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 down. Being in Florida that's extremely uncomfortable. If anyone does attempt this method please post your results here. I'd like to know if it worked for you too.

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 Sulper water again. Guess what. The bugs backed off again. After a few years of messing around this is what I came up with. If you have a scientific supply company around, go get some powdered Sulpher. Put some sulpher in an old athletic sock and tie the open end shut. When you are going out knock the sock against our ankles and lower legs and it will distribute a coating of powder. This method works very well to discourage ticks and is used at several nature centers in the south. I also know a fellow lives out west near Yellowstone. Last summer he got some citronella plants (you can get those at your nearest nursery) crushed them and put the pulp and juice into a squirt bottle. When he got to the park he filled the bottle with sulpher water from one of the hot springs and mixed the contents. He reported having absolutely no problems with bugs for a week but dogs and small children avoided his smell afterwards. After being in the woods you will stink anyway, might as well not be scratching. BTW- DEET is a VERY dangerous chemical and you can easily develop a variety of skin conditions and poisionings due to use. If does work but be VERY careful with the application and NEVER rub it into your skin.

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 use the contact info provided at the bottom of each page. I would be glad to help. (This message has been edited by Mike Long)

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 there are areas that can be improved in order to draw in these inactive scouts. If you and your leadership feel that you have done everything you can to encourage these guys to get busy then I only have one piece of advice. Overload each patrol's membership. If each patrol has enough active boys in it to function, then I would spread out your incactive boys among them. I would never put all the inactive boys in one patrol. That would be a waste of time and effort and also discourages the ones that might get active that are sitting on the fence. Why come back if your patrol stinks? Good luck.

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 at the site other than Scout promotion. Perhaps you could urge drivers to obey the speed limits, wear seatbelts, drink responsibly, CALM DOWN ect. Put up displays or hand out leaflets. Your local law enforcement will have their hands busy but maybe you could get then to bring out one of the "convincers" the thingy that simulates a low speed collision. One of the major principles of service is that it does not benefit Scouting. We do service for the sake of service and merely provide the hands to do the work. A job well done and a thank you is enough reward. NEVER would I put out a donation bucket for our Troop at a service project. That's called getting paid to do a job and it becomes a fund raiser not service. You don't have service project yet but you do have an idea that with a little more thought can be a great project. What you do described is a Troop promotion and fund raiser.

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 to serve the boys. I know that everyone participating here understands that. The honest truth is that if you can't be inconvienced then you should not volunteer halfway. Sometimes being a Scout leader is very inconvienent but we all made a choice and set a priority to serve the boys of our troops. It sounds as if your advancement chair does not understand this. Even if your son does talk to the Scoutmaster and get signed off it is still time to make some polite noise at a committee meeting and voice your concerns. With a system like what you described other boys must be being left out too. How many have quit out of frustration because of not being able to get signed off? Be prepared, you may have just volunteered as the new advancement chair.

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 mural kits. I'm a little doubtful that they even exist but hey, this is America, someone out there will eventually. Design- Seeing that this is a shelter for abused women and kids (BTW- Hats off to your crew for a great project) why not let the kids design the mural? Lots of schools hold contests to let students design murals at their school. Just set a deadline for submissions, copy entry forms with a box that has the same dimensions as the area to be painted (that saves you from having to streach or distort a design to fit the space) and let the Board of Directors (or whatever governing body runs the place) pick a winner. The selectors just need to keep your painting abilities in mind. Prep- You need to pressure wash the wall twice and prime it with a compatible primer to the final paint you are using. It is best to stay within a paint system. You never really know how paints from different manufactureres will react in the long run so be safe and stick to one system. After all, Leonardo DaVinci had several murals literally melt off the wall and he was a master painter. Paint- It's been a while since I've done a mural and technology constantly improves. Talk to the paint guy and tell him what you are doing and the conditions involved (concrete wall, sun exposure ect.) They are the pros and will set you up with what you need. Heck, ask nice and they might even donate it! Transferring the design- Make a copy of the design and draw a grid over the design. This is much like how topographic maps are gridded into quads--Same thing here. One the wall draw out your grid TO SCALE. You can use the grid to draw the design on the wall and be reasonably accurate. You might want to practice this with a photo you have to get a feel for what I'm talking about. Just be sure that you are making you copy bigger than the original. IMPORTANT- Paint the grid and rough outline of the design on the wall don't draw it with a marker or contractors pencil. If you do you have just put dirt on the wall and the first place the mural might fail is where your grid and rough outline was. Also don't grid and outline in black or a dark color its hard to cover up you lines. Instead use a light tan color just dark enough to see what you are doing its easier to hide. Actually painting it- Work from big areas of color to small detail elements. The work will go faster that way. For example if the background is mostly one color just paint it all at once, don't get caught up in painting hair on a dog. Also paint from light to dark. Once again if you go dark and mess up it's harder to fix. Just talk your time and enjoy being creative. A mural can be as involved as you make it. It might even be considered as a separate project. Hope this helps. Oh yeah, wool pants are acceptable paintng attire.(This message has been edited by Mike Long)

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 purpose other than a door stop) and second the metal can react to impact in an unpredictable fashion. In some cases the metal can shatter and shoot out shrapnal like a hand grenade that can hurt innocent people nearby. I then described the latest gun(child)man as an axe that lost its temper and reacted unpredictably and hurt innocent people. I also tell the boys that all of these shootings (at least the ones that didn't involve serious mental illness) would not have happened had the the shooters been able to keep their tempers under control and found a more positive outlet for their frustrations like running, a boxing class, playing drums, TALKING ABOUT IT TO A FRIEND OR FAMILY MEMBER ect. Just as a matter of record, I don't think that anything is completely preventable. The best we can hope for is to take steps to minimize the impact before something happens and to react quickly and decisively once it does happen. I'm not a defeatist or a pessimist I just think that those who strive to creat "fool-proof" solutions can never fully take into accout the ingenuity of fools. I find it very disconcerting that I long for the days when kids still had fistfights with each other rather than empting a clip into someone. Sick. BTW-That SM's minute that I mentioned and many others can be found in the Troop Program Resources book. A very good addition to your Scout library.

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 think skin and learned first hand about the differences between us and them and took comfort in knowing that I was not like them. I certainly won't say that I think it's OK to let our boys get harassed as an matter of course. But I will not allow the jerks of the world to dictate how I live my life or to force our scouts to hide their colors. I don't believe that this just about saving the uniform. I think that this is a much greater issue than that. We are taking about freedom here. Everything we do puts the boys in harms way from some direction, thats why we are here. We are here to guard against harm and present the scoutings message. Yes JM, the only way I know to deflect the jerks is for myself and my Assistants to be there in uniform at the ready to guard against the idiots. I don't for a second think that you were describing a fantasy situation. You are a scout, you said it and I believe you, enough said. Unfortunatly, the idiots are out there and there is nothing we can do about it. We can't idiot proof the planet no matter how much we try and we can't make the world safe from rudeness. The best we can to is be there, be vigilant and react swiftly. If it is recurring problem then the troop committee needs to address it as you are doing. But I think it is foolish to not wear the uniform because "in thoery" someone might be a jerk to the boys. The discussions of "what if" are productive only if they lead to ways to handle a problem when it happens. It's the best I can do and the best I can suggest because I will not let the jerks change my life.

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 difference between a scout and a non-scout will become more obvious as time goes on. We all teach our scouts that an Eagle is something different and special don't we? The last time I met someone who tried to take me to task on the gay issue while I was in uniform I asked them a simple question. If you won't support Scouting now, did you ever support scouting in the past and how did you? I'll wager they never supported Scouting. If they never supported us then what have we lost? I'll tell you what we will lose if we give in, our integrity. Give in on this issue and you will NEVER get the boys to wear the uniform not even to your meetings much less be proud to be a Scout.

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 you do decide to hike the Smokies you will need to get a topographic map and the best one is printed by Earthwalk Press.

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 scouts than went that also went to Philmont on this trip. They both thought that the Smokies trip was better than Philmont. I have to agree with them if for no other reason than cost verses value. Philmont $1100 through the council and hard to get in Smokies less than $100 and easy to get in. Listen to Ridgewalker, an excellent trip can be planned for cheap that will rival Philmont. OldGreyEagle Aren't you in the Chicago area? How about the Boundary Waters? You could put together a canoe trip cheaper than the BSA Canoe base there. Isle Royale National Park, you could hike or canoe that area. The Ice Age National Scenic Trail is a possibility in your area. The trail not complete but there are at least 500 mile done that could be hiked or biked. Also the North Country Nation Scenic Trail also incomplete but still has a huge amount of trail to hike that is done. What about the good ol Appalachian Trail? Thats pure free high adventure as long as you aren't in the White mountains. How about Floating the Mississippi River? Following the Lewis and Clark Trail by Bike? The Ohio Trail? What about trips that don't depend on a trail system? You could do a biking tour of Michigan lighthouses. Is there an Indian Reservation near you? You could call them and see if they have a heritage program where you scouts could learn how the Native Americans lived before we came. Life is high adventure, just do something that sounds cool and it will be. Your trips don't have to be "Extreme" just interesting.

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 was designed for. Externals are designed for fairly well graded trails with very little off-trail scrambling. Internals are primarily alpine and off trail packs designed for conditions where a centered and low center of gravity could mean the difference between life and death. Internals are designed to go places where externals would have great difficulty IE. thick undergrowth, poorly graded or broken trails, icy conditions ect. In short, conditions that would make a Tour Leaders head spin with visions of liability and law suits. I have never used an external that gave me the true "centered" feeling of my internal. I'm not going to debate the virtues of internals any more as it might get some folks to ignore my original suggestion, get externals for your boys and think about internals later if at all. Think about it, why would a 11 year old scout want an internal over an external, or even care? Why? Because so and so climbed Everest with one of course. See, is says so in the full page, full color ad with the dramatic photo in my favorite outdoors magazine. Our kids want what is marketed to them. Scamp, I'm sorry but I have no knowledge of good instructional backpacking videos, I'm a book guy. But you might want to check out the PBS Trailside series. They do cover some great trips and are very entertaining. (At least for me.) Also the best instructional backpacking book out now is the Trailside series book on backpacking written by Karen Berger.

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 user has never tried on. Find one somewhere and try it on. This is much more important with internals than externals. I have no qualms with buying an external without trying it on. Please, please, please talk to someone at the store WHO ACTUALLY BACKBACKS MORE THAN ONCE A YEAR AND OWNS AN INTERNAL before considering an internal for your son. There are a lot of book bags out there that masquerade as backpacks. The outdoorsy look is "in" and unless you get good advice your boy is heading for back problems. Trust me, I had spinal problems at 13 and this is (very obviously, sorry don't mean to preach) a sticking point for me. If some of you are still dead set on an internal for a little scout you will probably need to get a womens extra small hipbelt so always check Ladies sizes if the Men's sizes are too big. Most quality internals can interchange differrent sized hip and shoulder straps but when the boy gets taller he's out of luck. If you just love the pack but can't get a belt to fit then modify the belt. Fix #1 (What I did to my first pack) Usually belts have a thick padded portion and a thin strap part that is adjustable. Take the belt and put it around your boy WITHOUT it buckled. Now with him holding the belt in place take the thin strap part and fold it back against the thick padded area of the belt and saftey pin it about 4 to 6 inches back. Now fasten the belt normally. The strap part will overlap itself but when tightened the buckle shoud now be able to ride over the padded section. See if it that will give the belt enough play to tighten securely against his hips. If so then stitch the strap in place with heavy thread or fishing line. When he gets bigger just cut the thread and the belt is back to normal size. Fix #2 Get some memory foam or closed cell foam rubber (something firm but will still mold to your hips) and stitch it inside of the hip belt as a sort of liner. Some folk go all the way and stitch in another hip belt with the strap section cut off. The foam rubber approach works great for converting old packs with unpadded hip belts to a useable state. The best thing I ever did was to get over the fear of modifing my gear. It is amazing how much better my old external works with a few added straps. I am working on our troop web site right now and I will be adding our suggested gear list to the site. The gear list does have a lot of suggestions and tips for selecting gear and it gets specific as to brands and models. If you are interested the site is troop623.com I'm still working on it so it's not where I want it to be yet but I'll let you know when the info is there.

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 "grow" with you don't do a very good job of it. Keeping that in mind cost becomes a huge issue. GOOD internal frame packs always cost AT LEAST $200 and most quality internal packs run $250+. Why spend that amount when you know that you will just be spending it again in two years? There is an old rule of thumb that my outfitter friend shared with me. If you are planning to spend less than $200 on a pack get a high end external frame model and save the money if you are willing to spend a little more go internal. Weight, internal frame packs weigh more than externals. Externals hover around 3 to 4 pounds. Internals average 6 to 7 pounds. (of course there are always exceptions both ways) An internal with a good suspension will compensate for the extra weight though. Here's what I suggest to all my new Scouts. My personal favorite pack for young scouts is the Jansport Scout (Campmor around $90) The frame on this pack telescopes so it can truly grow with a child. To give you an idea of how well the pack adjusts my hiking buddy just got one for his 7 year old and it fits great also one of my Senior Scouts at 6'2" 175lbs still uses his. The bag size is big enough for weekenders and for longer trips extra gear can be strapped to the frame without a problem. Jansport also supports their product. My Assistant Scoutmaster broke a weld on his 1974 Jansport and they just sent him a new frame without any hassle. Camp Trails and Kelty also make great external frame packs but I think the Jansport Scout can adjust better to the needs of a growing Scout. My first pack was a Camp Trails external my folks got me in '85 and I just now '01 wore out the straps. Good product. I am not against internals, my wife and I both prefer to use them ourselves. She uses a Gregory Robson Pro and I use a Dana Design Terraplane. I just think it is foolish to invest the money in a pack for a young scout just so they can outgrow it in a few years. Get an external, save the $100+ dollars and let him get many years of use out of it. THEN if he decides that he really loves Scouting and backpacking and stops growing so radically get him a really nice internal as a reward for being a swell kid with the money you saved. You know, a suprise for his first long distance hike or Philmont trek or possibly earning his Eagle. All that being said... Yes, Jack Wolfskin makes a great product and that particular pack is a steal at $200. One problem, they are a German company and I don't know just how available they are in the States. Check their site wolfskin.com BTW- Mr. Gregory of Gregory Backpacks is an Eagle Scout. Says so right in the catalog. We are everywhere. Hope this helps.