Lea-who?

Ever try listening to Leahy while driving? Ok, how about Leahy played at 30, plus a little amplification from the mp3 player?

Stoney Lake & Juniper Island)
Moment

A little something about gerbils. They don't appear to use their brain to demonstrate wisdom: "What's this, a wheel!? Food! Wow, something to chew on! What's this, a wheel?!" But, they're a bit smarter. My own personal experience is that Esther (or Nathan I called him) would indicate when he wanted to go back to his cage by first nibbling and then biting me (grr, that hurt), and that he got used to being carried eventually (but it took him forever to get over the fact that he's not exactly on solid ground). The latest hyper gerbil (also used to being carried, became so a lot faster) will actually attempt to move in the general direction of his cage, if he can see it. According to Mom (best research ever -- google didn't help me here), gerbils have quite a bit of maze memory. But I still can't get over their "Up! Down. Up! Down. Poke poke... Up! Down."

So yeah, something random for you.

Relient K -- Devastation And Reform

Fear can drive stick
And it's taken me down this road
A road, down which, I swore I'd never go

And here, I sit
Thinking of God-knows-what
Afraid to admit I might self-destruct

So lock the windows and bolt the door
'Cause I've got enough problems without creating more

I feel like I was born for devastation and reform
I'll destroy everything I love
And the worst part is
I'll pull my heart out and reconstruct
But in the end, it's nothing but
A shell of what I had when I first started

An injury I'll caust with my own fist
It seems to me to be slightly masochistic
But there'd be no story without all this dissension
So I inflict the conflict with the utmost of intention

So lock the windows and bolt the door
'Cause I've got enough problems without creating more

I feel like I was born for devastation and reform
I'll destroy everything I love
And the worst part is
I'll pull my heart out and reconstruct
But in the end, it's nothing but
A shell of what I had when I first started

Thank-you, God, for giving me an insight
So I might make these wrongs right
If and when, there ever is a next time
'Cause failure is a blessing in disguise

Pull my heart out, reconstruct
In the end, it's nothing but

A shell of what I had when I first started
A shell of what I had when I first started

I feel like I was born for devastation and reform
I'll destroy everything I love
And the worst part is
I'll pull my heart out and reconstruct
But in the end, it's nothing but
A shell of what I had when I first started

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So you wants to hear about summer camp, does you? Ahh tells yah, it's a long story. (made shorter! :-)

So we leave here Sunday afternoon, after much loading and hauling and such and such to try and get everything we need into the appropriate vehicle, and deciding we didn't need this that or that (which incidentally we did need). After a 30-60 minute drive with lots of chattering, we get there and wait for another hour or so for the paperwork to go through. When we finally get done, we have just enough time to get our swim checks and get to dinner. And no, nobody could say "oh your the SPL aren't you" to me. I'm just not obvious enough.

The rest of that day was mostly setup, with a little bit of fun later on in the evening. No, I can't remember what it was, but I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be fun. Or else that was our evening off to setup camp.

The rest of the week went generally like this:
WAKEUP!
Meritbadge classes 7:something - roughly 12
LUNCH! (yum)
more Meritbadge classes 2:00- roughly 4, except for those unfortunate few who had bonus period classes. But I really needed that MB! *sigh* I so wanted to swim that week :(
5:15-6:00 get ready for and goto flagceremony + dinner
afterdinner: some sort of campwide games, activities, so on. This included...
Campfire Sunday (staffer intro, staffer skits, staffers show);
Campwide games (duh -- but they made you sign up for it! So unusual. Previously you could just show up for this sort of thing. And we did, and they acted like we didn't have to sign up, just whoever showed up played -- couple exceptions) Monday;
something tuesday (my memory escapes me);
commisioners campfires (4 different "campfires" where the troops got to show off their skits jokes songs etc. to be picked for the big campfire) Wednesday;
Cobbler cookoff, scoutmaster guitar hero competition (which our scoutmaster won by a huge margin -- he even almost beat the resident staff champion), an ice cream social, and a special SPL thing (see below) Thursday;
Family day/closing campfire, at which the troops got to show off. We got chosen to do this for our quarter of the camp, I know for sure. For some odd reason, the camp director called the wrong skits from each commissioner site, had somehow obtained the wrong list. And then if that wasn't enough, the whole thing got rained out and we moved to a large shelter (helter skelter), at which point the Order of the Arrow (wierdos that they are -- yes I mean that) started their call-out.
Saturday was fairly easy. We got up, had a come-and-go breakfast, which we (being the ideal troop that we are) showed up at exactly the right time and all in uniform. We thereafter broke up camp, took a few pictures, got an approval of departure from the office & commissioner, and departed. Putting things back in the scout hut was terrible, we just sort of threw it all in. A reorganization has been on the agenda for a while (postponed by wasps at the last meeting).

My days were far from typical. I had to wake everybody up, make sure they were all ready, and then get ready myself. As told before, mostly everything was my responsibility, except for the few times that I could successfully delegate and Jesse graciously intervened (THANKYOUSOMUCH). After hustling them all to and from breakfast, myself and a band of brothers (two other elder scouts) went to C.O.P.E (challenging outdoor personal experience -- another story by itself) and stayed there until lunchtime. Most of 342 could get there without my help, thankfully enough, since I was almost always late. After lunch and 30 minutes of cool-down, the 3 of us went off to our next mb class, climbing, a strenuous merit badge that requires you to almost be able to run the whole system without authorized personnel. Fun, but difficult. From there, one of our crew, who didn't have to get this particular merit badge, spent his free time like free time. Jonathan and I went to the back of the scoutmasters lodge for a citizenship in the nation merit badge during free time. It may have been worth it. I don't know yet. From then on, it was pretty easy, get to dinner, get to whatever post-dinner stuff is going on, up until about 11 pm when I would tell everyone to be quiet, and nobody would be quiet. Suddenly (after many hours, but suddenly) the next day would start.

This small SPL special deal? Every SPL from every troop had to work together to retrieve a "secret file" on a computer in a cabin in the woods. The challenge was working together such to not set off the laser tripwires (real deal here) and be captured by staffers in black, get inside, get the dealie and get out, yet again without tripping anything. Half or more of the group, against all suggestions, came bumbling up to the cabin and set off everything. I tripped. So for the next half hour, we (2/3 of the SPLs) sat around waiting for the rest to either run out of time or be captured. It would be interesting, to be sure, if better executed, maybe one at a time, but....

Did I mention the OA? Abominable. Some scoutmaster thought that BSA needed an honor system, for those outstanding guys. Well, I can live with that. But then he and his associates had to use the Native American (politically correct way of saying the indians) system for their ceremonies!! So the entire thing is based around people dressed up weird calling on the "spirits in the sky" to make these special scouts special. *shudders*
Needless to say, being a Christian, homeschooled trooop (NACHEA supports us, owns the equipment), we never participate, and the ceremonies are bland.

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Andrew (Admiral Nelson, Hippobirdy) has a blog! www.hippobirdy.blogspot.com
Or just use my handy sidebar link

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That's all, folks.
-Petr


Edit: Finally got rid of that annoying red lettering!

Another Edit: Does anybody know if Relient K has a new album? I think it's called the Bird and the Bee sides. Hmm. Worth researching.