A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

geocaching

A nice day to be out

It started off a cold day, but the sun was out and the blues skies were too inviting not to get outside and do something. Even if it was just a little walking.

I headed over the Smith Pond, which is a hidden little gem in our village. It’s a great spot with some decent hiking trails, a decent-sized pond and just a nice place to get out and breathe some fresh air. My plan was two-fold: to seek out a possible place for a future geocache and to take a couple of photos and try some things out.

It ended up being three-fold, but I’ll get to that in a little bit.

First, the geocache.

There are a few caches already in Smith Pond. They are all by people who are no longer in the area. One is very old, however, and it’s an ammo can. It might be one of the oldest ones in our town and a few people keep a watch on it as it’s a really nice ones. The others are newer.

Where I’d really like to put this cache is smack in between two caches and it doesn’t appear that I can get far enough from each of them to be able to pull it off. I’m trying to find out about the future of a couple of them as if they are being planned to eventually be archived, then I can start planning. If not, I need to start planning again.

The spot is perfect for it, though. So hopefully it will work out.

Then there was the photography.

I purchased a panoramic thing from Photojojo and wanted to try it out today. I did that, alas it didn’t come out how I wanted. I’ll play with the images I took a bit more tonight and see if I can get it to stitch a little differently, but it’s not a bad first effort. I think I might have been using it wrong, so we’ll see. I’ll try it again soon on something.

I did take some other shots with my Diana lens and my pinhole lens. I’ll be working on those likely tonight, so we’ll see how they come out. The shots that I like will make it up on Flickr.

This is one with my cell phone camera:

Smith Pond in Delhi

And for the final thing. As I walked around Smith Pond park, I realized that this would be a good spot for a nine-hole disc golf course. The park is used some by walkers and people fishing, but it could be used for so much more. I’m not talking a world-championship caliber course, but a nice, family friendly course. One where people could come with a couple of discs and throw and have fun.

There wouldn’t need to be top-line baskets, just good ones. The holes probably wouldn’t be that long, but there would be some good woods holes etc. And if we ran it across the bottom portion of the park, there would be a chance to lose discs if not careful as the river runs next to the trail.

I’d have to do research and get someone who knows about course design to walk around the park, but it seems like something that might be worth looking into and talking to the village about. It would be pretty sweet to have a place close to play and with the park’s closeness to the local high school and college, the two of those places could probably utilize the course, too.

Just some thoughts, of course. We’ll see what happens.

More later!

First o’ the find!

Ahhh, a wee bit o’ good weather we’re getting here on St. Patrick’s Day! Indeed, a wonderful day.

I even donned a green sweatshirt in celebration of this fine holiday.

Anyhoo…

I had to  go to Oneonta this morning for a mock interview workshop. There were only two of us in the workshop, so we worked on interviewing one another, got some feedback and I was out a lot quicker than I thought I would. So I was a little lost in what to do as I had things to do in the afternoon.

So I took some trophies from the past softball season to our sponsor (finally!) and also gave him a pamphlet on the disc golf course being put in at Fortin Park. I’m trying to sell as many hole sponsorships as possible so we can at least get nine holes in the ground as soon as possible.

After that, I delivered an invoice to someone else who is sponsoring a hole and had a little time before I had to talk to someone else about a hole (they, too, will be sponsoring a hole… I think we’ve sold eight or nine holes, so we’re looking good. Crossing fingers that we can get nine in the ground by the end of April!)

I then remembered that a new geocache had been published in the morning. Even though it was a puzzle cache, I didn’t think at this point I had a chance at the first to find. After all, others have become hawks and they are so quick anymore getting the FTFs. No matter, the temps were approaching the 50s and I wanted to get out and find something.

With the smart phone, I had everything I needed to solve the puzzle. The first one I did through the checker was wrong. I looked things over, realized my mistake and tried again… success!

Off I went.

I got to the parking area and I was a short walk to the cache location. I saw someone with some dogs near the spot. I didn’t recognize the person, but was hoping I didn’t get beat that close!

I then got to the area, looked around a little and had the cache in hand quickly. I opened, looked and … yes sir! There was a blank log.

I signed in with the FTF!

After that, I headed home and worked on some job things — which included sending another application out! I’m starting to feel it with my cover letters, which is good.

I also went down to one of the big open fields in my area tonight and threw some discs a little. I have an idea of what discs I want to carry with me from now on. That being said, I need to get a basket as I need to have something to work on for my putting and having a target.

Until then, I’m happy I got to be out walking around a little bit with today’s weather. It’s nice to get out and get a cache or two. There are a few newer ones in the area I haven’t found yet, so I’ll be looking for those soon enough!

More later!

Twelve for caching

Let me tell you, when you are doing the monthly 12 of 12 challenge for photography, it’s hard enough.

Add a theme and it gets a bit harder.

Then, take into account that you don’t have as much time to do said theme and it’s even harder.

This month was one of two Geocaching 12 of 12s for the year. The idea is to get 12 photos to show your day in geocaching. I hosted an event in the morning and then only did two caches after, as I was freelancing at night. That stunk in that it’s hard to get 12 photos from a short amount of time. Also, some of the photos I took at the Breakfast, cache and a photo (or 12?) event came out quite bad (flash is wacky for some reason), so I only had the group shot from there.

The group shot, the log of the event (a mat for the group photo) and three caches (two new finds for me) had to be everything I needed for the 12 of 12. I took my nephew Alex out for a couple of finds after he hit up the event (his first) and found a way to somehow get 12 images.

I would have looked into caching for a bit longer that day, but I had the freelancing gig (yay! Felt good to write on a deadline again), so I had to cut the day’s activities short.

I give to you my favorite few shots from the day. You can see the whole set on my Flickr stream or going directly to the set.

The group at the event

The event log

A log being signed

Overall, it wasn’t a bad day. The weather was improving, too. Hopefully there will be some geocaching in the near future, as well as some disc golf.

And, of course, a new job. I’m aiming for three or four applications this week, so hopefully I can find enough jobs to do so!

More later!