A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

Photography

A day of shooting

Well, you’ve likely already read my ending to Saturday, so I wanted to share the better parts as well.

For those who don’t know, I recently got my pistol permit. That also meant I could finally put the guns my father gave me before he passed on the permit. With that said, Warren and I went up to meet with Tom and Darren to spend an afternoon of outdoor fun.

That started with going to the target range where Tom is a member.

I had my two pistols and Tom had his. Darren had his rifles, but I don’t bother much with those. Too loud! Warren had never shot a pistol, so this was his first experience.

The two I have are a Smith & Wesson 38 special snub nose (Chief’s Special) and a Smith and Wesson semiautomatic 9mm. The 9, however, needs to be fixed as the hammed doesn’t want to hold. Seems like it needs a spring. There are a couple of gunsmiths in the area, so I want to be able to take it to them and see what they think.

Tom had his 40 (sweet piece), two 22s (a semi and revolver) and his dirty Harry 357 (some kick, but nice feel).

Warren had to get the feel of the land though. Here’s Tom watching over as Warren fires the 22 semi.

Warren also had a chance to fire off one of Darren’s rifles. No clue what kind it is…

Darren checking out the .38:

Finally, Tom checking out the ammunition and other things on the table:

I did find out that I’m not as steady as I once was. Not a very good shot, that’s for sure. I used each pistol that was brought that day and really liked Tom’s .22 revolver.

Also, the hammer on my Smith and Wesson .9 has something wrong with it, so I need to bring it to a gunsmith and see what can be done with it. Hopefully it won’t be too expensive as it was the gun my dad had always decided would be given to me.

It was an outstanding day of shooting. Been a long time since I had done it, so it was fun in that regard. Following that, we did some geocaching (which I’ll be posting about likely tonight after work), then I’ll be giving an update on the Relay for Life and all.

Also, I still can’t figure out the WordPress photo problem. I’m grabbing these images off my Flickr account (which is why each photo links back to my Flickr page). If I can figure out the problem, I’ll eventually fix it. If not, at least I now know I can still have some images.

More later!

Holy tired…

Yesterday/this morning was the Relay For Life. Our softball team had a group for it this year.

We went in pretty blind about what to do, but we made it through. And I’m beat. Basically, my day/night/morning went:

  • 5:30 p.m.: Arrive at the relay and set things up.
  • 6 p.m.: Things start at the relay.
  • 9:45 a.m.: I leave the relay.
  • 10 a.m.: I’m in bed.
  • 12:45 p.m.: I’m up, eat, shower and head to some photos I had to take.

That’s where we’re at. I’m exhausted. However, I need to make it until at least midnight so I can somewhat keep my normal schedule. Hopefully I can sleep for 10-11 hours as I work tomorrow.

Our team raised more than $2,000 in short time (I got just over 900 myself!)

Look for more of this, still stories on the geocaching and target shooting trips from last weekend and some other things. Still looking to fix the photo problem so I can actually post images with my stories. Some of the things I want to post kind of lose a little luster without photos.

Look for relay photos on my photo blog this week, too.

More later.

Muggles no more

So if muggles are non-geocachers, my brother Pat and friend Warren are muggles no more.

I dragged ’em out today to show them the world of geocaching and we hit up a park in the city here as well as one on the campus of one of the local colleges. In all, five finds and those guys had their fair share of finding and tracking them down.

As long as it’s a nice day and there’s nothing major going on, I have a feeling I’ll be able to drag them along a few more times.

We started on one that was a short jaunt up a trail from the car. I got us to the area and the search began. I bagged that one, but I think they got a feel for the hunt and away we went to the “next closest.”

Ha!

Too bad it was across a river and the water was too high to land. Once we got around the river, I turned the GPSr over to my brother and he led us to the area. I saw the hint so I knew right away, but Warren ended up finding it on his own.

The log was a little tough to get out. I couldn’t seem to get it and neither could my brother. Warren then took his crack at it:

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Signed the log and being that he found it, Warren put it back in place.
Warren put it back in place.

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We were off again and the next closest was a new puzzle cache — a five-stage multi that would end up taking us all over this park.

What a cache!

Let me tell you about each stage.

The first stage took you to a sandwich-size lock-and-lock container. Inside was a well-done puzzle where you had to carefully pull out strips, which gave you the coordinates to the next one. It was an excellent hiding spot, too.

Second stage was an old peanut butter container and inside were two laminated sheets — one that had the coordinates set up as colors and the second numbers drawn in colors — in random spots on the sheet. Very cool.

However, we got it wrong the first time, ended up in a part where it wasn’t at, had to backtrack and get it right and we headed off.

Ugh.

Part three, we have to cross the river… again!

Part three is a micro and my brother picked it out, an excellent job. The coords there came from by deciphering some code and all.

Part four was an incredibly well-covered peanut butter jar. A very long deciphering thing (with an additional hint in another spot nearby). In the end, we had to line up individual letters, laminated, and get the coords from those.

Part five was the final and likely the easiest of them all. I swapped geocoins and we chalked that one up to an excellent experience.

Total time spent — about an hour an a half, but well worth it.

A couple other shots from this hunt:

Pat and Warren looking over the hints for one of the stages.

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Pat scoring one of the finds with Warren as backup.

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There was one more multi in the park and it was just two stages, so we opted to hit it quickly, especially because the first stage was nearby. We found the first, hiked up a small hill for the second one and found the second stage for our fourth find of the day.

We made a quick stop at KFC and then went to hit up one more. It was a quick and easy micro, so we ended the day with five finds and had a great day all around.

Back to my town, Warren and I scouted out a sweet hiding spot for a cache. However, it seems like it might be too close to another stage of an area multi. I’m looking into it and hoping I can somehow get around that as this is one SWEET location to place a cache. I have in mind what I want to place in it, too. So hopefully, I can find something so I can do this one. I can hope anyway.

—-

On a final note, my second cache is placed: Start your journey here…

I’ve thought of this spot for a while and scouted it out earlier this week (originally planned to put a micro here until I found a better spot).
This tree (no, the cache is not in this tree, but it was the reason I got looking in this area because the tree really drew me in) is really in a cool area of the nature trail.

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So, went out and placed the container (a decon) and got it to my liking and headed home. I put it in that it was ready to be reviewed and I logged all my finds.

An hour or two later, it was approved and ready to go. Can’t wait for someone to find that one and hopefully let me know what they think.

Anyway, a great geocaching day. And the weather seems to be turning for good (though they are calling for rain/snow showers Sunday). Next week looks beautiful, so I hope to get some caching done for sure. I’ll be reporting here, for sure. But, for now, it’s time for bed.

More later.

And…I’m spent

To quote Austin Powers, that is.

Long weekend. It was the NJCAA Division III national tournament this weekend in town. It’s always a good time, get to see some old friends, watch some decent hoops.

But, it always turns into a long weekend.

Let’s cover it… this weekend, I did all of this (had the day off Thursday, so saw a few games; worked Friday, no games; saw three games Saturday):

  • Got a call from a newspaper in Springfield, Mass. looking for a freelancer. My boss had given them my number. So, I did two games for them (Thursday/Saturday).
  • Photographed one game Thursday night.
  • Did the PA announcing for two games (Thursday/Saturday).
  • Did the play-by-play for the tapes/DVDs the teams get for the championship game. (Also got one for myself, but not sure if I ever want to hear/see it!)

Saturday night was a little long, too, as I went out for a few beers after. And I don’t do the beer thing often anymore, so when I get a few in me, I get real tired. Thankfully, I wasn’t out too late. But, the weekend took a toll on me and I’m ready for another good night of sleep.

That will help me set up for tomorrow.

I am going to chat with Dell about price-matching a GPS system as I want to order through them. If they help me out with that, I’ll order tomorrow and have my own handheld for geocaching hopefully sometime this week and before the weekend. That would rule as Saturday looks to be sunny and I’d like to spend the whole day geocaching if possible.

Hopefully I’ll get the tracking bugs I purchased by this weekend, too. Then I can send the “Chief” TB out in the world. More on that when it’s being prepared!

That’s about it. Time for bed.

More later!

In the rain…

Whew.

Another day, more rain in the area, and more geocaching. Yep, still going at it. This is one addictive hobby. So much so that I’ll be looking to get myself a handheld GPS very soon (for those of you that are reading this and are geocachers — what piece of equipment do you use? What would you suggest? I’d like to keep my spending at about 200).

As for Saturday, this was quite the day. I’ll be breaking it down with photos (and even a video), so hopefully you’ll sit back and enjoy this read. 🙂

Allow me to start with the video of Darren trying to pry a cache from it’s ice-encrusted home. We didn’t get it out, but will be back in warmer weather to sign the log and check out the loot!

Now, for the day. We started a little later than we thought we would, but no biggie. We’ll deal and get as many in as we can. Seemed like the rain was going to hold off for a while, so we drove to Bloomville to hit the first one.

The GPS showed we were about 750 yards from the cache up a nature trail. About 250 yards in, it started to rain. Saw some lightning and got some good rumbles of thunder. Eventually got to the cache in the pouring rain (and didn’t have the rain jacket on! Argh!) We huddled to make sure we could keep the log dry. Darren grabbed a geocoin to help move along and away we went.

Next stop, Stamford.

Hit three in this town. The Old Stamford Cemetery, which was a jewel to check out. Old cemeteries make you wonder about the history of the people there. This one had seen better days, but I might have to check this out with my big camera come better weather. I think I could get some nice shots if I set up the tripod with some flash.

Anyway, we found the cache before seeing where the “hint” was, but we found the hint:

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Darren was, obviously, pumped at finding the hint. In seriousness, I’d love to know the history of this person who was used as the hint. The cemetery itself was really interesting. Here’s one other shot I took from it:

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Next up was a stop at the nature trail again, although this one was tougher. I ended up finding it, but it was frozen in place. Darren dug and dug (note YouTube video above). I tried to pry a little, too. It seemed like no matter what, it wasn’t going to happen. AND, it was raining pretty hard:

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We went to the next stop, another trek up the nature trail. Very muddy. Found the cache, grabbed a couple of TBs (one each) — Darren grabbed Thomas the Tank and I picked up a race car.

A lot of the TBs and coins we picked up today had been in their spots for a while, so hopefully we can move them along some. I’m sure the owners will be happy to know they are back on the move!

We headed out to the Cooperstown area and dropped off a couple bugs at a spot where we had gone the other day – yet hadn’t found it because we couldn’t get the coordinates in! So, we hit it this time. A great hide:

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Next came a downer. 🙁 We got our first DNF and it was a tough one. We followed the coords, foolowed the hints and everything else and nothing. Hopefully when it gets warmer, we can figure it out. That didn’t stop Darren from looking:

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So, we headed back to Oneonta. We couldn’t find much. It got raining, but there was a TB I wanted to grab. So we headed toward Morris and found the cache. A really nice spot, good cache, good location. Well done all around. And the sun was somewhat, kind of coming out. At least for a few moments.

So, we got the tracking bug — Clucky McCluckster! Darren just HAD to choke the chicken, though:

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I stepped in some snow and water here and found out, the hard way, that my “duck boots” had blown a tire. A nice rip in the side. So I got soaked. We finished that cache, though!

We thought we were done, but we saw on the GPS that another was close. So, we opted to hit it. Apparently it’s a 12-year-old and his mom who set it up. Very cool. We visited, found it and signed the log. We left two Matchbox cars, too.

When we hit Delhi, made one quick stop where I dropped off the racer TB that I picked up in Stamford. I’m interested to see how long this one lasts there. It’s kind of a test to see if it’s a decent place to move a TB or not. Clucky is big, so I need to find a bigger spot for him to hopefully get him going a bit.

Anyway, another day, another adventure. This geocaching is really ruling. I’ve got one of Darren’s Garmin Rino 520s on loan and am looking to get my own handheld. I was looking at an eTrex Legend, but they don’t sound great. I have my eyes on a Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx, but not sure about the money. For those of you who are cachers, any ideas? We do hit woods around here, so I’d like something decent in those. But, any ideas/thoughts would be great. Unless it’s through Dell, I’d like to keep it around $200 or less. Thanks!

More later!