Nov 22ndStay Thirsty, My Friends – and Stay Hydrated

Beat the Heat!  Drink water!

I have been hearing these words since the first time I attended Cub Scout residence camp with my boys.  One of the most important things that we do, especially when we are in the backcountry, is to stay hydrated.  As one scout was quick to mention, you can only last three days without water.  Here’s the thing, though.  Staying hydrated is a continual process.  You can’t just take a few sips of water and say, “OK, I’m hydrated now,” then go about your business.  In order to stay hydrated, you have to keep drinking water throughout the day.

We all know this about water, but there are other ways that we need to stay “hydrated” as well, and by hydrated, I mean that we have to continually do these things, every day, many times a day.  One of the most important things we need to do is to keep on learning new things.  You may have heard someone say something about being “thirsty for knowledge.”  We should all thirst for knowledge.  There is an old saying in business, that, if you aren’t growing, you’re dying.  Any business that is not growing, that is not getting bigger, is getting smaller… it’s dying.  I think that we are kind of like that, too.  If we aren’t growing, if we aren’t learning new things, if we aren’t growing into a better person, every day, then we are, slowly but surely, dying.

Nov 18thYour Go Bag

I don’t know if everyone is familiar with the concept of a “Go Bag”.  If you aren’t, it is essentially a bag that is already packed and ready to “Go” at a moments notice.  If you don’t have one ready for your camping/hiking/backpacking trips, I strongly suggest that you put one together.  Take a look at your ten essentials for a start of what you should have in your bag.  That way, when it comes time to head out camping, all you have to do is grab it and GO.  You might end up realizing, as I have, that you need to have different Go Bags for different purposes.  That isn’t, however, the end of it.  I overheard a scout, just the other day, saying that he had been telling his friends what kind of food he made and ate on campouts.  His friends told him that, if there was ever an Apocolypse, they wanted to be with him.  And that made me think.  He was their Go Bag.  I think that is pretty cool – to be the person that other people want to be around, and know that they can count on, in a pinch.  Are you a Go Bag?  Many of the skills that you are learning in scouting are preparing you so that you can be, so if you aren’t a Go Bag yet, think about what you need to do and what you need to learn in order to be that Go Bag for your friends.

Feb 18thKlondike (Polar Cub Winter Camp)

I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone that participated in our Klondike campout this past weekend.  The reviews from everyone that we heard from were extremely positive.  We had packs that had been there in past years with us, and have said that our staff is getting better and better every year, as well as the program that we are providing for them.  A.J. and Miguel on beads, Joseph and Christian (and Michael) on Flag Football, Aaron and Josh on the Scavenger Hunt, Ryan and Justin on the Marshmallow Shooters, Tyler and Roddy on the obstacle course, and Hanz and Alex (and Michael) on the paracord bracelets, and Bobby, acting as our Senior Patrol Leader – you all did an outstanding job.

This is not to say that there is not room for improvement.  As good a job as we all did – there is still room for improvement.  We can always be better prepared.  A special word of thanks to Gale Saenz and her family for all the work that they did making sure that we had all of our supplies ready when we got up there, and to all the parents that made sure that our 14 boys were able to get to Camp Emerson and back.

When we all come together like this, it just shows what we are all capable of.

Feb 12thYou Can’t Win Them All

You have probably heard this more times than you can remember – you can’t win them all. It’s true, you can’t.  Baseball season is coming up, and I can assure you that there is not one player, coach, owner, general manager or even fan that thinks that their team is going to go an entire season without losing.  But I think I an assure you with almost the same degree of certainty that before every individual game, every player, coach, owner, general manager and fan thinks that their team is going to win that one game.

There is no such thing as perfection, but just because you know that you aren’t going to be perfect every time doesn’t mean that you stop trying, or that you stop striving for excellence.  Just because you realize that you are not going to win every game doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go into every game expecting to win it.