Parabola / Tape worm's Blog

A insane fundraser

2010-03-14T20:51:00.000-07:00

I've been toying around with some ideas for a fundraiser to try and help our local caching club gain funds to buy swag type item's with their logo on it. Just to get those things the money has to come upfront, when the item's get sold then the money is recouped. So it's had to say hey let's get 100 logo pins and sell them. yes they will sell, but over a period of time and I don't thing the budget is there to do such things.

So sitting around thinking of what we could do that would kind of be "extreme", I was thinking about this place in Wisconsin. My thought was to advertise this as will he chicken out or go threw with it, and have people offer what they would like to contribute weather it be a dollar, or 50 dollar's.

Since this would be taken place in Wisconsin, I think it would be fair to offer the same to their state caching group as well.

So something like this. There is a cost up front. Hopefully enough money would be raise (if I don't chicken out) that will pay for the cost of the "stunts", Then the proceeds's would then be split evenly between Wisconsin and Iowa's, caching groups.

Maybe even set it up as an event, so people can come try to strick fear into me. lol And get together for the usual cache talk and fellowship. But for those who can't make it, and as proof, take my digital camcorder and video tape it all, then upload it to a site like you-tube or viemo, so those that could make it can see.

The "extreme" part is this:

http://www.extremeworld.com/attractions/terminal_velocity/video.aspx

That as one part of it. Then:

http://www.extremeworld.com/attractions/bungee_jump/

and then if I'm still walking or haven tried to run away:

Well, I can't find a video for it, but it's "The ejection seat".

So my question would be would people be interested in this and again the money would first pay for the taskes, then what's left would get split evenly between Wisconsin and Iowa's caching club website's.

Make a day of it, an event you can come and try to haggle me and make me even more nervous. And if I do chicken out on the tasks, I'll pay the cost of what the task's cost, so if you can get in my head and scare me off, that would leave even more money for the two caching clubs.

So far this is just an idea and this is the first I've talked about it. Let me know what you think and if I should look more into this. So please get the word out, as I' interested if my fellow cacher would like to "knock me off" or not. lol

Tape worm

It's been awhile

2010-03-10T03:46:00.000-08:00

Well, 'm almost hesitant to even post this but I know a lot of the family follows this. What I though was just a sleeping pill they had pescribed, was really an anti-depressant/tranquilizer. Which I know now you are only to be on them for a short amount of time, which I was on that one for around 5 years. So trying to get off of it, has been a scary process.

Last week my mom had to rush me to the E.R. in the middle of the day cause I had been having an annexity attack for almost 48 hours, but it turn out it was withdrawl. I couldn't breath, The only part of my body I could feel was my face. I tried to lay down in the hospital bed, but it just felt like if I laid down, I wouldn't get back up. They did get me an ice pack which seems to help a bit. My blood pressure was threw the roof, and my blood pressure has always been normal.

I was able to finally clam down and quit shaking, but the next late afternoon another one started in. Bad part was my parents where leaving for a cruse in the morning. But I had to go back to the E.R. and do a little fibbing so they would admit me. I had had about 5 hours of sleep the whole week, and I really think that was what brought it on, plus another situation going on, that I really didn't need at the time.

Thankfully the doctor was moving so I got a new one, which we where going to switch anyways cause i didn't care for her. This new one flat out told me I'm not an addict. It was given to me with good intentions just they didn't pull me off of it when they should have and they should have never had me on such a high dose.

I've been getting out and doing a little caching and making some hides. I took our dog Rusty to check on one of my caches the other night.

But they are taking a much more aggressive approach on taking me off this med, which sucks, and I can't wait till it's over.

But that's what I've been up to for the past few weeks.

Wow!!!

2010-02-17T20:59:00.000-08:00

Now this was just crazy. I've got a cache hid on a very small island out 20 feet away from the shore. It's about a mile walk one way to get there. Yeah I had put it out in the winter and used the frozen ice as an advantage to get there, which I wouldn't recommend it to anybody. But these photo's I think speak for themselves. I wish I was there to see this, just crazy.

He's using a fallen tree as a "bridge" to get out to the island as seen above.

Here he is trying to dig the ammo can out of the ice.

Here he is standing on top of the ammo can.

I saw these and thought wow now that's diehard. I'd take the tubing option during the summer.

Something's are impossible

2010-02-10T20:05:00.000-08:00

There's a CITO event from last year's earth day still active. After many many SBA's on it from me and other people, it's still there. So tonight I got a great message from a cacher that feel's you only have the right to put such thing's down if you have a hide/find count. Since I don't really care about my count's, but did add them up for a response. I don't understand why a individual thinks that you have to have a high find/hide count to have a voice in Geocaching. Especially when that person can't fix or maintain their own hides, and gob's of DNF's are on it, then it get's disabled for 6 month's, then when you ask about if it's going to get fixed or not, you get your log deleted.

Oh well, most of those caches I wouldn't take the time to look for, and if I did I won't spend the time to log them. They just go on my ignore list with the date I found them.

Well, off to keep painting some container's and forget about it. It was nice while it lasted not having to hear anything from this cacher. Since I was accused of tampering with vote's by him and he had to send out mass e-mail's but didn't bother sending one to me. Sometime's volunteering to do think's for masses does have it's draw-back's, when their are jerk's like this out there. They don't even stop to think about what you have given up doing so you have time to do what you volunteered for. :(

Scouting Caches

2010-01-25T23:55:00.001-08:00

Well, it's going pretty good so far. This is quite a neat scouting project participating in the 100th year Anniversary. I'm a little behind where I wanted to be at this point but it's going well. The cold and the snow has made it a bit tricky.

I had a log today saying how one of the caches wasn't winter friendly at all. Which I didn't put that attribute on it. But I didn't think it was that back. I made the mile round trip hike in the dark, and didn't think it was too bad, other than the trip back was mostly up hill.

So far I've made the hide's themselves pretty easy to find and nothing tricky. Some of them are quite a hike, but sound's by the log's people have enjoyed them.

I goofed the other night thought when I was out hiding a cache and I think my cord's are 40 to 50 feet off. Thankfully the hunter was able to find it. It's on my list to get fixed this week. I did kind of have a funny feeling when I was taking reading's on that one, as my batteries in my GPS where running low, and I had all my spare's at home charging. There's that scout motto "Be Prepared".

I've been able to get permission for all seven counties that the Hawkeye Area Council is involved with. Some require permit's, some don't. Jones county where I live I have to meet with the ranger before I can hide anything due to a cacher not taking care of his hides. Kind of sad how one person can ruin it for the batch, but by the sound's of it all, I think the caching relationship can be repaired.

Just figured I'd post an update. I do have some surprizes around the corner and some challenge caches as well.

Hope you guy's enjoy them,

Parabola/Tape worm

Yes for those that haven't figured it out my new handle on geocaching.com is Tape worm.

Also if you are able to please consider using the donate link for the scouting. The money will go to help pay for all the ammo can's I was able to get, SWAG to fill the can's, and gas to get out and place those hides.

Safe Caching!!!

Hawkeye Area Council 100th Anniversity

2010-01-21T23:01:00.000-08:00

I ment to post this at the start of the year and forgot, but figured better late than never. This is about the Boy Scout's 100th Anniversary, and we are teaching them and their leader's about geocaching, and teaching cacher's a little about scouting. But the goal is to get out in the wood's and get some new cacher's out there. So here's my "old post":

Well, here’s my first official announcement of thing’s to come in 2010 as we help celebrate the Boy Scout’s 100th year anniversary.

We have some very exciting plan’s, and thing’s we will be doing threw the year so I want to make a spot for any one to view, get involved, want’s to see what’s going on with the geocaching side of thing’s.

So far we have released a Kick off/caching 101 event. We will be using multiple website’s like www.geocaching.com and www.waymarking.com and www.terracaching.com and www.navi-caching.com for the listing of caches, event’s, activities, and all sort’s of fun thing’s to do that will help support caching and teaching the scout’s more about it, and hopefully get some of them and their parent’s to get in and join the hobby.

First off we are working with the Hawkeye Area Council, and other council’s may have some caching program’s as well.

I’m already set up the Kickoff event, that will be at Kent Park in the CEC building on Jan. 9th, 2010. Which can be found on the geocaching website. I’ll get some link’s posted soon.

There is going to be 5 special “treasure’s of scouting” caches placed, where you can get a card from the cache and mail it in or drop it off at the scouting office to be entered in a monthly drawing for a very limited special geo-coin.

Also there will be 12 special “cache to eagle” caches that will have one of the scout law’s written in the lid’s of the container’s. Once you find all of them, you can e-mail me which law is written in each hide, and the first 20 cacher’s to do so will receive a special commemorative patch.

Also there will be a large number of new cache hides in the counties that the Hawkeye Area Council cover’s. These will be released at certain time’s threw the year. The other cache’s I hope to release on Jan. 1st 2010.

So come on and join in the fun as I’m sure I’ll have some side games that come along as we move forward.

If you have any question’s or comment’s, or idea’s, or wish to help out, please feel free to e-mail me and you are welcome to post comment’s on to this blog as well.

Thanks and safe caching everybody,

Tape worm

The H.A.C. Kick off and 101 Caching Event.

2009-12-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to point out the kick-off event for the Hawkeye area council is listed and going to happen on Jan. 9th 2010. It will be from 10:00am to 1:00pm. Some temp's will be put out but are not loggable, and a new cache will be in place that is loggable, plus there's some really great hides already in Kent Park. If you haven't done them, you should put them on your to-do list.

If you can make it we would love you to come and join us. We will be doing a potluck lunch as well.

Here's a link to the listing on Geocaching.com

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=581622be-0a47-4fc3-8c7a-dfebf39125d5

Hope to see ya there!!!!

Parabola

Now that was scary

2009-12-04T16:22:00.001-08:00

I had a very scary thing happen to me over the past two day's. My throat swelled up to the point of I could hardly breath. We still aren't 100% sure why, if it's an allergy to a medication or the change in weather. I've just never experienced anything like that before. I'll spare the detail's of it, but it really scared the crap out of me.

Not sure why I'm putting this in my blog. Other than that the therapy and trying to "relearn" how to sleep, is going ok. I wish it would move along much faster, and for a change in the past 4 year's my panic attack's seem to finally being suppressed. I'm still having a few but they are no where as bad as they where. The wife has noticed a big change in my attitude and said she thinks I'm in a much better mood, and no where near as snipy as I had become.

But finally starting to get 5 to 6 hours of sleep at one shot. Which so far I can live on that. It sure beat's the 1 to 2 hour's or being awake for day's on end, till I would just crash for two day's. I can sure tell I've been off work for a long time. I was in a couple of day's this week, and no matter how much I walked the dog, or went for a walk, it doesn't compare to climbing up and down ladder's all day long.

I'm so looking forward to getting back into the swing of thing's, which is slowly happening or at least headed in the right direction.

I've been very lucky to have such a supportive family, and co-worker's. I want to say thank you to all of them for dealing with me threw all the high's and low's of this whole thing. I'm really worried about my son, and what affect's it's had on him. Just now that I'm starting to do better I think it's time for some good quality father and son time.

I would suggest anyone that has panic attack's and or annexity/depression problem's, get seen, they can help, even though I was too the point I didn't think they could but it was a matter of getting a few doctor's involved. But there is hope out there. And if you need to talk to someone about them, don't be afraid to drop me a line. I don't know if I will be able to help much, but just having someone to listen has been a big help. I know this stuff is hard to talk to other's about since it does get very personal, but it does help, and their is some very understanding people out there.

Sleeping update

2009-11-27T17:09:00.000-08:00

I've had a ton of e-mail's regarding my sleeping disorder's. Which thank you everybody!!! So I figured I'd post an update regarding it.

I've got a total of four doctor's that i'm working with. That sure does get confusing with the insurance company when thye want to know something, trying to refer them to the right doctor is kind of hard. They did figured out I have a mix of two sleeping disorder's, but not the one's they had though I had. So the original plan was completely throw out the window, which would have been a much easier and faster "fix". But that's mixed in with a annexity/depression problem, and all of them are feeding off each other.

I had put this stuff off for four year's due to being busy, didn't have time to make it in to the doctor, which made it progress to the level it got too. I had just been dealing with it and was trying to kept moving on with daily thing's.

The last doctor I finally met with for the first time last wednesday. Which was kind of interesting to say the least. She just shook her head at alot of the medication's they had tried, and the fact that one of them I've been on for over two year's, but it's been the one thing I could count on to supress a Panic attack. But she's said, if I was to go off of it at the moment, I would even up in the hospitial witht he possible of some very bad thing's happening. But we have to make a plan on how to get off of it, but she said not until we find something that can keep panic attacks from happening. But as of right now I am physically dependent on it. So yet another thing tossed in the mix to deal with.

I am getting to go back to work next week, and have been working hard on reseting me internal clock to a 24 hour clock, and not from about the 64 hour clock that had happened because it was delt with sooner. The past month, has been hard do to I had to set a wake up time. No matter what, if I haven't slept I have to get up at that time, and it's everyday, and no sleeping in on the weekend's. I had figured out my day's and night's are reversed, so get those back to normal hasn't been fun and still isn't right yet, But getting back to work and getting back on a normal "life" schedule will help, but the first couple of week's will be ruff. And scaling back on all sleeping medication's. They work for a certain amount of time, but are not ment to be a perminate thing. ANd after so long your body will fight those as it will see them as toxic and will rasie your white blood count like you have an infection your body is trying to fight off.

I've been trying to take walk's, ride my bike, go for a hike out in one of the park's as exercise to try and help make me physicaly tired, but also have been told, exercise in the evening nearing bed time isn't a good thing, due to it can cause adrenaline to start, and keeping you awake, so there's a fine line not to cross in the later evening's. Defining that line, well I haven't figured it out yet.

Another thing is I was/am a clock watcher, meaning at night when i couldn't sleep I would keep looking at the time on the alarm clock. This only makes you frustrated, and get's you start thinking, ok I can't sleep, I'm going to be so tired tomorrow, and making your brain "thinking" alot more than when you should be relaxed.

So far I haven't been able to get a solid sleeping schedual, but it seem's the quality of sleep I do get has improved. Which working on a getting back to a normal schedule will help and speed this up.

As far as a set bedtime, is good, but as I was told if in the evening if I've very tired, go ahead and go to sleep, just as long as it's not a nap in the middle of the day. As your body is trying to make up for that lack of sleep.

I think the worst was going 4 day's and night without sleep or just a few hour's, and then by the time the weekend rolled around, I would crash for two day's and there was no getting me up. Sadly I've missed a ton of family activies, alot of my son's sport's stuff.

But there's kind of an update, and I guess the best thing is now we know what's going on, and have a plan we have been working on for the past month in treating it, but it wasn't until I could get into all the doctor's to get everything I needed. Which that was the bad part, every big test, and every new doctor I wouldn't know about till I met with one doctor, and then trying to make an appointment, we found I couldn't get in for a month or six week's. So it just drug out the time-line this has been going on.

Have a happy holiday's everyone!!!

A ammo can or two.

2009-11-11T00:17:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been trying to work a deal with some folk's about a large order of ammo can's to use for the Geoscouting project for the upcoming year. I finally got the right guy, and was shocked at the deal he gave me.

We worked out that if any IGO member want's to buy a pallet full or bulk quantity's of ammo can's 30 cal's or 50 cal's, he will sell them at whole sale. Already they give geocacher's a 5% discount which has been very nice of them to do, but with the rocking price of the ammo can due to the future of them is unknown at this point, they have almost doubled in price over the past year. The military has been crushing the can's, instead of putting them up for auction. Any way's I told them I would definitely give them a plug. CC military surplus in Central city. This is almost a 50% discount off of the retail price of buying them one at a time. And is just a quarter lower than what they cost a year ago.

I was so happy when he said he would do this for any of us, so if a bunch of us want to get together and buy in bulk, and split the cost and the can's we can do that.

I have to thank my little sister for helping me get them all off the pallet, counted, take the lid's and put those on. And for trying to help me repair a couple that got dented due to the metal band's holding them to the pallet. And for them putting them back in the truck to move from my parent's to my house.

Another big thank you to my little guy for helping me unload them all out of the truck and get them stacked up in the garage while we are waiting on paint to start painting them.

I'm almost ready to release a major announcement for me to the public. It's been a hard decision, but I think it's a good one. Just there will be no more log's under the handle of Parabola on geocaching.com. I guess I'll just spill the bean's. I've retired my handle. Parabola had a good run, but is now done. Done caching, no way. But a fresh start I guess. My new handle, well it's out there with a few find's already. Then final cache I had to put on terra-caching.com due to how I wanted to finish I couldn't meet the guideline's. There's a write up with a cache called Parabola to finish him up, with a very unique kind of cache and I think another first of it's kind. I've even got the 2nd in command there involved. I guess call it completing the circle. To swipe a friend of mine's cache hide name. That the cause of the recent design of my pathtag's. The piece's all fit if you really look and study them.

I hope I've made some memorable caches for you to think back and say to yourself, what was I thinking going after that cache. What's left will still be maintained by me, and I don't know if I want to adopt them over or not, but they still will be watched over, till the time comes to put them to rest.

Not to fear, though, there's more coming, and I think the picture's in this post will show that.

See ya on the trail's,

Parabola

Geoscouting

2009-11-05T20:47:00.000-08:00

It's out and officially announced now. The Cache to Eagle program, the pillar's of scouting, the Pinewoodderby TB race. Eache councial will be putting together a different program. This is set up as a partnership between Geocaching.com and the Boy Scout's. Since we have similar values, and all enjoy the outdoor's the two do kind of go hand in hand.

So far we have a general plan for the Hawkeye Area Council and set up a pretty bang up program for 2010. This venture is to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of scouting.

As an Eagle scout myself, I learn a lot that I sit use today while out in the wood's looking for geocaches. But be ready Jan. 1st for the program to began, and other thing's may be added on as we go threw the year. I'm sure hoping the program we set up for the Hawkeye Area Council will blow other council's away.

You can contact me if you wish to help in this venture at all. We will be teaching GPS skill's as well as the ability to use a compass properly and some orienteering. All why we are doing one of the actives we love most, geocaching.

I'm also setting up a donation link to my paypal account. As I've been getting thing's for this, it's getting kind of expensive for just one person to handle and your donation would be put to use in the form of container's, logbook's, Swag, paint for the container's. Just make sure you use the donation link for this and not the one to help me finish this tattoo. Unless you want to donate to that as well. :)

Be safe out there and if you have time check out the Geoscouting website for more information.

Pathtag's

2009-11-04T22:39:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm starting to turn into a pathtag junky. lol I made my first one and ordered I think 150 of them. Af first they where flying out the mailbox as fast as I could get them there. But finally have slowed down some. I've gotten a lot of neat tag's traded with me though. This is the first tag I made. And I'm no photoshop expert but am getting better.

After getting them in the mail and being pretty impressed with how they turned out, I had an idea. I have been looking to make a very unique kind of cache. It would have to be a terra-cache, cause I couldn't get away with this on geocaching.com. But I made another design and am having 150 made. Once these are made they will each go into an envelope sealed with logging instruction's. I'm shipping these to a bunch of people all around the world, and they will put one in a terra-cache hide and forget about it. As people find those caches and if they look at the envelope and trade for it. They will find they can log another cache. Only 100 coin's will be set out for logging a find on this. Which is a lot of find's on a terra-cache anyway's. I don't expect it to be worth much in point's but I think the MCE of it will be pretty high as I believe this is the first one of it's kind. I haven't gotten the tag's yet but just got the blue print for it and it's in production now. You'll see it's alot more cartoony than I had wanted.

This is what I submitted:

This is how they had to change it to make it work:

Some of it was the cut lines would be so thin the color wouldn't be able to be added to it. I'll add some jpeg's of the first tag I have. I haven't taken a photo of it as of yet.

Parabola

100 years of scouting

2009-10-21T21:53:00.000-07:00

2010 will be the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scout program. Being an Eagle scout myself, I jump right in to help with this. Don't have a whole lot of detail's yet, but there will be alot of new caches, and hopefully some CITO event's and some regular event's wrapped up in this. I'll be working with a coule of cachers and the Hawkeye Area Council and keep the hides, in the area's that the HAC have to use.

I've been sending out a lot of email's getting permission to place hides in 7 counties. I've cleared them with almost all of them. The neat part is the ranger's are very excited about them as well. PJ and i will have our work cut out for us making alot of the hides. Also we are combing area's looking for Eagle Scout project's, and hope to include a lot of those into the cache hides.

The bad part is the cost of the ammo can has went up everywhere. They used to be 5 for a 30 cal, and now are 7.25 for a 30 cal. I've been able to raise some fund's to help pay for some of the ammo can's, but still going to have to buy them a few at a time.

Plus we will be putting on some actives at Scout camp. That will be lot's of fun. Just now waiting for a meeting happening soon, to hammer out the detail's.

Well back to combing the internet looking for deal's on 30 cal ammo can's.

Parabola

After all this time...

2009-10-18T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a very long time, especially for me as they finally figured out what's going on with my sleep. It's a sleeping disorder called Circadian Sleep disorder, combined with severe Insomnia with poor sleep quality and some sleep restriction. After 4 year's of this stuff, what has happened is my body get used to the med's they keep prescribing and they seem to work for a few week's to a month.

What happens is my body get's use to each one faster and faster and now I'm to the point my body is finally rejecting the med's, which is why my white blood cell count has been higher than normal. It's the body's way of fighting what has finally become toxic to me off.

I kind of wondered how a sleep study could be given while I was on a bunch of different med's. So I've got to keep a sleep diary so we can find out my body's normal sleep/wake cycle. The great part (not really) is I've been on a sleep med for the past four year's and I'm having heavy withdrawal as I'm tapering off the them.

I guess this whole thing is treatable and I go in a week and a half to start a cognitive therapy that they will find out why my brain doesn't slow down at night and keep's going full speed. Basically what he said is I don't know how to relax.

So now the battle is getting me off all medication then we can see with the sleeping journal what my body's sleep/wake cycle is. We may find out my body has a 30 hour day cycle instead of a 24 hour one. But they can't tell until all the med's are gone.

Parabola

Goodbye

2009-10-09T21:27:00.000-07:00

There may be some foul word's in this link. Just makes me sad. 20 year's of great tunes came to an end. I got to see them play 3 times live though. Hopefully Trent will still record. This song is really cool on disc. I wish Trent would be doing the vocal's on this. And not this dude he's got singing. This is one song I wish I could have heard live.

All wired up.

2009-09-13T22:58:00.000-07:00

I just thought I'd share some of the photo's I took when I had my sleep study done. I look kind of funny. I was sure to have my head freshly shaven, but didn't bother with the beard. Wouldn't you know they had to stick two on each cheek and a strip under my nose, that only stuck for about three hour's.

It was kind of neat. They can tell which way your eye's are pointing. Which way your feet are pointing.

I got to the hospital to take the test at 8 PM. It took about an hour before they where ready for me, but these room where ok, and had an alright bed in them. And a TV. I did come prepared with my iTouch, and even made some bid's on ebay, and sent out some e-mail's while I was waiting.

Some the the electrode's, wouldn't stick very well, so they had to use this glue stuff that takes a bit to get off. But they had me all hooked up and ready to go about 10:30. I watched TV for a little while and then fell asleep, till about 3:30. They could tell when I woke up and ask it I would try to sleep on my back instead of my side. I laid there till about 4:30, and I think they knew by then I wasn't going to be able to fall asleep again, so they ended it about 2 hour's early.

We as still waiting on the result's yet. But again, I thought the picture's I took of me where kind of funny. I'm hoping that they find something with this test, and I can go back to work. I've been off work for too long!!!

Parabola

"Build it and we will come"

2009-08-28T03:18:00.000-07:00

The whole family took a trip up to Dyersville. We went to visit the field of dream's. I've been there a couple of time's but it's always been closed when I am there. This was the first time I was there and the gift shop was open. There is a Virtual Terracache there, and it too me two trip's to get the Confirmation code. I was kind of dumb and looked at the wrong sign and didn't pay close enough attention to the sign about 10 feet away. But that's ok, this gave me a reason to go back and when the wife said she wanted to go, well OK!!!! I'm kind of surprised a Geocache hasn't been placed there yet.

PJ took his camera and was taking photo's of everything. I'm glad it's digital and not film. But there was some people hitting some ball's and kind of playing some ball. There was also quite a few visitor's as well. We even ventured off to the corn in the outfield to do a photo opp. It's kind of neat they have kept this place going for so long, as this year is the 20th anniversary. I do wish it was open at night with the light's for the field on. I think that would be neat to see.

Parabola

The thing's you find out caching.

2009-08-25T02:19:00.000-07:00

The whole family went out this past weekend to grab a few caches but we where going way north up to Balltown to see the "Million Dollar View". We had a pretty cool trip going up and back. And we worked it just right so we hit the view at sunset. You can't beat that here in Iowa. Also I didn't know the oldest bar and grill in Iowa was right next to the viewing area. Which I guess it had a fire last year and we found out it had just reopened.

I kind of picked a few caches on a kind of weird route I picked out and somewhat did it on the fly. There's a puzzle cache that I had an idea since I can't figure out the puzzle, that since I was up in the area I would try, and my hunch was wrong. But while walking around scoping out the area, I noticed something that kind of looked like a leg in the tall weed's right at the edge of the tree line. I got a little closer and it kind of looked like someone had stashed their camping stuff or someone had tried to hide some dark green clothes. As I got closer it started looking more and more like it was kind of in the shape of a body. Since we where in the middle of nowhere I was wondering, glad the rest of the family stayed in the car. As I got close to the tree this was leaning against, I saw a hat as well. So for a second, I was wondering what I had found.

As it turn's out I found a dummy body for a search and rescue group, that was out practicing. There was a nice note attached to it that explained it all. Which was pretty neat to find. Never did find the cache, as it was a long shot on what I was trying to do, but I thought it did make for an interesting story.

The picture's I took where after I had stomped down the tall grass, and had moved the dummy so I could read the note. Plus I was coming at it from the other direction, to give more of an idea what it looked like.

I just thought this was one of those thing's that won't happen again and a case of being in the right spot and the right time. I sure was glad it was just a dummy though.

Parabola

Ready to roll

2009-08-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

I'm heading down in the morning to take a ride along the Rock Island Trail near Peoria, Il. Yes, it's a power trail. I've done a great multi cache on the trail before with some friend's, which sadly is now archived.

The trail is 26 miles long, one way. For someone that hasn't been on a bike in about a year this is really kinda dumb, but go all out or stay at home. (evil laugh).

I've done the check's on the bike, and it's in great shape to go. I got three water bottles, frozen in the freezer's, and my camelpak is full and in a cooling spot. I need to pick up a few pack's of peanut's, and a few other treat's for some food to munch on.

I've also got some terra-caches to do in the area, so this is going to be a long day. Just going to dread all the log's I'll have to write, but none of them will be copy and paste one's.

Wish me luck, if you have my # feel free to call me to tease me or see if I'm still peddling away.

Parabola

Insomnia

2009-08-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

I think over the past week I finally reached my breaking point. The frustration of having insomnia can be very overwhelming. For the past two and a half year's it has slowly gotten worse. At first it was pretty easy to deal with since I have anxiety attack's, and the med I take for those usually make me tired. And for some reason I only have an attack in the evening when I don't really have anything going on.

I have found or figured out I've never had an attack while out caching. Not sure if hiking and exploring an area takes my mind off of thing's or what. But this has finally progressed to the point to where I was lucky if I could get two hour's of sleep a night, and this was on prescribed medication for sleeping. I think I've about tried all of them on the market at some point. Which it can be very hard on a person cause they usually start you off with a very low dose, and increase it, but when they pull you off it, they pull you off it, leaving you with withdrawal.

I was on one med for about a year that worked, but it literally turned me into a walking zombie and wiping out my ambition to do much. Which has gotten worse as well. Then here a while back I thought I finally found something that worked. Lunesta. But we switched insurance company's and for a person to be on that they have to try the generic first. Well, that was the one than made me a zombie. They assured me at the parmacy, it would take about a week to ge the paper work done and they could do a refill or I could pay for it out of my own pocket, which was like 10 buck a pill or something like that. So I figured I'd ruff it and wait it out.

Two week's went by and still nothing. We called our Doctor and they had faxed the paperwork twice. Another week went by and my wife was picking up something else and asked about it, and they said yes it was approved about 4 day's ago. Thanks for letting us no.

But then when I started taking it again, it didn't work. Not sure why. So after a couple of week's we talked to the doctor again and she put me on something else, and that went on for a few different med's, until last week when I was eating Tylenol PM like candy and taking the prescribed med's. It would be enough to knock me out for just a few hour's and that's it. After a couple of week's of that, I found myslef getting two to three hour's of sleep a night but by the time the weekend rolled around I would just completely crash.

I had been put on this last prescription and it made my eye's look like I was hanging out with Cheech and Chong. My motor skills where not good and even was having trouble walking at times. I called in sick to work cause I wasn't comfortable driving to work.

I'll finally call it my breaking point but we went and say the doctor today, and she gave me a "knock your ass off, see ya next week" pill's. But the best part she thought it was time to have a sleep study done. Which I am wondering why this was recommended two year's ago, but hey at least it's going to happen now. We had a couple of choices of where to go, U of I, The PCI building (which I've said I'd bleed to death before I go back there due to their shady business practices, and for some reason they charge 12 % interest rate, even if you set up a payment plan and pay as agreed. I figured out my credit card had a cheaper interest rate. And then the last choice was the mayo clinic in Rochester, Minn. After hearing about how they do some extra thing's with sleeping test's we choose to set it up there, so now we are just waiting to hear from them.

I was hoping my accidental insurance (hey I have that policy cause me and the boy are accident prone) would cover some of my lost wages, but nope. We haven't gotten that far but I hope we will figure it out.

So I guess this is good news for a change and they are leaning towards sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome. Not really sure what those are but the sleep apnea, I know is you don't get enough oxygen when you sleep and you quite breathing from time to time, and you never make it into REM sleep. I have no idea what the restless leg syndrome is, and haven't looked it up on the net yet.

Just the bad part is my boss is on vacation and i would really like to talk to him about this, so he knows what's going on, and to make sure it's all ok. we are in our busy season, so this is kind of bad timing.

I've got one other major thing to talk about but am getting sleepy (YEAH!!!!) So I'll try and get another post up on it in the next few day's.

Parabola

Testing a widget

2009-08-02T03:45:00.001-07:00

RockStock 3

2009-08-01T11:57:00.000-07:00

Just some random picture's of who's playing tonight at Hitter's Ball Park. I don't have time to properly flip the R around at the moment but I'll do a little updating later.. The show start's in a few hour's. Also playing is Halestorm, Chevelle, possibly Destrophy (a local band that is on it's way up) and KoRN.

Not sure yet on photo rules for the venue, but I've been burnt on that the past couple of concert's, so I'm taking my camera. If I can't have it there, well I guess it will hit the garbage. And cause I just love saying thing's that are song titles. Well, "more to come".......

So of these picture are old. They are down to three band member's but had recently hired on a full time drummer to replace Dave. Head has left due to his meth addiction and has "found Jesus". But is clean now, and doing his own thing. More power to him, he's a heck of a guitarist. He put out his first solo album but is not longer in KoRn. And Dave, well it's never been said what happen to him, he kind of just disappeared, but does have some restaurant's he owns.

Later FREAKS

A new TOOL CD coming???

2009-07-24T17:20:00.001-07:00

Ok, I'm excited. I know three show's have been played so far, and in the final rehearsal they did preform the "new cover". Which mean's, new song. They have done just about every album like this. They do a small tour of a dozen or twenty show's, and preform just a few of the new song's live. Then comes the big announcement, and it's been said they had been in the studio and one a few of them have been out at Area 51 shooting more footage.

That may sound really weird unless you've heard and understand the song, but the lighting director wanted more footage to play with from area 51 for the effect's while they play "Rosetta Stoned".

I still don't know what Maynard was using to distort, and almost repeat his voice very fast and I was about three row's out. But it was some bag looking deal with a cheap looking mic attached and he was holding it in front of his main mic.

I'm excited and hoping some of these shows will hit near the Iowa area, really I think it's about time for another show in Moline and one in Cedar Rapid's.

Also if you've seen the show from the last tour from what the posted picture is from this I'd have to say is one of the top two in special effect's. NIN being very close and to me to close to call. After all I was SOBER at the show's. Wonder if anybody will catch that reference.

Parabola

2009-07-11T00:07:00.000-07:00

Here's our new puppy a little over two week's old. We have to wait till he's at least 8 week's before we can bring him home from the breeder. Getting excited about getting him. He's a pure breed Shiba Inu, that has also been breed with the ability to sniff out ammo can's.

We are having a huge debate on what we should name him. I want to name him Manson, but the wife doesn't care for that. One name that's been said is Rusty. I thought "Fieldy" would be a great name for him too.

Got any name suggestion's post them. :)

Parabola

New Puppy

2009-06-21T00:51:00.000-07:00

They where born on 6/16/09. The mother had a little of 4 males and 1 female. We finally got a photo of them at two day's old. Now we have to wait 8 week's till we can go up and pick up our pup. It's a Shiba Inu breed. Here's the picture of the males.

The one we are getting is the one that look's like he's laying on top of two others. I think he may be the runt of the litter, but that's the one that PJ really want's. Also here's a picture of the female.

She's a little cutie too.

We have been looking for a Shiba Inu for what seems like forever. We found one a while back at a pet store, which I wasn't too keen about getting another dog from a pet store. I don't know why but it seems getting one from a pet store are much harder to train. Our pug is a great example. He's a great dog, and has been great as PJ ruff houses with him a lot and he's never snapped at him at all. But the price tag on the one at the pet store was 1300 dollar's. Forget that!!!

We found a breeder on the net, and since this is a newer breed to the U.S. is why we have had such a hard time finding one. But the breeder is in Iowa and about a 3 hour drive from us. We are getting pretty excited about getting him and now we need to come up with a name for him. If you ask PJ it would be Bolt after the cartoon movie. I kind of want to name him Manson after Marylin Manson. Or I thought Noose after the guy in The nightmare before x-mas. Who knows yet.

I'm really hoping I can get him trained to go caching with me. Our pug can't take the heat, since pug's can easily get dehydrated, I've been leary about taking him out.

I would give a plug to the breeder we are getting him from be he's told us don't e-mail him with Shiba Inu in the subject line. He said they are in high demand right now. But this breeder and his family seem to do a great job with the breed's they offer and raise.

Parabola

Iowa's All County Challenge (GC1T84M)

2009-06-19T22:40:00.000-07:00

As many of you have seen I had a cache published called Iowa's All County Challenge. I've seen many people ask if someone would set one of these up, and have been asked a few time's myself.

First the basic's of the Challenge cache. You have to find one cache in every county in Iowa. Virtul's, earthcaches, event's, webcam's, locationless, caches don't count. The idea is to find a cache and I'm defining that as a hidden geocache container. I've laid out a few ground rules. Like if you find a cache that is missing, and replace the container, it doesn't count as a "find". I do give you prop's for helping out another cacher but that's not finding a cache, it' more like hiding one. If it's a multi or puzzle cache, then the listed cord's for the cache determine what county the "find" is in. If some how it land's on a county line, I will let you pick which county it count's towards. It won't count for both.

Due to a guideline change, I can't have you use a site like www.itsnotaboutthe numbers.com for verification of completion. The guideline won't allow a cache that you have to use a website that you have to sign up and make an account. You can choose on your own to use a site like that, but I can't ask you too.

I've tried to lay out some option's for you to keep track and send the info to me for verifying completion. The one I like is if you use the bookmarking feature. You will be able to set a bookmark on the cache, and list the find date, and what county it's for. I can pull a PQ from that and easily check it with a program I have. You can set it up to keep it private till you are ready for it to be verified, then make it public, so I can grab a PQ from it.

Another way that is pretty easy for me to check would be keeping a database in GSAK, and make and send me a GPX file. Then with the help of a macro I can check that way pretty quickly as well.

You may also keep a spread sheet, with the GC# of the cache, name of the cache, find date, and what county it's for. For obvious reasons, this will take me longer to verify it.

These are just some suggestion's and you may keep track however you like as there may be an easier way, that I don't know about yet.

Before I get to the part that some people aren't too keen on, I'm working on designing a pathtag for this cache. A person that completes this, will get one of these pathtag's as kind of a "reward" or "trophy" for finishing it. These will not be set up for trade, and the only way to get one is to complete the cache. I would have loved to make up a geo-coin for this, but that is out of my budget.

Now on to the one rule that I made, that some aren't happy about and first off, I do agree you have valid reason's. This rule is only "finds" on the publish date of this cache count. So anything found before 6/03/09 will not count towards this. I've done this for a few reason's. One, if I lifted that, it would be found tomorrow. There are some cacher's that have done this on their own, just to do it. In fact I remember two set's of cacher's that are family, that where trying to beat each other to find one cache in every county. It was fun to watch their side game. At that time there was a few county's that didn't have a cache at all. Two, I thought this would give everyone a fresh start on this, and level the playing field to see who does complete it first.

You have to remember I don't chase First to find's. That's my choice and I just don't get into them that much. But on a cache like this, I really really would like to see who is nut's enough to complete it first, just due to you have to travel the whole state. Yes, I am aware that a few county's only have a few caches, or have "cached out" the whole county. My suggestion around this, is to contact another cacher that lives in the area, and encourage them to hide a few more cache's. My thought behind this is this will add to the game more across Iowa, and maybe even get some people that are not very active, some communication with some active cacher's and they will get bit by the bug again (so to say). I kind of see this as you may get the opportunity to meet/talk or maybe even find another caching partner, and encourage the spread of the game in a positive manner more threw the state.

This was my reasoning of why I put that requirement in. I've been doing some research on this as it was called to my attention by some cacher's. Which thank you for posting your thought's and idea's. I'm well aware that some are set up as doing this as a "trailblazer" (all find's after the cache publish date) or as "Heritage" (find's found before the cache publish date.

I looked threw some bookmark's that hold many many different kind's of Challenge caches, and looked into some of the All county type's. There are some others that have this same requirement that all caches have to be found after a certain date. There's also a lot that don't have that requirement and break it out using the "trailblazer" and "heritage" method. Colorado and Florida are two that caught my eye on a date requirement, off the top of my head.

I've talked to a few people about this as well, and have found a lot of "twisted" feeling's about this. Some wondering if they want to bother, or just work on it over time, and not try to rush threw it. Which I don't encourage anyone to just rush threw it, stop and see some of the great park's Iowa has to offer, and have fun exploring new area's to you.

If I'm going to drop the rule, I feel (thanks to someone for pointing this out too) the rule would have to be changed fast, so there's no, "well I had to do it this way" and "this person got off easy on this". I want to keep if fair to everyone. So that kind of lead's me to think, I should leave the rule stand as is since it was there when the cache was published.

Plus those people that know me, well you know I kind of follow my own path and just do my own thing, and that has a big effect on the caches I place. Believe me the terra-cacher's know that well, as the "torture" I've put them threw, while hunting some of my terra hides. Ammo can's hanging down in the middle of cliff's, part's to an offset 30 feet up in a tree, crossing river's, are just a few thing's for example's.

So to wrap this up, instead of seeing post's wanting me to change that or not, I figured I would make this post on my blog, and let you post your thought's on the whole thing. Please feel free to post your thought's, comment's, suggestion's, but please do so in a positive manner. I'm not out to tell someone they are "wrong" or "I'm the cache owner it's mine and I'll do what I want". I would like some construction feedback. So again, feel free to make a post on this blog, and maybe thing's will change as I hear others opinion's.

Seriously, have fun exploring Iowa, and the caches they have to offer, team up with other's and have a group hunt to take out some county's. Communicate with your fellow cacher's, maybe some encouragement by asking if they are planning on putting out a new cache, will get them more involved.

I look forward to your comment's.

Happy and safe caching, and get out and enjoy Iowa!!!!

Parabola

They are beening born!!!

2009-06-15T16:30:00.000-07:00

We just got word from the dog breeder. The pup's are beening born tonight. So far there is three out of the litter and a few more still on the way. We don't have picture's yet but he's going to be sending them to us soon.

Pathtag Design for All Iowa County Challenge Cache

2009-06-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to come up with idea's for a pathtag design. This is going to be given away to every person that completes my All Iowa County Challenge Cache and will not be available for trade with the pathtag community. I'd like to make a geocoin for it, but cost is a huge factor. So I went to the next thing and thought a pathtag would be nice to add to someone's collection of caching trinket's. Plus it would be kind of like a "trophy" for completing it.

I'm rolling around with having the state on there and it saying I've cache out all of Iowa or some tag line or something. When I get some jpeg's thrown together, I'll post them.

The way I wrote the cache up, I do think I've got some time before I have to get this done. But if someone does finish it before I get them made, I'll get them one.

Parabola

Check out my little cousin's on-line store

2009-06-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to share with you my cousin Calee's work. She is a full-time graphic designer in the Marketing & Communications department at Drake University, but is a freelance designer/artist on the side. She's recently rolled out her new brand identity opened an etsy store with her crafts and designs. Her offerings include (but aren't limited to): hand painted ceramics, reconstructed t-shirts, vintage clothing, business card design, letterhead design, web site design/development, postcards and invitations — as well as many custom requests.

Take a minute to check out her store — she's got some really cool stuff! Or stop by her blog to see some of the fun and exciting things she's been up to:
www.chimes.etsy.com | www.chimesdesign.com/blog

She's can make some really cool and unique thing's. Check her site's out. I will gladly vouch for her and her business practices. (Which if you know me I don't just vouch for anybody) She's got this really cool t-shirt blanket in her blog, that is really something to see. But she does have quite a variety of thing's she makes to suit all taste's.

I like the Metal, don't you??

2009-06-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

I'm just catching up on all the footage that's rolling in from the NIN/JA tour. This is so sad they are ending their career's after the "last wave". I really really wish I could get to a show. they are playing song's they have never played live before. And since some of the song's are under licensing crap with a record company, they aren't allowing Trent to professional record a show. So he made sure there was very very relaxed camera/video recorder/audio recorder policy. There's a lot of junk being posted on video hosting site's and it's really getting hard to find someone that is rendering video and mastering their audio very well.

But I can't believe they are playing this one live. And I'll never get to see it. I've found one site that some people are coming together and sharing their footage and some tweaker's are doing the editing, and are posting some good stuff but it's not done yet. I may add a link to their site in an edit if I hear back from the webmaster. I need to get some torrent's going now. :) But here's a clip "Metal" from an album I can't think of off the top of my head. They hadn't played this live at all. But the video isn't very good and is of low quality and the audio is horrible. I think this is just off a standard video camera and thrown together fast. But I love this song. Also I notice Trent is pulling double duty since Alessandro Cortini has already parted way's with NIN. I was just shocked to find this song being played live.

I wonder if my little cousin is up for a road trip???? :) And I really want to get my hand's on that touch screen button knobby thing they use. It's awesome!!!

La Mer

2009-06-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

I caught this on the web. It's not pro shot or anything, but Trent's comment's in the middle of La Mer are kind of interesting. It kind of explains La Mer which I've never really thought fit in with the rest of the song's on The Fragile disc's. But yet people are cheering!?!? This does kind of explain why that song is kind of in left field when compared to the rest of the album.

The Maze (part two)

2009-06-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

Well I don't really remember where I left off, but the maze wasn't quite what I expected. Since it's indoors and you can't get reception on your GPSr they set it up as puzzle caches inside this maze. There was locked room's and to get into those room's you had to figure out a puzzle to get the code to unlock the door to enter. Which inside those room's or "caches" Was some really cool information on how a GPSr work's, gear for out caching, trackable's, and some GPSr's on display. Also in those room you got a stamp on your card.

When you got all 4 stamp's on your card, well 5 stamp's, you get a signal stamp when you go in the maze. But the stamp's are number's. Using the compass on the card and the direction it's pointing that gave you a direction to look at from a list, then you had to take the number's and put them in and you could find your "Key City" using the cord's. The direction was there to give you your North, South, East, and West.

There was a puzzle about the Washington space needle. Another puzzle was you had to figure out bus route/s to get a lady every where on time but a piece of it was missing you needed, which was hid away in a micro cache in the room. Another puzzle was you had to find a ammo can and read the log book. You had to find a certain cacher's notes in it. She had left four threw the logbook but everyone had a number. Then the last puzzle you had to find some letter's from under a bench and match the letter's to a map, that had word's and it made a sentence that told you what item had the code for the door.

It was really cool, the whole family had a great time with it. I would like to see it again before it leaves, so I can take more time reading everything in there. PJ was on the go to find stuff and unlock door's, so I didn't get to read everything. We even hit a IMAX movie while we where there. Monster's vs. Alien's in 3D. That was pretty cool too.

If your close to it, check it out, it's worth the 6 dollar fee to get into it, plus you get access to the rest of the Putnam and there's a lot of neat stuff. I tried to pick up a date while I was there but she just gave me the cold shoulder. (See photo below)

Insomina Suck's

2009-06-05T18:28:00.000-07:00

I'm a few year's into this Insomnia/Anxiety/Depression problem that seems to run in my side of the family. It's been a very hard road threw prescription to another to another till they find something that work's and is the right dose.

I don't even remember what all they have had me on to try that didn't work or the side effect's where too bad. I think now I'm at the point I get about 10 to 12 hours of sleep during the week, but when the weekend get's here I seem to just crash. Some of these med's make you have moods swing's like no other, and effect your short term memory a lot. I was on one that worked great and I was feeling pretty good about it and was getting enough rest, but it was very hard to get up in the morning and little thing's I wouldn't remember at all. I was like a walking zombie all last summer. Which I finally got sick of it, cause I was missing a lot of work and messing up a lot at work due to the one med. But it was working. The wife was getting pissed off cause if I was at home all I wanted to do was lay around.

I decided then I wasn't going to keep taking them. Which when they put you on these they start you out on a low dose and built up, but then going cold turkey off of them, does a number on you. I was completely off all them prescribed med's for about 4 month's, and did feel much better other than I would have anxiety attack's all the time. Anyone that has those I feel for you, they suck.

I don't think I really am suffering from the depression that seems to go along with anxiety, but as the attack's came on more and more often it was pretty obvious to the rest of the family that I needed something to help control them. So back to the doc I went. We really had to go threw my whole medical history to find what they had all tried. Some I could remember off the top of my head and why I couldn't take them.

This round so far is going on 3 or 4 month's now, and I think we've got a med for the anxiety but the problem is the dose. I'm suppose to take two a day. But then have been instructed to take one if I have an attack. Which if I have an attack taking one pill within a half an hour takes care of it, but the problem is I usually have to do this about 4 times a month, which throw's off the amount of pill's that I get from the prescription. And for some reason or another we haven't been able to get that threw our pharmacist's head. My doc has even talked to her telling her this med is ok for me to do this, then we just get back some insurance BS reason of why.

It's very frustrating and take a toll on a person. I think I was prompted to blog this just cause I'm going on zip for sleep and just can't sleep. Even though they have given me a pill for it.

I know there's a few others I know that have anxiety problem's and your not alone, it suck's and trying to find the right med can really be frustration for you and really take a toll on your body. Still most of society dismiss this as not a real problem and it's "all just in your head".

I do try to find things that relax me and find that help's keep my mind busy and have noticed I don't seem to have any problem's while doing those activity's. Going geocaching is one of those activity's that really work's. Going on a hike just seems to be relaxing. A major release for me is rock concert's. You get to go nut's for three hour's or so, and nobody is judging you, and you can just let loose. I find that really set's me for a good week or so. Plus this is just me, I find tattoo's relaxing. Yes planting them on me. Yeah it hurt's but I think that's part of it. And it's more of a stress relief.

Anyone reading this, just remember your not alone. And I wish you good luck. I'm am still thinking the "cure" is worse that the problem at least for me. Now if I could just get some good sleep for a few night's.

The Maze Part one.

2009-06-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm going to take a little time to talk about the Maze. This is going to take me a few blog post's. It was really neat. If you have little one's try and make it. It's a neat way to introduce how a GPSr works along with a lot of history of caching and the history of GPSr's. But there wasn't a single Garmin in there. Only Maggy's and Trimble's. There was some cool custom made circuit board's that where in the shape of animal's that really where GPSr board's. Those where pretty neat.

Here's some photo's of it and when I get more time, I'll try to talk much more about it.

Nope wrong way

I don't know why the wife pointed this out.

Parabola Jr. gives him a thumb's up.

The family hanging out with Shauna the Lackey

A Song for Chi

2009-06-02T19:08:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of excited to see what come's out of this. This is for a great cause and when it does come out, I'll post about it. I've see the deftones live, and they are different but really cool.

But it will be interesting to see Head and Fieldy working together again. Since Head has left KoRn, which looking at from an outside perspective was a good thing for him. But he's had very limited communication with the rest of the band member's. It allowed him to get "clean" and recently Fieldy has went threw a major change of life. Both of there book's are very interesting. But here's the little snippit for it. Plus Jim will be playing on it and he's from Iowa. He just doesn't look the same without the mask.

The GPS Maze Event. - Putman Museum

2009-05-30T21:02:00.000-07:00

Wow what a day. I don't even know where to begin. PJ was up at the crack of dawn, maybe even before then all excited to head to the museum. Once they got me up and moving we headed out for the drive down. Not quite knowing what to expect, just walking into the place it looked like it had been taken over by geo-cacher's. We some some familiar faces right away and I said hi to a few people, but then didn't get a chance to talk to them. :( It was crazy. I got to chat with a few folk's I haven't seen in forever "the family" as I call them guy's. Well I guess there a couple of women in that group but there just another one of the fellow's to me. :)

The whole family went with me today and we had lot's of fun. We got to get a family picture with Shauna (The Lackey). And I even got to see Bookhunter. Man, it's been a long time. I got to pick on The Wumpas some, and madkaw and of course drtmn. Plus the CR folk's that came down, welch, Supergoober, Doc 29 and his little Angel, Digger9.

I know there's lot's of people I'm missing here but it was packed. I wish we would have gotten there sooner to mingle more. PJ even got to pick a ticket out to give away a prize. He really thought that was cool. Thanks honeyfield.

I saw all sort's of geocoins and travel bug's. Just a crazy day. Even found a cache by just chance outside the place. It's not listed and I think is part of a program that goes with the Maze.

Like I said I got to chat with a few people, say hi to some, but would have loved to chat with longer. Time sometimes is just too short at some of these. But all in all it was a great way for them to welcome the Maze coming to Iowa. I'll do another blog post on the Maze in a couple of day's. So much is running threw my head at the moment. I missed my chance at getting a 2007 Lackey Coin. Shauna ran out of them as she said she had no idea this many people would be at the event. I won't hold it agaist her, but I can tease her about it. lol I hope you had a great flight back and made it back to HQ ok.

If any geocacher's that have kid's try and make the Maze, it's neat. Plus the rest of the museum was fun to check out. Lot's of cool thing's there. I've got about 80 or 90 picture's to go threw here still but just posted a few of the event.

I got to meet a Lackey

2009-05-29T23:04:00.000-07:00

I met my first Lackey tonight. I didn't know what to expect, as I first thought it maybe a very serious type of person, but after we all got some time to chat with Shauna Muggs, she's just as much of a cacher as the rest of us. Just all kid's at heart.

In the picture from left to right is: c_dog, Shauna, not sure who's in the back in the middle, Parabola, shabs.

I was pretty excited I got to meet a Lackey. But we had all gotten together for a little pre-party before the Maze Exhibit in the morning. They had some good food, some great company, and got to chat about some of the great adventure's while out caching.

I wanted to get a picture of her and I posing like Jeremy's picture, but she didn't want to do that for a reason. But I did get to tease her about it. :) It was neat to hear some of her story's and I so wish I would have gotten to hear more of them.

Anyways it was great to meet you Shauna!!!! Thanks again for taking the time to do the photo opp. It's the first part of a goal of a geocoin of mine. Now how many more Lackey's can I hunt down? Here's the TB reference number for my geocoin if anyone want's to look it up. I'm still working on the write up and the perfect picture for it for the coin page.

Also it was great to hear about what kind of fun to expect at the Maze.

A new pooch on the way

2009-05-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

I'm really getting excited. We currently have my fat pig, ok he's a pug, but he snore's louder than I do. But to give some hindsight to this. About 6 or so year's ago we had got our first dog. Bear. He was a good pup, but not thinking it all threw, at the time we had PJ on the way. Everything was fine till PJ came along. The dog was protective of PJ, but also didn't know what to think about him.

The wife being a protective mother, would yell at Bear to stay away from PJ. He wasn't doing anything wrong. He just got to close for her. Well, he was still a pup and I look back now and realize he just wasn't getting the attention he did before PJ came along. SO he was acting out. It got to the point I took him down to the farm (the wife's folks) where he could run wild. At the time we still didn't have the yard fenced in, which is all done now, so we just couldn't let him out to run. Plus him and grandpa were pretty good buddies. I think it was cause he feed him cheeto's.

Well, being on a farm can be dangerous, and there was an accident. They where working on some farm equipment and had it propped up. The prop's collapsed and grandpa did the only thing he could to keep it from land on him. He pushed the equipment away from him. Well, Bear was snooping around and it hit him in the side, and in a few minutes he was gone.

At the time this was the only Shiba Inu we had ever seen, as it's still a newer breed to the U.S. They have become very popular, and are hard to find. Well for my b-day, we made a family decision on looking into getting another one. After some time on the web, I located a few breeder's in Iowa. But some of them looking a bit shady or there website's where way out of date.

I did finally find one and we called to see when they might have another litter. Well, they had two litter's on the way. And today was the day they gave us they though the litter would be born.

Nothing so far, but we are waiting to see the pic's they are going to send us of the new pup's. I'm hoping since this is a pretty active breed of dog, he/she is going to go caching with me. Our pug, just can't handle the heat in the summer. Pug's get dehydrated very easily. So I've been very leary of taking him out for a cache hunt.

I know we have some old picture's of Bear and will put them up as soon as I can find them. And I'll put up the pic's of the new pup's as soon as they are born and we get photo's. It will be 8 week's before we can bring him/her home. But we are all excited about it.

I've got a travel bug here all ready for his/her coller. :)

A hunt in Wisconsin

2009-05-23T22:56:00.000-07:00

Last year I went after a Terracache and a Geocaching that where both relatively close by each other. I hate to admit it but I wasn't able to find ether cache. But I did find some really cool bluff's in a really neat area that isn't far in to the wood's, but you wouldn't notice it just by driving by.

The caches were NOW THAT'S ITALIAN (TC2XM) and Room with a View (of Mississippi) (GC9151). I don't get to Wisconsin very often but the place these took me too was really cool. I don't know how to explain the rock's and the formations but it was really neat to check out and climb around on.

I wasn't too upset about not finding the terracache cause by reading the cache page, I wasn't the only one that have had problem's find it due to the cord's may be off. Also the area, my GPSr was bouncing all over the place. All I knew is there was a heck of a hill to climb. It had rained earlier in the day, which made for some slick climbing. I'm glad nobody was following me, or they would of had a rock in the forehead.

The geocaching I think I was in the right spot due to the hint's on the cache page, and someone had found it a few day's before me. But after thinking about it after I left I don't think I looked hard enough in a certain spot. It was found a few day's after I was there too. But the area right there was very cool, and I wouldn't suggest it for a small child. Climbing the rock's probably wasn't the best way but I found it alot of fun.

I'm still hoping to make it back. Since then I've drove right past the place but didn't have time to stop and try again. I'm putting up some photo's of the area to give people an idea of what it look's like. Again this was a neat place to check out.

It's kind of scary when you find some bones in the general area you are looking for a cache. At first glance I thought I found someone's leg bone and thought maybe it was a cacher that didn't make it out alive.

Again, I'm really hoping to make it back soon, there's a few other caches in the area I would like to look for as well. Just it's right next to the Mississippi and I'm sure the snakes are out and I really don't want to run into one. Parabola doesn't like snakes!!!! But I really want to get some more photo's of the rock's and the bluff's there. I know I had more but can't find them in my very messy photo files. One of these day's I'll have to take some time to clean and organize all my pic files. That's going to be a chore though.

But if your in the area and like this kind of terrain make sure you check it out, even if you don't find the caches, you'll enjoy the area.

The "Wave Goodbye"

2009-05-23T11:26:00.001-07:00

This is very sad and the end of a great well, 20 year's. I'm seriously hoping he will still record under just Trent at the least and release new tune's on his website. He's a workaholic but the fan's who ripped into him after he sobered up and flat out said he didn't know if he could still make music sober or not. That took a big toll on him, and even though he's put out some great music since then, he keep's referring back to how he was torn apart for The Fragile, and With Teeth. It kept getting compared to The Downward Spiral. So this is the final tour, the "wave goodbye". I seriously hope to catch a show.

All I have to say is you don't know till you've seen them live.

Streaming Video

2009-05-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

I've been playing around with different toy's for quite sometime now. I've made a "poor man's" movie server. A true movie server will set you back alot of cash. I thought this was really cool. I've got an Xbox 360 and since it's wired into my home network and via Window's Media Center, I'm able to pull up all my media files on to my Xbox 360. Plus using a component D.A. I'm able to use the Xbox 360 in our living room and can ship it to the bedroom TV since the controller's are wireless. I use a couple of program's to take a movie off DVD and put it on my desktop. Then from there it's a piece of cake to pull up the file's on the TV.

We've been netflick's subscriber's for quite some time. Well really we can't ever seem to get a movie back to the rental place on time and those late fee's rack up. But I had heard they where trying to stream via right to thing's like blu-ray player's via the Ethernet jack. I really hadn't thought about this much till the other day I was work in a customer's house and he told me he ordered up a movie on his blu-ray player from netflick's. The price of this is already included in the "unlimited" package.

So tonight I was toying around and saw they got set up with Xbox Live. So i set it up and cued up about ten movies to the Xbox console. So far it's working great. It's hitting me at about 480P. Which is the same as DVD quality. I haven't got to check out the sound yet, to see how much they had to compress that. But this is really cool. I log on to the netflick's site and just put in what I want and about a minitue later, bam the selection is available on my 360. So now I can pull the movies off my computer and just pull up what ever we want to watch very fast.

But I have to admit after seeing a few titles on our blu-ray player, going back to a regular DVD (that's not upconverted) just isn't the same. The video on the blu-ray is amazing. I don't have the storage space to hold blu-ray's on my desktop with out compressing them.

I just thought this was pretty cool so I thought I would share it with other's. It's a cheap way to rent movies, and not even have to leave the house. Also I noticed that you can stream the movies to your computer as well. I was thinking this might be kind of nice when I'm working out of town, and the weather is bad and I can't go caching in the evening. Of course that would all depend on just how "high speed" the hotel's high speed wireless is.

Beaver's Playground

2009-05-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Here the other day it wasn't raining out for a change when I got off work. I really need to mow the yard something bad, but really wanted to go for a little hike. I have a couple of caches I hadn't done yet in an area in Central City. There's a park to the south east side of there that is really a neat tucked away place. I saw a couple of car's in the parking area's, but never ran into anyone. I was thinking they where mushroom hunter's.

I went and did this two stage cache. A really neat one. Stage one was a mask hanging up on a tree. On the back of the mask was the cord's for the final location, which turned out to be a well hidden ammo can. The sketter's where pretty bad and I haven't fully loaded my cache bag for summer yet, so I didn't have any bug-spray or anything with deet in it. So I had to fight my way threw them. The weed's in the wood's where up to my knee's and I saw a lot of mustard seed plant's and a lot of neddle's. Lucky I had one jean's.

I found a nice animal trail to follow on my way back form the final and if I would have spotted that I could have avoided walking threw the weed's. Oh well, what fun is in that.

Then I was off to this one called LCC 50th Beaver's Playground. I headed off on the main trail and found a spot on the trail that looked like it went back toward's the cache. Some of the brush there was up to my armpit's all ready. But shortly after I made it threw the thick stuff and it was easy walking under the tree's. I got closer and closer, and then I saw swamp water. I looked down at my GPSr and saw only 400 feet or so away. I seemed to have walked out to a "peninsula" (for lack of anything better to call it) as I had to follow the water almost all the way back to where I left the trail. But I kept on following the side of the water hoping to find a low spot to cross. I think in a few week's the water level will go down and the route I tried to take will be passable.

As I was walking along the edge of the swamp, I looked over and saw kind of a clearing threw the tree's. Sure enough there was the trail it had twisted and turned and was going in the direction I wanted. So I hopped back on the trail and follow that till I came to a stream. Now it was a big decision time. Don't cross on the trail and hope the cache was on this side of the stream and swamp, or cross and hope I can find a way to wrap around.

I finally decided to cross the stream and found an animal trail that went the way I wanted to go. I followed that all the way to the edge of the park and the edge of the swampy water. Then wouldn't you know I found another clearing. Only this time it opened up to some farmer's field. I keep to the edge of the wood's and closed in on the cache.

When I was about 50 feet away I found a neat stream I had to cross. Luckily there was some stick's, mud, and clay, that it kind of formed a natural bridge. But I didn't see that till I took the old "leap of faith" across. I was able to hone in on the cache itself easily enough. But I did spot a much easier way to get to this cache. It wouldn't have been as much fun though, but it would have been an easy walk.

I traded some travel bug's, signed the logbook, and returned the cache how I found it. I ended up take the same way I came in all the way back. I'd have to say it was a fun day in the park, and the weather was perfect. Just if I would of had the bug-spray with me. The funny thing though, is I didn't pick up any tick's. I thought for sure I would have picked up a few going threw some tall grass. I'm not complaining at all, just thought I would have a couple to toss out the window as I drove home.

Just another one of those day's

2009-05-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had just one of those day's where nothing seems to go right and every wrong that can happen does? I sure did have one this weekend.

First off, I usually run the sound for the UNI graduation every spring and fall. When I got there and started doing sound check's I could tell something wasn't quite right. But there's not a whole lot you can do a hour and a half before it start's considering you have to wait till the last minute to make all the final adjustment's. The speaking mic's you can get all preset cause there's not much adjustment you have to do to those, but when you add a the band into it, and they wait till about a half an hour before hand to warm-up. You've only got a short amount of time to tweak everything in and from there make minor adjustment's on the fly.

Well when you're in control of a sound system that will play very loud, and you have to adjust it just right so everyone can hear but not get blown out of their seat's, it help's to have a second person out and around just to radio you in and recommend some level adjustment's.

Anyways I had heard a little "crackling" noise during the first ceremony but it wasn't too noticeable and seemed to go away. I thought at first maybe the wireless mic may have been picking up some interference, and shut that down as soon as I could. I was more worried about setting the system into feedback cause the last time, I wasn't able to work it, and someone had taken my place and I guess shot it into feedback alot.

With the first ceremony out of the way and it went ok, I did some checking during the two ceremony's, and everything was working ok. We did a few sound check's with the different speaker's that would be at the second ceremony. Worked well.

So the second ceremony started and about 5 minute's in, I heard the cracking noise again. I was beginning to wonder if one of the horn's diaphragm's had blown. But that just didn't seem right. As if went on, that noise seemed to get worse and was noticeable to others. I was trying to find if it was coming in on one of the input's to the mix console, so I could isolate it and shut that input down, but it wasn't coming in on one input. So the worst came to my mind. The mixer. I had one of the employee's of the dome there with me and we started talking about what was going on and if we could figure out a way to fix it on the fly without interrupting anything. Just then, the output of the mixer went out. It was working but all the low end, and the high end and most of the lower mid end was gone. It almost sounded very "electronic". So the worst has happened and we still had about 45 minute's to go. Well, we had kind of come up with a worst case back up plan, and no this was the only choice. One of the guy's took off running to grab one of the little mixer's they had.

We worked out a 20 second stop thanks to the Marshall of the ceremony. He's good. But I hot swapped mixer's and got the speaking mic's functioning again, but didn't have enough input's to mic the band again. Plus nothing was set again. The guy's where giving me S*&^ afterward about the whole thing. But the dean did come up to me and thanked me. All you can do is apologize. Which he was so nice about it. He said hey I'm glad you where here, if not we would have lost everything and my guy's wouldn't have been able to getting anything else running so fast. Even with his word's of praise you still feel bad. But what do ya do? A crowd of 3000+ and all eyes where on me.

A couple of the guy's afterward offered to take me out for a beer afterward just because it turned into such a bad day and I really had to think on my feet and do some fast tweaking and all, but I don't drink. Oh well, I guess. I've put in some picture's of the two mixer's and the sound cluster and everyone that was "looking" at me in the time of crisis.

I kind of thought this was funny

2009-05-07T20:10:00.001-07:00

Have you ever came across that sign saying you shouldn't been there? I know I've seen quite a few. Some by accident. I took this picture cause I thought this was the "cheapest" No trespassing sign I had ever seen. I found it kind of funny. Yes there was a cache within 20 feet of it, and the parking part was the kicker. But I just thought I share this picture, I took it about a year ago, and just came across it while trying to organize my picture's a little better. And it still crack's me up. Also if you would happen to find this same sign, don't park by it. There's enough nail's and screw's and broken glass around to take out a tire.

I know of another sign that cracked me up but I can't find the picture of it. It said taking picture's from that side of the sign is free, cost of trespassing and they had listed the cost of the fine. And then to top it off, it said "us watching you get a ticket for trespassing is priceless. It made more sense if you read it in person. I just thought these where kind of a nice break from seeing the normal old No trespassing sign's by seeing a funny one.

I do wonder if that one made out of the two pallet's is still standing or is even there anymore.

My collection is almost complete.

2009-05-07T17:38:00.001-07:00

Recently I gained another object to my collection. I had seen that Maynard James Keenen had opened a vineyard and cellar in Arizona. I'm not a wine drinker at all, but I watched a waited to see what would become of this venture of his. After all, growing grapes in Arizona?!? Who would have ever thunk it? Well he had a little something special stuffed up his sleeve and about three week's ago, I got my first notification of it.

All the email said was "Judith is ready". Which in turn led me here.

Soak up that site a bit.

Anyway's, what I've got now is a fully autographed picture of TOOL, that my parent's got me from Scotland. Also inside the picture is a TOOL guitar pik. Also in there is a ticket stub that I took my wife (well she wasn't at the time) too. As well as a bottle of Nagual del Judith and a bottle of Dos Ladrones. Hey for the price I had to pay I had to get the wife something, so the Cabernet is for her. Plus I want to see the cork from the bottle but have no intention's of ever opening the bottle of Nagual del Judith.

I still need to get my ticket from a Cedar Rapid's show (my first TOOL show), another Cedar Rapid's show, and the show in Council Bluff's that my wife took me too for my birthday a few year's ago. Which we meet the opening band after the show "somewhere". It was just dumb luck we ended up at the same place, but I got to meet/party and get a picture of me with Kinski. (a small band out of Seattle)

The ticket stub in the picture though is from a crazy night we had in Moline. I think that was the place my wife saw what she would call "freak's" for the first time. I was right at home, and she was kind of nervous. (I think she remembers the night for something else kind of major though) I couldn't get floor ticket's but if you've been to the mark (oh what it's called something else now) and been to a rock concert, you know when the light's go down, hop that little ledge and head to the crowd. Security will give up trying to keep you in the balcony once your a couple of people in. I think though this was the first time she realized what I was talking about on the kind of performance they put on. It's pretty much unmatched by any performer out there. All I will say it was a very crazy night and I'm so happy the bar was right at the hotel. We both are much "older" now, so I guess "those where the day's".

Who would of every thought this thrown together band would have ever created what they are today. You've got lot's of talent in all sort's of area's. Like if you've seen the movie, Jurassic Park, you've seen some of the creation's of one of the guitarist's, Adam. Danny is one of the best drummer's in the world to date, Justin is one of the best bassist I've ever heard and Maynard, there's no comparison there at all. Heck, I even named my kid after him.

I think about the only thing I really need for this collection other than really wanting to meet the member's is a backstage pass. Maybe, someday... there is a tour going on this summer... HINT, HINT !!!

But really with the release of this website and reading it, it answer's alot of unanswered question's in a round about way and put's some thing's into a new perspective.

Now if I could get my cousin to finish getting a picture over to paper that Alex Gray made for the band, I can get that other tattoo I want. (mom quit rolling your eye's ;) It's going on the back of my leg. ) Or maybe I'm the one holding that up...... I think it's about time to make a road trip.

Just wanted to show my "prized" little collection that really doesn't mean a whole lot to anyone but me, I guess.

Peace out,

Parabola

Crazy day of Geo-caching Event's

2009-05-03T00:57:00.000-07:00

Well for it being Earth-day weekend, the weather couldn't have been nicer. It was so nice I even got a sunburn on the head. Ouch!! Today or I guess yesterday now where a couple of event's I had been waiting for. The first one was a flash mob event. Which are only 15 min's long. Now I remember why I don't care for them too much. When it comes to caching I'm never on-time. I rolled in about 5 min's late, but it was just enough time to participate. I spotted BB and asked where's a log sheet, and BBjr hooked me up and got me signed in. They did a great job with this flashmob event and I was even shocked to see Bumanfam was here all the way from across the state. I didn't get a chance to say hi though. :(

I don't know about anyone else, but I sure do lose track of time, when out and about, which is why I think I'm late to them.

After that I refueled at the gas station with some caffeine and got ready for the CITO event. This was the third year that AB-N-AP put this event on. They do a pretty bang up job with it. This year the area was a lot smaller, and wasn't in too bad of shape. But I think by the time we left the trail looked really good. There was a good sized pile of garbage bag's that was left behind for the city to pick up. But this year it seemed to go pretty quickly. I did try and get down by the creek to pick that area up, and landed in a nice area of neddle's. I though it was a bit early for them, but I'm feeling the sting.

After ward's I got together with TrapperDan and we walked the trail back to find the cache that AB-N-AP put out for the event. We had a good walk along the trail, and when we got to the cache there was quite a few people there. We tried to mess with Durango Dale and told him he must have put in the wrong cord's cause he was a couple hundred feet away yet, but he didn't buy it. lol Then join by xshooter we made the walk back to the car's, and talked about caching.

It was a great day to be outside other than the sunburn. I didn't even think about it, till tonight when I was sitting here and felt my head. Ouch. I won't be cutting my hair for a few day's. I'll have to see if I can get my hand's on the group photo's and upload them as well.

Scott County Park

2009-04-27T19:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, it was a little cloudy but I had some puzzle caches figured out, and knowing me, I'll lose the info before I get to look for them. So I took a round about trip and made a side stop at the Herbert Hoover Site in West Branch. I had to visit the tomb of Herbert and his wife and get a picture of me there to get credit for the virtual cache. As many time's as I've been to the museum there, and caches there, I never knew about the tomb's. It was kind of neat to see.

I show how missed my exit's and crossed over into Illinois, and snag one in the parking lot where I turned around at. Then I was headed back in the general direction. A little side road's here and there looking for a few on the way. I finally made it to the park about 2 in the afternoon.

I've been to this park once before, but never really realized it's size. It's huge. I can see where if you know the layout of the park, the parking area's, and the trail's it would help out alot. I parked on the south east side and started off on a trail. As soon as I hit the wood's it started raining on me. As I kept going the trail's seemed to become shallow stream's. But I pressed on. I got near one cache but could see it was on the other side of the real stream. So I crossed on a log. I'll bet it was like the movie "The Goonies". Trying to cross a wet log, with muddy and wet shoes. But I made it, found the cache, and realized I had to cross it again.

Then I picked off another geo-cache, and then headed off trail and up a hill out into a kind of open field for a terra-cache. The whole time I was out in the open it just poured on me. Then after that I headed towards another geo-cache. As soon as I got back into the wood's, the rain stopped. In fact in less than a half an hour the sky's where clear. This is the area I wasn't sure what was smarter, turning around, and heading back to the car. Or keep going on the path I was on. Well, I was soaked from head to toe, so might as well just go with it. I pressed on. Just to find a parking lot. Go figure. I headed back to the car to move it.

I worked in another terra, and on my way to that one, well I was walking along in some ankle high grass, and just as I put my foot down, a three foot long snake goes, flying across the ground right between my leg's headed towards the lake. I'll bet I was a .10 in 3.2 second's. I still am not sure what kind of snake it was. It was a solid dark color, almost black, but not quite. It was a good three inches around, but I never saw it's head. I was thinking a bull snake, but I think those are more of a brown or tan. UGH!!!

I moved on and worked on a geo that was listed as a traditional but really was a two stage cache. It was an easy first stage as just get some number's from a sign and put them in for the final cord's. But I spent a good while looking for it, finally I looked up at previous log's, and saw a string of DNF's. So I bailed on that one.

Then I found another parking area. There was a terra and a geo way back from here and I though I could slip by and work another geo in if I went this way. Looking back at it now, that was a dumb idea. I took the deer trail, heavy bushwhacking (yup even this time of year), fought off some man eating plant's. But I finally made it. In fact I was so intrigued by the area, I walked right by the terra cache and had to turn around. I looked for that one for a long time but couldn't find it. I know the owner and I'm sure it's well hid. My GPSr was bouncing all over the place while I was there. So much I just put it down and starting thinking ok, where would I put it. That didn't work eather. So I figured I head down to this last geo then head back and take a fresh look for it.

I made it to the last planned geo in the area, but then realized if I took this other trail, I could start looking for the first stage of a 5 stage muli cache. So I went that route. After locating that I got the info needed, but got a phone call from home sawing some bad weather was coming in. So I kept going on that trail, and figured out just where I should have parked. Oh well, if one always stuck to the main trail's they would miss all the neat thing's out on the side trail's. Which I almost forgot I stirred up a turkey out of it's nest. Three egg's in there. I didn't bother them, just neat I was about 10 feet away when it took off, and if you've ever heard a turkey taking off from a few feet away, they sure can startle you.

I made my way back to the car. I didn't get to the puzzle in the park I had figured out. But there was some puzzle on the way home, I had figured out. Can't you tell it's been raining out a lot? I've been working on puzzle caches. I was about half way home and two caches left to go, and go another phone call from the wife saying about the tornado near Central City. So I figured I'll be driving right into it. I picked off the last couple and got three TB's to move along through the day.

As I drove home, I got a little rain but not much. But very shortly after I got home, oh yeah the rain broke lose. But all in all I'd have to say I had a great time and got to see a lot of Scott County Park, but I've still yet to scratch the surface of it. I can't wait to go back. I only picked up two tick's, and there was a few sketter's out. Gonna have to dig out the bug spray.

Wow spring must be here

2009-04-24T20:54:00.000-07:00

I've noticed within 50 mile of me new caches popping up right and left. A sign that spring is here and people are getting out. So far I haven't been able to get out much, but hopefully that will change soon.

I have to tease Iowa Admin a little. I every time I run a new PQ, with in a half an hour, a bunch of new caches pop up. Can we time that a little better? lol

I see that a new bike trail has opened and that is the main source of the new cache's. I'll looking forward to getting my bike out, and PJ has been bugging me about getting his out. Look's like some bike ride's are in our future.

I hope to have some new cache adventure story's soon to post. I realized I'm going to need to mow my yard already.

I'm in a blah mood.

2009-04-20T19:17:00.000-07:00

Reason's for it. Maybe. Don't know. Just in a blah mood tonight and was searching some video and thought I would just share some of this "noise" with you. You may not want to click play with kid's in the room as some of these are unedited and do contain explicit lyric's. Some may just want to ignore this whole post all together. Just my mood tonight.

Korn-thoughtless

KoRn - Thoughtless from KornBrasil on Vimeo.

Korn-Everything I've known

KoRn - Everything I've Known from KornBrasil on Vimeo.

Korn-Freak on a Leash (unplugged)

KoRn - Freak On A Leash (MTV Unplugged) from KornBrasil on Vimeo.

Yes the "freak's" will be in Iowa very soon. I hope to see them again even though they are down to three original member's. I think I've seen then live, 5 time's so far, and wow. If your in the Des Moines area, in two week's go to the fest and check out Korn.

Amana Nature Trail

2009-04-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I really needed to check on a terra-cache I had that was missing. I had been trying to get there for about a month but been busy and finally got time to fix it up. While I was in the area, there was one geo-cache that I had looked for a couple of year's ago.

Well, at that time I couldn't find it. So I thought what the heck, I'm in the area, it's raining, but why not, the tick's aren't too bad yet, and the vegetation hasn't taken off just yet. So off I wondered around, checking thing's out and I ended up taking a different trail so I could see the scenic outlook again. There's an Indian dam that is visible from that out look, when the water is low. So far I've never been able to see it. According to the information sign it's the only known one in Iowa. I would really like to see it.

After checking that out again the rain had picked up, slowed down, picked up, then kind of stopped. Once I was in the wood's it wasn't too bad as the tree's blocked most of it, but I did have some fun on some muddy trail's. I headed along the trail getting closer to this cache that I couldn't find. I was so engrossed in the area and listen to some frog's, I went right past the cache area.

After turning back around I started to bushwack the last bit there, then I ran into a pretty deep ravine. That's when I remembered yeah that was the way I took last time. Since it was kind of muddy out, I took a different way around. I got to the cache area, and kind of slapping myself in the forehead, thinking how did I ever miss that.

Regardless, it was great to get out and even though it was raining, the temp out was perfect. And this area near Amana, called the Amana Nature Trail, is a nice place to take a walk in. And someday I hope to see that Indian dam. I was trying to figure out how to make it a virtual terra, but I was able to find all the sign's in the area on the web, so I haven't figured out what I could use for a cc code, that makes sure someone makes the long trip out. But that long trip is worth it.

Have a happy Easter everyone

2009-04-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy Easter. Mine's kind of turned into a bust and I have to apologize to my wife. I'm on a new med and it's not going to well, and having a lot of the side effect's. I'm so sorry. Thank you for understanding.

On the plus side is the Bunny hopped threw our home and left some pretty cool little thing's for PJ.

Again Happy Easter everybody!!!

No more ALR's

2009-04-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

It's no secret I haven't been to happy about this no more and you must get rid of all ALR's on all caches on geocaching.com. I've got one that I just don't want to get rid of the ALR. In fact I need to get clarification to even see if it was an ALR. A six stage multi cache with a total of three log book's. You have to sign all three to claim a find. It's not going out of your way to do anything extra. If you are doing the cache as intended you will see all the log book's. You don't have to do the chicken dance or stand on your head while signing.

So to remain in compliance with the guideline's, I made it a "request" instead of required. But after some serious though and thinking how I could change it so what I wanted to do with the extra log book's, I have decided it's time to archive it. I'm leaving it open for the time being to let a few that have express interest some time to finish it.

From what I've gathered it was reviewer's that got the ban in place. Not sure why. But it sound's like they became more of a problem on the coast's and not in our area at all. I don't think there where too many caches with ALR's on them in Iowa anyway's.

I'm starting to feel this is a step in the wrong direction and a kind of limiting what a person can do to make a creative hide. Something extra involved that doesn't have anything to do with geocaching is the given reason for the ban. So how far is that going to trickle down in other cache types. Puzzle's that the puzzle doesn't relate to geocaching?

I'm still surprised the existing one's were not grandfathered over.

Also one had to wonder is this the start of a cache owner losing the ability to police the log's on their caches. If an armchair logger, log's a find will we still be able to delete the bogus log or are they going to take that away from us. I've seen temp ban's and some permanent ban's now for some cache owner's that have deleted log's for no reason other than they didn't like the log. But you have to wonder if they are going to take that ability away here soon.

I wasn't around when virtual's where taken away but they still let the existing one's go or "grandfathered in". As long as the owner was still logging in and policing the log's, then they are left alone. But I can imagine it was a mess for a while with complaint's. I've delt with some of the lackey's and mod's on mine, just cause I didn't' think our volunteer reviewer needed to deal with it. I'm sure he's busy switching cache type for people that are removing the ALR's, and that and taking care of new caches coming out. And I didn't want to add extra work for him.

Just some food for thought, I guess. But as the forum thread's keep growing here, and more thread's are opened. Well, the debate's are no longer debate's, they are getting ugly. I've heard from a few folk's that had a code word hidden in their final cache that was to be e-mail to them by a finder, and they had to drop that as that was an ALR. I guess this should be interesting how it play's out. I would have rather groundspeak leave it into the hand's of the local review's to decide to approve a ALR or not. But I suppose that would lead to lack of consistency due to different opinion's of reviewer's.

On the plus side of thing's we went out today and redid some neat cache's and PJ had a lot of fun with those today.

Gunslinger Wherigo - MOGA 2009

2009-04-03T17:05:00.000-07:00

While at Moga, I had already ran a pocket query and didn't realize it, till talking with some cacher's at the BYO--Bodacious Bash Before the Bash is Back (2009) GC1MGG0 and I heard that a wherigo cache was published. I got pretty excited about that. I have had the stuff to do a wherigo and had been waiting for one that was near I could get to. I was over in Des Moines and there is one there but I ran out of time and wasn't able to go after it.

It was called Gunslinger Wherigo - Moga 2009 (GC1P343) by Fried Okra. I didn't quite know what to expect. So when I got back to my hotel room, I fired up the laptop and quickly found it and downloaded the cartridge to put in my GPSr. That was when I realized I left my USB cable at home. Now you'd think I would of had that of all thing's. It was a mad rush to leave the house in the morning and I had forgotten I was playing around with my mapping software and had left out the detail map of Missouri. I already had my laptop packed up, so had just grabbed the cable form my bag and loaded the map's using the desktop. In my hurry to get out of the house, I left the cable plugged into the desktop.

So here I was in the middle of nothing much but bait shop's looking for a cable so I could load up the cartridge to do the cache. Thinking about it now I should have made a couple of phone call's to see if I could barrow one from someone, but I ran out and found a gamestop of all places that was still open. Mind you this is about 40 miles from where I was staying. But I got one.

I loaded up the cartridge and had held off on it till the most of the MOGA crowd was gone. I really didn't want to "just follow the herd of people", I wanted to do it without basically following people. I did offer to any of the IGO member's if they needed the equipment to let me know and I'd be happy to help them out with it.

Well getting on to the "game". It started off as you would go to the cord's and activate the cartridge. Well, I was a little over a tenth of a mile away at the posted cord's from the starting position of the game. So off I went and following the arrow. Which while I was on route to that starting point, I kind of wander in the wood's a bit and spotted a ammo can. Turn's out it was one of the kid's caches, that MOGA put's out for the little one's. But I finally got to the starting point. Then a picture of an old western type of Bank popped up on my screen and a story line begin. A group of outlaw's where robbing the safe from the bank. And the mission was to locate and shoot the outlaw's. But you had to do some quick shooting or they would run off to a hideout. I never did have to go and hunt down any of the out law's in a hide out. But at that point you where directed to go to check out a noise in the salon. That took you down a cement path and land you out side of one of the bunk house's at the park. Then all of a sudden a photo of an outlaw, or an innocent bystander would pop up with a selection of Shoot or don't shoot. And the order of the selection was always changing, so you had to be quick but still pay attention to what you where selecting.

Then after taking out the outlaw you would get a description of that outlaw and kind of ranked how bad of a person they where. The bystander's picture's would show up and all of the bystander's where photo's of fellow cacher's. You always' got a thanks for not shooting my friend or me, or even the CO's girlfriend. He said he really want to keep her around. lol But as this went on it too you to the stable's, and other western type building's. All of which where right out side the bunk houses and even in front of MOGA HQ. I think there was about 7 outlaw's to take out, if I remember right.

After this went on for about 20 minutes or so. You got a congratulation's, but still needed to recover the safe that was taken from the bank. Which took you off down a trail into the woods a bit. The safe was an ammo can. One you got there, There was a bell inside to ring to signal an all clear. They had a really neat paint job of a western gunslinger painted on the side of the can and the cache name painted on the top. All hand painted.

I thought the cacher that made the game did a great job on it. It was a lot of fun. And now I've got more idea's of what can be done with this, in hope's to make one. I was thinking of a ghost theme, since Anamosa is known for having a few ghost story's. I've been trying to dig up the info for all the old tail's. But this really showed me what can be done with it. Sure I'll have to get some help with the programing for it, but I think a fellow cacher is willing to help out with that.

All in all, I think this was one of the big highlight's for me at MOGA 2009. It was a unique cache hunt and I think the owner did a lot of work to make it happen. It was very cool. I'm looking forward to seeing some more put out and be made to this sort of level. It wasn't hard at all but just the story line and the action's that took place was really fun. It really makes me what to just take a day and drive over to Des Moines to play the one there. I did notice in the log's of it, someone took a two hour detour on their way home to hit the one in Des Moines cause they had so much fun with it. Again, I'm really looking forward and hoping to see some more of these come out near me. I really enjoyed it. Plus I got the new icon. Sorry but I'm an icon junkie. Too bad there's one there's no way I can ever get, and another one is a long shot, but I'm hoping that cache will stay around for a while, and if I ever get to that side of the country.

If anyone in my area, need's a GPSr, and we get one or two of these locally, feel free to contact me and I'll be happy to meet you there sometime.

MOGA 2009

2009-03-24T22:48:00.000-07:00

It's just about that time again this year, where a bunch of Iowan's will head to Mo. for a mega event known as Moga. This year I'm not competing in any of the comp's. Just going to get out and explore the area, and find some caches.

Last year was my first trip to the Mark Twain Lakes area, and what a neat place to visit. I'm not sure again what's all in store, but last year it was like ammo can heaven. Got's to love that. These year it's just me going again. I think next year I'll take PJ out of school and take him down. These are just what he loves to find.

I've got the tick spray now and I think just some packing and I'm all set to go. I was able to find a terracache there as well last year. It was a virtual cache and it really highlighted a neat monument.

The view from the top of the dam is really cool as well as from below. This year they say there's over a hundred new one's coming out, plus I still have a few from last year, and a lot from the year before that.

Regardless, if you love to hike, this event you will enjoy.

I'm getting excited now about the trip. I'm hoping to shoot some video while I'm down there as well as post the photo's. Last year I never got the time to post the photo's. It sound's like we have a great group of IGO'ers going again. Some of the older cachers (I mean that have been around longer than I not age) are not going this year. :( If you enjoy event's check it out. It's quite a lot of fun.

MOGA, MOGA, MOGA!!!!

Music as a Weapon 4

2009-03-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

This is where we are headed tomorrow. To see Disturbed yet again. I think this will be the sixth time I've seen them live. I didn't realize this was an all day "freak fest". But gate's open at 2 and an outdoor show start's at 2:30 with the four main headlining band's starting on the indoor stage at 7.

There's going to be tattoo artist's traveling with them as they have done before for the music as a weapon tour's. I've been to 2, and 3 and will be at the 4th tomorrow.

They are planning on a motocross show as well. My only other experience with a festival like this was the Family Value's tour two year's ago with Korn Headlining.

Tomorrow's line up will be:

Head liner's:

Disturbed
Killswitch Engage
Lacuna Coil
Chimaira

Second stage:

Suicide Silence
SpineShank
Bury your Dead
Crooked X
Born of Osiris
After the Burial

Plus this TNT Freestyle Motocross show.

As well as all sort's of vender's will be there as well.

I'm looking forward to seeing Disturbed again. They are from the Chigago area and have really toured a lot in Iowa and have stayed true to their midwest root's. I've also brought some ear plug's so the wife can put those in her ear's. lol

Disturbed always has the most insane mosh pit's I've ever seen or played in. Plus the way Damon get's the crowd involved is always neat to see. I didn't know it till just a little bit ago but this is the kickoff for Music as a Weapon 4.

Here's Disturbed's video for Inside the fire. Not for the kiddy's. It's a bit graphic but the lyric's are clean.

PJ and the Scooter

2009-03-17T19:58:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend it was so nice out. PJ had gotten a scooter for x-mas and hadn't been able to try it out yet. So we got it out, got out the elbow and knee pad's and the helmet. I had called the sister-in-law to ask if she was paying any medical bill's that may occur from using the scooter. That was a big NO!! She said we just supply the fun toy's. So we headed down to a nearby parking lot figuring this would get us plenty of open room for a crash if one was to happen. The weather was so nice out that we got board in the parking lot and headed on down some sidewalk's and off to another parking lot where we found some boy's out riding their bike's and jumping all around. PJ has been asking about trick's already and if mom would teach him any. I said don't you first have to learn to ride it? I didn't do any editing of this video. Just was out enjoying the day and playing around with the Video Camera, and teaching him how to ride a scooter. I did ride the scooter down to the parking lot while he ran along side of me and he out ran the scooter. It was a fun little outing for us. And hearing his idea's about the scooter was pretty funny. Only to be that young again where the possibilities are endless and you heal fast. Yes, by the end of the day he had the balance all figured out and was starting to get a bit too brave on it, so we finally called it a day. Hopefully we can get the bikes out soon and head down some bike trails and look for some caches. He's really wanting to get out and do some "hiking" (Those are his word's not mine). Now I'm wondering about how long it's going to be before he thinks we need to build a ramp... I think next winter I need to look into getting us some snowboards. I think he will carry on my saying, just give me something I can go fast on, who care's what it is or how safe it is. If it goes fast it's fun. I just hope this weather is hear to stay.

How did that get there??

2009-03-12T21:38:00.000-07:00

As cacher's at some point in time we have all come across something and wondered just how did that get there. The other day I was doing some caching in the Wapsi River Educational Center just a few mile north of Dixon, Ia. This was a great place to wonder around and get lost in.

Well, I didn't really get lost but I didn't know the trail system out there at all. I parked at the start of a major multi cache and found a trail head and headed into the forest from there. Much to my surprise the trails where very nice and not super wet and muddy. I know I didn't quite take the intended route, but had load's of fun with the way I took. I first stopped at the major multi to get the info to bring home and figure out where the next stage is from there. I didn't have all the tool's required to do the whole thing, and I don't think I could in one shot anyways.

But as I made my way down the trail, I was getting closer, and closer then started getting further away. SO I knew I had to make a break for it into the tick brush somewhere. I stayed on the trail as it wrapped around and I was hoping this would lead me closer to the hide. Nope. I found a good spot to enter the wood's though. As I made my way down to where the cache was hid. I came across something that made me wonder how the heck did that get there. It was an old Coke cooler.

I stopped and looked at this for a bit and wondered how someone got this down here and why. I'm assuming it was junk and someone had just dumped it, but again I was about a quarter mile from the road and that would be one long haul for this cooler.

This was the first time I was in this area and I sure was in for a treat. After I was able to find that cache, I made my way towards some other hides. I got back on the trails and made my way deeper into the park. I figured out the trail I was on wasn't going to take me to the area I wanted to go to and found a spot to jump a creek and another trail. I followed along that trail till I ran into a small pond. To me it didn't look like the trail was going to twist and turn up to where I wanted to go. Right there was a big mistake. I should have stuck to the trail, but really what's the fun in just that.

So I spotted a little deer trail that I had to bend over to follow. I looked at the GPSr and it said I was about 350 feet away. Now that's pretty close except I ran into some really thick bushes. Bobbing and weaving threw the vegetation, I was realizing fast this was a bad idea. I had to climb the hill, all 300 feet of it crouched over just to find out when I hit a clearing it was a trail. After looking I think but not sure that it was the same trail I was on but it had wrapped up and around the park. I finally made it to the hide and was able to find that without too much trouble.

Then it was off to the next one, which was a two stage offset, and I found the first part just after I found a tree with some big thorn's on it. The tree got the best of me, but hey a little blood spilt is ok. I didn't have the right tool's with me to solve the puzzle so I grabbed a copy since the owner was nice enough to make copy's for people to take. I got back on the trail and head off to the next cache. Once again the trail started winding in the wrong direction. But I found a easy trail to follow that got me really close to the hide. Then as I was closing in, I saw where the river had risen and was coming to the cache fast. I was beginning to wonder if the water would pose a threat to getting to the cache. Lucky for me, I had about 8 inches between the water and the bottom of a small bluff. I was able to walk along that, just to find I had to climb back up some at the hide was about in the middle of that bluff.

That was a nice little climb but not a smart move. Once I got up I saw if I had come from the other direction the climb up would have been a safer approach. After finding that, it was time to clear out of there and head back to the car. I found a nice mowed and wide trail that lead back to the center, which I think is where I should have parked in the first place. So then I had to walk along the road for a bit to get back to the car.

All in all it was a fun trip. A bit chilly out. I can say I slept pretty well last night. I did do four other caches on the way home, but I passed up two more in the general area, but that gives me a good reason to head back out again.

Now after thinking back on my little adventure I have to just ponder the though of how that Coke machine got there.

Burn

2009-03-05T22:08:00.000-08:00

I finally got all the piece's rounded up for my idea on changing this terracache I placed. I got it all put together tonight and though with this warm weather I'd head out and install in all.

I found the trails are a muddy mess and very slick at the moment. There's still some snow in some of the heavier tree covered area's and just a few day's ago one could walk on that snow without even leaving a foot print. No so anymore.

I was hoping this would go pretty quickly, but still ran out of daylight and it was quite a trick making it back to the car, while slipping and sliding trying to head up hill on deer trails.

I'm pretty excited about this hide now. I'm not going to say what it is or how it's placed, but I think it should be a enjoyable cache for who ever comes looking for it. A little problem to solve while out in the field. I'm glad this little idea popped in my head and I was able to make the part's for it and install it all. All of this was made with left over hard ware I had laying around.

I got the listing page updated and unarchived it tonight, so it's all set to go.

One of those 3am idea's

2009-03-03T19:09:00.000-08:00

I hid a terracaching over the weekend. I guess getting stir crazy, and needed to get out and stretch the leg's a bit. I really didn't feel like going looking for a cache (that's a first). I had an empty ammo can collecting dust and I though, you know I'll bet I can find a spot for that.

So I loaded up the can full of little kiddy toy's, and grabbed some "special tool's" and headed off. I had put in a moving terra last year and have had a lot of fun watching where it's all moved too. I so wish I would have map out all the location's it's been, which I guess I still can do. But that area has sat empty for quite a long time. I didn't want to hide this one in the same spot as I did for "The Wretched", so I figured I would hike around some and see if anything looked like a good spot.

Under the tree cover there was still a good three inches of snow packed down to pretty much ice, which made for some tricky climbing. This area doesn't really have much for normal trails just animal trails. I took a good long time exploring and finally settle on a spot. This one would have been about the normal kind of hide, but I had a little something, something up my sleeve. Not going to give away what I did, but I left giggling the whole way home.

I had named this one "Burn". I was pretty excited about it and wrote it up really quickly and even botched the cord's. That got missed by me, and my sponsor's. The parking cords I gave for it where right, just messed up one number and thankfully another cacher caught it and shot me an e-mail right away so I could change it. I went to bed that night thinking, I liked what I did but just how could I add some "zing" to it.

Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up and got me a glass of milk and was still thinking about it. That's when the wheel's started grinding. At work I was doing some connection's for most of the day, and had been thinking about just what I could use to make the twist possible. I got a list of item's needed to pull this off, and as soon as I got home I archive the terra. Since the "archiving" system is a bit different on TC.com. This allows me to disable the cache and pull it from search list's, but I have the ability to pull it out of archive for two month's I believe.

I have rounded up everything needed to make the changes to the cache. This will be changing it from a traditional over to a two stage off-set. But it will be something a little different, I hope. I've got one more thing I need and then will set out to change it up. I'm pretty excited about these changes I'm making and look forward to some feedback. I think it will be some good feedback, but I will just have to wait and see. I'm pretty excited about it.

I'm also hoping this will get a few more TCer's to the area to hunt what I already have in place. I know I kind of live and have these hide in an out of the normal route area's, but I'm hoping these will help highlight the park. It's a neat park and I've yet to scratch the surface of it. I've hiked many miles on the trails there but there are still so many area's I haven't made it to yet.

So I'm looking forward to this 3 am idea coming to light and can't wait till someone sees it.

Frustration

2009-02-28T23:25:00.000-08:00

Well, all was going very well, till tonight. I've ran into some video rendering problems and some audio sync. After figuring out this was due to and updated driver, I was able to find an older driver that worked.

I'm so wishing I would have gotten a Mac now. Mac has some much easier to use program's when it comes to media. The above photo is one I've photoshopped, which I'm getting much better at that and figuring out all sort's of little trick's with that. I'm going to use this as a background. 1 down 15 more to go. Well, really I've got more than that done. I'm keeping them in files that can be layered so I can just add on the top, what I want to say and this gives me the ablity to change text, and add clues as I move forward with this.

I was able to hijack what I wanted off the net but then got it in a format I didn't want. So I went to try and find a program to covert it to a Mpeg4 format. Guess what. You can use the program for free, or buy it. The only catch is, they put a ugly watermark in the center of the video for the first minute. I started looking into the coding of the program to see if I could remove that, but haven't nailed down what makes that watermark. I guess I should just buy the dang thing, or there's always the torrent route....

Still refusing to give up on this part of my project, I'll have to keep trying some different thing's. I still need to move a video editing program over to this computer, then I will be down to one computer, instead of networking them all up and streaming stuff back and forth.

By looking at my computer desk, you would think I've got enough computing power to make NASA a little jealous. I'll have to take some photo's of the mess I've got at the moment. This would give a better idea of what I'm struggling with.

I'm beginning to have doubt's at the moment if I can pull this off. If I can it should make for a really unique geocaching series. At least that's what I'm hoping. Sadly I think after a few people do this intended way and solve the puzzle's put in place, to confuse, surprize, and frustrate the puzzle part's will just end up being passed over by word of mouth and people are going to take the easy route. I'm trying to figure out way's to curb that, but I'm running out of idea's. I've gotten some idea's from some other cacher's, about hiding code word's inside part's and then if they are listed as a mystery cache I can add the ARL and these codes will have to be e-mailed on to be before they can post a find, for example.

Speaking of giving away hides and puzzle answer's. I had a could of weird e-mail's. The first one was cause I was the last finder of the cache. I bet this cacher was a bit pissed at me, but I told them it was best if they would try and contact the cache owner and not me. I'm sure he will give a clue to them. Then the really weird one is I have a puzzle and someone in Vermont e-mailed me asking for a hint on how to solve it. So I asked are you wanting a hint for my cache or the one in Vermont. Well, I guess the puzzles are similar and the person was hoping if they could figure mine out, they could figure the one in Vermont out. It still baffles me on how they noticed mine. I got a pretty good e-mail from this person and we had some laughs over it. I think this person just enjoys puzzles and looks around for them and solves them without worrying about really going out and finding them. Just enjoys the puzzle aspect of them.

Anyways now it's on to what do I do next. I'm still waiting on some permission for some area's but at the point I need to head out and get some cord's so I can start assembling this whole thing. I'm getting close to a stalling point, without the permission. I wonder if I should just forget about the area's I had planned and find somewhere else or just keep waiting to hear back. Since there's so many caches involved I really want to spread this around over a few counties. But I'm finding some county's are slower about responding then other's. Well, just more of my though's as I'm moving forward with this whole project. It's a slow process, as I keep running into some sort of problem's with this or that. I so wish my cousion lived a bit closer so I could run over to her place and we could work on this together, instead of me shooting some files over the net, and then worrying about compression issue's. I guess time will tell here.

The line begins to blur

2009-02-27T20:44:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been working out of town for the past week in Pella. I got time to start to hunt this pretty neat multi cache. I still have about 4 part's to go for it, but was pretty impressed on the way the owner presented it and the work he put into it. I only found one cache for the week, but with work, trying to work on the multi cache and my project, it really didn't give me alot of free time.

I've been tweaking photo's right and left here, stripping them down to the base to use as back grounds. This had led to some very late night's. I've got 4 complete ready to insert the cache info. I've come along way with photoshop and am getting the hang of it.

My next step is to alter some video footage, which I can do fairly quickly. I've been bouncing around some idea's on how I can deliver the video's to the cache seeker's. And I think I have figured out a nice twist to how this will all play out. The video will be a important part of this series. It's all still yet to be determined just how much. I need to sit down and work out all the kink's in the puzzles and what not.

This has been quite a large project and at the moment am feeling overwhelmed by it. Again this has led to some very late nice in front of the puter and linking up a total of 3 computer's cause I haven't been very good about keeping everything I need all on one. I'll be out shooting cord's and working on the camo for container's very soon as well, then I think everything will start falling into place. I think my attitude will turn as soon as I'm working on that part of it.

While I was in Pella, which is a neat little town. The building's in the downtown area have all sort's of neat little thing's, if you step back and really look around for them. I set up a virtual cache while I was there and I'm hoping that will help link DesMoines to Cedar Rapid's. Once those are linked threw 100 hides, all of eastern Iowa will be a point crazy area, I believe. Sadly I'm not getting much traffic on some of mine, but hopefully some will soon come looking for them.

I think "The line begins to blur" kind of fit's me tonight as my eye's are tired of looking at the computer screen.

Well, spring is just around the corner and I hope to get out and play around on some muddy trails.

The Beginning of the End

2009-02-21T20:23:00.000-08:00

Been kind of busy lately with work. I'm got this idea in my head and trying to put in all on paper to work it out. I am working on my next geocaching creation that hopefully will all work out. This is involving a lot of photoshopping, some media files, a lot of research on video editing. I've got some area's picked out for placement's of the cache's and have letter's in to landmanager's and waiting for the season's to turn to get out and shoot some cord's.

Since this is a big project and has quite a number of hides, involved I quickly saw I was getting in over my head. I shot some idea's by a friend of mine, and he's given me some hope that I can complete this "idea". I first came up with this whole concept about two year's ago and last summer since I was out of town so much I didn't have a lot of time to work on it, so it fell down on the to do list. But after the past few day's playing around tweaking some photo's, I think I'm ready to move forward with this concept.

In all this will be a series of 16 caches, with the first 15 needed to be found to start on the last one. As far as the hides go, the first 15 have been thought out pretty well, and hope to get into some area's where currently there are no cache hides, and a couple of the area's only have one or two. The 16th or final one will be a ruff one. A special container is in the work's for the final of it.

I think it's going to take most of the spring and some of summer to get everything placed, and make the final edits of some of the background's and jpeg's. I'm hoping that this little project will end up as I visualize it and give the hunter's of it, a feeling of accomplishment when they finish it, a wow I'm glad I visited the area's. I know we all look for something different in a hide, and hunt, so hopefully this will appeal to the masses but I have to wonder if it will be hunted by many or not.

I'm not sure but all the work I've been putting in to these, I am thinking these will be the last that I place. That's not certain by any means just if everything work's out the way I intend there's no way I will ever be able to top this. But then again I may scrap the whole concept and just keep it simple, only time will tell and if I can keep my paintance, and can see past the frustration's of this. The other cacher is doing wonder's at helping me past what I am missing and seeing loophole's that I am missing or I see that are there but can't figure out how to close them.

I guess I'm just posting this blog entry as a reminder for myself of the state I'm in near the beginning of moving forward with this project. It will be interesting how this evolves from now till it's ready for publication, which is also another headache. I have to work around anything that would be published between now and the end of this, which isn't a bad thing, but it can be frustrating. There's one spot I need to "protect" (for lack of anything better to call it). That's the start of the final and since this whole concept rely's on that one spot, while it's been picked, I'm not sure how this can be re tweaked if someone would place a hide to close to that one spot. Sure it's an out of the way spot, but it's possible.

Then it's the whole idea of keeping it family friendly. Like I don't see a problem in the posted picture in this entry for example, but I wonder if it's ok. That's one of those thing's, I don't see a problem with but someone else might have a different view on that. I don't know if someone could take offense to the jpeg. I don't see a problem with it and can't forsee someone having a problem, but since it's a photo, I have to wonder if it walk's that fine line. Everyone view's thing's just a little differently which is the neat thing about various art form's. And yes so far there is one and possibly a second video that will be posted to a video hosting site for this little project of mine. Which seeking permission to download and edit these have been a nightmare. You try telling "the man" that no profit will be made out of this whole idea, and trying to explain what I'm trying to create hasn't been fun. So far I've been able to get permission to grab the video I did and got permission to edit it. Then one has to wonder if I just wasted my time trying to get permission. I guess it's always better to cover your butt before hand anyway's.

Then again this all just could be rambling by me after a long couple of hour's working on it tonight with a very late night last night with about 4 hours working on it. Needless to say this will be a heck of a learning experience for me, and again interesting if I can pull it off...

Bike the Rock

2009-02-15T20:05:00.000-08:00

Here was a neat cache. Bike the Rock (GCG50M) It was an eleven stage multi cache. A 12 mile biking trip along Rock Island trail down near Peoria Il. This cache was very well laid out and took you about 4 miles in one direction and 2 miles in the other direction.

All of the "clues" or hides leading up to the final where stamped on to little piece's of wood and hidden along the bike trail. Madkaw called in the boy's for the day and we all joined up taking our bikes out and enjoying some great weather through the day.

We started off parking in some little town that I have no idea what it was called. There was some parking there for the trail and that's where we all met up. Hunt&Peck, Bookhunter, Madkaw, Drtmn and I all unloaded the bikes and got set to ride the rock for a fun afternoon cache hunt. We got off to a great start and not a breeze was in the air. But it wasn't hot out for a July day.

We ran right threw stage 1 threw 3 without a hitch. A couple of us had rode up ahead on the trail, and we thought we lost two cacher's in our dust. After taking a break and waiting on them for what seemed like forever, here we see the other two walking up. Oh, no a flat tire. I don't know if this turn out to be good luck or not, but while we where trying to figure out what to do with the flat, we noticed there was a "ol boy mud run" going on next to the trail.

Luckily for us Hunt&Peck was prepared for a flat tire and after making madkaw sweat for a bit he unveiled the new tube to fix the tire. I had started watching this mudrun while they where getting the tire fixed up. Lot's of monster truck's and 4 wheeler's where zooming around in the field they where holding it in. Kind of neat to see.

After the tire repair was done and we got some picture's of the mudrun the cache started leading us back the way we came. We spotted this little "garage" that double as a bar for the trail. We stopped for some refreshment's but they have this funny law and on Sunday's they couldn't serve before a certain time, and we ended up talking to the owner's for a bit before we headed along.

Then we passed the area we parked in and went on down that trail. We kept going for a while till stage 10 and there we thought we had hit a roadblock. It took all of us searching for over an hour for that stage, but after a lot of grumbling, someone shouted out I got it. So then off to the final we went. That was a nice end to a great day out on "the rock". It was a fun multi cache to do but was archived this fall due to the owner didn't get much traffic on it and it took him about 2 hour's to run maintenance on it.

Looking back it wasn't a hard cache to do, and we had a great day caching by bike. I got to use my new bike mount for my GPS that day too.

Jubilee Deception

2009-02-13T18:32:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a year and a half ago when a group of us led by my pal madkaw, somehow decided it was a "great idea" to hunt this cache call Jubliee Deception. (GCQEFF).

Now somehow I got roped into this hunt. I needed some work done on the car and my very pricey auto mechanic had made a deal with me to fix a problem with the car if I would help in the hunt of this cache. I had no idea what I was getting into, but heck with a deal like that how could I say no way. Hunt a cache for the cost of fixing my car, great deal for me. Which thank you again madkaw, you've been such a great guy about helping me out when we are having car trouble's and we really appreciate it!!!

I didn't relize when the "deal" was made this was a 12 stage multi-cache. From where I live it's a 2 and a half hour drive one way to the park where this cache was. So that meant for a 5 hour's behind the wheel just to get there and back. But this is located in a very large state park in Illinois called Jubilee State Park. A very beautiful park too. Lot's and lot's of hiking trails/bike trails/horse trails, camping area's and I still have some to do in that park.

I won't reveal all the cacher's involved in this hunt cause, well I think we made some of it harder than it should have been, but there's a reason for that due to how this cache was set up. I think in all I made five trip's down to this one and frustration was about the only think I could think of when leaving the place.

The idea behind this was you get a starting point. Stage one. Since it is now archived I'll reveal some of the detail's about the hides to give a better idea of what it was like. At every stage there was up to two clue's to move on to the next stage. If you found a clue and went to find that you made find at those cord's a "dead end" container.

Stage one at first the hint was grab some water you'll need it. So getting to ground zero, we found a fake water spicket near the ranger's office. Pull it up and a stick came out attached by rope to that spicket. There was cord's on that stick. Following those took you to a split in the trail further in the park. At a sign we found a 35 film can that had a note in it that read "dead end". So following the instruction's on the cache page, if you found a "dead end" you where to return to the previous stage and look with in a 5 foot radius from the clue you found. when we returned we ended up finding under a large rock this little laminated paper that I swear we combed over that rock for hour's.

Those cord's took us across the park and down another little trail but not too far. You found a pile of brick's and in the pile I had found a stick with cord's on it. I went to those on a trail and found another "dead end". So I went back and couldn't find anything. This was the end of my second trip out.

Third trip I was back out in a group again, and we made some good progress on this one. The owner had given me a clue this time, and was nice enough to give me his phone number if I wanted to call for some help. On the pile of old brick's we found that there was some cords scracted in them. The best way to read them was to get the brick wet. Those took us over to another area. By now we had come up with a plan to once we had found a set of cord's to keep looking and see if there was a second set. This idea work some till further into the cache hunt. But off to the next stage we went and it took us yet to another part of the park and quite a long hike up to it. Now I was picking off some other caches as well along the way so this added to the distance we where hiking.

After taking a round about way to this stage due to I wanted to look for another one nearby, we headed down into this gully and found an old tire, There was a film can there. Now my first instinct when I saw the can oh great another dead end, but no there was cord's in it. We looked around the area, and if I remember right couldn't find anything else. So we moved on.

We set off down a trail in another area in the park and found another stage. Here we found a small magnet on a sign post, and a film can on the ground. We wrote down both set of cord's and headed off to the closest one. Which there we couldn't find anything and that day ended there.

My next trip I was flying solo and though I would take my bike down. I had just got it and thought this is a great area to break in a mountain bike. I went back to where we where and looked and looked and looked and couldn't find anything. Then I got this great idea to take the bike for a spin on the trails. Since this was summer time, I got a big thorn in my back tire, and wasn't really up to speed on what I need to keep on hand when biking. Lesson learned there. I took this trail back that took me to the main part of the park. Since I was park about three miles away, I figure the best route with a half flat tire was to stick to the road. To give you an idea on how tired I was, I road by a cache 350 feet away, and didn't bother to stop to look for it. I just want to get back to the car to get more water.

The next trip we teamed up on it again, and got back to the spot where we were stuck. I had contacted the owner, to see if he could check on it, and he did and said yup, you just need to search a little better. So this still took some time finding but there was another magnetic strip with cord's on it. This strip was hidden on the sign so well. This lead us to another near a spot near stage two. This time we looked for a bit and found a fake branch in a tree that you pulled out and there was a file can with more cord's in it. Now these lead clear to the other side of the park. From there we hiked in that trail, and found a file can. Took the trail to that one and found another dead end. So back we headed. Now this film can was in a small old cut log. When you lifted the log the film can dropped out. Since we couldn't find anything, we got to looking very close at the log. We found a very small pin. Pulled out that pin and another film can dropped out of the hole. Very cleaver. Those had another set of cord's. Followed those took me down another.

I'm missing a few stages some where in here. One of the one's we found was a electric box, that there was no way it could be real. If I remember right there was some obvious cords on it, and that lead to another dead end. After closer look, I don't fully remember but there was a trick and another set of cord's. That led us to the park sign and I had found a small piece of metal in a crack in one of the sign post's. This was a pain to get out, but we also found a key container there as well. Both of these had the same cords on it. We I talked to the owner he said that piece of metal was a original part but no one could get it out, so he put in the key holder.

I think that's covering a couple of stage's I skipped somewhere along the line's, during this post. So off we went and found this three feet piece of conduit and there was a stick in it and that stick said you're close the last needed cord's are about a foot away. Now there was something with another set of cord's that led to another dead end. So back to the conduit we went. Well, come to find out the other side of the conduit had a cap that unscrewed off and in there was the real set for the final.

Which hitting the final, was such a relief. Found a clear screw top container (that's a state requirement for a cache in an Illinois state park, a clear container). It was just sitting in the bottom of a three.

Now I'm sure I've got some of this messed up but this gives the general idea of how this cache worked. Like I said this has been a hunt we did about a year and a half ago. Looking back on it, I think this was one of the most frustrated cache's, I've done. But glad to have taken the time to do it. It's since been archived due to the lack of people attempting it and it too the owner a lot of time to do the upkeep of this. He did a great job with all the hides and you never knew just what to expect.

I don't want to think about how much I spent in gas to get to the park, but it's such a nice park, to visit and it's just huge. I was relieved it was over but on the same hand, kind of sad it was done. In all I think there was around 30 part's to this cache including the dead end's.

But this was a very well laid out cache, and trick's around every turn. I still have to say thank you Fuzzy B, for placing this tormenting cache. We all had a great time and found out that alto of the extra electronics don't do any good on a cache like this. I think on one trip we had 6 people, 2 laptop's, 9 GPSr's, a pocket pc or two and a palm pilot. At that time between us all we had well over 7000 find's, so you'd think we would have sailed right threw it, but nope. This was one of those that would put any cacher in their place, like being a noob all over again.

I was sad when it was archived, but I understand why, due to how long it would take to run a maintenance on it. But it was laid out so well.

Thanks Fuzzy B for such a neat cache and all the memories, I've got from working on it. Thanks madkaw, for getting me out there and starting on it and finally finishing it with you. And thanks to all the other cacher's that where there as well. Those where some great time's out there, and lot's of laughs and lot's of naughty word's were said. But we had so much fun looking back at it all, and saw some cool area's of the park. I don't think I will ever forget all our time out there and getting to know those that hunted this with us.

At the time, I didn't have a camera with me so don't have any picture's of this hunt. And I think looking back, if might have been cheaper, to just pay madkaw for his time to fix our car, but again so glad to have done this cache.

The oddest thing I've found in a cache.

2009-02-06T20:03:00.000-08:00

Out and about doing a few quick one's and cracked open this bison tube. I started pulling out the log and noticed in the rolled up log sheet there was a little metal thing. After I pulled out the log and object as you can see in the picture, it's a live round. A .22 hollow point. This cache around to the physical log was found by a couple of muggles, recently.

This has to be the oddest thing I've ever seen in a cache. I did get rid of the bullet, but still kind of shocked over finding it. For one, what can you really fit inside of a bison tube? Well, I guess a live .22 round just fit's with a log sheet rolled around it.

But kind of makes you think about the next time the kid's go caching with you, if they see the container, have an adult open it first, this is a good example of why.

Have a NIN Epilepsy

2009-02-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting for premission to post a link to this little preview of what's to come. That day finally got here.

If in the lower right hand corner of the video screen a HQ pop's up click on it. It just mean's your computer can handle it and pop's you in to high def. mode.

And I saw this whole show twice live. I can't wait to see the final project of this. And this is just a couple of people that are making this with a lot of fan support. I'll bet that guy at the record label that told Trent no, when he lined up James Cameron to shoot a show in 3-D, is now seeking employment elsewhere.

You'll have to excuse me now, after watching that I've got a bad case of priapism...

I found something weird

2009-01-25T01:37:00.000-08:00

I was out looking for a two stage multi. cache and was stuck on the first stage. I looked all over the place and couldn't find it. It was in a city park and well after dark the time I was there. The cord's took me to a wooded area of the park and landed me at the base of a fallen tree. With the snow on the ground, how cold it was out, and I only had my little maglite with me, I still was combing the area.

I looked up the hint after about a half an hour and it kind of help, I think. Still a bit unsure of what it had meant, I kept looking and expanded my search a little. About 12 feet from where I zeroed out, I notice this lid poking out of the ground. I wondered but didn't think that was it. I then spend the next ten minutes or so trying to open the lid and not break it.

The way it was buried right in the middle of a group of three trees, just made it kind of odd that it would be there. By now I think I had given up on the cache search and wonder more about what was this container and, how did it get there and if there was anything inside.

I kept up on it and finally was able to break the ice free enough to unscrew the container. What I found was it was empty. I'm since talked to the owner's of the cache and this little container isn't part of the cache and should have kept looking where I was to start with. But for some reason after I found that container in the ground I really wanted to know what it was and how it got there. I did tell the cache owner's about it, just in case it turns out to be some sort of drop spot for someone or something.

I guess I'll never really know where it came from or why it's there, just the way it was place someone had to place it there as it was buried and just the lid was exposed. Just one of the odd thing's I've ran into while out and about. I haven't made it back to the spot to try and avenge my DNF yet, but hope to soon. It was in a nice park and I would like to see the park during the daylight hours.

Abby's Treasure Island

2009-01-18T16:22:00.000-08:00

Abby's Treasure Island (GC21D1) Where to even start about this cache. I've been quietly looking at it for two or three's year's now and thinking how can I get out there to that hide. With the cold streak we have had I thought this was my chance, and was planning my "assault" on the island. I didn't know if the river was fully froze over there but I finally got the chance and headed over to the parking around on the south side of the river.

The bridge to get across to the north side of the river is still closed at the moment due to the damage it took on during the flood's from last year. As I looked around there was still some opening's in the water as it took the bend around the corner. I stood back looking and debating if it's safe to try to cross anywhere. Then I noticed some fresh track's from some snowmobile's. So after some more debating I decided I would see if I could figure out how thick the ice was.

With all the snow on the ground I found out fast there was really no way to tell. But it seemed solid and I couldn't find any slush just under the snow. So I though I would walk down as far as I could along the bank and check it out from there. When I got that far it was time to ether go for it or walk away. I was about a tenth of a mile now from the open water and figured that was a good spot to cross if any.

So I started making my way across the river. My original hope was to cross the river to the north side and follow the bank till I got to the closest point to the island, but about 3/4 of the way across, I found I was in the snowmobile track's. They where fresh as the wind was blowing very hard and would have covered them pretty quickly. So I thought I would walk down those for a while an see if there was any slush on top.

On my way to the island I did come across one spot where there was slush on the top of the ice and I quickly got some distance from it and kept going. As I neared in on the island I started seeing a bunch of bird's. Some Bald Eagle's. A whole group of them. I was thinking oh sure, some vulcher's to eat me if I fell threw. I noticed on the east side of the island a large birdhouse high up in one of the tree's and decided they must have a nest there. I'll be there was at least a dozen of them flying around.

About this time I started hearing some noise's and was wondering every time, is that the ice cracking? It was the snow being packed down under my feet as I walked along. As soon as I was to the closest point I made for the island. Dry land!!! Yes, I made it!!! Then I made my way across the island in this at some time's knee deep snow. This really slowed me down and it took a while to get to the cache spot.

About thirty feet to go and I spotted it in a tree. There is was after all this waiting for the "right time" to get to it. Now I had thought about this cache forever and figured I'd never make it out here. I don't have access to a boat and don't like to take the GPSr for a swim. I had been debating on way's I could swim out to it or even use a tube to float down and have the wife pick me up further down stream. But here it is right in my grasp. I eagerly moved the geo-flauge out of the way and grabbed the can. It barely moved. At first I though no I didn't come all this way to have it froze in place. Then I realized it was rigged up so any flooding wouldn't take it.

As I pulled down the "treasure" I spent some time cleaning it up. As I did I kept hearing this ice cracking sound. Every time I would look up and yes, I'm on land. Then I figured out that with the high wind's a part of the tree was twisting in the wind and the ice that has formed in the crouch of the tree was cracking. Ok, I can breath again.

After spending some time there I headed off with another container to look for an island further downstream that I saw on google earth. Well, all that's another story.

After all was said and done I started making my way back to the car. This was a little harder than the trip out cause now I was head right into the wind. It made for one cold trip back. I was about a 1/4 of the way back from the cache and though I heard some snowmobile engine's running. I didn't pay much attention but all of a sudden they got louder fast. I turned around and saw two of them coming right for me. They passed and I was thinking don't get those heavy thing's near me while we are all on the ice. I keep on going.

I was looking for the bridge off in the distance to judge about where I was at and how far left I had to go. By this time I had been out for about 3 hour's and my leg's where getting tired and I was getting thirsty. Just then I see the snowmobile's had turned around and where headed back my way. This time they passed and waved. I wonder what they where thinking. Is this guy nut's and what is he doing all the way out here?

I still couldn't see the bridge but thought the upcoming bend looked like I was getting close. By this time it was starting to get dark out and I went to grab my flashlight from my caching pack and realized I left it in the car. Great... But then I spotted the bridge and know I was getting close. My track's from the journey out where long gone by now and I spotted a fallen tree when I had come out on the river. I made my way back there and when I hit land I was so relieved. Then I don't know why but it seemed to take for ever to get across the park and back to the car.

All in all this is going to be one memorable trip to this cache and I wouldn't recommend to anyone to take the river like I did. When I reached the car I dumped everything in the passenger seat and went over to start it. That's went I realized my pants where frozen solid from about mid calf all the way down. I was wearing a few layer's of clothes so I never did feel that and my shoe's where almost solid ice as well. But thankfully those waterproof and really warm sock's worked well. As they thawed out on the car drive home I was feeling just how cold and wet my clothes were.

After doing this one, I'm thinking this would be a fun one to visit again and do the "tubing" kind of adventure. With this one now crossed off my "must try to do" list, I'm looking and seeing what's next. This one was truly a great adventure!!!

Hey Pig's

2009-01-12T19:22:00.000-08:00

Well, just a update on the Nine Inch Nail's footage. The first rendering has been posted of about 40 min's. of footage with sound. The sound isn't sync perfectly yet. It's about 600ms off. This is from the first "gift" live in Victoria, BC.

Today another 50 mins. from the concert popped up on the net. This is still in it's premature form's and still don't have a switch camera angle yet. Just standard video footage with an audio feed from the sound board. I've noticed these are popping up on www.viemo.com. If you visit their site (it's a free video hosting site. You can find them pretty easily. There's a cam 1-1 and a cam 1-2. I think cam 1-2 was rendered a bit better at this point but still have yet to really sit and analyze it.

I was going to try and embed the html code into the block so you can just click and watch but am having problems with the embbing code they are giving me.

Now these are unedited footage and there is swearing in some of the song's so if you have little one's around, you might want to wait till they are not around.

This project is very neat and should be very interesting with the final result. There will be many as many different people are stepping up to the task and mixing this differently. It will be cool to see when they start flipping between camera's with the different angle's.

Remember this is not a final cut for this. This has just what's been able to be downloaded and have the audio mixed it. There's still ton's of footage to get threw. These are just from one camera angle mixed with the soundboard audio.

Ahh, what the heck here's the link's for them. The second link starts getting into the video board's more as the concert continues.

http://vimeo.com/2769978
http://vimeo.com/2804282

On the second link about 42.00 min's into the footage is Survivalism and it's neat most of the eight feed's on the "camera's monitor's" is live footage from what's going on in other places in the venue.

And here's one more of the song "Discipline" in High def.
http://vimeo.com/2802025

This is a good example of what will be a final cut for this fan created DVD or Blu-ray.

I'll leave you with the lyrics for a little Nine Inch Nail's tune. I just think this is fitting for what's going on. Next post will be about some geo-caching. I've just found some photo's and have a few cache's I'd like to write something about. Stay tuned.

"Survivalism" By Nine Inch Nail's

I should have listened to her
So hard to keep control
We kept on eating but our
Bloated bellies still not full
She gave us all she had but
We went and took some more
Can't seem to shut her legs our
Mother nature is a *&@%^

I got my propaganda I got revisionism
I got my violence in high def ultra-realism
All a part of this great nation
I got my fist I got my pain I got survivalism

Hypnotic sound of sirens
Echoing through the street
The cocking of the rifles
The marching of the feet
You see your world on fire
Don't try to act surprised
We did just what you told us
Lost our faith along the way and found ourselves believing your lies

I got my propaganda I got revisionism
I got my violence in high def ultra-realism
All a part of this great nation
I got my fist I got my pain I got survivalism

All bruised and broken bleeding
She asks to take my hand
I turn and keep on walking
What you'd do the same thing in the circumstance I'm sure you understand

I got my propaganda I got revisionism
I got my violence in high def ultra-realism
All a part of this great nation
I got my fist I got my pain I got survivalism

How many gigabytes was that again?

2009-01-09T18:26:00.001-08:00

The other day I was so excited. There has been a hint of a "gift" to be given out to all the Nine Inch Nail's fan's out there via their website. It was a long three week's in waiting to see what was going to happen this time. What I mean by "this time" is since he's finished his "contract" with his now past recording company, and has shown his distaste for the direction the whole industry is going.

Towards the beginning of the year he released a quarter of a album for free via bit-torrent. And making it fully available by buying what kind of "package" you wanted. The song's where quite different than the normal NIN' stuff as they are no lyrics. It's all instrumental. Then he held a contest using free video hosting site's to have the fan's make the video's. The concept behind this was to see what people would come up with for video's as to every person the music will mean something different. And with no lyrics this held true.

Then over the summer Trent surprised us with a free download of an album he had written and recorded and gave it away free on-line again via bit-torrent for the uncompressed version. A regular download for a compressed version.

But after news of him trying to have a concert from one of the "Light's in the Sky" tour date's and his former record company wasting his time by not giving him the go ahead. He was setting up to record a show in 3D. Well, at the last second, the record company called and since they still own the rights to most of his older material, they said nope. As Trent kind of joked and said should have just done it anyways. Well, something was cooking.

Then this post of have a happy holidays everyone and check back soon we may have a little gift for you. Well a few weeks went by and nothing, not a word. Trent loves to sit back and see just what his fan's are saying and I guess likes to toy with them.

Then the other day I logged on and saw it. The promised gift. 405 gigabytes of three concert's all shot in HD and at multiple angle's. WOW!!! Now with just a couple of seed's starting to give this out well, it's going to be a month before all the video and audio will even make it to one spot let along one computer. But it's picking up. Now with all of this out in the open what to do with it???

That's where the NIN's fans are coming into play. Instead of a record company having to approve what is going to be the final version of this, the fan's have the say. Right now as we speak what is already been downloaded is being worked on by the fan's to be mixed to our liking. Last time I checked one of the whole shows one person had been able to get the full download for (so far). They have started mixing it and syncing the sound to the performance and started choosing the video that would be used.

I just that this is cool, this is the first time a band has given the fan's the full opportunity to do as they wish with the footage. The kind of funny but sad part was only a select few has the tool's to compile this much data and the tool's to make this live concert. So what happens next?

A new website opens up with the tool's needed to accomplish such a task. As you are reading this it's being worked on and it's staying in high definition video until the fan's choose what is the final version to be released. Now everything will still be there so a person can still make what ever they like out of the data, but a final version will be made available for download in a high def. format. As well as being able to compress it to allow it to fit on a standard DVD.

I so lack the knowledge to attempt to do this so I just have to wait and see what is put out for the final project. Everyone is so eager to see but really this will be month's before anything is ready. I just thought this whole concept was neat and wanted to share it with other's. Plus can you just image how that person is feeling that had the final say, in the no to letting one date be filmed for a 3D version on blu-ray disc or DVD. OUCH!!!

But with project's like this and what MJK is working on with Puscifer, record company's may just be a think of the past. The industry is already skimming down on CD's due to the ease of MP3 player's and using MP3 or similar files to store and listen to your favorite tunes on.

Some of the technical part's of this I may be wrong about as I'm still learning what this whole new feat is and what I can do with it. I was thinking about overnighting a 1TB usb hard drive from somewhere and seeing what I can mix out of this. But I doubt I'd ever have the time to finish the project.

This has gotten me excited about about working on my Geocache series, that fabled one that I started a year ago and just got the artwork done and then kind of got side tracked plus I was out of town all summer. So with some snowy day's ahead I'll be hard a work making the puzzles to complete this. I guess I'm hoping my plan's for "Year Zero", I can finish. The idea's are there. The near impossible puzzle has been written and is only known by me (That's a scary thought). I just need to finish with the photo part of it and get out and find the location's. Which alot had been picked already and have been waiting for me to get out and finish this puppy up. Last year I had painted up all the final container's for this series which will be a nice mix of traditional, multi's, puzzles, which the first 15 will need to be found to even start to look for the 16th hide.

I've found what's going to be the "trick" for it. You may want to ignore that part too. I may just be saying that to throw someone off. My fear was to go threw all this work on it and then it just flop's due to the difficulties one may have with it. But after a promising chat with a person I hadn't heard from in age's assures me my work into this will be worth it.

But I just have to say again, Trent Reznor, thank you!!! Thanks for your effort's to "taint my generation". (You are one of the few that would understand what I mean by that). Now on to the "drawing board" (evil laugh).

I promise this will be the last music realated post for a while and aim more on geocaching. I've got a few more story's still to get wrote up yet...

Lair

2008-12-26T18:36:00.000-08:00

Last March I had some time off work and had just gotten back from MOGA. You'd think I had my fill of the wood's and hiking for at least a week, but nope. Two day's after getting back home I made a call to Hunt & Peck about this cache up just above the Iowa border in Minnesota called Lair. (GC5D2D)

I had spotted this once while looking around for a neat cache to go and do and this one caught my eye. Why?? I'm not sure but there was over 100 picture's on the cache page at the time. So after coming threw some of those and reading the cache description I knew I had to check this one out. So it went on my watchlist.

After getting back from Moga and having the rest of the week off I called up a buddy and we met in Cascade and got into one car and headed off north. The car ride was fun up there. As we got further north and more towards the river these are area's I've never been too or have been since I was a kid. So the road trip was a lot of fun and a lot of neat stuff to see.

Once we hit the border though it was like we where two kid's planning a snowball attack or something. We had parking cord's and there was specified instructions of where to go to park. When we where a mile or so away we looked up and I think H&P said to me I think there is where we are going.

Now there is talk on the cache page about a possible cougar being seen in the area. We had chuckled about we both wouldn't have to out run the cougar just the slowest person in the group. We found the parking but couldn't get the car to it due to the wet and muddy road's so we parked it roadside and hiked in from there. At first we felt like we where trespassing as there was no trespassing sign's all over on the side's of the road. This was just the farmer trying to keep people off his land and on the road. But once we reached the top of the road and looked down into the valley where the "enchanted forest" was we saw that State DNR sign. One think less to worry about.

We where headed down the trail and cut off and bushwhacked our way to the river that looked, like it could over flow at anytime. LOL. If you go you'll get that. But after crossing that stone by stone and a leap of faith we came to the "enchanted forest". A small pine forest. Making our way threw on some game trails we came to the base of "the mountain" (if one would call it that). This is where we kind of split up a bit, trying to make the climb easier on both of us.

A few hundred feet later we could hold the excitement in anymore and the climbing went a lot faster heading towards the Lair. Once up top you could turn back and see this amazing view that you just don't see anywhere. But the neat part was the Lair was waiting right there to explore. Out come the flashlight's and we where hoping we had the right cave and didn't have to climb to the very top. Well, I won't give what you have to do away, but we pulled out this nice and rusty box that looked like some sort of miner had left behind 50 year's ago. Cracked that baby open to find us a log book and some SWAG and a few trackable's.

Well, we had come prepared and brought sack lunches. What better way to spend a day of vacation than sitting up top this large "hill" at the mouth of a cave, eating a sandwich chatting away with a buddy and just enjoying this very unique place with a heck of a view, this cache owner had found. This place is something to see and I highly recommend taking a camera.

It was kind of sad when we started to head back. I had been wanting to do that cache for a least 6 month's and our adventure was over. We made way back to the car and headed out but first a stop by an additonal waypoint the cache owner had marked. A trip to Miami. You'll have to figure that one out for yourself.

On the way home I had spotted a special groundspeak volunteer geo-coin in a cache near Decorah. Well, I wanted to see it. So some how or another we took a very long way home and picked that coin up to discover and move along. We did a couple of Geo's and Terra's while near Decorah along the way. Not very many but they where in some neat spot's that are worth taking extra 70 mile on our roadtrip.

I would highly recommend any one to do this cache. It's a very unique place to see and really the picture's don't do it any justice. If anyone want's a "tour guide" contact me. I'd love to tag along to this one again.

Hunting season from a caching prospective

2008-12-13T19:55:00.001-08:00

Hunting season. Those are two words that make any geocacher a bit nervous. I've really paid attention this year to the hunting season's and have personally tried to stay out of the hunting area's while shotgun season is going on. I've made sure to blaze it by wearing bright orange stocking cap or a brightly colored shirt. If I see a car in the parking lot of a hunting area I'll skip it and come back at a later date.

Well this year going with this thinking, I'd figure I wouldn't have any scary hunting incidents. Nope. Today I was looking for a couple of roadside caches which aren't really my favorite kind of cache to do but better that and still get out then sit at home or have a slug go threw your leg or worse. I was down in the ditch looking threw this pine tree and spied that ammo can. I grabbed it and got it down in front of me and opened it up and went for the log book. All of a sudden I hear a KABOOM. I signed it real quick and put it back and headed for the car. when I got back up onto the road I looked into the corn field across the road and spied 5 or 6 hunter's in orange vest's. I was able to see what they where shooting at. There was two deer in the field.

Now I'm not a hunter by any means but you would think these people would pay attention to what's on the other side of what they are shooting at. Yeah there where a couple of deer there but beyond those deer was the interstate. And I sure didn't see those deer dropping to the ground. In fact I saw and heard at least a dozen gunshot's and yes they where aimed right at the interstate.

Then I went along a bit further down the road and stopped for another cache. I saw one of the most disgusting site's I've ever seen while out caching. There was a poor dog that had gotten loss or just dropped off and it had looked like he died from exposure. I was so glad my son wasn't with me to see that. He was laying with his belly up and at first I thought it was a deer carcass someone had dumped over the bridge. Poor dog.

I found this cache pretty quickly and was going to sign it and again KABOOM. I tossed it back in it's hiding place and made way back up to the road to the car. That was enough for me. I have no idea anymore other than sticking to nothing but urban placed caches till shotgun season is over. The weather is really nice so it would be prime to head out into a wooded area looking for a cache but with the hunter's it's just not worth it.
I have no idea why I'm writing this other than maybe someone will run across it before heading out looking for a cache and maybe this will make them think about grabbing a orange vest or something so they are spotted easily.

Be safe cacher's. The last thing I want to see is a article in a newspaper that a fellow cacher was involved in a hunting accident. You can visit http://www.iowadnr.com/ for a pdf file for this year's hunting season's. I've uploaded some photo's I took of the hunter's, sorry about the bad photo's but that wasn't as important as getting out of there without any more hole's in me. There is one to three hunter's in every photo too.

Nine Inch Nails: Light's in the Sky

2008-12-03T19:29:00.000-08:00

Well I waited a week before talking about this show that was in Cedar Rapid's at the U.S. Cellular Center. Right after I had paid a small fortune to see NIN in Detroit they announced they would be right there in Cedar Rapids. Once again the only disappointing thing is they didn't destroy their instruments at the end of the show. For a person that's seen them live and seen them do this, well they are about the only one's that would understand why.

I had gotten my ticket threw the presale's via their fanclub and got a nice surprise when I got my ticket. Instead of the normal printed out ticket this one is in Color and is quite fancy. Plus it's got my name on it. Quite the keepsake item. I got to enter the front door and didn't have to wait in the long line outside like normal when going to a show there. Another little perk of buying from their fanclub as well as a reduced priced ticket.

The opening band was BORIS. I had never heard of them but had found out they where a Japanese band that had flown over to go on this leg of the tour with NIN. They played loud and their drummer was decent. But for the most part this wasn't a good opener for NIN. Just lack the energy of band that would open for Trent Reznor. I know he loves to get the lesser known just starting out bands the chance to open for a large audience and get the word out about them but they well, should be opening for more of the likes of a pop metal band.

But in the waiting for them to start I was looking for the best spot I could on the floor to hold out for NIN, and spotted one of my youngin's that used to work with me. It was great to visit with him and his girl friend. And to finally find out he got up enough nerve to FINALLY get that tattoo he's wanted for a very long time.

I also was able to run into my little cousin and her boyfriend in this crowd that was so to be a large mosh pit. She had just ran a marathon a few week's before and really wasn't up for what was about to become one heck of a mosh pit and wild crowd. I think at one point when I had ran out to get a drink of water then when back for more, I ran into them again and she was pretty much squished in place. I wiggled my way around her and the guy in front of her had been pushing back on her pretty bad. So I planted both feet, squatted down and pushed as hard as I could and cleared her out a nice sized spot even if it only lasted a few minutes.

When NIN took the stage it's an amazing sight to see and hear. The thing's that go on behind the scene's and the technology that make up the whole show are amazing to read about and you really can't image they do all this on the fly.

When I saw them in Detroit and then compare this to this show the big difference is the crowd. I don't know if I'm just used to the Iowa crowd's and grew up with them or what. They are full of energy and I have yet to see a show out of state that has such "crazy, who care's about what we are going to feel like in the morning" folk's. It's awesome. I've heard lot's of bands say that Iowa has the most energetic crowd's and some of the baddest mosh pit's around. Well, so far I'll have to agree with that.

And the funny thing is I had to sign a wavier when I was in Detroit to enter the mosh pit there.

These three led screen are just amazing. One in the back ground, one in the middle and one up near the front of the stage. The one in the middle and the one up front are hung up high but are lowered down for part's of the show. They are fully interactive with the band member's and they are able to control them while playing using some laser's and some motion based technology.

Some of the thing's shown on the screen in the background are on feeds from camera's placed around the venue. And yes the police where on camera live arresting someone that didn't look like they were cooperating and had a bit too much to drink. But this was show in one of the "security type screen's" in a ground of eight screen from the live feeds. This was done while they where playing "Survivalism".

Once again Trent is a man of few word's but makes the most out of what he says. They come play, play, play, say thanks, play, play, play, a little chat but very short, play, play, end. But at one point in the middle of "March of the pig's" he brought his hands up to his brow trying to block out the light to see something in the crowd. Then just stopped singing and said what does that sign say?? Then a few remarks about "the plate girl" (you had to be there) and they just right back into the song like he hadn't missed a beat. It's on you-tube if you care to see it as it will be a famous moment in NIN history. I can't repeat it in this blog cause it's not the cleanest thing in the world but it was funny.

This is the third time I've seen NIN live. And once again I almost got an item they tossed out into the crowd. A tambernine. But a fellow about 5 people away from me was the lucky person to get this. Still the drumstick that hit my arm was the closed thing I almost had from them.

Josh Freeze was still on tour with them. I've personally seen Josh play with three different band's and that man is talented. I've seen him play 5 different times. He's the second best drummer that I know of. Sorry Josh, but I have to give my fav out to Danny Carney.

I still have to wonder what the show was like I missed when they played in Iowa City year's ago when I was 16, that I might add my mom wouldn't let me go to. Sorry mom but I haven't forgotten that one. Yes it was on a school night but I should have been there. That was the prime of The Downward Spiral and they had Manson opening for them. That was when Manson was just getting going and the circus was going strong.

Two hour's after the show had started it was over. I headed off to the car, my ear's ringing, my feet hurting, and this totally satisfied feeling in my gut. I so hope Trent keeps his sobriety that has been helping him put out new material faster. It's not quite the same as the older NIN song's but it still has all the passion in it. He is a very talented man and his story about how he got where he is today is just amazing.

I still remember when I was in High School and had some NIN sticker's on some thing's and most people had never heard of NIN. This was way before they became mainstream. And the other amazing part is he's made his band what it is without the press or MTV. Something only a handful of band's have accomplished. In fact a majority of NIN's video's cannot be played on MTV. I still find it funny two year's ago they wanted Trent to play one song for the video awards and he said yes but I want to show my video that I show in my concert's. This had a scene of Bush and his wife ball room dancing in between shot's of some of the news footage from some of the victim's and their injury's that have been caused from this war on terror. MTV said no, so Trent said that I don't preform, and MTV tried to bring him down by saying well you just won't be willing to show you video where he may see it. The rest of the tour NIN was on, Bush had ticket's waiting for him at the will-call desk paid for by Trent and this was announced in Trent's response to MTV.

Searryl's Cave Cache

2008-11-30T20:09:00.000-08:00

I've been looking around for a memorable cache to land my 2000th GC find on. This one I've looked at before and never knew just why I hadn't gone after it yet. Well, I thought this looked like a fun one to make my 2000th find. Searryl's cave cache was quite a fun cache. The parking cords are listed on the cache page and it's a good thing. This little preserve in Iowa is well hidden away back behind a corn field. When you pull up there nothing more than a gate with a sign on it saying it's a preserve.

At first you start walking along a trail that goes threw a corn field. As I walked along I spotted a group of about 8 large turkey's. I tried to get a good picture of them but as I got closer they started running off so I took a few photo's. When I got close to the cache I started wondering around a bit. I stumbled upon a benchmark survey disc. This was kind of neat so I took some picture's of it and marked the cords. Then I started looking around for the cache. This cache had been nearly a year since it was last found and I was surprised to see it was by two people in the past couple of days.

Once there the cave was still about 600 feet away. I should of paid more attention to the trail but I never stick to those anyways. So I started following the fence line till I was getting further away. I noticed that no getting to the cave was going to be quite a trick. Since it was snow out and the ground wasn't froze yet it was very slippery out. So walking around the bluffs really took some careful walking. But I was able to get around and work my way back up to the cave.

The cave is closed this time of year to protect the bat's hibernating this time of year. But I was able to get up to the cave opening. I took some picture's of the cave and some of the view's of the area. It was really neat with the snow coming down. You could really hear the nearby stream water flowing. After check out the cave I found the easy way out. I took the trail all the way back.

This was quite a fun hike out today. I wish I could have explored the cave but really didn't want to come face to face with a bunch of bat's. This is one I'm all ready planning on taking the boy back to after the cave is open to the public again after April 1st. And it was find number 2000. This was a really neat place tucked away in behind some corn fields. I also found another benchmark survey disc near the parking area. Both of the one's I found today don't show up on GC.com. I'm not all that familiar with how those work but I thought it was pretty neat to stumble upon them.

Anyone who hasn't done this cache I highly recommend doing it and don't short change yourself and take the little further walk down to the cave. It's really neat to see.

A elephant hidden in a haystack

2008-11-27T20:58:00.000-08:00

Here a little while ago I was working this two stage geo-cache near the Cedar Rapids, Ia area. The first stage took me down a nice hike along a biking/walking trail. It was a very nice hike. It was one of those evening's where I should of had my flashlight with me but I really thought I'd be able to find this and get back to the car before it got dark.

I had a little trouble with finding the first stage. The cords landing right in the middle of the trail, so using the clue's provided on the cache page I was able to narrow down that it was on a fence. But which side. It took some time but I was able to find it. So back down the trail I went looking for the final.

I got to ground zero and there wasn't many spot's to hide a 30 cal ammo can. So I though maybe the cords where off just a bit or I wrote down the wrong one's or something. After looking back at my camera that I had snapped a picture I was able to confirm that I had written down the info correctly.

Well, I had sat down on this log while I looked everything over again. Just then I noticed something. There was a hollow out log, the log I had been sitting on. This was a very nice surprise. I thought to myself wow a container that big and it was hidden so well. You could tell there was some work and planning that really went into this hide.

After swapping some trackable item's I headed back down the trail back to the car. About half way back I found I had some company. there was a little dog out on the trail. I think he belonged to one of the nearby houses. He walked along with me for a bit and then took off. I made it back to the car just as it was dark out.

It was very nice to see this hide. I was so impressed they where able to hide an ammo can so well, and also thinking to myself I should have been able to find it much sooner.

This was a very nicely made cache that I really enjoyed. Again I was just very impressed how this was hidden, a very nice cache to do.

A cache hunt in Decora, Ia

2008-11-23T19:26:00.000-08:00

Here recently I was lucky enough to be in Decora, Ia. This is always a neat place and town to explore. Every time I visit there, I find out something new about the history of the town. There's this really cool Ice cave there that I had seen last summer that was cold inside and still had ice in it even though it was 70 degree's outside.

Then there's the spring with the waterfall that is just amazing. I have yet to go up the stair's and explore the source of the spring but hope to yet.

Well, I found myself going after a couple of caches in a park which I think is called Peterson park but don't think I have the name of the park quite right. I know it started with a P. I had to park at the beginning of the park due to the gate's where closed and I'm guessing cause the road in the park are in pretty bad shape.

I crossed path's with a few people out jogging and enjoying the great weather. The terrain in the park I don't know how they where able to jog it but I did noticed they where staying to the road. As I wonder threw the park head towards a cache I noticed that if I stuck to the road this was going to be a very long hike in. There where some bluffs that I'll bet where 120 feet tall. I was looking and was able to find a way to climb up the rock where rain had carved a I guess for lack of anything better to call it a trail. It wasn't a hiking trail by any means, but I was able to climb it.

I kept thinking I'm glad no one was following me cause I was knocking down rocks as I climbed up. Once I reached the top I was just in shock over the view of the town. It was gorgeous. I found a spot where the park had built a neat spot to sit and relax over looking the bluff. I got out my camera and took ton's of pictures of the town. After resting a bit I made my way along the little trail next to the edge of the bluff on ward's to this cache.

As I zeroed in on the cache I was able to spot it on approach. It was laying out in the open and had fallen from it hiding spot. It was just inches away from taking the plunge over the edge of the cliff. I was able to grab it without knocking it down. I was so worried about hitting it wrong and it going over. I was a bit closer to the edge than I cared to be and found myself laying on the ground to retrieve it.

When I opened it I at first thought I was the next millionaire in Iowa. But after a little closer look it was a gag item. It made for a great laugh.

I signed the log book and took a very close look at the cache page and the hint and was able to figure out where the cache was supposed to be at. It was still a bit closer to the edge than I cared to be but I sucked it up and got it back where it was supposed to be at. And I should note here height's don't bother me very often but when looking down over 100 feet which just a rocky floor below and no kind of safety gear, well it's a bit hairy.

Still thoughts where rolling threw my head about it I dropped it and had to try to climb down to get it and bring it back up. Much more than I was up for that day. Luckily I was able to get it back and got it placed back so there's no way it could pop out of it's spot again with out someone pulling it out.

As I started back I took a little different route. I found the road up top and followed that back for a while. My attention was pulled to one of the trails near the road. There was a fellow on a mountain bike going down one of the trails and he had a leaf blower attached to the handle bar's of his bike. He was going around and blowing the leaves off the mountain bike trails. I thought that's a pretty neat idea.

After watching him for a bit I made my way over to the overlook again. Then down to the spot I had climbed up. It sure didn't look that steep climbing up. So I put everything in my pack again so I had both hands free and climbed back down.

All in all it was about a hour and a half trip but well worth it. I so hope to get back to the area to do some more of the caches in the area and there's an earthcache there that looks really neat. In fact I had been thinking of making one there when I was up in the area last but someone had beat me to it. I'm just glad someone else is able to share this cool area that you just don't find anywhere else in Iowa.

Here's a photo of the bluff from a distance. Yup the cache is on top of there.

The S.S. Minnow

2008-11-05T18:46:00.001-08:00

After talking all summer long about going and hunting this Terra-cache called the S.S. Minnow, we finally where able to get the plans made for the hunt.

The S.S. Minnow was a cache placed by mmdals over two years ago and had only been found twice since it was placed. It was hidden on an island out in the Mississippi near the town of Cassville, WI. Wugo II was able to put together a boat trip and 8nut's provided the boat and some great driving as well. We where joined by leaderdog as well. The four of us met up at a boat ramp in Cassville. 8nut's had his boat in the water all ready to go when I got there.

It was quite a journey to the island. With the floods we have over the summer we didn't even know if the boat (the minnow) would still be there. It was just over 4 and a half miles from the boat ramp to the cache. It had rained a bit on my drive up to Cassville but had stopped by the time I got there. The weather other than the rain was perfect.

The trip along the Mississippi in the boat was a lot of fun. We got to see some barge's and one full of coal that was on the bank being unloaded by a crane. There's a car ferry there as well that will transport your vechile across to Iowa if you didn't want to make the drive around. I'm sure this cuts a lot of travel time down. But I got to see a car on board the ferry.

As we neared the island I could tell all of us where getting anxious to see if we could find this one. We drug the boat ashore about a quarter mile away from our destination. From there we found some nice ground to hike in the rest of the way in. As we walked along very shortly after pulling the boat in I heard Wugo say there it is. I could feel the excitement growing but still couldn't see it.

Sure enough we got there and there she was. This was just amazing to find. I can't image how someone found this abbonaded boat on the island. It was about ten feet long and about 4 foot deep. currently with the water level being down the boat was on land but as some of the picture's on the cache page indicate it does float when the water level comes up.

The wooded boat had about two inches of dirt and plant's growing in it. The hull of the boat was in pretty bad shape and a lot of the wood was roting away. We spent some time there at the "Minnow" talking about this and that and enjoying the day. This was quite a fun trip. I was glad to share this with the other's. It was great to have some great company along the journey. But as all things do this cache hunt was at it's end.

We all left the "Minnow" and headed back to our boat. We got rained on just a little on our way back but really it could have poured and I don't think anyone would have cared. We pasted a couple of other boats on the river on our way towards the dock where just a couple of hours earlier our journey had started. We spotted a couple of Bald Eagles flying over the river as well.

Once we docked we sat around for a little while and visited a bit about our other caching adventure's. This will be yet another one that will be talked about for quite some time to come.

It was great to meet the famous 8nut's who I seen the name but had never meet in person. And as always is was great to join Wugo and leaderdog for a cache hunt.

Now that the S.S. Minnow has been found I don't know what will be the next great adventure. I guess I need to hit the web-site's to see what else it out there waiting for us.

A cache has been recovered

2008-11-04T20:50:00.000-08:00

I got an e-mail on about a missing cache that I was the last person to log it as "found" on GC.com. This cache was in one of the flooded out area's in Linn county. The trick to this cache was it had one stage that you went to, to find the cord's for the final. When you made it to the final you got to pick it up and move it within the park boundaries and then return to the first stage and leave the cords for where you moved the cache to.

It was a fun cache to do, the involvement in moving the cache was a lot of fun and I thought it was a really cool idea. But I got an e-mail from the owner wondering if I still had the cord's for where I had move it to. The first stage had floated away during the flood's and he was wondering if I had the info so the final could be looked for and retrieved if possible.

Well, it's been since March when I did the cache and the cord's I had for it were long gone. But I was thinking about it and though well I kind of remember which direction I went and where I had hid the cache. So tonight I got the time to head out and take a look for it. I first went to the first stage and on my way there I spotted the deer trail I had took to hid the cache. I still went on to the first stage and sure enough it was AWOL. So back off I headed to the deer trail and start going.

As I walked to threw the area some of the feature's of the area looked kind of similar of my last visit to the area. All this of course still seemed different due to the flooding that had taken place. But on-ward I pressed. As I neared in on the area I thought I was in when I hid the ammo can, I spotted a tree that I kind of remember as the one that I had hid it in.

The tree I had picked to hid the cache in half of it was downed and I had found a nice little spot in the crack left with the fallen part of the tree to place the ammo can in and had covered it up with some bark and branches. Well, when I find this tree it was much different as the downed part of it was gone. Now this was a huge log that had been half resting on the ground and it was just gone. I can't believe the force it would take to move such a log. As I started looking around and thinking to myself this my be a hopeless cause, I did find the fallen part of the tree had been moved about 50 to 60 feet away and had swung a full 90 degree's.

I went over and kind of poked around but didn't see anything. At this point I didn't think there was going to be much left to do but assume it was gone. So I started looking and wandering all around. I found the barbwire fence that I had gotten to when I had moved the cache and had turn around to make sure I kept the hide within the boundaries of the area. Once I got there I turned around and looked again back in the direction of that tree, just to make sure I had the right tree.

So I headed back over towards the tree and as I was walking I noticed something a little out of place. It looked like a small cardboard box from a distance mostly covered in leaf's that where just a slightly different color. I made my way over to it and was shocked to find out there it was. The ammo can was found. I had to dig it out of the dried mud a bit but when I kicked it up, I saw that word on it. GEOCACHE. I picked it up and looked back towards the tree. The cache was about 60 feet from where I had place it 8 month's ago.

I sat down on a log and unclipped the latch and popped open the lid. Everything inside was dry. I sat there for a little while skimming the logbook and come to find out I wasn't the last person to find it but thankfully the last finder that never logged it on-line didn't move it. But I read back on my log I left in the book, laughing a bit as it had taken me two tries to find it. I thought about the snow I waded threw when I did make the find and all the sketter's that where in the area the time I was looking for it before that.

I took a photo of my log and the finder after my log. Then I took it over to what was left of the tree and tried to place it like I had 8 months ago. I took a couple of photo's of it. Then it was time to decide what to do with it.

I hadn't asked the owner about what he would like me to do cause I really didn't think I would have very good luck in locating the ammo can. So I headed back towards where stage one was at. I thought well, I could help him out if I just placed it where the first stage was so when he comes out to fix it he could just grab it and move it to where he likes and get the cache up and running again.

I didn't like how the can would sit in the tree that stage was in, so I started looking at nearby stuff and spotted a couple of log's on the ground. I walked over and found a nice little spot I could slip the can in so a muggle wouldn't find it till the owner could get to it. I shot the cords for it and took some photo's so I could help him out as much as I could so he could easily find his ammo can.

Then I headed back out of the area. It was a very nice day out and the temps were perfect for a late fall day. I was just in a t-shirt and jeans. So I walked around the park a bit more just enjoying the walk and "site-seeing". I spotted a couple out fishing there in the marsh. I decided I didn't want to disturb them and head on back to the parking lot.

I just thought this was a pretty cool story to share. Hopefully the cache will be able to get his cache up and running again. I hope so cause it sure was a fun one to do. I had a lot of fun looking for the stages and then getting to participate by moving the final. I had thought this was a clever concept for a cache. I'm so glad I was able to recover the contain as I did feel a little guilty about not hanging on to the cords till someone else found it and moved it and log it on-line.

I've left the cacher's name and the hide nameless out of respect for him and don't wish to call any kind of unneeded attention to the problem that did come out of it, but in the end it's all worked out ok.

I must say to the hider thanks for place this hide I had a lot of fun with it and even though the recovery effort's where due to a unforeseen flooding issue (as the whole area flooded not just where I moved the cache too). But I sure did have a lot of fun going out and recovering the cache.

Detroit Rock City.

2008-09-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

The wife and I just got back from a quick weekend get away from Auburn Hill's Mi. I some how got this "great idea" that we could do this weekend road trip off to see Nine Inch Nail's in concert. At the time this was going to be the closest show to me that I could make it too. Go figure right after I scored some tickets and got everything lined up they announced a date right in Cedar Rapids, Ia.

So after work on Friday night we dropped off the boy at the in laws and we where off. The drive to the Chicago area is a pretty boring drive. We made a couple of quick stops to nab a couple of park-n-grab caches. None too exciting but it was a nice welcome break from the road.

When we reached Chicago we stopped to grab a bit to eat. Surprisingly there really wasn't much open. But we found this great little Italian pub. It was about a 1/2 hour before closing time but they still served us with a smile. I was a bit worried due to the fact we where the only one's in the restaurant. But they cooked us up a killer pizza. After leaving and fueling up we found it hard to get back on to the road and noticed all these cop cars on every corner and even guys setting up at the traffic boxes. Someone important was coming threw and later we found out Obama was in town and he was in the process of picking up his newly appointed or so to be appointted VP for the elections.

After that it was in to Indiana. We where tooling along pretty well until we came across a pretty bad car accident. But we finally crossed the border in to Michigan around 1:00 in the morning. Starting to get sleepy I pulled off at the welcoming center or rest area. A very nice one at that. I go out and walked around a bit and then grabbed the flashlight and headed off to find a small cache. I was hoping to score the geo-coin that was listed inside but someone had beat me to it. After a nice little hunt at the rest area and reading up on some of the vistor info (which this placed had a lot of history behind the rest area) we headed off in search of a hotel.

We stayed in the Benton Harbor area that night finally reaching that about 2 in the morning or so we thought. Oh yeah, that time change sign we must have missed that. We checked into the hotel really at 3 in the morning on their watch.

Getting up that morning wasn't too ruff. A few hours of sleep for me and I was ready to get back on the road. But doing some surfing I spotted a cache a few miles from us that I really wanted to see this light house. So we rolled across town and found ourselves on the edge of lake Michigan. We where looing for "Back on the Beach" (GC1011X). Not a very good hide but a heck of a location. There was parking right there and the cache page had warned us about paying the parking fee. Well, I didn't think we needed to pay it due to we weren't going to be there long. Sure enought when we got back to the car I had to speak to the guy typing out my ticket. But he was nice enough to say hey just go over and pay the parking fee and I void the ticket. No problem.

I took a geo-coin of madkaw's that I STILL have and Tiff took my picture of me "dipping" it in Lake Michigan. After that it was back on the road. About 5 hours more of driving. But this was fun cause this was road nether of us had been on before so alot of looking around. When we got to Detroit, I had downloaded a bunch of virtual caches and their waypoints. I thought this was best to see the historal type of sites around the city. Sure enough they took us to what we where looking for. In my e-mailing some of the answer's off to the cache owner's I got a reply from one of them saying I hope you left enough for a return trip. I think it would take more than one trip to see everything I wanted to and go after the caches I was looking at.

Then after some site seeing and getting the answer's for the virtual's and we drove up to Auburn Hill's. We checked in to the Holiday Inn there about a mile from where the concert was going on that night. A very nice hotel. It had just been built and they had it all, Flat Panel TV's the works. Heck even a doorbell on our room. Yep every room had it's own door bell and when you pressed the privacy please button in the room a small light came on just about the doorbell and wouldn't let it ring till you turned it off.

That night we rolled into the venue (where the Sonic's play) and found out there was a 15 dollar parking fee. I don't know what's up with that state and their parking fee's but they seem to love them. We got inside the venue and much to our surprize we had to sign wavier's to be on the floor. Seem's they think they have some ruff mosh pit's or something. But I notice alot of people had camera's. Which is a big no-no around here. So I asked one of the employee's about it. Sure enought if you had a small camera you where allowed to bring it in. But once you left you couldn't get back in. So no picture's for me. We sat down and had some drinks. Well the opening band just wasn't our thing so it was down to the floor and then back up again. Tiff came down with a migraine about the time we got there so she wasn't feeling up to much. I drank up as I knew playing in the pits I would get pretty dehyraded.

After the opening band had been done for a while, I told her I'll see her in there and off I went. Clear up to the second row. I was up there for about half of the show. I wiggled and wormed to keep my spot but really didn't have a hard time keeping it. They didn't allow any drinks of any sort on the floor and it get's pretty hot being in that crowd. The security guy kept pouring bottled water into the mouth's of the willing but sadly he kept missing me and this young girl to the side of me. At one point I yelled at him to give her a drink. She was in disbelief that someone would do that. But like I told her, hey if my wife was up her I would hope someone would do the same for her.

I was about as close to Trent Reznor as you could get and had a great view of some of their specialized insturament. Like his LCD panel that control's his computer and runs the garage band software. Yep, two shows are never quite alike. But I got to see him really get into playing the panel at the end of Echoplex. After about 15 songs I dropped back and went and played in the mosh pits for a while. I didn't hang out in them too long. they are not like the one's in Iowa which is what I'm used too. I kept telling this other fellow these are pretty weak. The one's I've been in around Iowa can get pretty bruital. He assured me no this is as crazy as it gets. Guess that's why most of the artist that come to the Eastern Iowa usually say something about how crazy the crowd gets.

I then relized I wasn't sweating anymore. So I hightailed it up to get a big glass of water. After that I went off in search of Tiff without any luck. Normally I can just about find anybody I'm looking for but I guess I wasn't on my home turf. So I went back to the sound board and listened to the rest of the show from there. As always NIN put's on a heck of a show, and their sound crew is amazing.

After the show I met up at our meeting point with Tiff to find out she found out that have a doctor at shows. Her migraine had gotten bad enough that an employee has saw her in her misery and they took her back to the doctor. He gave her some Advil and some earplugs (go figure, I'll never live that down.) But four hours after the start of the opening act we where headed to the car. It was pouring down rain outside but at that point I really didn't care. We hopped into the car and got back to the hotel and order dinner.

The next morning was pretty much get up and go. Had the whole trip to make it back to Iowa. We did some rest area caches on the way back home each taking turns driving and sleeping. I guess we are getting too old to do a weekend rock trip anymore. But it was a good time and other than the concert I think the Light House was the highlight of our trip.