Cachin'

Went with SallyC yesterday and found a few caches... just 155 more for 1000. Our finds on the day included

Cathedral Hills Hunt
The Main Canal Cache
Don't Fence Me In

I'm eagerly awaiting Super Bowl XL. I've watched the Seahawks for many years (not religiously like the blazers... but still followed them) through the years they've had good years or years they should be good... but I never really dreamed that one day they'd go to the Super Bowl. It should be fun to watch... I think it will be a good game.

Excitement

Well its been an interesting few days as indicated by my lack of blog entries. I've heard that this weekend may be the weekend we get washed away... suppose to rain a lot, but I'll believe it when I see it.

The last cache I tried for Cathedral Hills Hunt was pretty well hidden and I looked all around with no luck. My GPS was leading me in circles... I'll try it again on the next not so rainy day.

Since I gave up geocoin collecting I have put some of my money into some new LP's and fixing up a couple of old turntables I had. I've always liked vinyl records and have several of them but didn't have anyway to play them for a long time. Now I have 2 turntables... one I got from my uncle which I just have hooked up to some computer speakers. My problem with it was that without an pre-amp it just didn't put out enough sound... you had to have the speakers up all the way just to hear it. After a bit of looking I found a small, cheap pre-amp and now it works great. My other turntable is a portable one... its a small suitcase style one with a red and white checker pattern... the kind most kids would have had in the 60's I bet. It had quit on me a few years back but I didn't have the heart to get rid of it... turns out it only needed a new cartridge... so it was a cheap fix. I've been thinking about buying a new one just to have in my office at work... I've also considered Sirius satellite radio for work/home/car... big technology gap there huh?

Mmmmm

Well tomorrow is GeoPizza 35: The Pizza Strikes Back. It should be a good time, and I look forward to seeing everyone.

Just to clear up the geocoin issue I have been considering cutting back on collecting for a while now. GC.com just handed me a good excuse to finally push me over the line. It has gotten very expensive and the number of coins being issued are just too many to keep up with. As proof that I'm not like Lazyboy you'll notice that I have yet to be banned from the forums (though I have considered trying for dramatic effect)... or posted anything GC.com negative there. In this thread you'll notice a few people have gone Lazyboy, one of them even to the point of archiving his caches.

Hmmm... maybe if the rain holds off I can find another cache or two this weekend... that would be nice.

No more

I'm usually not prone to being upset by gc.com politics, but today they enacted a new policy for the geocoins forum. More or less you can't post a sale or a link to a sale of anything but a gc.com trackable geocoin. Ok I guess it makes business sense... they don't want people using their site to sell coins they don't make money on. Somehow this has struck me in a very negative way that I can't explain... I guess because gc.com had little to do with the hobby until they found they can make money on it. For 3 years its been pretty much a free market, and I thought it worked just fine.

So anyway my final decision is that I am stopping my collection of geocoins. It has gotten far too expensive and there are way too many coins being made for no good reason anyway. Every gc.com trackable coin in my collection was an extra $1.50 to them that I just don't care to pay anymore. I've never been a fan of trackable geocoins anyway... just an added cost with no benefit in my opinion.

Update

Yes, I know I've been bad at updating my blog... guess I need to get back in the habit of writing about everything. Well today was MLK day so it was a holiday for SallyC and I... we decided to go caching and I chose today to do the District 3 Firehouse Cache Dash. Oh sure it was a lot of driving for one smiley, but it was fun to drive around. There was a 90% chance of rain but I never felt a drop. I'm now just 160 away from 1000. Might get there yet.

First caches of 2006

Well today SallyC and I went out to find a few caches for the first time this year. Early it didn't look too good for us as it was raining pretty hard, but it only rained a little bit on us after we got started. I had 15 finds on the day and only 1 of them was not hidden by Iseek.

Look, its the North Pole
Beware of Spiders that Glow in the Dark
Cache & Ye Shall Find
Ooops ! Forgot to do something
Just the facts, ma'am
EEK !!
The smell may kill you
Reflection
Jelly Stone Park
Relief is just a few steps away
Josephine County 3490
End of the line
Lane Residence
Mc Toys R Us
You think its where!

of course I charged up my camera batteries and packed it to every cache and took not a single picture. The camera never left its case.

End of an era

I'm surprised Lazyboy didn't notice... he must really be done with caching or too busy with diving, road building, and family matters. Three days ago all locationless caches on gc.com were archived and locked for good. I was never a big fan of locationless caches myself... but they were kinda fun to keep an eye out for. I logged my first in Eastern Oregon after I had found the only regular cache whithin 30 miles... if I had a list of locationless with me I could have logged more. I'm sure that someday virtuals, webcams, and probably even the new earth caches will meet a similar end.

R.I.P.
Locationless Caches
2001-2006

Thursday

Well 5 days into 2006 and I have done no caching. This weekend Sally and I plan to go find a few. I did notice something last night that is a good sign despite us still being in the dead of winter... what I noticed was I left work a little later than normal but it wasn't quite dark when I got home. So as the days get longer there is more time for caching.

I have a rough draft design for a new geocoin. I'm still deciding if I should take my design and run or see if I can get a designer to fix it up a bit. I took my last pay stub and bank statement and figured up my tax refund for the year... it should be plenty for a geocoin.

2006

Well it is my first post of the new year. I'm still adjusting to my blog changes... it looks funny... not sure if I need to tweek it some more or just take the time to grow use to it. I'm pretty picky when it comes to things like that... I want it to be perfect.

I've also started designing my new geocoin. I have lots of ideas and I am really afraid of the cost... this time I want to add several more features... and that costs money. This time I plan to leave the gc.com logo off so that I can sell a couple on eBay if I want.