GPSr RIP, Contests, 666, and WTF?

Lowrance IFinder Hunt H2O GPS receiver. Missing early August 2009, presumed gone.
I probably found 600 caches with this. I guess I left it somewhere. Been using my Garmin Nuvi 5000. It works pretty well but it is not the same besides for going into the woods I need something waterproof. They don’t make these anymore and it looks like I’m going to get a replacement pretty reasonably on ebay.

Speaking of replacement this very nice sweet lady, fellow blogger Baloney, (so named because she is full of it) is both in a contest and is running a contest. She and I both need your help.

You can help her by going to Irritated Tulsan’s “Tulsan of the Month” contest and vote for Baloney. If she wins then she and my friend 666BOI will face off for the Tulsan of the Year. Baloney is very sweet but don’t pay attention to the lies she tells about me or 666BOI.

You can help me by going to a contest that Baloney is running on her blog. Its a “poop hat” award and vote for my buddy 666BOI. He really really wants that Poop Hat Award.

Speaking of 666. I drove by my favorite liquor store the other day and I saw this car parked out front.

666FMY

So there is another Satan in town? Is this town big enough for two Satan’s. Is the future of mankind going to be decided here in Tulsa, Oklahoma? Are 666BOI and 666FMY teaming up or fighting it out? He doesn’t tell me these things.

Been wondering WTF? It means “What the Flip?” Sweetie has borrowed a Flip Video Cam from a teacher at SuperPizzaBoy’s school for use in a project. I saw it and grabbed it. Sorry everybody, its mine now, at least until Sweetie tells me the third time to give it back. These little gadgets are low tech, low fi, low D but fun to use.

You press a button to shoot video, it has 60 minutes recording time, it uploads itself to YouTube. Its great. The lower tech models cost about $150 new. You can get them for about $70 used on ebay. I’m tracking the bidding patterns to see what’s what and then I may be getting one for myself.

I tried it out on my favorite subject. SuperPizzaBoy, for once he was stumped for something to say but he recovered.

I tell you thing. That Boy puts up with a lot. So does his Mother.

The Family by Jeff Shartel

Jeff Shartel’s “The Family” came out earlier this year and seemed to become very popular about the time that the bizarre sex scandals of  South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Nevada Senator John Ensign were in full flower. Both men had ties to the “the House on C street” which operated as a tax protected “church” and discount living quarters for many congressmen including Oklahoma’s own Tom Coburn, Jim Inhofe,  former Senator Don Nickles, and former Representative Steve Largent. The book seemed to be marketed as an expose of what was going on in the house and the shadowy secretive organization that owns the building.

I ordered the book from the library and it finally came and I finally finished reading it. It is not the expected expose but it is a very impressive book nonetheless. It is very well researched and has extensive notes detailing Sharlet’s sources. The book is almost academic in its extensive documentation.

The Family the book refers to refers to an organization now headed by Douglas Coe (helped by numerous relatives of his on the payroll) that was founded in the 1930’s by a Norwegian immigrant preacher named Abram Vereide. He had been praying for years for guidance on what to do about the Depression. Finally in April 1935 God spoke to him with the answer. What God told Abram was “To the big man went strength, to the little man went need. Only the big man was capable of mending the world.” Abram decided that rich people were rich because they were blessed by God and surely they could be convicted in their compassion and then shower benefits upon the weak. Abram was going to show them how. Abram called these men, “The up and out.”

Of course, the big men of the world liked this idea. They didn’t shower a whole lot of money down on the weak but they took pretty good care of Abram Vereide. What he did and what continues today is the a ministry to the rich and powerful based on what Shartel calls “cells.” (I might call them “small groups.” My church has a bunch of them.)

The Family, to this day, caters to the rich and powerful and engages them in “cells.” The Family doesn’t really care about the background of their members. They welcome all. Even foreign despots, even murderous foreign despots such as Siad Barre of Somalia who was in a Family small group up until he was deposed after being responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens. Douglas Coe called Barre, “Brother.” Coe in general said of the dictators in his prayer groups. “I don’t want to embarrass people.” Part of what the Family tells their members is that they were elected to their positions not just by the voters but by God also and that God wants them to be where they are.

This is all great and everything but here is where the book gets all confusing. The Family, as Shartel admits is concerned mainly with US Foreign Policy. Most of Shartel’s book however is about life in the US.

The book discusses the rise of American fundamentalism and its effect on American culture, politics, and foreign policy. The author seems upset by much of what he sees and thinks it undermines our way of life. He also asserts that this is being managed by “The Family.” I share much of Mr. Sharlet’s dismay of what has happened to American life and the rise of intolerance, ignorance, and homophobia promoted by some factions of the Religious Right. I am not much into conspiracies though and having lived in small towns and watched the intramural squabbles within the various congregations in town and seen the conflicts between the Baptists, Church of Christs, and Assemblies of Gods and other congregations I just don’t believe that one organization based in Washington is calling the shots for everybody in the country.

Mr. Sharlet doesn’t seem to get that evangelical Christians are not zombies at somebody’s call to action. They are people trying to find out about life, looking for community, and trying to make the world a better place for their children. For example he seems to be totally mystified by the purity movement whereby young men and women promise to keep themselves sexually pure until marriage. I think anybody who looks around and sees the sexualization of our culture and especially its use in advertising would be concerned about its effect on their children. Now, I’ve read that statistics that those taking purity vows have their first sexual intercourse only a few months later than people that don’t. You know what, I don’t care, I’ll take those few months. Besides, I don’t worry about the averages, I think we worry about the individuals.

The book suffers from a lack of focus. It talks about “The Family” and its reach into Congress, the Defense Department, State Department, and the business world and that is very interesting, but I doubt that the Family is the only outfit in Washington pushing a point of view. He also talks about the evangelical world and megachurches and some of the famous sex scandals involving famous preachers. The book is far reaching but it is hard to assess because it tries to cover so many topics.

I usually rate books on a scale of one to four. I don’t know what to do with this book! I think it is a book worth reading, how about that!

Pancakes, more pancakes, bike riding, getting stalked, and puppy love

A lot has been going on lately. It is hard to keep up with it all.

First up is it is United Way season. The Yogi’s are big supporters of United Way and so is my employer. Thursday they had their Pancake Breakfast. I’m always up for pancakes! Here is the lineup of this year’s cooks.

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What a fine looking crew, left to right, there is Dave (my boss) his pancakes were great, his boss Bob (his pancakes were even better), Steve (Co-worker), and Mike. The lady at the end is fellow geocacher Teresa (“Mommakiss”). $5 for all you can eat. The place was packed. I think they made a lot of money. The event was organized by another fellow geocacher Linda. Great job Linda!

I converted both Linda and Teresa to geocaching. I witnessed to them and gave my testimony and they saw the light. I walked them right up to the altar of their first geocache and they have been faithful witnesses to the Department of Defense Satellites encircling the globe emitting their steady dependable signals that enable us to find old M&M tubes hidden in the shrubbery of abandoned Wendy’s restaurants.

Friday was the start of a three day weekend. My employer has gone to an optional 9-80 work week so Sweetie and I had a big day planned. We dropped her car off to get fixed, then we dropped the kid off at school. We drove downtown to meet with our attorney. No we are not suing you, yet. Don’t make me mad though, our attorney is a mad dog.

We were hungry after all that legal stuff so Sweetie and I hoofed it over to the Blue Dome Diner. Tulsa blogger Bill Miller posted about it recently and I had to go try it. Sweetie and I each had the blueberry walnut pancakes. I ordered three, Sweetie, one. I followed Bill’s example though and ate only half and took the other half home. The pancakes are wonderful! (Sorry for the out of focus photograph.)

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We waddled back to the car, went home and changed out of lawyering clothes and into our biking clothes and drove out to the river and rode a short ride of about 12 miles or so. I only got one photograph. (Sweetie will leave me if I don’t keep up!) It is of downtown Tulsa where I work. I had to wave at my coworkers still working. Don’t worry, next week they will have Friday off and they will be waving at me from the river.

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Look at those big old fat fluffy clouds.I love them. They day was perfect. Temperature in the mid 80’s, a little breeze, and low humidity. I was in heaven! The sun was straight overhead so all the trees had perfect little round shadows underneath them. What a day off!

It came time to go to Quik Trip get something to drink and then pick up the kid from school, the car from the shop, and go home. This is where I found out I’m getting stalked.

There was this waiting for me in the mailbox at home.

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I think it is a little ominous, don’t you? Anybody have any ideas who this could be. Sweetie says it is my fellow blogger Baloney. Couldn’t be, could it?  She’s my friend. We went dancing last week! Go check her out, let me know what you think. Is she the one or not? I sent her something earlier this week. It was real nice.

Don’t laugh. It’s a poop cache. They are very rare.

Then it was time to go check on Nana. She is recovering nicely from her broken leg and will be and running around Dress Barn again in no time. We took our two mutts Ginger and Abby because they like to play with Nana’s Fiona. After the playing it was cuddling time.

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Ginger is on the right, Fiona on the left, Abby is the white blur behind Fiona. We couldn’t get all their faces in the picture. They are friends but not that good of friends.

By then I was worn out. I made the most of my day off don’t you think. And I’ve got two whole days to go this weekend!

Leinenkugel’s Creamy Dark Lager

My friend from work, Dave, knows that I love good beer. He and I have traveled on business together quite a bit especially to the Peoples Republic of Kanas (“PRK”). I have fun with the PRK quite a bit but hey they don’t have the bizarre and strange liquor laws that Oklahoma has. For instance, I can get Fat Tire beer in the PRK but I cannot buy it in Oklahoma at all.

Dave showed up at work today with another find he scored in Kansas, Leinenkugel’s Creamy Dark Lager. Made in Wisconsin. He said that you cannot get it here in Oklahoma. I believe it, it doesn’t have the goofy Oklahoma symbol on it. Check out their web site.

Now, generally I’m not much of a lager guy. I don’t know why, I just haven’t cared for them. The taste always seems a little “thin” to me as opposed to full bodied.

This Leinenkugel’s lager is different. It has lots of body and a nice creamy, slightly flavor to it. I love it. I drank both bottles. Beer is not properly evaluated on just one bottle. It takes two. Manlaw, check it out.

Dave, thanks for the beers.!

I rate them 3.5 stars out of 4. Which is great.

Another Boys Night Out

Wow, another Boys Night Out already. Sweetie has another Book Group Meeting, this time Nana is hosting. School has started though so we have to tone it down to be home at a reasonable time.

So first we loaded up and went to eat. At Hideaway Pizza in Bixby on Memorial. Hideaway Pizza is something of an institution. It started in Stillwater, Oklahoma, home of Oklahoma State University. Tulsa is a big OSU town so they have a natural following. The pizza being excellent helps as you might expect.

I brought my camera of course but we were so hungry that I forgot to photograph it before we started. So the consolation prize is this picture after we were done.

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Nothing to take home!

Afterwards we decided to plant another geocache. We placed the last one near Cedar Ridge Golf Course and we named the cache “Boys Night Out – Cedar Ridge”. This time we decided to place one near another Golf Course. So this one is “Boys Night Out – Meadowbrook.”

First we went to Walmart to get the stuff for the cache. A medium size plastic, water tight, container, a notebook for geocachers to write their log in, a pencil, and some small trade items for the kids, a small rain poncho and a couple of matchbox cars. Oh, yes, camo duck tape.

We drove out to the cache site, and pimped up the cache container, including camoflaging it with the camo duck tape, found a suitable spot, and then spent forever making sure the coordinates are right. I lost my Lowrance IFinder Hunt GPSr that could take 100 readings in a spot and average them in one minute so I have to use my navigation GPSr which is great for getting me over to Aunt Bessies house but I have to average my readings the old fashioned way.

We finally finished, and it was time to go home so that son could go to bed because it is a school night. It was late. I had to hide it in the dark.

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So, do you do anything on a regular basis with family members or friends? I want to know all about it!

The Whole Family

I was checking out the blogs I follow this morning and came across this post by Jill of All Trades. She is showing a very pretty floral collage she made on piknik.com. I clicked on over there and it is interesting and very powerful but I got to thinking that I could do that with some software that I already have on my own computer. So I fired up Corel Media One and sure enough I could do it. So this is my first experimental collage.

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Next one, I’ll get in a few more people.

Weekend Roundup and Statistics

A lot happened this weekend. Yesterday I took out SuperPizzaBoy’s swing set. He is now 11 I put it up for his third birthday so it was kind of sad, but hey he’s growing up so that is great. Then we gathered up Nana and her friend Patty and went to eat Mexican food!

Patty and Sweetie had Margariata’s.

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Afterwards Sweetie and I went some friends, including fellow bloggers Baloney, Dawn, and Michelle ( I had never met Michelle before but we have been blogging friends for quite a while. ) to a comedy club. It was an improv sort of thing and it was hilarious. Sweetie and I don’t get out too much. Lots of young women were running around with too much makeup and not enough clothes. Sorry no pictures. We had a great time.

We all stumbled out of bed way too late to go to church but we made it to Sunday School. Afterward Sweetie went to a wedding shower and SuperPizzaBoy and I went geocaching. We looked for five and found five which is a good outing. We find a little different kind of cache. Instead of hidden box it was a wanted poster hanging on a pole. Can’t tell you what cache. Cachers go to all sorts of trouble to hide them for me to just blab which one this is. Sorry, that’s the way it is.

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Speaking of geocaching I have recompiled my numbers using my special GSAK (“Geocaching Swiss Army Knife”) software. Scroll way on down to the bottom of the main blog page, past my old blogs and the crap I put on the side bar. You will find a Niagra Falls of numbers and graphs, and that is the summary report. Go take a look but come back. I tried to put it on a daily post but it was a mess.

Of course gecocaching is not about numbers. No, not at all!! Who would think of such a thing. Nobody I know that caches pays the slightest bit of attention to their numbers. Talking about your numbers is like talking about how much money you make. So nobody cares about their numbers, not the slightest bit.

So, here are a few of mine:

834 geocaches found. 382 of them within 10 miles of home! Tulsa has a lots of caches!
654 caches found in Oklahoma.

43,522 total miles between caches. That is lots of driving (and a lot of gasoline!), and a little flying.

Caches found that are no longer active 286. Many caches last just a year or two.

At my historic rate of caching (about 0.4 finds per calendar day) I am scheduled to reach 1000 on Dec 10, 2010. Actuall, I think that I will get to a thousand by late Spring 2010.

Do you have a hobby that you are passionate about? Lets hear it. I promise not to tell.