Outgoing Order of the Arrow National Chief, Evan P. Chaffee, has been maintaining a blog of his time in office.   It’s semi-personal in nature and covers his numerous travels during his year as National Chief.

Like Oprah, he also maintains his own book club.

Whoever is elected his successor next week has a neat tradition to uphold.

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If UNC were to win a National Championship this year, would Occoneechee lodge issue a flap for it?

UNC showed the UCSB Gauchos why they’re the number one team in the country yesterday with a decisive home victory.     I guess they wanted to keep this webmaster, saw this game from the nosebleed zone,  happy.

Fans stayed in their seats until the  last few seconds to see when Carolina would break the  century mark… again.       The Carolina team, whose three point shooting was poor enough to make me groan whenever they took a shot broke the century make on  one of their few successful 3 point goals.

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by Sam Bogan

In spite of the fun and laughter, 13-year old Frank Wilson was not happy. It was true he had received all the presents he wanted. And he enjoyed the traditional Christmas Eve reunions with relatives for the purpose of exchanging gifts and good wishes.

But, Frank was not happy because this was his first Christmas without his brother, Steve, who during the year, had been killed by a reckless driver. Frank missed his brother and the close companionship they had together.

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Most collectors today specialize and restrict their collecting interests. Very few still attempt — in vain — to collect all issues from all lodges. Jousting at windmills would seem to be a more rational pursuit. Some try to get a single patch from every lodge name or number. Many restrict their collecting to their state, section, or lodges they have been in. Some collect first flaps or “Wab issues“. Some collect by themes like NOAC patches, sports related items, or patches bearing their Wood Badge patrol name.

My own special interested is very restricted. I collect bullions. Bullions are a rather unusual category of insignia. These patches are made, at least in part, with coiled metal in place of thread. Blue Book uses a “B” to note these issues. My collection of these patches is possibly the most complete on in the country.

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It’s been nearly a month since I last  posted anything in this series.   It’s time  I started working on this again.

This is the twelth in an ongoing series of posts about state shaped patches. Previous entries have covered state shaped patches from Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Montana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Massachusetts has been home to a lot of lodges that have since merged.     Of the 41 lodges that have existed in the state only 10 are currently active.     Several patches has used the shape of Massachusetts as part the design, however only one issue is shaped like Massachusetts.   This is not too surprising since these lodges as a whole are rather conservative in their patch issuing practices.

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Yesterday Bill Mulrenin made a post on his blog with this same title:

What’s in Store for eBay?   Outlook Hazy

In it he links to an article from Wired Magazine that briefly  discusses the current state of affairs there.       While it obviously does not discuss our little hobby of Scout patch collecting, both the article and its comments are an interesting read.

Bill also links to a couple of articles from The New York Times about complaints from both buyers and sellers on eBay.

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Carolina tonight played their first home game since November 20th.     It wasn’t the blowout some of us were hoping for but the Tar Heels did prevail for an 88-78 win over Nicholls State.   This was the first game in a holiday season homestand against what looks lik a group of “cream puff” teams.

Coach Williams was probably not too happy with this performance.     As posted on Yahoo! Sports, Aaron Beard, AP Sportswriter, says it well, “Hansbrough leads lethargic No. 1 Tar Heels past Nicholls State, 88-78“:

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No patch to display, just an announcement that the newest issue of the Florida Collectors’ Newsletter is now available at http://www.floridacsp.com/fcn/.   See the latest of what Florida has to offer the patch world.

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I saw this peace on a friends blog and just new I had to share it with yew. Follow these two pisces of advice.

1. Using a spell cheque program is not enough.     I’m serial!

3. Proofreading is of the the utmost impotence!

You’ll also notice I have solved the problem of how to embed video on this blog. It’s an issue with one of the two editors that come with WordPress.

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It’s no secret to those who know me that I have an interest in mathematical things.     I’m one of those crazy folks whose college degree is in mathematics.     In a “prior life” I used to work in the insurance industry.   I have even previously written a few posts here  on the Geometry of Patches.

Geometric motifs have also been used on many patches, most notably (to me)  from the state of Florida.   Aal-Pa-Tah lodge has use the geometric designs of Seminole patchwork jackets on many of their activity patches.     Tipisa lodge used similar themes on their 2000 NOAC patches.   Oceola lodge took this one step further making their 2007 events patches shaped like Seminole jackets.    Tipisa lodge even based their 2001 activity and 2002 NOAC patches  on the works of M. C. Escher.

So, of course this artcie about geometric tiling, The Trouble  with Five, caught my interest.     Craig Kaplan, the author, starts:

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