In the first Pay It Forward – A Real Story I told how I first came into contact with the “Pay It Forward” idea, even though it wasn’t called that at the time. If you haven’t read that story you may want to read it first and come back here when you are done. Maybe not. Let’s get on with this story. It is true and happened to me and my wife so you are getting it first hand.
I live in 
Le Claire, Iowa which is right on the bank of the Mississippi River where Interstate 80 crosses to Illinois. This takes place about 2003 give or take a year or two. My wife and I were on our way to Davenport, Iowa to do some shopping and were driving on I-80 when we saw a car and trailer on the side of the Interstate. It was obvious that he had a flat tire on the right side of his small trailer. The man appeared to be by himself and was standing next to the trailer looking at the tire. Usually I don’t stop for hitchhikers or people broke down when my wife is with me because I had a scare a few years before with my son in the car. That’s a story for another time.
Continue reading Pay It Forward – Another Real Story
Geocaching is a great way to have fun
And get some exercise at the same time.
The first thing most people ask is
“What the heck is Geocaching?’.
The simple answer is; People all over the world are involved in hiding “Geocaches” and providing their GPS coordinates on the Internet. Other people go to the Internet site to get locations of caches in their area and go out and find them.
The official Geocaching Web Site is www.geocaching.com and will supply you with everything you need to know to get started. Here is what they say in their FAQ about “What is Geocaching” ; “Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for gps users. Participating in a cache hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.”
I really enjoy the search as well as the “Treasure” I often find. It gives my wife and I some time to enjoy the outdoors and fresh air together and provides for some great photos.
Continue reading Geocaching is a great way to have fun
My wife and I have done a lot of woodworking and scroll sawing. For years we went to craft shows within about a 100 mile radius of our home. Today I thought it might be interesting to some people to read some notes I put together to help some friends of mine that were interested in getting started with a very interesting and productive hobby or part time business. I know that many of you have done a lot of scroll sawing and will agree with part of what I have here and may disagree with some of it. Different people do things differently. It is possible that even the experienced woodworker may find something he/she hadn’t thought of. I hope you enjoy the following hints and tips.
Bob Jones
Please remember while woodworking of any kind to wear a dust mask and follow safety guidelines for all of your equipment.
Continue reading Scroll Saw Hints and Tips
Since many of you don’t Geocache I thought you may be interested in another aspect of that pastime. It’s called a Cache-In-Trash-Out (CITO). The event I’m going to tell you about took place in 2004 but I feel it’s still interesting. I hope you enjoy this and may decide to take a closer look at Geocaching.
I would like to tell you about a fun and profitable time my wife and I had at a Geocaching event. This one was called a “Cache-In-Trash-Out”. It was at a large city in Central Iowa and was a bit of a drive for us as we live in extreme Eastern Iowa. I had never been to one before and it sounded like fun. A Geocaching club in that area had made arrangements to clean up a piece of land that was officially a park but had never been developed. It was right next to a shopping mall. The plan was to get a number of people together, clean it up and then later place a Geocache in it.
I had planned to go but my Beautiful and Usually Charming wife had other plans and was going to stay home. Knowing that I wasn’t in any shape to be bending over all day picking up junk off the ground I made a broom handle with a nail in the end so I could stab the paper and other junk to pick it up. Since my wife wasn’t sure what she was going to do I made one for her also.
Continue reading We had a great time at a Cache-In
I have Cabin Fever BAD and my mind is turning more to geocaching every day. I was sitting back and watching the weather forecast and my mind slipped back to the first cache my Lovely Wife, Veronika (known as Pulltabs in the Geocaching world), and I (I’m DigMaster) found. It wasn’t the first one we tried to find, that was Glasford and it had been taken by someone so it wasn’t available. The actual first find was the “Samurai Cat” which we found on March 29, 2001.
I wasn’t smart enough to look at the Difficulty and Terrain values so I almost bit off more than we could chew. At the time I was only 60 years old, just a kid yet, and I asked a friend of mine, Dick who must have been about 70 years old, if he would like to go find a Geocache. After I explained what a Geocache was he thought it sounded like fun so off the three of us went.
Continue reading Taming the Samurai Cat Geocache
Cabin Fever is setting in pretty bad and geocaching is on my mind. I thought you might like to read about “The Tin Star Sheriff” so here is the tale. Enjoy.
A couple of years ago while out Geocaching we found a Travel Bug named the Tin Star Sheriff. Let me tell you about his visit here in Le Claire, Iowa.
For the younger people that may be reading this, I want you to know that this is just a story I made up to try to entertain you. Jesse James hasn’t been seen for a long long time.
The Tin Star Sheriff and I met just North of town on a pretty nice day for this time of year. It was nice and sunny with just a chill in the air. I was traveling down the road when I found him sitting under a tree waiting for someone to stop in and give him a ride. It seems that the last person that he had visited with got him just as far as Le Claire on his search for the infamous bandit Jesse James. So far he has traveled 8557 miles trailing Jesse every step of the way. I had to admire the old Sheriff for his determination. I doubt if I would still be on the trail after a trip like that. Anyway, back to the story. The Sheriff and I had a nice long visit and my lovely wife, Veronika, (known in the Geocaching circles as Pulltabs) spent her entire day trying to make our guest comfortable.
Continue reading Geocaching – The Tin Star Sheriff (Travel Bug) is on his way
I was talking to a friend of mine and he said "I need shed plans". Of course the first thing I asked him was "Free shed plans or something you have to pay for?" He looked shocked at the idea of getting them for free. After a little discussion we decided that I would try to find some of each so he could decide what kind of shed he wanted to build. So off to the computer and the search was on. He didn’t have time to wait so I was on my own.
I was somewhat surprised by the wide variety of shed plans that were available on the internet. I had never given it much thought before. Once I started looking it was more of a "What’s best" than "where are they". I stored the information away and a few days later we sat down and I showed him which shed plans I thought he should consider. Later it crossed my mind there may be other people looking for shed plans also, so I will provide what I found.
Continue reading I Need Shed Plans
I’m using WordPress 2.9.2 and the Atahualpa theme. I had a blue background on my site http://www.WindowsAndLinux.com. I added the plugin Tweet-Retweet-Post version 2.0. The Tweet-Retweet-Post icon is located in the upper right corner of the post and page area. The next day I noticed a small (12 x 24 px) white block in the upper [...]
Selecting the best web host for your website can be a challenging task. There are so many Important areas to consider. One thing you don’t want to do is fall into the trap thinking the cheapest monthly cost is the most important thing to consider. There are many important factors and monthly cost is only one of them. I will outline the things that I considered important and why. I will also tell you who I consider to be the best web host.
1. Look for a web host that provides unlimited site bandwidth. This is very important for your websites future. I can’t think of anything worse that having a site that is thrust into the attention of the world only to have your web host shut you down because you exceed your bandwidth.
2. Also look for unlimited domains. No one knows the future. You may decide to set up another website or blog about something different and want a new site just for that. You don’t want to have to pay extra for each site you want to build.
Continue reading How To Choose The Best Web Hosting For Your Website
I have been attempting Genealogy (notice I said attempting not doing) for a number of years. One thing I noticed when looking at information other people had put together was the differences from one to the other for the same family member. I think this must be due to records that other people created from word of mouth information or inaccurate records in things like family Bibles and note books. I’m sure that the people compiling the data did the best they could with the information they had to work with.
A few years ago I was trying to think of a way I could help others get the correct information for people that had lived in this area. One of the requirements would be to supply them with a copy of the actual records. You know how things go, the important ones get put off and the fun stuff gets done. I’m no different, until about three years ago. About three year ago I decided to locate the records for the cemeteries in Le Claire, Iowa (the town I live in) and put them on the internet along with documenting photographs. That was a lot easier said than done, let me tell you.
Continue reading Indexing and Photographing Cemeteries is a lot of work
Le Claire, Iowa which is right on the bank of the Mississippi River where Interstate 80 crosses to Illinois. This takes place about 2003 give or take a year or two. My wife and I were on our way to Davenport, Iowa to do some shopping and were driving on I-80 when we saw a car and trailer on the side of the Interstate. It was obvious that he had a flat tire on the right side of his small trailer. The man appeared to be by himself and was standing next to the trailer looking at the tire. Usually I don’t stop for hitchhikers or people broke down when my wife is with me because I had a scare a few years before with my son in the car. That’s a story for another time.
