The garden is looking very green these days, with occasional glimpses of red.
It looks like our mystery tomato plants are producing small “grape” tomatoes.
More radishes are doing well. Thing Two is looking forward to picking them.
The mint has grown quite tall, and the peppermint has blossomed. Walking between the boxes or watering the plants is an easy, quick dose of aromatherapy.
This summer Thing Two started to collect Lego minifigures. For those who haven’t seen these yet, Lego has come up with sets of sixteen unique minifigures, individually wrapped in opaque packages. Like the packs of Star Wars cards back in the day, these goodies pack both a cool minifigure and the thrill of mystery. We like ThinkGeek’s name for these mystery treats: Schrödinger’s collectible.
That said, after a run of bad luck with the random choice, resulting in a soccer team, an artist colony and not much else, we wondered if there were some way to stop choosing artists and soccer players.
The very helpful folks at Math N Stuff guided us through the art of detecting each minifigure’s unique pieces inside the bag, which has worked almost perfectly. (One notable recent incident we were sure we had found a figure we didn’t already have, but when we opened the bag, we found … a soccer player.)
If scrunching the packages isn’t good enough (or if you are looking for any excuse to play with a smartphone), yes, there is an app for that. Mini Collector uses a combination of bar and dot codes to detect which minifigure is in the package.
We like Mini Collector because not only can we keep an inventory of the minifigures we already own, but then if the app detects a minifigure we don’t have, you can opt to keep its identity a secret, and preserve the excitement of the surprise.
Mini Collector is free to download and the support for the first three series of minifigures is included. Series 4 (currently in our local stores) and Series 5 (coming soon) can be unlocked for $0.99 and $1.99 respectively. We love The Oatmeal’s take on buying apps because we too are guilty of spending an unholy sum for our iGadgets, then balking at paying a whopping $1 for an app. (N.B.: Depending on your family, The Oatmeal’s content is not entirely family-friendly; consider yourself warned.)
After seeing his big brother at work, Thing Two set up his own Trading Post in his room, complete with an open/closed sign which he carefully turns at bedtime and when he returns from preschool. Unlike other trading posts, the customer may choose a minifigure, but the storekeeper both assembles and keeps it. Thing One may have to teach him a few lessons in customer service.
Introducing the newest addition to the family blogosphere: Hå has started a blog to share family history stories and vintage photos, and any other odds and ends.
The title, Beware of the Rug, originates from misread street signs or overheard phrases gone terribly wrong. For example, yesterday we were at the drive-through picking up dinner and Thing Two wanted to know what the kids’ meal toy was. We told him, and after a short silence, he repeated back what he thought he’d heard:
“Smurf fingers?”
(So that’s why the “chicken” pieces are blue.)
Look for these stories to pop up on the blog now and then.
So far the blog posts have begun to tell the story of one branch of the family’s origins and emigration to the United States, as well as sharing traditional Norwegian domestic arts. Welcome to blogging, Hå!
Friday night Team Gimlet drove to Camp Pigott for the last time (for the summer) to pick up Thing One and his gear. His first year of camp staff is over! We haven’t had time to hear much about it, but it must have been an overall positive experience, because Thing One already is planning on returning to camp staff next summer, and would like to work on weekend winter camp staff as well.
There was barely enough time to do laundry and catch a little sleep before Thing One and the Gimlet were on their way again, headed to Camp Sheppard for a week of NYLT staff.
Editor’s note: The Gimlet’s friend mentioned in the story below recently celebrated an Eagle Court of Honor for his own Thing One (congratulations!), and while searching for pictures for his ceremony, these photos were found. And no, they haven’t been run through some fancy Photoshop filter or iPhone app: these photographs are genuinely old.
Back in the summer of 1984, I was an 18 year-old who had finished one year of college (one quarter at USU and one semester at UNM), and was waiting to go on an LDS mission. My friend and his parents let me stay at his home while I worked at the same Shell gas station I had worked at during high school. I remember taking all my earnings, buying ten white shirts, and having very little money left after that. I also remember my father reading my mission call to me over the phone from our new home in Albuquerque to me while I was at my grandparents’ condo in Thousand Oaks, CA.
I also remember my grandfather being convinced that my cousin and I were going to do something risky and get ourselves killed just before we went on our missions. My cousin planned to go on a white water rafting trip, but that is another story. As for me, my friend and I went to Idaho to have my uncle guide us on a climb of the Finger of Fate, which Mountain Project.com describes as a “ridiculously cool looking granite spire in the Hell Roaring Lake area” of the Sawtooth mountain range. The previous summer, the three of us had successfully summited the Grand Teton.
My memories of the climb are mixture of vague and unbelievably clear. I vaguely remember the drive to the trail head in my father’s 1981 VW Scirocco (which was soon replaced with a 1984 Scirocco after I left on my mission) I do not remember how close this was to my August 9, 1984 report date to the MTC. I remember the trail and the beautiful peak we were going to climb.
Most vivid though is the memory of my uncle not being able to make the last move on the climb to get to the top of the peak. He is not a big man and his arms were not long enough to reach.
Then I remember my attempt.
I got to the peak and put my arm across the top. The cliff on the other side was about 1000 feet. I imagined myself pulling myself over the entire peak and going over the other side. With that thought, I realized I physically could not force myself to make the move. At that point I realized in spite of all my dreaming and working toward becoming a great alpinist, I did not have the drive or recklessness to put my life on the line any farther.
I remember my arm across the rock and the look across the top of the peak, but I could not quite get there. My friend couldn’t make it, either.
We climbed down the mountain without summiting and you can tell from our expressions on this last photo that we were disappointed.
At that time, I might have believed that I was done with mountains, but mountains weren’t done with me. After my mission (nicknamed “The Mountaintop Mission“), I returned to Idaho, and with my uncle, I climbed the Middle and South Tetons. Later I summited law school, but in retrospect I often wonder if I should have kept up with mountains of granite, ice and snow. Now, to steal a thought from Timothy Egan, I live in a city where (on a clear day) I can look around me and see three national parks at one time: Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic.
Links for fellow armchair mountaineers:
See all the photos from this year’s scout camp in the Gimlet Gallery.
Another summer camp has come and gone. The staff at Camp Pigott is great and the facilities outstanding. I am not just saying that because Thing One worked there all summer!
Monday August 1, bright and early we gathered 16 scouts from Troop 175 and headed off to Camp Pigott. It is about an hour drive there. We arrived just in time for the flag ceremony and breakfast.
After breakfast, the scouts quickly dropped our gear at our campsite and headed off to merit badge classes.
Once the scouts were on their way, I had work to do in my capacity as District Training Chair. I headed down to the chapel where I was helping to teach an Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills course.
An experiment in providing the course to Scoutmasters and Asst. Scoutmasters at camp. On Tuesday I taught knife, axe, and saw safety. I had to bring my axe unsheathed because the sheath that was on the axe disappeared once my scouts got hold of it. “Imagine there is a sheath on this axe.”
On the topic of safety, our most serious injury during a Scout camp occurred this year.
| …continue reading Scoutmaster’s report: Camp Pigott 2011
Every week we’ve been sending a care package of homemade cookies to Thing One while he’s working on camp staff. This past week the Gimlet was at camp too with his troop, so we baked a double batch. Little did we know where the cookies would end up!
A Japanese scout troop from the Hyogo Council was settled in the camp site next to the Gimlet’s troop. The Gimlet will write up his scout camp report with more details about their neighbors later, so for now we’ll just mention Thing One’s part in the story:
The Japanese troop needed to leave camp one day early to catch their return flight home, so the two troops met for patch trading Thursday evening. When Boy Scouts from other states, regions, or countries gather together it’s traditional to exchange patches, neckerchief slides, and other small souvenirs. For example, Thing One exchanged patches and troop T-shirts with scouts from other states at the National Jamboree last year. At World Jamborees, scouts will usually bring extra unworn uniforms for the sole purpose of exchanging their country’s scout uniform for those from other countries.
In addition to patches (hastily mailed from home along with the cookies, which were shared with the Japanese troop), Thing One brought one of his Jamboree uniforms to the exchange. It not only featured the Jamboree patches and shoulder tabs, but also the special T’Kope Kwiskwis Order of the Arrow 100th anniversary commemorative patch, an NYLT patch and of course his Eagle Scout rank.
Several of the scouts were very interested in trading for this uniform with so many unique patches, and one of the girl scouts moved faster than the others to seal the deal. They signed the backs of their uniforms, and the exchange was made.
With the help of this scout patch guide we were able to figure out that she is the equivalent of a First Class scout and a patrol leader. We don’t know what the little blue and yellow patches with trees represent, or the little round number pins. Thing One earned similar number pins in Cub Scouts as part of the pack’s literacy program but these were probably earned for different achievements. The Gimlet’s best guess is that the pins designate number of years in scouting.
Thing One was already pleased to have his staff hat and jacket as souvenirs from his first year of camp staff, but this uniform and the patches he traded for are unexpected and very special mementos.
We thought last summer was dismal for gardening, but this summer has been so dark and damp that the best growing crop in Thing Two’s planter box is mushrooms. The mint and chives are also thriving; in fact the peppermint is nearly as tall as Thing Two. A few of the tomato blossoms took, so we’re watching the tiny green tomatoes and hoping for more sun. Thing Two has also been watching two radish tops, and this weekend we decided that the larger of the two wasn’t going to grow any bigger, so we might as well harvest it.
After posing for pictures we had to sample our garden’s bounty. We managed to cut the radish into three pieces to share. Thing Two decided it was “very spicy”.
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