Chief Delphi

Chief Delphi (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/index.php)
-   Championship Event (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=12)
-   -   Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46449)

dlavery 10-04-2006 13:42

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Pat McCarthy
We've watched: ... Blazing Saddles...

Best thing EVER to do before an 18-hour bus ride: eat a massive meal of baked beans about 4 hours before the trip starts. Find that one mentor (or student) that has been bugging you just a little bit too much during the season (c'mon, we all know that every team has one!), and make sure you sit next to them. Then recreate the "campfire scene" from Blazing Saddles. :)

And later, as you are driving up and through the hills in Kentucky, explain how Boyle's Law works and offer to give a demonstration...

-dave

pyroslev 10-04-2006 14:19

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick TYler
I'd rather do my taxes than spend 18 hours on a bus.

Personally, doing the homework on the way down there would be the SMART thing to do. Get it out of the way so they can focus for the rest of the week. (I have exams the morning after we get back, including an essay which I'll read and write on the bus)

Common sense is key. The trouble makers know they are watched. Quiet time from 12am to 6am would be good. (Extend if needed) Don't do gender areas until quiet time or after last late night stop before midnight.

Common Sense.

MissInformation 10-04-2006 14:24

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
I would like to suggest the Bagel System. But to do so, I would have to explain the Bagel System:

An over-exuberant parent got some bagel stores to donate their day old bagels to our team for our bus trips to Richmond and Georgia. And by "some" I mean 3 big trash bags full of bagels. Richmond proved that we would have an obscene amount of bagels left over, most of which were thrown out. Now, at the end of Peachtree, we still had way too many bagels, so the teacher chaperon and I came up with The Ence-Foster Bagel System, which went like this:

Foul words- must eat two old bagels.
Horseplay (shoving, hitting, pushing, biting, pulling hair, etc)- must eat four old bagels.
Questioning the Bagel System- must eat two old bagels
Questioning why you can't question the Bagel System- must eat 4 old bagels
Having no pants on- must eat 100 old bagels.

Now, that's the only rules we dealt with because, despite what Dave said, we did not separate the team by gender and did not call a curfew and we've been known to slip in a few PG-13 movies (wooooo!). However, you can create bagel penalties for any rule you create. The Bagel System was really popular (believe me, when we stopped for dinner, I barely got to eat because I had to keep answering questions about it, such as what words constitute a foul word, every time I tried to take a bite, I would hear "Hey Heidi, does #$@ count?") I will admit now, that the Bagel System was corrupt. People were encouraged to tell on their peers, which they did, and we even had a double-crossing stoolie in their midst who got benefits for his miscreant ways. But overall, the Bagel System did more good than bad, and we had some sweet-talking, non-violent behavior on the way home, because, believe me, nobody wanted to have to eat bagels that had been sitting in the storage area under a bus for 3 days... "New diesel flavored bagels, yum!"

The Bagel System aside, my other recommendation is to make sure that all of the kids will eat pizza and if not, try to find a area that has several fast food places to stop at so that they can have some choices (we have very picky eaters and there tended to be big battles over dinner places). Oh, and try to encourage the buddy system at rest stops as rest stops can often be high crime areas with a lot of strangers coming and going, and you know, the world still has way too many sick people in it. Doing a seat check is a good idea, but I recommend doing the check by names, not numbers because it's easy to miscount. Oh, and one last thing, take extra trashbags and make sure the students (and adults) clean up after themselves!)

Heidi

Rick TYler 10-04-2006 14:29

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by MissInformation
The Bagel System aside, my other recommendation is to make sure that all of the kids will eat pizza and if not, try to find a area that has several fast food places to stop at so that they can have some choices (we have very picky eaters and there tended to be big battles over dinner places).

See -- this is an example of mentors who focus on unimportant things. The error is not the restaurant chosen, it's trying to make everyone happy. After six years as a Scout leader my method of dealing with this is simple: "I can't make everyone happy. This is where we are stopping for dinner. If you don't like it, bring food in a bag." See how easy it is?

Pat McCarthy 10-04-2006 14:30

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
If you can get the majority to agree on it, watch an entire trilogy or series of movies such as:
The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Harry Potter, Back to the Future, The Mighty Ducks, Beverly Hills Cop, Star Wars (all 6, muhahahaha), Indiana Jones, Terminator, or films made by a certain director. All great ideas in my opinion.

MissInformation 10-04-2006 14:36

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick TYler
See -- this is an example of mentors who focus on unimportant things. The error is not the restaurant chosen, it's trying to make everyone happy. After six years as a Scout leader my method of dealing with this is simple: "I can't make everyone happy. This is where we are stopping for dinner. If you don't like it, bring food in a bag." See how easy it is?

No, it's not that simple. Not when you have students who don't eat certain things for religious reasons, or do you want them to get the impression that their opinion doesn't matter? Or students who cannot eat pizza because they are lactose intolerant? Almost every town has a fast food section, and if you stop at a place like that, there's a good chance everyone has their needs met without making anyone feel strange or bad because of their difference.

Heidi

Nuttyman54 10-04-2006 14:53

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
"Dish" would be an excellent movie.

Joe Matt 10-04-2006 14:54

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew Schuetze
Howdy all and NEMO types,

I'd appreciate some suggestions in regards to curfew and such for 18 hour bus rides. This year's trip to Atlanta will be via bus and will be 18 hours in transit. My thoughts are to treat it like a hotel situation and have a 'curfew' at XX:xx PM with seat checks. At curfew each set of seats will be same sex. I'm even thinking that I need to section off the bus a bit and have a female and male section???

What kinds of meals do you typically serve en route? We are leaving @ 7:00 PM so I am asking students to have eaten dinner before boarding and then having snacks for them in the evening. My plan is to then have breakfast items for the AM, Sam's club stuff. We would then stop at a pizza buffet somewhere for lunch and then do dinner in Atlanta.

Besides having a collection of G and PG movies, do you provide any other type of entertainment/amusement? Are there standard bus games that teams play?

Any comments and suggestions are more than appreciated,


Thanks,

Over the past few years 384 has delt with many situations on the bus, many which I don't wish repeating for the sake of RVA team unity. But, here's what I've found.

-Clean up is key. Do a spot check of the bus and make kids throw off trash at every stop.
-We had a "lights out" policy at midnight, basically, no bus lighting, no movies, no loud stuff, but kids could still watch movies on laptops and play games.
-Food, we were told to eat beforehand, and then we did breakfast in the morning. This was for a 10 hour trip. I'd set up a lunch & dinner stop too, snacks can only go so far. ;)
-It's sometimes mandatory to stop every few hours to let the driver take a pee/drink/cig break. Use this time to let the kids run around, get somehting to drink, and just stretch the legs.
-Don't be affraid to have parents "switch" seats with bad kids to break up loud groups.
-Generally, we had movies that both the parents and kids wanted to see, although we wern't allowed Disney movies for some odd reason. I'd recomend TV shows myself, since they tend to work better on the road. Get someone who has the DVD sets of Family Guy, The Simpsons, etc.

Oh, make sure to agree on everything before hand, such as movies and things. Pack more entertainment than you'll need, people like movies, just not the whole bloody trip ;)

Dan Petrovic 10-04-2006 14:57

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
We haven't been on an 18 hour bus trip but Telephone can be pretty entertaining for a while.

If you haven't played it's best at a dinner table with a ton of people. One person whisperes something to the person next to him, and then that person passes on the message but changes one thing.

We did this at a restaurant after one of our competitions and we eventually had 4 or 5 messages running around the table at once.

JaneYoung 10-04-2006 15:27

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
Our team dietary needs/preferences are diverse and complicated during travel. We make it work with a combination of
Miss Information's suggestions
Rick Tyler's Scout system
and placing some of the responsibility on the person that has special needs.

If a traveling team member has to eat every 2 hours, then they have to make arrangements/provide the snacks/food that will keep them healthy until we stop for the next meal.
So it works. Even though we are from Texas, barbecue is not at the top of our list for places to eat at - we try to find restaurants or areas that provide a large variety to select from. When our parents provide sandwiches and breakfast foods, they are careful to fit the team's dietary needs and are way cool for doing so. It gets us through.

Side note: we like the bus. The team grows very close during this special time together - baked beans or no.

:)

Eugenia Gabrielov 10-04-2006 15:51

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
Speaking as somebody who has fairly rigid dietary requirements - please, please have at least some choice.

Also, I don't think anybody has mentioned this...

but if you can, avoid places with lots of smoke. I know in some states smoking in restaurants is entirely illegal. This is not the case for every state. No matter what your opinion is on smoke in public places, please understand that it is a painful thing to deal with (the smell) on a crowded bus.

Rick TYler 10-04-2006 15:52

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by MissInformation
No, it's not that simple. Not when you have students who don't eat certain things for religious reasons, or do you want them to get the impression that their opinion doesn't matter? Or students who cannot eat pizza because they are lactose intolerant? Almost every town has a fast food section, and if you stop at a place like that, there's a good chance everyone has their needs met without making anyone feel strange or bad because of their difference.

"Picky eaters" <> "food restrictions due to religious convictions or medical neccesity." Please don't demonize me by changing the argument you originally made to a different one. It's a shabby rhetorical trick, and one that I don't expect to find on CD.

JamesBrown 10-04-2006 16:02

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick TYler
"Picky eaters" <> "food restrictions due to religious convictions or medical neccesity." Please don't demonize me by changing the argument you originally made to a different one. It's a shabby rhetorical trick, and one that I don't expect to find on CD.

I don't believe that she was trying to make you look bad or trick you in any way, Heidi is right the easiest thing to do is to stop at a place with alot of choices, on our team we have students with food allergies, a student who is a vegetarian for medical reasons, a student who is a vegetarian by choice and others who are just picky eaters. I believe that Heidi was just generalizing by saying picky eaters and was just pointing out that dislike of food was not the only reason to follow her idea.

MissInformation 10-04-2006 16:24

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick TYler
"Picky eaters" <> "food restrictions due to religious convictions or medical neccesity." Please don't demonize me by changing the argument you originally made to a different one. It's a shabby rhetorical trick, and one that I don't expect to find on CD.

I classified it as picky eaters because I honestly refer to all of our people with food restrictions as "picky" eaters (including myself as I cannot eat pork or beef), partially because I don't want them to feel odd about their restrictions and because it's just easier to refer to it that way. I only went into detail when you accused me of being a mentor who was focused on unimportant details, because I think all roles on a team and all details are important the only difference being priority of importance (such as building of robot having priority over making team buttons). I was not trying to demonize you and as a matter of fact, I did not intend my first post to be an argument, just a suggestion, and my second post was a clarification, not an argument. In other words, I am not arguing with you. You do have a valid point, you cannot make everyone happy, but that doesn't mean I can't try to make as many happy as possible.

So, back to you Andrew, if your team knows ahead of time they are going to be stopping at a pizza place, there should be no problem because they know ahead of time and can prepare for anything (I certainly did not mean to imply your idea was bad). Our team tends to just drive along until the head chaperon decides it's time to find a place to eat and tells the bus driver to stop. In this case, I still highly recommend trying to find a mixture of fast food places.

Heidi

Morgan Gillespie 10-04-2006 16:33

Re: Suggestions for 18 hour bus trip
 
Having done 27 hour car trips from NJ to Texas several times (6) and a 17 hour NJ to FL four times with my family (7People (Includes 1 friend)(we go non stop)) I deal with long car trips, easiest thing to do is bring a blanket, pillow and whatever you need to get comfortable. Bring a lot of snacks just for you, do not plan to share much. Bring chargers, back up chargers and back up batteries, bring busy work, like school work. Now one thing to remember, TALK AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE, with no talk there is little chance of arguments and when you hit hour 20 and someone honestly believes that Kirk only had 3 fin... anyway just ignore people, if they get on your nerves complain to an adult. Honestly it may be the weenie way out but it works. Another tip, BUY SOMETHING NEW, I don’t care what it is, a new game, a new CD, a new movie, or battle bots from the dollar store, just buy something new. With something new you have a much lower chance of getting bored then with something old because it has that new feeling. Watch special features on movies, even watch em with commentary. Another tip, get as much rest as possible and before this trip starts wear the most comfortable thing you have, I don’t care if it is neon green, wear it!


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 14:22.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright © Chief Delphi