So, today, in brief.

Up early in the morning, and off to the armory. With a stop at a house in the northeast end of town to pick up a couple blank checks.

At the armory was our youth group, gathering for their annual excursion to summer camp. This year they're going to my favorite camp, in Colorado.

And I'm not going. Thanks to an advanced deadline on my annual sage grouse reports.

Neither is the new official leader of the unit, who also has work duties (although this week was supposedly selected so that he could attend). So instead we are sending two virgins, fathers who have been active in the unit for some time, but never in charge, never at this camp.

Hope they're having fun.

Among the last minute crises:

A lad who had missed most of the meetings since school ended, and therefore never got the message to bring his uniform.

Uhhh, duh, Mom. Where did you think we were taking your son? But a spare shirt was scrounged up (I don't know where). Only had three buttons, but his Mom gave him a sewing kit (sans needle, but at least he has thread), and I found another old, stained shirt with a complete set of buttons, so now we know how he can spend his idle time in camp.

One leader was missing a scarf, and ready to drive home to hunt for it. A subtle suggestion to the nervous man yielded a more detailed search of his pack, and the scarf found.

A receiver had been newly, as in last night, welded onto one truck's bumper to tow the group's trailer. But never tested until the trailer arrived this morning. The heat of welding had apparently distorted the receiver enough to prevent the hitch from sliding in.

A hammer convinced it otherwise.

But I suspect the fellow loaning the hitch will not be getting it back.

Ever.

Two other boys had incomplete medical forms, which the parents had to fill out then and there on the hood of their truck. We had warned the new top leader that this camp has its own specific health forms more than three weeks ago. But as of Tuesday, we found I was the only one who had used the correct form off the internet, and all others had used the generic he provided. Something specifically banned as inadequate in the leader's manual.

Which apparently only I and the wife actually read. One family had finally rounded up their doctor on Saturday night to get his signature (if I'd known they were looking, I coulda told him at the barn dance on Friday). He was even kind enough to go open his office for copies.

Yeah, it's a small town.

And yeah, I really wish I could go.

The wife and I were watching the "Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves" scene from Kill Bill Volume 1 yet again when the heelers started getting unusually chummy. Trying to crawl into your lap, or your face, whichever was closer. And soon we heard it, too.

Thunder.

And then rain. Heavy rain that ran down the driveway and the street, that puddled in the lawn. Rain that poured in a heavy stream off the roof.

And leaked into the basement. (Nothing major... the gutter was bent from winter ice, and pouring out in the wrong spot. Fixed it just as the rain was subsiding.)

Wonderful to stand on the porch, in the cool air, watching the rain fall and the trees wave, and listening to the chimes ring from the wind. The little maskless heeler had long since retreated under our bed, but her braver masked sister came and stood at my side, still shivering with fear, watching the storm, too.

Until the thunderclap that came one second after the flash.

That one was too close for her (and the town's power grid, which went off and stayed off).

Fortunately, power was still on at the movie theater, and the wife, eldest son and I got in, just barely in time, to see I, Robot. (Good flick, by the way. Good effects, too.)

A skyline that my sister might recognize, from two Christmases ago.