Upgrade To Hardy Heron

Ubuntu 8.04 (code name "Hardy Heron") was released recently and I decided to upgrade to see if the newer version was any better. For the most part I like what I see. The biggest problem for me is not related to the OS, but to Ubuntu's decision to include a beta program as the release choice. The program is one I use daily and it has proven to be somewhat buggy. The program is Firefox 3, Beta 5.

FF3B5 seems to me (and to a few others whom I have chatted with) to have more of a memory leak than FF2 did. While I had to restart FF2 every couple of days, I find myself restarting FF3B5 several times per day. The other problem I have noticed is with TVTime. For whatever reason it wants to grab my web cam as the video source, even after I tell it to use my Hauppauge TV Tuner card. While this is a simple sudo nano/etc/tvtime/tvtime.xml fix (changing video1 to video0) it is very annoying. I have been putting up with this ever since I installed TVTime a year ago. It is a bug I wish the TVTime programmers would fix.

Ubuntu 8.04 loads pretty quickly and all the programs I have tested so far seem to work very well. It seems the only problems I have experienced have been related to Firefox. Videos from Youtube and MMAlinker.com are choppy a bigger share of the time and sometimes the browser just locks up, forcing me to kill and restart it.

When I upgraded my sandbox at work (a Dell 733 mhz, 256 RAM) it did surprisingly well...enough that I tried it at home the same day. The cleam up module of the install got rid of a lot of clutter I had built up over the past 3 years on that box (it has been upgraded many times) but did not get rid of as much at home on my main PC, (Intel 3 ghz P4 with 512 RAM) as I had hoped. It still has about a gig more stuff on it than my sandbox does and I am not really sure why. I guess I need to investigate more.

The bottom line...there is no real reason to upgrade if you are using Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) unless you want all the latest versions. Hardy Heron is the long term support version and it will be one you will want to upgrade to, but I think I would wait until FF3 is officiall released. HH has had updates every day since I upgraded to it...a sign that it is not complete...but close.

God Is Good

While it is only Wednesday, I can say that God has been good to me so far.

* My first two days of on call have been uneventful.
* Work has been quiet (so far).
* The dog we are pet sitting has been a dream. She sits in the office with me and is very well behaved. She does not even act like she misses her owner at all.
* I have had two great nights sleep. The weather has been cool enough to make it comfortable.

I dropped off two travel bugs (TB's) at one of my caches that is close by last night. One originated in Texas and has been all over the US and parts of the world and is now back in the Lone Star State. The owner e-mailed me when he got the notification that I had collected it in Florida. He hopes to see it again soon. While I did grab one at lunch yesterday, it was only a small tide me over until I can get out after I am off house arrest. I may sneak out this weekend if it is slow. If nothing is going on by Sunday afternoon, then chances are I will be able to.

We grilled steaks last night for dinner. Say what you will about Kroger meats, but their filet mignon is good. Not steak house quality, but once I am done with it is is pretty darn tasty. The only other thing we had with dinner was a large salad and some light ice cream with fresh strawberries for dessert. Awesome.

I have an idea or two for new geocaches that I hope to investigate once I get off house arrest. I am itchin' to get out and hunting some as well. I hope to have 500 by my one year geocaching anniversary. I am at 393 right now.

Homecoming

Normally, coming back home from vacation is the pits. I dread going back to my job and "the real world" just seems to drag me down. This time, it seems different. And it shouldn't. Things are not stacked in my favor this week:

* I am on call
* We are pet sitting (yes we have three dogs in our house this week, while I am on call)
* The master bathroom is out of commission until my wife finishes the floor (hey, she started the project...who am I to butt in?)
* I am operating on about 6 hours of sleep per night (last night I got seven)

Now, I realize it is only Tuesday and things do change but yesterday at work was slow and I did not get called last night (yeah!), the dog we are pet sitting has been very good and to top that off, she really like hanging out with me. She does not whine or bark and stays in her gated area (the utility room) without complaining.

I have also received a few e-mails from friends (which are coming at a good time for me). Some (actually most) are commenting on the beach pictures, while others are going through personal struggles and have allowed me to pray for them. I consider it a blessing to be able to pray for my friends. It helps me remember that God loves me. He has blessed me no matter what "bad" things have come my way. My soul is safe with him and is not doomed to an eternity in Hell away from my Lord.

Yesterday I "splurged" and ate lunch at Chik-Fil-A. I say splurge because a chicken sandwich combo with a shake instead of a soda is $7.19 . I normally do not pay more than $5 for lunch (when I eat out...which is rare) so this was a treat. I really had a hankering for their coffee-caramel milkshake and what better way to get one tha in a combo?

I am still in the process of weeding through a week of news so if blog posts are moer infrequent than normal then you know why.

Too Funny

While at the beach, I noticed this lager was advertised everywhere. I have a friend who is nicknamed the same thing but he has had the nickname for a looooooong time.

Too funny.

A Long Drive Home

We got up early on Saturday to pack and tidy up before we dropped off the keys to the house and headed home. We had a 14-15 hour drive ahead of us and I wanted to get started as soon as possible. However, I was not going home until my wife, the dogs, and I had a final walk on the beach. We savored every minute. If I think hard enough, I can still feel the sand between my toes.

We hit the road at 9:30 AM local time. My wife asked me to drive first and I did...nine hours! I stopped for gas and bathroom breaks (and once to eat) but other than that I drove straight through from Florida to Louisiana. Once in Louisiana, I let my wife drive for a few hours (three I think) until we got into Texas, then I took over again. I really did not mind the drive until about an hour from home then I really began to feel it. Once we got home I felt much better...that is until I noticed the water leak in the master bathroom.

When we travel I close the valves to the toilets and the washing machines. I have known several people go on vacation and come back to a flooded house due to a burst hose or some other issue. We had our water leak because the valve on the toilet in the master bathroom only leaks when it is closed. I was not aware of that until we got back at midnight Saturday night when we came home to a very wet bathroom. By the time we got settled, it was 1:00 AM Sunday morning.

I got up and got ready for church but my wife was not going to leave the bathroom in the condition it was in so she stayed back and started working on it. The carpet was ruined (it was 10 years old anyway) so she removed that, the padding, the tack strips and then cleaned the area. Next will be patching the floor so it can be painted. We have concrete slab foundations here in the this part of Texas and carpet it usually placed directly on the concrete with only a layer of padding under it. Painting floors is an emergency fix when funds are tight.

I went to church and then came h0me with Chinese food for lunch. We ate that then I walked the dogs (I did not get to earlier because it was raining) and then cleaned up and put away vacation supplies. Once that was all done, it looked like it was dry enough to start mowing grass so I got dressed for that. The grass was very high and I was surprised that it had grown so much in 10 days. I finally got finished with the two yards (ours and our neighbors) just as the sun was going down. I updated her bill, checked e-mail, and took a shower. It has been a very long day...actually the past two days have been event filled...and I am tired. I think I better get to bed.

Night.

Our Last Full Day

Upon waking up this morning my wife and I were both sad. It would be our last full day at this small piece of paradise and we were going to miss it. My wife asked if we could go back to Apalachicola today and I agreed that it would be fun. So after our normal morning ritual of coffee, breakfast, and a beach stroll, we got cleaned up and went into town.


We stopped off at the grill we had lunch at a few days before and again had a fantastic meal. After I paid the bill, we decided to try to grab a few geocaches (we only grabbed two, but we got some good pics) and explore. After a couple of hours of tooling around town, we headed back to the beach house. Before we got back I asked my wife if she would like some ice cream. Her eyes lit up (we had been pretty good so far this trip) and said yes. So we drove to Coneheads to grab some Blue Bell ice cream cones. On the way back, we stopped off at the Port Saint Joe Lighthouse. Both my wife and I were pretty disappointed, so we we just went back to the beach house.


We ate dinner and then took the dogs for a long walk. While I took the camera on our last night, I really wished I would have grabbed it the night before. That sunset was breath taking and par for the course, I missed it. I really need to take the camera with me everywhere.

More Of "A Whole Lot Of Nothing"

Our week was coming to end quickly but neither my wife nor I was stressed out about it. We have had the most relaxing vacation we have ever had to date and we both have thoroughly enjoyed it.

I have been getting up a tad earlier each morning since we have been on vacation. We have not stayed up late, 11:00 PM or so but have gotten at least eight hours sleep each night. I can tell the rest is doing me me good. While I have not thought much about work, it has crossed my mind a few times. Mostly I hope that my colleague/office mate has not been too overwhelmed with issues since he is by himself while I am gone.

This morning is no different than the previous mornings. I got up and took the dogs outside (carrying Little Man) to get them to use the bathroom and when we get back to the beach house, I brew a small pot of coffee for me and my wife. Once we finish our breakfast, we head out to the beach for a walk to collect shells and to exercise the dogs. A lunch of leftovers and Coke round out our exciting afternoon.

We watched a lot of TV, surfed the web on spotty (borrowed), on again off again wifi, and napped until dinner time. Once we had dinner, we took a long walk on the beach (with the dogs) and settled down to watch some TV. Tonight is "Lost" and being on a beach is an interesting way to watch that show.

Caching In Apalachicola

We started the day later than I wanted to but it worked out nonetheless. My wife took The Golden for a walk and I took Little Man a little later. He was not interested in walking so our stroll was cut short. While my wife and her dog were out, I checked e-mail on the spotty “borrowed” WiFi we have been using. Since the weather back in Texas has been bad, the geocaching mail has been light. Other than that, nothing of any importance was in the inbox.

Later in the morning, we drove to Apalachicola for lunch, some exploring, and of course, geocaching. We spotted a great little cafe/grill in town and had a great lunch. My wife and I split a bowl of probably the best chowder we have ever had as an appetizer. It was very good...I could not believe how much my wife liked it.

For the main course, my wife had a salad topped with grilled shrimp and I had a blackened grouper sandwich. Both were great and the bill total was not as much as it was on the previous trip out and this meal was much better than that.

After lunch my wife and I wandered around town and grabbed a few caches. I only managed three out of the eight or so I had planned, but they were pretty nice little micros. One, listed as a micro was actually a nano...not sure why the hider chose to call it what he did. It did slow me down some but I managed to find it in short order. I was rather disappointed at the placement of most of the caches but I guess different areas have different ideas about how to hide a cache.

We came home about 4:00 PM and took care of the dogs and ate left overs from the night before. We have been pretty god about spending money so far...mostly because gas has been so high. We can go out once every other day for an average priced meal. While I do not mind eating leftovers, we are on vacation and I want to splurge just a little.

We do not have any plans for tomorrow. I guess we will take things as they come.

A Whole Lot Of Nothing

We started the day off (late) with a beach walk to collect some seashells. We found several nice ones and I managed to get a few pics as well. I ran into a couple of people who told me that a shark was caught very close to shore a few miles up the peninsula. And on top of that, an alligator became confused and swam across the bay and was caught further up the coast. We had seem alligator areas in the park, but I did not think they would be around here. Guess I was wrong.

The rest of the day was lazy, filled with naps and lounging around the house. We watched TV and ended the night with sunset walk on the beach. For the second time during the vacation we spotted dolphins offshore. Some of them were quite close...10-20 feet from shore. They were fantastic.

Dolphins were not the only animal we saw. We spotted some ducks (I thought that odd) and some horses and riders on the beach as well. One thing I can say for sure is that this vacation has been restful.

We ate leftovers and drank Coke Zero. We both wanted icecream but did not want to drive 10 miles for it.

A Good Start

After a late start, my wife and I went on a drive up the peninsula to St. Josephs Island State Park. I have only been at a few beach state parks before and enjoyed them quite a bit. This one was not all that great but it did have some nice spots. We grabbed the two geocaches in the area...both were well maintained and in good shape. When we left the park, we were hungry and decided to try a place that the owner of the beach house recommended but could not find it, so we went back towards the route we took to get to the beach house (towards Port Saint Joe) and found a local marina raw bar/grill. The food was good but pricey (come on, $14.00 for a grouper sandwich and fries?) and I figured eating out was not something we could afford to do often on this trip. We had planned on once a day, but it was looking like every other day would be pushing it.

After eating, my wife wanted to get some groceries and the local Piggly Wiggly and I noticed on my GPSr that a cache was very close by, so I grabbed it while she shopped and then I walked over to the store. $46 later (what would have been $30 back home) we headed back to grill our dinner.

The beach house had a nice if not run down, grill/smoker that I cooked hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken on. I picked up some charcoal since lighter fluid was provided at the beach house, I figured I was set. It took a while to get the grill going, but when it finally got up to temp, it cooked very well. Charcoal is nice, but tricky and time consuming.

We finished the night off with a walk on the beach and some TV. While we have not had an “exciting” vacation so far, we really noticed that we needed the rest. Rest is good.

Oh, when did ducks start hanging out at the beach? I realize I am not the most observant person on the planet but I do not ever recall seeing ducks at the beach before.

Sorry, no pics of the them. Every time I saw them I didn't have my camera with me.

I Have Had Better Mornings!

Things did not get off to a good start on Sunday. I took the dogs (both of them) out to use the bathroom but the oldest (and smallest) slipped coming down the steps and did an end over scaring us both but thankfully he was not hurt. He is old and his footing is not very good...not to mention we are in a beach house that is up on pilings so we have to climb steps to get to it. I was very worried and prayed that I did not cause him any real damage. Needless to say I carried him down the stairs the rest of the trip. I don't think he liked that much, either.

All day long we stayed close to the beach house...not once starting the van to go anywhere. It was beginning to dawn on us how far out we were. You literally had to drive 15 miles to get to anything other than a beach cottage. I did however get to see some dolphins earlier on in the day. That was pretty cool.

Wanting to check e-mail, we turned on the laptop and tried to connect via dial-up but TWC did not have a local number in the area. Hmmm....I had expected this so I let the laptop sniff for local wireless connections and found 4 nearby, but they were all too weak to cling to very long. Usually in the morning was the best and only time we could connect. I really hated “borrowing” other people's wifi, but 4 out of the 6 were unsecured an I would not have used them if a local dial-up number could be had. I guess I could have installed an AOL trial...or maybe Netzero, but I shiver at the thought of either of those being installed on a PC.

We took it easy the rest of the day and hit the beach only a couple of times...once in the morning and once in the evening...taking advantage of the local laws allowing dogs on the beaches here.

We ate some of the groceries that we brought with us all day but realized we would need more food soon. That would be rectified the next day since I had plans to leave the area and explore. With nothing more to do, we watched a little TV and fell asleep on the same comfy beds we slept in the night before.

The Second Leg

The storms of the previous evening had past and the morning was bright and sunny. I had asked my wife if she minded if I went out to grab a few caches in Jackson before we left the hotel and continued on our way to Florida. She thought it was a good idea so I headed out with my caching supplies in hand.

The first cache was not far away. It was on the same (busy) road the hotel was on and I made short work of finding it. It had not been maintained very well (it needed a new log book) but a find is a find. It was not overly memorable, but at least I had one MS cache under my belt.

The next one on the list was close to the first one and gave me fits until I looked at the clue. It was hidden in the shutter of a local business under a large awning...enough that the GPS coords were off but I managed to find it nonetheless.

Feeling confident, I headed off to the next one...an ammo can on the property of a local church. How hard could it be? Well the answer to that question..."I have no idea". You see, when I got to the wooded area and hiked in ¼ of a mile to GZ, I found a TENT very close to where the cache should have been. Also, the forest canopy was so thick I could not keep lock on the birds in space that were guiding me. After grumbling about that one, I moved on to easier findings. Or at least I thought.

A quick hop East put me at the reservoir that was nearby. “Easy”, I thought to myself. Little did I know that this was a biking and running hot spot for the locals. Muggles were everywhere. I figured I would abandon my search here and grab a rather unique Geocoin in a nearby cemetery.

I found the cemetery but it was not well maintained and the overgrowth and the canopy (not to mention the lack of time) gave me no choice but to abandon this search as well. Hummmph. So far for caching success in Mississippi!

I made my way back to the hotel dripping wet. The previous night's rain had drenched the area, so my shoes, socks, and pants were soaked. I grabbed a quick shower, changed clothes, and went with my wife to eat breakfast downstairs.

After breakfast I loaded up the van and after my wife walked the dogs, we were on our way. While the distance we needed to cover was less than 400 miles, it turned out to be a long 400 miles. The highways we took were through small towns with low speed limits. Needless to say we made it to the beach at 6:30 PM local time...we had planned on 3:30 PM.

The beach house was very nice but it was not as clean as we had hoped. We unloaded and unpacked just a few things before heading out to the beach for a quick walk. After a quick perusal of the sandy shore, we came back and put up the dogs and finished unpacking what we wanted for that night. We came back to the beach after dark and walked alone along a moonlit beach...moonlight shimmering on the water like liquid silver. All I could say was, “Wow”.

While we were on the beach I checked my phone to see what time it was and then I noticed that we did not have any mobile phone service here. I even stood on the observation deck of the beach house but that did not help. No mobile and no internet service. A first for me since I took the mission trip to the New Mexico mountains.

Storm Wind

Thursday...storms dominated the evening. But I am getting ahead of myself, so let me back up.

Wednesday and Thursday are WAFO (Work Away From Office) days. We have a simu ring option on our hotline at work that rings two phones at the same time...me and my colleagues mobile phones. It isn't perfect but it is better than working from the office every day. Wednesday was light...not much went on and that made me happy.

Thursday I was working solo since my colleague had the day off. Again it was pretty slow...only three calls (two of which were not mine to handle) and then my shift was over. My wife wanted to get out of the house so she dropped me off at Best Buy while she went to Wal-Mart. I had a gift certificate (from work) I wanted to redeem and my wife needed to pick up a few things to take on vacation.

I ended up getting an LED flashlight with the gift certificate (I know, not much but it was only a $25 card) but it is cool and I can use it geocaching :-)

We got home as the storm winds were blowing pretty hard. Rain was on its way but the dogs still needed walked. I rushed out with both of them and made it back just before the rain came. And come it did.

We had a crazy storm hit the metroplex with hail hitting to the west of of us. It has to be the third week in a row we have had bad weather on the weekends. The storm blew through quickly and the rest of the night was calm albeit cold.

The next morning we packed up the van in the cool morning air to start our vacation trip to Florida. While we had hoped to get out by 7 AM, we did not leave until 8 AM or so. That was not bad because we made good time all the way to Jackson, MS...our stopover point and my first Geocaching outside TX since I started seven months ago.

Things were going great but then we ran into bad weather. We outran it but by the time we made it to Vicksburg for lunch, it caught up with us. As we finished the storm had past but our trek would take us back into it on the way to Jackson.

When we arrived in Jackson, the rain was coming down and we barely made it inside when the storm hit with a fury. No Geocaching for me on Friday. That is sad, but my wife told me that I could run out a bit before we left for Florida. I plan on getting up at 6 AM, walk the dogs and then grab a few caches before we leave. I have six mapped out close so I think I can get them before we leave.

The sun finally came out before it set but I did not want to chance caching at night in a strange city.

The Difference Between...

Radical Islam (just pick any link on the right) and Radical "Christianity" (Mormons). Personally I do not recognize Mormon's as Christians because they do not believe that Jesus Christ is the only personal Savior of mankind, but since most non-Christians lump them in that category, I will for now.

The Mormons responded with song an prayer. Radical Islam responds with bombs and beheadings.

Islam = Religion of Peace? You decide.

*** Just a note, the more I study Islam (I have a copy of the Qur'an now...I am looking for a copy of the Hadith in English) the more you see Islam awareness posts. This blog has morphed a lot and has become stale at times. I still plan on updates of what is going on in my life but not as often as I used to. ***

No Meat on Them Bones

My posting has been pretty erratic the past couple of months and for those of you who are regulars, I am sorry about leaving you hanging. While nothing major has been going on, I have been keeping pretty steady at home and work.

Work has been moderate to slow most of the time although figure it will pick up this week or next. Most of the issues I have been dealing with have been the same old things that keep cropping up, although I get surprised every now and again with a new issue I have not heard of before.

We were scheduled to receive our 3% cut in pay the first of March but that was delayed for a couple of weeks and then my boss (who has been against this cut from square one) thought he would do us a favor by "forgetting" to file the paperwork for it. Well his good intentions left me (and all the other on call people in my business unit) FIVE PERCENT short on my last paycheck. Needless to say that having my paycheck short that much really hurt and we are cutting it really close this month...and we still have a vacation to go on next week. We have not charged anything on our credit cards in over a year (the last thing was The Golden's knee surgery) and have been on a completely debt free vacation for the past four years. Go us! This year, while the beach house is all paid for, the price of gas and food will push the limits of our budget. I am glad I was able to earn a little money cutting grass on the side. That should cover the amount I lost on my last paycheck. Oh , I have been told that the missing funds will be on a future check. I hope so!

I have been geocaching here and there, picking up an odd cache or two at lunch and on the way home from work. Saturday when I went out I finally found one that just amazed me with the camo. I have seen hides like this before but this one was far superior to any of the others. I ended up getting 14 on Saturday, striking out on three (two of which I am sure are gone), one of those being a night cache. I got to the final area on that one but the area was too large to cover by flashlight. I will try to get it during the day.

I also was finally able to get a very hard puzzle cache that I started several months ago. The puzzle requires a lot of good basic math skills as well as a GPSr unit that will allow you to project a waypoint, neither of which I have. So I had to take my time to do the math and plot the course on a map with a protractor. While I had the general area, I did not have the exact coords that I would have had if my borrowed GPSr could project waypoints. So I wrote the cache owner and gave him my calculations and told him the general area that I thought was correct to see if he would "narrow the field" a bit for me since I am not up to date with the proper tools. He was impressed at my manual plotting and told me that I was very very close to where it was (I did have it with 30 feet...take that Garmin!) so he sent me the coords since I worked so hard on this one. That is the good news. The bad news is that when I went after the cache, IT WAS GONE! So I went back at night with a flashlight to check the area (one of the areas it could have been...and was is a favorite tactic of geocache hiders) and my suspicions were confirmed...the cache had been vandalized. I got home and wrote the cache owner but he did not respond for a couple of weeks (he had been overwhelmed with work) but yesterday he was able to get back to me and inform me that it was back on line. It seems that someone knows the cache is there and keeps vandalizing it when it goes back online. Well, I wasted no time and headed over this morning on my way to work and nabbed it. One more off my list!

I have mentioned that vacation is coming up. My wife and I will be going to Cape San Blas, Florida in a few weeks to enjoy a week of surf and sand. While money will be tight (thanx to work...) we will be able to enjoy the area and decompress. While the beach is not my personal favorite (gimme the mountains any day of the week) it is a nice place to visit. Besides, my wife LOVES the beach and I want to make her happy. Now since this is more of my wife's idea of a good vacation, I figured that the activities would be geared more towards her and I was ready to accept that. Imagine my surprise when she informed me that she wanted to stop overnight in Jackson, MS and we could go caching while we were there AS WELL AS when we make it to the beach. I was thrilled at the notion that I would be able to geocache in a couple of other states.

I went online to see what I would be able to find at both locations and was surprised to see that there are a number of regular sized caches within 15-20 miles of each area. Life is good!

I got an e-mail from my (pay attention...this may get complicated) ex-wifes daughter, who at one time was living with me and my ex (when we were married), making her (at that time) my step daughter. She is no relation to me now, but we keep in touch via e-mail every now and again. This daughter, whom I shall call Cindy, is now a Christian and it appears she is having a very hard time with her mother's drinking. Now Cindy does not live with her mother...Cindy is married and expecting her third child. Cindy went on to tell me how she thinks her mother, who is 40, needs to grow up and stop acting like a 16 year old. I was pretty shocked by that...normally Cindy defends her mother tooth and nail, but I guess that has changed.

Cindy also gave a report on her brother (my son) and his bad habits, but he is 20 and his own man, so to speak so he will have to deal with any fallout.

Names

It seems everyone wants Yahoo...both Microsoft and Google have been mentioned. Did you catch the names that have been tossed around? Microhoo and YahooGoogle? Personally I like Yahoogle better or maybe GooHoo.

Is "Jihadist" A Bad Word?

The Sun doesn't think so. Reporting about a terror attempt in China during the Olympics:

“We face a real terrorist threat,” Wu said.

He said police had confiscated almost 10 kilos of explosives and eight sticks of dynamite and “jihadist" literature in the latest raids in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

...

He said the gang had been acting on orders from a radical Islamic Xinjiang independence group, East Turkestan Islamic Movement.


Call it what it is...Jihadist terror.

Ya Think?

Obviously these women don't read the Qur'an or they would know that THIS IS NORMAL for fundamentalist Muslims at least in the Middle East...

From AKI:

According to data presented at the conference from the director of the family health centre, 68.1 percent of divorced women said they had lost their sexual appetite a few months after their wedding.

Other data showed that 59.1 percent were angry every time they had sex with their husband and 66.8 percent felt used by their husbands as an instrument for sexual satisfaction, while for 63.9 percent sexual pleasure was a completely unknown concept.

Sheesh.

It Was A Good Run

Well, they did not win the NCAA tournament but the UNC Tarheels are still number one in my book. The played very all all the way through the tournament up until the Kansas game. The Jayghawk's (who went on to win the championship) played a much better game than the Heels, knocking them out during the final four.

I guess there is always next year.

With that in mind, how many of the underclassmen will stay and how many will elect for the NBA draft? WIll Hansbrough stay? Will Lawson?

Franticly Seeking Cellular

Well, today has been eventful! The nice thing is I also learned a lesson: When God speaks, listen and obey.

I mowed the yard last night (as well as our MIA neighbor's, Pam) and came in tired. I watched a little TV then grabbed a shower and went to bed. I woke up this morning and had coffee and decided that I would go Geocaching in the morning before I did any housework. My wife was going to church to help clean the parsonage for the new pastor and his family. I figured that there would be enough help so I decided to follow my original plan and geocache.

Before I left I felt that God was asking me to help the women at church work on the parsonage, but I became greedy and went on to spend my time on me. That, was a mistake.

I left at 8:30 and grabbed the first cache, "Spot" at a secluded wood right off Main Street. I had my phone in the truck and thought I had lost it until I got back and noticed it clipped to my visor. I popped in the coords for the next cache, 9key's "Faceless Multination Utility Company" and started my search. I found stage one quickly and that led me to stage two, which again, I found quickly. It led me to the final...an ammo can. No problem. Wait a minute...it has a padlock on it. Where is the key? I figured the key was close by, so I looked. I found nothing so I called 9key. He did not answer (I get the feeling he is not a big phone conversation person) so I left a message. I walk back to my truck and sit down and then I figure out where the key is. So I go back and get the key and unlock the ammo can. I sign the log, put it all back in hiding and move on.

My next stop was an easy one off of North Allen Heights...it took longer to walk from the parking lot than it did to find the cute plastic owl container. I signed the log and moved on to the last two...both 9key specials.

I found "Marble Falls" quickly and even though I was on the wrong side of the creek (a rarity for me most of the time), I was able to cross because I had my combat boots on. I found the small Lock-n-Lock container, signed the log, and headed out to "Brer Rabbit's Fun Boxes".

"BRFB" was a multi stage just north of "Marble Falls". I found the jump off point and headed into the woods towards stage one. Even though I had no idea what to look for, I found the cute redirector and the clues to get me to stage two. I decided to bushwhack to stage two, but came to a creek and since I had taken off my boots, I decided not to cross it. I hiked east toward the road and then north along the road until I got directly across from stage two. I found stage two and noticed that I was missing my cell phone. I had the case still clipped to my belt, but it was empty. I began to panic and started back tracking but realized I was never going to find it. Well, I figured I was at stage two, I might as well go after the final. I eventually found the final (which was SWEET!) and then headed back, attempting to find my phone along the way. That was pretty much useless so I headed home, hoping to find my wife there so we could go back and hunt for the phone by calling it and listening.

I got home and my wife was not there so I washed the dishes and then ate. After about 1.5 hours or so she made it home so I told her what happened. She was very understanding and offered to go with me to look for it. We got ready to go and headed off to "Faceless" to see if I left the phone there. Nope. It was not there. So we headed north towards Brer Rabbit. We eventually found it thanx to my wifes keen hearing.

Lesson learned. When God tells you to do something, do it.

And, put your phone in your fanny pack!

WFH / WAFO

I have been able to Work From Home / Work Away From Office the past two days. Besides the fact I save $6.00 a day in gasoline (not sure home much electricity I am using but it has to be less than that), it really is nice to be in my own h0me office, getting up when I want, eating when I want and dressing how I want.

How did all this come around? My boss has flat out stated that since raises were practically non-existent, bonuses were small, and he cannot do much for us, that we needed to come up with ways to have perks that do not cost the company anything. My colleague came up with working from home 2 days a week and I came up with my company giving us our old laptops when they refresh us with new ones. Now to some of you that might not sound too neat, but to geek like me who only has one mediocre machine in the house (I have several dinosaurs that just don't cut it) and could use a second, this works out well. Will they agree? Prolly not, but at least I tried.

Oh, by the way, I will get a broadband and cell phone credit for working at home. It ain't much but it helps!