the computers on Tuesday. I was able to get all the computers in the offices and classrooms done that day. Since all the soldiers were there at the camp they had a big lunch. It was great. Dinner was just as good. I wish I could remember more details of how the day played out.. but I have no idea where those memories went.. I think they blew off into oblivion. I do remember that evening after dinner while I was in the offices continuing the labor on the computers the rest of the group played pool the entire night. Allie and Mike ended up recording an entire game on video. I edited it to play super fast.. its kind of funny to watch. But anyway.. all of us headed to bed shortly after midnight that night.
Wednesday May 12th
On wednesday it was pretty much the same routine in the morning. I woke up the girls then headed down for quiet time and breakfast. Brian ended up bring back 4 more computers for me to work on today I was able to get all of them finished up fairly quickly though, so that made it nice. Two of them were soooo slow though so I couldn't do much for them, but I did what I could. Throughout the day while the comptuers were doing thier thing I went up and helped the girls rake. Brittany and Tori ended up both having allergies to them though because there was mold build up underneath the leaves. It was pretty bad. So Allie and I had to work on them by ourselfs. I figured out a way to make it a little easier. We had to rake them into piles and put them all into a huge white bag. So I figured out it is really easy if I stood inside of the white bag and threw them all in under my legs. It was kind of funny looking though, but it worked! Then a little later we started the process of mulching (barking) the side of the walkways. I had to keep coming and going though so I could get the computers working right. For the second half of the day after getting the computers working I then had to setup the multimedia equipment and figure out how to use it all. One of my projects was to teach Jamie how to build mulitmedia presenations and I also had to show her how to do the website and tips for using powerpoint... a bunch of stuff like that. So for the last half of the day I got everything setup and ready to go for the next day to start the training bright and early on thursday. Then I also used part of the time to type up my testamony and the way I wanted to say it because after dinner for the church service our group was going to all go up and say a short testamony. I am really bad at public speaking and I feel like I need to have what I'm going to say right in front of me. So I had my entire speech typed out and printed so I could more or less read off of it for the service. I would have liked to be able to do it without reading it but I get so nervous I would have probably just got up there with a blank stare. Either that or screwed it up completely. Its something I defentatly want to work on though. I'm not sure how I can improve but I hope I can. Anyway.. after having everything typed up we had dinner and then the service started shortly after. Brittany and Allie ended up doing the worship for that evening. I ran all the lyrics through the powerpoint too. I was really nervous before I had to go up and do my speech, but I made it through. NOt only was I nervous though.. my wisdom tooth was coming in and it was really bad. I had a massive migrane because of it.. it was so bad it made my whole head hurt and it encompased my neck and shoulders as well, as the night moved on it started to make my arms hurt too. It got so bad to the point where I decided I had to take some medicine for it. I think it did help some though. Anyway after the service I had to work on the computers and things a little more and then a bunch of us just hung out in the office and played a bible trivia game. I fell asleep though, from all my late nights I was pretty tired. We all were down there in the office until around 2:00 that night I think.
Thursday May 13th
Thursday morning after breakfast we had a short worship service where brittany and Allie played a couple songs and Brian had a couple that he did too. It was the last thing the soldiers that were there were going to do before leaving the camp later that afternoon. The service went pretty good though.. It was about a half our or so. On thursday I spent most of the day teaching Jamie how do video editing. There is a lot of stuff involved with doing good video presenations so I first had to show her how to hook everything up and then import video and then work with the programs.. all kinds of stuff. That project took most of the day. I did have some time to get up and do some other things periodically though while she experimented with the software. The next project to work on was to setup and organize the new gift shop. So I was able to head over there and do some organizing and setup to help. There were massive amounts of tee-shirts that needed to be folded and stored. Then there were some that had to be hung up as well. Then there were lots of little toys and things that had to be separated and stuff too. That was a job that took the girls through the entire day and they still weren't finished by the time it was over. Meanwhile Jamie was doing a great job learning the video editing program. I had her take a break in the middle sometime and I showed how how to work with the website some too. We kind of got a mainpage layout done with some content and showed her how to update that. Also the computers that I fixed for the classrooms there at the camp needed to have some programs re-installed since I deleted everythign and started them from scratch to make them run faster. But the person that was doing the installing in the classroom was having some trouble so I had to run over and give her a hand with that. Also another computer over at Grandmas house (Dale) was having some problems connecting to the interenet after I finished up my updates on it. It was a pretty quick fix though. But while I was there I had an encounter with her cat.. It came up and sat on my lap for about 5 minutes and when she left my shirt was covered in cat hair.. I could have almost made another shirt out of it.. it was pretty crazy.. I never could get all of it off while I was there. I had to wait unitl I got back and washed it. But anyway. Thursday was a pretty productive day for us. Unfortunatly Danny (the guys helping mike on the slide) hurt his back pretty bad on wednesday and so he had to take the day off. That meant Mike had to go find another project to work on. He ended up doing some more mulching. He really wanted to get the slide done by friday though. He hoped that they could make up for the lost time by working extra hard the next day. So anyway as it got dark we all mingled inside and hung out Tori and Britt came over to me that night while I was trying to read and decided they wanted to make like a million pony tails in my hair. They ended up using like 100 rubberbands or so to do it. I have a picture of it which I"ll put online once I get some time. The rest of the night we all hung out in the office again and I helped Jamie work with the website some more Allie and Brittany hung out with us for awhile too. I'm not sure exactly where Mike was at the time but I know he wasn't sleeping.. so I don't know what he was up to. Tori turned in early that night though so she wasn't there. We all pretty much hung out just talking and working on the website Jamie and I made pretty good progress on it. We ended up heading out around 1:00 or so.
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posted by Jeremy Dillinger @ 1:13 AM
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