Still sick. Now, in addition to the cough I've developed a stuffy nose. This never used to happen. I guess it's one of the hazards of working with kids...

Friday's benefit for Dax raised some money, but I'm not sure how much. The venue was damned hard to find, thanks to the incorrect Yahoo! map directions. M and I got lost enough to end up driving along the harbor road in West Oakland. I careened over a speed bump without seeing it, causing a nearby, evidently bored security guard to shout "Idiot!" at me. Seeing an opening, I promptly turned around and asked him for directions. The help he gave was vague and incorrect, but I guess it was helpful in the end because we managed to find the venue.

The inside of the venue resembled a construction zone, with junk lying all over the place. Sort of like the outside, I guess. Hours later, after much plugging and unplugging and lifting of tables and various other bits of equipment, the show started. At that point there were more musicians there than audience, but that is mostly because the first act was Moe!kestra, which for the evening consisted of roughly twenty individuals spaced somewhat evenly around the inside perimeter of the space. Moe conducted them through a rousing improv set which was very enjoyable even though the theramin player had wandered off somewhere and only remembered to come back about halfway through the set. Next up was Barely Human Dance Theatre with some nifty soundwork by G and all sorts of other oddness. French Radio followed. Jim's contact miked bicycle wheel was fun, but they suffered various sound problems throughout their set. We followed them, and also suffered numerous technical glitches. The sound in the space was pretty awful. Drew closed things out with a DJ set which got some people dancing. I was so tired at this point that I wasn't paying much attention. Oh well, it was fun anyway. The main thing is that money was raised for Dax.

The next day M and I went to see Land of the Dead, which I must say I thought was really cool. There's just something about zombie movies. Especially George Romero zombie movies. Okay, there were a couple of corny lines in there, but overall a worthy follow-up to the first three films.

I started another week of camp today, and it's a drama camp. I've never taught this one before, and I've never taught in the park it's being held at either. The kids are mostly pretty cool, and seem to be creative in various ways. There are a couple of smartass types, but that's to be expected. I saw lots of animals too. Driving in this morning, I saw rabbits, deer, and truckloads of squirrels (they would later try to eat my tablecloth). During camp we found a baby Kingsnake, which was pretty cool. Afterwards, I went on a hike up to a lookout point from which I could see the whole South Bay. I'm not sure if I'll take the group up there though. It's kind of far and the trail is really exposed to the sun. I saw a Whiptail crossing the road on the way up. You know it's hot when you see Whiptails.