Find me on Facebook

Sunday, March 28, 2010

a busy week...

it's official... I started a new job on Monday... I'm on the sales floor at American TV in the Home Theater department at West Madison. the past week was spent doing initial training, which was a breeze. tomorrow will be a bit more involved, but still not that difficult. it'll be nice to finally have something full time again, although I'm sure I'll miss school. I will still have 3-4 nights a week when I can officiate, and my days off will be during the week, so I'll still have lots of time for caching.


yesterday I went down to Janesville with Kailey, commanderUSN, and grammyb to the Robert O Cook Arboretum for a geocaching event. walked the trails after the pancake breakfast and got a handful of caches. then headed home the long way to grab a few more. this will probably be the last event for me for quite a while due to the aforementioned work schedule, but it will be easier to have entire days dedicated to caching.


today, Kailey and I went on our semi-annual antiquing trip to the south. we grabbed a few caches along the way too. first we started west and went to Dodgeville, Mineral Point, and Darlington before heading to Monroe and Brodhead. It was historical caches day. we visited a virtual in Barneveld where the tornado went through, then Gov. Dodge's childhood homestead, Fort Defiance, Fort Hamilton, and then a virtual at Horseshoe (Bloody) Lake somewhere outside of Argyle. all total, Kailey grabbed 8 caches (I had already visited the two virtuals).

it's Bristol, Baby!

last weekend we took our second trip to Bristol, TN for the NASCAR race. along with us for the trip was my brother Eric (etmckay) and my friend Tammy (tc121). we grabbed a few caches in Indiana and one in Kentucky where Kailey (bme22) got her 400th find, and finally arrived in Bristol around 8 am Friday after driving through the night. Once we set up camp, we got about 3 hours of sleep before it was time to head out for some caches and other fun. we stopped for a few caches before making our way to mini golf, followed by dinner at Fatz Cafe. We grabbed s'more supplies and firewood to get us ready for the night.

Saturday before the Nationwide race, we checked out all of the tents around the track filled with souvenirs, food, and freebies. got a few free hats and cinch bags, plus a few other items I can use to stock geocaches. the grandstands were only half full (180,000 max. cap.), but it was definitely a great race. immediately following, there was a legends race with 13 drivers from the 60's and 70's. last year they did a similar thing and it was pretty entertaining. this year, the drivers in the race were quite a bit older, so the race wasn't as exciting until about 4 laps left when one car hit the wall and started to slide down the track. the second driver couldn't slow down in time and T-boned the first car. one driver ended up with a broken arm, pelvis, and ankle, and both were taken to the hospital.

Sunday, we packed up before the race so that we could make a quick exit, then headed to the track. we stood behind the stage of RaceDay on SpeedTV and watched the show live. during commercial breaks, they would come back and throw hats and things to the crowd. we were in the perfect location, because each of us ended up with a hat, home depot hard hat, and various other things. after another great race, we caught the first shuttle we could back to the campsite and hit the road back to Wisconsin. we finally pulled in at 5am after another long night of driving. we would have stayed another day, but I had to get back in time for a new job.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

I don't remember a caching day this bad...

took the back roads up to WI Dells to do some shopping and caching... stopped at 4 different caches on the way up with ZERO finds due to the snow. two of them are likely missing though... but it was still frustrating starting a day like that. took way too long shopping, so i didn't get as many attempts on the way home, but did manage to find two.
the one good caching thing today was my pathtags finally arrived. they'll start appearing in caches tomorrow in Stoughton when I head out with the commander, plus a few new caches up north.

the other good news is a new job starting in two weeks. it isn't in the teaching field, but it's full time, so I can't really complain. it'll still give me time to ref and cache, so it's worth it.