A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

summer

Hot and cold … WTF?

I realize the human body is quite interesting as a whole – how it works, how it survives, how it grows etc.

But damn, the whole hot/cold this is odd.

Why is it we spend the hot months trying to be cold, and the cold months trying to be warm? I just want to be like “Hey … body, WTF?”

For those who know me, you know I like the cooler temps. In the middle of a hot summer, it’s often to the point in my car where you’ll need a sweatshirt because it’s an ice box.

Come the winter time, the ice box is outside. But, I don’t go full extreme and have an oven in the car.

I’m sure all of this has something to do with body temperature. And, to be fair, I did start reading about body temperature, but after a few sentences, it basically became this:

“Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah.”

You get the picture. A scientist I am not, that’s for sure.

These are the types of things that really help make life so interesting. As frosts set in during the mornings, I’ll have to start warming up my car. When I get in it’s all toasty and nice. It makes me smile. But, if it’s 95 degrees out and I get into my car and it’s hot as can be, I’m juicing the air conditioning hoping to make it feel like the South Pole!

The human body and mind work in mysterious ways, that’s for sure. How one thinks or acts, or even reacts, to situations and life conditions is pure amazement.

The seasons changing is no different.

We want cold when it’s warm, and warmth when it’s cold. It’s as simple as that.

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!

Summer dwindles fast

It’s Friday.

Unfortunately, this Friday is the start of the end of the summer. In the States, Labor Day weekend usually signifies the end of the summer season, despite it not officially ending for another few weeks. But kids head back to school next week (if they aren’t already there), colleges are in full swing and the weather starts to (usually) switch to cooler temps.

This has been one heck of a summer, but where did it go?

I’ve seen a lot of baseball and had the chance to travel a little. I haven’t done as many geocaches as I would have liked, but that’s OK.

Baseball was the theme this summer and it really was in full swing. As of this writing, I have been to 60 games and I’m still holding out hope that I can reach 70 games – depending on how the playoff schedule for minor league teams goes.

But, even if I don’t reach that, I had just been hoping to hit 50 this year. With double headers and a couple of fun baseball trips, it worked out better than I could have expected.

I am sure the fall will be busy, but wow, the summer went by quick.

How about all of you? Was your summer great? Do you have any Labor Day plans? Either way, have a great Friday and a great weekend!

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

Fair days

Great nights at the Fair!

Great nights at the Fair!

This summer has been a blur.

Like, a full-out blur.

Between baseball trips, work and a few other things … it’s all of a sudden well into August. Before I know it, back to normal (as much as that can be) with work and everything will start to slowly turn to fall.

I’m not complaining — it’s been a fun summer. But whoa.

Softball is still going on (new league, so a different setup), but if things go well, it will at least end before September.

Baseball has been crazy fun — I’ve been to more than 50 games with still more to come — but it has taken up most weekends and such, so that makes the time go even faster.

I’ve been able to get out with my camera some and have enjoyed it. I haven’t, though, done much in regard to geocaching. In fact, I’ve only found 128 caches this entire year, which is on pace to likely be my lowest count since I started in 2008. That’s not to say that once baseball season ends I won’t get a few great days of caching in, but the summer has not been kind to the finds!

But all of a sudden it’s Fair week in my county. Our county fair is pretty solid and it’s usually a good time. I go once during the week just to experience it, and I am doing that today (though, to be fair, part of it is for work) just to walk around and get some sights and such when I am done with the work part. The weather has been fine for the Fair, which is always a good thing.

Later this month, I’ll be heading to the State Fair (again, work-related for part), which I haven’t been to in a few years. It’s always pretty fun, though. Fairs can be a ton of fun with some great (but bad for you) food, sights and sounds.

So how about you? Do you have any county or state fairs you head to each year? What are your favorite things about the fairs?

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

Trying to grasp all the miles


A map of states where I’ve watched professional baseball games. 

There will be several posts over the next few weeks – or months, depending when I get down to writing them – about the two road trips I recently took. Both were baseball related and I saw many new stadiums and experienced a lot of cool things.

But for now, as I catch my breath and get back to the “real world,” I wanted to look back on everything in numbers.

Here they are:

  • 17 baseball games
  • 1 MLB, 16 MiLB games
  • About 4,000 miles covered (I drove about half of that, give or take)
  • Games watched in seven states
  • 15,906 photos taken (DSLR … not counting phone)

Now, take into account on that photos number – I do shoot on high-speed action, so a lot of it might be sequences etc. But I still took a lot of photos! And it’s also a lot of photos I have to go through over time and upload etc.

But the beauty of these two little trips was the baseball. I had the chance to see new stadiums and different places and I really enjoyed myself. I look forward to trying to have a baseball trip each summer as it is something that can be really fun and relaxing.

There will be more on these trips, for sure. For now, though, I’m just trying to absorb what I’ve seen over these trips.

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

Seattle: A fun trip to see a different part of the country

It’s time to start talking about Seattle.

In August, I had the chance to take a trip to Seattle, mainly for geocaching. It was also a chance to see other parts of the area, take a road trip to Portland, and catch a baseball game.

All in all, a pretty solid trip.

The Seattle Great Wheel was pretty cool to ride in.

The Seattle Great Wheel was pretty cool to ride in.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to sprinkle some posts about the trip on the blog. There will definitely be some geocaching posts, but there will also be some posts about other things I had the chance to do.

If you remember, I already did one about Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland. I also had a post about visiting Geocaching.com HQ as it was part of my Day Zero project.

There was so much more on the trip though. From seeing a different part of the country for the first time to walking through a 2.5-mile tunnel to good food to going up the space needle, it was a really cool visit. I’d like to visit there again one day if the opportunity came about.

Before getting into a few of the individual posts about specific things, allow me to give some of the overall “statistics:”

  • Three new states grabbing a geocache (Colorado, Oregon, Washington)
  • 73 geocaches found (includes five events)
  • Found the original caches stash plaque, visited geocaching HQ
  • Went to Voodoo Doughnuts
  • Went up in the Space Needle
  • Found the perfect spot for photos of the skyline of Seattle
  • Saw a minor league baseball game
  • Took the tour at Safeco Field (home of the Mariners)

The trip was interesting. It was my first time out to the western part of the United States. The flights were somewhat long and all the planes were full, which kind of stinks because it’s nice to be able to stretch out a little bit.

The weather was good, too. The one day it really rained in Seattle (historic, from what people were saying), it was the day of heading down to Portland, where it sprinkled a little bit at worst.

I got some pretty good photos, too. I used the phone, obviously, and had the main camera as well, which was nice. It was good to be able to take in some of the scenery.

The one regret was not going after one of the historic caches in the Portland area (weather worries, time etc.) as it will be hard to get that “placed month” in other spots. I’ll either get back out to Portland to do it or find one elsewhere.

Outside of that, it was a pretty fun time. I had the chance to meet some cool people, run into somebody I know who lives out there and find a lot of geocaches. I also really upped the step count for the weekend and found some great places to eat.

I’ll cover a bunch of these topics in future posts. It’s a trip I’m glad I made, though, as it’s a pretty cool area of the country.

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