The other day I I was thinking about this blog and realized it's been awhile since I had updated it. I didn't realize how long it been until I pulled it up and saw that had not been updated since late 2016. North Lot is happened in almost 2 years but I will do my best give a brief rundown of some of the more memorable points.

Christmas was a non-event for me. Holidays don't mean a whole lot to me much anymore but I'm not sad because of it. Since I'm away from most of my family I just don't get happy at holiday times. That's about the change but I'll give you more information about that later.

In February of 2017, my friend Allen Mabry and I took a road trip to Southwest Texas to do some geocaching and seeing some interesting sites. And some point maybe I'll be able to link some photos but I'm going to have to wait on that a bit. We drove out west towards Alpine, Terlingua, and ended up at Big Bend. While near Alpine we attended a star party at an observatory which is incredibly cool. I wasn't sure I'd like it but Allen told me they were interesting so I agreed to go. Geocaching was a bigger part of this trip and we put a lot of miles on his Subaru to get to each and every one of those. We only spent one day in Big Bend because we had so much to do. It seem to waste to pay $25 to get in the Park Drive around all day and then leave but what we saw and what we did was fun. While we were in Big Bend we crossed over into Mexico from the official border crossing station in the park. If you want an idea of what the experience is like, listen to the song "Gringo Honeymoon" by Robert Earl Keane. The only difference between what happened in that song and what happened with me was I did not go with my wife but with a good friend of mine. However the majority of that song was what happened during that day. We crossed the Rio Grande in a row boat, had an old man escort ice into town on the back of donkeys, we had cold beer in the shade, and had a good time. It was my first trip to Mexico and only lasted a couple of hours but I can't complain.

In March of 2017 I attended the Texas Challenge which is a geocaching event/ competition for the entire state of Texas. It was held in Tyler Texas in 2017 and the team I'm associated with one their fifth straight title. I did not participate do my failing Health but I had a good time than the last. I met several new people, had some great food, and made some good memories. That was my last geocaching outing.

In April 2017 I started working for a new company called dxc technology. If you're not familiar with the company they are the Enterprise services division of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise combined with CSC also known as Computer Sciences Corporation. The transition from one company to another was awkward and painful at times but we finally managed to get through it.

In the middle of May 2017 I went on disability due to my continuing battles with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. I was becoming so weak that just going from my truck in the parking deck to my desk fatigued me so much I had to rest 20 minutes before I can start work. I was on short term disability for 6 months and then in November of 2017 I went on long term disability. Stop driving in June or July of 2017 and due to lack of strength and my concern that I would not be able to control my truck safely anymore.

There was a lot of problems to deal with regarding my transition to disability but we finally got everything organized.

At the end of November 2017 I received noticed that I was being laid off. I really didn't think much about it because I've been on disability and knew I was not going back to work. I was going to continue to draw disability until they asked me to retire. That never happened and my last day of work for dxc technology what is December 1st. Or so I thought. In January I was wondering where my severance check was and I was told that due to the fact that I was on medical leave when they laid me off that my layoff was deferred until the one year anniversary of me taking disability. That meant I had to wait until May until I got my severance check. Or so I thought.

May roll around and there was no severance check. June rolled around and there was no severance check. I contacted my old boss and let him know what was happening and after a week and got back to me and told me, in a nutshell, that they forgot about me and then they said that I was not actually laid off like they told me initially. I didn't understand what was going on but a couple of weeks later I was told that my last day of work would be July 13th 2018. This was called at administrative termination and I would get the ability to maintain my benefits at company cost once I left. About 2 weeks after I was terminated I received my severance check. All is well and good. Or so I thought.

Right after I was terminated I received it in the mail telling me I can continue my benefits but the prices were insane. Health, dental, and vision insurance we're going to run $1,500 a month. A few days later I received another packet in the mail telling me I can continue my life insurance that I had through work at approximately 5 times the cost that I was paying through work. Since I didn't have any life insurance on me I went ahead and and got one quarter of the coverage I used to have paying a premium for it. Since I have ALS there is no way I could pass a medical exam so I opted for the non-medical questionnaire coverage. I knew it was going to cost more but what choice do I have? My wife and I diligently filled out the paperwork and mailed it in. A couple of weeks later we received the statement and we paid it. Well it's not the big chunk of change I had when I worked but it's better than nothing. At least when I die my wife will be able to pay off the house.

Then something very interesting happened. Yesterday when we check the mail it was a bill from dxc technology for benefits. I was very confused so I called the number talk to a very polite lady who explained to me that my coverage was being continued if I wanted to pay the premiums that were sent. When I looked at what the premiums were, I couldn't believe how inexpensive they were. Mind you I'm not getting right Medical coverage with this but I have Medicare as my primary so at least I have something. However my old life insurance policy, the total amount that I had available when I work, was part of this package. The total package cost only $20 more a month then just the life insurance policy I bought by itself. And that policy is only one fourth of what the company would allow me to have. Plus I would get medical, dental, and vision coverage as well. The only bad thing is they won't cover my wife so I need to get an external policy to cover her. However she's not a big fan of doctors so I think what I'll probably gets just something to cover catastrophic.

And that leads me up to the final point. I said earlier that I really wasn't a fan of holidays because most of my family is not in this area but that was going to change. Well at the end of next month, borrowing any problems, I will be moving back to West Virginia to live with my mom. It's not the ideal situation considering she 78 years old but she is in pretty good health. I have a sister, her husband, and her two kids that live just down the street. Both of those kids are adults now and are pretty responsible even though one of them has autism. Also my son lives in Pittsburgh which is only a couple of hours away from where I'll be living.

Now to get the awkward part out of the way. My wife will not be joining me on this trip. Right now it's just me and her living in this house in the Dallas area. We have no other family here. We don't belong to any one Church so we don't have a support system in place to help out with my care. If you're unfamiliar with the type of care person like me needs, it is what they call custodial care. There is no cure for ALS and the disease is degenerative. As things get worse I will need more and more help on a daily basis. As it is right now I can't walk without the aid of a Rollator and my core muscles are so weak that I'm hunched over as I'm trying to walk. I spend the bigger part of my day and a recliner but I should be in a power chair to allow me Mobility. Right now I am able to get up on my own and make it into the bedroom or make it into the bathroom without any assistance. However that will change and someone will be needed to pick me up and move me to those locations. Custodial care takes care of that but it is expensive. Custodial care cost $300 a day, $10,000 a month, $120,000 a year. I realize most of you are not math Majors but if you're living on disability those costs are not reasonable. Generally people with ALS depend on family and friends to help out. We have friends but most of them work full time and really can't help out like we would need them to. While the option to move me West Virginia is not ideal, it's better than my wife attempting to take care of me by herself. For those people you don't understand how much stress a caregiver goes through, it is a huge burden for one person to carry. Since my wife is my caregiver that mean she can't get sick or get hurt. If she does or no one to take care of me. I have lost all dexterity in my hands and have to use voice commands to use my computer. With the aid of a strap able to feed myself but it's not pretty. The really sad thing is that mentally on the sharp now as I've ever been but my physical condition is deteriorating at a pretty rapid pace. Well my mother will not be able to do this on her own at least there are other people who can assist. I got a couple of cousins that I am trying to reconnect with that hopefully we'll be able to lend some Aid.

I'm not going to lie to you. The thought of putting Mike are in the hands of a 78 year old woman is a little frightening considering she could hurt herself at any time and I would be in the same boat as I would be if my current caregiver, my wife, suffered the same fate. The only plus is the fact there are other people that can assist.

That being said my wife is going to stay here and live in Texas well I live in West Virginia. It wasn't my first choice and I'll be honest I was not happy about it initially but I understand it's probably the best thing at the moment. My wife and I have had our issues and she's done a good job at taking care of me so far despite the fact that we've had these issues. Matter fact I'm pretty surprised she didn't leave me a few years ago when we ran into a really rough patch. I guess that says a lot about her.

 So, to those people who know me and are reading this, do not judge. It might get to the point where my wife decides to sell the house and come join us in West Virginia. It's not her Jam and I don't expect her to make the trip back up for good but you never know what's going to happen. She's going to be busy trying to take care of this house on her own and I'm sure I'll be answering questions all the time.

I don't know how many of you that read this are Christians or have any type of spiritual life but I would appreciate any prayers and positive thoughts you can send my way. People who know me know I am not the type to ask for sympathy, but I don't mind a little compassion. This is going to be a tough transition as I have not lived in West Virginia in about 30 years. It's going to take some adjusting to living with my mother in a very small cottage with one bathroom. She's never been one to really like the Finer Things in life and to be honest I like nice things every now and then. I'm going to miss a lot of types of food that I've been able to get while living in Texas but on the bright side, at least I'll get some of my mom's homemade pepperoni rolls. That's almost worth the trip back in and of itself.

I'm not sure when I'm going to update this again. People that know me can find me on Facebook. I'm going to make a public announcement on Facebook next month to let all my West Virginia friends know that I'm coming back.

A Little R&R

On Dec 12th my friend Allen and I took a road trip into central Oklahoma to do a little geocaching.

The OK trip went well, but day-ummm it was cold.  Harsh winds and very cold below freezing temps much of the time.

We left my crib (Allen drove up from Dallas to pick me up) at 7:30 and we cherry picked geocaches along the way for Allen so he could complete some specific challenges he had committed to doing.  One of them had to do with the Delorme map grid for OK and the other was an alphabet challenge where you had to get a geocache that started with each letter of the alphabet.  It is a little harder than it sounds but he completed them both.

We ate lunch at Braum's (ther burgers are pretty good) in Muskogee, OK then headed to the USS Batfish and really enjoyed touring the sub before moving on to do more caches.

We meandered our way geocaching until we arrived in Owasso, OK (NE suburb of Tulsa) to stay at the Hampton Inn. Friday night.  

We had dinner at The Bricktown Brewery.  OMG the food was so good!  I had "Big Mike's Meatloaf" (specialty) that was to die for.  Super tasty.

I was very tired after dinner so after an Angry Orchard Green Apple Hard Cider, reading a few pages from my newest book, and some internet browsing, I hit the hay by 9:30 PM

The next morning we cleaned up early and had breakfast before hitting the road at 7:30 AM.  Allen had a LOT of things he wanted to accomplish before we arrived in OKC.

We drove up to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve to do some "earthcaching" (geocaching that does not involve finding a container, but going to specific areas and answering questions about the specific geological features there and take specific photos).  It is a very specific subset of geocaching and there are not nearly as many as traditional caches.  Harder to do and more time consuming.

We cached until noon where we had lunch at a Subway in Pawnee and after lunch, we continued caching (in a meandering route) until we got to OKC, where we did more caching until it became dark.  

We then did a "night" cache that utilizes reflectors to lead you to the target.  It started out fun, then turned aggravating as we noticed many reflectors were missing causing us to wander almost aimlessly until finally Allen spotted the final reflector showing us the physical cache.  Getting back to the car was easy as we only walked about 1/4 a  mile in a straight line into the wooded area and all we really had to do was follow the highway noise back.

It was only 6 PM but I was pretty tired after being up all day.  We checked in at a Best Western Plus and after a very quick washing of hands and face, we went to The Garage for dinner.  I had the "Sticky Finger" which has ... hold on to your hats...Peanut Butter, Bacon Bits, Sweet Jalapeño Relish, and Cheddar Cheese.It was really very, very good.  I had it with bison instead of beef.

We walked back to the hotel (it was across the parking lot) and I had a beer that Allen had brought along (St. Arnold Christmas Ale) and fell asleep within an hour.  Allen was wearing me out with the geocaching activities!  He may be 56 but he moves like a 30 year old.

We got up and took our time the next morning since we did not have much on the agenda.  The first stop was the OKC National Memorial which was very sobering.  I did not go in the museum part (it was not open yet)  but we wandered the grounds for a while.  Very sad.

After that we drove to a nearby lake to let Allen play like a monkey and climb some trees.  He was looking for some specific geocaches, some harder ones requiring some tree climbing.  We struck out on a couple that were missing but that did not seem to bother him.The ones we did get were worth it.

Again we meandered our way back towards Allen, TX, stopping at Shawnee for lunch, again at Braum's.  I had a chicken sandwich this time instead of a burger like I did last time.  It was pretty good for fast food.

After lunch we drove through Ada, OK to get a geocache that one of Allen and my friends (Briarboy) had placed and that allowed me a photo op while there.  From that point on we drove straight home, only stopping for gas and to take a leak.  We did grab a new geocache at the Texas welcome center that neither of us had gotten yet.  It was a breaker box mounted on the back of a tree with a lock but the cache page had the combo listed so it was not any problem.  The breaker box was missing a conduit plug and mice had lived in it at one time but they were no longer home :).

I made it home at approx 4:45 PM and chatted with the wife before putting my gear away and getting a bite to eat.  I was in bed by 8 PM!

Grand Time

I know I normally post my geocaching adventures on my "Geobloggin'" blog but I am not 100% sure I that I want to continue running that site. There are a lot of reasons that I could go in to, but I won't at this time.

Sunday after church and lunch, I decided to do a little geocaching since I did not do any on Saturday. I actually had a plan (and stuck to it, too!) and did a minimum of driving, instead I hiked several miles around Breckenridge Park and Allen Station Park.

I started off the day grabbing a few park and grabs just a mile or two from home. One was right along Bethany Drive (Heritage Park and Grab) and the other was in a cemetary (Allen Cemetary). Neither took very long so I was able to get to the hardest geocache (4/4) of the day rather quickly. "Focus" was a team effort by a couple of local hardcore cachers, 9key and Team TechieGirl. I will not go into too much detail but I will say that it is very possible to find the cache without going to all the stages. As a matter of fact, I discovered the final on my way to stage one, but since I wanted the full effect of the hide, I followed it as intended. It was a very enjoyable find, although I cut my legs (I was wearing shorts) to ribbons.

After finding "Focus" I moved on to the two in Northwest Allen that I DNF'ed on a couple of weeks ago. It turns out the hider had made a rather large error on the coordinates so almost everyone struck out the first time. Armed with new coords, I found both hides (W.T.D. #1 and #2) in due time. Five down, and four to go.

The last four were new as well. Two of them ("Knot Low and Inside" and "Concrete Graveyard") were near enough to each other that I could walk from one to the other. "Concrete Graveyard" was the first one I went to. It was a large deposit of concrete slabs and rebar in the middle of a large wooded area. How long it has been there is anybody's guess, but finding the cache was not hard. I was surprised that so many people struck out on it previously.

After grabbing that one I hiked over to "Knot Low and Inside". That one was fun because it had a decoy and finding the actual hide took some time. It was a micro in the woods (that is getting to be old...) but a find is a find. On to the last two.

"Just a Frog on a Log" and "Old Tree" were in part of the nature preserve that I did not know was open to the public. After a short hike (1 mile round trip) I snagged two nice hides. "Frog on a Log" is a reincarnation of "Ribbitting", which was just a mile away. I always liked that cache and at the time I found it, thought it was pretty darn cute.

With nine geocaches down, I turned my attention to two terracaches in Richardson and some cache maintenance. The first one I looked for was, "What Did You Expect", a multipart terracache in Breckenridge Park. Stage one was a real bear because the coords were off my 50+ feet. The only way I was able to find it was with a hint but I am not too upset since this was the way a lot of people found it. After stage one was grabbed (reminded me of two geocaches I have grabbed, one in Plano and the other in Garland) I drove over to the official parking area and hoofed it to the final. I was on the wrong side of the creek (you always are on the wrong side of the creek in Breckenridge) so I had to find a safe place to cross to get to the final. After letting my GPSr setting down, I was able to find the metal marker on the ground. I left it uncovered since it was hard enough to get to.

With one terracache down, I decided to check on one of my caches in the area that had been reported missing. "Dead Men Tell No Tales" was a collaborative effort between me and 9key and it really ticked me off that it was missing. It looks like the cache thief is working overtime. I decided not to replace it and archived it on the web site.

On my way over to the last terracache, I stopped by to see if I could find "eeman's First Cache"...one that had stumped me before. This time I was able to find it and was able to score a smilie. This was an odd cache since the camo is more urban than the environment would require, but it seems to work well enough here. Who am i to judge?

I had just enough time to head over to the other nature preserve in Richardson to grab one more terracache (Routh Cemetary). Once I navigated to it, all I needed was a pic of the plaque to give me the info I needed to get another find on the terracaching web page. I think I have five total terracache finds...not actually a huge number but it puts me at number 43 in the state for finds.

So in my mind, the day was a success and I followed my plan. I only deviated once and that was to get a previous DNF (eeman's First Cache) so all is good.

After I got home I got cleaned up, called mom, and had a little dinner. I was tired and very scratched up but I was very happy. I wish more days could be like this.

Sobering

There is a Geocacher saying that is printed on stickers and t-shirts that goes, "Geocachers know where all the bodies are hidden", meaning that we are good at hiding things, many times in plain site. Well that saying took on new meaning in Dallas over the holiday weekend when a duo of veteran cachers found the body of homeless man, several days old in an abandoned part of Grove Hill Memorial Park Cemetery. Here is the log entry for the cache they were looking for when they made the grisly discovery:

9:21 am - It was bound to happen sooner or later... We all hunt for caches in cemeteries and in some pretty remote places, so it wouldn't have surprised me to find out that a cacher had discovered a dead body - I just didn't expect it to be me, though I am one of those people that things just seem to happen to. I've even seen t-shirts that say "Geocachers know where all the bodies are hidden" and that seems to be very true.

I was caching in the Dallas area with (caching friend) and we were excited to have some of (Popular caching team) caches on our to-do list. In addition, (prolific cacher) has a cache very nearby called "Stuck on You - In the Middle" and that was on our list first. So, we pulled up to the outside gate of Grove Hill Memorial Park and started chasing the needle (following the GPSr). It led us toward the corner at first where we found a homeless guy "sleeping." He was surrounded by beer cans so we just thought he was passed out and sleeping it off. We then went into Super Silent Stealth Mode because we didn't want to wake him up and tiptoed over to where the cache actually was. I found the cache and took it over to (other cacher) so that he could do the paperwork and (yet another cacher) and I decided to check on the homeless guy. Hmmm...he doesn't appear to be breathing...and on closer inspection (which I will save you from because it was really GROSS!) it became apparent that this poor guy was dead. Dang! Time to call 911.

NG: We're at the corner of Samuel and Grove Hill and we've found a homeless man in the cemetery and he's dead.
911: Is he injured? What makes you think he's dead?
NG: He's not breathing (and I also told her about the GROSS stuff)
911: Is he Hispanic, Black, or White?
NG: He's Hispanic or White - it's kind of hard to tell. (What difference does that make? Dang!)
911: What's he wearing?
NG: A green t-shirt and khaki pants (Dang woman! He's not fleeing - he's dead! He's the only dead guy on top of the ground in the cemetery - why do you need to know what he's wearing?)
911: We'll dispatch someone right away.

It's the fourth of July and there's no telling how long it's going to take for them to get here and the dead body was really starting to creep us out, so we decide to move to the inside of the cemetery where the other caches are and wait for the sirens. We went right by one of the caches so we made the find and were doing the paperwork when we heard the sirens, so we went back to the gate to wait. We flagged down the firetruck (why did they send a firetruck?) and ambulance (it's a little late for that!) just as my phone was ringing. It was a police officer on the way to the scene.

PO: Why is someone from East Texas calling in a dead body in Dallas?
NG: Uh...we're up here "visiting" (boy, am I glad I didn't have to explain that one! Who just "visits" in a cemetery?) and just happened to find it.
PO: Is he injured or traumatized?
NG: No sir, he's dead.
PO: Well, I guess he decided to cut out the middle man.
NG: Yes sir, I guess he did. (It was all I could do to not burst out laughing - I couldn't believe he said that!!!) The firetruck and ambulance are already here.
PO: I'm about 20 minutes out so I'll be there soon.At this point, we asked the fire department guys if they needed us to stay and they said no, so we went on to the other caches inside the cemetery. We were a little shaken up but there was nothing we could do for the poor guy, so we decided to not let this ruin our caching day. After we finished the rest of the caches inside, we drove back out the way we came in. The firetruck was gone, the ambulance was gone, there were now 2 police cars there, and the dead body was STILL THERE!!! Oh my gosh! We couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Today was a day that we will never forget. (Cacher) hit 3000 (finds), I hit 4400, and we were FTF (First to Find) on a dead body. Do you think geocaching.com will give us a special icon for it?

I always wondered when something like this would happen close to home.

Anyone have any ideas WHY I do not like going into Dallas?

Work, Heat, Biking, Caching

We had a busy day at work on Friday My boss was intent on giving us the least amount of info and expecting us to provide the maximum amount of results...you know just a normal day! We managed to end with our heads above water. That meant that my colleague, who was on call, did not have to manage any issues left over from the day. He simply was to be in "reaction mode" until he went off call on Monday morning.

Earlier in the week I was given the movie "Equilibrium" to watch. While I liked the concept, the movie as a whole was terrible. I returned it promptly on Thursday evening. By Saturday, the man who let me borrow that gave me another one, "Gattaca". This one was much better although I am not much of an Ethan Hawke fan. Oddly enough, Equilibrium was rated "R" but there was no nudity (well none to speak of...there were side shots but no naughty bits were shown) and no language. It was rated "R" for violence. Gattaca was rated "PG-13" for language...the "F word" was uttered twice in typical European fashion.

Saturday I had to get up early since my wife was getting up early so I decided to go geocaching early...at 7:00 AM. I stayed out for about five hours and had a great time. I was even able to run a couple of errands while I was out. I grabbed a few harder ones but most of them were simple PnG's scattered in North Allen and South McKinney...areas I have cached very little or not at all in the past.

After I got back, entered in my finds, and cleaned up, I went over to a BiC's house to work on his wife's PC. It was the typical virus infection house call that I normally handle for them. Once I took care of that the PC was pretty much back to normal. The PC really could use a nuke and pave since their boys (who have since moved out) download and install a lot of garbage. I almost did it once before but I was able to salvage the machine without doing so. I am a little antsy about doing a nuke and pave because they have a lot of data on the machine that they do not back up and it is scattered everywhere on the HD. Finding it will be a challenge and I am sure I would be getting a ton of calls if anything went missing.

The virus/spyware scan took about 2 hours but it was thorough. I collected my modest fee (less than half of what The Geek Squad charged for a house call) and was given "Gattaca" to watch, providing I return it to the Blockbuster by the due date.

I went home and did some house work while my wife ran an errand or two and grabbed me some Taco Bell for dinner. I had just finished when she got back, so I put the things away and ate. After eating I watched Gattaca and went for a long walk with the dogs. I was not very tired so I went to read for a while until the last load of clothes that were in the dryer finished. Oh I also helped fold clothes and washed dishes before I went to bed.

Sunday was very typical early on (Sunday School and church). We started a new study on the book of Mark in our SS class and it looks like it will be pretty good. We were told that we would have a guest teacher once a month. I think ours is getting burned out.

After SS, we had our normal service sans the Praise and Worship band. Most of them were out of town so we had a guest band come in and lead. They were pretty good...young but good. They were all in college except for the lead singer and she is only a Junior in high school. Good set of pipes on her...she had great range.

After church my wife and I grabbed some Chinese food and then went home. She took a nap while I worked on my bike (I had two flats to change), then I went out on a 17 mile ride. I grabbed a cache while I was out but I had not originally intended to do that. I just happened to be checking the GPSr (I use it as a bike computer when I ride...very helpful!) and noticed a new one was only three miles away so I went for it. I am over 500 finds now and if this weekend is any indication I am really into a grove right now.

I got back (wishing I had taken some water with me) and downed a quart of water pretty quickly, but not so quick that it made me puke...that is a horrible feeling to be very thirsty, drink a lot of water and vomit. I have had it happen only once and that was enough.

I made a pizza for dinner and then after we ate I made a Braum's run to get some mile and ice cream. When I came back I started watching "Red Dragon", which is the prequel to "Silence of the Lambs". I did not realize I had seen it before until I got near the end. It was another Hulu.com special.

After the movie I grabbed a shower then hit the hay. Monday was going to arrive soon enough and I was going to need my sleep.

Mixed Day

I played hooky from work yesterday (I have more vacation time than I know what to do with) and decided to, guess what, go GEOCACHING. Since the price of gasoline is over $4 a gallon (I have found it near $3.90 in a few places) my caching is very close and I tend to bike when I can. With that in mind I decided to attempt to finish up the Chisholm and Bluebonnet Trails in Plano, about 10 miles away. The day ended with mixed results.

I got up and prepped to get ready to go. My wife had an event with the women from church so me not being home all morning/early afternoon was not a big thing. I packed my geobag (backpack), got my bike ready, grabbed some bottled water, and headed out. First stop, to repair a cache that has been reported missing.

I arrive at the park to replace the cache but I notice that the cache is in place, albeit damaged. I replace the container, tether it, and head out to the bike paths. I stop along the way to grab a cache or two that I have been meaning to get but just never seem to have time to stop. Well, today I had that time.

I arrived at the bike park around 8:00 AM and started out. I grabbed several and whiffed on a few. I ended up on the wrong side of the creek several times (Garmin was not overly for me) but overall enjoyed my trip...that is until I got not one but TWO flat tires. Trail riding has its hazards. Luckily I was on my way back and had only about .5 miles to go. I got back to my truck and put the bike in the back and headed home.

I checked my logs and realized that I was just 2 caches away from a milestone...500 finds. There was no way I was going home short of that goal so I headed towards the Plano Dog Park and headed out to find at least 2 more caches. I had to dissassemble my bike and put it inside the truck (popping a small hole in my otherwise immaculate headliner in the process) to keep it from getting stolen...come on this IS the Dallas Metro here! Flat tires or not, someone is going to steal it.

I started off and manged to grab to more caches, striking out on the others. I realize it is after 1:00 PM so I decided not to head to North Allen/South McKinney (where 5 new hides have been placed) and just head home.

I get home and log all my finds and post a note that "Shell Shock", my latest hide, has been repaired.

So my geocaching day was mixed. I set out after 21 hides and DNF'd on 9 of them. I missed another one but that was not my fault so I did not log it as a Did Not Find (it was a puzzle caches and after I solved it, I e-mailed the owner to verify the coords. He told me the coords I mailed hime were correct. He was wrong. I was off by one digit making the find impossible at that time).

So I found 12, DNF'd on 9 (the largest number of same day DNF's in my caching career). However, I did reach my 500th find milestone and managed to get a few harder (3's and 4's) caches along the way. I also managed to ge two fla tires and slightly damage the headliner of my truck, but I did get a lot of great exercise and had a very good time while I was out.

Oh, here is a breakdown (as of yesterday) of my caching stats:

Total: 501 finds

* Total days since first find: 289
* Overall find Rate: 1.74/day, 12.16/week
* Total days with a find: 130 (Every 2.2 days or 45.1% of your total days)
* Average finds per caching day: 3.85
* Best day: 5/10/08 - 20 finds (High for me, low for some people)
* Most consecutive days with a find: 10 from 9/27/07 to 10/06/07 (Right when I first started caching without a GPSr I was HUNGRY for caches!)
* Longest caching drought: 14 days from 9/13/07 to 9/26/07 (this was the two weeks after my first cache find in WV with friends and when I decided to give geocaching a try on my own...without a GPSr -- urban caching)
* Average total cache difficulty: 1.8 (most urban caches are usually 1 to 2 in difficulty)
* Average total terrain rating: 1.68 (most urban caches are usually 1 to 2 in terrain)
* Average physical cache difficulty: 1.81 (virtual caches are not included in this)
* Average physical terrain rating: 1.69 (Traditional, Multi, Unknown, Project APE, Letterbox)
* Approximate cache-to-cache distance: 3739.52 miles (how many miles I have walked, driven, and biked to get caches (not counting locationless caches)
* Active Caches: 473 of the caches you've found are still active (94.4%)
* Average log size: 43.8 words
* Biggest log: 256 words
* Shortest log: 3 words
* Number of one-word logs: 0

Okay, if geocaching and statistics bore you...you are prolly asleep by now!

Old School Geocaching

I spent some time on the Groundspeak forums today reading some interesting comments about what geocaching used to be like. I can't say that I relate to what the OP (original poster) feels now since I have been caching for just a little under a year but I can relate to some of the things that were written.

Geocaching has been around for about eight years or so. During that time a lot of people have come to enjoy the sport/hobby for many reasons. In the early years, it would appear that there were two types of cachers, those who loved the outdoors and wanted a diversion while they were out and geeks who wanted to get out from in front of the computer. Back then there were few geocaches and they were pretty far apart. There were few small containers and even less micros. A geocache hider placed a hide out in the woods, hidden and loaded with goodies.

As time marched on, the types of cachers and caches has changed. As more homes are built, the amount of wooded areas to hide caches diminishes. A lot of old school cachers have trouble adjusting to the change.

Another thing to understand is that the number of geocachers has increased drastically now that GPSr's are so readily available at a reasonable price. At one time the only people who had them were outdoorsmen: hikers, boaters, hunters, and campers. Now most new cars have a GPSr option and the handheld units are more and more affordable. The bigger anything gets the more it evolves. Since a large number of people who geocache would rather not go venturing off into the woods, a large influx of smaller urban caches has materialized. This has changed the way some people look at the sport/hobby.

With the large number of urban caches available, a new breed of cachers has emerged. Many of those are "numbers" cachers...they seek as many caches as they can as often as they can. The numbers are what is important...so important that a web site has been created to help these people pull all kinds of stats from the caches they find.

Don't misunderstand me...I am a little tempted by the draw of seeing 1000 finds by my name (at the rate I seek caches that could be next summer) but I recently had an experience geocaching where the numbers did not mean nearly as much as the thrill of the hunt. I logged about that a few weeks ago and I can still vividly recall most of the caches that me and my geocaching partners found. It is hard to do that with a ton of micro caches hidden under lamp post skirts.

But I cannot judge everyone by what I like. The sport/hobby of geocaching is pretty diverse. If you want to hunt ammo cans in the woods, they are there. If you want to crawl parking lots looking for LPC's, those are available as well. Like solving puzzles? There a puzzle caches all over the world. If you are a numbers person, you are going to have to go after the easier ones first and go after the harder ones when you have found all the caches close to you. I have to admit that is normally the way I cache, but I think I have seen the light. Even though I would love to have 1000 finds as soon as possible (I am not sure why this is such a magical number for me) I have found I get more out of the memorable caches than most of the micros.

For me personally the hunt is a lot of fun but it can be aggravating. I went out last night after I had finished working on a SiC's PC to look for a new (multi) cache that has been out for over a week and still remains unfound. When I got to ground zero I noticed a plethora of places to find stage one (which held the coords for stage two) but after 20 minutes of searching I came up empty. I have not been caching in over a week and I was itchin' to find one but I should have known that a cache that had been published for over a week and had not been found yet was not going to be a "walk in the park".

Back On The Bike

I have been trying to get in a few miles each night (that I am not obligated to something else) on my 10 year old Trek 930 hybrid mountain bike. Saturday was 15 miles, Sunday 11, Tuesday 6, and Wednesday 10. Monday I had a Trustee meeting at church, and today I have The Truth Project to attend. Friday I will most likely be mowing grass so I can cache on Saturday and Sunday will be the next day that I could possibly put any miles on my bike. And of course I am on call (and working by myself) next week so no chance at all I will be biking then. However, at least I am on the thing.

Yes, I have an ulterior motive. While getting exercise and losing weight are good, I really have been using my biking to grab or place caches that are close by when I can. The price of gas has really put a crimp on my caching plans!

Speaking of biking and caching, I grabbed one last night near the CommColl that is abut 5 miles away. It was a puzzle cache that was straight forward, but due to a small detail, I was incorrect on solving it. I did manage to solve it and get confirmation that the coords were correct. Armed with that info, I rode to CCCC - Spring Creek Campus to grab "Presidents Day".

When I got there the grounds had been mowed (this is a wooded area with weeds) and this made getting closer to GZ (Ground Zero) much easier. When I got to GZ, I scoured the area for the prize but could not find it. I then saw something unusual on the ground that turned out to be part of the camo used on the hide. Realizing that the cache had fallen from its hiding place onto the ground, the mower must have run it over and torn it up. I evetually (20 minutes later) found the container mostly intact and returned it to a likely hiding spot. A hard find even with the lack of camo since I expected it to be one area and it was 20+ feet away in another.

Geocaching Software / Recycling PC's

Since there is little Geocaching software available for Linux (such a shame!) I have been spending a lot more time on my Windows partition of my PC. Of course now that it is reloaded and I have NOT taken SP3, it runs great.

I have installed "Cachemate" on my PDA and I have to say that as a Geocaching DB program, it works well. I have pretty much figured it out and have about 50 or so caches in various catagories (by city) in it already. I spent the better part of the afternoon doing that while working from home.

The other part of that time was spent downloading and installing PC based Geocaching software. I am still not sure I really need it but one piece has been helpful. "Cachemagnet" takes gpx files downloaded from geocaching.com and allows you to manipulate them and also pull sat maps from the coords, all while having the cache notes in the same program. My geocaching buddies in WV (Knightmare_Duck and Rycherox) swear by GSAK, but I have not played with that one yet. it is an all in one wonder tool that many geocachers like to use. It is shareware but it only costs $25.00 so for them it may be worth it. Right now the only thing I need is something to transfer the .gpx files to my PDA and EasyGPS does that well enough and is free. I think CacheMagnet will do that as well and it also has maps with the option to print them. That kinda defeats the purpose of using a PDA but some people just have to have paper. I am trying to break that habit.

I am anxious to try this style of caching and if all goes well I will nab one or two on the way home from work tomorrow.

I did a little spring cleaning in the closet in my home office today. I got rid of a box full of 1.44 floppies as well as the really old PC work let me borrow. I had forgotten that I had two if them and only returned on. Both were in the 650 mhz range and not worth much but they both ran Linux well enough. I have been carrying around 2 laptops for more than a week now since we have been given new Vista laptops. I am still not comfortable with Vista as an OS since a lot of things do not work as expected (Citrix will not work with IE7...it wants to keep launching Java...does anyone know how to fix this? It works in Firefox perfectly but IE is the "browser of choice" at work). I like the idea of having a back up. I have not had to use it yet and as the days and weeks go by, the chances of me having to have to use it grow slimmer and that is a good thing. One, I will not have to carry two laptops and accessories around and two, I can re-roll the old laptop and use it as a sandbox at home.

I still have a lot more to clean out from the closet but I will get there. Most if not all of my PC junk is in two large totes with one 1GHZ machine on the floor collecting dust. I would use it as a server but it is incredibly noisy. I think it has either Debian or Ubuntu loaded on it.

Placing Caches

Being a relatively new geocacher (less than a year / 500 finds) I am not expected to be a proliferate cache hider. I am expected to find as many as I can and learn from what I have found so I can make the caching community a better place. I am doing that.

There are so many different types of caches and one of the overwhelming things about placing you first cache is, "Which type and where?". Location should dictate what kind of hide you use, simply because you should try to use the largest container an area will accommodate without being easily found. Since the DFW area is not heavily wooded, small, micro, and even nano hides are popular.

My first hide was considered a "small" and is still in action. I took a heavy plastic bowl with a snap on lid (similar to a cool whip bowl only thicker) and camo'd it with black tape (it was brightly colored so tape was needed to help it blend in). I used black tape because I did not know where to get camo or olive drab tape until much later. I found a grea location and hid it, carefully recording the coordinates my borrowed GPSr was reporting. They were off a bit, but in the end that did not matter. You are allowed a margin of error of 15 feet or so.

Placing caches can be expensive if you feel the need to buy containers instead of recycling them. Now to be honest, the container of choice, a 30 or 50 cal ammo can, is hard to beat. It can take a pounding and remain watertight for years. Ammo cans are sort of the "holy grail" for geocachers. Obiously you cannot hide an ammo can everywhere, so that is where the other sized caches come in. However you can use household items in lieu of an ammo can. Any watertight plastic container will work for a couple of years. I have a 5 gallon water resistent plastic bucket and lid that I hope to hide sometime...I just have to paint it to match the wooded area where I hide it.

Hiding caches can also be expensive if you are trying to make them elaborate. My friend Will has a couple that he spent a lot of time and money on in an effort to make them memorable. Fancy connectors, magnets, fishing leaders (to anchor small caches to keep them from moving), reflectors (for night caches...a challenge!), camo tape (just buy it in the painting department at Wal-Mart) glue, and artificial greenery all can drive up the cost of your cache. Add to that prizes to stock your cache with and you can have a rather pricey hobby. I have found new caches with DVD's, CD's software, camera's, and MP3 players in them, however this is not the norm. Most people will only put those things in caches if they have them lying around and they are not using them.

Now think about the cost of one cache and multiply that by the tens or hundreds that some people place. Personally, I have a goal of placing 5% of the total of finds I have. Right now I have 25 hides of which 23 are current. The other two had to be archived due to some conflicts over placement. I try to play fair.

As I have said before, I cache on the cheap. Most of my hides are "micros" (35 mm film canister sized) but I have a few small and medium sized ones as well. Most of my micros are pill bottles that have been camo'd to match their surroundings (that reminds me, I need to get some more camo tape). I have also used Altoid tins (in areas where water is not a big factor), large vitamin bottles, plastic coffee cans, plastic peanut butter jars, "beach tubes", and of course, 35 mm film canisters.

I have hidden them under bleachers, in lamp post skirts, tree boles, fences, guard rails, thick thorny bushes, under rocks, on electrical boxes, in picnic tables, under trash cans, under logs, and picnic shelters. I really like magnetic hides and have placed a few of them in the area.

Most of the "swag" (trade items) I have used is stuff I had lying around the house. Stickers, foreign money, magnets, fast food toys, and of course my signature item, 1980's cassette tapes. Those have been very popular with some of the cachers my age...sort of a blast from the past. I had at one time 200-300 or so but I have put them in almost every cache that will hold one IF I remember to bring them with me!

I love geocaching. I like to find them and I like to hide them. I enjoy the hunt, the sneaking around to grab one without a muggle seeing me, and I like the long hikes in the woods. It is an activity you can do solo (what I do most of the time) or with a group. You can do it in the daytime or at night, all year long. As a matter of fact, caching in the winter has some benefits...no Poison Ivy (or PI as it is known to cachers) or high weeds!

The World Is Ending

It must be...I am actually spending money. Not a lot mind you, but I am spending.

Mainly my spending has been centered around my geocaching hobby. Geocaching is a relatively cheap hobby, once you get a GPSr. However, like anything you can put some money into it and get more out of it or make it a tad easier. For example, my purchases:

Garmin GPSMAP 60Cx ($260) - While you can geocache without a GPSr unit (using Google Maps) it is a lot easier with a GPSr unit. BTW, I found my first 40 caches using Google Maps only. I still use Google Maps when I want to ge an overview of an area before I get there.

Bike mount for my GPSr ($20)- With the price of gasoline going up, I have been getting on my 10+ year old Trek 930 a lot more. Having the bike mount, while not necessary, help keeping butterfingers me from dropping my expensive unit on the pavement. Call it "insurance"

Premium Geocaching Membership ($30/year) - While this is not needed, you do get some features that the free membership does not offer, like custom cache queries e-mailed to you, access to members only caches (usually really nice ones!), online bookmarks, national tracking of stats, real time notification of newly published caches, and one I am dying to try out, "Caches along a route". This feature will allow you to put in two areas (lets say Dallas and Waco) and get a listing of all the caches along that route. Nice when you are day tripping or vacationing and want to incorporate some geocaching into the trip.

PDA (previously purchased) - Again, not needed because you can always print up the cache sheets and take them with you. The upside to using a PDA (if you have one) is that you are not wasting paper or ink. The downside is that you can damage your PDA on the trail if you drop it. The other plus to using paper is that if you have your notes on a clipboard, you look official and people (muggles) tend to leave you alone :) .

Software (varies) - What good is a computer or PDA without software? While there are free ways to get your cache sheets to your PDA (Windows or Palm), they are not as user friendly as the paid stuff. You know me...I am a freeware junkie. I won't pay for something unless I think it serves my purposes better than the free stuff. I am testing "Cachemate" for my Palm T|E and so far it looks like a winner. It is shareware but it only costs $8. It allows me to convert and export the geocaching gpx (and loc) files to my Palm and allows me to go paperless.

I do use a free app to send the gpx and loc files to my GPSr but it is limited on what it can do. I don't mind all that much since I only really need it to transfer the wapoints to my Garmin.

So it looks like my initial investment is about $318. Not bad, really. Now that does not count gasoline or any supplies that I may purchase when I make caches to hide (more on that in another post) but that is about all I have to spend. Most of the other stuff people have if they hike (pack, first aid kit, flashlight, etc) or if you only want to do urban caching, you don't need it.

Compare the cost of geocaching to any other hobby. If you golf, you know you spent more than $300 and you still have to pay green fees and buy new balls all the time. And if you scrapbook...well we all know that will get expensive very quickly! Looking back at my choices, I could have saved a few bucks and got a less expensive (they start at $100) unit, but I wanted two things...ruggedness and sensitivity...and this was the cheapest unit to offer both.

Bias Against The Christian Faith

I am an avid (although not fanatical) Geocacher. Not only do I hunt for caches but I return to the geocaching community by placing about 5% of the total of my finds. Today I have 23 active caches and two that have been archived. The other day (Memorial Day) I placed three and the Saturday before that I placed one. I have not placed all that many lately, but I am getting back into the groove.

All of the ones I placed were approved and published without incident except one. This particular cache I called "Strong Tower" after a pretty cool Christian Rock band that I am a fan of. After all the other caches had been approved and published I wondered why this one had not. Then last night about 8:00 PM or so I get an e-mail from the approver who told me that he could not allow this one to be published because putting the lyrics to a Christian song on the cache page was promoting an agenda.

I was pretty ticked but I remembered that I am a Christian and I will turn the other cheek. While I did not compromise my faith, I edited the cache listing and removed the lyrics. I did not however, change the name of the cache. It was published a couple of hours later.

This may seem trivial to those of you who are unchurched, but for a Christian, it is like taking away the right to free speach. No where on the cache page was I telling anyone to convert, I was just stating my faith. It would be no different than someone making a cache dedicated to a sports team...which I am sure has been done.

My wife told me I should contest it but I believe in picking my battles wisely. I can still remain true to my faith and geocache...I will just have to be a bit more careful.

It is a sad day when a person cannot celebrate his faith while participating in a fun hobby like geocaching.

Cache and DREAM

Whoo hoo I had a grand time on Saturday afternoon. My morning was not bad but the afternoon was better.

I had gotten a call Friday evening from the men's ministry leader asking if I would help serve during the womens "mother/daughter" breakfast. I was glad to help and it gave me a chance to chat with a couple of the guys I normally do not talk to much. After the serving was over, I volunteered to wash dishes and clean up before going home. The ladies had a good time and they were pleased with our work. That was a good feeling.

After my wife and I got home, I decided to grab a few caches with the new GPSr. I initially had trouble getting used to it but after a while it became easier. While I missed a few, I still came home with 20 smilies (smilies are the graphical symbol on the geocaching web page that you get when you find a cache) in about a 5 hour period. I did a lot of walking and got most of the 20 cache "Star Wars" series, plus a few that I had missed in the past.

Once I got home I cleaned up the old GPSr I was borrowing from a guy at church and then started collecting things for the chuch yard sale. I was able to get rid of a few things I will most likely never use. It helps cure me of my pack rat syndrome!

I got up this morning and was pleasantly surprised when my wife was ready for Sunday school when I was, so this time she was actully going to go to SS as well as church service. That was pretty good as well. After church we dropped off the items for the yard sale and then my wife and I went to the Rockfish Grill for lunch. I had the etoufee (whch was okay, but not spectacular) and my wife had the macadamia nut crusted Mahi Mahi with wild rice and creamed corn (she picked the sides...it normally comes with skillet potatoes). She gave me a taste and I had to admit it was pretty good.

We got home and she said she was going to walk The Golden at the nature preserve in Plano so I decided to grab a few caches in the area. I only got four today, but two of them were pretty hard and another was in very secluded area that the police watch. It is the site of an old strip mall that has basically overgrown with weeds and it has been stripped of much of the recyclable material. The brush is so thick it hides the mall from the road and the access to it is not direct so getting in and out is a big weird.

After I got back and called my mom to wish her a happy Mother's Day, I walked the dogss then started watching some of the matches at the DREAM MMA event last night in Japan. I only watched three of the fights because I recognized the fighters. I could have watched another that I recognized but I am not a big fan of Caol Uno so I skipped it. Instead I watched Eddie Alvarez, Nick Diaz, and Jason "Mayhem" Miller take on opponents. My thoughts:

Eddie Alvarez def. Joachim Hansen - I watched Eddie when he used to fight on Bodog. He is a great striker and while he peppered Hansen with punches and kicks, the fight went to decision because he never could take control once he had Hansen on the ground. It was a good fight nonetheless.

Nick Diaz def. Katsuya Inou - I have only seen a few fights where someone actually threw in the towel...this was one of them. Diaz is a tough guy from Compton. He is a Cesar Gracie BJJ practitioner and is a purple belt if memory serves me correctly (a Gracie purple is equal to almost anyone elses black belt). To top that off, he is a skilled (if not unorthodox) boxer. While he can finish you on the ground, he would rather stand and bang all the while taunting you. That is exactly what he did with Katsuya. Katsuya decided to stand and trade punches with Nick instead of getting him down and trying some ground work. BIG MISTAKE. Nick does not back down. Katsuya was basically a target for Nick to pound on for 10 minutes.

Jason Miller def. Katsuyori Shibata - This was my favorite fight of the night. If you have never seen Jason "Mayhem" Miller in action, go to mmalinker dot com and watch a few. Darn he is entertaining, win or lose. His antics in the ring had me laughing the entire fight. Shibata was completely out of his league with Miller. Miller picked him apart and made the audience laugh as he punched, kicked, and kneed his victim into a bloody pulp. After the video was over I looked up "Katsuyori Shibata" on the web. While I am not sure, I think it means "punching bag" in Japanese. Just kidding, folks.

If this card does not change, then July looks like it will be a hot month. Affliction has managed to sign Fedor and Tim Slyvia for a heavyweight bout. I think this may be Fedor's toughest contest in years. He has had it easy for a while. Of course TUF 7 is looking pretty good with Evan Tanner, Diego Sanchez, and Jeremy Stephens on the card. However I am very excited about UFC 85, with a PACKED card including Matt Hughes vs. Thiago Alves, Marcus Davis vs. Mike Swick (I am really looking forward to that one...I like both fighters a lot), Fabricio Werdum vs. Brandon Vera, Jorge Rivera vs. Martin Kampmann, Antoni Hardonk vs. Neil Wain, Paul Taylor vs. Jess Liaudin...actually the whole card is good, those are just my favorites.

Well, I need my beauty sleep...if you know what I look like you would agree!

But, I Am The PRESIDENT!

Friday and Saturday were very quiet work-wise. I vacuumed the house on Saturday, played with the dog we were pet sitting, took a nap, and watched "Red Dawn" for the millionth time...those were the high points. On Sunday I went to Sunday School and Church and then to a little Mexican place for lunch. My wife and I shared the combination fajitas (and still had some to take home) and headed back to the house.

It had been quiet all weekend long from an on-call perspective. Enough so that I decided to grab as many of the five new 9key hides in our town while nothing was going on.

I drove by the first one, "The Devil Needs Dental Work", but was unable to find it. To be honest, a lone adult male wandering a neighborhood park has a hard task in front of him if he is trying to find a well hidden geocache without looking like a pedophile. Needless to say I did not stay lone. There is only so much time you can spend in a cedar tree and look "inconspicuous".

The next one I went to (La Cucaracha) was a little more involved than I was dressed for. it was hidden under a low bridge that crosses a drainage ditch. I needed to be wearing boots and all I had on was my well ventilated sneakers so I passed this one up as well.

The next one on my list was "Private Eyes". The log entries intrigued me enough that I was optimistic about getting this one. After a false start, I found the little (pea sized) cache and signed the log. I laughed the entire time.

With one cache out of three, I headed off to "Got Cache?", a five gallon bucket with several small cache containers hidden inside. When I found it, I was very pleased to see four travel bugs inside. So with much eagerness, I logged the TB serial numbers and closed the cache back up. I almost got back to the truck before I realized I had failed to sign the log, so I trotted back to sign it. As I was heading back to the truck (for the second time) I ran into another cacher, "Drooling_Mongoloid", who was placing four more TB's in the cache. We introduced ourselves, swapped a few stories, and he even let me write down the serial numbers from the TB's he had. After that was done, I bid him farewell and I headed off to my last stop, "Montgomery Farm".

Montgomery Farm is a high end subdivision with a wildlife area and a paved nature trail winding through it. I found the cache in short measure and was able to inventory it (I discovered another TB), sign the log, and replace it just as three dog walkers were rounding the bend. I hopped in my truck after the short walk back and started back home.

On the way home my mobile rings. It is the local help desk who has a customer requesting priority on a ticket he has submitted. The ticket is a single user issue regarding his Blackberry. I explained that single user issues are never high severity unless the user is a VIP, which this guy was not. The help desk thanked me for the info and I hung up.

Two hours later my boss calls me and asks me about the case. When I tell him, he agrees with my decision and we end the call. End of story. Not.

The next morning my colleague gets a phone call from one of the Accoutn Mgrs. One of the higher up directors asked that the case I had refused the previous day be escalated. Against better judgement we did and when the tech was informed, he just sighed and shook his head. It seems the person who is having this issue USED to be the President of a company that the company we support bought out. Now instead of being "President", he is given the title of "Director" or something, however he is still not considered VIP and that burns him. Well, all I can say is, "Welcome to the real world, sir." It is something we have had to deal with for a long time here in the trenches.

When a person is used to being a big fish in a small pond, that person is used to getting things done their way. The company that bought them out has done a lot in regards to keeping then happy, but they are having problems adjust from a 1000 person company to a 60,000 person company. Try as they might, they are just not the big fishes any more.

We have fielded a lot of complaint calls from the company that was bought out. Most of the complaints have been WAN related, something that w are not contracted to work on. So when a problem arises for them they call us, we see that it is a WAN issue (or something else we are not responsible for, like their PDA's) we hand the issue to the mother company, since that is what they do. The the company that was bought out calls us complaining about the service they are getting...which is, in effect, THEM!

You gotta love corporate America.

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.

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!

Playing Catch Up

Well, I am again way behind in timely updates to this blog. I was pretty dedicated for a while but I seem to have slacked off quite a bit over the pat few months. Let's see if I can bring everyone up to speed.

I went geocaching (as usual) on Saturday and I was quite surprised to have my wife join me. While she did not last long (about 1.5 horus into a three hour trip) she did manage to find 2 or 3 of them on her own. While she is still a greenhorn, she is progressing pretty well. I ended that day at 298 finds. I was hoping to get 300 by Saturday, but I guess God had other plans.

Sunday was Sunday school and church. Since we had eaten out Friday and Saturday night, we ate sandwiches at home for lunch. My wife was going out to walk the dog the go to the grocery story and she expected me to go out caching, but I did not really feel like it (please don't tell my caching buddies!) so I just stayed home. We ahd "Voice of Faith", our once a month Sunday evening service that night and I guess I just did not want to tire myself out completely.

Monday I had the church trustee meeting. I have agreed to take the role as the Trustee representative to the admin board since our head trustee (the current rep) has to step down. The trustees have a lot of changes to prepare for and I hope we can step to meet the challenge.

Tuesday I worked on my presentation about Islam to our care group. It did not take long to finish it. It was not polished, but it was informative.

I took Wednesday as a vacation day and went geocaching in the morning before I came home to fertilize the yard and spray weed killer on the nasty growth that has taken over my neighbor's yard. That was a 2.5 hour chore. While I was out caching I met ThePadre. He is a bit of a local legend in North Texas. New cachers like myself stand to gain a lot by talking to him.

After I finished geocaching and doing the yard work, I got cleaned up and got ready for care group so I could present my material on Islam. The presentation went pretty well...I obviously am no scholar nor am I a great speaker, but the message was well received.

After care group, my wife and I cam home and walked the dogs before watching the two "Law and Order" episodes we recorded. One had to do with illegal dog fighting and my wife could not watch it. Her love of dogs has softened her heart to the point that those issues really bother her.

Work has been pretty quiet so far this week. My TL is taking Friday off and is on vacation all of next week. Fortunately, I am not on call so I get to hand over the daily trash to the on call guy at night. While I am sure I will be tested next week, I can take comfort in knowing I am not alone. I have help.

One funny thing to mention. While I was out geocaching yesterday, my truck keys somehow became detached from the rest of my key ring in a wooded area many miles from home. I was not sure where they fell off so I had to retrace my steps until I found them. If you think that is not too difficult, you have to remember that geocaches are not placed on trails so I was "bushwhacking" quitea bit. Finding them was almost like looking for needle in a haystack. To make this story even more interesting, ThePadre, whom I had met just hours before, told me that it was good idea to carry a spare key since he had lost one once himself.

Washout

I guess it was time for Texas to get a good hard rain again. I woke up this morning to the sound of thunder as well as rain pelting the roof and the windows. it was bad enough that my wife did not want me to even walk the dogs. She knew that they would not want to be outside while it was pouring so she waited until it subsided and she took them out for quick walk. I was getting ready for work while she took care of the dog walking ths morning. I guess I owe her some flowers for that.

I am off call and will not have to go back for another month...just in time for quarterly close, one of the busiest times of the year.

Call was not too bad this time. Yes I was woken up a couple of times at 2 AM for issues beyond my realm of authority and I did get a few calls this weekend asking me about maintenance going on, but overall it was doable.

I did sneak out for a little while to try to find a couple of puzzle caches that were local to us. I struck out on both but for different reasons on each. the first one required a bit of waypoint projection, something my older GPSr cannot do, so I solved the puzzle and e-mailed the owner my info to prove to him that I can do the hard part and he agreed to mail me the coords so I can look for it.. I mena, I know the general area and worked out all the math/puzzle stuff correctly, but without a proper GPSr, finding it would be rather time consuming...especially since it is supposed to be well hidden.

The second one I looked for has been muggled. That was really sad since it has been active for about five years now. I have put it off for a long time because of the perceived driving needed to solve the clues, but I was incorrect as in the clues were all within a few miles of each other. I solved the clues and went to the final one and figured out the cache was missing. I called Tizom to verify that I had the right locale and he confirmed it. Not only was I unable to find it, several other season cachers who have put this one off were unable to find it as well. I hate to see this icon go but maybe it is time to archive it.

Further Apart

I have noticed that my posts are slipping further and further apart. To be honest I have not been in a writing mood the past few months and well, it shows. Maybe it will improve, maybe not.

The latter half of my work week ended well. No major storms although we stayed pretty busy most of the time. Busy is not bad...it keeps you sharp.

By the time Saturday had rolled around the weather had warmed up nicely (it had been cold a bigger part of the week) and I was itching to get outside. The pollen count (for cedar, at least) was pretty high and I was glad I had taken some Claritin that morning.

I cleaned the house early Saturday then went to get my hair cut before heading out for a few hours of caching. The house was not as bad as I had expected...more fur (from our two dogs) than dirt. I noticed that we really need to paint quite a bit inside and out...the walls and trim are looking kinda rough. While I don't like to paint, I would but my wife is more of a perfectionist than I am and requires more detail to get the job done. Needless to say I should stick to yard work :) .

After I got my hair cut I spent about five hours in Plano in the greenbelt and in various parks hunting for caches. I found 15 out of the 17 I was looking for which is pretty good for me. I did a lot of walking which caused my cache per hour ratio to drop, but the exercise did me good. I found a few ammo cans, some easy and fun ones, and several "hard" ones.

I got home and ate, fed the dogs and got cleaned up. After I got done walking the oldest dog, my wife and I went for a stroll and picked up some dessert at Kroger. We stopped at the pocket park to eat our goodies then we returned home. I was dead tired and had no trouble falling asleep by 10:30 PM.

Sunday we had a guest speaker at church. He is the "web minister" at Lamb and Lion Ministries and gave a great talk on evolution and creationism. I bet he made a great debater in college. His arguments against evolution were compelling and entertaining enough to keep me riveted to my seat. Good man, good speaker.

After church we skipped the once a month pot luck and decided to go grab some Chinese then walk the dogs in a local park. We killed two birds with one stone, so to speak by allowing me to look for 2 caches while we were there. I managed to grab one of them but the other eluded me. We ran into several youth LARPers (Live Action Role Playing) sporting padded swords and colorful costumes. They mostly ignored me while I searched but when they took a break and began paying attention to me, I took a break as well.

I also ran into a small group if kids (older teens) hunting each other with CO2 powered soft pellet guns. Both events (the LARPers and the pellet gun boys) brought back a lot of memories of my youth, many that have been blogged about in my "Chronicles" listed to the right.

My wife and I returned about three hours later and decided to grill some fresh salmon and put it over a bed of fresh greens, aka Salmon Salad. It was very tasty and hit the spot.

Burst, Backpack, Bummed Out

Tuesday was a flurry of activity. It all started 30 minutes after my colleague went to lunch when two calls came in for SAP issues. This would not have been bad but we were still fighting with an issue that had been assigned to a third party for resolution. This third party was 100% positive that the problem was not with their app and insisted that the WAN team and the server team look into the issue. At the end of the second day the issue was still not resolved.

The other two issues were resolved that evening. While I had to hand over three issues to our on-call guy in Brazil, he only needed to follow up on one.

That day at lunch I grabbed a couple of caches (one was a puzzle and the other was from a new cacher in the area) and then grabbed another puzzle cache on the way home. I usually avoid puzzle caches but when you have pretty much cleared the area out of regular caches, puzzles are all that are left.

I had Wednesday off and my plans were to go caching in the morning, after I voted (early voting rocks). I still needed to plan a bit for care group, since I was presenting information (on Mormonism). I am no expert but I had material collected from former Mormons as well as info from the book of Mormon, a DVD, testimonials, etc. I managed to get everything done, including replacing a defective cache container from one of my hides. It appears that humans are not the only animals attracted to the smell of coffee. I used an empty plastic coffee can for a hid and a field mouse chewed a hole in it. Funny.

I spent the morning geocaching in Bob Woodruff Park, collecting the ones I missed the first time through about a month or two ago. One one still eludes me and I am not sure that it is there. I had filled my backpack with all the goodies Ineeded to spend the morning out, but really did not need it. My fanny pack prolly would have been enough.

After finishing that I came home, at lunch, showered, updated the geocaching logs for my finds, swapped out the damaged cache container, researched my lesson, and went to help my wife's old boss with a computer issue. It turned out to be a Quickbooks issue, so was unable to help. No help, no charge. Bummer.

Care group went well but I was not into leading, so it was a little poorly paced. We came home and tried to watch TV, but fell asleep in the process, so we just went to bed.

I woke up a bit bummed out that I had to go back to work. I hat e to admit that I am 42 and ready to get out of the rat race. I really wished I had invested better (and sooner) so I could retire.