packsaddle

"...or worse drift off at the wheel because you did not sleep well." I have always maintained that it would be far better to die peacefully in sleep like my grandfather.....and NOT screaming in terror like his passengers.

I"m going to keep this email account, by the way...unless someone spams it. In that case I'll kill the email account. Don't make me kill this account. That's not a challenge, by the way. I really do want to keep it.

OK, if anyone wants some maps, email your mailing/shipping address to me at: packsaddle@lycos.com Let me know how many you want and if you're willing to pay postage. I'll send them rolled in a standard mailing tube.

I'm going to set up an anonymous email account and put the address here in the forums so that you can send me contact info. I'll try to have that done tonight. KAM, I'm not sure about Texas. I have about 500 maps and they're from all over but I don't have a memory of Texas. I just pick different ones for the boys to use to practice reading the symbols and orienting their compasses. Sometimes they enjoy looking at the terrain from other states (some are more interesting than others). I'll get to work on that email now.

I can't seem to get it to work either. I'm not sure how to get the contact info from you without making it public. I'll contact Terry and see if they can find a fix for PM. I thought it has been working....evidently not. How many maps do you want? 20? 50?

When I had become an atheist (around the age of 12, I started reading the Bible and very quickly realized that I couldn't believe what I was reading), I toyed for a few minutes with every Christian teenager's wet dream of total hedonism by being an atheist*, but I immediately realized that that was a false concept. So since neither Christianity nor the Bible would be my guide, what would? The answer came to me immediately: Scouting. Every moral precept that I could ever need was embodied in the Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan. Decades later when I read that Baden-Powell quote, it certainly looked like he was referring to the Ten Commandments as governing by "don't" and hence was demonstrating that the Scout Law is actually superior; am I the only one or did anyone else also see that? BTW, I'm still a big Boy Scout. A 61-year-old Boy Scout. OTOH, I have no use for BSA, Inc. I view BSA as being more an enemy of Scouting than promoting it. BSA does not live nor operate by the Oath and Law and they constantly endanger Scouting by creating discrimination lawsuits and alienating sponsors and donors. I wish that BSA would just go away so that an actual Scouting organization could take its place. { * FOOTNOTE: Having been involved in creation/evolution since 1981 and in contact with fundamentalists since 1970, I have had a lot of dialogues with fundamentalists. One theme that keeps coming up is that if God doesn't exist, then there is no morality and we can do whatever we want. Absolutely ridiculous, but that is what they insist upon most emphatically. A local creationist activist claims to have been an atheist, but he never was. As he describes it in his own writings, as a teenager he accepted evolution and "became an atheist" (HINT: no such decision is necessary) just because of his bubbling hormones. In reality, it was his own religious training that had offered him that legal loophole, not evolution. And in reality, he never was an atheist, since he admitted to me that he prayed to God every night during his "atheism". Using atheism as an excuse to misbehave is a Christian practice, not an atheist one. } Just curious....what brought on that footnote? Are you responding to something that was posted earlier? Thanks

Scouter99, That only works for dinosaurs, lol. Basementdweller, Alcohol is the best. The preservative eventually will be 95% ethanol. PM me and I'll give you contact info. Edit: I'm getting rid of a few hundred very old topo maps from assorted places around the USA, if you'd like a few for the boys to practice with let me know. Offer is good to anyone else as well.

Specimens for the entomology collection. If you can give me the date collected and a fairly good location (like a street address, doesn't need to be a specific house) the specimens would be archived into a university reference collection. I understand the need for discretion. No sense of urgency, only curiosity.

Brim of hat is still pretty thick. Is there any chance that I could get some preserved specimens, if I sent you the vials with formalin or alcohol? But infestations can happen to anyone and therein lies part of the problem. Bed bugs have evolved to be almost perfect parasites. They proliferate without killing or even causing much harm to their hosts. I'm just glad that HIV isn't transmitted that way - yet. Nor, evidently much of anything else. If they were too small or obscure to be seen easily (as with some other nasties that we try to put out of our minds) we'd probably not be so alarmed.

Good grief! You're bickering about almost nothing and you're not even married (to each other). Enough already!

Why are you guys responding to this? Ignore it. Let it whimper into oblivion.

Interesting. We've never encountered the problem. And I've been just waiting for an infestation to occur on campus somewhere...so far, so good. I think the heat treatment is a good prophylactic method but you need to remove the chocolate bars first, lol. All insects (and most other arthropods) kick the bucket somewhere around 160 degrees F. It's one of the reasons you see piles of dead wasps and flies nestled in the corner of the back window of the car. Their death is fascinating. A wasp will flutter in vain evidently trying to escape through the glass and then suddenly it will stop, fold its wings backwards, and extend its stinger as if in a last vain stab at whatever was killing it. Now for head lice, as the old joke goes, you shave one side, douse the other side with lighter fluid and set it on fire. When the lice run out of the fire you stab them with an ice pick. When I was a teen we loved that joke. (Don't try this at home)

My old church tried that approach. They saw charters and rentals as money down a rat hole so they bought a bus. When the costs of maintaining it, insurance, finding a driver with a commercial license, etc. all started to roost on their budget, they began to see charters and rentals in a brighter light. The bus eventually was used for Sunday-school classes and later it was sold for whatever they could get for it. That was quite a while ago. Many years later, the idea came up again to 'save' money by owning instead of renting a bus. LOL, they almost did it again!

In a situation like this, there's nothing wrong with putting your own family at the head of the list of priorities. Chances are the best you can do is prolong the inevitable. The pack had a good run and now it is time to die. Invest your time the way the rest of the pack has decided to invest theirs...in your own family's interests. RIP.

I think the essence of the answer has to do with what Kudu frequently describes as Baden Powell's idea of a sense of reverence that is achieved through solitary thoughts in 'the woods'. From what little I know about Buddhism, I think there are some similarities to that faith. Anyway, that is what works for me. I think the outdoors is important because it gives the boys a chance to have a similar experience.

Welcome to the forums, Eric. I agree with you regarding 'authority'. Keep us informed of any new developments if you can.

Everything after two minutes is therapy. Edit: Oh heck, make it FIVE minutes.

"would it be worthwhile to require a Boy Scout (or an Adult Leader) to read a book at each level of advancement?" Diabolical! I love it!

I don't fault any person for 'going for the brass ring'. I fault anyone who allows them to think it will be easy. Thing is, some of them CAN achieve their dreams and if those individuals are held back by pragmatic negativity, they might not. Colleges offer lots of opportunities to gain the practical perspective and skills, but those students will not be attending many sports events.

It is actually one form with three parts and all three parts are not identical. Anyway, the need for multiple redundancy ought to be obvious. I don't have a problem with the cards either.

ROTFL!!!!!

I mean, it's as if there are NO Jewish atheists or something..... Edit: needed a verb in there somewhere

I think I have the solution. Whaddayathink?

I agree with KDD. If you can pull off something like that with some of your current scouts loaning their vintage racers, you've got it made in the shade. Few people are going to notice the membership policy.

When I'm in the tropics you'll see me in long pants all of the time. And THAT climate is truly hot and truly humid (100%) much of the time - and I take my charges on some very strenuous activities. Yes, we make sure we're hydrated. But while they tend to strip down to bathing suits a lot of the time and seem to drink everything in sight, I stay covered (I burn really easily and I never use insect repellant). So I compensate by basically staying soaked most of the time. Once it's about 0900, things are pretty steamy and it's about that time that I just soak my shirt and pants (feet are soaked almost all the time anyway, it's unavoidable). Wet bandanna under the hat, wet clothes....and then because my body is still warmer than the surrounding air, the evaporative cooling keeps me comfortable AND requires me to drink less to stay hydrated. AND I don't smell as bad at the end of the day, lol, except for the mildew after a few weeks. (heh, heh, I sometimes leave a pair of those gungy shoes at TSA security areas. Let THEM sort it out) Even better, once soaked, I agree with John Muir....there is a sense of freedom, that you are ready at that point to just charge right into the bush or the mud without much further concern. It's all good.