Klondyke Barbie for VP?

Sarah Palin was announced as the Republican candidate for vice-president. Is he mad? The beauty pageant queen, President of the PTA mother of five (with a Down's Syndrome newborn in tow) has had no political experience with the exception of being the current governor of Alaska and former mayor of a town with a population of about 5000. Are we kidding? I understand the need to try and pull in the Hillary supporters but this woman still has the new kid on the tit and we would want to see her stand up and do a press conference? Granted the 44 year old Idaho native might get the vote of all the lonely straight men out there begging for Beauty Queen Barbie to be in office but I don't think I want eye candy helping to run my country.

I mean seriously folks, is this what the nation is coming to? So we first pick Obama because G-d forbid we give a strong empowering female the spot. This is a man's world. Then the old geezer picks a woman who is a nobody to stand by his side to persuade the American people that they should have no fear and can still have a woman in office on the republican side. So let's take a look at Sarah Palin.

I tried to go to the State of Alaska website but apparently their server is too busy to allow others in there to look around. Why, you might ask? Because no one knows who the hell this woman is. So I did some research and found out some good information on our new candidate for vice-president. Sarah Palin is a NRA member, mother of five having just had a baby recently, eldest son is stationed in Iraq, orginated from Idaho, member of the Feminists for Life, hunter, fisherman (or fisherwomyn since she is a feminist), husband is an Alaskan native working for an oil field, pro-lifer, won Miss Alaska and MIss Congeniality, and the head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Where has she stood on current political issues? She hasn't because she is only a governor! She has said that she is an extremist supportor of Pro-life, against gays getting married, supports the constitutional ban of gay marriage, and she is all for people having guns. Got my vote - not in this lifetime. So what are we thinking?

On top of that, we tried to get into the McCain rally that is today in Dayton. When Hillary was here, you didn't need tickets at all to see her. Everything was clear and plain as day on where to go and what to do at the rally. When Obama was here, same thing although you did need tickets if you wanted on the main floor area. Easy to locate all of the information needed for the rally. McCain - whole different story. We are Ohio. This means we are a swing state who wanted Hillary and we always make or break the vote in the Presdential election. So we call to try to get tickets. Apparently tickets are required for all people but you can stand in a holding area with waited breath to see if you might be able to get in. For Obama you just picked up your ticket. For McCain you have to give all of you PII (personal identifiable information) and sign away your first born to get a ticket. Oh but wait - they forgot to mention that they don't have tickets. Why? Because they gave them all away to people in Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan. Big mistake - huge - large. So you gave away tickets to other states while you are trying to convince Ohioans to vote for you. And Mr. Senator, you preach about conserving fuel but yet we could not reach a single person via telephone at your offices and we had to drive out twice to find tickets only to be told they were given away to other states. In addition when we got to your office last night (that closed at 9 PM) we found them closed at 8 PM with a sign on the door turning people away because they couldn't bear to talk to us.

So I can't help myself to wonder how in the hell they expect this circus they are calling an election to turn out. Remember we didn't pick Hillary because she was a woman in this male dominated world.

So I think I am going with Rosie the Riveter for President. Where is Ross Perot when we need him? Remember Obama keeps telling us that we need a change. Costa Rica is looking like a nice country to live in these days.

Insomnia Ramblings

Insomnia and ADHD are not a good mixture when combined in the same evening. I keep thinking that,

"I have to pack up this and unpack that, I need to put in a load of laundry, oh yeah wait is my phone still working (?), okay and I need to clean up, and finish my project, I need to send out updates, go to the post office, shower, flat iron my hair, grocery shop, school supply shop, rewrite my paper for my final, go and register my classes and take the test so I can register, find out where my grant is and why finance doesn't have it yet, apply for the six scholarships I have saved that also have approaching deadlines, think of someone special, oh wait sorry sidetracked - I was thinking of that someone - pick up the remaining Geocaches before I leave tomorrow,"

and probably a million other things I need to do but I just can't seem to get my mind around actually getting everything finished in time. On top of that I am slightly OCD with a mild case of trichotillomania - a condition where one subconsciously doesn't realize that they are skin picking or pulling out their hair.

It sometimes is a neverending cycle. Have you ever stayed awake for three days? Well I have and it isn't always a pretty picture. How else does one think that I became a Geek Dyke? It definitely wasn't from sleeping my life away. Now I don't expect this post to flow smoothly since I am mostly all over the place tonight. So bear with me please.

Some people are afflicted with ADHD and insomnia like I am and honestly I don't know how they get through it. The last time I wrote a rambling post it was a few years ago and it had to be the longest post that made absolutely no sense - not to mention tired out my readers. Although, I think I broke some sort of record for run-on sentences.






So, through my sleepless nights I have learned that I can write quite a bit and I find some clarity that I may or may not have had already. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah the not sleeping part. Believe it or not I even take medication at the night that is supposed to make me sleepy. Nope! Wrong! Do not pass go and do not collect $200! And you will get wet on this ride.

Now, add this to my previous blog where I outlined everything I did when it came to pets and my garden and then you intermingle a brain that just won't quit. I know you are asking me what all that hype means? It means that when I try to fall asleep at night my mind doesn't slow down at all. In fact, it is worse at night!

So how do I cure insomnia and ADHD? I write blogs! It isn't as effective as counting your steps from the nearest bus stop to your office but it does work wonders. You can say anything and everything and people will read it.

If you write it they will read it!

So write get it all out on paper. Drink some hot tea and just relax. Do some Yoga but try not to get all tangled up! That can be very difficult to explain when you got to the ER! I know I had more to write about but I need to carefully and strategically decide what to write to you, my audience.

I can say today that my Venti Caramel Frapaccino was very delicious!

River Kayaking

So the gang and I went out on the river tonight for some kayaking fun with Whitewater Warehouse. This was a paddle float where we went a couple miles down the river to our river park called Riverscape. From there we just floated around, hung out, chatted with people and listened to a charismatic Big Band singer from Cincinnati, and later after dark, watched the laser show sitting comfortably in my kayak.

When we started out, we got the boats in the river. There were five of us - two adults and three kids ages 9, 12, and 17. We got into our boats and the boy was attacked by a log in some rapids spinning his boat around. He finally got over that little hump and we headed back down. We knew we had a couple hours to play around before the laser show so we just paddled and floated along the river. The 9 yr old wanted me to go over to the island with her so we headed over while the boys all went over to the park. We were enjoying watching the birds while she played in the water when we suddenly heard this loud pop.

We had a blast, albeit soaked to the bone. The Urban Paddle was fun. The crew from Whitewater Warehouse shuttled everyone (and their boats) back to our cars - the one hard part about river kayaking and we had oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and frozen lemon-aid ice being passed out by a couple of nice ladies. There was no charge if you had your own equipment and only $10 to rent it if you didn't. We managed to fit 4 kayaks on top of the car all strapped down securely and everyone had a great time.

Where - When to draw the line

I have a zoo in my house. One rather loud, albeit cute, Severe Macaw who has just hit sexual maturity and is trying to nest, one Toy Rat Terrier who thinks he is a rottweiler in steroids, and 5 very needy goldfish in a 55 Gal tank. The bird doesn't take a lot of time and neither does the dog. The fish - who would have thought fish were so expensive and time consuming!

I am a strong believer in that my goldfish are not disposable. Morty survived the walk home from the fair, a blizzard, 2-3 near-death experiences, and now severe bacterial fin rot. There is a hole where part of his dorsal fin used to be but he still swims up to give me kisses when I feed him. He also suffers from weak swim bladder. The others have been through hell and too many illnesses to name. They are in a 55 gallon tank and 30 gallon hospital/isolation tank. The hospital tank has to be cleaned out every couple days with half water changes and since they are goldfish, the 55 gallon tank needs to have half water changes weekly. Both tanks have to have a full water changes monthly. Not to mention the medicine costs about $20 a box/bottle and will last about a week. Most things have to be treated for 2-3 weeks. The cleaning takes about 2 hours for half changes and about 6 hours for full changes.

I have a few plants in my container garden. 39 different varieties of tomatoes, 4 zucchini plants, 1 yellow squash, 2 acorn squash, 2 winter squash, 1 sweet potatoes, 1 tomatillo, 1 California Wonder pepper, 1 jalapeno pepper, 2 serano peppers, 2 poblano peppers, 1 horny goat's weed pepper, 1 bush scallop squash, 1 sugar snap peas, 1 Kentucky green bean, 1 leaf lettuce, 1 romaine lettuce, 9 varieties of mustard greens, 1 lipstick Swiss chard, 1 bright lights Swiss chard, 5 basil, 3 rosemary, 1 cilantro, 1 dill, 1 parsley, and 1 chives.That would be 85 plants (if I added correctly) to water twice a day, prune, give haircuts to, treat, feed, and harvest. Mind you I live on less than 3/4 of an acre and these are all in containers - on my deck and in my driveway.

It looks like a jungle out there! I can't keep up with all of the ones we are harvesting. We have given tons away to neighbors and family and we still have two large containers on the counter. I have made endless pesto, tomato dishes, squash and rice, and countless other things with our harvest. We have self watering containers, regular containers, an earthbox and 32 gallon Rubbermaid tubs. We have had to come up with ingenious plans to hold up our tomatoe plants since their cages were too small and they are always tipping over. It takes 5 hours just to water, prune and harvest each evening.

I work my blogging jobs, the web design company, and nanny jobs, plus I am a full-time parent, play disc golf and geocache and go to school fulltime (and on the Dean's List).

Sometimes moderation is a good thing. Could I imagine my life any different? Not really.

Problogging

Problogging - what is it exactly? It is a means of supporting yourself financially with a bit of pocket money each month doing something some of us like to do - Blog.

I do multiple work at home jobs - why? Because I can. I am tired of the corporate bureaucracy out there and I just don't fit into their "piece of the puzzle." I am a hippie, tried and true, a granola geek dyke who is trying to make her way through college - again - and trying to figure out how to send her kid to college. Am I a problogger? Yes I am!

I started blogging back in 2002 when P&G wanted to start an internal blog for employees. I did it as a side project with my regular job and found it to be quite to my liking. I am a verbal kind of girl. The written word fascinates me in more ways than one. I am well versed and well read. I am always looking at copywriter positions out on Craig's list and I have pimped myself out to many a places. I was tired of the ads that were all the scam ads. I look for part time jobs around here to support my income and I am told, "Sorry you are too qualified and you will get bored." Being bored has nothing to do with paying the rent and making sure my kid has food on the table.

So I started looking around for pay per blog sites. You write a few blogs a week, or more, and the typical payout is around $20 per blog. If you put out 2 blogs per day in a five day period, that is $200 in your pocket. Not too shabby for writing a few paragraphs about something you would probably already write about anyway. Why not get paid for it!

There are so many problogging sites out there now. You have problogging.net and problogging.com and Kelly's new site Professional Female Probloggers. It doesn't take much to do this job. Only a little creativity, some time and an interest in writing. Sounds simple enough, right?

On Problogger.net, Darren Rowse was asked, "How much money can a blog earn?" Darren stated that was a difficult question to answer because there are so many facotrs to take into consideration and it depends on the site that is paying you. He brings up the following:

1. Traffic Levels
2. Source of Traffic
3. Loyal Readers
4. Web Readers
5. Income Stream
6. Topic
7. Time Invested

So you can see that there are a lot of different things to consider when becoming a professional blogger. Is it right for everyone? No, I don't think it is. But it is right for me.

Laws of Attraction

The Secret has been a movie that everyone has been talking about for quite awhile now.It is all about the Laws of Attraction. Wikipedia defines them as:

A more modern consensus among New Thought thinkers is that the Law of Attraction says people's thoughts (both conscious and unconscious) dictate the reality of their lives, whether or not they're aware of it. Essentially "if you really want something and believe it's possible, you'll probably get it" but that putting a lot of attention and thought onto something you don't want means you'll probably get that too.

When I first saw the movie I was working for a surreal esoteric-like coffee house. We were open 24/7 so we brought in a very diverse crowd of customers as well as the employees. The employees gathered together one night, as we often did, and decided to watch the movie. What we brought from that movie was a new understanding of life and its principles or laws.

Unfortunately the Laws of Attraction worked in a different way for us at the coffee house. The landlord shut us down and wouldn't renew our lease due to the fact that we were doing too well and he wanted part of our profits with the new lease. This was completely unfair and we wouldn't negotiate on those terms, so he gave us 3 days to vacate the premises. Needless to say we were all shocked and bewildered as well as our loyal customers. The owner decided not to reopen in another location and instead move on to different ventures. I will never forget the place though because it brought so much clarity and hope to my life.

Now I have been back in line with my Twitter tweets here the last couple days. My life seemed to be in shambles due to the lack of funds to stay afloat. The business was suffering and would have to close if we can't afford the servers and I have clients lining up ready to sign but we didn't have the resources to host them. I got back in touch with my friend Kelly, and through reading her more current blogs I was reminded of that day in the coffee house so long ago. She reminded me that if you put forth the effort and put out the energy into the universe, the universe will provide. This was also something I had learned many moons ago when I served as High Priestess for my first Pagan group in Florida.

Manifestation is something that we can control and we are all capable of it. When we put ourselves over to faith we are able to let go and let the universe help us achieve our goals. Does it matter who or what your faith is in? No. As long as you have faith and are able to see past those mundane roadblocks that get in your way you will be able to get anything you want.

So, today I took it upon myself to script out my life. I wrote about what I want and how I see my life becoming in the near future. I included my career, my relationships, and my family. I know from being the scientific skeptic I am that it isn't always possible to get what you want but when you put the energy out there, all of your desires and dreams can be answered. As I said my financial situation has been in ruins. My utilities were due to be shut off and rent was late. When talking with my boss earlier about some work I was doing, he told me I had gmail. I went out and looked and to my surprise, he had loaded money into my Paypal account.

Our servers were due to be shut off and I had no way of coming up with the money. My business partner had the money but he couldn't get it on to an appropriate payment method in time for the payment. One of his dear friends helped us out and took care of the payment for us so that we wouldn't be shut down and enabling us to give her the money outright. She even made sure my domain was renewed so that I had my personal blog back. I also received a call and several emails today for a job working in the cemetery. That cemetery holds special meaning to me since I was married there.

So see, the Laws of Attraction do work for people - even when they may think they are at their lowest. Remember, as Kelly points out, the following things:

What are the lessons here?

• Determine what you DON'T want to help you determine what you do.
• Write down what you DO want in extreme detail and keep reading and thinking about it.
• Start asking for what you want or need to get there from anyone who will listen! (I wrote Tim Sanders, I joined the sites, I bid for jobs even though I felt unsure, I offered additional services to Lethia for things she didn't know I could do, I asked Pam Slim for free coaching and got it).
• Keep track of the positive things happening.
• Be grateful for what you already have (rent for the next two months!)
• Keep tweaking and honing in on the specifics of your dreams and then start back over at the top.

Let those lessons sing true for everyone.

Oops sorry you have to be straight to be on our site

Ah the sun is shining and the birds are chirping sweetly. Life as we know it is wonderful. But there is just something missing in your life and you just can't put your finger on it. Someone else. Someone else to share your life with. Someone to watch sunsets with. Someone who will cuddle with you on chilly evenings while you read a book.

Even though I am the Geek Dyke, it doesn't mean I don't have a romantic streak to me. I love to surf the web looking at all of the different personal and social sites out there. My friend, Kelly, wrote a blog about the plethora of sites not too long ago here. Well, while I was out perusing the sites over the weekend, I came across some of my old personals profiles. At the same exact moment there was another one of those eHarmony commercials. You know, the annoyingly sick ones like this:





So I hop on over to their site and I look at their sign in. When what to my wondering eyes should appear but a options section that doesn't include queers! I take a deep breath and control my frustrations and I search for a contact page so that I can talk to eHarmony Staff about their apparent disregard for those of us who are the same sex who might want to get in on the action too. I sent them my message and today in my inbox I received this reply:

Dear eHarmony Friend,

Thank you for contacting eHarmony. eHarmony provides an Internet relationship service with a patented matching system designed to match highly compatible men and women who are seeking a long-term relationship.

eHarmony's patented matching system is premised on over 35 years of clinical practice and empirical study with opposite-sex couples about the similarities and differences between men and women and what leads to a successful opposite-sex relationship. eHarmony has not developed the same long-term research on the most successful same-sex unions. For that reason, eHarmony does not provide online matching services to persons seeking only same-sex matches. We do not, however, prevent anyone from accessing the website, filling out the Relationship Questionnaire, receiving the free Personality Profile, and using the opposite-sex service as we currently provide it.

While there are no current plans to provide a same-sex matching service, eHarmony does not rule out the possibility that such a service may be available in the future. Please be assured that we take feedback regarding our service seriously and that your comments will be taken into consideration.

Sincerely,

Customer Relations
eHarmony

Okay let's break this apart, shall we.

eHarmony provides an Internet relationship service with a patented matching system designed to match highly compatible men and women who are seeking a long-term relationship.

I guess this means as queer people, we are not able to be matched on compatibility.

eHarmony's patented matching system is premised on over 35 years of clinical practice and empirical study with opposite-sex couples about the similarities and differences between men and women and what leads to a successful opposite-sex relationship.

Wait - you mean the us, queers, are unable to take our similarities and differences so that we can also have a successful same-sex relationship?

We do not, however, prevent anyone from accessing the website, filling out the Relationship Questionnaire, receiving the free Personality Profile, and using the opposite-sex service as we currently provide it.

So, really you are saying that I am welcome to change my queer gender bending ways and hop aboard the straight train and they will find that manly man I have been missing all of my life.

While there are no current plans to provide a same-sex matching service, eHarmony does not rule out the possibility that such a service may be available in the future.

When the cows come home and people really find out that we are closet homosexuals just waiting to break out of our seams! Come on ePeople, you are basing your studies on tests that have been around for 35 years! Gay people have been around since the beginning of time! So exactly what are we waiting for?

Please be assured that we take feedback regarding our service seriously and that your comments will be taken into consideration.

As it is placed on the wait-list pile that used to be a mile long until someone sends out the memo to send it to recycling.

And so it goes. eHarmony will not be on my CHRISMAHANU-SOLSTIKWANZAKAH list this year. After 35 years of studying compatibililty tests, it has been concluded that eHarmony does not fit into my target audience even though "such a service may be available in the future."

Adventures in Disc Golf

Please stay tuned to our regularly scheduled program... until then more adventures in Disc Golf.

Went over to Arthur Fisher to play tonight. The boy is getting so good at this! I really wish I had my disc bag back though. I miss my discs. On a positive note, I just landed a contract with Hazy Shade to do their website! Life is good and full of fun new disc golf supplies!

So we were playing and managed to keep it out of the water until the dreaded 16th hole if it is still the 16th since they have a new 6 back behind it now. Sure enough it soared across the lake and made a lovely splash - right in the water. Thank goodness it was the floating disc! It was already dark. The sun was barely peeking above the horizon. Bats were flying around and the park was empty. I finally got up the courage to jump in the lake and swim out to the %^%$ disc. That was the murkiest, muckiest ick water I have ever been inside. But the disc was retrieved and I was beyond soggy with the scent of pond water.

Heading back to the car I was carrying my shoes, bra and bandanna, when all of a sudden I hear, "Don't move!?!" then I hear, "No RUN!?!!" and then, "No, DON'T MOVE!" as I see my kid hightail it out of there like he just saw the ghost of disc golfers past. At this point I am dazed and confused and not in the fun 420 way either, and trying to figure out wtf is going on! I run, making a beeline into my disc golf partner in crime, almost tripping over a wire rope and make a clearance before turning around and looking to see what was after me. There finally walking the other direction, but not convincingly enough for me, was Pepe Le Pu himself in all his glory. Apparently when I got the first "don't move", he was coming right towards me with tail in trigger position. So needless to say I was saved from smelling like pond scum crossed with the lovely scent of Eau de Skunk. It would not have made for a pleasant evening!

You know you are getting odler when...

you decide to play Disc Golf and go Geocaching all in the same weekend and you haven't done either in years.

Disc Golf - the sport of champions. Known to many as the stoner sport. Much more fun than regular golf since you have to walk the whole course and try to dodge the trees, and apparently the Ohio bloodsuckers, at every turn. Nevertheless, we ventured out to play. The first day of playing, we only made it through about half the course. It never fails that someone will throw the perfect S curve on their disc and it will end up in the lake. So, of course since it has been years since I have played, I came unprepared without an extra change of clothing and jumped in the lake fully clothed in my only dry pair. Mind you, earlier in the day while walking with the animals, I broke my toe. Luckily for me, I broke the the middle phalanges so I was still able to walk/hike with little pain.

So, I did my little hop through the murky waters trying desperately to find my disc. After about an hour of looking I found one! Unfortunately it wasn't the one I was looking for, but it was a very nice Diablo in good condition. The bottom of the lake was much ickier than usual. It used to have a sandy bottom and now it was more of a sludgy bottom. But, have no fear, and I have none, I trudged along. Our other teammate came in to join me but stayed near the shore as she was not real comfortable with bodies of water where she couldn't see what was in there with her. She was just about ready to come in when I suddenly pulled up another disc and voila - it was ours! The look on her face was priceless as she hurriedly climbed back to the shore. Years earlier they used to pour about 10,000 gallons of pesticide in this particular pond and we would come out of there looking like we had chicken pox - itching like crazy for weeks. I was very happy to report that I was not covered in bumps nor did I itch after retrieving our discs!

On day two of disc golfing, we stopped at the local head shop to look at the new gear. They now have this neat contraption that opens up into a triangle shape and has a 50 foot rope on it to "fish" in the missing discs. This keeps the golfer dry and keeps them from getting a heavy fine from the local law enforcement officers who do not understand the measures a disc golfer will go to retrieve their $20 driver. Apparently it works quite well as we saw someone out using it while we were playing. Day two we made it through the entire course will very little bloodsucker bites and no discs in the water. When we woke up the next day, we were all very sore! Is disc golf shoulder a recognized CPT code? I think it really should be right up there with Wii Elbow. I recovered well other than my little charge walking me all over G-d's creation for a 2.5 mile walk yesterday evening. If only I could bottle their energy! We did find a baby bird along the way who we thought might need our assistance. He was a little robin out in the middle of the road. I scooped him up and started walking with him until he started to screech loudly. The next thing I knew, here came mommy robin ready to peck out my eyeballs. So, I put the baby safely back in the grass and my charge and I headed back home again.

Geocahing - Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. Today, I woke up and felt much better. Maybe the 2.5 mile walk did my old bones some good. We were going to do some caches yesterday, but we ran out of time since I had to work that night. So we decided to go and do a few caches today. We picked a few nearby and decided to start on a lovely 4 stage multi-cache. Apparently a couple of the stages were quite difficult since the first stage is in a now construction area and most of them are by the river - thanks Riversurfer! We head over to stage one and find the construction area. It wasn't until after we traipsed through the rocks and loud noises that we realized we were in the wrong place.

Finding the correct place, we now had to search for a place to park. Now on to the cache! We began our ascent up the 38 stairs to the top of the bridge. Did I mention the bridge is an overpass bridge on the highway? No problem! We get up there and the GPS zeros out dead center. We start to search. We search for what seemed like hours while cars were passing us, wondering if we were going to jump. We searched and searched through every bolt and cranny until I finally looked back at the cache sheet. We were looking for 11 numbers to fill in to get the coordinates for the next stage. I looked back down and found it! Sneaky guy had pressed the numbers into the guard rail. We placed the numbers into the coordinate puzzle and plugged them into the GPS. 4.3 miles to the next location. Oy vey. How bad can it be right? So stage 1 was listed as dangerous, probably because of the exposure to the interstate and stage 2 was listed as you might get wet on this ride and deemed virtually impossible if the river was high. Joy. We find the coordinate parking area - park on the northwest side of the bridge - and we start walking. In accordance with the you may get wet on this ride notion, we knew we had to be near the river. We kept walking in the direction that the GPS was pointing us in but we were troubled by the barbed wire fence and no trespassing signs, and the putrid smell coming from the obvious water treatment plant. We get to a 90 degree angle and find out that we have found the right spot - but we are on the wrong side of the river *doh*! Not good. So we make the trek all the way back, bush whacking our way through G-d knows what and get back to the car. We see another path by the bridge and decide to take that one, after we feed the massive grumbling in our stomachs.

We drive up a ways and stop at Hardees. Being a vegetarian often makes it difficult to eat at most fast food places. I settled for french fries and a chocolate milkshake. We get back to our parking destination point and park while we eat our scrumptious dinner. We look over the terrain in front of us and find that clearly we were going to have to walk across the bridge to get down to that side of the river. So, we walk. Our destination was still .3 miles away but we found a paved road to walk most of the way. We got down to where we were at a 90 degree angle and found a semi-decent path to cross into the woods. The trail required no bush whacking but we had to manage to get through many mud puddles without getting sunk in. I managed to not use that manner of thinking and one of the treacherous puddles tried to take all of me. So now, covered in mud, which by the way got rid of most of the bugs, we made our way to the river and found our destination.

Our clue was a well. We looked around and all we could find was this pipe looking thing sticking out of the riverbed. We looked over it, and dug through the river water and rocks in it and found nothing. We looked at this metal tag on the side and really didn't see anything. Finally, I looked again and there were numbers - 10 of them, barely. We needed all 10 for the coordinates to the next location plus the extra one for the final. We could barely read it through all of the rust. I plugged in what we thought were correct and tried to find our way back to the car. Minus the mud accidents and more spider webs to crawl through, we realized we made a wrong turn in the woods and it was getting dark. We kept walking towards the passing cars and eventually found our way out. Mind you, now I look like an Aborigine, with a slight limp from hurting my still broken toe and realizing my bones aren't 20 anymore. We make it to the car and head on over to the next stage. Our clue - Arch Enemy, another bridge. We find the bridge and realize wth it is down the street from the first clue! Okay so our hint for this one was second one from downstream. We climbed underneath the bridge to the arches. There were four arches. Downstream was east with the arches facing north and south. We look everywhere. Of course this stage was listed as also dangerous but the river wasn't too high and it was dark out by this time. We searched through rocks, water, muck and murk and found nothing. We looked high and low and still found nothing. This cache was hidden in May 2007. Only 13 people have found it with about as many posting a did not find note. We decided to go ahead and head back home again and go back tomorrow for stage 3 and 4. *Update* Stage 3 was muggled and replaced. We sent the children up the arches under the bridge for the cache. Grabbed it and wrote down the code but not before a run in with the local peace officers when he saw the boys - not standing on the ground level. We told him what we were doing and he knew right away what it was. Told us to be careful and all that jazz and went off on his way.

Stage 4 was asked to find in daylight hours only and we were clearly not seeing sunny skies at this point. When we got home I immediately headed for a hot shower. I think it took 45 minutes just to get all of the mud off of me. Now I sit here blogging, coding, and ready to crawl into bed with a book. We did get to see a doe and her baby while we were out heading to stage 2. That was nice and made me smile thinking of another time.

*Stage 4 Update* The final was the best! Sadly we didn't get smiled at like some of the other cachers but the cache was the best I have done yet! So to Riversurfer - thanks for a fun, and slightly painful evening. I look forward to more Disc Golf and Geocaching in the future!

Calling all Queer Jewish Buddhist Pagans

Definitions:

Queer - Of or relating to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, or transgendered people.

Jewish - of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the Jews or Judaism: Jewish customs. The monotheistic religion of the Jews, having its ethical, ceremonial, and legal foundation in the precepts of the Old Testament and in the teachings and commentaries of the rabbis as found chiefly in the Talmud. Compare Conservative Jew, Orthodox Jew, Reform Jew.


Buddhist - a religion, originated in India by Buddha (Gautama) and later spreading to China, Burma, Japan, Tibet, and parts of southeast Asia, holding that life is full of suffering caused by desire and that the way to end this suffering is through enlightenment that enables one to halt the endless sequence of births and deaths to which one is otherwise subject.

Pagan - one of a people or community observing a polytheistic religion, as the ancient Romans and Greeks. A person who is not a Christian, Jew, or Muslim. An irreligious or hedonistic person.

I am queer - gay - lesbian - a dyke - homosexual - and any other label you would wish to associate with it. I grew up learning the Pagan religious paths. Later in my teens, I advanced my studies. As a young adult I progressed to the role of 3rd degree High Priestess, a title in the Pagan community that puts you in the similar position of a priest, preacher, rabbi, etc. Many times the Pagan path wasn't quite enough for me so I also began to study Buddhism. I found a sense of calm with the teachings of Buddha. Later, I married an amazing Reformed Jewish woman. Through our conversations and my learning more about the religion, I chose to convert to Judaism. So, that makes me a Queer Ju-bu Pagan HPS.

I like to see who has been visiting my blog and where they are from. The neat thing about the software I use is that I can do this and it will give me locations, IP address (for the stalkers that refuse to leave me be), and if they found the site through other sources, where they found it and how. So, last night I was looking around and found that someone did a Google search for Buddhism and GLBT and came across a wonderful blog called: Another Queer Jewish Buddhist. I thought to myself - wow the epitome of me! I checked out the page and I adore it. Mark Horn is the owner and author of the site. He resides in New York. As quoted in an email to me, "I teach Jewish Storytelling at a Hebrew school, which continues to amaze me since I consider myself pretty subversive. But the kids like the class, and the parents and principal like me, so I continue to teach Jewish stories in concert with stories from other cultures, noting the spiritual links between them. And the esoteric teachings. Wish I had had a teacher like me. Or probably like you."

I added Mark to my religion blog links on the side. Check him out. I read a few of his blogs last night. The one I enjoyed the most was the one on, My first Jewish-Japanese-Christmas-Hanukkah-OshogatsuTree. Now say that three times fast. He is a fascinating read and I look forward to reading more! Thanks Mark!

It is good to find other people who have found multiple religious paths and combined them into one.