House of Delegates Add Survival Training to Agenda

I'm pinned down in HOD as an alternate, as a committee chair, and as a candidate for the board (2nd Vice Speaker, see my platform if you dare at http://bit.ly/andersonhod14), and I only learned upon arrival today that this year's HOD would also serve as a Survival Training exercise, much like Outward Bound. With temperatures in the HOD room hovering around 36 degrees, dim lighting due to there being one 65 watt light bulb to light a room the size of a football field, no wifi, and removal of all sources of food and water, the decision to to try to toughen up what can be a pretty soft group served the purpose. The AAPA did hand out snow crampons to allow delegates to slog through the ice and make their ways to the megaphones, installed this year to replace the far-too-expensive microphone technology. Mental toughness was the order of the day, and those who survived the proceedings left tougher than when they came in. And isn't that the way it should be?

At day's end, word was that the AAPA was planning to have live alligators hidden under selected state tables, just to add another level to the effort to build a more mentally tough delegation.

Chilly HOD Delegates at 2014 Proceedings