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nixjohn
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Name: John
Country: United States
State: Minnesota
Metro: Minneapolis
Birthday: 4/30/1978
Gender: Male
Interests: Rock climbing, boy scouts, camping (winter too), backpacking, camping, canoeing, kayaking, mountain biking, taking troops on climbing and other treks
Expertise: Communications wiring, remodeling, professional window washing, computers, rock climbing, winter camping
Occupation: Other
Industry: Other
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  nixjohn
Yahoo:  nixjohn
Member Since:
9/27/2003
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| Hey Everyone, time for my quarterly update... Sorry I've been neglecting my blog.
As the title states, yes, I recently had surgery for my hernia. It's been almost a week now since the surgery, and things have been going ok. I wish they would have told me that the percoset/oxycodone should be taken with lots of food, as it made me puke... and I tell you what, puking is the last thing you want to be doing after a hernia surgery. The second time I puked I had the dry heaves, and thought I blew through the mesh patch they put in me it hurt so bad. But now things are going better, I might go back to work on Wednesday to do some administrative/management things for the boss while I'm under a lifting restriction for a month, which basically means I can't do my job washing windows for a month. But it's nice that the boss is trying to help me out by having me do other work for him.
Northwind (winter camp) went well! I was the Assistant Camp Director, and the Director of the Adventure Program (full weekend program) Yes, some would say I'm getting soft making the move to basecamp, but hey, when I work outside for my full time job, then go work outside every weekend, means I'm outside much of the day every day for over 2 months straight! Needless to say, that got a little old, so I made the move up, and had a fun time! A special thanks to all the great staff who made the season run smoothly, even though we had a bumpy camp with the lack of snow and need for wheels on the sleds almost every weekend. Then, as we were closing things down our last weekend, the blizzard came, and a few days another blizzard came...it was silly. A few of us went back the following weekend to close a few last things up, and could barley get to the buildings since there was so much snow!
The 2007 Northwind Staff
This summer I'll be on BSA National Camp School Staff in the climbing section at Bartle Scout Reservation in Missouri, then head back to Many Point for yet another summer as the Reservation Climbing Tower Director in Ten Chiefs! In the end of July I'll be taking a little time off to go backpacking with my scout troop to Double H High Adventure Base in New Mexico. Double H is a new camp operated by the Philmont staff, similar to a Philmont trek, only more remote back country wilderness setting.
So there's a little update on my life...what have you been up to?
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Merry Christmas in 2006!
Well, I bet some of you were wondering where my annual Christmas Card was since you haven’t received it yet… well, that’s because I didn’t get to it in time… so I’m putting together once again my e-Christmas Card! It’s faster, more environmental friendly, and way cheaper!
Since my last letter a year ago, I’ve managed to stay quite busy…
Northwind (the Boy Scout winter camp) went well; I managed to work all 8 weekends again, only this time I worked half of them in base camp, doing various things to help the crews and other base camp staff. With that, I’ve still kept up my “worked every weekend in Northwind history” roll going! Now, you may be thinking that I’m getting soft working in base camp half of the weekends, but when I work outside all week for my full time job, then spend my weekends outside the whole time, I got a little tired of the cold. Needless to say, working in base camp was a welcome change!
The window washing job was the same old thing…windows get dirty, and I come to the rescue and clean them…
Summer finally came around again, so of course, I headed off to camp again. I had to go back to BSA National Camp School once again to re-certify my Climbing Director card since I got all 5 years out of it and it expired. So back to school I went. It was fun, since I knew all of the C.O.P.E and Climbing instructors from the year before when I went for COPE School. I also lead the climbing section quite a bit, and was the guide for a climbing trip we did out to Taylors Falls, since I’ve got quite a bit of experience out there. I also was fun to be there with some of the other Many Point Staff attending for other sections of the school. Camp life was good once again, it was really hot the first half of the summer, then it cooled off for the second half. I have to give a shout out to my tent mate/assistant, Nick, who did an awesome job, and best of all, he didn’t roll my blazer, unlike other tent mates I’ve had in the past…No worries, I’m over that, and we’re still friends.
After Many Point came to a close, I headed back up for the 60th Anniversary Alumni Campout, where we buried a time capsule, which was fun since I had a big part in that. I added a little extra something in there, but you’ll all have to wait for 25 years till it’s opened to find out what it isJ. And if that wasn’t enough, I headed back up to camp the next weekend with Al Barnicle and Joe Henry, and had a good time hanging out in Larkin Lodge, and doing a little mountain biking. We did the “Tour de Many Point” a bike trip all the way around the lake! It was a fun and very muddy time! The next day we biked out on the Wint Hartman Trail, and had lunch at Back of the Moon, where the picture is from. I forgot how long my hair was this summer! It’s much shorter now. What do you think, should I go for the longer hair again?
I’ve been keeping busy with my troop with planning a backpacking trip to Double H High Adventure Base in New Mexico for next summer. The camp is similar to Philmont, and is operated by their staff. It should be a fun time. With all the troop campouts and meetings, I’ve been staying busy with that.
Now, I’ll pause for a moment of silence for my Blazer….. Yep, the blazer finally bit the dust. I originally planned on driving it into the ground, which I almost did, but it got to the point of needing way too much work, so I decided to sell it as a junker, and bought a 99 Dodge Dakota pickup. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, yes, it’s yellow! I love it! No worries though, I transferred the MrGadgt license plates, so it’s still the gadget mobile, although I thought for a moment of getting a new plate, BANANAS I thought it would be funny.
And, now, finally there is a little snow, so it seems like winter is finally here, as I’m getting ready for Northwind once again. This winter I’m the Assistant Camp Director/Adventure Director. So that means I’ll be in base camp every weekend! WooHoo!
I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a great New Year!
John Nixon | | |
| - the mix tape Well, I finished up with work a week ago, then headed to BSA National Camp School at Camp Phillips in Haugen WI. I had to re-certify my climbing director card since it expired; pretty cool that I got all 5 years of use out of that, so now for another 5?!?...could be good...
Camp School was fun; I'd have to say COPE and Climbing are the 2 most fun sections to go for. It was cool since alot of the staff there were the same from the camp school I went to last year, so we already knew eachother a little. When I was meeting with my instructors and mentioned that I also take troops climbing at Taylors Falls, they both perked up and said, "great! we're trying to get a trip together to go there one day, and since you know the place you can be our guide!" So that went well. Both of the instructors were great!!! They knew so much stuff about climbing and everything related to that.
My week went well there, I got a perfect score on my eval, and they wrote in that I should be on National Camp School Staff for Climbing section. So one of these days I just might be on staff for the Climbing or COPE section. Don't worry, it won't interfere with working at Many Point!
So I just got home yesterday afternoon, unpacked a little and headed up to watch the fireworks at the Albertville Friendly City Days...kind of a generic name, but it was fun none the less. Today I'm packing up the truck, and will be heading up to camp this afternoon! I'm so excited!
Oh yeah, on Memorial weekend Steve and I went on another canoe trip on the St. Croix River; paddeled 35 miles in a couple days, fun times, although Steve got a deer tick, he found it fairly soon so he went to the docter on the way home, so I think he should be ok. The lesson here is to check for ticks! That's all I got (cause I gotta get back to packing so I can hit the road and get up to camp!)
Pictures of the day (from the last canoe trip)
Steve sittin on the shore at our campsite
Sunset from the campsite
Looking down stream from our site
The canoe by the trail to the site
Yet another sunset pic
Rocks on the shoreline
Sunrise | | |
| well, let's see...what have I been up to in the last few weeks...
I went camping 2 weekends ago at a national park service campground in Wisconsin with a friend from the winter camp, which was a fun time! He set it all up and invited lots of people from the winter camp staff, but it ended up being just the 2 of us, so everyone else missed out on a fun weekend. The campground was awesome; I'll be going back there again! It was a hike-in site, which keeps some of the annoying car-campers away (not that all car campers are bad (I do that myself sometimes) but it makes it a little more outdoorsey.) The campgrounds were filled with tall pine trees, and a bed of pine needles on the ground to make the ground that much more comfterable to sleep on!
Saturday morning after breakfast (and the teenagers that arrived late friday night, partied it up and were a little noisy, and left first thing saturday morning) we decided to do a little canoeing which was also a fun time, since the water was high, it made for some fun whitewater paddleing! We managed to sucessfully navigate through the rapids and stayed mostly dry, and had to stop mid trip to fix my seat, cause one of the bolts broke, but being the prepaired boy scouts we are, we had some string along to tie it back together. Overall the weekend was great, and I'll most certianaly be back there again!
Last weekend was the MPSAA (many point staff alumni association) work party at camp, where we maintain the Windt Heartman trail to the shelters at Back of the Moon. On the way up I stopped at Ice Crackin for a Thunder Burger (if you've never had a thunder burger, it's quite possibly the best burger in the world!) then headed into camp to see there was a fire in TC. Thankfully it didn't burn too much of the forest, but it did burn and scar quite a few trees by the intersection of the new road and old many point behind Ten Chiefs.
Saturday morning we loaded up the Big Bear (the camp 4 wheeler) with the trailer and chainsaws and other tools, and hit the trail. There were only a few trees down that we had to cut up, and came to the wettest part of the trail, which has gotten fairly beat up since the locals with 4 wheelers have discovered they can get their machines back there and mud it up. So we had to cut a bunch of logs to spread across the 3 foot deep mud puddle created by 4 wheelers and try to make a bridge for the hikers to get across. It was the wettest I've ever seen the trail, I had to go fairly slow with the camp 4 wheeler to avoid getting the trailer full of tools all muddy. In the evening we had a great dinner with quite a few folks that were helping out and just came over for dinner, then hung out around the fireplace in the lodge.
Monday I had a long day; worked all day, then had first aid training that evening, since my old card expires next month and I need to be certified for my job at camp. The rest of the week was ok
Yesterday was the NorthernStar Council's super-event, StarFun 2006, which took place at Valley Fair amusement park. It was kindof cool to see the sign saying that the park was closed for a private party. yep, we rented out all of Valley Fair! 16,000+ people there...it was packed! I'm sure everyone had a great time; it was funny, since all the many point staff that worked the MP booth kept seeing so many people we knew from camp. fun times. I'm glad that everything went well, I just saw on the news as I'm typing this that today their was a problem with one of the roller coasters, I'm glad that didn't happen yesterday when the boy scouts were there.
Now, only 2 more weeks of work, then off to camp school for a week, then to Many Point for the summer! WooHoo! I can't wait! That's all I got.
Picture of the Day:
this wasn't from our trip, but it's still a cool shot relating to the canoeing I did a few weeks ago. | | |
| hey, sorry for the long time with no post! Not much is new with me anyway... well, I did go canoeing and camping a few weeks back which was a really fun time. I took the guys from my scout troop out on a shakedown canoe trip to make sure they all know how to canoe before they head up to the boundary waters in June.
Overall the weather this spring has been amazing! It's made my job great, working outside and all. With the weather being so nice, it has really gotten me stoaked for camp again this summer...I can't wait! I have to re-up my Climbing campschool cert, so I'll be at Camp Phillips in WI for a week in early June, then home only to load up the blazer and head up to camp!
This afternoon I went to see Scott, Todd and Matt of Hudson Bay Expedition They were showing pictures and talking all about their trip. It was cool to see their presentation again! Then some of the camp folks went out for a mid afternoon lunch, which was also a fun time.
I headed to the gym on my way home to burn off the lunch I just ate, then stopped by the neighbors house for a quick chat. And here I am, updating my way overdue blog. That's all I got
Picture of the Day:
Matt and Scott at the final destination of their trip! | | |
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