Popcorn

Once again we made our way back to Husky stadium this weekend to watch UW beat Colorado.  The weather was perfect football weather though it was a bit cold as we got to the parking lot in the wee hours of the morning.  When I went out to the car earlier that morning I thought things would warm up as the day went on, but after an hour in the parking lot, it actually felt like the temperature dropped.  Good thing for some of my staff that I was prepared with extra jackets as several of them came dressed like it was summer.  Meredith did a fantastic seafood pasta that made up for the cold weather and Steve and Amy along with their friends supplied the rest.  It was a good pre-game feast.

One of the "draw backs" of having a CP tailgate is that you become the target of any roaming scout who is out to sell whatever it is they have to sell to raise money for their troop or for going to summer camp.  Currently, we are right in the middle of popcorn season, where troops are out there selling popcorn to raise money for their activities.  From my understanding, this is a great fundraiser not only for the scouts and their respective troops, but also for the council.  The popcorn might be a little overpriced, but it is actually quite good.  Every year I wind up buying some from local scouts (I get caught coming out of the store and they have their table RIGHT there) and take it to my office where it promptly disappears.  Of course, during tailgates there are bands of "wild" scouts AND cub scouts wandering around hocking their wares.  This past weekend was no different, the only annoyance was that most of the people attending the tailgate went out of their way to call these scouts over and direct them to me.  "He will buy something from you....." was a common statement.  After having dropped a fair amount of cash on the BSA in the past two weeks for two separate events, I was planning on laying low, licking my wounds and trying to re-build my capital.  So I followed an old adage and invoked "just say no".  I think I went through 3 or 4 waves of this until people figured out I was serious.  I felt bad for one cub scout as different people kept bringing him over to me; "you again......" was the only thing I got out......I think I scared him away.  Oh well, I scout should be brave.

Damn popcorn.

It was a relaxing weekend for the most part, of course helped on by a large Husky win.  I had the chance to talk to a few people I haven't seen in awhile and didn't feel rushed at all.  Greg Batie was at the game, but we didn't talk much about the dining hall......he, Gary and Ken had gone to look at a dining hall facility this past week that had the same radiant concrete floor that we are looking at for our dining hall and from what he tells me, it looks good.  We are still waiting for the cost estimates on a few key items before we can move forward but hopefully they will be available soon.  I overhead a discussion amongst a few people who had been at some council event recently who mentioned that "someone" asked the question about whether or not CP really needed to have a new dining hall given the financial challenges we have raising money for certain projects.  If that question ever did come up, I would have loved to have been at the table in order to answer it.