Tag: scouts

He Likes Me! He Really, Really Likes Me!

February 28, 2012 / Robert

I was starting to get concerned. I mean, I’m the Governor’s advisor and all, but lately, Chris and I, well, we’ve lost touch with each other. Ever since that special weekend we shared last November, it’s like he’s been avoiding me, but Chris finally broke the chill between us and wrote me this letter, you know, to let me know how he really feels about me, and our relationship…

State of New Jersey

Office of the Governor
PO Box 001
Trenton, NJ 08625-0001

Chris Christie
Governor

February 7, 2012

Mr. Robert Walto
Pack Number 59

Dear Mr. Walto:

In honor of National Boy Scout Week, I wanted to thank you and your troop for the
invaluable work you do to positively influence the lives of youth in your community.

Since 1910, the Boy Scouts of America has helped mold young men in a disciplined
environment, teaching them the fundamental principles of nature conservation, character
development and the importance of service in one’s community. This week’s celebration offers
an excellent opportunity to recognize the important role that scouting has played in our
communities for more than a century. Scouting has prepared countless youths for productive
lives by fostering within them the importance of citizenship, service and leadership. More than
anything else, however, scouting makes young people feel supported and fulfilled, and the
contribution you make is incalculable.

The future success of our State is contingent on the healthy development of our children
and I commend your efforts to build our next generation of leaders. It is an honor to be your
Governor.

Sincerely,

Chris Christie
Governor

He even signed it himself – I’m so relieved – I thought he wanted nothing to do with me, but I guess he really cares!

Webelos Resident Camp

August 4, 2011 / Robert

Finished up three days of camping with Will at the Webelos Resident Camp at Camp Winnebago Scout Reserve in Rockaway. We drove up on Sunday afternoon for 1:00 PM check-in and orientation, set up our campsite later in the afternoon and ate dinner in the dining hall before meeting up for a campwide evening campfire. We’ve camped before, Will and I, but this was our first time in the canvas Boy Scout tents. We should have been more prepared. Unlike the tent we usually bring from home, the canvas tents basically offer overhead protection from rain, but not much else; the are not enclosed at the bottom nor the sides, and evidently a large contingent of Daddy Long Leg spiders decided to camp there at the same time we did. Will and I were a bit skeeved, to say the least. Our first night of sleep was fitful, but got better on the second and third nights.

Spiders aside, Will had fun. The purpose of the resident camp is to prepare the Webelos for entry into Boy Scouts, and the differences between Cub Scout adult leadership and Boy Scout scout leadership. The week before, Will had attended the Scout Day Camp at Camp Allamuchy, so he’d been doing Scout activities for 1 1/2 weeks.

Monday and Tuesday started off with 6:45 AM Polar Bear swims in Durham Pond, followed by 8:00 AM breakfast in the dining hall. From there, Will and his fellow Webelos skateboarded, raced cubmobiles, played field games, built raingutter regatta boats and leathercrafts, learned about geology, snakes, frogs, newts as well as fishing, practiced their shooting skill first on the BB range, then archery, then back to the pond for more swimming and boating. Back to the dining hall for dinner at 6:00 PM, evening campfires, and finally everyone crawled back into their tents around 10:30 PM. The Webelos took turns waiting their tables, and were responsible for setting the tables, bringing out the food, and clean-up afterward. On Monday evening, they took a 1 1/2 mile hike and prepared their own dinners over a campfire, satisfying several of the requirements for the Outdoorsman achievement.

We woke early on Wednesday, readied our site to pack out, had our final breakfast in the dining hall and a final lowering of the flag out on the parade field, and headed home, tired but happy for our experiences at camp.

Miles of Smiles

July 19, 2011 / Robert

Got home a little over an hour ago; William is day-camping with Scouts next week, and I had to take him up to the camp for orientation and swim-check. Round trip, it was 92 miles from our house. The camp is near Stanhope, way out in Sussex County and not too far from the Delaware Water Gap. It is not exactly in our backyard. Total trip duration: about 3 1/2 hours.

However, the camp provides busing, and a stop is conveniently located not too far from Edith’s work. The camp is still a thirty minute drive from the bus-stop, but it offers a lot of fun activities for the Cubs and Webelos – all the cool stuff that typical 10-year olds want to do but never get to do at home, like shoot arrows, BB guns, slingshots, climb up rock walls and ride down zip lines, etc. Will also gets to work on some of his final achievements for his Arrow of Light badge.

Traffic on Route 80 slowed us down a bit, but we arrived in plenty of time to get done what we needed to. On the way home, I decided to take a more scenic route, down 206 through Morris and Somerset counties. Northwestern New Jersey is pretty rural, as well as fairly mountainous, and I have to admit I love driving on the back roads and admiring the scenic views of forested land, great big fields, and farms. In Summer, it is all quite beautiful, and makes me appreciated how blessed that we are surrounded by it all. Despite the many miles, it was worth the trip.

A Derby Trifecta

January 22, 2011 / Robert

Another year, another Pinewood Derby, another car, another First Place trophy.

Three years running, William is the reigning champion of his Den.

Pack Meeting Fun

May 21, 2010 / Robert

OK, so we’ve got a Pack meeting tonight, and I’m not too entusiastic about the planned activity: cup stacking. I don’t know much about it, other than it is supposedly an up and coming pseudo-sport that helps to enhance eye-hand coordination. I’m just not too sure the Scouts are going to be too excited.

I was therefore trying to come up with another activity, one that would be simple enough to plan with such short notice, but also something the 6 to 10 year old boys would think is “awesome” and “cool!”

That’s when I found this:

Diet Coke and Mentos

There's A New Sheriff In Town

April 18, 2010 / Robert

…but his name is not Reggie Hammond.

This Friday evening will be our first Pack meeting since I became Pack Committee Chairman back in March. We’ve also got a new Cubmaster, so this should be an interesting meeting, since it is our first time running the show. I’m sure we’ll be just fine.

We’re going over camping skills, which might be useful for our upcoming Camporee weekend in mid-May, but it’s kind of tough to get some real camping “activites” for the boys to participate in during a Pack meeting. We’ll see how things go…

Another Day, Another Derby

January 14, 2010 / Robert

W. took first place again today, in this year’s Pack 59 Pinewood Derby. Last year, our first year in Scouts, I was astonished that W.’s car had done as well as it did; this year, I was expecting W.’s car would win. He came up with a design many weeks ago, but we did not get around to start cutting out the pinewood block on the jigsaw until last weekend. We worked on it a bit through early in the week with the Dremel tool, and cut away a little more with the jigsaw, until we had what we thought was a pretty aerodynamic design, with optimal center of mass ahead of the rear axle. W. selected Midnight Blue paint, and I helped with adding tungsten weights (special order from WinDerby.com – highly recommended) and spraying up my clear glaze. We even painted the wheel hubs, for a truly custom finish.

Next is the District PWD on March 13th – I’m not sure how we’ll do, with a much bigger field from all of the Packs in the District, but we’ll see how it goes. Win or lose, it should be a fun time.

Camping at the Delaware Water Gap

May 31, 2009 / Robert

W. and I spent Saturday night camping at Worthington State Forest at the Delaware Water Gap.

We drove out on Saturday afternoon, where we met up with 5 other scouts/families; unfortunately, we arrived just after the larger group had taken off for a hike up to Sunfish Pond. Sunfish Pond is quite a hike – about 6 miles round trip, and would have been challenging for W. to say the least. I’ve hiked up the A.T. at least twice, and the terrain can get very steep and rocky. Instead, we setup camp and hung around until the group returned, then had dinner by the campfire.

The temperatures during the day were pretty warm, but the overnight temps dropped into the 50s, which we got to experience first-hand when W. woke up for a 2:00 AM trip to the bathroom. He really had to go bad, and the dam was about the burst; he did not even have time to put on his shoes for the 100 yard walk, so we grabbed our flashlight and took off into the darkness in just our socks. Brrrr. We were men on a mission, and focused on completing the task at hand without delay.

The pace back to camp from the bathroom was a little bit more leisurely, and I noticed the pitch black darkness that lay just outside the small area lit up by our flashlight, and I remembered the warning signs posted all over the forest about the presence of black bears in the area. I quickened our pace. When we arrived back at the tent we tore off our muddied socks and jumped back into our sleeping bags, where we slept rather fitfully until sunrise at c. 5:45 AM. By 8:30 we had struck the tent, broke camp and were in the car for the ride back home.

This was W.’s first experience with real camping – out in the woods with real wild animals, amid the threats of deer ticks and poison ivy, instead of in the comfort of the backyard. Despite the fact that we missed the hike, he had a great time.

Where on Earth Have I Been?

March 11, 2009 / Robert

OK, so I vowed to be more prolific in 2009, to write more frequently, to be forward-looking, etc… So where have I been for the past month? Let’s just say,things have been, um. busy… Yeah, it’s not much of an excuse, but take it for what it is…

Anyway, now that I’ve got a few minutes, let’s catch up, shall we? The weather around here is finally getting warmer, although it’s been a bit overcast/drizzly for the past three days, which kind of stinks. I’ve already mentioned that I’m not a big fan of this Daylight Savings Time thing. I do appreciated it around June 22nd or so, but the loss of an hour’s sleep, on a night when I’m already up until 2:00AM, does some serious damage to my well being and peace of mind, i.e., I get cranky.

At this rate, I may be cranky all the way through the 1st Sunday in November, when I get my hour sleep back.

What’s been going on? Not too much, really. Things tend to slow down around here in the Winter, and it’s been pretty much the get-up-go-to-work-do-some-work-come-home-do-stuff-go-to-bed syndrome. March is when things start to warm up, the crocuses and snowdrops start to bloom, and the grape hyacinths, mini-daffodils and tulips start to push their heads through the soil. The house gets cooler, since the thermostat doesn’t need to regulate the daytime temperatures as much, and the windows start to open to the first warm breezes of Spring.

W. made his first reconciliation on 02/21, in preparation for his first Holy Communion on May 9 (which leaves plenty of time to commit a few more sins…)

W. and I had a Cub Scout sleepover at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City… All of the packs in the Patriots Path council had the museum to themselves from 6:00PM 02/28 through 9:00AM 03/01. We slept in our sleeping bags on the floor of the Breakthroughs exhibit (albeit lights out was at 11:30PM – lights on at 6:30, so maybe I got 4 hours sleep??) which was a unique experience, to say the least. All in all, it was a fun time.

March is also the birthday month – both K. (on 03/14) and Mom (on 03/29) will be turning the page on another year…

Scouts

January 27, 2009 / Robert

Just got back a little while ago from W.’s Cub Scouts den meeting – the wolves made birdhouses and learned about tools tonight.

I came across a photo from the Pinewood derby, of W.’s car in action on the track. It clearly shows just how far ahead of the rest of the field W.’s car was:

That’s W. on the left, watching his Green Monster car out in front.

Pinewood Derby 2009, Part 2

January 17, 2009 / Robert

And the winner is… W. Really. His car blew away his Wolf Den competition and he won all 4 races by a wide margin to take the 1st Place trophy. In the final overall Champtionship race, held among the 1st place winners of the Tigers, Wolves, Bears, Webelos (2 dens) W. finished in 4th place.

Not too bad for W’s first Derby! Thanks to his 1st place finish, we move on now to the district races to be held in late March!

Pinewood Derby 2009

January 16, 2009 / Robert

Tomorrow morning is the annual BSA Pinewood Derby. Since W. only joined Cub Scouts this past year, it will be our first derby; also since W. only joined Cub Scouts this past year, we had completely forgotten about the derby until one day last week when we received an email at home about the pre-derby workshop being held last Saturday. Unfortunately for us, we were not able to make the workshop, and we had given absolutely zero point zero thought to any actual design for W.’s derby. Until this past Tuesday night, this is what W.’s car looked like:

the derby kit

I felt pretty bad in not having done anything at all with the derby kit we received like 3 1/2 months ago; would it be OK to just bang some wheels on the block as-is and call it our derby entry? Probably not. Besides, being W.’s first derby I wanted to make sure we were doing it right. I had no idea how much work other kids were putting into their cars, but knew I did not want W.’s to look like it was made by an amateur (which of course, he is.) Thankfully, 10 years ago my in-laws had the foresight to present me with a scroll saw for Christmas; I ran out at lunch over to the scout store in Dayton to pick up everything I ever wanted to know about Pinwood Derby car plans, rules and regulations; and I was able to pick up a brand new Dremel tool on the way to work on Wednesday. By Friday afternoon, this is what W.’s car looked like:

The Green Machine

Now, however, I felt bad in that we didn’t start working on this sooner, since most of the work was done by myself, downstairs in my workshop late at night after W. was in bed. About the only involvement he had was in selecting the paint color, and applying the number 1 sticker to the car. He does think it’s a pretty cool car though, and even if we don’t win the derby for fastest car, we’ve got a shot at best-looking. Personally, I think we did a kick-ass job, considering I put this thing together from scratch while learning the rules about lengths and weight and how to polish the axles and lubricate with graphite… we’ll see how the races go tomorrow when they kick-off at 9:00 AM. Even if we win nothing, we both learned a lot in the process, and we’ll be all the more prepared for 2010.

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