Lots of things

Looking at the latest post on this blog prior to today, I was overcome with a wave of nostalgia. Ah, those were good times when we were waiting to get the floors finished.

Since then, a lot has happened here at Camp Dixie, so I thought a photo montage was in order to show what has happened.

First of all we have finally finished this wave of floor improvements. New tile has been laid in the Kitchen, Dining Hall, front Bathrooms and the two front storage rooms in the main building. We've also fixed all the light fixtures so that they are all lighting up now. It makes the inside of the building look like a million bucks. Well about $7000 anyway.

Here's a picture of the Dining Hall with its new tiles.



Since we last chatted we also had a NLOMA Conference in Arizona. At this conference all the camp directors in the nation get together and talk about important issues facing outdoors ministry. We also use this time for our Joint Recruitment process for summer staff hiring. I also took an extra day and headed to Tuscon to visit the Pima Air and Space museum and the Titan Missile Museum. It's pretty fun stuff, the Air Museum had more military planes than I have ever seen in one place, and at the Missile Museum I literally got to walk into a cold war missile silo.

Here's a picture of one of the more interesting planes at the Pima Museum (a NASA super guppy that helped move rocket parts during the start of the shuttle program) and a look down into the Titan II Missile silo. Just as a note, the sides and bottom of the silo were made of concrete eight feet thick, and it had no seams in it anywhere.

The beginning of March saw the return of the Blue Angels (always a sign that summer is coming) to Pensacola Naval Air Station, a visit by Kim's family, and this year it brought one of the earliest possible Easters. The Easter sunrise service at Camp Dixie, which is an annual tradition for St. Mark's Lutheran Church of Elberta, AL, actually had a sunrise during the service. We were actually singing a song, and just as we started the last verse, the sun started to peek over the Florida side of Perdido Bay.

Here are a couple of pictures of the 2008 Blue Angels team. I didn't get any pictures of the sunrise during the worship service, I thought it might be best to pay attention to the service as much as possible.


Throughout the past couple of months we have been going through the hiring process for summer staff. We are planning on hiring 14 or 15 counselors this summer, and we currently have 11 of those positions filled, so we are well on our way. Once again we have great people coming from all over the country, from as far away as Minnesota and Kansas, and as close as Southern Mississippi.

In April, I've been working on getting summer camp registrations processed, as well as getting ready for summer camp. I was however able to take some time to head to an airshow near Panama City at Tyndall AFB with FTP from the past two summers at Camp Dixie (better make that three, he is working here this summer too. The Thunderbirds were headlining (ask me sometime who I think is best after seeing the Blue Angels a lot, and the Thunderbirds twice in my life.) But the best part is where we sat. We sat to the right of show center a little ways, and as we were sitting there, four F-15's taxied right in front of us and sat there for their part of the show which was coming up. So for about 10 minutes we were 20 feet away from some very powerful, very loud fighters. The best part however was as they turned onto the taxiway in front of us, the pilot decided to give the throttles a little kick, and we got to enjoy the rear end of two F-15 engines at what I am sure was just a bit above idle speed. The resulting wind blew over the trash barrel next to us (which had a very large sandbag in the bottom holding it in place), it blew FTP's hat off his head and about 10 yards away in an instant, and i'm pretty sure it embedded some pieces of dust into my legs that won't be coming out for a while. All in all it was a fun weekend.

Here is a picture of one of the F-15 pilots, as well as my first F-22 sighting. Doesn't it look a little bit like a UFO?

Well that's about it for now, this past weekend we had a great group from Slidell, LA. We had some fun doing challenge course with them (I've never actually made everyone in a group not be allowed to talk before.) And we even tried some fishing, but after having our bait stolen numerous times by fish that were too small to even be hooked by our hooks, we decided to quit that little excursion.

And today it's windy. Warm, but cloudy and windy.

The beginning of the end... we hope.

Hey everyone, it's been a long three months of getting the floor ready for tiles and such at Camp Dixie, but the end is in sight. The tiles are now being laid in the Dining Hall, and in the next few days they will also be laid in the front bathrooms and the old Director's office and the old linen storage room, as well as the breezeways between the dining hall and the dorms. In a word they look beautiful! The tiles really brighten up the room and bring a nice look to it. The final task after the tiles is laid will be getting a coat of polish on the floors, but that will have to happen next week, the tiles are supposed to be laid for a couple of days before that happens.

We asked for donations for this project and it has been just amazing how generous people have been to Camp Dixie. If you are reading this and have donated to the floor project, all I can say is thank you. Thank you so very much, and the floors will look great the next time you see them. Speaking of which, the next chicken dinner is coming up on March 2. Hope to see you there.

See you at Camp!

Mac

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and turn on the heat!

Hey everyone, it's been so long since I've written in the blog here, that I need to make sure that I say some greetings. Like I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. We went to Minnesota to see the fam over Christmas and it was cold. I also hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year. We hung out with some friends in Pensacola, and it was slightly less cold. Then shortly after that I got a cold. Yuck.

And now, the weather is still a bit cold (now I do know that all you people north of here are going to laugh at this,) but the other day it got to 25 degrees. Really 25. Cold Cold for here.

Anyway, there are lots of things that are going on at Camp Dixie. Mostly it revolves around floors for now. The tiles have been laid in the kitchen, we've been using it for a couple of weeks, and it looks BEAUTIFUL! We also have purchased the tiles for the Dining Hall floors, and those will be installed starting on February 4th. Yup, that's the day after the chicken dinner, and also the day after the Super Bowl.

I will post some more pictures of the kitchen, it really does look nice.

See you at Camp!
Mac

A Ceramic Kitchen

Hey everyone,
I hope you are having a great time wherever you are. We've been hearing that winter is here for most of the country, I won't tell you that it's supposed to be about 70 degrees here in Alabama this weekend. Rough life huh?

Anyway, it's time to do a bit of an update on the kitchen. You saw pictures of what it looked like when we started removing the peeling, chipping paint from the floor. We were able to get everyone off, and decided we needed some assistance to see what we should put down on the floor. We called the health department to see what they recommended, and they dropped a bit of a bomb on us. They are no longer going to accept painted concrete as a floor in a kitchen. So it looked like the new floor was going to be tiled! The board of health recommended that we bring them a sample of what we would like to use, and they would tell us if it passed muster or not. After waiting for over an hour for the final decision (thanks Ray for waiting) they said we can put in ceramic tile, but they recommend quarry tile in the places where heavy equipment will be sitting on the floor (that means the fry cookers and the stove.) Well, things have moved beyond that point, and the ceramic tiles have been laid!

Above is a picture of the installers putting in the tile (seriously, they are great at what they do. Could you lay a whole room of tiles this straight? I'm sure I couldn't.) So, we have new tiles in the kitchen! The main dining hall area has also had all its paint removed, and we are looking at some new solutions for that. Things are really starting to look great in the dining and kitchen areas of Camp Dixie. I'm very excited to reveal the changes to our first group rental at the beginning on January, and can't wait until everyone sees it at the first chicken dinner in February! (That's scheduled for February 3, 2008, so make sure you come to see it then!)


Here's a picture of the tiles laid down, but before being grouted. If you look closely under the vent hood you can see the quarry tile. More finished pics to come after the New Year.

Have a great weekend!
See you at camp (on February 3)
Mac.

Kitchen floors are fun!

Hi everyone! I just wanted to take a couple of minutes to say Merry Christmas to everyone, and also to let you know what's been going on at Camp Dixie the past couple of weeks.

Actually the past couple of weeks, I haven't spent all that much time at Camp Dixie to be honest. At the end of November I spent a weekend in Louisiana helping out with the Southern District Junior High Youth Gathering. We had about 80 campers at a Retreat Center, and had a ton of fun. It was a great time. After that event, I was home for one day before traveling to Lincoln, Missouri for a National Lutheran Outdoor Ministry event at Heit's Point Lutheran Camp. Heit's Point is an amazing place, it's on an arm of the Lake of the Ozarks, so it is beautiful, beautiful beautiful! They also have some amazing camp buildings, and it's always nice to see a new place.

On the way home from the NLOMA event, I got to experience some winter conditions, and some winter driving. Just a few miles from the camp it started snowing, and as I traveled further south, it started raining/sleeting. By the time I took this picture there was almost two inches of ice that had accumulated on some parts of the front of the truck. The ice never did stick to the roads (the ground was still warm enough to keep it from freezing) but the bridge decks were awfully icy. No worries though, when I got into Arkansas it stopped raining, and by Mississippi it was warm enough for the ice to melt.

Once I got back to Camp Dixie, I found out that some of our volunteers had started working on our floors in the kitchen. On our last kitchen health inspection we lost a couple of points because our floor paint was peeling, and in generally bad condition. In order to get those back we are looking at a new surface for the floor. But first, no matter what we do, we need to remove the original paint that is all over the floor. It seems like an easy task right? I mean we can hardly keep the paint on the floor, it shouldn't be a problem to remove it. Yeah. Right. Actually the paint is quite a pain to remove from the floor. After several days of work, we've managed to get the main kitchen area clean, as well as the fry room in the back. We've got some great ideas on how to make the job happen more quickly now however (can you say diamond tipped cutting blades?) So it shouldn't be a problem. Everything should look great for the upcoming retreat season.

Well that's about it for now,

See you at camp!
Mac

NOW I'm done with the hull

Hey everyone, just a quick sunfish sailboat update. I kept looking at the boat, and remembering that I hadn't waxed the bottom of the boat when I did the top and sides. So, now the bottom is waxed (with the 3M Fiberglass restorer and wax.) It looks (and feels) great. So now the hull really is done (except for the fittings I want to replace, but that is going to have to wait until after the holidays.)

Here's a picture. it looks like the trailer is definitely going to need some work once the boat is done.
Peace,
Mac

Sanding, Sanding (to the tune of sailing, sailing)

So, the sanders have come out, and it's time to see what can be done with the daggerboard and rudder for the Sunfish sailboat. If you remember from the last blog, all of the wood pieces for the boat have seen better days. They've been left in the sun, and they don't like that one bit! So, I took the daggerboard and rudder apart, and started the process of making them beautiful.

Here's what the 'board looked like after sanding it down to the non-faded/non-varnished wood. It looks much better doesn't it? The 'board itself is in pretty good shape. There are a few cracks down at the bottom of it (right side in the picture) but they were very small, and actually expected in a 'board that hasn't been refinished in forever. Hopefully the spar varnish that is put on the 'board will help with those cracks.

There was a bit of a surprise when I took apart the rudder however. The rudder "cheeks," which is what connects the rudder to the boat, were hiding an unfortunate problem. There was a large crack in the rudder. Believe it or not, I'm actually not a stranger to cracked rudders. Both of the boats at Camp Omega had rudders that cracked in half when I was working there. It's not the best situation when that happens, because the boat is obviously difficult to steer without a rudder (what? impossible you say?) and the other problem is that the rudders are expensive to replace (see the earlier comment in this blog about the pieces being made of mahogany.) Luckily this crack has not traveled all the way down the rudder, so I am going to try to use some wood glue on it, clamp it together, and see if that will hold it for a while.

The next step is spar varnish on everything that has been sanded. The minimum recommendation is 3 coats with at least 12 hours between coats, so it might be a little bit of time before this part of the project is done. It's taking a while, but this boat is really starting to shape up.

That's it for now,
See you on the water, and at Camp!
Mac