sailingpj

HI!!! Welcome!! GO SEA SCOUTS!!!! There are a lot of people here on the cub and boy scout end of thing, and there are a few of us on the Sea Scout end. Glad to add one more.

I wasn't talking about stuttering and other things like that. The second time I got up to talk in front of a crowd it was for student council elections at my middle school. I practiced 3 time a day for a week, had my speech down pat. Got up on the stage looked at the crowd, promptly forgot what I wanted to say, and I think I forgot how to read because I looked down at my note cards and had no idea what they said. That is not me now, but I have met other people for whom that is a continual problem. Also as other people have stated he may have just learned that he had to do it. Maybe someone decided at the last minute that he had to do it. Perhaps the person who was supposed to do the presentation got sick, or their car broke down, or any number of other things. Yes, there are first impression and all that jazz, but also remember that it may not have been his fault. Don't be so quick to judge the quality of a person, or their achievements based solely on one presentation.

I have seen a plenty of people who put a lot of preparation into a presentation only to look disorganized and unprepared during the presentation simply because they are afraid of public speaking, or something distracting was going on that disrupted the presentation. You simply cannot judge someone's character or other achievements based solely on one presentation. He is a teenager giving a presentation to a group of (how many) critical adults who seem to think that because someone earned Eagle they magically have awesome public speaking skills. There is an entire chapter in my communications textbook dedicated to speech anxiety. It talks about how speech anxiety can make you "disorganized, flustered, and generally ineffective." 95% of Americans have some form of speech anxiety. The severity of the anxiety varies from person to person. Do not degrade this scouts Eagle simply because of one presentation.

"What I find personally is that heavy exercise suppresses my appetite." Really? When I get done with a run I have to eat something. Preferably a nice large ham and cheese sandwich. When I don't get much exercise I find that I can't eat more than 1 meal a day, but when I get plenty of exercise I have to eat three large meal a day or I can't keep up with myself. When I eat a lot I run 5ks no problem, but when I take a break and stop eating so much I can't even run a half mile. Now, I don't have a problem with fat people in general. What I have a problem with is stores catering to them. I have an extremely hard time buying clothes that fit. I look really stupid when I tuck my shirts in because there is so much material around the waist. It all gets bunched up at the back and looks wrong. Then there is trying to buy pants. It is really easy to buy pants that are 40/32, but if you are like me looking for a 28/32, or even a 30/32, it is impossible. I have to buy pants that are too big for me, then I have to find a belt that can hold up those pants; that is a problem in of itself.

Cool, thanks for posting those links. I have never been to wood badge, actually I won't even be old enough to go to wood badge for another 6 months or so. My interest in these publications has nothing to do with bucking the system. It has everything to do with making the system work for me, but to make the system work in my favor I need to learn everything about how the system functions as possible. Moosetracker, I agree that Kudu is currently in the minority, but I see it as a grow minority. I am basing that on what I see at various scouting functions, and what I see here on this forum. When I first joined it seemed like almost nobody ever agreed with Kudu. Now he has something of a following, people who not only agree with him, but semi-actively defend his point of view.

Hey Kudu, where can one find that two volume set of BSA rules and regulations? Is that something you can order from somewhere or something? I would like to take a look at it.

Welcome!!! I am sure you will find that the guys and gals here are like totally awesome sources of information.

What areas of specialization does a ship have to choose from? Isn't a ship already a specialized venturing crew? There is nothing in my manual about areas of specialization, maybe they have something in the new manual that is supposed to be coming out?

Oh, as to why scouts often leave around high school age, how many of you would like to do the same things month in and month out for seven or eight years. That is not to say that going to the same place often is bad, but if you do the same thing every time, or almost every time, they you are probably going to get bored. Also, we may like teaching the younger scouts, but that does not mean that we want to be around them all the time. We like to do stuff on our own sometimes. On summer cruise 2009, me and the other two boatswains took an hour a day to talk on our own. Yeah, we liked everyone there, but it was nice to have a little bit of time everyday when we weren't being besieged by people asking questions or complaining.

Just thought you guys might want to hear the perspective of a 17 year old. I got involved in the Sea Scouts because I was looking to make some new friends, and I figured that people in the Sea Scouts would be interested in sailing. That happened, but most of the people in my first ship were new to scouting and had never really been on boats, they just thought it would be cool, and one of their friends, or their parents, dragged them to a meeting. I ended up teaching them about sailing and discovered that I am pretty good at that, and I like it. It is great to be able to pass on your knowledge to someone else. What is even better is when that person learns enough that they can actually compete on the same playing field as me. As for the adventure stuff, except for the diving everything I have done in the Sea Scouts has been pretty tame compared to some of the things I have done. However, I would not be able to get out on the water as much as I do if I wasn't a Sea Scout, and I wouldn't be able to dive if I wasn't a Sea Scout just because it is cheaper and more fun to dive with the ship. It is really not fun to dive with your parents. Especially when you are in much better shape, and have a lot more energy than them. Something like Seabase does not interest me at all, but that is probably partly because I have close to 10,000 nautical miles under my belt, and I am not a huge fan of eating fish. My idea of a fun adventure is taking a laser out in 30-40 knots, or surfing 10 foot waves in under the Golden Gate bridge on a 40,000 pound sailboat. Let me tell you, there is a lot of puking involved in the second one. I was at a COH yesterday and was surprised by the ages of the scout that were there. There was a Troop/ship there, along with my ship and a couple adults from other ships. The oldest scout I saw (other than my ship) was maybe 15. Everyone else looked to be no older than 12, and none of them really seemed to care what was going on. My ship (the 4 of us there are seniors) stood there quietly watching and applauding, but all the scouts from the troop/ship were chatting with each other and not even paying attention to whose name was called. The 15 year old kept shushing them, and reminding whoever had there name called to go up and get their award. I think that even for most of the younger kids the awards don't really matter to much. They are just there to have fun with their friends. A couple of them looked very self important and impatient until their name was called, but the rest couldn't care less. That went a lot longer than I expected, and I seem to have forgotten my point. I'll remember it later. Edit: I remember now, we don't get involved in scouting because of the stuff we are doing, we get involved in scouting because of the people we are going to be doing it with.(This message has been edited by sailingpj)

Stosh, "This is a Board of Review. Board: meaning group of people, who review: look again... at a boy's progress in scouting." I think that most everyone here agrees with this sentence of yours, the only problem is that everyone seems to implement it differently. Suppose that during the review process somebody notices that a mistake was made (human error) and a requirement is not actually complete. I am thinking here of somebody signing on the wrong line in the advancement book. My skipper has done that a couple times, I noticed and he fixed it,but say I didn't notice it. So, say during the BOR someone asks "Where did you go camping for ______ requirement? Was it fun?" Johnny scout realizes that he did not go camping (or light a fire, or cook, or tie a knot...) for that requirement. Now, being good people the BOR assumes that Johnny scout is trustworthy and that a mistake was made and says "Johnny, how about you go and finish off that requirement and come talk to us next week. We'll sign off then and you can move on up." I think that the BOR is there to catch mistakes like that, and if they learn that Johnny scout isn't having fun for some reason, they should pass that along to the SM. As you say, they are not there to pass judgment on the scout, only to be another set of eyes making sure that all the i's are dotted and the t's crossed. If there is a problem, the BOR is not failed, just temporarily postponed.

Sailing on rivers can be a lot of fun. It presents its own difficulties, but if the wind is right there is no better place to get some good practice short tacking. I think Bart is thinking of the larger end of sailboats. On most rivers it is difficult to sail a 40' sloop, but a Cal 20, or J22 would be great on a large river. Going even smaller than that a river is a great place to have a Laser, or FJ, or 420 regatta. The windsurfers love rivers, anybody traveling on the Sacramento river on a Saturday can see that. Now you probably wouldn't want a Finn, or 29er, or Moth on a river, but Sea Scouts can have a lot of fun on rivers. My old ship is perfectly positioned to take trips both up the Sacramento river, and out into San Francisco Bay. Both offer their own unique experiences (you can swim near Sacramento, but only crazy people and escaped prisoners swim in the bay), but both are fun. As Eagle mentioned, Sea Scouts can do many different things. There is sailing (big and small), power boating (big and small), fishing, SCUBA diving, kayaking, canoeing, rowing, rafting, and so much more. Eagle, if we ban the fresh water then all the Sea Scouts on river can come and visit us on the coast.

That site made my top ten list of dull and pointless sites. It stopped being interesting after the first 2 min waiting time.

I have to remember that date thing whenever I go diving because PADI wants all the dives to be logged day month year.

It is my experience that the people that are stupid because of medication are a lot more dangerous to other people than people who are not taking anything. Trust me, I almost had my finger cut off by someone abusing drugs. I don't know what he was on that day, but I do know that he goes back and forth between various stimulants and weed. Plus a good dose of alcohol.

I'm not to worried about that. My ship doesn't normally use Dihydrogen Monoxide, we usually use NaCl(aq). Very different stuff.

Sounds like it was a lot of fun. Were they premade boats, or did they build them onsite?

Oak Tree, it is my bad for not being clear in my original post. Read my third post for a much better worded form of that question. I think the objection is the possibility that some of us do not want to be taking a stimulant stronger than coffee on a regular basis. There is the distinct possibility that employers may start promoting the people who are taking the drugs over those of us who aren't.(This message has been edited by sailingpj)

Pack, I should have worded that better, but the effect is the same. What do you think about people who do not need them taking drugs like Ritalin or Adderol to get ahead in school or work. I am thinking more along the moral and ethical lines here than the legal ones. Eagle92, that is what I am talking about. I know that that kind of thing is happening, and I think that in this next decade (2010-2020) it is only going to become more prolific. JerseyScout, I have never taken those drugs so I do not have firsthand information on what it is like to take them. All I know is what people have told me, and what I have read online. What I have heard is that these drugs help people focus and stay alert. I am not looking to legalize anything. I get along just fine with coffee. What I want to know is do you all think that it is cheating for people to take these drugs to do better on a test such as the SAT, or something like that.

What does "groovy" mean? jk

I just found a apparently reputable site touting he dangers of DHMO. This site even has a few citations here and there. They have links to the EPA, sierra club, greenpeace, the national toxicology program, themselves. It is quite funny. "Although we are not funded by the EPA, we are loosely affiliated with the US Environmental Assessment Center's Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division." www.dhmo.org

Thanks for posting the link. I am looking to see what people think about drugs like Ritalin being used by healthy people to get ahead in school or work. I think that it will probably become common place in the next decade or so, but I do not think that it is right that people do this. I think of people doing that the same way I think of athletes taking steroids, it just isn't right.

In the previous thread there was talk about the benefits of some drugs for people with ADD or ADHD. What thoughts do you all have on people who use these drugs to do better in school or at work? The link below is kind of what I am thinking about. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/brain-enhancing/ I don't necessarily agree with the conclusion that the article reached, but I do think that something like that might be worth looking at for certain circumstances. However I do not agree with that kind of thing being commonplace. I also do not think that students should be allowed to use drugs like that to get ahead. I do think that research should be done to determine what the long term effects of drugs like that are. What do you all think? Should brain enhancing drugs be made legal? I realize that it is currently illegal for students to use drugs like that without a prescription, but for those who do manage to get their hands on those drugs is it cheating for them to use them when taking a test or something? btw, if anyone saw episode 11, season 5 of Boston Legal you will get where I am coming from here.

We may be starting to get used to the online courses, but I have yet to meet someone who has taken on with me that actually like it. There are some times when discussion in person is a lot better. I like email for discussing action, but prefer face to face for academic debate.

I think that as long as the email traffic goes in both directions it can be considered a discussion. At least that is what my communications textbook has taught me to think. What makes email traffic less of a discussion than talking? Is this forum not a discussion? What is different between this forum and an email conversation?