Cry Hovok And Let Loose The Dogs Of War

It has been a very busy past two days here at work. The third party (normally is our competitor) who upgraded our customer's SAP instance has been frantically working to patch an ever growing number of issues that has cropped up after the "upgrade". Not that we could have done much better. This systems is so customized that I would not want to support it.

With all the issues they are patching, we are required to coordinate the communications. Normally this is not too much for two 40 something year old guys to handle, but since we have had 3-5 new issues per day (we currently have 3 open for our region alone) it is getting to be a bit much. At least neither of us is on call this week, although my colleague is on call the next and I go on the week after that.

I have not gone out to do any geocaching since Friday so since the weather was nicer today, I nabbed a couple P-n-G's (Park-n-Grabs) during lunch. I was pleased and embarrased that I was able to get both of them as soon as I walked up to GZ (ground zero). I am beginning to get an eye for the urban caches. I still have trouble with the ones out in the wild. I think the reason for that is because some of the ones in the rough are placed by urban cachers and they "over hide" the caches. That is must my humble opinion.

The weather is looking up the rest of this week...at least until Saturday. It is suppossed to rain again and that means no caching for me if it does. Oh well.

Yeah...Fall Is Here

Texas weather is interesting as you can never tell what it is going to be like. It can swing from 75 and sunny to 40 and wet in a day or so. Of course I have also seen days where you need A/C and heat all within the same 24 hour period. You gotta love it.

Thanksgiving day weekend has been wet and cold. Thursday it was cold, Friday it was cold, Saturday and Sunday it has been wet. Walking the dogs has been fun. We come back and we all need to dry off before we come back into the house. At least it is supposed to clear and dry up over the next 4+ days.

I poke with "Mickey" today. His wife "Mary" is healing very nicely from hysterectomy. They had invited us up on Friday but I did not go...I still was in a pretty crummy mood. I sent him an e-mail explaining why I did not go...he did not tell me if he received it or not. If he did I can tell he did not understand it.

Mickey was also telling me about this new job he will be starting next month. They are offering him $12k more a year, a signing bonus, and six service years to start. I had to admit that I was a bit jealous at first then I asked him about on-call and he said, "I don't know, I never asked." Right now on-call is a rather sore subject with me since my employer is doing away with the on-call pay we get, even though we are still required to be on-call at least one week a month. I am not happy about losing the 5% I get for being on-call and I am not happy that the decision is one that has been made by the business unit I am in...not the company in general (if I am reading the info correctly). It seems my business unit gets the short end of the stick no matter what happens. One good example is bonuses. Last year our group got the smallest percetage of the company. Now one would think that since we received the smallest we must have had the poorest percentage (we received half of what the other groups received), but that is not true. Our group contains the support that is needed to maintain the accounts the other groups signed up (you know the groups that got the larger bonuses). Now do not get me wrong. Getting a bonus of 4.1% was nice, but getting a 9.4 percent bonus would have been nicer. I am betting that is what we get this year...half of what the other groups get.

The overall outlook looks rather grim. I am losing on-call pay and expected to maintain the same level of service or greater, the amount of carry over vacation I can have is now limited to two weeks (I currently have three to carry over and I only use about two a year so if I do not increase my usage, I am going to lose vacation in three years), the cost of benefits went up about 5%, the co-pays went up, and I cannot guarantee that any raise we get will cover the cost of living (we have received two raises over the past two years - one was 2% the other was 1.8%). The longer I stay at this job the more it seems that I am losing money.

I know...be happy that I am employed. I am...really I am but why must I always be in a losing situation? If I could just get a cost of living increase and leave my benefits alone...please?

I am wondering if this is God's way of telling me to keep my eyes open for a better opportunity.

Thankful

Wednesday ended well and I was able to leave a bit early (got three caches on the way home) and had a meager dinner (I do that a lot) before watching some MMA videos on MMA Linker. Oddly enough there are a lot of vids there.

Thursday morning my wife and I got ready to go into downtown Dallas to assist in feeding the displaced. It was a huge operation that was organized, but it needed more leadership. I manned the dessert table helping hand out pie, cobbler, and cookies. It was cold (a cold snap has come through the area) and windy but I was okay. My wife started off cold (imagine that) but warmed up after she moved around a bit (just like I said she would). We only stayed two hours. My wife was tired and my back was sore (I get this way when it gets cold) and there were a lot of helpers there.

I hate downtown Dallas. Maybe by biases are beginning to come back but I really feel unsafe when I am there, especially in the neighborhoods we have gone to help out. My wife still walks around like a victim (she never really is observant or plans her route...she just walks) and I am constantly pulling her over out of the way of small groups of people. Yes, I am sure I am over reacting but I am a protector...that is what I do.

We got home and I had a big lunch of leftover whatever (we did not cook this year) and napped on the couch on an off the next couple of hours, doing little else the rest of the day.

"Black" Friday is the day that I do the last bit of yard work of the year. This year it was cold and I had not gotten my supplies yet. I am beginning to become a procrastinator. I got up and headed over to Lowes (I prefer Home Depot, but my wife had a coupon for Lowes) with a small list of things to get. I got them all but the crock pot my wife wanted...they were out of stock. The trip took an hour, not for traffic, but because I am not used to the way Lowes is laid out. Once I got home I was able to start my tasks.

I started cutting the grass (It had no been mowed in over a month but still was not very high) after spending 20 minutes trying to get the mower started. It finally fired up and I mowed both ours and our neighbor's yard but I was exhausted by the time I finished that first part. Once that was done I pulled out the edger and the trimmer and tidied up both yards. That went quickly because the borders had not grown much either, and that the ground was dry. I was very grateful for that.

One the edging and trimming was done, I pulled out the all organic weed killer and fertilizer I picked up at Lowes. I did not do it for me, but because my wife is really beginning to keep her eye open for natural products. I am not sure how well it will do, but we shall see.

After all that I only had one thing left to do and that was to blow all the grass clippings and the spilled fertilizer back into the yard. That usually is the fastest part of job and today was no different.

Once I was done, I grabbed my geocaching gear and headed out the door. To sum up a long story, it was the most disappointing 4+ hours I have ever spent. While I managed to grab a couple memorable ones (an ammo can that has gone untouched for 7 months and a difficulty 4 nano) I struck out on about 8 or so...maybe more. I did not plan at all for this trip and it showed. Normally I will spend a couple of hours online mapping out my route and reading about what I am looking for (taking notes or printing up key info) but this time I just packed and left.

I got home defeated and tired and unusually hungry. Then I realized that I last ate a full meal the day before at lunch and only coffee, juice, and a banana since. Wow.

I guess that one of the reasons why I did not pay much attention to my hunger was that I have a lot on my mind. Money is becoming a bit tight and I feel that I am fighting an uphill battle. My wife has 2 part time jobs (that total 20 hours a week) that she is quitting and with my pay cut in March and our scheduled debt payments running until June or so (not counting the house), I am beginning to stress out.

"El Gee, God will provide."

Yes he will, but he wants us to use good sense or his blessings will be minimal. I feel that we are not doing all we can. This has monopolized my thoughts the past week.

All in all I am thankful for what God has blessed us with. He has kept me employed in an industry with the same company for a long time with a minimal impact on pay (have only gained 10K in raises in 6+ years). He has kept me warm and dry, fed and clothed. He has blessed us with three very good, reliable vehicles and we have only about $7k in debt, not counting the house (that is car and credit card debt).

Yes He has been good and I am thankful. Now if he can only reduce my stress level :-) .

Frazzled

It has been a very busy last two days for us at work. There were some major updates to the SAP system that our customer uses and there have been no shortage of problems because of it. The nice thing is that the SAP environment is not supported directly by my company, but by a third part (a competitor) that our customer decided to use instead of us for application support. You get what you pay for.

The issues have kept me and my TL busy all of Monday and Tuesday. So far we are all caught up on our paperwork, but there is still one issue outstand and that does not count what could come up today. The good news is that we are off the next 4 days and are not on call...our group in Brazil is on call for us since we have Thanksgiving holiday Thursday and Friday.

So, what am I going to do this long weekend? Well, my wife and I are not cooking, nor are we eating a traditional holiday meal. We will be assisting a church in Dallas feed the displaced on Thursday.

On Friday, I will be working on the yard, doing the last cut of the season, trimming anything that needs it, and applying chemicals (weed-n-feed). I do not plan at looking at it again until late winter.

Saturday I will do my normal chores and most likly go geocaching. I will have to move a couple of caches that some of the other cachers think are too close to residential areas. I agree somewhat, but I think that stealth is needed in urban settings. I was able to plant, check up on, and remove both of the ones in question without any problems, but then again, I knew where they were.

Sunday will be my rest day as well as my time at church and Sunday school. There most likely will be other things as well, but I won't know until they happen.

I am looking forward to four days off. I want to clear my mind of all work related issues since I am not overly happy about the current changes that are happening.

The first is our vacation carryover is changing. Starting in 2008, any unused vacation is put into a separate bank and we have 3 years to use it. We will not be allowed to carry over more than 80 hours per year (I get 160) so we have to use it rather quickly. Why is this a problem? I work (yet again) in a department that really cannot afford to let me or my colleague (who is in the same boat, vacation wise) off for any length of time without putting major stress on the other. using the three weeks of vacation carryover in three years PLUS the vacation I normally accrue will be hard without driving my colleague insane. The same goes for him when he tries to go on vacation.

The second has to do with our on call pay. It is going away. None of us are happy about that. Now what they have done is offered to up our base pay 2% to make up for the 5% on call differential we are losing, for a net loss of 3%. Now IF we get a raise this year (we have been getting them every other year), we would be getting closer to what we had, but we would still be down at least 1%. "Raises" in my division have been 1.8 to 2% each time we get one...once every other year and we are not scheduled to get one this year.

If you couple the loss of 3% pay, the increase in our cost of the benefits, the higher co-pays, no raises, the cost of gas to get to work and not being able to telecommute...I lose a lot. Then I get to look forward to my wife quitting her parttime job so we lose even more. Best guess is that I stand to lose $1,000 a month or so (all factors together). Can you live on $1,000 a month less? I guess I need to get more clients in my PC repair gig.

Now in all fairness I know God will provide for us. He is not going to let us starve or put us out on the street. However, like most Americans, we enjoyed a quality of life that has been slowly diminishing over the past 6+ years...sometimes I get afarid that I will not be able to do my part.

Well, the morning has been quiet and I am happy for that. As long as my lunch is still in the fridge (we were given a catered lunch yesterday but I forgot and brought mine anyway...I left it here overnight), I should be in very good shape.

Recap

I know it has been a few days since this blog has been updated but I have been a little busy and when I have had time to update it I have not been motivated to do so.

Friday was moderately busy at work during the day but the issues were all resolved before I went home, which meant as long as I did not get called that evening, I was off the hook.

Friday evening was pretty low key. Since I was on call we did not do anything but watch a little TV. I did work on a clever bit of camo for one of the hides I planed on placing this weekend. I think it turned out pretty well.

Saturday morning came and I treated myself to a pot of coffee, the first I since I burn my mouth (quite seriously, I might add) a couple of weeks before. I walked the dogs and then got ready for the men's breakfast at church. It went pretty well, but I felt moved to share a concern with the group regarding the direction the men's ministry was heading. My thoughts were not received overly by some, but a few of the men thanked me for bringing it up.

After the breakfast and cleanup, went home and started cleaning the house some. I spent about 2 hours on vacuuming, stripping the beds, and such before I decided to go kill a few hours locating some of the more difficult caches I had missed in previous weeks.

I had a very good time hunting the caches and only missed one I wanted to get but got a couple of very tough hides. I came home hot, sweaty, and a bit sore (there was a good deal of climbing on some of them) but very content. After I got cleaned up my wife and I went out for ice cream...you know, on a date. It was a pretty nice treat and both of us had a pleasant time.

Sunday was a bit different than most. First, we got a call from Soldier Boy...HE IS BACK HOME IN THE USA! My wife and I were very happy to hear his voice and we talked to him as long as we could before he had to go. Welcome home, son.

While we had Sunday School, the Christian school affiliated with our church put on a performance for us. It was a musical and while the acting and the production we good, the story was hard to follow and the Christian message was rather weak. Overall I would say a 3 out of 5 stars.

After the performance I went back home (my wife was not feeling well) to see if my wife was feeling better. She was not so I went out to lunch on my own, depositing a refund check from the hospital and grabbing a cache (a very well done one at that) before I headed back. You could tell the holidays are approaching because traffic is already starting to get heavy. It took me twice as long to get to the other side of town as it normally does.

Once I got back I walked Little Man and placed a cache 1/10 of a mile down from the last one I placed. I used the modified camo I made the other night and was pleased with the results. I walked back and checked on my wife but she still was not feeling well, so I went to the church Thanksgiving dinner (we had signed up to help set up the dining hall) by myself.

I helped set up, ate a good dinner, and cleaned up before coming home to take care fo the dogs and check on my wife. She was feeling better, but still a bit under the weather. I was not feeling bad, but I was tired so after talking to my mom, I hit the hay early.

Cold Blast

All you people in the northern regions...try not to laugh.

It got a bit chilly last night. At lunch I was sweating as I was searching for a couple of geocaches but by dinner time, the wind was blowing and it was a lot colder. When I woke up this morning and got ready to walk "Little Man", it was in the upper 30's...the coldest yet. Now do not get me wrong, it is still warm here in Texas (it is about 60 right now) but the cold snap came on very sudden.

Work so far has been pretty light. Nothing much was going on before lunch so I had no problems leaving to grab a cache during my lunch hour. I debated which one to try so I went back to one of the ones I struck out on yesterday (in one of the green belts in Richardson) and hit pay dirt, although it took me 30 minutes or so to do find it. It was camo'ed pretty well and I am sure a passerby will not find it too easily. It was not on the side of the belt I thought it was on which is why it took me so long to find it.

I came back and ate my lasagna and let my TL go on his lunch break. I chatted with a couple of people regarding the situation here at work and we all agree things are not looking too bright for us, but at least we are still employed.

I do not have any plans tonight so I am not sure what the evening will bring. Maybe I will hit a cache on the way home...there are a couple that I have not gotten yet but I am not sure how easily I can grab them as I drive home.

We shall see.

A Trend

My morning at work was about hte same as it has been the past couple of days, which is a good thing. Nothing major going on and it gave me time to work on a report that I needed to knock out before too much time had elapsed.

At lunch I attempted three caches...one near a church hidden in some hedges (I really dislike these types of hides) and two along a green belt a mile or so from my office. I was unable to get the one at the church but got the first one at the green belt (which was Halloween themed) and struck out on the second at the green belt due to a lack of time. I cam back and ate my lunch at my desk and worked on a power failure issue at our customer's main site in Plano.

Before I went home I noticed that our peer in Mexico raised an issue with our third party provider on an old ticket but he failed to update the log. I was concerned since I was on call and I did not want to get stuck with a bad situation. Long story short, I did not have to work it but I did get a phone call at 11:30 PM (after I had been asleep for 30 minutes or so) asking me to make a change to the ticket. Why I had to be called for this I am not sure.

Since I was not obligated to any issues I went to care group with my wife. We had a good time and enjoyed pleasant conversation until we had to go home.

I stayed up working on some caches I plan on hiding soon then I hit the hay. Of course I was woken up at 11:30 but that is part of the job...

Burst in BLog Traffic

I was checking my web logs the the other day and noticed a huge increase in traffic (about 40 hit) early in the week. I did some digging and noticed it was all regarding Ron Arlt, the person accused of conning more than one person...a few of them women with romantic ties to him.

The traffic came mostly from one person, the first one to publicly blog about it. (IIRC). She had left a comment on my blog stating that she was surprised there was still that much interest in him. Well dear, if he is still conning people, there still will be interest. Besides, we know he is narcissistic, so how do we know that he is not driving up my hits? Hmmmmmmm?

Work went well yesterday. I had a call on the way in, but it was nothing to really worry about. We only had one other issue to work on and it was resolved just after the clsoe of business. so I was minimally impacted.

The rest of the evening was ho-hum...just a little TV then I hit the sack pretty early...10:00 PM or so.

Oh, I did manage to get a cute "frog themed" cache at lunchtime yesterday. It is harder to get them at lunch because I have gotten most of the ones in the immediate area that you can get without being noticed. If I travel too much further out, I w will not have time to get there, search for the cache, get back and eat. I think there are less than a dozen that I can still nab at lunch in this area and most of those are good hides or they are in a highly visible spot. Oh well.

Almost Pleasant

I am on call this week (work week only, I hope) and it started off pretty well.

I left work a little early (30 mins) and decided to grab a multi-part cache on the way home that is in a park not too far from our house. I had been by once to get it, but I let the clues mislead me. Once I realized how it was hidden, it was a piece of cake.

I got home and had dinner with my wife (Salmon on a bed of baby greens) and it was great. I had a few Greek olives alone with the fish and I was in heaven. Oh the flavors!

After dinner I got ready for the trustee meeting at church. The meeting lasted about 2 hours or so and we covered a lot of issues. Of course a lot more will come up in the upcoming weeks but that is to be expected.

I got home and walked the dogs and then checked my e-mail before heading to bed. I was tired. I was still that way when I got up the next morning. I was pretty much in a fog all morning long...even on my way to work. Not sure why.

Just Another Day

Sunday arrived and departed much like any other day for me. While I enjoy Sundays, sometimes they can be a bit mundane and today was no different. It started off like it normally does with a quick walk of the dog and my morning bible reading (I have skipped coffee the past few days since I have a nasty burn in my mouth that has not fully healed and I do not want to aggravate it). I attended church and Sunday School as usual ad after that was over, my wife and I grabbed lunch at Fuddruckers. I was getting a headache so my wife gave me a couple of Tylenol and it eventually subsided. Lunch was good and afterwards we filled up the gas tank in her van and headed home. By the time we got home the headache was mostly gone and my wife had already started her Sunday afternoon nap. I was not sleepy so I worked on a a small cache I wanted to hide near our house. Once it was complete I dropped it off and submitted it to geocaching.com for approval. This makes hide number 5 for me. None of them have been as good as the first, but I have not found the perfect area yet in which to place a fun one.

After I placed the cache I sat down for a few minutes and watched some "Man Versus Wild" on Discovery. When it was over, I got cleaned up to get ready for the monthly service that takes palce on Sunday Night. We call it "Voice of Faith" and it is all singing and prayer.

After the service I tried calling my mom but the line was busy so I gave up and went to bed. I was tired for some reason (I tire easily nowadays it seems) and decided to get as much sleep as possible. When I woke, I found my wife up and working on the PC. She had been up since 4:00 AM (I get up at 5:00) and had a littany of things she wanted to do. I left her to herself as I walked Little Man around the block.

I got back and my wife started feeding the dogs. With that, I started my routine to get ready for work. When I arrived, the feeling of dread had already sunk in. We were told of layoffs coming soon and one of us are very happy. The whole building is quiet (even during the busy parts of the day) and everyone looks glum.

I have dodged 5 layoffs so far and if God wants me someplace, he will put me there no matter what happens. That is why I am not going to worry...It is not in my hands.

Well, I Had To Hand It Over

The issue at work did not get resolved while I was there so I had to hand it over to my TL who is on call. I hated to do it but it was not going to get resolved on my watch. I hope he did not have to stay up for it.

I got home and vegged out for a while then hit the hay. I was tired and needed rest.

The next morning I got an early start on my chores. I wanted to get them done before I got my hair cut at 10:45 and I was able to accomplish that without too much trouble. Before I left I had time to print up some of the geocaching notes that I would need for the day. I had a plan and I hoped to stick to it as best as I could.

After getting my hair cut I hit the road and started my quest for geocaches. I started at Allen Premium Outlets and grabbed two there. Both were pretty easy although one had me a bit puzzled for a few minutes. After I grabbed those I cruised by Star Creek Park and picked up a very good hide there. The guy who hid that one is really good at using the natural items to assist in the hiding process.

I left Star Creek and headed north to a cemetery that had 4 hides in it. All 4 were in the back (to give you an idea how big it is all caches have to be at least 1/10 of a mile apart from each other) and I was able to get them all without any trouble. As a matter of fact I was able to get all 7 in just over an hour.

With that accomplishment under my belt, I decided to head over to another area that had a couple of ammo cans hidden (Ammo cans are what cachers strive for...they can hold a lot of goodies and are harder to hide). I struck out while wasting about 1-2 hours looking for the next 4 hides on my list and I was getting a bit depressed. I drove back down to Stacy road and headed towards 4 that I did not get last week and when I arrived I realized that there was more bush whacking needed than I wanted to do after wasting so much time on the ammo cans. I decided to drive towards Lucas and see about picking up a few there.

I pulled up a road that looked familiar and zoomed out my GPSr. It showed 2 within a mile so I drive up and picked up those two. Okay...I was up to 9. My goal on any Saturday is a minimum of 10 so I zoomed out my GPSr again and noticed 2 more about half a mile away in a new, nicer subdivision. I pulled in to the park and headed off into unknown territory. I found the first one pretty quickly. It did not look like it belonged and when I lifted it, I was rewarded with a film canister and a log. Once it was signed, I moved on to the other one in this area which was about 800 feet away in the woods.

I followed the path until I was sure that I was not going to get any closer to it then I headed off into the brush. It did not take long until I found the ammo can (my first solo ammo can find) and opened it up. It was packed with cool stuff. I did not go through it all because I had been out for 4 hours and needed to get home. I did however sign the log and trade few items. I took a tube of "Shoe Goo" (the sole of one of my Wolverines was coming lose so this was needed) and a geocoin and left an old Mexican coin and an MRE accessory pack. Once all was packed back up, I headed back to the GeoDak and went home...stinky but mostly happy. I would have loved to get other 6 or so that I had wiffed on, but those are for another day, I guess.

I Wonder How Will This Turn Out

Two days in a row we have had a peace. No issues have been raised and things have been nice. This afternoon while everyone else was in a very important meeting that I did not get to go to (another story), I worked with our third party provider trying to get as certain module of SAP up and running for our customer. This started off bad and got worse as the hours drifted by.

First, the help desk gave me the wrong description to the problem. There were screen shots, but they did not match the issue reported. Since I am not familiar with this, I pass on to the third party.

Next, the third party says that they can only work via e-mail since they work from home. I am not sure where that came from since I sure as heck have to call people when I work at home.

Finally, the third party states that since there is a chage freeze, they cannot upload the code that needs to be put on the productions servers and the customer will just have to wait until the freeze is over with...in January. The tech working on the issue did not understand that the cahgne freeze is in place for non-critical issues...high priority issues are immune from this.

We have engaged the management of the third party and they are working with the tech to rectify the situation.

We hope.

Maybe I Spoke Too Soon

Yesterday at lunch I decided to go to the Army-Navy Store to see what goodies they had that a new geocacher like myself could use. While the store was full of hiking, camping, military, and law enforcement gear, it all was a bit expensive. I opted for a roll of olive drab duct tape to help hide my caches.

While at the store, I stopped by and grabbed two caches. One was right out side the store across the street near a small park and was similar to one that gave me fits before, so I knew what to look for. While I was looking at it, an old woman cam walking by mumbling. I normall would not have paid much attention to her but she was wearing (and I am not kidding folks) A TIN FOIL HAT. My only guess was that she thought my GPSr was reading her mind. Scary.

Since I had 30 minutes left to kill from my lunch, I decided to drive by and see if I could find he puzzle cache I solved a few weeks ago. it did not take me long to locate, sign, and return the cache. Once back into my GeoDakota it was a short 5 minute drive back to the office. Not bad for 45 minutes or so.

The afternoon was quiet. No calls and no issues to deal with. This was a welcome change from the previous days work. I looked and it had been just about two weeks since we last had a free day from issues. I guess I will enjoy it while I can.

I got home with a bit of a headache (tension) and my mouth was sore from the recent hot dog burn (by the way, 1 minute is too long for two wieners in the microwave. I just thought I would share that) so talking and eating was (and still is) painful. I was not sure I wanted to go to care group, but I decided that I needed to go. We had three visitors join us and it really was nice to have them. We spent too much time on some missions stuff and that left very little time for prayer, so we had to cut things short to allow a few of the more senior members to go home on time.

We got home and took care of the dogs before we went to sleep.

I got up felling better than I did the night before but still kinda rough. I walked Little Man and let The Golden out to pee before feeding them. In the process I dropped The Golden's ceramic dog food bowl (it was full of food by the way), breaking it and sending the dog and the food flying. Of course the first thing out of my mouth was "son of a b@tch!", which was not what a Christian should be saying...ever. Oddly enough I did not even realize it until my wife brought it to my attention. I really need to pray more that God will remove those words and thoughts from my mind. I feel horrible when it happens and I know it disappoints my wife.

Thankfully, the rest of my prep to go to work was uneventful!

Since the morning started off on the wrong foot, I stopped grabbed a cache on my way to work. It was only about 300 feet out of my way on an overlook of Plano. I am surprised I have never noticed this before. There is a nature preserve near by that is supposed to have two more caches hidden, but these will be hikes...no park and grabs like many others in the area.

Well, I guess I will get back to monitoring things.

Repeat Of Last Week?

At least I am not on call! This week has been busy and it is only Wednesday morning...I can imagine what the rest of the week will be like. We have been averaging three incidents a day for the past couple of weeks when we normally have 1-2. These have been longer and harder to deal with and being on call for them is no fun.

I voted yesterday morning and it was quick and painless, unless you count the fact I had forgotten which poll we voted at. Once that was done, I was able to get to work on time. I let my TL go early so he could vote on the way home and he seemed to appreciate it.

Yesterday I nabbed to caches that made me happy...one that had eluding me for weeks and the other was my first multi part cache. Multi-part caches give you coords to one area and then you must find the coords to the second area. I was blessed in that the coords were not very far away from each other...just across the street to be exact.

Last night I had a one on one session with "Larry", my student in "One on One Discipling". We had not met in almost eight months I was worried he had given up. While he was late, he has not given up. I am happy he takes his walk with Christ seriously.

This morning I had my dentist appointment, so I skipped my normal morning coffee. the visit took all of 26 minutes to check int, get my teeth cleaned and examined, and check out. I like that !

On the way to work I stopped off to grab the last of the TMNT caches hidden by the "Garland Goonies". I found three of them very quickly but had trouble with the other two. Today I close that chapter in my geocaching book.

Not sure which one I will go after today. I need to research a bit.

When Four Days Feels Like Seven

Whew...I am finally off call. This was one of the more difficult ones only because of the late night wake up calls from the help desk we are associated with. While it was only four days it felt more like an entire week.

The rest of Sunday went well. I tough my Sunday School class and even made it through the service without getting called. After service, I drove home (since my wife and I cam at different times) to let the dogs out before we went to lunch. When I got done with the dogs, I noticed my truck was leaking coolant like crazy...a scary thing since I just had the truck worked on Friday. Needless to say my wife and I dropped the truck off that afternoon so the guys could look at it and correct the problem. I hope it is their fault and not the radiator...we do not need any more big expenses right now.

After we dropped the truck off my wife and I grabbed some bagels for lunch. It had been a long time since I had bagel with hummus on it and it did not disappoint. While I have had better bagels, this one was not bad.

We got home and my wife spent the afternoon talking to her friend in Alabama. I dozed on and off while I was trying to watch a bad Harrison Ford movie (Hollywood Homicide) on TV. and eventually I got up and fed then walked the dogs before we went to the party that was being thrown for one of our church members who recently became a US citizen.

The rest of the night was quiet and I went to bed early since I was (and still am) very tired. At least Sunday night was quiet!

Well, DUH!

Again, I prove I can predict the obvious...I stated this months ago.

Thanx Slashdot for the link.

Notice The Hour...

No, this is not a misprint...I am blogging at almost 1 AM. This weekend on call has not been friendly this time around.

Friday night I got a call at 11:00 PM regarding an R&D app in Canada that went down for maintenance and did not come back up properly. I had never worked a call like this and could not find a number for the on call team. I caved in and called another team asking for help but they never returned my call, which was very odd. The customer was understanding and agreed not to press the issue until the next morning. I stayed up until 2:00 AM researching the case and got up again at 7:00 to finalize it. The sad news was that it was not even supposed to have been raised to us. The team who work with that app are to be called directly, skipping me. Nice of them to tell me after the fact.

At midnight the same night I get a call from a third party provider asking me to push an lower severity issue that if not solved in 36 hours, will become a high priority. I transfer the case to the proper team and note the ticket, with intentions of calling on it the next morning. When I get up, I see my European peers (who work 24x7) have already called to push on it so I do not have to.

I get up the next morning and finish issue number one, have my coffee, walk the dogs, and eat my breakfast. I have some chores to do so I do them and am done by 1:00 PM. After a quick lunch, I decided to grab some local geocaches (keeping my phone handy and sticking close to home...no more than four miles away) and nab seven of them:

The Great Pumpkin - A new hide in a new park just west of us.
RR Ghost Nightmare - A Halloween themed cache with one of the best containers I have ever seen.
Rockin' - A cache I have tried and missed twice before...deceptively easy. I felt foolish for missing it.
Old Railroad Dam - A historical spot just north of us.
"Bag" - The Ticket - One of the hardest to get to I have ever seen. Briar factor seven.
Score! - A mystery/puzzle cache I solved two weeks ago but have not had time to nab.
Stacy Ridge #1 - The furthest cache I have done from my home coords yet (not counting the ones near work) at 3.2 miles away.

I DNF'd (Did Not Find) on two: A multi (Where, Oh Where Could My Little Cache Be?) because of an abundance of "muggles" (non-cachers) and "Balance", which is in a bog. Yes a bog. I spent 45 minutes looking for that one and finally gave up.

Even though I DNF'd on two, I still had a great time and did all this in three hours.

After I got home I found my wife working on some yard work, so I joined in on the fun. We worked for about 2 hours and then I grabbed some McD's for dinner (using some of the cash I earned doing PC work) and then my wife grabbed some Braum's ice cream for dessert. Not the healthiest we have eaten but it was tasty.

I walked the pooches and then watched some TV before falling asleep on the couch. That brings me up to the current situation. At a little before 1:00 AM I got a call from the third party vendor who called me the night before. The issue they called me about had still not been completed. and only had 12 hours left. I found this odd since my European peers had already called about it. I called the team in Slovakia and they assured me it would be handled ASAP. I called our third party vendor and gave them the news and told them I would call them back as soon as it was complete. I hope for my sake it is soon.

While this may seem like nothing to those who are on call and get called all the time, this just caps off a very busy week for us. We have averaged two high priority calls per day over the past week and it is beginning to wear on me. Considering that I traded on call with someone I think I got the short end of the bargain.

At least the caching was good.

It Figures

We had a pretty good day yesterday at work. The phones were ringing, but there was nothing of any great importance until 4:50 PM...10 minutes before I went on call. My TL took a call and got the ball rolling for me and he stayed until 5:30 PM to make sure things got started before he handed it off to me. Nice guy...and I mean that.

I take the issue and get a call back about 7:00 PM from the tech who was investigating it. He could not see a problem on their end so he asked me to have the message queuing admin look into it. So at 2 AM or so CET, I called the on call admin and he looked, but after an hour, he could not find anything. Then then told me to have the customer reboot the OCR machine. Well that was not going to happen any time soon since the customer was not at work. (Sigh) ... another wasted 4 hours.

I called the customer and gave her the info. Needless to say she is not the friendliest person I have dealt with in the past few months. She agreed to wait until morning and then come in to work to reboot hte machine and call me with the results. She says she gets to work at 6:30 AM, so she has had an hour to do this but so far I have not heard from her or the third party who normally supports the app.

(Sigh).

I hope today is similar in the workload, MINUS the last minute high priority ticket. And if the weekend is issue-free, all the better.

Tidbits

Yesterday was busy, but not in a very bad way. We had a lot of calls but only one issue that we had to formalize. My TL stayed 30 minutes over to insure things went smoothly.

At lunch I was able to snag two caches in a nearby park. These were quick and well thought out...just the way caches should be. I still prefer fewer quality caches than mass amounts of poorly done ones.

I got home and found my wife working on several things at once but dinner was not one of them. Now don't get e wrong, I don't expect a home cooked meal every night but if you PLAN on cooking then stop early enough to get it started...not when it is time for you hubby to be home. Since I was hungry and did not want to wait, I just picked up some take out and came home to enjoy it with my wife. Having a little cash from my side job helps.

My wife spent the evening grooming the dogs and bathing one of them (Little Man) and I walked him before the kids hit the street begging for candy. Little Man does not like trick or treaters.

About 10 PM or so I noticed a lot of flashing lights on our street. A fire/rescue truck, and EMT, and 2 police cars pulled up in front of the house diagonally across the street from us. They were there 20 minutes or so then left, so I a guess it was nothing too serious.

I go on call tonight for the the guy in Mexico. It should be okay, but I am expecting to be busy. I have the city council meeting tonight so I am not sure if I will be able to stay for it all or not. So far I have not been able to hang in there the entire time when I am on call. Maybe this time will be different.

Busy Quarterly Close

This week is the quarterly close for our customer and that means reports...lots and lots of reports. SAP systems will be running overtime processing and printing up sales and finance reports for managers at all levels. Quarterly close is my least favorite time at work because this is when the customer calls and complains about system performance. Of course we know things are going to be slow during this time, but the customer cannot understand that the systems were designed to for normal to high loads. When the loads get to "ultra high", things will bog down.

The guy on call (who happens to be in Mexico) has asked for Thurs-Fri off. He asked my TL who turned him down and then he asked me. I told him we would take his calls during the day and I would take the on call at night Thurs-Sun. I really did not want to do it, but I am a team player so I agreed. With this Quarterly Close being so problematic, I may regret my decision. Oh well.

I have not been successful in Geocaching the past two days. I think I am 0-3. After striking out yesterday, I began to wonder if I am looking at this the wrong way. It is not about how many you get, but the quality of the hides you find. I have 110 finds so far and only a handful have been "fulfilling".

I got paid for all my outstanding computer work yesterday, plus a check from Yougov.com ... I had figured that I was never going to get that check, but low and behold, they finally paid me my $50 for my opinions over the past two years.

Best Of Both Worlds

Sunday was a pretty good day for us over all. The sermon at church was good and afterwards my wife and I enjoyed a picnic lunch in the park near our home. While the wind made it chilly, the sun was warm and the meal (sandwiches and soda) was palatable.

After our lunch, we came home and grabbed The Golden and and decided to walk a bit. We drove over to a newer area that has been recently developed in out small city and walked a bit. While we were out my wife and I were looking for a spot to hide a cache or two, but the first area was not a good place unless I wanted to do the typical Live Oak/Cedar cache hide. I had a neat container that demanded something more permanent. Eventually we went to Story Park and I was able to hide (after a lot of waiting) my cache. I posted it that evening and it was approved last night. One of the more seasoned cachers found it at 4:50 this morning. Wow.

Work yesterday was pretty slow, but of course it picked up just as I was getting ready to leave. I did my part and handed itover to my TL/colleague who would handle things until he went home, then he would hand it over to the guy who was on call the first part of this week. Needless to say he did about the same quality of follow up as he normally does so when I got in the morning I had to take up the slack. I hope it is just a training issue.

Last night I went on a house call (for a member of our church) that was one of my easiest yet. Since it only was about one hours worth of work, I charged my normal church rate for the call. They were also close which meant the wear and tear on the truck was minimal. Speaking of which, I think I am leaking something...I have a clear, oily spot under my truck that looks like oil but it is too clean. I hope it is nothing too serious...money has been tight and we are trying to get out of debt...

Geocaching Spree

I had made plans to go out and geocache Saturday morning for a few hours before I started on my chores around the house. I normally work first then play, but I wanted to get out a get a few before it got too hot. I managed to get 14 for the day (thanx to a hint for one of them) before I headed home to do my chores. I think I had about four DNF's and I have no idea where they are hidden. My best guess is that they are gone.

I finished my chores (strip/make bed, vacuum house, dry clothes) and even managed to mop the kitchen floor, much to the delight of my wife.. I had just finished when my wife called and told me that she was running a bit late. I told her not to worry and I got cleaned up while I waited for her to come home.

When my wife finally managed to get home, She changed clothes so we could go meet Mickey and Mary for dinner at TGI Fridays. We had not seen them in a while and it was nice to talk with them again.

After dinner and some small talk, my wife and I returned home to walk the dogs. We did not stay up too late since we both had a long day.

Delay

I know it has been a few days since my last post and I apologize for that. For some of you that is no big deal, but to me it is. I like to try to update this daily.

Oct 25 was my last update, so I guess I will bring you up to date starting on Friday.

I have been on a mission to find 100 caches in 30 days geocaching. With this in mind, I have usually nabbed a few at lunch, and even an odd one to and/or from work. Friday I was out nabbing #91 and #92 at lunch (I researched those well so I could get them quickly) when I got a call from my TL/colleague. He had called to let me know our boss wanted me to make an off site visit to assess a situation that, to be honest, no one else wanted to get involved in. I got back to the office to get directions and eat my lunch (I usually spend my lunch hour searching for caches) and when I was finished I headed to the satellite office of our customer, which was jsut a few miles from home.

When I got there, I introduced myself and began to gather data on the situation. Long story short, our customer just bought out a company and they were in the process of migrating them to their network. Well, the PC's they were using had to run Windows XP (and not our image) so things were going to be different from the get go. The PC's were not locked down, so th the users could make whatever changes they desired even if it messed up the default or corporate settings.

The whole office was very nonchalant and laid back. People milled around carrying equipment, routers (wireless and wired) were strewn everywhere creating ad-hoc networks all over the small 15 person office. The engineers were adamant about keeping everying thing open and accessible, both in the office and on the PC. It was a techs nightmare. Thankfully the tech who was assigned to work with me was top notch.

After 3-4 hours of this, we (the tech and I) were called by the PM and told to attend a con-call with some of the mgmt staff. That con-call lasted one and half hours...time I will not be able to get back.

Once all that was done, I was able to go home and get a bite to eat and spend some time with my wife.

OF All The Things To Critique...

A long time ago I posted my critique of "Farscape", a mostly enjoyable sci-fi show. Today I noticed an anonymous (I dislike anonymous comments...maybe I should turn them off) reader decided to ask me to make corrections to my post. When I first read it, I naturally assumed the reader was asking me to correct grammar or spelling. I am used to that. My good fried Land Shark has mentioned to me before, but as I told him, I blog for me...no one else. He understands.

No, the reader sent this:

I know your post is old but it would be great if you went back and made a few corrections.

First of all one cannot fornicate with their spouse. Look up the definition of fornicate.

Secondly a whore barters with sex. D'argo enters into a relationship because of lust/love not for reasons of commerce. Depending on your views regarding alien sexual relations he may be immoral but he is no whore.

I send my best wishes and hope that you are happy and well.

Now here is my response:

1) The urban dictionary includes fornicate as sex with or without being married. While the urban dictionary is not the end all resource for word definitions, it does for "urban" speak.

2) Whore - a woman who engages in promiscuous sexual intercourse, usually for money; prostitute; harlot; strumpet. Notice it says USUALLY for money, not exclusively. Besides, I was talking more from an urban perspective where "whore" means anyone who sleeps around.

I made the corrections that were suggested, but under duress. I have not always been a Christian so I understand a lot of street talk and sometimes use it when it is not offensive. Men and women can be whores (in a liberal sense) and fornicate is used on the street when kids want to sound mature. So I guess the original commenter was technically correct on this.

Sneaky, Cool, And A Salesman

I planted my "sneaky" cache the other day and I already have a few hits on it as well as some compliments. It seems that a few of the local cachers like my style.

The weather has drastically changed so we are getting into the 40's at night and only to the 60's during the day. I am amazed that it has happened tat quickly. We went from hot to cool in just 24 hours.

Why is it that some people have to over promise and under deliver, AKA typical sales person mentality. I am not trying to be mean, but most sales people I have met will take this route and it is the support people who pay the price.

Yesterday the PM and my boss call me up asking for "a favor". They need someone to go over to a new site and help out with the cut over. I ask what needs to be done and they both tell me (initially) that they need a person who is good with people and has great process knowledge. Well, to be honest, my TL / colleague is better in that area than I am so he tells them he will go.

Fast forward about 1.5 hours later. I have just opened a high priority ticket but since I am not on call, I have to pass it off to the on call guy, who happens to be in Brazil. I get this done and head down to the PM's office and she is on the phone, leaving a message to my colleague / TL telling him to show up at 10:00 AM not 8:00 AM. PM and I talk for while and I soon realize that my TL / colleague is not going to have fun doing this. I consider calling him and telling him what he is facing but I decide not to.

Later that night, I get a call from him and he tells me that he does not have to go. It seems our customer is very much against the dedicated onsite help...it costs extra and they don't want to pay it.

This is a pattern I see around here. People want to promise the moon and deliver the rocks.

Cool Times

Wow what a difference 24 hours makes. Monday was CHILLY. I think it was around 60 at the warmest and to top it off, it rained all day. No caching for me.

Work went well, albeit slowly. The main campus had a power failure so we did not have any network connectivity most of the day at our site. My TL and I eventually went home at 3:30 or so since we could not work. We just handed over the phone to our partner in Brazil since it was slow.

I got home and ate leftovers with my wife and then she left to go work out. I began working on her laptop (it is another throwaway) and updating my Linux box. Of course both took much longer than expected and as a matter of fact, I am still working on the laptop. That one will take a while.

I almost forgot, I am meeting Larry* at the library to go over one on one discipling this evening. It has been months since we did a lesson and I hope he will stay motivated this time. I want to get this done.

I am also working on my first "sneaky" geocache hide. It will either be very easy or very hard...it could go both ways.

Cry Freedom

Well, I am finally off call. This week was not as bad as previous weeks but it still is a pain nonetheless. I was thankful that I did not get called over the weekend.

Sunday I went to Sunday School and service as usual. We had some visitors (a minister being one of them) and the worship leader was a guest from San Mateo California who happened to be a friend of our worship pastor. Overall it was a great service, which was topped off by a message from another guest.

My wife and I ate lunch at a little Italian place near our house and as we were eating, we saw a family that we knew from our old church. We chatted and got caught up on things before we said goodbye.

We got home and immediately my wife went to lay down. I went online to see if there were any local caches I could get and still be within 15 minutes of the house. I managed to get a list of about 12 or so and I loaded them on my PDA. I went in to tell my wife what I planned on doing and she gave me "the look" (my wife does not understand my love of geoaching) and then I kissed her goodbye.

I had a good time while I was out (I was gone about 3 hours or so) and collected 10 caches. That brought my total up to 85 for the month and that is not too bad. Unfortunately the rain is going to keep me from doing much this week...not that it is a bad thing. I do spend a lot of free time geocaching, but at least the only cost is gas...no greens fees, no uniforms, non membership fees. All you need is a GPSr, some sort of transportation, and a free account at geocaching.com .

When I got home I found that my wife had grilled burgers for dinner. She does a good job grilling most of the time and this was no exception. The burgers were perfect. After dinner and dishes, I logged my finds at the geocaching web site and then walked the dogs and called mom.

I realize it is not a glamorous life, but it keeps me out of trouble.

Day Six OfHouse Arrest

Or what most people refer to as "on call". I hate being on call, especially when I have to respond within 15 minutes or face the wrath of a customer manager. Sigh.

We had the mens breakfast today at church. I left home a bit early and was able to grab two (they were close to each other) before I got there. That started my day off well!

Once there I kinda just hung out until they served. Most of the time I help out, but today I felt a bit selfish. I normally stay after and clean up so not helping set up did not bother me. I would be doing my part later.

We had a good (not great) meal and some fellowship before we started prayer. The whole event fell poorly planned and rushed. When the time came for me to help clean up, I was raring to go. I wanted to get started, finished and out of there as soon as possible.

When we got everything all cleanedup, I left and went to grab a few more caches before I went back home. There were several on the east side I have not gotten yet, but only a few were close, so I headed that way. The first one was near the church and it was a cakewalk. The next one I struck out on...it was near one of my favorite BBQ places but like most simple ones...I failed to find it. To be honest there were way too many places to hide it (since my GPSr is always off...) and I did not have time to look for it properly.

The last one was my favorite and while the cache was easy to find, I had to go back and check again for the log. It had to be one of the best hides yet.

Just as I was leaving the parking lot, my wife called asking me when I was coming home. Since that was my last planned one, I just told her 15 minutes and headed home.

Once home I post my finds and then started vacuuming the house. Once that was done my wife and I had lunch then she took a nap while I took care of a few things on the PC (still no work calls at this time...wow). When she got up, we went outside and started working on the shrubs. They had grown to an incredible height and needed attention badly. Thankfully it only took a couple of hours to get that and a few other yard issues done.

Once that little adventure was complete, I ran over to Little Caesar's to get a pan pizza (mushrooms and sausage) for dinner. I really like their pan pizza. For $9.00 you get a thick cheesy pie that is hot and always good.

I took a breather to check on my Gutsy Gibsson (Ubuntu 7.10 upgrade) before I started washing dishes. Since the upgrade was taking its time, I decided to walk the dogs, one at a time to get some exercise.

Once back I checked the Ubuntu upgrade (only one hour left!!) and checked my e-mail. Another person found my cache and told me it was a great first hide and hopes I hide more. Wow...that was coming from a local hero, 9Key.

Not Much Going On

Yesterday ended well and today was a lot slower than yesterday...slow enough my TL let me go home a bit early.

I tried to do some caching at lunch but struck out on the two I tried. One I am sure is gone and the other I am sure is very well hidden...I just did not have enough time to look.

On the way home I stopped off to get one near the old railroad station, which is downtown. I had just started looking when a woman stepped out of her office and said, "I am going to tell you right now, you are going to have to get in the flowerbed to find it." I jumped, thinking I had been caught, but instead it was the caretaker of the property. She knows the people who placed the cache. I chatted with her a few minutes and then I continued my search. I found the cache about 2 minutes later. Oddly enough, he "clues" hindered me. Once I stepped back and did it my way, I found it quickly.

I was hoping to have 100 by the 28th (which would make one month of caching), but it looks like my total will be closer to 85-90. I have 71 now and it is getting harder to find the ones near my office. Many are hidden very well while others are gone.

Well, tomorrow we have the men's breakfast and then I have to vacuum the house and strip/make the bed. Since I am on call I cannot really go far to cache, but there are a few that are not too far away I could possibly try to nab. All I need to do is plan...

Work From Home

My TL took the day off so that meant I was flying solo. Now I am a big boy and I can work by myself, but it is nice to have someone to talk to while you work. With that in mind, going into a mostly empty office on a nice day would be very tough to manage. My TL told me that if I wanted to work from home I could and I told him I would give it some thought.

When I got up this morning, I thought about working from home. My wife would not be in the house since she works on Thursday. I checked the ticket queue and saw that Europe had a slow day, so I figured it would be okay to WFH.

I performed my normal routine just in case I needed to go in to the office. You never know when the internet connection will fail :) . I was just getting finished when I got a call on the hotline. The issue did not seem major at first, but it was a lot bigger than initially reported. The good news it was reported early enough that the impact was minimized.

After that issue was resolved, I got another call that was related to the first one. It basically was just a customer who needed to wait until the system updated all the other servers. Once the customer waited a while, things updates and she was ok.

Working at home meant I was not glued to the desk. All my work is initiated via phone, so as long as I am within 15 minutes of my PC, I am good. With that in mind I decided to take Little Man with me to the nearby park to collect a few caches (I got two...there were two had been muggled) and let the dog explore. All in all I was gone about 1.25 hours...just 15 minutes longer than my normal lunch hour. My phone did not ring at all.

I came home and ate a quick lunch and answered a few more calls and e-mails. Nothing serious was pending so I just took care of paperwork from the morning. That took about 30 minutes.

About 2:30 PM I got bored and went over to the park across the street to place a cache that had been rejected by the geocaching admins a few days ago. I found a good spot but it may be just a tad too close. Maybe if the admins are in a good mood, they will let me keep it. If not, back to the drawing board.

I came back and watered the dogs let them go out to use the bathroom. Once they were taken care of, I got a call from our help desk regarding an issue similar to the one this morning. I called the tech who was available and within 35 minutes, he had it fixed. He had help, but he worked very quickly and efficiently. He did a good job.

After that little adventure, things slowed down and then it was time to log off and go"on call". Now I do not have to read email, or do any paper work unless I am called.

Here is to praying for a quiet night. I am sure I will get a call, but at least things are quiet now.

Crazy Days, Sleepless Nights

I am on call this week and while my nights have not been busy so far, the days have been very crazy. I go home dead tired and usually am in bed by 10:00 PM. The problem with that is that I wake up at all hours fully refreshed. I have to force myself to go back to sleep. At least when the alarm goes off I am not so fuzzy headed that I cannot function.

Monday we had a ton (4 inches) of rain in the area. I caused all kinds of problems with flooding and at least one of my colleagues was unable to get to work. The local municipal golf course was completely under water and debris was everywhere.

On Tuesday I walked my dog down to where I hid my cache and noticed that all the rain we received did not harm the cache at all. Yes the label I put on the outside faded and ran, but everything on the inside was very dry. I hope I can place it soon. The owner has not responded to the e-mail I sent him and if he waits too long, the admins will archive his site. His loss.

Not Exactly Happy

Last night after placing my cache and sending the notice to the geocaching admins, my wife and I attended our small church's monthly evening service. Not a whole lot of people show up and tonight was no different. Nonetheless, it went very well and I am very glad I did not miss it.

I returned a phone call on the way home from the service and after that was done, I called mom. I love my mom but I cannot see how anyone can talk for almost 75 minutes non-stop. I was able to get in a "Yea", "Uh-huh", "Wow", now and then but for the most part the only thing I was able to tell her was that we just got out of service. I like to talk to her but lately her part of the conversation is mostly her repeating other conversations she has had with people I do not know...VERBATIM. If it is not a word for word rundown of previous conversations, then she will go on about church gossip (the worst kind) and it is all I can do to keep my mouth shut.

After mom talked to me for 1.25 hours, I checked my e-mail and was very disappointed to see that my application for hiding/posting a geocache was rejected. The rejection was two parts and while I understood both parts (and made the corrections to one of them) the other was more along the line of enforcing the letter of the law, rather than the intent. Let me explain.

There is a park near our house that has a great place to hide a cache. Now there is already a cache in the park, but many experienced cachers think it has been removed, although it is still listed. Since it appears to have been removed and the owner has not responded to any of the attempts to contact him, I decided to place a cache in the same park, but in the perfect location I found. Now the rules state that you cannot place a cache within 500 feet of an existing cache. This is done to keep an area from getting saturated with caches. I understand the INTENT of the rule, but following it to the LETTER seems (at least in the is case) a bit unfair. The original cache owner has a history of letting caches go unmaintained and does not answer requests to have caches repaired. In the past, the admins have waited 6 months or so then they archive the cache, allowing others to place one in the same area.

I contacted the admin and plead my case, but he/she would not budge. The told me to contact the cache owner (which I did) and if there was not contact for six months (we are at month 5 now), then the admin would archive. I guess waiting one more month would not kill me, but it really is a shame that people who put these things out just forget about them. If you are not interested in maintaining something like this, then please, retire it and give someone else a chance.

Well, since I was a bit deflated, I went to bed...it was already 10:00 PM and a serious storm was brewing. I kept dreaming that the admin would have a change of heart and see that the owner is not taking responsibility but I knew that it would not happen. I guess it is just best to wait the month.

I tossed and turned most of the night and woke up 30 minutes before the alarm went off. My wife has a full day ahead of her, so she got up the same time I did and oddly enough we did not get in each other's way. 1.25 hours after waking up, I was on the road to work. The drive in was very quiet and from the looks of the muni golf course, we received a lot of rain.

I wonder what today will bring?

On My Way

Today was pretty much the same old Sunday for me. I greeted a few new people at church (which is something I am not usually comfortable with) and later enjoyed the sermon. I am not sure why, but I grew more and more tired as the day wore on. The sermon was not boring, but I had trouble staying awake. I think I am narcoleptic. Just kidding, folks.

My wife and I went to Jason's Deli for lunch. I had a baked potato, which is my usual but instead of being topped with BBQ brisket, I had chili and cheese on it. Very good. Also, the spuds are big enough to A) share or B) save for another meal. I opted for B.

We got home and I got the urge to start working on my first geocache hide. It is going to be simple...I do not plan on getting complicated until I have at least 100 under my belt. I worked on the container (similar to a whipped topping bowl, but stronger) and when I was satisfied with it, I scoped out the area where I plan on placing it. I checked to see if the container would fit and it did then, like a good cache hider, I took 5 different readings and averaged them to get the coordinates. Satisfied with my recon work, I came back and put the finishing touches on my container. Once I did that I started the log page at geocaching.com and got it ready to submit. I will submit it once I get a chance to place it this week. It should not be a problem.

Oh, I forgot to mention it is a themed cache. I am hoping to get people to take/leave foreign currency when they visit the GZ.

Well, I need to get ready for the very informal, once a month evening service at church.

Personal Best

My wife wanted to sleep in so I decided to go geocaching while she slept. I decided to head north a bit and get a few that were near one of the larger parks in our town. I could not find the first one (I could have missed it though) so I went a block away and parked and did a series that was themed (by location and camo style). There were eight in the series and I started off in the hole...I could not find the first one! Since the walk was down and back, I figured I could get it on the flip side. I found 2,3,5,6,7, and 8 without a problem but had trouble with 4. On the return trip, I stopped at 4 and found it quickly. Then I went back to the start and FINALLY found 1. Wow. All in all I found 12 in the morning (8 in the series and 4 others). Tired and dirty, I went home to do a "bird bath" and start cleaning the house. My wife and called and told me she would be leaving to go work out so the house would be empty and cleaning it would be easier.

I finished the light cleaning and some laundry (as well as checked the mail) a few hours later. When I was almost done, my wife came home and we had a quick lunch and then she did the kitchen. While she did that, I logged my finds and deleted some of the mystery caches from the GPSr that I am borrowing. I told my wife there were three along the green belt and she asked if she could go with me to nab those. I agreed and we got ready to go.

Long story short, we took the dogs and they were too hot, so my wife returned (in the van) and I trekked on. I only managed to find one of the three (one I missed and I thing the other one has washed away), bringing my total to 13 for the day and 63 YTD (I have been caching on my own for about 2-3 weeks).

Instead of cleaning up, I helped my wife remove the remnants of a post in concrete the guys left when hey put in our new fence. Seems they only cut the old one down to the surface and when you dig near the new fence, you could hit a post stump and concrete. We removed one that was in the way.

With that done, I got cleaned up and watched a little TV ("Chuck", I think...so-so) then hit the hay at 10:00 pm or so. My wife was careful not to touch me since she thought I might have gotten into some PI tromping through the woods.

I tossed and turned all night but felt okay when I woke up, albeit a little sore. I most likely put in 7 miles or so the entire day. I forgot to set the GPSr to measure it so that is just a guess. I was on my feet walking (at various speeds) for 5+ hours or so. Who knows, maybe I walked more.

***Personal best of 13 in one day***
Total now up to 63

Mini Milestone

I made my 50th Geocache find today on the way home. It was not easy. I tried to get one or two on the way to work but that just never quite happens. I got one at lunch (a nano under a skirt) and the last two on my way home. I actually stopped at four but one is kicking my butt and the other was guarded by a police officer :)

Today was a rather brisk day at work. I feel sorry for my TL who has to run two cases this evening and possibly all weekend.

Morning Treat

Yesterday ended up being a so-so day. I was able to get two caches at lunch, but struck out on the way to and from work. To be honest the one on the way home I looked for was a tad difficult and I really was too much in a hurry (just like I am on my way to work) to spend much quality time looking. I needed to get home and take care of the dogs.

Once home I fed and watered the dogs as well as let them out to "do their thing" while I checked the mailbox. It was empty which meant that my wife grabbed it on her way to work.

Back inside I checked e-mail and my pownce.com page...nothing really, just a few quick messages from my WV Geocaching buds. Shortly after I got in and settled, my wife asked me to meet her for dinner at a local Chinese place. I agreed and headed over. I knew she would be at least 30 minutes and it only took 7 minutes to get to the Chinese place, so I spent the spare time looking for another cache that eluded me last weekend. Still not luck on finding that one. The GPSr was allo ver the place. My Google Sat image showed it to be one one area, but there is no place to hide anything withing 20 feet. The closest thing I could find was a tree and power transformer. There is a dumpster nearby and that may be it...not sure. Anyway, as I was on my way to the restaurant, my wife called me to see where I was...she actually beat me there. That does not happen very often!

After a restful nights sleep, I awoke and took care by normal routine and headed out the door. I had plans to find two caches on the way to work, but both were foiled by muggles. Oh well. Maybe another day!

On the way to work, I noticed a neat view that I get to see frequently this time of year. The local municipal golf course was shrouded in fog and mist giving it an eerie "Scottish moors" look. We used to have mornings like that in NC all the time but in north central Texas, it is not quite as common..at least where I am.

Fair Enough

I got home from work on Tuesday and mowed our neighbor's lawn, as well as trimmed and edged it (and clean up). It was getting dark and since I did not have enough time to complete our yard, I just trimmed and edged it. Fall is like that...I do not have enough time to mow both yards, so I have to do one each night. That is actually a good thing in a way...it keeps me from overdoing it.

Wednesday was "Fair Day" for me and my wife. I normally take that day off to help celebrate her birthday, since that is all she ever wants. Money has been kinda tight the past couple of months so the fair is all she is gonna get this year. I hate to do it but money is still tight.

We arrived at the fair at 11:30 AM and immediately went to the K9 show. My wife loves watching dogs perform tests of agility. the show was pretty good, but my wife liked it more than I did. There was one 2.5 year old black lab that was a champion in the pool jumping event. He made a 30 foot jump while we were there. Impressive.

After the dog show my wife and I scoped out the food vendors to see who had the best prices on food. I was amazed at all the "fried" items I saw...fried banana budding, fried Coke, fried latte's, fried Snicker's bars...the list goes on. I guess Iwe are boring...my wife and tater twisters and I had tamales with chili. We did share a banana split and drank a lot of bottled water during the day.

Before we ate anything, we hit the car show to see what the 2008's were looking like. My wife and I are Dodge fans, so we checkout the latest Mopar had to offer. I was disappointed to see that the dash design of all the 2008 cars was not something I liked. I had trouble seeing over the dash in all the vehicles except the Caravan, the Nitro and the trucks.

Since we did not get such a warm fuzzy from Dodge, we checked out models Mazda, Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Scion, Mitsubishi, and Suzuki. My wife and I really like the Mazda 3. It was the only car that we could agree on in style, price and fuel efficiency. I like the Suzuki Grand Vitara and the XL7 as well as the Dodge Nitro, but my wife was not interested in the poorer fuel efficiency of those vehicles. I agreed mostly.

One of the sticking points for me is the entry into the car. My wife's Honda was a bit of a pain for me to get into. The seat was low and required me to climb down to get into it and the steering wheel always seemed to be in the way. The Mazda and the Scion Xb were not a problem in this area, but my wife really dislikes the Scion Xb. I also liked the Nissan Sentra, but my wife never got a chance to sit in it. It fit almost perfectly.

As I was leaving, I noticed an older man struggling with a seat adjustment on one of the cars. We struck up a coversation and he told me he just bought a Hyundai Sonata and really likes it. He told me price and warranty were key selling points and he was offered (and bought) an extended bumper to bumper warranty (10 year, 100,000 miles) for $700. He was so keen on it my wife and decided to go over to see the Hyundai's. The selection was poor but it gave us an idea of what was offered. If what I hear is true, a Sonata may be an option in a couple of years.


After we wandered the fair for a few hours, we decided to head on home. Traffic at 4:00 PM in Dallas is frightful, but we finally made it home. After we got home I finished mowing our yard and then got a shower before heading over to care group. I was looking forward to eating solid food!

Care group went well. We were a few people short so things went quicker than normal. Once we got home I walked Little Man and then hit the hay. It had been a long day.

AFK

I have not posted in a couple of days which is unusual form me but I really have not had much to write about. After another slow day at work yesterday(the only excitement being our network was down for seven hours), I came home and mowed my neighbor's yard (it had been 3 weeks since I mowed it last) and trimmed and edged both ours and our neighbor's. I got done after it was already dark (I hope it looks okay!!) and oddly enough, my wife was not home and she had not called. Since I was a stinky mess from my chores, I hopped in the shower just as she pulled in.

Earlier on that day my wife had to go in for some testing on a lump they found on her Thyroid gland. At first I did not give it much thought, but when the tests came back, the doc ordered more tests. Also, the center charged my wife $200 for the test even though we have an HMO. Money has been tight and I hate to admit it but yes, I worry about money. These things had been weighing heavy on my mind all day. I did not eat dinner and by the time my wife got home, those nervous thoughts coupled with my low blood sugar allowed me to snap at her. I quickly apologized to her and she forgave me. For once my reasons made sense to both of us.

Today is Texas State Fair Day. I normally take this day off from work each year so I can spend it with my wife. This year, my TL has to work by himself, but if it is as slow as it has been the last 5-7 days, he will "fair" okay.

While the fair goes on for a month, we chose this day to go because admission is free with a donation of canned food. Personally I could not care any less to go to the fair, but my wife really enjoys the atmosphere so I oblige her. At least I can check out the auto show.

Making A Name For Myself

Well, thanx to a few e-mails and posts regarding geocaching, I have gotten a fair amount of attention. Some of it is typical newbie-ness...I make mistakes and I get corrected. It is not a big thing, but I again realize that every group has its rules to follow. I guess my posts are a little on the liberal side when it comes to info, but I am that way.

I have gotten a few complimentary e-mails on my finds...I have a knack for finding some of the hard ones while letting the easy ones go unfound. Well that is the way I am sometimes...a bit of an enigma.

Work was slow today...the same it has been for the past days or so. Slow enough that I have been rushing out to geocache at lunch not to mention on the way to work or on the way home. I am sure this obsession will slack off soon. I have already noticed I bought gas three days sooner than I normally do (I usually get 10 days to a tank...my driving is pretty regular but the last time I only got seven) and that will get noticed at the end of the month.

New Toy

At least for the near future. My wife's boss has decided to let me borrow his Garmin GPSMap 176C indefinitely. It is just like what is linked only color. Yes it is older and it is more for vehicles (boats and cars) but it is portable. I have been playing a bit with it and I personally think it is a little too complex to operate. It is not very user friendly.

The software that was installed on it was very much out of date (2.03 was on it and I just installed 4.10) and I installed EasyGPS on my home PC to transfer waypoints into it so I can get started GPS caching without any real need for cutting and pasting into my PDA.

Other than that, church, and two long distance phone calls (Stupid Bill and my mom), nothing else has really gone on today.

I am sooo itching to try this thing out in a wooded area to see how well it does and how well I can use it!

Today's Activities Are Brought To You By The Letter "S"

Today Started with a routine vacuuming of the house. When that was done, I Stripped the bed and changed the Sheets.

After a Spicy lunch, I folded the Sheets that were in the dryer and put them away. Since it was Still Sprinkling, mowing the grass was out of the question. I thought about my options and decided to Spend my afternoon Searching for hidden geocaches.

I gathered the things I would need (PDA, pen, and old Shoes and Socks Since it was raining) and hopped in my trusted Dodge Dakota.

I was only going to cover a small area and had about 10-15 Sites I wanted to check out. I was out for about 3 hours and found 12 geocaches. During that three hours I:

* Saw two Snakes
* One Shedded Snake Skin (used as camo for one cache)
* Visited two cemeteries

All in all it was a good day. I came back home Stinky, but a Shower Soon took care of that. I even drove over to Scotty P's for a Savory burger and fries So my wife did not have to Slave over the Stove.

Keeping It Country

Traffic was mostly light on my way home last night. My wife was working so I figured I had a little time to stop off and grab a couple of caches along the way. One was an LPC (Lamp Post Cache) and the other was under a small pile of rocks beside a not so busy bank. I think both of them together took me 7 minutes. Not too shabby.

I came home and let the dogs out, fed, and watered them. The fridge was mostly bare and what little was there was not not to my liking. So with the wife's permission I went and grabbed some McDonald's (Chicken Club sandwich) and headed to my city council meeting. On my way there, I realized that I was going to be early so I stopped of and checked on a couple of the caches that are withing 1/2 mile of city hall. The first one looks like it has been lifted (a common problem for urban caches) and the other was either too well hidden for a quick look or it was missing as well. I write the owner of the first one to let him know but decided not to do anything about the second one until I can go back and give it a thorough search.

I headed back to city hall and sat through a very short (less than one hour) meeting. Only one major issue was brought up (a zoning request change) and it was considered a non-issue since the master plan calls for the change any way. Once the meeting was over, I went home, checked my mail, and went to bed.

I got up feeling pretty good. My allergies are subsiding a bit but they are still there. Mostly it is just sinus issues but I did have a sneezing fit while walking Little Man. I am sure the rain the other day helped out.

I got ready for work after completely the normal ritual and then headed out the door with my geek bag (laptop and accessories) and my meager lunch. I am going to have to grab something today (the fridge is still bare)...and that is not appealing.

One the way to work I managed to grab one cache. It was near a loading dock, in a magnetic key box under some metal stairs. I was int and out in 3 minutes, just as the workers were filtering in. Slick.

Lunchtime Failures

I thought I would spend my lunch hour trying to get a few of the caches that have proven troublesome over the past week or so. I Started off at the ball field, but I could not find the prize hidden there. It has been a few weeks since anyone has found it (and more than one person has struck out in the process) and I am just the next person on the list.

With the wind out of my sails, I trekked over to one of the 5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed caches (I only have found one so far) and finished my lunch while I looked for it. The place has been frequented by several people lately and since neither I nor LegendofZelda (a fellow geocacher) has been able to find it, it too may be muggled.

With my hopes for a successful lunch caching session sinking fast, I try a site I have not tried yet. It is rumored to be difficult, but I am up for the challenge. It is across the street from the TMNT site I fear has been muggled, in an area that used to be a mini golf course, but has been abandoned. I think I think I know the general area but as I get back there I find the camp of a homeless person (they are not there) and since I am by myself and in an abandoned area, I decided to pass this one up.

Feeling defeated, I head off to one more of the TMNT themed sites. They are TMNT themed because each of them is near a sewer/culvert opening in the city. They are out in the open and very public, so they are mostly safe. Anyhooo...I head to that site (I was there yesterday but struck out) and look, following the clues that have been left for me, but I cannot find anything resembling the booty. After wasting my lunch hour on four caches all withing 1/2 mile of each other, I go back to work...defeated.

I guess I can take solace in the fact that I managed to get one this morning before I came to work and that there are at least two I can get on my way home if I want to. They are right along the way...

Houses Of The Holy

On the way home (since I was not in a huge hurry, I stopped and found two caches that we along my route home. The first was in a church parking lot (I have finally learned a valuable hiding lesson) and found it in less than a minute. My technique using Google Maps did not work so I had to look at MSN LiveMaps (it was more up to date but did not have the ability to do coord's.) and compared the two, guestimating the distance to the cache. When I got to the site, I was spot on. I noticed I could walk 100 yds west and snag the next one with very little trouble (it was hidden near a well known landmark in town) and I was able to admire the booty (A couple of geocoins and other assorted goodies) undisturbed.

That brought my total up to 3 for the day and feeling lucky, I decided to go for four. I stopped by the site where I had struck out the day before and decided to give it another go. I searched the area pretty well but could not find it. I think it is DNF, but since I am still a greenhorn, I would rather have a second opinion.

I got home and realized that it was care group night and that my wife was at the fitness facility working out. Being hungry and not wanting to wait, I make a cheese, beef, and turkey wrap to munch on until my wife got home.

Once my wife got home, showered, and changed, we headed over to care group. The meal was okay (we do not have the same caliber of chefs that some of the other care groups have)...not fantastic, but edible. I was not there for the food anyway. What I attend for is the SPIRITUAL food. Meeting with Christians and discussing things in a non-judgmental environment is a good thing,

While there, I was made aware that we had nine visiting families last Sunday and that we had lost one more. Oddly enough, a family that just joined has decided to leave. I was not given any details so I do not know why they left. That saddens me because I really liked the guy, although my wife was not very keen on the woman.

After care group meeting was over, we headed home. Neither of us was tired so we stayed up. I surfed the web from the laptop in bed while my wife made small talk. Eventually we both tired and fell fast asleep.

My allergies are still doing very well today, except for the stuffy nose/sinuses. Not sneezing and having eyes that do not itch is a good thing!

Breathe

Yes, I can breathe better this evening. I think all the rain helped settle the pollen and I am feeling much better now. I have been taking Alavert and Sudaphed. So far I have not died using that combo.

I found 2 caches today. I attempted four but I think one of the two is DNF. I am not sure since it had been raining and I was not about to go tramping through the high grass in nice clothes. The other was well hidden but I got a clue from the geocaching web site and I think I know where it is...maybe tomorrow!

While I was out I got a pic of the container that gave me fits. I have to admit it earned the "3" rating that the creator gave it. It took two lunch hours to find it.

One trend I see is the use of "nano" caches. Nano's are tiny little things...some as small as a bolt head. Tough to find.

Stuffed Full Of Cotton

That is what my sinuses feel like. My allergies are the worst they have been in at least six years. I was taking Claratin and Sudaphed, but neither really helped. The doc suggested Alavert so I bout a sample pack from Kroger but so for it is doing very little more than the other drugs. This is a horrible feeling! I need some relief.

I did some caching at work and found two more, but struck out again at the "Rock the Catbox" site. The difficulty level is a "1", (the easiest) but I cannot find it. I have looked in the obvious caching locations but no luck. Amazing how I have been able to find a "3" (which was darn clever...a hollowed out rock placed in a rock wall) but have trouble with easy ones...like "Red River Rising", which was muggled but now is back in action. I went there after I got home but I still cannot find it. maybe I will let my wife search for it.

My TL let me go home an hour early yesterday since we had been so slow, so I decided to stop at three caches along the way home to see if I could find them. I found "Aermotor" but struck out on "Lakeside Vista" and "Parker? You Broughter"...Lakeside Vista had too many muggles and Parker was covered in tall grass...not my cup of tea at all.

With my finds yesterday, that brings my finds up to 18...14 have been without the use of a GPSr. I was hoping to go today but it appears that the weather will not cooperate...it is raining and has ben for several hours. Oh well!

My Turn To Be Shocked and Awed

*** KD and Rycherox...do not read this until you have talked with Stupid Bill. You may want to hear all this from him first. You have been warned. ***

Previously I mentioned that I was trying to get into contact with "Stupid" Bill, one of the original BSOB members. I had tracked down his father and gave him my contact info to pass along to Bill. Well, last night about 9:00 PM I received a call from Bill. It was like stepping into the "way back machine". SB has not changed a bit. I do not think I have heard that much conversational swearing since "Scarface". Really.

To bring you up to speed, SB moved from WV to Georgia with his wife. SB was a workaholic at times and this put a strain on his marriage. Over time, his wife left him for another man (whom fathered a child with her), contracted an incurable disease, and then after all the pieces fell apart, wanted to reconcile. SB stated he was not inclined to take her up on her offer, so he moved to Indiana (financially ruined). SB worked for FedEx at one of the airports and then moved back to WV for a short period of time.

After spending a little time in WV, SB moved to a small town in rural Kentucky, where he owns a farm. While SB looked like a redneck at times, I never would have guessed he would own a farm...in Kentucky no less.

SB and I chatted for about an hour, during which he brought me up to speed on a lot of things. He seemed more interesting in talking than listening (I didn't mind) and began to tell me about the changes in his life. He still drinks, swears, and chases women but now he lives and works on his farm and he hunts...A LOT.

However, the most sobering change in his life was that he was diagnosed with Lymphoma about 3-4 years ago. I do not know much about the disease, but I do know that there is no cure for it. If I understand what I am reading correctly, he is dying...though how fast I do not know.

SB went on to comment about his horse, his dogs, his family, and his many girlfriends...one as young as 24. Confidence is not something SB is lacking. You would not know he was sick by the way he was talking.

One thing SB touched on was how much he missed Carp. SB and Carp were very close (closer than he and I were), at one time being roommates until Carp got married. The both drank a lot but eventually Carp had enough partying and settled down. I don't think SB ever did.

Towards the end of our conversation, he asked if I ever went back to WV and I told him that went back every year. I told him my next scheduled trip would be in the summer of 2008 and he expressed interest in getting together on my through. No plans have been cemented, but I am hoping all four of us can get together.

As expected, SB told me I could call him anytime and gave me his number (it was on my caller ID) as well as his e-mail address. As predicted, he is not much into computers and has broken two monitors so far (he prolly threw them out a window or something similarly "Stupid") in a rage. Glad to see he is not the only MS hater out there :) .

I passed on the info to my BSOB brethren (Rychrox, Knightmare Duck, and M'Wonga) with SB's blessing. I do hope we can all meet again before it is too late. I am really going to have to pray for his soul.

Passionate

I have noticed that when I do something, I do it very passionately until I am tired of it. MAYBE the same thing will happen with geocaching. Prolly not!

I stopped by one this morning on my way to work, but it was too dark, wet, and the traffic was too heavy so I decided just to go ahead to work. Once there, the ticketing system we use was down so I could not do any real work until it came back up. Good for me it was slow.

Lunch time rolled around and I was not hungry. Since we are a use it or lose it shop, I decided to try my hand at a couple caches at lunch. Google showed 4 within a couple blocks so I drove them all. I could not immediately find them so I studied my notes and went back to the first one. I found it very quickly but there was so much muggle traffic (including a Sec Guard) I had to be careful putting it back after I signed the log.

I drove over to the second one and found it pretty quickly as well, however, there were two cars in the lot paying attention to me so again, I had to be careful. I made like I was picking up trash while examining the building the cache was near. I signed the log and left.

The last two were not easy. One is a "3" on the difficulty scale and I finally figured out why. The other was just "in plain sight" and I failed to realize that until I got back and started reading more about it.

I finished up my afternoon with a call from the R&D help desk in China. I generally do not like working with the Chinese HD people...far too hyper and in a hurry to pass off a hot potato. This one was not too bad once we got all the info. We put it in motion and it was taken care of.

When my shift was over, I decided to take a 2 block detour to grab one that was hidden in the technology park North of my building. Most of the park is empty and this was hidden deep in the park. It was not too deep for Google Maps...I spent more time driving the two blocks than I did looking for it. That one brought my total up to 11 without a GPSr. Go me.

On my way home I got a call from my wife and she asked me to get a few things from the store. I did and was rewarded with dinner...baked spaghetti and raspberry tea.

BTW, I see that my Mari-El scammer has been reading "Always a Dull Moment" yet again. I hope he/she enjoys it!