Funmurphys: the Blog

The Triumph of Hope over Experience

Archive for category Scouting

Aft Gang Agley

Oct 30

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Scouting | No Comments

It took me awhile to recover from the weekend, but I have returned to blogging. I was hit with a double whammy. First, we had our Cub Pack family campout at Castlewood State Park. We’ve had outstanding weather all year, but on this particular Saturday, we had rain. The forecasters told us Friday night that it would rain overnight, with scattered showers in the morning and no rain after noon. Well, they were wrong. The rain didn’t start until 9:15 AM. I know the exact time because I was in the middle of a field trying to get my tent up before the rain started when it started. Fortunately, we had numerous awnings to keep the rain off; unfortunately, we quickly churned the ground underneath them into slippery yet clinging mud.

We went ahead with our raingutter regatta and nature talk from the park ranger (who was outstanding); but we were forced to cancel the tug of war. We went ahead with the hike to the bluffs overlooking the river, but a lot of den activities couldn’t be carried out as planned. We canceled the pack meeting, so no Indian was summoned out of the night to light our bonfire and award bobcat badges and pin, but we did light the bonfire ourselves and enjoys skits, jokes, and even a story told by yours truly.

Many of the families who had planned on camping slept in their own beds; my son and I stayed until the second time he threw up. He didn’t want to leave, but as he kept on hurling even when there wasn’t anything left to hurl, I think I made the right choice. And that’s the great thing about kids – not too many of them noticed or cared about the weather; it was only we parents who were worried about clean and dry clothes or being cold and miserable. The kids had fun running around in the rain, skipping stones in the river, playing soccer or volleyball, and cooking over open flames.

It was also my birthday, so while I enjoyed the medal proclaiming that I was “officially” older than dirt, and the nice trophy from Den 6, and being sung happy birthday twice, it also means that I got a few toys, which needless to say I’ve been playing with ever since. Not only have I been too busy to blog, I’ve been too busy to even download the new 1.10 Diablo II patch. Now that’s busy.

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A Flaming Good Time

Mar 15

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Scouting | No Comments

Last night my Cub Scout pack graduated our second year webelos. For the Arrow of Light award, they had to pass the burning neckerchief test. I have to say, the boys loved the flaming neckerchief and it was easy to do. Mix equal parts water and acetone, build a simple stand to hold and present the neckerchief, add scouting candle to ignite and stand back. We also shot flaming arrows for the finale – sparklers attached to the nose of the arrow also put on a great display. Every year the boys claim the cubs got to shoot them last year; every year the Cub Master explains no, the Boy Scouts shot the arrows. For the webelos crossing over to boy scouts, I removed their webelos slide and neckerchief, then they had to cross a bridge over smoking dry ice, give the cub scout salute to me, give the boy scout salute to their new scout master who put the boy scout neckerchief and slide on them, and viola, now they’re Boy Scouts. 

As part of the Arrow of Light award, the parents present their son with a real arrow keepsake they’ve painted with all the badges, arrow points, and pins they’ve earned. I had a hard time finding actual wooden arrows, as most stores only carry carbon or aluminum ones. But the people at Midwest Archery Outfitters made the arrows up special, with blue and gold fletching, and were the nicest people to deal with. So for all your archery needs, I have to heartily endorse Midwest Archery Outfitters.

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Pinewood Derby

Jan 23

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Scouting | No Comments

Saturday is my pack’s Pinewood Derby. So I’ve spent the week getting ready for it. We bought a new track this year, and a new timing system to go with it, and new race software too. When the track was delivered by UPS to the head of the derby, one of the boxes was damaged, and bolts were leaking out. So we started the assembly of the new track with a little fear in the belly that perhaps something important was lost and we would be using the old track again. That wouldn’t be too bad, but we’d already thanked the boys for their fundraising on behalf of the new track and told them because of their efforts we would be getting a new one. As it turned out, only some bolts were missing. The real problem were the instructions. For both the track, timer, and software, the manuals were sorely lacking. The biggest problem was that they just started in with step one without providing any kind of overview. We worked Saturday and Sunday afternoons, Monday and Tuesday night to get it all put together and tested. Wednesday we had our final help session, and tonight my son and I finished up the car. Whew. I just finished the final touches on the planning for the pack meeting to go with it, and tomorrow night its off to school for the weigh in and taking the track apart and moving it to school to set up again so that bright and early Saturday morning we can race at the school and not in somebody’s basement.

Our race committee chair recommended we purchase a plastic track (SuperTrack?) with it’s timer (Super Timer) and software. The pack committee preferred an aluminum track due to durability concerns, so we wound up buying an aluminum track (Best Track) but stayed with the same timer and software. The companies that sell this stuff are mom and pop operations (I think a couple of buddies is more like it) and when you call their support lines you get the feeling you are talking to somebody at home watching the football game. And believe me, we had to call — a lot. We’d look at the manual, read the website, look at the pictures, discuss, and then call. Sometimes somebody would suggest jumping to making the call right away, but our manly pride wouldn’t let us. The most confusing was the timer because the two of us trying to install it had no idea that it provided for a remote control start, and so couldn’t figure out what the solenoid was doing in the system. The help we got from the timer guy was pretty much “You should have bought my track.” In hindsight, I think he was right, but the advice came too late and didn’t do us any good. It was a painful process, mainly due to ego bruises, but we did manage to put it together and it is pretty neat. Now we have a track that the boys can start the races and the track announces the winner and lights up the winning lane. 

Every year our car (yes, I’ll admit that it is a joint project) gets better looking. I think our first one ran better than the second, but it was a shock when we showed up for the impound the night before and saw what the other kids (and parent) built – mainly in the paint job. This year somebody told us about a web site (Maximum Velocity) that gave us an idea of what to build, and other parents shared their finishing techniques. So I think the car looks pretty good and I hope will run pretty good too. I’ll just be glad when it’s over so I can have some free time again, so that I can get cracking on getting the annex all squared away. Then it will be time for Blue and Gold, and hey, two more years after that I won’t be Cubmaster anymore. Somehow, I don’t remember my parents being this busy when I was a kid.

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Pow Wow

Nov 11

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Scouting | 1 Comment

Saturday was the Cub Scout Pow Wow here in St. Louis – which by the way is the second largest Boy Scout Council by number and first by percentage of eligible boys in the program. Pow Wow is a day long event that provides Cub Scout adult leader training. So I spent Saturday being entertained, informed, encouraged, and otherwise edified by fellow scout leaders. This was my second year attending and I do have to recommend it to any leaders who can attend — I will be able to improve the program of my pack with what I learned.

The typical attendee at the event is a middle aged white man with a bit of a paunch. So I fit right in. But by no means were we the only attendees. There were plenty of middle aged white women with a bit of a paunch. Okay, my fellow attendees came in all shapes, sizes, races, genders, and weight classes, the only thing we shared was our desire to do our best for the boys in our packs and dens. There were a couple of people who deviated quite a bit from the norm – I noticed a gal at the opening ceremony who was out of uniform – the big bleached blonde hair was fine, but the open shirt over the lace body suit top was not regulation. Eye catching, but definitely not regulation. Still, she had nothing on the guy who had a Mohawk haircut — shaved on the sides and extra-long on the top and back — with a tattoo of a brain on each side of his head. Something tells me he has no trouble getting the boys attention, but I don’t think it’s for me.

Cub Scout Campout

Oct 20

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Scouting | No Comments

This has been a busy weekend in the Murphy household. Kyle’s cub scout pack (of which I’m the cubmaster) had a camp out. It was a lot of work before hand, and a lot of work during. This is the first all pack camp out our pack has done that anyone can remember, and there were a lot of obstacles along the way, from having to change locations less than a month before hand, down to a traffic accident delaying a lot of the attendees. Being cubmaster has been taking up a lot of my time, and my wife isn’t too happy. She says that I put more time in than Kyle gets out. And that’s true. But there are other things we do, like Kyle’s soccer team, that I don’t put any time in (other than going to the games, which this year I enjoy). Does it all balance out? I think it does, but all of these volunteer organizations help make up the community, which is one of those things were the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I’m not one of those doom and gloomers who thinks that people don’t appreciate community like they once did; I think they still do, it may just be expressed in different ways, and with more sub-communities the building blocks have shrunk, but the edifice is larger. And really, would I rather be watching some TV crime show when I can argue with eight people what side dishes we should serve with dinner?

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