Tried Something Called "Geo Caching"

We finally bought a GPS for the sailboat, and once we got it, Luann decided we should try our hand at Geo Cache 'treasure hunting' (www.geocaching.com). Yesterday, we searched one spot and missed it completely. We woke up early this morning and not only found yesterday's effort, but found an additional cache at a second spot. When we returned home, the girls were awake, so off we went. The total tally for the day was 10 finds, with two of them having funny outcomes.

At one site, we found 2 diffent caches, within about 100 feet of each other. We think one of them is a re-discovered older cache that was moved. As for the other site, we found a cache that the original people whom placed it had thought was lost, so they put in a new one. When we showed the pictures on the web site from geocaching, we got an email, asking us to describe where we had found this older container which had been decommissoned. So, does this mean we found the cache 1/2 way? Well anyway, today's totals included 1 multi-cache and 2 Travel Bugs (TB's), one which we moved to a new site, and one which will be flying soon to AZ with Luann. Looks like the new GPS we bought was a good choice because it puts us right on the item +/- 2 feet, making it fairly easy to find the hidden item. This geo caching deal is a blast! I recommend it to anybody that likes to hike, search and find things.

This was our first find, after our second attempt.

On the second find, we found a pair of 'Travel Bugs', items that typically have a specific thing the owners want them to accomplish. For one of them, the owner wants it to make it to the west coast. Luann is planning on moving it to AZ to get it closer.

And here's our third find, an official-looking GeoCaching container called a decon box, which is where we put one of the travel bugs we picked up earlier.

This is a cache we found that wasn't identified. Luann stumbled upon it while we were looking for another one that was located about 100 feet from where this one is located.

This cache is a logbook-only cache, that was fairly hard to detect. Again, the new GPS put us within 2 feet of it.

As for number 6, this one was cleverly concealed and right under people's noses. It was real tough getting this one out, signed and reloaded without being seen.

This one here is an ammo box, sealed against the weather. It was loaded with things.

This cache turned out to be a rock with a sign-in log hidden in it. We are really having a great time with this.

We found this camouflaged easter egg at the coordinates specified, but it turned out to be the old, lost cache we found. We told the cache owners about our find, they were surprised that the old container showed back up.

To sum things up, we found all 10 caches relatively quickly, and we learned a bunch of things. In most of the bigger cache sites, we left a nautically-themed brass keychain.We're looking forward to another 10-fest in the near future...

Monster Truck Jam - 2006

There's nothing like a visit to the Monster Truck Jam at the Tampa Stadium.

Here are some of the trucks lined up on our left side.

And here are the rest of the trucks lined up on our right side.

There was a motorcycle jumping exhibition and a daredevil jumping into a stack of cars in the middle of an explosion.

They had some racing between the trucks, then they had a freestyle competition. Here is the "Escalade" taking out an RV.

They even had one truck named Monster Mutt with a woman driver. Here she is, taking a run over a yellow bus.

And we've got Maximum Destruction doing his thing.

Katrina's favorite, Grave Digger, shows how to 'get air' on several of the jumps during the competition.

At the end of the run, Grave digger eneded up with a flat tire, so he took one more pass at the car-pile and cart-wheeled.

There was a ton of dust in the air as the trucks ran through the show, that's why some of the pictures seem a bit foggy. Unfortunately, there were quite few rude people that would stand up in front of us while we were taking pictures (while we were seated), so some of the pictures we took were ruined. There was even an interesting event from the row in front of us. It seems a couple brought their fairly young boys to the show (they were about 2 and 4 years old) and decided not to watch their boys as they roamed around the seats. At one point, the 4 year-old climbed onto the empty seats directly in front of me (about 3 seats down from his parents) and stepped off of the seat with one foot.

I figured he would do something stupid like that, so I was prepared and reached forward to catch him just inches before he hit the bottom of his chin on the seat back in front of him. His parents were so surprised by the commotion and hustled 'Junior' back over by them, but he simply walked away unnoticed about 30 seconds later. The 2-year old little brother, then decided to casually stroll over with his older brother and throw a half-eaten hot dog at me. I thought the little guy was just goofing around, so I picked up his impromtu missle and placed it on the seat in front of me. Any thought I had about his just fooling around were quickly dispelled when he picked up the hot dog, glared at me and pelted me again with what can only be described as willful intent.

Apparently, the toddler was under the belief I had done something wrong to his brother, and when his parents finally noticed what was happening, they only seemed to be mildly embarrassed as he used me as a target for his frustrations. Luann told me later that she could see how this Yuppie-Family really didn't belong here because they had no clue what was going on, nor had the self-respect to keep control of their kids. I'm just glad they didn't try to call the police or threaten to sue me for putting my hands on their 4-year old (in order to catch him before he hurt himself). It's a strange world we live in. Never a word of thanks as we save them from their own self-destruction...

Jaime's Official Birthday

We celebrated Jaime's birthday last saturday and we had a great time. She wanted to celebrate it at the Grand Prix go-cart track (again), so that's where we went. It started at 3:30, and went on until about 10:00 PM.

This is the birthday cake, with just the right amount of candles and a number 13 for good measure.

The birthday room was nicely decorated. We had invited 10 kids, but only 3 showed up. No problem, we had fun anyway.

Here is the birthday girl and two of her friends (the third one came by a little bit later). They were properly served with a flourish to make it a special occasion.

Here's Jaime, showing her attractive qualities. A little static, some hair, and we have a recipe for some giggles...

After we were done in the birthday room, we went out to the back pavilion and opened her gifts.

It was a bit hard to convince them, but we went for a round of Goofy Golf. In spite of their firm belief that Goofy Golf is no fun, you can see we actually had a ball (pun intended).

During a pause, I took a couple of shots of the golf area.

The pirate ship in the middle was neat.

Of course, we had to take our chances at the go-cart track, but we only made one run, and the images were kind of blurry, sorry.

Another Trip - This Time To South Dakota

I presented a training seminar in Sioux Falls. Here are a few pictures I took while I was there.

I decided to stop by Falls Park and take a few pictures in the windy, sub-20 degree cold. Believe me, a Floridian doesn't know how to dress for this kind of cold.

4th Time Out On The sailboat

Here are a few pictures of our latest voyage on the sailboat (4th so far).

Here is an Ultralight seaplane that took off after we passed by.

This is a dramatic-looking image of a boat house that finally succumbed to the ravages of time.

After we sailed from Anderson Park on Lake Tarpon to Chesnut Park on the southern end, we dropped the hook and had ourselves a swim, throwing some of the fenders on the water, then diving in and retrieving them.

This time, it was Jaime's turn to throw a fender on the water.

And here I go, diving into the water to bring the fender back.

After we sailed back to Anderson Park, we decided to tie up to the seawall and play in the park. As I was tidying up, we had some folks come by to comment on Udara Tanda. I basically gave them the nickel tour.

After playing for a bit, Katrina and I worked on cleaning out the boat before heading to the ramp. Not a bad trip, we learned a few things and had some fun.