On Wednesday morning at 7:15 am, I took this photo of a waning gibbous moon, 76% full, from the Advantage parking lot.
Waning Gibbous
February 3rd, 2010My First To Find
January 30th, 2010
I’ve been active in geocaching for about a year now. I have over 400 finds on record. And, now, I can add the coveted FTF prize for the Fee Fie Faux Find geocache at N 39° 38.038 W 086° 14.532. The cache is located in Southwestway Park.
I saw this geocache pop up on the grid late Friday afternoon. I wondered if anyone would attempt to take the FTF since it was place at the far southern end of the park and would require a 1.5 mile hike from the trail head to the cache. Normally, a cache like this would be found very quickly but the weather played a significant role. I thought the 16°F ambient air temperature and 1°F wind chill would keep all but the hard core cachers away.
When I checked on the status early Saturday morning, and found that no one had logged the FTF, I decided to brave the cold and make the hike to find my first FTF.
I was lucky, no had found the cache before me. So, I took the FTF, my first!
Lonely Geocache
January 17th, 2010My current geocaching goal is to find all the caches hidden in Morgan Monroe State Forest. I’ve been working on this goal since early November ‘09. There must be about 30 in the forest area.
These are not ‘park and grab’ type caches. These are the type of caches where you need to hike for miles before you get close to ground zero.
On Saturday, 1/16/10, I spent about 6 hours chasing down 6 geocaches in the MMSF. One of the caches was hidden so deep in the forest that it had only been found about a half dozen times in the past 4 years!
Here’s a picture of the log. The cache was hidden in a tree stump.
The coordinates are N 39° 19.350 W 086° 29.937. The cache was hidden on January 3, 2003. It is one of the longest existing geocaches in Indiana!
What Not To Buy In 2010 ?
January 5th, 2010The title of this article is “10 Things Not To Buy in 2010″. The article is here. Although the author only listed 8 items instead of 10, I thought I would offer my commentary on these eight things you shouldn’t buy in 2010, since the people at Smart Money say so.
DVDs. The author says to save the $20 of a retail DVD in favor of the $5 – $7 online rental. But, I’ll continue to buy the DVD just to have my own personal hard copy of the movie. Once the online rental is over, you can’t watch the movie again (unless you recorded it on DVDr – piracy) or rent it again.
Home Telephone Service. The author believes with the penetration of cell phones and the Magic Jack, land line based home phone service is going the way of the rotary phone. I agree. I’ve been wanting to cut the land line phone since we all have personal cell phones now. What’s the point in duplicating the service?
External Hard Drives. The author believes that services like Carbonite and other online backup services and space providers are better than an external hard driver. I’m not so sure, since the online service are ethereal and could evaporate instantly whereas the external hard drive is ‘real’. I would suggest doing both to back up critical data.
Smartphones also rans. The author believes that anything other than the Iphone or Blackberry is useless since application developers will target their efforts to the greatest market, which is the Iphone and Blackberry. Since I don’t have a smart phone and don’t want one, who cares! But if I was in the market for a smartphone, I would buy an Iphone.
Compact Digital Cameras. The author says that people will understand that the Nikon D40 and other D-SLRs are better at taking pictures than those compact digital cameras. Therefore the consumer will buy the higher priced and less user friendly D-SLRs just to get better pictures. If I wasn’t a photo bug and in the market for a Nikon D-300, I would buy a compact digital camera just because of the size and ease of use.
New College Textbooks. The authors says that its pointless to buy a new textbook when there are used textbooks and digital copies available at lower cost. And I would agree. I spent why too much money on new text books at Ball State University in the mid ’80’s. When my kids get to college, they will buy used or digital.
Gas-Guzzling Cars. The author believes that high gas prices and federal regulations are the reason why the auto sector is moving toward marketing fuel efficient cars. So, logic would say, eventually you would not be able to buy a gas guzzling car because there won’t be any ‘new’ ones on the market. While I believe in conservation, I don’t believe in the hyper-green movement. If I want to buy 40 gallons of $3.50 gas to fill my gas guzzling SUV, what business is that of the government?
Newspaper Subscriptions. The author believes that E-readers will move the ink and paper of the tabloids and newspapers to pixels and electrons. I agree. I would rather read the paper online than turn the actual page. Since I have an Ipod, I would be more inclined to read a novel on the Ipod than a hard cover. Amazing how things have changed!
What To Do For 2010
December 29th, 2009I’ve always used the New Year to redefine and refocus my personal goals and objectives. So, with 2010 only minutes away, here are my top 3 2010 goals …
1. Get back into running. In early August ‘09, I took my last stride and never laced up the shoes again. Now that I’ve packed on 20 extra pounds, it’s time to step back on the treadmill. This year, however, I’m not shooting for the half marathons but going to keep it low key and cover 5K’s and maybe a 10k.
2. Lose weight. Of course, it’s an every year goal and sometimes I succeed. So, this year wouldn’t be ‘right’ if I didn’t list it. The goal would be to slim down below 155 (for a 2.49 BMI). Maybe this will be the year.
3. Stay active in geocaching. I know that most people believe this is a juvenile and silly pursuit, but it allows me to get outside and hike around the state forests and state parks and parking lots and other places I would have no reason to be at. At heart, I like to explore and geocaching encourages that attribute. I want to surpass 610 cumulative finds in 2010.
In addition to these ‘top’ 3, I will continue to develop and maintain my intangible efforts … strengthening my communications with Nikki and the kids, making sure Nikki and the kids feel secure in my love, keeping the financial picture in order, staying on top of home improvement and home repair, trying to keep everyone happy and healthy.
Other tangible goals would include, painting the house (inside and out), writing a few short stories, learning Blender 3D and Imove 09, Since it’s my year to plan the vacation, maybe I’ll have a ‘in town’ vacation instead of the budget buster trips to the mountains or coast.
For my employment with Advantage, my theme for 2010 is “doing specific things that influence our top line” and we outlined 3 specific objectives already, with completion targeted for the 1st quarter and into the 3rd quarter. So, the ball is gaining momentum.
Dad sent an email New Years greeting which I wanted to include:
Wishing everyone a Happy 2010 New Year.
First Video
December 25th, 2009Nikki bought me a Sony DCR-SR47 camcorder for Christmas ‘09. Here’s the first video I sliced together using Imovie on my Imac.
Nikki is looking to buy a 2010 Mustang and she was ‘building’ her car online… and she selected a V6 instead of …. well, you know what.
Merry Christmas 2009
December 24th, 2009
The family with Mom on Christmas Eve 2009. Merry Christmas Everyone!
Sam Attacks
December 22nd, 2009
Makayla and Hannah are working on their gingerbread house and Sam wanted a piece of it!
Let Winter Begin…
December 21st, 2009I find the shortest day of the year an intriguing event. Today marks the Winter Solstice 2009 as the equatorial plane passes through the topic of Capricorn at 12:47 pm EST and the north pole is at it maximum axial tilt of 23.5°. Winter has began.
I’m not really into the myth and paganism surrounding the Winter Solstice although I do find it interesting. I’m more into the astronomy and geometry of the event, how the planet spins and rotates through space and time. But I am intrigued by the fact that people in the low tech and primitive cultures of ages past could have recognized and then determine what day is the shortest day of the year, much less celebrate it, when I can’t even remember if “i” comes after “e” or before.
Winter is one of my favorite seasons and so begins 12 weeks of cold, snow, bleak, dreary, gray, blustery days that usually depress me but for some reason I feel a bit of optimism this year. And, remember, the days grow longer and longer and warmer and in about 14 weeks, the grass grows again and the drone of lawn mowers will once again mix and merge with the obnoxious noise of those Harley Davidson motorcycles.
Here’s a time lapsed video from the The University of Tromsø – the northernmost university of the world.
Gingerbread
December 12th, 2009
Makayla and her first batch of gingerbread men for the Season ‘09.
