Who is interested in some early morning jogging on Monday during our camping trip? I would like to start to get back into it (I’ve been lax for about a semester with jogging, for some various reasons), and I’m starting now. If anyone is interested in waking up on Monday in the camp ground, get your jogging shoes, some shorts and a shirt, and we’ll go hit the hiking trail.

How far we will go depends on how far you want to go. I’m willing to do anything at this point. I’m such a desperate man.

If you would like to get into jogging, some tips are:

- Not eating a meal three hours before you jog, OR having a 100 calorie snack one hour before you jog (like low-fat yogurt, trail mix, or half a PBJ sandwich). This depends if you like eating a bit before jogging, or if you want to avoid the stitches.

- Warming up/ stretching should at least take 15 minutes, and should involve the entire body.

- Have a piece of fruit a half hour to an hour after you jog (for maximum fat burn)!

If you would like to see some more, follow this link: http://answers.cbfl.net/answers/threadview?id=557259

If you’d like to jog with me, please leave a comment!

These should work just fine. Let me know if anything is wrong!

Additionally, there are no fees to come and camp. Just need to bring some food and drink for everyone and obviously be willing to play against me in ULTIMATE FRISBEE!!!! *beats chest all man-like*

There is just one error on the handout which is plaguing the mind right now, and that is: “2008 Labor Day camping trip”.  What we wanted it to read was *ahem*: “2007 Labor Day camping trip”.  But aside from that, the flier is fine, just make sure to let anyone you know who is coming, that it’s really this year…not the next.  

Although, now that we think about it…we can recycle this with relative ease.  Schwing!   

Okay!  So we have the permit now and the place is ours from Sunday 12PM to Tuesday 12PM.  So everybody start thinking about things to bring so that you don’t get caught with a case of the “last minutes decision”.

I’m going to try using a new email client I installed on this server.  It’s called PHPlist and should work well with the sending of emails.  It’s a powerful program, but also a difficult one to master, so watch your inbox for a test mail going out in the near future.

Also, we’re looking to reskin the site to something with some more flair and gadgets.

So the light is dawning more and more on the camping trip.  It turns out, we should be expecting a large crowd this year.  We’ll have people from up North and East of Norwich coming over to crash the party!  God’s help of course.

Pachaug is, at the moment, the unofficial place.  The permit is still in the works and we will be calling up the state department tomorrow to confirm that everything is OK.  Once that’s good and down, it will be smooth sailing from there.  Just a matter of logistics. 

We started up a thread in the forum on things to bring with us while we camp.  Feel free to add to the list, because it will be put up here a few days before the camping actually happens so everyone can see.

Some people have also voiced an interest in staying for an extra night. We’re going to try to ask to stay both Sunday and Monday night (9/3-9/4) so that those who want to stay can stay.

And there is some ’softing planned on Sunday if Bro. Darwin is up for the scuffle on his land!

Also!  Pictures from last Sundays birthday party are finally up.  There was a slight FTP client problem, but it seems to be working just fine now.  Check ‘em out!  And more soon, so keep coming back here.

What a blast! The party last Sunday was great fun. Everybody had a chance to be there so I’m glad that John brought his heavy duty camara and took some pictures for all of us. I should have those up in a little bit. Out of the 120 pictures he took, I’m trying to find 36 of the best ones to put up.

Oh and John took some amazing candid photos of the ’softing game, too! Those will be linked to the birthday party of Athena.

Anyway, Gemma is starting to fill out the application form for the camping this summer. I think we may settle with Pachaug State Park because we’ve been there and it’s great for our size of people. So I’ll let everyone know what’s happening when!

First off, there’s going to be some ’softing at Bro. Darwin’s place Sunday after the birthday party. So make sure to bring some food and drinks because I’m sure we’ll be a little hungry after all the running.

And now for some Labor Day camping info.

As you may know, we went around last Thursday checking for potential campsites that had ‘youth group areas’. There are maybe 7 in the state, and we checked the 4 nearest ones to us. By near, I mean within a 1 hour drive away. These ‘youth group areas’ are located in only state parks, not privately owned ones.

We tried checking private parks years ago and when we asked to rent an area big enough for 60+ people, we always had to take it for 3 nights, or pay an extra fee for each person, or reserve multiple camp sites for each family, etc. Something kinda shady each time we asked.

We’ll look at private parks again this year, because the very first camping trip that we ever did, was actually with a private park and it wasn’t so bad. But then again, maybe we got lucky that time.

So the 4 places we checked out were: Mashomoquet, Pachaug, Gay City, and Cockaponset state park. All of those places are just within an hour drive from Norwich, CT and have these ‘youth areas’.

Now, we decided to visit these parks to see what the places were like after almost falling for one park that had a “great swimming pool” which turned out to be nothing more than a 10 ft wide hole in the ground filled with cloudy water. Eee….

We took pictures and notes of each place and got rid of Cockaponset right off the get-go. The reason why this place never made it was because frankly…it’s poop. The ‘youth areas’ here are little more than patches of land in a forest, near a mosquito infested lake. No thanks. The trails are nice to ride on, yes, but they’re VERY long. To actually get to the youth campsite, one would literally drive 20 minutes around the lake, and then have to walk another 10-15 to get to the patch. The place was too small for our group anyway.

The camping spot:

The next place was right where we had our camping 2 years ago. That’s right folks, Pachaug state park. We always find Pachaug nice because it has ALOT of space. So much that we never had to worry about our volleyball games or our friendship games in the least. Everybody had plenty of space to park, set up tents, and play games all in one area.

The drawback of Pachaug, is that there is no pool, or lake, or anyplace to take a dip if it gets too hot. There is shade though, and it’s pleasant. This will be our ’safety’ site in case we can’t decide on the remaining two.

Next in line is Gay City state park. Now this place wasn’t too shabby at all. It was probably the best kept park we visited all day and it had the amenities we wanted. I would only complain about the camping site itself. It’s in a wooded area, and there isn’t much space to do anything like volleyball.

But that’s not so bad because a short walk down the dirt road is a giant field where we could set up all sortsa games and whatnot. Additionally, there is a nice lake where plenty of swimming can happen. This place has plenty of potential for us.

The camp site:

The field:

And then the lakeside:

And last but not the least, Mashomoquet. This place wasn’t too bad either. I would say it rates just below Gay City. It has a nice camping spot, a little small for my taste, but nice nonetheless. We aren’t 100% sure about there being a lake but we’ll take a look again this coming Saturday.

The camp site:

We actually bumped into a few other people camping that day too, hehe. Oh well!

So this coming Saturday, we’re going to head out one more time to check a few other sites, perhaps a private one or two as well.

Then, by this Sunday, we should have an idea where we are going to be going for this Labor Day weekend 2007.

Okay, that’s that for now! I also found plenty of pictures from our Dinosaur Park trip, Chapel cleaning, and Father’s day 2006. I’m just redownloading them now and they should be up by Saturday night.

So let’s hear the thoughts!

Okay, first off, NO SIX FLAGS ON THE 18th! Sorry for the fuss everyone! Because of a recent activity that a majority of us have to attend (I’ll gladly tell you what it is in person), there will be no theme park trip on 8/18/07. So that day is free to fill to your hearts content!

On the other hand, there will still be a Six Flags trip planned sometime in the future before it gets too cold and once we have that date, we’ll stick to it. This was just a last minute thing that couldn’t be avoided. So Six Flags goes back on the back-burner for now.

But there is a shiny side to this coin, the Labor Day Camping trip (which is scheduled from 9/2/07 to 9/3/07) is already being planned. A few of us will be heading out to check some campgrounds this week and to decide on a decent place where we can all get together. We’ll have to act fast though, since this is a big camping holiday and CT is really big on camping.

We’ll have updates on information coming up in the next few days, so make sure to check back whenever you can.

Okay! Onto even funner stuff. The pictures from Bro. Don’s “surprise” birthday party are going up in a just a few minutes.  Check those out here.

Everyone had a great time dining with the fine veggies and meats, compliments of the chef (Bro. Allan). The birthday cake was amazing as well! Sis. Mercy cooked it herself!…Or DID she? Mwahah! Regardless, it was great to see so many people together in one place laughing and celebrating our brother’s coming-to-the-world day.

Softers: It’s quite cool to see our fellow marine own us all with his shiny new M16 and we’ll have to rethink that whole rescue scenario now, huh? And someone bring some even more hardcore bugspray next time! If I even see one more mosquito…

Hi everyone, I just wanted to prod the mole in the cage (<– that’s an expression, or figure of speech; in other words, an analogy to more easily display my argument or thought through simpler, everyday interpretations).

For a start, the ThinkBox is doing pretty well! For that matter, the Construct is not alone either. For the more clever of you, you all know that the Construct is the forum we have attached to this site. That can be found here. So far, I would say that we have three consistent posters, including myself. I would like to see others join, so send the link around! There are lots of things to talk about, and things we could share with each other. Personally, I would like to see everybody that plays airsoft regularly to become a member, so we can share those experiences as well.

We hope, in the future, when most friends I know are using the ThinkBox more often, we could use it to really show the different activities we do together - and we all know that sharing experiences is probably the best thing you can do to create friendship.

Again, you can find the Construct by clicking the Construct button at the top of the page on the menu. I have actually started a new discussion, so please feel free to join in, and leave your two cents! I need money - I am poor.

~~ Mr. Josh

In light of the forum’s recent activity:

PAST: I am trying to find pictures of the sunflower trip that went on last weekend, if anybody can hand those to me, I’d love to put them up here!

PRESENT: Anyway, new pictures are uploaded from last weekend, you can check those here! A Darren Brown video was also added (that man is amazing, by the way) and is up for your viewing pleasure. As for plans for this weekend…you should know and feign ignorance at the same time. So here goes: if you want to know what is not known by anybody at all, please ask what can and cannot be considered and answer. Ask anybody except for that certain person, because then, you might fail the plans that are not in the works right now. And that would be a shame…or not. Yesnomaybeso!

Also, I’m trying the new Mass Mail plugin after this, so let’s cross our fingers!

FUTURE: Get your calendars ready for the 18th of August because the trip to Six Flags New England has gotten off the back-burner and is now actively being planned. So get ready for more updates about times, finances, etc.

Also, I’m looking into a few more videos and pictures to stack up here, so if you have them and want to showcase them, send them our way! That’s about it for now, see everyone tomorrow evening!