Month: September 2009

Caching Out

Guess what came in he mail today? If you said a newly refurbished Garmin eTrex Venture HC, give yourself a lollipop. We’ve loaded it with batteries and taken it with us so we can compare how it works against our new Vista HCx tomorrow.

This morning after Breakfast with the MMC(tm) we took a drive down to Jackson to do a little caching. Jackson is in Aiken County, which we obviously already have, but it sits on a fairly desolate DeLorme Page (51.) We were 2 for 4, but that was OK as we only needed one to be considered a successful expedition.

Plan A was to drive up early Sunday morning to Florence for Breakfast with Laurie(tm), but we opted for Plan B, leave at 4PM on Saturday. This way we could do some caching on the way up too. Three for four with one abstention before it got too dark to see. Added two more counties, Calhoun and Orangeburg and two more DeLorme pages 45 & 46.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 395

Back Pads

This was our Friday afternoon off and I put it to good use by replacing the back brake pads on the Emperor. Donna put it to good use by having the time to try out a shrimp salad recipe she saw on a Barefoot Contessa cooking show.

I spent the evening plotting out caches along routes for the two statewide challenges we are doing. Now we just have to hope that on Sunday we don’t get the 60% chance of rain, but fall into the 40% no rain range. And she spent the evening watching Food TV looking for other meals to try out in case we fall into the 60%.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 392

Posterior Vitreous Detachment

The other day we were sitting around waiting for an appointment when Donna said, “I’m seeing stars.” She hadn’t bopped her head or made any sudden moves, she was just sitting there and the stars went away, so we thought nothing of it.

This morning at work she came to me and said, “There is something in my eye.” I pried open her eye lids and had her look up down and all round, but I didn’t see anything. She described it as a bright curved thing just off to the right in her field of vision. I asked, “Do you think it is a big floater?” Maybe came her reply; let’s see if it drifts out of the way. I checked in with her after about an hour and she said it wasn’t as bright, but it was still there, so we agreed she should call the eye doc. They said if she came over around lunch they would fit her in sometime this afternoon.

The doc dilated her eyes and shined his aircraft landing light brightness instruments in there. He came out with some good news, there was nothing sight threatening going on, but she did have a posterior vitreous detachment. The stars she noticed on Tuesday were the moment when the vitreous separated from the retina.

Do you think that is what happened to Dave Bowman aboard a Discovery One EVA Pod as he entered the TMA-2 monolith? When he said, “The thing’s hollow – it goes on forever – and – oh my God – it’s full of stars!”, was he just having a PVD?

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 391

Travel Bug Fun

James Brown ArenaFirst up is Hockeyhick’s and Cache-n-Kerry’s Road-tripping Puck which is a souvenir puck from the Greenville (SC) Grrrowl minor league hockey team. The team has since folded and the TB owners want this puck to be their proxie fan and to “take it to pee-wee games, high school and college games, minor league and pro games, all around the globe!” We feel for the Greenville hockey fans as just last year the team over in Augusta pulled the same folding act. Coincidentally the Growl and the Augusta Lynx played against each other frequently because they were in the very same league. Sunday before last we drove over to Augusta to take a picture of the puck in front of the home of the Augusta Lynx, James Brown Arena.

Cole Bros CircusSecond is Simba from Disney’s popular 1994 animated feature film The Lion King. Simba’s goal is to see as many zoos, circus’ and habitats as he can before returning home. We found Simba in one of the caches from our big loop on Sunday and when we got home and read the goal, Donna said, “Hey, there is a circus coming to Augusta next weekend.” I checked the interweb and it turns out the circus was in town right then and the last showing was already well underway. We hopped in the car and drove over anyway. Turned out it was perfect timing. The crowd was almost entirely gone and the roustabouts were just starting to strike the big top. Walked in, Donna held Simba in her hand, I snapped the photo and we left. We might swing by the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia this weekend for another photo op.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 390

Thanks Roger

I don’t always agree with him and some of his picks are too artsy, but more often than not, if I enjoy reading his positive review of a movie, I will enjoy the movie. Right now Mr. Ebert is in Toronto at their film festival and has been writing, not reviewing, about the movies he has seen. I have just gone through his posts from the festival so far and added 6 movies to the Saved section of my Netflix rental queue:

  1. A Serious Man
  2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
  3. Chloe
  4. Men Who Stare at Goats
  5. The Informant!
  6. Whip It!

Of course I will have to wait about a year or so for these to actually get into the regular queue. Then they have to migrate their way to the top through the 60 or 70 movies already there, but I’m pumped.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 388

17% Done

When I said there were 63 pages to the South Carolina DeLorme Challenge I was wrong. The last map appears on page 63, but the first 15 pages of the book have other information, the first map page is #16. That means there are only 48 pages to find caches on.

We already have eight of forty-eight done, so we are almost 17% finished. Well really, if we stick to having separate caches for each of the challenges, we are only 7 of 48 because the one lonely find we have over in Summerton, Woodside Wonder, is eligible for use in Clarendon County and DeLorme Page #47.

It probably won’t be lonely for long though, got a breakfast meet at the Cracker Barrel in Florence with cousin Laurie on Sunday. I predict more counties and pages will be gotten this weekend.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 388

Brian & Donna Buy A Lottery Ticket

We needed a renewal on Retirement Plan B, so we made a trip to Georgia to buy a chance at the next ten drawings of Mega Millions. Augusta is about fifteen miles away as the crow flies, but our round trip was 200 miles long.

It included a route that took us through the South Carolina counties of McCormick and Edgefield. You can guess why the long circuitous route, geocaching, but what was the significance of the counties? It was because of the South Carolina County Challenge. If you find a cache in every one of South Carolina’s forty-six counties, you will get the coordinates to this bonus 47th cache and then you can add this “prestigious” goal to your caching resume. Eight down, thirty-eight to go.

On our way home we stopped in at Books-A-Million to buy something that will help us accomplish a sister challenge to the county one, the South Carolina DeLorme Challenge. You buy a $20 book and you have to find a cache on each of the 63 pages it takes to cover the state to get the coords for the final mystery cache and another trophy for the mantle.

The rules don’t disallow using the same cache in both challenges, but to us that would seem like cheating, so we will be getting at least 109 more caches in South Carolina. I’m willing to bet it will be a lot more than that.

I only wish we knew of this stuff back a few years ago when we were going on those Post Office Photography Safaris.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 388