Last night, I had to deal with a number of kids with homesickness, or what we call domestic nostalgia. Here’s what they said:
Kid: What music do you listen to?
Me: Mostly stuff from people who’ve been dead for 150 years.
Kid: Oh, like Van Halen.
Me: So what do you do for fun?
Kid: Collect souls, I bought Michael Jackson’s for $1.00.
Kid: You’re awesome at the guitar, you’re like that black guy.
Foons are a Lexan reworking of the spork and they are owned in great quantities by Bucks County Council. They were destine to be the financial savior of the council, but there was one problem, they were olive and they kept getting lost in people’s SwitchBacks, the norovirus-generating pants replacements that are entirely responsible for any drop in participation in Scouting. The two deserve each other.
Ryan Griff recently completed an Eagle project of collecting soccer equipment and was featured under the headline “Eagle Scout Scores”. That should help recruitment and advancement.
Sadly, they fixed the headline in the online edition to “Eagle Scout Scores Multiple Goals” which is much harder to twist to an innuendo.
During final retreat at the Camporee I got a bit bored standing around and started making loud non-descript drill sergeant noises like ” Whiii hup tooooo!” and “aaafff, awwlight ee marrr”. Some people started giggling while others started going to attention, saluting, turning, tipping their flag and other things sometimes along and sometimes in small groups trying to figure out what was happening. It all stopped when the real guy in charge arrived and I yelled “am riii hooo” and then went to attention.
Wanna command a retreat? Drop every leading and ending consonant on words and quadruple the length of words that end in “o” or “i”. Try it!
I began the day auspiciously with a splinter the size of a fat toothpick puncturing my foot as I stood up emerging from the womb of sleep. The sliver jammed itself between fissures in my skin so despite the pain of each foot fall I knew its excision would be great and satisfying. A scalpel and pair of pliers were the instruments of my relief although I failed to properly plan for the torrent of blood that quickly crossed my office carpet. I was fast enough with the baking soda to stop most of the staining and seeing everything in its place I’ve taped the rebellious cellulose spear to my monitor as a reminder of my indefatigable quest to finish this damned semester.
After 11 more hours of feverish work I clicked “Yes to All” and F5 to refresh the Ockanickon server now repleat with the 2008 Leader Guide. I checked every link. Literally, everyone, even all the one’s on the Guide Index that links back to every other section as well as the 60 links on the departments page that lists the badge requirements offsite. I can now name not only the full path for every section of the leader guide but also the internal anchors and bookmarks. Where once was #cope is now #spokenrope which had to be changed in 7 places. I can name those 11 places as well but will spare you.
If my successor so much as edits the guide next year on a computer where a Microsoft Word window is open I will find them and break their thumbs. I was thinking of being more extreme, but decided that they’d still have to finish the guide.
Today I judged at a GP. I hate GPs, they’re as close to working in a Pennsylvania Coal Mine in the 1870s as I get with 18 hour days on my feet, repeating the same series of actions over and over again. I missed the new staff member tryout for it so I wanted to compare judging to being a staff member at Ockanickon and found some amazing similarities.
| Factor | Judging | Scout Camp | Winner |
| Dumb Uniform | X-Zebra Stripes | X-Khaki Class A | Tie |
| Knowing Byzantine Rules | X-Comprehensive Rules | X-Guide to Safe Scouting | Tie |
| Dealing with dumb kids with dumb parents | X-JSS Judging | X-Every shit 12-year old going for Eagle | Tie |
| Horrible Work Hours | X-16hr Grand Prix | X-36 hour days due to norovirus | Tie |
| Contact with Women | X-Ugly players or mothers | X-Ugly Venturers or mothers | Tie |
| Dick Leadership | X-Scott Larabee | X-Dave Hasel | Tie |
| Sense of achievement at improving America’s moral fiber | X | Scouting | |
| Ability to curse and tell dirty jokes | X | Judging |
Hm… Ability to curse versus sense of achievement at helping America’s youth, that’s a close one.
During our rounds, we checked in on the leaders from yesterday and ran into them handing out cigars. Which would have been fine until they started walking towards the woods where their kids were building emergency shelters. I told them about the BSA’s no smoking around kids policy,Continue reading
Mark Lutz and I were assigned to do troop 280’s election. Troop 280’s been dropping off a lot at their active roster list 32 Scouts. Only 13 were present so we couldn’t do the election until the adults started calling Scouts to get them to show up. Three eventually did, two of which were playing basketball outside and a third that lived across the street and was watching TV. During this, I got to correct a CPR instructor that was telling people that 15/2 was the correct ratio of chest compressions to breaths when doing CPR and 5/1 for children. If I were 200 lbs smaller I would have literally dove in front of the children to intercept the wrongness of this statement. Correct info. Anyway, while waiting for the election I took a picture.
I think it’s a bit of an exaggeration but it’s only our children. Anyway, the group ended their meeting with the Scout Law and a Hail Mary, two of the kids that’d arrived late fiddled awkwardly not knowing the words along with two other Scouts that just stared at the floor. Some units seem to forget that A Scout is Reverent is done differently by each Scout…
Redeeming Event: A fat women was seated on an up-folding cafeteria bench and throughtout the meeting the bench slowly crept up at the center caused by her… leverage. When she got up to leave the meeting, the bench crashed down startling her. She turned around and glared at the child walking by.
I ran the January Roundtable and started out with a group activity where the participants had to tie a giant clove hitch around a garbage can at a distance of 10 feet. I broke everyone up into groups and they stood around the perimeter and could move. Each of the three groups had to go as quickly as possible. I started the clock and the following unfolded.
Laura Foulds: Okay, let’s start passing the rope around.
Douche bag:Â Who said you could run this thing?
Laura: Well, I was just trying to get the game going. I’m pretty sure everyone would start that way.
*Banter*
Douche bag: Do you know who I am? I won the speed tying competition this year and I tied a clove hitch in under…
Group 1: Done!
Group 3: Done!
Good job, turbo tyer.
I ran the January Roundtable and started out with a group activity where the participants had to tie a giant clove hitch around a garbage can at a distance of 10 feet. I broke everyone up into groups and they stood around the perimeter and could move. Each of the three groups had to go as quickly as possible. I started the clock and the following unfolded.
Laura Foulds: Okay, let’s start passing the rope around.
Douche bag:Â Who said you could run this thing?
Laura: Well, I was just trying to get the game going. I’m pretty sure everyone would start that way.
*Banter*
Douche bag: Do you know who I am? I won the speed tying competition this year and I tied a clove hitch in under…
Group 1: Done!
Group 3: Done!
Good job, turbo tyer.