Hooray I'm back!
I have decided that I'm going to change the focus of this blog. Instead of reporting solely on baseball news, I'm going to open up this space to anything that's on my mind, the way a real blog should be.
Well, the last week has been a blast! I just returned from a week of excitement and exhilaration at Patrick Henry College's annual Strategic Intelligence Camp. It was amazing. I made new friends, enjoyed Christian fellowship, and overall had a great time.
To give even a little overview of what happened would keep you here reading a blog post for an hour and I'm sure you don't want to do that since you have so many other posts to check. So, I'll keep it short. Our mission, as NOC (non-official cover) agents working for the U.S, was to infiltrate the Russian block country of Sedonia and free an imprisoned scientist named Dr. Rush. We had to develop convincing cover stories that would compliment our identities or risk being arrested and interrogated by the Sedonian Secret Police (played very well by the PHC grounds crew and friends).
Anyway, I was a little nervous at first. I have never slept in a dorm with other guys and you never know how roommates can be. I was very wrong. God answered my prayers big time and placed me with three great guys. Over the course of the week, we gelled together becoming as we put it "Ocean's 4". This was not an understatement. We had the coolest group. We even went so far as to develop an intricate cover story that integrated our four characters and their unique abilities.
Thus meshed together in the fraternal bonds of dormship we proceeded each day to breakfast at 7:00, lectures from 8:00 to 11:00, and then to scenario meetings.
The scenario meetings I thought were very cool and intriguing. Basically, we were given a scenario and asked to choose the option, which should be handed to the President. For example, a rogue Cuban terrorist group with ties to Fidel Castro has fired upon a U.S. ship. Should the U.S. incite a rebellion in Cuba from within or assassinate him using CIA Delta units? These scenarios were cool, though at times hard to distinguish between the correct per se and incorrect choices.
Then we moved on to our lunch. I have an allergy to wheat and I was a bit worried that the food I would be given wouldn't taste very good. I was dead wrong. The food was great. After lunch, we had several more lectures and scenario meetings, then some free time and dinner.
Then we came to everyone's favorite time of the day. Missions! In accordance with the story revolving around Dr. Rush, we were given some fantastic missions to complete. I cannot relate everything but suffice to say that they were unbelievable. Well that's basically how our days were structured. Two of the days we were there, we took day trips to Washington D.C. and toured the International Spy Museum and the Cryptological Museum, both of which were amazing.
At the end of our week, we came to closing ceremonies. During the week our teams, divided up into different agencies had been awarded points based on our performance. Thus the points were tallied and the winning agency awarded the "party in a bag". Even though NRO didn't win, it was fun.
Altogether, it was an amazing week. So many things happened in so little time that I'm beginning to forget all the little details. Oh well. If any of you are thinking about choosing PHC as your college then I highly recommend you attend one of their camps so as to get to know some of the faculty and students.
In other News...
The Yanks made big acquisitions before the Trade Deadline, picking up outfielders Bobby Abreu, Craig Wilson, and pitcher Cory Lidle.
I've taken up playing the Piano again....
That's pretty much all I can think of right now.
Leave lot of comments!
~ John ~ | 
