Geocache FTF

My first geocache FTF today in England! Yeah! Only my second FTF overall. Lovely walk through the 'wild' part of Farnham Park - just over a mile total. Temps in the 60s (F). Great place to walk your dogs. I'll have to bring Penny dachshund here.

I Am the Mom

This funny video keeps coming and going on YouTube, so wanted to preserve it by listing here.

For all moms out there. . .

Enjoy!

A Coin for a Puzzler

If you listened to Episode 7 of the Letterpod podcast, you heard Dewberry talking about puzzle caches. Here's a neat geocoin that might help you out. . .LizardToadZ Decypher Coin. Forget stashing it away with your other geocoins. Carry it in your backpack and use it out on the trail. . .especially in Houston. :)

Here's the link: http://www.thecachingplace.com/
decyphercoin.htm

And if you'd like to 'discover' my coin, the tracking number is: PC1YET

Oh, and the yellow bits on the back of the coin are glow-in-the-dark. Oooohhh.

A New Patch Arrives

To commemorate visiting the Ducks Pool letterbox at Dartmoor with the Moor Tor-ists last month. Yeah!

To Write or Not to Write

Have anyone done that National Novel Writing Month project where you write a 50,000 word/175 page novel in one month?

That just sounds massive to me. I really don't think I could even remotely drum up the discipline to do it. But what an accomplishment if you could. Below is the info from their website. I particularly like the part where it stresses that QUANTITY is more important than QUALITY. At first that just sounds wrong. But then once you think about it, it really makes sense to get people to just WRITE. Sitting down and writing. Hmmm. I might have to think about this a little. Is novel writing one of those things you're supposed to do before you die?

Maybe I can do it. . . .

From their website:

"What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

In 2006, we had over 79,000 participants. Nearly 13,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.

Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: Sign-ups begin October 1, 2007. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

Still confused? Just visit the How NaNoWriMo Works page!"

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Still Hitching Rides

I got notification today on a hitchhiker of mine. I hadn't heard from it in so long, I almost fell off my chair to see that it was still alive. It was my Traveling Dachshund HH in honor of the 4 dachshunds I had at the time. (One ended up going to a new home and the other 3 have since died.) :(

A quick look on AQ showed it was launched just over 3 years ago! Three years!

They just keep on going and going and going. . .

A Wellington Kind of Day

We had a Wellington day today.

First, lunch at Wellingtons Pub in Farnham. The special of the day - the same for every Sunday at most pubs - was Roast & Veg. Roast being your choice of Beef, Lamb, Chicken, or Pork. I didn't see the prices, but they must have been good. The place was filled with senior citizens.

Then, we had a nice walk and outing at Farnham Park where I placed a letterbox. No Wellington reference here. It was just close to the pub.


Finally, we headed over to Wellington Statue for a look. How could we have a Wellie boot for our sig stamp and not visit Wellingtons statue?! It was much bigger than we expected. I was able to log it as a Waymark find, then I scooted off to find the multi-cache 'Wellington's Booty' geocache. Success! We ended up leaving a Wellie Boot TB we had brought from Texas. Yeah!

So you can see what I mean by a Wellington Day!