Geocaching in Oklahoma City

We got up this morning about 6:30 and headed out into the city to do some serious geocaching. We spent a big part of the morning caching around Lake Hefner. I did not remember such a large lake in Oklahoma City. We had a pretty good day, but not as good as I had hoped. We cached all the way up to 7:00 p.m. and only got 36 new finds. We had a lot of fun and met some very nice people along the way.

Today's Stats:
36 Geocaches.
14480 Steps Today - 6.85 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
668 Calories Burned.

Trouble with New Cingular Data Card

Here I was all excited about my new Cingular Data Card on my way to Oklahoma City and my computer is having trouble. Everytime I turn on my GPS my mouse goes crazy. I change out my mouse to another one and still have trouble. After a couple hours of various troubles with my laptop, I decide to uninstall the Cingular Data Card with it drivers. An behold my computer is now okay. What a disapointment. GPS now works fine.

We did a little geocaching on the way down to Oklahoma City.

Today's Stats:
11 Geocaches.
6129 Steps Today - 2.90 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
274 Calories Burned.

New Cingular Data Card

Knowing that I have to give the Sprint PCS Data Card back to Robby, we went to Cingular and picked up a Sony Ericsson GC82 EDGE(Enhanced Data GSM Environment) Data Card for the laptop. Since the card had a rebate it was FREE and the saleman said he would take care of the rebate. I didn't have to pay anything for the card nor wait to get my rebate back. I like FREE. The service is suppose to be about twice as fast as the Sprint PCS card I've been using for the past month. This is only where the new EDGE service is available. The new EDGE service will be added to cell sites soon. Where EDGE service is not available it will use the normal GPRS service which is much slower. We'll give it a good workout this long weekend making a trip to Oklahoma City to do some serious geocaching.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
1609 Steps Today - .76 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
61 Calories Burned.

I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

We failed to find this cache yesterday evening. We were determined to find it this evening. We searched for over an hour to no avail with DustyJacket. After Brian and Carlin Yonke showed up DustyJacket found it. We all had a party to celebrate right there in Loose Park. A very surprising cache container. I don't want to be fooled by that container again.

Today's Stats:
1 Geocaches.
2237 Steps Today - 1.05 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
79 Calories Burned.

Work after Vacation

Today was the first day back to work after a long vacation. Things are pretty slow today. I sure am glad because I'm running in slow glear today.

This evening and tonight Mary and I located 4 new caches all the way up to Richmond, MO (the crooked cache). We came back to town to find the newest cache had been released ("I never promised you a rose garden"). We could not find it and posted a DNF.

Today's Stats:
4 Geocaches.
3913 Steps Today - 1.85 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
169 Calories Burned.

Return Trip to Kansas City

We left Scott & Laura's house about 10:00 this morning headed for Kansas City. We decided we better go with the freeway all the way home instead of our planned route up through Branson because of the snow and ice.

We made several stops to do some geocaching and to eat supper. We didn't get home until after 10:00 p.m. We got out last cache in Nevada a little after 9:00 p.m.

Today's Stats:
12 Geocaches.
3416 Steps Today - 1.61 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
128 Calories Burned.

White Christmas

Today we actually had a white Christmas. Mary and Lee got me a new high powered air rifle. It sounds like a 22 rifle and actually has a little kick. This afternoon Preston, Drew and I went hunting. We tracked 3 rabbits to their den, but could not figure out how to get them out. We ended up shooting at birds. It seems all the birds were very safe today. We didn't get a one.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal this evening at Lee & Angela's house. Scott's family all came over and we had a good time together.


Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
2523 Steps Today - 1.19 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
94 Calories Burned.

Vegetated

Today we are at Scott & Laura's house. I have just vegetated the entire day. My pedometer says I have only walked 608 steps this entire day. That's the least I think I've ever walked in one day.

I've spent the entire day in my PJ's in front of the 65 inch TV with my laptop working on my geocaching database in GSAK. My project today was to find and enter into the database all the caches we've found, but have been archived on geocaching.com. I'm close to done but I still lack 4 that I can't seem to find. There's a total of 297 caches that have been archived since we found them.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
608 Steps Today - .28 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
15 Calories Burned.

Angela Slid Into The Ditch

This afternoon Angela decided she needed to go to town. She got as far as the Old Trading Post and decided there was just too much ice. As she went down the hill from the Old Trading Post she slid into the ditch. By the time we got out there Lee was there with the tractor. We helped him pull her out of the ditch. Didn't seem to do any damage to the jeep.

We stopped by the Clinton Library cache to added some magnetic strips to the container because the wind had blown the cache from it's hiding place.

We stopped at the Dixie Cafe for dinner tonight on the way home. It was home cooking without the cooking and clean up. It was great.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
1044 Steps Today - .49 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
32 Calories Burned.

The Day After The Big Snow In Arkansas

Today we're glad to be at home with Scott & Laura. The news reports 4 hour delays going east on I-40 and I-40 is completely closed going west. There are reports of people being stranded all night on I-40 traveling west out of Little Rock. We are very glad to be inside by the fire today. Laura ordered a load of firewood a couple weeks ago. It sure is nice having a real wood fire in the fireplace. The birds are all over the trees in Scott & Laura backyard.

Big Snow in Arkansas

This afternoon and tonight it's snowing like crazy. I don't know how much yet but I bet it's at least 3 inches so far. The kids are having a ball with the snow. No geocaching today. Too much snow and too cold. It's getting colder. It's currently 22 degrees. We had planned to go night caching tonight.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
1243 Steps Today - .58 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
37 Calories Burned.

Geocaching in Jacksonville, Arkansas

Today we went caching with Preston and Drew. We had the pleasure of meeting up with John Grace at the Fuzz Buster cache in North Little Rock. He gave us a Travel Bug from Pennsylvania. John is a flight attendant and gets to travel far and wide. Tonight he said he would have dinner in New York City. What a nice job! We ended up caching in Jacksonville. We discovered the new Interstate 440 from South of Jacksonville to Little Rock.

Today's Stats:
9 Geocaches.
4329 Steps Today - 2.04 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
165 Calories Burned.

Geocaching in North Little Rock

This afternoon I escaped long enough to do some serious geocaching. I was successful in locating some of the hardest multi-caches in North Little Rock. I had a ball in the woods of Burns Park.

Today's Stats:
7 Geocaches.
11242 Steps Today - 5.32 miles.
4693 Aerobic Steps.
500 Calories Burned.

Geocaching with the Grandkids

This afternoon we went out with Scott, Laura, Bradley, Ashley, Preston, and Drew caching. While we were out we placed some new caches. One at the Clinton Library and another at the USS Razorback Submarine. The kids were not too happy about finding so many micro caches. They wanted real caches with prizes in them. We had a good time in the woods with them anyhow.

Today's Stats:
6 Geocaches.
5044 Steps Today - 2.38 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
201 Calories Burned.

Ball-Brown Christmas

We got up this morning at Lee and Angela's house and started getting ready for the Ball get-together at 1:30 p.m. Lots of cleaning, picking up, hauling trash, cooking, and baking. About an hour before the crowd decended on us a main sewer pipe broke in the basement. At 1:30 p.m. Scott and I were being sprayed with the sewer water as we unclogged the stopped up pipe. Scott was able to re-glue the joint and all seems to be well. I tried it out by taking a shower. The food was great and we enjoyed the reminder of the time with the Ball family.

This evening at 6:00 p.m. we went to my daddy's house for the Brown get-together. We had a great time visiting and eating some great food. The meal was just outstanding. David, my brother, smoked a turkey which was outstanding.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
3064 Steps Today - 1.45 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
87 Calories Burned.

Travel to Arkansas

I was able to take off work today since I've put in so many hours at work this week. We hoped to leave early, but somehow we didn't get away until nearly 10 a.m. We stopped and did a little geocaching in Springfield on the trip down. We enjoyed a wonderful meal at Scott's house and then went over to Lee's to spent the night with them. We got to bed about midnight. Pretty tired tonight.

Today's Stats:
6 Geocaches.
3666 Steps Today - 1.73 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
116 Calories Burned.

Christmas at the Cheesecake Factory

This eveing I was able to take off a little earlier from work. (about 5:30 p.m.) We met Robby and Alison at the Cheesecake Factory. We has a wonderful meal together and had our Christmas together. Robby and Alison are flying to New Jersey next week to spent Christmas with her folks. We're leaving tomorrow for Arkansas to spent Christmas with the family.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
3875 Steps Today - 1.83 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
140 Calories Burned.

Long Day At Work

Our project that was installed last weekend is still causing problems. I worked about 13 hours today trying to help with the problems. I'm getting very weary.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
1543 Steps Today - .73 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
66 Calories Burned.

Problems at Work

Here lately I'm having to put in a lot of extra hours at Sprint. We had an install go bad last week-end and we're all working day and night trying to get things back to normal. Very hetic.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
1415 Steps Today - .66 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
43 Calories Burned.

Travel Bugs Everywhere

Tonight I began to take inventory of the travel bugs we've collected recently. We finally got them all logged. I put 5 of them into our Missouri's First Cache. We still have 8 and now I've got to find a home for them. Maybe Arkansas would be a good place next week.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
2621 Steps Today - 1.24 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
115 Calories Burned.

We Broke our Week-End Caching Record

We completed caching in the Salina area at sunset. (5:15 p.m.) We grabbed one more cache at the rest stop on the way home. Our total for today is 39 caches found. Our total for the week-end is 105 caches found. We still need to Verify this.

Today's Stats:
39 Geocaches.
11,543 Steps Today - 5.46 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
480 Calories Burned.

Caching with the RattlingCrew

Today was the most successful caching day ever. We really enjoyed caching with the RattlingCrew.

Today's Stats:
45 Geocaches.
14,760 Steps Today - 6.98 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
662 Calories Burned.

Geocaching in Salina, Kansas

This afternoon we drove to Salina, Kansas. We started caching about 2:00 p.m. and cached until about 7:30 p.m. With the RattlingCrews help we were able to find 20 caches.

It was so nice to meet the RattlingCrews. We were finishing up at the Lum Felton Cache when a pickup pulled up and blocked us in. Turned out to be the RattlingCrew. The Sheriff had cruised by and saw me caching in the bushes with my penlight in a small city park. He called his brother(RattlingCrew - Dad & Son) and told him someone from out of town is looking for your cache. Seems like everybody in town knows each other.

The RattlingCrew was very helpful to give us some short cuts to some cache sites. We really enjoyed meeting them.

Today's Stats:
20 Geocaches.
6196 Steps Today - 2.93 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
255 Calories Burned.

Preparing for A Geocaching Trip

Tonight I downloaded the waypoints needed for our trip to Salina, Kansas. I exported them to the PocketPC, GPS, Street Atlas and created HTML files for all of the waypoints.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
5876 Steps Today - 2.78 miles.
2885 Aerobic Steps.
236 Calories Burned.

Low Carb Cabbage Lasagna

Seems like the most excitement today was the Low Carb Cabbage Lasagna we had for dinner this evening. Mary kind of made up her own recipe and it was wonderful. I ate way too much of it.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
3741 Steps Today - 1.77 miles.
1884 Aerobic Steps.
154 Calories Burned.

Two First to Find Caches

Today Mary and I were the First to Find two geocache sites. We have not done that in a long time. One of the caches (Orange Smiley) was released after dark this evening. We had a hard time with it. I walked about 3 miles getting to it and back out of the woods. It was still a lot of fun and I had a great walk. I saw two sets of eyes watching me. Their eyes were about 6 inches apart. Kind of scary out their in the woods by myself.

Today's Stats:
2 Geocaches.
6683 Steps Today - 3.16 miles.
2330 Aerobic Steps.
307 Calories Burned.

Sore Throat

Today I've had a sore throat most of the day. I decided to go to the doctor this evening. He did a throat culture to test for strep. After the doctor's visit we went to the Salty Iguana for a great meal together.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
4896 Steps Today - 2.31 miles.
2866 Aerobic Steps.
225 Calories Burned.

Possum Trot VIII - Camp Naish

This morning we got up at 5:30 a.m. and started loading our stuff to serve as registrar for the Possum Trot VIII near Bonner Springs, Kansas.

There were folks from all over the United States that participated in the event. The event was a 15 kilometer run in some pretty rugged Kansas hill country. The winner did the whole 15k run in 1 hour and 27 minutes. In my eyes that is simple amazing. Most folks took several hours. It would have taken me many hours to complete the course. I can not image a human being doing that, in that time. It started raining not long after the event started and the runners ran most of the course in a cold winter rain.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
4842 Steps Today - 2.29 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
165 Calories Burned.

Mahoney Lunch Meeting - Nebraska

Thanks to Brian & Carlin Yonke's invitation and transportation, we attended the Mahoney Lunch Meeting at the Mahoney State Park near Omaha, Nebraska. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting many Geocacher's from Nebraska. It was great fellowship and very good food. This was one of the best geocaching event's we've been too.

We geocached with Brian & Carlin all morning and all afternoon after the Mahoney Lunch meeting. This was a very successful geocaching day. You just can not beat geocaching with friends and meeting many new geocachers. A great day.

Today's Stats:
20 Geocaches.
13803 Steps Today - 6.53 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
638 Calories Burned.

Caching North to Syracuse, Nebraska

We have been invited to go north to the Mahoney Lunch Meeting at the Mahoney State Park near Omaha, Nebraska with Brian & Carlin Yonke. We met them at their home in Liberty, Missouri about 2:00 p.m. this afternoon and headed north. We caught all the caches between there and Syracuse, Nebraska. We checked into the Sleep Inn and then went to B & J Family Restaurant. We enjoyed a nice meal together.

Today's Stats:
8 Geocaches.
3876 Steps Today - 1.83 miles.
0 Aerobic Steps.
149 Calories Burned.

Ruby Tuesday's for Dinner

Today Mary went to the Eye doctor and had her eyes dialated. A very bright sunny day. It was hard on her eyes. She also went to the dentist and had a crown reattached. She also bought grocery's today. She was wiped out so we went to Ruby Tuesday's for dinner and enjoyed a great meal together.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
3229 Steps Today - 1.52 miles.
1767 Aerobic Steps.
142 Calories Burned.

Street Atlas 2005 Plus Blew Up

I have been importing XData and Draw Layers many times a day for weeks. Tonight I went to import a Draw Layer and Street Atlas Plus crashed. I booted. No help. I ran the SA CD to repair the program and still no help. Finally I broke down and uninstalled and reintalled the program and now it works again. I have no idea what happened. Just glad it works again.

Another day of too much sitting in front of a computer. I got to do better.

We're going caching with Brian and Carlin Friday and Saturday. That should help get some exercise.

Today's Stats:
0 Geocaches.
3531 Steps Today - 1.23 miles.
1223 Aerobic Steps.
157 Calories Burned.