Nearing 2k

For the last few months, I've had the goal of finding my 2000th cache on our honeymoon in Belize. I was making very good progress until the snow came, but then I got worried. however, in the last week I've had two good days despite having over a foot of snow on the ground in Janesville and Hudson. today, I went to Stillwater, MN for the day hoping to get 15 caches. the morning was pretty rough, with only two virtual finds in the first 2 hours and 4 dnfs. as I headed out of town and away from the bike paths the caches became much more winter friendly. I ended the day with 9 straight finds and a total of 20. now i have less than 30 to go for 2000. tomorrow will be spent in River Falls to get me close, then I'll wait for the trip. #2000 should happen either in the first few days when we go to the Mayan ruins at Tikal or on Ambergris Caye. There are a few FTF chances down there yet, but they'll have to stay that way through the new year. I guess i can hope...

amazed at attitudes

this week i had a mystery cache published that may be difficult to say the least. GC21ARD is one that will require much more luck than anything else. however, shortly after it was published, i received an email from a cacher who said they were just going to ignore it, and asked if i was going to do anything for the local cachers that had already found all of the area caches. evidently they don't like it when they can't be first, or at least find it in a very short time after publishing. instead of being patient and maybe finding the key in a new cache that gets published, they would rather have me change the cache idea to make things easier for them. of course in the 2 days after this cache was published 4 more also popped up... obviously the key isn't in any of them (yet), but who says it wouldn't be by the time they got around to finding them?

a new hide

Last week i hid a nano cache on a cannon... kind of a spur of the moment thing. i saw a park in downtown Oregon that was being redone, and noticed that they cleaned up and remounted a howitzer on the end of it. there aren't a whole lot of caches in Oregon, so i decided to add one more. 6 straight official DNFs to start, and a few unofficial, and i guess i hid a pretty tough one. gave the hint as a note on the page and finally got two finds. it seems to still be eluding people. i feel kinda bad, but at the same time i don't... since i've searched high and low to find similar hides. i think i'm still going to do one on the tank back home in Mellen though. not going to be too many searchers for that one being in the northwoods.

today was also my first traveling cache find. the commander has a traveling cache that's still going after 7 years and 56,000 miles. discovered a few coins inside... but there wasn't much room left to leave anything.

end of the fall soccer season

a funny video for you before you read...
Referees Deserve Respect

I finally finished my last tournament of the season this weekend at Reddan. just in time too... my shoes are split near the sole from all the games I've done. counting high school and club matches since august (and one tournament in July), I've officiated 96 games. I've looked back to see how many more games I had to turn down due to being out of town or other non-soccer commitments, and my total would have been 112. that comes out to over a game a day from August through October, and even more considering I did no games on Wednesdays due to playing racquetball.

It was a successful season for me though, besides regular season games and random club tournaments, I was chosen to officiate at the Girls State Cup this year, chosen to do the Midwest Regional League, and had a WIAA playoff game. Next year I will be upgrading another level, and was told at the State Cup they wanted me to upgrade to a State level referee by the end of the following season.

now I have 3 weeks to rest up before basketball season starts up.

72 Counties

this weekend i finally finished a caching goal i set when i moved back to wisconsin last august. i found a cache in oconto, marinette, and florence counties on saturday with bme22 to complete the entire state. the amazing part about the entire quest is that i only had 3 trips that were solely for the purpose of finding caches in new counties. i rerouted a few of my trips back to my parent's place in Mellen, but nothing that would ever inconvenience me by more than a couple of hours. i have to go to the final challenge cache in neilsville in 2 weeks on the way to hudson, and then it will be official.


next on the list is to attempt to black out the entire D/T grid. i looked at it for the first time a few weeks ago and noticed i only have 13 empty squares, so off to a good start. i probably won't attempt the delorme challenge, even though i already have 60 pages done (out of 84), again, without even trying.

i love puzzles...

when i clear them off my list. eliminated another one this morning that has been bothering me since last august. the cache came from an amazing puzzle, where one location provided coordinates for 4 locations based on how you looked at it. i don't want to give it away, but if anyone ever wants a killer puzzle with some decent hikes, Vern's Treasure is well worth the time and effort (they're regularly on the LCG list for those that play).

in other random news, i managed to split my racquetball matches tonight. the first match started off well enough, but just couldn't finish it off. second one almost went too well. in the first game, i beat him 15-0. i've never done that in a league before. i got to 13 and started feeling bad and tried to give him a few easy shots, but he still blew them. it wasn't much better the second game either. what really made it so bad is that i played both games with a broken racket. i've also decided that since i'm actually dedicating significant time and effort to this a full year later, i'm actually going to invest in more than just a bottom dollar racket. i took a few swings with a new racket someone had recently purchased and was shocked at the difference. i guess it is true... you get what you pay for.

I hate puzzles...

until they're off my "to solve/find" list. then they're great. at one point earlier this summer, 13 of the 20 closest caches to me were puzzles. now it's down to 3. hopefully by the end of the month it's down to zero. i'm not very good at puzzles, which is why i usually just hand the laptop to bme22 and have her solve them for me, or at the very least give me a nudge. i too care of two caches today that have been bugging me since earlier this summer. one because it was missing even though i had the solve, but the other was just sheer frustration. i had the first step done, but like usual with puzzles, just psyched myself out. i could have spent a few hours going through the combinations, but just never had the motivation. i found out a few days ago another cacher had solved it after i had given him the first set of numbers, so relief set in.
thanks to the replacement container and the solve for the other cache, i set out with smashing ground (clayton) and rcflyer2242 (dave) to eliminate both of them, and maybe grab a few easier ones after. both took longer than expected for the hunt (and drive) so i didn't have time for more, but it felt really good to get them done. now i just need to sit down and not psyche myself out of the next nearest cache, which is of course a puzzle.

another caching milestone

half day at school today, plus payday... so took advantage and headed to the very southeastern part of the state to pick up some caches with the commander. we found 20 on the day, plus i hit #1800, and found caches in 3 new counties. only 3 left before i will have found a cache in all 72 in the state. this will hopefully get done next weekend when Kailey and I go visit Daryl and the girls in GB.

tomorrow's going to be a long day... 4 MRL games, but more money, too.

so i made a kid cry yesterday...

definitely not intentional, but still kinda funny. i was officiating at a soccer tournament in town all weekend, and was centering a U13 championship game. his team is already losing 1-0 thanks to a handball in the box in the first half. he runs over a kid to get the ball, so i blow my whistle for the foul. he gets really mad, and grabs the ball and spikes it, so i ring him up with a yellow card. then the tears came. the rest of the game, he's almost crying every time i call a foul on his team.
a really cold weekend, but a moneymaker... $325 for two days work.