Oh, the peaches! We have SO MANY PEACHES!! I found a packet of pectin (it's got to be 15 or 20 years old) and it has a recipe for freezer jam, which I must try. I'd better get fresher pectin, though. We aren't supposed to share the peaches, for fear of oriental fruit fly.
One of the organizers published all the pages of the Geowoodstock log, and I looked and looked and looked, and couldn't find our signature. Finally, just as someone else saw it, I located it. Partly I missed it because it's so big!
(at the top right, upside down)
We're getting ready for the carpet tomorrow... moved everything out of the living room but the chairs (which will go into the carport tomorrow, along with the playpen and the cat tree.) The piano was HEAVY and we just pushed it across the floor... I didn't like dropping it down the little step into the back room. I'm worried about getting it back up.
Rich had a dentist appointment and we had the air conditioner duct inspection today.
My faith in him and his beliefs hasn’t dropped one iota over the last three years. Bruce MacMahon on July 13, 2010 at 11:01 AM
Actually, I was very vocal with family and friends in 2008 that he would be a disaster as President. But even I didn’t think he’d be THIS bad, THIS quickly. We’re not even 18 months into his first(and God willing only) term and he’s already been reduced to race-baiting. Hell, he’s even got his wife in on the act. Doughboy on July 13, 2010 at 11:11 AM
Everwyck July 12th, 2010 | 10:55 pm | #2 1) NAACP lauds former Klansman, the late Sen. Byrd.
2) NAACP refuses to advocate for Ken Gladney, calling him an “Uncle Tom.”
3) NAACP decides to call out the Tea Party.
“How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.”
On the DC Public Schools Kathy Leicester Excellent Scott, I'm eager to see the Trifecta and hear the interviews.
This was one of the first things the president did, and it was just as sad as it could be. All the kids supported by these scholarships made a video begging this guy to continue funding. So the administration caved and let children already in the program, finish. But no new students.
As clear an image of our president's heart as anything that's occurred since them, in my opinion.
Boxer gets her butt handed to her on a silver plate, and the General walks up to her and says “how you doin’ ma’am?” Such pretty dreams.
A Vacation at the Beach (They sure aren't King George and Queen Mary in London during the Blitz, are they?)
Most families I know aren’t going anywhere for vacation since they are holding on by their fingernails financially. Meanwhile, the first family of bad fashion, endless vacations and disdain for the USA once again lecture the peasantry. Possibly a new law needs to be passed during a recess at two a.m. that as part of reparations, everyone in the N.E. who pays taxes needs to pilgrimage to the Gulf, or answer to the IRS and New Black Panthers.
I tried to get the one cache "in Germany" off our record, but it's locked. This was a word puzzle and should never have been a cache, but I was new then and thought it was OK.
Abby has still been using the alcove instead of the litter box. Looking up the problem online (no, she's not sick, this isn't new behavior and she has regular checkups) I found the idea of using newspaper instead of litter. So far so good... Abby seems to like it and an added bonus is Spooky doesn't. His usual belief is that ALL the litter boxes are his, and now he's letting her have this one. We'll see how this goes.
We went to the State Fair ticket offices and waited in line, not quite as hot as it's been, to get our tickets. This saved money around the family. Monica paid me $25 and the two tickets she got with her hotel stay and saved $5. Bernadette saved $2. We will have saved $3 by the time we're done.
This is good news in the sense that at least they know that the Kool-aid effect has worn off. I’m surprised that they have gotten this far. Narcisists are usually in denial that their fans are upset. The next enormous hurdle to jump: they should follow through with the desires and needs of the constituents they represent rather than their own personal ideology. I’m not holding my breath on that one. shick on July 12, 2010 at 10:50 AM
One of the most exasperating qualities of Barack Obama is his insistence on casting himself as a victim when people disagree with his policies.... Instead of dealing with the reality of the snubs Obama has delivered to Netanyahu and the fumbles he has made on issues like construction in Jerusalem — which Obama personally transformed from a minor issue into a showstopper — Obama would rather like people to believe that everyone who has a criticism of him does so on the basis of his background. It’s tiresome and amateurish, and in this case, an insult to the feelings of the Israelis and to the intelligence of everyone else.
Yup, we’re in Groundhog Day and stuck in the third grade. petefrt on July 12, 2010 at 8:18 AM
My fear is that he has no one around him who can rein him in before he does something utterly catastrophic because of a perceived international “slight” or “disrespect of the presidency.” I’m not talking about making an embarrassing speech or having a public hissy fit, I’m talking about bombing some country or making some kind of conventional military attack on an ally.
Cornered narcissists are scary and unpredictable. Beware the passive-aggressive component of the disorder, as well. ExpressoBold on July 12, 2010 at 8:35 AM
Roger L. Simon says 0bama's credibility was gone by the election, because of Rev. Wright.
Congress used to meet for only a few months, as winters and summers were both extreme; lawmakers would flee to less onerous climes.
Bring back the same conditions for those thieving bastards. Let 'em sit and swelter inside the Capitol building, or, better yet, go home and quit bothering us with MORE stupid laws. Summer recess is not long enough for the most useless Congress in US History, let 'em stay out except for a couple of months in the spring and fall.
And the WAPO writer who wrote this should burn in un-air-conditioned hell. What a complete ass. Posted by: Maurice | Monday, July 12, 2010 at 01:06 PM
Reading: What If? edited by Robert Cowley, the Bible (Zachariah), A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, Bill O'Reilly, Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, Don Quixote, The Life of Man with God, Thomas Verner Moore, Low-Carb Dieting for Dummies, Katherine B. Chauncey.
The reason we had to be back TODAY was Davis' play, Crazy for You. I thought we'd seen it before but it didn't seem very familiar. Before the play, there was nowhere to sit in the lobby, but the car was way too hot. I finally found a place to wait. The theater director had renegotiated his mortgage and changed the monthly payments from $10,500 to $8,400. Still. He took note of some of the past actors, including one of Bernadette's classmates who is on Broadway, and her mother was sitting behind me! She is the first person I met when Bernadette started at the GATE class in 2nd grade. She threw a party for all the class so they'd have at least met each other. (This is when I met really brilliant Joey, 5, who had read all the D&D manuals and was eager to discuss them, but he had speech problems so he was almost impossible to understand.) Jan has always been very nice, but we hadn't seen each other for something like 25 years. It was great catching up during intermission. Her son is in southern California and they do have grandchildren.
We enjoyed the play, too. They have gotten so much better since they got the new theater! Much more dancing. And, of course, Gershwin's music is great.
So, what we learned from the President of the United States on Thursday is that you and I helped write a check for $32 million to a foreign company to create jobs in the United States that each cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars to produce. And we were reminded that this President doesn't believe government has all the answers because the last thing this President wants to see is another government program.
How can anyone not have confidence in this man's ability to lead the greatest nation on earth?
We started about 8 (and didn't leave a tip for the maid, she can have the toenail instead.) The first thing to do was to take some pictures of the town, places I saw last night and wanted. Especially the covered bridge (a pedestrian bridge) but downtown Yreka is very picturesque, as well. There was a bunch of motorcyclists... hardly Hell's Angels, they were on the Riding for the Light rally.
Gas was 3.19 ouch! We left town at 8:38.
Shasta Lake is lower than it was two weeks ago. Then we got to Redding and went to Turtle Bay and the Geocache Adventure Maze. This was GREAT fun! There are four locked rooms you have to find the code for, by finding "hidden caches" or solving puzzles, reading compasses or maps. Then in the locked room you stamp your card. I really wanted Eric to be with us, he would have LOVED it. There were all kinds of displays on GPSs and geocaching and travel bugs and what to wear and carry. They showed celestial navigation books and charts and compared them to a GPSr. If we'd really felt like it, we could have gone around the grounds looking for caches, but only maze caches. We've already found all but one of the actual caches at Turtle Bay.
We did stick around long enough to look at the butterflies. I always love the butterflies. But the good thing about membership is you can just look at one thing and then leave without feeling like you're wasting money.
Then it was lunch in Redding. One last splurge on a guacamole bacon six-dollar burger, and one last eye-rolling moment over not parking in the shade. And onward toward home, 12:25! On the freeway I spied a guy texting: we made sure to get WELL out of his way.
Yesterday we had called Bernadette, who was in Junction City, about the time we were parallel with her at a rest area (where we found a cache.) She had a request that we make sure her cats had water. OK, maybe do that before we get home. Then I realized that we could turn off the highway on Elkhorn and pick up Pharaoh, if we could make room in the car. So we did, went home, then drove down to Elk Grove for the cats. We were done with all this and home again by 5!! This was the time I had thought we would be home if we were lucky, and that would have meant getting the dog tomorrow. Getting to Yreka yesterday was a great thing!
It was a nice trip. About 2300 miles, 86 caches, a lot of people and events, and the wonderful times with the grandchildren!
My son didn't want to be an astronaut, nor did he become a rocket scientist, to make Muslims feel good.
Hilarious: and where are you going to find world class rocket scientists in Muslim countries ? Most of these countries cannot make their electricity work. Mr Obama is destroying the space program and eliminating the physical infrastructure for manned space flight that took 60 years to build. Trillions for his friends like the unions, but the US space program ? get rid of it, we do not have the 4-5 billion to keep it. Not the only part of America Mr Obama will destroy.
Since we don't have a budget, or spaceships or calculators anymore. And our new job is to run a self-esteem school for Muslims, we're out of ideas. The only ideas we have anymore show up when we're drinking. And since you took office, we've been drinking a lot.
Global per capita income, corrected for inflation, had trebled in my lifetime, life expectancy had increased by one third, child mortality had fallen by two-thirds, the population growth rate had halved. More people had got out of poverty than in all of human history before. When I was born, 36% of Americans had air conditioning. Today 79% of Americans below the poverty line had air conditioning. The emissions of pollutants from a car were down by 98%. The time you had to work on the average wage to buy an hour of artificial light to read by was down from 8 seconds to half a second.
Fred Thompson writes:
President Obama said that the US and Israel share an "unbreakable" bond. Obama should know. He's been trying to break it for months.
For a former college lecturer and supposed Constitutional scholar, Barack Obama has a powerful allergy to actual research. ...even when Congress doesn’t spend money it doesn’t have on issues outside of its jurisdiction, people find ways to make things work.
Basically, Tea Partiers are people who have a more sophisticated understanding of current events than those who describe themselves as anti-Tea Party. Anyone who doesn't realize that the exploding federal debt represents a serious threat to our future either is a fool, or doesn't have children.
This decline continues a trend that started in 1991 for men and in 1992 for women. Since that time, death rates have fallen 21% among men and 12% among women, the report says
Ah, well. When we finally start reaping the benefits of Obamacare in 4 years, this will reverse.
In what's proving to be a difficult fund raising year for Democrats, Obama finally figured out how to get people to open their wallets. Unfortunately for him, they are donating to the other side in his lawsuit.
When it comes to how people react to BH Obama, it's always somebody else's problem. Better still, it's always because of some sort of racial animus.
The explanation can't be because Obambi's politics are hopelessly stupid. It's always because people just can't figure out how not to be racist towards this one black dude. Give me a freakin' break.
The racialism and self-regard the President has ingrained into his persona is astounding.
Posted by: KingShamus | Friday, July 09, 2010 at 07:35 AM
The immigration gambit has completely backfired on Obama, and he has now inadvertently created an American consensus for enforcement and border security that the media can no longer ignore, thanks to Obama’s high-profile attacks on Arizona.
The most frightening part of this is that Obama doesn’t care a bit what the American people think. He does what he wants anyway. Get ready for more.
sandee on July 9, 2010 at 9:44 AM
President Obama’s always at his most energetic when he’s gearing up to fight Americans. – Badger Yeah, just imagine if he put that much energy into fighting America’s REAL enemies! Tony737 on July 9, 2010 at 9:45 AM
No, really? (Krauthammer thinks maybe 0bama is a narcissist.)
But Obama’s modesty is curiously selective. When it comes to himself, modesty is in short supply.
It began with the almost comical self-inflation of his presidential campaign, from the still inexplicable mass rally in Berlin in front of a Prussian victory column to the Greek columns framing him at the Democratic convention. And it carried into his presidency, from his posture of philosopher-king adjudicating between America’s sins and the world’s to his speeches marked by a spectacularly promiscuous use of the word “I.”
It was definitely time to go home. I woke early and was sitting in the kitchen when this hot air balloon came by. Gabe woke up soon after and saw it, too. Eric wasn't awake at all when we left, just about 8 o'clock.
It was a long haul, some 520+ miles. Some of the events of the day... Rich said "there's an IXAT following us." I looked in my side mirror, and sure enough, it was an orange IXAT.
Our poor car got an owie. A pebble flew up and we got a Windshield chip. Poor baby!
On Rush: the drilling moratorium was slapped down again. "If liars could fly, the White House would be an airport." "Germans can't afford their socialist agenda."
At a rest area, I finally got a Washington State map.
A billboard: Gregoire: If you "can't live with" the state constitution, QUIT YOUR JOB! (Which she got illegally anyways)
License Plate: HRTSDZR. Took me a moment.
At noon, we got into Oregon. If we'd only known about the 3 states in a day challenge, we should have gotten one in Washington.
We had Lunch at Burger King in Salem. I had the free shake from the previous visit, and this time I did get a Texas double whopper. Not as wonderful as I'd hoped.
Gas was at 2.69/gal. Sigh.
Finally a cache at a rest area, a nice big one.
I drove maybe an hour, passing 2000 miles for this trip at 2:59.
We didn't see billboards for Winston Safari Park so I wondered if it still exists. Apparently so.
My cousin's house along the Rogue has been all destroyed: it had been a gorgeous log built display home. Now I didn't even see it, and there appears to be a trailer park there.
Then we got another cache and then went over Siskyou summit, which is the highest elevation on I-5 (4310')
At 5:44 we were in California. Shortly we got to Yreka and located the Econolodge. We checked in and went caching. Our first one was on a median, and up drives a cop. "what are you guys doing?" "We're geocaching." "Oh, is that where it is? You be careful!"
We had one DNF, 7 finds, and ran into plantdude at the last cache (which would have been a DNF without him as we were in the wrong driveway! I got another car TB, too.
We had a nice dinner in a little cafe, then back to the motel. We'll never go back there! If we stay in Yreka again it'll be at the Super8, which was quite nice. The chain lock was broken, the air conditioner didn't work at all well, there were ants in the bathroom, and the real kicker, no pun intended, was the toenail clipping on the floor. Ick. Usually ChoiceHotels sends me a survey and I could hardly wait, but I eventually volunteered my opinion here.
Besides Gabe and the shoes there were a couple of other things that happened during our stay that I enjoyed. Vince took me shopping on the 5th and I watched him getting the groceries and pushing around the cart, and I recalled him as a preschooler with his toy grocery cart. He really liked that, who knew it was predictive? The other thing was Niki sending Eric out to the deck with a beer for me... and me without a camera! When he was 2 or so, he liked to play in the dog's kennel, and I did get a picture of this. All blackmail material! Heh.
On Whidbey Island, a sign: "Free garden waste disposal." Heh. Free compost, more like.
Today we went to see my classmate on Mercer Island. We got down to the island in plenty of time to do some caching: we found a couple in a park, went down to another park where we did find one and not another. The second one was a disappointment because it should have been in a dragon play structure. [It hasn't been found in the three weeks since, either.] There was one other but it involved too long a walk, so we went to my friend's, decided we were too early so went to see if we could find a view, then back.
We met Trella, who lives with him. (Two failed marriages. I remember at our 20th all the divorces were the men, none of the women, though I suppose that's changed lately.) She fixed a vegetarian meal which was delicious. I note Dave ate a peanut butter sandwich. We talked and talked. Rich discussed engineering, and I talked about past memories. I was surprised he didn't remember the "food unit" we had in 3rd grade, since it had made such a big impression on me. Later, Dave said my recollections were "charming." Huh.
We stopped for hamburger buns on the way home. After dinner, the boys went with Niki to the neighbor's swimming pool. When it was time to come home, Eric didn't want to and was crying, and it rapidly accelerated to a complete meltdown. I understand why Niki was trying to soothe him and please get him to STOP, but there was no calming him. And if you look back on the last exciting 10 days, with geocaching and fireworks and climbing a rock wall and the beach and all the stuff, it's small wonder he finally snapped.
Then we played another game, which I didn't do at all well at, especially with Rich asking "what did you do THAT for?" I think I might have figured it out after awhile, but I did a little bit of a meltdown myself and snapped at him. There's a reason we don't play games at home.
And so, that's the time in Snohomish. It was a great stay and a lot of fun.
At Facebook:
Bernadette Durbin got out the vacuum, which quickly choked up. Turned it over to find a sad scrap of cloth that had formerly been a Brobee mitten.
On the one hand, it's sad that the Brobee mitten— a lovely find by my parents— bit the dust.
On the other hand, I have a vacuum with the power to *suck up a mitten*.
Sometime during this stay I helped Gabe with his shoes... he was having trouble getting them on and I showed him the tongue and how if he pulled it down his foot would fit. He gets frantic and cries when he's frustrated, so I hope he'll retain this lesson.
We had no middle of the night cries like two years ago, so I didn't need to teleport up a level in the house. They slept in pretty well and we were just organized enough to go to the park when Vince and Niki got home, earlier than I'd expected. "Hi mom, hi dad" and off to the park. It was awfully hot there, and they didn't play very long. I found it interesting that Eric doesn't seem to remember the geocache here. Which is a good thing.
Rich put out a replacement cache for Eric and Gabe's swamp. After I wrote it up and got it just right, I posted it at 3:11. It was approved at 3:40 and the first to find was there at 3:50. (After that it was a few days till the next find.)
I went with Vince to the Monroe Y to watch Gabe's swimming lesson. He was so cute! Every time he swam he'd flash us a thumbs-up. He had to be sure we were watching him.
We had chicken kebabs for dinner. After the kids went to bed we played S'Quarrels, which was a lot of fun.
Bernadette Durbin Got the pediatrician on her first day back from maternity leave. Gareth: 28 lbs. 4.4 oz. (48%) and 3 foot 1/2 inch (90%); Joanna 15 lbs. .9 oz. (98 %) and 2 foot 1/2 inch (92%). My big kids!
[I have a friend with a 3-year-old who is only 35 inches, and who can't be on the kiddie rides at the State Fair. Now, Gareth is too young for these, but he's big enough.]
At 5:30 AM there was a tap on the door. Vince had left his car behind the carpool van which the woman needed. Oops.
Rasmussen: -17: 45/54
We had plans, so left before Vince and Niki did. We took the boys on the Mulkiteo ferry across to Whidbey Island. Gabe didn't remember ever being on a ferry before and found the whole thing quite exciting. It was too cold outside, so we watched the 20-minute trip from the lounge. Both boys found that interesting. We got back in the car just in time to drive off. There was a cache on the other side and we stopped long enough to pick it up, for Island County in Washington.
Then we drove to Double Bluff beach. There was exactly ONE parking place open for us, yay. This beach has a LOT of driftwood. There was a shack made of it, in pretty good shape. Gabe was all concerned about getting sand in his sandals, so we solved that by going barefoot. Then we went down to the water. Gabe kept running back up to get rocks to throw in the ocean, so Rich stayed back on "kidnap patrol" while I was down in the water on "drown patrol." The tide was coming in, but I managed to keep the kids dry above the knees. The water was bathtub warm, it was wonderful. But eventually, it was time to leave and find lunch.
Lunch was at the Freeland Cafe in, of all places, Freeland. The kids had chicken strips, all was going along swimmingly, when Gabe spilled his half-glass of milk all over himself and started to scream. I immediately began wiping him off and telling him it would dry, not to worry, and by the time the waitress got there with a mop he was pretty well calmed down. To my surprise. I guess it's because I'm someone different. He got more milk and we finished our lunch in peace, and so onwards.
The next plan was to go to the NAS station to see the seaplane museum. We missed a couple of turns, then Rich had to go get a visitor's pass to go into the Naval Air Station, only then it turned out that the seaplanes were on the other part of the base. Backtracking, with another few wrong turns, then we were in the right place... only I spied a sign that said the PBF display was only open Thursday through Sunday. Oops. However, there was a playground nearby, so it's all good.
From there we went to see my niece and her enormous sons. Gabe was quite polite but kept asking me quietly, "can we go home now?" Then one of the boys pulled out some transformers and enthralled both the kids. After about an hour, we left.
We went looking for a cache in Anacortes. We couldn't find the first one, but did the second, so we added another county in Washington. Then we got back to the house about 6. I planned to serve macaroni and cheese, but couldn't find the kits till after Rich left to get some at the deli. We let the kids stay up late watching TV. Gabe had had a good day, but I blew it at the end with brushing his teeth wrong. Then I was annoyed with Rich who was suddenly out of clothes (after telling me he'd pack enough for the whole vacation.) Oh, well.
It was recovery day. We mostly sat around blinking. I went to the store with Vince and learned for sure where the park where the new earth cache was. Then later, Rich and I went to see if we could find it. Behold! There at the glacial erratic was another couple, geocaching! Furthermore, it's the first time I've seen a car travel bug away from an event. We compared notes but had to tell the man how to do the formula. I thought the erratic was smaller than Rich did, and the cache owner agrees with me, but whatever. The formula is something else...
4/3 π (1/2 x)(1/2 y)(1/2 z) x 207
x,y,and z are the dimensions of the rock (estimated) and 207 (in pounds/sq.ft.) is the density of this particular type of rock. The other cacher had no idea what pi was...
I tried calling my classmate but had to wait till dinner till he called me back, and I, cluelessly, hit "no" and hung up on him. We finally got back together and he offered to feed us lunch on Thursday. That'll be exciting! I haven't seen him since 1982, our 20th HS reunion.
Tomorrow we'll be babysitting. We have what I hope will be fun plans!
The Google Doodle was really fun this day. They celebrated Independence Day and Rube Goldberg's 120th birthday with a contraption to set off firecrackers and wave a flag.
Family day. Rich was disappointed that we couldn't figure a way to go down to Seattle to the Groundspeak event. I wasn't that disappointed then, but since then I've seen the HQ geocoin you could get, and I'm sad too. However, we had talked about going to the Hispanic Mass so we could go down, and Vince said no way, he wanted us to go to church with the family. Since I just had the exact same talk with Monica for later in July, I had to agree that was more important. And Mass was nice. The last time we tried this, two years ago, Gabe blew out his diaper and Vince had to take him home. This time we all managed to stay together.
Then there was a short break (but not time to go to Seattle) and my niece and family came. Niki had all kinds of stuff for the neighborhood kids to decorate their bikes with, and then they had a bike parade on the cul-de-sac.
Vince had been working on soda pop bottle rockets and set it up. The kids all painted their rockets. They had the wrong paint, it didn't dry quickly, but later in the afternoon they flew those. First, though, they each got to set off the sample one. How it flew! I got drenched one time, too.
Then it was food time. It was about here that we discovered that this wasn't a long-established block party that our kids got into, but the first annual that our kids helped plan. OK. The food was fantastic and kept coming... we were really full when somebody brought lumpia, how I love lumpia. Talking and playing and eating and drinking... and then early sparklers and then the big firework show. The sparklers are kind of disappointing, but oh, my the fireworks! After the "safe and sane" things we have here in California, this was really impressive. And it wasn't just our street ("take that, 19th avenue!") but all the neighborhoods around. Vince had said it was incredible, but it was INCREDIBLE! I was particularly taken with the Saturn Missile Battery!
It got colder and colder. I'd left my sweater at my sister's, but fortunately my niece brought it... but I needed more. Ended up with blankets and quilts. Gabe was really pushing it at the end of the day... he'd ask for another cookie, Niki would say no, then eventually give in. However, she hasn't been doing that the last month or so, and Gabe is learning he's not the boss. He's crying a lot less than he used to. (I expected more from him two years ago, but now that Gareth is that age, I'm remembering what two-year-olds are actually like.) He finally gave up about 10:30 or 11:00 (remember, it doesn't get dark till way late that far north). We were done with the fireworks about 11:30 but they were still going on around us way past midnight.
(He chose to write it himself, nobody told him to.) "I went to GeoWoodstock. It was fun. I climed up tis rock climing fase! But I made it half-way up. Want to know what hapend befor ? Well I gone in bowsey howses. befor rockcliming. we Had a go for the bownsy howses agan."
I had a good time at GeoWoodstock, though in retrospect I'm not sure why. Vince took Gabe in his car and followed us, driving with Eric. We had an easy trip down, even to the turn into Remlinger Farms. I had expected the tough traffic would be coming directly toward us and making it hard for us to make the left turn, but everyone apparently took a back road which crossed the highway we were on to get to the farms, and they were backed up for miles. We drove right in. Then it took about 20 minutes to get to parking. We were a few cars behind one with blow-up pencils on the roof and "BYOP" (Bring Your Own Pen) in the window.
I had a good time at GeoWoodstock, though in retrospect I'm not sure why. Vince took Gabe in his car and followed us, driving with Eric. We had an easy trip down, even to the turn into
We then walked over to the event. As we went in, we were given a special pen and a coupon for batteries. The boys looked at the enormous ammo can. And then Vince took Gabe to the bounce houses. Eric was reluctant to admit he wanted to go there, too, but eventually I convinced him it would be OK. (He reminds me of Bernadette, who wouldn't tell you what she wanted until it was too late and she expressed disappointment.) So then it was all over. Rich wandered the booths and talked to people, and Vince and I watched kids in the bounce houses. Occasionally I went somewhere with Rich, but most of the time I was watching the bouncing.
Eric climbed the rock wall. Vince says he never would have tried that in the past. He was so proud of himself!
Then we went to lunch. They set it up so that you could eat again and again till 3, though we had plenty for lunch and didn't need to come back (I should have come back for water, since Gabe backwashed into mine.) Gabe, while being picky, still got stuff he liked and had enough to eat. Then it was back to the bounce houses. Vince had a chance to check out the booths. Then, about 3 or so, he took Gabe home, while Eric decided yes, he'd like to stay. So we played the scavenger hunt game, and also the "how accurate is your GPS?" game. I tried to go to the talk about "geocaching.com" but the presenter didn't turn up. Grumble.
Eric climbed the wall again, and we went through the VIP parking lot a little, and he got a peace necklace from Old Hippy and Granny. They gave him one for Gabe, as well. So now they've done 4 of our grandkids! And, finally, it was over. Next year's will be in Warren Pennsylvania. (I don't think we'll be going). We packed Eric up and went home. A long day, but fun, though as I said I'm not sure why.
At the July 2 Lake Sammamish picnic, I couldn't believe my eyes. It looked like a (slightly taller) GoE was at the event. I pointed him out to Rich and he couldn't see it at first till he actually looked where I was telling him.
Rasmussen: -20, so that -9 a few days ago was a statistical anomaly. The oil keeps pouring in and so do the illegals. 45/55.
Here is the story of the XXX Root Beer place where we were on Wednesday.
Today was a busy geocaching day. We started off early and drove to the Hyak parking lot at the east end of the Snoqualmie Tunnel (which is currently closed. I'm so glad we had the chance to go through it two years ago!) They were staging buses to go to the other side so people could hike to the APE cache. We were there to wave them off. We got a doughnut and some coffee, saw a number of people we knew and wished them well, and I'm afraid we also gloated a bit about getting to walk through the tunnel. While I was going through the parking lot, I spied a Wyoming car and talked to the lady, who was waiting at the car while her husband went through the lot. More proof Wyoming is a small state: I said I'd met someone two years ago and she said "oh, yes, he's from Green River." She was from Kemmerer, so I mentioned Father Taylor (who married us and is from Kemmerer) and he'd baptised her grandchildren.
After we talked to people, signed the log ("is that the log?" I asked the woman with the doughnuts. "No, the Ape is the log" she said, and at first I thought she meant the APE cache which I had no intention of going to...then I saw Rich signing the log on the Ape, oh!), saw off about 4 buses, and got all the parking lot travel bugs, we left and went to Carnation where tomorrow's event will be. We won't be going to nearby caches on the day, so today would be the time. The evening party was actually an afternoon party, so our plan was to go north to Carnation, then come south through Snoqualmie, then over on 90 to Lake Sammamish where the party was.
We found two caches quickly (well, we'd have been quicker on the second one if I'd read "side of the building" instead of "back of the building") and then went to a park where we found #7100. There was a neat suspension bridge I wanted to see there, and as I walked over, I spied a whole bunch of people poking and prodding in the middle. It was a cache I didn't have on my pocket query, and I was getting nervous with all the slats to lose my PDA or glasses or camera through, so we moved on. There was another nice park along the Snoqualmie trail and we really must go back and do the whole thing. We found two caches and didn't find one but had to go on, go on.
That was down to Snoqualmie Falls where we stopped and fulfilled the requirements for the earth cache. I saw a suspicious looking couple, sure enough, geocaching. On into town for lunch. There were cachers sitting in the cafe, but the funny thing was as we were leaving, the drill team, 4 of them on the sidewalk all holding their GPSs at the same angle. So we followed along and found that one.
We wanted to be sure to get a geocoin at this event, so we left at 2. I'd seen a shortcut on a map along the trail so we took that, cutting off a few miles, and arrived early at the event. AND got our geocoins. We played the games, picked up our GeoWoodstock shirts and dinner tickets and geocoins, very very well organized, and talked to a lot of people. The Sacramento (and area) contingent is huge: at least 40 people. I'm going to have to sit down and figure out how many one of these days. Then I started wandering through the parking lot and eventually tired myself completely out.
On the way back to Snohomish, we missed one turn so lost some time. But we made it before the kids went to bed.
Lindsey Graham wants to know what the Tea Party would do if we took back the country. I think we would turn it back into a country where this would happen:
She raised funds to build the pedestal, on which the US government had balked at spending public money
I gave the boys dinosaur eggs which were beginning to hatch. These things are really neat. I wonder if they are made of the kind of silica gel in diapers.
Vince and the boys took Rich to the Museum of Flight, Niki had work, and I got to stay home on my own. I intended to do a lot of catching up, but I got sidetracked with a Washington ABC challenge. I also got a lot of links, as posted earlier. I talked to the bird and tried to teach it the "pray for the dead" song (it does "kill the rabbit" and the Indiana Jones theme. It also clearly says "pretty bird" and sometimes "hello." Plus things I can't interpret.) Later in the stay I also tried to teach it "who's a bird brain?" I also worked with the puzzle and got the frame together better. (In the 10 days we were there, I undid this and redid it every day, including changing out the corners. A lot of the pieces fit in a number of places, so you have to use the picture and pay attention to Every Little Detail.
Eventually my holiday was over and the boys were back with tales of the museum. I think Rich had a great time.
Then in the evening there was an event in Everett at the Denny's. Vince and Eric came along, but Gabe was deemed too likely to be difficult for this event. The restaurant was crowded, and one waitress, Denise, was attempting to handle all of us. Eric alternated between bored and fascinated, and made many friends and got some goodies. I took him out to the parking lot to look for car travel bugs, which amused him. Then, during the raffle, Eric won the first pull, a t-shirt. An extra-large t-shirt. Johnny Cache was going to trade him for something else, but Eric was thrilled with the shirt, which has now become a robe/nightshirt. "I won the rifle prize!"
After the dinner, I had located a possible cache to hunt, large, and far enough away from the crowd so that Eric would have a chance. It turned out to be in Kasch Park. You gotta admire the pronunciation. This is across the street from Boeing, so Vince was able to tell Eric he used to work there. We walked down the trail and sure enough, there was the cache, and Eric was thrilled. And so home, tired and happy.
Niki and Vince wanted to take us to breakfast at the Maltby Cafe. The boys wanted to go in our van, as we followed Vince and Niki. We seemed to drive and drive and drive forever, till I was finally saying "where the heck IS this place?" And then, at last, we were there.
Gabe wanted me to sit next to him. So when his food preferences came into play I was able to suggest some ways he could get what he wanted. (move the strawberry dish closer... then pour the strawberries onto the plate, for instance.) Also, before the food came, he wanted to sit on a stool, so I went over to the bar with him so he could. The food was fantastic. I had the special french toast with berries and strawberries, and a side of sausage. Oh, yum. I may never eat again.
When we left, Vince came with us so we could go caching and Niki could get some work done without us. Our first stop was at the visitor's center in Snohomish. There were lots of people there, a teacher's conference. Behind the center, an ammo box (huge) which we let Eric find. It has a combination lock which I taught Eric to open, a first for him. (All these good exciting things finally led to a major meltdown the night before we left.)
Next we went to the neighborhood park. There were park workers gathered where the cache was, so the kids played on the playground, and sure enough, the workers finished their meeting and went off. Then we found this one, too. Eric was thrilled.
We decided to try one more. We had a hard time finding the access to the wild area, but Gabe got to see construction going on, with *John Deere* machines (traitor!) so he was thrilled. Then it was hard to find the cache since the hints were written years ago and everything has changed. However, Rich finally located it. Then we went back to the house.
After lunch Rich and I went down to Seattle to see my sister in her new apartment. She'd sent the address and the directions. The last few times we've gone out with my sis, she gets us lost in Seattle, but I did think she would know where she lived. After we swooped around thrice following her directions, I gave up and called her... she was 3 blocks away from where she told us. It turns out these would have been the directions for the apartment she thought she was moving into, but she likes the place she actually is in so much that she'll stay there. It's a really nice apartment and she's pared way way down. So much so that she wouldn't take one of our wooden nickels. Chris always inspires me to throw out and clean up, but "fortunately" by the time I get home, the inspiration has flown.
Then we made the drive to Issaquah for the first event of the GeoWoodstock weekend. I'd plotted out a route but we missed a turn... it cost us about 15 minutes to get turned around and pointed the right way. However, even if we'd gone directly to the event, we would have missed the chance to get the special geocoin. The event was at the XXX Rootbeer place, and to our surprise they were really prepared. Our order was taken and food delivered really quickly. Our "sailorscodgers" shirts were admired. The back says "we can quit any time" and people thought that was funny. These are the shirts that Vince and Niki gave us two years ago when we babysat.
I was out writing down car travel bug numbers when a small boy kidnapped me to go find a cache in the parking lot. Then later Rich went to see it as well. We mostly talked to people from home, comparing notes on the trip. After a few hours, we left the event and looked for a couple of caches in town. One had a really full logbook which I replaced. It had started last September, but honestly, the cache owner should have known there would be hordes signing, and replaced it. I'm sure it was replaced again a few times during the week.
After two caches, then we drove back to Snohomish. We found the easiest, quickest route. Sat and talked to the kids and logged caches, then bed.
Rasmussen: -12: (back to familiar territory) 48/51.
Time to leave Bend and get to Snohomish! We were on our way at 8:10. Gas was $2.699 a gallon. Then we started out highway 97 but completely missed our turn what with the new bypass and highway, so we were 10 miles on the way to Sisters when we realized our mistake. We backtracked and took an old road to Redmond. Probably lost about 15 minutes, not that bad. And we saw some new scenery! I was amused by "Tumalo Perk", a coffee shop near Tumalo Park. Bend was 30K people in 1996, when we were first going there, and is 81K now. It's really easy to get lost.
The first stop was at the Peter Skene Ogden rest stop. This is where one of my 11 (or was it 12?) favorite caches is. That one involved walking around the rest stop then across the old highway bridge which is now a pedestrian bridge to the other side of the canyon, then along that side to the cache. Then the last time we were here we were stumbling around in the semi-dark near the edge, and the cache wasn't there anyway. I also lost my pedometer that time. THIS time, there was a cache on the safe side of the rest area, and another near the bridge, telling about the veteran hero it's named for. Excellent. Good views, as usual.
We admired the area, then drove on to Madras, which we've cached out twice before. The first one we did looked closed at first, an old pioneer homestead. Then Rich noticed we could access it from the fairgrounds parking lot. Next atop a hill and through some weeds for a nice view. The following cache was a very nice bolt under a bridge. Then the next one, which should have been the same, we couldn't find. However, we startled some deer: a doe and three fawns ran away, and two more does and a fawn stayed in the area, down in the creek, keeping a wary eye on us as we looked all over the bridge.
OK, OK, back into the center of town where we looked for one at the edge of a garage lot. A woman was sitting waiting in a car looking right at us, but we blocked her view as we retrieved the cache, logged it, traded goodies and returned it. Apparently, though, we look suspicious. She got out of the car as we walked back to ours and greeted us. Then, after Rich took his notes and we were about to leave, we looked back to see the woman standing right where we had been, talking animatedly to the garage owner. We considered going back and explaining ourselves, but instead we decided just to put the cache on our watchlist. Well, it's been found since we were there, but what I found interesting was the addition to the text on the cache: "Wave at the business owners as they are not muggles :)" Whew!
A few more caches and we left Madras 11:30 (with one unfound and one too far away to go after). My camera was acting up... often if it's raining the lenscap doesn't want to open, but today I had to physically open it every time.
The "snow cap indicator" (which has sadly been renamed the "mountain identifier," how boring) was being used for construction vehicles, so we had to pass it by, but I did recognize Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, Mt. Jefferson, 3-Fingered Jack, and the Sisters. We crossed the 45th parallel at 12:25, and on and on and on... finally reaching Biggs where I had a reuben. At 2:10 we crossed into Washington. There was no state map at the visitor's center, but I did pick up a booklet about Whidbey Island.
It's WINDy. We found two caches along the road, then hunkered down to drive.
Welcome to Yakima, the Palm Springs of Washington.
And so on. We got a call from Vince when we were getting gas at North Bend, so we then were pushing to get to Snohomish before bedtime. I timed things so I'd know how long it would take to come back later in the week. Timing: Hyak 5:17, North Bend 5:50, Carnation 6:13, Vince's house about 7:00. We took the wrong turn off highway 2 and were immediately lost, 1.5 miles from their house. Total of the day, 11 caches, 1 DNF, and it was starting to rain.
The bird (Sweetcheeks) immediately flew to my shoulder. I learned to love this bird while I was there. A LOT of company!!
I guess it all depends on how you see things. I got this email this morning and I think it fits very well with this….
A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast and
the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside. “That laundry is not very clean”, she said. “She doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.”
Her husband looked on, but remained silent..
Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.
About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband:
“Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this.”
The husband said, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”
And so it is with life. What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look.
June 28 was our caching day in Bend. I woke up at 2:30 till 4:30 till I finally put on the tv which lulled me back to sleep till a more respectable 6:30. We got started caching at 8:10 and had bad luck on our very first cache. After that unfortunate start, we began to find things. I felt a bit creepy looking at the grounds of the Ronald McDonald House till an employee asked if we had found it. And then put us looking in the right direction where the different color "rock" was perfectly obvious. Anyway, I felt better about it then.
From there we went to the hospital for a virtual. Such a pretty statue, carved out of a single tree trunk.
After a few more caches, we found one at a cigarette store. The text said something about buying a geocoin there, and indeed the owner's kids are working a fund-raiser there re-selling supplies. We got a geocoin. Then we went on to find a garbage can which was a depository for other geocaches. We didn't see the log, which turned out to be in the lid, and decided not to trade one of our good caches for the junky ones in the can.
There was a bunch of caches in a big wild area. It looked like it would take too long and be too taxing, so we only went to one on the edge. It was easy enough, and the text asked for 10 favorite caches. I came up with 11, and didn't mention the one where I climbed a windmill. Heh.
Anyway, when we abandoned this area, it all began to fall apart. We had 2 DNFs, illegally parked in a bike lane for one, then got a couple and broke for lunch at a Jack-in-the-Box close to our motel. Then we started off in a different direction, and continued to make bad turns and have disagreements. For instance, Rich picked a cache that was north along the side roads of the freeway, and was determined to follow the road we were on, which ended in a business as I could see from where we started. Once he realized I was right, we turned around and for some reason he changed his mind and settled on a different cache. Finally, after a frustrating period of no-finds and no access, we found one. Yay! Then we went to a different area and found quite a few including one on the hider's porch. We went back across the Deschutes River and then to the Mill district.
What did they mill at the Mill before they turned it into shops? Who knows, but it's pretty. [I have found out... it was a timber sawmill.] There's a little nano cache up on a rail on the second floor. They had just finished painting the rail (and the cache) black, and it was still tacky but at least I was able to unscrew it and sign the log. My hands were covered with black smears, though. I was hot and tired and ice cream sounded really good. We had that then went back to the motel which is something Rich had suggested the day before.
I went to the pool for 15 minutes or so, and after that Rich took a little nap. Rich is disappointed that we didn't do more in Bend, but we were really falling apart. He wasn't listening or didn't understand, and he himself picked silly ones, then gave up on them when he'd make a wrong turn. Besides, we got 24 caches for the day with 5 no-finds.
After the break we began to work our way to a geocaching friend's house via three or four more caches. We ended up on the community college campus and found one, not another. Our final cache was, thank goodness, easy. Then on to meet Bigeddy and Karen. We then walked down a couple of blocks to Kebaba. I had the lamb schwarma, which was delicious. Then we walked back and went in and talked for an hour or so. Very nice people! And so to the motel and bed, which I did make before midnight, even with logging all the caches.
June 27: Day One. (I thought I'd really covered this till I reread it...oops.) We started off at 7:47. The first sight was the fields of sunflowers, greeting the morning sun.
Some interesting billboards:
Save Lake Almanor Stop the Thermal Curtain. (What that means)
Just a few more big splats away. (from the casino which always has fun billboards. The bugs in this area are interesting, especially the sulphur butterfly clouds.)
And I saw a billboard advertising the Adventure Maze in Redding, where we intend to go, with Signal the Frog!
We missed a cache in Willows, but found our first one at 9:20. Then we took a detour in Corning after visiting the Olive Pit. There are lots of lovely things there and I had thought we would stop again on the way home and buy some, but by then all I wanted to do was get home. The first cache in Corning was at an interesting bell. Also, while we were there a church carillon was playing. Nice! Then 2 finds, a no-find, another find, and a find of a cache that had been through a fire. There I got a travel bug, which survived the fire but its plastic bag had seen worse. Finally, a no-find that we really don't think is there despite the fact that the numbers-bug claimed he found it. Liar.
Then I drove, past another Signal billboard. I never managed a picture of one. I returned the wheel to Rich at the O'brian rest area at noon. He drove through the "State of Jefferson" (Northern California, Southern Utah) and we saw a truck place with a rainbow of colors on the trucks. Then across Lake Shasta, which is full for a change. And on into Weed... we bypassed the South exit, where the food and gas are, so had to go back. We were there at 1 o'clock. We went to Burger King, where because I was interested in not getting fries, I didn't make sure she heard "Texas" on my Double Whopper, so didn't get what I wanted. We did get a coupon for a shake next time (and actually remembered to use it.) Gas was $3.25 a gallon. Ouch. We're getting 24 mpg.
Then we started up Highway 97. We took this route SO MANY TIMES while the kids were in Gonzaga. There are gorgeous views of Mt. Shasta and you can also get a glimpse of Mt. McCoughlin. We had found a cache off in the sagebrush in 2003, but then didn't have time to look at the Veteran's Memorial Sculpture Garden. We've always gone past but not stopped, so this time I definitely planned to stop and look. We ended up walking, which wasn't necessary, but that way we saw everything. It's absolutely beautiful.
We spent about an hour there, then it was time to go on. There was a cache I hadn't marked at a historical marker. We went to a great viewpoint and found a cache. Then there was the one at Grass Lake where some women wanted the explanation of our license plate. Heh.
We looked at Dorris' big flagpole, then on to Oregon. We were there at 3:33, 297 miles from home. At the sign is a geocache, and we had just located it but not retrieved it as a family came our way. "You geocaching?" asked the wife. Whew. She's from England and her husband from France, though they're American now.
They still have the rock "food" at the Visitor's Center. We found out that there's a big outdoor quilt show in Sisters the weekend of July 10, and I wondered if Bernadette's mother-in-law would be going. (Answer: no, since they had a family get-together instead.)
En route we saw a marmot, and a flying bald eagle. We saw the old prehistoric beast from the long-gone Thunderbeast Park. I guess the other statues have all broken down.
On the radio, Mark Mothersbaugh pointed out that the Burger King jingle "hold the pickles" is really Pachebel's Canon! I'll never hear it again without thinking of that.
Highway 97 is being widened, but there are still two-lane stretches with scary passing. We passed Newberry Volcanic Park and LaPine, both places we camped on trips. Happy memories! We had Sailor with us both times. Stayed at Newberry 3 nights and thoroughly explored it. Loved it.
We arrived at our motel at 6:45 and had dinner at Applebee's, then had a little time to do the one cache that had been recommended. It was a multi, and we ended up at a park border close to someone's back yard. "Did you find it yet?" We had a nice conversation with these folks who thought geocachers were kind of weird. 456 miles and I went to sleep at 11:30 after logging all our caches.
The FTF thing is totally wrong but will involve too much work to fix, and the distance includes a stupid armchair puzzle cache from Germany. I must go back and change my "find" to a note, and then to avoid messing up our numbers, re-find an archived cache from the same time frame. [Unfortunately, the cache is locked. The "find" was June 5, 2003. It won't let me change my log, or delete it. Grumble.] This program also, for some reason, didn't spy the 43-cache day at Lake Berryessa. And the Florida cache is a mobile cache, and we haven't actually found a cache in Florida.
There's another cache stats thing I might try that involves loading a program. It's supposed to be good and fixes some of these issues. But how I miss "It's Not About the Numbers!" Comment (0)
Sun, Jul 11th - 6:10PM
Some Linkage from Late June
We're home again, so it's possible I'll someday start posting regularly again. Till that happy day:
Exit question: Why are the numbers coming back? The news about cost projections, etc., has been steadily bad. It can’t be because … The One has finally shut his big yapper about it, can it?
Brack Obama talking about what it means to be an American is like Christoper Hitchens talking about what it means to be a Christian.
0bamateurism of the Day #304 To reiterate a point made in the Corner, this is an administration so focused on ensuring no crisis goes to waste that they never seem to find the time to actually solve the crisis.
Tunku Varadarajan “When a president recites Emma Lazarus in a speech on immigration—and recites not merely a fragment or two but virtually the entire length of ‘the New Colossus’—one is inclined to conclude that his speech was written by someone who has just graduated from high school and has a young head brimming with social studies. This being President Obama, however, one can conclude that he will have written a fair portion of the speech himself, and, in so concluding, one would be struck forcefully by how banal the speech was.”
Instapundit: If you were trying to kill private sector growth, you couldn’t do much better than the Obama Administration has done.
Yes, I am alive! And so far behind I will never ever ever catch up!
Rich's stats:
Mi
Bike
Can
Btl
Lead
Golfball
Softball
$$
June
55.2
134.3
210
72
25
23
81
$6.92
2010
190.1
547.6
574
436
212
87
267
$30.21
Plus: 6 baseballs, 2 whiffle softballs, 4 whiffle baseballs, 3 rubber softballs, tennis ball, plastic ball, 9 pens, 3 pencils, metal charm, scrunchy, ladybug hair clip, bar of soap, 2 40" belts, 2 lighters, stick together pig, shower curtain hook, stuffed grape plush toy, cubic zirconium earring, plastic beads, hair tie, 3 X-Lazer tokens, 2 bracelets, toy battery run fan, "Brobee" mitten, plastic soldier, McDonald's Airbender card, 2 ball bearings, lag hook, spark plug gap tool, cigarette making tool, Camel Snus container, socket, 11" chain, Acura plastic insignia.
For me, 27.0 miles. I'm not sure where I am on the pounds: It was 2 less when we left, with low(!) blood pressure. I've done 125 pages and finished the book, 6 books, 1 movies, 0 plays, 5 Masses.
We found 121 caches last month, 7094 total. We're 186th in the world, and 11th locally.
In proofing I'm in 934th (out of 31078 proofers) place in the first proofing round, with 872 pages proofed (0 done in June), 13th (out of 3633) in P2 with 23508 pages (0), 504th (of 831) in P3 with 469 pages, and formatting 534th place (2895) with 1020 pages. I really have to get back to this. You know, Hatchlings (where I could never break the 2000th rank) is a lot less significant!
In Flickr I have 35022 pictures, with 79996 views, and 143 sets to work on. And I watched 2 Netflix discs, though I also had the MS3TK Hamlet, which I didn't like. That was VeggieTales "Who is my Neighbor?" which I watched with Gareth, and "Little Miss Sunshine."
Invite
