Tuesday Funnies
Nice to see you stopped looking at erotic gay porn long enough to see what I have for a joke this week. Thanks.

Pickle Slicer

Bill worked in a pickle factory.

He had been employed there for a number of years when he came home one day to confess to his wife that he had a terrible compulsion.

He had an urge to stick his penis into the pickle slicer.

His wife suggested that he should see a sex therapist to talk about it, but Bill indicated that he'd be too embarrassed.

He vowed to overcome the compulsion on his own.

One day a few weeks later, Bill came home absolutely ashen.

His wife could see at once that something was seriously wrong. "What's wrong, Bill?" she asked.

"Do you remember that I told you how I had this tremendous urge to put my penis into the pickle slicer?"

"Oh, Bill, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"My God, Bill, what happened?"

"I got fired."

"No, Bill. I mean, what happened with the pickle slicer?"

"Oh... she got fired too."

Right in the face. That's where it's going.
No really awesome stories worth telling about today. Or yesterday.

I checked out some shoe places after work Sunday but found nothing I liked. I went home, looked up the coordinates of a couple new local caches, found them, and pretty much spent the rest of my day doing nothing.

I was out the door by 7 AM this morning. I went to hit the last local cache located in an old truck collection downtown. This cache has existed forever, but the owner of the collection I guess likes to talk about it and he works or lives nearby. I figured the best time for me to hit this cache was early in the morning of Memorial Day. No one is awake. :) Took some time, but I found it.

After a quick stop back home, I headed to Concord to snatch up a couple caches I've tried to get before but failed to do so, as well as bunch of urban micros. I didn't really have any problem with any cache I set out to find. There was one instance where I almost took a bee to the eyeball from peering in a guardrail (micros love guardrails). Aside from that, I was done before I knew it. Found them all in about 2 1/2 hours, and that includes one cache that was an hour-long round-trip hike.

So five on Saturday. Two yesterday. Seven today. Not bad for a long weekend. What's also funny is that I never set out for any of those "clusters" of caches I was talking about before. Some of the ones today were parts of clusters; but all in all, once I found one cache, I had to drive to the next cache.

I was kinda miffed that I found them all so quickly. My original plan had me caching 'til noon, then I would score some free BBQ at my place of part-time work, use the internet there to find some other caches, get some shoes, hike some more, and pass out. Since I was done by 10:30, I found an EMS and bought some decent hiking / trail running shoes there. I'd like the record to show that I love EMS. EMS would be my playground if money was no object. They have so much neat shit.

Got shoes. Got some burgers. Reacquainted myself with some of the people that work there. Watched a movie in the break room. Had to buy some summertime bed sheets. Went home. Didn't really feel like testing the new shoes yet. Had to get some water repellent sprayed onto them first.

I'm thinking of visiting one Keene cache after work each day this coming week. I'll hit that "76" mark if I do. And with the weather being as nice as it is, I don't really want to be cooped up indoors any more than I have to be. I've heard of crabs on your organ...
So I set out to find nine caches today.

I almost gave up on the first one. Another two minutes and I would have walked away. It took a lot longer than I wanted it to. My GPS was playing tricks with me, but it turns out the cache itself wasn't hidden in a typical geocache location. So there was like... two points against me. But it did consume a lot more time than it should have.

The second cache didn't require any work to find.

The third cache was similar to the first in that I was minutes away from giving up. My GPS was continually pointing in one area, but the cache was about 20-30 feet in the other direction. It was kinda funny that the first place I looked was within five feet from the cache, but it wasn't for another half an hour or so until I found it.

The fourth cache was a bitch. It wasn't hard to find, but the round-trip hike was about three miles. It was pretty hot and humid today and I was wearing pants (more on pants in a minute), so I was pretty uncomfortable and thirsty. I had some water in my car that I intentionally left behind. Didn't want to carry the extra weight. I should probably invest in a length of rope or something and I could carry it like a canteen. But anyway, the hike in was long and horrible and took forever. It was muddy in spots, and other spots were flooded out. It kicked my sneakers' ass. The hike back was even worse. Every now and then, I think I'm smarter than the trail and I tried to bushwhack a shortcut for myself. Big mistake. I totally ruined what was left of my sneakers as a result of all of the water and mud I stepped in. I also started to freak my shit because I wanted water and I didn't know where the fuck I was going. I probably deserved to get eaten by a bear or something for my idiocy. I did find my way back eventually (very important to waypoint your car with your GPS for the return voyage), but it tired me out and I consumed most of my water.

I left home before 10:00 AM, and at this point it was just past 2:00 PM. I was hungry. But I figured I can live longer without food than I could without water, so I kept with my mission.

Black flies and mosquitoes are common enemies of the hiker. Through all of my years of hiking, I have never seen a tick. Today, I met my first. And second. And third. I think because of my bushwhacking, several ticks latched onto the bottom of my jeans. I flicked a bunch of them off. I don't know how many I spotted at this time, but there were plenty more where they came from.

I believe I took the coordinates of the fifth cache down incorrectly. The latitudinal coordinates was the same as the fourth cache. The area I arrived at seemed way too close to the road, so I didn't really make any effort to find it.

I gave up on the sixth cache. I was in the area of the cache, but I was too tired and hungry to focus on the task ahead of me. I could have found it. I had the time. I didn't have the drive. But since I figured that I took down the information for the fifth cache incorrectly (the fifth and sixth cache were on the same trail), chances are I'd be coming back for that cache. I might as well come back for this one, too. Let's eat.

I got some snacks and took a break at the parking area of the seventh and eighth caches. The seventh cache was pretty easy. The eighth cache was (most likely) on a tree that was surrounded by water courtesy of the recent flooding. I couldn't get to it, but I knew it had to be on that tree somewhere.

I scored several more ticks on this trail. Some got onto my shirt. I also had a few ticks in a couple neat spots. One on the back of my neck. One an inch below my belly button. Several more on my pant legs. Some in my shoe laces. A couple on my arms. I didn't have any of them biting, though. They were just chillin'. Maybe it was all of the deet in the bug spray I was wearing.

The ninth and final cache I could not attempt. Flooded waters prevented me from getting onto the second walking bridge. However, I did get a tick on my right nipple for my efforts.

So that was that. Managed to find five. Once home, I had my mother scour me for ticks and she found a few. I took a shower and found a few that somehow managed to get under my sock. I also had one uncomfortably close to my "cash and prizes," if you will. All in all, I sighted at least 29 ticks on my body over the course of the day. 29! That's a lot of ticks. How gross. Good thing I was wearing pants.

This throws an interesting monkey wrench in my cache hunting machine. I'm not really sure I want to go play in the woods until their numbers go down. However, I've never even seen a tick before today in my 27 years on this earth. So what are the odds? I started getting them whenever I bushwhacked near the Contoocook River. If I stay away from the river, will I be ok? New Hampshire ticks are pretty scary, because a lot of them carry Lyme disease. Lyme disease comes from blacklegged ticks, though, and after doing some Google research, I learned that I had American dog ticks plaguing me. Yay?

My sneakers are ruined. A normal man would have thrown them out five years ago, but I kept wearing them. Now, they are totally fucked. I need to buy new sneakers or hiking shoes. I need to do some quick shopping for other items tomorrow after work as well. If I get sneakers on top of that, I don't think that will leave me with much time to geocache. Factor in the typical tiredness I feel from working 7:00 AM to noon and I don't think I'm gonna be in the mood.

I have no idea where I may hike tomorrow. I don't think I'm gonna have much time. Maybe I should stick to urban micros. But with no one to help me on the Sunday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend, I stand a better chance of hurling a baby into the sun than I would in finding an urban micro undetected. But I'm not really feeling the desire to frolic in Tick City, either.

Damnit. Very earthy

Your preference for concrete, visually pleasing things, combined with your confidence and your respect for order make you an ARCHITECT.

You are logical and detail-oriented, which allows you to get things done efficiently.
You are quite sure of yourself, so that you tend to know the best ways of doing things.
Your eye for aesthetic beauty and style indicates that you know a lot about design.
Having a routine and sticking to it is important to you; you find comfort in tradition and familiarity.
Self-reliance is something in which you take great pride - you are confident and down to earth.
You have a basic faith in yourself in many areas of your life, allowing you to be self-assured when facing challenges.
You prefer to have time to plan for things, feeling better with a schedule than with keeping plans up in the air until the last minute.
You do your own thing when it comes to clothing, guided more by practical concerns than by other people's notions of style.
Generally, you believe that you control your life, and that external forces only play a limited role in determining what happens to you.

If you want to be different:

Try moving beyond the things that you find comfortable - open yourself up to a broader range of experiences.
Question how much you know about things by imagining different possibilities.

Being independent, practical, and somewhat guarded with others makes you CAUTIOUS.

You tend to keep to yourself, wary of trusting others with personal information.
The values that you hold are central to your identity - you are a very principled person.
You have respect for the natural order of things, and a good sense of right and wrong.
Investigating the world through observation, as opposed to interaction, is preferable to you.
You have an appreciation for those who have attained a certain level of accomplishment, particularly the rare few who have succeeded honestly.
You are efficient - when you work with others, you get down to business, and fulfill your obligations.
You sometimes wish that others would be more like you - less hindered by their emotions, more respectful, and more private.
[other overlapping info with the "architect" schema]

If you want to be different:

Finding a few close others whom you can trust will allow you to express yourself more openly, and possibly to learn more about yourself.

You can mouse over the DNA thing for various trait information.

There's also a report that prints out in regards to how you rank with others who have taken this test. Apparently, I'm the earthiest person ever, scoring higher than 100% of all test takers. Heh. ("Earthy" is defined as prefering detail-oriented, practical things over abstract, theoretical things.)

My "trust in others" score is a mere 8%. Silence
It's very quiet without the college kids in town. I don't hear a peep from my neighbors. I don't think I have any college kid neighbors, though. Maybe it's quiet because I haven't seen the pothead guy across the hall since his little incident. People haven't been coming over anymore.

Someone should clean my bathroom. 1 2 3 not it! (Sucker!) Wanderlust, but not really.
Pretty nice day today, weather-wise. Should remain that way through the weekend. Rumor has it that it will be 91 degrees on Memorial Day. That's insane.

I don't really have plans involving other people this coming long weekend. I had a couple vague invites for some BBQ / drinking action, but I honestly don't think they will pan out to anything. It kinda sucks. I don't typically like to pass up opportunities to hang out with people when they come up (mainly because very few things pop up locally and I should take advantage of what I can), but I'd rather not be invited at all than get my hopes up that something's gonna happen only for said event to be cancelled on me. But that's ok. This should be a very good weekend to do some geocaching. There are a few clusters of caches in or around Concord, NH ranging from 7-10 caches. If I can hit a cluster a day for those three days, I'd be in good shape towards my goals. Only problem is, I'm not sure how motivated I'm gonna be to do that much geocaching if on Sunday I have to work for a few hours early in the morning. And if it's going to be 90 or so degrees on Monday, I'm not sure I want to be outside, let alone bushwhacking through the woods. Hmm.

I bet I could work Monday at my part-time job and they would let me. I had the opportunity to do so last year. Instead, I decided to get drunk the night before and wake up late. It doesn't look like that's gonna happen this year. But if it's gonna be that friggin' hot out, maybe I should hang out in the air-conditioned building and get paid time-and-a-half for it. Oh, the choices.

I also wonder if I'm kidding myself with the whole notion of finding 7-10 caches in a single day. It might be possible. Every time I try to find that many, though, I only find half of them because I run out of time. I typically average 45-60 minutes per cache find, not including driving time. Getting to the cache isn't the hard part. Most of the time is consumed looking around within 30 feet of the cache's coordinates. But anyway, if I'm averaging 45-60 minutes a cache, then I'm looking at several all-day affairs. And I'm gonna have to factor things like eating. I believe my record is five in a day. And I was fucking beat after that. Then again, that involved climbing a couple peaks in a state park. I think with some of these clusters, though, the ground seems to be level and I can probably find them all while having my car parked in one or two spots per cluster. So I really wonder how much time it's gonna take.

Eh whatever. Guess we'll find out soon enough. Tuesday Funnies

IN A BAR

A guy walked up to a beautiful young woman in a bar. "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" he said to her.

"I don't know," replied the beautiful young woman. "It depends how personal it is."

"OK," the guy said. "How many men have you slept with?"

"I'm not going to tell you that!" the woman exclaimed. "That's my business!"

"Sorry," said the guy, "I didn't realize you made a living out of it."

TWO SHOTS

This guy goes into a bar and orders two shots. He drinks one and pours the other on his hand. He then orders two more and does the same, drinks one and pours the other on his hand. After the third time, the bartender asks him what he's doing. The guy says, "I'm trying to get my date drunk."

"daPimps suck my J."
Spent the weekend down in Boston with "the boys," also known as "the roommates," "daPimps," (new old content!) or "the most indecisive group of ass clowns this side of the Mississippi" (that's my new nickname for us starting right now). It was a good time that pretty much involved drinking and a barbeque with random activities (like drinking at bars or drinking while playing Texas Hold 'Em). I'm not sure what to say about it. I'm glad it happened and I hope it happens more often. Once a year (if that) is pretty weak.

It's kinda interesting to watch our progression as a clique as we get older. The techno-babble gets less and less and the cell phone use goes up and up. Outside relationships are starting to take hold. We don't (can't?) drink or eat as much as we used to. We're getting more indecisive, which I didn't think was possible. Random property damage is being phased out for gray hairs. It's also interesting to see how their lives trend upwards or slope downwards. While mine is starting to pick up a bit, it's surprising to see others as unemployed or making not much more than me, especially given some of the hiring packages they got right out of college. And here I thought I'd always be several steps back career-wise from the rest of them. :p

Pictures might be forthcoming. I suspect those involved will get pics. I'm not sure if any are worth sharing on the internet, though. We weren't exactly the most clean-cut looking bunch, and I'm the most unphotogenic person ever. Meh. More website work
Fixed a couple things. A few others still remain screwed until I deem myself bored enough to make it right again.

I darkened the background colors a bit because though it looked good on my monitor, I guess other people saw it as being too bright. I figure that's something I'm gonna be playing with for a while until I can get home and see how this site looks on other monitors.

The search box should be working again. There's still some layout issues when the results display. I'll get to it eventually.

On a somewhat related note, I should get my 10,000th visitor in the next two or three days. That's nuts. From Jan 31, 2005 until the end of March 2006, I had under 4,000 total visits. This month and last month alone will net me about 7,000 visitors. I still don't know what I did to boost visits -- therfore I question the validity of my site statistics -- but uh... cool? I've been hacked!
Maybe not. Is it considered "hacking" if you deface your own site? Whatever.

I decided to mix it up a bit. The transition went smoothly. Not surprisingly, IE gave me some CSS positioning problems, but that's what they do best (aside from its ability to have yet another security issue every week). I'm not sure how things look in older versions of IE or Opera or off-beat browsers (in IE 5's case, I expect horrible results), but those of you using IE 6, Opera 8, or Firefox should be ok.

Not everything is perfect. Old entries with pictures have spacing issues between pics. I haven't touched the comments, so that kinda looks like crap. The form box to the left there looks different in each browser, and I don't think I can make that look any better. I'm sure there's other problems. I'll get to it when I care.

Those of you who have bookmarked this site: double-check the URL. Make it say http://www.maxjerome.net/ and nothing else. There's a chance in the (probably distant) future that I might change this site's main file type to something other than "html," and you're gonna get 404'd pretty hard if that comes to fruition. Wicked hard. Superstar!
So I've been employed by my latest full-time employer for a year as of yesterday. One. Year. Already. It doesn't feel like a year has passed. My supervisor joking stated that it felt more like two years. :) But anyhoo, I had my formal review today. I won't get into much detail because it wouldn't surprise me if some of my fellow coworkers have found this site, but it's suffice to say that I'm a superstar. I got a better-than-average review for someone with one year under his belt, and I got the maximum raise possible. Woo.

I'm not sure where I go from here, since typically people in my department don't stay there for more than a year. With my supervisor's recent promotion, perhaps some sort of non-management position will open that I can fill. There's some competition, but I consider myself to be a solid dark horse pick if something comes up. I'd rather stay in my department since I like the people and we have a lot of fun. But I question how far up the ladder I could possibly go from here. But I can't even name all of the other departments under the same roof as mine, let alone determine one or two I might have an interest in working in. The most common route (and one my supervisor believes I would be awesome at) would put me into a buyer role, but those people work a lot more hours and don't seem to have much fun. There's a lot of advancement there, though. Hmm. I really need to come up with career goals for myself.

It also seems weird that I'm one year removed from being a full-timer at my other job. Well, maybe not since I don't recognize anyone working there anymore, but it's still funny to see that I'm still relied upon for advice, knowledge, or certain tasks.

I'm really really really missing some of the people that used to talk to me 6-12 months ago, though. Not sure what the hell happened. Sniff sniff... The only real downside of an otherwise decent work year. It's still wet out.
So there's still this flood watch in effect. Actually, it's not a "watch." It's a "warning." But anyway, it's still raining a lot and it's giving a lot of people flashbacks of last October. Thus far, Keene has been spared of any roads closing and there aren't any nearby bridges that are out, but there are roads in my hometown of Hillsboro that have been shut off. Unfortunately, I don't have the details on this flooding (no TV), but it appears some towns further east are screwed over much like the Southwestern part of the state was done for last Fall. There's still a chance that something might happen in my neck of the woods. Henniker, the next town east of Hillsboro (and the only Henniker on Earth), got pretty messed up. My boy Ray sent me some pics of Rush Road in Henniker (kinda weird seeing how he's in Tennessee), which isn't a popular road; but I know someone who lives up there so I guess he's not gonna be able to go to work for a while:

Rush Road pics: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Unfortunately, I don't have the time or energy to start collecting pics of the damage like I did in October, but you can find a bunch of pictures over at the websites of WMUR, the Union Leader, and the Concord Monitor.

Maybe if it gets bad here in Keene, I can go out and scope the damage and take my own pics! But that's an opportunity I'm willing to let pass me by. Tuesday Funnies

A boy in the sixth grade comes home after school one day. His mother notices that he's got a big smile on his face. She asks, "Did anything special happen at school today?"

"Yes, Mom. I had sex with my English teacher!"

The mother is stunned. "You're going to talk about this with your father when he gets home."

Well, when Dad comes home and hears the news he is pleased as punch. Beaming with pride, he walks over to his son and says, "Son, I hear you had sex with your English teacher."

"That's right, Dad."

"Well, you became a man today - this is cause for celebration. Let's head out for some ice cream, and then I'll buy that new bike you've been asking for."

"That sounds great, Dad, but can I have a football instead? My ass is killing me."

"Oh, Black Widow!"
It seems like the only time I write is when I have something to bitch about. Nobody wants to hear anyone else bitching, but I guess they don't mind reading it.

The SARS still owns me. I wasn't sure I was gonna make it through the day at work, but somehow I did. The dude I hung out with Friday night is also sick, which makes me wonder if we caught something at the bar we were at or if something is making its way through the workplace. Either way, it sucks and I don't want any part of it anymore. I tried to slice my wrists with my ID badge, but that didn't work out too well. The scissors were out of my reach.

I slept a lot. Nine hours Saturday night. Three more hours before lunch on Sunday. An hour and a half after lunch. Then ten hours Sunday night. I'm fucking bent for another awesome sleep-filled night. I'll be able to down some Nyquil as soon as 7:30 (took some DayQuil at 1:30). I'm really looking forward to it. I don't fuck around when I'm sick, which is why I go straight for the moonshine of medicine. While the Robitussin I bought yesterday was completely useless, I had some DayQuil waiting for me in one of my desk drawers at my place of full-time employment. Rock. I was able to spend most of my day looking pasty white instead of both pasty white and sickly.

Now, if you don't mind, I gotta go cough up a lung. Death would be a welcomed change right now.
Ugh. I'm not sure I'm gonna make it. I feel so crappy, it's borderline ridiculous. When you're at the point that looking at things hurts your eyes, you know you've got problems.

Went to work this morning, though I left early because my mind was cloudy and I was sweating in place. Apparently the store next door doesn't sell DayQuil in liquid form (can't swallow pills with my throat as sore as it is), and I had to buy some very ineffective Robitussin instead. Didn't do shit, really.

Went home, slept for three hours, had some soup, and slept for another hour and a half.

I still wasn't feeling well, but since I doubt I'd feel any better today, I then took the opportunity to head back to Keene.

Now here I sit, waiting to have the honor of downing some Nyquil. Still have to wait another two hours. Sigh.

Didn't cache for crap today. No surprise there. I guess the Weather Channel was right for once, too. There's a lot of water falling from the sky. I wonder if Keene's gonna get flooded again, like in October. The forces that be are against me today.
I have lost faith in the Weather Channel, and despite their prediction for rain this weekend as early as Wednesday, they've been so full of shit too many times for me to believe anything they tell me. There's been a flood watch in effect for most of southern New Hampshire since early Friday. It did rain Friday, but not that much. I went out Friday night and walked to the bar and made it to and from with just a few drops on me. So although there is a flood watch in effect until Sunday morning, I had no reason to believe that the weather today would suck. And since I was heading home early today (I've been here since 8:30 AM), I expected to do some geocaching along the Contoocook River some time during the day when the rains weren't so heavy.

The rains haven't let up, though. I'm hoping for better luck tomorrow afternoon. But I'm not sure I'll feel well enough to go forward with my plan. I think I'm coming down with a cold or something equally annoying. I'm gonna take some NyQuil in a couple minutes and I'll be in bed before 8:00 PM. It's pretty pathetic. If I still feel like shit tomorrow, hiking in the rain will just make me feel worse. I'm already anticipating on leaving work as soon as I can. That's how crappy I feel I will become. The back of my throat feels real bad. But I'm too much of a workaholic to call out entirely.

While I don't mind the rain normally, my weekend/hiking sneakers are about ten years old. My feet feel wet just looking at a puddle of water, let alone stepping in one with this footware. My black hoodie is just as old and doesn't really repel anything. And those with glasses know that nothing sucks more about glasses than wearing them in the rain or snow.

So the odds are stacked against me. But I feel the need to make some progression towards my caching goals. Next weekend entails heavy drinking in Boston with former college roommates, so I don't see myself looking for any woodland treasures. Two weekends without any cache hunting makes me really feel behind the eight ball, though I'm sure I'm still on track to reach both my goals (76, then 100).

There are some new Hillsboro caches I can hit really easily in a clutch. If all else fails, I'll find those on my way back from work tomorrow.

I didn't do a whole hell of a lot today once I got home. Feeling a cold coming on and the excessive rains kept me bored indoors. I watched about five hours of the History Channel learning about angels, demons, omens, end world scenarios, and the like. It was pretty interesting stuff, and I've come to the conclusion that most women in the Church of Satan are pretty hot, though I feel they could use a little more time out in the sun.

This probably would have been a good day to do some website layout work if I wasn't busy mulling the paradoxes of all major religions.

Mother's Day tomorrow. You better get 'er something. Tuesday Funnies

A scientist has just discovered a new engine that runs on Vasoline. So he goes to try it out and it seems to work fine, though he notices his mileage calculations are off and he is going to have to stop and get some extra fuel if he plans to make it back to the lab. He realizes he is close to the house of on of his friends. So he decides to go ask him for help.

At the same time his friend and his family, consisting of his beautiful wife and very pretty daughter, are having dinner. Unbeknownst to everyone else, this family has an odd tradition. Since no one ever wants to do the dishes, after dinner they sit in the living room and stay silent, and the first person who talks has to do the dishes.

So they have just finished dinner up and go to sit in the living room. Just then the scientist knocks and is let in by his friend. "Hey buddy," he says "I was in the neighborhood and I need some help... Oh were you guys just in the middle of dinner? I'm sorry but..." He notices that they aren't moving or saying anything. "Umm, is it ok if I help myself to some leftovers? I was working late and missed my meal. OK?" So he cautiously walks over and helps himself to the dinner.

"Well thanks for letting me have that, it was wonderful. Now could you guys tell me if... um... you guys?" The scientist notices they are still sitting there silently. So he messes around for a minute and dances around, tweaks his friend's nose, ands all the time they are doing nothing. "This is odd," he says, "But the hell with it." So he decides to make the most of this and takes his buddy's wife in the bedroom and has sex with her. He brings the wife back and still notices nothing out of any of them, so he takes the daughter and has his way with her too. He notices nothing and this time takes both the wife and the daughter into the bedroom and gets his freak on. So he takes them back and decides he has had his fun but he really needs to be going. "Ok folks," he says, "got any Vasoline?" The father immediately stands up and says, "Fine, FINE! I'll do the damn dishes!"

Meh. I ran out of good jokes months ago. Wasn't a good weekend for caching.
I was up at the break of dawn Saturday in order to FTF (first-to-find) a new micro cache I could walk to in under five minutes from my apartment. There was no way I was gonna let some other punk ass beat me to it. But anyway, I woke up way early to find it, and though I was left to my lonesome for nearly an hour(!), I was unable to find the damn thing. I lost precious sleep for jack squat. I was pretty pissed off about that, and I think that, in part, was the reason I didn't bother heading to Mass that morning. I really hate micros.

I made up some sleep and chose to hit a few local caches instead. I came up empty handed again for my second cache attempt of the day. Grr.

At least I was able to find the third attempted cache. I've been goose-egged twice in a row a couple times I think, but I don't think I've ever gone 0-for-3. If I did, I might have thrown myself off of the nearby cliff. I'd be a sorry excuse of a geocacher.

The nearby cliff -- Sunset Rock -- gives a great view of Keene. I made a feeble attempt of creating a panoramic view of the cliff side, but it didn't work out too well. I also don't really know what part of Keene I was looking at, so let's simply label the pictures below as "left side," "center," and "right side:"



Paul Imm took some better pictures.

I didn't particularly enjoy my fourth cache, partly because a) it was a micro and b) the lady living in the house at the intersection spoiled the cache hunt for me. I've read logs that she typically does that, but I parked a ways away and hoped that I could walk to the intersection undetected. I don't know if she has a dog or whatever that could tell I was nearby or if she stares out the window all day, but no sooner was I there for five seconds, she yelled to me the location of the film canister. Son of a bitch. I guess I wasn't stealthy enough. But I've found another local micro that had a similar hiding spot once before, so I don't think it would have taken me long to find even if she didn't spoil it for me. Bitch.

I initially planned to do a couple in Concord today after work, but I found myself sticking around a long time after my shift was over. I shot the shit with people I don't typically see on Sunday. However, once I was back in Keene, I went back to attempted cache #2 and found it in less than ten seconds. Hmm. I wonder what the hell went wrong yesterday. Must have typed in the coords wrong or something.

So all in all, I found three more. That brings me to 59 for those of you keeping track. Meh.
Though I'm ready to go, I'm not really in the mood to go to Winchendon. I have all of my shit together and I'm ready to go, but... it's not in me. I think I'd rather sleep.

I don't know; it's still early in the day. Something bizarre is going on with my site traffic.
It took almost a full year (December 2005) for me to average ten visitors a day.
A couple months later (February 2006), I was steadily getting 20 a day, though I suspect that was mostly because of spiders and other search bots.
Last month, I was bringing in 102 visitors a day. Most of them aren't from bots, and include multiple visits from nearly 40 different countries.

This month just started and I'm hitting the same trend: 97 a day and people from approximately 20 countries have found my site so far.

What's funny is that a lot of my referrals are coming from spam sites. I don't know why because I haven't made any effort to "advertise." And since I've updated the comments engine, I haven't had any spam messages posted. Hmm.

A lot of people end up here from searching for dolphins and/or tunafish. Must be from this post. Sorry to mislead you to my farce of a site, but thanks for visiting anyway! :) And learn to search by using more specific terms! Yep.
Not much to report.

This week has been pretty uneventful, but it's been steadily moving along. There are enough things for me to do at work that I rarely feel bored. Sometimes it might feel a bit monotonous, but what job doesn't?

I tend to keep a low profile during the weeknights, most times just staying in my apartment doing whatever. It's not very exciting, but I enjoy the "alone time." It's not until the weekend comes that I really feel like doing something. Hence why most of my activity-based posts fall on Saturday or Sunday. There's no real reason to visit this site on the weekdays. Except for the Tuesday Funnies, I suppose.

A fellow coworker's last day in the department is tomorrow, and there's some sort of after work get-together at the local Applebee's. That's my only highlight for tomorrow. I'm hoping it may lead to some sort of partying later that night with one of my new boys. Or perhaps one (or two) of my new ladies. I had fun last weekend and the night before Easter drinking and whatnot.

I keep changing my mind as to which town to cache rape next, but I think I'm going to head back to Winchendon, MA and do the ones I couldn't do last weekend. I'm aiming for eight or nine, but I'll probably walk away with four again. :P I'm thinking of visiting another seven on Sunday after working at my part-time job, but we'll see. Probably won't happen. I may save those for something to do Memorial Day. Last Memorial Day, I spent the night before at my best friend's house, and should I be able to do the same thing this year, there are a few clusters of caches near her place I'd like to hit. Saves me the effort of wasting a lot of gasoline. It's not getting any cheaper.

The blackflies are starting to come out, too. I'm not sure how much I'm gonna enjoy hiking around until they go away. Same goes with the mosquitoes once they show up. I think April may be my favorite month because there are no bugs and it's not hot or cold. Perfect.

I've been doing some new website layout work, but who knows when that will go live. I don't work on it often enough to make any sort of progress. I find it funny that Firefox is the only browser that it looks perfect in thus far, yet (until yesterday) I've only had Internet Explorer and Opera. Haha.

No Pants Day tomorrow! Let your junk breathe! Tuesday Funnies
I've had this for a while, but I didn't think it was that great. Some coworkers think otherwise:

OFFICE DARES

1) At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to conclude with the singing of the National Anthem (extra points if you actually launch into it yourself).

2) Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off ten times.

3) For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as "Bob."

4) Announce to everyone in a meeting that you "really have to go do a number two."

5) After every sentence, say "Mon" in a really bad Jamaican accent. As in "the report's on your desk, Mon." Keep this up for one hour.

6) While an office mate is out, move their chair into the elevator.

7) In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and mutter, "Shut up, damn it, all of you just shut up!"

8) At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce, "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again."

9) In a colleague's diary, write in 10am: "See how I look in tights."

10) Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask, "You wanna trade?"

11) Repeat the following conversation ten times to the same person: "Do you hear that?" "What?" "Never mind, it's gone now."

12) Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, "I can't talk about it."

13) Posing as a maitre d', call a colleague and tell him he's won a lunch for four at a local restaurant. Let him go.

14) Speak with an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very important conference call.

15) Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk.

16) Hang a two-foot long piece of toilet roll from the back of your pants and act genuinely surprised when someone points it out.

17) Present meeting attendees with a cup of coffee and biscuit, smash each biscuit with your fist.

18) During the course of a meeting, slowly edge your chair towards the door.

19) Arrange toy figurines on the table to represent each meeting attendee, move them according to the movements of their real-life counterparts.

20) Move your work desk and chair into the elevator and when the doors open say, "Hello, can I help you?"

And if that wasn't enough for you...

SEVEN-POINT DARES

1) At lunchtime, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hairdryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.

2) Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.

3) Put your rubbish bin on your desk and label it "IN."

4) Put decaf in the coffee maker for three weeks. Once everyone has gotten over his or her caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.

5) In the subject field for all your e-mails, write "FOR SEXUAL FAVOURS."

6) Finish all your sentences with "In accordance with the prophecy."

7) Don't use any punctuation.

8) As often as possible, skip rather than walk.

9) Put mosquito netting around your work area. Play a tape of jungle sounds all day.

10) Have your co-workers address you by your wrestling name, Rock Hard.

11) When the money comes out of the ATM, scream "I Won! I Won! Third time this week!"

Some actually call me "Stone Cold" at work. Mainly 'cause I'm a dick when it comes to negotiation. The guzzling of beer during work hours just happens to be a coincidence.