CalicoPenn

Have you tried checking the dealers listed on the Alps Mountaineering website to see if one of them might have the tent you want with aluminum poles in stock? I'd try to get the aluminum poles, even if I did have to wait. They are stronger and more durable than fiberglass, and tend to be easier to mend in the field (with the proper aluminum pole repair sleeve - every tent should have one). The problem with fiberglass is that once it starts to shatter or crack, the crack can travel up the entire length of the pole segment and that can't be fixed in the field - not even with duct tape (be

Trevorum, I'm guessing...Hamhocks. Just because that's exactly the kind of thing I'd throw at the scouts. I have to say I'm envious of you - sounds like a lot of fun. Please follow up after this weekend and tell us the mystery meat and how things went! I'll keep my fingers crossed that the meat doesn't turn out to be Spam or Deviled Ham. CalicoPenn

Some of us (guilty as charged!) post here as an opportunity to tell our stories to a whole new set of people - folks who haven't heard them or lived them with us before - and I'd say most of us who do this do it as a way of imparting some kind of knowledge/wisdom learned along the way - and of hearing the stories and ideas of others. I see the forum as a late night, scouts in the sack, have coffee/tea/hot cocoa around the fire bull session (with a very large campfire!) with interested older scouts hanging with the adults and contributing their perspective on things too. Some folks may go

Might I suggest a letter from the boy to the leader that tells the story of the incident and response with a thanks at the end for being the person who taught him these skills? CalicoPenn

The first thing I thought of for historical trips in the Northeast is Boston. There is more accessible history in Boston then just about anywhere else on the planet. Boston National Historic Park is composed of eight historic sites in Boston. 7 of the 8 BNHP sites are located along the Freedom Trail, a 2.5 mile walking tour of 16 historic sites in Boston. Some of the sites on the Freedom Trail are Paul Revere's House; the Old North Church (you know - "One if by land, Two if by sea"); the USS Constitution (and what Scout wouldn't love to explore that old ship); Bunker Hill Monument and

I wonder if the payroll checks were even available at the time. Who signs the checks? Was it the Scout Exec who is no longer there? Maybe the checks hadn't been signed and delivered to the camp yet and wouldn't until Saturday morning? Before jumping all over the R/D's case, some more info might be needed. CalicoPenn

Brent, You misunderstand - I never said that the BSA has no value - my argument is that the issue of the lease the BSA has with the city should stand alone. It should not be conflated with issues it has no real relation to. When the council spokesperson says that with gun violence up in the city it's ironic that the administration trying to "destroy" programming that serves 40,000 youth is the city, the spokesperson is trying to convince the people that if the BSA loses their lease, gun violence will increase. That's a specious argument and not worthy of a spokesperson from the BSA

Just what does the crime rate in Philadelphia have to do with the Boy Scouts and this issue anyway? The Boy Scouts certainly don't seem to be having any affect on crime in the city one way or another as it stands now - this is just another example of intellectual dishonesty in public discourse by using a red herring issue (crime rate) to make a point about an unrelated issue. The sad part is how many people will buy in to the arguments here. Why not a story linking the eviction of the scouts from city property to poverty, or to traffic congestion, or to emergency response times, or to how p

I side with dining hall style. Others have mentioned the potential time issues. I'll add that dining hall dining, while not conducive to the patrol method, certainly eliminates a good amount of stress on both the boys and the leaders. There should already be a lot going on at summer camp, adding daily cooking/cleaning up chores takes away from downtime/decompress time, and the boys (and leaders) need to have some time to relax a bit. The number one goal of summer camp shouldn't be advancement, or even strengthening the patrol method (if patrol members are missing, do you really end up stre

Actually, Crossfire did very well for quite a long time - then CNN decided to change up the format and the time slot of the show - it failed not long afterwards. CNN had originally tried to emulate network news - offering network news style reporting for most of their viewing day - but they found it was more difficult than they expected, in no small part because network news is about 18 minutes per night with multiple producers having most of the day to put together 1 or 2 minute news pieces. CNN began to get repetitive and came very close to becoming an "ambulance/fire chaser" network.

How about creating a "Baseball Bingo" game? Make up some "Bingo" cards with different things in the squares that get checked off when it happens - mix some easy and hard things - like Home Run, Base Hit, Strikeout, Walk, Triple, Double, Single, Pop Fly, Foul Ball, Double Play, Grand Slam (very hard), Hit Batter, Bases Loaded, etc. etc. that the boys check as the game goes on with a treat of Crackerjack given to all the boys when someone gets the bingo? CalicoPenn

Beavah's right - there is no such thing as a "partial" - you can't earn a partial merit badge - if you haven't completed the badge by 18, you aren't awarded a merit badge which is partially there (for instance, a swimming merit badge cut in half because you only met half the requirements). Work on merit badges is an ongoing process until the badge is completed - and the only time limit on the badge is aging out at 18. If you haven't completed it by 18, you can no longer earn it. Scouts may work on a merit badge with one, two, three (as many as he wishes) counselors. If a Scout alre

I don't recall ever seeing a Scout wearing any temporary patches on the back of a merit badge sash before, either. My hunch is that once a Scout earns 7 merit badges, which means he'll need a sash to display them, the Scout has been to, and received patches from, more activities than room on the back of the sash would allow for displaying them all - and who wants to pick and choose which activity patch goes on the back of the sash. However, if it's true that temporary patches can be worn on the back of the sash (and so far, we've only seen informal "unofficial" sources on this) then I ca

The problem isn't the agitating Ducks. The problem is the entrenched Coots. CalicoPenn

SA - I think many waterfront cities are in the marina business because they own most of the land on their waterfronts. Chicago, for instance, has no privately held land along the waterfront of Lake Michigan as far as I know so if there are going to be any marinas in the City of Chicago, they will be government run (the Chicago Park District has quite a few marinas on the lakefront, and on the rivers leading to the lakefront - the only "private" marina I know of in the city is at a yacht club, but that land is leased from the city and can be taken back pretty much at any time (lease be danged,

It's my understanding that acronyms and mnemonics are best used not to help memorize a list of words but to help keep lists of words in a specific order. An example of an acronym usage would be for the color spectrum. The acronym would be roygbiv or Roy G. Biv (Mnemonic Acronym) for Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue Indigo, Violet. It doesn't really help one memorize the color names but it sure does help keep one from putting the color Violet before the color Green. An example of a mnemonic would be for keeping the order of zoological (and botanical) classifications: Kings Play Che

SA, Where were you when I was in school? You gave me an idea that would have been even more fun! Ask the instructor to calculate the change of lake level assuming a 5 pound brick and a 90-acre lake with an average depth of 14 feet. It would be interesting to see if s/he had a calculator that would have enough digits after the zero to come up with the answer. Now that would have been wicked fun! Calico

I always vexed my teachers when they proposed questions like Acco's - I'm often accused of taking things too literally sometimes, rather than hypothetically. For the physics question proposed, I would have looked at all the elements of the question and formulated the following answer: There is no change in the relative lake level. Displacement theories aside, the fact is that you, your boat, and that brick aren't of size enough to affect the displacement level of a lake in the first place. The amount of water displaced by your 200 pounds or so of boat, brick and body is insignificant

I just pulled out my old merit badge sash. Of the 27 badges on my sash, I remember earning just two of them (I earned Dog Care???? - I had a dog growing up - I just don't remember earning the badge but I must have met the requirements - and just what is that badge with a bridge on it anyway? Oh yeah - Engineering). The ones I remember are Landscape Architecture - I spent hours at the dining room table designing and redesigning and redesigning landscapes - turns out I was also one of the few people in my council at the time to even try to earn that badge. The other is...Basketry. T

The bridge will be 36" high? That's 3 feet (size of a yard stick). The depth of the water it will be hung over is 2 feet. That leaves a 1 foot gap between the bridge and the water. Not a very big fall (a fall from the average couch is 1 1/2 foot). Your spotter is not likely to be catching a falling lad - more likely to be scooping him up. Sounds like fun - and if the powers that be have already approved, go for it. And maybe bump up the height of the bridge to 4 or 5 feet - I don't think that would be too high for them. I'd be willing to bet (uh, scratch that - no gambling in sco

I remember hearing about that whole O'Reilly - Olberman - Fox Security thing - I heard the clips of it - and I remember thinking that this is the moment that O'Reilly jumped the shark (though there were earlier contender moments - like the time O'Reilly tried to tell a family member of a 911 WTC victim how he should think). O'Reilly heard the name Olberman and snapped - amazing the power that one name had over the man - and as far as we know, the caller could have been about to say how much he disliked Olberman and his ideas - but now we'll never really know. Is O'Reilly losing his mind? My

In this case you have a young man whose interests in Scouts seems to be waning; who hasn't yet found his niche in a) the program and b) life; whose parents are making his decisions for him; who hasn't developed the confidence to push back yet; and who may have been thrust into a role he just doesn't have the drive for. Given that he is your son's best friend, wouldn't it be possible for you to chat with the lad not as the Scoutmaster ("scary" authority figure) but as Best Friend's Father ("non-judgemental father-figure" authority figure)? I know when I was growing up, my best friend's father

Has anyone else picked up on the implications of Eamonn's post about the lad who has $4,000 in his Scout Account that is about the join his Sea Scout unit? Many units with individual Scout Accounts do have a policy that allows the Scout's account to travel with him to the next unit. In this case, it appears that as a Cub, this lad had a Scout Account that went with him to his Troop, and that account has grown to tremendous proportions while in the Troop and the account is now going to travel with him to his Sea Scout Ship (does the Ship also have individual Scout Accounts?). If the dollars

I certainly don't envy that Scout Executive - if it were me, I would have taken a pass and encouraged both sides to come to an agreement if possible - I just wouldn't put myself into the middle of the dispute as it's frankly a lose-lose for the Scout Exec - no matter what he decides, someone is going to get angry with him (or her). EagleinKY - I'm curious (in a concerned fashion) about how your unit's individual accounts work - I understand the basics - an individual Scout gets a credit to his account based on his fundraising ability AND a family can deposit funds into the Scout's accou

Hi Frznpch, As NJCubScouter said, you're likely to get a lot of different opinions on this - and here's one of them. Technically the fundraising was a Troop effort and no matter whether the Troop treats their funds as one large account, or whether the Troop creates "individual Scout accounts" for each Scout, the money raised benefits thatTtroop. If it was one individual Scout that left the unit, I doubt there is a single person who would question the Troop keeping any funds that the lad helped raise - if he left Scouting altogether, there is no way a Troop would be cutting a check t