Today, after church and a nice long nap, we visited 'Cayboo's Cache' (N 39° 32.784' W 119° 50.028'). On the way back to the car, Becca saw her first tiny, little frog (about 1/2 inch long). Lots of goose poop at Rancho San Rafael. Learned some brief history about the Tree of Utah. Have seen it before, but didn't know the story behind it, now I do!

I'm in the middle of transferring my mission website over to a new owner. It should be back up within a week or two. I was dismayed to see that a park in Wisconsin is banning geocaching.

Misti's definitely a trooper. At 8 months pregnant, she still likes geocaching (hiking around in the wilderness looking for hidden 'treasure'). Yesterday, we made 6 cache visits (at 5 unique caches), thanks to Brad's spare Garmin Geko 201 GPS unit that he lent us.

Misti, Becky, and I visited the 'Basque Sheepherder' cache (39° 33' 14.32" N, 119° 49' 57.28" W) at 10:55 a.m., then went across the street to the 'Dam Curiosity' cache (39° 33' 22.14" N, 119° 49' 28.84" W) at 11:20 a.m. and scored some Silly Putty, then we drove across town to grab Darlene and Bonny, then we all headed up to the 'Galena Creek Park Cache' (39° 21' 16.31" N, 119° 51' 36.65" W) by 1:15 p.m. This was their first cache, and between the excellent hint and the aid of the GPS, we walked directly to it. Becky took a little frog that, I believe, was placed there by Matt and Jennifer Sadler.

We then ventured into the Toiyabe National Forest and visited the 'American Beauty Cache' (39° 21' 41.5" N, 119° 51' 44.56" W), which was also very easy to find. We had tried finding this one with flashlights in the dark last week (but without a GPS), and to our credit, we were in the correct spot, we just didn't go 'in' the few extra meters necessary to find it. We found it at 2:15 p.m., our fourth find of the day (and Darlene and Bonny's second).

Our fifth visit of the day was 'The Hanging Gardens of Galena' cache (39° 21' 44.35" N, 119° 51' 46.51" W) at 2:50 p.m. Bonny spotted it first, and this was only her and Darlene's third cache. Darlene scored the travel alarm clock from this one, which she's very proud of. On our way back out of the park, we visited the 'American Beauty Cache' again so Bonny could retrade her American flag pin back for the yo-yo she originally grabbed at her first cache find (but had subsequently traded at the second cache for the pin). I guess she had second thoughts on the matter.

We got back into town at around 3:30 p.m., and had some tasty Wendy's $1 Bacon Cheeseburgers, then headed to Carson City to help Rick move some tables, chairs, and partitions from a storage shed into his office. Today was a great day to be outside, breath some fresh air, and soak up a little sunlight.

I like some of the changes happening on geocaching.com, such as newer, better mapping feature, but feel that the 'easier' logging is more restrictive. Recently watched "Piglet's Big Movie" and "Shanghai Knights" on Netflix DVDs. Should have some more coming on Monday or Tuesday.

We went to Lisa and JP's wedding reception on Friday night. Some tasty refreshments, and some hilarious conversation, too. It was funny to hear that Brad and Mike both have a bear story (separate ones). Brad actually scared a bear away - that's pretty macho in my book.   =)

I think it's cool that Senators Reid and Ensign have provided bottled water for some Churchill County schools (because of the Fallon cancer cluster issues).

Misti's now registered at Target for her baby shower. You can print off a registry sheet right online. I read a cool article about bacteriophages and antibiotic resistance. Found out one can pre-register at the hospital online. Pretty cool. Hospital cafeteria food - bleh.

Please note: I'm going to be moving my website shortly [just moving hosts, not domain names], so there may be some down time involved. Sorry for any inconvenience this might cause. (I know - you're riveted to this site and anxiously await each update!)

We're trying out Netflix for the free 2-week trial. We'll see how many movies we can watch in 14 days (should be 14, right??).   =)

We looked Sunday evening for the 'American Beauty Cache' near Galena Creek Park after nightfall, but came away empty-handed and a little scratched up. We'll try this one again shortly.

Sure a lot of viruses going around with the 'W32.Swen.A@mm' worm (a.k.a. 'Automat.AHB', 'Gibe.C', 'Gibe.E', 'Gibe.F', and 'Gibe.2').

As anyone knows who drives south Keystone at night, the area between the freeway and the railroad tracks is the 'Lillywoo Doodie Cheese' section. Hollywood Video's lights are partially out on their sign, so it reads 'llywo' at night. Whoever changes the McDonald's sign must've ran out of the correct letters, because their sign proudly proclaimed "Doudie Cheese 1.00" a few days ago. Weird.

Oddly, one day makes a big difference. I sat funny at breakfast this morning and hurt my back again (but only slightly, it's mainly just a little stiff now again). Becky's now suddenly okay with not having anymore bottles. And after 2 previous failed attempts at finding the 'Reno High Roller' cache, we finally found it!

Today was a geocaching day. We first found the 'Oxbow Incident' cache really easily (lots of people out caching today, saw at least 3 other groups at this cache - we all had to take turns!). We then went and found the 'KR1365' benchmark. Then we went and preregistered at the hospital for Baby Jared's pending arrival, and ended up eating lunch at the hospital cafeteria.

After a little break from the hot sun, we went and found the 'Video-Rama' cache and scored a copy of 'Fletch' (we left a VHS copy of 'X-Men', since we also have a DVD copy of 'X-Men 1.5'). We then resigned ourselves to finding the 'Reno High Roller' cache once and for all or to give it up. We finally found it right before it got dark, so we can now move on and not worry about that one any more. Beware if you rely on the topographical maps, as they're sometimes inaccurate (that was our problem on this one)!

A great day to get out and get some sun.   =)

physical therapy over - Kudos to Brian Fearnley and his staff - my back doesn't hurt at all anymore!

getting ready to move website to a new host

I was finally able to listen for the first time to a Sony MiniDisc sampler that I've had for 11 years (never had an MD player before, and once Dave gave me one, I could never find the disc - one of the benefits of moving: getting to go through all your stuff again). Minidiscs have been available in the U.S. since 1992 - I got my sampler disc at a 'launch' demonstration at some audio store; I can't remember where now.

car insurance rate went down because we're living in a less-accident-prone zipcode; interesting.

Becky's officially off the bottle, not taking it very well.

Scored a Wiggles VHS video at Wal*Mart for only $2 (Becky likes several of their songs, including "Romp Pomp a Stomp". My favorite is "Quack Quack Quack Quack, Cockle Doodle Doo", and Misti's favorite is "I'm a cow" - which is simply hilarious considering she's 'so pregnant' right now)

I'm not quite sure, but I think Becky's favorite movie right now is "Charlie's Angels" - which we scored for $1 at the Hidden Valley garage sale several weeks ago.

Level 27 on NeoQuest. Misti went to Enrichment Night and the theme was world cultures. The Norweigan lady didn't show, but the Phillipines lady was there, and there was all sorts of foods from different cultures.

One of our remote sites finally got a virus - the Welchia Worm (the so-called 'good' worm), due to LiveUpdate not working (which happens occasionally).

Brad's story about "Why nighttime caching is over" is hilarious. Ask him about it - definitely a good read, and a sage piece of advice for the rest of us!

Well, in an effort to save a few bucks each month (and also to 'pull a Brad'), we've opted not to install cable TV at our new place. Thus, you'll notice that the TV-cam is all fuzzy, that's because we really only get one channel (UPN) over the air that's good enough to watch, and even then, it's still a bit fuzzy. I still get to watch Enterprise and Jake 2.0, though, so I'm happy.

I passed the 5,100 mark on Seti@home, kind of without even realizing it. My how the time flies. Now that I'm at level 25 on Neoquest, it's getting tougher to stay alive. Misti sanded our coffee table today (the one we got for free at the annual Hidden Valley garage sale). Dang the Spanish navy for killing giant squids!

We took a stroll on the boardwalk at the NDOW/City of Reno's 'Oxbow Nature Study Area' park that's near us. Looks like they have some lofty plans for the park, but many of the proposed trails on the map simply aren't completed yet, so it was a rather anti-climactic visit, although I'm going to have to go back for the geocache that we walked right past without even knowing.

We played with a beachball on the grass by the [Truckee] river for a while with Becky, soaking up a little sunshine. We even saw some rafters float by (of course, they got high-centered on a 'hippo' right in the middle of the river).

I couldn't pass up this photo opp (high gas prices with humor at the Exxon on N Virginia St):


Gave another stab at some geocaching today, logging one failure and one success today. We found the 'I can see where I used to live from Here!' cache (located at 39°26'55.42" N, 119°45'58.93" W), but still couldn't find the 'Reno High Roller' cache (supposedly located at 39°26'58.74" N, 119°46'1.09" W) - we've collectively spent about 7.5 hours looking for that stupid thing, and still haven't found it (it's a camouflaged cache, but still...).

Other random things: Got a hairchop at Supercuts yesterday. Tried the new "Berry Burst Cheerios Strawberry" cereal, tasty - real dehydrated strawberries in it, which, of course, rehydrate in the milk. I think it's cool that the Church has translated "The Living Christ" into Haitian Kreyòl.

I went to the doctor recently because of my pulled back muscle, and she loaded me up with a ton of medications - Skelaxin (metaxalone, a muscle relaxant), Flexeril (cyclobenzaprine, another muscle relaxant), Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium - to control lipid levels), Ibuprofen (to reduce swelling), and even a referral to Nevada Physical Therapy (at the sports medicine complex at UNR) for electrical stimulation to lower back muscles, lumbar stretches and stabilization, ice, etc.

We wrote a letter to Dave recently, as it had been awhile. We're in the process of trying to find a good grocery store close to us, but are really having a tough time. So far, we've tried Raley's, Super K, and Albertsons, but they all suck compared to the Wal-Mart Supercenter, but since it's on the south side of town, and gas being as expensive as it is, I don't want to keep driving that far for groceries. Raleys, Super K, and Albertsons are all almost twice as expensive as Wal-Mart (for identical items), so we might actually keep shopping there, unfortunately. I guess what we need over here is another Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Had some raisin bran with no raisins today, not the best thing. (Becca likes the raisins, so she picks them out of the box.) We like our new ward, very friendly people. It seems like everyone in the ward is just as new as us, so everyone is constantly walking around introducing themselves to one another, it's actually quite funny. I guess our church records got sent to the wrong ward, as we had two different Relief Society presidents calling us.

You know the old saying that "a picture is worth a thousand words"? Well, I think that phrase needs a disclaimer. Honestly, not every picture is actually worth 1,000 words - some are probably worth more, some definitely less. Perhaps it should be restated something like "A picture can be worth a thousand words".

Misti's packing for hospital already, only 6 weeks in advance. Not bad, actually, considering last time I think we were ready to go 3 months in advance.   =)

Finally got DSL transferred over (was 'offline' at home for a few weeks) - the trick to having the DSL people activate your line for you (so you don't have to install the crappy Yahoo software) is to tell them that you're running Linux, Amiga, BSD, etc. (since the software only works on Windows or Macintosh), or I suppose you could say that you don't have a CD-ROM drive (since the software is on CD), but in either case, I didn't have to install the crap software and then immediately uninstall it like I had to last time. Score. UPDATE: you can also just visit their website (from someone else's computer) to activate.

Misti changed our address with everyone we can think of as far as bills, magazines, DMV, etc. - a pain in the butt process, really, especially since they never seem to actually start mailing to the new address until two (2) phone calls to them. (You call once and tell them your new address, and they say 'ok', but don't change it - so you call back a second time, and they say 'oh, yeah' and actually start to use it.)

Becca has this doll that she got for her birthday (I think), and she's named it "Baby Maite" (pronounced 'my-tay'), after Misti's little sister. Tried the new Trident White gum, which tastes a little nasty, but supposedly whitens your teeth as you chew.

Blogger's become a lot better lately, with many of the Blogger Pro features becoming available to free Blogger users. Spell check is back, draft posts, future posts, titles, uploading files via Blogger, pinging weblogs.com, etc. Cool beans.

I'm currently at Level 17 on Neoquest. Cool RPG.

Well, the move is finally complete - we're joyfully unpacking and just glad we're in a new place without all the previous smells with which we were formerly accosted.

I find it funny that ATG's long distance message is backward. When you dial a long distance number as if it were a local number (i.e., you leave off the prefix), it comes back with a recording that says "it is not necessary to dial the prefix...blah blah blah", even when you *do* need to dial the prefix. Strange.

Well, the Rib Cookoff was once again very tasty, but we only sampled two kinds this time, our favorite from last year (Carson City BBQ Company - which did win the People's Choice Award) and Desperados (which just plain sucks). I keep forgetting to try the one that actually wins each year, but maybe next year.

I hurt my back a little during moving - kinda stiff now and aches a bit (just a pulled muscle). Bummer.