3 Years and Counting

So yesterday was my third anniversary of being a professional Scouter. At times it doesn't seem that long and then other times it seems like forever, of late it feels like the latter. In a way it is a bit entertaining since I should just be able to considering a transfer now (by the official policies), not starting my seventh month in a new council. I think that early move may be part of why I often feel so much like a rookie at times (more so lately) even though I know that there was little left in Clinton Valley Council that I was likely to learn. There certainly is, however, a lot I have left to learn in my job now.

Another three years doesn't seem unlikely at this point. There is certainly enough to keep me busy here in my current district. The mildly irritating part here is that the more I learn about what's going on, the more there is to overhaul or replace. The upside of this is that it gives me more room to try new approaches to common challenges and bring a breath of fresh air where it has been stale for a long time. So far I have not caused any heart failures but I will certainly keep folks on their toes.

I can't say that I have been any more inspired this week than others. Actually, it has been almost a record low week for motivation. Perhaps it is the knowledge that the fall is looming like impending doom or that the summer was way too short. The length of the weekend certainly did not help (see below). I know part of it is that I am in week 2 of my associate's time away (for training) and I am keenly missing his help on the ever-growing number of projects. I really noticed it the last three days where I have been a delivery boy dropping off fall recruiting packets off to all of the Cubmasters who missed the training session (most of them). This was a total of almost 300 miles of driving at a time of near-record (in real prices) gas prices. I did work it out though and found it was still cheaper to drive them around than mailing them.

Okay, enough about work, the weekend was more entertaining. Let me lead off by saying that it was another really long weekend. Also a definition is in order, the group of us that hang out regularly, predominantly from Michigan, in their mid-20's and mostly Kohler employees have begun referring to ourselves at the A-Team (yes, the one with Mr. T). There is also a B-Team and the ladies are the C-Team. Anyways the A-team got together all three days of the weekend which is rare. It started Friday with a combined A-Team, B-Team, and C-Team BBQ at Ed's followed by a round-robin visit of several establishments ending after 2 am.

Not much of Saturday morning was seen by anyone except the two poor souls who had to, respectively, work and volunteer early that morning. There was a good aspect to the lack of sleep for the guy who had to work, in his sleep-deprived state he was debating buying a big TV then he dreamed of it during a nap. This inspired his purchase of a 50" widescreen Sony TV. It is beautiful. I call it divine inspiration. Of course several of us had to go help him set it up and stare slack-jawed at it.

Given how tired everyone was and the fascination of the new TV, we all managed to decide to go to dinner. The waitress was greatly amused by our table and we had a great time there and decided to go out again. After visiting our home establishment and deciding that the band sucked, we ended up at the closest thing to a dance club in Sheboygan. That actually is not the best description of Dave's Who In. It is a two-level bar with pool tables and karoke on the first floor and a sort of hip-hop dance club upstairs. The consensus had the A-Team and company stay downstairs to play pool and sing along with the karoke singers. We didn't leave until after 2am. I did get to drive Ed's roomate's CTS home. What an excellent car. I am aiming to take it out to the freeway to play soon.

Sunday was more tame with the A-Team and C-Team spending the day at my apartment complex pool to the entertainment of the manager and her husband. I should have gone home and slept that night, but that would have made sense. Instead I rode with Ed down to Chicago O'Hare to pick his girlfriend up from the airport which was a 5 1/2 hour round trip. Chicago was certainly pretty all lit up at night, but I don't plan on making another trip like that any time soon.

It was a long weekend, but it certainly was fun. One amusing note was that I was carded for the first time going to a bar this weekend and it wasn't just once, but four times. I didn't think there was a drinking age here...