The school year ends next week and as has been the case all year, I'm sprinting along. There have been very few slow weeks this year, with all of our capital campaign stuff at work and all. One more week and things will settle down... for about 4 weeks at least (2 of which I'll be off for camp and the beach). Whew.

No Rob Bell notes this week.. there was no new message posted. :-(

Camp
Planning for Senior High 1 this year has been a little more stressful at times. We've had a lot more trouble finding counselors this year. And we've had a lot of folks who have backed out on us. Our camp has been growing in numbers, but I'm afraid that we're going to have to cap our numbers at slightly under last year's because we only have 8 small group leaders. (We're looking....contact me if you're available). And a miscommunication has cost us the Moseley family for music, so now we've lost that too. In addition to programs, I'm going to have to dust off my guitar and lead the music. I haven't played guitar in probably a year. Having counselors who are at least 5 years older than the campers is a good thing, but it makes things more difficult. I know that we had gotten in the habit of having college kids as counselors in the last 10 years, but some of that is because it's getting harder and harder to find adults. Churches in the conference won't let their employees come to camp unless it counts as vacation. Still, it's going to be a good camp, just a tough one.
Music
So I found a pre-release version of the new Death Cab for Cutie album online a few weeks back. There are people who can't stand them, but I've always been a big fan of theirs. I couldn't wait to hear it. But after listening to it a few times, I was really let down. It sounded awful. Sounded like they phoned it in. I listened to it twice, and deleted it

So then, last week it was officially released and I read a blog post that referred to Death Cab's Narrow Stairs coming out... the real one. I checked iTunes and sure enough, it was for the most part, not what I had downloaded. Bought it right away, and so far, I love it. Their best album in several years.

I'm also really enjoying Phantom Planet's new album, Raise the Dead.