Goodbye Ron & Fran

I helped Ron and Fran with the last of their packing today. They are some friends of ours that moved to the area to go to seminary. I can't believe their first two years are done and they are off to vicarage. I knew it was coming but the time flew. Another period of time comes to an end. Phases of life come and go constantly and always with a sense of bittersweetness.

It was funny on the way in. I usually go down 327 to get down to their place but that was closed so I had to take an alternate route. For some reason I decided to take the back way to see if it was shorter. i wound up getting lost and finally got to Auburn instead of Fort Wayne. Needless to say, I was late getting there. I guess that is what happens when a cacher does not have their gps.

Signs of Summer Getting Old

I like watching the change of season and the changing times. I am already notciing that summer is moving on. The nights are getting darker a tiny bit earlier. WAWK, one of my most favorite radio stations is going off the air a .little earlier. It is a daytime AM station. It is also the second last day of July.

The Wiccan holiday of Lammas is on August 1. I don't believe in the Wiccan religion but their right holidays based on equinoxes, soltices, and the seasonal half points make some sense. I have noticed they make some sense, not perfect sense with the trends in weather. The August holiday does not bring cooler weather but the hot weather starts getting less intense most years. The autumnal equinox brings an end to the summer weather. After Halloween, we can expect frost soon if it has not shown up yet. Since wicca is a nature worship religion it has noticed the patterns of nature. It still does not make me believe the spirituality behind it.

Just as a side comment.There are a lot of groups and peoople that I disagree with bitterly but still agree with certain points that they make. Too bad it is so hard to debate that in an agreeable manner. I own some of the fault of that. I think we all do to a degree.

To get back to the main point, I am starting to see the beginning of the end of summer. I am looking forward to fall and the cooler weather. October is my favorite season in Indiana.

Pursuit of Happiness

I like the phrase "pursuit of happiness" from the US constitution. It reminds me that life does not insure me happiness. Nothing in this lifetime does. There are plenty of miserable people with all life's blessings and people who have found happiness in their poverty. Joy and happiness is a state of being and and attitude, not what you have. how many people are chasing life's good things to get happy. If only I had the latest and greatest toy, then I would be happy. I am not saying that getting nice things is wrong but let us have a perspective on what we want. If we count the blessings we have instead of always look at the tyranny of the wants of the heart, then how happy would we be. The big trouble is that life beats us down and it is so easy to think of how it is so easier for everyone else and why can't we have all the nice shiny things that would make life so much easier and secure.

I have to admit I have been grumping lately. I have been looking at all the things that could be better in my life. Some are are as I see them. Some I have made bigger than they are. I have not been looking at the blessing as I should. Time to relearn a lesson that it is my destiny to relearn forever.

GPS Enthusiast

I have always been drawn to gadgets and technology. Some of my earliest memories is watching thr apollo mission. Needless to say, I was totally addicted to sci fi growing up. Not to say this was a 100% cause of my love for the gps but it sure did not hurt. My wife and I initially got one gps to try out this website called geocaching.com. Over four years later wwe are still finding caches but our style of hunt has changed. Instead of just dong caches, we are also hunting benchmarks and waymarks. For those of you that may not have heard of this before, a cache is a hidden container with at least a log in it and hidden. The person who hides it posts the coordinates on the geocaching website. Benchmarks are survey markers placed by one of several different government organizations. They are listed on several different databases. Some of the databases are descriptions with coordinates and some lack the cordinates. The later are a neat chcallenge because you can only go off a description. It's not always that hard. Most of them are in the open and the only reason you have not seen it was because you were not looking for it. Waymarking is a slightly different hunt. It is on waymarking.com, and the trick here is that it is a scavenger hunt for different categories of things. It can be anything from chain restaurants to benchmarks to historical spots.

There is a common motivation for doing these three things with a gps. I like seeing new things. I like if not exploring my world, at least seeing what is out there. It is a bit of an adventure even though I don't really get that far from home. It is not climbing Everest, buti t is still my adventure. Not that I want to brag. but i have seen and done things that not everyone has done thanks to caching. There has been some annoyance and disappointment along the way but it has been more fun than not. Hope we can meet on the trail.

Harry Potter- WArning Spoilers

I did not get on the Harry Potter craze from the beginning but I think I start about book 2 or 3. I really e
njoyed the series. I have some mixed emotions now that it is over. It is bitter sweet. Bitter because there will be no more Of Harry and his adventures but sweet that the trip is over and all is well. I wish Hedwig's death had the owl not so passive in dieing. Sucky way to die. Dobby's death did not bug me in the least. He was the Jar Jar Binks of the series. I also wish it could have gotten into the action alot faster. I realize things needed needed to be set up but really.

The one scene that irritated me was when Harry found Griffander's sword. I really saw the Arthur legend with this one. I was truly expecting the lady of the lake to raise out of the lake to come out and give Harry the sword.

I was also expecting the last installment to be more LOTR like and a lot more war. I realize this is a kids series but I guess I could not refrain projecting my ides on how it would wind up. I thought I would scream when it looked like she was actuay going to off Harry. She did do a good job of weaving things from the earlier books into this final book. Yes, the whole series is sequenctial but the last one had the most elements of the earlier books in it.

I think I will reread the whole series just so I can hear it all in a realtively short time all together. Besides. I think I listened to it thefirst time to fast and missed some things. Not a surprise when I listened to 17 cdsof books in 5 and 1/2 days. A little much for my ears.ll

Early morning Wake Up

Kai, our dog, woke me up this morning. There was atow truck casing the neighborhood. I wondered what it was up to but since they were not doing anything callable. I left it alone. Winds up they are finally fixing our road. I am glad kai lets me know there is something I need to know about but I wanted to sleep another hour.

At least I am getting more time to listen to the final Harry Potter book. i wish i could listen faster. I have been waiting to see how this saga will wrap up and the closer I get, the more I desire the end. I will start spoilers when I am done with the book on monday,

Geobash Aftermath

One thing I have noticed is all the logs coming in from all the cachers. We don't have that many caches so I wonder if anyone is having an overflow problem with all the caches. The other down side of geobash is that one cache went mia. Torry was nice and gave us a replacement container. Not only are we getting logs to our stuff but we are logging other people's stuff as well. I finally finished logging other people's tb's and activating our new ones. I think I got about a dozen new trackable coins. Really cool. They were also giving out some really good swag. Got a great new name tag with our caching name on it. Got a new grab bag and pins.

The best thing and the most im[ortant thing is all the people we meet. I may complain about the cachers I really can't stand but that really is a small percentage of cachers. The over whelming amount of people are really nice. I think that is true of all groups. Most of the people are mice but the distasteful few can still leave a bad taste in your mouth.

I think I have talked myself out again. Maybe i will move on to another topic tomorrow unless I think of something else.

Geobash Report #2

First of all, here's a link to explaiin more about Geobash.

http://midwestgeobash.org/


It was a great time. Met a lot of People I only knew from online. Also got to meet some of the employees from groundspeak. Nice to meet the people behind the website. I also got one of the lackey coins which is only gotten from a groundspek employee and one of their personal coins which was really cool. It was definately the place to be for geocoins. Traded for a bunch and got some excellent trade. We had a gpx file made for the waymarks in the area and it was used. Kinda nice to have our waymarks found. Waymarking is still new and a lot of the people around have not gotten into it yet. one waymarker who found the windmill museum said he would have to come back next year and take the time to look around.

A cacher by the name of totem clan made an awesome beer which was nice to have around the campfire.

Our dog Kai had many admirers and a lot of people thought he was a great, beutiful dog. meanwhile, I was thinking, it's only Kai.

One of the local papers did an article on geobash and we were interviewed for it. The weird thing is that a picture of me was on th front page .

Really a good time.

Geobash Report #1

Geobash is over and I am tired, sore, and dragged ouot. It was fantastic. Had a lot of fun, did a few coin trades, and really enjoyed myself. It is going to take a few days to get rested up and caught up with the online submissions. More details to follow.

Geobash

Geobash starts today and the weather is perfect. I am really glad the nasty weather brought this with it. Suppose to be perfect the whole weekend. We were able to get on the front page of the Kendalville news in connnection with the geobash. I have to go get some things donw before going over. People are probably already setting up. More news will come in as I am able to report.

Big Butter Jesus

I am christian and find this song funny. I don't want to make fun of my fellow christians but sometimes I wonder where there heads are. I am all for doing a christian presence and getting the message out but if non-christians and and maybe christians not in your group are just looking and saying isn't that just weird, then who is it really helping. I hope it does get the gospel out or at lest help those christians with their faith life. As for me,I don't get it. I would like to understand but right here, right now, I don't.

Take the Skinhead Bowling

I did not come up with this one so don't yell at me. I do find it funny. Enjoy.

Judge judy/ Judge Joe Brown

These two shows are entertaining mainly for the poin t at the stupid person and laugh factor. Most of these cases would not have happened if people thought first and acted grown up. if you borrow money, pay it back. If you brak something, pay for it. It's no big deal when it is a case of the person who is at fault says they are at fault and disafree on the sttlement but when the person does not want to pay because the person should have known better than to lend them money then you sit back and laugh. You can usually tell who is going to lose the case. It is whoever is speaking the most. The person who has the better case does not have to dress their side up and work as hard to try to convince the judge. The more I watch these shows, the more I think that being smart and honorable will avoid most to all court cases. Even if it doesn't, it will take you a far ways and you could do a lot worse. Mark Twain was right, common sense ain't too common any more and I get the feeling it is getting more scarce.

Speed Racer

I grew up watching this show. I still do watch it when I get the dvd out. Kinda cool to find the Japanese opening.

Three Stooges

You can divide the sexes by the comic genius of the three stooges. This is one of my favorite skits by them. Too bad they colorized it. Darn you Ted Turner. Leave those movies alone.

Patricia the Stripper

This is a funny song by Chris DeBurgh.

Not a Quiet Night.

This is a morning where the coffee is more than wanted. About 9 or 10 last night, the rain moved in and the weather radio started to alarm. It kept up until about midnight. It caused flash flooding and was tripping fire alarms. Imagine that, after being dry all summer to have the insult of flash flooding. We really need the rain but not that way. We need a good slow rain. I should not be surprised though. Nothing about the weather has been gentle or moderate lately. It has been either way wet or way dry. The temperature has only been average on the way to the other extreme. I should not complain about the heat this summer. The a/c has been on but only a day heere and there and the fans have taken care of most of it. The lower humidity due to the lack of rain has helped but we need the rain- a slow rain. WOWOW, a major radio station was taken off the air for an hour or two last night. Scary. Not a total lost- it took the loon of a talk show host off so it was not a total lost. Besides I had enough to listen to with the scanner and weather radio going.

It was also not a quiet night in New York. A major steam pipe broke with damage to life and property. They are claiming no terrorist involvement. I am sure the Mayor of New York said that to help claim the people ( I would in his place) but in this post 9/11 world, there is this nag saying, what if there is more to it. The stupid thing is that the terrorist have been successful by making me think this. On the other hand, to say that the USA will never be attacked again is stupid. To the terrorist I say, I will still laugh and cry and live life. You have changed nothing. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. That vigilance is needed if you are there or not.

Captain Spaulding

I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen

This is a song by one of my favorite artists. The cartoon is done by the film board of Canada to go with it.

Spaceman Came Travelling

Little Town Fishbowl

People who live in big cities may not be aware of this but living in a small town means that you live in a fishbowl to a certain degree. It's not that your neighbors are nosy and prying into your business but let's face it, there are not that many people and it gets hard to not notice the same faces all the time. If you are involved in local events or have kids in school and little league then you know and are known even more. It's not bad at all for the most part. If people know you, they are more likely to watch your stuff. Our one neighbor keeps an eye on the neighborhood but then again I think we all do. i don't think we need an organized neighborhood watch because people are already looking out for each other. Besides the crime rate around here is low. The other nice thing about the fishbowl is that we were gone for Christmas and it had snowed enough that we were not going to get into the driveway without shoveling. Thankfully, our neighbor plowed it out and we did not have to do it after a six hour drive at eight at night.
The fishbowl does have some downsides. People can get to know your business. Usually that is not an issue unless your not comfortable with it or you have done sometime that you are not proud of. This can be extra painful for a pastor and his family. They are already in the lime light being the head of the church and with everyone knowing their business, it can become unfairly tough on pastor and family. i don't think it is malicious for the most part but people being people.
All in all, for me at least, the small town fishbowl is like my favorite old pair of jeans; really comfy but has a hole or two in it and not perfect. I am not getting rid of those jeans.

I am going to be biased.

One thing that drives me nuts is the news saying they will be fair and unbiased and will give us both sides of the story. First of all, that assumes only two sides of the story or issue. Life isn't that easy usually. Second of all, we are all biased and being biases isn't always a bad thing. If I cheer fot one team to win it means I want the other to lose. All news chooses what stories get in and in what order. That shows a bias. The point I am trying to make here is let's be honest about our differing points of view. I may not agree with you but I will be more willing to listen to you if I know where you are coming from. Never know, if we talk long enough, we might actually see that the other point of view has some good pointss. The big challenge is how to express and stick to your beliefs without being a jerk when someone else disagrees.

This is just a test.

This is my first time blogging. I don't really know what i have in mind or where this blog will go. I will be making observations and giving opiions on the things that come my way. I am a Christian, a husband, owned by a dog and a geocacher among other things. This will colour my blog. Here's to starting an interesting journey.