What's an Overnight Camp?

They're outside, moving slowly across the playground,
looking for anyone wearing wool or smelling of lamb chops

Hello Troops,
"What's an Overnight Camp?"
That's a good question, considering we haven't had a regular one night overnight camp in several weeks. Our last two Overnight Camps were part of the Ultimate Camp. Tonight's camp is 100% traditional so during the staff meeting I reminded everyone how an Overnight Camp differs from an EdVenture Camp.

• The campers are not issued name badges.
• There are no death dots or bonus signatures.
• There is no before bed video.
• The camp stops for the night at 11:00 P.M.
• The staff get refreshments in the Discovery Room.
• I get up at 5:45 A.M. and make the WalMart doughnut run.
• The campers are up at 7:10 A.M.
• The campers go straight to the cafeteria for breakfast, bypassing the gym.
• The campers leave at 10:00 A.M.
• We have a staff meeting afterwords to review the surveys and award points.

There you have it, a traditional Overnight Camp. I heard several staff say , "I remember that," as I made each point. The longer camps are in their final few weeks at the Center and then the summer season will end. It's been a good run.

It's 9:58 P.M. and the simulators are running on full steam. Casey is running the Voyager. Dave is in the Phoenix. Christine is at the Odyssey's helm. Brittney is directing the Magellan and Ben is in charge of the Galileo. I'm at my desk with headphones on. My music helps me stay focused on the task at hand and, if turned up loud enough and the noise cancellation system activited, drowns out the thundering sounds of the simulators which surround me.

We run our joint camp with the Astrocamp campers from Thursday to Saturday. There are 13 of them coming from Ogden. They are usually great kids.

With all that said, I believe its time to visit Wonderland and look at what our Imagineers have been up to.

Our news from the Imaginarium begins with Carol Melps, a four year veteran tour guide with BiLo Tours out of London. She came to the Imaginarium's Center for Creativity Studies looking for treatment to restore and rejuvenate her imagination . After several tests our best therapist concluded that Carol Melps of 15 Wimpledell Circle, Little Bottom, Surrey had a chronic irreversible condition. Her imagination and creativity were in a severe state of atrophy. Despite our best efforts it was decided that she'd waited too long for treatment. She was discharged and sent back to the real world. Carol is once again directing tours for BiLo Tours in Spain. We wish her the best of luck and hope her condition doesn't infect her customers.

Carol, at work. Uninspiring and Wearisome to her Clients.
Click to enlarge

We leave Carol and move along to those who still harbor that spark of imagination and wonder.






It's nearly 10:30 P.M. In 30 minutes it will be ice cream, a cookie and bed. 44 campers will drift away on clouds of Space Center dreams (nightmares for some) and the staff will wander aimlessly through the hallways, too exhausted to think rationally, until I order them to bed.

Good Night,

Mr. W.

This Week in Words......

Hello Troops,
The highlights of the week:

• Day Camp 2 Monday through Wednesday. Great kids and great staff. The perfect combination for a great time all around.

• Bracken's injury (see previous post).

• Jon and his cane. Jon is another of our younger 20 somethings that many of you know as our boy's chief chaperon. He works as a flight director and supervisor in the Voyager. He hobbled around on a cane for a day or two. He claimed it was something genetic, I can't be sure because I wasn't listening as I should have. As soon as I heard it wasn't an injury sustained at the Space Center my interest wained. Some of the staff were overheard talking near the drinking fountain (the best place in any organization to hear the latest gossip). One maliciously suggested Jon was "faking it", claiming how strange it was that Jon's injury came on the heels of Bracken's. First of all, shame to the any of the staff for openly saying what we were all thinking - and let everyone be warned that the full wrath of Mr. Williamson will be unleashed on anyone that vocalizes what I'm thinking again :)

• Thursday through Saturday was our 5th EdVenture Camp. We had outstanding campers and staff. I enjoyed the camp even though I spent most of the time in a mental haze caused by lack of sleep. Living and working in a mental haze has its advantages, as long as I'm not driving long distances. I find myself dozing off at my desk from time to time thus giving the staff something else to talk about at the water fountain. I'm trying not to doze off as much, afraid I'll be caught by Alex Anderson and his newly installed web cam perched near the pencil sharpener on the bookshelf behind my desk. I heard it moving the other day while I had my feet up on the desk and my eyes and brain parked in neutral. I heard a noise, looked over and saw the camera moving in my direction. I spun around, grabbed a pen and pretended to be signing imaginary papers. Curse you and that camera Alex. I think we're finished with the trial run. Its time to put it in the Magellan so I can get back to work and not worry if someone is going to see me picking my nose or shepherding sheep over that white picket fence :)

• Our "Going the Extra Mile Award" this week goes to Aleta Clegg. Aleta is our Curriculum Director, Planetarium Manager and Summer Cook and Bottle Washer. She came to work Thursday looking like someone in need of a stiff drink. She'd been up all night with a very sick child. She ignored her body's screams for sleep and soldiered on, cooking outstanding food for campers, staff and volunteers. Thanks Aleta!

• Our second place "Going the Extra Mile Award" goes to Bracken and Megan. They saw a problem and took steps to correct it. Our twenty year old shower curtain in the Voyager's bathroom was developing some kind of organism capable of communicating by telepathy. This explains that strange feeling of something else in the shower with you that many of you have been reporting to me over the last few weeks. Bracken and Megan said they couldn't tolerate it one minute more. They drove to WalMart and bought another shower curtain with their own money. Great Job Bracken and Megan! I must now ask you a question I heard expressed by one of our newly hired supervisors near the fourth grade drinking fountain. How can you two afford to purchase and donate a new shower curtain on Space Center wages? Such extravagance is causing people to talk. Mind you, I'm not one of them but I am curious. Don't shower curtains cost like five to ten dollars? Come on, tell the truth. Where are you two getting extra money to throw away on luxuries like shower curtains? Is it something I can get into? Come on, share the joy.

• Tregan wins third place in the "Going the Extra Mile" award this week. Let me explain. There are rare occasions I'm allowed to leave the school. They usually involved spending money to repair this or that or an emergency toner cartridge purchase because the current one in the Voyager is kaput and won't print another legible paper no matter how many times it is shaken. Every time I've returned to the Center I've found Tregan standing at the intersection of the kindergarten and main hallway entrance to the school in full camo with one phaser in hand and two more strapped to each leg with another safely tucked in his waistband for good measure. "I'm here for the Phoenix," he said every time I passed. What a dedicated volunteer, always ready for his acting role! Of course, I didn't have the heart to tell him the Phoenix crew had already gone home and the mission was over or the Phoenix crew, along with all the other campers, were in the cafeteria having lunch.

It's a beautiful day so how about a stroll through the Imaginarium before Sunday dinner?

This first is a series of Greeting Cards from the Romance Section of the Imaginarium's Gift Shop. You would expect any greeting card purchased at the Imginarium to approach the subject differently, wouldn't you?







Hurry, Wonderland's Grand Theater still has ticket's for the world premier of Samurai Wars!


A brilliant idea to stop the conversation before it gets started. A God send to the injured tired of recounting the horrific accident over and over again. An Imaginarium gem for sure.

Pass? You Shall Not!

You want paradise? What universe do you come from?

What is it with us men and manuals?

We've got a great week ahead of us with an Overnight Camp and another EdVenture Camp (not to mention several private missions and birthday parties). I hope to see you all soon at the Center.

Mr. Williamson

The End of One and the Beginning of Another

Hello Troops,
Our Day Camp ended at 3:00 P.M. Thursday. EdVenture Camp 5 started at 7:00 P.M. The EdVenture Camp ends Saturday at 3:00 P.M. Let it never be said the Space Education Center let a day go by without finding some way to make it beneficial to ourselves and our students.

I have an injury to report. Tuesday, early afternoon, Flight Director Bracken is standing at the bottom of the Voyager's Spiral Stairs. A Voyager Security Guard slowly descends the spiral stairs - step by step, phaser drawn. He is more concerned with a possible intruder than minding where his feet are falling on the stairs.

Three steps from the bottom, with his back to Bracken, the security officer missteps. Gravity intercedes and pulls the boy toward an abrupt and possibly painful disagreement with the carpeted Crew Quarters floor. But wait, there is a rather large mass in the boy's way. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, its Bracken! Instead of colliding with the unforgiving floor, the boy falls into 6 foot 9 ish Bracken. The boy is spared and there was great rejoicing.

Bracken, on the other hand, wasn't prepared for this close encounter of the forth kind. The boy's mass impacted Bracken's, sending Bracken off balance. Bracken's left leg lost its structural integrity and gave way, sending Bracken's left rib cage into the metal bar of the small bunk bed next to the spiral stairs.

Bracken collapsed onto the floor, clutching his side. According to reliable witnesses he repeatedly called for his mother. Another remembered seeing Bracken lose consciousness. When he woke moments later he mentioned an unsettling memory of a bright light at the end of a long tunnel and a voice of rolling thunder say, "We don't want your kind here!"

It took the combined effort of four eleven and twelve year old boys to hoist Bracken off the floor and drag him to the comfort of a bunk.

"No, No," he said with hand upon his heart. "I will not rest while others work. Leave me here. I shall preserver." The boys left Bracken in the crew quarters clutching his side while struggling for breath.

I learned about the accident when I saw Bracken crawling on his hands and knees out of the Voyager and into the Space Center's office. I jumped up to offer assistance. It was refused.

"No No," he said with hand upon his heart. "I will not take your help, or help from any man while people starve in sub Sahara Africa! Help them I say. Leave me to the Fates!" With that, he collapsed onto the carpet, blocking the entrance to the Voyager.

We pulled him back to the world of mortals with smelling salts and a few of the camper's dirty socks found abandoned on the gym floor. Bracken, no longer able to crawl because of the pain, inched his way in a unflattering worm crawl into the office. He maneuvered around the metal filing cabinet to the area between the long wooden desk and the outside wall. He layed beside the Black Hole (The Space Center's Lost and Found). The twenty minute journey of eight feet left him exhausted and barely able to speak.

"Water, water," Bracken whispered through swollen cracked and bleeding lips. A young volunteer, holding back sincere tears of compassion, found a cup and filled it from the drinking fountain. He knelt beside Bracken, lifted his head and held the cup to his lips.

"Here Bracken," his voice wavered between sobs. "Water."

"No, No," Bracken said pushing the cup away from his parched lips and throat. "I will not drink until everyone here has had a drink. The Good Book says that the first shall be last and the last first." With that, he fainted.

Bracken, a Hero to Young Children.
A Martyr to Pain and Punishment

Bracken is an example of the kind of staff we have at the Space Education Center. They are people who put everyone else first. Our staff and volunteers are the salt of the Earth burdened with extreme humility as their only weakness. The thought warms a Director's heart.

Epilogue: Bracken badly bruised his ribs but thankfully there were no breaks. He is a trooper and was back to work the next day. He makes an interesting sight - a nearly seven foot young 20 year old hobbling around the Center looking more like someone 93 years of age who was unable to reach the toilet in time.

And now, on a brighter note, shall we take a few minutes to enjoy the Imaginarium?

Who are your top ten favorites?

The home of the richest of the Hobbits in the Shire.

Just one of the Imaginarium's favorite Watering Holes for our young gun slingers looking to spend a few hours washing away their troubles in lemonade, and Sarsaparilla while listening to Kitty at the piano. Later, a few hands of Uno before home, bath and bed.

See You Soon Troops!

Mr. W.