This morning was overcast again and the dark clouds threatened rain that only sprinkled for a few minutes here and there. At work, we had things down to a smooth routine. I would give the welcome and walk the scouts through step one, making fish lips and using their teeth to scrape loose skin cells from the inside of their cheeks, then spitting them into their plastic vials. Jason or Steve would describe step two, measuring and adding the lysis buffer solution to their vials, and all of us would walk around and distribute the solution. Step three was to hold the mixture in your fist to use body heat to warm it up. While they were doing that for five minutes, Joanna or Tom would talk about what DNA is and how it works. Steve or Jason would come back to explain step four, adding isopropyl alcohol without letting it mix in. While that sat for a few minutes, Fred or Mark would talk about how DNA is used in marine biology research, specifically with regard to dolphins and sea turtles in the Hawaiian Island chain. Yesterday, Jason broke into the end of the explanation and told a joke.
“Hey, guys, did you know that when sea turtles lay their eggs in the shade, they become male turtles, and when they lay them in the sun they become female turtles? Do you know why that is? Because dudes are totally cool, and chicks are totally hot!”
Now Fred has made the joke part of the speech, which helps fill the time needed for the chemical reaction to complete, but he just doesn’t have the same delivery as Jason, so the kids seldom laugh. And we’re all tired of the joke ourselves.
I tried switching up with the tortoise joke from Alice in Wonderland (or was it Through the Looking Glass?) “You know, I learned about DNA from my high school biology teacher, Mr. Turtle. Do you know why we called him Mr. Turtle? Because he tortoise.” (Because he taught us.) Not even one laugh. Ah well.
Mark and Jessi are nominally in charge of our area. Jessi is the only one who absolutely does not want to get up and talk in front of the boys, so she works on other things to stay busy.
I had the afternoon off again today, so I was planning to walk around and see some of the Jamboree. Brian came by just before lunch, so we ate lunch together. He had lost his buddy, so he stopped by at Tech Quest to find me. We went back to his campsite to let his leaders know where he was, in case his buddies had returned to report him missing. They hadn’t. Then Brian and I went and stood in line to go off the forty-foot rappelling tower. Brian explained that the army builds forty-foot towers because that’s the highest you can be and still feel afraid of heights. Once you’re up too far, like in an airplane, you aren’t afraid of falling, just interested in seeing what’s down there. I’m not sure I entirely buy that explanation. Anyway, I got all the way to the bottom without the slightest twinge of fear and suddenly realized that I had forgotten to look down at all. Hmm, no wonder.
I did learn that Brian can whip me seven ways from Sunday at rock climbing. Perhaps he has had much more practice than me, or perhaps I’m just too fat, old, and weak. I would vote for a good portion of both.
The two of us wandered through the merit badge midway after that, since Brian had seen a Camaro he wanted to show me. We never found it again, but he did get to show me the hang glider he had helped to put together and take down while he was working on his aviation merit badge. I think I have also convinced him to take the engineering merit badge classes while he is here, since they had a good display and program running while we walked by.
Brian also told me that today was a day of “epic awesomeness.” After breakfast, one of the patrol leaders in his troop had shouted, “What troop are we?”
“730!”
“What day is it?”
“7/30!”
“What time is it?”
“7:30!” Accompanied by whoops and yells.
I told him that he could do it all again after dinner tonight, which he thought would be “epic.”
On our way out of the midway and back to the east, Brian found someone from his troop that he could buddy up with, so we parted ways. I walked back to the bus stop and made it our to Wilcox camp about the same time I would have if I had worked a full day. Maybe a half hour later.
So the evening was the same as normal; dinner, shower, call Pam, go to bed; with one notable exception. Most of the people in my barracks work at the merit badge midway, and so they brought equipment for teaching scouts. Amongst the group they had come up with a laptop, a projector, and Bose speakers. They hung a white sheet on a clothesline and the barracks all watched Iron Man tonight right before lights out.
Pam and Company had again found a few things to delay their travels, and I don’t blame them. The freeway they were on went right past Seibert, CO, which is where Pam’s dad’s parents had met and married. So they stopped for an hour or so and looked around the town. There were a few other things too, like needing to recharge the air conditioner. Again, I can’t blame them for taking the time to take care of that immediately. Anyway, they didn’t arrive in Jerome, ID for the night until almost 1:00 am.
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