My B-Day!

[packbat]

Back from Scout Camp, and it's my birthday today! nanakikun bought me a year of Paid Account status, my sister got me DVDs of Lake Placid (Quote: "They hide information like that in books.") and Surviving Christmas!

Also, I kept a journal at Goshen this year. I'm thinking of typing it all in and putting it online over the next few [days/weeks/months]; here's an atypical sample:

8:22 am, Day 5 (Wednesday June 28) [from the middle]

Starting fires with wet wood is a herculean task – sometimes downright Sisyphean. You get an absurd amount of tinder (the old rule is 'enough to fill your hat' – the new rule is five times that), and by dint of either firestarters or many, many matches, you get a little flame started. You cheer. You applaud. You start yelling at your fellow campers: Bring more wood! More wood!

But a strange thing happens. The kindling – the bits of wood just slightly too large to ignite with a match – sit [sic] on your tinder, steaming. You stare. You blow on the tinder – it flares, briefly, but the kindling does not light. You snatch a camp plate and fan at [the] fire, shaking it like the San Andreas Fault. The tinder burns – and finishes burning and starts to die down. Desperately, you shove handfuls of more tinder – More tinder, people! – more tinder, waving [your plate] with frantic energy. You pull the kindling off, pile on more tinder, and fan it, always fan it, in a desperate hope that somehow overwhelming amounts of oxygen will keep the sparks alive. If you're experienced, perhaps you will succeed. Perhaps not.

Actually, if you are truly experienced, you'll split some 2-3 inch (5-8 cm) sticks, to get at the dry stuff inside. With luck, the patrols will do that this evening.

I haven't done much yet – I'm about to check my friends page, then perhaps take up my parents on that free dinner.

Packbat ... out!