Wind Burn

My new achilles heel is wind burn. As I mentioned when I moved here it's windy a lot of the time, especially in the cool months. Since I like to be outside this leads to the inevitable wind burn. Short of not being in it, I can't see of a way to prevent it shy of wrapping up all exposed skin. I've actually got it again today after hiking the last two days, once at High Cliff park and today at the state beach. The second was much windier to the tune of 20+ mph gusts. It was nice--no joke. You could have surfed on the waves. At least I know I was outside.

You know you are in Wisconsin when you get a Fleet Farm Christmas catalog in the mail.

This weekend was the first Chippewa Fall Fellowship/Vigil Weekend that I have missed since '97 and first Vigil ceremony since '99. It was mildly tempting to go back to be with the clan, but the 16-hour roundtrip was a great deterrent not to mention that I had work here this weekend and will be back for a week soon. I will admit that what I miss most since leaving (I do occasionally get a bit homesick) is my brothers in the lodge and friends from Scouts--well, my dog and family too. Looking at it, most of the people I know really well are from Scouts. My buddy Chris is the one notable exception outside my family. The downside is that it is hard to not think of Scouting at all when your friends are from there too and it will inevitably come up. Here, of course, most of the people I talk to are related to Scouts in some way and work can take way too much time. There is a chamber of commerce group designed for networking with other young (under 40) professionals that holds hope for meeting new people not related to work precisely. Too bad that most of their events involve happy hour--how do people afford it?

Yesterday I had to get up at 5:30am to go meet a Scoutmaster and then head to Appleton for a meeting--on a Saturday. Yuck. Tonight I'll work on my schedule for the week and send off my weekly paperwork to the boss and probably some popcorn. This week will be really unique since I'll be chaperoning first a Rotary camp event for high school kids overnight Wednesday and then a Den Chief training Friday night at the Railroad Museum in Green Bay. If I am still standing on Saturday evening that will be a good thing.

Time for dinner--even if it does look like bed time--curse time changing.

You know you're an engineer when

Okay, quick funny story.

So I was at a round-up a few weeks ago helping the leader clean-up. There were crayons laying all over the table so I was putting them in the box not really paying attention. Then I looked down at the box of crayons and noticed that there was no order to the colors. It took all of my willpower not to empty the box and sort the crayons by color.

I also have picked up the horrible habit of fixing seam-side up epaulets on uniforms otherwise it really bothers me.

I think I am becoming more anal-retentive...then I look at my desk.

I Will Win

It seems that I have defeated my first antagonist for now at least. Now I have a second challenger. This time it is the Scout Shop manager here in Sheboygan. I was warned that there could be challenges with her but had been relatively unfazed thus far. She has been working in that building for 20 years from when it was a satellite office, then a district office, and now just a single room store with the Red Cross owning the building. The idea that it is not a council service center doesn't seem to have clicked with her. My predecessors used her as their secretary/errand person/associate not as the store manager she is and it seems to have given her an inflated sense of self-importance. She also feels that it is her job to know everything that is going on so that she can tell the units. Too bad that she doesn't know it all and still tries to tell them anyways rather than referring them to those who do. She doesn't get that that is not her job, but mine and Brian's and that neither of us is fazed by phone calls from volunteers--although I do feel like I work in Ojibwa some days when the phone won't quit ringing--stupid popcorn.

My irritation has come lately when she began issuing orders to me and expecting that I would listen. She's not on my org chart. She cannot comprehend that I do not report to her. I don't mind taking marching orders (though I will protest or comment if they don't make sense--just ask Kevin or Steve) but the person giving them has to have the right to give them--aka be above me on the org chart or have earned an immense amount of respect from me. In this job the only people that I take direction from that are not above me on the org chart are my District Chair and Commissioner, otherwise I am responsible for everything that happens in the district beyond internal unit issues and take the blame if there is any to be shouldered. Now I have someone who has no right trying to tell me how to do my job and not even politely. I was going for the avoidance tactic and only stopping at the shop when I knew she wasn't around which worked for a while, but now she has begun trying to order Brian around. As Melissa would know I will tolerate crap flung my way (sometimes literally at Star), but take a dim view when it is flung at my staff unless I am flinging it which is rare.

Which leaves me where I sit now. I talked with the office manager who works in Appleton about it and she understood and agreed with my concerns but we did not have an action plan. Now I see that the situation needs resolution ASAP. I see two paths with similar result--a one-on-one meeting with the shop manager or a facilitated meeting with her with the office manager. I have a feeling that it will be the first option. The hard part is that it isn't open for discussion like she thinks it is and that it will be a paradigm shift that she will NOT like. Tough. It will likely make life more difficult in some ways, but it is the right thing to do. This job would be easier if I were a meek, quiet soul with no spine or just completely soul-less and a Machiavellian asshole like a finance director I know. Not that Machiavelli was a bad guy....

Sorry, I needed to get that out before I do anything about it so that I can be cool and collected when I have to deal with it.

On a more positive note, the first of our fireside chats with units in the district was a resounding success. We had over half of the invited units show up. The idea was to present to them what the district exists for, what our goals and methodology are, the upcoming calendar and to get their feedback. All of the folks who attended were very positive about it and appreciated the up front conversation. The hard part for me was to sit on my hands and let my Chair, Commissioner, and to some extent my associate do the talking. I emphasized a few points, but otherwise watched. It's good for me just difficult to get used to.

I can only hope that the two remaining sessions go as well.

That was way too much about work but no apologies. Hope things are well in your world.

At the Farm

I finally got to take a break this weekend. Thanks to the "floating vacation" day that we are allowed here, I got to take Friday off and head up to the family farm in the UP. I didn't do much there, but got to relax and spend quality time with my dad, grandpa and great uncle. The only downside was that it rained all day yesterday so I spent most of the day inside reading and watching Ohio State destroy Indiana (only game we could get on the TV). I did get to go out hiking this morning with my uncle to try to help him find the corner of one of the 40's. This took some trig and my GPS unit. We came close, but not precisely since I calculated the point by hand without benefit of a basic scientific calculator so I made some approximations. It would have been much more accurate had I had access to an inverse sine function to get the precise heading. Oh well I can find it next trip. The entertainment of the day yesterday was watching the other three guys attempt to catch a field mouse that got into the house. They failed. They then set a snap trap with peanut butter in the kitchen by where it disappeared. Later in the evening we heard the dog rustling around in the kitchen then a SNAP and she came running out to the living room dancing about licking the air. She had gotten the peanut butter but got bit by the trap. Lucky for her she got away without it staying on her tounge. It was amusing.

I will have to try to spend more time up there now that I have made the trek. It's only 150 miles which worked out to about 2 hours and 45 minutes total.

The rest of last week was busy as hell from Monday to Wednesday with meetings all over the place Monday and Tuesday and staff meeting on Wednesday. The staff meeting was interesting for being a relatively calm October meeting. Membership was pushed, but there was little yelling or beating. We are not sure where we will be finding kids, but we're going to keep trying. After the meeting we went to the Scout Exec's house for brats and steak before heading out to evening meetings.

Thursday was not really a work day. It was more of the politicking part of the job as I spent the day participating in another round of our chamber leadership session and attending a YMCA camp fundraising dinner. The leadership session was about Quality of Life in Sheboygan and included tours of the Children's Museum (yes, I climbed through the treehouse and across the Sky Crawl), Performing Arts Center (where they want me to volunteer as a house manager--we'll see), Art Museum--I'll come back to this, and Road America for tours and other sessions. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center was amusing. I actually like art museums for the most part and this one was decent, it had an interesting display of "Dreamscapes", the artist I like most was the ParkeHarrisons. Otherwise there was also an exhibit of the Rhinestone Cowboy. The funny part was that our docent (tour guide) was a retired school teacher that scolded our group twice because we kept wandering off while she was talking--"At least kids don't wander off and know how to listen...". The best part was that it was the Chamber rep and myself that were wandering the worst, at one point ending up in the next exhibit. I couldn't help it, I just don't care what the artists' goal was in their print or what it has been interpreted to mean--I see art and decide whether it appeals to me and, if it does, what it means in my view. If I want more info I'll ask. Road America was disappointing since we could not drive the track due to paving work. I just got new tires this week ($530 later) and thought that that would be a great way to break them in.

I missed the Lions game again today. The damn Packers preempted it locally, at least the Pack lost and to the Vikings. The faithful will be grieving all week. As far as the Lions go, they won. Despite this, Garcia is not the answer. I don't know what it is, but I think the front office needs to look at the whole picture and not blame the QB all the time. Give Garcia a while and the fans will hate him too. We'll see how next week goes. Thank goodness I missed the State game yesterday. That would have been awful to watch, the score and lowlights were bad enough without seeing the whole sad story.

I got approval to take Thanksgiving week completely off so I will be in town from Monday night through Sunday morning. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that before, but now it's official. Hopefully the drive is better this time.

Older

So this marks the first time I have not been in Michigan for my birthday since I moved there as a little kid. There was no fanfare and I had work to do. Oh well, 26 is not that exciting. I will take my time off next weekend to go up to the family farm for a 3-day weekend with my male relatives which should be good.

The MSU-OSU game was disappointing yesterday. I find that I am becoming a State fan (sorry Barry) strangely enough. Maybe it's the whole underdog thing? Anyways it was the coaches fault that that game was a loss. Ohio State was flat out-played especially for having that highly rated defense. Stanton didn't even seem to notice until the end. It's a shame when anything from Ohio gets the upper hand.

I missed the Lions game today--doesn't look like I missed much. From the recap it looks like the defense and Hanson did the work-again, but lost in the end. It's the Lions, I expect no better anymore, yet I still pick them every week. I can dream, can't I?

In my last post I complained about an irritating volunteer. Just when we had decided as a key leadership to fire him, he quit at roundtable. Much easier that way--less hard feelings. He seemed to be expecting me to argue the point then tried to tell me I was doomed to fail. Most specifically that I seemed to want to do it all myself. Obviously clueless. I admit to wanting to know what is going on with each project and agree with its result, but I am way too lazy to want to run them all. However, I am responsible for all of them in the district so that involvement is sensible. It will be nice to have a larger staff of reliable volunteers to work with on getting things going. Brian and I are about stretched to the limit now so it has to happen soon.

On this note, we had an event I ended up running today. It was a cub recruiting event out at Road America--a local race course--where the kids got to watch a private club race on the track, see some police and emergency vehicles and race their Pinewood cars on the nation's longest Pinewood Derby track. Funny thing on the track is that it is privately owned by a guy who hosts a Pinewood Derby party each year for about a 100 people where they race cars built to BSA spec for fun. The track itself represents over a $3,000 investment and the scoreboard is worth $30,000 but was donated.

As for the event, it was mainly my work with the support of my district chair. Today, not one of my commissioners came to help. The only reason that it even worked was that my stand-by troop here came to the rescue--again. At the rate I am going I should just join the troop and be done with it. We'll do the event again next year, but I will have to get a team assembled for it or it just won't work.

I'm looking forward to getting out of town in a few weeks. The week before Thanksgiving I will be going to Texas again for more training. This time on coaching and being a staff leader. Since I have no experience with this...oh wait. I like those kind of courses so it should be interesting. I come back from there on Sunday and will leave that Monday (before T-Day) to come home to MI for the rest of the week. Mark it on your calendar I will be seeking to visit with folks. I'm hoping for a relaxing interlude before going into the home stretch.

Talk to y'all later.

The Shining: A Happy Movie

This is really brilliant. Someone took clips from the Shining and made a trailer that makes it appear to be a heart-warming movie. They should look into a job as a spin doctor.

Who photographs the photographer? Only the Shadow knows.... 

Looks like a GMC commercial, right? 

Bartering with Scouts from a local troop. Hope you like the hat. 

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Right now, "The Ugly" would be a good description of my mood. Not for any particular reason beyond a lack of sleep, whiny people and a long week. Actually though, I usually am grumpy out of exhaustion on the day a camporee ends. That is the main reason I am "ugly" right now, the others I'll save for later.

This was the second camporee the district has held since I got here and thus marks the first time in almost a decade that the district held two in a year. It was a Lewis and Clark theme with events taken from a camporee we did back in Pon-Man in '04 with a variety of modifications. The events were mostly similar as was the dinner featuring buffalo.

Picking up the buffalo meat was different as I had to stop in a town just east of Appleton after a business meeting to pick it up. So Brian and I walk in dressed in nice dark-colored suits into a meat market and completely threw the clerk when we asked for the Boy Scout order. They were nice enough to load it in my ice chest for me so that I didn't get anything on my suit. The buffalo roasts ended up as shreded meat sandwiches for our potluck.

The favored event of the weekend was sharp-object throwing. The scouts got to try their hand at both throwing tomahawks and knifes. I safely observed the procedings from the deck of the building they were doing it in front of. Amazingly no one was injured.

The only event I actually took part in was the bartering event that took place all day. There were five of us "Indian Traders" whom the patrols needed to trade with to obtain the goods that Lewis and Clark traded for on their journey. Each of us was identified by wearing a feather. I actually ended up with many feathers attached to my hat with duct tape (see photo posted after this) and came up with the name "Chief Walks-On-Water...but only when frozen" (last part said in a mumble). My loyal sidekick was Chief Baked Goods (aka Chief Confectionary aka Chief Cupcake) the past chapter chief whose line for the day was "Pastry's got your back, man." The goal for the corps of traders was to get as much from each trade while giving the least. Frankly, we were too good. The final, very funny straw was when a fellow trader got 5 scouts as "slaves" for a horse and a beaver pelt. I had joked about trading for a set of kitchen slaves but thought that was in bad taste. This group of "slaves" had kids from several troops in it who were quickly emancipated but took on the name Slave Patrol and came up with their own theme song and did some miscellaneous work to help with the campfire and earned baked goods for their help. It was a little hard to explain when one of the leaders showed up looking for his Scouts and had it explained that they had been traded for a horse...he was completely at a loss. Priceless.

Overall it was a good event. I got some good picutres of the camp that I will post later this week--it is a neat camp with cool theme buildings. I did sleep out both nights camping with a troop. I guess it is a good sign that another troop commented to the chairman that I had camped with the same troop before and they thought that was unfair. My perspective was that I was invited and that they had the best food in camp--their leaders are excellent cooks and the kids fend for themselves.

My frustrations last week came from cantankerous old people. The first was a volunteer I appointed not long after getting here. He is a retired Army Colonel that hasn't left the old school version of Scouting, but is organized as hell. He has been a bit of a pain since he came on board, but did well with the events he's worked with. This week at our committee meeting he got upset at a decision that had been made without his input and proceded to yell at me during the meeting. Sadly he didn't get up and leave. He refused to even listen to the reasoning behind the decision. This made me very cross. When I saw him this weekend you could have frozen a lake in the chill between us. I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but it has a time and place and outbursts at public meetings are the last place it needs to happen. I'm not blameless since I have not communicated with him as much since getting a chairman on board, but he hasn't tried to reach me either. This will have to be resolved one way or another and both results will be interesting at best.

The other irritating person was the person from our regional office who I had to have lunch with Friday--hence the meeting in Appleton and suit. He is way up my chain of command and makes my teeth grit every time I see him. He represents the worst of the old school BSA mentality of achieving goals at any cost and punishing failure without finding the root cause. Winning for his achievement is his byword. The "me" in Team is all he cares about. I spent almost the entire meal clenching my jaw to keep from laying into him about how backwards and counterproductive his viewpoint was. He seems to like "Yes" men and was decidedly unpleasant and gently scolded me when I did not give him the answers he wanted about membership and money--I didn't even want to discuss it with him since quality and sustainability are just catch phrases to him. Brian was faintly amused at how cranky I was after we left our lunch with him.

Upside, the camporee is done, I only have two night meetings thus far this week. The other good thing is that Brian is growing into his job faster than my best guess and continually impresses me with his ability. I would almost be insecure if I didn't know that I was perfect....

This is funny, but kind of scary when you think about it. Courtesy of an e-mail. 

Musings

I was going to do several smaller posts but decided not to so this might be a bit long.

Curtains:

I got my curtains installed in my room. It actually took getting used to falling asleep in an almost pitch black room. The rest of the apartment is still not very dim due to the parking lot light. The only downside is that the breeze is limited by the curtains. Oh well.

Football:

So I got to watch both the MSU/UM game this weekend and the Lions and was disappointed with both.

First MSU/UM. I thought that MSU might actually win all the way through despite Michigan's strong start. The two missed field goals were a shame. My favorite play though was to see a 6'3", 320+lbs defensive lineman get the ball and lumber it back 60+ yards for a touchdown complete with hurdling a Michigan player at the goal line. I wonder if it was the first touchdown scored by a guy from the American Samoa. Amazing. That guy deserves kudos.

Then there was the Lions game. I can't give up on them and I honestly thought they might win. The defense looked good most of the game until Tampa Bay opened up the passing game. Then there was that last set of plays where Pollard scored until a bad call by the replay booth reversed it. Had the game been in Detroit the ref would have needed armor leaving the stadium. The article on Monday in the Detroit News ("The City of Chumps") was funny and true even if it was a little harsh on the Lions and Tigers.

This whole football pool thing is almost depressing. I'm sure that folks say there is a system to it, but this season seems to be full of surprises. At least that gives me a fighting chance. Oh well, as long as Green Bay keeps losing I will be able to tolerate the fans here.

The obsession has a dark side. Cardboard Farve standees promoting drinking milk are in almost every school cafeteria here--its really creepy. Last week at a round-up I had to keep a group of Webelos from destroying one. They were beating on it telling it how much the team sucks and Farve sucks and how the team darn well better start winning. It was actually kind of funny. Sadly though, these kids were awful young to care that much.

Changing Seasons:

I do love fall. It is just on the cusp of being in full color here despite the unseasonably warm temperatures. My guess is that it will be in full glory by Sunday. When I was driving today (150 miles of rolling farmland and forest with several rivers running through it) it shows potential to be some of the most beautiful fall driving that I have been able to see. I walked outside last week and the smell reminded me that I should be camping. It was that smell of slightly damp leaves with a cool breeze and the underlying crispness of the season. It was funny just how suddenly the thought of camping popped into my head when I caught the scent.

I will be camping this weekend at our camporee. The weather looks great: mid 50's daytime and low 30's to sleep and minimal chance of rain. Camporees are much more fun when you don't have to do anything but be there to solve problems. My plan is to wander around taking pictures and talking to folks.

Hopefully the weather holds for going up to visit the family farm in two weeks.

Honesty:

As I mentioned previously, my district is in a deep hole with membership and units. My automatic reaction (courtesy of Kevin) is to come up with easy, if not ethical, answers and then have my bosses act on them (not Eric). Here though, my bosses don't want anything but solid programs or at least real partnerships. It's a good feeeling, but I still don't quite believe it I keep waiting for them to change their mind.

The other part lately has been that the units and volunteers are finally starting to trust me and my judgment. The true test of this will be in the next few weeks as we develop and propose the district calendar and plan for next year. As opposed to the committee making all of the calls on it, we are taking our message to the people ala Teddy Roosevelt or Harry Truman. We will be holding several "fireside chats" hosted by our chairman, commissioner and Brian and I to give the units the opportunity for feedback on both the calendar and anything else they want. It should be interesting if we can get the attendance which I think is possible simply by being new.

It is this part of being a Director that is fun: having the authority to lead what I see needing to be done and getting support for it even when it is not something from the book or something that we have done before. Too bad that most of them generate more meetings for me to go to even if good comes out of them in the end.

Enough for now.

Round One: Jake 1, Popcorn 0

So I survived the Show and Deliver popcorn pick-up this last weekend. It really was not that bad. The warehouse was interesting being probably 70+ years old in parts and that the office (which I avoided) smells like a really dirty litter box. There had also been a recent accident involving activated charcoal powder (for water filters) that left a gritty black dust everywhere.

The only really irritating part of the project was when the second semi did not arrive when it was supposed to. As I was waiting for it to come I received a call from the driver saying he would be really late and could he come Saturday. Had I been telepathic his head would have exploded when he said that. As it was I had to settle with a crisp rebuttal. Thankfully it showed up in time for the volunteers to show up for staging.

Besides the trucks, we set a new record (in this district) for staging the product--just over 1 hour and had everything cleaned up and all of the helper units product gone in 2 1/2 hours. The scheduling that was greeted with skepticism worked beautifully. Hopefully the next round will go as well minus the delivery issues.