Items

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  2021-07-22T21:31

  24 Campsite Fire Pit

  This is a photo of a campfire at 24 campsite, at the eastern boundary of Camp Wolfeboro and on the Calaveras County side of the river. The photo was taken at a campfire held between Troop 21 and Troop 834. Troop 21 was staying at 24 campsite the week the photo was taken. The fire bowl is KUMA brand, presumably the same 19-inch fire bowl found at the Main Campfire and at Waterfront. The fire is propane fueled, like all other campfires held during the 2021 camp season at camp. The photo was taken on July 22 at 9:31 PM.
• 
  2021-07

  Main Campfire Propane Fire Bowls

  At Camp Wolfeboro, there were no wood-fueled campfires during the entire summer of 2021. Instead, the two central campfires (the Main Campfire, and Bravo How) and the campsite fire pits had propane campfires. One of the photos is of the Main Campfire during the Monday night campfire, with both of the propane fires visible. The photo was taken on July 19 at 8:40 PM. The other photo is of the easternmost of the two Main Campfire fire pits during the day, with a container of propane right next to it. The photo was taken on July 23 at 2:49 PM. In the daytime photo, it is clear that the fire pit is a KUMA Bear Blaze Fire Bowl - 19" in black.
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  2021-07-19T11:44

  Program Office Mask Sign

  This is a photo I took of a sign found on the inside of the door into the top (second) floor of the program office reminding Scouts and Scouters to wear a mask while in the building. The sign reads "Please remember to wear your mask in the P.O. Thanks for keeping camp safe!!!!", and has the Camp Wolfeboro logo on it. The photo was taken on July 19 at 11:44 AM.
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  2021-07-19T21:53

  Program Director's Monday Night Campfire Speech

  Every week during camp at Camp Wolfeboro, the Program Director gives a speech near the end of the Monday night campfire. This is an audio recording of the last portion of the speech given by 2021's Program Director, James Mizutani. He mentions and discusses the pandemic that has taken place over the past two years in his speech. Transcription: So, it, it was a lot when I got up here, uh, to work as program director in 2021, it was kind of a shock. Um, I had to— the med lodge was new, the camp director's cabin was not habitable anymore, uh, Kneeknocker¹ was all shiny. The nature lodge, my home for a year as Eco-Con² staff, is now like [in remittal?], and you can't put people in there anymore. So a lot of things have changed, some good, some less good. The less good things are fixable, we'll get a new nature lodge, it'll be fantastic and it'll be great and it'll be better than anything Eagle's End³ will ever have (audience says "woah"). But one of the things that didn't change was my feelings about camp. I love camp. I love everybody who's up here. I love working with my staff. Now I just call them my staff, instead of me being a part of staff, I still am staff [unintelligible]. And getting to see all of you every week, I get to see Scouts every week, I get to catch up with them, I get to see what they're doing while they're not at camp, and I get to see what they're enjoying about camp, why they come back every year. And I find that it's a lot of the same reasons why I come back every year. You're out here, you're away from a lot of distractions, you're with some of your friends, you're doing stuff that you don't normally do on the day-to-day. I don't mind normal days, the last two years have been wake up, move eight feet over onto the other side of my room, and sit down at my desk. Now I wake up and have to like, jog 800 feet to the PO⁴ in order to make it to the staff meeting on time. So, it's a very different lifestyle. And, I think it's a good thing for all of us to have been reintroduced into that lifestyle, into that camping lifestyle. And so I want you all to take advantage of everything that Wolfeboro has to offer. Make the Wolfeboro lifestyle a full lifestyle, a busy lifestyle filled with program, filled with excitement, filled with singing, filled with swimming at the Waterfront and shooting at the Rifle Range and going on hikes and being out here in this beautiful valley looking at the stars. There's no light, there's no artificial light in the valley after 10:30pm. And that's something that you can rarely get anymore. Um, I want you all to take hold of all the advantages that you have here at camp and make the most of it because after two years, you have a lot of catching up to do. So, have a good week everybody and I'd like to reintroduce the 2021 Camp Wolfeboro staff (applause). Footnotes: 1: A bathroom (with showers starting in 2021) found between the Program Office and the Mess Hall 2: Short for "Ecology and Conservation". A program area on the Tuolumne side of camp that handles nature-related merit badges and activities. 3: A program area that handles civic-related merit badges and activities. Eagle's End staff and Eco-Con staff were engaged in a prank war during the summer of 2021. 4: Program Office, where the camp director and program director offices can be found.
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  2021-07-22T09:50

  Flag Area Mask Trash

  This is a littered mask I found just several dozen feet east of the flag area and the program office at Camp Wolfeboro. I had just finished my Forestry merit badge session on the Tuolumne County side of camp, when I crossed the river to head to my Shotgun Shooting merit badge session at 10:00 AM. On the way to the range, I found a mask laying on the ground. I was a bit baffled as to how this mask was still here, because dozens of people had to have walked by it that morning already, whether going to or from a merit badge class or heading back to their campsite. The mask is extremely obvious, so anyone who walked here would have seen it. The photo was taken at 9:50 AM on Thursday, July 22, 2021.
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  2021-07-23T15:31

  Shotgun Range Mask Trash

  In addition to finding mask trash at my campsite and in the common areas that Scouts and Scouters (adults in Scouting) walk through, I also found mask trash at program areas (meaning areas where merit badge sessions and other Scouting activities take place), like the shotgun range. Like the other photos, I picked up the mask after I took the photo. I am not as disappointed about this littered mask as I am about the others because it was in a fairly hidden location under a bench and I think most people at the range wouldn't have seen it. The photo was taken at 3:31 PM on Friday, July 23, 2021.
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  2021-07-19T06:58

  Boucke Mask Trash

  This is a photo I took of a mask littered on the ground at the Boucke campsite at Camp Wolfeboro. This is the campsite where my troop, Troop 834, stayed during the fifth week of camp, when I took the photo. I picked up the mask and threw it away after I took the photo, and I hope it wasn't anyone from our troop who forgot to pick up their garbage. I find it interesting that the pandemic prevented most human activity from taking place at the camp in 2020 and now that people have returned there are new types of trash. The photo was taken at 6:58 AM on Monday, July 19, 2021.
• 
  2021-07

  Wolfeboro PO Whiteboard

  The top of the program office at Camp Wolfeboro, where the camp director and program director offices are, has a large whiteboard every year where Scouts are invited to draw anything so long as it is Scouting-appropriate. The two photos of the whiteboard were taken at the middle and end of the fifth session of camp; IMG_5768.jpg was taken on Wednesday, July 21 at 11:41 AM, and IMG_5817.jpg was taken on Friday, July 23 at 4:17 PM. In the two and a half days between the photos, there were some additions made to the board. The whiteboard includes a variety of references to recent cultural trends, some of which include: -Upper left: text reading "whats [sic] so funny about Sussus Amongus", a reference to a YouTube video titled "What's so funny about sussus amogus?", itself an Among Us parody of the Biggus Dickus sketch from Monty Python's Life of Brian. -Center left, immediately next to the edge of the board: the word "SHEESH" in orange marker, which is used to show a sense of disbelief about something, with a positive tone (similar to how "dang" or "damn" might be used) -Upper center, slightly to the right: a dark green drawing of an open eye crying laughing emoji, an edited version of the laughing crying emoji that is used in memes to signify an emotional reaction to something -Bottom right: an orange-colored set of Olympic rings, with the words "Olympians [illegible]" in blue beneath it Some of the additions between Wednesday and Friday include: -Center left: an Among Us crewmate next to a text bubble saying "SUSSY!" (a reference to the slang term "sus", meaning suspicious, often used alongside references to Among Us) Many of the specific cultural references refer to the video game Among Us. According to the program director, the massive Garfield drawing at the bottom left was drawn during the 2019 camp season but became unerasable by the time camp opened in 2021 (camp did not take place in-person in 2020).
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  2021-07-13

  Brian Harvey, Oral History, 2021/07/07

  Brian Harvey, a Managing Director at Deloitte and Touche, discusses the changes the pandemic has caused to his job as an auditor. He provides insights into the various industries he has interacted with over the past year.
• 
  2021-06-24

  Stanislaus National Forest Forest Order No. STF-16-2021-06

  The Forest Supervisor of Stanislaus National Forest issued a Forest Order on June 24, 2021 that prevented "using a fire, campfire, or stove fire" in most of the Moderate Fire Hazard Area of Stanislaus National Forest. This impacted the Calaveras County portion of Camp Wolfeboro, which is located entirely within the Moderate Fire Hazard Area. Although the Tuolumne County half of Camp Wolfeboro is in the Low Fire Hazard Area, meaning wood fires were technically allowed, the Golden Gate Area Council prohibited any wood fires at any of its summer camps for the 2021 camp season. Also attached is a photograph of a copy of Forest Order No. STF-16-2021-06 hanging at the top of the Camp Wolfeboro Program Office, taken on July 21, 2021.
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  2021-07-24

  In-N-Out Touchless Drink Dispenser

  On the way home from Camp Wolfeboro, it is a tradition in Troop 834 (and other troops) to stop at In-N-Out on the way home, which is often appreciated after a week of eating at the mess hall. When my car stopped at the Stockton In-N-Out to pick up lunch, I saw touchless drink dispensers that I hadn't seen before. Above each nozzle that dispenses soda there are two small bumps, and putting a finger between the two bumps, without touching them, causes the soda to flow. While we were there, we also saw some Scouts from Troop 7062, in American Canyon.
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  2021-07-19T11:41

  Trading Post Maximum Occupancy Sign

  This photograph shows a sign at the Camp Wolfeboro Trading Post that says "Trading Post Maximum Occupancy: 5", with the Camp Wolfeboro logo before it. The sign also accompanies a nut allergy sign that is present every year. The Trading Post only allowed five people to enter at a time, and any overflow had to wait outside for someone to leave the building. Masks were also required in the Trading Post, regardless of vaccination status. The photograph was taken on July 19, 2021 at 11:41 AM.
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  2021-07-23T16:08

  Forest Service Burn Pile

  These are three photos of a set of logs, located between the archery range and shotgun range at Camp Wolfeboro. In all of the photos the Handicraft building is visible on the left in the distance. According to the in-camp president of the Wolfeboro Pioneers, the pile of logs was created as a burn pile by the Forest Service. At the 7:30 Pioneer meeting on Monday evening, July 19th, 2021, a Scout proposed clearing the burn pile as part of the Wolfeboro Work Party, an hour-long work party running from 7:30 to 8:30 on every Tuesday night at camp where each Scout troop helps clean up part of camp. He didn't know the pile was made by the Forest Service, so the president said so and said the camp couldn't clear it. The photographs were taken on Friday, July 23, 2021 at 4:08 PM.
• 
  2020-07-05

  Painted rocks on Iron Horse Regional Trail

  These are a series of photos I took on July 5, 2020, of a set of painted rocks I found on the Iron Horse Trail in Danville. The rocks say: "BE KIND" "STRONGER TOGETHER" "DANVILLE GOT HEART" "WHEN THERE'S NO PEACE ON EARTH THERE IS PEACE IN CHRIST" "SRV '20" (in reference to nearby San Ramon Valley High School) "SMILE! 🙂" "EMBRACE THE PAUSE!" "count your BLESSINGS" "Learn from Yesterday" "LOVE has many COLORS" (with a painted Pride flag in the background) "TOGETHER we will PERSEVERE" The rocks are all positive in tone, with a rock celebrating the recently-graduated seniors at the local high school, a rock advocating for queer people, a variety of rocks with generic inspirational messages, and a message urging others to find solace in religion. There is also one rock that references Danville's community explicitly.
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  2020-11-14

  Diwali rangoli at City Center Bishop Ranch

  This is a photograph of a rangoli at City Center Bishop Ranch I took on November 14, 2020. That date also happens to be Diwali, a Hindu holiday on which some people make rangoli. Rangoli are made of various dyes and powders.
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  2020-07-12

  Whole Foods cash register

  This is a photo I took on July 12, 2020, at the local Whole Foods, of a cash register. There is a plexiglass shield at the register, and a sign announcing a change in hours. The sign also promotes a biweekly special shopping session for the elderly and those at high risk for COVID-19.
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  2020-04-30

  Minions!

  A family in San Ramon made a cutout of two minions wearing masks and put it in front of their home. The sign says "THANK YOU ❤️ HEALTHCARE WORKERS ❤️ FIRST RESPONDERS ❤️ ESSENTIAL WORKERS WE ❤️ U". The photo was taken on April 30, 2020.
• 
  2021-06-18

  A Linguistic Tour through Arthur Avenue

  I traveled to New York this summer, and one of the places I visited was Arthur Avenue, located in the Belmont neighborhood of the Bronx and the main artery of the Bronx's Little Italy. Arthur Avenue provided a unique insight into the function of immigrant languages during the pandemic. Most of the people I heard talking as I walked down Arthur Avenue and went into the stores were speaking English, as would be expected in most of the United States. Some had an accent similar to a "standard" American accent/my Californian accent, while others spoke in New Yorker accents. I heard some people speaking Italian, mostly if not entirely elderly people, in several stores, including Cerini Coffee and Gifts. I also heard expression of language through music, in the form of a speaker in front of Mario's Restaurant playing "Tu vuò fà l'Americano" ("You Want to Be an American") and "O Sarracino" ("The Saracen"), two famous Neapolitan language songs. I didn't expect to hear music in Italian "dialect" (called so even though Neapolitan is a proper stand-alone language). However, Belmont is no longer just Little Italy. It also has a large Albanian presence. I saw a flyer on a street pole in Albanian which I presume to either be a missing sign or a flyer for a funeral. I have no idea what the flyer said because I don't know Albanian, but among the text were two pictures of an elderly man. In front of Randazzo's Seafood, I also saw a sign advertising some type of shellfish (I can't remember which) in Albanian and English, though not in Italian, which I thought was interesting since the store is owned by the grandchildren of immigrants from Sicily. There was also an Albanian television provider called TV ALB, which indicated to me that there are enough Albanian speakers in the area to sustain an Albanian-language cable or broadcast provider, even during the pandemic. I didn't hear any spoken Albanian. This could be a purely anecdotal observation, but I saw Italian primarily as a spoken language and Albanian primarily in writing. There was some writing in Italian, but most of it was either names of food items that couldn't be translated into English or sayings like "mangia bene vivi bene" ("eat well, live well", as a command; the picture of which is attached to this story) for promotional purposes. There was no actual communication occurring in written Italian. On a non-linguistic note, most of the restaurants also had outdoor seating under canopies, a consequence of COVID.
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  2021-06-24

  COVID scam awareness sign

  When I visited the library today, I noticed in the large assortment of flyers on the community posting board a flyer warning about COVID-19 scams. The flyer is from the California Senior Medicare Patrol, and mentions a variety of different scams related to vaccine distribution that people should avoid. It also provides a hotline phone number. The photo was taken on June 24, 2021.
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  2021-06-18T17:20

  Greenacre Park

  When I visited New York, one of the places I went to was Greenacre Park in Manhattan. The small, house-sized park is a wonderful example of nature in the middle of a mass of high-rises, with a wall of ivy, a waterfall, and many trees. There were about 15 people there, all doing various things. A man was working on his computer, as can be seen in one of the photos. Quite a few people were on their phones. Meanwhile, a group of tourists took a selfie photo, and a pair of elderly women shared a carton of fruit nectar. Underneath a canopy, others sat and read or worked. It was nice to see people still enjoying nature as the pandemic finally winds to a close. I also thought it was interesting how many people were using technology (including me!) in a natural space apparently meant to provide a break from the rush of normal life.
• 
  2020-06-23

  SRVUSD Budget and Reopening Protest Photographs

  These are unpublished photographs I took while reporting for my school's newspaper, The Californian. These photographs show the people who attended the protest, including a mixture of students and parents. There are also a variety of signs showing various motivations for protesting. This entry is connected to the "San Ramon community protests SRVUSD spending and issues with remote learning" submission.
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  2020-06-27

  San Ramon community protests SRVUSD spending and issues with remote learning

  This is a news article I wrote about a protest for my school newspaper. The protest was convened to support the ability for students in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District to be able to return to school for the 2020-21 school year, and to oppose raises for district management and certain purchases made by the district. The protest occurred on June 23, 2020, at the SRVUSD offices in Danville, California.