Gold Winger

It has occurred to me that we (meaning BSA) need a sweater for the uniform. There is or was a cardigan in the catalog but that isn't too "Scoutly" in my humble opinion. Not too long ago, I bought a Dutch army sweater. 100% wool, olive green with a pocket on the sleeve and a velcro for a name tag. $20. British army surplus Wooly-pullys can be had for about $20 as well. Epaulets can be used for the shoulder loops and maybe velcro on the sleeve for either the unit patch or position patch. Warm, rugged, good for camping, renewable resource . . . what's not to like?

"This is the link to our Council map, our district (Golden West) is the tiny one in the middle. I don't understand how this Council got carved up this way, ancient population distribution patterns I guess. There are only 14 Boy Scout units, 5 or 6 are small LDS units, and 2x Cub Units, 1 Venturing Crew, and 1 Ship. The cool thing is the council office is about 2 miles from home." Wow! That's a tiny district. I'm amazed that the council would pay a DE for a district that small. There must be something that they aren't saying. My old council as well as my new one are constantly carving up districts or merging them as populations change. "Most of the communities are not connected to each other by road the only way to travel between them is by air or sea." Living like that must be an adventure. I know that people around here complain about having to drive 10 minutes to get to the nearest shopping center.

I guess that we need to decided if Scouting is supposed to be parent/son bonding time or an opportunity for a boy to learn how to survive without a parent around 24/7.

Dirty Dozen and Magnificent Seven.

Rain goes through the nylon? I spent a night in a tropical storm (no lie) in a Coleman dome net and stayed dry.

God, that's a tough one. I remember that at one camp, the pizza was horrible and that's all the boys talked about. It was just frozen pizza heated in the oven but it was bad. At another camp, they served a better quality pizza and everyone was happy. I'll have to think on this for a while. Corn is good. Green beans are usually bad. Salads will make the adults happy. Single serve bags of chips for each diner at lunch will be a hit.

Does he want to become a Boy Scout? If not, it really doesn't matter. If he does want to become a Boy Scout, he has two options: hang around with the Pack until he completes the fifth grade or hang around at home until he completes the fifth grade. Okay, or turns 11. Whther he should be allowed to "cross" with the other boys is a difficult one. Will the other boys say, "hey! He didn't do squat and still gets the ceremony!" or "Hey! He's not a Boy Scout yet, get out of here!" Nah, I'd let him sit it out. It might be percieved as mean but it might do him some good to see what he's missed. Maybe he'll decide to put the extra months to use to finish his AOL.

People like to point to "ditching" as a reason that we oldsters shouldn't pine for the old days. However, ditching isn't necessary with a modern dome tent with a floor.

People like to point to "ditching" as a reason that we oldsters shouldn't pine for the old days. However, ditching isn't necessary with a modern dome tent with a floor.

I'd skip the unit and council patches on the fleece jacket but you might want to think about having them embroidered with the universal scouting emblem and your name. Half my casual clothing has scouting emblems on it. Shirts with embroidered OA emblems, scouting emblems, etc. I wear my expedition hat all the time with a British Scouting badge on it.

It's even easier if you have access to a "serger" which cuts and stitches the edeges in one operation.

Lawyers use restraining orders as a bargaining chip in divorces and women use them for leverage as well. A friend and his wife split up about a year ago. Her lawyer ran to the judge and got a protection order. She claimed that he beat her and the kids and even though there was no evidence he order was issued. The judge said, "I'd rather err on the side of caution." My friend was told that he could make arrangements to get his stuff, so he called, the wife said, "I won't be here Saturday afternoon so come over then." She changed her mind, called the cops and they were waiting for him when he showed up. Off to the clink for the night. Fortunately, he had a witness to the conversation so the wife got a lecture from the judge. I need more information before I can make up my mind.

I Scotch Guarded a fleece jacket. I have since worn it in light rain and stayed absolutely dry. I haven't tried anything else.

"We do have one ASM who insists on wearing the red dress tie with fluer d' lis (sp?) with his uniform." Not only is that not appropriate for wear with the khaki/green uniform, it must look really idiotic. Maybe that's the impression that he's trying to give.

"Because last time I checked Gold Winger, Cub Scouts is a volunteer organization... ?" So? That doesn't mean that you have to take all comers or that volunteers cannot be fired. As wingnut said, it is your job to assemble a good leadership team.

Why can't you fire him?

WMD sounds better in the newspapers than "mustard gas." As for the "inspectors," it took them so long to get into the country . . . Well, give me that long to get rid of the evidence and even my jealous girlfriend wouldn't have known that a long haired blond had been in the house.

I like knives. In particular, I like good knives that are sharp. I have a number of sharpening tools. First and foremost, I have my medium and hard Arkansas stones, I use those when I really need to fix up a blade and put an edge on it. One it is sharp, I keep it that way with my crock sticks. When using stones, it is important to keep the stones lubricated either with oil or water and to wipe them off frequently. If you use dry stones, the particles of metal get into the stone and it loses its effectiveness. As for brand, I don't know if one brand of rock is better than another. Mine are Buck and are nearly 30 years old.

"Did Saddam Hussein have weapons of mass destruction? " Gotta wonder what he used on the Kurds. I guess that doesn't count.

I have a poly/wool short sleeved shirt and it does look nice but the fabric is thin and the sleeves are shorter than those of my poly/cotton SS shirt. Strange.

Don't waste the money on a BSA vest. Buy some red felt at a yard goods store, I think that it comes in 6 ft widths and as long as you want it. Get a basic pattern for a vest, cut it out and stitch it together. Google turns up thousands of hits on vest patterns. My son's den leader made vest for the entire den at a cost of less than $5 each and it only took her about 20 minutes for the whole project.

"They are NOT fun, and the boys go home early and disappointed after only 2 races!" We ran double elimination den races, followed by a double elimination pack race. Everyone seemed to have fun. No one went home early.

Perhaps not, but just as cops treat us all as potential criminals because it is safer, it is safer to assume that all reporters are biased and likely dishonest.

I wouldn't wear the father's pin on my uniform for the simple reason that it doesn't belong there. Wear it on you suit jacket, ball cap or cowboy hat if you want to show it off.

"Well, other than FoxNews , I don't accept that most news is distorted. " Other than "there was a crash on the turnpike" type of story, most news has a slant. Often quite a strong slant. When you look at what the news has done over the years, in their efforts to "tell the story that needs to be told . . ." What comes to mind is The 60 Minutes interview with Gen. Westmoreland in which they snipped and clipped to make his answers what they wanted them to be. The NBC news people that rigged a GM truck with explosives so that it would explode in a crash. In Maryland, at a press conference to demonstrate how deadly an "assault rifle" was, the police shot a watermelon with an SKS. The bullets passed right through. So a State Troop said, "watch this" and shot it with his service pistol and the watermelon exploded. The news ran the footage showing the SKS firing and the watermelon exploding, never explaining that a pistol did the damage. The famous letter about Bush and the Air Guard that turned out to be fake. Every now and then someone is beheaded or falls on their sword over one of these events but how many incidents are never discovered.