GPSOkie's Photography and Geocaching Blog

Wild Winter....

2010-02-03T09:50:00.002-06:00

We have had an amazing winter here in Oklahoma. Not only did we have a white Christmas, but the snow that fell on Christmas Eve was on the ground almost 20 days. It helped that we got around 10 inches here at the house! About the time all of that snow melted off, we had another storm leaving 8 inches of snow. That fell 3 days ago and seems like it will melt off a lot faster. We do still have a lot on the ground, though. Interestingly enough, we are supposed to get another round of snow starting tomorrow evening.

I need to get the camera out and take more photos. I was hoping to get some time on the telescope but between the clouds, cold, and my scope acting up, I just haven't got it done. Here's to better weather!

Moving Right Along....

2010-02-01T18:09:00.003-06:00

Wow...a lot has happened since I post the last post. I was still pretty hurt and angry at that point in my life. It is funny how many things can come unravelled at once in a person's life. When I left Lisa, I moved in with the best friend I have ever known. His name is Micheal Gouker. We met at work and had a lot in common and became quick friends. He became the older brother I never had. Mike is and probably always will be the greatest man I've know other than my father. By the way, this is likely to be a lengthy post since a lot has happened since July!!

When I moved in with Mike and his wife, Mike had been diagnosed with lung cancer and was not doing well at all. The primary reason I moved in was to help his wife and sister take care of him. To say that I owed him that is an understatement. Mike has done so much for me through the years and has always been there for me. One issue that existed was that Mike was subordinate to me at work. He was a supervisor and I his manager. I talked with our director and no one seemed to take issue with the move. If there were any decisions to be made concerning Mike, I would defer them to her. Pretty cut and dry, so I thought. About a month and a half later, I was called in to the director's office and give 3 days to move out. Needless to say, this is an almost impossible task to accomplish. Most upsetting was that I felt I was leaving my best buddy in a lurch.

I was able to move into an extended stay hotel and found a house within a week. I think it was the harder to make that move than the one before! I knew when I left that Mike was not going to survive his cancer and it was more than I could handle. To lose your wife and your best friend in less than a year is too much for anyone. Here is a photo I took of Mike one night when I was at his place playing a little pool. Mike died recently and it was all I could do to make it through his funeral. This photo is how I always want to remember this great man.

I think the only way I was able to handle all of this was finding Missi. We had started seeing each other just before I had to move out of Mike's place. She was my rock when I needed one. She is a wonderfully smart and beautiful woman that loves me more than I deserve. She is younger than I and has a great five year old boy that keeps me busy. I took her to meet my parent over Thanksgiving. We also had an incredible Christmas together.

The last six months has been a whirlwind of grief and happiness. As I emerge on the backside of everything, I am emerging happy. As painful as the loss of Mike was, I know he is in a much better place. It was incredibly difficult to see him suffer as he did. He was always the strong one who helped everyone else. He hated being seen when he was sick and in pain. I know that he is free of the body that failed him in the end. Missi, her son, and I are off to a wonderful start of our new life together. I can't image being loved more by anyone. I can't image loving anyone more than I love her.

Here are a few more photos that I took over the past little bit.

Leaving on a Jet Plane....

2009-07-26T13:51:00.005-05:00

Nah, I'm not going anywhere. The song title just seems like an appropriate title for this post. The song was written by John Denver (my wife's favorite artist). It was first recorded by Peter, Paul, and Mary and later recorded by Mr. Denver on several of his albums. I've loved the song since I was a kid but it became even more special after I married Lisa because Mr. Denver's music was such an important part of her life.

If you have followed my blog for a while, you know what Lisa has been through over the past years and you also probably know how hard it was for me to see her so sick. You also know how happy and proud I was to see her recover and return to work as a paramedic. She loves EMS and it was so important to her to get back to doing what made her so very happy.

A week and a half ago, I discovered that she was having an affair and had fallen in love with someone else. One day later, I moved out to begin my new life without her. I can honestly say that I have never had anything more devastating happen to me. We had been married for twenty years and I had never imagined that this could happen to us. Before you ask me about working things out or counseling, please understand that she has no interest in pursuing any options like that. She had already decided to marry this other man before I discovered the affair.

Needless to say, I had a REALLY rough week. The good news is that I seem to be doing really well after less than two weeks. I think that is good news, right? I expected the hurt to last much longer than it actually did. I now seem to find myself feeling sad for Lisa and her new man. I'm not sure I can explain it and I'm not sure I even understand it myself. All the anger and hurt that I felt when I discovered the affair just seems to have vanished. There are still moments of pain but the constant assault is over.

I have been surrounded by my friends and family since all of this happened and I attribute my rapid recovery to all the love they have shown me. I have several sets of what I consider family. I have my blood family that is in Texas. I didn't tell them initially because they were in Colorado on vacation. I did not want to ruin their trip so I waited as long as I could to let them know. I also have a really close group of friends that are like family to me. I use the term "group" loosely. Really, it is three people and and their families. One of which, is the older brother I never had. I told him the day I found out about the affair and by the time I got off work, he had a moving crew (his son and one of my other close friends) at my house to move me to a spare bedroom at his home. Last, is my work family. They have been so supportive of me since this all happened.

I can't imagine how hard this could have been without all the special people I have in my life right now. I know I will be fine now. I know I will be happy again. Happiness is already returning to my life. Just yesterday, we had a very small get together. I am still easily overwhelmed by attention so it was just me, my buddy's family, and one other person that is pretty special to me. I'm not emotional anymore but I get pretty anxious and somewhat cranky when the conversation stays focused on my marriage and the affair very long. I'm also a bit sensitive about people wanting to "fix" something or making me do stuff to distract me. I have to do this my way at my pace. Anyway, back to yesterday! I spent most of the day cooking on the smoker while my buddy's wife and sister prepared side dishes. We had an incredible meal and then played pool, drank, and enjoyed life.

In many ways, yesterday was my "jet plane". The only life I had know for 20 years ended yesterday and with the help of some very special people, a new life took off for destinations unknown. What I do know, is that I will be happy where ever life takes me. As long as I have people in my life like those there now, I can't be anything but happy.

Moonscape

2009-05-31T11:14:00.003-05:00

Spent some time taking photos of the moon and stars the other night. This was my favorite! I was surprised at how much detail showed. I will have more to post soon.

Zoo Safari III

2009-05-24T14:49:00.002-05:00

Thought I would post a few more photos from the zoo trip.

This is one of the two rhinoceroses at the Tulsa Zoo.

They have beautiful flowers in the Tropical Rain Forest Exhibit.

Another flower from that exhibit.

The always majestic lion.

Meerkat!

Be sure to visit my Flickr site if you want to see all my photos. Speaking of sites...I just joined Facebook! I never really thought about it until one of my coworkers urged me to join. I am amazed at how many of my friends are on Facebook. I'll add a link to my page later today.

Zoo Safari II

2009-05-23T10:56:00.003-05:00

I'm pretty pleased with the Canon XSi. The zoo trip was a good measure as I have taken photos of the same subjects with my two other DSLRs and I knew I would be able to compare the differences. The Canon is a 12mp camera and my D80 was 10mp so I didn't know if there would be an discernible advantage. In my opinion, the Canon's 12mp sensor did a better job and showed a noticible resolution advantage. To me, the photos from the Canon are just more pleasing to the eye than those of my Nikon. As I said below, I have always been a huge Nikon fan so it is not easy for me to admit.

When I would take the D80 to the Tulsa Zoo for a day, I would usually come home with about 60% of my photos "postable". The other 40% had noticible focus or exposure issues that were beyond fixing in Photoshop. I was amazed to see almost all of my photos from the XSi usable. I would guesstimate that about 90% of the photos were correctly exposed and had good focus. This is in spite of the fact that I accidently had my EV setting two full stops in the negative for the first half of my photos!

All of that said, the Nikon D80 and Canon XSi are both wonderful cameras. You can't go wrong with either camera. Knowing what I know now, I would choose the XSi above the D80. Here are some of my favorites from last weekends photo safari at the Tulsa Zoo.

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend. Don't forget to honor those who died so that we could be free. This post is dedicated to my grandfather, Lonnie Ables, who served in World War II.

Zoo Safari

2009-05-18T19:05:00.003-05:00

I spent a couple of hours at the Tulsa Zoo yesterday taking photos. I ended up with around 260 photos! I an using a Canon XSi that I bought a couple of weeks ago. I believe I took some of the best photos I have ever taken. Don't get me wrong, I have had 3 DSLRs (Olympus E-330, Nikon D80, and now the XS-i) and they have all taken some wonderful photos. But, I don't ever remember getting output that was this consistently good. I have used digital cameras since the beginning and have always been a Nikon man but I think this Canon is going to change my outlook significantly. I used my 55-250mm EF-S IS lens for the entire day and just captured one great photo after another. I know that some of it is my increasing experience and the studying I have done. Mostly, I think it is my new equipment, though.

I will be posting photos to Flickr and the blog starting tonight so keep your eyes open. I will probably post in sets of 10 to Flickr and follow up with post here. It takes forever to process 260 RAW images!

While you wait, here is something recent I took.

Clouds

2009-05-16T22:17:00.003-05:00

We have had rain in Tulsa for twenty two days straight now. The good news is that it has presented a lot of weather photography opportunities! I sold my tripod because it wasn't what I wanted so I ended up trying to take handheld night time lightning photos. That failed miserably. I did get a few interesting photos but no good lightning shots. Here is a night shot of the clouds as a thunderstorm rolled in last night.

This is cloud to cloud lightning lighting up the clouds.

I took this photo looking straight up. I really like how it turned out!

If you get a chance, check out this new website. Photocrati is a very nice site about photography. To be honest, it is one of the better websites I have seen. They cover a lot of news on DSLRs and software that is of interest to me. Check it out! Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Sorry!

2009-05-12T22:11:00.002-05:00

I can't believe that it has been nearly a year since I last posted to this blog! I am ashamed. I don't have a good excuse other than it has been a busy and trying year.

Here is a quick rundown of the past year's events. My wife and I moved to a new home. She is still working as a paramedic....and she is still on an opposite shift from me. It suck having no seniority! She caught meningitis from a patient and spend a couple of weeks in the hospital. I am still at the same job and in the same position. I have not done any geocaching in a long time. I sold my beloved Nikon to help finance our move. To be honest, it was not so beloved as I wasn't completely satisfied with the camera. My MS is status quo and I haven't had much progression! My chronic back pain due to my MS is worse than ever. Winston and Delia (my two Dachshunds) are still terrorizing anyone they come in contact with. I bought a Canon XS-i a week ago and LOVE it. I discovered Oklahoma casinos (specifically, Cherokee Casino in Catoosa). I think that is it!?!

Since I bought my new camera, I should be posting a lot more often. I made it to Woodward Park at lunch the other day so I will leave you with a recent photo.

Busy, busy.....

2008-06-08T05:20:00.002-05:00

Wow, it's been a crazy month! We are closing in on the end of our fiscal year at work which means it's budget time again. Combine that with the fact that we are coming in right at our annual goals and it is just utter insanity at the work place. Where I work, meeting our goals is not an option. Peoples lives depends on our ability to meet our goals and commitments. It seems to get harder and harder as each year passes. While I struggle however I can to help meet our goals, I'm also responsible for putting together a $9 million dollar budget. All of this equals a lot of stress.

The wonderful news is that my wife is back working and loves her job. Unfortunately, she ended up with a shift opposite the hour I work. That means we end up with about 12 hours a week together. She is so excited to be back at work and loves the work so I don't think she feels the impact of our time away yet. I had grown used to having her to come home to each day. She balanced my life. I really miss her being here.

Hopefully, I will have time for some photography and geocaching here in the near future. It hasn't hit that miserably hot time of the year yet so it is still pleasant outside at times. Although, the humidity can be a killer with all the rain we have received!

I did get a nice photo a couple of weeks ago of the new arena they are building here in Tulsa. It will be nice to have a place where bigger name entertainers are willing to come.

Smokin'....

2008-05-18T12:43:00.003-05:00

I did my first smoke of the year this weekend. Like geocaching, it was a low priority for the past year as we worked through my wife's illness. Usually, I smoke year round but it has been at least a year since I fired up the smoker. I spent the evening Friday getting the smoker ready to go. I also prepped the brisket by trimming and covering it with mustard and a dry rub. It was then wrapped in plastic wrap and placed back in the fridge.

Got up yesterday morning at around 0600 to get the smoker started and the meat loaded. Once the smoker was up to temp, I placed the brisket on to smoke. I like to smoke food the old fashion way...with real fire and wood. I think the food is better that way. I have tried electric smoking and it just wasn't for me. I am the type of person that gets a lot of pleasure from tending to the food and fire. To me, that is half the fun. After the brisket had smoked for about six hours, I added a split chicken for the wife. She is not big on meats but does enjoy chicken on occasion.

The brisket went twelve hours and the chicken smoked for six. I was very pleased with the results. The brisket was very tender and tasty. The chicken just about melted in your mouth it was so tender. Paired up with a little potato salad, baked beans, and some Head Country Barbecue sauce it made for a great dinner.

Geocaching!

2008-05-05T20:13:00.003-05:00

After a long break, I finally went geocaching Sunday!! Yes, I am excited about it. Between my wife being so sick last year and my MS, I did not get hardly any caching in this last year. Now that our lives are pretty much back in order, I can start caching again. I traded my Lowrance H2Oc some time ago for a new, in the box, Garmin 60CSx. It has pretty much gone unused since I made the trade. Needless to say, it got a nice test drive yesterday. Our first cache was MnM Urban Jungle. It was relatively close to home and new since my last time caching. We were able to park fairly close and walk to the cache. Mike spotted it first. It was a nice size ammo can. We didn't take anything but we left a few trinkets. Here is a view from near the cache.

Next, we headed for Fenced In. We were able to locate the clever hide quickly. From there, we headed over to Fitness Walk - West Bank (South). They don't call this one Fitness Walk for no reason! It was a bit of a hike in to the cache. Trust me, I need the exercise so I am not complaining! We ended up hitting three caches and made thee finds. I am so impressed with the Garmin 60 CSx. I loved my Lowrance but (as much as I hate to admit it) the Garmin is just a all around better unit. That said, it should be as it is about 33% more expensive. I was fortunate to get such a good trade. I traded a Garmin eTrex Legend (older model) and my H2Oc for the 60CSx so I think I ended up with a good deal as the 60CSx had not even been opened. The two units I traded were in good shape but well used.

As soon as I get more time with the new Garmin, I will post a review. Like I said, I'm quite impressed so far. It is a VERY accurate unit.

While we were out, we swung by Riverside Airport and did a little photography. There was a B-17 visiting that had caught our eyes.

Uneventful...

2008-04-27T18:37:00.002-05:00

It has been an uneventful week here in Tulsa Oklahoma. Work was work with nothing interesting to break the blahs. Lisa is enjoying her new job, though. The training academy at EMSA is about six weeks and involves a lot of learning and testing. She had two major testing events this week and did well on both in spite of the stress. She did a ride out Friday night and from what she told me the calls are the same as they were back when we were both paramedics....alcohol and assaults for the most part.

Even the weather was uneventful this week. I guess that is a good thing for most people. As weird as it seems, I really enjoy severe weather. It is not because I have never been touched by severe weather. I have been in a tornado and my grandparents lost their home to a tornado when I was a child. I was old enough to remember everything. We got their the day after the tornado hit. I remember walking around in shock at the destruction. I'd never wish that on anyone. All that said, I'm facinated by tornadoes, hail, lightning, and the likes.

We did have one storm blow through on Wednesday, I think. I got a nice photo of some scud clouds after the center of the storm had passed.

Party

2008-04-23T20:50:00.002-05:00

My closest friend's wife had a birthday this last weekend. We gathered at their house and celebrated the occasion. A good time was had by all and I got some nice photos in the process. We shot a little pool and I did not do well at all! I've never been the best pool shooter but I was ever worse than usual. Mike romped me badly.

After we tired of playing pool, we moved outside to his fire pit where we built a fire and enjoyed our drinks in the cool evening air. Fortunately, he lives in the country so we can enjoy this activity without alarming anyone.

All in all, it was a great evening and we really needed a wind down session after a rough week at work. We had our national auditors in for the whole week and it was quite stressful!

Movie Night

2008-04-16T20:50:00.003-05:00

We had the whole family piled on the bed last night watching a movie. By whole family, I mean me, my wife, and the two dogs. My wife and I were not able to have children so we went the dog route instead. I think we both grew up loving animals so it is only natural that we would have pets now. Winston and Delia are like children to us. Most likely, we are closer to them than most people are to there children. How many people sleep with their 12 and 14 year olds? I had the camera out and decided to take advantage of the situation.

Dog Parts-Nose

I had my Tokina 100mm lens on the camera so it forced me to be a bit creative and I did a series of close-up shots. I ended up with a bunch of photos that I could not help calling "Dog Parts". I had fun and ended up with some unique photos of the pups!

Dog Parts-Toes

Weather Part III...

2008-04-08T19:21:00.002-05:00

This spring is really getting started with a bang! Once again, we had more severe weather. The first round last night was mostly a rain and lightning event. I decided to brave the lightning and take some photos. I was very impressed with the D80! I have been shooting digital since around 1992 and noise has always been a battle with long exposures. Even with my last DSLR, noise would frequently ruin my long exposure photographs. I set up the camera on the tripod and took about twenty 30 second exposures. The D80 does an excellent job handling noise. I have read some less than flattering comments about the D80 and noise, but I was pleasantly surprised. Here is the first good capture I made:

It was the only cloud to ground lightning caught. The next was a decent cloud to cloud lightning capture. Needless to say, I'm still very happy with the Nikon D80. We had another wave of storms that hit around 3:30 in the morning. Being that it came with golfball size hail and tornado sirens, it was a lot less fun!

Weather Part II...

2008-04-03T21:21:00.003-05:00

I'm glad I did as I said in my last post and kept my camera handy today. The meteorologist were correct in forecasting severe weather for today. We had some active weather in the area but nothing appeared to be an imminent threat. I walked by our front door an peeked outside and it was plain scary looking. I grabbed to camera and went out. The sky had a greenish tint and the clouds were quite ominous! When I walked around the end of the house to look across the field behind us, I was worried that i was seeing a wall cloud.

It wasn't a wall cloud, but the perspective made it look very threatening. Still the clouds were pretty amazing this evening.

Fortunately, we got away with just rain, hail and winds.

Weather...

2008-04-01T20:40:00.003-05:00

We had some interesting weather over the last couple of days. I guess it is that time of the year again! Personally, I love severe weather. I have been fascinated with storms since I was a little kid growing up in west Texas. I took three semesters of meteorology while I was in flight school and ate up every minute of it. I'm trying to do a better job of carrying my camera with me everywhere I go so I hope to capture a few nice weather related photos this spring. I did get a few nice shots yesterday.

This was shot on the way to work yesterday morning. Storms were just moving out at sunrise and made for an interesting view.

Later in the morning, we had more severe storms move into the area. We had a couple of tornadoes in the area, but nothing too close to Tulsa. We did have heavy rain, flooding, lightning, winds, and hail.

They are forecasting more storms on Thursday so I'm keeping the camera handy.

Taken with My Nikon D80 using a Nikkor 18-55mm VR lens

Flowers...

2008-03-30T17:27:00.003-05:00

I bought my wife an Easter bouquet (okay, I wanted it for photography purpose, too). I wanted to experiment with light sources so I used a incandescent bulb and my Nikon SB-400. I was very please with the results! Most of the photos were taken with my Tokin 100mm AT-X Pro Macro mounted on the Nikon D80. Hope you enjoy!

Interesting Friday....

2008-03-22T20:29:00.002-05:00

I was scheduled for my monthly Tysabri infusion on Friday. I knew that it would take about two hours so I scheduled it after lunch. I went ahead and scheduled my physical therapy session afterward. I figured I might as well make the most of my four hours of PTO. I arrived at the infusion center about fifteen minutes early and my nurse was still at lunch. They took me back to a treatment room, pointed me to the recliner, and handed me the TV remote. I always seem to watch the Food Network during my infusion. It is one of my favorite channels and I no longer get it at home. I was watching the clock pretty close since I needed to be done on time to make my PT session. I should know better.

My nurse was a bit late getting back from lunch but I told her it was no problem. Actually, it wasn't yet as I left an hour leeway just in case. She got my IV started an placed a port on the catheter. After getting the Tysabri set up on the IV pump, she hooked my up and got the medication infusing. After about 10 minutes of visiting and watching Rachel Ray, she decided to ask me the pre-infusion questions on the paperwork. I bet you can see where this is going. She quickly discovered that we had an issue with two of the questions on the questionnaire. She picked up the phone and called my neurologist to see if it was okay to infuse the Tysabri. No one answered the phone so she had to leave a message. She decided to discontinue the infusion until we heard back from the doctor.

To make a long story short, it took 45 minutes to get a hold of my neurologist because he was on vacation. I was impressed that he called back at all. When I am on vacation, it takes me a bit to return calls. The nurse was instructed not to infuse me because I had recently received the Solumedrol infusion and there is a possible increased risk of PML when you mix steroids with Tysabri. To say the least, I'm not real thrilled that she forgot to ask the questions before the infusion. I hope that it matters that I only received about a quarter of the usual dosage. I do know that the real risk is minimal, bit still....

I ended up with about an hour and a half to burn before my PT session. Naturally, I went and took some photos! I swung by St. Francis Hospital and got some shots of their BK-117 Life Flight helicopter on the helipad. I then headed down to a local retention pond to photography some of the local birds. I must have taken a hundred duck and gull photos! I got so involved in what I was doing that I was almost late for my PT. This was the first time I really got out and tried to walk around with my camera using the cane. It was a bit of a task to say the least. I ended up with a couple of nice photos so it was worth the effort.

Now for Something Different....

2008-03-22T17:46:00.005-05:00

As I have mentioned in previous post, I have Multiple Sclerosis. I have been asked to participate in the MS Blogger Project. I'm just beginning to look over this project and I think it is a wonderful idea so I'm looking forward to participating in any way I can. I know that the internet is a great tool for many people with MS. It is a means to share experiences for many people with MS. I have always found it helpful to discuss my illness with other and I frequently use this blog to do just that. I am certain that I am not alone in that I find it helpful to see what other people go through with their illness and treatment. Below is a post from Lisa at Brass and Ivory:

Wow!! I've found at least 200 Bloggers with MS out there actively discussing all sorts of things. My hope is to strengthen the connections and bonds throughout the MS blogger community.

To help spread the word, here's what you can do:

1. Copy the entirety of this post
2. Create a new post and paste this content
3. Visit 3 of the blogs listed below which you were unfamiliar
4. Leave a comment on their blog encouraging them to participate
5. Please add Brass and Ivory to your sidebar, if it's not already

New editions of the Carnival of MS Bloggers will be presented bi-weekly at Brass and Ivory. Previous editions will be are archived here and the button below has been revised to include the new link. Please update your sidebar.

If you are not on this list and should be, or if there is something incorrect about your listing, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. Thank you.

A Blessed Mess (Sheila)
A Florida Journal (SwampAngel)
A Life of Learning with MS
A Short in the Cord (Joan)
A Stellarlife (Diane)
Access Denied (Herrad)
Angst on a Shoestring (Gina)
Armed with Pointy Sticks
Barbara's Tchatzkahs
Behind Blue Eyes (Zee)
Being Ammey
Blindbeard's MS Blog
Blogbuster (Daniel)
Brain Cheese (Linda)
Brass and Ivory (Lisa)
Breaking the Dress Code (Melizzard)
Broken Clay (Katja)
Bubbie's Blog (Cathy)
Bugs, Bikes, Brains (Shauna)
Camille's MSadventures
Can You Hear Me Now? (Donna)
Caregivingly Yours (Patrick)
Carole's MS Blog (Carole)
Carolyne's MS Odyssey (Carolyne)
Catch My Disease (Lisle)
Chaos Personified
Chris Has MS (Chris)
Clods and Pebbles
Comment Column (Virginia)
Crazilynsane
Curmudgeonette (Pamela)
Dancing with MS (Lazscott)
Dandelion Wine (Lynx)
Danieldoo (Vivian)
Deborah Does Navel-Gazing (Deb)
Defeating Illness (Chris)
Deo Volente (Lisa N)
Diary of MS X (7 Divas)
Disabled Not Dead (Anne)
Dissonance
Do You Have That in My Size? (Denise)
Doug's MS Journal (Doug)
Down the MS Path (Vicki)
Effortless Eating (Elisabeth)
Electrical Disturbance (Stephan)
Erik's MS & Lyme Blog
Etsy Crest (Shelby)
Fingolimod and Me (Jeri)
Friday's Child
Funky Mango's Musings
G and K's Mom
Georgia MS Advocates
GPSOkie's" Photography and Geocaching Blog (Steven)
Great Mastications (Orla)
Home Sweet Home (Jennifer)
Hop Bloody Hop (Philip)
Huggins' MS Pages (James)
Human Life Matters (Mark)
I Have MS
I Have MS (Tim)
I'm Beating MS (Michael)
Inside the Mind of a Squirrel
Intent, Context, Perception (Chris)
Irreverence is Justified
It's Not All in My Head (Optimist)
Jayne's World (Jayne)
Jenn's Journey with MS (Jenn)
Jenn's Nook (Jenn)
Jim's Deep Thoughts (Jim)
Jo Franz, Author, Speaker, Singer
Just Above the Abyss (Heidi)
Katy and Mike's Adventure (Katy)
Kebenaran - The Truth
Know Multiple Sclerosis
Lazy Dog Public House
Libbi's MS Journey (Libbi)
Life and Times of Eric's Wife (Amy)
Life with MS (Trevis)
Life with MS, Seeking a Cure (Karyl)
Living Life as a Snowflake (Sharon)
Living Life at LeeHaven (Karen)
Living Well with MS (Michon)
Living with MS (Blinders Off)
Living with MS (Cyndee)
Living with Multiple Sclerosis (MsShad)
LJ Users with Multiple Sclerosis
Looking Forward with MS (Pamela)
Maggsbunny (Maggie)
Managing MS with Tai Chi (Joel)
Managing Multiple Sclerosis (Vince)
Mandatory Rest Period (Kim)
Marciarita
Mark and MS (Mark)
Mark Pickup (Mark)
Maybe I'm Just Lazy (Julie)
Me, Myself and MS (Emma)
Merely Me's Multiple Synchronicities (& Sclerosis)
Middle Age Mania (Tricia)
Michele's Blog (Michele)
Mike's Place (Mike)
Mima's Doings

Mismorphic's World of MS
Montana Homecoming (Sister Jane)
Movin' On with MS (Sammie)
MS A Personal Account
MS Activist (NMSS)
MS Caregivers (Prudence)
MS in the OC (Frank)
MS Maze (Mandy)
MS Musings
MS My Scene (Virginia)
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Thank you for helping to build a stronger MS Community.
Update: Whew... that took me 2 hours to leave comments on all of your blogs.

Aviation....

2008-03-16T09:32:00.002-05:00

One of my great loves in life is aviation. Actually, I moved to Tulsa because of aviation. I was sitting in my home in Central Texas one day back in 1993 looking at flight school advertisements in the back of Flying magazine. My wife, in a matter of fact manner, asked me why I didn't just do something about it if I really wanted to be a pilot. I had been a paramedic for about 8 years at that point and was pretty burned out on it. The average career length for a medic was about 5 years. Her comment really struck a chord with me. We talked about it several times over the next few days and the next thing I knew, I was interviewing several flight schools to see which one would be the best fit for me. I ended up selecting Spartan School of Aeronautics for several reasons. By December of 1993. I was moving to Tulsa so that I could start school in January.

I had a great time during the 3 years I attended Spartan. It was an incredibly good flight school and I learned a lot while earning my Private, Instrument, and Commercial ratings. Alas, I had my first major MS exacerbation about 2 months before I was to graduate and was unable to complete my training. Unfortunately, I was unable to fly at all anymore. There are some pilots that have MS and are able to get their medical certificate on a waiver. Since one of my chief symptoms is vertigo, I do not qualify. Even if I was able to "cheat" the system and get my medical so that my license would be valid, I wouldn't. It would be too dangerous for both me and anyone in the plane with me due to the vertigo.

So...now I just enjoy aviation from afar. I still fly with a friend on occasion and attend any airshows in the area. I love aviation related museums, too. My photography is one of my connections to aviation, as well. I love to be at or near the airport and take photos of the various aircraft.

The aircraft below is a Spartan aircraft I captured earlier this week on a lunch break. I looked at my log book and I have about 15 hours of pilot time in this particular aircraft (N4118A). It is good to see that the plane is still in action.

Better....

2008-03-08T20:09:00.002-06:00

I did my last dose of Solumedrol today and seem to be feeling better overall. The side effects of the medicine suck by my MS symptoms seem to be diminished. Mostly, I'm glad to have this IV out of my hand! I'm dying to get out and do some photography. I had to run an errand today and took my camera bag with me just in case. By the time I was done with my two stops I was worn out so it didn't happen.

I have a whole new respect for people that have to use a cane to get around. I stopped at "Wild Oats", a whole food grocery store, to pick up some unscented shaving cream and a few miscellaneous items. It is a bit "high end" and most of the people were pretty polite about my being in the way. Others, not so much. I can't wait to experience my first Wal-mart visit.

On the bright side, my wife had several email correspondences with the local EMS service and they want her to be there Monday morning. It looks like she is getting ready to start working for them in the very near future. My guess is that when I get home for work Monday evening, we will be a two job family for the first time in about 16 years. I don't think we will know what to do with extra money. We have been on a tight budget for so many years.

As for me, I am going to be working hard to move towards being more healthy and avoid needing to park in front of these signs!

Fun, Fun..

2008-03-06T21:24:00.005-06:00

Well, now that we seem to be getting my wife's health back to normal, my body has decided to act up. As I have mentioned before, I have Multiple Sclerosis. For the most part, it has been relatively subdued for the past couple of years minus an occasional rearing of it's ugly head. I had an episode of Bronchitis early in February. About the time I thought it was over, I flared up and was diagnosed with Pneumonia. To be honest, it kicked my tail. I have never had Pneumonia as far as I know. I'd just as soon not ever experience that again!

Well, last week around Tuesday I became horribly fatigued. Fatigue is not unusual with MS and not unusual in my life. It's not the normal fatigue that I had before MS came into my life. It can be dibilitatingly bad. (Yes, I made that word up!) The best way I can describe it is that I feel like if I laid down, I would melt into a puddle on the ground. Just lifting my arm or taking the next step feels like it takes ever fiber of my being to accomplish. Getting on with my story, I just wrote it off as my usual stuff combined with my recent bout of Pneumonia. Sunday, I woke up and felt like I had ants crawling all over the calf of my right leg and a large abrasion or road burn on my right thigh. My first thought was that my leg was asleep. I lay there for a bit and became concerned as it was not improving. Sensations like this are not uncommon with my MS but the fact that the sensation was covering such a large are was disconcerting. I have not experienced anything like that before.

I decided to get up hoping it would go away. I almost went to the ground when I stood up. Seemed my leg did not want to follow direction. My wife was still sleeping so I carefully left the room. Basically, I played it off and didn't tell her all day. I had a scheduled appointment with my neurologist on Tuesday so I figured I would talk to him about it then. Sunday to Tuesday was a huge struggle. I managed to conceal it from my wife until my leg gave out Monday night when I was shaving. My butt hitting the edge of our fiberglass bathtub would have been loud enough but the fiberglass broke and sounded like a gunshot in the bathroom. I have my concealed carry permit and usually carry so I can understand why the wife almost had a heart attack. Not sure why she would think I would have my gun with me while I was shaving, though? Fortunately, only the tub was injured in the fall.

My neurologist thinks my exacerbation was probably set off by the Pneumonia since I ran a high temp for several days. I just receive my first dose of Solumedrol today and have two more to go. I also had to get a CANE! I probably needed one before now but this finally forced my hand. I hate the idea of a cane. I hate the idea of a scooter or wheel chair, too. I hate the stigma associated with all of these. No, I do NOT look down on people that have to use these tools. I'm quite sympathetic as I have know for a long time that they were in my future. I have been in the medical field for far to long to think like that. I just know that not everyone thinks like I do and I hate that people are simpleminded (not everyone! just some people). The truth of the matter is that the cane is helping and I appreciate the simple tool that I have found. It is taking getting used to, though. I am used to having both hands available when I walk.

I'm not having much fun with the Solumedrol. Anyone who has taken this medicine in high doses knows what I mean. Honestly, it sucks. I'm just hoping it helps.

And now for a macro photo of the new Oklahoma State Quarter taken with my Nikon D80 and Tokina 100mm Pro Macro Lens. Oh, and please excuse and (*Edit* any, not and, told ya!) spelling or grammatical errors as this Solumedrol has my brain going 100 miles per hour!

Oklahoma State Capital

2008-03-06T21:22:00.001-06:00

DSC_0565
Originally uploaded by steveables

The Oklahoma State Capitol held a Red Cross Month event this week. My group held a blood drive in the rotunda area of the Capitol building. I decided to take advantage of the situation and shoot some photos. I think this was my favorite of the day. We didn't see many donors but I think everyone was tied up with the day's events. PR wise, it was a great day, though. And, I got to take some photos so a good day all in all.

Day at the Zoo...

2008-02-29T19:08:00.002-06:00

I hit the Tulsa Zoo on Sunday. I figured it would be quite as it was still pretty cool out. I have to admit it was busier than I expected. But, it was nothing like it will be in the spring! I ended up shooting about 200 photos and had a couple of nice ones to show for the effort. It seemed that some of the animal were feeling pretty frisky. The rhinos were arguing and knocking heads and the tiger was making a lot of noise. I did get a nice shot of the tiger. All in all, it was still pretty bleak. The zoo ended up with quite a lot of damage from the ice storm and everything is kind of gray still. I look forward to returning when the colors brighten up a bit.

This weekend...

2008-02-25T20:10:00.001-06:00

DSC_0096
Originally uploaded by steveables

I had a great trip to the zoo Sunday. I took about 200 photos. I'm still processing them so I will blog about the trip and post some photos as soon as I get everything processed and uploaded. I'll also discuss some of my observations on the D80.

Curious Goose

2008-02-21T21:07:00.001-06:00

DSC_0168
Originally uploaded by steveables

Just another photo from the other day. It was quite ugly weather wise today so I didn't take any photos. I had really hoped to get photos of the eclipse last night but the clouds kept me from ever seeing the moon. Ah well....

New Look

2008-02-20T21:20:00.001-06:00

I finally have updated the blog to the new Blogspot template. I will be moving a lot of my old links from the old blog over the next few days as I figure things out. It is a chance to clean things up and add stuff I've wanted to add but never had time.

Lunch Break....

2008-02-20T20:43:00.003-06:00

Yesterday at lunch, I grabbed my camera gear and headed down the street to a retention pond about two blocks from work. I was a beautiful day, for February, and I was hoping to get some photos of the local waterfowl. I unloaded my gear once I arrived and placed my Nikkor 70-300mm VR lens to the D80. A short walk later, I was at the waters edge snapping photos of various geese, ducks, and gulls. I forgot to put my circular polarizer on the lens so I ended up with a lot of unwanted reflection on the water. Other than that, I had a nice time and caught a few good photos. I only spent about 30 minutes out there but it was very enjoyable. I think I will be doing that more often.

Photo Sunday....

2008-02-18T21:05:00.005-06:00

I was able to get out Sunday afternoon after the rain to do a little photography. It is always so difficult for me to find subjects this time of year. Color is so hard to find. Especially, in nature. I've always heard that winter was a good time of the year for black and white photography. I'm starting to understand why!

I ended up taking about 60 photos on Sunday. I actually liked a few of them. :) My favorite was of a sculpture at Tulsa River Parks. I got a couple of shots of a hawk in flight that would have been nice had it been in focus. It was one of those spontaneous situations where I had to grab the camera and shoot in just a few seconds. The hawk was gone before I knew it. I pulled the photo up on my screen and zoomed in and was quickly disappointed when I saw how bad the focus turned out. I posted the two best to my Flickr account just to share "the moment"....not because they are good photos.

I have been getting out and practicing for the lunar eclipse that is supposed to occur on Wednesday. I'm pretty happy with the results I am getting with the Nikkor 70-300mm VR. I HAVE to get a new tripod someday, though. The rickety one I have now wobbles all over the place with the heavy camera and lens on it. All that said, the outlook is not good for the eclipse. They are calling for freezing rain and sleet Wednesday night. This will be the second eclipse in a row that I've missed due to weather. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Renewed Commitment

2008-02-16T10:13:00.002-06:00

My wife and I seem to have survived the year from hell. With that, I have a renewed commitment to my blog and my photography. As to geocaching, I hope to get back to that this spring. I'm going to try to blog at least a couple of times a week. It has always been very therapeutic to me and God knows I need my therapy! After letting my camera languish in it bag for months on end, I finally stuck it on eBay and sold it. I loved my Olympus E-300 and it was a great camera but it was not meeting my needs. I have several Nikon lenses from my old 35mm days so I ended up using the funds off the Olympus to buy a Nikon D80. I've now had it a couple of days and I'm clearly going to be much happier with this camera. My goal is to take a photo every day. Hopefully, I will have many days where I take a LOT of photos.

My wife is doing great. It is nothing short of miraculous that she is even alive. To see here back in near perfect health just amazes me. She has completed all of her paramedic refresher stuff and has obtained her NREMT-P and her state license. As soon as she is 100%, she will be returning to work.

I, on the other hand, am battling my MS. Overall, I am doing well but some of my symptoms are problematic. I'm doing physical therapy three days a week trying to get my back under control. I have a muscle below my right shoulder blade that is in constant spasm. It is a pretty painful ordeal. The therapy seems to be helping to a great degree. We have done trigger point injections several times and that seems to help but it is far from a good fix. We want to do Botox injections to give me a great length of relief but the insurance company won't bite.

I'll leave you with a couple of photos I've taken over the past two days. The first is of Winston. He is a black and tan Dachshund that has been with my wife and I for about 12 years. We do not have children so he and Delia our like our kids to us. The second photo is a shot of a daisy that is in the bouquet that I got Lisa for Valentines.

What a summer...

2007-10-04T20:02:00.000-05:00

I think this has been the most grueling eight months of my life. But it doesn't matter as it came with a happy ending. My wife had a right side heart cath last week and they officially told us that she was misdiagnosed. Obviously, I do have some mixed feelings about that but it would be a whole separate post.

Her pressures are normal and that means no pulmonary hypertension. Her new cardiologist went back and looked at all of the pieces in this long event....all of the echocardiograms, lung scans, exam reports, CICU histories, x-rays, etc. and is certain that she had a massive pulmonary embolism. He called it a "shower" embolism. Apparently, a large clot can sometimes break apart into many small clots and become lodged in the avioli capillaries in the lungs preventing the exchange of oxygen to a large portion of the lung. The fact that she survived, in large part, was the cause of the mis diagnosis. This is usually a fatal event so the assumption based on the remaining data was that she had PPH.

The greatest news is that she is well on her way to being well and this whole long event should not have any real impact on her life. The "damage" to her heart that they were seeing on the first echo they performed was actually an effect created by the very high pressure being created by the emboli. The new cardiologist does not feel that there is any permanent damage. So, great news all around.

Now I have to figure out how to let go of my fear of losing her. If she is in another room and gets quite, I almost have a panic attack. If I hear a noise that sounds like unusual breathing, same effect. The other night, my Dachshund was trying to hork something up and I almost broke my leg getting down the hall because I thought it was Lisa having difficulty breathing. I don't think I will ever forget seeing and hearing her like that last May.

Update

2007-05-28T13:57:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry that my post have been few and far between! As you know from my previous post, I have been spending a lot of time taking care of my wife. She is actually doing remarkably well right now. She is scheduled to have the skin grafts done on her lower leg this week on Thursday and then has an appointment with the infection specialist doc. If she is given the "all clear", we can move on to the heart cath and treatment for the PPH. In spite of everything that is going on with her, she feels great. In fact, we went house shopping today.

As to my geocaching, it seems like every time I have a chance to go, it is either raining or Lisa is not feeling well. Team ARC is just dying to get out and cache a little so I am sure we will hit it soon. The same goes for my photography. I just haven't had much free time.

The one thing I have had a chance to do is some shooting. I upgraded my CCW to a Springfield XD 45C a little over a month ago and the gun shop threw in an annual membership to their indoor range. It is close to work so I am trying to get by once a week at lunch to get accustomed to my new pistol. I had never really considered carrying a .45 for concealed carry, but this compact model works very well and is easily concealed in an IWB holster. I know that firearms are a controversial topic, especially, in this day and age. I am glad I live in a state and a country that recognizes my personal right to protect myself and my family, though. To me, it is a personal decision and I don't think any less of anyone who chooses not to do so. I have had my CCL (concealed carry license) for about 11 years now and never had an incident and hope that I never do but it is comforting to know that I can protect myself if the need arises. On a similar note, my wife has decided to obtain her CCL as well. I've had many years of experience and training so I will help with her training, but she will also receive professional defensive training catering to females. She will do well as she is already a better shot than I. It has been interesting watching her transform over the 17 years that we have been married. When we first met, she was very anti-gun/anti-hunting. We were a bit of an odd couple in that sense as I grew up hunting and have always been a 2nd amendment advocate. Through the years, she has grown to understand hunting for food purposes and owning guns for self protection. She is quite a shooter now, as well, and enjoys shooting my firearms enough that she has asked for her own gun. Unfortunately, I haven't had to say much to convince her that there is a need for self protection, society has done that. Seeing bad things happen to good people everyday on the news is pretty convincing.

My Wife, My Life....

2007-05-02T17:14:00.000-05:00

Normally, the spring would be my peak geocaching and photography time. This spring has not been very fruitful in either area for me. Much more important matters have had my attention this spring. My wife has been ill for quite some time now. She has encountered various issues over the past several years and we were never able to pinpoint the problem. This spring has been especially rough for her. She has spent about five weeks out of the last seven hospitalized for various reasons. Most recently, she began having severe difficulty breathing one day while I was at work. She called me in a panic because she could not get her breath. My wife is usually very healthy. She is 44 years old, active, and eats very healthy so these issues have been a bit of a mystery. With this latest incident, I rushed home after calling 911 to find them loading her into the ambulance. She was in pretty rough shape. For some reason, they decided to do an echocardiogram at the hospital. To make a long story short, we found the problem that had been eluding us.

My wife was diagnosed with Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH). She has now been in the hospital for six days and spent the last 3 in CICU. She has significant damage to her heart and her pulmonary pressure is 100mm or five time what it should be. They have ran a multitude of test and scans and cannot figure out why she has this. Unfortunately, in some cases, they do not discover the cause. It just is what it is. Our options are pretty limited at this point. There are things they can do to lower the pressure and slow down the damage. If they can get her pressure below 70mm, she would be eligible for a heart-lung transplant but lowering it 30 points is asking a lot. The average survival is 2.8 years but they say her damage is pretty advanced already. Mostly, I am just in shock and kind of numb. We've been married 17 years and I sure expected many more to come. Since I have MS and have never been the most healthy person, I never even considered the possibility that I might outlive her. I do know that this is not a death sentence and that we can have a positive outcome, though. It is just that as test after test and time goes by, the odds are not in our favor. My wife is a fighter and she is keeping a very positive attitude. She is strong and willful. If any one can get through this, it is her.

It is ironic that just a couple of months ago, I expressed my fears here on this blog of some day losing my father. Two months later, I'm now facing this. Kinda depressing!! I've always been a pretty spiritual person with a strong belief in prayer. I find great comfort there now. I probably won't be doing a lot of caching in the near future as my focus will solely be on my wife for now. I spend a great deal of time at the hospital as I miss her terribly when I'm not there. They are taking great care of her but I can't help but worry when I am away from her.

In the mean time, find a cache for me.

Gilsson Antennas

2007-03-29T22:29:00.000-05:00

I was reading on the www.geocaching.com forums about external antennas and someone recommended Gilsson. On a lark, I went to their website and ended up buying and external active antenna for my Lowrance H2Oc because they cost next to nothing ($19.95 or so). I ordered on Sunday and it arrived in my mailbox on Wednesday. I was quite excited and immediately hooked up the antenna and walked outside. I turned on the H2Oc and about the time I got the standard "Do no use for official navigation" warning, I got my "position acquired" notification. I'm talking seconds within turning on the unit!! I have been playing with the antenna for the last 24 hours and though I have been using GPS since 1998, I can't believe that it took me this long to acquire an external antenna! I have used pretty much every brand of available GPS (Magellan, Garmin, Lowrance) through the years and I cannot stress enough how much of a difference that these external antennas make. Lock ons are nearly instantaneous and EPE is narrowed greatly. I don't think I will ever be without one beyond today. I also can highly recommend Gilsson as they deliver quickly and seem to have a great product. I was alway very happy with my Lowrance products, but this inexpensive add-on has really added the icing to the cake.

Lowrance H2Oc

2007-03-24T20:59:00.000-05:00

As you know, I am a huge Lowrance fan. I've been using their products since I owned a GlobalMap 100. I have been aching for a color unit for some time now and just didn't have the a good reason to spend the extra cash. Well, I still don't have a good reason, but I found the extra cash and got one anyway! I visited Bass Pro today and picked up a Lowrance H2Oc. Having owned a regular H2O before, I feel right at home with this unit. I am impressed with how much better the screen appears. One of my arguments against getting a color unit was that there was no increased functionality. After playing with the H2Oc today, I have discovered I was wrong. Simply put, with grayscale, all the roads, streams, trails, contours to some degree, and boundaries look the same...like a black line. To read the map on a non-color unit takes some patience and mistakes are likely if you rush. With the color unit, everything has it own color and is much easier to interpret at a glance. I'm glad I decided to take the plunge.

In the mean time, I put my iFinder Pro and some various computer components on eBay to cover the cost. I should actually come out ahead money wise if every thing sells for at least my starting bids. Now, If I can just get my wife home from the hospital and healed up, maybe I can go caching! Who knows, maybe a cache on the way home from the hospital tomorrow?

Musings....

2007-03-02T21:41:00.000-06:00

This post will have nothing to do with geocaching or photography, so be forewarned. What is this post about? Just some musings about life in general. My life has been interesting the last few months. Well, probably not very interesting from an outside point of view, but from my point of view, it has been very interesting. Before I jump into that, I want to reflect a bit. I had the best childhood one could ask for, to be honest. My family was pretty well off and I never wanted for much. My parents were the best people in the world. They wanted nothing but the best for us and often we got just that. Mom was always there for us and dad was never far away. I cherish every minute of every memory I have of my childhood. Yeah, there were times that I thought I had it bad, but they were fleeting and easily forgotten. I could go on and on about the good stuff but instead, I will just hit the highlights. I love every minute of every memory related to hunting with my dad when I was growing up. I learned so much about life out there in the field with my father. I remember the first time I fired my single shot H&R 20 ga. shotgun at a cactus on a hunt for dove. The things my dad taught me out there over the years will always be with me. I remember that day on the side of the mesa outside of Sweetwater Texas as he so quietly talked me through my first shot at a doe. I remember holding back tears as I walked up on my first kill just minutes later. I was overcome with pride yet saddened. It was such a beautiful animal and I cannot deny the guilt I felt for having killed it but at the same time, I think I took a big step towards manhood that day as I knew I had put food on the table. In that instance, I also developed a respect for life that will never die. I believe in hunting. I support hunting. I will always be a hunter, just as my dad will always be a hunter. However, as I age, I find little desire within myself to kill anything. For food, yes, I will hunt. However, there is no pleasure in the kill. Pride? Yes, I do feel pride in providing...but no pleasure. I think that it should be that way. I think my dad taught me right. I know people that derive pleasure from the kill. I can't not believe that there is not something inherently wrong with them. I grew up learning how to provide for my family and I treasure that experience. I spent so many years hunting with my father and there is no way to ever express my gratitude for what he gave me out there in the field. There are just not words that would ever convey what those memories mean to me. But there is more....

I practically grew up on motorcycles. Again, memories so grand that I can never repay my father for what he did. I will never forget the trips on the back of his motorcycle to New Mexico and Colorado. I do not have a clue why I was so fortunate to be chosen to ride behind him on those trips. I spend untold miles looking at desert, mountains, and plains with my thumbs looped threw my dad's belt loops while we cruised down the road on a Honda Goldwing. I will never know what I did to deserve this privilege but I will never forget those trips. I also grew up with my own motorcycles. From my first Honda 50cc bike to my Yamaha YZ250, I never wanted for excitement. I spent untold hours blasting across the fields of West Texas on those motorcycles. Even when we traveled, my dad would load my CR125, or whatever I was riding at the time, onto a trailer and take it with us. There are no words to describe the feeling of jetting across a field on a CR125 at speeds that take your breath away. I truly was the luckiest child ever.

Even as I became a man, my parents were there for me. I wanted to be a Paramedic. My parents had to have been taken aback by this one, yet they never wavered in supporting me. I know they must have wanted me to go to college, but at the early age of 18, they let me go to paramedic school. I actually started working as an EMT in Pampa Texas while I was still in high school. Shorty thereafter, I was in paramedic school. I turned 19 and became a paramedic in the same month. Before I was 20, I would be an operations manager for an EMS service. I grew up way to quick. There are images burned into my soul that will go to my grave with me. Anything horrible that can happen to the human body, I saw. I was only 18 the first time I held in my hands a human head following an accidental decapitation. A man who's head was ran over by a Suburban, a woman shot in the chest with a shotgun, fingers ripped from a hand, gunshot wounds to every possible body part, a 12 year old girl dying in my arms....all before I was 20. In eight years as a paramedic, I would see everything horrible that could happen to anybody and have three failed marriages. Somehow, I was able to remain sane and my parent's love and support was never ending. In eight short years, I would work as a paramedic in Pampa, Ft. Worth, Arlington, Amarillo, and in Lubbock (my home town) as a flight medic.

I ended up meeting the love of my life in those final years as a paramedic. She knew that my life long dream was to be a pilot. One day as I was reading "Flying" magazine, she told me to quit dreaming and just do it. My life was about to take a drastic change in course. Within a couple of months, I was excepted into one of the most prestigious flight schools in the nations. Again, my parents were there to support my decision. I must admit, they were quite reluctant on this one, though. To make a long story short, I ended up with my Commercial/Instrument rating but within months of graduating, I became quite ill. I didn't know what was going on at the time, but I was later diagnosed with MS...Multiple Sclerosis. Needless to say, it was the end of my flying career. I have been asked if I regret my decision to go to flight school because of the negative outcome. I can emphatically say "No!". I grew up near an Airforce base and I had always dreamed of being a pilot. I achieved that dream and spent hundreds of hours in the air. Even though I will never fly alone again, I am a pilot and always will be. What I learned in school goes far beyond just flying an aircraft. I will carry those lessons throughout my life.

That brings me to today. When I was in flight school, I went to work for the American Red Cross as a phlebotomist (since I had a paramedic background). I have been there over 14 years now. Through years of hard work, I have worked my way up to manager of donor services for Oklahoma and have a wonderful office next to my boss, the CEO. Recently, she decided to create a Director position over several departments. Today, I submitted my application. I honestly do not have a clue if I will get the job. I still feel honored just to have the job I am in now. In just a few days, I will be 41 years old. My interview is set for the day after my 41st birthday. I have talked to my dad about my fears and hopes concerning my current situation and as with the rest of my life, he is there for me. What will I do when he is gone? I cannot even imagine that time, but I know it will come some day. It came so early for him. His father, my grandfather, was gone when my dad was in his 30's. How did my dad make it? I wonder if I can. He has been there for me since day one. How is it possible that I can survive without him? I cannot imagine life without either of my parents. My life is so rich because I have had them in my life. I hope I do not have to miss them for a very long time.

Edit: Fixed some spelling errors. I was quite tired when I wrote this so I apologize if I rambled a bit. I'm not sure why it was important to me to write this the other night but I am glad I did. I love what I do for a living but it has been very stressful as of late and I think because of that stress, a lot of things have been pushed to the surface. Work for me is a mission of sorts. I deeply believe in the Red Cross mission and I am passionate about our work. When things are not going perfect, it becomes personal if you feel strongly about something.

I can't say enough how fortunate I am to have such a wonderful family. I wrote a great deal about my father, but I have as many wonderful memories about my mother, two brothers, and my wife. I am sure that I have many wonderful memories waiting to be made, as well. I am very fortunate.

Ice Caching....

2007-01-30T23:45:00.000-06:00

Not...I'm having withdrawals from not caching for almost a month.Between work and the weather, I haven't been able to get any caching done. We have been in the process of a very slow thaw since the last ice storm. The good news is that it is almost all melted and the ground is beginning to dry out a bit. The bad news is that it is supposed to snow for the next two days. Hmmm...you'd think we were up north! Ah well, it will get better soon enough I suppose.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot. I did renew my Geocaching.com membership the other day. I have another year of pocket querys now! I can't believe I have been a member (paying and non-paying) for going on 7 years now. I never stick with a hobby that long. I have a short attention span when it comes to hobbies, generally.

Lunch Cache

2007-01-03T17:20:00.000-06:00

I had to run an errand at lunch today. I had a package that needed to be dropped off at the post office and it seemed to be as good of a time as any. I was a bit dismayed when I pulled into the parking lot as the place was packed. There was not a single parking spot open. I knew that the line would be terrible and I had a finite amount of time to get back to work. In light of that, I just drove on through. As I was preparing to get back on the street, I noticed a geocache on my GPS that was just a couple of blocks away. At least, I would get to have some fun on my lunch hour!! I headed to the cache and found it was located in a park that was completely empty. I parked the car and pulled the cache up on my Blackberry. It was called "Pipe Down". I figured that the name ought to make finding the cache simple. I was right! Of course, the hider, BasicPoke, always has dead-on coordinates and that helps greatly. Unfortunately, this was not a planned outing so I had nothing to trade. Mental note to self: Leave trade items in car. It was a very nice cache that was well done. I signed the log and headed back to work.

I think I need to do more lunch caches. It was a nice break and even though I was out there in the weeds in a suit and tie, it was a lot of fun. I definitely returned to work with a better attitude!

Happy New Year!!

2006-12-29T19:40:00.000-06:00

I hope everyone is doing well and ready for the new year. I was hoping to do a bit of caching this weekend but the weather may not cooperate. It is raining cats and dogs right now. It is supposed to clear up tomorrow, though. I have my latest pocket query loaded in GSAK and my waypoints downloaded to my iFinder just in case.

2006-12-25T23:06:00.000-06:00

Okay, I couldn't stand it. I was sitting at cache number 99 after yesterday's caching. I just had to get out today and get number 100. It was Lake Front which ironically is only less than a mile from my home. I am not sure why I haven't done this cache so close to my home, but it seems fitting that it turned out to be my 100th cache.

A Caching We Will Go.....

2006-12-24T16:46:00.000-06:00

Finally....Team ARC -1 got out and hit some caches. Mike swung by and picked me up and we headed out to pick up a couple of supplies before we started. In the process, we got a call from Mike's brother-in-law and he wanted to go with us. So, we swung back by Mike's house and picked Mark up. Mark is in from Arkansas visiting for the holidays. As we were headed back into Bixby, I saw a cache on my GPS so we headed that way. We got there and started looking around, but didn't see a cache. I pulled up the cache via the WAP website at www.geocaching.com and quickly realized that there was no cache there. It was false coordinates for a puzzle cache.

With that, we jumped back in the car and headed towards Bixby. Our first cache was R U Nuts. We quickly located it and signed the log. Next up was Bixby Cache #6. This was a micro and we quickly located it and signed the log. We then headed to a cache called Golden Arches that had foiled us earlier in the year, but we wanted to try again. This time, we brought along once of those mirrors on a pole that mechanics us. With our handy new tool, we were able to locate this one this time and sign the log. Our last stop was OBI-One. This one was quite a hike in and, of course, we took the hard way in through the brambles. The cache was quickly located and we made our trades. We followed the trail back out and walked to the car.

We were cold and ready for a break at this point, so we headed to Mazzio's and enjoyed a little pizza before wrapping things up. I'm sitting at 99 caches so I feel certain that I will need to get out and grab number 100 before I return to work on Tuesday. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!!

Negligence

2006-12-21T23:21:00.000-06:00

Wow...I have really neglected my blog!! I didn't forget, I just haven't had anything to say. To be honest, I have been so tied up with work that I just have not had time to participate in my photography or my geocaching. Actually, I have been taking some photos, but I haven't uploaded anything lately. I will take care of that this weekend.

I have to admit, I did sell my Lowrance H2O GPSr. My intent was to pick up a color unit as soon as it cooled off and I could start caching again. To make a long story short, cash has been short and I never got to where I could pick up my H2OC. However, I did get on eBay this last week and did some hard shopping. I hate to brag, but I ended up getting one hell of a deal. I walked away with an iFinder Pro for only $72. It is like brand new to boot. Additionally, it came with the software, card reader, and a CF card. I'm pretty proud of my purchase. It is not a color unit like I wanted, but I can at least start caching again. Team ARC rides again on Saturday. Look for a narrative.

Wow...

2006-09-18T19:47:00.000-05:00

sorry for the lack of post lately!! I haven't had much time to do anything recently including my photography. The good news is that it is cooling of and I plan on getting out and shooting some with the camera. It is also cool enough to do a little geocaching. I am looking to upgrade my GPS. I am seriouly considering getting the H2O Color. I have really enjoyed my H2O but color would be very useful. Since my accessories are Lowrance based, it just makes sense to stick with them for a color GPS.

CasherStash

2006-08-30T19:11:00.000-05:00

I came across a really neat store today that sells geocaching related items. If you have a minute, be sure to visit them! The store is called CacherStash. They sell everything from GPS units to ziplock bags. They also sell the always vital caching containers. Best of all, they have great prices!!!

Upgrade!

2006-08-27T19:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, I have upgraded to the new beta Blogger. I will be working on moving all my new links over to the new format tonight. I was ready for a new look anyways and this seemed like a good opportunity.

Oh, by the way, I have a new Olympus 35mm Macro lens on the way as I type. Look for new macro photos here in the near future!!

Edit: I reverted back to the old template for my blog. Until they allow raw HTML editing, I will stick with the old set-up. It is was to difficult to go back and add all my links with the new system!

Fourth of July

2006-08-27T18:29:00.000-05:00

I just noticed that I haven't posted any photos from the festivities held at my parent house on the fourth. I guess that I wasn't as happy with the shots as I expected, but I still got some nice captures. I expect that next year will result in better photos as I will have more experience with the camera!! If I haven't mentioned it lately, I love my Olympus E-300.

This was an interesting shot just because of the multiple components. I caught the moon, a star, a car, and the firework. It was one of those that spun upwards and exploded. I wish I would have caught everything in the frame!

Tags:
fireworks
4th of july
olympus
e-300
evolt

Newish Photos

2006-08-14T19:58:00.000-05:00

Thought I would post a few photos today. It has been WAY to hot to cache...at least, for me it has been!

Photography...

2006-06-24T10:18:00.000-05:00

I seem to have had good luck with catching cooler weather on the weekends lately. This has resulted in my taking over 1000 photos with my Olympus E-300: mostly at the Tulsa Zoo. I've been pretty impressed with the zoo here. Granted, it is no Dallas Zoo or Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but it is far better than I would have expect for a city the size of Tulsa. I have especially enjoyed the Wings of Wonder butterfly display. It is so soothing to be in an exhibit with hundreds of butterflies of every color flitting around you. I have capture the best butterfly photos of my amateur career here.

I spent most of last Saturday walking around the Tulsa Zoo taking photos. I have two lenses for my E-300. I have the 14-45mm zoom lens and the 40-150mm zoom lens so I am effectively covered from 14-150mm. With the Olympus 4/3rds digital system, you have a 1.9x factor so the 35mm equivilant is 28mm to 300mm (11x zoom). Needless to say, in a zoo enviroment, my larger zoom lens spends all it's time attached to the camera so that I can get the close-up photos I want. I do not have a macro lens as of yet, but as you can tell in the photo above, the 150mm lens does a pretty good job of getting in nice an close even though I was about 10 foot away from this butterfly.

The lens also lets me get up-close and person with animals. This lends itself to photos that are very personal.

It also allows me to catch so nice action shots.

All in all, I have been very impressed with the Olympus E-300 and the lenses. I've only had the camera about a month and my photos seem to be continually improving as I learn the camera. Oh, if you are ever in the Tulsa area, be sure to drop by and visit our zoo! You will be glad you did.

Okay, I know...

2006-06-22T16:29:00.000-05:00

this is a geocaching blog, but you're going to have to put up with it being a photography blog for a little while. Why? Because it is too damn hot to geocache!! No, I'm not a weenie, but I do have Multiple Sclerosis and because of that, I am very heat sensitive. Therefore, in the summer, I can do outside stuff only on particularly cool days or I have to do things in very small segments for very short periods of time.

In light of all of this, you won't see much on geocaching for a while. But, I will keep the site active by sharing my photography! We did have a cooler day this last Saturday and I did get out and visit the zoo so I will share some of the photos I took.

I Must Apologize....

2006-06-06T20:18:00.000-05:00

for not posting in a while. Work has been insane and I have had to spend a lot of my weekend time working so I have not got to do any caching in a while. We actually intended to get out this last weekend and had a miscommunication that resulted in our not getting to cache. Hopefully, we can squeeze in some time for caching this upcoming weekend, although, I may end up having to work again.

I Really Intended....

2006-05-21T20:32:00.000-05:00

to get out and geocache some this weekend! Unfortunately, it didn't happen. I'm a geocaching loser :) Actually, it was hotter than a...well, we've all heard the naughty comparisons so I will just say it was hot and humid. It is going to be a miserable summer. One of the symptoms of my MS is increased heat sensitivity. When you live in the south, that just sucks. Oh well, I figure I am stuck here for the time being.

Even thought I did not get to geocache today, I did spend a lot of the weekend researching my new camera. Most of everything that I have read about the Olympus E-300 has been very positive. I am really looking forward to receiving the camera! I have been doing the photography thing since I was very young. I got my first SLR camera, a Minolta XG-1, when I was 15. This will be my first DSLR camera. I am getting it only 25 years later. Bummer, I wish I hadn't thought of it that way. I still can't believe that I am 40.

Oh well, I will have a blast with the E-300!

It is a done deal...

2006-05-19T21:24:00.000-05:00

Well, first and foremost, let me apologize for the lack of geocaching related post as of late. I have been quite busy lately and just have not had a chance to goecache. Yes, that sucks. I am going to at least try to catch a few caches this weekend, though. I would have liked to get Team ARC together for a good day of caching but real life has interfered with that. Maybe next weekend?

As for this weekend, I will get out and get a couple of caches on my own. Back to the title of this post! After much wheeling and dealing, I have sold a bunch of my stuff that was lying around doing nothing. The end result is that I have ordered my Olympus Evolt E-300. It should be here around the end of next week. I got a great deal and I am very excited about getting my new camera. It include the body and two lenses so it should meet my needs for a long time. I am determined to actually start making some money from my photography now that I have a professional camera. A lot of people who look at my photos at my photography website ask me why I don't sell my images. I guess I have always just did it for fun. That will soon change, though.

Camera Upgrade...

2006-05-14T21:29:00.000-05:00

Well, I've finally decided to upgrade my camera. What does that mean? It means that I must sell my old camera, my iPod, and my Palm TX along with the accessories for all of the above. Hopefully, I will end up with enough to purchase an Olympus E-300 DSLR. I am very hesitant to take this step as my Sony DSC-V1 is the best camera that I have ever owned!!

We need rain but.....

2006-05-07T09:58:00.000-05:00

I'm ready for a break !!! I was in St. Louis all week on a work related trip. It was a great trip for many reasons. I loved the drive up and back. There was a lot of beautiful scenery. We always have the option of flying on trips of this length but if we are going somewhere I have not been before, I really prefer driving if it is a less than 8 hour drive. St. Louis was only about 6 hours for us. Not only do you get to see new sights, but you have a vehicle for exploring and caching. The bad news is that I was about an hour into the trip when I realized that I had forgot my GPS! Bummer...after all that work getting my caches for St. Louis and the trip there downloaded to my GPS, I left it in my truck.

I still had the hope that I could cache this weekend, but alas, it has rained all weekend. It actually flooded while I was gone. The worst news of all was that a levee broke near the Bass Pro shop and apparently the place sustained some damage. I will have to drop by and place flowers near the building tomorrow. Surely, my fellow hunters, fishermen, and outdoors types have set up a shine of mourning.

Geocaching Withdrawals...

2006-04-29T14:53:00.000-05:00

We had a crazy week at work. Our national auditors were in town Monday through Thursday. Overall, the audit went great. We had no system findings and only six observations. I don't think I can recall a time when we have no system findings. The department I manage had no observations and no findings. My group did an excellent job and I was very proud of them. The only bad thing was that the days were long and I had no chance to even think about caching.

No problem, there is always the weekend ! Well, if it were not pouring down rain, that might be the case. I am not going to complain much, though. We have a serious rainfall deficiet right now and we need every drop. I think we have been under red flag warnings and burn bans since the start of the year.

If the forecast holds, I may be able to do some caching tomorrow. It might be a bit muddy since it has been raining since mid-day yesterday. I'll take it though !

Saturday....

2006-04-23T00:02:00.000-05:00

Mike and I had to go into work today. We have our national auditors coming in next week and an important computer upgrade this weekend. We worked about 2 hours today and were able to get out and cache for a while.

My intent was to see how my Blackberry worked out in the field compared to my Palm TX. Unfortunately, I think my Palm TX was the clear winner when it comes to caching! Although I felt the Blackberry did okay, the Palm definitely had a leg up because the Palm TX shows pictures and maps where the Blackberry is text only when it comes to caches.

Edit- Sorry about all the typos! Also, I should add that I was on the WAP site for gc.com so pictures will not show up. If I go to the full site with the Blackberry, the photos do show but the pages are hard to navigate. I am still looking at options to make the best of caching on the Blackberry. If I do stick with a Palm, I will probably sell the TX and get an older, lower end Palm. I don't need all the features of the TX just for caching.

Oops....

2006-04-19T21:00:00.000-05:00

Sorry I never posted a follow-up to my Blackberry post. We had intended to go caching last Sunday, but it didn't happen. I felt like I was coming down with a chest cold or something so I opted to stay home and rest. We are going to get out this weekend, though. I'm not sure how much caching we will get to do as we have to work, but we will get some done. I'd really like to hit the 100 mark. Surely, we can find 7 caches close to work :D

Blackberry 7290...

2006-04-15T20:04:00.000-05:00

I just got a Blackberry 7290 yesterday. How much that has to do with geocaching is yet to be seen. I really never intended or wanted to get one, but when your boss "recommends" that you get one, you do as told. At least, that is the way things work in my life! I have to admit, it is very convienient to get my mail instantly and not have to worry about logging on to the work server to check my mail all the time. Since I am a gadget guy, I have spent the last 24 hour reading reviews, playing with software, and learning about my new toy. I've even logged into and bookmarked the WAP geocaching.com site to see how thiat works. As long as you have the CG number available on your GPS (as I do), it seems like it would be very nice to access cache information this way. I don't know if the Blackberry will replace my Palm TX yet, though. I do know that I probably won't be carrying the Palm to work anymore. After I got everything synced up with the BES, all my Calendar and Task items were on the Blackberry; not to mention all my Contacts. In other words, my brain is now available on two devices and I would rather just carry one of them. The fact that one also is a phone and has a QWERTY keyboard makes it the easy choice. Anyone need a Palm TX?

What I do need to determine is if the Blackberry can replace the Palm when it comes to caching. It is very nice to be able to download all the cache info to my Palm and have it available at a whim when I am out caching. I will probably take both devices out tomorrow and see how the Blackberry performs when it comes to pulling cache info. I am concerned about signal availability while in the woods and remote locations. What I will probably end up doing is selling my TX and replacing it with an older Palm like the M505 as I no longer need the wireless and bluetooth capability of the TX.

Oh, did I mention that work also bought me a bluetooth headset? I got a Motorola H585 Bluetooth headset to use with my Blackberry. I have to admit, it is pretty cool. The Blackberry is a bit of a brick and it is a pain to have to use as a phone. It looks like you are talking into a calculator. The headset is great in that you just leave the phone holstered and press a button on the headset to answer. So far, I am really impressed at how well the set-up works. I'll let you know how it does out geocaching tomorrow!

Hiking....

2006-04-09T21:56:00.000-05:00

In the past, I have mentioned hiking to find a cache. Today, I truly had to hike for a couple of caches! Mike picked me up today at about 1030. There was a cache close by that I have wanted to try for some time. I put it off because it was quite a walk to retrieve this cache. Today, we decided to give it a go. We arrived at the Turkey Mountain Wildlife Preserve at about 10:50. We started our hike and immediately realized that we were going to have to climb Turkey Mountain to access the cache. I'm a bit out of shape so it took us about 45-55 minutes to reach the cache. Once we were there, it took another 10 minutes to locate the cache. The cache was "The Tulsa Thanksgiving Cache" and it is one of the older caches in our area. I was excited to find this cache as it is not your usual park and grab cache. We didn't take anything from the cache, but we did add to it.

While we were in the park, we decided to go ahead and grab the other cache located there. The cache was "CTF VI". This cache was MUCH more difficult to access. To reach the first cache, we had to ascend about 270 feet and walk .5 miles. This cache required another .3 of a mile and a very steep descent. It also required some fancy foot work to reach as there was a narrow ledge with a big drop if you lost your footing. Mike quickly retrieved the cache and brought it to a safe place to inspect. He lost his footing once and scared the crap out of me....he said he did it on purpose but I don't know !! After that, be has .9 of a mile hike out. These caches are my favorite, so far. It was truly a beauitful location and it provided some great exercise. Here is a map of our hike.

Once this was done, we headed to Wendy's to grab a bite of lunch. After that long hike, it was great to sit down and eat! Oh, another thing, today was the first time out with my new fanny pack. Yesterday, I was browsing online and discovered that The Bass Pro Shop had RedHead fanny packs on sale for nearly 50% off. I ran over to our local shop and grabbed one for $14.88. It has over 400 CIs of storage and two 21oz water bottles. Last night I washed out the bottles and filled them with water. I then stuck them in the fridge. I was SO glad to have them with me today on that long hike. It is also very nice to have a lot of storage. The thing has multiple compartments and I was able to organize all my stuff before caching today.

We ended up finding 4 more caches today bringing my total number of caches to 93. I shoud break 100 over the next week! I hope everyone has a wonderful week! I'll post soon.

My Apologies....

2006-04-08T22:34:00.000-05:00

for not posting lately !! I had one heck of a week this week. After taking six days of vacation and nearly dying from the flu (not really, just felt like it) I ended up WAY behind at work. You take that plus the fact that I had 25 meetings this last week and I haven't had any time to post. I'm always amazed that I can get any work done at work with the number of meetings I have to attend. Amazingly, most of our meetings at work are productive. Now, I just need to figure out how to make all of them productive or eliminate the one's that aren't.

Enough about work. Let's talk about geocaching! Mike and I are going caching tomorrow. Robert is out of town and cannot join us. Tomorrow is supposed to be a wonderful 72 degrees and partly cloudy. Sounds like a great day to geocache to me. :) I'm setting at 87 finds at the moment. Yes, that means I only need 13 caches to hit 100! We are hitting the road at 10:30 in the morning, so I intend to hit a milestone tomorrow. I would be thrilled to hit 100. That would be 100 finds in less than 5 months. Not a record by any means, but it would thrill me, none the less.

I'll let you know how it went tomorrow evening. Hope everyone has a great weekend and finds lots of caches !

Flu Season?.....

2006-04-01T12:09:00.000-06:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while! I went on vacation for a week and when I returned, I didn't feel so hot. In fact, I've been home since the 27th of March and have yet to completely unpack from my trip! In spite of the fact that I got a flu shot for the first time in my life, I seem to have got the flu for the first time in my life (at least, that I know of). I'm not knocking getting a flu shot, I just happened to get exposed to a strain that wasn't covered by the vaccine. Today is the first day that I've actually felt like getting on the computer and blogging. I still feel a little under the weather, but I am SO much better than I was just four days ago.

First and foremost, if you are interested in the history of geocaching, head over to Adventures in Geocaching and check out John's two part article. It is a great read on the history of the sport that has captivated many! John has a great blog and if your not a regular reader, you should be :)

Second, I's like to tell you about my caching experience in Lubbock while I was on vacation. I always enjoy visiting my family in Texas. This time, I wanted to incorperate my hobby with my trip. Using my previously discussed method, I prepared for my trip. I had all the caches within 5 miles of my route downloaded to my GPSr and my Palm TX. Unfortunately, I got a late start leaving Tulsa and did not get to cache on the way down to Lubbock. Much of the trip was in the dark and I'm not to the point where I am comfortable caching after dark yet. I wasn't too worried as there was always the trip back.

My plan was to cache heavily on Friday the 24th as most of my family would be at work and I would have little to do anyways. Friday morning rolled around and my father woke my up. I knew something was wrong as he was not dressed for work and it was already 08:30. I got up and got dressed and wandered to the kitchen. Dad explained that Mom had been up sick all night. It looked like she had a bad stomach virus or something along those lines. Fortunately, both my brother and I have an extensive medical background. My brother is an RN active in emergency medicine. We have him come by and we were able to start an IV on mom and get some phenergan on board via the IV. Through the day we infused a couple of bags of fluid and I gave her a couple more doses of phenergan. Needless to say, I didn't even try to go caching. The good news is that we kept her hydrated and was able to quickly recover. The next morning she was up cooking breakfast for us.

Dad wanted to see what this "geocaching thing" was all about so we loaded up the GPS and my PDA and hit the road Saturday morning. The first cache we went for was a couple of miles from my parent house and had not yet been found. There were a couple of DNFs so I wasn't too hopeful. After about twenty minutes, I coupld see that dad wasn't having very much fun so I decided to wrap it up and head for a cache that had a good history. This cache was out in the middle of a drainage area. It was a short walk through a prairie dog area to get to the cache. They were not happy to see us. Those things "barked" at us the whole time. I had no idea that prairie dogs had become so prevelant around Lubbock. When I was a kid growing up in Lubbock, it took some work to actually see prairie dogs. Now they are everywhere! I digress...My dad was the first to spot the likely hiding spot of the cache and he was right. I pulled the cache out and we looked through the swag and signed the log. we hiked back up to my truck and headed out to find the next cache about 1/2 a mile away. We were able to park about 100 foot from this cache. We got out and walked up to where the H2O was leading us. Again, we searched for about 20 minutes to no avail. Hmmm....this was a bit discouraging! We decided to try one more.

Off we went to locate "Western Progress". This cache had a recent history of finds so I was pretty sure we would locate it is it was there. This one was located in a drainage area as well and required a good walk around the retention pond to access. Actually, some people had driven right up to the cache, but one of the reasons I cache is for the exercise so we elected to walk. Like the other retention pond cache, we were able to quickly locate this cache and log our find. We had been gone about an hour at this point and I think both dad and I were anxious to go home and check on mom so we headed back after batting 500 for the day.

It's interesting how different caching is from one locale to another. Here in Tulsa, we are very saturated with caches. This is a good thing. In Lubbock, the caches are pretty spread out. I think it has a lot to do with the ability to hide caches. If you have ever been to Lubbock, you understand. There just are not as many opportunities to hide regular size caches as there are in Tulsa. A green ammo can would stick out like a sore thumb in most places. Another aspect that suprised me was how easy caching in Lubbock was. Here in Tulsa, I am used to pretty interesting terrain, fight thorns, and heavy undergrowth. In Lubbock, my experience was you are able to just walk right up to caches. The hider must be very capable to hide caches in these conditions.

Needless to say, I wasn't feeling well on my way home and didn't hit any caches on the way back. I have a lot of PTO built up already so I'm sure I will be going back to Lubbock soon. Hopefully, I will get to spend much more time caching on my next trip !! In the mean time, maybe if I feel good enough tomorrow, I will go caching.

Headed Southwest

2006-03-22T21:48:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm headed to Lubbock tomorrow ! I'm not sure if I will get any caching done on the way down because I will end up leaving late. However, I do plan on some major caching once I get to Lubbock. My dad is working Friday, so I will be able to get out and cache most of the day Friday. I have also committed to taking my brother and my neices caching on Saturday.

If all else fails, I will cache my way home on Monday. I look forward to seeing my family and caching in Texas as much as I can !!

Return to Winter....

2006-03-20T19:20:00.000-06:00

Wow, you never stop being amazed at Oklahoma weather ! I had hopes of getting out and geocaching this last weekend, in spite of the fact that there was a high percentage chance of rain. It's Oklahoma so if they are calling for a 100% chance of rain, chances are, it won't rain. Now, if there is only a slight chance....look out, it's coming a gully washer.

Well, they were right this time :( It has rained for three solid days now. Not that we didn't desperately need the rain, but that combined with the highs in the 40's definitely kept me indoors. All that said, some crazy people from SW Oklahoma came up for the TAG monthly meeting and found like 40 caches ! They are tougher than I.

On an even weirder note, it is supposed to snow tonight, tomorrow and Wednesday night. I don't think I've ever seen snow this late in the season here in the 13 years I've been here. Of course, it has yet to happen at this juncture.

I'm taking some vacation time later this week. I plan on heading southwest to visit my parents and brothers in Lubbock on Thursday. Of course, I plan on plotting an ARC and letting GSAK do it's thing. I probably won't do much caching on the way down, but once I get there, I will cache. I also plan on caching my way back to Tulsa. Hope everyone has a great week !!

Road Trip...

2006-03-15T16:58:00.000-06:00

Well, not really. Road trip implies fun and this was a work trip. Not that I didn't have fun, I just didn't have as much fun as I would have if it had not been a work trip. Being that I only had time to do two caches in three days, I obviously was working too much. All that said, I drove down to Dallas Monday and returned to Tulsa today. I was determined to get a cache in Texas so that I could add another state to my map :D. Not to mention, I am a Native (yes, capitalized) Texan and it is a shame to be approaching 100 caches without a single Texas cache under my belt! I know, people get tired of how proud Texans can be but we can't help it. I can't, anyway. I spent the first 23 years of my life there. I would hope that most people are proud of their home and heritage.

The good news is that I won't hit 100 with only one Texas cache. I am returning to Texas next week on a true road trip to visit my family and I intend to do some serious caching around Lubbock. That reminds me, I need to run a Pocket Query for the area.

One good thing about this trip was that it gave me my first real opportunity to "cache along a route". As many post as you see on the geocaching forums about this topic, I assumed it was very difficult to do this. I couldn't have been more wrong. With the help of my already eastablished paperless method and a single website, it turned out to be quite painless. I had done some research and knew that I needed to use the ARC method and GSAK to isolate caches close to my route of travel. I also needed to have the caches along my route downloaded to GSAK.

I'll start with getting the caches loaded to GSAK. The easiest method I was able to find was to do PQs using zipcodes along my route. In other words, I looked at a map and wrote down the towns along the route. I googled the town names for zipcodes. For example, my search on google would be "Atoka zipcode". After gathering the zipcodes, I created pocket queries using these zipcodes that overlapped each other by setting the PQ search radius. Once this was done, I dropped the GPX files into GSAK and wallaa. (This really is less painful than it looks)

Next you need to filter using the ARC method. In GSAK, this basically means you need to copy and paste a list of coordinates into the filter under the ARC tab. Where do you get this list of coordinates, you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked that question because I have the answer. One way is to use MS Streets and Trips. Personally, I don't own that software so I used option number two. This involves heading over to Golden Horseshoe Geocachers website and loading up the ARC Builder page. This is an interactive map that allows you to click and create points along your route. Once you have all your points you want on the route, click on GPX File and you have what you need. Just copy and paste these coordinates and run the filter. I was amazed that it was this easy. Of course, I'm a computer geek so it seemed easy to me.

Back to the trip. On the way down, I was suprised at how sparse caches were through areas south of Tulsa. Of course, I did have my limit set to 5 miles from my path of travel. I guess I just expected more caches along a major hiway. I noticed an easy to snag cache in Calera Oklahoma, so I wandered of the beaten path by about 100 yards and grabbed "SCIFI-Stuff". That was it for that day as it was soon dark.

Today, I was preparing to depart Dallas to head home for Tulsa and I noticed that there was a cache about 2 blocks from work. It was "All by my Lonesome". I cruised over an judging by the name, it was obvious where the cache was located. I walked up to the cache, signed the log, and headed home. I feel much better now :)

Needless to say, I am very excited about the thought of geocaching around my old stomping grounds. The cache density is nothing like here in Tulsa, but it will keep me busy while I'm there. I would like to introduce some of my family to the sport at the same time. I'm sure my neices will love caching and I can't help but thinking my brother will like it as well since he is a gadget guy like me. If not, his wife is an IT person and I know she like gadgets !

Tags:

Geocaching
gps
tulsa
oklahoma
Texas
dallas

Beautiful Day to Geocache !!

2006-03-11T19:59:00.000-06:00

We finally got out and did some caching today. Team ARC consisted of Robert, Mike and me today. We got started around 10:30 and we were able to find 3 caches in about 15 minutes right off the bat. The bad news is that I torqued the hell out of my knee on one cache. It was listed as a 4/4 and they were not lying. Between my knee and the pint of blood I lost from the thorns, I think it may need to be listed as a 5 on terrain !!

We ended up with 8 finds and 1 hide today. It was our first hide as a team and I hope to see it listed soon. I didn't find any pins today. I seem to have started a bit of a collection. My wife bought my a cork board to place them on along with my wooden geonickels. Well, I take that back...I did find one pic, but it was very religious and I ended up not taking it. I did find something cool today, though. At two of the caches we visited, we found some handmade pottery things. They were little ashtray type things painted in rainbow colors. I thing they were made by a younger person, but it was cool to find something handmade so I grabled both of them to add to my collection of stuff. Not sure what I will use them for but I like them :)

The weather was interesting today. It was warm...80ish..but we also had some thunderstorms in the area so there was some occassional sprinkles to cool us off. Most of the heavier storms were to the east so we just caught the edges. Hope everone has a great weekend. I am working from home tomorrow so my weekend is pretty much over. I have to head to Dallas on Monday, as well to meet with my counterpart for Texas. Should end up being a busy week, but I plan on catching a a cache or two while I'm there. I've already downloaded the caches in the area and just need to put the waypoints on my GPS.

Oh yeah, we also hid our first team cache today !!! It is called TARC Cache #1. Hopefully it will see approval in the near future.

Tags:
Geocaching
gps
tulsa
oklahoma

It's On....

2006-03-10T19:09:00.000-06:00

We have officially scheduled and planned a geocaching outing for tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be beautiful and I cannot think of anything that could possibly get in the way of our caching trip tomorrow ! Now to sit down with GSAK, my Palm TX, and my Lowrance H2O and get ready for the outing. I've downloaded my PQ, loaded it into GSAK and should be ready to transfer everything. Yes, I'm psyched about going caching tomorrow :D

On a related topic, I think I have become addicted to geocoins. My collection has grown to 5 metal geocoins and 3 wooden geonickels. I even participated in my first trade this week. I traded an Oklahoma TAG coin for a PCFrog coin. What was really cool was I traded with someone in the Netherlands, no less ! I've seen many people on the GC.com forums talking about geocoins and I really never understood the craze. Then I ordered my first geocoin, the Texas Bluebonnet coin designed by a fellow Texan names Chris Crake and when it arrived, I knew it was all over but the crying. I was hooked from the start. It will be hard to find a coin more beautiful than the Bluebonnet, but I will do my best to try ! Honestly, if you are going to collect something, it is hard to beat geocoins as most are around $10. It is an affordable hobby and some of these things end up worth a lot of money. I saw one on eBay go for almost $300 recently. Of course, I won't be bidding on coins like that but I will by new ones as they are issued for seven to ten dollars. The real fun is buying two and trading the second coin for another coin.

I will try to post some photos of my geocoins soon.

Tags:
Geocaching
gps
tulsa
oklahoma
lowrance
PDA

Happy Birthday...

2006-03-08T20:37:00.000-06:00

to me :D Yes, I just had a birthday yesterday. It was one of the big one's, no less. I turned 40 years old. I'm officially past the half way point according to most statisitics. I want to be bummed out about that, but for some reason, I'm not. I think the average age of death for men is like 78 years old, which, of course would indicate that I am more than half way there. I guess I am pretty happy with my life up to this point. I was a Paramedic for 8 years out of high school. I moved to Tulsa to go to flight school because I wanted to be a pilot. I had spent a couple of years as a flight medic prior to that and it seemed like a natural progression to me, at the time. To be honest, I had wanted to be a pilot most all of my life. My dream was to be an Air Force pilot, but I never really pursued that because I had asthma so bad as a child and didn't think I had a chance.

Once I decided to pursue it through the private industry, I was very successful. After only three years, I had my private, instrument, commercial and CFI ratings. Of course, it was to good to be true. I started having neurological problems shortly there after and was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. That was the end of a dream for me. I could no longer legally fly an aircraft. I was afraid I would be bitter about it, but I never was. In the long run, I always felt that I was quite priviliged to have just have gone through the training and have spent so much time flying. My Dad once asked me if I regreted spending so much on my training when I couldn't use it and I had to tell him that I did not. I am very fortunate to have got to fufill my dream of becoming a pilot. Even if it was short lived, I accomplished something that I never thought I would accomplish.

What does this have to do with my birthday, you ask? My friends took me out the other night to celebrate and I sliiped out for a few minutes. While I was outside, an MD-80 passed overhead. At that moment, it truly hit me that I was not where I had planned to be at this point in my life. It hit me that I would never reach the goals that I had set out for myself 15 years ago.

None the less, I am so fortuante to be doing something I love. I have reached somewhere I never saw myself reaching with the company I work for today. In spite of my bad luck...I am very lucky.

All that said, I am going geocaching this weekend, come hell or high water !

2006-03-05T21:43:00.000-06:00

Ugh....I didn't even try to cache this weekend ! My friends took me out for my 40th birthday and I just kinda sat around and chilled this weekend.

I did watch a cool movies this weekend, though ! I watched "I walk the line" which is a movie about Johnny Cach and June Carter. It is a must see, in my opinion !

Is it Friday Yet ?

2006-02-28T20:38:00.001-06:00

I REALLY need to go geocaching ! It has been too long. We had two weekends of bad weather and this last weekend, I was too busy to cache. I am really looking forward to getting out this weekend and doing some caching. It will be good for my soul. Work has been hell lately and I need a break so regardless of the weather, I will find some caches this weekend.

On a completely different note, I ran across this survey on another blogger's website and had to take it. Needless to say, I scored well.

Oh well, I always knew I was a nerd, so I'm not surprised.

Helmut Mueller

2006-02-25T23:08:00.000-06:00

I just wanted to share a post I made to the gc.com forums tonight. it is one of the hardest post I have ever had to make. It concerns the death of a fellow geocacher:

Although I frequent the forums, I somehow missed that this had happened. When I read the first post, I was at a loss for words and nearly in tears even though I never had the pleasure of meeting this man and his family.

Even though I never met Helmut, I joined gc.com about the same time that he did and I have read his post for years and viewed the photos he posted in his gallery. I felt as though I knew him and I felt as though I knew his family. I took the time tonight to read each and every response in this thread and I now feel that I can talk about this. It is truly amazing how easy it is to become familiar with someone (and even feel close to them) via the internet. This has caused me to think back on everyone who I have met through the internet and even back to those from the BBS days and remember the impact that people have had on my life through computer communication. There are so many people that have been part of my life that I have never had the chance to shake their hand or share a laugh with. I am saddened by this but at the same time, I know that my life has been unmeasurably enriched because of their presence in my life even though it was not a physical presence. I am a better person because of people like Helmut.

To Ashley and Family- please know that your father touched many people. The number can never be measured because so many people have come and gone through gc.com, but I know if they spent anytime in the forums, they were impacted in some way by Helmut's post. Even if it was just learning something from what he posted, we were impacted. Please take strength from knowing how important he was to the geocaching community.

As I turn 40 in a couple of weeks. Helmut will definitely be on me mind. I am so fortunate to still have my father in my life. I grieve at your loss. There are no words that can make this any easier for you.

Cacheopedia?

2006-02-24T19:57:00.000-06:00

A fellow blogger recently emailed me about a website that I was not aware existed. THat may seem trivial, but I pride myself on researching my hobbies, so I'm a little suprised that this one was missed by me. Head over to Adventures in Geocaching and read about the website here. I have just glanced over the site and I'm very impressed so far !

Lookin' Good

2006-02-22T21:40:00.000-06:00

This weekend is shaping up to be a good weather weekend for some geocaching. I think we are going to be able to get Team ARC out in some fashion this weekend. At a minimum, Mike and I should be able to cache. I'm ready after having miserable weather for two weekends straight! Actually, I love winter weather and I'm not really complaining, but I would have liked to have geocached, as well. This last weekend was impossible. It snowed and sleeted about 3 inched Saturday and Sunday. I know some cachers that would have got out in that, but I'm not one of them :D

We are supposed to be in the mid-50's all weekend, so hopefully, we will get some geocaches unter out belts this weekend. I will update everyone on what we do. I'm going to do my best not to forget my camera this time !

Paperless Geocaching Premium Style

2006-02-19T12:09:00.000-06:00

Earlier, I told you how to do paperless geocaching for free. It is relatively simple but it has a lot of steps involved. Since it was a little cumbersome, I decided to poney up some money and try to make paperless caching a little less painless. I have to tell you, it is well worth the money if you have it !

First, let me say there are several ways to go about paperless caching. It will mostly be a matter of taste and a matter of how much you can or want to spend. I will admit, I haven't bought some of the programs I would still like to try to make things even easier, but, the system I'm now using is much better than the free system.

You will need to accomplish several things before you can use this system.

1. You will need a Premium Membership at geocaching.com ($30)
2. Next you will need a program called GSAK. (I have not registered GSAK yet, but will soon be doing so) ($15)
3. You need a program to get your cache pages to you Palm device. I use Plucker Desktop. (Free)
4. You will need a program to read you files once they are on you Palm. I use Plucker. (Free)
5. As an alternative to Plucker and Plucker Desktop, you can use CacheMate. ($8)

Once you have you premium membership, install GSAK, install Plucker Desktop and place Plucker on your PDA, you are ready for paperless caching ! The first thing you will need to do is set up a pocket query at geocaching.com. There are lots of articles on how to do that so I won't bore you here. Once this is done, the PQ will be delivered to you email address. Be sure to have your PQ sent to you in zip format. Once it arrives, you will want to fire up GSAK. Open the zip file containing your PQ. Depending on how you set up you PQ, you will have 2-3 files included. You will need to drag and drop the larger gpx file into the open GSAK window. GSAK will offer you some options on importing the file but I just use the default options. At this point, you PQ will be imported and you are ready to play !

Next you will need to export the waypoints to your GPS. How you accomplish this will greatly depend on what GPS unit you own. I have a Lowance H2O which does not connect directly to my computer, but uses a SD card. I export my waypoints using the Lowrance usr format. I then copy the usr file to my SD card, place the card back in my GPS and load the data. GSAK will export directly to many GPS units. Once this is done, you have accomplished loading the caches into you GPS.

Next, you need to get the cache page that contain the cache information into your PDA. Since I am using the Plucker method, I use GSAK to export my loaded caches to html format. Once this export is completed, I open Plucked Desktop, create a channel called "Caches", and update the channel by pointing PDesktop to the files that GSAK just exported in html format. (Once the channel is created, you only have to update the channel in the future.) Now that this step is complete, the next time you sync your PDA, "Caches" will be placed on the PDA. You can then open Plucker on you PDA, select "Caches" and all of your cache information is located there. GSAK creates a "start" page that allows you to search for caches in many different ways. You can even customize that page.

I cannot say enough good about GSAK. It is truly an all-in-one tool that is highly customizable. I am only beginning to learn some of the many functions of the program. You can pretty much use it in default mode, but you would be missing out on so much functionality ! It is wonderful for searching for particular caches using the filter. If you just wanted to go looking for caches with travel bugs one day, you can set up the filter and do your exports and only caches with travel bugs will be shown. You can use this filter in more ways than I can sit her and list. I highly recommend spending some time at the GSAK website linked above just reading over the features, forums, and FAQs.

That pretty much summerizes my venture into the premium version of paperless geocaching. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or email me and I will try to help out or at least point you to where you can get a correct answer.

Now, if the weather would just change, I could go caching ! We have been getting snow, sleet, and freezing rain for two days now. Not the best weekend I've ever experienced :D I really don't mind the snow, but the freezing rain and wind chills in the single digits is a bit much for me to go geocaching !

Paperless Caching

2006-02-14T21:55:00.000-06:00

Well, I have been playing with some of the paperless caching options available for those willing to spend a few buck and I have been very impressed with the options available. First and foremost, as a Lowrance user, I would like to recommend GSAK as an option. With my Lowrance H2O, Palm TX, and GSAK, and a geocaching.com Premium membership, I can do everything I need to do for paperless caching in style. I must say, it is worth the extra $s to do it this way. I will write a full review on the system that I have settled with this weekend.

Tags:
Geocaching
gps
lowrance
PDA

Just a bit of....

2006-02-14T00:57:00.000-06:00

a test to see if a new add-on works :D

No Geocaching this Weekend...

2006-02-12T19:31:00.000-06:00

I was feeling a bit under the weather and it was COLD and windy. Actually, it was more windy than cold but the combination was miserable. Needless to say, I stayed in and tried to get well.

I did work on some geocaching related stuff, though. I finally came up with a signature item. Basically, it is a refridgerator magnet. Some time ago, I bought some printable magnetic sheets for some project. I never used it but I found them while digging through a filing cabinet this weekend. I pulled a couple out and placed them in my printer. I opened up Word and selected the template for the Avery business cards and went to work. The end result was a signature item that I will leave in caches that I find. I have found quite a few sig items, but I have never seen anything like these, so hopefully, people will like them. I've attached a photo of them appropriately placed on my fridge.

My other weekend indoor project was to develope a CD to leave in caches. There was a spirited debate on the geocaching.com forums about this idea. Many stated that they would not pick up a CD at a cache for fear of getting a computer virus. I was one of the people that thought it was an excellent idea. Almost everyone, including myself, have virus scanners and I feel that the risk is minimal coming from a fellow cacher. My CD has some freeware and shareware included that I downloaded from reputable sites and it also contains several hundred photos that I have personally taken. People can use the photos for any personal use as long as they don't try to profit from them. I love photography and I enjoy sharing my photos. I did run a scan on the disk with my updated virus scanner to make sure that it was virus free. I also printed my email address on the CD just in case someone had a problem with the CD or it's contents.

The last thing I did this weekend was make a bunch of small return address labels to use when logging finds. I'd seen this a couple of times in logs I've come across and wanted to give it a go. I printed up labels for myself, Mike, and Robert. Hope everyone else had a great weekend !!

Colder than....

2006-02-11T16:29:00.000-06:00

a well digger's...well, you know the rest of the saying. That would be the best way to describe today's weather ! The team had discussed getting out around 1300 today and doing a little caching followed by a round or two of pool. I don't know about you, but it was blowing snow, the temp was hovering around freezing and the wind was howling resulting in a windchill around 20 degrees. Yeah, I know, I see the discussions and photos of people caching in the snow and nasty weather. Truthfully, had I not felt like I was coming down with some type if intestinal virus, I probably would have given it a try.

So, since I'm not out caching today, I will write about last weeks geocaching adventure. Sorry this is late. I had to be in Baltimore for a meeting Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I figured I would write about it from the hotel. Hah ! Little did I know that my meetings essentially were from about 0730 until 2300 (at least one night it was). The other days were very long and all I wanted to do once I got to my room was shower and crash.

Back to last weeks adventure :). Mike and I were the only participants as Robert was grouting the floor at the YMCA, thanks to his wife offering up his service for free. I have to tell you, Robert truly is a jack of all trades. We've worked together about 10 years. Currently he is not in my department, but I depend on his expertise and knowledge more than I would like to admit. He is truly and asset to our company. Since Robert was tied up, Mike and met at his house and left from there. I'm really getting into the paperless caching. I showed up with my swag, GPSr, and PDA and we were ready to go. Mike has not had a GPS yet and doesn't want to mess with navigating, so we usually end up taking his very comfortable Suburban. As you will note from my above statement about my equipment, you will see that I once again forgot my dang camera !! Mike brought his, but I'm not sure how many shots he got.

We headed towards Glenpool as we had not cached there before. There are not a lot of caches there, but we figured we might as well get them out of the way. Our first hit was "Used to be Posey". This was located just outside the parameter of a cemetary. This is near a town called Twin Mounds that was formerly Posey. It came to be in the late 1800s. We quickly located the cache, made our trades, and signed the log book. Apparently, we were not quick enough. This cache is out in the booneys and a local farmer got suspicious of our activity and approached us as we were getting ready to leave. It was somewhat of an uncomfortable conversation as he was not getting our explination of Geocaching and we did not have a flyer with us. I think he final decided that we were not doing anything malicious and let us go un-shot. (Think I will print one of those flyers right now).

Next we headed towards "Oil and Gas", this is a historical marker honoring the oil and gas industry in the area. Glenpool is named for a large oilfield find. In fact, there is a move about the oilfield called "Glenpool". This was a micro hidden close by so we just signed the log and left.

Next, we headed towards Sapulpa which is just down the road a bit. Not much on traditional caches, but they had a couple of virtuals we wanted to see. Our first cache was "Chief". This was a virtual cache that I don't want to say a lot about because it is really special and you need to just go see it. It is a virtual but I never knew it existed. Mike has lived in this area all his life and he never knew about it. It was an honor to visit this cache. If you would like details about the cache, you can email me, but I would hate to spoil the surprise for anyone else. If you are ever in this area, this is a must do cache!

We then headed for the "Sapulpa Trolley and Rail" cache. It was another historic type virtual that was very enjoyable. Apparently, at some time in the history of Sapulpa, they had a trolley system and this virtual consist of a restored trolley. Again, it is worth the visit if you are into history ! We went from here to "Rock Creek Bridge". This was a neat old bridge that was paved with bricks. No telling how old it is but it was old enough that I was a bit uncomfortable driving across it because it was quite a ways down. Turned out that the cache was not on the side of the railroad track that the bridge is on, so we had to back track a bit. Once we got on the right side of the tracks, it was an easy find. About two tens of a mile away was another virtual called "Two For One". Bet you can't guess why it was named that ! Okay, my guess is that it is only two tenths of a mile from another cache, but I could be wrong. We actually saw this on when we backtracked for the last cache.

After hitting all the caches in Sapulpa, we decided to try our luck in downtown Tulsa. This was interesting. First, we headed for "Talahassee, OK" cache. Yes, this is in downtown Tulsa. We were very confused when we first arrived as the GPSr seemed to indicate the cache was in the pparking lot of some condos. Again, this was a virtual. After some mild confusion, we discovered a very small park on the corner of the condo complex. There are a couple of questions you have to answer to get credit for the cache, but the location has great historical significance. I never knew that this would be such an educational hobby!

Next up was a traditional geocache called "Off the Beaten Path". This one was along a jogging trail near the downtown area that I did not know existed. We were able to quickly find the cache undetected and make our trades. We ended up finding several more caches by the end of the day totaling twelve caches. A new daily record for me. We found "Center of the Universe", "Zink Park Cache Returns", "Parkwest Nature Trail", and I did maintenence on my cache, "Polecat Creek Cache". We had a blast as usual and found lots of caches. Now, if I can get to feeling better, we will try to get out and cache again tomorrow !

Oh, while I was in Baltimore, of course, I had to lay claim to at least one cache ! I found "Heart of the Arts". It was a short walk from where we we staying and I can now claim that I am a multi-state cacher :)

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Cool, Windy Day...

2006-02-05T19:45:00.000-06:00

Mike and I were the only Team ARC participants to cache today. It was cool and windy, but we located 12 caches. Not too shabby. I'll post about it sometime this week. I have to pack tonight for an early morning departure for Baltimore.

Premium Membership....

2006-01-31T19:39:00.000-06:00

Well, I got signed up at geocaching.com for a premium membership. I have to say, even if there were no benefits to the premium membership, I would recommend signing up just to support the site and ensure it's availability for the years to come. I have had many hobbies through the years, but I truly love geocaching. The basic services that are provided to the free membership alone are worth the $30 dollar a year fee. I've not been anywhere on the web that provides this level of service for free.

I enjoy Navicache and Terracache, but the participation levels just won't ever equal that of geocaching.com. I mean, GC.com has over 230,000 caches listed and more than 24,000 cachers have logged more than 145,000 caches in the last 7 days !! That is just nearly impossible to top. The forums alone are worth the fee. I've learned more about geocaching reading the post on the geocaching.com forums than I've learned reading 100 other websites. The people their really know there stuff.

Now that I have made it clear that the free membership is well worth the $30 dollars, let's talk a little about the benefits that you receive when you sign up for the premium membership. I am a new premium member, so I have just scratched the surface of what is available to premium members. First and foremost, having a Pocket PC or Palm device will truly allow you to take full advantage of the premium membership.

The first benefit to having a premium membership is pocket queries. This allows you to download caches to your PC from GC.com based on numerous parameters that you chose. These queries can be sent to you up to five times a day, every day of the week, although, you would have to be a pretty hardcore cacher to need them that often. This feature is aimed at cachers that want to do paperless caching using a Palm Pilot or Pocket PC. I assume that there might be other uses for queries, but that is what I will use them for. I will probably set up a query to run every Friday for my weekend caching followed by a query the evening after I cache to update my finds.To take full advantage of these queries, you obviously need software to get them on to your handheld device. I will discuss some of those options in a later post. You can go with free software or shareware to accomplish this. Hint: you get what you pay for on this deal. It is doable with free software, but there is some very inexpensive shareware out there that makes a world of difference (GSAK).

The second benefit of being a premium member is the geocaching maps available on the GC.com website. These are really cool and well worth the money. They show the caches on a good quality map and you can zoom, pan, and print. Very nice !

Third is an unlimited number of watchlist. I really like adding caches to my watchlist if I DNF (do not find) the cache. When you have a cache on your watchlist, you receive an email evertime someone logs to the cache. This has resulted in me finding a cache that I DNF'd twice. I kept reading the logs of people that were finding the cache and once day someone said something that made something click in my mind as to where to locate the cache. Sure enough, I went out the next day and walked right up to the cache. Another advantage is seeing that others are unable to find the cache. This may clue you into the fact that the cache may be missing. That can prevent frustration and unneeded trips out to find something that is not there. With fuel prices as high as they are, this can be a money saver! Something else I enjoy is reading the logs of people that find the cache behind me if I placed something cool in the cache. It is really nice to read the response of a fellow cacher when they trade for a nice item I left in the cache.

Next is the Bookmark List and Ignore Feature. I have yet to try this out but it looks useful. I will report on it once I give it a shot.

Instant Notification Feature. If you like being the FTF (first to find), this is a must have! You can set up notifications based on a number of qualifications. You will receive notifications based on your selections instantly to your selected email address. If you use a cellphone email address, you can know immediately when a new cache has been placed in your area. Too cool.

The sixth benefit to a premium membership is members only caches. There have been some discussion on the forums lately concerning the merits of member only caches, but honestly, I like the idea. Some cachers want to reward those that support the site and place caches that are only visible to premium members. The plus side to this is that the caches "should" be of better quality and are less suseptable to being trashed out. Additionally, if a cacher is going to put an expensive FTF prize in the cache, they may initially set the cache to member only and open it up to the general public once the FTF has been claimed. I intend to do this with my next cache. I feel it is important to support the geocaching community and I will place a nice FTF prize to reward those that support the community. Once it is claimed, I will open it up to everyone.

There are a few remaining features, but you will just have to join to see them : ) Basically, I wanted to cover the most important features, and I think I have accomplished it here. $30 a year is not much to support a sport that we all love. Think about it, cut down on one soda a day for a month, and you have payed for your membership. Cut out one trip to McDonald's one day a month for 8 months, and you have payed for your membership. It may seem like a lot of money at the moment, but it is worth far more than $30 a year in my opinion.

Support the geocaching community and sign up for a premium membership soon !

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Geocaching with Team ARC Minus One...

2006-01-29T19:42:00.000-06:00

Mike, Robert, and I had planned on getting out and diong some geocaching today. Unfortunately, we ran into issues early on. First, Robert ended up having to go into work to do some initial qualifications on some computers going into service in the morning (I'm very thankful that he took on that chore !). Next, when Mike and I met up at one of our work locations, they were having computer issues and we ended up spending an hour there working that out. Lastly, we had a software glitch that resulted in me being on the phone fora large precentage of the day while we attempted to geocache ! Somehow, we managed to grab 10 caches anyway. Once again, I forgot my camera !

After we got the computers up and running, we headed out to our first cache, "Where Do I Park". Trust me, it was named that way for a reason. When we figured out where we needed to park, we set out on a short hike across a retention pond area. Once we were in the area, we quickly spoted the cache. We signed the log, hiked back to the truck and headed off to the next cache.

"Hidden Park" was next on our list. This was one that was difficult to figure out how to access. Once we found a way in, it was just a short hike to the cache. It was an easy find and Mike saw it right away. As always, keep your eyes open for things that just look out of place ! We did not take anything on this cache, but left several foreign coins and signed the log. We walked back to the truck with 15+ dogs barking at us.

The next cache "Would be Prophet" was actually very close to the last cache. Unfortunately, there was a fence between us and the cache so we had to drive around to this cache. This one was a virtual cache where we had to locate the headstone of a "would be prophet". It was an interesting find in that it was the headstone of a very famous person who had started his adult life as a preacher. I had no clue he was buried in Tulsa.

At this point, we were thirsty so we headed to Quik Trip for some Gatorade. After filling up on some liquids, we headed for "East Park Tract". I have never experienced that many dogs barking at me all at once. It sounded like a dog symphony or something. To say the least, we located this one quickley, signed the log and got out of there ! The cache was pretty wet as well and some of the stuff had rusted.

Next up was "Troll Bait". This one is just down the street from work and is in the same parking lot as my very first find. This was one of those caches that you can drive right up to and walk about 15 feet to locate. I grabbed a cool wooden signature nickel and traded an Incredibles squeeze light on a carabiner.

"West Bank" was an interesting cache located on the west bank of Mingo Creek. We had a wino on a park bench that we irritated with our presence. After he got up and left, we were able to locate the cache and make our trades.

We went on to find "A Hole in One", "Lunchtime Cache #18", "End of the Road #16", and "Wizmedic's Quicky Cache II". I ended up with some neat trade items like a Geocaching.com pin, a Texas Numismatic Association medal, and a sig card from iculungman. We had a great day all-in-all. Hopefully, next time my phone won't ring 50 times with work related calls !!

We logged63.1 miles in 2 hours and 14 minutes in Mike's truck.

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Paperless Geocaching

2006-01-26T21:40:00.000-06:00

I have ventured into the world of paperless geocaching....on the cheap. There are many different ways to do paperless geocaching. Most of which require either a premium membership to geocaching.com and software that you have to pay fro such as Cachemate and GSAK. I want to try paperless geocaching, but on a free basis. I was quite pleased to find that it was doable. However, it takes some time and work to accomplish. If you are a penny pincher like I am, that will be okay.

What I want to do with this post is show you how to cache paperless without paying for a membership or extra software. Obviously, the first thing you need is a Palm device of some sort. I am using a Palm TX. You can get away with a device of much less expense. I see people posting to the geocaching forums using Palms that cost less than $30 on eBay. If you don't have a Palm device, I highly recommend searching on eBay for one. Just be sure you check feedback ratings and from what country you are purchasing. I highly recommend a feedback rating of at least 98% and either Canada or the USA for the country.

Once you have your Palm device, you will need to download and install some freeware software. The program you will need is Plucker Desktop for your PDA and your desktop. This program will grab the cache pages, convert them to a format readable on your Palm device and transfer them to your Palm.

Once you have the software installed, you can use Plucker Destop to save the cache pages and transfer them to your PDA. Once on your PDA, you can open them with Plucker. The pages should look just like they would on your home computer depending if you have a color PDA or not. My PDA is color, so the cache page on my PDA looks just like it would on my home computer.

Okay, we have now suceeded in getting the cache pages to your PDA. Next we need to get your waypoints to you GPS. I use GPSBable and EasyGPS to accomplish this. Both are freeware programs. Geocaching.com allows non-members to download .loc files to their computers. I find it easiest to search based on zpcode and check off caches on the search page. I then select "download" and transfer the .loc files to my computer. I open them with EasyGPS and convert them to the Lowrance format, .usr, using GPSBabel. Once that is done, I transfer them to my GPS SD memory card. I now have the waypoints on my GPS using the standard GCXXXX format and I have the cache pages on my PDA named in the same GCXXXX format. I can look at the map on my GPS, decide which cache is closest, pull up the related cache page on my Palm TX and head for the cache !

That's pretty much it. In other news, I am in the process of buying a premium membership and some of the pay for use software, so I will let you know how that goes, as well. I should end up with the same results I get in the above article. It will just be less tedious !

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Geocaching Tools

2006-01-24T21:23:00.000-06:00

One of the most frequent questions I see on geocaching.com is "What should I Carry When Caching/". There are thread after thread discussing what people carry when out caching. I will start this off by discussing what I carry when I go geocaching. I recently purchased a cheap fanny pack at an Army Surplus store to carry my caching "goods" in while out caching. I think it cost me a total of about $9. I quicky disocovered that I needed a "butt" pack to accompany my fanny pack. A butt pack is a military issued pouch that attaches to a belt, such as the one on my fanny pack, and is about 6 inches, by 10 inches. They run about $3 at an Army Surplus store. See below for my list of what I carry:

Fanny Pack

Swag(also known as trade items)

Cache restocking items like spare notepads

GPS, of course, iFinder H20

Friends to keep me company

Gatorade...I always need something to drink!

Cache printouts, although, that is about to change(paperless)

Cellphone, just in case

Pen, to document my finds on the log and my cache printouts....I can't remember everything !

The Groundspeak Geocaching Printout in case I run into any police

Zip lock bags in case a cache is wet

Signature items

digital camera

That sums up what I carry. Now for some items that other cachers carry:

a hand towel to dry soggy caches
extra ziplock bags
extra pencils
extra batteries
a notebook to help me remember condition of caches and what I traded
a separate container or bag or something for TB's so they don't get lost in the shuffle of stuff
kleenex would have been useful today

a pair of tweezers (for getting logs out of very small containers)
a mirror (for looking where you don't want to put your hands first)
a flashlight
a multi-tool
my digital camera and an extra battery for it
a "bag of swag"
plastic bags for carrying out trash, cans, and bottl

Useful Geocaching Information..

2006-01-23T22:45:00.000-06:00

I got the SD card from Mike today at work and posted the pics from this weekends geocaching, As you can tell, we had a lot of fun. Stories are great, but I think photos add so much to a post. It helps to be able to visualize the location and people involved ! By the way, my second cache should be ready to hide this next weekend. It will be a small cache in a decon container. Now to decide where to hide it.

No, that wasn't the useful geocaching information. Up until now, I have stuck to posting about my adventures geocaching. I've only found fifty caches and placed one. I am still very much a newbie. But, I am learning a lot along the way. I have also learned much just hanging out at the forums at geocaching.com. Not to mention, the wealth of information I've picked up visiting hundreds of various websites. In the near future, I am going to start posting articles on geocaching here on the blog. Most of these articles will be about things I've learned or experienced while geocaching and compilations of information I've picked up from forums, websites, and blogs. Of course, I will properly credit and gain permission when necessary but I don't intend to do a lot of direct quoting. Mostly, it will be editorializing of what I encounter. I will also include reviews of equipment, websites, and blogs. One thing I've noticed is that the forums seem to contain the same questions over and over. I hope to compile some of that useful information in an informal FAQ type posting.

My intent is to make my blog more useful to my readers. Right now, GPSOkie's is purely for entertainment value....hopefully, in the future it will still be entertaining but contain some useful information, as well. You will see some new categories on the right side column where I will place permanent links to these post. The categories will include "Reviews", "FAQs". and "Articles".

All that said, keep reading about my geocaching adventures, as well !

Team ARC Rides Again...

2006-01-21T20:07:00.000-06:00

Well, minus one of our team members, anyway. Robert was in OKC attending a birthday party so that left Mike and I to get me my 50th find. We had a beautiful day for geocaching once again. It was a bit cool, but other than that it was great. We met up and loaded my stuff into Mike's vehicle. Unfortunately, I left my camera at home, so no photos for tonight. Mike did have his camera and we took photos, but I will have to get them from him before I can add them to the blog. After a quick errand, we were off to find our first cache...or so we thought.

We parked about .2 of a mile from "Skullcracker" and took of walking. From the discription of the cache, we were able to spot the likely hiding area from a ways off. Once we arrived, we started looking. The cache is hidden amongst a bunch of large rocks so there was many potential hiding spots. After 30 minutes of searching, we finally gave up. We had a mission and didn't want to spend too much time if the cache was truly missing.

After walking back to the vehicle, we plugged in the coordinates for the next cache, "Action Packed". As we were arriving at this cache, I realized that we would have to walk right by "All Keyed Up" to get to our destination. Since Mike had not found "All Keyed Up" yet, we swung by there and he located it quickly. As we continued down the trail to the next cache, we seemed to upset a large dog in someones back yard. He barked the whole time we were walking to the cache. The two caches are located along a stream that runs through a residential area. The property belongs to the city but there are houses located on both sides of the stream. It is pretty heavily wooded, though. Once we were in the cache area, we located the cache quickly. It was an action figure themed cache so we just signed the log. I may have left a foreign coin, but I can't remember now.

Next up was a new cache called "Please CITO Me". CITO stands for "Cache in, Trash out". It is part of geocaching in which all geocachers should participate. When geocaching, you should carry a garbage bag with you and pick up trash to carry out of the area. Once we parked, we again had a long walk to reach the cache and there was significant elevation changes on the way. We got our exercise on this one! As we closed in on the cache, we figured out that it was in an area of heavy brush and trees. I have to say this is the worst encounter I have had with thorn vines. It took a little while to cover the last few yards to the cache. The cache was well hidden but I look in what I thought was the most obvious spot and there it was. We signed the log, left a foreign coin, and took nothing. We quickly found a route out of the brush that was a heck of a lot easier than the one we took in.

"Lunchtime Cache #17" was a quicky cache that was right off a major road. This one required no exercise and was only 15 foot from the car door. This was a micro, so we quickly signed the log and headed out. We had wanted to get some caching supplies, so we headed over to a local army surplus store. Mike bought a couple of ammo cans and I grabbed a Decon Kit to use for a small cache. We also picked up some inexpensive cache items to place in the cache. I got out for less than $6 in caching supplies. I was suprised that the Decon Kit was only $2 !

Our final cache for the day, and find number 50 for me, was "Centinial". This was a virtual cache located in downtown Broken Arrow. It was a set of life size bronze statues representing a family; Mom, Dad, and Boy. Once you locate the virtual cache, you have to email the owner of the cache and tell them what the boy is holding. We wrapped things up after finding this cache so Mike could get to a dinner he had planned and I could go home for dinner, myself.

It was a nice, relaxing, slow paced day of caching that was truly enjoyable. It was nice to reach another milestone and I look forward to my next milestone, cache 100.

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Bummer....

2006-01-20T22:05:00.000-06:00

I didn't get to hunt for ANY caches in the DFW area this week. I had really hoped to find at least one cache and even had printed off a cache sheet for a cache about .2 of a mile north of my hotel. Alas, it was not to be. My intent was to hunt it down last night when I left work at 5pm but I ended up sitting in our HR department until after dark. Today was a repeat of last night and I ended up rushing out of town to get back to Tulsa in time. Oh well...next time, I guess.

In the mean time, I'm printing off a load of cache pages and Mike and I are going caching around noon tomorrow. I should be able to easily hit my 50 finds milestone today. Pics and such to follow.

Dallas Bound....

2006-01-18T22:56:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm sitting here in Dallas in a hotel writing to my blog from my PDA. I'm here on business, but you can bet I will find at least one cache while I'm here! I'll let you know how it goes : )

Interesting Story

2006-01-16T22:05:00.000-06:00

I was a t a meeting at work today and after the meeting, on of my co-workers came up and set a coin down in from of me. She asked me if I'd ever seem a coind like that before. I knew immediately that it was a coin much like some of the coins that I had left in some caches. I said "yes" I recognized the coin. I asked here where she had found it and she just smiled at me. Next, I asked her if she had found it in a cache and she said "yes". Come to find out, she and here family have been caching for some time. Her brother collects coins so she had picked it out of the cache. Apparently, she had figured out some time ago that I was GPSOkie and was just waiting for the opportune time to clue me in that she knew I was a cacher, too. Small world !!!

Geocaching with Team ARC

2006-01-14T19:21:00.000-06:00

This was the second weekend geocaching as a team. We decided to adopt the name Team ARC. I'm sure we will have our core group (Mike, Robert, and me) geocaching together most of the time, but there will be others that cache with us on an occassional basis. I say this because there are others at work that have expressed an interest in joining us for a day. Everyone is always welcome to join us as I go by the idea "the more the merrier".

Robert, Mike, and me started of this morning around 10:45 and set out on our first hunt. It was a Multi-stage hunt located in Bixby Oklahoma. Well, at least, it is listed as a multi, bit I think it was more of a puzzle cache than multi as we had to travel to different locations and gather clues to decode our final destination. The cache we were hunting for is called "Bixby History Tour". We headed to the first clue and found it quickly. We went through each clue relatively easily until we had decoded all the numbers for our final coordinates. I punched them into the GPS and it told us we were 5.1 miles north of our final destination. Hmmm...this was a little concerning as all the clues were in a fairly concise area. Off we went to check out our coordinates. When we arrived, we were obviously in the wrong spot. We decided to try and figure out where we had gone wrong. To make a long story short, we ended up checking two different final coordinates and neither was correct. This was not how we wanted to start our day. We had burned two hours and had yet to find a cache. My goal was to locate ten caches bringing my total up to 50.

After giving up on the puzzle cache, we head over to "Bentley Park". This was a nice cache hidden near a sports complex. I was glad it was winter as it would have been a bugger getting to it in the summer! Mike spotted the cache first and grabbed it for us. I saw a BLM pin that I wanted and Mike wanted a Statue of Liberty Patch that was in the cache. I traded a travel bug called "Thomas Whistle" and Mike traded a foreign coin. As a side note, it appears I have violated a geocaching rule without knowing it. (I just read a post on the geocaching forums about travel bugs not being trade items. I had never thought of it, but it makes sense now that I read the post and thought about it. Travel bugs are for moving, stuff you buy is for trading.) All of us signed in on the log and we moved on to the next cache.

We headed for Lake Bixhoma for our next cache. This is a lake located southwest of Bixby and I believe it is their water supply as well. I had been there once before to hunt fossils. It has an exposed are which was once a shallow coral reef and there are lots of criniod stems and brachiopods to be found. Once we parked the vehicle, we were off to find "Megan's Stash Cache". First off, let me say that this is rated as two stars on terrain. Well, it's two stars if you take the correct path to the cache ! Unfortunately, I think we took the four star route. The end result was me falling and taking a chunk out of my knee and having to stop and catch my breath. It was quite a climb up to where the cache was located. About 80 feet or so higher and we were there. This was a very nice cache that was in great condition and well hidden. I didn't do any trading but Mike made a trade for a signature card. Once we had placed the cache bak in it's hiding spot, we hiked back to the truck. We took the easy way back this time. It was about 1:30 by now so we decided to catch lunch on our way to the next cache.

After a quick bite to eat, we headed east to south Broken Arrow. The next cache was located in Ray Harrel Nature Park. The name of the cache was "Beaver's Playground". I assume it was named this as there are plenty of beavers in the area. It appears that they have built habitats to to encourage the beavers to stay in the park. This cache would have been easier if we had read the cache discription or looked at the map at the enterance of the park! We did neither and the result was a much longer walk than expected. THe walk was through rough terrain, as well, so we certainly got our exercise. Once we figured out our mistake and made it around to the right side of the beaver pond, the cache was a quick find. Unfortunately, the ammo can had leaked at some point and the cache was damp. The log was dry enough to sign, but we made not trades. We hiked back to the truck and punched in the coordinates to the next cache which we knew was close. Little did we know, we had walked past the next cache, "Cache #1", on the way to the last cache. That got a good laugh out of Team ARC. At the request of the team, I went ahead and put in the other cache in the area, "St. Patrick's Pot of Gold", and sure enough all three of the caches were in the same park ! We made quick work of the remaining two caches. While we were at the last cache, we heard a woman hollering at us from across the beaver pond. Although a bit startled, we hollered back. She wanted to know if we had found it and we immediately knew she was a cacher as well. She walked around the pond while we signed the log and made our trades and met us at the cache. She was one half of the team known as The Sooners. After introductions, we had a really nice visit with her about caching. Her and her husband have over 1000 cache finds and over 100 hides. It was great to meet up with a very active cacher ! This was a nice cache run getting us lots of photos and 3 caches and the opportunity to visit with a fellow cacher.

Once we wrapped up at Ray Harrel Nature Park, we headed back toward Bixby for the final three caches. I won't bore your with the details, but we were quite tired by this time and we got skunked on our last three caches. We decided to call it a day with my count up to 45. Not a problem, I will hit 50 another day !

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Caching Through the Snow...Part II

2006-01-10T20:33:00.000-06:00

Okay, I didn't actually geocache in the snow today, but I would have loved to do so !! Unfortunately, work was my first priority today and between that and trying to round up a couple of troublesome prescriptions, I was pretty much occupied from dawn to dusk. It is hard to believe that it was 74 degrees two days ago and this morning we have nearly 2 inches of snow in some places.

The good news is that it will be back up in the 60's this weekend, just in time for more geocaching ! I think we are going to do another team hunt like last weekend but with one more person. I would like to get at least 10 caches this weekend so I can break the 50 mark. I'm also thinking about putting together another cache. I might go with a small cache this time as I've found several places I'm interested in placing a cache.

geocache

My Best Day Geocaching Yet

2006-01-07T21:35:00.000-06:00

I hope you are up to a long post ! I found a record 8 caches today...well, it was a record for me, anyway. I had to go into work for a while today and one of my friends, Mike, was going to be there as well. You remember Mike, right? He was one of the people involved in rescueing me when I locked my keys in my truck. I had told him yesterday that when we were done at work, we should go do some geocaching. He had expressed an interest earlier about trying out geocaching. Shortly after I arrived, Mike and his son Josh arrived with another friend of mine, Robert. We did our work and finished that up around one thirty or so. Since Robert rode in with Mike and Josh, he got to go caching along with the rest of us.

The night before, I had done a search for geocaches in the vicinity of work. I filtered out the micro caches. I enjoy micros okay, but I didn't want to mess with them when I was taking people out that hadn't cached before. I think I ended up printing out about 15 geocaches or so.

The four of us loaded up in Mike's Suburban with the GPSr and the printouts. Unfortunately, I left my camera in my truck! We headed off to our first cache of the day. It was "East Tulsa Travel Bug Institute". When we arrived, there was little activity in the park. There were just a couple of kids playing with a soccer ball and they were not near the cache area. I was really suprised that there were not many people out today as it was almost 70 degrees. It is very rare to have weather this nice in January. We walked toward the trees where the GPS was pointing us. We ended up having to circle around to get to the cache. I was the first to spot the cache and Josh retrieved it for us. The cache was in good shape and contained two travel bugs. We left the bugs as I already have one that I am delinquent in moving along. We signed the log, took nothing, and left a 1959 foreign coin.

I have been leaving a lot of foreign coins lately and you may have noticed. I don't think this is a "normal" trade item as you don't see stuff like that very often (unless you cache behind me). They are not excessively valuable but some of the older ones I trade do have some value to them. I never really intended to use foreign coins as a frequent trade item. I collect coins and I'm facinated with foreign coins as some of the shapes and designs are great. The first time I left a foreign coin was kind of an accident. I went caching one time without my usual trade items (I had left them at home) and when I got to the first cache, I discovered they were missing. Well, I wanted to be able to trade and I noticed I happened to have a small ziplock of these foreign coins with me so I used them as trade items that day. I had no clue that I was going to get the responses I got ! Over a week period, I recieved multiple emails about how much people had enjoyed the coins I had left. I think this will end up being a bit of a signature item for me. Even when I carry the usual swag, I will trade the coins as well. I'm trying to come up with a way to incorporate foreign coins into a signature item with my name and location on it.

Next, we headed towards "Jingle Feldman Park". The challenge of this geocache was finding a place to park! You would think that a park would have SOME type of parking. No such luck. We took a short walk to the cache and Mike spotted this one first. We took nothing, left nothing, and signed the log. The three new geocachers with me seemed to be having fun at this point.

We loaded back up and drove a short distance to "Hot Wheels Exchange". This one proved to be more challenging to find. Our search resulted in major dog barkage as we were in a retention pond area and the cache was located near someone's back yard. We spent about ten minutes looking for the cache and were about to give up when Robert spotted the cache. We were so close but at the same time not even close. I can't explain without spoiling the cache hide. Robert retreived the cache. The cache had a really cool sig item in it. It was a coated foam promotional item shaped like a car. It was a promotion for Lowrance's iWay GPS. it had the name of the cache owner (BasicPoke) and a date on it. We snagged it and traded several foreign coins.

We proceeded just down the street to "Road Block on 19th Street". I can't remember who spotted this one first, but we found it quickly. There was a wooden signature coin in this one and I traded some foreign coins for it. We signed the log and replaced the cache.

Next up was "Tulsa Cache". It was a neighborhood cache. In other words, it was located in a residential area. We were able to drive right up to this one and I immediately knew where to look for the cache. Josh retreived the cache and brought it over. We signed the log and took nothing.

The next cache was just a short distance away. We drove to the general vicinity and parked in the parking area. We got out an walked towards the cache. Josh noticed something out of place and was able to quickly recover "McCullough Park" geocache. We signed the log and left a foreign coin. We took nothing.

We then drove over to "Bur Oak". This was the first REAL exercise we got geocaching today. We parked .3 of a mile from the cache and the walk required some significant elevation change. it also entailed crossing a small river...or creek. Most of us used the pedestrian bridge, but Mike choose to brave the rapids and cross on foot. This cache was in some pretty heavy tree and ground cover and took quite sometime to find. I think the coordinates are a hair off, but it could have been the tree coverage that was messing with my GPSr. One of the neatest things about this cache was the cache container. It was some tubular surplus container with a waterproop o-ring seal. Mortar container? I wish I had brought my camera ! On this cache we took nothing and left more foreign coins. (Yes, I have quite a supply of these coins).

Next up was "Eastland Cache". This was quite an adventure. We approached the cache from the wrong direction....and that is an understatement !! We didn't realize that this cache could be approached from a park to the east and we ended up approaching it on foot from the west. It was .2 of a mile through some very rough undergrowth. I am scratched up from head to toe because of all the thorns we walked through on the way to this cache. Robert and Josh ended up out in front of mike and I and found the cache first. Again, another cool tube like container. This one was made from PVC. It was painted in cammo and must have been in plain sight or it ould have been very hard to find. We signed the log and Josh took some Final Fantasy magnets and I left more foreign coins. We took the long way back to Mike's Suburban to avoid some of the thorns. I think both Mike and I were bleeding pretty good at this point : )

Last but not least, was "You Got Mail". Imagine my suprise when we walked through all those briars to get back to Mike's vehicle and I punch in the coordinates for this cache and it is almost right on top of the last cache !! At this point, we were not about to walk a half a mile round trip back through that stuff. We got back out on the road and tried to find a better approach. Sure enough, there was a park to the east of the cache and we were able to park and hike to the cache with minimal thornage. Interestingly, we were hiking throught the woods and encountered a couple getting aweful friendly with each other. Guess they weren't expecting geocachers near sunset : ) This cache was unique in that it was a mailbox nailed to a tree. We took nothing, left a foreign coin, and signed the log.

All in all a great day !! Both Robert and Mike are great friends of mine and I truly enjoyed spending time with them and Josh. I logged my finds to night as found by Team Arc. I hope that we will get to do much more caching together in the future. I think we all had a great time and I think I converted a couple of muggles : ) Actually, Robert text messaged me and he has already signed up for an account at Geocaching.com. You can see his profile here. To have friends and family is to be truly blessed.

Incredible

2006-01-07T00:00:00.000-06:00

I just cannot believe that weather we are having right now! It is the first week of January and it is supposed to be in the mid-seventies tomorrow. I am not going to complain, of course, because it is perfect geocahing weather. I have a project in progress at work, so I have to work tomorrow, but afterwards, I am taking at geocaching newbie out for his first hunt. I am in the process of printing off caches right now. I am printing of about ten caches and hopefully we can hit five or so tomorrow. Of course, I will post an update tomorrow evening about what we found :)

Great day to Geocache

2006-01-02T16:47:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it is this nice the day after New Year's. It was up around 55 degrees and a perfect day for doing some caching. I had some errands to take care of, so once again I incorporated them with geocaching. I ran two errands first and then headed towards my first cache. It was located at on of the many retention pond parks located around Tulsa. It is called "Lunchtime Cache #26". I parked the pickup and started walking towards the cache. As I got about half way there, I had the general area picked out where the cache would likely be located. Unfortunately, it was covered up with muggles. I hung around a bit, but they were not going anywhere soon. I decided to pack up and move along to the next cache. I can't blame the muggles as it was a beatuiful day and a park was the place to be.

Next, I was off to find "All Keyed Up", a theme cache. When I parked the vehivle, I noted that I was .4 of a mile from the cache. Hmmm...I wondered if I was parked in the right spot. This was located in a nice little park and I could tell it was at the furthest most reach of the park. At least, I hoped it was still in the park. I needed the exercise, so I took off walking. As I reached the back of the park, it was apparent that it was located in a wooded area just ahead. As I started into the wooded area, I became aware of a ravine and a creek ahead of me. I sure was hoping that it was on my side of the creek. At I approached, it became apparent that the cache was not on my side of the creek! So, I kicked into "problem solving" mode and began looking for a route across the creek that wouldn't result in my early demise. After a few minutes, I did locate a low spot in the ravine. I quickly discovered that it was going to be an easy crossing. The creek even had stepping stones to cross to the other side. After making my crossing, it was just a matter of getting up the other side as my GPS was indicating tha the cache was "on top". I made my way up and discovered a parking lot about 100 yards away. Oh well, like I said, I needed the exercise. It only took a few minutes to locate the cache after that. It was a key chain themed cache and I had brought a Dachshund key chain to trade. I ended up taking a non-themed item. There was a really cool pin in the cache for the US Department of Interior in the shape of Utah. After making my trade, I started the hike back to the truck.

By the time I had reached my truck, my back was killing me. I was hurting bad enough that I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the truck! As a side note, I've known that I had a ruptured disk in my lower back for some years now but the pain comes and goes so we have never done anything about it because I am well far more than I am in pain. Recently, they did another MRI on my back and discovered that I have a total of four ruptured disk. Three of them are up high between my shoulder blades. I'm having a procedure on the 13th to hopefully alleviate some of the issues I'm having with my back.

Anywho, I decided to call it a day as it was getting late and windy. If you have been following any of the nation news networks, you are probably aware that the whole state is currently on fire. If a LEO sees someone even throwing a cigarette out the window, they can arrest them. Hopefully, we will get some rain in the future and be done with this fire hazard stuff! I have a friend who is a voluteer firefighter and he has been working non-stop fighting grass fires.

I logged 38 miles in one hour and seventeen minutes today.

I Couldn't ask for Better...

2005-12-30T23:09:00.000-06:00

weather this holiday weekend ! It is supposed to get up into the 70's this weekend. Perfect caching weather, if you ask me :) I need to get out to my first cache nad hide it better. Both of the people who found it commented that it was to visible. I will hide it a bit better tomorrow. Other than that, I am just going to get some caches credits. I hope to find 10 or so caches on this 3 day weekend. I hope you all have a happy and safe New Year !!

I'd Rather Be Caching

2005-12-28T19:53:00.000-06:00

Bummer that I can't ! It has been one of those weeks at work where I am getting to work around sunrise and leaving around sunset. I'm not big on caching at night, so that rules out night caching. I'm too worried about getting shot or arrested. Oh well, the weekend will be here soon enough.

I caught an interesting news story today. It is about the Galileo satellite system that is being placed in orbit. It will not replace GPS, but will be an alternate system for GPS users. It is civilian based, therefore, not suceptable to the whims of a government. On the plus side, it apparently will be much more accurate than GPS. Up to 5 times more accurate, apparently. It is supposed to narow down accuracy to 3 feet. If you can't find a cache with that kind of accuracy, you're in trouble ! The bad news is that it will not be available until 2010. Should be interesting to see what GPS producers jump on the bandwagon.

Geocaching Nightmare

2005-12-26T19:28:00.000-06:00

Okay, not so much a nightmare as a bad dream. I'll start from the beginning and get to the bad stuff in a minute.

I decided to get out and hit a few caches today since the weather was so nice. Actually, I was hoping to hit 5-6 caches, but ended up only claiming three. My first stop was a second attempt at "End of the Road #15. I had tried this one once before and could not locate the cache. After about ten minutes of walking in circles, I thought I was going to have the same results today. I finally went back to my GPS and walked into the target from three different directions. Each time, it took me to the same spot, plus or minus a few feet. I knew I had to be right on top of it. Come to find out, I was more correct than I knew. It finally hit me where it was hidden and I brushed away a few leaves and there it was! It's nice to succeed when you have failed in the past. I took nothing but left a couple of foriegn coins and signed the log.

Next, I was off to find "Mastermind and Friends". This cache was a nice walk from the parking area to the cache. There was no one around so I took my time and located the cache with ease. The cache was in good shape and I traded a 1943 VF Mercury dime for a small package of zipties. Once the cache was replaced in it's hide spot, I walked back to the pickup. I then headed for "End of the Road #9" which turned into an adventure of it's own.

After arriving at the park and finding a parking spot, I jumped out of the pickup to find the cache. By the reading on my GPS, I had a fairly good idea of where to look for this cache. It was a small hike to the cache and once in the area, I spotted it right away. I retrieved the cache and removed the Thomas' Whistle TB and traded a couple of cool foriegn coins. One was a square coin that was a 2 cent piece from the East Caribbean. The other was a Panama coin from the 1960's. If you see a theme in my trades involving coins, you're correct. I collect coins and I know how much kids enjoy unusual coins, so I try to leave them at caches. As I was walking back to my pickup, I made a horrible discovery. I did not have my keys with me! This is where the bad dream part kicks in. After arriving at my pickup, to my dismay, I do not see the keys in the ignition, or any where else for that matter! After a short time, I figure out that they must be laying in the passenger seat covered up by my cache pages (sounds like a good reason to go paperless to me). I make a couple of attempts to gain entry to my vehicle without success. There were muggles around, so I was limited in what I could do. I ended up calling a good buddy of mine, Mike, and we worked on a couple of options. I was only a couple of blocks from work and we figured out that Gerald was up at work, so I called him. He showed up with various screwdrivers and hanger. This was an exercise in frustration. No luck on getting in to the truck. Gerald took me back up to work and I called Mike back. Mike came to work and picked me up and we again tried to access my truck to no avail. Finally, I ended up calling Pop-a-lock and they were enroute to rescue me. Mike took me up to Quik-Trip and bought me a cappucino and a Snikers because I'm sure I looked pathetic at that point. We returned to the scene of the crime and waited. In the mean time, we chatted and listened to Toby Keith and Kris Kristofferson. Pop-A-Lock finally arrived after dark sometime and let me into my truck. Amazing that it only took them about 15 seconds to gain access to my truck. Needless to say, it was dark and I was cold, so I called it a day and headed home. I'm very blessed to have friends like Mike and Gerald that will take care of me even on a holiday!! True friends like them are hard to come by.

Oh, congrats to stoneposse for being the FTF on my new cache, Polecat Creek Cache !! I was excited to see someone find it on the first day !

Approved

2005-12-26T12:31:00.000-06:00

Ah, I'm thrilled to announce that I have received word from Reviewer Jones that Polecat Creek Cache has been approved and published ! Hmmm....wonder how long until it's found for the first time?

Well, I'm off to do a little caching myself this afternoon. I'm hoping to pick up a travel bug or two that I can move to West Texas this next weekend. Wish me luck :)

My First Cache Hide

2005-12-25T17:30:00.000-06:00

We had a beautiful Christmas day here with a high in the upper fifties. Quite a turn around from yesterdays cold rain. I decided to take advantage of it and place my first cache. As was pointed out in an earlier post, my plan was thrown a curve ball by two new caches that were placed in the park I intended to place my cache. The rule is that no two caches can be closer than one tenth of a mile apart. The good news is that it is a big park :) My fears were for naught. I was able to place my cache where I had intended to place it and was still .2 miles from Parkwest Rocky Trail and .3 miles from Parkwest Nature Trail. I hiked into my location from the park. The descent from the park was pretty steep and rocky. Geocachers will need to be careful if the rocks are wet. Once I got past the descent it was relatively flat, but heavily wooded. Fortunately, there is something there that resembles a trail. I assume it is used by people that fish in Polecat Creek. After some hiking and bushwacking, I found a nice spot to place my cache. It had a nice view of Polecat Creek and somewhat of a tree-free sky view. That will help with GPS reception. As you can tell from the photo taken about 20 foot from the cache, the view is pretty nice. My hopes are to take people to views that they haven't seen before. After I got the cache situated, I created a waypoint using the averaging function of my GPS. The GPS collected about 500 readings over 5 minutes and averaged them. The coordinates should be pretty accurate. I hiked back out and headed home. I did make one stop to see if I could be the first to find Parkwest Rocky Trail. I hunted for it about 30 minutes but was unable to find the cache. From the cache description, I wasn't real sure exactly what I was looking for anyways. It must have been well hidden, well camoed, or my eyes are just getting old. I logged it as a DNF on Geocaching.com. I'm going to get out and do some cache hunting tomorrow since Monday is our "observed" holiday at work. I'm kinda on the tail end of a chest cold and didn't feel up to much today. My real goal was to get my new cache out and I accomplished that. It has been submitted to GC.com and hopefully it will get approved soon !

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday !

Rain and More Rain

2005-12-24T15:47:00.000-06:00

Well, I had hoped to get out and do some geocaching, but the rain put a stop to that. I'm sure that there are a lot of geocachers that are not stopped by rain, but I'm not one of them. I don't mind being cold, but cold and wet is a whole other story! I can tell I'm addicted to geocaching by the way I have been sitting here all day clicking the refresh button on the radar web page :) It does appear that it will soon end, but with it already being 4PM, I doubt that I will get out to cache today. No worries, tomorrow is forecast to be much nicer that it was today. If I'm lucky, I will get my cache placed and find a few caches while I'm out tomorrow. Yes, I'm gonna go geocaching on Christmas Day.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, or what ever you celebrate this time of the year. I was going to be in West Texas with my family, but due to unforseen circumstances, I will spend the holiday here in Tulsa. I'm not complaining because I am here with my wonderful wife and the two dogs so it will be a great Christmas. I will, however, miss seeing my neices and the rest of my family opening presents tonight.

Go easy on the eggnog tonight !

EDIT: Geez, you would think I had been hitting the eggnog by looking at my spelling !!