Still undefeated.
We had our 8-ball league thingie last night.

Since Brownie had the audacity to go 5-0 last week, she had to play the other team's #1 person. Turns out that this opponent has been to all sorts of billaird leagues and tournaments. She was freaking out for the entire week, and once she learned that fact last night, she wasn't able to play the game she plays. Even losing the first two games didn't seem to calm her nerves. She went 0-5 for the night -- he had the 8-ball sunk when Brown still had 4-5 balls on the table each game -- and her combined record will put her in the #4 spot next week.

I was in the #2 spot, and the guy I played against was a rusty version of Nicole's opponent. Though I went 3-2 on his ass, there really was no reason to believe that I couldn't have ended up going 1-4. The cue ball was at one end of the table, and he banked it off one of the side rails and hit the 6-ball on the opposite rail, which in turn followed the rail into the pocket. I found that to be quite scary. I knew I could have been in for a long night. Though I dominated game 1, the only reason I won two others is because the 8-ball wouldn't drop in game 2 (easy pocket for me) and he accidentally sunk the 8-ball when he still had balls on the table in game 3. He won games 4 and 5 soundly.

The other team members had the luxury to play people that had no pool experience. We won those matchups, and our combined records made us win the match 14-11.

We got our custom team billiards shirts today, too. We all chose nicknames for ourselve as well:

We are "Rack 'N' Roll Heroes."
I went with "Squirt Cobain."
Nicole is "Nikki Sticks."
Greg is "Billiard Corgan."
Antonio is "Jump Ball Jovi."
Tom is "Lob Dylan."
And should we need a substitute, there's a shirt for "Raxl Rose."

Now I just need my own cue stick.

I'll take pics and stuff of our awesomeness next week. Meteorolgy is for assholes.
Right now, there is both a frost advisory and a fire weather advisory in Keene.

How is that even possible? Tuesday Funnies

Little Red Riding Hood is skipping thru the forest road when she sees the big bad wolf crouched down behind a log.

"My, what big eyes you have, Mr. Wolf."

The wolf jumps up and runs away.

Further down the road Little Red Riding Hood sees the wolf again and this time he is crouched behind a bush.

"My what big ears you have, Mr. Wolf."

Again the wolf jumps up and runs away.

About 1/4 mile down the road Little Red Riding Hood sees the wolf again and this time he is crouched down behind a rock.

"My what big teeth you have, Mr. Wolf."

With that the wolf jumps up and screams, "Will you knock it off, I'm trying to poop!"

Yeah. 34 isn't 50, but it'll do.
It's worth noting that last year, where I found 388 caches in a year (my personal best), I had found 75 from January to May.

This year, I'm already up to 196. I found 76 just in April alone. And May isn't over yet.

I'm a fucking rock star.

But anyway, I didn't really find a hell of a lot this afternoon. Only four, to be exact. I scaled part of Mt. Ascutney to find one of them, which is the peak I intend to climb when it's time to hit the 1,000 mark. Most of the caches I had on my list today involved decent climbs, which is why I was only aiming to hit ten today, but it was pretty damn warm today and I didn't want to overexert myself.

When I took off to find the loop of caches around Ascutney, Keene was having a parade. I didn't realize it at the time. I tried to go through the center of town only to be blocked off by onlookers, so I took some side streets and came out to see people watching from both sides of Washington Street. I could hear patriotic music playing, but I couldn't see any parade floats and whatnot, so I just pulled out onto Washington Street so I could get to my destination. Looks like the head of the parade was about 200 feet back when I pulled out, so in a sense, it was me and my Ford Focus that led the parade down the street. I rule. Tuckered out
My dream to hit 50 caches this long weekend came to an abrupt halt when I couldn't find more than ten today. I only tried for 13. I called it quits early today because I think I got worn down from my woodland adventures from the day before. Also, there was a grouping of nine caches that I expected I could blow right through, but completing most of them (couldn't find one of them) took about 1 1/2 hours longer than I originally planned. No sense in killing myself today when I have some hiking to do tomorrow. I should sleep well tonight.

The caches today were in Rowe, MA. It's a beautiful area with lots of scenic views and trees and whatnot, but the town doesn't appear to be populated by hicks. I may visit again soon just because I can. Caching Westward
Looking back at my old posts to see what I've done the last few Memorial Days, I'm surprised to learn that I never really made any real geocaching run during those long weekends. In 2005, I ate and passed out. In 2006, I put together some sort of run, but a run of seven ain't shit compared to the numbers I put up nowadays. And in 2007, I worked my last shift at my old job. Hmm.

This weekend, I'm aiming to find 50 caches: 20 today, 20 tomorrow, and 10 on Monday. Gas prices be damned.

Also, I'm not going to shave. It's gonna hurt like hell when Tuesday morning rolls around and I have four days' worth of hair to remove, but that's ok. I don't like shaving. I have no interest in growing anything, though, so I'm kinda damned either way. Boo.

Anyway, I did find 20 today, most of which were in Tibbit's Forest in Hoosick, NY.

There's not much to say about the day's work, though. Cemetary caches proved to be a little harder because people were visiting them (go figure). It also felt like it was National Yard Sale Day or something, so I couldn't find any urban ones anywhere today. But still, finding 20 woodland caches is still quite the feat in my opinion.

New York can be crossed off the list now. Next time I cache in New York, I'd like to do so in Troy and see how things are at good ol' RPI. Haven't been there since graduation. Total Pwnage
We had our first 8-ball billiards league match last night. After an introduction by the league commissioner and a quick captains' meeting about the rules (I'm captain), we got to play our games against the Crusaders of the Mushroom Kingdom.

The league is set up such that each player will play the same player five times. Each team has five players. So there are 25 games. The team that wins 13 or more wins the match. It appeared the Crusaders set their roster up such that their best player was in position #1, and it went down the roster to their worst player in position #5. Though it wasn't intentional on our part, our worst player wanted to be in the #1 spot (thereby playing five games against their best player), and our second worst (fourth best?) wanted to be #2. Brown was in the fourth spot, and though I'm arguably the best player on the team, I ended up being in position #5.

Because of these mismatches, we trounced them pretty badly, 16-9. I went 4-1, losing that one game because I sank the 8-ball out of turn. Whoops. Nicole went undefeated. Our rigorous pool playing at the bar on Friday nights really paid off. Tom, who decided to be #1 when he plays like a #5, went 0-5. Heh.

In the future, I don't think we will be able to choose what position we play in, because they'll be based on our individual records. Nicole's gonna shit if she has to play in the #1 spot. The #1 player on the Crusaders team was pretty damn good. I'm curious how the next team's #1 guy looks. To be fair, you can only improve your game by playing better players. But we really want to win, too. :D

The league tables are much bigger than what we practice on. I actually needed to use the bridge a couple of times. The felt on the tables seemed almost frictionless. A very light tap on the cue ball will still send the object ball sailing from one end of the table to the other and back again. It takes a lot of getting used to. My practice games were horrible. If I didn't play in the #5 spot, I could have been in a lot of trouble. :p Rule # 9 - Tears and laughter are both welcome.
I want to attend a cuddle party.

That's all I have to say. Tuesday Funnies

An old lady dies and goes to heaven. She's chatting it up with St. Peter at the Pearly Gates when all of a sudden she hears the most awful, blood curdling screams.

"Don't worry about that," says St. Peter, "It's only someone having the holes put into her shoulder blades for the wings."

The old lady looks a little uncomfortable but carries on with the conversation. Ten minutes later, there are more blood curdling screams.

"Oh my God," says the old lady, "Now what is happening?"

"Not to worry," says St. Peter, "She's just having her head drilled to fit the halo."

"I can't do this," says the old lady, "I'm going to hell."

"You can't go there," says St. Peter. "You'll be raped and taken advantage of."

"Maybe so," says the old lady, "but I've already got the holes for that."

Diminishing returns
I'm a little annoyed with my place of employment.

I had my formal review today. It's been three years last Friday. Normally, I don't think much of the formal review process, as nothing said in such things ever comes to a shock to me. I'm good at A, B, and C. I suck at D, E, and F. Go figure. However, I am somewhat pissed about a couple things this time around.

Because I declined the coordinator position, that means I "don't seize opportunities" and I "lack drive." I can understand the lack of ambition thing about myself, but I don't showcase that side of me at work, so to see that come up in my review kinda pissed me off. And what they call an "opportunity" I refer to as a "pay cut." I did what I felt was best for me, and I don't regret the decision that I made. Managment didn't like it. All of my peers, though, were happy that I stood up for myself.

Part of the review stated that I'm now wowing management anymore. What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don't feel I have to fucking prove myself. I'm very good at what I do, and I'll go so far to say that I'm the best at certain aspects of my job. People come to me with a lot of their buying questions and concerns. If I'm so unimpressive, why was I given first dibs at the management job?

I "don't ask for additional responsibilities." Half of the people in my department are bored and could use additional work. It feels fruitless for me to ask management for more to do when no one is overburdened with work. I'd much rather help out a busy peer (which I always do) than to bother management with such trivial things. It's not like taking on additional responsibilities will help me out in the future, either. I was their #1 candidate for their vacated coordinator position, after all.

I think I could probably have dealt with all of this criticism if I considered my raise to be adequate. But it wasn't. My raise each year has been a little bit less each time. I really find it hard to believe that I did so much better in my first year than the two years that followed. Also, I know how much of a raise some people have gotten, and I'm pissed that my raise is a nickel more than some of those who aren't even pulling half of their weight to begin with.

I really feel that because I didn't take their "promotion," they are bitter about it and now I gotta start all over again like I'm a new hire. But at least I now make slightly more yearly (with my normal amount of overtime) than if I took that coordinator job. Ha! Burned.
My caching day was wasted because of a headlight burning out. I told Brownie about it last night, and since she was going to her mechanic (who likes word-of-mouth referrals) today, I could follow her there and he'd fix my bulb for me if I picked up the part. Vikki volunteered to help me out, too, but I pretty much went with whoever would contact me first this morning. Turned out to have been Brown.

She had to get new tires, so she went to Tire Warehouse while I picked up a bulb at Autozone. Then, I met her at Tire Warehouse, where it would turn out that she'd have to wait 1 1/2 hours to get her tires put on. Instead of doing that, I brought her to her parents' house and her dad replaced the bulb for me. Turns out that it's a procedure that took about two minutes and doesn't require any tools. :p That's friggin' hot. Makes me wonder how much a mechanic would have charged me to do.

Me and Brown ended up spending most of the day at their house watching trees be cut down and toppled over. Her parents own about an acre of land, but like 3/4th's of it was covered with trees. Because the sun couldn't get through, their driveway was always icy in the winter and they would still have snow for most of April. So in exchange for the wood collected, a few dudes with chainsaws, a logging truck, and a bulldozer were knocking shit down left and right all day. It was kinda fun to watch. Scored a free lunch on top of it. Woo. :)

It was sunny all day, though, and I didn't plan accordingly. Weather.com told me it was gonna be drizzly. Too bad their wasn't a single damn cloud in the sky. And because I was outdoors for hours on end, I got quite the nice sunburn going on now. My face is fucking toast, as well as the back of my neck and my forearms. I expect I'll be feeling that for at least a week. I don't remember the last time I got this cooked.

We spent the evening hours playing pool and Rock Band. The league is starting next week, and we need all of the practice we can get!

I gotta get some aloe now. I need my Wallflowers CD.

May 16 by Max Jerome (822 found)
Was heading back down I-91 with [Vikki] and her son and I wanted to introduce them to the world of geocaching. So we pulled into the area and did some hunting. I found the cache quickly, but I let them each find the cache on their own. It didn't take long for either of them. :) Signed the log, left some loose change, and took the little ladybug thing that was in the container as a memento of their first caching experience. They enjoyed it. I hope they're hooked. :) Thanks!

Supposedly, she may want to go out again this weekend and find some containers in or around Keene. Nice.

I was going to go out tomorrow morning to Hoosick, NY to find tupperware and to cross New York from the list, but I burned out a headlight on the way back to Keene late last night, and I'm obsessed with getting it fixed and not getting pulled over. Damnit.

Sunday is a little hairy, too. Though I was hoping to get a nice numbers run this weekend, I think I'm going to have to wait until next weekend and have one hell of a Memorial Day marathon. Maybe I can get company. :D Happy birthday eve, Sean!
swhorfe's birthday is tomorrow, but we celebrated it today at work because he's taking tomorrow off. For birthdays, our department gets that person a card and cake. Normally, I write something witty in each card, but in swhorfe's case, I just wrote down a set of coordinates. I decided to hide my message somewhere on work property for him to find with his GPS. You know, like it was a geocache or something. Go figure. He does keep his GPS on him at all times. :)

After cake eating and card reading time, we went outside to go find it. Tony and Brown were with us, breaking their cherries. I gave Brown my GPS and let her figure out which way to go on her own.

All I did was write a message on a piece of duct tape and slap it to the concrete base of a parking lot light post. It was in plain view. While following where the GPS's took them, Brown stopped at the light post while Tony and Sean kept walking on like fools because they assumed it was on a bridge another 400 feet away. You know, because they're noobs. Brown didn't know what the hell she was looking for, though, and so couldn't spoil the FTF opportunity for Sean. But even when Sean got to the light post, he didn't inspect it right away, opting to look through the high wet grass and nearby flooded grassy area in hopes of finding something. Dude. What the hell. The fucking light post is the only landmark in a 100-foot radius, and he's rummaging through grass blades? Sigh. For someone who has found 60+ of these things, he's not very bright. I can understand Brown and Tony looking like fools, but I would have though Sean would have been a little smarter.

It took a lot longer than it should have, but Sean eventually found the duct taped message. It read, "Happy Birthday, Shitdick. Now go fuck yourself." Supposedly, he's gonna hang it up in his cubicle somewhere, which is a little unwise, seeing how I didn't think it was appropriate to write in his birthday card that still had to be signed by our superiors. Ha.

That's all I got.

Tomorrow's Vikki's turn to lose her geocaching cherry. She doesn't know it yet, but since we have a road trip of sorts planned and I'm the one driving, I'm gonna make a stop or two. :) Tuesday Funnies

Speeding Ticket

While she was "flying" down the road yesterday, a woman passed over a bridge only to find a cop with a radar gun on the other side lying in wait.

The cop pulled her over, walked up to the car, with that classic patronizing smirk we all know and love, asked, "What's your hurry?"

To which she replied, "I'm late for work."

"Oh yeah," said the cop, "what do you do?"

"I'm a rectum stretcher," she responded.

The cop stammered, "A what? A rectum stretcher? And just what does a rectum stretcher do?"

"Well," she said, "I start by inserting one finger, then work my way up to two fingers, then three, then four, then with my whole hand in. I work from side to side until I can get both hands in, and then I slowly but surely stretch it, until it's about six feet wide."

"And just what the hell do you do with a 6 foot asshole?" he asked.

"You give him a radar gun and park him behind a bridge."

... and then wait for him to search you and your car for not making any harassing long distance phone calls to some twat working at a bank. Epic failure
I found ten caches in Manchester today. I may have found 11, but I'm not sure if one of them was in fact a cache or a weird abomination. There's wasn't a log to sign. I emailed the owner to confirm if that was supposed to be the cache or not. No response yet. So we'll see.

I guess 10 or 11 can be considered good to many, but then once you factor the stats below, I had a very bad outing:

* I couldn't find 10 caches because there was way too many people walking around on this gorgeous day. The bike paths were impossible.
* I couldn't find five other caches. Simple as that.
* I couldn't find two other caches because I'm almost positive they don't exist anymore.

So that's, at best, 11 finds with 17 DNF's. 39% success rate. That's completely unacceptable for me.

Factoring fuel costs, it cost me more than $1 per cache I found. Ick. Not remotely cool. But what else was I going to today? :p

I would have faired a hell of a lot better if it rained like it was supposed to last night and this morning. That would have kept the muggles indoors and the bike paths free for me to explore and look suspicious on. Instead, it was perfectly sunny, and everyone was out enjoying the weather. Damnit. Selling the Drama
Not much of a surprise here, but I went boozing with Brown and others last night. Played some pool. Brown broke the drum pedal on the Rock Band drums, though she'll deny it. :) Got the microphone to work, though! I just stuck to being the bassist. I even upped my game and played on medium difficulty. Still did well. It was only the second time I've ever played this game, too. Eh!

But anyway, we eventually had enough alcohol in us to feel to bash... er, provide "constructive criticism" to one another. I am "indecisive to the point that it's annoying." That's hilarious. I know other people that feel the same about me (right Chris?). The truth is, yeah, I do that, but my level of indecisiveness depends on how important the issue is. Which colleges to apply for and which one to go to, for example, took a matter of seconds to come to a conclusion on. Being asked something fairly meaningless, however (like "what are we doing for dinner?"), I can't come to a decision on because it really doesn't make a bit of difference later down the road.

It's a double-edged sword to her, though. Because I'm willing to do whatever, she and I do all sorts of things and go to all sorts of local events. No one ever wants to go with her, and I look at it as something that will get me out of my apartment for a couple hours, so it works out nicely. What others refer as my indecisiveness I like to refer to as being very adaptive. :)

Though I'm not sure if this was another bash... er, piece of constructive criticism, I "don't ever do anything wrong." No shit. I'm a perfectionist. I have plenty of flaws, though. I just hide them very well.

Yeah.

In case you're wondering what "criticism" I gave her, I said that she creates almost all of her own problems and drama. Also, she constantly needs attention. Sometimes, her desire to be paid attention to is such that she will create her own problems just to get attention. It's a vicious cycle. Kind of a no-brainer to those that know her, including herself.

Brutal honesty is fun. Fun at the expense of others
In regards to the placement of a horrible series of caches in Brattleboro:

Local cacher: this guy seems to be playing a different game than the rest
Me: i like how' he's kinda mocking those that [can't find] #12
Local cacher: if two 1000+ people can't find it, and a solid local guy. c'mon.
Local cacher: i'm more annoyed that he put one of them like right outside of a busy store, and didn't give some reference to that in the page. would have been helpful to know that when planning, haha
Me: his hints are incredibly useful [sarcasm]
Local cacher: you can only pretend to be on a phone and poking logs with your feet so long before someone's going to get suspicious. and it's nice to know that his coordinates can be terribly inaccurate too.
Me: yeah, heh
Local cacher: 'I know, I'll hide the smallest micro possible, give no hint, a 100ft radius coordinate and put it in a high traffic area!'
Me: i almost want to find them just to [steal or destroy] them
Local cacher: i don't think he placed them.
Local cacher: i think it's just all an elaborate ruse.
Local cacher: Or keep filling them with water so he has to replace them
Me: to feed his sick addiction of watching people walk in circles
Local cacher: probably a webcam over all of them so he can jerk off to the people getting frustrated
Me: lol

In regards to this mountainside cache I did in the snow:

Local cacher: considering the terrain i'm really shocked i found it as easily as i did
Local cacher: but yeah. that would pretty much be a mortal kombat style fatality if you slipped
Me: indeed
Me: was it still all snowy and stuff when you went?
Local cacher: nah, beautiful out
Local cacher: you're suicidal for trying that in ice/snow
Me: yeah, pretty much :)
Local cacher: so's swfwhorfe or whatever his name is for doing it in work shoes and stuff, haha
Me: yeah, he's a such a dork
Me: serves him right
Local cacher: haha

Still alive.
Haven't written much as of late. I've actually been quite busy, but everything has paled in comparison to my wonderful Rhode Island experiences, that I didn't feel they were worth writing about. So I guess I can write this broad post about my happenings:

I'm trying to rush to 1,000 caches as soon as possible. Gas is getting ridiculous, and I think the amount of weekend driving I'll be doing will drop drastically once I find a combination of 191 more tupperware containers in the woods and keyholder contraptions hiding on the back side of guard rails. Found 28 on my RI trip, and eight last week in the Windsor, VT area. This coming Saturday will bring me to Manchester, a city I never visit. I don't know my way around at all. I don't remember the last time I was there. But anyway, I planned to go with swhorfe, but unsurprisingly, he bailed on me. I was hoping to split gas costs and whatnot with him, but I'm going anyway just to feed my stupid addiction. I really need to get Vikki and/or Nicole on board with this as soon as possible. :p

Interestingly enough, a fairly new geocacher in Keene has made contact with me. Tips and stories are exchanged, as well as our mutual hatred for the placement of pathetic excuses for geocaches in the Bratt area. There are a lot for me still to find in Bratt, but Bratt geocaching sucks a lot of balls. They lack originality, scenic views, and any thought to place.

I've been looking into credit cards that provide cash back rewards for gas and other automotive expenditures. Anything to cut my travel costs. That got me wondering what my credit score actually is. I somehow found Citi's Identity Monitor program. They give a free 30-day trial and access to all three major credit reports. The only way to cancel your account is by calling them, though, so I was on the phone for 15 minutes listening to this dude's multiple sales pitches before he would close my account for me. Fun times. But at least I know my scores now.

Golf season is here. I need to get my shit out of storage (aka my mother's house). I'm not really that psyched about it. It's not a particularly cheap sport to enjoy, and it's disappointing that we can only get a group together and ready to go like twice a summer. Something always come up. So whatever.

Still waiting for the billiards league to take off. We have four full teams as of today. We probably need a minimum of six to make things a little interesting.

Nicole and I went all over Keene looking for our own decent cue sticks earlier this week. The cue sticks at the bar we frequent are kinda shitty, and it'd be nice to have one for the league (which is held at a different bar) if it gets off the ground. We didn't find anything worth buying yet, though.

Mother's internet wasn't working, and I couldn't fix it over the phone. I drove up there, fucked with the router for about a minute, and the internet worked again. Almost worth the hour I'd spend on the road, huh? I scored a dinner out of it, so it ain't all bad.

Mom's walking fine now.

My brother-in-law turned 40 this week, and we went to this Mexican place this past weekend to celebrate. They carded me when I ordered a Corona. Whee.

The Last King of Scotland was an alright flick. Scully's in it!

That's all I got. Happy Birthday, Nicole!
I figure it's only fair to mention it since she gets frequent mentions on this here site. 24 years young! Tuesday Funnies

In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University.

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense mom ents. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed his stupid ass against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

This is for all of my friends who send me those heart-warming stories.

Time to hustle
They are starting a billiards league (8-ball) at my place of work. Of course, Brownie and I were all over that. We managed to get another coworker interested pretty quickly, and found our remaining two people of our five-player roster through mass emails. :p And I'm captain! Which really means nothing.

Then, we started discussing potential names for our team. Clearly, the name to go with is "Balls Deep," and though it was popular with most of the crew, it didn't win out in the end. Other names other people have come up with included:

Felt Cowboys
On Cue
Knockin' Ivory
Nice Rack
Pocket Posse
Balls to the Wall
Balls of Fury
Crazy Eights
Shot Callers
We Don't Need No Stinkin' Bridges
The Cleaning Crew
Turning the Tables
Scratchless
8 Balls and a Pocket (think about it: four guys, one gal)
Actually, We Let You Win
Chalk Talks
Run of the Table
Ball Hoppers
Bad English
Too Hard
Hit It Too Hard
Bankshot Robbers
Version 8.Ball
So Glad We Aren't Working
Titanic Balls (a reference to them sinking, not size)

We ended up going with "Rack N Roll Heroes." Whether each of us will use a clever nickname (like "Axl Cues" or "Massé Hendrix") is still to be determined. I'd rather not. Unless Squirt Cobain works. I don't consider grunge to fall under the traditional rock and roll umbrella.

So yeah. Once they get at least eight teams of five, play will begin on Wednesday nights. We're the only complete team thus far.

We're probably going to rock in style with team shirts. Brown and I are debating on getting our own cuesticks at Dick's or something. We'll see.