More caching photos

This little guy watched me for a minute while looking for Fisherman's Park on the Brewer waterfront. I didn't come up with the cache but watching him for a couple minutes made that ok.
Friday night, Wendy and I went to Orono again to try and get more caches that we both needed to wrap up the town. Again, we didn't get them all because of how quickly it got dark but that didn't stop us from getting one more that neither of us had. There was one spot that had two caches close by, one that I didn't have as well one that Wendy didn't have. When we parked, I tried to get as close to these two as I could but it was hard to stand still and get a good photo.
I hadn't even seen the second until I heard the snort sound deer make when they mad at you for invading their space. After they took off, we both grabbed the caches we needed and headed to one more spot to try and grab two that were on the same trail system as we were at on Thursday night. It was already dark when heading out so it was kind of difficult to find the right little trail that would have led us directly to the cache. We ended up finding the right trail but not without a quick little bushwhack. After grabbing the cache which was in great condition, we got on the wrong trail at first and had to backtrack to a waypoint I had marked when we first had left the trail. Had I not marked that waypoint, it would have been much more difficult to get out. It's pretty hard to navigate unfamiliar woods when your vision is limited to a 5foot swath of light at a time. Upon getting back to the car finally, I decided we had to stop at one more cache that Wendy needed to log as it's been on her aggrivating cache list for too long. This week I hope to clear a few of my own that have been there for just too long. We'll see as it's kind of a short week for me ability wise.

Caching Night

Went out to do some caches last night with Wendy to try and clear up all the undone ones in Orono. I ended up getting 7 but because we had different maps due to different trips, I don't think the trip was as productive as it could have been for Wendy. Hopefully, if we go together again, it will be just as productive for both of us. We wasted too much time going for one particular cache called The Holy Grail of Caches, not realizing that we would have needed a boat to get at it. I guess you can only expect so much when you go out with the caches loaded but not taking the time to read each cache page for info before you go. After we got a few of the easy ones that I hadn't done but Wendy had, we got into doing a couple that neither of us had been to. At one called Freecycle2, we got to the cache and while we were signing the log, a deer came into the woods maybe 30 feet from us and barely paid any attention to us. We replaced the cache and followed the doe out to the road. She just kind of stood there watching for a second but the minute I went to the car to get the camera, off she went. It figures. It was dark and I'm sure the flash would have scared the heck out of her anyway.
The next cache we went to was called A Light at Night. Sure enough, it was near a light post on someones woodsy driveway. We spent about 20 minutes looking for it and finally looking up the cache listing for a little help. The hint had us looking in the right area but it was someones previous log that finally helped us out.
By this time it was just after 8 and we knew some other cachers were going out to get a night time cache nearby. Originally, we thought it would be fun to go out and be at the cache location waiting to scare them. Instead, because we were late, we drove out and just kind of waited on a bench at the trail head for them to come out. Finally after about 30 minutes, they came out, I greeted them with some stupid animal sounds from my cell phone and they spotted us. We introduced ourselves by caching names and ended up standing there talking for almost a good 2 hours. It was fun to share some stories and just talk about caching and stuff that goes on on the websites. After that, I can't wait for the next two events to get out and really spend some time talking to the other cachers. You can learn a great amount from so many people. Some have technical knowledge, while others have street smarts in regards to where to go and how to get there.

Moving along slowly

I got the chopper hung yesterday but I'm not sure that once I get the Sprit of St Louis done that the fishing line will be able to hold that as well. The problem is that there just isn't anything in the wall for the pins holding the line to bite into. It's good for now.
Got some of the engine done today and some of the nose. Tomorrow should be another productive day. Today I wasted a lot of time looking for Maine bloggers to read while waiting for parts I had just glued to dry. Problem was, some of the blogs were interesting enough where I started reading and forgot about the plane. Oh well.

Progress or Lack There Of

As predicted, not much progress yesterday. I only made it through 13 parts but that completed another page of instructions. Today should be more productive as I don't have to leave for any appointments or anything.

Random Stuff

This started out as nothing more than a motorcyle art scuplture type tree. I'm not sure if someone intentionally planted a tree in the middle of the whole mess but as it grows, it's slowly going to eat up the motorcycles. Its doing pretty well right now and this is as least 15 years into it. I remember thinking before the tree was there that the sculpture was odd looking. God help the bastard 100 years from now who goes to cut this tree down for some reason as the bikes will surely be invisible by then.



Only in Maine...

New project

I started a new project. After getting everything but the landing gear done on my chopper, I started on the Spirit of St. Louis plane. Day 1 used up 39 of 177 parts and appears right now to have eaten up the rear of the plane. Suprisingly, this was quite simple and the directions for this part made things pretty easy. Can't imagine it being that way once we get nearer to the front. I don't think today will be as productive but it's not about rushing through it. More to come...

Train Ride

I needed to get away for a few days this past week with all thats going on so I took the kids to may parents house for some quality time. As soon as we got there, Cooper had to pee and in getting him to run to the bathroom, I found that I had stepped on a freaking toad that one of the cats had brought in through the pet door. Cats stink. Luckily I had just barely gotten him or the mess would have been a heck of a lot worse. In coming up with something for us to do to pass time with some fun, my mom suggested we take a ride on the train that runs from Rockland to Brunswick. She had taken my brothers daughters on a portion of the ride from Wiscasset to Brunswick and back said it was fun for the kids so we decided to go for it. While waiting for the train, we threw out a bag of stale crackers to the skyrats (seagulls) and Cooper had fun throwing them out one at a time and watching the birds fight over each cracker. Once that was done, we still had to wait as the train wasn't on schedule and ended up being about 30 minutes behind. As waiting got boring, I decided to show Cooper a few fun things to do. We put our hands on the track to feel if the train was coming...(Stand By Me)We laid out some pennies to be crushed so we could pick them up after the return trip (fully aware that defacing money is illegal but who hasn't tried it?) Finally, the train showed up and we were ready to head out... We moved from car to car to car stopping in some to sit, stopping in the club car to have a snack, and even went back as far as the end of the train to watch where we'd been as you couldn't really see ahead as to where we were going.



The ride just from Wiscasset to downtown Brunswick was about a two hour round trip and we had fun. Some day we'll take the full day and start in Rockland so we can ride the full length. I think Cooper would enjoy that even more.

I like the wooshing on these ones. We were really only going about 20mph but kind of looks like we were on a high speed bullet train or something.
Once we got back to Wiscasset, we found our pennies right where we had left them, only now they were squished. Fun...

Caching and Bugs

Went for a couple of caches last night as I really had nothing else do to. I headed up to Orono to try and clear off a few that I had been near before or started but didn't get a chance to finish. The first one I went to was a multi stage cache called Stacked on Stillwater.
I had started this one before but not finished it and lost my coords for the following stage. Upon revisiting it, I found that the brick that has the coords for the next stage is missing so I couldn't do it and had to move on to something else. I decided to go a little further to Old Town. I walked out on a trail for a cache called Old Town in a Nut Shell and found that one rather quickly. Looking at the GPS, there was another cache about a quarter mile further down the trail. As I preceeded down the trail I was mostly looking to my right as I followed the river and only randomly glancing off to the left up into the woods. One of my leftward glances ended up scaring the crap out of me as I was right next to a very large bees nest. I quickly backed up as it wasn't quite late enough for them to be dormant and they were the nasty yellow jackets, not your plain old honey bees. I was caching alone and no one knew where I exactly I was so I didn't want to mess with going past the nest and having to come back later possibly forgetting where it was.

Because I absolutely hate bees or really any bugs with stingers, pinchers, or to many eyes and antennae than anyone one being should have, I wanted to destroy the nest. My first thought was pick up a rock and heave it at the nest and then run like hell but my second thought was a vision of McCauley Caulkin in the movie My Girl doing the exact same thing and dying because of it. Not fun, because again, no one really knew exactly where I was. I got my camera ready to start taking some pictures when my phone started playing the Transformers sound I have as my message ringtone. Aaaggh...What if they are decepticons and the sound will alert them and send them after me! Sent back "Shhhh. You'll wake them..." half kiddingly..
Being to worried about the nastys coming after me, I turned and went for another cache. I drove to the Bradley side of the river and grabbed a cache called Sandy's Got a Point. It was 8:30 and getting pretty dark so I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get this one either. I headed off into a small stand of woods above the river getting a few spider webs in the face as I went along, I spotted the cache at the base of a tree. Had a hard time not spotting it as it was a huge Tidy Cat litter bucket. Even though it was dark and painted camo, the shape was easy to spot. Time to head home.
Getting back to the apartment, Wendy had the Stephen King movie "The Mist" on. Jesus...more big bugs tearing into people. Luckily this was prior to the caching as had I seen this first, I wouldn't have gone.

Camera Play

Still learning to play with the new camera...

This one isn't as cool looking unless you click the photo to open it to blow it up a bit. If you really zoom it, its kind of gross looking.

Coopers Birthday Night

Yesterday Cooper turned 4. I don't think he really realized it because his party isn't until today. We started the day out with a trip to Toys R Us to try and get him something he wanted for his present. For some reason though, all the things he's said he wanted in the past, he didn't care to have at all. We made it down two isles and he said he had to poop. Knowing that he has a hard time pooping without his potty seat and that we didn't have one with us, we turned right around and headed for home. After 15 minutes on the potty at home he said he didn't have to poop. ARGH! We headed back to Toys R Us and picked up where we left off. We looked at scooters and I put a Transformers one in the cart when he wasn't paying attention. Later he saw it and said "Why is this in the cart? I don't want this." Back on the shelf it went and we looked at pogo sticks. No interest even though for months he said he wanted one. Oh well, after spending the rest of the time pushing every noise making button on every toy in the store, we headed out empty handed. Time to go to Walmart and get some goodie bag stuff and maybe find a present there. After shopping there, he couldn't come up with anything so I snuck some larger and smaller Transformers toys in to the cart along with stuff to give out and headed out. We hung around at home with the inlaws and the kids played with a slip and slide for a while to try and beat the heat. It ended up turning into a big water fight with cups and everyone was cooled off a bit.
For the evening, we had a trip to Blackbeards planned. We kind of kept what we were going to do as a secret until we actually pulled into the parking lot so he didn't really know what to expect. When he got there the first thing he saw was the go karts. He still didn't know that we were going to go on one until we went in and bought the tickets. Walking out to the track and telling him we were going to go on them, like most, all he was concerned with was which "Cars" car we were going in. We got into a light blue one with the number 43 so it was obviously the Dynaco "King" car.
Unfortunately, the first time we went, we were the only ones out on the track at the time so we didn't have anyone to race with but he had an awesome time anyway. We did like 5 laps then the white flag came out to let us know it was the final lap. We came around the final bend and instead of going into the pits to park the car, the guy working there had us pull up, he gave Cooper the checkered flag and we got to do a victory lap. After the carts he couldn't wait to get out and run to mom to tell her how aweseome it was and that he wanted to go. There were lots of "Did you see us" statements...lol.
After the carts came time to hit the links to see what he could do. We got our putters and headed off to the practice green to see what this was going to be like. I kind of had an idea as he's still a little young but I wasn't sure. After playing around there for a minute or two, we went to the first whole. Off he went swinging and missing until he connected and the ball shot down the first hole. The rest of the time was hockey/polo style to keep the ball moving until he got his ball in. Then, Meredith took her first shot and that was basically all she got. Cooper needed to help her get her ball in so she didn't really get to go again. This was the way for each hole. We pretty much got one shot at the hole, then it was up to Coop to finish the holes for us.
Cosmo was there too but he didn't have much to say. He just kind of looked around and soaked up the sites.
No pictures for the second round of carts but we went on at the same time as a group of party looking guys. I was a little worried because I didn't want Cooper to get involved in really serious racing but at the same time, glad we had someone to actually race against. We took the red "McQueen" car this time and started off behind two other cars in our row and a couple of singles cars on the right. We started off in fourth with a guy in a double car who edged us out at the start. We were on his ass the whole time and in several corners, regardless of the no bumping stickers clearly marked on the cars, kept nudging him to the point where he would almost be sideways. We had a little faster car then him but didn't really have the oompf to fully take him in a corner. Finally, in effort to try and take the set of s turns faster, I took the first corner wide, then undercut him on the inside. We stayed ahead of him for the rest and just had two others infront of us that were uncatchable due to the bumping we did to get past that one car. Regardless, because Cooper was the only child out there, after the white flag lap, we got the checkered flag and got to do a victory lap. Cooper had a blast and didn't want to leave but Cosmo was out and it was time to go.

Bird Modification

A fellow walks into a pet store and asks to buy a canary. The proprietor replies, "I'm fresh out, but I DO have a parakeet." The customer insists on a canary, until the shop owner informs him that a parakeet can be made to sound like a canary if one files the beak just so. "But be careful not to file too much off, or the parakeet will drown when he goes to take a drink of water." The potential customer decides that this is complete bullshit, but thanks the shop owner politely and leaves, sans parakeet.

He goes into another pet shop and asks for a canary -- no luck. "But", says the shop owner, "I do have a parakeet, and if you file the beak just so, it can be made to sound just like a canary." He goes on to explain that filing off too much beak will jeopardize the bird's life, due to the potential for drowning when he takes a drink. The fellow finally decides that there is some merit to these claims and buys the parakeet. "Besides", he thinks to himself, "parakeets are much cheaper."

His next stop is a hardware store, where he wanders into the file section, holding his recently purchased bird. The owner wanders by and asks of he needs some help. The new bird owner sheepishly explains how he intends to make his parakeet sing like a canary.

The hardware store owner knowingly picks up a file and hands it to him. "Here, a Nichols #2 bastard file. But be careful not to file too much off, or the poor beastie might drown." The bird and file owner thanks the hardware store owner and leaves for home.

A few weeks later, the bird owner wanders into the hardware store. The owner, recognizing him, asks how he made out with the parakeet. The fellow looks down and sadly reports "Bird's dead".

The hardware store owner shares his sorrow and asks "Filed off too much beak?"

To which the former bird owner replies "Nah, he was dead when I took him out of the vise."

Wings or a Heart Attack?

Tall boy today.

Went with the 16oz today instead of the 8oz from the machine. Maybe I can seizure my way out of training for the day...

Jammin