Just Another Manic Sunday

After a very late night, unable to sleep, I finally nodded off around 3:30 a.m. I slept until 9:30 or so, and then my daughter arrived for her weekly weigh-in and measuring. (I am training her three evenings a week, and although she has only lost a few pounds, her fat loss and lean muscle gain have resulted in over 19 inches gone so far.) After a quick breakfast, I cleaned up and headed to church to join the choir singing for the annual confirmation service.

From there I headed to the Eagle Scout Court of Honor for young Matt Vendeville. Matt is one of four scouts in Troop 71 who have made the rank of Eagle Scout this year. It was a really nice ceremony, with a plethora of speakers, officials and political dignitaries. Matt's Eagle Project was to build an osprey platform in the Mentor Marsh preserve. The complexity of this project was very high.

The boyscout is required to submit a project proposal to the Scout hierarchy. Once the project is approved, that scout is responsible for arranging all the financing of the project, obtaining all required materials, and finding enough volunteer labor to take that project from plan to completion. The scout is in charge of the project, working with the volunteers and dealing with all the problems that arise during the actual work on the project. Matt did all of these things to achieve the construction of the osprey platform, including solving issues such as how to get the footer to sufficient depth as the marsh water kept filling the footer while they were digging.

Congratulations, Matt, on a job well done!

I know there are those parties out in the world that would condemn all of scouting because of a minority of pedophile adults who seem to manage to get themselves entrenched in any activity involving children, but on the whole and for the vast majority, scouting is a worthwhile activity, with moral, ethical leaders who are concerned with the education and welfare of their charges.