Have you found geocaching?

Geocaching actually sounds like fun after reading the entire article. At first I thought that this would be som activity like trainspotting or busspotting!

An American friend from Hawaii introduced this to me when they visited Tasmania...Its really quite fun!

I tend to agree with Zenaida's first impulse. I does sound a little silly; but then I'm use to backpacking and other outdoor activities that take me into the (more or less) wilds. I have some favorite places I like to go, places I like to visit; yet I always manage to find something--or someone--new. However, one should never be overly critical of another's pleasures. Assuming they're harmess.

A "popular techy hide & seek hobby?" Sounds like the guy who wrote the field manual for using night vision enhancement equipment suddenly was told to word the military jargon so that the surplus items could be sold at upscale retailers.....

Check back later when the subject has changed.

I agree with Andy.  GPS units are still quite expensive.  Hiking for young yuppies.

While Geocaching this week, I discovered my Garmin was also a time machine and had to tweet my peeps ASAP for I ended up in the briefing room of the White House and there was Bill Clinton giving a Press Conference about a compromise with the Repubs- It was a mind blower and hopeful I could get to a J Peterman Retail Store again. Happy Geo-Coordinate hunting!

The Jimmy Stewart Museum in Indiana, PA is going to close if they don't get some help. A small gift from some old fans would help they say. I support small towns and their uniqueness. I love local cafe's and diners and taverns especially. Why is there a trend toward sameness and chains?

My younger sister has been geocashing for the last ten years plus. The commercial availability of the GPS has made it simpler, although she has felt the GPS has taken away from the thrill of the hunt. She started old school pirate map "X" marks the spot style, utilizing a compass and marking off numbered paces North, East, South and West to find the modern day buried treasure.

The game is extremely popular in these parts and the hobby is as well kept a secret (up till now) as the Masonic rituals. Uh oh...now I've done it.

And who gives a giant, corn fed steamy cow poop what Bill Clinton agrees or disagrees with? This is jusr political ploy to try and get SOMEONE to like Obama again. Puuulease, we have collectively awoken from the nightmare.

I'm on the board of a non profit & 3 people came to present their idea for a geocaching fundraiser..............45 minutes later my eyeballs were rolling back in my head...................seems like dungeons & dragons for a new set; that being said I AM exempting UMM's sister from this! I will say that the people who are into it are REALLY into it. Also these 3 people kept calling it a sport...........the only sport they had been doing lately was the hot wing hustle........lots of hot wings..................
 
And now I will agree w/ ANDY, call me when the subject changes. I'm going to make peanut butter cookies w/ chocolate on top.....................stay warm all of you.............

Games that get their participants out of doors are a good thing. Games with survivalist implications that do that, are better.
If the person leading a group away from the smoldering ruins of the city to find Grampa's weather tight hunting shack with a wood stove, plenty of fuel and situated near an artesian spring is also able to pretend that a fat mallard is a high station #8 and bring it down, then, you have two games that make sense.

Sounds like "Here I am geocaching when I could be having my gallbladder taken out"...ie: hard up for something fun to do.

Tommy -- we live in a small town and close to yet a smaller town.  The uniqueness of all the businesses is still quite evident, but quickly disappearing.  Unfortunately, the
Walmarts, McDonalds and so on, just put them right out.  It's impossible to compete with that buying power. 
 
One of the small business owners that we regularly deal with is a auto service one.  It's a family-owned and operated business that has been there for a long time.  We get greeted by name and like dog owners, are known for our car.
 
As I've mentioned before, I was recently diagnosed with a terrible cancer.  The owner's wife was going through much the same thing at the same time -- though hers is breast cancer.  We commiserate with each other; we hug, we share our stories and laugh at how people now just look at us.  We've become a part of each other's support system. 
 
I cannot possibly see that happening at Jiffy Lube.
 
Ummgawa -- I can't agree with you more.  The Democrats, instead of finding a viable, good candidate are still trying to say that Obama is it.  Bull and loney.
 
Bebe -- Because of scheduling problems, we're having our Chanukah party today......much more fun preparing for it.  Twenty-seven people so I may need a GPS to find where I put all the stuff that I froze.

"an"  "an" auto service -- need to reread this stuff.

STONEY.............if there's a beautiful, volumptuous woman inside the shack preparing fortified hot chocolate then life gets even better for the finders....................
 
ANDY...................I hope your party is wonderful! All I can say is yum.....................
 
UMM................yeah, I am way over listening to anything Bill C. has to say..............to me he is so oleaginous  that I cannot look at him or listen to him. Yuck............

Bebe -- love that word "oleaginous" and it fits...perfectly.

I went geocaching on my last trip north.  
 
Late Wednesday night my GPS directed me to the front door
of the City View Tavern in Cincinnati.  It was a memorable ride up the snow
crusted streets of Mt. Adams.  I rediscovered the breathtaking view of the river
that Jefferson once called the most beautiful river in the world.  The prize
waiting for me at the tavern was a spirit warming Crown on the rocks.  Bert,
Thanks for taking me back to Mt Adams, I had almost forgotten that it is one of
the earth's holy places.
 
Later the next day, I used the same device to find the
Louisville Slugger factory and acquired an eighteen inch personalized bat for a
friend's son's first birthday.  I did not have time for a tour, but I will make
time on my next trip through. The factory is only a block or two away from the 
Louisiville riverfront which is a treasure unto itself.  A Joe's Crab Shack at
the landing offers a great dining view and a few culinary delights to
boot. Tommy T, thanks for reminding me about the Slugger factory.
 
Y'all have a great weekend.  I hope you find what it is you
are looking for.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVdZ0Rdm8zI

PAOLOS..............when I was young my parents & I went to Mt. Adama quite a bit. I loved it. It was just magically wonderful. There was a bar where my father would meet work colleagues & if I went along I would drink many Shirley Temples...............to this day I remember the name of a hippie shop we would frequent; A Bird Can Fly, but a Fly Can't Bird................thanks for the memories; someday I want to take my husband there............. I hope your beautiful little girl had a most wonderful candle day!

"Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica. After 10 years of activity there are over 1.2 million active geocaches published on various websites devoted to the activity."

I haven't tried it. Yet. But I have friends who while traveling the world with their kids have made it an interesting sidenote to their trips. They encounter people and places they would not have otherwise. Doesn't fit in my category of boring. I might give it a try with my grandkids.

Paolos. Happy Anniversary of the day your eyes opened to this world. I'm grateful.

And the link, wow. I'd already loved the song but that was wonderful.

This is my 1,000th post. You are truly a patient and loving village.

Andy- Hate is not a word I use very often, but when cancer is mentioned, though not logical and scientific, I feel that emotion. My mom just had a year long bout and we took it on like Don Quixote and company fighting the enemy. We found our greatest strength was in the heat of battle and we are all fighting this battle because no family is untouched. So Captain Andy draw your sword and go forth kicking cancer's sorry ass, you noble warrior! Love all love. Hate all hate.

{{Laughing}} Followed OF COURSE by a correction! I misread Stoney's post from last night, Birthday blessings to your belovd daughter (whom I'll bet has her Father's eyes)!!

Bebe!!!!❤

Bebe- a new word-oleaginous, so descriptive, I love it.  As someone else recently said "You da bomb!"

Well said Tommy. Andy, praying for you and your dear friend.

Paolos- Mahalo- your post was and is what the EYE embraces for moi and is what I am about; roaming this great land and eating and drinking my way across it with a little panache and fashion...my life remains a run on sentence of Kerouac post modernist adventures that hopefully will make me an interesting story teller in the hereafter. The tavern is where the great philosophers remain in awe of the ordinary things that make life grand. The GPS is akin to the compass I once got for Xmas that led me to adventures. The game is still afoot, my dear Watson.

Tommy -- thank you -- in my mind, my grandson, Will, eight years old, is battling those stray cells with his Star Wars Light Saber -- I will win.
 
JaxZ -- I do thank you and so appreciate all the prayers that are being said for me. 
 
I feel very lucky; I've met some amazing people who, themselves, are going through terrible times and their concern is for me!  I have a family like Tommy's and friends that I didn't know existed.  One of those friends sent me a St. Peregrin medal.  Her husband was aghast,:  "She's Jewish, you can't send her a medal!". On the day I received it, I went for my first post-op CAT scan and passed.  Need I say that I carry it with me always.
 
 

JAX.............I was waiting for that heart my dear, now I am smiling! Congrats on your 1,000th post............
 
GEORGE........thank you muchly..................

I   LOVE   THIS   PLACE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Andy, it's my privilege. Whay does our Hazel say? "Same meat, different gravy?" I was very suddenly in a wheelchair a few years ago, paralyzed from just below the diaphram down. I KNOW Who got me walking again. Working through the wonderful medical people around me yes, but anybody that impugns your souce of comfort shall get a walloping from my cane. (Tommy, I really am a peaceful person in most instances.)

Bebe!!!❤ My dear you brought me a lot of much needed smiles this past week. MWAH!

Beebs I look over what's happened in the time those posts were written and it's difficult to comprehend (like many of my posts *snicker*).

Bebe- You're welcome.
 
Andy- Its my privelege to add you to my daily prayer reminder. I confess that I see so much of this disease that I often don't know what to pray for, but the Word tells me when I don't know what I ought to pray for the Holy Spirit himself intercedes for me.. I'm thankful for that promise.
 
JaxZ- 1,000?! Congratulations. I sense that you win the hearts of all who pass your way!
 
Jalopkin- I love this place!!!!!! but you just said that didn't you.
 
Polaos, Tommy- Everytime, I wish I'd said what you say...what else can I tell you?

Every life uncovered is a treasure.
 
 
The lyrics are poetry. 
The music is pure.
The animation is art. 
The story is life as we know it.
 
She asks, "Are you cursed?"
He says. "I think that I'm
cured."
-courtesy of Josh Ritter
 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXBI2_zH9Js ;
 

Jax- 1000 beautiful posts a small but valuable piece of the millions of reasons it is an honor to share this planet with you and this peaceful village.

It's a lot of fun...not a yuppie pursuit, unless my grandchildren aged 3,5, and 7 are now considered yuppies.  They go to an Audubon pre-school, the two youngest, (the eldest "graduated") and geocaching is part of their outdoor activities.  The eldest's birthday last weekend was held at the Audubon Society where geocaching was the "party game."  It's a good walk, unspoiled, and a whole lot more worthy that trying to put a pin through a paper donkey's arse.  It's like a scavenger hunt with a map, outdoors.  I've been out at Audubon several times, and I can vouch for the fun-ness of geocaching -- unless you have an aversion to walks in the woods. 

Jax, you could have doubled that using Bert's patented posting method.

big "C" is a terrible thing. If there were but one cause, there would be a cure. There are,sadly,as many cancers as there are people to get them. Lovingly,warmly,unselfishly,there are more people to give care than there are cancers. And to that ,I say, Amen

Paolos, thanks for stopping in @ City View Tavern, just awarded "best burger" title for restaurants within city limits by Cincinnati Magazine. My first 3.2% beer, a 25 cent draft, was consumed circa 1965, when low test beer was legal if you were 18.....somehow I graduated from college notwithstanding the formidable temptation down the street...lol

BEBE, I want a cookie, please....

Paolos, thanks for stopping in @ City View Tavern, just awarded "best burger" title for restaurants within city limits by Cincinnati Magazine. My first 3.2% beer, a 25 cent draft, was consumed circa 1965, when low test beer was legal if you were 18.....somehow I graduated from college notwithstanding the formidable temptation down the street...lol

BEBE, I want a cookie, please....

Paolos, thanks for stopping in @ City View Tavern, just awarded "best burger" title for restaurants within city limits by Cincinnati Magazine. My first 3.2% beer, a 25 cent draft, was consumed circa 1965, when low test beer was legal if you were 18.....somehow I graduated from college notwithstanding the formidable temptation down the street...lol

BEBE, I want a cookie, please....

George, I can only pray for some miracles in that department.

Tommy, ♡ t even get me started on that one.) working with the Sherpa villagers and said there were geocaches there! Can you imagine?

Paolos, I would have driven everyone round the bend for sure! ;-)

Bert your TiMINg is impeccable!

Bert your TiMINg is impeccable!

Lynn said it best: hiking for young yuppies. However, it is just a product of our schizophrenic multi-tasking age where everything has to be "extreme" or technologically advanced to the point of ridiculousness. I suppose for people who were never in Scouts or some other outdoors program as children would find this fascinating, but going on a scavenger hunt with your GPS unit just seems to take all the fun out of it. Ten paces past the giant boulder, hang a left, walk straight until you reach the stream, then walk against the current fifty or so paces until you come to the red rock. Dig and you'll find it.

How strange! My 1:49 got completely chewed up and bits deleted!

Tommy, It should have said: ♡<- your words fill these up beautifully.

Park, I agreed with you and mentioned my niece living in Nepal for a year and at Base Camp 1 (Staging point for Everest climbs) working with (finished above).

we are geo cached on our EyEdentity page,if we so choose

Park4- Better than pinning a tail on a donkey's arse, eh? Funny!
 
I guess I got cured of the geocaching bug by a dry lensetic compass and map, at night, in the swamps and briarpatches of Parris Island SC uphill out and back trying to find a rotten tree...oh, yeah, and I forgot, no shoes.

Eli- Thoughtfully put re: cancer and caring people.

Park- a walk in the woods is so grand words can't describe. I honestly wouldn't mind if they find me one day propped up against a tree with a possum grin leaving my old earth suit behind on my way to Beulah Land to pick up a new suit of clothes.

Tommy, I love you, but I don't want be strolling through the woods and find your old "suit" that way. I'll see you on the other side. {{Grin}}

Evenin', all! O it's so nice to see you. I love this place too, and its inhabitants. GPS? Nah! I rely on Gods Personal Service, which has taken me to wonderful places when I've been hopelessly lost, running out of gas AND it was raining. (And, to hedge my bets, pot luck.) This village being a case in point.
Having been a Brownie (no, silly, not a cookie) and a Girl Guide, and a voulunteer to help with taking young offenders out on 20 mile day-treks in the mountains in the days before GPS, cell phones etc., I'm glad to say I can use a map and compass.

Tommy Typical~ Today Ex # 1 & I took his dog for two walks. One on the beach, the other through the woods. Dog voted the woods best fun ever.

George -- thank you, I do so appreciate it.

Hello, PE people, I am sorry , but geocaching is just too much time to do something I could do easier with a map. I have an excellent sense of direction and often have to correct the Garmin GPS in our auto. Notwithstanding the wonderful satellite perspective they have, I could get across SF to Saulsolito bc I could see the Golden Gate and go that way....anyway, I'd rather work a good crossword puzzle than do a snipe or scavenger hunt.
 
Cancer is evil and an enemy that must be defeated. Somehow, it is awakened by something in our food, water, air, or all of those. My husband died of it - lung metastasized to brain - in 1995, and I know how it is to help someone fight for over 2 years with the chemo, radiation, and tons of prayers. He took shark cartilege, wheat grass,  carrot juice, and all the herbs  recommended by our herbal practitioners...so, he got 2 more years thant he docs had predicted. We did Vegas, Bar Harbour, Bermuda, and loads of fine places around Atlanta that he wanted to do.  He was ambulatory and I drove, did all the managing. 
 
 He sued his doc for not noticing on his annual physical exam the mass on his lung a full 4 years before the symptoms struck. The doc was too busy to look at the xrays, just covering 2 offices and 7 nursing homes. The malpractice won enough to pay the med bills, set up college funds for the 6 grandchildren,  pay downt he mortgage so I could afford to pay it off last year on a teacher's salary, and to get him a new boat that he wanted to enjoy 6 months before his final breath.

On woods - I live in the woods and love it. God forbid that I ever have to endure an apt., rowhouse, or assisted living....but the day may come. While I am able, I will hang on to my woodsy home here on a high hill where I can enjoy the arrival of each sunrise, and the gentle departure of the sun in the evening....I am glad to put a parenthesis of gratitude around each day for all my blessing, one of which is the woods around me. I see deer, wild turkey, lots of birds, and even the possums and coons if I leave the bird feeders out past dark!
 
Today I went out of my comfort zone into the center of Atlanta to help my daughter give a party for 8 kids of my granddaughter's ilk. She - the granddaughter - wanted to have a "Christmas party " for her friends. Grandmother (moi) volunteered to do the "cookie decorating" segment. I made  6 dozen cookies, mixed up frosting/icing in 6 colors, got sprinkles of ever conceivable kind, photocopied models and ideas from magazines to inspire them, and journeyed into the terrible traffic of the city to their abode. Little girls arrived, throwing off coats and sweaters, looking for something to eat, and detailing how they liked (or didn't like) their hot chocolate at 1:00. We did a spool craft with winding a list of "What I'd like from Santa" around a red spool (we painted them yesterday), and fixing each one with ribbons to hang from the family tree. Seems this group of 8 third graders are holding out for the idea of Santa being "real." None of them have broken ranks and declared they don't believe yet!
Anyway, many crafts, finger knitting scarves, and slapping icing on reluctant cookies later, they went home about 4:30. The grandmother is spent, exhausted, and in retirement for a week or so.
 
My fear is that I volunteered to take the grandchild the week she is out of school, Dec. 19-24, but the frightening words that linger in my ears as I was leaving their city dwelling, still ring with some degree of foreboding:  "Cindy, I think you can come to my grandmother's with me the week after school is out!" As the granddaughter invited one of her friends to join her at my woodsy retreat!! One eight year old gal is one thing, but two is an entirely different proposition!! Can I keep them occupied? Will they ever go to sleep at 8 pm? Will they eat what I eat? So many issues come to mind. I need a tranquilizer just to think about it. Suggestions...?

JAX:  Same thing happened to one of mine a couple of days ago ... Prolly the Censorship Board, in my case .......  Computer Error be damned ... a Computer can only do what it is told to do ....... GIGO still holds true .......

Mooseloop -- one of the things we did when I had the kids on an off of school day was to make banana split pancakes for breakfast.  They helped, they ate them and are still talking about the time they stayed over and had them.  We bake, we talk, I taught one of them how to do spool knitting, sew sock dolls and just pretty much learn about each other's lives.  That age is still doable and really so much fun.  There's the playground, the library and there's always that magic spot in your yard to show them -- the one that you just know is magic.  All they need to do is make a wish.  Have fun with her.

Geocaching sounds like the computer geeks (and I mean this in a kind tone...as my father and brother are both members of this group) scavenger hunt. In my book, Geocaching is low tech and a list written by a No. 2 pencil on a scrap of paper...

One crab from the Waialae Kahala Canal...

One branch from the pencil tree in Mrs. C[urmudgeon]'s yard...

One S&H Green Stamp book from the weird lawyer at the end of the block...

One strand of hair from the cute guy who lives across from the elementary school...

Thanks, Andy-- Banana split pancakes and sock dolls are two great ideas....Looks as if I wil have 2 little girls for about 4 days. If the weather is good, I will take them over to a neighbor who teaches horse riding, and put them up on a patient horse for a few hours....too.....The main thing is to keep them busy....thanks for your suggestions and I will keep you in the prayers that your C is defeatable!! Fight it like rabbits eating up the little cabbages.....There is a whole book on that...the Psychological approach to defeating the enemy C....May you triumph! I have another dear friend who is fighting now over 2 yrs. the one that attack at the breast......May she and you both come out victors!!