I sense a Champion Orc distance driver in my future.
Or maybe a portable basket. That would be cool.

For those that claim to know me, it should be blatantly obvious that EMS, in my eyes, is the best store ever made. A lot of the stuff they have is overpriced, in my opinion; but if money was no object, I'd drop so much cash there, it'd be ridiculous. Just ridiculous. At least I got a five-dollar gift card to EMS as an FTF prize from a cache I've found to help defray some of the costs. Not that five bucks will buy me anything there.

What those that claim to know me might not know, is that Dick's could be the second best store ever made. I never really had an interest in that store, but over the past year with the golfing and disc golf hobbies I've picked up, Dick's is turning into the place to go. Though I couldn't spend as much time there getting lost as I could at EMS, the Dick's in Keene sells a ton of disc golf stuff, including individual discs (we don't traditionally call them frisbees because "frisbee" is trademarked and typically refers to a disc that can be caught). I lost a DX Cheetah last year. Dick's is selling some as singles. They also have a bunch of discs made in different types of plastics, and some even have cool-looking tie-dyed patterns. I have more than enough discs at it is, but I'm tempted to blow my money on a bunch of colorful and pretty ones. Of course, I still won't be able to throw them for shit, but that's besides the point. At least they look sexy. :)

I had to go in there tonight to get a pull cart for my golf bag. Three of us will be whacking some balls tomorrow after work. Should be fun times. The F-bombs will be plentiful, I can be sure. Tuesday Funnies

Sad Story

A news reporter decided to do a column on old Southern stories. He goes to the hills of Kentucky and finds an old guy sitting on his porch. "Do you have any stories you can share with me?"

The old guy says, "Of course I do. One time old Bob's goat got loose, so we set up a search team to find it. We sat around and had a few beers and then went looking for it. We found it, then we all screwed it."

"Well I can't put a story like that in the paper. Do you have any others - maybe a happy story?" asked the reporter.

"Sure do," said the man, "One time old Bubba's cow got loose. We set up a search party to find it. Once again, we had a few beers, looked for the cow, then we screwed it when we found it."

"Well, I can't put that in the paper either. Do you have any sad stories?"

"Sure do. One time, I got lost!"

Stupid three-part jokes. What to do now...
I'm pretty much kicking the ass of my 2007 geocaching goals. Reaching 500 did turn out to be cake, thanks mainly to having Sundays off. I'm still King Poobah in Keene as for as cache finding goes, by over 150 in fact. Though the whole Peru thing never materialized, I still have plenty of time left to make some trips to other states to do my thing.

I guess my next goal is to match the number of finds I got last year: 238. That's 514 lifetime. I could do that by next weekend if I was so inclined.

I could then try to double my lifetime finds this year: 276. That's 552 lifetime. That could easily be attained at the next geocaching tournament on the weekend of August 18. Yawn.

I could strive to find one cache a day for the year: 365. That's 641 lifetime. That's pretty hardcore, but what's another 141 caches at my current rate? If I don't succeed, Jon will win "the bet" and call me a pussy. He and I had an awesome conversation after I hit #401 on June 21:

Jon: 300 in a year
Jon: that's almost one a day
Me: pretty close
Me: maybe i can get one a day this year
Jon: I bet you don't
Me: 175 so far
Jon: you suck
Me: ha
Me: how many days in are we?
Jon: your mother +1
Me: oh snap
Me: 172 if my math is right
Me: so far, so good
Jon: you better hurry the fudge up guy
Me: or?
Jon: or I win the bet
Me: i probably won't... i'd need to finish with 641 this year
Jon: pussy
Me: pfft

You know I can't stand for that shit. Motherfucker's going down.

If I get 365 finds this year, and another 365 finds next year, I'll have over 1,000 finds lifetime. Holy shit.

Or maybe I should just give the whole geocaching thing a break, get an engraved coin for my accomplishment, and start frolfing and golfing more. Bluebrries!

Found It! July 29 by Max Jerome (500 found)
#500! Time to throw a party!

I tried to do this one yesterday morning, but I didn't get there soon enough to avoid getting drenched by the rain. I tried again today, and came up victorious!

It only took me 30 minutes to get to the top, but then I had to sit there and wait 25 minutes for some blueberry (which from now on will be spelled "bluebrry")-picking muggles to leave the area where the cache was hidden. Once they left (finally), it took me about ten minutes to locate the cache, do my happy dance, swap TB's, sign the log, and head back down to my car.

On the way up, a cacher on their way down saw my GPS and asked if I was geocaching. A muggle hiking behind me asked me about geocaching. And I could hear the bluebrry pickers make a comment about how there was a geocache somewhere nearby. The word's getting out. :)

Anyhoo, thanks for the cache!

Pictures!

Mount Monadnock from Gap Mountain.
Mount Monadnock, up close.
My log entry.
The cache container, a mortar tube.
Bluebrries are plentiful on the summit! Denied
I've been sitting pretty at #499 for a few days now (funny, because I was at #456 two weeks ago), and I went to bed early last night so I could hike up Gap Mountain this morning. That's where I want to get #500. It's not much of a mountain when compared to Mount Monadnock (where I got #250), but my options are pretty limited in Cheshire County.

But anyway, I woke up, got ready, and drove there. I hiked for a while, but then the rain came and soaked me. Unfortunately, I was still too far away from the cache/summit to continue onwards; it was shorter for me to go back to the car and try again another time. Fucking A. Maybe tomorrow.

It would have been great to have been able to get that one today, as today marks the four year anniversary in which I got my GPS and found my second cache ever. Then, since I was looking to head to Mom's anyway, I could tag a few more on the way to her house. Oh well.

My day didn't get any better when I was stood up yet again by another friend for lunch. I don't know what it is about me and the ladies I think most highly of, but they have an affinity for not showing up, then not returning my calls, and then going on with life like they didn't just fuck me over for no reason. And people wonder why I have trust issues. Ignorant assholes. At least the first (repeat) offender made amends with me. I'm curious as to how this latest clown is gonna make things better.

Nothing really planned tonight. Hopefully a third lady friend (yeah, I'm such a player) will get wasted with me, because I have a lot of venting to do. Turn on the radio
Oh my, you can listen to WBCN online now! Rumor has it that has been a reality for the last couple years, but I just found out tonight because I'm such a shut-in. This is very exciting to me, because I used to listen to this station for 12 or more hours a day, especially after college graduation but before steady employment.

The station was borderline unlistenable for a while, though, as they decided to throw in more 80's crap into the mix for a couple years. We already have a station up here like that, WGIR. I hope they got rid of most of that now. I shall see.

I don't really know what's popular in alternative rock in the last few years. Time to play "catch up." Tuesday Funnies

A pig walked into a bar and asked, "Do you serve root beer?"

The bartender said he did.

"I'd like one, please," the pig said.

After the pig had finished, he asked to use the rest room.

After the pig left, another pig came in and asked for two root beers.

This pig then asked for the rest room just like the first one had.

Two more pigs came in. One ordered three root beers and the other four.

They too used the rest room.

When a fifth pig came in, the bartender said, "Let me guess, you want five root beers."

The pig was shocked. "Why, yes. Yes, I would."

When he was done, he started to walk out. The bartender was confused.

"Don't you want to use the rest room like the other four pigs did?"

"No, I'm the fifth little piggy. I go wee-wee-wee all the way home."

I hate corniness. But since I had to read it, you should suffer, too. Problems
I can't log into my site to post new shit. What the hell. Everything's gonna be late, Tuesday Funnies be damned. :( As fast as fast can be...
... You'll never catch me!



I don't remember when the last time I reset my GPS's trip computer, but I'd love to know when it clocked me at 180 MPH. I might have hit half of that speed for a couple seconds on the highway, but hitting 180 in a Focus is something for the record books! Almost there.
I did another numbers run through Nashua, NH, today. With one more visit, I just might be able to clear out the city. Not likely, though. There are a ton there. I didn't top my record of 23, but 18 will suffice. I'm closing in on #500 really quickly now. Depending how things go tonight -- I suspect I'll be drinking or something of the sort -- I may be able to get into the mid or high 490's tomorrow. Then, I could tag #500 some time after work and still have next weekend free to do other shenanigans.

You may have noticed that I've hidden a third cache. I was required to in order to log another cache as a find.

In case you're curious about any of my caches or my coins, below are the pages for them. I don't think you need an account to view most of the details:

* Cache Across America - New Hampshire -- Concord, NH
* UPC's -- just north of Keene
* Jack of Clubs -- at the southwest end of Keene

* Max Jerome's coin #1 - A Keeper -- no one ever logs this one when they find me. :(
* Max Jerome's coin #2 - Oh Canada -- swimming with the sharks... still.
* Max Jerome's coin #3 - Going Clockwise -- so far, going in the wrong direction. Prospecting
Earlier in the week -- Thursday was it? -- I got interviewed for another job within the company I work for. I was in there for a good 45 minutes. It was supposed to be for only 30. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. At least it's better than if they sat me down for, say, a five-minute interview.

The job is essentially, "Here is all of this data we have access to. Find ways to spit out information to our needs and/or discover trends we might not be aware of." The line of work seems more in tuned with what I'm capable of doing, though admittedly, I'd fail if thrown into the seat immediately. My database and SQL skills have been unused since graduating college. I'd need some time to relearn my shit.

It's a very small department, too. A manager, some other guy, and two interns. One intern, by the way, I find incredibly hot. ;) Anyhoo, they're looking for someone on a full time basis instead of just relying on interns. Also, I don't really know if I can move up in such a small department. Nor do I know how much it pays, or what sort of hours I have to work. I should probably look into that early next week. I have a feeling it's just gonna be a lateral move.

They have more people to interview, but I should get a "yay" or "nay" some time next week. I don't really care either way. It'd be nice to be doing something different, but they recently changed my role in my current department, and I'm liking it. It's still a dead end position, mind you, but I've been known to stick it out in a dead end job if I like the people I work with. Tuesday Funnies

New Rooster

A farmer has about 500 hens, but no rooster, and he wants chicks. So, he goes down the road to the next farmer, explains his problem and asks if he has a rooster that he would sell. The other farmer says, "Yep, I've got this great rooster, named Ralph. He'll service every chicken you got, no problem."

Well, Ralph the rooster costs $3000, a lot of money, but the farmer decides he'd be worth it. So, he buys Ralph. The farmer takes Ralph home and sets him down in the barnyard, but first he gave the rooster a pep talk. "I want you to pace yourself now. You've got a lot of chickens to service here, and you cost me a lot of money." Consequently, I'll need you to do a good job. So, take your time and have some fun," the farmer said, with a chuckle.

Ralph seems to understand, so the farmer points toward the hen house and Ralph takes off like a shot.

WHAM! Ralph nails every hen in the hen house - three or four times, and the farmer is really shocked. After that, the farmer hears a commotion in the duck pen and, sure enough, Ralph is in there. Later, the farmer sees Ralph after a flock of geese down by the lake. Once again - WHAM!

He gets all the geese. By sunset he sees Ralph out in the fields chasing quail and pheasants. The farmer is distraught and worried that his expensive rooster won't even last 24 hours.

Sure enough, the farmer goes to bed and wakes up the next morning to find Ralph on his back out in the middle of the yard, mouth open, tongue hanging out and both feet sticking straight up in the air. Buzzards are circling overhead. The farmer, saddened by the loss of such a colorful and expensive animal, shakes his head and says, "Oh, Ralph, I told you to pace yourself. I tried to get you to slow down, now look what you've done to yourself."

Ralph opens one eye, nods toward the buzzards circling in the sky and says, "Shhhh! They're getting closer."

The cock of the walk. Mr. Popular
I ended up going to bed at about 2 AM, as I was invited out about ten minutes before I would have gone to bed. That ordeal lasted only an hour, but as soon as that ended, I was invited out by someone else. Whee.

Didn't wake up early enough to do Nashua today. I did a little bit here and there today, but the looming rains prevented me from doing any real numbers run. Maybe next weekend. Down in a hole.

A visit to a historic church, followed by a mystery hike. Total walk is under 2 miles.

The published waypoints will lead you to the visitor's parking lot of a historic church. Here in the church yard, you will gather information to get the coordinates for the final cache. You do not need to walk the mile-long Sabbath Trail to find the information, although you're welcome to do it if you'd like to see it.

[Paragraph explaining how to get the cache's true coordinates.]

Now you are ready to go hiking. From the church, follow the white blazes of the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway along the road to a trailhead, located at N 43° 09.666 W 072° 07.213. The beginning of the trail is shared with a driveway with "889" marked on a post. Most of you will want to drive your car, but you can walk if you'd like the extra exercise; the road walk is 0.6 mile each way. Park well off the side of Faxon Hill Rd. Please do not enter or block the driveway into which the trail turns.

July 14 Posted A Note by Max Jerome (465 found)
Got the info I needed at the posted coordinates, but I ended up getting my car stuck in the ditch when I pulled off after the "889" post.

Luckily, the first car I saw was driven by someone who lived nearby and next to a cop, so I didn't have to wait long for her to call for help and for the officer to show up and push me out of the hole.

I'll come back later for this one. I was too freaked out to try a different spot along the road to park.

Yes sir.

I aimed to clean out most of the town of Hillsboro and Washington on this glorious day, but I was snubbed on a couple. If it weren't for muggles or my inability to find the correct road, I was getting stuck in a ditch.

I really fucking lucked out on that. The ditch incident only set me back about 15 minutes.

I did find every single cache I sought out, though, for what it's worth (nine).

Tomorrow, I hope to clean out another section of Nashua. That should really put my close to #500, though I suspect my day will end prematurely. Thunderstorms are in the forecast. We'll see. I'm gonna cry.
I fell asleep shortly after 10 pm. Alcohol worked well. ;)

Unfortunately, my other neighbors' smoke alarm went off at 2:15 AM. I had to shut my bathroom and bedroom doors to try and muffle the sound while sleeping in the living room. Didn't work too well. But at least this time there were fire fighters that came at 2:45 and busted their door down, took care of what smoke was there, and had everything back to order within five minutes.

There was legitimate smoke for this one, though I have no clue what burned or how it occurred or anything. I didn't care enough to leave my apartment and find out. I'm so tired, I'd rather be engulfed by flames than put on pants and leave the building.

I can't get the goddamn fire alarm sound out of my head: beep, beep, beep, pause, repeat.

Looks like this weekend is gonna suck like that last one. Sure shaping up to be that way. :( Rescue me!
I haven't been sleeping well lately. It frequently takes me at least an hour from the time I officially go to bed to the time I actually fall asleep. And I've been waking up every day this past week at exactly 4:00 in the morning. Luckily, that would only last a few seconds before I'd fall back asleep.

Today, however, I woke up at about 3:30 in the morning and never fell back asleep. It sucked. Not until my cell phone's alarm went off signaling it was time to get ready for work that I actually dozed off. That was a fun 40 minutes. Still made it to work on time.

Needless to say, I'm fucking tired. I didn't nap after work, but I was hoping I'd be in bed by now. The problem with that is the dumbass neighbors did something and their smoke alarm went off. Not normally a big deal, but the fucking thing has been beeping for over an hour at this point, and I'm about to raise some shit. Now if only I wasn't so tired. One would think that by now, the fire department would have come or whatever and shut it off. Since they haven't, I'd like to think my neighbors would just pull the batteries from the smoke alarm in their apartment and call the landlord. It would also be great if they could shut their fucking door so I couldn't hear the beeping as loudly. I'm sure the smoke is clear by now (if there was any); shut your fucking door and give the rest of us a break from your idiocy.

This is worse than the lasagna incident. It just won't end.

I'm so tired, I wanna throw a tantrum.

Ooh, best solution ever: I'm pouring myself a stiff drink. Money problems
Is it odd that I wanna pay all of my bills for this month -- and the next month, too -- right now instead of waiting for each bill to show up in my mailbox? I know I don't really have a choice on some bills because the amount varies by month (heat, electric), but I'd like to just take the hit to my bank account all at once and then watch my account replenish quickly.

Maybe I should put my buffer to better use and invest in something, huh? :p Tuesday Funnies
A joke from my mommy:

I rear-ended a car this morning...

I knew it was going to be a REALLY bad day!

The driver got out of the other car, and he was a DWARF!

He looked up at me and said "I am NOT Happy!"

So I said, "Well, which one ARE you then?"

That's how the fight started...

In case you've been missing me, have a post.
Tuesday already? And I have to put up some funnies like it was my job or something? Cripe. Maybe later.

I realize I haven't typed much recently, but then again, my life doesn't really change much from week to week. I'll give you some highlights from the last few days, though:

* My entire weekend sucked. If people weren't canceling plans with me or standing me up (seriously), I was sucking unbelievably hard when it came to finding tupperware in the woods.

* I'm very resourceful when it comes to making dinner when I'm too lazy to replenish my food supply by going to the grocery store.

* All of my lady friends are either "ignorant assholes" and/or "manipulative twats" (you can figure out which you belong to on your own). I think one girl I'd be willing to put in the category of "sweetheart," but I doubt she knows this site exists (in other words, it isn't you).

* A full tank of gas in a Ford Focus seems to last forever.

* I think I've gotten poison ivy for the first time in my life. It's on two spots of my right forearm. It itches somewhat, but hasn't spread or done anything in days. It could be several mosquito bites, I'm not sure.

* I seem to have lost people to play frisbee with at lunch. They've turned to basketball for recreation, a sport I suck really really badly at. I am so sad. :(

* I like it when me expressing my (brutally honest) disappointment in a woman somehow gets her to ask me out for dinner.

* Horseflies really are in full force this summer. Bug spray doesn't seem to affect them, as noted before.

* My human resources rep at work found me another position I may be good for. I don't really know much about it and some of the job requirements scare me, but I suppose I should give it a shot. I'm willing to learn. Anything is better than the dead end position I have now. Hope it pays well, too.

* Transformers was a good movie, and my favorite brand of toys growing up as a kid. That shit rocks. Die cast metal toys forever!

* If the child across the hall doesn't stop blowing on her toy whistle, I'm gonna punch her right in her stupid face. Went to Bennington, VT today.
For geocaching, of course. What else am I gonna do on my day off?

Apparently, they play a little differently on the far side of Vermont. I started freaking out early in the day because I simply was not finding anything. They like to hide their caches in thick overgrowth -- bonus points for thorn bushes -- and not leave a hint of some sort. That is what I like to refer to as fucking bullshit. Since I was driving that far out, I intended to rack up an insane number of finds (like Nashua). Instead, I got reamed up the ass:

Number Found: 7
Did Not Find: 6
Scared Off By Muggles: 2
No Fucking Clue How To Get To Without Going Through Private Property: 1

I suck. Three hours of driving round trip, not to mention the drive to each cache site, for a mere seven finds? I got ripped off on that one.

I wanted to drive into New York so I can say I've cached in that state, but I didn't feel I deserved such a treat with this sort of piss poor performance.

It got really dark and really windy around 1:30 PM, so I had to end my shitty day early.

The only upside is that I scored some obsolete currency of the Taliban regime. Wicked. Tuesday Funnies
Two for Tuesday!

Communication

While attending a marriage seminar on communication, David and his wife listened to the instructor declare, "It is essential that husbands and wives know the things that are important to each other."

He addressed the man, "Can you tell me your wife's favorite flower?"

David leaned over, touched his wife's arm gently and whispered, "Pillsbury All-Purpose, isn't it?"

Yessa!

Horse Racing

A man is sitting reading his newspaper when his wife sneaks up behind him and whacks him on the head with a frying pan.

"What was that for?" he asks.

"That was for the piece of paper in your trouser pocket with the name of Mary Ellen written on it," she replies.

"Don't be silly," he says "Two weeks ago when I went to the races, Mary Ellen was the name of one of the horses I bet on."

She seems satisfied at this and apologizes.

Three days later he's again sitting in his chair reading when she nails him with an even bigger frying pan, knocking him out cold.

When he comes around, he asks, "What was that for?"

His wife said, "Your fuckin' horse called."

Pride in Hopkinton, NH
I found an interesting monument when I went playing in the woods this past Saturday: a monument to Abraham Kimball. Does such an "achievement" really warrant making a plaque for?

To be fair, you do have to do some off-roading to find this sign. Surprising that they didn't move it to the center of town. Five pars, one birdie.
Best disc golf outing for me ever.

Man Candy Mitchell? Meh, he could have played better. :)

They really cleared out most of the trees around each of the baskets. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't know if they are planning some sort of project around the course, but half of the fun of playing disc golf is trying to not hit a tree on your way to the basket. Though most of the trees cleared were along the fringe, some "fairway" trees are now missing. That might explain the better-than-typical performance of mine on the course this morning. I did make some long putts, though. That and I can throw straight with the frisbee I found. Not so much with the ones I've bought, but that free disc is fucking money. I played it every basket.

We may try another course next time. Tully Lake is all par 3's and 4's. Barre Falls is a little further, and has a 691-foot par 5. Ooph.

Afterwards, my comrade had to go to work. I went to hike in Bears Den Conservation Area. Got boned on the first two caches there, but capped the last two. Bah.