Wood Badge, Fox Patrol

I attended a Wood Badge course in Park City at Snydermill Lodge.  This particular course is lovingly referred to as "Camp Cush" because of the nice facilities.

This was an unusual training because it is the first ASL integrated course.  (You can check out the Salt Lake Tribune article here).  There were 2 Deaf patrols.  There were 3 interpreters and many instructors who know some ASL.  It has been great for me because the ASL I learned at BYU started to come back to me.  I've been able to help interpret a bit between hearing and deaf scouters.  I've taught my patrol some signs and phrases, such as 'nice to meet you,'  'good morning', and of course most important, 'bathroom'.

My patrol is the Fox Patrol.  There are 6 guys (Dallin, Ryan, Daniel, Tony, RJ, and Jeremy), me, and our troop guide Jay.  There are a total of 8 patrols.

We had kitchen duty.  Here is proof that the guys do dishes.

We got to make a rocket and shoot it off.  It was very fun, though our rocket didn't fair so well.

Here we are balancing nails on one single nail.  Can you feel how excited we are at our accomplishment?

The guys doing their Captain Morgan stance.  From left to right is RJ, Daniel, Jeremy, Tony, Ryan and Dallin.

On the last day we did not get in our article for the Gilwell Gazette so the scribes wrote it for us.  They had put that people could get their picture with us for a reasonable price.  So here is a pic of Dave the Scribe and Daniel.

I had a great time at Wood Badge and had a great group of guys.  They were such gentlemen taking care of me: making sure I was OK while hiking, lending me a jacket when it was cold, escorting me to my tent late at night, and Daniel even killed a spider for me.

We got along great and really bonded, we are like a fraternity and will be lifelong friends.  We are planning to get together often in the future.

Overhaul

So today I went to the doctor to have some things checked out.  I needed a physical to attend Woodbadge for scouting and had some other issues I needed looked at. At the end, I felt like a car taken to the shop to get its engine overhauled.

The last four times I've tried to donate blood I've been turned away because my blood pressure was too high.  Sure enough, it was high at the doctor's too.  So he's put me on a hypertension medicine called Zestoretic.  I hope it helps.  Oh, they also did an EKG for a baseline.

I also had blood drawn and they will check it to see if I have diabetes or hypoglycemia.  They'll also check my thyroid.  I was also given a tetanus shot (since I couldn't remember when I last had one and they didn't have any record of giving me one).

Bottom line, I could remedy many of my issues if I lost weight, lots of weight.  Hopefully my blood pressure will come down, I can keep Type II Diabetes away, and my knee joints would be relieved of some pressure.