Addictive Games Are My Favorite!

Well, there isn't much news around here. I have been working on my resume, and searching for jobs like mad for the past 46.674 hours - discounting sleep naturally.. Besides that things are as lame as can be. However, every now and then, when I feel the need to escape the drag of job hunting I have been playing this >>GAME<<!! My best score is 424, heress the photographic evidence...but I am sure some of the more talented people out there can do better than that. Let me know how you do. Best of luck. Until again

-=Nolan=-

It's been a few days since I have said anything around here... That's basically because there hasn't been much to tell about. Laura and I did some geocaching on Friday and Saturday and Sunday we stayed at home. Laura cleaned the kitchen while I investigated my computer problems more closely. We had a great time geocaching on Saturday. We found a few caches which we didn't think we would ever find, and we took a few caches of the list that we didn't want to see any longer! We also figured out where some other caches around the area were located so we can find time to go caching later. My blog page is having some troubles, so I will try to find something interesting to post for a later blog. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Mapping The Way

As most of you already know, Laura and I like to travel. She likes traveling by plane most of the time. However, I like staying on the ground and seeing the sites! It's not because I don't like to fly, although I have never flown in a commercial airplane before, I would rather stay on the ground and see things along the way. Besides, half the fun is getting there! So, with that in mind, I have created a fun map to show where Laura and I have been. This map shows the counties we have been in. This only starts when we started dating, not before. We traveled together on track and cross country trips before we dated, but those don't out. I actually thought there would be a little more space filled up, but I guess this really only is showing a year and a half of traveling - since the middle of June in 2004. By clicking on the picture you can get a better image than the little one shown.NOW, if I could figure out all the places I have been with my family, this baby would be QUITE full. Since we have been all over the contiguous United States (the lower 48) this map would have a lot of counties that were no white. That's right, we have traveled the United States and never have flown once. Not to mention we went to Canada a total of four times, including New Brunswick - that's a hellofadrive (long drive) from Nebraska. So we have touched ever Canadian province which boarders the U.S.... Don't forget Baja California once and then to every corner of the United States at least once. Plus, we took three family vacations to Vegas, and those were considered short by our standards... Perhaps I can retrace some of those routes and put together a good map to show where we have been. I can't even imagine it right now! Until again

-=Nolan=-

Another Milestone.

As some of you may remember from November, I posted a picture when my truck hit 121,000 miles... Welcome now 122,000 miles. Gee, 1,000 miles in basically 2.5 months - that's practically 5,000 miles a year on the truck.

In other news, Laura and I played Monopoly with our neighbor a few nights ago. As you can see from the picure, I wasn't doing very well... Our game started around 8:00 pm and by 11:00 this is what I was left with. A lousy $206 and Virginia Avenue. But for nearly an hour I managed to stay alive, at one time I had an amazing $8 to work with. That's right $8 in Monopoly is as good as being broke. Finally, at one minute until midnight I had to declare bankruptcy. So in this case, Laura beat me pretty easy. So my Monopoly record vs. Laura is now 1-1. At .500 that isn't a bad deal and we are back on equal playing fields. Maybe we will have to test our skill in another board game now...?

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Hut, Hut, HIKE!!!

That's right, Hiking is something we have enjoyed doing since we got to Missoula in August. With the winter months and the snow we really havn't been hiking too often, but once it warms up we are going to be excited to go hiking. The main reason is because we found some external hiking packs on clearance and we are VERY ready to use them. Laura's parents are organizing a hike this summer, which hopefully here entire family can go on - as long and jobs and school don't become a problem. They are wanting to take a boat across Yellowstone Lake and then hike into the wilderness - about a 15-20 mile hike into a remote cabin. It sounds like a fun time to me - and we have been wanting to find hiking packs for nearly a year now. So when the opportunity came, we took it. These arn't exactly the best packs on the planet, but if you know me, I don't give a 'ats Rass' if they are top quality or not - I will make them work. Until again

-=Nolan=-

500 Geocaches found!

Yesterday we accomplished one of first goals as a couple. Find 500 geocaches.. For my birthday last year (nearly 14 months ago) Laura gave me a GPS. Being the Geographer that I am, this was like finding the Holy Grail to me! So we started Geocaching two days later and we have been hooked since. Well, our first 100 caches was quite a milestone, and our friends are currently at 99 cache finds - soon to reach the triple digits! However, yesterday was a big step for us. We made it our goal to find 400 caches within a year, which we just barely made, and here we are 50 days later, and we have 103 more caches! That's not a bad average. Other than the Geocaching news there isn't much else to say. Our wonderful picture was taken using the limb of a nearby tree as a tripod - not bad for just putting the camera on the tree and running for the picture!

Check back tomorrow when I feature our newest toys we found on clearance last week..... *Que the mystery music.......aaaannnd CUT! That's a wrap people.

Until again

-=Nolan=-

Hats-N-Snow

Over Christmas break, I picked up some hats from my Grandma's house. These were from a collection of hats that my Grandpa had. There was quite a collection of hats, and now they are being divided up. I picked up a good plenty for my many hat needs I have. Yesterday I got them all out and cleaned them up - that is, I cleaned the ones that needed to be cleaned... There are some hats which should never be cleaned - for example - Budweiser Racing 1984 - the stain on that on is classic - you don't clean something like that! Now on the other hand, a hat which is lossing the lining or needs some touch-up work got a good once over before picture time. These are just the hats I picked up over Christmas - 32 in all - and they will be added to the collection of hats which I already wear around. I will soon be wearing these things all over the place, but I have decided to keep them put away until this summer. In the winter I like to sport a good warm hat!

The reason for a warm hat is because of things like last night! We recieved an inch of snow - 30% chance huh!? So I have scooped the walk and the rest of the snow is melting away now. We are preparing for an afternoon walk now. So until again

-=Nolan=-

To Pluto!

HOLY SMOKES! If you missed the launch of New Horizons yesterday then you can catch some of the news >>HERE<<.. This is some text taken from the site:

Thirty-five years ago, Apollo astronauts took 3 days to reach the moon. Yesterday, New Horizons did it in 9 hours, becoming the fastest spacecraft ever launched from Earth. New Horizons needs all the speed it can get: destination Pluto is six billion miles away. After zipping past the moon's orbit, New Horizons heads for Jupiter, a 13 month trip. The spacecraft will slingshot around the giant planet, boosting its speed even more, from 36,000 mph to 47,000 mph. All that speed, and it will still take New Horizons 9 years to reach Pluto.

All I can say is WOW - going to the moon in 9 hours!? Most people sleep 7-8 hours a night - think of how FAST that thing is going!

Not much news around here today. Laura and I played some Monopoly two nights ago and I made short work of her, I got pretty lucky and picked up some properties and built houses and hotels real quick so make it a short game.. Last night I played some Playstation - the original. I played some Cool Boarders 3. It's a snow boarding game that I used to play at my friends house all the time, I was never very good at it, but last night I beat three levels within an hour - I have never even beat a level before! Hurray!

As far as future plans, we are thinking of going on a Geocache drive tomorrow. We hope to find at least two caches to take us to 500! Until again

-=Nolan=-

Early Morning or Late Night Post

Due to the loss of a dear friend (aka my computer) I am going to have difficulty post pictures on my blogs for a little while. I still can post pictures from the laptop, but I am currently trying to use an old computer which I have fixed up which doesn't support my camera. So for a few days anyway, I will probably not be posting pictures which I have taken - perhaps some photos from the internet or whatever I can find...

I generally don't like to post blogs without some sort of visual aid or graphic to view... For the most part, not always however, I find that blogs without photos become rather dry and tiresome - please note that I am not referencing any blogs which I frequently read and do not include pictures, I still enjoy those.. Ha ha, just had to say that to cover my hind-quarters from those who don't post pictures. I just happen to be someone who likes to share pictures and by posting them in a blog it's a mighty easy way for anyone to view them.

So with that said, I offer this picture for your viewing pleasure today. This is NOT my computer, and thankfully so. I would be crying myself to sleep at this point if my computer was in this shape.

Switching now to events of the day... Laura and I cleaned out the closet and oranized items into totes which we are going to keep in the garage. We now have ample amounts of space in the garage, since we cleaned it out this week - and we are going to open up some room in the apartment so we can enjoy our living space once again. We went for a walk this afternoon and found a new cache here in Missoula. Bringing our total to 498 caches found - so close to 500. You can see how many caches we have found by looking under the weather icons located on the right side of the page - our stats are under the MORE menu and it says "stats for XC_Tracker"... After that we came home and had some supper and watched tv until our upstairs neighbor knocked on our door and asked if we wanted to play some Trivial Pursuit. Ok, I'm game to showoff my amazing amount of worthless knowledge - and wouldn't you know it, I won. Laura was close behind me however, BUT you have to give credit where credit is due, and in this case the obvious credit is due to me because I chose her as my wonderful bride - another smart move on my part!! Anyway, that pretty much ended our day and Laura went to bed shortly after the conclusion of the game. I, on the other hand, am a night owl and find is shameful to fall asleep before midnight. However I do occasionally go to bed earlier if I have had a long day or I am just plain tired.

Well, that's more than enough rambling for now. Like I said, I will be determining my situation with the computer and deciding what will be done, but until then I am kind of stuck with personal photos to post, so please bare with me for awhile until things are back to a semi-normal state! Until again

-=Nolan=-

Celebrities of Missoula

Well, as reported by several people around town, the drummer of Pearl Jam is from Missoula - but that's not what this post is about. No no. Today Laura and I went shopping, just for something to do on a slow Sunday. We went to Wal-Mart first. We found some good deals there, but no celebrities were present. We then went to Target. Here, we found two celebrites, or maybe I should clear things up - they were people who thought they were celebrities. First off, we have a superhero from The Adventures of Pete & Pete, his name is Artie. If you have never seen the show before then you won't have to worry, just take a look at this picture and you can take a good guess at what this guy looked like... Only our super hero had on a down-filled vest (why?) and a long sleeve shirt - but his glasses were exactly the same and his hair was just as short... A rather interesting person to say the least...

Well, no more than 2 aisles away we meet Paris Hilton! A tall blond woman - taller than I - and I am 6'1" so she was a good 6'3" in heels... Anyway, she had on some VERY designer clothes, but that isn't what set her off - she had a little DOG in her purse! Whoa lady, that's weird! At this point I was in shock. I had just seen Artie (The strongest man in the world) and while I was still trying to catch my breath I spot Paris Hilton. What a wild trip to Target...

In other news - news worth sharing - I have determined that is was not my power supply which has broken, but perhaps my motherboard. This causes a big problem because the motherboard is like the engine in a car, your wheels just don't take you very far without that engine giving you all the power.. So I am in the process of looking for a new motherboard - perhaps I will try to find a similar one as a replacement, but I am strongly wanting to upgrade to a faster processor - I want a 2.8mhz or faster. The fact that I STILL havn't even gotten an interview for a job has really put a damper on the income and the amount of goodies I can buy.. Looks like I am just gonna go find a job for awhile so I can make some money and not be pickey about it. Until again

-=Nolan=-

The Untitled Post

What a day we have had. Laura and I slept in until nearly 10:00 am! That was super nice, however around 9:30 Laura decided it was time for me to wake up so she could talk to me about what we should do today.. Thanks honey, I am thrilled to wake up so we can figure out what we should get up to go do! Well, I walked out into the kitchen and Brooklyn was already standing at the door waiting for someone to come out and play - so I played with Brooklyn until noon! By that time I was quite hungry. Laura and I sat down and watched Storytellers - Goo Goo Dolls while we finished some left overs. After we had some dinner Laura decided she wanted to rake the yard, which was fine by me, I cleaned out the garage so we could do some work on vehicles when it was raining or cold. I even found a TV and sat up an antenna so I can still watch sports while I am tinkering around. After I was done with the garage I helped Laura finish the yard and by that time it was getting dark. We spent most of the day outside, but it was a nice day to be outside and we took full advantage of it...

After returning indoors I went to my computer and noticed it was off. I usually don't shut my computer off during the day, so I found this strange. I hit the power button and nothing happened... I have concluded that my brand new power supply has gone bad! Great! So know I am back with the laptop for awhile until I can figure out what I am going to do about my computer. I have quite a setup with the laptop now - I have the laptop on my roll out keyboard drawer and my CRT monitor hooked up to the laptop. I also have my mouse and speakers setup to the laptop so it feels more like a desktop PC and not a little computer. I like BIG computers - to me they just feel more powerful and more capable, which I know really isn't the case... Until again

-=Nolan=-

Friday the 13th

Yes, that's right. It is Friday the 13th if you didn't know. Laura and I have been out for our run already, a nice 3 miler which makes three days in a row of running for us now. Laura has gone back to the lab to do some work for the day and I am searching the internet for jobs once again. In the mean time I played some fetch with Brooklyn. I found her frisbee in the garage an she is mighty good at catching it! We just need a bigger backyard that isn't on a hill - maybe I will take her over to the park sometime.

Over the break Laura's dad took us and her brother shooting for sporting clays. I had never done an organized shoot like this, but it was a lot of fun. We usually just took a thrower and everyone could blast at the clay target. I only shot around 50% of the targets, but I managed to blast away on the duck blind targets.JR blasting away!

I'm shooting away too!

Laura's got the right idea.

Anyway, not a lot happening right now, we are just getting into a routine again and getting outselves settled again. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Back In The Big Sky

After 3 weeks on the road, we are back in Missoula. We have returned to a familiar apartment, but our upstairs neighbors are new. While we were away on break our old neighbors moved to Indiana and took Missoula and Montana with them. The new neighbors are Sheena (21) and Jessica (27) and Brooklyn (10 months). No Brooklyn isn't a baby, she's a PUPPY! Both of the girls are really nice and we are glad they are here. Since we were gone for 3 weeks, they started wondering where we were and when we would be back! Ha ha, I think I would have been curious as well. Brooklyn is a very well behaved dog. She doesn't jump up on us, she doesn't bark (unlike the rest of the dogs in the neighborhood) and she plays fetch VERY well. Here's a picture from this mornings game of fetch.

Now about the trip. We spent the first week in Cheyenne with Laura's parents before heading to Nebraska for 10 days to spend time with my family. While we were in Kearney we met up with sererall of my friends (now our friends) - we went geocaching about 40 miles west of Kearney for a day, and then finished up with a few caches in Kearney. Laura and I have found all the active caches in Kearney now - well over 150 caches in town. It was nice to have that goal achieved. We also had three caches left to find in Cheyenne to have all of the city completed, but we never found the time to search for them - that's ok though, we will have other opportunities. We also helped Andy and Amber with their basement which they are finishing. We helped mud the wall board to get Andy a good days work behind him. Laura had a great time doing that, she seems to think we will have a blast when we build our house in a few more years..

After we made it back to Cheyenne we stayed there a few days before heading back to Missoula. We decided to leave on Monday morning at 5:00 a.m. so we could find a cache in Idaho to add another state to our finds... So we got up at 4:15 and had a bowl of cereal and said goodbye. It had snowed a little over night so things were nice and cold, but we had no trouble with the roads until we got into the pass between Cheyenne and Laramie - the roads were still ok, but the blowing snow realy made visibility bad. By 6:00 we were through Laramie and well on our way to Missoula - the plan was to be nearly across Wyoming by sun-up at 8:00 - but like I said "our plan WAS"..... According to the GPS we were 35 miles west of Laramie when thud, thud, thud, thud, thud - our right back tire goes FLAT! WHAT THE HECK! Changing a tire at 6:00 a.m. in the dark and out in the middle of nowhere was not what I wanted to be doing!!! I put by coveralls on, whenever I travel long distnace in the winter I take them along - a good lesson dad taught me, and crawled on the ground for awhile. I should also mention that where we pulled over, there was no wind or snow, but 2 miles ahead we discovered the wind was blowing 50+ mph and there was snow everywhere. Plus it was near 40 where we changed the tire, but the snow everywhere else was indicating temps were below 30... Someone was taking care of us, given the situation... We managed to get the tire changed by 6:45 and head back to Laramie, the clostest town. It took about an hour at 50 mph to find a turn around on the Interstate and CRAWL back to Laramie at 50 mph. I initially thought we could patch the tire, but after patching it and inflating, it was clear the tire was ruined... I guess it doesn't take much at 75 mph to ruin a flat tire. So $100 and 3 hours later we were back on the road to Missoula. Our 13 trip turned into 17 hours - just from a ROCK. Yes, that's right, it wasn't a nail in our tire. No no, it was a ROCK - a sharp one though. I feel stupid for saying this, but after taking Geology, I can't indentify the rock at all. I am going to have to consult the use of my notes - but I am not going to do it now. Anyway, here's a picture so you can see for yourself. I was amazed a rock could do this, but I have to add, this rock has got a heck of a point on it.

Other than the tire, everything else went just great and we had a wonderful time seeing everyone... The GPS put us at 3,500+ miles for the trip.. Oh yeah, and my weight - when I checked this morning it was right at 190. Not bad, but not as good as it needs to be. Until again

-=Nolan=-

Montana or Bust

This is our last night in Cheyenne before we hit the road early tomorrow morning. We are planning to travel on I-80 west across Wyoming and then cut north into Idaho and make our way to Missoula from the south. The weather is looking like snow/rain tonight for Cheyenne and Laramie, so we might be a little slow for the first several hours, but hopefully after we hit Idaho things will clear up and we can get to Missoula without any trouble. We have seen several reports of snow for Missoula as well, so there could be a mighty deep layer of snow awaiting us when we get to Missoula tomorrow evening. We want to arrive by 7:00 or 8:00 tomorrow evening, but I won't be surprised if we don't arrive until 10:00 pm or later. I guess we'll see what happens. Until again

-=Nolan=-

There And Back Again

Well, we arn't BACK to Missoula yet, but we are now on our way. We spent the past 10 days in Kearney with my family and hanging out with friends. We did some geocaching with my friend Andy and his wife Amber and had a great time - except for the grumpy guy that yelled at us... Don't know what his problem was, but BOY he was unhappy with the world it seemed. I stayed calm and answered his questions as nicely as I could for someone who was being drilled for walking on public land.. Oh well, guess he can go around being a grump forever.

Along with the geocaching I helped fix computers while I was back in Nebraska and got things up and running for family - hopefully everyone can survive for a few months, or more, until we find our way back. I have a ton of pictures I will be adding once we arrive back home and get things put back together. We will have new neighbors in our duplex when we arrive back and will probably be quite chaotic for a few days with the unpacking and all..... I will have to check my weight when we get back also - I wonder how that will be!! Yikes... Well, until again

-=Nolan=-