Cool.

You Should Learn Japanese

You're cutting edge, and you are ready to delve into wacky Japanese culture. From Engrish to eating contests, you're born to be a crazy gaijin. Saiko!

Seriously, I'm answering these quizzes honestly. I keep getting these great answers.

Anyways, Jay Leno is on, and is amusing. He's got Bill Maher on and some up-and-coming comedian named Loni Love. It's pretty funny. Even while I'm listening to my Coheed and Cambria CD again. Seriously, "Backend of Forever" makes me want to be a better guitarist for a bunch of different reasons. Also, "In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3" is an amazing song. But I don't need to get into that right now. I'm just another fanboy, it seems.

Also, Jason Mraz did a great job live on Leno.

Anyway, what I'm really trying to talk about is the Mission Trip that I just recently got back from. I liked it quite a bit. In fact, it was another great experience, as was expected. I'm always amazed that six people who've never met before can come together and fix up somebody's house in four and a half days. For those of you who don't what I'm talking about (meaning not Paul and Baumann and maybe Shawn), the Mission Trip is a Christian Service Camp in which around 400 teens and adults from all around the country bunk in a school for a week and spend that week fixing and repairing houses around the community. Our camp, in Elmira, NY, had about 390 campers and we fixed up about 60 houses around the community. At my site, the six of us scraped, primed, and double-coated the exterior of a house for a couple of 70 great-grandparents. You work every day from 8-3, except for Wednesday, which is a half-day. Each crew member is assigned a role:
- Work Director (keeps people on task)
- Quartermaster (tools guy)... my job!
- Break Maker (packs lunches and calls breaks)
- Organizer (keeps the directions and first aid kit)
- Devotion Leader (leads daily Devotions)
- Progress Reporter (reports our daily progress)
Every day at noon, you eat lunch and have daily devotions, where we talk about the daily theme and connect with God. Every night, we have an evening program, in which announcements are read, the house Praise Band performs worship songs (I played Keyboards), and talk about the daily theme as a whole group. The whole thing is an amazing spiritual experience, and it really brings everybody there closer to God. I always get this really satisfaction out of having spent a week working to improve the life of somebody I don't even know.

Another great part of the Workcamp experience is the part where I meet new people. On this trip, I ran into my Site Coach from last year, Roger Jolly (that was his real name) whose daughter was in my work crew, and he was the guitar player/music leader for the Praise Band (which I was in). I also met Chris, the drummer I met last year (also in praise band). So between the Jolly Roger and Chris, I was feeling some serious deja vu. I also was bunking in a room next door to some of the coolest people ever. Next door was James, a great bassist and the most outgoing and unabashedly original and whacked-out person I have ever met; Rich, a very talented guitarist/bassist with a casual attitude and a taste in Prog and Metal; Jeff, a solid rhythm guitar player and fun guy; and finally, Joelson, one of my favorite guys ever. Joelson was a guy who played guitar. And liked to rock. Sometimes, behind his head. He and anybody else who wanted to would hang out and jam in his room, and that actually made it into the Variety show on Wednesday. The group of six that got on stage played on a blues riff for a while, gave Chris a drum solo, and proceeded into a metal-ish riff, in which Joelson pulled out the guitar-behind-the-head routine. At precisely four minutes, everything cut out. We all thought it was the sound guys pulling the plug because the act had gone too long, when it dawned on us: how could they cut the amps, and why would they cut the lights? A fuse had blown. Joelson and company had rocked so hard that the gym fuse had blown. It was amazing.

It's bedtime now, so more on the mission trip later. Until later, sianora and good night.

.\\log oFF(SleEp)