A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

Geocaching

Focusing on life and getting out more

“It comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living. Or get busy dying.”

Those words echo toward the end of the Shawshank Redemption. Words spoken by Tim Robbins’ character as he sits in prison for a murder he did not commit as he talked with Morgan Freeman’s character.

Not too much longer, Freeman’s character, free on parole echoes the words.

“Get busy living. Or get busy dying. That’s goddamn right.”

Over the past year and change, I’ve worked to get myself into better health. I’m not where I need or fully want to be yet – lots more weight to lose and still needing to control the diabetes much better, but I’m on the right path.

Now it’s time to work on other things to go with that.

The area in which I live – central New York – has so much to offer. There are amazing things to see and do and places to get outdoors and explore.

If you expand a bit – into Northeast Pennsylvania, for example, the activities and opportunities become even more.

I love the outdoors. I love the indoors as well, don’t get me wrong. I mean a night of television or messing on the computer is a good time, but being outdoors is a lot of fun and it doesn’t require going through the middle of woods, bushwhacking, and things like that.

Get out and explore!

Instead, there are wonderful trails to wander and see; nature to enjoy and photograph; and plenty of wildlife to see and admire. There are man made and natural made areas that are amazing to the eyes. And though my interest in the bulk of geocaching has waned recently, there are plenty of them to find out in the woods. I’d like to explore some bike trails, too, and just wander along and enjoy the atmosphere. I’m looking to eventually invest in a bike rack/kayak rack for my car, as well as a kayak. That would be something I’d like to do more in the warmer months.

And I never will forget about baseball in the summer!

There are urban developments with some fantastic museums and activities not far away. There are ways to broaden your horizons and see different things within a semi-quick car ride. Breweries and great places to eat are everywhere now. There’s definitely things to do.

So maybe it’s time to start doing things like this.

One thing I really want to get back into is more photography. Because I do it so much during my professional day, I tend not to take my main camera when out and about. I mean, the iPhone is a wonderful tool – it really is. But I miss using the camera and different lenses… or pushing things to see what I can create. Especially when it comes to things like waterfalls and covered bridges, and other items that really interest me.

In the grand scheme of things, life is short. Even if you are one of the lucky ones who lives to 100 or a bit more, that’s just a speck of time when considering how long some form of life has been on Earth. So while you are here, see things. Do things. Live things.

I can’t say I’m always going to follow this mantra. I’m just as guilty of plopping down on the couch for some television or hours online. But if I’m going to do that – I need to make sure I’m balanced and I get out and see some wonderful things as well.

My DayZero list is a start.

On January 1, 2019, I started my third round with the DayZero Project. I have on it more than the 101 goals because I need to trim. I’ve looked to see what is something that can be done – be it hard or not – as compared to dreams. This is a starting point as some of it gets me outdoors.

I have life goals and life plans and hopes – all of which intermingle with one another. But as the two characters in the Shawshank Redemption noted – get busy living, or get busy dying.

In the past couple of months or so, I think I’ve gotten busy living – at least in some aspects. And my mental being seems to be doing much better. But there’s still a lot to grow from and I look forward to trying to do more (to be fair, it’s much easier to do in warmer weather).

The world is a wonderful place if you find the right angle. Now get out and find it. 

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

We have some winners!

We have some winners in the giveaway for my most recent pathtag!

First, thank you to all who entered. We had more than 50 entries, which was great. The bad part is, some people who had said they did something actually didn’t, which meant I had to disqualify them. The good news is – there are going to be more chances to win this tag (and maybe some of my others as well)!

The winners will receive this pathtag!

I have a bunch of my other tags I’ve had made and plan on setting several aside for giveaways, along with a few other items I’ve collected along the way. Maybe I’ll even look to give away some geocoins, as well as some non-geocaching items.

So keep following along and you will have many chances to win!

The winners are posted below (as well as on the RaffleCopter widget on the contest post). They will have until Sunday to respond to me with their address so I can send the tag; if we get to Monday and there’s no response, I will look to pick a substitute winner.

The winners are:

  • acdc&kc (followed on Twitter)
  • Leah Batchelor (liked a ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook)
  • Adam Chater (left a blog post)

I will be contacting each of you to get your addresses.

Thank you again! I look forward to doing more of these contests!

please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

Time for a giveaway!

In conjunction with my new look and logos and such, I’m going to do a little giveaway, too.

And though this might interest geocachers – I think the item is cool enough for non-geocachers, too. Especially if you like collecting little knick-knacks and such.

Late last year, I had a pathtag designed to show my blog. The idea of the tag was to show a lot of my interests, and also have something I can give away through the blog or social media. That’s the thing about this tag – it will only be available this way. I won’t be trading it and such. I mean, if somebody else does with one they win – that’s up to them. But from me, it’s win it or nothing.

It took almost 13 weeks to get here after I submitted. But it came out really nice!

For those who don’t know what a Pathtag is, it’s basically a colored, collectible coin. It’s about the size of a quarter, or a touch bigger. This one is in a custom shape.

And I only had 50 made. I will give one away for up to 10 entries; two away for up to 25 entries; and three away for more than 25 entries.

This contest will run until sometime after 9 p.m. on Wednesday, June 12. So about a week or so. You can gain multiple entries to the contest.

Ways to enter:

  • Comment on this post and let me know if you collect Pathtags, or just like this and want to win
  • Use the Rafflecopter system below to gain more entries by following on several social media platforms (liking the blogs Facebook page, following on Instagram and Twitter).
  • You can also gain an additional entry by going to the Instagram post for the contest and doing what that says.
  • Another way to enter is Tweeting it out. You can do this once daily (on entry per tweet), but please make sure the tweet is done as it shows so I can keep things in order.

One note with these: Some of you might already follow me on these platforms. If so, it should allow you to enter those still. Just make sure you fill out the items it needs in certain spots.

Whoever the winner(s) is/are, I will be checking to make sure the entries qualify.

I will be giving these out at random times for different things, too. So make sure to follow along with me on the blog.

Entries can be done via the Rafflecopter widget below! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

The epic adventure is set to begin …

For those who geocache, you know there are a lot of milestones one can hit.

It starts with the first 100 finds.

And then 250. 500. 1,000.

The first “special” milestone I planned was my 1,000th. I attempt to make each thousand finds something special. My 1,000th was GC39, “The Spot.” It’s the oldest active geocache east of the Mississippi.

Then came 2,000, which was Europe’s first on my trip to Ireland.

On No. 3,000, it was the finale of the New York Delorme challenge. That was followed by 4,000, which came at the midnight madness event at GeoWoodstock in Pennsylvania. Several friends went and got a cake and “decorated it” for the find.

Good times.

But since then, it’s taken me a lot of time to get to 5,000. I wanted to make it special as this is a pretty big milestone, I think. So, I started looking at caches to plan out. Where to go? What to find?

All signs pointed to Mingo.

For those who don’t geocache — or those of you who do and don’t know what Mingo is — it’s the oldest active geocache in the world.

It’s a cache I have wanted for several years. And what better goal than to make it my 5,000th find.

Originally, this trip was going to be a weekend one. Fly into Denver, drive to Mingo. Do some other caches, and then fly out.

Simple.

Or not.

Instead, this has turned into an epic geocaching journey that will no doubt create a ton of memories and fun stories. I looked into a couple of states and such, but once I did the math, it was decided we’d go for the gusto.

It’s going to be a seven-day trip to the west. We’ll land in Denver, stay a night there and then hit a Rockies (vs. the Phillies!) game the next day. From there, we’ll hit eight states and a bunch of wild and cool things. This trip will take us from Colorado to Wyoming, and then from there we’ll hit Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah.

All in all, we’ll cover a bit more than 2,000 miles.

We’ll see some amazingly cool spots and hopefully meet a few people. I’ve had a few events published along the way to try and meet people.

This is going to be one heck of a cool trip. Hopefully it will not only be a great trip to get me recharged in my life, but also something to give me inspiration to blog more often again.

I’ll have plenty of stories and photos … and I look forward to sharing them here once I get back in and in the coming weeks!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!

Logging rules to change in geocaching

A subtle rule change is on the horizon for geocaching.

Geocaching.com, which is the top listing service for the caching world, has notified users of a change coming in early May. And, honestly, it’s shocking that this hadn’t been in place already.

Though geocaching doesn’t necessarily have “rules,” per say, it has guidelines. The change that will take effect on May 8 is a good one, too.

  • Cache owners will no longer be able to log a Find, DNF, Webcam Photo Taken, Needs Archived, or Needs Maintenance on their owned caches. However, event owners can log an Attended or Will Attend on their own events.
  • Players will no longer be able to log more than 1 (one) Find, Attended, Webcam Photo Taken, or Will Attend per cache. Players will still be able to change a Write Note to a Find if they have not already logged a Find on the cache.

This is fantastic news. Though I’m a firm believer in players being able to play the game their own way (it’s not a competition, so what somebody else does isn’t necessarily what another will do etc.), I’m also a believer that you have to have some structure.

Find it only once with the rule changes coming in May!

People often “pad” their stats in some interesting ways, which can hurt the game as a whole.

Let me give an example – when we first started our annual summer picnic event in our area, we had some people travel to attend. We had temporary caches places as part of a “poker” run. These were not permanent caches, however. Two or three of those in attendance logged the event for each of those temp caches they had found – so I think six or seven logs for the event. I wasn’t the one who published the event, so I couldn’t delete those finds.

With the new rules, they will no longer be allowed to do that. It is also good that these rule changes are not retroactive. Past logs are not affected. That could mess with people’s find totals and milestones, which would be a shame to many.

Let’s look at each of these rule changes.

The first is not being able to long your own cache hides. I have known several people who have done this and have always wondered why. I mean, if you hid it, why would you log a find? It is good, however, that people can still log their own events because, in the end, they do attend. It would be silly if that had been taken away.

One question I hope is answered, though, is what happens with an adopted cache. A cache is often done by somebody who has found it in the past. Does that find get deleted? Or does that fall under the “past logs?” This could be quite important, just because it might be the difference between an older cache being adopted, or it being archived.

The second is a good rule, too, as it make it so people can only log something once. Some owners will allow you to log a cache more than once if you do different things. Or an “event” will be something monthly, so the date is just changed and people log the same event several times. One thing wrong with that, is people may not always see the event if it’s only a date change. New events pop up, so it allows more eyes to see it.

These changes are a good step for the game. As the game continues to grow with technology advances, it also needs to maintain some law and order so as not to disturb the game or scare more “veteran” players away.

Kudos to Geocaching.com for recognizing the need for this, but at the same time giving people time to prepare for it and to not eliminate back logs.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog@gmail.com. Also, please “Like” A ‘lil HooHaa on Facebook! You can also follow me on Twitter @softball29!