God rest Ye Merry Gentleman

Away in the manger

Gabriel's Message

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

From heaven Above

Santa Claus, Indiana

Since yesterday was Christmas, I thought I would make today's weekly webness on Santa Claus, Indiana. the town's website is here. the Wikipedia article on it is here.

Good King Wencelous

Joy to the World

Let the real Christmas season begin

I ranted on facebook about the season of Christmas does not start at Halloween with the marketing. It also does not end tomorrow. I am going to put Christmas carols up for the next 13 days.

Let it begin.

21 Alive

I thoughtI would do another local v stations website this week as this week's webness. It is for channel 21 out of Fort Wayne. their site is here.

Wane TV

One ting I like doing with this blog is to talk about life in north east Indiana. One part of this is the local television. Wane Tv is one of the stations around here and their website is this week's weekly webness. Their site is here.

Burt Ward

Last week's webness was Adam West, this week's focuses on the boy wondedr played by Burt Ward. The site here.

Skype and Ubuntu

I finally got skype fully functional in Ubuntu. I am happy about that. I am also happy that I successfully worked command line in the terminal window. This was the first time I needed to go command line instead of using GUIs. I love the ease of using GUIs but using command line is just something I wanted to start doing command and this was a simple and good place to start.

Adam West

I am a fan of the old 1960s Batman TV series. I just recently found a website about Adam West who played Batman/ Bruce Wayne. His site is here.

Wunderground.com

One of the websites I use to get the weather is wunderground.com. Not always perfect but what weather service is.

The Economy is Freakin' Scary

With unemployment up around 10%, the price of homes being low, lines of credit drying up as well as uncertainty on Wall Street, it is scary out there. The answer is not going to come from Washington or Corporate America but from the American people getting their financial house put into order both as individuals as well as the national level. I do not think Washington is going to help because it is the private sector and not government that creates wealth. Government can only redistribute wealth. I am not saying that governments categorically do not work but there is a lot of things that the private sector does better. I don't think the private sector is totally clean is the recent problems. The sub prime lending bubble burst is proof of that. Business made the loans, the government did not govern the banks better and too many people were relying on easy credit. There is enough blame to go around.

The big thing now is learning to do more with less. That goes for government, businesses and individuals. It is not going to be a quick fix. I think it might be another year or two before things get better. I hope I am wrong and things improve faster than that. there are some major fundamental things wrong with the economy and I don't think there is a quick fix. I also don't think much of the bail outs that have come out of Washington done by either the Bush or Obama Administrations.
I do beleive in a Do It Yourself Attitude. There are things that you are better off paying someone else to do but there are many things that you are miles ahead doing yourself. One thing I am going to do is try as many things as possible to either save money or getting addditional benefits without spending more money or at least in a cost effective manner. I might blog them here. I don't promise anything earth shattering or anything new, but things that may or may not be helpful but it will serve as one persons coping with the way that things are.

Biophilia

The biophilia hypothesis suggests that there is an instinctive bond between human beings and other living systems. Edward O. Wilson introduced and popularized the hypothesis in his book entitled Biophilia. I think I can relate to this. There are times when I really, really need to get not only outdoors but go out in the woods. I saw this in the wikipedia article here.

One Toke Over the Line

A modern spiritual or about scoring some weed?



It is all about the boo! And here is the original.

Weather

It is the middle of November and still pretty mild. I am really enjoying it. i don't intend on sounding like a doom and gloomer but I am kinda waiting for the shoe to drop while enjoying the good weather. If this proves to be a mild winter, I would not complain in the least. Last winter was harsh enough and getting a break on heating bills is a welcomed thing in a good economy or bad. We shall see and will enjoy this mild weather as long as it lasts.

Geotalk Podcast

I enjoy waymarking and one of the categories I like doing is the blogs category. They are a coach potato way of waymarking which is both a plus and a minus. the plus is that I generally get to see interesting things online: the negative is that they are not getting me out to see something new. However, I found one neat blog from this category. It is here. It is for this podcast. Even though it is made in Australia and has a an australian focus, it has a generally appel that geocachers every where should be interested. I am enjoying the episodes I have heard so far. Check it out for yourself.

Amy Yoder Bagley

One of the local celbreties around North Eastern Indiana is Amy Yoder Bagley. She is from the area and made it to the Olympics. I am going to highlight her website (here) for this week's webness.

DiHydrogen MonOxide

A lot of people do not know the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide. As a result, I am going to use ts week's webness to help enlighten people. The link is here. Enjoy!!

Redcrossracing.com

This is a follow up on a post I made about recrossracing.com. I finally got enough points to get the binoculars. They are a pair of sport binoculars which mean they are low power but small and fit into your pockets. Perfect for the NASCAR audience they are aiming at. It is kinda nice to get a promo for donating blood especially since I was doing it anyway. I was also glad to see that it arrived within the window they said. The website said it would tke them 6-8 weeks to show up and it tokk about 7&1/2weeks to show up. I am figuring that I will have the enough points to get a duffle bag from them by the end of the year. I will report in when that goes through.

The Great Leaves and Eaves Race

It must be the beginning of November and just past Halloween. It is leaf clean up time. This is the time of year where I race the cold weather to clean the leaves off the lawn and out of the gutter. Fortunately, the leaves have fallen in the shortest time I have seen for a while. Since it fell so fast, there are extra big piles of leaves in the street waiting for the city crew to pick them up. I think I will have the gutters and leaves done with no problem before the cold weather hits this year. That is fine with me since I remember me whining about how cold it was for last years gutter clean. Let me just say that I would not mind the weather we had today to hang around a good long time. It was a glorious day. The day was so glorious that if I did not have outside jobs to do today, I would have came up with excuses for being out.

Dark Shadows Festival

I loved the old gothic horror soap opera of Dark Shadows. It aired from 19676 to 1969 but I caught it in reruns on the Scfi channel. I am no where close to being the only fan. There is a festival to celebrate all things Dark shadows. There website is here. Enjoy!

Dillinger Robs Auburn Cops

In the course of me waymarking and reading up on local history and all things interesting at least to me, I cam across the fact the John Dillinger had robbed the Auburn police. I have been wanting to do this as a waymark for a while but never quit got around to it until now. To find out more about the waymark and the robbery check out this link. If you want to find out more about John dillinger you can check out this website.

Wooden Nickels

I was reading a book about different curiosities of Texas and found this website about wooden nickels. The link is here. I think it is funny that they do wooden nickels for geocachers. I enjoying geocaching and I have a few wooden tokens from my fellow cachers. Just thought it was a back door way of finding out about of of the companies who make them. Enjoy the link.

Huntertown, Indiana

I have been out waymarking. This time it focused on Huntertown, Indiana. The three I did where all at the same spot. It was at the town hall where there was a historical sign. While doing research for the waymark, I found out there was a wikipedia page for Huntertown but then again , how many things can escape wikipedia anymore. I should not be surprised when i am willing to put things on waymarking.com.
Town Hall
Hitorical Sign

Michigan Photos

I am finally getting back to some pictures from ny trip to Michigan. The top one is a memorial at the Frankfurt legion. The bottom two are pictures from the casino in Manistee. that casino has an excellent but expensive buffet. It was worth the money to go but I was still glad someone else was picking up the bill that night.

PS I hate it when I push publish before I put a delay on these posts or get them all cleaned up. Really look s crappy and I do like pacing them out when I get a couple done in a day. It is either feast or famine for getting these done.

Halloween Displays

I have been walking around the neighbourhood and enjoying seeing the Halloween displays. Despite all the angst people have about the ghoulies and ghosties and wee small beasties, it is a fun holiday. I use to enjoy the holiday for getting candy and now I enjoy handing it out. I hope you enjoy the pictures I took while I was out.

GI Joe's

I like plugging local businesses. I also like army surplus stores. The week's webness does both. It is for a store in Fort Wayne called Gi Joe's Army Surplus. Their site is here. Check out their site. Better yet, check out their store and buy something. They are a neat store.

Fall

It is definitely getting to be fall around her. I have given up the shorts and sandals for boots and pants and the wearing of a jacket. It amazed me that i actually turned on the heat yesterday morning just to take the edge of the chill in the house. It has since been off. I am also going to be taking my walks later in the day since the mornings are getting too col and I want to take advantage of the warmer weather later in the day. It is raining today and looks like it is going to rain all day so I think getting out is off. That is a pisser. I realize that there are gong to be days where the weather is going to keep me in but that does not stop me from wanting daily outside time. I am going to try an experiment this winter of trying my best to get out everyday or as close to everyday as I can and see if that helps with my winter doldrums. We shall see how that works out.

Tinker's Folly Website

I like tinkering and building but I like looking at other people's projects even more so. There are a lot of talented people out there that have more talent and drive than I do to actually get out and do. One site that shows one person's tinkering is here. Enjoy!

First Online Church of "Bob"

I did a post for the church of the subgenius a few weeks ago. I am also adding the first online church of "Bob" to the mix. It is here.

Irony

James Dean died on this date in 1955 and before he did, he made this safety ad. Ironic that he died in a car accident after making an ad about being safe in a car.

Here is the video.

Michigan Travels

I went up to Michigan last weekend. It was mainly to help the in laws with getting wood in this winter but I also got to enjoy going up and got some waymarking in. One place I went was to the grave of Henry Starke. He was the founder of Arcadia, Michigan. I was hoping to place him in the famous person category but unfortunately he is not well enoughI known. I was hoping that was not the case but I can post the pictures here anyway.

While in Frankfurt,Michigan, I saw a couple of neat things. One of which is the cannon at the Father Charlevoix Park. I also got to see a light house out on a long thin breakwater. I di dnot go all the way out to the liighthouse due to the fact there were no guard rails and the waves were just high enough to get the top of the breakwater wet and i did not want either Kim or to fall in so we enjoyed the view from the turn point of the break water. We also saw a Michigan historical marker thsat told of where a Jesuit missionary died. Ther was a big cross ther that we thought was neat.


We came across a few other things but due to tiredness and trying to get things back to normal, that will have to wait for another post. Hopefully I can back to do a part two of this soon but at least I got this far.

The Mercury Theatre on the Air

On thing I enjoy is old radio shows and one of those is Mercury theatre on the air. There is a website with their shows. It is here. Enjoy!

Red Cross Racing

I have been really big on donating blood. I won't beat you up for not donating but I am more than glad to share my view that it is the right thing to do. I don't want to sound entirely noble. One of the reason i donate blood is that I hope that when it is time for me or one of mine to get blood for medical reasons, it is available. Without getting too much into reasons or motives, it is an important thing to do.

Recently, it came to my attention that NASCAR is helping out the Red Cross with a program called Red Cross Racing. They are offering NASCAR goodies for donating. You can check out the website here for details. I would give them but I don't want to get them wrong and misrepresent the program. Check out the website and get some goodies for doing the right thing. Sonds like a whole bunch of awesome to me.

Evening Walk

It was funny the other night. My wife and I went for a walk the other night with the dog. we meet up with one of our neighbors who asked if we minded if she tagged along. A little later, we met up with two little girls who also joined our band of merry walkers. There was talk of everything and nothing. Only in a small town can a bunch of random neighbors gather for an impromptu walk together and share a little bit of a walk. I like getting to know the neighborhood and I like small towns. The fact I like small towns should be no surprise to anyone who reads this blog regularly.

Church of the Subgenius

One of the weirder sites I have found is the church of the subgenius. It's website can be found here. It also has a wikipedia page here.

Labor Day Weekend GPSr games

I have been having some fun with they way of gps games lately. Between doing a combo hunt of geocaches, waymarks and benchmarks and doing a bit of planning, I am getting my gps games to follow my life instead of the other way around. One part of the waymarking stratagem is getting familiar with the waymarking categories so I waymark the things that come across my path. It gets kinda amazing how many things you pass up on a holiday weekend once you start knowing what to look for. Some of the categories are more interesting than others but isn't that the case with everything.Three of the things i have foound lately is the bell tower at St Mark's Lutheran church in Auburn, the welcome bear at the Noble County fairground and a benchmark in Traverse City, Michigan. All of which were done will doing other things. This new way of playing seams to be really working. I doubt if I am going to be getting a lot of FTFs on caches for the next while or be a high number cacher or waymarker but the hobby is getting to be more fun than it has been for a while. I don't really care, I am starting to raise the score on neat things that I am finding. I am rediscovering the reason I got into geocaching in the first place and that was to play with technolgy and find neat things. Kinda simple.

The Giraffe Boards

I do a bit of onlining and enjoy a fourm or two. One forum I have been hanging out at lately it the Giraffe Boards. It is a fun place to hang out one and you can find it here.

Full Circle Magazine

Please bear with me, I am still on my Ubuntu kick. There is an online magzine for the Ubuntu community. It is here. Enjoy!

Geo Games Observations

I have been noticing that I have trying out the different waymarks categories more and also either biking to do waymarks or doing waymarks on the way to doing errands. This is also how I have been doing caching more and more. It will be interesting to see how this takes my geo games. I guess I just don't want to take the extra time and gas money to do special runs just for the hobby. I am also noticing that waymarking has opened up some options closer to home. Guess how I do the hobby is always going to be shifting and changing so I might as well enjoy it.

Waymarking Categories

I have been doing some waymarking and sometimes get surprised when I find another category to place my data. I should not be since it is not like I have the categories memorized and should expect it but it always takes me by surprise and is kinda fun. I also enjoy sharing the data.

I recently found out there was a WPA catergory and posted this waymark.

Happy Birthday Mr Cuppy

On Friday, I found out that there was a grave of an author that my wife and I like that is buried locally. We decided to go find it so we could waymark it as a grave of a famous person. The funny thing is that his birthday is today. Although I posted it on Friday, it was approved today, on his birthday. I find that amusing. Here is the link for the waymark.

Goth Waymarking

I am not trying to make it sound like I am goth or that I am any sort of expert on being goth but I have been feeling like I am still going on the darker side for doing waymarks. I have recently done a mausoleum waymark lately, and yesterday I was wandering around a cemetery looking for the grave of a local author that I am waiting to have approved. There are several categories on waymarks dealing with cemeteries and graves. There is world wide cemeteries, abandoned cemeteries, graves of a famous person among others. It can be pretty neat. I have seen some pretty neat headstones. I guess grave stompinig is part of the hobby.

Ubuntu Pocket Guide

I am still on my Ubuntu kick. I am using it to do this post. It is not perfect but neither is Mr Gates OS. The nice thing is that I have Ubuntu set up as a portable OS. Anyway, I found a pocket guide that is at least helping a bit to get me to understand this new world of Ubuntu and Linux. The Link for it is here. It is this week's weekly webness.

Geo biking

I dropped off a geocoin and a TB today at a cache in the park pictured above. It was close enough to bike to but it still was a bit warm so I drove. I also wanted to go over to the chamber of commerce to get a Garrett and a county map which made driving make even more sense. Since I was caching and thinking about waymarks and getting local maps, I got to thinking. (dangerous I know) I could go find and get info on a lot of waymarks by biking around once the temps ease a little. It has a bit better but once being comfortable is on the plate, i could get some waymarking and biking for exercise in. A nice combining of hobbies and getting more exercise in. Sounds like it is full of win. Having places to go will probably encourage more miles out of me. I will exercise for exercise sake but it amazing how putting more fun into it or giving it a point gets a bit more out of me.

Weather

When you live in Indiana, you learn to obsess about the weather. I don't know if it is because it is the only thing to talk about sometimes or if it is because the weather can be so dang strange at times. Like today, it has been dry for a very long time and today we have been storms all day and there is a chance of flash flood in some spots. I wish it could have been a bit slower so it could soak in but what we want or need is not what we get all the time. It is cooling down the weather nicely. I am wondering if the heat bubble to about to burst for the year. It is that time of year where it could be starting to cool down or it could hold on really hot for the next month. depends on the year. Mark Twain is so right about how everyone complains about the weather and nobody does anything about it and I am no exception.

I do like the sound of rolling thunder and I am glad I am not hearing the percussive stuff that makes you jump out of your skin because it sounds too close.

Waymarking and benchmark hunting

The Indiana DNR with the Department of water has set up a bunch of benchmarks throughout Indiana. The database for that is here. I found tow of these benchmarks yesterday and made waymarks out of them. (here and here). They are neat and the database does not have coordinates for them. Since I find them neat, I think I will continue to hunt for them. I have enjoyed benchmark hunting for a while and i don't want to stick to just one database of them. The National geodetic Survey has a good database but they also do not have a list of every benchmark out there. So I will be looking for more benchmarks andmore databases of them so I never have to run out of things to look for. Coolness- life is good.

Cheap Astronomy

I have enjoyed astronomy for a while. Even though i have spent my share of money on books and equipment, I really enjoy the perspective of trying to get the biggest bang for my hobby buck. The cheap astronomy website is aimed at just this. check their website out here.

Mausoleum

While I was out caching this week, I came across a mausoleum. I always thought they are neat structures. This one has the date of 1917. I also waymarked it andthat waymark can be found here. Enjoy!

Going Caching

I went caching yesterday and it was a bit different than normal. I usually go by myself or more frequently with my wife. Yesterday, I went with Tenorplayer which was fun a nice change up. Not that I mind going with my wife or by myself but having someone else is a nice change up. Thanks tenorplayer.

Now if the weather can just get cooler so I don't feel so hot and sweaty. UGH!

Waymarking Again

Not a surprise, I was waymarking while running errands again. I just can't get around doing special runs for geocaching or waymarking anymore. It is not like I can't find neat tings along the way. Sometimes it can be hard but sometimes it comes ever so easy. The mural and the historical sign I came across was on the way down to Hyde brothers. Both, I thought were pretty neat.

I have earned GSA's highest level:

I got an email with the above code and stating that the earthcache master program is giving these out instead of pins anymore. Not a surprise on two accounts. One is the point that the economy is in th etiolet and things like the pins however cheap, are going to go by the wayside. The other thing is the earthcache program has exploded and is on the downturn. Does not make it a bad progrram but the big rush to do is over. Oh well.

Funny Commercial

This commercial is fairly safe but still may not be safe for work.

Linux Podcasts

I have just starting to use Ubuntu Linux and a total newb to using Linux. I have started looking for podcasts about Linux. I found a bunch here. So far, i have not checked nay of them out but I will put the ones I like on further weekly webness as I find them.

It is August

So we are now in August and so far the summer has not been too bad. The only problem I can really complain about is not getting quite cool enough at night for me. I sleep best on chilly fall nights. I can deal with the daytime heat a lot better if I can cool off over night and get a decent night sleep in. I probably won't get that for another 3 weeks to a month. I know that cool is not guaranteed until September and sometimes even not then. With such a cool July I was kinda hoping it would carry through but the 90s are in the forecast. A friend of mine who lives in Cincinnati says it a nice place to live. If I can't hack the summers here, then there is no way in the world I could hack them even further south. I wish I could leave at least a bit closer to one of the great lakes so that could moderate the extreme temps at least a bit.

Here is to counting down the days of summer. Come on Autumn, I am cheering you on now.

posting

I have been a bit slack in posting to this blog. Maybe things can change a bit and I can start posting more. Life has been Blander than plain white rice so not so much to report.

Diet Update

My diet and exercise program is still going on. Running up against some problems over the last while. One of which is the heat of summer. I have been trying to get up at 6 in the morning to take advantage of the cool or the morning or doing my exercise after dinner after the worst of the heat is over. the other problem is that I am starting to plateau on just walking. I have been adding bike riding to the mix while still dealing with the summer heat.

It is getting into the realm of being a mental game. I really wish this journey to getting healthier was all happiness and light and all I had to do was go out walking with my dog frolicking at my side. Some days I really hate having to go out for a walk or a bike ride because I need to instead of just enjoying it. I watch birds along the walks, use podcasts to keep myself entertained and my dog is really good at motivating me to move when i don't want too. The mental game is a hard one to keep up but giving up won't help either.

Later today, I will yet again for a walk, just because I need to.

The Hacker's Quarterly

This week's website is dedicated to hacking. they also have some radio shows/ podcasts. Check them out here.

Tobasco Ad

There is a reason why I love Tabasco

.

Ubuntu

I have been checking out Ubuntu (link). It is a Linux OS. I have been wanting a Linux box for a while and this just might be a way to do it. So far I have been able to make a working boot flash stick using it. So far, I have been enjoying it. I need to do a bit more work to get it a fully functioning os on the stick. I have been learning a lot and feel like I am swimming over my head with this but hopefully I can get this to work. Since Linux is open source, I am hoping to play with that as well. Hopefully I can geet a Linux Lab for the price of a flash drive. Check back for more details.

Letterboxing North America

Since I am starting to get inot letterboxing, here is another letterboxing site called letterboxing North America (link). Like I said last week, it is going hunting for hindden boxes and is quite fun. It is also a very similar hobby to geocaching and waymarking but not quite. Variants of a theme with different flavors. Check it out and enjoy.

Peak Summer Heat

Statistically speaking, where I live is entering the hottest part of summer. Funny thing is that June had some hotter weather than we are having now. I am not complaining. It would be nice to have the peak of summer be mild and then August not be all that bad. I am hoping for this and not expecting. August and September can both be hot and nasty. That does not mean they have to be. At least with August and September, the days are hot and the nights are more tolerable whereas as July is just hot. Keep in mind this is a generality and not written in stone.Kinda be nice if the worst part of the heat was on the milder side this time around. Here is to hope.

Atlas Quest

This week's webness is Atlasquest.com (link). It is one the websites for letterboxing that is out there. It is about an interesting treasure hunt where you get clues to find hidden boxes. check it out.

The Walking Site

As I have mentioned in my diet posts, I have exercising by walking a lot more. The walking site can give you more information on that. The link is here.

2009 the international Year of Astronomy

This year is the international year of astoronomy. I guess I am really behind in reporting this but I guess in honour of this I am still going to do a link to the website telling more of this. The link is here.

Hydbrid Hunting

I have been a gps gamer both as Captian Spaulding and "Paws"itraction for a while now. I think the longer I do this, the more divers ways I will do this. It started out just geocaching then i folded benchmarks and waymarks also came in. I am also going GPSr-less with letterboxing. I am really amused with the morphing styles of play. It will be interesting to see how my play changes as new elements are picked up and let go.

Just as a side note, I am starting to get another irratation about micros. I have two travel bugs that I picked up and am having a problem placing because of the lack of bigger caches that can hold them. The one I got because it was in an unknowncache that was not listed and the other was given to me to get moving. I am getting plans to get them moving however. I just wish it was a bit more timely.

Earth Trek

There is a new project online called Earthtrek. (link) It is a proejct that needs everyday people to collect information for science. Two fo the projects start the first of July. check it out and see what there is there of interest.

Summer is here!

The summer equinox was a couple of days ago and the weather is definitely showing it is summer. It is hot. I also think it is silly that people think that summer starts at solstice. It has been summer weather around here since the beginning of May around here. At the same time, come this September, when the equinox comes, it will be cooling down for a while and heading for the cooler weather that I love so much about fall. Yes I was belly aching about the cold of winter but I also hate the heat of summer. Like the ever Mark twain said, everyone complains about the weather but no one ever does anything about it.

In the meanwhile,the statistical hottest weak of the year is still a month away. It is the third weak of July. Let us see how it goes.

Shaving Tips

I can't believe Gillette did this. The video is pretty safe but not necessarily safe for work.it is still funny.

New Fence

Fence Posts Already In

The Fence is finally going in. The fence posts are up and just waiting for the crew to finish up with the panels.

Wil Wheaton's Blog

I am a trek fan who also likes the the humor of Wil Wheaton. I just wish he was written better in Next Gen. I get the feeling so does he. His blog is here. Enjoy!

The Fence

We are replacing our old fence. We are having someone put in a new one but we took out the old one ourselves. The cool things is that our neighbours helped us out with it. Pretty nice. Even funnier , we had a second neighbour want some of the old fence to burn. Here I thought we would have to work to get rid of the fence. Just glad the job is over. I can't wait for the new fence, Kai does not like either being tied out or being watched to go into his own yard.

Chess.com

Chess.com is a neat website if you want to learn more about chess. If you want to upgrade your game, check it out.

General Fuzz

I enjoy ambient music. I also like getting things free. At gereralfuzz.net, you can get free ambient music. Talk about living in the land of bonus and awesome sauce. Check there site out here.

Telstar by the Tornados

popcorn by Hot Butter

Letterboxing

My wife and I tried letterboxing out this weekend. I t seams like it is going to be a nice add on to the gps games except that it will be without the gps. We went to a letterboxing event which had quite a few temporary letterbox hides that were easy ahnd gave us a tasted of letterboxing. Now to start using atlasquest.com and go out on our own to find. the most ackward part is trying to deal with the stamps on the trail. The neat thing is that there are some absolutely geourgeous hand carved stamps out there. In any case, it will help with getting out of the house and up off our no so little behinds and try to walk them smaller. That is always a good thing.

New Walking Stick

I was walikng the dog on Friday when one one of the neighbors said he had something for me. He also said he had noticed I was a walker and might want to have a wallking stick. What is pictured is what i got for free, Wow!

Post Boxes

I was out walking around the neighborhood when I noticed an announcement on one of the post boxes in the neighborhood. It is going to be taken out as part of the post office cut backs. My wife and I checked on a couple of other post boxes and found out that 3 of the 4 we checked on were going to be removed and taken out of service. i am not really surprised by 2 of those since they were part of a group of three that were all spaced a block apart. So the most anyone would have to walk more is two blocks more than they would have. Fortunately, the one I usually use is going to remain so no difference for me.

Sweet!

Earlier this year, the Komets won the
Turner cup. Today I was able to get my Komet practice jersey signe dby Guy Dupuis and Bob Chase. Cool and SWEET!

Rain and the Black Swamp

Here in Garrett, we live where the Black Swamp historically was. (Link) Even with draining the swamp, the history of the land still remains. Around here, it is not a matter if there will flooding in the spring but when and how much. The backyard swamped up yesterday with the rains we had the night before. It was a case of i was glad it rained because it filled the pool again without cost but the lawn was a mess to cut but I needed to get it cut before it rained again.

Getting back to the flooding in spring, I have gotten to the point where I give up driving the back routes when it is wet just because of the flooding. I made the mistake of going of going through some water across the road once and almost flooded the Explorer. That was the day I learned that Ford Explorers float for at least a little bit. I would not want to use it as a boat however.

You also know when you live on an ex swamp when the school kids get fog days on a regular basis in fall.

Hyde Brothers

I love reading books and am always on the prowl for a good source of them. One good place to both get new to you and get rid of the books you no longer want is at Hyde Brothers. they also have a website and you can check them out here.

Diet update

I am up to a 30 lbs lose and I think I am the lightest I have been for many, many years. I am also not done yet and no where close. As you may guess if you have not met me, yes I am very overweight. (more like morbidly obese) That is the bad news and is hopefully going forever into the past. Improving my diet and not going out to eat as much has helped my weight and blood pressure as well as my cholesterol by doing the 10,000 step program. (see Link) It is a great program. It is cheap to start because you only need a bottom of the line pedometer to get started and you can work it very easily into your lifestyle. I have not gotten up to the 10K a day step average yet, but even without getting there, I have been losing weight, improving my blood pressure and improving my cholesterol levels. That, I think, is far more important than necessarily getting and maintaining the 10K average. Your mileage may vary. So get out there and start working and just work on improving until you get results or get to the goals you want and need.

Disclaimer: I am not a health care professional by any means and just a person who is on the path to getting healthier. Check with your health care provider before trying out anything I say.

geo weirdness and possible letterboxing

Paws and I were asked to help checkout a possible new cache in Pokagon state Park. we went out found it in order to see if we could pick up a few clues about it. We thougt we might have when we found a TB inside but the Tb (link) had gone MIA and was last seen in Florida. Needless to say, it traveled over a thousand miles without getting logged or tacked. We thought it may have been a letterbox but the TB is making it loook like a geocache but the cache does not seam to be on geocaching.com. This seams to be a mystery without many answers.

The course of conversation over this possible being a letterbox got us some news that there would be a letterbox event at Pokagon state park. we have checked it out adn we are going to try to make it. I am also checking out atlasquest.com and finding out more about it there. we will wait and see how that works out.

USGS Watches the Water

I have linked to this site before in my blog but i am going to highlight it today and that is the USGS site that gives real time data on water in the form of river and streams. This may sound boring to some but when your area has a tendency of flooding then it starts taking on more interest. Check it out and watch the data for flood news you hear the takes place in the US. Check it out here,

Star Wars Death Metal style

AAVSO

I love astronomy and I have heard a bit about the AAVSO or the American Association of Variable Star Observers. Sound like a geeky group of people. Check out their website here.

What I have learned from my diet so far

I have been at my diet for about 3 or 4 months now and I have learned a few things.
1) Health is lifestyle issue and I am in it for the long term.
2) Focus on the factors I can change. My genetics may favor me being overweight but so do my habits. I can change my habits even though I can't change my genetics.
3) I need to be accountable. Even if it is just keeping a food and exercise journal to check why or why not my diet is working. If I am not losing weight, keeping my blood pressure right and the same for any other measurable health factor, then something needs to be done.
4) Forgive myself when I totally blow it and do everything wrong for my health. Then start over and keep on the right track.
5) Make plans for the holidays and those times when it will be tough doing the right choices. I don't have to do everything right but there are ways of making it healthier and still be able to enjoy the season.
6) The change I need to do may be over a lifetime but the true power is in the little things I do everyday. Every meal be a healthy one. Everyday, I will try to do exercise to make my body healthier. Sometimes, it will be a matter of just for this meal, just this moment, I will do the right thing.
7) Getting back to forgiving myself and holidays, there will be days I will take off from the regiment and then get back to it.
8) Admit my part in letting my health get where it is so I can own the solution. As long as the fault is not my own, then I am powerless to control it. If I blame someone else, my genetics or anything else, I remain powerless to change.
9) Come to terms with my limitations. I can do a lot to make myself better but I will still never be a professional athlete or make myself any taller but there are things I can change and improve.

Heaven's Above Website

Do you ever wonder what is up in the sky at night? Would you like to start looking for satellites and know which one you are seeing? Check out the Heavens Above Website here.

Farewell Dom

Dom DeLuise passed away so I am posting one of my favorite scenes with him.

weekend gps games

I was out playing with my gps agin this weekend. I found 2 earthcaches and was able to post 4 more waymarks. It always amazing me how you can waymark a spot and still be able to find a waymark or two more that you did not notice before. I knew about the Lion statue category for a whiel and yet it took me to this week to notice them at he county court house. I was also surprised by the time capsule. I knew about the auburn Historicla District but for some reason never got around to actually doing it. There is always another waymark or cache to place or find. The hunt never ends and the fun goes on.

Snopes

In this age of the internet, it is easy to find information. the only thing that is easier is finding misinformation. If you want help sorting out the fact from fiction, check out snopes here. Please do everyone on your mailing list a favor and check out the fact on snopes before you forward it. One of those people might be me and I would appreciate it.

Geo Games

I have been out enjoying geo games. On Good Friday, I did a waymark of the mausoleum pictured above. (Link)I always though mausoleums were neat and now I get to share where I find them.

I was also able to place my first cache. It is an earthcache and can be found here. It has been found which really geeked me out. Sometimes I wish waymarking was more popular so people would find those more but I think that will come. I think it is funny that ther ewere quite a few earthcaches that were barely found when it was on waymarking but as soon as they went back to geocaching, it took off. Waymarking isn't perfect but it does have some advantages over caching and vice versa. Time to get off my soapbox.