First cache find of the year

Finally! Today I finally went out geocaching again (my geocaching profile is linked to over on the right side of my blog page); it's the first time in 2008. After dropping the two older kids off at their friends' house, the younger two and I went to eat (at Chick-Fil-A) and then headed to the West Wade Greenway for some caching fun. We were 80% successful today, finding 4 of the 5 we sought. Unfortunately, I hadn't seen the new one out there, or we might have been 5 of 6 with a possible FTF ("first time find"). However, I hadn't, so we didn't. And, amusingly, it was found (FTF) by Bustertoad, who hid the four caches we found today (very nice caches, by the way). All-in-all, it was a nice, relaxing (although tiring) afternoon out with the kids. Ok, there - a geocaching-related post; after all, that's one of the "interests" in my profile.

Afterwards we went to Starbucks (where I once again had a tall skinny decaf Cinnamon Dolce Latte - I think I'm growing fond of those), where we met the rest of the family, and I really wish I'd had my camera with me (it was out in the van) or a better camera phone, because we saw, out the window, in the turn lane, The Mystery Machine. See the (admittedly not-so-good) picture to the right - while the details are hard to make out, it really was a very good copy of The Mystery Machine. My daughter even said it looked like Shaggy driving it (although he rarely drove in The Scooby Doo Show - it usually was Greg who was driving, if I recall correctly, but I may not be, since I had to ask my lovely wife what his name was since I couldn't remember that). It was quite an amusing sight.

I am currently watching the American Gladiators finale (yes, we TiVoed it, and ended up watching a movie last night instead of AG), and we were discussing our "favorite events" - and I realized that I think I like them all. Yes, I'm just plain an American Gladiators fan. The show is filled with corny, quirky "dialog" and "monologues," (why is it that "dialog" and "monologue" are spelled the way they are? Shouldn't it either be "dialogue" and "monologue" or "dialog" and "monolog"? After all, they're both variants of "log" or "logue," only differing in plurality. But my spell checker shows that "dialogue" and "monolog" are both misspelled! Stupid English language!) but (sorry for the horribly long parenthetical sidetracked discussion, followed here by another, which completely derails the flow of the original thought, and you probably won't remember what I was talking about when I close this parenthetical phrase and get back to my original idea) it's still a very entertaining show to watch. I'm laughing right now at the gladiators after "Pyramid."

Well, my friend Dean finally posted his Cap Gun Story. I guess I can share mine (I don't think I've shared it here before; note: it's not nearly as meaningful as Dean's story - I encourage you to try to find something of value from it if you can). When I was in first grade, I was opening a roll of caps, and managed to scrape my left thumbnail across a cap on the second row of caps, underneath the paper that is glued to keep the roll from coming undone before you're ready to use it. Well, that cap flared, and my thumb caught fire at the end of it, and underneath the thumbnail itself. I went running inside to my mom, screaming (I was in first grade, remember?), and she put it under the bathroom faucet, and then put some ice on it, and then she left me alone (I think we were entertaining guests that day). That hurt. But it wasn't the last time I used roll caps.

Another time, in 2nd grade... oh, I'll save this story for another post. This post is long enough already. I'll leave you with one final link: "Manning the Ropes." A wonderful post about how important it is for us to do our best in all the tasks we undertake - both the large ones and the small (this goes beyond "churchy things" - it applies to all things we do; as children of God, we really don't have a "secular life" and a "Christian life" - we have one life, and whatever [we] do, [we should] do it all for the glory of God).