Category Archives: Geocaching

Going to Colorado

SuperPizzaBoy and I are flying to Colorado Friday. We are going to participate in the celebration of niece Jillian’s graduation from Colorado State University. Jillian is one smart cookie and she has worked pretty darn hard to get where she is. She is a champion horse judge and has won a bunch of awards doing it. We are mighty proud of her. She is going to slapping her dorky old uncle around because the photograph doesn’t do her justice.

So we get prepared. Clothes, camera, etc. Most important is I downloaded 500 geocaches into my two GPS receivers. It’s just not prudent to go out of state without at least one backup GPSr. I just hope that my sister Ellen doesn’t get too mad at me. She should understand, she’s geocacher, so is her husband Irvin. For that matter I think Jillian is also.

Hmm…. I guess this might run in families.

Road Trip – Kansas

Last Thursday coworker Dave and I went on a road trip to Kansas. We needed to talk to some of our field guys up there plus go to an energy industry meeting. I love going to Kansas. It is very scenic (yep, I think so, really), and the residents take great pride in their state. Regulatory wise in my industry it is a little more restrictive than what I’m used to so sometimes I irritate our Kansas based employees by calling it “The Peoples Republic of Kansas.” But I’m just kidding, they know that.

Dave and I each had new navigation systems. Same manufacturer, different models. We had to check them out so we used both. Let me tell you, you don’t want to go to Kansas without a backup GPS.

We took the back roads. We went through Sharon, Kansas. Home of Martine Mcbride. We happened to run into her. She let us take her picture. Very pretty lady with a great voice. Still runs around the praire barefoot.

We also went through Medicine Lodge, Kansas. Home of Carrie A. Nation. She’s deceased so we didn’t see her. At the cocktail party we went to that night though I led several toasts to her memory.

You know, if she took those glasses off and set that hatchet down she wouldn’t look that bad.

Spent the night in Pratt, Kansas very neat tidy midwestern town. Brick streets, all that good stuff. They have their Miss Kansas pageant there. Several have won the Miss America pageant. I don’t think Carrie would have won. Smashing whiskey bottles isn’t much of a talent, and the bathing suit segment would have been a problem for her.

After our meetings, dinner, and cocktail party I went geocaching. There a couple dozen caches in Pratt. I did not find a one. Made a bad decision on the route to them (I walked) by the time I got in the vicinity it was way dark. I had a great walk though. About seven miles all told. Most of it was out in the country.
Sweetie doesn’t like it when I going exploring on foot, especially late at night. But I see great stuff that I wouldn’t see sitting in a motel room. Like this sunset.

Or this house. Sorry for the blurriness. I didn’t have a tripod.

Pratt has a park called Lemon Park. Great lighted walking trails that meander all over the place. 10 PM and there were all sorts of people walking their dogs and walking together, I loved it. Not a hint of the creep factor that one sees sometimes in parks late at night.

Next day, time to head back to T town. Dave and I loaded up on Fat Tire Beer. (I mean we bought a couple cases of it, not go on a drinking binge.) Cannot get it in Oklahoma because of our strange liquor laws.

Garmin nuvi 500 and Geocaching

I had a birthday recently and in addition to cake, ice cream and a lot of fun Sweetie and SuperPizzaBoy got me a new gadget. A new GPS receiver. The Garmin nuvi 500. It is a crossover GPS in that it does car navigation and geocaching. If you are a premium level geocaching.com member you can download tons and tons of caches to your pc and with then into the nuvi 500.

So anyway we have only found a few caches with this and I’m still learning how to use it so I don’t know whether it is going to supplement or replace my old gps. The nuvi is not very handy to hold and doesn’t seem to be as rugged and waterproof as the handheld gpsr’s. Also, you have to do a manual change from vehicle navigation to cross country once you get out of the car and I had’t quite figured out how to do that smoothly.

The thing that is helpful in geocaching is the cache description, hints, and logs of previous finds. Most handhelds just hold the name and location. For the other stuff you either have to print them out and carry (yuck) or you can use software for your cell phone like cachemate I use on my Palm Treo cell phone. That’s OK but then you have to juggle two gadgets. The nuvi carries all that stuff in it. That is incredibly handy.

The screen is nice and bright in sunlight, and you can have a lot of fun with the car navigation feature. SPB and I made the vehicle icon into a pickup truck to match good ole 666BOI better and we switched the voice from a bitchy lady Californian (it sounded to my ear) to a merely irritated English female voice. We are going to download a pizza slice icon from Garmin’s web site to be the vehicle icon.

Anyway, the jury is still out on the nuvi. Its a keeper for navigation, and I am definitely going to use it for geocaching to at least supplement by my existing gpsr. I can see using the nuvi to use to drive to the vicinity of the cache and then my handheld to find the cache. I’ll just have to experiment.

This is my existing gpsr. The Lowrance Ifinder Hunt. (Lowrance is a Tulsa based company). I have found maybe 600 caches with it and love it. It can hold in memory about 2000 caches. The nuvi can hold about 4000.

If you are going to do geocaching then you are going to need GSAK. An incredible piece of software that facilitates downloading caches from geocaching.com and uploading to your gpsr. It’s cheap, you can try it for free for a while before a nag screen appears.

Easter Weekend Happenings

Whirlwind Easter Weekend. Saturday SuperPizzaBoy and I were by ourselves most of the day. I had taxes to do but the weather was too nice, plus I had a brand spanking new Garmin Nuvi 500 crossover GPSr that needed a workout, so we went Geocaching! Found two, one in east Tulsa took an hour to hike to and then find. SPB got a little tired of that one.

First two ticks of the season. One for him, and one for me. So we are tied!!!!

Then Sweetie and Nana made it up from Antlers with Nana’s two kittys. Meet Gypsy (calico) and Piwacket (“Wackycat”). They are spending their time getting acclimated to Nana’s new house in Broken Arrow. Gypsy was nervous and moved into Piwacket’s crate, Wacky wasn’t too happy about that. Move in is later this week! Got to meet one of Nana’s new neighbors also.

Sunday night dinner, Yogi cooked his specialty fried chicken. Hadn’t cooked it in about 15 years. It took me a little to get the hang of it again but everybody said it was pretty good. Sweetie says that I can cook it for Mother’s day. I think I will!!

The drumstick on the left tasted better than it looks.

Then a cut throat game of Farkle. A very fun game with 6 dice that I got as a birthday present. Its fun. But I never win!!! What’s up!!

Oh yeah, and I finished the taxes.

What’s a Guy to do?

Well, the last month has been very hectic for the Yogi family. I had a heck of an allergy attack in early March, I mean a real doozey. Followed by a great family trip to San Antonio. We did it all, we did the Alamo, the Riverwalk, Hemisfair Plaza, Seaworld, the whole deal. Then the family left me and my sinuses in SA while they went back to Tulsa.

I did my industry convention, got a whole load of continuing education hours to keep my PE license, found a whole bunch of microcaches in and along the river walk, and explored a bunch of the city on foot. My and the sinuses went through a ton of tissue on the way, and grossed out a bunch of friends. No wonder I was so lonely.

Then I got back to Tulsa and my Mother-in-Law, Nana, a very sweet lady who is moving to Tulsa got her plans accelerated when she accidently fell and broke her hip. So she was in the hospital and then rehab and is now staying with us and is doing great, and is planning to move into her new house in a few weeks.

As an aside, I will tell you that if something similar happens to me, I’m sending the ambulance to where she went, Saint John’s Hospital here in Tulsa and then rehab at the Bernsen Rehab center. Both the hospital and the rehab center are wonderful and are staffed by very skilled and compassionate people not only toward the patient but also the family.

After that excitement died down, I finally went to the doctor who gave me some antibiotics. That stopped the sinuses but also my digestive system. Friday night I took the last of the antibug pills so maybe I’ll start feeling better here pretty quick. In the meantime, I’m exercising again and it is like starting from scratch. That’s not fair.

So tonight, its just me and Nana. Sweetie and SuperPizzaBoy are at some cultural event bettering themselves. Me and Nana are watching House Hunters. Then Nana asked me if I would go the house she recently purchased and check the water level in the swimming pool. Sure! I don’t know anything about swimming pools but I can check water levels. After all I am a by God Licensed Professional Chemical Engineer in the State of Oklahoma (PE 17351).

I get over there and the water level is a little low so I get the water flowing. Filling a pool is not like filling a bathtub. This is going to take a while. What’s a guy to do?

I’ll tell you, its time to go geocaching!

Christmas in July , Number 764, but who is counting, really its not about the numbers, is it, not at all. And yes, as a blogger I take my camera everywhere I go, and, as a geocacher, I take my GPS receiver everywhere.

Any geocachers who slogged through this post? Tell us what your geocaching handle is. Mine is YogiABB. Son’s is guess what, SuperPizzaBoy. Sweetie won’t get one, so the local geocachers call her … well we won’t get into that. I stay on thin ice around here anyway. She really puts up with a lot.

Gretel is Cute, but Hansel is Hot!

The Tulsa Opera brought a twenty minute version of “Hansel and Gretel” to SuperPizzaBoy’s school last week. SPB’s class participated as the chorus. They played children (that role came natural to them), then as gingerbread cookies, and back to children. The kids loved it and did a great job. They have been practicing for some time.

Gretel was a soprano, Hansel was played by a woman mezzo soprano. The Opera Company brought four singers and a piano player. They barnstorm all over eastern Oklahoma and Western Arkansas putting short versions of popular operas on for school kids. They do a great job.
SuperPizzaBoy afterwards
Guess, what. I found a cache on my way back to the office. “Where the deer and the antelope run”, number 753 for me.

Natural Gas, Nuclear Energy, Nick’s Law and What Else?

I had a whirlwind day last Thursday.

First I drove from Tulsa down to Oklahoma City for a meeting of Natural Gas and Energy Association of Oklahoma. They had the meeting at the Oklahoma History Center near the State Capital.

You could really tell that the price of natural gas is down. Not many people showed up. March prices for Oklahoma gas could be down in the $2.70 per million btu range. That is about 1/3 of last summer’s prices, and its winter. Doesn’t look good for the rest of the year. Also, the speaker was going to talk about Nuclear Energy in Oklahoma. To a bunch of gas folks?

Some people have told me that energy companies rig the prices. I tell them that the energy companies are pretty piss poor at it.

The Speaker was State Represenative Scott Martin of Norman. He is sponsoring a bill to facilitate nuclear power plants in Oklahoma. I think it is a good idea. That is for another post.

I kept thinking Scott Martin, Scott Martin . . . Seemed like he was involved in the Nick’s Law controversy going on in Oklahoma. He is a Republican . . . Some Republicans’ have suggested that Oklahoman’s with autism and their families maybe need to move to some other state. That kind of bothers me. Maybe the politicians need to move instead.

Anyway I got home and googled Rep Martin and was very pleasantly surprised. According to this Rep Martin was one of only four Republicans who stood up to their leadership to try and bring Nick’s law to the floor last year. So, I think that he is a good guy. I wished I had talked to him, but he had to go to a hearing, busy, buys, busy.

Speaking as a Republican, I have been wondering for some time now what they bring to the table, I mean, if you are not a big contributor looking for special favors in return for contributions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to turn Democrat on anybody. But still I’m wondering.

I had other things to do so I didn’t go through the Oklahoma History Center. I have done it before and I really recommend seeing it if you hadn’t before.

I did go through the grounds though. Lots of oil and gas stuff there.

Drilling rigs of various vintages. Look at the sky, you wonder why I didn’t want to stay inside?

A pumpjack, an older model. For pumping oil.

There was a geocache on the grounds. I’m sorry to report that I didn’t find it.

Now, a boring blast from the past. I used to live close to the Capital in my pre-Sweetie days in an old neighborhood. So I went over there to take a look.

I loved this house. I signed a 1 year lease and left before the lease was up. Everything that wasn’t nailed down was disappearing. I even caught a fine young coed from that great Methodist school, Oklahoma City University, stealing bricks from the back yard. She said she didn’t realize that they belonged to anybody. She offered to put them back where she got them. Boy, that was nice of her.

I then left the city and headed west, to western Oklahoma. To check on some projects I helped put together commercially. In particular a couple of compressor stations.

Here is what one looks like. Isn’t it a beauty? Ok, time to quit.

Running and Daydreaming at Night

I got a kitchen pass to go run after work tonight. Thanks Sweetie. I didn’t have my running stuff at work so I didn’t run on the river. I came home changed and ran on the Creek Turnpike trail.

I was all excited. A geocache needed found also. If I run and cache then I have to blog it. So it was running, caching, and blogging tonight. I also take my ipod. Full blast: Metallica, Bride, Blink 182. All that music will rot your brain. I wouldn’t listen to it if I were you.

About two miles from where I started, this is the cache site. Its not on the sign or around the sign, in the ground, or anywhere else.


Its in the power pole. What’s up with that? How do I get it out? Its snug. I need a tool. I don’t have any tools. Why should I need a tool to get a cache? Oh well, I don’t have any cheese to go with my whine. What can I use?

Aha, there is a tool! Its not a snake, its a stick.


Extract the cache. Look at the log. You can’t see it. The dork that took the picture over exposed it. That’s why.
The cacher before me was “CCATBQFM”
It means
Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars.

Everybody knows that.

What a perfect evening Sweetie. Thanks.

Lunchtime Skirt Lifting

When the intensity at work lifts a little bit (believe me, the intensity of the energy business is lifting a lot) and if the weather is good, then I like to relieve the tension by leaving the office and finding a few skirts to lift.

I don’t like to lift just any skirt, just those where there might be a reward for me. Plus not all skirts want to be lifted. You just can’t go around lifting just any skirt and expect to get away with it. Some people take offense when you start lifting their skirts.

But anyway, last week I find out about a skirt that didn’t mind being lifted and where there was a guaranteed prize for doing so. I talked about it at work and a coworker, Mrs. T, said she would give it a go.

So off we went to lift a skirt. It took a while to find the right skirt. Once we did, T went for it. I’ve never got a picture of a skirt being lifted before so this was a first for me, so it was kind of double the excitement.

So here it is:

Yep, the geocache was right there under the lamp skirt.

We had a lot of fun and will do it again!

Pre – Valentines and then a little Geocaching

One thing our church does this time of year for couples married over 50 years is present each wife with a corsage. They are delivered the Saturday before Valentines Day and the couples are specially honored the next day in church

Getting the corsages to the wives is a big undertaking requiring lots of volunteers. Sweetie and I have been doing for several years. It is pretty cool because the women love the corsages and most of the time we get invited in to sit for a spell and talk with these couples. We love it. These folks have quite the stories to tell.
This year Sweetie couldn’t go. She is the co-President of SuperPizzaBoy’s school and she had to work on a fundraiser Saturday night. So I went. It was still nice but not as nice as having Sweetie along. Maybe next year.

I consoled my lonely feelings by finding a couple of geocaches in a local park. The first was a toughie but I finally spotted it. I’m not going to tell you which geocache it is because I want you to spend 20 minutes in a park trying to act not like a pervert while a bunch of Society for Creative Anachronism folks are battering each other with wooden swords.

SCA is an awesome organization because only they are more dorky than geocachers.