Last Day of 2004

Well today is the last day of the year. It doesn't seem like the year should be over, but it is. The year's caching highlights include.

• Hid 12 caches and a pizza event.
• With Rooster's help I found 53 caches in a single day in Klamath Falls.
• Reached the 300, 400 and 500 cache milestones.
• Visited the location of the Original Stash
• Had my personal geocoins made

My favorite Caches of the year include

• Kirby Peak
• The Lonely Chess Player
• "Hart" of the Great Basin
• Men in Black
• What a Jewel
• Indian Sands Cache
• Automated Cache Machine
• The High [Over 1,000] and The Mighty [Mite]
• Safely Hidden
• Pre's Rock
• Micro-Blast #2
• 1 Ringy Dingy, 2 Ringy Dingy
• Lame Duck # 8 (Lawnridge)
• Where Have All the Bridges Gone
• Over pressure

Thanks to all the great cachers out there who hid these caches and the others that I've found. Have a Happy New Year and see you on the trail in 2005!

Something New

There is a new cache in town Cache for the Holidays by Duck-n-Deedy. Too bad I'm stuck here at work. This time of year us cachers tend to get "cabin fever" so it will be fun to have an excuse to get out (but not too far out.)

Last night OSU defeated Notre Dame 38-21 in the Insight Bowl. It was a pretty good game for us OSU fans. We are going to lose some good players this year so I hope they have some good recruits coming in.

New Cachers

I looked at this new cache in Jacksonville, beekman woods, but what got me was of the 4 logs all of them are fairly new cachers I have not met. Nice to see some new cachers putting out their own hides as well.

One of the new cachers is Beaver Lover who is an OSU grad like myself. Actually my alternate cache name was beaverfan in case blazerfan had been taken. Tonight the Beavers play Notre Dame in the Insight Bowl. Go Beavers!!!

Pizza

I set up a new event cache... Pizza 2005 (XXIV). I am going to buy a new log book and whoever gets the book will set up the next pizza event or face my wrath. There will probably be a drawing like at my last event, and I may devise some sort of awards.

Today's Stuff

Sometimes I like to check out new caches in Oregon, yesterday I noticed the cache 01100111 01100011. I've seen this kind of puzzle before (Monitor) so it was easy for me to solve (and being a Computer Science major doesn't hurt.) The monitor cache was once listed as a regular cache and I spent a long time looking for it with just the coords... after that is when I bought my PDA.

And the Trail Blazers had some news today signing Ha Seung-Jin. He is a big Korean kid who looks like a promising NBA Center. He is 7'3" 305lbs and will be the first Korean to play in the NBA.

Merry Christmas

Today after some gift opening I went and found jinxed micro park. It was pretty cold but otherwise a nice day for caching. Now its about time to eat too much turkey and stuffing. Merry Christmas everybody!

Christmas Eve

I learned something new a few weeks back. If a federal Holiday is on a Saturday the bank does not close on Friday, but if Christmas would have been on Sunday then we'd close for Monday. What a bunch of $#!^. So I am working today. I suppose it could be worse.

As for geocaching news Today's Cacher is talking about becoming a true printed magazine. Right now it is internet only which is handy for having links to caches and such, but I think a printed version would be pretty nice. First however the contents need to improve. As it is now I find myself reading very little of it. But talking about improving it does no good without some action... so I plan on writing an article myself. I know what your saying... I've talked about a camping event, a Grants Pass cache machine, puzzle caches, and an ABA basketball team and so far there's been nothing. Well this time is probably no different, but it is my plan... and one of these days I'll probably do a couple of these things I've said.

My Whack-a-Penguin score is up to 323.5

This is fun

I've just been playing this Smack the Penguin game. So far my high is 316.3

Dang

After 20 consecutive days I forgot to update my blog yesterday. Not a good sign.

I forgot to mention that the first geocoin (#14) I left in a cache has been found by BDC.

Also my travel bug Mosquito Trap is on the move again. It had been held by a cacher for over a year and I emailed them and they placed it. They sounded like good people... but they never found time for geocaching... which means they were never too serious about it. I do wish newbies would think before they pick up a bug. I never pick up bugs anymore... it is too much of a pain to move them along... and I do try to help bugs toward their goals since they have goals for a reason.

My most traveled bug is Skippy the Giraffe with 4053 miles. Some of his stops were never logged. He's been in Oregon, California, Illinois, Wyoming (but never logged into the cache), Montana and Idaho. The last cacher to pick him up has had him a few weeks but is still active so I'm not worried... he was once held for 7 months.

Travel bugs are good in theory but the reality of them is that:
They often sit in caches a long time
People will hold them for weeks (or forever)
Many forget to log them
Most don't care about the goals
Their chances of disapearing are very high

Being that just the tag costs $5 or so its not worth the money.

New Caches

There are three new caches in the area Apple for the teacher by Biggie et_al, jinxed micro park by Duck-n-Deedy and Grants Pass Peak by DrDan52000. Apple for the teacher is close to the area of an archived Biggie et_al cache. The jinxed park is of course a place I've tried to hide micros twice. Grants Pass peak is a spot on the map I've been looking at a long time because it had an unfound 100 year old benchmark. I've never been sure how to reach the peak... so now I know. Congratulations to Dan for the great benchmark find. I'll be up there soon to find the cache. Nice to see some activity in the area.

Done

I am done with Christmas shopping. Now I just have to wait a week... this is also the end of my vacation so it is back to work tomorrow. Over vacation I only found a few caches but I did get my Christmas shopping done and I scanned my whole token collection.

My next thing is to make up a bunch of New Years resolutions that I can break :)

New trade items

I got 5 different geo-tokens from FishPOET. The tokens are engraved metal attached to a poker chip and are pretty nice items. Each of them has a different design. I'll post pictures soon.

GeoCop

Sometimes I like to look at the old caches around and see if they've been found lately or are missing. Today I noticed one of my favorite old caches I Hate I-5 (Top of the World) is missing. Since it is a J-freaks cache it is not going to be checked by the owner. They are not active and abandoned all of their caches... so I won't be accused of playing GeoCop if I put an archive note on the cache. I've never met J-freaks they may be good people but my opinion of them is low since the way they abandoned their caches... only a handful survive now but I have wasted a lot of time searching for some of them.

While I try not to annoy active cachers there have been times were there were a lot of disabled and missing caches that have just sat around in the area... if no one speaks up then we just have a bunch of crap on our cache map and it doesn't make our area look very good. Rural caches especially seem to sit unmaintained... no wonder few people venture out of town.

Nothing new

I ventured over to Medford today, but didn't bother to find even a single cache. I bought one gift certificate and looked for another gift but didn't find what I wanted. My dad might be getting just cash.

I've spent a lot of time scanning my collection of Grants Pass tokens. The website isn't finished yet but should soon include my whole collection and some info on each token.

Shopping

My Christmas shopping is almost done. I have just one more gift to buy and maybe a gift certificate. So I plan to travel all the way to Meford tomorrow. Depending on the weather I might pick up a cache or too.

The only geocoin I have left in the wild is still up for grabs. Hard to imagine things are so dead that no one will go out of their way for a fun multi-cache with such a prize. Despite what is said I find the occasional multi cache to be fun. I know they are frowned upon by many locals... as are puzzles. I think I'll hide a puzzle cache or two in 2005.

This area is dead

My Southern Oregon Geocacher group hasn't had a message posted since October. Not only has there been no discusion but there has been little to no geocaching going on. I've been among the slow so I don't guess I can talk.

The last couple of days I have been shopping for Christmas, but I hope to get out geocaching this week sometime.

More Trades Arrived

I got a number of new items today. An Avroair coin, a Square T coin and a Hachie Hounds wooden nickel. These were some nice items and look good in my collection. When I get 4 more items I'll post a new picture of my collection.

Funny stuff

Lazyboy can sure get himself worked up. This time he had his account suspended for 3 days. I wonder what he was like before he got older and calmed down a bit.

The Blazers beat Utah tonight 98-88. Sabastian Telfair is quickly becoming my favorite player. The team just seems so much better when he's in... he brings a lot of energy into the game.

#500

I finally found my 500th cache. Where Have All the Bridges Gone by drdan52000. It was a fun multi cache. I also left the first of my blazerfan geocoins out in the wild. It will be interesting to see if it gets someone out to find it.

On the day uncle Duck and I also got Double A and A View From the Elk's Back. We were unable to get the cache At Beaver Slide because of all the people. Lots of people out riding quads and cutting Christmas trees.

Some good games

Last night Shareef Abdur-Rahim had a last second shot to win the game for the Blazers against the Celtics. It was a pretty nice finish.

The game was the second of back to back games on TNT that ended with last second shots. The earlier game Houston and San Antonio ended with Tracy McGrady scoring 13 points in the last 37 seconds to come back from 10 down and win the game... Simply amazing. I'm sure glad I was watching.

Back to geocaching I am still on find #499 but I am now on vacation and will be able to find as many caches as I like, weather permitting, for the next week.

ABA basketball

To change the subject of the blog again I am looking into the idea of bringing an ABA basketball team to Southern Oregon. Like most of my grand projects it is probably all talk and no action but the idea of owning my own minor league basketball team is intriguing.

The price is incredibly low. The entrance fee for the ABA is $10,000. So with 10k and a business plan you can own an ABA team. So now I need a business plan. The operation cost of an ABA team should be $300k to $500k which of course I don't have. So of course my first step would be to create a corporation to run the team... so if it went bankrupt my personal credit wouldn't be hurt. As for a venue I think Compton Arena which can seat 3,320. It seems to be about average for an ABA team. Then we'd need a hardwood court we could assemble on site as well as baskets. And how many people will attend... need some market research. This is getting expensive.

Just another day

I received a new trade last night... an original Moun10Bike coin. I traded an Oregon and Canada coin for it, which wasn't a bad price in my opinion.

Looking for the weather to improve so that I can grab cache #500 this weekend. I have a couple different ones in mind depending on the weather.

Kidd unwilling to be a Blazer

If this is true than Jason Kidd can KMA and rot in Jersey

Blog, blog, blog

Not much geocaching news today. I'm still at 499 and probably will be until the weekend. I didn't get anymore trades in the mail but am still waiting on a few.

I havn't seen any signs of a pizza event for this month. So far in 2004 we've skipped March, June and October. If December follows we'll have skipped 1/3 of the year.

Changing the topic of this blog for a minute the blazers are talking about a trades for Jason Kidd and Vince Carter. I'm not holding my breath but I'd sure like to see some players who can make shots. They are 8-8 right now and look to be out of the playoffs if it continues much longer. The Western Conference is tough being a .500 team just won't get it done.

Stop or I'll Shoot!

Yesterday I got another trade in the mail... a famous joefrog marshmallow gun :) and an AGA geocoin. I shot a lot of marshmallows around the house and I've never had so much fun. Too bad my dog doesn't like marshmallows... I would have liked it if he cleaned up. Sadly I was being lazy for a week or more and didn't mail a coin to joefrog until yesterday.

As much as I like to trade I am bad at keeping track of them. Or at least I think I am... I just hope I don't owe anybody anything. In a previous log I mentioned that I once made a trade and never received a wooden nickel in return... so today I emailed the user and I'll see what happened. I hope they weren't lost in the mail. When I traded nickels with WeeElvis he sent me 3 nickels in a plain envelope and I received 2 nickels in 5/6 of an envelope. I don't know how the other 2 stayed in.

499 and counting

With Uncle Duck's new cache "Paper Anyone" I am now sitting at find #499. It was also my 12th FTF. Duck just happened to be FTF on my newest cache today as well.

Biggie et_al wrote to tell me today that my cache Big Pine, Ancient Pine? was missing. It should have been an easy find so I archived it. I'll go up and have a look... maybe hide a new cache or two, but that will probably be in the spring.

Last night I made two new coin trades, and today I braved the wind and rain to go to the post office to send them out. I enjoy trading coins almost as much as I like to go geocaching. I'll take a new picture of my collection soon.

I am also pretty happy with myself for keeping my blog active... now I wonder if anyone actually reads it

A good day for caching

Today I found GOING TO POTTsville a cache hidden by my good friends Iseek and Eyeseek2. Pottsville is a place in Merlin where they have old tractors and other machinery. Pottsville was started by Debbs Potts who was once mayor of Grants Pass and headed the lottery comission till he retired just a few months back and he died just a few days later. My Grandpa worked for Debbs in his saw mill for a while.

I also hid a new cache that I called I Hate I-5 LXXVII. I don't know how many I hate I-5 caches exist but 77 seemed like a good number. Its an easy enough cache to grab.

Coins arrived

A couple of my Trades have arrived including a MiGo coin. This is the second MiGo coin I traded for but I have still yet to get the other one. Team Tillery also sent me a couple signature flashlights and buttons. I also got a GeoVamp Wooden nickel with some signature bats. Great trades... I should still have some more on the way and two I need to send out.

I went shopping today rather than try for my 500th. It is damn cold but otherwise was not a bad day. If it is not snowing tomorrow I may try to hide a cache... I have a general location but no spot picked out. I might also just sit around home... we'll see

TGIF

I noticed yesterday in Lazyboy's blog he had a cache map of all the states he has cached in. Since my map would have 2 states highlighted it really wouldn't be worth the effort. So I created this map of oregon to kindof show where I've cached.

Geocoin trades

I have new trades pending with joefrog and Defender1 for my blazerfan geocoins. I should also soon be receiving a few wooden nickels I have traded for. I have traded with many people and only once got cheated... I might write to that person again someday and see whats up... they probably just forgot... but it was only for wooden nickels so I was never upset by it.

I have also been made aware that if you google KV Coins (googled) that the third item is a post of mine about them in the GC forums. So far I know of two new geocoins that will be made by KV thanks in part to my referal. Christmas seems to be the time for geocoins as I have heard many people mention that they have designs in the works. I can't wait to see some new coins.

I am also 3 away from my 500th cache. I am looking for something close, but slightly challenging. Maybe this one.

a new hope

I created this blog over the summer in hopes of documenting great geocaching adventures... well there weren't many. But I'm bringing the blog back and hopefully it will last for a few days :)