That about sums up the weather for the day today.

Big Event is great, but when the weather is like this it kind of puts a damper on it.

University of Scouting for the Great Salt Lake Council will be held Saturday, December 6th, 2008 at Murray High School.

Additional details here.

This will be my 3rd year attending University of Scouting.  Last year I earned my “Masters Degree” and I’ve completed 2 or my 3 “tickets” for my Ph D. so far.  There are a lot of helpful classes taught there.

My first year in attendance I went to the Varsity Leader Specific Training, which helped me to gain a better understanding of the Varsity Scouts which at the time I oversaw.  At the time that was all of the training that was required of me, but they encouraged us to attend Wood Badge.

That very day I went home and signed up for Wood Badge.  My responsibilities within the Varsity organization have also changed and I’m now the Coach, which meant additional training, which I’ve since completed.

I went to University of Scouting last year and was able to focus on many of the other Varsity Scout related items.  I haven’t seen the schedule for this year (yet) but I’m sure that I will continue to do the same.

Pow Wow will also be held for the Cub Scout leaders at Juan Diego High School on November 8th and 15th.

Additional details here.

If you’re in the council I highly recommend that you attend the appropriate event.

It has been a long and grueling week.  For once, it’s not because I’ve had to put in mega long hours at work.  In fact, work has been pretty even keeled lately, which has been nice.

No, this week was the week of Scouting in my household and I’m exhausted at this point.

Since Tuesday night I had something Scout related going on every night/day until Saturday.  It all started with a Flag Ceremony at the local school board meeting on Tuesday, our normal meeting night on Wednesday, Roundtable (which I teach at) on Thursday, a camp out on Friday, and the Scout-O-Rama all day on Saturday.

Throw all of that in with the regular crazy weeks around my house and things were a bit more crazy than normal.  I’m thankful that this week is behind us.

One of the best things about the week is that I finished up all of my Wood Badge tickets on Wednesday.  It feels great to be finished.  Looking back on what I’ve been able to accomplish over the last 11 months, I’m amazed.  Not in my own ability but in how everything managed to come together.

On our course it was mentioned that completing your tickets is a lot like completing 5 Eagle Scout projects.  I’m much more inclined to believe them

I’ll be receiving my Wood Badge beads in a couple of weeks and will be sending our invitations (well most likely an email invitation) with the event details soon.

Now I just have three more “tickets” to complete for University of Scouting.  One of which will be complete in the next few weeks, the other in September and the third by the first week of December.

The list of things that I need to do continues to grow.

Things that must get done:

1. Fix/Adjust the blinds on every window in the house
2. Paint many walls/rooms.
3. Hang many things on said newly painted walls.
4. Clean up/out my sanctuary…errr….garage.
5. Finish and Paint the walls in the garage.
6. Add shelves and organize the garage.
7. Work on finishing the basement.
8. Finish redesigning/installing the home network.
9. Finish setting up new home Firewall.
10. Finish setting up new home fileserver.
11. Fix damage done to house this winter.
12. Finish Mud Room Bathroom Shower.
13. Finish Mud Room Lockers.
14. Fix broken door knob.
15. Put up fence around yard/house
16. Finish Fountain and Pond in front yard.
17. Put in Flag Pole in front yard.
18. Finish flower beds in front and back yards.
19. (Start &) Finish RV Pad and gate.
20. Rotate tires on all four cars.
21. Change oil in all four cars.
22. Fix nail pops and other various types of wall damage within the house.
23. Caulk the bathrooms and kitchen.
24. Deep clean kitchen tile floor.
25. Setup computer(s) for kids to use while doing homework.
26. Get Truck trailer lights and brakes wired.
27. Get Van trailer lights and brakes wired.
28. Get into MBA school.
29. Finish MBA school.
30. Finish Wood Badge tickets.
31. Finish University of Scouting tickets.

and the list goes on.

Here is a list of the hobbies that I would like to take up or do more with.

1. Get a Snake.
2. Get a Motorcycle.
3. Learn to be a better cook.
4. Get a Shotgun.
5. Go Clay Pigeon shooting with said Shotgun.
6. Go Camping (more often).
7. Go Backpacking.
8. Do more Mountain Biking.
9. Pick up Basketball again.
10. Pick up Softball again.
11. Get a Black Powder Rifle.
12. Go to target range with said Black Powder Rifle.
13. Get a 22 rifle.
14. Go to target range with said .22 rifle.
15. Take up fishing.
16. Do more woodworking.
17. Learn to weld,
18. Buy snowmobiles.
19. Go Snowmobiling.
20. Tour the world riding the worlds great Roller Coasters.

As you can see the second list is shorter, so I’m thinking that I should start with that list first, though I think that my wife has other thoughts on the subject.  She may even veto many of the items on the second list.

As I’ve mentioned previously (here and here) I recently attended both Wood Badge and University of Scouting.  I went to University of Scouting for the first time last December.  It was at that time that I took the Varsity Leader Specific Training and “earned” my Bachelor’s degree there.  They encouraged us to sign up for Wood Badge, which I did the following day.

I attended Wood Badge in May of this year and loved it.  I’ve been working on my five tickets for the last 6 months or so and am making steady progress.  I hope to have all of them completed in the next 5-6 months.

I also attended University of Scouting again yesterday.  It was my “Masters” degree year, or in other words I had attended classes for two years.  Part of the Masters year is to come up with three additional items (much like Wood Badge tickets) to work on over the year.  Then next year when they’re all completed and you attend classes again you earn your “Doctorate”.

So now I’m essentially working on 8 ticket items that all need to be completed by around the same time (November 19th for Wood Badge tickets and the first Saturday in December for my University of Scouting tickets).

If all goes well I won’t be frantically trying to complete all 8 items at the same time, but they will all keep me busy over the next year.

It’s a lot to do, but it’s all very needed.  Here’s what I’m working on.

Wood Badge:

1) Teacher’s Duty to God requirements.  I’m about 70% done with the requirements, but still have quite a bit to do.

2) Diversity Activity.  I’m working on putting together an activity that will help the Varsity young men to understand Diversity a bit more.

3) Roundtable Attendance and Assistance.  I’m attending the District’s monthly roundtable meetings and am assisting as much as I can there.  I had actually set the requirement for myself to be there 8 out of 12 times, since June.  I’ve been there each month, which means that I only have a couple more months to go.  I also am assisting during the monthly meeting and during one of the semi-annual Leader Specific trainings which was held in September.

4) Conduct the Team’s Annual Planning Conference.  I’m currently in the process of putting together the Annual Planning Conference which will be held within the next couple of weeks.

5) 360° Evaluation.  The requirement is to put together a 360° evaluation that you then have the participants in one of your other Ticket Items complete and return to your Troop Guide.  I’m working on putting together the evaluation now and will present that for completion at the Annual Planning Conference in a couple of weeks.

University of Scouting:

University project: I’m volunteering to do what I can to recruit others, specifically in my home unit, to attend University of Scouting next year and have volunteered to assist in anyway possible for the event next year.

District/Council project: I’m volunteering to assist with the April Varsity Leader Specific Training for the District and I’m volunteering to help with the Council Jamboral in September 2008.

Personal/Unit project: I’ll be working on getting the team organized and functioning more smoothly and to be holding the Team Leaders Meeting on a regular basis.

So there you have it, my Scouting goals/tickets/projects that I’ll be working on for the next year or so.