Not Part of the Job Description

This past week was definitely unique in my experiences thus far. I had to facilitate the district response to the passing of a long time Scouting volunteer who was also the husband, Al, of the Sheboygan Scout Shop manager, Jan, who has been there forever and is a strong ally in working with the units.

It all began with a phone call early last Sunday afternoon from Jan at home. This was odd in the first place but then I heard the tone of her voice and figured no good could be coming from the call. Her husband, who recently was given a decent bill of health, suffered a massive heart attack on his way into work at Gander Mountain and passed away soon after. This came as a big surprise to everyone the first time they heard. I was stunned when I realized that I was probably the first person beyond the family and pastor to hear the news.

I should mention at this point that I never got to meet Al. We just hadn’t crossed paths yet.

To be honest, I was at a loss at first of what I was supposed to do beyond be supportive. Then it sunk in that I would have to make sure to get the word out to the district. How the heck are you supposed to let people know that someone died? Just “Hey, so and so, died.” Not quite a respectable way to phrase it though I debated saying just that for a second. I figured that I would wait until I got the funeral information to send a message out so that any initial questions could be covered in the message. I received that information the next morning along with a well-phrased announcement that I copied and used in my message.

The response I received was more than I expected with calls from several folks that were out of town on work and wanted to know what the district was doing. What a great question for a district chairman…too bad I don’t have one. I went for the obvious and got flowers (with help, but they were, in my opinion, the nicest there and were placed center stage) and a card delivered to the church for the funeral and went with my associate and boss as the official council contingent. I did skip the viewing the night before at which apparently several hundred people showed up to pay their respects.

I don’t consider myself the most sentimental person so a funeral is uncomfortable to start with. It was even less comfortable when I had not met the person and could not relate to the grief expressed by the others there. It was also the first funeral I have been to in a long time. As the service began, it seemed like a normal church service right until the memorial began. The family decided to write letters to the deceased and have them read. That hit me between the eyes. Here were the words of his sons and wife (of 43 years) describing a perfectly decent man of strong faith and good heart who was honestly happy and an excellent parent as they expressed their feelings to him. The words of his wife hit me hardest in part because I know her well and in part from what they said. It was the simplest, most honest expression of a deep and abiding love and the loss felt by his passing that I have heard. The pastor continued by describing recollections that he had of Al and those of others.

After the memorial, I realized that this man I had never met will be remembered in the best of ways. He will be remembered by those who knew his as a genuinely great man (father, grandfather, Scout leader, coach…) with deeds that reached the heart and were done not for fame but for those who needed it. He was not rich or famous, but many, many people mourned his passing as the loss of a great man. His faith was known to be strong and those who knew him are sure that he is in heaven serving the Lord he worshipped so steadfastly. This is the way I would want to be remembered, as a good man who did his best for those he loved and those around him.

I really don’t want to have to do this again, but it seems likely that I will as we have several aged and ill Scouters in the district for whom time is rapidly winding down.

It was unique attending a church service with my boss who I don’t think is particularly spiritual. This was compounded by the fact that we did my quarterly review at lunch before the funeral. That went well at least. In essence, I will not be held accountable for the sins of those before me, but expected to do my best to fix them.

It was a strange backdrop for the week.

I suppose I should comment for the record on the tragedy this week at Jamboree. That was a tragic accident that was entirely preventable. Setting up a tent under power lines is never a good plan. As if this wasn’t enough, then several hundred Scouts suffered from heat-related illness in the swampy heat of Virginia. That these things happened is decidedly not cool, but they do need to be viewed in perspective. Consider that a National Jamboree creates a city of over 40,000 people on a military base for 10 days with a population consisting mostly of teenage boys and, on average, middle-aged men who are not all in great shape. Then look at a typical city of similar size, say Sheboygan, in a week here about 15-20 people die of various causes. It is not statistically reasonable to expect no fatalities at an event of this magnitude. That there are as few as there are is a testament to just how effective the risk management policies of the BSA are.

I was sickened however by the fact that the news of these events could not be stated without commenting on the ALCU’s latest set of legal challenges related to the military’s support of the BSA as a violation of church and state. They need a new hobby beyond picking on the Scouts and the government. If anything, the military should write it off as a recruiting expense. The dollars spent on the Scouting programs they support are probably the most cost effective recruiting dollars they spend. I suppose that we can stop allowing the efforts and draft ALCU members to replace the lost recruits… On the up side, it was nice to see a bipartisan measure pass in the Senate 97-0 in support of the Boy Scouts.

That was a really long post. I’ll stop for now.

The Onion: Tourist Traps

UN Labels Tourist Traps Inhumane

The Onion hits it on the head once again. I am not foolish enough to be sucked in by those tourist ploys, but they are really irritating.

More government incompetence

I feel the need to rant a bit.

The Shuttle fleet was grounded again today. I don't think that human cost is the real reason behind this. I think it's dollars. The Shuttles are very expensive and a very good source of income and jobs for several congressional districts that would be lost if the program shut down permanently. The human cost is there, but you can't honestly tell me that the astronauts themselves (most have at least one doctorate) don't know the odds and yet are willing to fly anyways. They should be allowed to make that decision.

This risk aversion won't help at all. Every new field of transportation has had casualties especially the aviation age. Now though, it is safer, statistically, to fly than to drive. If the government had been allowed to run aviation development we would still have the Wright Flyer.

We need a Shuttle replacement, yesterday. The worst part is that we could have had one years ago if NASA and the government weren't so entrenched in their bureaucracy. The Shuttle has never fulfilled its promise of a reliable, space truck. How could it? It is one of the most complicated machines ever devised by man and requires an immense, expensive, manpower intensive support base. Bad for reliablity, but good to grow a bureaucracy and more middle management empire building. It's also good for Congress--a lot of expensive, specialty parts to be farmed out to constituencies who do well supporting campaigns.

I will say it was a great first step, but was too expensive. If a cheaper, simpler design would have been chosen it would have been feasible to continue development and build improved replacement models that were simpler to use and more reliable. This would likely have been less capable to start with but would be farther ahead now than we are. There are computers on the Shuttle older than I am. They could barely play Pong.

In comparison, look at Spaceship One and the White Knight. While they are not true spacecraft, they are certainly on the way there. Spaceship One is a composite shell with a non-toxic engine and a simple flight computer derived from civil aviation use. The system is the first to take a man with room for a passenger to over 60 miles up twice in two weeks. The whole project came in under the cost of a single Shuttle launch including flight testing and construction all done with a small staff.

Sure SpaceShip One is not the Shuttle, but give it a few years of development and its progeny will take men into space regularly for a reasonable cost. Cargo doesn't need pilots to get there. Take a body based on the Shuttle design without the crew and it is a great, cheap heavy lifter. NASA studied this, but was never allowed to develop it.

A big issue is the perception that space is a government sphere of activity. The only reason that this is so is because the public has been trained to think that by the "epic" saga shown on TV and the numerous Flags and Footprints human missions and Voyager deep space missions. The science is worth it, but there are many good commercial endeavours that exist in space that can help us on Earth, namely resources. First, however, we have to get there cheaply.

A great novel that shows a feasible way to do so is the first part 0f Encounter with Tiber by Buzz Aldrin and John Barnes. A combination of proven technology is used with a good entrepreneur who sells private industry on going into space--starting with tourism. This is just one of many technologically feasible plans that can work to take us to space to stay.

Why should we go at all, we have enough problems here. People, especially Americans, need new frontiers to give hope. The problems we face here are not new and aren't the kind that money will solve alone. Space offers an outlet to allow imagination to fly and breed ideas that can very well help here and gives a perspective on just how fragile the world we live on it and why we should work together to protect it. Most of the potential in space will take time to develop, but if we don't start now we may not be able to later.

A great starting point is to engage private industry actively in space programs and allow entrepreneurs to lead the way. Use part of the budget as seed money for the programs without defining limits for them. Give people a goal to reach and a reason to do it and let the ideas come.

I have ranted a bit long. In short, the government needs to stop being itself and encourage the people and industry lead the way so that we can start spreading our eggs to other baskets.

Scrat is Back!!!

Ice Age 2 Trailer

My hero is back on the big screen March 31st. This time they are out to warn that the Ice Age is ending. I will so be there opening morning.

MSN Virtual Earth

MSN Virtual Earth

This is the best aerial mapping site I've seen since Yahoo had thiers. I was able to zoom down to look at my apartment building down to 100 yds resolution--I can see the sidewalks and driveways clearly. The only thing I can't figure is the vintage of the pictures. Looking at Appleton, I did not see the building of the Barnes and Noble or the Center for Scouting, yet both have been there a while.

Here is my apartment zoomed in on. Follow 15th St. North past McArthur to the first building on the East side of 15th St. That is my building. I face the pool from my place. Nifty.

My Apartment in Virtual Earth

Hitting the ground at a sprint

I have always believed that a good vacation is best followed up by several days of working "vacation" with low stress and minimal work. Alas, this was not the case.

After getting home Tuesday evening it was time Wednesday morning to return calls and e-mails and then pack to go to one of the Boy Scout camps overnight. I left that afternoon for a 2 1/2 hour drive to visit 5 of my troops in camp and see the boss talk to the units the next morning. A lot of walking was involved, but the camp is really nice and the bright moon hanging over a lake with water as still as glass was well worth the evening hike. One of the leaders we chatted with is active Navy and told us many sordid tales of shore leave in SE Asia. Suffice it to say I know more about the oldest profession and its system there than I wanted to.

So Thursday, we (went with Brian to camp) stopped at our favorite sports bar in Manitowoc for lunch in full uniform and went to the DA's office for a meeting with a Scoutmaster. The other assistant DA's were really confused to see two guys in scout uniform at their office. After getting home, I had enough time to change and go to another meeting.

Friday morning was good. The cable guy came with my new DVR box...more in a minute. This was followed by a meeting with my boss here, a meeting in Appleton and a camp visit that evening at the Cub Scout resident camp. It was over 400 miles in business driving in the 3 days following the road trip. Suffice it to say I was dead for Saturday and Sunday.

The DVR (digital video recorder for the less dorky folks) box is excellent. It has a much improved guide and interface versus the regular box it replaced and is fairly easy to use. I have it set now to record all new episodes of Family Guy, Stargate, Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica and Firefly--proof of my dorkiness. There is little need now for my VCR except those lone few movies on VHS that I have yet to replace with DVD's. I will keep it as a memento of my childhood.

I saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday. I enjoyed it. The original was better, but this one was certainly not bad. I could do without the flashbacks of Willy's childhood and the sappy ending, but the rest was fairly well done. The Oompa-lumpas were awesome. They were groovy in a 70's or 80's way. The squirrels were excellent. It was worth the $5.75.

I also watched Shaun of the Dead, a zombie movie. I normally dislike zombie movies, but this one is hilarious. It reminded me of what the guys from the lodge would do if they encountered a zombie invasion. It might almost be worthy of a DVD purchase...

Map of my trip route from Denver westward. 

3762 Miles with Herbie

Who is Herbie? That would be my truck, as in "Herbie the Wonder Truck"--no relation to an insect car of movie fame. After the number of long trips we have made together it only seems natural for him (it is a truck after all) to have a name.

Anyways, what follows is the story of my recent travels. First, be warned that it's long. Second, there are photos linked in albums hosted on kodakgallery.com--just click the link and then click on the photo to start each album. There is only one shot that I appear in and that is in a reflection--the only people in the shots are random people. There are also links to most of the places I visited for further reading.

The trip by the numbers:

• # of miles driven: 3762
• Trip Time: 12 days, 9 hours
• Highest altitude: 11,300 ft. (Eiesenhower Tunnel on I-70)
• Best/Worst Mileage: 26.8/21.3 miles per gallon
• Most expensive gas: $2.669 (Eagle, CO)
• # of National Parks: 5
• Hottest Temperature: 107 degrees Farenheit (Moab, UT)
• Hotel nights: 5
• Photos taken: 473 (not all are shown in the albums)

The trip out:

I left on Friday morning, July 8th headed towards Independence, MO. I strongly recommend not going to a concert the night before leaving on a road trip--it made the next day feel really long. The concert (Weezer) was however worth seeing. There ain't much to see in between Sheboygan and Independence, MO (just East of Kansas City) except a whole lot of farms.

Saturday I visited the Truman Presidential Library and Museum (Pictures)in Independence. It was very nice with a lot of good exhibits on WWII on the home front and his life. There was also a replica of the Oval Office as he occupied it along with the original "The Buck Stops Here Sign"--a replica of this now resides on my desk... He may have not gotten as much done as he would have liked, but he was a darn good president.

I also visited the Eisenhower Historical site (Pictures) in Abeliene, KS. I only visited the library as it was free, but it is a nice visit. I had to pay homage to the President responsible for the one of the most practical things enacted by a President--the freeway system. Most of my trip was spent driving on the Eisenhower Interstate system.

The rest of Kansas sucked. At the end I have a list of reasons why Nebraska is better than Kansas. When I got to my hotel in Denver, the receptionist asked where I had been that day and was very apologetic when I said I had come through Kansas.

Sunday found me a little apprehensive as I would be crossing the Rockies on my own for the first time. It wasn't bad at all. The altitude did hit me, but wasn't too bad. I made my first of two stops at Vail Pass (Pictures) on my way through. Oddly enough, you cross the Continental Divide in the Eisenhower Tunnel rather than at a pass. The drive was pretty, especially Glenwood Canyon (sorry, no pictures) and I arrived happily in Ouray that afternoon.

Ouray, CO:

This was one of the stated purposes of the trip--to visit Adam. Adam is working as a waiter at a restaurant/hotel here that is the highest-rated on the Western Slope. I did not eat there. As part of his job, he is provided housing in a condo with two roomates (both interns at the hotel in hotel and restaurant mgmt from Oklahoma State). It was a very nice condo and came complete with furniture. Both his roomates were good guys that I spent time hanging out with while I was there.

Honestly, I didn't do much of anything while there. It was the lounging portion of the trip. I did visit one of John Wayne's favorite restaurants in Ridgway (just north of Ouray)--True Grit. The food was expensive no matter where you ate around there so I ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches when I didn't eat out.

The town itself is nestled into a little valley at 7,706ft with tall mountains on all sides (Pictures) and the town runs right up to the steep slopes of the mountain sides. I did go hiking on one occasion on a popular trail to an overlook of the town. It was one of the least well-marked trails that I have ever hiked. The trail is all switchbacks cutting across washes. I found my own route up the multitude of linked "trails" to the top. This was great. Coming down however, I misplaced the route back down. No map would have helped or GPS unit as it was too tight of quarters to make sense of on a map. Luckily it was easy to know that town was always downhill. So I found a deer trail and headed down, mostly on all fours (like a crab walk) or on my butt. I ended up in a guy's backyard who seemed amused, but not suprised that I was there. Amazingly I was only a couple of 100 yds from the trailhead.

I also ventured from Ouray to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (Pictures) just outside Montrose. This was my favorite of the 5 parks and I am planning to return to see more of it. This is the newest of the National Parks and certainly worthy of the designation. The Black Canyon is 54 miles long and, in its middle segment (the national park) is a steep, rock-walled gorge ranging from 1,700 feet deep to 2,700 feet deep and narrows to about 1,000 feet across (top of the canyon). I visited the South Rim drive which has a bunch of good overlooks into the canyon. On the second trip (with Adam this time), we went down to the canyon bottom via the access road and hiked a distance along the river. There are trails down to the canyon bottom but they are all about a mile long with a 1,600 ft drop which didn't appeal to me on this trip. While Adam and I were out there, we visited Gunnison and drove through the Blue Mesa Resevoir area which is very scenic.

I stayed at Adam's from Sunday through Friday and got caught up on lounging. Friday morning I left for Cortez, CO via Telluride and Lizard Head Pass. After driving through Telluride, I can see why the property values are so high. It is amazingly beautiful with steep, wooded mountainsides leading to snow-capped mountain peaks. Lizard Head Pass is equally beautiful as it opens into a prarie at over 10,000 feet.

Mesa Verde National Park (Pictures):

Mesa Verde National Park is the most popular National Park as of a recent survey. It is located in extreme Soutwest Colorado about 40 miles from Four Corners. One suprise was the long, driving climb to the top of the mesa--to be repeated at the remaining parks I visited. Once up there it is almost like visiting a museum that is all outside under shelters. There are a lot of ruins and the villages built into the canyon walls are really cool.

I left Mesa Verde and went to Moab, UT with a stop at the Needles Overlook for Canyonlands National Park--very cool to catch at near sunset with a partly cloudy sky. I decided to camp that night in Hal Canyon just north of Moab. This is a box canyon of the Colorado River that is a hub of outdoor activity in the area. It was warm. My site was about 30yds from the bank of the river and had a good amount of tree cover, but the ground was still very warm. It was almost too warm to sleep there. I woke in the morning with my sleeping bag sticking to my legs. In Michigan you use a ground pad to keep the ground from absorbing your body heat, in Utah you use it to keep the ground from cooking you. When I felt the bottom of my sleeping pad in the morning it was uncomfortably warm to the touch. I chose to stay in a hotel the next night.

The first stop of the morning (Saturday) was Canyonlands National Park (Pictures). This is about 30 miles north and west of Moab and was the least busy of the parks I went to. It is, as the name implies, a semi-desert landscape of canyons and mesas. It had some very cool views, but was very arid (9% humidity). The hikes led to some worthwhile views. I also encountered my largest concentration of cheseheads here in the visitors center between the ranger, a family, myself and a biker, the biker was the only one not of WI.

Leaving Canyonlands I headed into Arches National Park (Pictures). This park was a lot busier than Canyonlands and had a more challenging up and down drive. It has to be the most photographed landscape of rocks outside of Mount Rushmore. This was the hottest part of my trip and led to me cutting my visit short as my heat tolerance ran out and I got cranky. The natural arches that the park is named for are cool. This was the only place I went where the park required a permit for short hikes due to the extreme heat.

On Saturday night, there were some really cool thunderstorms in the mountains around Moab that I watched from the hotel parking lot. On Sunday morning I began my drive eastwards through an area of freeway with dust storm warning signs including a speed limit (30 mph) specifically for dust storms. Thankfully it was sunny and clear.

I stopped at the Colorado National Monument (Pictures) in Fruita, CO on the way through. This was the most challenging driving of the trip especially up and down with tight switchbacks and 10mph, 180 degree turns on slopes greater than a 10% grade. The whole trip is a 23-mile rim drive viewing a variety of canyons and landscapes. It is very pretty and was not too busy. Driving that with any more traffic would have been unpleasant.

After leaving here, it was an uneventful drive until 50 mile outside Denver where I encountered the Sunday evening return rush hour for the Denver residents returning home from weekends in the mountains. It took almost 2 hours to go that last 50 miles all in bumper to bumper traffic down a mountain. No fun.

Monday and Tuesday were not all that exciting driving across Nebraska and Iowa back to home. I got home Tuesday night at 7:30pm.

Now for some thoughts from the trip:

Why Nebraska is Better than Kansas:

• Both are flat, but the eastern 1/3 of Kansas is nice rolling hills versus 1/11 of Nebraska.
• Nebraska has trees and humidity the enitre length across.
• The speed limit is 75 in Nebraska versus 70 in Kansas.
• There are more nice rest areas in Nebraska.
• There are more gas stations in Nebraska.
• The temperature is cooler in Nebraska and it's less dusty.

Other Thoughts:

• I don't like heights that much, so driving up switchbacked mountain/mesa roads was definitely more of a "character building" experience than I want on a vacation. It was lots of white-knuckled driving.
• The statement "But it is a dry heat" is BS. Open your oven and stick your head in, its a dry heat too but it is still hot. Hiking in a dry heat burns when you are gulping air after a climb up a large hill. Notice also all the heat related deaths in the Southwest over the last few weeks.
• Why are all of the city signs in Colorado marked with the altitude, not the population of the town? Does the funding get distributed by altitude or is it an ego thing where the mayors compare their town altitudes at conferencese? I have no good idea how big most of the towns in Colorado I visited are.
• The serving sizes on food are too big already, but get even bigger out West. The smallest burger I could order at a restuarant was a 1/2 pounder. The smallest steak was 10 oz. The suprising part was that there are less fat people out there. I was told that calories don't count over 5,000ft. Hmmm.
• I went out West thinking I was in halfway decent shape. I walk 5 miles or so every other day and more on most weekends without trouble. Altitude evens that out quickly. It was almost embarassing to be tired by walking around town initially. After a week at 7,000 feet and above, I felt good, but I was still not to the level I wanted to be. Before I visit out there again I will have to work on my cardio fitness.
• There was a recent study that showed that Kansas is literally flatter than a pancake. This may be true, but think of a pancake enlarged to 400 miles across and the corresponding scale of the divots in it. They are still decent hills in spots.
• The Weather Channel is very biased towards east of the Mississippi especially the Northeast. I tried several time to see a forecast for the area I was in and took at least a half-hour to even see a map overview that showed the area. I gave up after that. Who really cares that it is raining in the Northeast enough to hear about it every five minutes. One more biased news source.
• Lastly, for the record, I did not get sunburned. It was very sunny and I could feel the sun on my skin but I managed to not forget sunscreen and hence no burn, just a light tan.

The trip was a good time and I'm looking forward to repeating it. Next time, however, a second driver would help.

Westward, Ho!

Tomorrow begins this year's driving odessey. I have a 4,000 mile road trip (yes, again) headed west to Ouray, CO to go see Adam and visit several National Parks and Monuments in SouthWestern CO and SouthEastern UT. Once again, I am going solo. This time I am going to be driving through Kansas on the way West for a change of scenery. The pile of stuff going with me looks like enough to last months just for 12 days. Oh well, that's why I have a truck.

Once I am back I will post photos in an online album for y'all to see.

FOXSports.com - NFL- Cue the trumpets: Football is national pastime

FOXSports.com - NFL- Cue the trumpets: Football is national pastime

This is what I am talking about. Baseball is just too slow and too long. Football is the game to watch...at least when it's not hockey season. Stupid NHL.

Acuity raises Old Glory

Sheboygan-Press: Acuity raises Old Glory

So now Sheboygan is home to the largest flagpole in the nation as well as being the Brat Capital of the World. Go figure. It may indeed be patriotic, or it just might be a company showing who has the biggest pole...

The pole is absolutely enormous and can be seen for literally miles. It is distracting to come over the hill on the freeway and suddenly see this flagpole and flag that is tall enought to require air traffic warning lights on top of it. Once I can take a picture of it from a distance I will post it.

Mao is watching 

Mao is Watching

He is, I swear. On Sunday, I went down to Chicago for the day to hang out with Jason. There was, of course, little plan to what we would do while we were there. After arriving, we went down to the Taste of Chicago and wandered around, sampling a few items including some delicious sweet potato fries and an excellent Chicago-style hot dog. There is, however, only so much food that you can look at. Since the art museum was right there, we decided to go there. It's nice, but I still prefer the DIA (when it is completely open anyways). The portrait of Mao was great, especially when you turn around and see him down the hall. We did manage to avoid getting asked to leave the museum, mostly because Rose wouldn't let us try out the furniture in the "House of Tomorrow" and since I chose not to argue long with the guy who wouldn't let me take a picture of a statue of Marcus Aurelius.

We managed to see the entire museum in about two hours. What to do next? Be tourists. The Sears Tower is definitely one of the classic tourist traps. You show up and stand in line for an hour plus and don't find out that there is a $12 per person fee to go to the Sky Deck until you have been in line for 45 minutes. After you pay, you have to sit through an awful 8-minute Chicago propaganda film before riding the elevator up. The view is cool but it ended up getting hazy in the time that we were in line so we couldn't see as far as we might have.

The irony of the trip was that I spent as much time in transit to and from Chicago as I did there. I drove to Waukegan (about 1hr and 45min), waited for the train, then was on the train for another 1hr 40min before finally reaching Chicago and repeated the saga going home. I will say that the $5 unlimited train pass for the weekend definitely beats drving into the city and finding parking. Riding the train itself is a cultural experience. On the way down, I was definitely a member of the minority population and found out that Zion is a bad kid--his mom yelled at him for doing something dumb every couple of minutes and that little kids need to travel in kennels on the train so that they don't wander. On the way home I heard an awful rendition of "Barbie Girl" cellphone karoke several times from the high school girls on the second deck of the car I was in. I don't think people realize that the rest of the train can hear them when they are seated... It was still fun, despite the weird people.