I just finished testing the website against Apple’s new Safari web browser. After 10 minutes, I can definitely say that I see no reason at all for anyone to switch from their current browser. Maybe there’s some special hidden magic in there, but they’ve blown some simple stuff. Apple is supposed to be the king of usability, but in that few minutes I found several interface quirks that drove me nuts.

For example, when you click in the address window of FireFox or Internet Explorer, it immediately highlights the entire address that’s already there so that when you start typing the new address, it replaces what’s there. With Safari, you have to click at one end of the address and then drag to the other end to highlight it, then you can type.

Another really frustrating one is that if you want to resize the window, you must grab the lower right corner. You can’t grab the top bar or the sides or the bottom, only that one spot. There’s plenty of times I want to grab the left side to make a bit of room, with Safari I have to resize using the bottom right then grab the title bar to move it.

I don’t know, maybe Mac windows behave this way. But the fact that Apple expects Windows users to change their ways to accomodate Apple quirks is extremely arrogant.

I’ll keep Safari on my system for compatability testing, but for day to day browsing? No way.

I’ve been kinda sick the last couple days, and apparently I’m not the only one. Perhaps a half-dozen kids came down with vomiting and other unpleasantries. One of the other counselors ended up going to the hospital! But it appears we’ll all live.

I recently got suckered into paying $100 for a set of Photoshop actions from Gary Fong. I had used his excellent LightSphere diffuser and hoped that his action set for wedding album design would be up to the same standards.

Wrong.

These actions stink. Darn near useless. You know what the “Text” action does? It pops up a box with directions on using Photoshop’s built-in text tool!

I’ve been scammed. Buyer not only beware, buyer run away!

We got back from Kidz Kamp two day ago. I was so beat I’m just now getting around to posting news from the last day.

I was right, I got a REALLY bad sunburn. To the point that I think I’ve actually gotten sick from it. Had to take today off, finally starting to feel better.

Anyhow, Saturday was great. Red squad did win Squad of the Week! RED, RED, RED, RED …

The trip home was a treat in itself. Most of the boys collapsed, so did Lori (one of the adults). But most of the girls spent much of the trip singing various songs, both Contemporary Christian and tv theme songs. Our group had been split into two “family groups” for the Bible studies and “expore” sessions and I realized that there were several kids that I hadn’t spent any time with at all. I really regret that and hope that next year will be different.

Speaking of next year, our insane children’s pastor and his wife have already started outlining next year’s kamp theme and assigning duties. Now, when I say “insane” I mean that in the nicest possible way

I had fun, but I really really missed my other two kids (Samantha was with me at Kamp) and my wife.

As promised here’s a shot of The Penguin in action:

This post wasn’t online until after I got back from Kidz Kamp. My laptop messed up, I could write posts but not actually publish them.

Yours truly is the slip-n-slide champion of Kidz Kamp! More on that later …

Another exhausting, emotional day. Slept in all the way until 6:30!

The kids here are split into four color squads, Red, Blue, Green, and Orange. Our kids are in the Red squad. At the end of the week, one group will win the Squad of the Week for enthusiasm, etc. So far, I gotta say our squad is creaming the others. Each squad has their own little cheer. In the cafeteria, the other squads might start up their cheers, but I have no idea what they are because immediately the Red squad starts up and drowns them out.

Today was Water Games day. Again, lots of fun and WAY cooler than yesterday. One game had us dodging waterlogged sponges (big ones) like dodgeball. I got hit in a rather sensitive spot (!), it turned out to be the girl running the game! Later, during the students-vs-leaders game, I got hit dead-on in the face with a fully-loaded sponge, rung my bell pretty good and gave me a headache the rest of the day.

My moment of glory came during the slip-n-slide, where they had a 50-foot or so piece of wet plastic. Most of the kids were lucky to get halfway down, some of the adults got near the end, but I came off the end so hard I nearly flipped over. The kids started calling me The Penguin for my award-winning form, I’ll try to post a picture later.

After water games, we tooks some of the kids and played volleyball near the dorms. I didn’t think about the water games washing off my sunscreen and I think I have a pretty bad sunburn.

Falling asleep, gotta go.

This post wasn’t online until after I got back from Kidz Kamp. My laptop messed up, I could write posts but not actually publish them.

I’m so dead tired. When my alarm went off at 6 am it was the worst sound I’ve ever heard.

Our family group Bible study didn’t go all that well, there’s just not enough time to cover all the stuff. It’s a shame, because there’s some really good stuff in there.

The afternoon was our outdoor field games day. Lots of fun stuff. One game involved kicking this huge fabric ball while crab-walking, trying to kick it over the other kids. One poor girl was two feet away when the other kid slammed the ball with both feet, snapped her head back and toppled her over on her back. The bad part was that, 10 minutes later, I nailed the same girl in the head during dodgeball. But she’s fine.

My daughter Samantha during field games day:

Our solution for the ridiculous 15-minute pool limit was to make our own fun time. Brother Tom, our children’s pastor, went to WalMart and bought a pile of water guns and they had themselves a grand time.

Evening worship was awesome, there’s two songs (God Made Fun and Mighty God) that I really like, I’m hoping we can get copies to use in our own childrens church. I must admit, tho, that I fell asleep during the drama portion (just for a few minutes).

Man, what a day. I’m beat. I had no idea we’d have to walk all over campus to get to the various activities.

I gotta say, the bottom line is that there are simply too many kids here at one time. We only get a total of 15 minutes of pool time per church, that’s ridiculous. We’ve decided that it’s simply not worth the trouble. The cafeteria was a screaming nightmare.

Despite all the garbage, it’s been a good day. The family group bible study went really really well, we had a mix of boys and girls. Good interaction and everyone (including the teachers) learned a lot.

We’re running them though the showers now and lights-out is in 30 minutes.

From evening worship

We’ve arrive and checked into the dorms.

So far the organization leaves a bit to be desired.  They grabbed four of the adults to unload the bus while the kids were in orientation.  Problem was that we had no keys and no idea whose stuff was whose.  They seemed to want us to unload the stuff onto the lawn and come back later.  We of course informed them that that ain’t gonna happen.  So, back onto the bus, picked up the kids, got the keys, and finally into our rooms.

I’ll try to post some pictures later.

Lovely lunch at McDonalds, much better service than Callahan MD.  Of course, that’s not saying much.

You should have seen the looks on the faces of the people coming in after us.  Same expression, “Oh boy, I think I’ll eat somewhere else today.”

Bus driver says we have about 30 minutes until we get there.

30 kids, 8 counselors, and one bus driver are on the way.  Mass confusion loading the bus but overall went pretty smoothly, nobody was late (surprise, surprise!).  We actually left on time.

This wireless broadband is pretty cool!