Besides not posting on here, I've been a busy boy!!
I finished chem!
I started chemistry back in September with my friend David. We met every Tuesday we could and did our tests, experiments, tutorials and debate deep question (like "do the first and second laws of thermodynamics prove that a solution, that is going through an endothermic reaction, can be used for shielding to protect from harmful amounts of gamma radiation???") before we left for scouts.. and Trail Life. We started off doing a chapter over the course of two weeks, but decided that we were awesome enough to do one every week, thus ending us half way through the school year and leaving the co-ops behind in t he dust and probably setting a new record for completion of that curriculum. So to you stuck in those boring classes that only slow you down, I say what I yell at the top of my lungs at every school bus that passes: "So long, Suckers!!" (Yes, really! I do!) Physics, here we come!
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| Doing an experiment with NH3. |
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| Wondering why it didn't go boom... |
Supporting Advil!
Ok, I have to be honest. When Dave and I do together, we did chem for an hour to two hour max in the four hour time bracket that we had. The rest of the time we spent hiking or promoting Advil... making music, that is. Yup, we would jam the day away! He would bring his electric guitar and amp and I'd grab my drums on the iPad and crank up the tunes of my prerecorded songs on the piano and we would let 'er rip! Dave, by the way, is a total self-taught boss on the six string... and a couple different four strings, too! So, because of our wide spread fame... ok, you can stop laughing now : | ... we were asked to play with our buddies Ben and Christopher at their older sister's pancake breakfast fundraiser for her missions trip out west and to Mongolia. We gladly accepted! So, on the first of this month, we played from 7:30 to 12:00 almost straight! It was awesome! we did an assortment of hymns, praise and worship songs, folk, western, some compositions and a lot more including and impromptu version of Pirates! Near the end of our performance, the church drummer (We were in a church, by the way) asked if he could hop in with some percussion! It was awesome! We even have a name for ourselves now: "Ivory and Steel." Get ready, cause we are gonna rock the nation!
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Playing at the pancake breakfast.
L-R: Myself, Dave, Ben and Christopher
Please note that none of us were really expecting to have our
picture taken. That is why we look so awkward! |
My Life in Trail Life!
Shortly after the beginning of the year, our paper work went through and BSA Troop 777 was officially transferred to Trail Life USA. Hello TLUSA NH T-0777, Barrington! I was moved from my position of Instructor to Second Officer. For those who are familiar with Patrol Structure in the BSA, Second Officer (SO) is equivalent ASPL. In other words, I'm the second in command to the youth leader, Ryan, our First Officer or FO. My job is to back up Ryan when he needs it, run and plan the advancement for each week and work closely with the Unit Quarter Master (QM) and Patrol Leaders (PLs). It's fun and it gives me a chance to grow while teaching. Tomorrow night we will be fire building while working on our Fire Ranger Badge. TL also give the older Trailmen, called the Adventurers, a chance to get out and do some high adventure activities every three to four months out first activity is going to be liking the Blue Hills. It is a range of mountains, hills and cliffs that spans three towns, including mine, and is and over all distance of about fourteen miles. The second to last peak is is that of Parker Mt, the mountain that I did my Eagle Project on. We are planning on either doing and over-nighter or and all-nighter! There is no trail for the majority of it, only many separate trails that would need to be connect by bushwhacking. I'm really looking forward to it and can't wait to do it! I think our second adventure is going t be jogging (Yes, jogging) the White Mountains.
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| That's me! |
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A day event we had behind my house
with the troop a few weeks ago. |
Getting Out and Hanging Out!
Over the past few weeks, I've been spending a lot more time outside. From hiking to fire building to sleeping under the stars. Last Tuesday, since I didn't have chem, I invited my buddies Eli and John over to do some outdoor stuff. We snowshoed out along the power lines that abut out property a found a hemlock grove to duck into. We then decided to build a fire and set up a shelter. Our fire was great and Eli did and awesome job setting up the shelter. We hung out there for about and hour and then hiked back to leave for scouts.
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| John! |
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| Eli! |
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| Me! |
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| The snowmobile trail along the power lines. |
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| Picture from the same spot, just in the other direction. |
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John and Eli next to the shelter and fire!
Good job, guys! |
That evening at the meeting, I volunteered to go scout and area for a campsite behind one of our Trailman's homes. His family owns thirty some odd acres of land, the majority of which is thick hemlock wood with who knows how many miles of logging trails blazed through it. I scouted it out with my friend Caleb, the Trailman who lives on the property. We located the campsite, then scouted the edge of a pond. We then returned to the campsite and built a fire. (Two days in a row for me! :) It was an amazing fire considering that it was about fifteen out, very windy, there was snow on the ground and that we started it with one strike - ONE STRIKE - with rod flint and steel! Amazing! The fire was extremely hot and, because of the wind, got huge very fast! We used what I call The Table Fire, where you lay smaller sticks (about an inch in diameter) across large logs (about four inches in diameter). Then you build a log-cabin on top of it and start it on a nest of dry Beech leaves and Hemlock twigs. It is an awesome cooking fire and, if you angle the base logs correctly with the wind, becomes forest fire grade almost instantly! That is why I normally build that fire on snow or in the rain! After building the fire, Caleb said he wanted to teach it to his patrol at the next meeting! he taught it to his patrol last Tuesday and, once again, nailed it with one strike of flint and steel! His patrol then went and tried the fire on their own, having equal success! These guys are awesome! They are the type of scout that make Instructors like me jump for joy!
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| Caleb next to his boss fire! |
Moving on, Friday evening, at about 5:45, I got a call from Jeremy, one of our Eagle Scouts that joined the troop shortly after me! He is not someone you want to get on the bad side of since he has mastered almost every outdoor skill that exists, is one of the fastest, if not the fastest, runner in the state of NH (I'm not kidding!) and is training to be a Navy SEAL. There isn't a task that I haven't know him to accomplish if he put his mind to it. Anywho, he called me up and wanted to know if I wanted to camp out that night. Of course, I said yes! He came over me about fort-five minutes later. (Yes, I can pack in less than forty-five minutes! ... Ok, my bag already had everything besides my sleeping bag in it! :P) So we had some home-made pizza then went out and hike three miles along the power lines (in less than an hour, by the way) and then stopped and built a fire and dug down into the snow to make our beds. (Yes, it was only 12 degrees out Friday night and yes, we did sleep under the starts!) We stayed up until about 11:00 eating hot dogs and getting fire wood and a lot of it! We had a pile of logs that were about five feet long. We wanted to keep the fire going all night long, so the more we had, the better we were. The moon and starts were beautiful! We watched the clouds rolling in from the south, meaning it was going to be a nice day the next day. (Ok, we listened to NOAA before we went out! We aren't that amazing at knowing the forecast from the sky!) The next day, we got up and found that a Bobcat had come into camp during the night. We had oatmeal and then hit the trail. My neighbor, a huge outdoorsman, told me about a series of caves a few miles behind my house in some really thick woods. We determined that we wanted to find it, so we threw on our bags, grabbed our fixed blades (Didn't know if Papa Bear would be snoozing inside...) and hiked out. we followed a trail for about a mile and a half, then pulled out the TOPO map and bushwhacked the rest of the way, following a bearing. We didn't end up find the caves, but we were close! We did find some really cool rock formations and a cliff loaded with probably twenty porcupine dens! We also found a White Tail Highway and a low, hardwood gorge that we could see everything inside from the cliffs we were on. We saw only nine deer, but saw enough sign to belong to WAAAAY more than that! We bumped into my neighbor out cross country skiing on our way back and he told us we were only about two to three hundred yards from the cave! We were so close and missed it! We are going out here again!
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| Bobcat Track! |
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| Jeremy next to the first cool rock formation we found. |
BSA and Eagle Courts
After I got in at about noon on Saturday, I had a hair cut and then took a two hour nap before I had to leave for David's Eagle Court that evening at 6:30. Dave got his Eagle back in November and had his ceremony Saturday. His project was providing backpacks and school supplies to children in Zambia. Great job Dave!
Speaking of the BSA, I'm actually still a member of it. In fact, out scout troop still exists. It is only six of us, four of us are Eagle's (Paul, Ryan, David and I) and the other two are Life (Nick and Mason) and are the reason that we still exist in the BSA. Both Mason and Nick wanted to get their Eagle's before transferring to TLUSA. In order for them to do that, they still need to be in a troop and in order for the troop to exist, it needs at least six scouts to recharter. I'm happy to still be part of the program because it gives me an extra year to work on merit badges and get my last two remaining palms!
So there you have it! What I have been doing lately!
