We went to a vineyard for dinner and a praise and worship time.  I thought this picture adequately showcases the experience.  For more like it, check the first week photo album.

The view from the sound booth during orientation time.

A video from yesterday during the student Welcome “red carpet” theme party.  Note how tired everyone looks from traveling!

I love the first day of project.  200 awkward conversations about where I live, what school I root for, and where to find a toothbrush within walking distance.  We started the project by taking awkward “I’ve been traveling for a full day but you want me to dress up and pose” pictures.

By this time next week, we’ll have inside jokes, guys will be honing in on which girl they think God wants them to marry, and the students will be on their second full day as ride operators, dippin’ dots servers (the ice cream of the future for the last couple of decades), or hot dog assemblers at the famous Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

But for now, we’ll just continue to talk about things to forget like what year in school everyone is.  Where’s my nametag?

This video will be used at our orientation meeting tomorrow for the students.  11 came early, but all 63 are rolling in as I type this.  You get to preview the video!  Enjoy.  I shot this on a new Canon F200 Flash Camcorder and then sped it up to 3000% normal speed.

We set up a phanfare site for everyone on project.  So far it’s just been me adding to it, but soon it will be all 63 students and 20 staff.  The students all arrive today!  Enjoy.

Today we saw a long-haired man driving a rusted-out minivan with screwdrivers wedged in the driver’s side window to keep it from falling open. He was driving with his knees eating hummus from a Tupperware dish with a fork. He’s a pretty good representative for the culture at large here. Welcome to Santa Cruz.

Here’s a bad angle of the first day of cleaning the Peter Pan.  Better angles coming of subsequent days.

Home Sweet Pan.

Let the madness begin! We’ll spend the next week feverishly preparing for the students to arrive. Today started at 9:00 and ends at 7:30.

There are a few places in America where “weird” has become a value, and a goal.  We happen to live near the epicenter of the east-coast weirdness earthquake here in Asheville.  There is virtually nothing you could do in downtown  Asheville to elicit the response, “hmm, that’s odd.”  After all, when the goal is absurdity and doing something “different,” eventually you just have a new definition for “normal.”  But (to milk all we can from the tectonic metaphor) our earthquake here in Western NC is a relative aftershock compared to the rumblings of Santa Cruz, California.

Four summers ago I experienced the earthquake. (seriously, that was the last time.) One day a local street musician coined a phrase that has stuck with me.  We were listening to him play some music, and as we tossed him some change and headed on, he stopped playing his severely out-of-tune guitar (because “off-key” is nearly synonymous with “different”…) and shouted “Thanks for coming to the Can of Screws!”  What a vivid description of Santa Cruz.  Screws of all different shapes, sizes, and smells.

I am excited to announce that this summer Jacqueline and little Benjamin are going to get to experience the smells of Santa Cruz.  We will be attending the 2009 Santa Cruz Summer Project.  We’re pretty pumped about it.  For the last 2 years Jacqueline has been on the outside of all of our inside jokes about Santa Cruz, being the only person on our staff team to not have had the joy of being “a screw for a summer” in the Can of Screws.

It’s our prayer that we as staff and students will recognize our own “weirdness” and from that point the other weirdos to a relationship with Christ.