A Charlie Brown Christmas

My DirecTV has been on the fritz lately. In the summer I usually lose my local channels when my neighbor's decorative maple greens (actually reds) up but I watch so little TV in the summer it doesn't bother me. It bugs my wife for a while, but that's another story...

So this fall I was surprised I did not get my locals back as I raked away the remainder of the leaves that fell. It wasn't until last week I finally tracked the problem to a faulty multiswitch and swapped it out. My locals were back, but alas it was too late to catch any showings of my favorite Christmas special, A Charlie Brown Christmas.



I popped over to Netflix and moved it to the top of my queue but it wasn't going to get here in time. Feeling a bit down my better half tried to cheer me up by pointing out we made a VHS copy some time back. She departs for the basement and reemerges with a never-been-played-back before (gotta love how we record them then forget them) home made VHS copy.

I forgot how long ago we recorded it by after viewing the noisy recording we soon discover it was taped back in 1998. Dave Thomas is still alive and smiling and hawking Wendy's burgers, old TV news personalities come back, and stores like Ames and Hills are back in business and selling us stuff for Christmas. (I used to enjoy the Hills Christmas-time jingle "Hills is where the toys are.")

Grainy and aged, the Peanuts characters popped to life as best they could on a low resolution recording device. Not that the original was much better with its low production value and zany editing. It wouldn't matter. The message that Charlie Brown's special resonates would come thru no matter what the medium and production value. In some way the low video quality lives up to the story line itself.

Apparently in 1998 right after CB aired CBS then ran A Garfield Christmas. Amazingly enough that feline also figures out the true meaning of Christmas.

For some reason, maybe it is the weather, maybe the calendar, maybe not catching all the specials on TV, this Christmas I felt rushed, pushed, achy, and tired. Despite my children's enthusiasm and anxiousness, somehow I lost the feeling of Christmas, the feeling of something special in the air. Even copious amounts of TSO failed to revive the spirit.

Two low budget productions, recorded on an even lower budget storage device, shoved into a storage box, forgotten and trapped in a basement dungeon for over 10 years, having been recorded in another time and era when I felt so much younger, somehow have restored my feeling of Christmas, the feeling of what makes it special.

Merry Christmas one and all. Merry Christmas.

Happy Birthday, Dad

While cleaning up the house my brother came across a collection of my dad's old 35mm slides. He had them burned to DVD and over Thanksgiving we had a real treat looking at the old photos on TV.

From Dad's Slides

This photo is a snap of my dad as a young man, from a time I can barely remember. I'm guessing this was taken about 1965, which would have made him 40. The old man would have been 83 today.

Happy birthday, Dad. We miss you.

Video of the 'Week': The Cat Came Back

The Cat Came Back was a minstrel song first penned by Harry S. Miller in 1893. It has been played and rerrecorded n various forms in the century + since it was originally published. This gem I found on YouTube is a modern take on this old classic:



Enjoy!

My review of the Giant Twist Freedom DX

For the past 8 years I have regularly commuted to work via bicycle. When possible I'll also leave the car in the garage and use my bike to run short errands. Of course living in an area with hilly terrain means lots of huffing and puffing, lots of gear shifts, and a decent amount of sweat. The side benefit is I get some much needed and regular exercise. (We'll discount the occasional trip to the ER from dramatic wipeouts at speed.)

Weather is the biggest limiting factor. Too hot and too cold and the bike stays home. Same for rain and snow. Hot days are the worst since I can't afford to arrive at the office all hot and sweaty and stinky. For some reason my coworkers aren't too happy about it. There also are days when the day seemed to last too long and my legs are lead weights on the ride home. Throw in a headwind (why is it always a headwind and never a tailwind?) and the ride can be miserable.

For this reason I was looking for a second bike to throw into the arsenal, one of those new-fangled electric hybrid bikes that require pedal effort to engage the electric motor. Giant Bicycles built several such models but they always were discontinued after what seemed like a short production run. Their latest entry into the hybrid electric market is the Twist Freedom DX.

The Twist DX features twin Li-ion batteries, a 250 watt front hub motor, 7 speed hub shifter, and a claimed range of up to 75 miles with a rider of perfect BMI, flat roads, temps in the range 60-75F, and no wind. I wanted to know how such a beast would behave in the more 'real' world: semi-hilly terrain, a rider and backpack combined weight close to 215 pounds, fall temperatures, and throw in a nasty headwind every now and then.

Unfortunately it seems the only on-line review I could find was from May 2008 by Popular Mechanics. Unfortunately a late spring ride in flat Central Park in New York City did not satisfy my criteria for a good review. Not to knok the fine folks at PM, but they just did not test it in 'my' conditions.

So one day I received a phone call from Erik at The Bicycle Shop. Erik knew I was interested in the Twist so he was kind enough to loan it to me for a few days. I just hope he hasn't sold my regular bike waiting for the hybrid to come back home!

I rode the bike for a few days to drain one of the batteries down, fully charge it, and run it again until the battery drained so I could get an estimate of range and power required to charge it back up. I also wanted to see if it was as 'un-bike like' as the PM review made the experience out to be.

So let's start with the good:

Power is great! At any time you can be in any 4 of the 7 speeds of the hub shifter. I could accelerate strongly even in high gear, trading range as the motor had to work harder. On my commute home a hill that normally takes me 11 minutes to climb blew by in only 7. I was not pedaling as hard as on my regular non-electric bike but I was still getting a good workout although not as vigorous. You still have to supply some of the motive power. One evening there was a stiff headwind. Not only did I still make good time I arrived at home not feeling all beat up by the wind.

Now for the not so good:

Hill climbing power is good but definitely gave up a few mph. It is certainly not insufficient power and was an acceptable tradeoff. Hoever, pull a lot of hills in the Twist DX's Sport mode and watch the battery drains FAST. Use 'Normal' mode and they still drain pretty quick although not at as rapid a rate. The geek in me wishes there were an ammeter to monitor how much power was going to the motor.

As a commuter I have a backpack with a heavy laptop computer and lots of paperwork. Being slightly overweight myself the Twist DX had a lot of stuff to pull up that hill. I could see right away we were not going to get anywhere near the 75 mile range ('Eco' mode in flat terrain), which of course I did not realistically expect, but I was hoping to get closer to the rated specs for 'moderate hill'. I doubt I could climb PA26 from Pine Grove Mills to Joe Hayes Vista on a single charge (it is one heck of a climb).

I expect the range to get slightly better as the battery packs get conditioned by having a few charge cycles on them but currently have no way to scientifically validate that. I should also point out that temperatures were in the range 40-50 degrees F during my rides and the cold does affect that state of charge somewhat. Overall my range was more in the range of the 'steep hill' part of the range chart Giant supplies rather than 'moderate hill'. A re-review after a change to a warmer season and a few charge cycles on the packs should verify the above hypothesis. At the very least with current observations we have a measured range performed under less than ideal conditions and much closer to real world (or at least real world Happy Valley).

And now, the rest of the story:

I drained one of the two battery packs in appx. 18 miles. In those 18 miles there were some good hills to climb. The Twist DX and I blew past riders struggling in low gear, who watched in amazement as we went by at what seemed like light speed. Miles were mostly accumulated in the DX's 'Normal' power setting although a few hill climbs were conducted in the 'Sport' setting to see how fast I could get up the hill.

At the end of each of my 3 mile legs I always felt like I wanted to ride more. Even after a long day in the office with leaden legs the Twist DX made the ride a pleasure. Even at the end of the battery's charge the motor still pulled strong, losing power in probably the last minute or so of the charge cycle. I don't know if Giant fully depletes the battery or simply cuts it off at some lower level.

Range anxiety is mitigated by having the second power pack to switch to when the first depletes. When the 'Right' battery went down to 0 and cut off, I simply flipped the selector to 'Left' and was happily using the power assist once again.

With he battery depleted I hook the charger up to a power monitor to see how much electricity it would require to fully charge. The charger drew a measured 62 watts and consumed .26 kWh to charge the pack. At $.09/kWh, this translate to a smidge over $.02 electricity for 18 miles or an astounding $0.0013 / mile. It costs more than that just to start mt car!

Random thoughts:

Clearly set up as a single model for both the US and European markets, the charger comes with a European power plug and a dongle to convert said plug to a standard 3 prong one. I don't mind but dongles can be easily lost if not careful.

The Twist DX comes with an LED tailight that runs off its own batteries. Curiously, no headlight.

I have a habit of resting my foot on the pedals while waiting at stoplights. This habit would activate the torque sensor and make the front wheel want to spin. Off the line acceleration is strong so if you're not careful you can fly out into traffic. I almost did! I'm surprised Giant didn't put in brake cutoff switches.

The integrated pannier system hides the batteries and also provide some storage space. They were too small for my laptop computer and might even be too small for a MacBook Air. They were large enough to hold my paperwork folders but since they won't hold the laptop I'm still going to need the backpack. They were large enough to hold my lunch.

Giant does not recommend using a child carrier. My own children are too big for a carrier but I was hoping to use one to haul a week's worth of groceries from Wegman's. One can only fit so much into a backpack!

Top assisted speed is 15 mph. Anything above that you have to pedal to get there.

The power connector for the front hub motor makes for a somewhat wider than normal front wheel profile, making it interesting to park the bike in some bike racks. I had no problems with the rack in front of Wegman's.

Giant states in the owners book to specifically not leave the bike out in the rain.

The bottom line:

I was hoping for range closer to the advertised 75 miles but I suspected this would be too optimistic given the weight I expect it to carry and given the terrain. I find it to be an excellent commuter vehicle, provided you want to live life in the bicycle lane instead of the fast lane. The Twist DX will appeal to those who's litany of reasons not to ride a bike are effort to overcome local terrain and aversion to arriving at work sweaty and tired.

Its $2,200 list price leaves you wondering if you would buy a used commuter car or cheap scooter instead but I'll challenge there's nothing like riding a bike on a quiet uncongested bike path. As the PM review suggests, serious bikers will likely shun this bike, but they're not its intended market. The Twist DX will appeal to commuters and errand runners like myself and it offers a no excuse option for those sitting on the fence saying they'd love to bike to work, but...

I really hope that its asking price of 2 large doesn't relegate it to niche status. Go try one for yourself. You'll enjoy the experience.

The bottom line:

Would I buy one for myself? That is a tough question! Obviously I hated to part with the Twist Freedom DX at the end of the review period. I wuld love to have this bike as part of my fleet. At 2 large it is a tough decision to make. But yes, I am saving my pennies.

Acknowlegements:

I wish to express my gratitude to Erik and the Bicycle Shop for the extended test drive. Not every bicycle shop would loan out such an expensive machine for an open-ended test period, especially with the only collateral being a 6 year old entry-level mountain bike ;) But Erik is just that nice a guy and I think he's a great guy to do business with.

Video of the 'week...'

Like I said, whatever the posting frequency is... this is a funny cat vs. printer video from YouTube. The sound effects make it hilarious. Well, ok. After a long day it sure seemed pretty hilarious...

Song of the Day

Today I'll kick of the Song of the Day, week,or perhaps month. Well, whenever I get around to it, which is what the posting frequency seems to be.

Anyway for the last week I've had this song stuck in my head since hearing it on the radio on a log drive from here to there or maybe it was there to here.

This clip from '68 is unusual for its high quality and that Quo wasn't lip-syncing. They may have been singing over the instrumental track. Check it out at the 1:59 mark where Rossi starts laughing. Either the acid kicked in or the dancers were really bad. You have to dig the outfits... so much for being fashionable!

You never know what you'll see...

...while on the way to work.

Biking in one fine AM this last March (yah, I'm a little behind in my blog posts) I came across this in the parking lot at the Nittany Lion Inn:

Seems they were in town between cities while on Meow Mix Who's Cat Wants to be a Millionaire game show tour.

Anyway, imagine seeing this in your rearview window, or perhaps this view thru your windshield...

The Times They Have Changed...

So while 2 months ago I mused how satellite radio made me miss out on local flavor, XM6 with their deep catalog reminded me there is a lot of stuff out there still to be discovered by me.

While driving home for lunch the other day this one by former child star Eddie Hodges started playing:



Considered cute when sung b a 4 year old in 1961, somehow today I think this one would have 'restraining order' written all over it ;)

Sometimes you need to come up for air...

So it's been a while....

Last month I was driving to Tyson's Corner in VA for a one day conference sponsored by Microsoft. I had a rental car, no XM radio, and I forgot my iPod. What was left was local radio and flipping the dial every 50 miles or so, sometimes being forced to listen to corporate playlists. The alternative was static.

I happened upon a rather good station somewhere in the DC area as I drew close and caught this song. It was dark and rainy and I was in a mood and the backbeat was in time with the windshield wipers. The BB King sample was kind of cool and worked really well.



When I got to my hotel I was able to Google some of the lyrics was able to find it on YouTube.

Lately my XM has been stuck on one 'channel', usually 6. Sometimes you need to turn off the national services and go local to find some color out there. As long as the playlist isn't corporate...

The Tuesday Lunch Bunch

Another shot of the regular crew....

as always, a scary looking bunch of tech types....

They'll want their money back....

I have a friend who loves to send me internet jokes, even if I've seen them 1000 times before. I don't mind since at least we're keeping in touch.

Well on this day when I'm stuck at home still not feeling well and the weather miserable, a get a joke from him that I didn't find particularly funny. What made me laugh out loud was the 'targeted' ads Google inserted.



I think they'll want their money back....

Let it snow...

Snow is good for something... sometimes we forget.

Kids, Don't Do This at Home!

No, that is not the incandescent glow of 2050^oF glass and an unapproved method of gathering molten glass. If it were we'd be seeing quite a different picture of the poor gaffer about to burst into flames. Instead it is the incandescent glow of... well, a 100 watt incandescent light bulb.

Yes the melter is *still* out of service.

Here is the guilty party:

so when a prior element popped it left a piece of itself behind. The intense heat of the melter actually melted the nichrome into the refractory where it formed a material so hard they could make weapons out of it. Part of this stray nichrome-ceramic compound would bubble out of the shelf and short out the replacement element, starting the process all over again.

Our goal of the day was to remove the affected portion of the element shelf and replace it with a new one.

Once the shelf dries we'll put in the replacement element:

---

Here's the last candy dish I made a month ago, the last piece to come out before the melter melted.

It has the size I'm looking for but I still need work on the foot. In a closeup the bubble that became the foot got misshapen and off-center. It doesn't matter as poor cross ventilation got the poor thing caught in a cold draft right near the end, and the bottom is all cracked.

What was interesting on this piece is I went almost all tool-less on the final shaping, getting the open end nice and hot so it flowed out all on its own without ever having to hit it with the jacks. Pity about the foot and the crack as it made such a nice dish....

DQ Grand Reopening

After going a year without a Dairy Queen, the store at its new location, 310 W. Aaron Drive, opened with great fan-fare.

Even some celebrities showed up:

From L to R is Mike the Mailman, Don Boller, and myself.

Welcome back , DQ!

The Day After Groundhog Day

Super Sunday, or around here this year, the Day After Groundhog Day, was a super Sunday indeed. It was School Spirit Day for both of the kids' schools at the Bryce Jordan Center where we got discounted tickets to see the PSU Lady Lions take on the Wisconsin Badgers. It was a welcome respite from the losing fight chipping away at the 2 inches or so of ice the slush storm left us on Friday. (6 more weeks of this? I'll get you, Phil!)

Prior to the start of the game a remote control blimp emblazoned with McLanahan's logos and advertising their Penn State Room circled about the Jordan center. Later on, at half-time, it was circling the arena and then hovering over whatever section was supposedly shouting the loudest for the blimp. It would then drop coupons for something or other onto the crowd.... I don't want to comment publically on what the visual looked like!

A blimp spitting cupons out its back end was almost the highlight of the game as the Lady Lions let this one slip right from the start. Lackluster play, missed opportunities, and a boatload of missed free throws! There is just not enough vituperative to describe it.

The real highlight of the game came with about 4 minutes of play left in the second half. We were comtemplating getting a jump on the crowd when the Nittany Lion showed up:

That was the highlight of the game along with the freebie 4 mugs that had blinking LED lights around the base. (We'll ignore the almost $30 for 3 cheeseburgers and a hot dog for now.) It was a nice family afternoon out even if the game turned into a stark reminder of how much the program has sunk.

At least the Super Bowl lived up to its billing this year, instead of the Super Hype of years past, where one team gets blown out so early you keep watching just for the commercials. (Which stank.) This one will go down as one of the best games ever played. I love defensive struggles that get settled in the final minute of the game. Enough's already been written about this game so you don't need any of my commentary.

Then it was back to trying to get all that damned ice out of the driveway. Which brings me back to the day known as the Day After Groundhog Day. If this keeps up I'm going to drive to Punxsutawney and dig up that groundhog....

Rain, No Game

Damn....

After finally hitting stride with regular visits to the hot shop, Satan acts up again....

Danged thing popped an element last week leaving a crucible full of half melted batch. The replacement elements fared no better. Nothing like replacing a broken part with a defective part.

Needless to say it'll be another week or two before the replacement replacements are installed, we're back up to 2050^oF, and we have 200 lbs. of molten glass ready for blowing instead of a giant ugly paperweight. I'm already starting to shake with withdrawal symptoms.

Cold Hikes and Mid-winter Blahs

I'm not much of a fan of January. Nope, not at all. The Days are still short and around these parts we don't get a whole lot of sunshine. So this past Sunday we had plenty of sun. with the temperatures hovering between 10- 13° F it was a good day for a short hike in the woods. I decided to hit up a piece of SGL- 176 behind Toftrees. Of course it didn't hurt there was a cache there that I hadn't yet found!

This section of the gamelands is part of the PSU waste-water spray irrigation system. With it being this cold the active spray fields will be busy making some impressive natural ice sculptures. They did not disappoint!

While I was enjoying the solitude on this crisp winter afternoon I came across a family also on a nice hike. I was glad to see I wasn't the only nut out there.

When I got to the cache site I saw lots of footprints in the snow, leading me like breadcrumbs to the cache container. Funny how easily I found it this time. Now I was wondering if the family I passed on the way in were crazy geo-cachers! It seems we had quite a few in town. The day before was the second annual Central PA Mid-winter Blahs event cache.

We crammed 123 people who had nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon into the back 2 rooms at Prospectors. Last year we had 60 folks show up.

This year's event more than doubled last year and everyone had a great time. We also helped boost business on a slow Saturday for a local business.

George + Moe2 deserve a big round of thanks for their door prize donations. The staff at Prospectors did a great job with the huge crowd. And the cashers themselves deserve a big hand for being such great sports for turning out in droves and having a great time. I can't wait for next year!

The Tuesday Lunch Bunch

Forgot to post this last week! I warned them this would show up on my blog. Pretty scary group hanging out at the BJC on a Tuesday afternoon.

Stone Valley Vista

It has been almost a year since the happy gang got together on a cold January morning (15F) to go deep in the woods to find a cache named Dobby's Home. So while enjoying a nice Saturday evening dinner my phone rings and out of the silence it is Billy Blades, aka Moe2 of 2 Guys Named Moe, asking if I wanted to join them to locate Stone Valley Vista, a cache at the top of Stone Mountain where one will enjoy one of the nicest views on Standing Stone Trail.

So who could say no?

So off I go on a trek with the Moes, to locate more tupperware, or at least in this case an ammo box, in the woods.

When we got to the designated parking coordinates our GPS units, while correctly pointing in the direction of the cache, were in reality going to take us the wrong way along the wrong trail. Moe1 would have you believe her GPSr knew the correct way but in reality her unit had frozen and would always point "that way", whatever "that way" happened to be.

So there I was with all of 157 finds to my experience, with the great and experienced Moes, who were "arrow following" along the wrong trail. After stopping at the trail head I realized we were going the wrong way (despite the arrows on the GPS units) and turned the Moes around. So instead of mindlessly following the arrow on our equally mindless for 1.3 miles we began a long and interesting 2 mile hike up Standing Stone Trail. The trail got quite exciting at times,as I think they imported extra boulders along the way just for us!

When we get some ways behind the Greenwood Furnace church the side of the trail quickly drops off the mountain:

Billy "Goat" Blades can't wait to tempt fate:

A bit up the trail we spot a pipe coming out of the ground along the side of the trail:

Further up we spot this concrete pad, under which we think the pipe make an abrupt turn down the slope:

It wasn't until the way down we saw down at the bottom of the mountain there was a small dam on the creek and what looked to be a pump house. I wonder where this water was pumped to? And how did they keep it from freezing in the winter? I'll post an update when I get more information.

Anyway at least now our GPS units are pointing in the correct direction and the distance counter drop under one mile. Feeling confident at the .7 mile mark the trail makes a 180 degree turn and we walk back .1 mile or so before the trail again turns in the correct direction. At this point begins what is probably a very rocky climb for about .25 miles. The rocks have slowed down the Moes

and here is where I make my break for the cache....

Of course I stop along the way to wait for the Moes to catch up and sneak a peak at the view to come:

Despite waiting for them I manage to pull awayand get to the cache site well ahead of the Moes. Now I have to ask myself, do I be nice or do I pull a Dobby ? So I decide to be nice and pull a snack out of my bag and enjoy a nice meal while waiting for them to show up. The true "Billy Goat" easily traverses the rocky shoals:

and before you know it the cache is ours:

Great view from up here:

I logged the cache on site my my smart phone:

When you think you're alone in the woods, along comes another hiker:

who Moe1 convinces to take our picture:

Now I am not shorter then the Moes! I happened to be standing in a hole and Moe1 is doing her best to keep me there so I don't pop up to my true height. I guess we were having too much fun as the PSU student continued upon the trail and at a rather high rate of speed.

Billy tried to take a picture with his camera phone thru his binoculars:

No wonder the student left real fast. I would too.

So with one last look before we left

we departed the summit and headed back down to the car. Which we hoped didn't get towed away or worse.

On the way down we spotted some trees that began life under difficult circumstances, started out heading the wrong way, but somehow righted themselves and continued on life's journey.

Last October I had a DNF at another cache, Stone Blue Stream, so we head off to find that one. First we stop for something to eat at a new place, Couch's, along 305 just outside McAlevy's Fort. A welcome rest stop with good food, and 2008 dog licenses available to boot! Couch's looks like it fills a big need in the area and we managed to get in just as the Sunday after church crowd was letting out. After our pit stop we easily locate Stone Blue Stream thanks to our true Billy Goat's ability to cross raging torrents. With another cache in the found column we head for home to rest up after our latest adventures in the woods.

Caching with the Moes is always great fun. Yeah we rib on each other a lot but its part of teh unique fun we experience searching for tupperware. While my kids like to do the quich cache and dash and we enjoy quality family time together, they just don't like to do the deep woods caches. Enter the best caching friends one can have, 2 Guys Named Moe, to settle ones deep woods fix ;)

Christmas Lights

It figures that the year my outdoor display turns on me that my street has the honor of being part of the CATA Bus Holiday Light Tour. It seems every day there was some part of the display giving me grief. I like to think that is is my display that attracted the holiday bus this year and having it randomly go half-dead was vexing, to say the least..

Here's a shot of the train display:

It took approximately 1865 watts of power to attract the bus and this is for a modest display. The sold out buses brought about 160 people a night for 7 nights so I guess I invested about a watt/person. I hate to think how much power gets consumed by those large displays.

But now for the grumbling and grief this year's attempt created:

In the background of the last picture you won't see the display I intended which is a blue spot-lit backdrop of my bushes. It came out more white than blue due to the lousy blue-colored GE spotlights I used.

I will say this. I will never use the blue GE spot lights again. I've gone thru about 6 or 7 bulbs over the last 2 holiday seasons. Mostly the blue paint peels right off the lamp! This happens usually in the first few hours of operation. Instead of a nice blue backdrop I get a mostly white- washed out blue. Ugh.

Not only does the paint fleck right off but they have a miserable operation life. Two of them blew out within the first hour of operation, one even burned out as I was installing it! None of the red or green GE spotlights have been as much of a problem. Lowes has been pretty good about replacing them but the PIA factor makes it not worth it. As an experiment I replaced one blue GE with a blue spotlight from Philips. Right out of the box I could see the coloration of the glass was of a much higher quality. This one has gone the entire display season with nary a problem. I'm forced to conclude that blue GE spot lights are just plain junk. Maybe they hold up better out of the weather but then they should not be marketed as outdoor quality.

Let's not even talk about the fixtures. Hopefully the ones I switched to this year will last longer. The high-brightness bulbs on the train are also nearing end-of-life. I cleaned out the entire stock of replacement bulbs at Target to keep the train running on time this year.

I continue to be impressed by the brightness, color, and clarity of the LED lights I am slowly switching in to the display. While the LEDs themselves are holding up well with good light output I am still concerned about the quality of the sockets and wires, especially for outdoor displays. I think the old corrosion problems are still there and the sockets will rot out long before the bulbs fail. Given the price premium we have to pay I hope I break even. LED lights have been on the market long enough for the price to start dropping but so far the manufacturers are holding the line.

It is time for the volume discounts to kick in rather than trying to make lots of $$ riding the green trend. Oops I forgot-- this is America. I could drop my power consumption quite dramatically by replacing the remaining strings will all-LED. I'm also in search of good quality outdoor-capable LED or CFL colored spotlights. A high-brightness blue LED spotlight would solve a lot of problems!

Searching for Tupperware.....

This is my short explanation for geocaching:

"I use a billion dollar government sponsored satellite system to hunt for Tupperware in the woods..."

I find it a fun and unique hobby that has taken me to some very interesting places with the sometimes secondary goal of locating the camouflaged aforementioned Tupperware. As part of the Christmas holiday break I embarked on a special father-son weekend that had as one of its stated goals the thrill of the hunt for the elusive Tupperware. We had been planning this weekend since Thanksgiving and needed the weather to cooperate. Luckily Mother Nature did indeed send us some good weather but not before burying all our potential cache finds under some snow and ice....

We began on Friday afternoon and after what seemed to Jason to be hours of driving the GPS unit bonged we were close to our first stated goal, a cache named 'We Wish you Well', well disguised inside a wishing well in a small park just outside of Danville, PA. After rooting around a bit at ground zero our search was rewarded with a unique cache container that was not the usual Tupperware. Being a bit warm out we just had to stick around a while to play in this nice newly constructed park.

I think someone had a good time in the park. Next it was on to the Buckhorn to locate "Boppin' at Buckhorn", an annoying micro-cache near an abandoned section of the Columbia Mall that eluded us a year ago on Father-Son cache weekend 2006. I'm not a fan of these type of caches but can't stand the thought of having one get away from us. Now last year I searched and searched and searched but came up dry. Jason slept in the warm car while a cold biting wind zapped my energy on that cold and gray day. This time we walked right up to it. Instant find. Go figure...

After this successful hunt we headed off the the Wendy's in the mall for lunch. This was the first eating establishment on Jason's restaurant itinerary. We then completed two more caches before deciding it would get too dark when we arrived at our final destination. We skipped the additional 3 caches on our list and pressed on.

We arrived at "the big house", as Jr. calls it, just as it was getting dark. Despite the doom and gloom forecast if ice and snow blocking the way in we were able to pull up without a problem. We were greeting inside by a live Christmas tree, something that hasn't adorned the house since 1995. It was nice to see and it put a nice touch on the weekend.

While I set about unpacking our bags Jason decided to reconstruct a roller coaster with his new iCoaster set

We lounged about a bit and then headed off to Jason's second requested restaurant, Henry's Ghost Steak House in Henryville, PA. Henry's is the latest incantation for this one building nestled on a sharp curve on PA 715. A few of the on-line reviews I read were good so I agreed with his choice and we headed out.

Being our first time here, no matter which incantation, we had no idea what to expect. The interior was pleasantly decorated even if it did feel like a crazy mashup of the 1970's and 1990's. There was a distinct wet ash odor coming from the fireplace that temporarily assaulted my senses but that soon passed. The food did live up to its reviews and Jason enjoyed his kids meal but our young and inexperienced server couldn't get his order right no matter how many times I tried to explain it to her. What part of 'he gets french-fries and a dessert as part of that' could she not understand? It says so in big print in the kids menu.

We never did get his free dessert and I ended up paying for the free fries but it was getting late and I was tired and decided it wasn't worth the fuss over a measly16 bits. We'll give the Ghost another opportunity on a later date. Despite all that you can see from the smile the Ghost was good.

Saturday was a slow day that featured our only home cooked meals, breakfast (requested menu was pancakes and bacon) and lunch (grilled cheese). Reminder to self- bring a decent frying pan next time.

After spending the afternoon visiting some friends I hadn't seen in quite a while it was time for phase 3 of the weekend, the BB gun shoot:

Jason is a great shot. After seeing A Christmas Story for the umpteenth time he loves to quote "but kid, you'll shoot your eye out...". Don't worry... he is wearing his safety glasses!

After shooting Black Bart and the rest of his Dastardly Gang it was time for restaurant three on this ever more expensive itinerary, the Dansbury Depot. This is one of Jason's favorite spots and I like heading here myself. The food is always good and I never had a problem with the service. They also have Boylan Soda, made from real cane sugar, so I always have to get a bottle when I come here.

There is just something about an old train station....

Sunday AM featured restaurant 4, Billy's Pocono Diner. We met up with some friends who can be scary looking that early in the morning:

After Billy's it was time to reactive the geocaching phase of the big weekend. First stop was God's Glorious View in Mt. Pocono. I couldn't believe we found this one which as I fear was buried under the snow and ice pack. We got real lucky here! The view did live up to expectations. I only managed 2 snaps. This one is looking towards Camelback ski area

and this one which I believe is overlooking the new Mt. Airy Resort and Casino.

After some fit and start navigation we were off to successfully find Tomato Soup. To avoid a stream crossing in the cold we approached from a back way in and discovered more snow and ice.

This marked our completing the entire Soup for Lunch cache series we started during our 2006 adventure. We thought we'd check out the nearby Big Pines Forest cache but the trail was much too icy, with a steep slope straight into the creek, for us to chance.

On our way back to teh car we spotted this tree growing out of a rock, reminding us of nature's power and how life always finds a way to survive.

We wrapped up by finding two more caches and one DNF, an annoying micro in the woods nobody has found since August of 2006. We headed back to the big house, packed up, and ran out the door to head home before the big snowstorm struck. We made it back to Danville stop at McDonald's, our final restaurant on the itinerary. We picked this one because of the awesome play-place.

Our geocache weekend adventure yielded a meager 8 finds and 1 dnf. For some folks 8 finds in a morning isn't even breaking a sweat. All told I must've dropped over $125 on food and gas for the weekend. But it is not about the numbers.....

The time we spent together was priceless and for good measure had some geocaching and visiting old friends thrown into the mix. I can't wait for next year.