Conference Notes: Saturday Evening

An apple by any other name

It occurred to me a while back that both Apple and McDonald's use the same naming convention for their products. Take the name of the thing and add the respective corporate prefix, and voila! I thought it would be interesting to see the result if they switched roles.

I'm not sure if I'd like to try a iBig burger, but a McMac computer could be fun!

Percy Jackson, part 2

...and the rest of the shirt designs for the Camp Half-Blood cabins. Yes, there are two Hades -- we took a little literary and artistic license, but the needs of the party demanded it.

Percy Jackson, part 1

For his birthday, one of my sons had a Percy Jackson party, and we made cabin T-shirts for all the attendees. So in honor of the new movie, here are the designs for the shirts, part one.

Yet another summer camp

When the kids are home in the summer, one of the big challenges we always faced was getting them to do their chores. We came up with the idea of "cleaning camp," a summer camp to help kids learn how to do chores properly. They thought we were kidding until we came up with a logo. It's funny -- all the kids we talk to HATE the idea, but all their parents LOVE it!

The Mines of Moriah

Anyone who has been a scout has stories of camping. Some of them are funny. Some are downright horrific. Some, like the Orc Trek, are excellent.

In the name of two-deep leadership, I volunteered to go along. My son Sam was going, too, which was another really good excuse to go on what promised to be a great adventure. We set up base camp near Mt. Adams, just across the Columbia River in Washington, and from there we explored a series of caves — caves with exotic names like “Dead Horse Cave.” Most of the trip was scrabbling around dark, dank and musty caves, like Orcs. And, being scouts, by the end of the trip they smelled just like Orcs, too! Unlike Orcs, we didn’t dine on man flesh. Rather, we had Dutch oven barbecued ribs. Mmm!

With the help of my two young apprentices, Sam and Ben, we created this trip logo and made up a couple of T-shirts. Great trip!