packsaddle

With regard to the aging and indifferent CO, been there done that. But sometimes the CO merely needs more information or perhaps some PR to get them to recognize the importance of their role. If they really ARE indifferent, then that is a problem. But BW said the thing I think is most important: "You cannot recruit kids in hopes of improving the program,. You first need to improve your program, then kids will want to join and stay." When I was confronted with a situation similar to yours, I had to pay attention to every aspect; PR, the CO, recruiting, etc. But I also knew that IF those things worked, they could be completely undone by a deficient program. It worked for me. I wish you the best of success as well.

I'll go with Beavah on this one, heh, heh. Beavah, if you nudge that guy next to you in some dark foreign dungeon, it'll probably be me. Gern, I can give you a list of hundreds of waterfalls that offer really stiff competition. Wanna go on a hike sometime?

Heh, heh, Pappy, no problem. I have a special place in my heart for Mencken. But I was indeed aware of all those excellent examples you recounted. While I am sympathetic to the thoughts of scientists such as Dawkins, if an individual can reconcile science and religion then good for them. I have long maintained that the conflict, in as much as it exists at all, is mainly in the minds of the religious...although Dawkins is a counter-example. I don't know what Mencken really thought about things but I suspect that a lot of what he wrote was with the intent to provoke...and he certainly was successful in that. Bringing this back to topic now, I see that Obama is being quite visible about his Christianity in order to try to counter the ignoramuses circulating those emails with bogus claims about his religious background. And Romney won big in an LDS state, ho hum. Huckabee didn't quite make it in SC in spite of prominently attending many churches and giving sermons. I wonder if Thompson's wooing of the gun fanatics cost Huckabee SC - that's probably the last gasp of Thompson's campaign. But it does seem that all of them are trying to play the 'Christianity card' in some form or other. It will be interesting to watch their antics around GA leading up to Super Tuesday. I wonder if Huckabee would consider giving a sermon in Plains? The suspense is terrible.....I hope it will last.

Yep, we're retooling for these, trying to get as familiar with them as we are with the others. "Ask, "Are you chocking?" If the victim nods yes and..." I sure hope thay corecct that spieling.

For us the boys and their families plan the whole thing. If they ask a leader to say a few words they can depend on some humorous anecdotes. They usually get to relate a few themselves if they want. But it never gets to the level of a roast, I think. We're always supportive and proud - perhaps in a lighthearted way.

I was asked by one of the boys what my Eagle project was and at first I thought I had completely lost my memory. Then I realized....none was required. I too think Eagle is a more demanding rank today than it was back when no project was required. On the other hand, our tents had no netting and no floors. We had canvas, not rip-stop. Our pack frames were home-made from steel conduit. Kapok filling in sleeping bags, ropes were hemp. Lots of cotton. No backpack stoves or freeze-dried food. Yep, I can remember the day....

Gern, I guess that means this thread should really be called, 'Blazing Saddles'.

Hey Trevorum, I'm with you on that book burning thing. I bet I can even expand the list a bit. (Heh, heh, did I say 'bet'? I meant 'wager'...no, that's a problem too...hmmm) Maybe we can ban some content from movies or television as well, maybe restrict business hours to conform to religious beliefs. Gotta squash those 'bad' ideas, you know. Make those 'bad' people keep to themselves...we wouldn't want to make people, you know...think.

I have to say, "Welcome to the forums!" to Pappy and encourage him to feel free to bring back any old thread he can still find that interests him. Thanks for sharing that story. As for the topic, local option looks better than ever.

Heh, heh, yeah...but there was a nicer side to him as well. See: http://www.tycobbhealthcare.org/ Nice health care system he started for regular folks around his home.

I custom printed personalized place mats for each boy and family member with photos of events with him in it. People would gather them and take them home for the scrap books. Table decoration contest, enlist boy scouts from the troop in full uniform to judge - every den gets a prize. Dad's "Drop Dead Good Dessert" contest. The scouts get 'paid' for their help by being allowed to 'judge' the desserts. Dads get recognition, cubs get to laugh at/with them. Ahem, I used to win this one frequently. The boy scouts also help clean up the mess afterwards. They do the judging and cleanup and in return get free food and dessert. They'd stand in line to get this opportunity. I noticed your mention of the exec's address at the banquet. We had a couple of disastrous B&G's because of the district executives who gave these talks. Families actually quit because of them. FOS declined. We decided not to invite them in the future. Enrollment went back up. FOS increased. If you have a good one you're lucky.

For some reason I was thinking the subject line contained the choices but I'll go with Brent on this one...Shoeless Joe. Ahem, there's also 'Who', 'What', and 'I don't know". They'll probably be remembered just as long as the rest. Edited part: Ty Cobb, a good ole Georgia boy, could have eaten that wuss, Pete Rose's, lunch and had room for more. But really, guys like Sam Jethroe, Larry Doby, Monte Irvin, and "Satchel" Paige certainly deserve to be considered as equal to the players in the leagues we tend to think about today.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Sometimes the harder you push the harder things push back (that would be Newtonian physics, Beavah ). You have identified the goals well enough. The best way for those goals to be achieved is for everyone to understand why they are good and to want to do it. That may take some time. This unit also had a disengaged CO, still does to some extent. I made myself unpopular by stating some hard realities in terms that were very direct. But they got the message and I think they are trying to turn things around. If I were you and I was trying to decide whether to stay or not, I'd let my son determine the outcome. If my son was happy and doing well, I'd stay. If not, I'd consider another option. Either way, good luck. It's all about the boys.

Yeah, I know the thread got bogged down figuring out which strategic geniuses get the credit for our great triumphs in Iraq. But I was sidetracked, enjoying reading some of Mencken and I found this. I thought it would fit this thread nicely and milder than a lot of his stuff: "I am one of the few Goyim who have ever actually tackled the Talmud. I suppose you now expect me to add that it is a profound and noble work, worthy of hard study by all other Goyim. Unhappily, my report must differ from this expectation. It seems to me, save for a few bright spots, to be quite indistinguishable from rubbish. If, at its highest, it is genuinely worth reading, then at its lowest it is on all fours with the Koran, 'Science and Health' and the Book of Mormon." Heh, heh, to paraphrase the baby dinosaur, 'Gotta love 'im!' Think I'll read some more, maybe find some more gems. Edited part: In case anyone thought he went too lightly on Christians, here's one for them: "The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. To be sure, theology is always yielding a little to the progress of knowledge, and only a Holy Roller in the mountains of Tennessee would dare to preach today what the popes preached in the Thirteenth Century, but this yielding is always done grudgingly, and thus lingers a good while behind the event. So far as I am aware even the most liberal theologian of today still gags at scientific concepts that were already commonplaces in my schooldays. Thus such a thing as a truly enlightened Christian is hard to imagine. Either he is enlightened or he is Christian, and the louder he protests that he is for former the more apparent it becomes that he is really the latter. A Catholic priest who devotes himself to seismology or some other such safe science may become a competent technician and hence a useful man, but it is ridiculous to call him a scientist so long as he still believes in the virgin birth, the atonement or transubstantiation. It is, to be sure, possible to imagine any of these dogmas being true, but only at the cost of heaving all science overboard as rubbish. The priest's reasons for believing in them is not only not scientific; it is violently anti-scientific. Here he is exactly on all fours with a believer in fortune-telling, Christian Science or chiropractic." (This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Hey, that sounds great. Now to find a district advancement chair....do they come in naugahyde?

Mmmmm, I'm imagining the frosting... I know for a fact that many MBs are earned in this district and council and the counselors are NOT registered either as leaders or counselors. The so-called MB program is incredibly slack. And not many of us seem to care. I've pretty much given up on it.

You have a far better memory than I have.....

Uuuuhhhhh, I think the only real qualification has something to do with citizenship and being 35 years old. This means, as we've demonstrated empirically, that within those broad limits if we want to we can elect the dumbest, nose-picking dud on the face of the planet. Mencken said it better: "When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.' The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." I'd say that as a nation we've finally been there and done that.

GWD, I truly sympathize. I have felt the way you feel so many times. I want you to know that now that my son has aged out, when a parent has a similar problem it is much easier to handle it. I guess it comes from the objective detachment...I can more easily offer an objective explanation. However, as noted elsewhere, one some occasions it is possible to defuse the situation by quietly handing the parent an adult application while noting the opportunity to take an active role. Works for me....

I think scotteng had it right. Make it to their taste (a.k.a. meat and potatoes) and have plenty of it. Me, I'll eat the eggs runny, rubbery, green, or red. I'll eat the meat no matter what vermin it came from. But the boys are sometimes finicky. We always try to miss the first week or so of summer camp. It allows the staff to perfect their skills, so-to-speak, heh, heh. The salad bar is surprisingly popular. But so are the PBJs.

Well if they're going to let you 'cheat' any way you want, Eagledad's approach is good. Keep in mind that there are two things to minimize: friction and wobbling (which translates into friction). Making sure the car runs straight and true is important. Cutting the wheels down to narrow them helps as well. BUT if you can manage it, mount them so that only three are touching the track. If you can do this and maintain a straight track, you've eliminated 25% of wheel friction with no effort whatsoever. I've seen this done and it seems to work best with one of the outside wheels slightly off the track surface. Then to keep the remaining ones at minimal friction, cut them to a knife edge. Keep the overall radius but minimize the wheel-to-track contact. If they allow lubricants, don't mess with the teflon stuff but stick to the tried-and-true silicone lubes. And don't load the moving parts so much that they are gummed up, just apply enough to do the trick. Finally, to perfect your scheme, set up a short section of track with identical design to the official track and 'fine tune' your options. Above all else, make sure the boy has minimal input and learns that he should, Win if you can, lose if you must, always cheat, and if they take you out, leave tearing down the ring. http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/?p=8089

A long time ago when I began as CM the dues were $26. Later I think they increased to about $40. They just barely covered expenses for the year when combined with popcorn, etc. I think the increase was due to lower popcorn sales...some parents said they'd rather just pay increased dues. I could hardly argue with their sentiments.

And I think that Scout Sunday and a COH both qualify as formal events. I remember some discussion of this in the past. I think there were two camps: one which thought that it was 'tacky' (my term) to load on the medals; the other which thought that showing those medals would 'inspire' (my term) the boys. I can see both arguments to some degree but I can't bring myself to look like some boastful Russian general. I just wear the knots, and only those two that I earned as a boy.

In order to bounce usually requires some previous significantly higher position. At least that's the way it works in basketball. Looks like the Dems are going to have a tough contest in the long haul. And it looks like Huckabee really IS defined by his faith. I was struck by the hypocrisy he displayed telling his supporters to shovel snow into the driveways of their neighbors who don't support him. God and global warming must have melted it. SC might be interesting although insignificant in terms of numbers. Oh well back to sleep.

As long as one of my New Year's resolutions looks like it's going to actually work, I might as well brag. We decided to cut the cable and turn off the TV this year. And not only do we enjoy cooking, reading, talking, and everything else more, we don't have to listen to all those @#$@#$% political commercials. Moreoever, we don't miss it. So it looks like a done deal. Yeah, if we want to - we put on a DVD...but only once since the New Year. And it's money in the bank! Now for the really good news, I've already lost 5 pounds since the 1st and started getting back into good shape. Nice. Now to tackle putting on a new roof....maybe wait a while for that one.