It turns out, there’s life beyond disc golf!
Let me clarify that. Back in March, I started a second blog. That has somewhat hurt this blog a little. Not a ton, but it’s made it so I don’t publish a new post here every day. That’s not the biggest worry in the world, but it has come to the idea that I have had some issues with said other blog.
See, that blog — which is all about disc golf — has become pretty popular. In two full months, we’ve averaged more than 12,500 page views per month. For being a blog without any advertising and revenue, that’s pretty solid. We’ve gained many readers and have several writers, all working to build a better disc golf community.
I love disc golf, but with a blog and playing and all, it had taken over a portion of my life. I needed that to change so I don't get burned out from it!
What I love about it is we’ve worked as a group to make a great little spot for disc golf news articles and such. We give things in an entertaining way and, usually, with a journalism twist to things. We’ve done some really cool things, such as a women’s week and our weekly polls and such. It’s been fun.
But, like anything else, if you are pushing out a lot of things, you get burned out. I’ve been having a tough time with it lately because I feel like it’s taking up a ton of time and I’m trying to keep fun in it. We make no money on it and we do it in our spare time, so I need to make sure it doesn’t get me. As I said, thankfully we have a few writers and a few more have indicated they want to join. It’s a good group.
Alas, it’s kind of hit me over here with creative. I’m trying to find my “thang” again over here. I want it to be as it used to be. Fun and a way to relieve stress. Being I’m still in a job hunt (which takes up much of my days), I would like to be able to mix some fun here and not just at the other blog. I need this place to write some potpourri and enjoy it again.
That means it’s back to the old — topics ranging from real life to geocaching to pro wrestling to baseball to book/movie reviews to whatever else I can come up with. Earl will be coming back soon and I have some more players to work on for the HooHaa 9.
I’m going to push to get back to some fun here. If you have some blog ideas/topics you think you’d like to read about on the blog, let me know. It’s time to hit the idea notebook and see what I can come up with!
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So speaking of geocaching, allow me to share this story.
There’s a new cache series in my area. It’s 12 caches total, including the “final” cache. It’s in a state forest land and follows trails (though many of the caches you have to go hacking and bushwhacking off the trails to get). It was a hot, and somewhat humid, day.
I was meeting up with a fellow cachers, who was probably going to have to come and go once or twice to finish. Still, my goal was to complete the series that day. By looking at the map, it appears the caches go in a loop and would bring you back to your car.
Note this is not one of the geocaches we found, but rather just a photo to show that fun is finding these items!
As I arrived to meet the fellow cacher, he says “Why don’t you ride with me and when I have to bold, we’ll go and then when we get back, we can park at the other parking area.”
So, I agreed.
What followed was something out a Keystone Cops type situation.
We did the lower loop of caches and had to decide how to get back to the car the quickest. Caching pal says to continue up trail and there’s a cross over. Alas, nothing came after another nearly half mile. That made us turn around and go back to the roadside.
From there, he bolted the road to grab the car (and I waited as I wasn’t going to keep up with him on this one). While I waited, with an amazing full service phone, I created the spot “Lost” on Foursquare and checked in.
We headed back to his area, where we picked up his daughter and into another town to drop her off to a birthday party. Then back to his place to get his son and do Round 2 of the caches.
We started at the upper parking area, got confused, found another trail and got an idea of the cache layout. With it being hot and on another time schedule, frustration set in early as we couldn’t figure which way to go.
See, I had planned on looping. By not looping, I had no idea where I was as I don’t know this area!
But, we were on target now and we started to cross off the caches. Then we had to go pick up his daughter. And I hadn’t figured all the coords out yet… yikes! Little did I know if I had plugged them in, it wouldn’t have required the third trip.
In the end, as I noted to the fellow cacher, I should have kept my car and could have continued on the path if he needed to go back-and-forth. But, to be fair, it also gave me a fun piece to this blog!
Overall, the series was a heap of fun. We actually might have walked more by doing it the way we did it because we went back and forth to things instead of just going around everything! And, in the end, we got some good stories, had a lot of fun and really enjoyed it, which is what this game is all about, right?
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Do you ever get into a text conversation with a friend and it takes an odd turn?
It seems to happen to me too often.
Anyway, a conversation that started about bike racing to other sports to sports camps. Out of the blue, I decided to change it up a bit.
Me: I race turtles.
Friend: I thought you like crawfish?
Me: Turtle racing is big money.
Friend: On or out of water.
Me: Road racing.
Me: I once held the record for the 100 meters with a turtle I trained. Crossed in 14.3.
Friend: Is that hours?
Me: Days.
Me: Most people leave. I stay. Even if my turtle loses, I win.
Friend: That’s determination!
Random, I know. But it gave me one heck of a good laugh, that’s for sure!
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I think it’s time for a Facebook purge.
Every once in a while, it’s worth going through my Facebook contacts and deleting some people. Let’s be honest, there are people on everybody’s Facebook that probably can be purged.
I noticed several people who have disabled or gotten rid of their Facebook, but they still remain “friends.” I have also noticed people I probably haven’t talked to in years. It just seems silly to keep so many. To be fair, I actually do stay in contact with many of the people on my Facebook. Still, I’d like to trim the numbers. I’ll have to see what I can do to bring the numbers down a little.
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Softball is supposed to start today.
The weather forecast doesn’t look perfect, but we have hope. There is a chance of showers in the morning and then thunderstorms in the afternoon/evening. So, it’s going to be shaky, but hopefully we can get it in and get the season underway.
Another year of softball starts tonight!
We won our second straight league championship last year and this year is going to likely be even harder as a few teams beefed up a little. And that’s what softball should be about. Several good teams battling it out. That makes it fun. I look forward to a strong season.
We’re 35-4 over the past couple of years with, for the most part, the same guys. Other teams are getting better and younger teams (thankfully) are joining the league. So, if we have a few more losses this year, it happens. Hopefully in the end, we’ll have earned our third straight title. But you can never guarantee that to happen.
I’m stoked that we’ve won two straight. Because in this game, teams can win at any point. Figure this — in some 20-plus years of playing softball, I’ve been on teams that have won championships four times. Once in a league I only played part time back in the mid 90s. We won one title in the old Delhi league, which I’m thankful we actually won. Then these past two. We’ve been to finals many times, but finishing it off isn’t easy.
So, the season starts today (hopefully). We’ll see how it goes and check back in at the end of the year!
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NOTE TO FELLOW BLOGGERS: I am trying to finish a survey I started a few months ago. It’s basically about the male/female blogging tendencies etc. I need a handful of bloggers for each sex to fill things out as I want to try and have an even number of each.
I will be taking some comments and using them in a blog post and everyone who participates will get a link back to their blog.
Please comment here or e-mail me if interested in participating. The survey shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes or so to fill out.
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