Animal Crackers

Animal Crackers

Saturday, March 28, 2009

The Garden Experiment

I have been growing house plants for a while. I have fairly well. I never been interested in a garden because I did not want to invest the effort into one and don't have a good place to put one with the dog and pool in the back yard. I have found a solution to get my feet wet woith growing produce. I am starting a a box garden. It is going to be trays of herbs and pots of tomatoes. It will be small but it is also going to be a trial effort. I will be increasing it as I get things working and learn more.
I will report back later and hopefully with pictures.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The Little Steps Diet

I have started a diet that I am either calling the little steps diet or the low carb salsa diet. I am trying to add more veggie to my diet which includes doing a lot of tortilla wraps that have home made garden salsa on it regardless of what the meat is. I am watching the carbs to help lose weight. I am drinking more water and trying to have more fiber. I am also trying to walk more. This may sound s like a lot of things but it is all done in the context that I do a few more steps today of walking. With each meal, i try to make sure I eat healthy. I have already lost about 5-10 pounds and have started to feel better. I have a long way to go to get my weight down to where I want to go. So it is going to be one little step, one day at a time until I get there and hopefully by the time I get there, i will have healthy habits that will stay and keep me in the good.

I will try to to report in more on the progress.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Waymarking.com

I have been noticing that waymarking .com is getting a little jiggy lately. There have been bugs especially over the weekends and Mondays. I think it is due to several reasons. One, it is spring and I think people are out caching and waymarking a lot more. Two, they just added some new features. Third, they are at about 170,000 waymarks over nearly 900 categories. The site is getting popular. the waymarking site is going through growing pains a lot like geocaching.com did a few years back and still does occasionally. It is understandable but yet a bit frustrating when you are trying to catch up on the logging and submitting side of the hobby. I will bear with it and hopfully the problems will subside. Until them, I will still be hunting for more waymarks and caches.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Weather

I have done more than my share of belly aching over the weather on this blog. It is about time I changed that. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous. not to hot or cold. It has been chilly but that is not anything to complain about and the tha is usually in the morning and getting mild by afternoon. I have been out walking the dog for at least a half mile everyday for the last week which has been putting me and the dog in a good mood. Both of us prefer to be outside and the weather is promoting that desire. I am wondering when that will result in more caching. I should not worry about that since i have been sneaking in enough waymarking lately.

I better sign off and finiswh listening to the Komets. With the warmer weather, hockey playoffs and the end of the season can not be too far away.

Uncensored History of the Blues

Like I have said in previous posts, I like the blues. This is a second blues podcast that I like. Check it out here.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

St Patrick's Day

The following is Saint Patrick's breastplate and the real reason for today's holiday.


I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through the belief in the threeness,
Through the confession of the oneness
Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth with his baptism,
Through the strength of his crucifixion with his burial,
Through the strength of his resurrection with his ascension,
Through the strength of his descent for the Judgment Day.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of Cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In the service of archangels,
In hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In prayers of patriarchs,
In predictions of prophets,
In preaching of apostles,
In faith of confessors,
In innocence of holy virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of rock.

I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save me
From snares of demons,
From temptations of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel merciless power that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ to shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me abundance of reward.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the threeness,
Through confession of the oneness,
Of the Creator of Creation.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Do you like ambient music?

If you do, you might want to check out this week's website. the link (here) is a feed for an ambient music podcast. Check it out.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Flooding

It must be spring, it is flooding again in North East Indiana. If you check this link, you can see how much the water how increased in one of the local creeks. This website updates all the time so if you are reading this at a much later time, you won't see what I am looking at unless you look at the archive. It is scary. Not like I have not done this in past springs but I have given up on going on back roads as much as I use to. Just not worth swamping the car. I floated the Explorer once and it was darn lucky that it did not get totaled by water damage. If you are any where in the area, be careful out there. If you are from around here, still be careful out there and hopefully it is drier where you are.

PS I have been hearing people are getting stuck in the water and getting ticketed for it.

Just FYI.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Weekend Waymarking












































I was able to get some more waymarking in while erranding this weekend. the category that I really enjoyed doing was the blood donation center. If you have read my blog for a while, you probably have read that I am a regular blood donor and really like the idea of one of my hobbies highlighting where you can go to donate blood.

I was also able to do one waymark in the public access land caegory. I lthink I will be doing a bunch more of those. I really enjoy being outside and being in the woods and natural places. That by definition is going to bring me to public access land. So does geocaching. I ran across this public access spot pictured above by finding a geocache. Too bad it was only a guard rail cache but that was just bout the only kind of cache that would go in there. Micros have their place in geocaching but sometimes I just don't want to look another guard rail or lift another lamp post skirt.

Oh well, if we all cached the same way, it would be awlfully boring but I wish I could find more caches in the woods near my house. Those are my favorite. Waymarking and benchmarks change it up so I really should not complain much. Both geocaching and I have moved on since I started caching. Things have changed on all sides.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Bluegrass Radio Show

I have a fondness for bluegrass music. I have a local radio station supplying some of my listening but I don't always get around to listening to it. There is a podcast by the Bluegrass Preservation Society that I like listening to. Their link is here. check it out like it is too your taste

Monday, March 2, 2009

Weekend Activities










































Kim and I had a fun weekend. We went to the home and garden show in Fort Wayne and went to see the movie Friday the 13th at the Strand in Kendallville. We did both with free tickets we had won. Kinda nice when you get stuff for free. I enjoyed the Friday the 13th movie but I am even more glad we did not pay for it. It is a classic slasher movie that is best watched on Saturday afternoon when nothing better is going on. It was full of gratuitous boobs and gore but that is why you watch movies like this. The funniest line in the whole movies came when this one couple was having sex and the guy, in the middle of said action, said, "you have perfectly placed nipples". What the HECK and where did that come from?

I also got a little waymarking in. The really funny one was submitting the Strand Movie theatre as a haunted place and the sign for the thatre had Friday the 13th advertised on it. I have also been enjoying doing bingo card waymarking. Bingo card waymarking is trying to fill the category grid on the site full of different categories you have done. I kind of like to do that since that helps me find the categories that appel to me more. Besides, that is also helpping with my strategy of trying to find waymarks on the way to doing somethign else so I can get the most out of each outing.

Two of the waymarks I did this weekend were:
Strand theatre as a vintage theatre
Strand theatre as a huanted location