Scouts, Outs, and Arizona

After a week of stress, a stunning success in finishing the yearbook only a day late, and failures in both riding roller coasters and winning the lottery, The week of September 24-30 turned out to be even busier (and in terms of the weekend, even more stressful!!!)

I took a two day getaway, however! On Monday I packed my bags and met a Cub leader called April, who whisked me away to her area of California. Her four year old daughter, also named Kristy, was a little shy at first, but soon warmed up to me when her mother took us to a mini farm where we fed some goats before we had to pick up her sons. After that, I was taken bowling, and to dinner, and to play some arcade games... And I wasn't allowed to pay a cent. It was exciting.

But of course, the main event of the day was that I was to speak at their Cub Pack meeting. While I'm sure that my Cubs are anxious to learn the details of what went down... I'm going to keep most of it secret! You'll have to wait until I get back to talk to you all! It was very fun though, and I was so awesome that when I was talking the kids were all well behaved and quiet (in contrast to the throwing of popcorn and talking during the rest of the night). It took a while for one of the kids to catch on that I was from Australia ("How come you're talking about different badges and stuff?"), but otherwise a lot of the questions the kids were asking were really interesting, and some got my brain working. I also got questions from parents and other leaders after the meeting was over... Do you believe that most of the adults didn't know we have a Queen? OK, so maybe you do with them being American, but it was still really odd. Most people over here don't even know our Prime Minister's name (though they know who Tony Blair is)... Though I was surprised to see a little something on the bus the other day (more on that later!!!).

After the meeting, I was taken to the home of the main leader, and got to watch the first episode of Heroes... Before anyone in Australia! Haha! But yeah it was pretty cool. The leader's son is a HUGE Elvis fan, to the point that he's an Elvis impersonator in his own band with a costume and everything. It was pretty cool.

I was treated even more the next morning, taken to the Pechanga Indian casino (where I was asked if in Australia do we have Casinos on Indian Reservations? "Er... Well, it would help to have Native American Indians for a start...") to have breakfast. Though while there, it was suggested that the four of us go see a great big giant sacred Oak Tree. Normally public doesn't actually get to see it on a regular basis. But we did! In fact, we were given a mini tour by the Fire Chief of the area. The Oak Tree was indeed, HUGE. From the outside it looked like a lot of little trees, but once you got behind all the leaves, you could see that this was caused because the branches were so big, they were drooping to the ground.
We also got to see an educational area that was made for young Native American Children, which NO PUBLIC were meant to see. But we did!
We also got to look at the on site fire station, which was pretty cool. The fire truck had a ladder that went up to six storeys high.

So that was that. I had to get back to Toluca Lake and pack (again), because the next day I was off to Arizona!

The drive up on Wednesday took 6 hours, and so Kristy and I had some fun on our road trip. We had our lottery ticket tucked away safely. On the way there, there was some truly beautiful scenery. A field of wind-powered fans that went on for a few km's, some desert scenery with lots of cacti, and rocky mountain ranges.

Eventually we did arrive though, to the house of the McGuire's. After settling in a bit, eating some food and such... It was off to work for us! We had to pick up some T-shirts for the conference and pack up bags and... A lot of work.

Thursday was a little more laid back. We still had a lot of preparations to do, but most of it was quick and easy to do. Most worrying was the stress of seeming impending doom! One of these things of impending doom being a lovely vendor who decided to arrive a day earlier than expected due to a break down of communication. This vendor would prove to be a large annoyance later in the weekend.

And then Friday came- Move in day! We attacked the hotel by ordering rooms, took a tour of the Convention centre and filled it with all sorts of junk (including signs made by Kristy and put up by her and yours truly!). Test runs were made, drama was abound.... And there was a VIP dinner which was pretty cool, including the invitation to guests Michael and Melodee who were totally cool actors.

So Saturday came. There was more drama, but being only a minor staff member who was basically an assistant when I was needed... I had free reign to go to some classes run by Cyndi Greening, a woman whom Disney has stolen script ideas from, has been in the Crew for the first Zambian film ever and is currently in a legal debate with an Arizona University because of it. Her classes were nothing short of stellar, and I learnt A LOT.

Drama drama drama, and talking of drama, cue Sunday when the stuff hit the fan with the vendor... Seriously, if you want more details I'll tell all, but I've heard the story told so many times now!!!

By the end of the day we were all exhausted, and all the staff went to the International House of Pancakes (better known as IHOP) for dinner. Which was cool. I was also asked by Melodee if I could bring the conference to Australia, despite the disaster of not having enough people at ours... Which I will have to think about. I don't think my life is ready to handle setting up an event like this in Melbourne.

But yeah. It was stressful. It was fun. It was "Intimate". The photos in my collection are probably a little adult, so they won't be available in my album thinger, but feel free to ask for them... I still have to go out and find others from the weekend!