Hotspur.us

It’s been very cold. Very, very cold. And I still have yet to order the automatic starter for my Subaru. I should really get around to that. As it stands, if I want my car to be not frozen when I get in it, I have to go out and do the starting myself. It’s not that bad since the parking pad is quite literally right out front. But it still kinda sucks.

Sunday I decided that my options were: A. sit in the house and keep warm, yet freak out about being in the house all day; B. go visit the parents; C. go back to bed.  As much as C appealed to me I assumed it would simply turn into A, which meant that I was going to Fairmont to visit the parents. I peered out the front door and saw that the might Subie was covered in a thin layer of frost. It needed warmed up before I headed to Fairmont so out I went to warm the Subie up.

I was doing the final gathering of stuff when I looked in the key box and damn it, my keys were gone. I have a big green carabiner for my keychain and it’s pretty easy to spot. But no dice. I assumed Chad must have stuffed it in his parka pocket as he doesn’t believe in the key box. I was rifling through his parka when he said he only had my house key, not my key chain, and that he’d put it IN the key box. Crud. I shouted up to B to see if he had noticed my keys laying about anywhere. He and I were staring in the key box blankly about the time I realized the muffled noise I in the background was the Subie, warming up.

Oh.

Week six and I am still rolling along. Heck I even came up with a theme right off. Well, right off being a relative term. In this instance I mean around about 5:45 pm on Monday. So that’s pretty good, right?

This time of the year we spend most of our time in our attic. It’s warm and toasty and that’s where the big comfy chair is. Also it has a really great view of town. I was sitting there, staring out the window as the sun dipped low and the sky had a nice hue to it. I had the camera sitting by my computer so I thought I’d capture the moment. A few minutes later the lightbulb went off.  Also just so you know, yes there is a screen in my window. You can see it in most of the photos. I just went with it. After all, it’s my view of Morgantown.

February 6, 2012

5:43 pm. I zoomed in so Morgantown High School is the dominate building in the foreground. The Hotel Morgan (lovely ballroom where Chad & I had our wedding reception, also where my brother works) is visible on the left. It has the orange/red sign atop it.

February 7, 2012

9:45 am.  A bright and sunny day in the University City. It was actually a pleasantly warm day for early February. The sun was especially exciting. Too bad I had to work.

February 8, 2012

7:12 am. This time of year Morgantown doesn’t get much in the way of early morning sun. Actually we don’t get much in the way of sun period (that’s one reason yesterday was crazy exciting). I decided to shoot this photo from the side window which was easier typed than done. I had to deal with lots of glare from the attic lights. At any rate, that’s the reason you get to see so much of our neighbor’s roof.

February 9, 2012

7:55 pm. The City has a nice and pleasant glow at night. Sometimes I curse it when I’m looking for asteroids, but generally I think it is quite pleasant to take in.

February 10, 2012

8:27 pm. Slightly different view than last night. I shot more off to the left and so you can’t see our neighbors’ porch lights (yes, we too still have our white Christmas lights up on our porch). And the City seems to have more of a glow to it in this photo. Not sure if that has to do with focal point…or maybe a big couch fire.

February 11, 2012

8:29 am. It snowed. It finally snowed again. Sure a nice fluffy blanket of snow makes Morgantown look so nice, quaint and clean. It also means that I woke up to the sound of squealing tires. Not to mention, should we feel compelled to leave the house we’ll be sliding all the way into town.

February 12, 2012

12:30 pm. Don’t be fooled. It didn’t get any warmer. That snow had not melted. It had blown away. Lovely bit of wind we get around here. Hurry Spring.

After checking out the weekend forecast (which can clearly be depended upon in February after all) and determining there was a chance the weather would be decent not horrible, I set my sights on Bethel Park, PA, and laid out a cleverly enticing call for cachers to see who I could ensnare.

Saturday morning dawned a little chilly but the forecast was still promising a very low chance of possible precipitation and that until the afternoon. After meeting up in Waynesburg our two vehicle convoy headed out for South Park. About 30 minutes out from our destination – Escape your T.V. (but don’t wear antlers) – it started snowing. I don’t mean little tiny flurries. I mean snowflakes, big GIANT snowflakes. You know, the big fluffy kind…the ones skiers and kids love to see falling from the sky. Yeah, the forecast was not just slightly off. It was dead wrong. By the time we hit the parking coords the ground was covered and if we stood still, we would be coated in a lovely white blanket.

Not to be daunted and also not wanting to stand still and wait for the others that were to join us (ok, so maybe I didn’t look at my phone and see they were right behind us) we headed out for stage one. Wow, so that’s a terrain 2.5? Well I suppose back in 2006 it might have been. At any rate, once the stage was freed from its frozen tomb, we were ready to head for the final.

Well, once a few of us negotiated our return to the path without any mishaps – and trust me the situation was ripe with potential for mishap injury broken bones. And quite frankly, I wasn’t really in the mood for another trip to the hospital. We were starting to negotiate a small water crossing (small thank god, also navigable) when Jeff_toughsearch and H_B_Happy showed up.  From there it was a short trip up, down, up and up some more…for most of us anyway.

Can you identify the slackers? Or shall they remain anonymous?

The rest of the day pretty much involved us marching around in the snow. We did take the opportunity to choose poorly which mostly just involved us being stymied by a creek (but the cache is only 150 feet over THERE), sliding around (both in vehicles and on foot), going back to our original parking spot and then taking a perilous (but much shorter) route back to the vehicles.

I should probably step back and explain the name of this post, which will go a long ways to explaining our drunken route along a park full of caches. There is a challenge cache in Morgantown called Square-Root of 9 Ge0-Challenge.   In order to earn the smilie, one MUST find 3 caches of 3 different cache types IN ONE DAY. So when wvhunter looked at the vast expanse of South Park and realized it was chock-a-block full of different types of caches, he decided that we were gonna get this challenge done.  That meant we were going after (at least) 3 traditional caches, 3 multi-caches and 3 unknown caches. Bring it.

While we were hard at work tracking down traditionals (“That’s enough! On to the puzzle caches!” shouted Captain OCD. He is such a slave driver.) we were joined by egroeg who is the Master of South Park.  Thank goodness, because figuring out which roads when were was going to be more of an undertaking that our brain trust was capable of at this point in the day.

By the time we finished up the caches on wvhunter’s list and a few more (That’s NOT on the list!) we were wet, cold and tired. So we headed out to Barley’s & Hop’s. Which, as you can see, was a fine end to the caching day.

More pics available for your viewing pleasure. But I’ll be honest, the snow was so wet and heavy I didn’t take many photos.

[Show as slideshow]

Thanks Mr. Weatherman.

I thought I’d give this From Where I Stand thing a try. Problem is, I don’t go too many cool places during the week* and the carpet in the house really needs to be ripped out and burnt. (We are systematically working on the ripping out part, but not the burning part.)

At any rate, I was too lame lazy to come up with a different theme, so onward I trudged, trusty phone pointing downward to capture my little feet. (My feet aren’t really little, I wear anywhere from a size 8.5 to 9.5.)

January 30, 2o12

It was dinner time for Orlando. Which is to say it was really medicine time for Orlando. I went into her room to see if she was awake and sure enough, she was having a snack in the second floor of her her cage, which is  a bit of a mess. I don’t hassle her too much about it since she only goes to her cage for a snack or sometimes to take a nap in her third floor hammock.  I was wearing my lovely purple birkenstock birkis (barely in the photo) which have A. Been around a long time and B. Taken quite a beating from me.

January 31, 2012

My days are pretty cyclical and boring. Like clockwork Orlando gets her meds twice a day(or rather Chad and I wrestle her meds into her). I’m not 100% sure what her schedule is, but I think she mixes it up so we are confused. At any rate Orlando HATES her medicine and after protesting as much as possible will retreat to the pictured bag in order to wipe her chin off.

As you can see she is already recovered from the trauma and on her way to do something very important.

I am in my stocking feet. Please note my socks are labeled R and L. Also please note I have them on the properly corresponding foot. That was a big accomplishment for me.

February 1, 2012

I was on the road for work today.  As you can see, the car is really in need of a good scrubbing, or at least some floor mats. I was unsure of the weather and since I really hate driving in high heels I went with boots.  (Fear not, I was not driving when I took this photo. I was making sitting at one of West Virginia’s fine new rest stations along I-79.)

February 2, 2012

I was hanging out in the living room on the sofa, which is not a usual occurrence for anyone in our house this time of the year. Any non-cat member of our house at least. I thought I’d take a cute photo of Ghost (the tabby cat on the opposite sofa) all curled up and happily dozing. In the short time it took me to find my phone on the sofa on which I was sitting and get it to camera mode, she woke up and just as I was hitting the shutter button her brother Freyr jumped on my lap. “Oh hai!”

I took another photo once I got Captain PhotoBomb out of my way, but I decided this really was a good example of  From Where I Sit. I’m wearing a relatively new pair of slippers. I haven’t had slippers since I was a kid. These things are the bomb. So warm. So fuzzy. I think I am begining understand why all the hip kids in town wear their slippers out of the house.

February 3, 2012

I took Friday as a vacation day and went geocaching with Bump. It was a great day to be out and about. Being out in the sun was just delightful. I took this photo while in the middle of a multi-cache. I’m wearing my old trusty Doc Martens which were purchased for me by Dad on April 23, 1999 at Daniel’s Men’s Store in Morgantown, WV. This is my second pair of Docs. My first pair I bought during my Sophomore year of college at WVU at a now defunct store called Wizard’s Records. I’m still Grunge at heart.

February 4, 2012

It was a big day of geocaching in South Park with a bunch of the MAGPI gang. I hadn’t packed extra shoes or socks which I was sorely regretting by the time I got home. My first act upon returning home was to rid myself of hiking boots & socks. As you can see Freyr came to greet me. It’s nice to have warm welcome home – even if it is just to let me know the food bowls were low.

 February 5, 2012

Sunday was a day of incredible sloth for me. And by that I mean I only left the house to take our recycling to the main drop off station and have dinner, and that I worked out from home. All of that though, didn’t happen until well after 2 p.m. For the first part of the day I hung out in my fancy warm slippers and caught up on reading some blogs. Life is good. Ok, you’ll have to excuse me now while I freak out for being slothful all day.

*It would probably be more accurate to say I generally don’t remember to take the daily photo until after I’m home from any cool place I may have ventured. This week I was in fact out and about.