I love this crazy tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful life

PART ONE-B

** A brief update to Part 1. More to follow. **

At age 11, my parents offered me the chance of a lifetime: a week-long visit to Space Camp at Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Please, keep the "one time, at space camp" jokes to a minimum. Lol.) In mid-september, I joined my friend Josh Armstrong (whose parents also decided to give him the same chance) for seven action-packed days in the sunshine state. Under the expert guidance of a college-aged kid named Luke, we trained for and planned out our project. We had to go into orbit to repair a damaged satellite. (What else do you expect? They are always breaking!) At week's end, our mission was upon us. My job was to coordinate the repairs from mission control. Did we succeed? Well, the satellite didn't crash, that's all I'll say (though we were very happy to hear that more kids would be coming next week to continue the repairs). To top it all off, the space camp people put together a nice video of our performance and our training - and it, too, occupies a spot in the Barrett Family collection.

At age 13, my camp-going experiences continued. This time, a week at marine biology camp at UNC-Wilmington. Aren't you dying of envy? :) Trapsing through estuaries, observing an ocean sea-wall at low tide, and - of course - nightly visits to Golden Corral. My strongest memory from MB camp comes at week's end: I had a serious crush on this girl from Canton (a small town in the NC mountains). At our last dinner at CG, I sat across from her. During dessert, and right after I had placed a big spoonful of strawberry ice cream in my mouth, this girl tells a joke. I struggled for about 2 seconds, but the battle was too much. She got sprayed, yes, by me, as I laughed at her joke and couldnt keep the ice cream in. Of course, that ruined the final 12 hrs at camp ... she didnt speak to me again (even though I apologized at every turn). Why are girls so mean?

**END OF PART ONE-B**