Mín Englisc Blog

Tomorrow is April Fools' Day.
Dad left around 9:15 this morning to pick up Mr. Bump. From there, they were heading (1) to Sidney, thence to (2) Dayton, thence to (3) Indianapolis, thence to (4) Bloomington, where Presbytery is meeting through Saturday. Please pray for their meetings; Dad says that a difficult disciplinary issue has come up, as well as various other problems.
Mom had Isaac and me back outside working on cleanup this morning. We finished the lawn we didn't complete yesterday before working on the hardest one of all, Mr. Hughes'. As we were nearly done, he returned home and insisted on paying us $10 more than normal for the work. It's nice finally to be earning money again!

What wonderful weather today! We had a temperature of 75º this afternoon — barely a week after the end of winter. A pity that we'll probably be back to winter by the end of the week.
Because of all of this great weather, Mom had us outside most of the afternoon; with ten lawns to mow this year, we needed to do cleanup from January's ice storm. Although most stuff was small, we had several large branches, and we were nearly overwhelmed with tons of the small stuff. Even though we didn't plan to do our lawn and one other, we still have one lawn and part of another to go.
For the first time in my life, I now have a pocket watch. However, it's not what you think of, a big gold watch on a chain. This is my old standard $18 watch, newly converted into a pocket watch due to the failure of a part used to hold on the watchband. I hope to get a new watch (with band) soon.
Pray, please, for the meetings of Presbytery, tomorrow through Saturday. Dad and Mr. Bump leave tomorrow morning. Since the meetings are to be held at Bloomington, they'll have a long drive, more than four hours.

In case you wondered about the previous post for today, I simply changed the date on one from two days ago. This was due to a problem with Blogger; I was unsure whether it would let me publish an entirely new post.
Please pray for Charity Blackwood. Today, while riding a horse, it threw her, causing her to land on her head. Although she suffered a concussion and related problems (headaches, etc.), she has had no serious injury, and nothing else seems to be wrong. Give glory to God that he preserved her from serious injury!
Tonight was our latest Court of Honor, where awards are presented. We had few rank advancements, and most of the merit badges that we earned recently could not be presented due to the usual slothfulness at Council offices. Still, everything went very well. It was held at our church, which worked decently well for the occasion. As the master of ceremonies, I had to preside over everything, and people told me that I did decently. Furthermore, we had a ceremony to install two new patrol leaders (Chris St. Felix and Jaycee Murray, brothers), the new assistant senior patrol leader (Matthew Bump, from church) and the new senior patrol leader (me). What made the night better was that we had 16 of 19 members present; the only ones not there were the outgoing senior patrol leader, who had a track meet; a member who hasn't been to anything in four months; and a member who's in process of moving away. Matthew, Isaac, and I were all presented as having received the God & Life award. All in all, a very successful night.
Dad's brother and sister-in-law — my Uncle Charles and Aunt Debbie, who live an hour south of Columbus — met us in Bellefontaine for lunch. After that, we walked around town, looking at the remaining damage from January's ice storm (cleanup will likely occupy most of tomorrow) until it was time for the ceremony at church. Sadly, they had to go home afterward, but we still had a good time with them here.

As in previous days, today has mostly been reading and stamps. Only one other thing has happened here at home: I finally filled out an application for a small scholarship. I'm nearly done with Essentials in English History, a high school textbook published around 1900. I'd be far from done with that book, except for one reason:
Today was my annual checkup with Dr. Josip Terebuh, my ophthamologist. Since the appointment was for 3:00, we left around 2:40; we returned somewhat later than expected — 5:15! Dr. Terebuh needed to dilate my pupils as part of the examination, so I had to sit, waiting, for at least an hour. It's not the doctor's fault — or anyone else's, for that matter — but I still was somewhat annoyed.
Dad and Mom went to lunch in Bellefontaine today with the Methodist pastor and his wife. They had a good time, but it kept Dad from working; between going there and taking me to the eye-doctor, he was gone almost all afternoon.
Tomorrow evening is our troop's Court of Honor. Isaac and I have a total of eleven merit badges to receive, and we both will receive cards for the Life rank and patches for earning the God & Life medal. Furthermore, I will officially taking office as the new senior patrol leader — the top elected boy in the troop. Dad's brother and his wife (my Uncle Charles and Aunt Debbie) plan to come for lunch and stay overnight. Although it will be nice to have them here, the reason they are is not nice; my aunt's illness has kept them from going to Italy this week.

Happy Easter!

Today, after church, was supposed to be our ceremony for the God & Life award. The plan was for Dad to present the medals immediately after worship. As well, we had invited the entire troop, and several families had indicated that they would come or were inclined to come.
As well, we expected other visitors. A family of three from Cincinnati has visited here on a few occasions, and they planned to attend. When we have lunches, like this week, we usually have a family of six from Bryan, in the corner of the state with Indiana and Michigan. Furthermore, the Morton family was hosting a family with ELEVEN children!
Since none of these expected visitors were coming for class, we were unsurprised to see only normal people at that time. As class ended, families began arriving: first the Damerows from Cincinnati, and shortly after that the Mortons with their guests. However, no more visitors arrived. Throughout the service, nobody except for members and regular adherents appeared.
Despite the fact that absolutely noöne from the troop was there, Dad elected to go ahead with the awards, denying my request to postpone until next week. As it ended up, Mr. Stoner arrived shortly after the end of the ceremony, but he and his family were the only ones.
Overall, although I'm pleased to have this award, I was thoroughly disappointed with the attendance. Not that it was bad for a normal week — we had sixty people, compared to an average in the low-to-mid 40s — but we had expected far more. If everyone whom we expected had attended, we would have had nearly eighty people, and we had hoped for more.


BLOGS
1. Rebekah*: 7.
2. Bekah*: 7.
3. Nathan: 6.
4. Katie: 6.
5. Anna: 5, including a picture.
6. Becca: 4.
7. Charity: 1.
8. David: 2.
9. Brian: 1.
10. Grace: 1.
11. Joseph: 0. Last post 11 March.
12. Abby: 0. Last post 6 March.
13. Allen: 0. Last post 3 March.

Today, I've done really rather little. Since returning from church this morning, I've delivered two boxes of popcorn, gone to Bellefontaine, and played a bit of Age of Empires II on the computer.
Dad and Mr. Henline (our Scoutmaster) met in Bellefontaine with one of the unhappy members of the troop — thus my going there. Since I wasn't involved with the meeting, I did some genealogical work for Mrs. Trumbull, but everything was useless.
This morning, as I mentioned previously, we had our congregational meeting. Overall, most matters were fine, although we had problems and some sharp disagreement on one issue. Among other things, one lady has asked about the possibility of the congregation paying for us to get always-on Internet. Please pray for our finances; as Dad says, the building needs work beyond our financial means, and we don't have the money to build a new building right now.

Happy Good Friday!
Overall, today has been decent. Like previous days, I've put a lot of work into stamps; today's work included various old European colonies in Africa and some short-lived anti-Communist states in Russia. Besides that, I've done rather little.
While Dad and Mom were in Bellefontaine, a lady from here in town called, asking if we had any more Scout popcorn to sell to her husband. Since all of the remaining stock is over at the house of the former Scoutmaster, Mr. Stoner's, Dad took me over there after supper. Although the popcorn was quickly loaded into the car, we ended up staying over an hour. Most of this time was due to my talking with Mrs. Stoner, who has done much genealogical work, about the Trumbull family I mentioned yesterday.
This evening, Isaac has seemed to develop a cold. Pray for him; this is the first illness any of us have had in a long while.
Tomorrow morning is our annual congregational meeting. Hopefully, this is the last year that meetings will be conducted in the old standard manner, since Synod approved changes last year — but that's beside the point. Please pray for harmony as we discuss some potentially fractious issues.

This morning I did something I've never done before: calling into a radio talk show. Mike McConnell, whose show is on from 9:00 to noon on 700 WLW Cincinnati, was talking about scholarships and financial aid. Since his big focus was on the fact that athletic scholarships generally are more generous than academic ones, and since I'm a "victim" of that truth, I decided to call. You can imagine that I was nervous, but Dad and Mom said that I sounded decent on the radio.
By the way, WLW is audible, at this time of day, both here and in Carmel, Indiana. A pity none of you had a chance to listen.
Other than that, relatively little happened today. We went to Bellefontaine tonight, which was basically Fazoli's and Walmart. After we returned, my uncle called and talked with me for an hour. Other than that, I've done practically nothing of interest, except
As part of this Glasgow project, I've worked on correcting errors. One lady, who has helped greatly with one error, discovered that I live near where she would like to do some genealogical work. Since she helped me, I decided to aid her by biking up to Northwood, three miles south and 250 feet higher in elevation. Although the ride was tiring — seven miles on my first real ride of the year — I got plenty of information, and hopefully it will be useful to this lady.

BREAKING NEWS: It appears at this minute that Governor Jeb Bush of Florida will take Terri Schiavo under his guardianship. As a ward of the state, her feeding tube would quickly be replaced.

Today has mostly been occupied by work on stamps; I didn't even eat until nearly noon! I've made a bit of progress, completing pages for three countries and mounting the stamps on them, as well as working on some little "countries" such as the states of Australia. Before the country was unified in 1901, each of the six states was a colony that issued its own postage.

Tonight was the only event of the day — the troop meeting — but it made up for the rest. All elections, both troop and patrol, were tonight; we elected a senior patrol leader [president], assistant senior patrol leader [vice-president], and two patrol leaders [group leaders]. I'm glad that I finally was elected to the SPL position, which I expect to hold until I leave the troop for college. The boy I endorsed for ASPL lost, however, and I'm rather disappointed with the result of one patrol leader election. As a result of tonight, we now have four new officers, and the patrols will therefore need to be reorganized. We also had another boy officially join, so we're temporarily up to 19 members — until one boy moves away in a few weeks.
Isaac passed his latest board of review tonight. As a result, he now occupies the rank of Life Scout, the last before Eagle. He hopes to earn Eagle in about a year or a little more. Congratulations, Isaac!

As promised, I now offer an explanation of the psalms/tunes discussion questions from two days ago.
I believe that it is fine to sing any Psalm in any meter to any tune, provided that the translation is faithful and that the tune neither trivializes nor supplants the words. I brought up this point after reading a website maintained by the Steelite Reformed Presbyterians, who broke off from us in 1840. They consider us an illegitimate church for many reasons, two of which include singing Psalms in modern meters and translations, and singing them to tunes used for hymns. Please don't think that I endorse their positions on that!

Today has been rather lazy for me. This morning, Dad took me to Bellefontaine, where we went to the bank, the recycling plant (to drop off surplus milk bottles), Lowe's (to buy washers for the bathtub), and the chiropractor's. Dr. Tassell, the chiropractor, thinks that I won't need to return. Let's hope he's right.
Other than that, I've really done very little today; most of my afternoon, for example, was occupied by playing Age of Empires II. I would feel more inclined to do something, except for two factors:
(1) I've not slept well on the past couple of nights.
(2) Tonight was the first Monday in many weeks that I had no class scheduled.
Oh wait; I did do one other thing. Mom had us go for haircuts this afternoon. What an exciting afternoon activity.
By the way, I will post my opinions on the singing-and-tunes subject tomorrow.

I would like to have your opinions on two related subjects.
(1): Is it okay to sing the Psalms in modern versions and metres, or must we sing them all in the old Scots Metrical Version?
(2): Is it okay to use lots of different tunes, even hymn tunes like "New Britain" that's used for Amazing Grace, or should we prohibit the use of hymn tunes for the Psalms?

Dad preached today from the entire book of Ruth. Since (I hope) all of you know the story, I won't repeat it. I was struck by two elements in the fourth chapter, both of which make me think that the events related were in the far distant past when the book was written:
(1): When the first kinsman-redeemer declines to marry Ruth, the removal of a sandal is treated as a "custom". Granted, it was a custom, but the author seems not to know of the detailed commands in Deuteronomy 25, where the widow removes the man's sandal and spits in his face, among other things.
(2): At the very end, the genealogy of David is presented, from Judah down. Including Judah (not mentioned) and David, there are thirteen generations present. Is it possible, in the span of eight hundred years, to have just thirteen consecutive generations? Furthermore, we see "Salmon, the father of Boaz, the father of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David". Salmon was the tribal chieftain of Judah when the land was conquered. It's possible for Boaz to be his son, and it's possible for Obed to be Jesse's father. Since we know Boaz was Obed's father, it has to be totally impossible for both of the other relationships to be true!


BLOGS
1. Rebekah*: 7.
2. Katie: 5.
3. Bekah*: 5.
4. Nathan: 4.
5. Becca: 4.
6. Grace: 2.
7. Brian: 2.
8. Charity: 2.
9. David: 1.
10. Anna: 1.
11. Joseph: 0. Last post 11 March
12. Abby: 0. Last post 6 March.
13. Allen: 0. Last post 3 March.

You know how little I normally care about sports. Tonight, however, I watched the Cincinnati-Kentucky game, and I'm unhappy enough to put up a sports-only post.
UC was ranked #7, while UK was #2. When the game started, UK quickly raced out to an 11-0 lead. However, by halftime, UC had a 35-33 lead. This included, among other things, 5-for-9 three-point and 8-12 free-throw shooting and two turnovers by UC, and just two free throws but six turnovers for UK.
In the second half, UC basically fell apart. In the last several minutes, all they did was attempt and miss 3-point shots; they made just one of their last seventeen or eighteen shots. Many of these were attempted by Jihad Muhammed, who looks like an Australian aborigine with clothes. Furthermore, Muhammed kept throwing the ball away: making poor passes, throwing it over teammates' heads out of bounds. This guy seems to have no self-control; I can't imagine why Huggins keeps him in there.
All in all, the final score was UK 69, UC 60. As the saying goes, it was much tighter than the score indicates, but UC would have won easily had they had a little more self-control and a little less Jihad Muhammed.

This morning was the pickup for our Scouting for Food drive; only four boys attended. Last year, we picked up over £250 of food in Rushsylvania and lots more in West Mansfield. However, since we only had five boys last week, we couldn't put out bags in West Mansfield, thus keeping us from getting any there. Moreover, Rushsylvania is starting a food pantry, and the village conducted a food drive just two weeks ago. As a result, we ended up getting only about £150 total.
Isaac will have practically no time at home today. We arrived here around 12:30, he'll leave at 2:00 to help with his Cub pack's Scouting for Food, and he and I have to help at the community fish fry from 4:30 until 7:30. What a day! If the troop had a more solid financial picture, we wouldn't need to go to the fish fry. However, as one mother pointed out, the more we help at community events, the more inclined that people might be to donate to our Jamboree costs.

Last night, I slept in our tent outside. "Slept" is wishful thinking, perhaps, but at least I completed a major requirement for an Eagle-required merit badge.
Tomorrow is the second event of Scouting for Food.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! And happy birthday to Frank Edwin McElwain, formerly of Scott Township, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, and now resident in the Unity Baptist Cemetery, Harlansburg, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania.
Mom started us on watching a new TV show of which you've perhaps heard, Wifeswap. The premise of the show is that, for two weeks, the wives of two families switch places. In the first week, the host family keeps its own rules; in the second, the "guest wife" puts in her family's rules. Although the results are good sometimes, chaos often results. For example, last night, one family lived in backwoods Vermont, and the other in suburban Pennsylvania. Although I would overall prefer the Pennsylvania family, the Vermont family improved far more during the course of the show — mostly due to the efforts of the Pennsylvania wife.
Dad was supposed to have a meeting tonight to help deal with problems in the Scout troop, along with the former Scoutmaster. However, the former Scoutmaster is on the Benjamin Logan school board, and (for reasons unknown to me) they had to have a special meeting tonight. As a result, the other families involved agreed to postpone the meeting until Monday night.
Instead of that meeting, Dad took Isaac down to Hi-Point, where I had my college classes, to a National Weather Service seminar on severe-weather spotting. I could have gone, but I felt tired, because
Yesterday and today, Mom has had Isaac and me working on the railroad bank out back, taking care of the fallen débris from the ice storm in January. Yesterday, my main labor was on chopping down a broken tree, even though all we have is something like a machete. Today, we all worked on cutting up fallen branches. Although most of the bigger ones will probably go to Somas for firewood, the rest went into big piles in strategic spots on the bank. These are intended to keep out the riders of annoying ATVs.

Happy birthday to Ethan Soma. He's three today.
A family from church gave us some restaurant coupons recently. As a result, we went up to Lima tonight to eat at the Olive Garden. The prices are high — the total was nearly $70 with price, tax, and tip — but they give plenty of great food — not including the unlimited salad and breadsticks. Although it wouldn't be in the spirit of their guarantees, it would be interesting to get an inexpensive item and have salad and breadsticks as my main meal.
Tomorrow is St. Patrick's day. My uncle called today and mentioned that my great-grandfather McElwain would be 116 tomorrow.
Can you see that I'm running out of things about which to post?

Earlier, Dad & I had to go down to High-Point, where I have my classes. Last night, I forgot my books; fortunately, they were still there this morning.

Tonight was my final for my œconomics class. I just don't think that I did as well as on other tests. Thankfully, while I was speaking to the professor later, he told me that I had plenty of points to spare. One big reason that I had problems with this test was that I was distracted during study. I never was able to keep my mind on the material, and therefore wasn't able to retain a lot of information.
We've been having trouble in our troop recently, trouble I can't go into now. Suffice it to say that it's been a big concern, and that I'm not sure how things will turn out. One factor that isn't helping is that we're losing one member to "emigration", as young Donavan Kane is moving two hours away. Pray for us!

Happy Birthday to Charity!

We're back. Since the Sawatskys live 25 minutes away from church, and since class started at 9:30, we had to leave nearly an hour before our normal time. Worship, with Dad preaching, followed at 10:45. Today, they had five visitors (including Dad and me), not the nineteen last week — even though the 19 included Rev. Ed Blackwood and a family from Westminster congregation near Chicago.
It's really interesting visiting a new congregation. I was able to get a good view of their average attendance (53 today, rather usual), meet some people (I knew almost nobody), and understand their circumstances as a congregation. Hopefully, they get a pastor soon, whether it be David Hanson (whom they recently called) or someone else.
Although few or none of you know the name, I thought I should announce the death of the Rev. Willard McMillan, D. D. Dr. McMillan was deeply involved with Geneva College for many years; I'm not sure, but I expect he was a professor. He had been afflicted with cancer for many years, and he was recently told that there was nothing more that the doctors could do. Pray for his wife, Shirley, and for their family, and praise God for Dr. McMillan's long and faithful life.


BLOGS
1. Bekah*: 8.
2. Nathan: 6
3. Rebekah*: 6.
4. Anna: 5.
5. Katie: 5.
6. Becca: 3.
7. Charity: 2.
8. David: 2.
9. Brian: 1.
10. Abby: 1.
11. Joseph: 1.
12. Allen: 0. Last post 3 February.

Hello from Goshen! We left about 1:15 and arrived about 4:45, completing the trip much faster than Dad expected. Tonight, we stay with Mr. and Mrs. Sawatsky from the congregation; it's Mr. Sawatsky's computer that I am using. We'll have to get up earlier than "usual" for me; I'm used to a one-minute drive to church, not twenty-five minutes — not to mention the half-hour earlier start.
Up here seems so different from what I think of as an "Indiana church"; the Sawatskys know relatively few RPs from other congregations, and the entire atmosphere seems somewhat different. Furthermore, I know nearly noöne here; we seem to be far enough from Indianapolis to discourage CYPU participation somewhat. On the way to church tomorrow, we'll cross the route taken by the bike trip. I hope to be able to identify it, but we'll see. Maybe Mrs. Moore, from here at Elkhart, can help.
Scouting for Food went decently well except for attendance. Although we only had five boys there (the four from our church, along with the Scoutmaster's son), we were nearly able to complete the town of Rushsylvania, where we're based. I suppose I should explain what we're doing: this week, we went over the town distributing plastic grocery bags, empty except for a piece of paper explaining what we're doing — a food drive. Next Saturday, we'll go around to all of these houses again and pick up the bags, hopefully filled with nonperishable foods.

This morning is the first week of our Scouting for Food food drive. Dad & I leave for Elkhart after lunch.

Anna has now officially dropped out of the contest. We're now down to just three people.

Anna is now on probation; I see no post from Thursday, although it's possible that my computer has messed up.

Today, I've received back two parts of Glasgow. With even the most miniscule problems considered, I have twelve of the sixteen parts ready to go. I'm waiting for just one part. As well, I'm waiting for one timechart, one little list of errors, and information on Rev. Trumbull, who was baptized before he was born.
I'm nearly done reading an interesting book I discovered on Dad's shelf: the Testimony of the Reformed Dissenting Presbytery. A tiny denomination, this Presbytery separated from the Associate Reformed Church in 1801 and united with the Associate Presbyterian Church in the early 1850. This book, although printed in 1839, was written in 1808. It offers an excellent view of our own denomination — the Reformed Presbytery, as it was called then.
Since, by Nathan's abdication, I am now "sovereign" of the blog contest, I have a couple proposals for rule changes or elaborations. First however, is a statement: Any rule change whatsoever must be approved by two of you OR one of you and me.
I would propose one change for now: that if we keep going on this contest until ECHO, that anyone going to ECHO would be exempt from posting during the time of the trip. In other words, you would be allowed to stay in the contest even if you didn't post for two weeks — BUT ONLY WHEN YOU WERE AT ECHO!

Dad is visiting the Morton family from church today. He left nearly half an hour ago, and he won't be back until afternoon — thanks to the nearly two-hour drive EACH WAY.

Nathan plans to drop out of the contest tomorrow.
Except for tonight's class, I really did very little today. Basically, I did the following: (1) play SimCity 2000 (2) blog (3) a little on my stamps (4) read a bit (5) do some room cleaning. Tomorrow, I'll need to do a lot more on stamps. I've had the German stamps nearly done for several weeks now, and I need to get them out of the way.
Tonight was the next-to-last class. We received back our midterm test from Monday, complete with scores. This professor's grading style is odd; although I missed two of the fifty questions, he gave me credit for 100%. Any idea on how to explain that?
After looking quickly at the midterm, we spent the rest of the night on review. Since that took relatively little time, we finished half an hour early; I spent the remaining time on talking with two other students. Both of them are in a geography class, and I heard about an assignment they have:
Their professor split up the city of Bellefontaine, assigning each two or three students to a certain area. Both of these two have the same area: south of Columbus Avenue, between Springhill and Plumvalley Streets. Since (probably) none of you know where this is (at least not without going onto a map program), I'll explain. This is probably the worst district of the city, full of run-down houses and drug dealers. Just imagine their report in class!

As usual, tonight was our troop meeting. Unlike last time, however, we had good attendance; fourteen of our members were there. Sadly, we may have trouble ahead. At least one boy is now talking openly of leaving because he thinks our leadership is too strict, and there may be more. Pray for us to have unity!
Dad was to have gone to Cincinnati today to visit my grandparents. However, thanks to tons of things he had to do, he couldn't go. Therefore, he really didn't get too much done at all today. He doesn't have to write a sermon, since he's reusing an old one; after all, he's not preaching here this week.
I am going with Dad on Saturday up to Elkhart, where he will be preaching. Mom doesn't plan to go, and Isaac might also be staying. Judging by our schedule, I expect to return the next evening; if nothing else, I have my final exam coming up next Monday.

Tonight I had my midterm. For the first time, I did the best in the class, getting 48 or 49 of the questions correct. The one I definitely got wrong related to salt. Question: Is the price of a "box" of salt highly elastic (hard to change profitably) or highly inelastic (easy to change profitably)? I said elastic because one can just buy salt in a different container, but the professor said inelastic because there aren't really any good salt substitutes.
Tomorrow, the troop committee is having a meeting. Before then, I must put together a calendar with the decisions we made in Saturday's PLC meeting. Hopefully we can go on our Hocking Hills trip in May; if we have to go in April, I'll miss the Sonrise Party.

Dad preached today from the last five chapters of Judges. Chapters 17 and 18 tell about the conquest of the city of Dan, far in the north, and about the history of its independent priesthood. Chapters 19-21 tell about the destruction of the tribe of Benjamin. In this sad story, a woman is raped and killed by the inhabitants of a town in Benjamin; when the rest of the nation demands the town's punishment, the tribe defends the town and is nearly wiped out.
Unlike last week, when we had poor attendance due to illness, we had above-average attendance today. Although three are still ill, forty-four people showed up, including two visitors: Dad's friend Rev. Max Forsythe, a PCA pastor who lives near here, needed to take a week of vacation due to a busy week; and Chris St. Felix, a member of the Scout troop who stayed overnight with Matthew Bump.

BLOGS As normal, an *asterisk marks blog contestant, and italics mark someone posting every day.

1. Nathan*: 8.
2. Katie: 7.
3. Anna*: 9. This includes three pictures, one poll, and one comic strip.
4. Rebekah*: 7. She changed to a new template this week.
5. Bekah*: 6.
6. Becca: 6. This includes one poll.
7. Charity: 2.
8. Allen: 1.
9. David: 1.
10. Abby: 1.
11. Brian: 0. Last post 26 February. He's been in Nicaragua all week.
12. Joseph: 0. Last post 25 February.


Last week, I removed Grace from my list. She hasn't posted since 23 January.

Overall, we had an extremely successful set of classes. Isaac and I finished all of our classes, earning all three merit badges per person, and I earned another one out of class. He, too, intended to earn one out of class, but the counsellor wasn't able to come. In the Law merit badge class, we conducted a mock trial; as the defense attorney, I was happy to get a "Not Guilty" verdict.
In the class for Communications, several Scouts gave short informative talks on various subjects of their choice. One person, whom I know, spoke about "How to Tell Time on an Analog Clock," something he intended as a joke when he planned it last night. It wasn't until today that he found that not all people know how to use such a clock; for example, Joseph Ray.
After the classes were over, we ate lunch, visited the local Scout store, and headed home. On the way, we had another Patrol Leaders' Council meeting, which again was quite productive. We now have a calendar all planned out through the end of June.
When I arrived home, Mom had already checked the mail. It included three items for me: two more parts of Glasgow and a stamp I bought on eBay this week. Unlike normal, the stamp was not what I expected — but it was better!

Time to go.

What a day! Today, we discovered, basically, that I'm not going to get about ANY of these scholarships. The only certain one is about $600 from the State of Ohio. I have one more opportunity: the National Eagle Scout Association provides scholarships, and I expect to be earning Eagle soon. Still, it's been quite a glum day. I've already been told that, for the time being, I shouldn't buy more stamps in case I'll need the money. Who knows; I might have to sell that really nice stamp I bought last year, the one catalogued at $1,700! PLEASE pray for me!
Other than that, we've still not had a very good day. Isaac did poorly on a test, and the resulting mess tied everyone up for a while. After that, we did our final semaphore practice; since his mind was on the test, he had problems with the semaphore. I had to run over to Rushsylvania late this afternoon for the troop and US flags, because...
Tomorrow morning is the last Trail Drive event, and we're conducting the flag ceremony. Thanks to someone else, Mom has to get up early AGAIN.

Around lunchtime today, we visited my local high school, Benjamin Logan HS, to find out about scholarship information. It looks like I won't be able to get very many.

Sorry for no post yesterday; I didn't have time to post after early afternoon.
Last night, we planned a troop mobilization for an emergency drill. However, everything broke down, and we had a nearlty unmitigated disaster. For one thing, the Scoutmaster, who was to start the chain, was unable to participate, and his wife didn't know exactly what to do. As a result, we had to start the chain. Moreover, two people lost their phone chain charts — the importance of which I had emphasized multiple times! Furthermore, we had bad weather last night: snow, icy roads, and strong winds. As a result, we only had four boys present: Isaac, Matthew Bump from church, and Marshall Myers from up the street.
Influenza continues to take its toll on our church. The Mortons had it a few weeks ago, and all five Reames children and Dana Soma and her children have it to an extent. Now, Mrs. Bump is becoming ill, and it will probably spread among their entire family. If we stay healthy, we're probably going to be the only family that does. Among other things, we've had to cancel Prayer Meeting tonight.
Once again, my class has been cancelled tonight. Imagine — my midterm has been postponed twice! We've now lost four classes — two weeks' worth — to weather, and another half class to the professor's raving about politics.

Safety post.