Gold Winger

That's really nice of BSA. Introduce new pants last year. Put them on sale this year and then at the end of the summer declare, "New uniform time!"

"They will be coming out on August 1 2008. They look pretty cool and i am looking forward to the new look. :-)" Anywhere we can see a picture of this cool new uniform? New socks? Sheesh! I don't mind a new shirt but I already have a billion pairs of socks.

One mo' ting. The stars are cumulative. So you if you have two years as a Cub Scout, you don't wear the 1 and the 2, you'd only wear the 2.

"Well maybe, but that isnt the kind of logic that will motivate Volunteers who only have one hour a week to give to their unit." One hour a week? LOL!

How do we know that the Earth hasn't ended and we're all just bits of data in a grand cosmic simulation of reality? As for the rapture, it may have happened but there weren't enough qualified people to notice that they disappeared.

An old westerner once told me that sage was added to sausage to cover the taste of meat starting to turn. Kinda like your hot sauce and eggs.

Something else that folks need to do is compare the cost of Scouting to the cost of other youth activities. If your son plays on a travel team for any sport, that gets to be quite expensive. Band? Orchestra? Dance? Cheer athletics (cheerleading to those of us from the 60s)? It all gets quite expensive. Sometimes you can look at a Scouting event and say, "Why did we spend the money?" If that happens don't go the next year. I'm with you on the waiting 40 minutes to shoot a BB gun. That sounds like bad planning on the part of the event organizers.

" And based on biblical evidence, we have known scores of times when the end of the earth is supposed to happen.

Ed, would the age of the Earth be equivalent to the "age of dirt"? I ask because my father-in-law is older than dirt, according to him, and he's only 84.

The colored backs for the stars get a bit confusing and many ignore them. I once ran across a Scouter about my age wearing a star with an orange background. I said, "I didn't think that Tiger Cubs were around when we were kids." He said, "They weren't, this is to show my year as a Tiger Cub coach." I pointed out that wasn't quite correct and his was response was that of many Scouters, "I don't care. I want to wear this." For years as : Tiger Cub (old system) - Orange Cub Scout - Yellow Boy Scout - Green Varsity - Brown Explorer (old system)/ Venturer - Red For years as: Tiger Cub Coach - Blue Cub Scouter - Blue Boy Scout Leader - Blue Varsity Leader - Blue Explorer (old system)/Venturer Advisor - Blue In addition, adults may roll all of their years of servies as a youth and an adult into one pin and wear it with a blue back.

(This message has been edited by a staff member.)

Neither popcorn nor GS cookies are a raw deal. Popcorn pays the unit over 30%. GS cookies pay the troop about 15%. Find me a store that has makes a net profit of 15% and I'll find you an overjoyed storekeeper.

Fifty bucks! Gee, our people complain when the camporee costs $12 per scout. That is a bit steep, perhaps the solution is to sit on the district committee and find out why it cost so much. Popcorn and Quality unit. You don't sell popcorn to get the patch. You sell popcorn to financially support the council. To be a QU you need to support council. I've forgotten, is there a minimum popcorn sale required? Buy one case, split among the committe and be done with it, if it bothers you that much. There's no obligation to go to council events. Pack events are fine.

That's not just a Girl Scout problem. Cub Scouters and Boy Scout leaders ask the same question. The answer is often, "If we plan an event, not everyone will be able to come" My response is, "So?" If ten out of 30 come, that's good from them and the others have missed out. The whole thing is silly. How many parents today whine, "My kids don't have anything to do . . ."

First, "two deep leadership" is not required for meetings, the only rule is "no one on one" with a Scout. So as long as two Scouts are there, you're within the rules. Two deep is required for outings. One adult needs to be a registered Scouter and the other a parent or guardian of one of the boys. What about committee members? Do they show up for meetings? How many committee members do you have? Maybe one would be willing to become an ASM. It often seems to be feast or famine when it comes to help. Either nearly everyone is involved or everyone hides. Can your charter organization provide some extra bodies who are willing to help?

When all else fails, let's not forget the method that Gulliver used in the Lilliput.

Don't remember a "collapsable" day pack. What do you mean by that? My day pack is a medium Alice pack with Blackhawk Enhanced Alice straps. For lighter expeditions, I use an ALICE belt with suspenders and butt pack.

Doesn't the steam serve to displace the oxygen as well or is the cooling the only action? If I remember my damage control classes, steam could be used to smother a fire. Of course that was 30 years ago so my memory could be faulty or fire may have changed.

"Yes, but science actually works." Does it or is it simply a convienient way to explain away how fairies and trolls are controlling the universe?

Never had a lock-in. The one time that we used "cabins," they had no windows, no doors and no electricity. Would have been warmer in a tent.

Still looks like a lot for LAFD to do on their own. Training, insurance, advertising. . . Look at how hard it is to get a youth baseball league going. We need rules. . . which rules Federation, OBR, LL . . can't use LL because we're not part of LL. Umpires? How much? Training? Game fields. Practice fields. Scheduling. Coaches. Eligibility. And the beat goes on. This isn't Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland although St. Peter might like the Judy Garland part.

Can you prove that angels aren't pushing planets around? No you can't, anymore than you can disprove that fairies are responsible for "gravity" by pushing things to the ground. In reality, there is one fairy assigned to each particle or aggregate of particles and they push them toward other particles. As they push, the particles accelerate because they overcome the inertia trolls. There are very specific rules about how the fairies and trolls interact and scientists have attempted to subvert this order into some bland thing called "science."

An electrical fire at summer camp? That's a pretty advanced camp.

The difference between starting wood burning at 20 F or 80 F is going to be minimal since the ignition point wood is between 300F and 800 F depending on species and source of information. But if you get the fuel to below 300F, the fire should go out. Think of embers. They'll glow red hot, covered with ash which cuts off 02. They'll glow red even in a vacuum just because that is the nature of the beast (think black body radiation). We dump water on. It cools the embers so they no longer glow. Of course, I may be off base here.

Notice that people have said, "No fire bucket or extinguishers are present." That's bad. Unless it is a gasoline, oil, jet fuel or the like, water is better than nothing. Maybe we could rig all Scout camps with a halon system. BTW, doesn't the water also serve to lower the temp of the fuel so that it can no longer burn?