SparkDad

This morning I attended a funeral for a 8 year old Scout. Alex Vasquez. I did not know Alex, but a friend of mine that runs another Cub Scout pack did. Fifty Scouts and leaders were at the funeral. It was very sad indeed. He had contracted brain cancer six months ago. The disease took him quickly. At the memorial service some great music was played and wonderful stories told. He was a great little boy that lived his short life to the fullest. He touched many people and taught them more about God and love in his eight short years than some learn in forty. The experience will not quickly be forgotten by those in attendance. Young Alex had a peaceful journey here on earth.

With that I segue into Stickman and Pork Chop. They both entered the school district Rodeo Art competition this year and they both made it to the district finals! Neither of them made it to the actual Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo but they both did great! Stickman’s art “Eight Seconds” shown to the right was a finalist. He did a great job on it!

Pork Chop’s work won first place but did not advance. It was very nice for a first grader. It was appropriate for this post because of the title of the work was “Peaceful Journey”. Those of you who know Pork Chop know that he is anything but Peaceful. He is a rambunctious little boy who is full of energy! He is constantly in “trouble” but that is OK. He is just all boy!

Now on to the controversy! I will admit when I look at our son’s art I am a bit biased. Everything they do is wonderful to me. But the winners that beat our Stickman’ art I would have to say that I would not have chosen over his. The cow on the left was chosen over Stickman’s awesome bull. What do you think? Comment on this post and let me know which you would have chosen : )

Be honest, I want to see if I am being totally biased and blinded by parenthood.

- Spark Dad

Christmas day was wonderful. The weather was very nice and there was no wind so it made for a nice day.

We travelled to Lamesa, Texas to spend time with my parents and sisters. Shortly after we arrived and ate lunch we all sat down for present exchange. The boys were very excited about that for obvious reasons.

I will preface the rest of this story with some background information. Stickman and Porkshop are saving for a super expensive toy. The Lego Deathstar. This set has 3,800 pieces!

Now keep in mid that Stickman is 10 years old as opposed to Pork Chop who is 6. The ability to see and work toward long term goals instead of short term happiness takes someone more mature. Well I know a lot of 30 year olds that cannot save for a goal either, so maybe I am off here : )

At any rate, when the presents started getting opened the boys got what they asked for, Lego Gift cards. Pork Chops face was long and he looked very distress! He was upset. He wans to buy what he wants with his gift cards, not the agreed upon Deathstar. Stickman is having a hard time understanding why Pork Chop would veer off course!  We will see how this one plays out.

After all of the presents were opened a few of us jumped in the car for some more Geocaching. Our success was more limited today however. We were looking for a more traditional “Take and leave” type of cache. We purchased some $1.00 items to put in any caches we successfully found. We looked for GC1M91P – “Lamesa Rodeo” and GC1ED2K – “la-mee-suh” but both of those were either muggled or we just could not find them.

On our last try we drove up to the Lamesa Skyview which is one of the only operational drive in movie theatres in Texas and were sucessful in finding GC22VH3 “The Big Show”. This one had a paper log and the coveted items!  Porkchop selected an army man and Stickman grabbed a cork. We dropped in two mighty beans, signed the log and drove away smiling!

Tomorrow we head to Albequerque and I am about to research some caches on our path!

Merry Christmas to all!

- Spark Dad

After the first find yesterday the boys and I are very excited about Geocaching. The excitement of going out and finding the hidden treasures had us up thinking. So during down time I did some research and it seams that www.geocaching.com is the premiere site for Geocache enthusiasts around the world.  I created a new account on the site so that I can find caches, hide caches and “log’ caches. Logging caches is simply the process of letting the person that hid the cache know that you found it. My account on www.geocaching.com is SparkDad ( would you have guessed otherwise? )

I looked up some more caches around Hobbs, New Mexico and told Pork Chop and Stickman that we would be going again the next day. They were very excited.

After breakfast on Christmas Eve we headed out in my truck to find cache GC1K91B “ Hobbs, NM*”  The live map in the C.Geo on my Droid cell phone. We pulled up the site and began looking around. After a few minutes, BINGO! We found it! This one was in a small tube that is called bison tube. We signed the paper log and replaced the tube in it’s hiding spot. With sweet success on our lips we were off to our next site.

In the car we ventured deeper into Hobbs. This time I put C.Geo on compass mode which tell you how many meters to reach the cache and which direction to go. I gave the phone to Stickman who guided me along the small town streets for a few minutes until we reached the site of “Parkin’ in the City”  GC1RWFF.

We got out of the car and followed the compass across the street but the location did not make sense. I put it back in Live Map mode and saw that the cache was not where the compass was pointing. I am not sure the reason for this, but will report it to C.Geo’s developer. We looked around and then we found it! Another log only cache. It was nicely hidden but not terribly difficult!

By this time the 50 degree weather and wind was getting to us and we decided to call it a day.

Stickman and Porkchop liked the hunting process but we all wanted to find a more traditional cache where the cache has items in it for you to take and replace with another instead of just a paper log.  Some of the things that I have heard about are – toys, corks, dice, coins, etc.

So my goal for the next cache hunt is going to find one like this. So for now we are out!

- Spark Dad

Last night while we were sitting around the dining room table shooting the breeze, as we often do at Tia Mena and Tio Shorty’s house, I was messing around with my phone. I clicked on a Geocaching application that I had downloaded and saw there are several cache’s around the house!

Today after breakfast we decided to set out and see if we could find it!

It was cold today so we geared up in beanies, gloves and coats. Uncle Dee got the dog out of the kennel, leashed him up and we were ready.

I turned on the C:Geo App on my Droid and hit my live map icon to show where the nearest cache was.

GC-Code: GC1QCPB

Type: Traditional Cache

Cache Name: Diamond in the Rough

Distance :  1092 meters

Location: Hobbs, New Mexico

Not too bad! We were off walking. We walked about 15 minutes to the nearby softball park and looked at the tips. Several people said they had found it and that it was outside the fenced area. It also denoted that it was a magnetic key holder with a log in it. The most interesting point on the description was that “there will more than likely be a lot of mugglers around”. What the heck is a muggler?  Here is the definition from About.com

Muggle: (or muggler) A non-geocacher. The discovery of a cache by a non-geocacher is a very real problem and a cache needs to have an identified purpose included in the container. When someone refers to a cache as having been muggled, it almost always means it was stolen or vandalized.

So we started looking at the fence.  We went up and down the fence with my Droid compass on but could not get to the exact location. I came to the impression that the Droid’s gps was not exact.

Finally after about 10 minutes of searching we found it! You can see in the photo above that it was simply a log sheet with names and dates on it! The front was filled with about 60 names, so we wrote on the back:

“SparkDad.com – Dad, Porkchop, Stickman, Tio Dee and Nico”

It was great fun! I think later we will search for another one!

If you are interested in starting out in Geocaching you can buy a GPS device. Here is a recommended device.

Garmin nüvi 205W 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator

At the time of posting this GPS was only $79.99

It will help you with Geocaching and directions!

- Spark Dad

Last Sunday, Mama and I headed out to the Texan’s game. Now, you must know that I have never been to a Texan’s game where they actually won. In fact most of the time when I go they get their butt’s handed to them. So from what I can tell I am bad "juju” for the Texan’s. All of you Texan’s fans can send me $10 per week to not attend the games and insure a win. : )

So in support of my “juju” theory, the Texan’s lost 34-10.

Even though they lost, it was still a lot of fun. Mama and I went to church and then headed to the game. We stopped and grabbed some beverages for the cooler on the way so that we could enjoy a cool drink.  We drove up in the Silverado and got a great parking spot but unfortunately all of the tailgaters were in a different lot!

We worked on video of the truck for a little bit and then headed into the game. We got to our seats at the end of the 1st quarter and it was 14-0. Not good : (

If you look closely at the right side of this picture you can see why they lost! Fumbles, no offensive line, failure to show up and bad “juju”.

Lets hope that this week the Texan’s fair better. I am NOT going to the game, so they should win. See the video that Mama and I made here.

In other news, Pork Chop’s team tied their game last Saturday. It might as well have been a loss. They were ahead two touchdowns at the half and simply gave up, like the Texan’s, in the last half.  During the game one of the opponent’s boys broke his leg! His femur of all things. Which has Mama and I scared. We have decided not to let him play next year because of the risk of injury and most importantly head injuries. Any thoughts on young kids playing tackle football?

Stickman played soccer game on Saturday and he was phenomenal! He scored two goals and is having great fun! Some of the other parents tell me that he is “fun” to watch! I love to see him having so much fun!

Stickman’s team, the Tigers, were winning 6-0 at the half. His coach set them down and told them that the other team was trying very hard and that with this lead is was a good time to practice passing. He did not tell them to quit or to lose, but to be good sportsmen. I respect his coach more and more every day.

More soon!

- Spark Dad