Ormonster's Domain

Decided to try and find 3 local caches right here in Squantum. Hopped on my bike around sevenish to Marina Bay where there are 2 caches. The first one is right on Victory Road called GCZMYZ – Horsefire. My iphone continued to be a pain in the rear when it comes to the GPS. I might have dropped it a few too many times since I got it. I still had enough information to give looking for it a whirl. Success!

I was definitely a little worse for wear with a cracked lid and giant hole in the bottom. The baggie that holds the log book doesn’t close either. Even after the rain we had everything was dry. I may come back at a later date and do a little maintenance if the cache owner hasn’t done so. My next stop was Squantum Point for GCW955 – Squantum Point. I got to the parking lot to find it filled with vans, people, music and port-o-pottys. It appears that a 12 person relay race to Provincetown starts here. I decided to come back another time when it got a little quieter.

My last stop for the morning was GC22PZK – Moswetuset Hummock. Once again my iPhone was bugging out on me but I decided to give it a shot. This was a puzzle cache where I had to count letters on an engraved stone. I apparently can’t count too good because I messed it up a couple times before I think I got it right. This was a micro cache so I knew it was going to be small. After waiting for a couple people to leave I started looking.. and looking.. and looking. I came up empty. Just couldn’t find the dang thing. Oh well, it was still a nice little bike ride where I confirmed that I am woefully out of shape, especially on the uphill ride back to my apartment.

If I’m going to continue this hobby, I’m going to need a real GPS.. or at least one that works. I’m going to end this with a nice view of Squantum from the hummock

Something piqued my interest this week and I decided to give it a shot. I was browsing apps for my iPhone, as I do on occasion, and I came across an app called  Geocaching. I have heard of this thing before but never really looked into it. Here is a description of Geocaching taken directly from that link.

Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online.

That’s it in a nutshell. As it happens, my iPhone 3GS is equipped with a GPS chip. How convenient. I am a lazy couch potato. Given half a chance I will spend days on my couch watching TV/movies or playing video games. I rarely head out into the great outdoors. Whenever I think about it, it annoys me. The problem is, I have nothing to do out there. I walk outside get bored then come back inside and veg on the couch. There is a lot of napping in my life. This is where geocaching will hopefully fill the void. It will hopefully get me outside walking and/or riding my bike.

The question is, will I like it. I think I will. In fact I took the idea for a test drive yesterday. I have been thinking about this for a couple days and while I was working at Stonehill College I decided to see if there were any caches nearby.

GC17Q75 – West Bridgewater State Forest – This was located just one more exit down rt 24. I decided to go for it. I plugged the coordinates for the parking area into my Garmin Nuvi and off I went. There was one little hitch I noticed once I got there. My iPhone seemed to think I was around rt 27 in Brockton, the next town over. It’s hard to follow the directions when it doesn’t know where you are. Looking at the info page I decided that I had enough info to still give this a shot and off I went. Man it was nice. Peaceful. And what do you know.. I found the cache! That was neat.

I decided to try another one on the way home. GC1HTK1 – Gazebo Series #2.  This one was located in Crown Colony. I found the place easily enough and my iPhone GPS actually worked most of the time. This one turned out to be a DNF (Did Not Find). Now this does not mean it wasn’t there somewhere, I just couldn’t find the darned thing. Of course I had no idea what it looked like or how big it was. I spent a good 25 minutes walking around this little park area mumbling to myself and looking everywhere I could think of. Must have looked like a crazy person. It was still a pretty little place next to a pond. It was a windy day but not bad and I was outside doing something.. getting a little exercise even.

My plan tomorrow is to throw some air in the tires of my bike, adjust the seat and head out around Quincy hunting for treasure. If it turns into something I’m really enjoying then Sunday I think I’ll head out to Wompatuck State Park with my bike where there seems to be a few caches also. If that works out, I think I’m going to have an enjoyable summer outdoors.

Good news, my father is doing fine. He had a cat scan and an MRI and I guess everything checked out good. According to my mother, the doctors said it was probably an inner ear thingy  (I’m paraphrasing here) that messed up his equilibrium causing the vertigo, dizziness and upchucking.  He is going to be checked out by his regular doctor and he’s going to see a neurologist. For now he is doing good and has been feeling fine all day. Yay!

Long day today, but it will be worth it in my check. Just finished my workout and you can get those details here at My Power 90 Journey

Just finished my workout. It was weight day. Was feeling a little sore today but that didn’t stop me. You can keep up with My Power 90 Journey by clicking on that link there.

I just got a call from my Mother about an hour ago. It seems my father was feeling dizzy and then got sick. My brother and mother took him to the hospital. All reports say he is doing fine now and is doing some tests and the doctors are treating the symptoms. When they know more, I’ll know more. It should be an interesting evening.

Well this has been an interesting couple of days. Before going to bed Sunday night I was at the door cursing out Sophie (my calico cat) because she was keeping me from going to bed by not coming home at a reasonable time from her gallivanting around the neighborhood. She is most definitly an outdoor cat.. She’s very friendly, loves hanging out with the other neighborhood cats and doesn’t mind being petted by complete strangers. She also always comes home (just not always at a conveniant time).

Anyways.. I had to go to bed so I walked away from the door while swinging it closed and turned out the lights. Apparently it was a weak swing because the door didn’t latch and sometime in the wee hours of Monday morning my tuxedo cat Luke got a little too curious for his own good and got outside. Let me tell you a little bit about Luke. He is a scaredy-cat. Luke does not like strange people and will hide from someone he doesn’t know at the drop of a hat. Luke also does not like to be picked up and will fight tooth and claws to avoid this. I may still have a scar from the last vet visit. Luke is an indoor cat and the thought of trying to find him when he is lost and scared was a daunting thought. To be honest I thought I wasn’t going to see the fool again.

I got home from work Monday afternoon and started looking around. The way Luke could and would hide, even from me, I knew I was fighting a losing battle. I went out every couple of hours and found nothing. There was a possible sighting from my neighbor around 9pm but a search turned up zip. At 11:30 I had to go to bed. I decided to leave the door open which Sophie loved and hit the sack. Nature woke me up around 3:30am. I got up and noticed a little dark shape on my bedroom doorway. I switched on the light and instead of a rabid raccoon that wandered in my open front door it was Luke safe and sound. I ran and shut the damn door, took care of the whole nature business that woke me up and went back to sleep for a couple hours relieved that the stupid cat found his dumb-ass home again.

The End

Edited to add a picture of the furballs

I have been in a bit of a funk lately and I don’t know why. Nothing in my life has changed, no great upheavals, I’m still working at a job I kind of like, My family loves me and keeps in touch, My financial situation isn’t great but if I work at it, it won’t pwn me. I want to start working out again and I try but I can’t keep the motivation going beyond a day. The other day I did some weights and then went for a mostly walk/run along Wollaston Beach, the next day… nothing. So that’s my current tale of woe.. I’m in a funk.. let’s move on.

I have been fighting with my comcast dvr for a long time now. I set up a series recording to record only new episodes and it decides to record every episode. Now I have to go and manually delete all the extra crap it recorded. I finally had enough and went out and got another Tivo. Unlike my first Tivo, which I got back in 2003, this one has a dual tuner and can record 2 shows at once.. Yay! Another feature of having two Tivo’s is the ability to transfer your recordings  from one to the other. I may throw a tv back in my bedroom.

Now that I am on the subject of TV.. let’s talk a bit about my newest show obsession.. Big Brother. It is currently season 11. I have never watched this before and I am obsessed with the live feeds. I can’t stop watching or reading updates, I have to know what is going on at all times. Right now my favorite is Jeff with Jordan a close second and Michelle third. Everybody else except maybe Kevin can leave at any time as far as I’m concerned. Poor Michelle was thrown under the bus by the village idiot Ronnie since just about day 1 and she’s been getting ripped on ever since. I was getting frustrated because the house guests I liked were starting to be picked off 1 by 1. Here’s hoping Jeff gets rid of Jessie this week.. I’m willing to put up with Chima’s voice if that happens. I seem to be picking winners lately or at least people I liked are winning. Janine won on So You Think You Can Dance, Cathy won on I Survived a Japanese Gameshow, Kris won on American Idol (Ok.. I was rooting for anyone but Adam so I count that as a win), Tammy and Victor won the Amazing race and Melissa won The Next Food Network Star. So here is hoping Jeff takes it for Big Brother and keeps the streak alive.

My incredibly boring life is still just that so I will end this update here. Ciao