Fall Camporee

I took some of my scouts to the district fall camporee this weekend. I had originally registered all three of my eleven year-olds to go but, in the end, only one went. That was a little annoying. One of them had a family event that he couldn't get out of. The other didn't want to come because he "was afraid of getting cold." ?!?! hmmm..... whatever... The big annoyance was that I put this campout on a calendar I gave to the parents two months ago but they acted like they had never heard about it. Why do I bother putting together a calendar if you aren't going to pay attention to it? Fortunately we had three Webelos go otherwise I would have just cancelled it. We got there late in the evening Friday night and had to hunt around for our campsite. They assigned us to a spot that wasn't marked and had no amenities (picnic table, campfire ring) identifying it as a campsite. We finally would up just picking a flat, semi-open area and went with it. The evening went okay. We got stuff set up, had dinner, etc. While desert was going on (smores roasted over the camp stove) Hank and I put together a bear bag. I had never done a bear bag before, so this was a new experience. In the future I think I would do things a little different, but we got stuff up there.

While we were putting up the bear bag one of the Webelos, Caleb, told us that he had a spider bite on his knee that was bothering him. He had apparently been bitten the night before at home while he slept. We took him back to the light and checked him out. The injured knee was swollen to twice the size of his regular knee. Unfortunately Caleb was the only scout there without a dad so it fell to Hank and I to make the call. We decided to take him down to the hospital and that we would call his mom on the way. We started down and, once we had a signal, called Marleah to have her be the liason with the mom, Emily. She let us know that Emily would meet us in Boulder and make the assessment from there. We met Emily and she took a look at his knee. It was swollen, hot and Caleb was walking with a little limp. She decided to take him to the emergency room. We went with her in case the doctor released him to go back to camp. Caleb really wanted to go back to camp and we wanted to be able to help him with that if it was allowed. We sat around at the emergency room for a very long before being able to see a doctor. The diagnosis was that there was no real reason to know what was going on with him. There were a couple of possibilities but only time would tell. The doctor did want to start him on some penicillin and antibiotics, though. The medicine became the real problem with sending him back to camp, though. Scout leaders are not able to administer medicine to their Scouts. We would have to turn it in to the first-aid officer for the camporee and the timing was such that we didn't know if that would work out. Also Caleb had never taken the medicines before and none of us knew how he would react. That became the biggest factor. We didn't want him to be up in the mountains if he had a bad reaction so we all ultimately decided to send him home. He was very sad about the whole thing. He kept it together during the rest of the time we were at the hospital, but, once we got in our separate cars, we could see him break down and start crying. It was like he didn't want to lose it in front of Hank and me and held it in. I felt very sad for him. By the time Hank and I got back up to camp we were getting to sleep around 4:45 AM. I had originally planned to get up at 5:30. To heck with that plan!

I wound up getting up at 6:30. Boys had started stirring and I knew that we had stuff to get done if we were going to be on schedule. The last couple of campouts like this I had been on we were notoriously slow in getting the cooking, eating and cleaning done in the alloted time. As such we were always missing flag ceremonies and late for the start of activities. I didn't want that to be the case this time so I wanted us to have plenty of time to get things done. I dragged myself awake, got dressed and headed out to get the boys started on breakfast. We were actually able to get all of the breakfast stuff done and cleaned up just in time to head over to the flag ceremony. I was very pleased. Despite the long night the day was starting off well.

Our first event of the day was shooting and was the one that everybody was looking forward to. What boy doesn't like to shoot guns, right? The Webelos got to shoot BB guns while our one Scout got to shoot shotguns. He was very excited. He had never shot a shotgun before. Neither have I for that matter. They had a skeet launcher (flinger? whatever the term is) and he had five chances to hit the flying skeet. He actually nailed one of them dead on. It was a great shot and he was all smiles. That one moment would have been worth the whole trip. The next activity was rescue throws down at the waterfront and the boys did okay with that. The last event of the morning was a first-aid scenario. The boys did okay eventually but it made me realize that I need to work more first-aid scenarios into my program. I teach them all of the stuff pretty well (in my humble opinion) but scenarios really bring it together. It was made worse by the fact that all but one of the scouts was a Webelos, but it still made me think. I will definitely be working scenarios into my first-aid program in the future. After that event we should have gone back for lunch and then back out for an afternoon of activities, but we wound up leaving instead. One of the Webelos was going to leave after lunch anyways and when we discussed it I found out the two of the other dads had to work this evening. Also factoring into it was the fact that Hank and I were dead tired. So, in the end, we decided to skip lunch and just pack up and leave. The boys were sad to leave, but that was a good thing because it meant that they were having a good time. I had been given negative advice about these camporees before but decided to try one out anyways. I'm very glad that I did because it was a great event and the boys had lots of fun. I will definitely be going back to the next one.

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Krav After Two Week Absence

Tonight was the first night that I have been to Krav for a couple of weeks. Life happened and I wasn't able to go for a short while. It happens now and then. It's also really easy for me to let myself be lazy sometimes. I always want to work on my procrastination, but I keep putting it off. Last night's class was pretty good. I had an epiphany about one of the techniques we were doing where it suddenly made sense what some portions of the technique were achieving. It was kind of cool. The last exercise of the night involved a lot of running and that kicked my butt. I can't run very fast or long. I know, I know; one look at my fat, out-of-shape body and you'd never be able to guess it. I need to start doing my morning exercises again. I was actually starting to lose weight for a little while but I've gotten out of the habit. Perhaps I'll push myself up tomorrow morning. We'll see.

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No Longer a Blank Amtgard Slate

This is one I feel a little bad blogging about. I don't want people to get the wrong impression about me. First some background.... In Amtgard they have recognition/awards that they give to people for all sorts of things: service, fighting ability, arts & sciences, etc. These awards work in a tiered-progression concept. They have have categories that these things are broken down into and each award you receive in a category is supposed to be a little harder to earn than the last one. There are no set rules/standards for receiving awards, it's just all at the discretion of the leadership. This is where the problem lies with me. Again, I don't want people thinking that I'm glory seeking or that I think I'm some great whatever. I really don't. I have done a few things worthy of recognition, however, and it's tough to see people receive awards and have your own contribution overlooked. I tried not to let it get to me but I am human after all. There was an even last weekend (which I couldn't attend) and they had court there as they do at almost all events. At this court I was finally awarded a few things. Previous to this my records page had been a big blank slate. I had received nothing. So, this was a notable thing for me. I received my first two awards for service, first two awards for jewelry making, and first award for fighting skill. I found out later that one of my friends had to resort to calling up the current leader and complaining on my behalf in order for me to get most of those awards. It kind of bugs me that that is what had to happen. I want to receive awards because my contribution is recognized, not because someone complained. I have been told that that is the way it has to happen, but I still prefer the route of quiet service. I don't like tooting my own horn. And I feel bad when others toot it on my behalf. Perhaps I'm being to humble. It will require some thought I guess....

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Three Cheers for the Finished Blanket

It may sound lame, but I'm cheering big time for finally finishing the baby blanket for Nadine. It feels like I've been working on this blanket for !@#$-ing ever. Karen and I guess it took something like seven months. Seven Months?!?!?! Sheesh! I have no real clue why it took so long, either. I actually picked the pattern because I didn't think it would take too long. Boy was I wrong. I'm so totally sick of making baby blankets. I've only got one more on my list to do right now and I've already gotten a good start on it. We've decided that there is one particular pattern I'm going to use from now on because Karen thinks it went really fast the last time. I don't really recall, but I will say that it seems to be going much faster. I've only been working for a few days and I'm already almost half done with the body. I don't want to give the same pattern to a family twice, but I will definitely use this pattern as a first blanket wherever possible. Or maybe save it for when I'm in a time crunch. The baby this blanket is for was born a couple days ago so I'm a little under the gun. My goal is to always have it done before the baby is blessed. I totally failed on this last one, but I hope she understands. I was going to have yet another blanket to do after this one, but it appears like that one might have been taken off my list this weekend. No complaints here....

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Computer Repairman - Will Work for Free

I've been playing computer repairman for the last couple of days. One of my friends was complaining that his computer was running really slow and had a bunch of garbage popping up all of the time. I suggested that a full rebuild might improve things and he decided it was a good idea. So, I've spent the last two evenings helping him back-up and rebuild his machine. For the most part it went okay. We got the OS back up and running with all of the appropriate drivers. One of the ancillary things he wanted fixed (playing DVDs) got fixed and I have loaned him a boat-load of software/games to play with. I wasn't using them so I figured, "what the hey?" The only thing we didn't get setup was his wireless network. He's got a wireless router already setup that he's hard-wired into but he wanted to get the wireless portion working so that he could use his laptop with it. For some reason the computer won't see the router to configure it even though it appears to be running through it. I traced the cables through his rat's nest tangle as best I could and it seems like the computer is physically connected through it. But the computer has an IP address that makes it look like it's not using the router at all. Most home routers are configured to use similar subnets and this one is not using any IP subnet that looks familiar. Plus, when I run the router setup software (which we shouldn't really need) it fails on the detecting-the-router step. But the computer connects to the internet just fine. It's very bizarre. I told the guy that we needed to verify the physical connections beyond a doubt. The two options were to bypass his rat's nest tangle with new wires (which he didn't have) or de-tangle the cable mess. He kind of opted for the second option and I left him for the night to de-tangle on his own. I kind of draw the line at figuring out someone's cabling issues. I have my own rat's nest at home to deal with and I don't want to deal with someone else's. I haven't heard back from him yet, but I also haven't seen him since then. I'll follow-up with him at church on Sunday and make certain he knows I'm still willing to help him once the cabling mess is sorted out. Fun, fun, fun!

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DragonMaster Competition

Today was a DragonMaster competition at the IMD park. It was for all of Iron Mountains, but it was held locally which made it very convenient for me. I entered three pieces of chain mail jewelry as well as my belt and one of my swords. I put in the belt and sword as a, "what the heck" kind of thing. I mainly was entering the jewelry. I entered a bracelet I had previously made for Karen and the necklace I made for Marleah. The only thing I made fresh was a new bracelet similar to the one I made Kathy for her birthday. I made it mainly purple so that Karen would like it. This was my first time entering one of these competitions so I didn't really know what to expect. One guy brought 23 entries. My five seemed fairly pitiful. He didn't have anything in my category so my jewelry wasn't competing against him. He had a ton of stuff, though. He really inspired me to beef up my tailoring and leatherworking skills. I have already started doing a little sewing, but I need to see if I can get a little tutoring from one of my friends. It would probably help if I had a project in mind before I asked for assistance. I saw a nice (from what I can tell with my limited knowledge) leatherworking set on sale from Tandy. It is kind of expensive, $500, but it has a bunch of tools in it. My concern is that I would get these tools and have no clue on how to use them. I thought about seeing if the local Tandy store offers any classes, but I haven't done it yet. In my mind it would be in their best interest to offer free (or very cheap) classes. It seems like it would create more business for them. I know, the last thing I need is more hobbies to dabble in. Oh well.

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Weekend Recap

Here's the recap of our whirlwind weekend. I don't know how much of a whirlwind it was, but I was definitely tired when Sunday night came. Friday night started out pretty quiet. We went out to Chili's for dinner. It was a nice little dinner, just the two of us, followed by a trip to Target to see what was there that we couldn't live without.

At the end of our dinner I got a call from Jim to ask me a question about his Varsity Scout program. I don't really know much about Varsity Scouts but I gave it my best shots. I guess there are pins that you earn as part of your participation in things and he was trying to get his scouts awarded a bunch of pins for the things they had done over the last year. This was the first time he had gotten stuff together and tried to award pins so the process was new to him. The advancement chairman in his ward, though, didn't want to let him award these pins because the scouts hadn't also earned merit badges for these things. Jim and I were of the belief that these pins were completely different things from merit badges and the former does not require the latter. I suggested that he talked to Bill, who is my reference for the Varsity and Venture programs. I called Bill first and confirmed that we were exactly right. I relayed the information to Jim and he called Bill himself to chat about other things Varsity Scout related. By that time I was sitting outside Target waiting to go in. So I went ahead in to do some shopping.

They had some "Tribute to the 80s" DVDs that were fun to look at. It was basically just movies from the 80s that they were re-releasing but there were several that we liked that we didn't already own so it was, of course, required that we get some of them. After that we went home and got to bed. I stayed up playing video games, but there is nothing new about that.

I got up nice and early on Saturday morning to mow the grass. The actual mowing went pretty smoothly but the trimming had problems. Part of the wire assembly broke on the trimmer so I need to go buy a new assembly. I didn't actually get a chance to buy it this weekend, so it's still on my t0-do list.

Karen and I ran over to Costco to get some needed things. There was a show setup at the entrance for Roland pianos. I have been thinking for a little while that it would be nice to get a piano. Neither one of us play but it would be nice to learn. I sat down at one of their digital pianos and saw that it has a whole teaching program built into it. It's kind of cool how it works. It has a variety of songs at different levels built into it and it shows the score as well as a keyboard graphic. As the music goes along it highlight the note in the score as well as the keys you should be pressing on the keyboard. You can then slow down or speed up the tempo of the song to match your playing ability. It actually does this for any song that you load into it. It's just that in the "teaching" mode it will grade your performance. You can apparently load any song you want in MIDI (I believe) format. Then you can slow it way down so that you can follow along at your own pace. The thing I liked most is that it looks like a regular upright piano. It doesn't look like a techno-keyboard thing. It even has a way to slide the key cover just a little bit and cover all of the buttons so that it looks identical to an upright. Also, the sound that comes out of it is just gorgeous. There is a setting to have it mimic the sounding board of a grand piano. It sounds beautiful. I thought it was really cool but wasnt' going to buy it because I figured it was too expensive and unnecessary. I did the rest of my shopping and went and found Karen. I told her about the piano and it turns out that she has been wanting to get one. She wanted to ask me to make that her birthday present. She wasn't looking for the big, expensive piano like I found but definitely wanted something. She took a look at the piano they had and agreed that it was really nice. I figured we should go ahead and spend the money as this would be something that could meet our piano needs for years to come. So we went back and bought it. It's going to be delivered in about ten days. The sales-lady is even going to give us an in-home demo and give us a ton of MIDI files to use with it. She even agreed to give us free delivery because she didn't have any more of those pianos on hand. Karen and I are both pretty excited. Here is the site that has all the info about the piano if you are interested.

After Costco we ran home and I changed clothes to go out and play Amtgard. I only had a couple of hours to play as Karen wanted me back by 3:30. When I got there there was only a couple of people there. One of the Golden Lions, Hannibal, was there which I was glad to see. I went ahead and petitioned them last week. It still felt weird because I only know Hank and Marleah. Hannibal moved here this week, though, and now I'll have another Golden Lion to hang out with. He looks to be more regularly active than Hank and Marleah so that will be a good thing. If I'm going to join this company it will be nice to have one of them around on the battlefield on a regular basis. After a little while of being there some more people showed up so we were able to do some reasonable ditching. By the time I left I really wished I could have stayed but that's the way things go. I got to be out for a little bit at least.

I went back home and got cleaned up so that Karen and I could go out to the races. Jim was bringing a bunch of his scouts so he needed us to give his kids a ride. We went and picked them up and headed off to the races. The race track is really close to us which is nice. In California it was a really long drive. Here it takes us less than half an hour which is very nice. It was an okay evening of racing. There were a lot of cautions during the figure-8 which was kind of boring. The figure-8 is definitely one of the most exciting races that they do. We went home around 10:00. I stayed up playing video games again (no surprise) but I actually had a purpose this time. A new game, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, went into open beta on Sunday. So I stayed up until after midnight to see if I could get in. Unfortunately I couldn't so I wandered off to bed.

Sunday morning I got up and immediately went to try starting the download of Warhammer before I got ready for church. I was able to get in this time and the download started. I went off to church anxiously awaiting the time to come home and get into the game.

Church was just whatever today. No terribly interesting talks/testimonies or incredibly insightful lessons. I got to chat it up with a few people which was nice. I'm still trying to get to know people in the ward so it's good to have that chance. I had a scoutmaster's conference to do right after church so that got me out of doing a fast-offering route. I hadn't planned it that way, but that's the way it worked out. I don't really mind taking a youth out on their route, but I'm just as happy to not do it, if you understand what I mean. This time I had a SM conference so I wasn't available. I enjoyed having the conference with this particular scout. He's one of those youth who is just a joy to have around. I wish all of my scouts could be like him. I've said before that if I did have kids I would want to take parenting lessons from his parents. He's such a great young man. Once the SM conference was over I went home so that I could take Karen over to one of her visiting teaching lady's homes. It was her birthday and Karen had a little present for her.

Once we got back from the birthday delivery I was finally able to play Warhammer! My first time into the game there was a glitch which made me worry that the game wasn't going to work on my computer. I started the game again and everything went fine. I got to play for a couple of hours. I'm not terribly over-whelmed with the game right now, but it's fun to be doing something different. I'll give it a chance and see how it goes.

I got a call from the scoutmaster of the older guys hassling me about the fact that I wasn't willing to award Tenderfoot to a scout that had only been with me for three meetings. I don't really know who was pushing, but it really ticked me off. I think they were thinking that I would count the stuff he did when he went to half of the 11 year old scout camp. They never really talked to me about it. I even told the dad during our last committee meeting that the new guys wouldn't be getting anything at this court of honor. Yet I get a call from the boards of review trying to push this kid through. I was really ticked off. I try really hard to keep my nose out of the program for the older guys and here was their scoutmaster trying to meddle in mine. I am going to have a sit-down with some folks and hash this out. I'm not going to continue this way.

After all of this fun stuff I spent some time getting Karen's printer and label-maker setup. She's been wanting me to do it for a while and I haven't gotten around to it. It's not that I have been actively avoiding doing it, it's just that I don't think about it during those times when I could do it. Regardless, I have set them both up for her and made certain they were working correctly. The label-maker has all sorts of fun options so I hope she will enjoy that.

Hank and Marleah and kids came over for dinner Sunday night so that we could watch Burn Notice. We truly didn't know if they were still coming over. They have had lots of drama at their place so it wouldn't have surprised us if it just didn't happen. They still came over, however, and we had a nice evening. After they left I went up to play some more Warhammer but I kept falling asleep. It was only 9:30, but I was ready for bed. I went in to read a little and fell asleep around 11:00.

There you go, that was our fun weekend. I'm going to go and do real work now.

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