Epiphanies

Trying to watch the nominated movies. So far we’ve seen king’s speech, black swan, toy story 3, social network.

Was pretty bad for awhile so want to see if the upgrades have helped.

Arrived in the afternoon so we thought we had plenty of time to pitch a tent and set up camp. Albert walked Brandon to his campsite but it ended up being a lot further than we thought. By the time he got back, the sun had started setting. Problem was no one at the boy scout encampment was directing people on where to set up. I guess they emailed people beforehand but since we were the only one from our pack to go, they had neglected to give us any information. When we finally found someone with a map indicating where each pack/troop were supposed to set up, we realized we weren’t even on the map. Someone who was in charge asked us which district we were in. We had no clue but she said since you’re from Irvine, you’re probably in Rancho del Mar. Unfortunately, that meant we had to set up somewhere near where Brandon was set up which took at least a good 15 minutes to walk without carrying stuff. As you can imagine, trying to drag all our camping gear to our campsite was a nightmare. I swear my muscles hurt for days. We were essentially wandering around (in the dark now), no flashlight, no clue, cold, hungry and pissed.

Kindness of strangers saved us. Another troop helped us set up the tent (David? John? Forgot their names). They lent us a lamp and some stakes because it was too windy. We froze most of the night, ate snacks instead of cooking like we envisioned. We even brought a stove but it was just too cold, the grass was really dry so we were a bit nervous. The porta-johns shook when I was inside trying to pee, very nervewracking. So no woods, no lakes, no campfires – not at all what I was dreaming about when I think about camping. All dirt and dust. Did not enjoy it at all.

Scouting – camping at Prado dam regional park. Severe wind advisory and the wind is making the whole place smell of cow dung and dusty as hell. Don’t know if I’ll last. I’m so not the camping type.

Soccer party at lamppost as usual. Had a conflict though. Had j’s parent teacher conference at same time. We managed to get back in time. Shelly was really cool – she arranged the party and also got me Starbucks gift card for the photos I took during the season for the team. How cool is she!!!