FANK the TANK on South Tea

The only way I can blog these days is on my Blackberry during my day off, so I'll do my best to continue updating although it does get frustrating typing on such a small keyboard. I'm in Smittys car right now headed from Toronto back to Algonquin Park. Just saw Dark Knight. Absolutely incredible performance by Heath Ledger.The movie sadly was not as good as Batman Begins but still a great movie. The drive to Algonquin will take about 3 hours, which ultimately means this entry will contain some serious depth and substance. A lot of e p I c stories and a ton of great moments have been had and must be shared. So here we go.....

My 16 and under Baseball team pulled off one of the more memorable comebacks of my coaching career. It even ranks amongst the best I've ever seen during Intercamp competition. Our All Star batting lineup was the following: At 1 was Evan Ketai who went 2 for 3 and had huge singles. Hitting second was Max Unger who had a solid day at the plate. Lee Feldman hit 3rd and hit in 4. Huuuge day. Chad Schram had a few big hits at cleanup. He even played through injury. Great day for Chad. 5 was Mitchell Schecter who had a huge hit during our comeback 5 run 4th inning. Darren Weiss hit 6. He had the timely leadoff hit to start off the 4th inning. Danny Freed hit 7 and pitched extremely well. Jake Fine hit 8th and also had timely hits. Our 9th was a strategy hitter. Matt Rosenfeld, who was one of our better hitters. He played great as well. Our squad was down early 4 to 0. Lee Feldman stepped up in the 3rd. Our team had the bases loaded and was in desperate need of a hit. Lee hit a line drive triple that knicked in 3. Manitou ended up scoring 2 more putting us behind 3 runs 6-3. Our last official at bat was a 5 run ralley. We closed them out with a guy on 2nd and 3rd two outs. Couldda gotten ugly had we blown the lead but a nice pop out fly secured our win and legendary comeback. My hockey squad however did not fare so well as we faltered and lost 5-2. But what a day. Ohh yea our basketball team won in OT 31-30, which was unreal to witness.

Intercamp was on Wednesday. Jumping a few days now gets us to Friday. My cabin, Ranger 6, had the honor to hold Friday Night Services on the slope. What this entails is to speak in front of the whole camp about a topic you choose. We chose to talk about what things make us happy in life. My 12 year old boys wrote great speeches. I had a pretty good one myself. My speech included a top 10 rundown of my most favorite things in life that make me happy. I'll tell you them real quickly. At 10 is Sour Candy. 9 is a nice weight lifting session followed by a schfitz and steam at Knollwood. 8 is looking in the mirror. 7 is . 6 is Taco Bell. 5 is one handed pushups. 4 is watching ESPN Top 10 plays, turning off the volume, and practicing commentating. 3 is when hard work in school or life in general pays off. 2 is the anticipation of taking a girl out on a date for the first time. Number 1 was a tie between my Grandpa Morrie and Dudley. My Hobbie Hub Part 3 was soon after the Service. Quite a few people showed up for my Hub which was located on the Bottom of the Slope. Great Friday night.
Fast fowarding now to later that night brings us into the Boys Biffy where I was showering after Taps, which is when all campers go to their cabins for the night. Halfway during my shower I hear a familiar voice screaming my name. Within a few short seconds I opened the shower curtain only to see Mr. Dustin Wachles. What a suprise to see Sky who was accompanied by Seth Rogers and Matthew Budman. Also on the shores that night was Josh Diamond. They were all staying at Bonita, the Budmans cottage right next to camp. They visited that night to say hi to everyone. Their real reason at camp though was to play against our Staff Hockey Team. We all chilled in Vic's cabin, the owner of Camp Tamakwa. We reminisced and spoke about our current lives. Great hour or so talk we had that night. Matt Ran and I drove them back to Budmans cottage shortly there after on the pointer. I passed out immediately after in anticipation and preparation for Saturdays Showdown on the Platforum. Pushing to lunch on Saturday takes us to the Ballfield where an outdoor lunch was taking place. Hot Dogs and Burgers were being served alongside the Baseball field where the whole camp ate and watched my 16 and under Boys Baseball team play Head Staff. Sam Brickman, my other coach, and I played for the 16 and under team. We ended up winning 2-1 on a poor base running effort by Matt Ran for Head Staffs team. I went 1 for 2 with a ground rule double. It was a great win and a testiment to the talent and depth of our roster. Immediately after the baseball game was our Highly talked about Hockey game against my boys. The teams were Rogers, SkyWachler, Budman, JD, and Josh Forman against Vic, Craig, Len, Matt Ran, and myself. It was obvious before the game that they had more depth than us but I felt that if I played a flawless game we could legitimately pull off the upset. So here our team is down 9-4 to them somewhat early on. Within about 10 minutes I legitimatelly accounted for the next 6 goals putting us up 10-9. There were a few spectators there. Almost forgot to mention Michael Wolf, who came up with my boys. He was there the night before as well and was at the rink but not playing in the game. After we went up one a water break was called. The second half went well until the end as we lost 14-12. Their overall youth outlasted ours as they took control at the end. I gave everything I had as I didn't come off the rink basically the whole game. All in all it was an outstanding game that took me back to my younger years as I played alongside all my boys on South Tea once more.

Sunday was an epic day. Orienstein, the Landsports and basketball director and myself held the official opening of Club Platforum. Basically what that means is that we pretended that the Platforum was a night club. We had a list that my CIT and Bodyguard that day Lee Feldman had. The kids had to dress up in a collared shirt. My staff Ben Klein and Isaac Lax were the servers. The walked around with cups of water on goalie blockers serving them to the kids, talking like it was a real club. We all dressed up nicely as club owners. It lasted the first 3 periods of the day. Very fun idea it turned out to be.

Monday was very solid as it was cookout day. We get to sleep in and get brunch before our cabins head to destinations located around our camp to go on cookout. That was very relaxing as our cabin didn't have to canoe and got driven on Marge the Barge to Adventure South. We got back into camp at 8ish and all met up as a camp at the Beachers next to the swim docks. This was the site of Chief o Chief, a long lasting tradition where the owner of camp, Vic in this case, holds story time where we share stories about our day. We talk about interesting wildlife we see in the park that day followed by competitions amongst audience members. I actually participated by challenging the strongest kid in our camp, Michael Mudd a Rugby player from the UK listed at 6 foot 205 pounds. We arm wrestled on both our right and left arms as I am a lefty and he is a righty. I gave great efforts on both arms but unfortunately lost both. I will get my rematch again against him but its gonna take strategic preparation.

Yesterday, Tuesday July 22nd, a week from my 21st Bday, was a great day. I had a nice gourmet breakfast followed by a nice lunch. After lunch was a meeting for the JT, or junior tamakwans, Triathalon. My job for that event was as the MC at the bottom of the slope and commentate on the campers involved and intrigue the rest of the campers who weren't involved. I did a great job I feel asking questions and playing sports trivia with the crowd. After dinner I left camp to go on my final day off for first month. I drove with Smitty alongside Matty Orienstein and Judd Fischer. We went to Toronto to get dinner with Matts mom and then see Dark Knight today before heading back up to camp which I currently am doing as I type this entry. Unreal dinner we had at The Avenue located at the Hazelton Hotel. I had dinner with Matts father, Johnny, a great guy who was kind enough to pay for my dinner. Smitty, Matt obviously, and Andrew Metrick a past Tamawkan and solid character, also joined in. Matts majjj was there as well. I can't describe how sick the bar was and how much fun I truly had. I spent that night at Matts grandparents. This morning I had scrambled eggs, bagels creamcheese and locks and Tropicana Orange Juice. Delicious. After breakfast I showered and went to visit Metrick at his pad. After that I went to see Dark Knight with Smitty and Orienstein which leads all of you to now 7 pm on Wednesday July 23rd, 2008.

Visiting day is this upcoming Saturday. My fajjj is coming to visit. I look foward to seeing him. I hope you all enjoyed the entry. Much love. NUFF NUFF.