A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

challenges

30 Days of Writing: Going solo (20/30)

Geocaching is a great hobby, but I have a hard time going solo.

This post is written in conjunction with the 30 Days of Writing, a blog challenge devised by Nicky and Mike at “We Work For Cheese.” I’ll be participating throughout the month of June. If interested, you can see my post with the details of the challenge. 

Please note that some of these posts will be serious, some will be normal, and some will be an attempt at humor. 

As many of you — both regular blog readers and those in this challenge — likely already know, I’m a geocacher.

Geocaching is a great little game that can take you to many different spots. But it’s not just out in the woods. It can be to small parks. Urban settings. And all sorts of things in between.

Cachers play the game in many ways — by themselves, with one or two others or with a group.

As for me — I can’t stand going solo.

Many people cache solo and it’s a fun hobby. Well worth trying.

I don’t know what it is. Mainly, it’s doing caches where people can or might see you in a spot. Such as a park or near a cemetery or near houses. I just feel awkward going out there with my GPS unit and snooping around for something. Some people will watch you. Others won’t. Sometimes people will come over and ask you what’s up.

I actually don’t mind it when people ask me about the game. It makes it easier for me to continue looking.

Still, it’s a weird feeling. Especially when the hide is basically designed to make you feel that way or made to be harder then necessary.

Personally, I have a few “urban” hides. Only one of them is one where I could see someone truly getting an uneasy feeling. And even with that, if looked for right, it shouldn’t be too bad.

In the past year or two, many caches have seemed to go in this direction. Who knows what the reason is, but it makes it more of a situation where I’ll wait on doing many caches until others are looking to go caching. It’s not a bad thing as I like the social aspect of the game.

I don’t particularly mind going solo if it’s in the woods or on a trail somewhere. Then, it’s a nice stroll and then finding the cache at the end. I can deal with that.

A first to find awaited me after a solo stroll to a new cache!

For example, a week or two ago, I was in a neighboring town getting a few things done. I finished up and it was only about 7 p.m. I knew a new cache had been placed, so I headed over to it. I wasn’t racing or expecting an FTF (first to find) as there are several in our area who go out pretty quickly to snag them when first published.

Instead, my goal was to go for a nice stroll and this was at a Nature Concervancy. I went the main trail at first and soon backtracked and went down a secondary trail. I got to the area and quickly made the find. Once I opened the cache and saw the blank log and was stoked to nab a FTF that had been out there for the full day!

The end result, too, was a nice walk to the cache and back.

And, I went solo. It’s rare for me to do it and I do look around, waiting for people, even in the woods. But this was a fun little trek to snag a cache and get out and walk for a little bit.

Going solo isn’t always a bad thing. But I’ll stick with going friends when I can as I find it more fun!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Foto Friday/30 Days of Writing: Cheese (1/30)

Mmmm... cheese!

Cheese.

It’s a milk-based product to die for.

It also happens to be the first day of the 30 Days of Writing Challenge. So I needed to find a way to mix this glorious food into my normal weekly edition of Foto Friday.

So, I’m going to share some cheese photos to go with both posts and mix them into one.

I love me some cheese.

First, some cheese stuff.

Cheese is one of the few foods I would have a hard time living without. There are not many cheeses that I don’t like, at least in one form or another. With things such a bleu cheese, I don’t like it by itself, but mixed with some garlic and melted as a steak topping? Awesome.

Cheddar, of course, is the bomb.

Gouda. Swiss. Irish cheese. Smoked. Brie. So many types of cheese, so little time. I even think there’s a place for sandwich cheese (ie: pasteurized and individually packaged…) and spreads.

I try and check out cheese sections wherever I go. And I like to try new stuff whenever I can. In fact, I think I am willing to try cheeses more than I am certain other things.

One thing that’s outstanding about cheese is all the wonderful foods you can eat cheese with, and all the drinks you can enjoy with cheese.

For example, I realize many people love wine with cheese.

Not me.

I love trying new cheeses, like this smoked bacon. Awesome.

See, I’m not a wine guy. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a red and a white (besides color) or between a Chardonnay, a Merlot or a pinot noir.

Beer goes well with cheese, especially a good beer, such as a Guinness or a strong ale. Drinking something like Coors Light wouldn’t work well with cheese, I don’t think.

For me, I enjoy water with cheese as I feel like the water won’t take away from the taste of the cheese. I’m sure wine and such accent the cheese, but I’m more of a naturalist with the cheese.

Then there’s what you eat with cheese.

Pretzels and cheddar... awesome!

Personally, eating cheese by itself works for me. Yet, I still find myself trying other things.

Pretzels, for example, go well with cheddar cheese. Triscuits and Wheat Thins seem to go well with anything. Ritz crackers? The same. There are so many varieties of crackers out there, that I’m sure you’ll be able to easily find something to go with the cheese you’ve chosen.

I’m a fan of spreads, too. Anything from things like swiss almond to something like Laughing Cow, which is a wedged cheese with seven different varieties, go well with normal crackers.

Nothing like a little spread for Triscuits!

Cheese is also something that is very photographic. This is, after all, a Foto Friday post. Getting zoomed in and playing with the focal points is a nice way to do things. Also, mixing in different things — such as crackers, pretzels, knives etc. — will make things a bit better, too.

There’s a cheese factory near me and I am hoping to stop there sometime this summer. I think it would make for some pretty wild photos. Especially if I could shoot the process of the cheese being made.

But even if I can just see full cheese wheels and other cheese things — still good photos.

In the end, if you are taking photos of cheese… what’s the best part?

Eating all the cheese you use as props!

Yum!

Cheese!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Just what I needed — another blog challenge


If I need inspiration during this blog challenge, Danny Larusso should provide it!

I think I might be insane to even think about doing another challenge.

I’m already trying to continue my Project 366 and HooHaa 52 photo projects. On top of that, I have the HooHaa Holga Challenge I am dealing with. Add that in with my job search and dealing with two blogs that are not money generating, playing softball, fitting in some geocaching, a round or two of disc golf and other outdoorsy things and one might think I’m nuts.

But this was a little too interesting to pass up.

As I noted yesterday, I have been searching for some new blogs to read. I wanted some entertaining ones. That search brought me to We Work For Cheese.

The first post I saw was titled “The Post You’ll Wish You Never Read.”

Fact: The headline of that post is as true as can be.

It’s not that I don’t like the blog — I do. In fact, I’ll be trying to make it part of my normal blog reading. But that post — that evil post — is the one about this challenge.

I’ve never been much into blog challenges or “quick topics,” and by quick topics, I mean those blog posts where you are tagged by other bloggers and need to fill out some sort of questionnaire. Those might help me fill days at some point, though, so I should look into them.

Anyway, back to this post I wish I had never read…

See, the challenge is simple. Blog every day for 30 straight days, starting Friday (June 1). I thought to myself, heck, I’ve done that before and more than once. But, you see, this has a catch — the topics are pre-determined.

And some of ’em aren’t easy.

Here’s the list:

  • Day 1: Cheese
  • Day 2: A roadblock
  • Day 3: They played my song
  • Day 4: Behind the wheel
  • Day 5: Spiders
  • Day 6: Pressure
  • Day 7: Excess
  • Day 8: Best friend
  • Day 9: Magic carpet
  • Day 10: The babysitter
  • Day 11: A sense of accomplishment
  • Day 12: In the kitchen
  • Day 13: The other one
  • Day 14: The short hairs
  • Day 15: First place
  • Day 16: Hanging out in the cemetery
  • Day 17: The awkwardness of the common banana
  • Day 18: Setting sail
  • Day 19: Camels
  • Day 20: Going solo
  • Day 21: Favors I’d ask of Satan
  • Day 22: Like there’s no tomorrow
  • Day 23: Stiletto heels
  • Day 24: Roast or toast another blogger
  • Day 25: Worst Christmas ever
  • Day 26: An intervention
  • Day 27: Side of the road
  • Day 28: The turning point
  • Day 29: Breaking the rules
  • Day 30: It could have been worse

Now, realize this — there aren’t any rules.

That means there’s no word requirements. The post can be a photo or as short as one word. Maybe I will write a bajillion words. It’s all good (though, if I wrote a bajillion words, I don’t think somebody would read it).

The only catch is that the blog owner, Nicky, has forewarned that she will make fun of participants in their comments, should the need arise. That’s OK though, because comments are comments, no? And we all like getting comments!

So, I’m going to give this a go. Realize that I might write some fiction and I might mix some other things in with these (see Earl). I’ve actually though about making Earl a major part of this blog challenge, but I’m going to basically do this all on the fly as I go along. So who knows.

All I know is I think I’m crazy.

The even crazier part? There are times when there will be more than one post per day. See, I don’t plan on axing some of my regular features (Snapshot Saturday etc.), though I might try and mix a few of them.

I have a few hopes for what I can gain from this challenge:

  • That I find some more excellent blogs to read on a regular basis;
  • Have fun;
  • Finish the challenge;
  • And to not hate cheese by the end of the challenge.

If you are a blogger, you still have a chance to check out the challenge and sign up before things get rolling June 1.

Or, if you’re smart, you might not read that post.

If you do, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Geocaching: Attacking challenge caches

Getting closer to finishing the New York DeLorme Challenge.

As part of a way to find the love of geocaching, I’ve taken a page out of a fellow cacher’s book.

Challenge caches.

This is something a caching pal has done for a long time. It doesn’t matter if the challenges are many miles away and that he might never get to find the final, he still tries to fill in the requirements.

It’s not a bad idea. It gives you something to shoot for and, maybe, the chance to get a cache that not many other people have found.

So, I’ve started doing it some, too.

Again, it comes down to the reality of being able to maybe get the final cache, but it’s still something to work toward.

Let me make sure I’m straight with the challenge caches. These are actual geocaches that require you to do something else to be able to log them. It’s not those silly and worthless “challenges” that Groundspeak unveiled a while back to try and make people forget about the fight to bring virtuals back.

No, these are challenge caches.

Basically, the idea is to have done something in caching and then you get this bonus cache. So, maybe you’ve found 10 5/5 (difficulty/terrain) caches and a person has put out a cache where you need to have done 10 5/5 caches to be able to claim it.

Or the DeLorme Challenges.

Or a state County Challenge.

The list is endless.

Originally, the plan was to try and scratch off a couple of these challenges with a weekend trip to the Allegany GeoBash. However, plans have changed and Mr. Economy is kiboshing those plans, so I’ll be staying closer to home and hoping to just go out and do some caching and take advantage of a great weekend.

Still, the idea of challenge caches is something I’ve become intrigued with. They are listed as mystery/puzzle caches (something I know people love) and they require you to get geocaches in certain spots or certain makeups to be able to find this challenge cache.

For example, one of the challenge caches we had looked to do this weekend was the “Our First 100 Stars Challenge – When & Why.” The cool part to this  challenge is it brings you back to when you started caching.

You need to make a list of your first 100 stars. What are stars of which I speak? Each cache is listed with two sets of stars — difficulty and terrain. Each of these are ranked from 1 (easiest) to 5 (hardest). From these, you go back to when you started caching and you make a list of total stars. Once you reach 100, you have matched the requirements. Then you go find the cache and can log it.

Two of the biggest ones in many states are the DeLorme and County Challenges.

The DeLorme refers to the atlas. Each state is broken down into squares. You must find one cache in each of those squares. Once you do, you are eligible to go make the find. The plan had been to go get many of the squares I have left to find this weekend, but unfortunately, it didn’t work out. My hope is to finish the New York DeLorme by the end of 2012, but we’ll see.

The County Challenge is basically the same — find one cache in each county in New York.

I’m not too far from this, either. It basically lines up well to be able to get the counties when I get the DeLorme squares.

My County Challenge grid in New York.

There’s a couple more intense challenges out there, too. So much so that there are many of these “final” caches to get, so that when someone gets it done, they might not have to travel all over the place to claim a final. These include the Fizzy Challenge (getting all 81 combinations of the difficulty/terrain chart), the Jasmer Challenge (finding a cache placed in every month since caching began, which is May 2000), and the AlphaNumeric Challenge(s), which can include anything from having caches that start with letters A-Z, or cache finds where the owner’s name starts A-Z etc.

There are also challenges where you have to finds by placed date and finds by found date. There are also the most well-rounded days, which include days where you find the types of caches, sizes of caches and the most difficulty and terrain ratings.

Here are some of my challenges and where I stand with them:

My Fizzy Challenge.

Finds by placed date (got 'em all!)

Finds by found date (I have a long way to go!)

Jasmer Challenge

Some of my most well-rounded days.

My best difficulty/terrain day.

Challenges, as I’ve found, are a lot of fun in regard to being able to make caching fun in a different way. It makes you concentrate on the caches you find as it might help fill in a challenge.

There are so many of them, too. I have several I’ve already done the paperwork on and can claim, I just have to travel and get them. Hopefully, I’ll soon be able to get those final caches and claim the smileys. It’s been fun lining them up and hopefully there’s a few more!

If you have any that you’ve done or are working on, link them or leave the GC number in the comments below as I’ve love to bookmark some more and work on them on the chance that one day I can find a few of these excellent final caches!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook! 

Man v. Food — Ithaca style

The challenge...

If you’ve seen the television show Man v. Food, you probably know where this post is heading.

In Ithaca.

Four of us headed to Ithaca on Saturday to catch a 2CW pro wrestling show. We had planned to stop somewhere for dinner and found this place Rulloff’s, which had clam chowder (score!) and reportedly good burgers. That turned out to be the plan and we got there with plenty of time before the show to have a good meal.

But one thing stuck out at us in the middle of the menu.

The 20-ounce burger seemed like a decent challenge. Add the fries and everything else — in 30 minutes?

Kevin surveys the situation.

The four of us in attendance were me, Rod, Bill and Kevin. I need to put the names out there, so you at least know who these people are — in a way — as I mention them.

We saw the Monster Burger note right away. It was mentioned by others that Kevin should give it a go. He got a shit-eating grin on his face, so you knew he was totally interested in trying. Free t-shirt? Sweet.

Then Rod offered to pay the $20 for the meal if Kevin went for it.

Yeah, sold.

The waitress came over and explained things a little — but we wanted to make sure there was Kevin’s size in the shirt. She went and checked and it turns out they were OUT of the shirts. Really? How do you have a challenge and run out of shirts? Sheesh!

But, the shirts were on order. Kevin had two choices — take one of the regular establishment shirts (should he beat the challenge), or they would mail one. He chose the mail option, but as we told him — get her name and the number of the joint and follow up if the shirt doesn’t arrive!

The challenge -- taken with Hipstamatic.

That’s, of course, if he beats the challenge. But at this point, we didn’t think there would be any issues with it whatsoever.

Oh how things change.

The meal takes time to prepare — up to 45 minutes for the burger (it actually took a little longer).

So, the order was placed. After the wait, out came the food. The burger was impressive. But it looked delicious. The bread, especially looked fantastic.

The fries? Not so much. I am not sure of everything that went into these loaded fries — but I saw some meat sauce, beans, some peppers and not sure what else. Chili, for sure. But probably some other crap, too.

And the pickle? Monster-sized as well. But excellent looking.

Though each of us wanted to offer words of wisdom to Kevin, the reality was he was doing this challenge and he had to decide how to attack this meal.

As time starts to tick off, Kevin digs in.

His plan?

Eat the burger, then half the pickle, then the fries, then the rest of the pickle.

Down the hatch we go!

Honestly, the other three of us didn’t think Kevin would have any issues with this challenge. It didn’t look as big as we thought it was going to look. In fact, we were putting the over/under at 23.5 minutes in Kevin finishing.

So, away things went.

The burger — again, which looked excellent — posed no challenge to Kevin. I’m pretty sure any of the four of us could have handled the burger. (The rest — maybe not so much)! But that burger would have been a meal all by itself.

Kevin did note that it was one of the best burgers he’s ever had, so that was a good thing.

By this point, two people had sat at the table behind us and they were intrigued by this and were watching as well. Believe me, it’s an impressive thing to even attempt this, let alone get it done. All for a t-shirt.

And the burger ended up being gone in 12 minutes.

Kevin’s pace was rocking at this point. But there was still a challenge left. He had 18 minutes to down the fries and the pickle.

Kevin crunched away at half the pickle. He noted that the fries didn’t look too good (I think the three of us agreed). With myself, Bill and Rod cheering on, Kevin dug in.

And after his first bite, he didn’t look so good.

Digging into the fries.

He said it didn’t feel good going down. So he took a drink of water. Took a few breaths and took another bite — a big one. A deep breath and he started going for another bite.

Then Kevin got an odd look on his face. Was he throwing in the towel already?

He found a hair.

Seriously.

A hair.

After calling the waitress over, he pulled the hair out to show her.

Needless to say, the challenge was over. She said she could get a fresh order of fries. Kevin, to his credit, offered to cut off a part of the fries and valiantly continue. The three of us vetoed that and I had said — who knows what else is in there?

In the end, the challenge was over. Who would want to wait for a new set of fries after that? Not me. My appetite would have been gone. So, the place did the right thing and made that meal fully free, which worked out well. Kevin did finish the pickle.

Kevin did admit as we walked out of the place that he would have given it his best, but he didn’t think he’d have gotten through the fries to win the challenge, so all is well in the end. He had a great burger — for free — and didn’t get sick.

On a side note, I think if Man v. Food host Adam Richman took this challenge, it wouldn’t be much for him to pull it off. That dude has eaten a lot of crazy things, so this would be like an appetizer.

And, despite the hair, I’d go back. Good place to eat. My chowder was excellent and I had a fruit and brie cheese platter, which was awesome. Three of us (sans Kevin) shared some nachos and their salsa was excellent with a slight kick. Rod and Bill each had burgers and seemed to enjoy as well. The prices were decent, too.

I just know that no matter how hungry I was — I wouldn’t try that challenge!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook by clicking the button on the right side of the page!