Hotspur.us

I spend a lot of time traipsing around in the woods (and getting shredded by the thorns, falling in the creeks and attacked by insects). Which is to say, I have a lot of fun. And like a good little geocacher (and hiker) what I pack in, I pack back out…well except the blood & sweat, not much I can do about that.  So when CITO (Cache In Trash Out) time arrived this April, loyal sidekick and I were ready to roll.  We, along with several of our MAGPI brethren, headed up to CITO in the Cong V.

After meeting up and doning our fancy flourescent safety vests – nothing like picking up trash during spring gobbler season – we headed out. Wow. The area was in desperate need of a clean up. Once we got over the hillside it was apparent that this area had been a dumping ground for years and years. The layers of garbage was simply obscene. Tires, bags upon bags of dirty diapers (I want to find that person and slap them in the face with a whole bag full of old dirty diapers), decapitated dolls, the remains of a bathroom remodel, couches, television sets, beds, box springs….it goes on and on. Just layers and layers and layers.

Spread out over the hillside we started shouting out any time we had a good find. After all wvcoalcat was in the market for a toilet so he could have his very own Preston County Flower Pot and someone found almost an entire living room suit – sofa, recliner, two large television sets. I ran across a bodiless doll about the same time taht wvhunter came up with a head. Nothing says creepy like broken, filthy headless toys. Well, except maybe a big old suitcase that was still shut. Did we really want to open that?

 But then groggamer came up with the best find of the day….

And since no story is complete until I do something that ranks really high on the level of  zero - stupid I did not disappoint. Having come up from the hillside I thought I’d help move some tires out of the way. No big deal, they weren’t that heavy and I still had enough energy to be of a little help. All was going well until about the 3rd or 4th tire, which happened to still have nasty tire water in it. Black…smelly…old…full of god knows what. I tossed it into the pile, it hit and SPLASH! All over my hat, sunglasses, my face, in my ear, down my shirt.

I stopped, literally dripping wet and already smelling quite foul. I heard sidekick say, “Oh babe…” he was already probably thinking about how smelly the ride home was going to be.

BUT I am nothing if not prepared. “I’ll be right back,” I said and walked back to the car for my change of clothes. Thank god I’m prepared.

Kudos to Dolphy for organizing this clean up! I had a great time despite being covered in tire filth -  plus they fed us pizza aftewards!

Another job well done gang!

[Show as slideshow]

Once again our anniversary fell on Easter Sunday. No big shock since I had specifically planned our wedding day to be as close to Easter as possible. Why you may ask? Because I’m cheap, that’s why. And I knew the church would be sporting flowers from Easter service for a weeks afterwards. So what if my cheapness means we have to share our anniversary with a big ol’ religious holiday every now and then.

And so, being the kind of folks we are, we headed out to Gettysburg right after the MAGPI Open was over. What better way to spend our anniversary than by force marching around the cemeteries and battlefields? Heck we even got crazy and threw in a climb up one of the observation towers. We’re crazy like that!

[Show as slideshow]

It’s anniversary time – 12 years – and what does every girl want besides a pony or a jeep (besides, I already have those)? How about a fancy new bluetooth-o-rific radio for the jeep?  OH yes, be still my heart.

First things first we had a limited amount of time and a limited amount of space to get this job done. Limited time because we were heading to the MAGPI Open in 3 hours and limited space because it had started raining and we can’t open both doors of the jeep while it is in the garage. So poor Chad jammed himself in the passenger seat while I folded down the back seat and set our tools out there.

Desperation is the mother of a lot of things, and in this case it is the mother of make do with what you’ve got. Fortunately for me, I’m kinda small (or short or however you’d like to put it) so I fit in the passenger side pretty well.

The first thing we had to do was pull off the dashboard. Chad, being the uber geek that he is, had done extensive googling regarding the subject. Me, well I’d been wanting to change this stupid radio out for ages, so I too had done my own googling. We both came to the same conclusion…this sounded a little too easy to be true. And yet with very little elbow grease, things started coming apart. Although that part that implied no tools were needed? Yeah, that I did not believe. And while it may have been true…a flat head screw driver made it much much easier.

And so when we were down to the nuts and bolts I was so terribly relieved that I had the foresight to purchase the deep well sockets in addition to my regular sockets. (Sockets R Us at your service!) Otherwise there would have been lots of gnashing of teeth and cursing. I’d have kept the tool throwing to a minimum due to the confined space and profuse amount of auto glass.

And more or less lickity split, the dash was completely apart (and now resting on the folded down back seat) and the old radio was out. At this point Chad and I were still pretty certain doom & gloom and broken bits was around the corner.

We thought perhaps when we reached the soldering portion of the project that we had in fact discovered the part where it all went to pieces. Our soldering iron is antiquated at best. As in I had acquired it from some deep, dark corner in a far, far away place.  And the same was true of the solder itself. Much to my chagrin, Chad professed to having not much in the way of soldering skills. Well you know me, I’m always up for a challenge.  So I decided to give it a spin. What I learned: our soldering iron needs replaced. In order for it to work, you had to touch just the right part to the solder. No seriously, the one side was useless which meant the tool had to be held just precisely so, leaving no manual dexterity to work with the item that was being soldered. I looked as if I was doing delicate surgery instead of connecting wires.

But, a little patience and some black tape later…the wiring harness was ready to roll.

At this point we were running close on time and I wanted to get ready for the MAGPI Open, so I fired up the jeep and the stereo roared to life. Hooray for us!

And thus I was giddy with joy!

YAY for Bluetooth Music Goodness!

[Show as slideshow]

Living in North Central West Virginia as we do, we never know if Spring is going to show up or if we are going to be plopped directly from Winter to Summer. Sometimes we get a bit of a reprieve and have a week or two of Spring, but it’s pretty much all a crap shoot.

Refusing to be daunted by this, wvhunter decided what we really needed to do was have putt-putt tournament. Because when I think MAGPI, I think those are the folks I want to be around while they are swinging golf clubs. Saturday started out sunny enough (around 6:30 am) then turned rainy (around 9:30 am) with plenty of clouds and a nice stiff breeze. Which meant we were going to have some Scottish weather for the first ever MAGPI Open at Coal Country Golf.

Loading up the awesome trophies, we headed South.

By the time golfers started to arrive the rain had stopped and the sun was attempting to shine. We were very relieved…almost believing that perhaps we were going to have some decent weather up after all.

After the obligatory random milling around the golfers set forth with 60 Cent leading the first group.

Following closely behind was wvhunter with Frank n Beck & 4th Jean (apparently 60 Cent was too cool to play with his own kin). While wvhunter was busy on the greens I held down the fort, did the meeting and greeting and served as event photographer.

Apparently quite a few folks were taking this tournament quite seriously (clearly they wanted the trophy) as the practice green was getting a pretty heavy workout. Especially by the members of the Senior Tour who ended up playing right in front of us.

By the time wvhunter’s group came it was time for sidekick, Foxtrot Bravo (Dad) and I to give the course a go. It didn’t start out so great, considering it took me three shots to even get the ball to the green. Yes, three putts from the tee box. Despite being dressed to kill, my golf skills were poor at best. Although Foxtrot Bravo scored the only hole in one of the day – sad for him it wasn’t on the “Free Truck Hole”

Typical of our group, we had some rule breakers (but really you’d have thought Mr. 911 would obey the signs)….

And attempts at cheating. Just because you can almost see over the wall doesn’t mean you can circumvent the specific details of the signs – Peeking over the top violates the intent of the rule…..don’t go through the door until the golfer before you is done.

And finally, once all the golfers were in, there was lots of math. Lots and lots of math. Checking, double checking, triple checking because EVERYONE wanted to win those awesome trophies. But first, Gentleman-Carpenter had his moment in the sun…

Because it isn’t every day a MAGPI finds his 1000th cache. And to take on Gadgets at Deckers Creek while there was still snow on the ground takes a dedicated (or brain dead) cacher! And finally for the big moment….

Troopbiz nearly swept the first annual MAGPI Open with scores of 48 & 49…..

So who was the best putt-putt golfer of the day? The crowd murmured in eager anticipation….and then Foxtrot Bravo was called forth (I believe he was hiding in the back, hoping I wouldn’t notice). With a score of 47 he barely snuck in and took top honors. And so wvhunter presented him with the prestigious MAGPI Open Green Jacket

And I presented him with the 3 foot tall MAGPI Open trophy, much to the delight of the other golfers.

And then….GROUP PHOTO

Oh and back to the topic of Spring…well Mother Nature had a bit of a surprise in store for us. Summer showed up in the form of blazing hot sun. Lots of sunburns today.

[Show as slideshow]