It has been both a long and and a short summer. The first week sucked alot. As I made clear in my last post, I was way stressed. I feel like I missed my mark with that post. I may have led some of you to think that I felt a certain way, which I most definitely do not. Sure, I was sick. I was tired, I was angry at alot of things. I most definitely don’t wish I wasnt here though.

I love BigStuf. I believe so strongly in the mission of this organization that I pour everything that I have into making sure that what I am responsible for is as close to being excellent as it can be. I know where the kids that come to camp are coming from. I used to be one of them. I want campers at camp 1 to get a video that has just as much of my heart poured into it that the video at camp 10 does. They quality may not be the same, but in the long run, working myself to death is all that I can do that early in the summer. The quality will come throughout the summer, and is beyong my control.

I was told by what seemed like everyone on staff and even some of the adult leaders that the week one video, while falling short of hitting the goal I had set in my eyes, was nothing short of amazing. Expectations for week 1 are low. We are all finding out groove. I was figuring out how things were goign to work for the summer. Like I said before.. camp 1 was a win for sure.

Life is much better now. Im getting more sleep, enjoying my friends more, quality of the videos is getting better and better every week. Not to say that each week is any less stressful than the week before, but I am getting used to it.

What really does it for me is morning five of camp. When my end of the week highlight video is shown right before the campers leave. Watching the campers respond to that little piece of artwork that I had poured everything I had into over the past five days without their knowledge. The large majority of the campers don’t even realize I am working on that video pretty much all day. They don’t realize the amount of effort that goes into a video of that size and quality with such a short turnaround time.

Thats ok though. I like being behind the scenes. Sure, a little recognition every now and then doesnt hurt, but I am perfectly fine with being the man behind the curtain.

Here is a little something I made.

If you haven’t heard, life has been extremely chaotic lately. Camp 1 was one of the most stressful things I have ever experienced. While at the same time trying to adjust to the lack of sleep, train the interns, fight my sickness, and come up with some sort of framework for the end of the week video.

Clearly, I survived. Barely though. The end of the week video didn’t quite get done like it should have. There were a number of issues that contributed to this, all of which made it nearly impossible to be completely prepared for what I had thrown at me that night. I would give you all the details of it, but it would include so much technical jargon that I would probably confuse myself in the process of writing it all out.

All in all though, it was a win for camp 1. There was alot to accomplish that week, and aside from failing to deliver something that I was excited about to the campers, I did get alot of work done, and am happy with the way I managed the week.

Camp aside, I miss Kokomo alot. Its about 90 degrees here right now at about 100% humidity, and to make things worse I haven’t been on the beach once in the 2 weeks that I have been here. Sad day, right?

I don’t know what to post about. I am alive. I am breathing. I am having a good time, but at the same time this is a job and I have an incredible amount of responsibility.

Take care.

Cool.

This past Sunday we had our annual community service day at OSM. I spent the day documenting. For your viewing pleasure, here are the highlights from the day.

So it has been a couple weeks since my last post. School is over, yet I am somehow managing to stay busier now than I was when there was homework in the mix. I suppose I have been pretty busy. OSM has finished out for the year. I leave for Florida on the 26th, so I have been working on tying up all my lose ends around Lafayette, getting my apartment all packed up, etc. In the past week I have been in Lafayette, Kokomo, Noblesville, Carmel, Indianapolis, and Fort Wayne. Lots of driving and spending time with my girlfriend. I wouldn’t trade that time spent with her for anything.

BigStuf starts in 16 days. 16 DAYS. I have a lot of work to do before then. I have been hard at work these past couple of days finalizing my design for the credits at the end of the week highlight video. Here is a little glimpse of the direction I am going.

Quite a bit cleaner than what I did last year. It is also a much better planned layout, and easier to make quick changes to. No more hours and hours of rendering hoping that it doesnt fail, or that I forgot to change something. Less stress will be involved in that aspect, and less stress makes a happy Travis. The overall look that I have gone with is designed to mimic the branding that has been created for camp this year. I have been fortunate enough to get ahold of the camp book early, so I have been able to pick some design elements from it and implement them in my design. This helps me alot. It is my goal to create a package that looks and feels like camp. I have looked back at some of the videos from when I went to BigStuf as a camper, and there is no overall design. I remember camp from each year, and the videos dont contain any of the overall elements that were important at camp. I want to create a video that isn’t just a video for the campers to remember camp by, but a total experience that takes them back in time to live camp all over again. It is a tall order. I am up to the task, however. Nothing brings me more joy at camp than to watch the campers on morning five. Right before the campers leave to head back to their lives, the lights go down, the screens are turned on, the speakers are turned up to a level the makes every old person in the room curse at the guy in the sound booth underneath their breath (ok, maybe not that), we show them a video that has been in the works the entire time they are at camp. Capturing every moment of camp. The highs and the lows. I love observing them while they sit through the experience that I have created for them. This keeps me going during the long nights at camp.

BigStuf has played a big role in my life. I accepted Christ in the same room that I have had the priviledge of serving along the side of hundreds of other people to create the same experience that changed my life. The highlight videos that I have to remember those years by have become personal treasures. I just hope I can provide that same kind of memory nearly 20,000 middle and high schoolers that I will encounter in the next few months.

That is a pretty long post. Now you know what I have been doing. Just that. Be back later. Ill post again within the next few days. There is a monumentous occasion coming up very soon.

One of the greatest joys in my life are those simple little surprises.  The kind of surprises that brighten your day, and are just so monumental that you HAVE to tell someone about it right away.

I had one of these moments last week, and I just thought about it, so I figured I would share it with all of you.

I was at Burger King with my good friend Niko. We were enjoying a delicious lunch in that fine establishment. We both tried the new steakburgers they introduced a few weeks ago. I rather enjoyed it, no lie.

Anyways. I was eating my fries, so I just decided to pick up the fry container (which if you haven’t noticed, was designed by the friendly fry-pod engineers at Burger King to fit right into your cupholder… check the box, its there!) and dump them onto my tray. When I did this, I noticed something out of place on my tray. I had my half eaten steakburger, my drink, my fries, and a rogue onion ring that had caught a ride in the fry-pod. I hadn’t ordered any onion rings, so the fact that there was one on my tray startled me. I looked up to make sure none of the Burger King employees had caught wind of the fact that I had received a little treat with my meal. They hadn’t, so I quickly ate it before they extracted that rogue onion ring from my possession.

My day was brighter after that experience. What brightens your day?

So, I have been trying to ignore the whole “blogging” trend for years now.

It’s not because I am against blogging, I just don’t like to just jump on the trendy band wagon whenever something new comes around. Most of the time, I am able to stand my ground. This, however, is one of those things that I have realized will actually make me more efficient. Let me explain.

Every summer I travel to Panama City, Florida to spend the summer living on the beach and serving with some of the most amazing people I know at a camp called BigStuf. The past two summers I have been there as an intern. This summer, I will be on staff as the editor. Having a blog will allow me to keep people updated on how my summer is going without the need to tell each person individually that might care. My first summer at camp, I managed to shoot a sprinkler off the ceiling of the ballroom that we hold sessions in with a t-shirt cannon.

oops.

I have told that story more times than I can remember because I did’t have a journaling tool at the moment that all of you could keep up with. Well, that is fixed now.

Don’t expect too many updates before June. Our first camp of the summer starts on June 1st, and I am sure I will have plenty to tell you about by then.

I also plan on using this blog as a tool to talk about some of the projects I am working on. I have had questions in the past about what kind of creative process I go through when I am coming up with a new video idea. I don’t really think I have one, but I will humor my readers and lay it out for you. I am going to warn you, it isn’t really that groundbreaking. More on that later.

So in summary expect a wide variety of posts from me. Everything from me being disgruntled about how technology seems to always work against me when I need it the most to my daily personal life.

This could get a little out of control.