Show Comics Religion news Features Editor 625-427- 0 www standard net i"" Classifieds Saturday August Standani Examiner 11 2001 No one wins: Scout camp — by any stretch of imagination — is no vacation In C the interest of truth in a correction needs to made to a gross inaccuracy appeared recently in the just doesn’t matter what you choose - for a kid it will be bad news It r Standard-Examine- Last Saturday in place of this column readers were erroneously informed “ ‘Life at the Top’ columnist Mark Saal is on vacation” Nothing could be further from the truth While I had certainly taken the week off work by no stretch of the imagination could it be construed as anything even remotely resembling a vacation Vacations are fun and relaxing and involve little drinks with umbrellas in them This was Scout camp Following are excerpts from my By TAYLOR FIELDING 7 Standard Examiner staff Well he must o' thought that it was quite a joke And it got a lot of laughs from a' lots offolk It seems I had to fight my whole life through Some gal would giggle and I'd get red And some guy'd laugh and I’d bust his head I tell ya life ain't easy for a boy named "Sue" Well I grew up quick and I grew up mean My fist got hard and my wits got keen I'd roam from town to town to hide my shame But I made a vow to the moon and stars personal journal kept during the That I'd search the honky-tonk- s and bars And kill that man who gave me that awful name week DAY ONE: We haven’t even left the church parking lot and we’re already flirting with disaster One of the boys Jason Persinger discovers a large hornet’s nest in one of the recesses of the trailer we’ll be using to haul our equipment to camp True to the Scout Motto (“Provoking Wildlife Since 1910”) Jason employs the Universal Boy Scout Exploration Method and immediately begins poking the nest with a stick Strangely this angers the hornets Even more strangely all of the boys seem genuinely surprised by the insects’ reaction DAY TWO: Camp Bartlett is every mother’s worst nightmare a dangerous minefield filled with firepits and knives and axes and saws and guns and tall trees and and deep water and all sorts of snarling snapping wildlife OK mostly squirrels But these are angry edgy squirrels hardened by years of Scouts poking them with sticks DAY THREE: Scout leader Chad Wheeler arrives from civilization with fresh supplies - Gatorade Fritos and much more Soon the boys are willing to accept just about any dare for a share of Chad’s junk food Tyler Saal eats the eye from a fish he caught to earn a sports drink Shortly thereafter Thomas Hughes swallows a live beetle for a nachos snack pack Later Kyle Bowthorpe devours a filthy - Lyrics from “A Boy Named Sue” by Shel Silverstein recorded by Johnny Cash umerous books her 30s on the market offer the warm fuzzy sides of baby names - telling parents which names will have their son or daughter at the helm of a Fortune 500 company by his or A new book on the market “Don't Name Your Baby” by David Narter (Cumberland House $795) however offers up all of the bad connotations attached to nearly every name in the book - and may have parents opting for numbered ear tags or designations like "THX-1138- " For starters here’s what the book offers up about the first names of four men from the 2000 presidential election: do I get to George: “Duh George tend the rabbits? Do I? Sure You and I know George was the smart one but hardly anyone else can keep that straight" Dick: “The name for which this book is written! Second grade gold The of baby names Dick has a classic lampoon value that will never spoil with bows-and-arro- pancake that everyone had been throwing around the camp like a softball all morning We’re not exactly sure what Kyle did this one for no one had dared him to do anything We think he was just hungry The madness eventually spreads to the adults in camp Two of the Scout leaders Dave Anderson and Brian Bartschi goad one of the stupider leaders into taking the Dairyman’s Challenge: Drink a gallon of milk in an r hour and keep it down for a This very very VERY foolish leader -who shall remain nameless - didn’t quite make it DAY FOUR: Today an incredibly vibrant-yellobird with a bright red head flits into camp “Look at that cool bird” one boy observes “Yeah let’s get it” several others cry picking up their poking sticks DAY FIVE: Early this morning - the middle of the night really - we finally make our first trip to the emergency room in Montpelier Idaho when one of the boys (undoubtedly fleeing from a rogue squirrel) runs full speed into a tree and injures his wrist To avoid undue embarrassment we won’t divulge his name but we can tell you that out at the trailer the hornets were laughing their stingers off DAY SIX: After a week in the woods our troop members are homeward-bounwith more than 70 merit badges between them Among these being the prestigious Wilderness Survival badge in which the boys learn the answers to important outdoor survival questions like “What should you do if you come across a bear?” Of course as any of our Scouts can readily tell you the correct answer is “Poke it with a stick” No dinosaur footprints were harmed in the making of this Scouting column You can reach Mark "The Milkman” 2 or Saal at ' age” Al(bcrt): "Hey hey hey! It’s Fat Albert!" Joe: “Your baby will think you didn’t have time to come up with a good name so you went for the first one that came to mind Joes don’t want to underachieve but they are well aware their parents expect them to Babies named Joe tend to be fat and bald forever” Wishing you had changed your vote yet? Jim Bird (according to the book “As bland as a pair of chinos and a brown belt As boring as a train nde through Nebraska Big Jim Nothing too exciting here") a professor of child and family studies at Weber State University said most parents struggle with naming their children Illustration by EMILY MARCU 5Standard Examiner “I think this person is catering to that fear" Bird said "It almost doesn’t matter what you name your child” : See NAMES2C half-hou- Grace under pressure: Washers put to the test Buying - this trendy appliance may help you avoid some pain By JIM QUINN Knight Ridder Newspapers it become to wash the house? I joined the growing of homeowners with cleaner brighter siding thanks to the use of a When msaalstandardnet exactly did pressure washer Once available only to commercial qsers home the pressure washer is an appliance - its growth the result of a growing list of manufacturers who produce units designed and priced for consumers Drive through any subdivision on a sunny weekend and you’re sure to find somebody using a pressure washer to clean the outside of the house - a task that our parents’ generation was satisfied to leave to the rain This situation is becoming so common that lots of homeowners are wondering if they should get a pressure washer - and whether they should rent or buy one In an effort to answer these question I spent a day up close and personal with a pressure washer light-dut- y d 625-427- - rather than renting Jim Quinn uses a rented power washer to clean his driveway and home exterior The writer discovered the machines weren't as easy to use as they looked Check the PSI The day began with a trip to a local tool rental center where I asked for the smallest pressure washer available They gave me a washer rated at 3000 PSI which means that water comes blasting out of the end of the nozzle at 3000 pounds per square inch The only reason that number is important is that more powerful washers do a better job of cleaning they also cost much more The washer I rented is actually on the beefy side for consumer washers The cheapest washers available produce about 1000 PSI The really big ones produce 5000 PSI which is powerful enough to remove paint By comparison the nozzle of a typical garden hose produces about 40 PSI Too much power! As a novice user my judgment was that 3000 PSI is literally a blast When I pulled the trigger on the nozzle the first time the jet of water produced so much thrust that it pushed me backward The guy who rented the washer warned me that it was powerful enough to break windows and shred screens I le was right Once when I aimed the nozzle at a shutter it knocked the shutter right off the house ripping anchor bolts from my masonry Later when I was cleaning the aluminum trim around the roof of my carport I was surprised to see it strip off the factory-finispaint h See WASHER2C i |