Mike Long

My lovely and talented wife, (the one who did better in chemistry class) informed me that Sulphur does not have a smell. However, Sulphur Dioxide does and that is the stuff that keeps the bugs away.

Good question. I've been thinking about that myself. I guess the best people to ask would be Rangers at Yellowstone or anyplace that has bears and sulpherous water. If bears avoid the area and the water it would SEEM to indicate that at the very least they are not attracted to it. I sure don't want to find out the hard way.

As Ed McMahon would say...."You are correct sir!" Yep, that's the stuff. Rotten egg smell = Sulpher. I don't remember the powder having a strong smell one way or the other though. This method does require some experimentation and I really can't give you any percentages to work with (don't have my notes anymore) In my opinion, it doesn't matter what I smell like in the woods, and I think off the shelf bug sprays stink real bad too. I personally don't use bug spray except when the bugs are really bad. Bug sprays form a film on me and don't let me sweat so I can't cool

Like I said, sulpher repels everything. Ticks, chiggers, mosquitos; it works very well. DEET you just have to be careful with. It does attack the coatings on fabrics, most notably the waterproofing found on most raingear. Just keep it away from plastics and plastic coatings.

Y'all are going to love this one. Sulpher repells everything. Down here in the south many water sources contain sulpher. I grew up drinking well water with a sulpher content and I live just off of the Intracostal Waterway, a salt marsh and bug heaven. When you sweat your body excretes the sulpher. Bugs will not mess with you or at least not as many will mess with you. Ehrn friends would come over the bugs would tear into them and leave me alone. When they finally put in water lines to my nieghborhood the bugs lit me up! So I did a little experiment. I started drinking the Sul

I didn't think about it earlier, but our troop site has a photo journal of our last high adventure trip to The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The URL for the main page is http://www.troop623.com/ Those of us that are in a rush might want to skip to the story itself http://www.troop623.com/Smokies01_1.htm The photos are large and will take a while to load if you are using a modem. Sorry if it is a problem but the boys demanded big pictures and most have high speed access anyway. If anyone would like to contact me directly for further information please feel free to

Excellent design. I'd hire you in a second. One thing though, the home button needs to point back to index2.htm. Don't force your users to re-enter the site that a useability defect. I like it, I really like it.

Ummmm....That was one item from a list that I would suggest ALL elements (and hopefully more) be present to elevate this to service project status in my opinion. My intention was to provoke thought in hopes of building this idea into a great project. It appears that ASM7 has taken our advice and will build upon it, enough said. As to setting the bar low for service projects I would like to invite you to come to North Florida and see some of the massive projects that I have personally planned or worked on, But I'm probably being a little hyper-sensitive on that. Sorry.

Like I said, put in some driver saftey education and then it becomes a service project. Just hand out free coffee and it's just that, a hand out.

This is a very common problem indeed. We don't drop boys from our roster we let them drop themselves when recharter time comes around. If they don't recharter then that's their decision. I won't force a boy to choose between Scouts and everything else. Scouting is supposed to be fun not a job. Instead I would ask the scout to look real hard at what he chooses to take part in. The Patrol Leaders need to let these scouts know that they are needed and that it is difficult to function as a patrol with them. You also need to take a hard look at your program and honestly ask yourself if t

I respectfully disagee with all that think that this is even remotely a service project. (as described) Yes, it is a nice gesture and I would consider it a good turn but not a service project. I fail to see how a cup of coffee and a mock campsite constitutes service. Frankly, when someone gives me a free cup of coffe and invites me to look at their stuff I expect a sales pitch. "Friend, what can I do to put you into a Scout Troop today?" Don't mean to sound flippant but can anyone else see this? I would consider it a sevice project if you actually did some driver safety education

I agree with the other posters. We have the same meeting times as jmcquillan, 7 till 8:30, and if I (and the older Scouts and adult volunteers) actually go home by 9 it is a miracle. Not to mention the all the times we showed up at 6 to help boys work on merit badges. If boys are being left out I haven't noticed and no one has informed me of the fact. As Scoutmaster I welcome all to present to me their issues so we can work them out, your son should talk to the scoutmaster about this problem. As Scouters I would hope that everyone understands that our primary purpose would be t

Very important point Mr. Eisely! I'm glad you posted it. Copyrights are something most people don't consider and can get in worlds of trouble over. BTW-My lovely wife suggested that if your budget allows it you might want to consider renting an opaque projector to project your design onto the wall and tracing it that way. It is a very fast method of transferring graphics.

Any time, glad to be of help.

Mural painting kits aye? The best thing I found to help you out was this. http://www.muralsplus.com/ They have a message board with lots of people asking the same questions that you have. I didn't look too deep but it looks like a pretty knowledgable community so you will have to wade through some pretty heavy conceptual stuff to get what you need. Here's the best I can personally give you. I hold a Bachelors of Fine Art degree in Painting and Drawing. My wife and I have painted murals and I know people who do it professionally. First off I can't find anyone who makes mu

Gun violence, now that is a scary topic. Woodbadger I agree with you, I find it a much more relevant topic to our boys lives than the gay issue. Actually yes I have discussed gun violence with our scouts as a Scoutmaster's minute. I approached it from the angle of controlling one's temper. There is an old SM's minute that discusses controlling your temper using an axe as an example. In short, when you heat the metal of an axe head it loses the temper in the metal causing two things. First the metal is not evenly hardened for use and is no longer useful as an axe (or for any pur

I Mike Long, Scoutmaster of Troop 623, hereby bestow upon Eisely and his canoe buddy the Smart Duck Award. Thanks for the safety reminder. As Scouters we are the ones who set the example. As the old quote goes: What you are doing is so loud I can't hear what you are saying. If we aren't safety minded the boys won't be either.

JM I do understand your intent and it is very obvious your love for scouting, the uniform and what it represents. I would like to clarify the "Lame excuses" comment. I'm sorry to have bent you out of shape, I certainly didn't mean to jump on you. That comment was not in reference to your particular situation. It was in reference to recurring stream of people who always manage to find a reason to not wear the uniform for a variety of excuses. As to your question. I have been verbally abused by scout haters in the 80's when I was a scout and on into adulthood today. I developed a

I don't mean to come off as a Philmont basher and I'm sorry if it seemed that way. Philmont has a fine program and I am still champing at the bit to go myself. I just find it frustrating that most Scouters I talk to assume that if you can't go to Philmont for whatever reason then you can't have a high adventure program. Most never think of all the equally good opprotunities out there for high adventure. I'm only trying to raise awareness of the options available to all of us.

Wear the uniform. No lame excuses. If we allow the negative aspects of our society to make us hide who we are and what we are about we lose and they win. By allowing the boys to not wear the uniform just because of what a FEW people think we teach the boys to be ashamed of who and what they are. Is that the message you want to send to young boys? I didn't think so. We ARE different and we DO discriminate against the negative aspects of our society and you should help your scouts understand that they are different. If they do live their lives by the Oath and Law the differe

Hmmm...I must have been thinking of someone else. I must admit, I am extremely biased towards the Smokies. 900 miles of trails and so little time.... The single best resource about the Smokies trail system is a book called "Hiking Trails of the Smokies" also called the little brown book. I think it is published by the Smoky Mountain Historical Society (or something similar) The book gives a trail by trail description of every trail in the park complete with elevation profiles, historical facts, natural features and other points of interest. It also comes with a good trail map. If

High Adventure DOES NOT MEAN HIGH COST! Official BSA MEANS HIGH COST! Know the difference. I just returned from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park after doing a week long backpacking trip with my older scouts. Here is the cost Breakdown for 8 people. Scouts buddy up and buy food- $35 to $40 each Backcountry Camping permit- FREE Transportation by church of personal van- FREE Gas Do your own mileage. Smokemont Camping fee- $16 per night (2 total) Off trail cookout feast- $15 per person (19 steaks, 20 baked potatos, huge salad and doughnuts) I had two scout

Wow, I just got back from a week of backpacking in the Smokies with my older boys. (VERY difficult trip! Yikes!) Looks like y'all have been busy. The Jansport Ranier pack is the same frame as the Scout only with a bigger pack bag attached and is another excellent choice. External verses Internal debate going on a long time? Good Lord Eisely, this one has more opinions than the chicken and egg debate :-) Yes, externals are cooler than internals due to the airspace between the frame and packbag, no argument there. As far as the balance issue you must understand what each pack

Eisely I had the same problem when I was a lad. I was a walking, breathing stick figure, literally. (6' 4" 150 lbs soaking wet at 13) Most major brands do carry different size hip belts the problem is that most retailers don't carry them and usually the sales people are so ignorant of backpacking they don't even know that they can get other sizes. Unless you get the pack from a knowledgable outfitter that will take the time to custom fit the pack you will probably need to get a different size belt elsewhere. Some tidbits of info. First off, never buy a pack that the intended

Before I begin please note that I am a backpacking enthuseist and I regularly log several hundred miles a year (500+) backpacking and my standards in packs are severe. I strongly discourage buying internal frame packs for young scouts, here's why. Internal frame pack sizing is tied directly to torso length. As the child grows his pack can not "grow" with him. Meaning in about 2 to 3 years he will outgrow it and it WILL cause back problems. Then you need to buy him another pack long before the internal pack even begins to wear out. The internal models I have seen that claim to "gr