Author: TSO

OK, not sure how many people are reading those, but I know some of Washington City Citizen’s parents are checking in, so I figured I would do an update on a truly outstanding 24 hours for our city.

First off, we went from 18 demerits for rooms on Day 1 to 1 on day 2, and none on Day 3.  So my sheriff has been doing a great job there.  In sports, our basketball team won again, into the semi-finals.  Our volleyball team won, into the semi-finals.  Our soccer team won, into the semi-finals.  Our ping pong guy won, into the semi-finals.  Our Tennis players lost to some guys ranked in state and are out, and our football team got shellacked, so they are out but have a game for 2 points this afternoon.  (Despite having two guys that shared names with players on my beloved New England Patriots.)  So, out of the 4 cities in our division, we won in over half the sports, which is just great.

Our moot court goes today.  They are defending a guy (based on an actual case) who was arrested for possession with the intent to distribute a controlled substance.   The kids seem to have a good grasp and I have high hopes for them.  Also have Better Speaking contestant today, and I’m told he is also excellent.

This morning we heard from Bill Bolling, the Lt Gov of Virginia.  He was outstanding as always.  Very Republican guy, but had some excellent and very classy comments about our Democratic Governor, Tim Kaine, who will speak tomorrow.  I am a big fan of Kaine personally from having met him here in the past.  I don’t like his politics, but he is a great personable guy.

The big event here in the past 24 hours has been the party conventions, with all the citizens from each party convening, minus those elected to the House of Delegates and Senate.  We’ve also lost 3 kids at Boys State to deaths in the family.  Although the boys have only known each other for 4 days, everyone of them expressed their sincere feelings for them before they left, and asked me to ensure that each of the boys officially graduated despite not being here.  No real problems in Washington thank God, but I hope each of those citizens of Boys State know that the kids here prayed for them and their families during our daily prayer session this morning.

Anyway, our Conventions went PHENOMENALLY WELL for Washington City.  The Federalists and Nationalists each voted a party chair to run the convention.  Our candidate on the Nationalist side managed to be elected to that position on the second ballot, a relatively rare feat.  Kid is crafty.  Very crafty.  So that was a huge win.

But bigger yet was our historic candidate for Lt Gov.  16 cities nominated candidates, although some were multiple nominations so there were 8 total candidates.  Our candidate for Lt Gov, an Indian guy (Sahil Patel) made a funny speech.  Part of his speech included: “My working experience as manager of the Quik-e-mart is an asset, and I promise exact change for your slurpees.”  Also: “I have community experience up the butt….no homo.”  He was elected on the first ballot with 56% of the vote.    No one at Boys State can remember this happening in the time they have been here.  Not only did he take votes from his city and other cities without candidates, he managed to even get votes from cities that had their own candidates up for the nomination.

That means that of the 8 state-wide races, my guys (1 of 16 cities) managed to take 2 of them.  In addition, one of the Washington City State Senators was elected the Majority Leader in the State Senate.  We even ran a Governor candidate without having anything left to barter, having used up our goodwill to elect our 2 other guys.  Despite all that, he emerged from the original 9 candidates to make it to the second ballot of 3 candidates.  In that ballot, he took 37% of the vote, with the Governor Nominee getting 52%, meaning our guy took second.  Although we get no points for that, it is astonishing that with nothing left to barter, we still managed to pull second. 

Anyway, the kids are doing phenomenally well, and barring an utter collapse in the home stretch, this will likely be my second year in a row winning Best City.  I’d like to take credit, but it is all the guys.  I just provide the knowledge I can and help them.  They are hard working, and so far, excelling beyond belief.

So it turns out I only have 1 WoW player in my entire city, a level 76 Survival Hunter.  (Slacker)  But, WoW did come in this morning.  Each morning and evening we assemble to raise and lower the flag, playing retreat and the Star Spangled Banner (it is still the official anthem, right?)  Before each event, the Sheriff for each city calls the boys to attention, and the Roll Call of cities is taken.  Bradley, Lee, Marshall,  Nimitz etc, down to Washington.   Well, when they call the city, that city responds with some form of chant.  Today one city, I think Puller had a guy yell out “Let’s do this!” and then the entire city responded with “LEEROY JENKINS!”  (If you don’t get it, it is a warcraft reference.)

Anyway, did our city caucuses last night, this morning our elections officials in the city passed out the ballots, the kids voted for Mayor, 2 Senators and 5 Delegates, and the results are being counted now.  I ducked out for a bit to put up my daily post.

Big day today, the Attorney General of Virginia, a former State Senator named Mimms is addressing the boys on what the Attorney General does.  Tomorrow we have the LT Gov, and Thursday is the Governor, Tim Kaine.  Friday morning we have the GOP and DEM candidates for Governor.  Kids ask some seriously hard questions.

Stood in the chow line this morning with 2 of my citizens.  I asked them each if they had decided where to go to college.  The first, my Sheriff informed me he was going to West Point, but his backup school was USNA.  He already is accepted there.  I talked to him about his parents, and he comes from a great family.  Not that it is in anyway germane, but he’s an African American kid who I honestly could see rising to the highest levels in the military, it gave me great hope.  I turned to the second kid who is of Chinese descent, third generation American.  I asked him, and he will be pre-med at UVA.  His mom is an electrician, his dad is a machinist.  These boys are universally the best and the brightest.  If you can, I recommend all veterans out there who think our society is screwed to call your Legion post and volunteer as a counselor.  Maybe we are screwed, but looking at these kids, I have a hard time seeing it.

We take applications for scolarships here, paid for by Samsung corp.  Special points go to the kids and grandkids of various veterans.  Another kid in my city, another African American kid gave me his application, and I looked through it.  He’s got everything you can imagine.  Model UN, Future Business Leaders of America, Boy Scouts etc.  When I got to his Dad’s DD214, his dad was an 11B, Vietnam, 101st Airborne.  CIB, Jump Wings, Air Assault, Army Achievement medals etc.  When I commented that “your dad is a badass, please thank him for me” the kid looked blank.  He said his dad never really talked about it.  That kind of humbled me in a way.  Here is a guy who did great things for his country, and continues to do so by raising one of the best kids you can imagine.  He didn’t brag about his record, he just demanded excellence in his son, and the son responded.

Last night I had a guy who ran for 4 offices.  He’s a major in his ROTC unit in school, the Batt S3.  Great kid.  VERY intense.  It takes a tough kid to be rejected 3 times.  But he won on that 4th Ballot, and is now a nominee for delegate.  I doubt he wins.  I talked to him later, and a few other kids, and most had never been beaten on anything.  It’s tough sometimes to lose when you aren’t used to it.  But he didn’t give up, all fight.  You have to respect that.

Anyway, off to set up for that State Nationalist Convention that I am helping run with the chief lobbyist for the NRA.  He’s the head guy, during a session of Congress he comes down here for a week to volunteer his time, to teach the kids everything he knows.  The conventions are a lot of fun, and the kids are excited.

Also have 7 sports events today, and I’m hoping we go 4-3, if we do, we are well on the way to winning best city.  The guy just walked by inspecting rooms, and there weren’t any pauses in his gait, so I expect inspections went well.

Anyway, Washington City out.

Nah, not really.  All is well here in Washington City.

Good for me, bad for you, but my city is outstanding.  Not only do I not have any problem children, but I have an entire city of go-getters.  Had to select 4 guys for moot court last night, we had 15 guys that wanted in.  Needed 2 ping pong players, had 6.  Needed 4 guys to take classes on parliamentary procedure, had 6.  Had 2 guys go for Chorus, until the rest of the city heard Chorus eats first, and the exodus ensued with 13 more guys joining Chorus.  Have 3 band members. 

Last night we elected our voting officials, our Athletic Director and Sheriff.  The Boys did real well in their selections.  In fact, we had 6 guys going for Sheriff, all qualified I thought, and the city voted 40-4 for 1 kid on the first ballot.  And he is a go getter.  Had everyone asleep at 11:30, or at least quiet so their aged and decrepit counselor could retreat to go to sleep.  Our AD even woke up early and did a fly by of the athletic facilities to make sure he knew where they were.  Our State Trooper even took some kids running at 5 am.

Haven’t gotten room inspection results yet, but should be good.  Our Sheriff had everyone standing at attention at 10 mins to 7 this morning, with rooms already done.  He even yelled at me in the shower that he would kick my arse if I didn’t hurry up, until I let him know I was the Senior Counselor.  Dude gets an A for effort anyway.

Just finished training and Q&A with 5 state delegates and a state senator.  Washington got a great lady from Lynchburg whose name I forget, but a very moderate Democrat who was outstanding.  A couple of kids were hitting her with very libertarian questions (flat tax, marijuana legalization, gov’t spending) and she took it all in stride.   A very impressive delegate.

About to head to more briefings on running campaigns, and then athletics.  Today we have ping pong, soccer, volleyball, basketball, tennis,  and weightlifting.  Tomorrow is football.  We should do well in ping pong and tennis, we’ll see on the rest.

Tonight we will be breaking up for city caucuses.  I’m going with the federalists since we have a kid running for Lt Gov who I think is outstanding.  Each party will elect their people to run for house of delegates (5 each party) state senate (2 each), a mayor candidate (1 each) and a party chair for each party.  The city party chair will also be the convention party chair for tomorrow.  The guys are politicking already for Gov, Lt Gov and Attorney General, and I think our one guy could get the Lt Gov slot, so working to fine tune his shot group.  Meanwhile, we have other classes on CPR, running campaigns, public speaking, parliamentary procedure and other stuff.  So the kids are very busy.

Little problem with sleeping during a speech this morning.  I chewed the Sheriff and he is now down there having a come to jesus meeting with the fatigued.  Lord knows how that will  end, like I said, he’s intense.

I have 50 kids, and 7 are trying to get into USNA, USMA, and AFA.  The other 43 are almost as outstanding. 

And I have yet to mention to them how I am the greatest Azerothian to ever (cyber) live!

UPDATE: As should come as a surprise to NO ONE who knows me, we came in second to last in room inspections, until I went and chewed them out, and we were upgraded to 7th.  And then we won in Basketball, Ping Pong, Tennis, Soccer, Basketball and Volleyball.  So we are currently 6-0 in sports, and still none of these retards can make a bed.

Figure I better fulfil my weekly quota of posts here at TAH, and thought I would let you know what I have in store for me the coming week.  Good Times!

For those not familiar with Boys State programs, we bring in rising High Skool seniors and replicate a state government from the ground up.  VA is broken into 14 cities, each with roughly 51 kids.  Each city is broken roughly in half with the two political parties, the Nationalists and the Federalists.  The names are not indicative of any political view, its only to replicate the gov’t.  Anyway, so I will have 51 kids, and my Junior Counselor decided last night to just not show up.  Which means your bud TSO will be virtually alone.

Another exciting element not present in past years will be the presence of 1000 girls aged 10-19 on campus.  My girlfriend was of the opinion this was a good thing, since young boys will behave better when young women are around.  She CLEARLY doesn’t know the brains of adolescent males well.  To me, this seems like a disaster in the works.  So, luckily, I was given a state police officer to also reside on my floor.  That way we can play bad cop/badder cop much better.  Yeay me!

Anyway, boys should be arriving shortly and I will be assigning them to their rooms, with 1 Federalist and 1 Nationalist per room.  Once they all arrive I will brief them on the State Gov’t make up.  The kids themselves run the program, and I basically facilitate.  Today we’ll be electing the Athletic Director and City Sherriff.  Sherriff is the most important job here, since he gets to do the bed checks while his elderly counselor studies for the bar exam.  Also electing elections officials, moot court people (to be attorney general must be moot court), a city chaplain to lead the prayers before each city meeting, and I need to identify one guy over 6 feet tall to work the color guard. 

Anyway, I will likely do a daily update on my mental health, and my city.  Try to keep it clean in the comments if you would, because some parents might drop by to see what their kids are up to.

This is honestly my favorite week of every year.  These kids are the best and brightest in Virginia.  We have the Governor, LT Gov and AG all coming here this week to teach the kids, and a slew of State Senators and Reps from our House of Delegates.  They’ve got some top notch people here, myself excluded natually.

Anyway, for any parents who find their way here, TSO is the head counselor of Washington City.

Sam Elliot done made a movie.

I doubt we have any readers who don’t also read Mudville, but if there are any, you need to just go there and save it as your homepage now. Mr. Greyhawk is without peers in his defense of our troops, and staying up on the issues that confront them. His research with regard to Duncan/Strandlof was astounding.