Flashmob VII Geoevent - May 15th, 2010

So, we decided to attend another Flash-Mob geoevent like we did in 2008. This time, Captain Biggins (the host) chose a favorite hangout called Channelside for the event. The idea behind a flash-mob is to have everybody milling about waiting for Captain Biggins to arrive at 1:00PM and blow a whistle. The event begins with all of the attendees rushing up and placing a piece of paper with their geo-name on it into a bucket so that they have registered for the event and to participate in the drawings for prizes.

Uhm... Tell you what, why don't I let the pictures help do the talking?

So, Captain Biggins blew the whistle and geocachers with straw hats on, came rushing to the table (after all, it was National Straw Hat Day).

They dropped their pieces of paper into the plastic bucket the Captain had brought.

And while the goody-bags were being distributed by Katrina and Brad, Captain Biggins heard a shout behind him...

...Hey! Wait up for me!

Here is something of an aerial view of the courtyard. It started out kinda small, but it started to pick up steam...

I see you, 'seeing' me! Hi, everybody!

And here is our videographer, hard at work. Unfortunately though, the vid-cam went wonky and there was nothing on the tape, even though it said it was recording something...

The Captain performs the drawing for the door prizes, but he looks a little nervous though. You can see the goody-bags and kazoos stacked up in front of him.

I can Kazoo, can you?

The goody bags had some mini chocolate-chip cookies, a pathtag geocoin and a kazoo it it. We'll explain the kazoos in a bit...

When the Captain drew the name for the FTF (First To Find) prize, it looks like the winner was excited.

And here he is, collecting his prize from Biggins.

Here is a picture of one of the geocachers warming up her kazoo, while her compatriot photographs the silly scene.

Smiling Little Perch and Old Bass Cacher were running a little late too.

The funny thing is, we completed the requirements for the flash-mob meeting kind of early, so the Captain decided we could hunt for a geocache to burn off some time. The funny thing about this though, is that it took a couple of laps between the staircase and the escalator to get the job done.

Here comes Lost It 2 and her Crew... They are having a bunch of fun at this event.

Ah, finally! Now we can sign the logsheet in the cache container.

You! Have! Been! Shot!

The Captain decided to run down the Up escalator. Run Biggins, run! Meanwhile, Katrina is trying to hand him his red kazoo.

Oh no! Now I have been 'shot'! Luann takes a picture of me, taking a picture of her up & down the length of the escalator.

So, I snuck around and got a close-up of her.
Gotcha!

Did you happen to notice that some of us were wearing birthday party hats? Well, in addition to this being Flash-Mob day and Straw Hat Day, it was also Podcacher Sean's birthday, so here we are, singing Happy Birthday to Sean (and not doing so well at it).

And here is a 'behind'-the-scenes look at the group photo.

Now it's time to line up and put those kazoos to use. Since we had to exit Channelside humming the theme song from the movie, "Bridge On The River Kwai", we recorded the piece on CD and played it (loudly) on the boombox Katrina is holding as we marched out.

Uh-1, and uh-2, and uh 1-2-3-4!
Hum-hum, humm hm-hm, hum-hum-hum!
The innocent bystanders had no idea what was going on.

Here we are, making our way out of the Channelside pavilion.

Some people did it with a little 'flair'.

While others chose to mug for the camera as they went by.

Are we having fun yet?

And here we are, in the 'spillout' area. At this point, we broke off, going in our own directions. Some chose to hunt for some local geocaches, others decided to go back into Channelside for a visit, while others decided to go home to get out of the heat.
All-in-all, it looks like everybody had a great time... See you at Flash-Mob VIII next year!

Another Dent Repair For The Camaro

Luann discovered a door ding in the passenger door of the Camaro, so we made an appointment with 'Doctor Davis' of Chip's Paintless Dent Repair, who took care of the situation for us. So far, Chip has taken care of a dent on the right-front fender of the Dodge Magnum, then he rubbed out a dent that I discovered in the driver's door when we took delivery of the Camaro in Tennessee (the dealer paid us for his services), and now, this ding needed to be dealt with too. If you ever need to have a dent or ding removed from your car, let me know and I'll put you in touch with Chip. He really does a great job, and at a great price too.

If you look on the passenger door, you can see the arrow that I drew to show you the spot where the dent is. Of course, it isn't that easy to see...

So, I zoomed in on the image and you can see the sharp, upswing of the white line. This was a parking lot ding that went right across the body line struck in the door.

Here's 'Doctor Davis', getting his tools together. He has this bright yellow VW beetle that is part transportation and part advertising medium.

While Chip set about his task, Luann figured it would take him some time to get his work done, so she made herself comfortable under this tree and started reading.

And I mean, real comfortable. Unfortunately though, she didn't even get a chance to turn the page before Chip was finished.

With certain specialized tools, a bit of skill and some patience, he achieves his goal. When I took this picture, he asked me if I was taking a picture of his backside, but really, it was interesting to see how he gets the job done. After he was done, there wasn't any hint of distortion in the sheetmetal. The world, as we know it, is back to normal... Well, kinda.

10-Years - Geo Events #2 & #3

We attended a breakfast geoevent which was held to celebrate the 10th 'birthday' of geocaching.

One of the requirements for holding a 10-year event was to have a placard with the coordinates and the name of the party on it. This makes for a handy sign-in logsheet for the event too.

So, we arrived fairly early which means we were able to sit at the main table...

See what happens when they give me part hats? I really shouldn't be allowed out in public...

And apparently, the same is true for Brad, who seems to be modeling a 'Pharoh's beard-hat'.

Yeah, it was a bit early, but everybody perked up once they got some coffee in them.

Here is a picture of the extended table where just had to go over and socialize with some of the geocachers that are competitors in our geocoin contest.

At the end of the breakfast, we all lined up outside for the required group shot.

Of course, we had to clown around a bit... Well, time to head out to the afternoon event.

Ah, here we are, at the Port Richey event located at a park in Lake Tarpon.

And there was this nice cake to celebrate the 10-year event.

While we were there, couple of geocachers said they were going to hunt for our geocache that was located in the park. I offered to tag along in case they got stuck.

As I was getting ready to go, I said 'Hi' to the Cold Case Cachers, whom we had met at the breakfast event...

As you can see, this was something of a mellow affair, since it was about 95 degrees and 100% humidity. Talk about a strength-sapping day!

Since we were located across from a doggy-park, we had a few doggy visitors at the event.

We even got to meet with the youngest geocacher at the event, and her mother too.

But, let's not forget about daddy...

After I got back from my trail-busting with Speed & Trixie (below), I somehow ended up holding a Q & A session regarding GPS receivers and how to program them.

Here is Speed & Trixie, trying to find a particularly elusive geocache, which they eventually found. Nice job, guys!

And of course, we don't pass up an opportunity to shoot some flowers.

Well, that's about it for our geocaching weekend, it's time to stop by our favorite dent repairman, Chip to fix a dent in the passenger door of the Camaro (see above).