Entropy Central

Archive for the ‘Scouts’ Category

Sorry for the long delay between posts. Yesterday, I returned from a week at Camp Geronimo with my son’s boy scout troop.

I’m still a bit sore and fatigued. We had a LOT of rain, with a good 30-45 minute hail storm. Mud, mud, mud, but everyone managed to finish their merit badges. The boy completed 5! Mammal Studies, Fish and Wildlife Management, Swimming, Lifesaving, and the historical merit badge Carpentry, which was resurrected for this year only in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts in the United States.

It’s been a few months since I have added a new crossword puzzle to the collection.  I’ll be posting one in the next week or so.  The puzzle is done, but all the ebook work I’ve been focusing on has created a huge in-box for me in terms of projects I’d like to complete.  It’s a matter of the puzzle floating to the top of the to-do list.

The puzzle I plan to post has a fun theme.  This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts, and the puzzle celebrates this milestone.   It will be a 15 x 15 daily-sized puzzle.

My son and I participated in an Eagle project for one of the boys in his scout troop this morning. We did trail work on an unlisted trail to repair ATV damage, and also to block an illegal ATV access trail. hard work, very physical, cutting and dragging dead branches around. We also found a wounded bat on the trail and the boys attempted a rescue, taking it to an area where the rangers deal with wounded animals.

We left the house just before 7:00 and got home at about 1:00. that gave enough time to get into the shower then dress for the Cardinal-Saints game.

Other than the touchdown run on the first snap of the game, the Cardinals looked flat. They lost two major defenders early, and Kurt Warner went down after being hit trying to tackle the guy who intercepted his pass. Matt Leinart looked okay through the end of the second quarter, but Neil Rackers missed another field goal–this time short. Rackers never misses short, which tells me that groin injury isn’t properly healed and quite likely was aggravated last week. Even punter Ben Graham looked flat, punting uncharacteristic short.

I think Green Bay just wore the Cardinals out. They looked tired,and they played tired.

It was a good run, a better season than last year even if the ride didn’t last as long.

Now that football season is over for me (though I’ll probably catch a few more games) I’ll be turning to hockey until the Olympics, where it will be more hockey and some speed skating, luge, and bobsled.

I took the day off work today (’tis the season to use or lose PTO) and drove down to Papago Park in Phoenix. We’re going to take some of the younger boy scouts there next weekend to use the permanent orienteering course. I went to check it out.

I spent an hour trying to find a ranger so I could get the directions (ie, direction and distance to each marker) but it turns out they don’t have anything published. I find that hard to believe, but maybe they just lost track of the document over the years. Regardless, I drove back to the orienteering course. yes, drove. It’s a big park that contains around ten hiking trails, the Botanical Gardens, and the Phoenix Zoo.

I decided that I had to go find all the markers if we had any chance of bringing the boys out next weekend. Let me tell you, that ain’t easy. First of all, we have to deal with declination that matters here. back in Wisconsin, you could practically ignore the difference between magnetic north and true north. In Arizona, no such luck. Second, the markers are all hidden from each other. It makes the course challenging with a compass. It makes it a bloody nightmare when you have no frigging idea where they are and have to wander around in the desert looking for them. It also makes it hard to get the direction correct trying to spot a hidden marker a good 200 paces away. Some are in washes, some behind trees, and some just in unexpected areas.

I managed to find the starting marker pretty quickly and ended up discovering the posts in reverse order from marker 10 through 4. I found 2 and 1 before I found 3. I measured the direction compensating for what I called a 10-degree declination and paced the distances off. I must have put in a good ten miles of wandering around before I finished. The good thing is that I found all the markers and we now have that all written down.

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I started recording Silent Night instead of Hark! The Hereld Angels Sing. The slower tempo is easier to deal with while I’m still learning the equipment (both the recorder and the instruments). After a number of false starts with various instruments, I put down a vocal track all the way through. I’m not thrilled with the sound of my own voice, and saying I’m an untrained vocalist is being kind. But, maybe it’s just hearing it acapella. With support from instruments, maybe it will be okay. Maybe, but I’m still no Frank Sinatra.

I recorded the first two verses, left a big gap for instrumentals, then vocals on the last and a repeat of the first verse. I tried to insert a clarinet solo in the gap, but it didn’t fit and instead overlapped the vocals of verse three. I killed that one, partly due to some unplanned improv that I would have kept had it fit. Instead, I started at the beginnign of the song with the intention of moving the track later. That got aborted when everyone else got home, as it was 10:30Pm.

At least I got the vocals done when nobody was around. right now, nobody is the wiser but you.

I’m about 30 minutes away from leaving for the Heard Scout Pueblo. Our troop is doing a 2-night camp out. The boys are excited because it’s an official scout camp, and so we get to use the rifle range. Hopefully, I’ll have pictures when we get back.

This evening, Russell finished the last requirement for his Tenderfoot rank. He is so happy to be rid of the scout badge. I remember those days as a child. Scout is practically free. No camping required, just learn the scout badge and such.

Tenderfoot has some basic scouting skill requirements. He’s happy to be done with it.

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It’s been difficult to make any progress writing this past week. I’ve been writing, but not very much. After I finished Karoshi, I started my story targeted for the Jay Lake anthology. Then, I realized my Codex Halloween contest story is due October 1st. Since the Writers of the Future contest quarter closes September 30, that story has to be the one.

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The pool is no longer green. I fought the worst pH problem I’ve ever had and finally won that battle. Just this evening, I could finally see the bottom of the pool clearly. I prefer to use the clarifying liquids, but when they don’t work, I fall back to alum. It works every time, but now the barracuda is struggling. To top it off, we had a major haboob roll through the valley this evening. We missed the bulk of it, but it didn’t help the pool effort. I think by the end of this weekend the pool will be back in business.

We arrived safely from the weekend excursion to the famous (not really, I hadn’t heard of them) Lava Tubes. I also don’t know why people call it Lava Tubes when there is only one of them.

It’s a 1-1/2 mile out-and-back hike with no choice but to come back because the cave dead-ends. Here is Russell going in.

Photography is difficult inside as without flashlights it is completely dark. Here is a picture of people out of range of the flash.

See what I mean? We met up with this poor, unfortunate soul who seems to have been in the cave for a very long time.

Russell found a light saber in the cave. It was probably discarded because it is clearly a factory reject.

We camped just off the forest road. Here, Russell is setting up one of the tents.

We did visit Lowell Observatory. We didn’t get to see much. The sky was clouding fast, but we did get to see M57 (aka the Ring Nebula) through a 16-inch telescope. It looks much the same as in the photo , but washed out and colorless as expected when viewed optically. The eye is not as sensitive to color as is photographic film.

I bought a sweatshirt with this logo:

The boys had fun at the observatory. I was somewhat bored because the public dog-and-pony show experience doesn’t hold anything new for me. Still, it was better than a lot of alternatives.

Russell had his first appearance at a boy scout court of honor this evening. He received his first two merit badges, First Aid and Basketry. He earned them both at Camp Geronimo this past summer. He also officially received his Scout badge, but he has been wearing it since the end of May. We’ll try to do some work on Astronomy merit badge while we’re up there.

This weekend, the troop is going to Flagstaff for some camping and to visit Lowell Observatory. (Yes, I do indeed realize I was just there last week, but I didn’t get to go inside.) I’ll have some photos to share in a few days.

It’s been all over the news. If you haven’t heard yet, you’ve been in a cave for two days. Despite the widespread media attention, I have to comment on the four scouts killed by a tornado in Iowa.

Certainly, this is a tragic event, and I can’t imagine what the parents of those boys are going through. I don’t want to discuss that, it’s been discussed enough. What I wanted to discuss was the survivors.

These kids knew what to do. They were attending a leadership training session, so these were experienced scouts. They knew the first aid necessary to prevent any additional deaths.

Did you know that scouts are required to know first aid to advance? Did you know first aid merit badge is required to earn the rank of Eagle? They also have to earn Lifesaving or Emergency Preparedness merit badge for Eagle. The Potawatomi Area Council in southeastern Wisconsin has an annual first aid meet, where troops compete against each other in performing first aid in situations they do not know until the scenerio is read. I know this quite well because my old troop won first place in the late seventies or early eighties.

This tragedy in Iowa is a testament to the boys and to the leaders who trained them. That’s what scouting is all about–being ready for whatever happens, serving others, and being prepared.

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You can tell that we’ve moved into the desert portion of my landscaping. We won’t see much but desert trees and shrubs for quite a while, broken only by an occasional palm tree.

Here’s the sage that grows a the left side of my baskeball court.

I drove up to Camp Geronimo yesterday morning. Driving through the Sonoran Desert up highway 87, I took this photo out the window.

Here is an example of a forest of saguaro cacti, again taken out the window of my truck.

Once you hit Payson, you’re magically transported from desert to woods. The road into Camp Geronomo is dirt and washboarded. The photo below doesn’t do justice to the nasty ride you take driving in.

I arrive at the camp just before noon.

I found Russell in the dining hall (where the food was not fit for human consumption).

We did the Totem to Totem hike…

…then continued on the West Webber trail…

…to this crystal clear 5′ deep pool.

Here is what a forest fire looks like several years later.

Of course, I had to go up for the one meal our troop had KP. Here’s Russell dressed for action.

And yours truly.

We serve the food, and we mopped the floors.

We gathered for the friday campfire (this photo taken the next morning). Yes, there is a swimming pool for swimming merit badge. There isn’t much in the way of lakes in Arizona. The one they use for the boating merit badges you wouldn’t want to swim in.

Although the day was hot, after dark, it got cold fast. When the fire was finished, we walked back to our tents (photo also taken next morning). It was so dark you couldn’t see anything without a flashlight.

Because it was that dark, there were so many stars visible that city folks have trouble identifying constellations. But man, it got cold at night. I was pining for my old mummy bag from my days as a scout back in Wisconsin. Even bundled, it was a miserable night.

I stumbled across one of our guy’s Tote’n'Chip card in the trading post, so we got to watch a lovely song and dance routine of “I’m a Little Teapot” as we waited for the commissioner to check us out.

We tried to caravan back but got separated. The guy pulling the trailer and I left last, but we arrived back at the church first. We were not told everyone else was stopping at McDonalds. As it turned out, between the two vehicles we had 8 boys. The highest ranking boy was a First Class, most of the others were Tenderfoot or Scout. The little guys unloaded that whole trailer. By the time the older boys arrived, the trailer was already empty and the troop stuff mostly in the storage shed.

No yard plants tonight since this is already a photo-heavy post.