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My video: sashtake1

It was well received.  My normal rule is that I want a 6 to 1 return on delivery time vs. participant benefit time.  It took me about 6 hours to create a 1:22 video so it’d have to be viewed 1581 times for it to be “worth it” by my calculus.  There were a little over 100 people at the banquet and I’ve thrown it on Facebook as YouTube would pull it immediately as a blazing beacon of copyright infringement.  To meet my false parametrization of time, I’ll just assume everyone I know on Facebook watched it twice.

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Tonight’s commissioner banquet included a game whereby each table received an item and we had to go around the table and explain how the item related to being a unit commissioner.  Our table received a black rubber mallet with a goodly handle and around the table it went.

Person 1:  This represents the gavel that commissioners have in disputes.
Person 2: Commissioners must smooth out the edges of units and a mallet can do that.
Person 3: It’s rubber and bounces back from tough situations.
Person 4: The hammer is a tool.  So are commissioners.
Me: A unit commissioner needs to have a bond between himself and the unit.  This represents the imperative to each commissioner to go out with their unit leaders and get hammered.

I laughed inappropriately loudly at person 4.  I don’t believe she realized the multiple definitions of “tool”.

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The Lodge Banquet is rare among Scouting feasts as being a reasonable length of under two hours.  After many successful years, the Lodge Banquet had become a victim of its own success and was to be choked with “dignitaries”, “award recipients”, “speakers” and other such drivel that drives one’s patience to ruin.

This year’s banquet had an unusual savior: A power outage.  Not 5 minutes into the event, a tree near the dining hall fell and took out power just to that building.  Being the Order of the Arrow candles were deployed in under 15 minutes and the event resumed.  The 30 minute award presentation was cut down to 10 when the PowerPoint was removed and the shot to the head that would have been the chapter video competition was axed.  Overall, the event had a certain charm to it as the generator hooked into the building allowed some sets of lights to go up for a minute, blow a breaker, and then go out again.  I also had a chance to try ISO 12600 on my new camera which I’ve dubbed “21 MP cellphone camera” mode.

The peculiar lighting led to some interesting portraits.

[flickr album=72157623623086270 num=20 size=Thumbnail]

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The lodge banquet went surprisingly well. Why you may ask? Well, THE FIREPLACE IN FOSTER HALL ACTUALLY CONTAINED A REAL FIRE.  That was the first time it’s ever been lit for a public event without the building having been smoked out.

The food was unimpressive and the quality has dropped each year but there were some redeeming aspects.  Dave Hasel, the council executive, made a delightful little speech about the importance of the Order of the Arrow, so short in fact, that Bill Schilling and I didn’t have enough time to make a complete Buzzword Bingo board including such phrases as “this is their Philmont” and “the average time a boy spends in Scouting is”.  He did bring up the cliche of “it doesn’t matter how much money you have when you die as long as you helped a child” crap, this statement obviously ignores the deceased’s children as well as their family’s financial needs but after the “I have nothing profound to say” affair I’ve kept my mouth shut at Scout funerals.  Bill Schilling whispered to me “God, this speech is so boring the fire’s falling asleep” and I agreed.

Then, I saw a whole bunch of people get angry as Dave left before Bill Kuhn’s memorial.  It was the first time I’d seen the Broken Arrow ceremony done and it was impressive as the folks standing directly in front of the fire didn’t say anything as their pants nearly caught on fire and the ceremony was done from memory.

Towards the end, I had an idea.  Every major Order of the Arrow event attended by Unami Lodge #1 involves their stupid film canisters full of dirt from the first ceremonial site.  Now that they’ve gone underwater so many times I think they should now give people flood water from the first ceremonial site.