Outward Bound vs. Nols

I met so many wonderful sheepfuXors.

have you actually done these? has anyone? I'm always curious about them.

No.

i did something similar, run by nols grads, but less focused on either the technical skills (nols) or the experience/self-reliance thing (ob).

i'd probably err on the nols side

this is unsurprising

well, ok, it was kind of experience-y, but softer than ob

i never went to camp, tho

btw, I don't think Nols is about this

I wouldn't be the high-powered successful entrepreneur that I am without these hiking programs.

at all. ob, maybe for some people. but most doods who go on this sort of thing are just kids looking to get outdoors. some of them are sportos, some of them are hippies, a few of them might be natural science/history-oriented, but some of them are just your kids who don't need to do the ordinary thing.

My college girlfriend broke up with me b/c I was such an insecure mentalist and in her farewell monologue she suggested I try one of these.

the thing i did was in the southwest and so was oriented in part towards looking at ancient ruins and hanging out with indians and stuff.

well it's not like there's nothing to the self-reliance/confidence thing - it's a bit of a softer, more interesting, more individualistic version of being on a sports team - but people will make lots of claims about the utility of something that's pretty much just a great vacation. the biggest impact of these things in a developmental way probably comes from being artificially stuck together in a small group of trained, semi-adult-supervised people in an environment in which a lot of external bullshit is removed. you don't really get to that place in a camp environment.

harder to get your first handjob in Outward Bound than at camp, though

this is usually true. i guess these things are for people who think mountains and mesas are more interesting than handjobs, tho.

So girls then, eh?

blowjobs > mountains > handjobs > mesas

When you're 13, blowjobs (dare to dream)>handjobs>mountains>mesas

i'm sure that's true of most people. most people don't do nols/ob, tho. (and most people do them after 13)

only time i've ever been mugged was a few days after coming back from one of these. was in a very un-nyc-like headspace.

i also heard phish for the first time on one of these - i was like 'this sounds like a jazz band fronted by eddie van halen'