Category Archives: Photos and Screenshots

First Time Geocaching

Geocache
Today I went with geocaching for the first time! For those of you that don’t know, geocaching is like GPS treasure hunting. You take coordinates for a known geocache that someone else has placed and set off to find it. Usually, there’s a small description or hint. Once you reach the GPS coordinates, the goal is to find the geocache, some sort of small container, and sign the log located inside. In some, there might be small goodies that you’re encouraged to exchange. There also might be a special bonus for the person who’s the FTF – the first to find.
gem surprised me with our first hunt near my house. Unfortunately, we didn’t succeed. We’re fairly confident it was missing. We reached the coordinates but only found old duct tape. Our guess is that the geocache had been removed, but maybe we just missed it and the duct tape was unrelated. While we were at the location, we looked at some very cool houses and found a sidewalk near our house that we didn’t know existed. It goes through a tunnel under the street. It was pretty cool.
Laster, at Jessica’s house, we tried again. Again, we failed. Like our first attempt, we found what we think are remnants – velcro attached to a lamppost, but nothing velcro’d to it. From the geocache description, we learned that it was created by a couple for their grandchildren. Cute!
We didn’t want to keep failing, so we tried for another. It wasn’t too far from our last attempt, but this one turned out a lot better. We managed to find the small canister with a log, a dime, and a penny with the shape of an angel cut out of it. We forgot a pen, so we went inside a nearby store to sign the log. Finally, a success!
Excited from our victory, we tried for another. Sadly, we had another failure. We got to the location only to find heavy shrubbery and palm trees. Unlike the other failures, we found no remnants. Was it missing? Were the coordinates a little off? Were we just dumb? I have no idea. Sadly, this one actually seemed the most interesting. It was part of a geocache series called “Around the World in 80 Days,” I think. Inside the geocache were supposedly hints toward another geocache. Maybe we’ll go back sometime to try again.
For our first day, one out of four wasn’t bad I suppose! It’s definitely a fun activity, and I could see taking it up as a hobby. Maybe we’ll try geohashing sometime!

Steampunk Exhibit at Muzeo



Steampunk Exhibit at Muzeo, originally uploaded by theuser.

Today we set out to see the steampunk exhibit at Muzeo in Anaheim. What we ran into first was a Black History Month parade. We saw bits of it while we walked to the museum, and then we got to see gears galore. Pieces ranged from walking sticks to weapons for hunting supernatural creatures courtesy of the League of S.T.E.A.M., who we had seen at Anime Expo 2010. There was also a section on fiction, including Jules Vernes, H. G. Wells, Sir Arthus Conan Doyle, and Mary Shelley. It made me want to go read some of these books!
There was also an exhibit on the bible. I looked at this too, but it was far, far less interesting than steampunk.
Then we checked out the street fair for Black History Month. It didn’t have any ethnic food. I wanted something out of the ordinary. Sadly, there wasn’t anything, so we went ahead with our original plan of having Indian food. And that was quite tasty!

New Year’s Eve

New Year’s Eve, originally uploaded by theuser.

 
For New Year’s Eve, we went and saw Wicked! Sadly, gem had to work in the morning, but at 2 PM we were at the Pantages watching the start of Wicked! I love that show. I’ve seen it before, but it’s stil excellent to see again. I also bought her an overpriced Wicked shirt!
For dinner we went to the Stinking Rose. So. Good. As usual. I had an amazing filet mignon (although it should be redder than a bit pink when I order it rare). She had a prime rib. All in all, an excellent last meal of the year!
It was super foggy that night, but we made it home without dying. That’s always good.
For the first meal of 2012, I wanted Chipotle. Unfortunately, Chipotle was all stupid and closed. Wing Stop had to suffice.

Christmas

Christmas, originally uploaded by theuser.

 
The holidays were pretty exciting this year! The biggest thing, in my opinion, was that I bought a tree for the first time. It was great! We put up lights and decorations, including custom-made decorations made by gem. (I’ll put up photos of the decorations later.)
We went on a gondola ride with my parents in Long Beach as well as a boat tour of Balboa. They were both really fun! I saw both Edward and Antonio before Christmas. We bought Edward a steak dinner with sides. Each part of the meal was wrapped individually and in our fridge. It was fun! He gave me a Nerf gun, but inside the box was also an annual pass to Disneyland! Pretty cool. Antonio came over the next day. We traded gifts, but he didn’t want to open them until Christmas Day. He received Skyward Sword and Super Mario 3D Land, and he gave me a Logitech G930 wireless 7.1 gaming headset. It’s super awesome!
Christmas Eve I went to my aunt’s house. I hung out, playde Pass the Pigs, and talked to my brother while waiting for the rest of the family to get home from church. We had delicious ham, watched Christmas Vacation, and exchanged gifts. I gave some games to my cousins and a Farts Around the World book to Pete. He loved it. I gave Hyperion and American Gods to James. Both were excellent books. Hyperion was recommended by Taylor, my manager at Barnes & Noble, to both John, a Head Cashier, and Gabe, the Newsstand Lead. All three of them recommended it to me. I thought it would be nice to pass it down to another B&N employee, especially because it was one of the best books I’d ever read.
On Christmas Day I went to my mom’s house. This time it was beef instead of ham, and it was also delicious. I spent a lot of time chatting with my brother, which was really great. It was nice to catch up with him. We also did our holiday singing of the Twelve Days of Christmas, complete with signs you hold up when it’s your turn created by Pete.
It was a fun Christmas!