Octopus Overlords

Isgrimnur wrote:You know what that C stands for, right?

Was that the guy dressed as a biker? I forget.

I honestly don't. 3 seconds of research will solve that - but until I perform that search, I'm ignorant. Right now I assume the YMCA is a place where kids go after school for babysitting when their parents can't get home before 5:00pm, and where people who can't afford club memberships go to swim in a pool.

*Edit: Yeah, okay.

It may have never entered the equation locally, but I live in Texas, and there's the South, Appalachia, etc. it's going to be very much a YMMV situation from chapter to chapter.

Isgrimnur wrote:It may have never entered the equation locally, but I live in Texas, and there's the South, Appalachia, etc. it's going to be very much a YMMV situation from chapter to chapter.

LordMortis wrote:

Madmarcus wrote: I often wish there had been a similar organization without some of the baggage but all I ever found was even more conservation groups who had been founded when the BSA seemed to progressive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YMCA#Pare ... programmes

Though it wasn't as para-military as BSA.

They did not seem to be particularly active near me when I was growing up or when my sons were growing up. The Y had many programs in both cases but they were after school care similar to Boys and Girls Club without the focus on outdoor skills.

I had someone tell me yesterday that my memes were the best, and it made my day.

Smoove_B wrote:I had someone tell me yesterday that my memes were the best, and it made my day.

Your New Jersey orange is showing.

Ive seen stuff where in competitions or sports that no one loses these days and everyone is a winner. Real life doesn't work that way in the adult world and I dont know why they teach that crap. Do the BSA actually still teach things the right way in that area?

Paingod wrote: Joking aside, I think it's probably something that's flared up now and then, but is impossible to gain traction without some kind of large-scale sponsorship behind it - which is where religious organizations work with Scouts. I don't see Pizza Hut offering a new "Scout Clone" group free usage of their facilities every third Saturday. ...

This is all getting a little R&P, though. I'm sorry if this has offended anyone.

I think you have hit the nail on the head. All civic institutions seem to be losing membership. Rotary, fraternal orders, Scouting, churches. We're all Bowling Aone (I don't want to bother with linking to the book) which makes it doubly hard for a new organization to get the buy in needed to really succeed as an alternative.

There is also what Default mentioned. Both my wife and I have been leaders in Scouting. Our particular pack and troop seems to have no significant issues with scouts or leaders who are fairly obviously gay. So we are willing to work to keep the local group going without really worrying about the levels to far up.

Seeing the word bowling it reminds me there are no more bowling places around me but some kiddy glow in the dark one. Sad.

Paingod wrote:

Default wrote:FWIW, there is no religious doctrine in Scouting. There is "God and Me", but that is done with the youth and his religious leader, not anybody in the troop/pack.

This Article kind of contradicts you, basically stating "Hey, you wanna be a Scout? You gotta accept a God" - calling is a massive failing of Scouting if someone doesn't accept a faith of some sort, since it's a cornerstone of the Scouting agenda.

I'm agnostic or an atheist depending on my mood or who wants to make the distinction. In and around college that might have mattered but it has become clear to me that belief is a personal thing. What matters externally is reverence - a deep and solemn respect. I can respect the idea of God with a clear conscience even if my god is that of Spinoza or perhaps the Tao. My son seems to feel that same way without any issues during advancement.

We've had this discussion elsewhere, but I'm an Eagle Scout and spent exactly 0 minutes doing anything remotely related to religion while part of my Troop. The closest thing you could say we did was have a non-denominational "blessing" before a meal, but even that wasn't universal and usually only done during a large group meeting. As an adult (and in speaking with others that were in Boy Scouts) I've since learned my experiences aren't universal. Our troop was sponsored by a volunteer Fire Department and I don't know if that was part of it, but there you go.

I bet you guys wish 4:30 would come around so I could leave work and get off the computer!

Typing things about the BSA and God reminds me of the weird dynamics in life. I was never a Young Republican type and I've become more liberal as I get older. Yet my students at school think I'm massively conservative because I'll admit to liking camping, know about guns (JA 2 1.13 FTW), and have connections to the BSA and a church. Where do liberal rednecks live?

Urge to kill rising. Lenovo were supposed to be here at least 2.5 hours ago to swap out a failed drive in one of our main servers. 3 calls over their failure to be here 2.5 hours ago and their local tech informs them (not having called me after four requests to do so) that my warranty statement is NBD and not for 4 hours. I was promised another call. Nothing. Business closes in an hour. I won't be here on Monday. My domain controller is in distress.

So now I have no idea what is going on other than my Friday night being completely destroyed no matter what happens and not recourse for having a tech come while I am off site for the next week.

Nope... Still no call...

Is there where I say I love AWS and having a team that has to deal with this crap?

It's not without risk, AWS has had some big issues this year, but it has saved us so many headaches.

coopasonic wrote:Is there where I say I love AWS and having a team that has to deal with this crap?

It's not without risk, AWS has had some big issues this year, but it has saved us so many headaches.

Not my call to make but this won't bode well for Lenovo in the eyes of the people whose call it is to make.

Hard drive replacement in a server is easy. I assume it is hot swap.

I always make sure they send me the drive and swap it myself. Why wait hours for someone to do a sixty second job?

Rip wrote:Hard drive replacement in a server is easy. I assume it is hot swap.

I always make sure they send me the drive and swap it myself. Why wait hours for someone to do a sixty second job?

It will be hot swap and rebuild. It should be easy. But there was a four hour window that was blown four hours ago. The bright side is I finally talked to a local tech who believe he will be on site with the drive in about two hours. He promised a call back in 90 minutes to confirm.

Happy fucking Friday! Why aren't I hourly? Right now I should just use this time to catch up on other work but I'm so annoyed I won't work on anything correctly. When I get in to pissy moods my workmanship is shot.

Sorry about that guys. Didn't mean for my little comment about trying to avoid becoming Scoutmaster make RR turn into a mini R&P.

Anyway. I'm not Scoutmaster. Yet. None of the ASMs want to take the job, so we are still searching, now outside of the troop leadership.

And, while I'm here:

My experiences have always been like Smoove's. I have sat in on numerous board of reviews, including Eagle Scout BoR's, and have never once heard "Belief in God" come up. Not once. When we teach the Scout Law "A Scout is Reverent", we basically teach it to be respectful of other people's beliefs, i.e. "Don't be a dick." Now I assume that those troops that are anchored to LDS congregations are different. But, the LDS church is different, so...

Dae, Scouting is not a competition. It's about taking a young boy and teaching him how to be a young man. The only real competition is how far he wants to push himself, is he content to remain a Second Class scout through his career, and just go camping and stuff? OK. But of course we encourage him to advance as far as possible. You'd be amazed at the extremely wide variety of Merit Badges they can pursue. Heck, I'm a Game Design Merit Badge counselor!

That said, there are always competitions. Start out in cub scouts with the heartbreak that is the Pinewood Derby. And you better believe there is absolutely a winner. Later on, it becomes patrol and troop competitions. Klondike Derbys, Camporees, Shooting Sports events, that sort of thing. But once again, someone wins, someone loses.

And we've never, ever turned a boy (or leader) away for being gay.

So, my .02.

Camporees

I have no idea what that is but now I see Moses Tron and Macaroni art.

LordMortis wrote:

Camporees

I have no idea what that is but now I see Moses Tron and Macaroni art.

A camporee (or sometimes called a camperall) is where you get a bunch of troops all camping out in the same spot on the same weekend, and then the patrols have to go to different areas in the camp and compete in events that test their scout skills. Examples: How long does it take you to build a fire that can boil a cup of water? How quickly can your troop cut through a log using an old cross-cut saw? Follow a map and compass course and plant your flag as close to the destination as you can figure. Build a tripod and platform using only branches, logs and rope that your entire patrol can stand on.

Klondike Derbys are the same as a camporee, but you have a sled that you have to pull to the different stations and haul all of your gear.

And they have first aid meets where the troops compete against each other trying to correctly diagnose an injury and perform proper first aid.

Yep, fun! I miss it, but I have no spare time and my troop (1932!) merged with another, so it's just a memory now.

YES! I finally figured out how to get rid of the Focused folder in my hotmail inbox!

i got my Eagle, but i delayed that as long as i possibly could. i *hated* camping, so Scouting was a total misery to me for most the time i was in it, and made me hate it more.

just to push my boundaries, i went on a camping trip with my bike group last fall (it was at a park where the reception of two of the members' wedding was held). it was the first time i had gone camping since those BSA years, and it was terrible - couldn't get out of there fast enough the next morning.

Tough to get your Eagle when you hate camping! But congrats! You're in rarified company.

dbt1949 wrote:YES! I finally figured out how to get rid of the Focused folder in my hotmail inbox!

Share, dammit!

Microsoft decided to upgrade their system while I was online playing my game. I had to reset the PC.
I really hate MS.

As for Outlook..........go to your Outlook read mail section.
Go to settings (little gear)
display settings
focused inbox
click on do not sort messages
Then curse Microsoft for me.

Cant you turn updates off like all other OSs?

Probably.
I have to go now. MS wants to install another update.

Today would not be the one to start delaying updates.

Ransomware infections are rampant.

MS's forced updates are a pain in the ass. Fiddle with your 'active time', curse at MS, but do not turn off updates. Like Rip said, 75,000 systems in 99 countries just got crushed by a hacker because they didn't install recent updates.

Got some Mountain Dew SA today. Speedy gave me a buy one get one coupon. Man this stuff is really good. You wouldn't think a drink that combines Code Red, White Out, and Voltage would taste so good. Its almost as if its a grape.



I changed my mind. Im not buying this again. It tastes great at the start but the final 3rd of it left a bad taste in my mouth and almost made me sick. Anything with fake sugar upsets my stomach. And for some reason even though they use corn syrup in it for the biggest part they also add 2 or 3 artificial sweeteners in at the end. Cant remember what they listed but its enough to ruin it.

In the middle of playing ESO MS pops up some kind of graph thingy that I had no idea what it was.
I had to drop out of ESO of course to get rid of it.
If I was younger and smarter I'd become a hacker just to fuck them up!

Ambition. Where was it 50 years ago?!?!

Closest thing I had to ambition was join the army and shoot people dead.

dbt1949 wrote:Ambition. Where was it 50 years ago?!?!

Closest thing I had to ambition was join the army and shoot people dead.

They really should have told you that the other side was doing the same thing.

Tell me about it.

Nothing better to drink on a warm day than a lime freeze. 3 large scoops of lime sherbet in a blender and add sprite up to top of sherbet and blend. Drink with straw. YUM.

Looks a bit like this.

Diabeetus in a glass.

Do you wish a transgendered person who had children as a male but is now a female "Happy Mother's day"?

Happy Others Day?

dbt1949 wrote:Do you wish a transgendered person who had children as a male but is now a female "Happy Mother's day"?

I would assume the answer is "no".