GernBlansten

If that's the measurement of sleep apnea OGE, then every one of our scouters over 30 has it.

I don't think its practical. Some of the staff camps may have electricity, but many don't. Plus the size of those CPAPs I've seen don't pack down small enough for backpacking. But check with Philmont first.

Alot of times, well meaning tech weenies jump at the opportunity to build a site for their troop. They want to use all the gadgets and dodads that they can't at their company job. They create a monster nobody wants to use and nobody else can support. We moved from a unique troop website to a yahoo group. Nobody wanted to keep the website updated and everything we need to publish, we can do on yahoo groups. Message boards, file publishing, photos, calendar, polls.

WOW, what Calico said, give that man a harumph! Actually, when Merlyn originally posted this, I thought, what? LL has no basis. But now I see the errors of my ways.

My WFA was $65 for the two days. It was held at summer camp so I was already a captive member. They advertised it for the first three days of summer camp to all adults to attend. Only three adults showed up, all from our unit. 5 would have attended but we needed to leave 2 back at camp with the boys.

E732, I feel your pain. I'm a Red Cross certified lifeguard and water safety instructor. But BSA doesn't recognize my background and won't allow me the privileges and responsibilities of a BSA lifeguard until I take their training. I've reviewed their syllabus and found it to be about 30% of what I had to do get RC certified. Although I should just swallow my pride and take the BSA training, I'm too stubborn to bend to their will and my unit suffers for it.

GW, where's the love? Group hug?

Ok, here's the story of the honey bear enema. Actually, its become quite the private joke with those of us who took WFA. Our course covered the required material in the WFA book http://www.amazon.com/Wilderness-First-Aid-Third-Emergency/dp/0763751456/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203991360&sr=8-1 But our instructor, a National Safety Instructor, interleaved the required course material with real world scenarios. We would then, as a class, decide the appropriate actions. Scenario: You are hiking in the wilderness and come across another party. They have an unconscious adult and have no idea what to do. He just dropped. What do you do? Well, we started asking questions. Trauma? No. Does he have a medic alert tag? Yes, diabetic. Bingo. OK. Glucagon? No or can't find. Gotta get the dude some sugar. He can't swallow. What do you do? What do we got? Some powdered Gatorade. No good. Some Jolly Ranchers. No good. A squeezable honey bear. Bingo. Ok how to get the sugar into his system. Squirt it in his mouth? Maybe, but might not absorb. What might absorb the sugar? His bowels! Drop his drawers and give him an enema. Now before you cast stones, this is an actual scenario that Outward Bound came across (at least according to our instructor). They saved the dude by this method. That's the difference between WFA and the other first aid courses I've taken. So back to the private joke. Our position as prudent WFA certified adults is when faced with an unconscious adult (whether in medical duress or just napping) is to grab the honey bear. Safety first!

I took WFA two years ago. Its focused on what to do when help is not on the way. Identify the problem, stabilize the situation, work with what you got and evacuate the victim if possible. It certainly isn't a substitute for EMT training, it isn't meant to. I would think an EMT should be able to challenge the course, but then again, there were things I'm not sure an EMT might have covered. Lots of McGyver style brainstorming on what to do with what you got. We joked that we could make an AED out of two rocks, boot laces, a Nalgene and wool sweater. Practical examples too like recovering an unconscious diabetic with a honey bear enema. There also seemed to be an sense that some things just cannot be "fixed" in the wilderness and when to just quit and save yourself. Makes no sense to bring yourself to exhaustion when CPR doesn't recover the victim in 10 minutes when nobody is coming to help.

The ideal outdoor uniform would be one that could be comfortable in soaking wet. The new switchbacks meet it. The current Oscar De Laurenta shirt, not so much.

In my unit, I'd say the average is in the high 17s. Almost every one did most of their merit badges and PORs before 15, then slacked off for 2 years before rushing through their project and EBOR. Usually the parents adding some motivation at the end. Youngest was 15 but his mother drove him like a rented mule the whole way. My brother was 13.5 but he is not normal. Always threw 150% effort into everything he does. Graduated HS at 16, Undergrad at 20, Graduate school at 22. Became the youngest CPA in the state at 20. Retired at 50.

Here you go Lisa http://mediamatters.org/items/200802200001?f=h_top O'Reilly: "I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels"

PC? Don't you mean Unix time, or POSIX time? It is the number of seconds elapsed since midnight Coordinated Universal Time(UTC) of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds. It is widely used not only on Unix-like operating systems but also in many other computing systems. Not sure if PCs use UTC and I'm pretty sure the Pope had nothing to do with UTC.

Now pack, lets be fair, Bush is not really a cowboy. He grew up in Connecticut. Obama is facing similar attacks and whisper campaigns. He's been accused of attending a madrassah as a child, being a closet Muslim, having a middle name of Hussein, and Bill OReally announced yesterday that he'll lead a lynch mob if his wife doesn't start being proud of America. As for Hillary, the republicans left no stone unturned looking for dirt back when Bill was running the show. They were very thorough. I doubt there would be anything new and exciting there.

I agree. Wasn't it McCain who railed against the influence of lobbyists in the political process? Does McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform ring a bell? Getting caught in bed with lobbyists(and I'm talking figuratively, not carnally) when one evangelized the danger of it makes him seem a bit disingenuous. But should we be surprised? Did he also just vote for torture when just last year he was one of the only Republicans against it?

Now John, You really don't believe that the vast right wing conspiracy would leave all that dirt on Hillary alone if she wins the nomination?

Oh dear. Seems McCain has a little Clinton/Hart problem with infidelity. Will Romney reenter the race? Or will the social conservatives just not vote. I'd really like to hear how some of you feel about this.

Oh Goldwinger, you should pull out that ol' scout law again and go over a few of the points. Then re-read your post and see if it meets all those points. Nah, I really don't expect you too. Just funning ya. Your name isn't Richard is it? The guy at Philmont who gave Trev the advice was the medical guy, not a ranger. I bet he'd have gotten another opinion from a ranger. You see, rangers are in charge of keeping the kids and bears separate, med guys in charge of keeping the kids healthy. But you know that, you've been to Philmont. And he never mentioned they never had a problem. Philmont has lots of problems with bears. And usually with city scouts who don't follow protocol. Anywhoo. Must be a city scout, ain't ya? You ever seen bear scat? I saw a lot on the southern section of Philmont. Our camp above Lover's Leap had fresh scat all over our campsite. That night a bear came into camp, sniffed around the tents, checked out the bear bags and left. Didn't take my boots. Maybe they scared him away. Or maybe there just wasn't any food available. Yeah, I don't keep my boots in my tent. I keep them with my pack where they belong, under the rain fly. Preferably downwind. So, you think boot stink will drive a bear away? OK. So be it. Go fill a boot up with sugar in active bear country and see how long the bears keep away from it. Put that boot in your tent. Sleep tight.

And Trev, the additional benefit of putting sugar tabs in your boots will probably discourage others from pilphering your stash. What sillyness. Does anyone think boot stink is gonna mask the smell of sugar to a bear or drive it away? This is the same animal that eats dead rotten stuff and digs in garbage. Plus, who puts their boots in their tents anyways, whew!

I favor ilkinistas. Has that rebel ring to it.

My son's a pumper. So he had his pump with insulin vial on his body 24/7. Not sure if insulin is a smellable, probably is, but no more than any other bodily fluid I would think, . We didn't have any problems and we did have bears in camp. I thought about an unopened icing tube also. Problem being how to open it without a knife when you really need it. Remember, if he really needs it, he won't have much conciousness or dexterity to do much more than ask for help and swallow. The rest of his meds (spare vials, needles, fast glucose, glucagon kit, test strips, infusion sets) were in the bag we hung separately. Before bed, he'd test his blood sugar and adjust, then hang the bag. First thing in the morning he'd get the bag down and re-test. Every scout and advisor on the trek knew how to respond to his needs, so all he needed to do was alert any one of them of a problem. If he was unable to request help, having glucose in the tent with him wouldn't have made any difference. The bag could be retrieved within 30 seconds of the alert. All that being said, I didn't sleep well even though I was in the next tent and exhausted from the days hike. Trev, if you'd like to take this offline, PM me and I can go over all the little gotchas and tricks about having a diabetic at Philmont.

We live in bear country. All of our tent campouts require we use bear protocol. No food at all in tents. No clothes that you ate/cooked in in tents. Nothing in the tent but you, your sleeping clothes and your bag. Tent outside the Bearmuda Triangle (cooking, sump and bear bags). The BPP(the bear protocol police) beat into us that all foodstuff is a smellable even when factory sealed. Not sure its really true, but that's the standard rule. So the dry bag is probably not effective. Brainstorming..... Now, come to think about it, does anyone remember the movie Pappion? Didn't they stow valuables in a special place? I wonder if a bear could smell it there?

At Philmont, my son's emergency glucose was in a small pack that we hung on the outside of the bear bags for quick access. The scouts were told if he had a problem to drop the bags and get it for him.

I work in the software business. I've worked in corps that had a strict dress code where everyone was expected to be in appropriate business wear. Anyone remember braces? Not the kind you put on your teeth. I've also worked in shops that had no dress code. You wore what you wanted, from a business suit (which meant you had an interview) to shorts and T-shirts. Looking at the work generated from both shops, the casual one did better and more work. Emphasis was put into the product, not the presentation. Your work may differ.

The real tragedy is how desensitized we are getting to these stories. Remember the horror of Columbine? The 24/7 coverage for several months. Now an event like this is maybe one or two days of coverage, then back to your regular scheduled programing.