Geocaching

UPDATE: Should've put this in the original post, but here's the site we use as our reference geocaching.com

Me and the Door's went geocaching for the first time. It was a blast. We tried 4 different caches, were successful in finding 3 of them. For those that don't know about geocaching, you get the latitutde and longitude coordinates of a cache on the net. You enter them into a handheld GPS unit and then go to where the coordinates are located. Somewhere in the general vicinity will be some kind of cache. The caches contain some kind of log book that finders sign and note when they found it. Micro sized caches are only big enough to hold the log book. Other caches are larger and contain kitschy kinds of trinkets. The concept of those is to take something from the cache while leaving something in the cache. Other caches are multi-stage caches. The coordinates you get from the net lead you to the first stage, something in the first stage will give you direction or coordinates to the next stage and so forth.




First one, was in an industrial park in Solon. There was a little cul-de-sac. Took us about 5 minutes of walking around till Scott noticed a fake-looking bird's nest. It had a small quarter sized container in it with a couple folded up strips of paper that consisted of the log book.

Second cache was a failure. It was supposed to be a multi-stage cache, which would've been very cool to explore. Oh well, we'll find a good multi-stage sometime.



Third cache was fun. It was near the gorge in the Brecksville Reservoir. We had to walk up through what looked like an access road for park rangers, maybe. Then we got into the middle of the forest itself. Took us about 10-15 minutes to find this one. Ended up being what looked like a big plastic mayonnaise jar. It was full of a bunch of kitschy stuff.



The fourth cache was a fun one. We were following the directions on the GPS and had no clue how to get to it because there was no roads leading to it. We eventually found an office park that was the closest thing to it. We walked through the neatly mowed grass near the MetLife/Fox Sports Ohio building to a forest where we found a small ammo box.

On the way back to scott's we decided on a way for us to leave our mark on the geocaching world. I've got a set of cheap plastic poker chips. We stopped by Office Max and picked up some circular labels. Scott's got a domain name he hasn't been using for a while. So we're gonna setup a simple site, put the domain name and a unique number on the chips, then start leaving them in the caches that we find in the hopes that someone will find one of our Door-bloons (think dubloons, but since we're Door's we're calling them Door-bloons), go to the site and tell us where the found it. And hopefully our Door-bloons will spread across the nation to other caches.

To see other pictures from our first Geocaching expedition go to my Yahoo Photo Album

blog is back

Hello all. the blog is back after a slight period of time in the Blog Protection Program. It spent a couple weeks as a father of four in minnesota. Needless to say it's glad to be back as a blog.

it's early, I'm trying :-P

raw day

this is not gonna be a good post, so don't read it if you're looking for a pick-me-up





having a very "raw" day as I call them. woke up this morning ok, got in the shower, and for some reason or another I Was back at akron city hospital watching dad thrash around in the bed (as we would later find out as he was dying) I keep flashing back like this alot latley. it hurts so bad. I can't get over how he had to go, it's just not right, it's not fair, and I don't know hwat to do about it. I'm so mad and I'm so frustrated and I'm so scared and I ache so bad inside. I feel like I'm right on the edge between keeping a slight hold on the situation and just totally falling apart. but then again I'm gonna go to bed here and I'm gonna get up in the morning, and life's just gonna keep on going. and I'm gonna have to keep on going with it somehow. most days aren't this bad. but today mom and I both just lost it. didn't help we watched rent tonight. the hospital scene and the funeral scene did us in. we're both having a real hard time coping with the way he had to go, and the shit he had to be put through all through january. it really hammers home the concept that there is no concept of fairness in the world. good things happen to bad people, and horrible things happen to amazingly good people. and there's not a damn thing anybody can do about it. You just have to somehow come to grips with the idea that nothing is forever. change is inevitable. bad change is ever as likely as good change. and there are times when people get flooded with good changes. And there are times where people feel overwhelmed with bad changes. I'm at the point now where I have trouble looking for positives. I used to be a fairly optimistic person, but now I'm expecting my new car to break down. I'm expecting there to be problems with caryn and joe's new house. I'm expecting my dog to keel over and die. Why? because I've been burned for the past year and a half with bad thing after bad thing after bad thing after bad thing. And after each one i'd try to tell myself, well things can't get worse, they'll turn around. Well, they won't. there's no guarantees on anything. There's no "can't get worse" there's always worse. life's not a game, not a story, not a movie, it's a living breathing thing that's not able to be played or written or directed. sorry, I just really needed to get some of this out so I could stop crying. I'll shut up now.

There's no such thing as a perfect life - Terry Pluto

Link to Column

Excerpt:

"Here's a bulletin: Life is not fair.
Sometimes, we get better than we deserve, sometimes it's worse. But it's not fair, and it's not easy.
Not only do bad things happen to good people, but good things happen to bad people. We can drive ourselves crazy trying to figure out why some things happen.
"

Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
Im just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you can not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you can not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
But the rest is still unwritten

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten

Donald Edward Copac

Donald was one of the best men ever to set foot on the face of this earth. He put family above all else in the world. He put other people before himself. He was a diligent hard working man who wants his family to be happy more than anything else. Donald was a great father, a great grandfather, a great husband, and a great friend. He will be missed deeply.

Donald passed away at 7:30, January 27th, 2006.

This will be the last blog post for an indeterminate period of time.

dad

its sometime after 1 in the morning. been running around since 7. thought dad had a third heart attack in 3 weeks, but now we're waiting to see if he's got a potentially life-threatening pulmonary embolism.

Happy Birthday to me

I'm 30 today. I spent it doing stuff around the house, spending 3 hours at the hospital with dad, going to walmart, waiting 2 hours for a lukewarm pizza, walking the dog and doing the recycle. Happy 30th to me.

Roadblocks

So, yeah, you go through all this shit in your life. You finally get a good plan in mind for how to turn it around. You've got a list of things you awnt to work on changing in your life. Then all of a sudden you hit a roadblock. And all of that's put on the back burner.

I could've sworn I blogged about this, but it doesn't appear to be there. Anyways, my dad had a heart attack last friday. Thankfully minor. He was in the hospital until tuesday. They found a 50-60% blockage in one of his grafted arteries from the bypass he had back in 96. It wasn't a terrible blockage, so they felt a stint wasn't necessary. They start him on a regimine of blood thinners. He spent most of the rest of this week feeling like shit. Horrible chills, bad rashes, muscles aches and weakness. He woke up this morning with chest pains and when he told my mother about it, she was unable to find a pulse on him. We called 911, and the paramedics took him to the ER. They put an external pacemaker on him to stabilize his pulse. He's back in the hospital again, having had a second heart attack in almost a week. He's got a temporary internal pacemaker now, and they're still running tests to determine what's happened.

So, new copaX has been put on hold, so Chris can spend time with the family where he's needed.

It's over

The Kendrix Situation is officially over. The beard is gone. New Copax is not fully complete yet, but it's more of a state of mind. New Copax is not a destination, it's a new mode of transportation. I'm not quite ready to be New Copax quite yet, but I've officially closed the Kendrix Situation chapter of my life and can put all of my mental efforts into moving forwards with my life.

Do I hurt? yup. Am I gonna cry about it? not likely. Is this gonna haunt me? It shouldn't, and if I let it, it's my own fault and I'll need to handle that myself.

I'm gonna be 30 in 13 days. I'm not happy with where my life is right now at 30. My 31st year on this planet will be one of many changes. I can now safely say that I'm no longer making these changes for anyone but myself. I'm doing them because of the Kendrix Situation. Not because her spotlight way of highlighting my negatives qualities sank in. But because she made me realize that the one person I need to make happy is me. I can't spend my life making other people happy. especially those who can't accept anything less than perfection. I've got goals set for what needs to happen this year, and if I meet some of them, that's fucking awesome. If I meet them all, I'll be scared that I've let other things sacrifice. Perfection is not a goal, it's a fault. I want positive changes, positive energy, and positive results. Nothing quantified. Just positive.

More tidbits learned from the Kendrix situation:
1. Acceptance does not equal settling
2. Positive effort is worthwhile and should be celebrated, not belittled
3. If someone doesn't love me for who I am right now, that's their problem to change, not mine
4. I have a powerful support network that cares about me more than I could've possible imagined.
5. Dating/relationships are real and gritty and not perfect and not always sunny, but I have faith that I will find love again someday. And when I do find it, I will realize that what I thought was love will pale in comparison.


so that's it. I'm tired. I have to go back to work tomorrow, after being off for 4 days for dad's heart attack. l8r

I'm being tested (long rambling insomniac post) aka A Trip Inside the Head of copaX

Got a call from mom at 10:15 this morning that she took dad to the emergency room with chest pains. I spent most of the day after that at the hospital with the family. He's doing ok last we saw him at 7. No pain anymore. They're keeping him overnight and going to have him do a stress test and an echo-cardiogram tomorrow to make sure everything's ok. Wasn't how I intended to end this week. Thanks for the little test, whoever's in charge up there!

I'm either numb from everything that's gone on the last couple of weeks, or I'm getting better at managing my anxiety, because I didn't flip out today. I felt it starting to come on before I left the office, but I got my stuff together, sent off an email on the big project I'm on and just left. I didn't race down to the hospital, I drove at a sane speed. So, if this is somebody's way of testing me, you can take your test and shove it up your ass. I'm fucking done flipping out over shit I can't control. As my new motto for life goes "The anxiety my family has bred for years dies with me"

Also, for those who haven't seen me since before the holidays, I haven't shaved since new year's. I'm going into a cocoon, as I'm calling it. I've got the full on amish beard going right now. I'm not going to trim it. I'm not going to shape it. It's just going to keep growing. Once a final decision has been reached in the Kendrix Situation and I can finally get some closure, the full amish beard will come off and the new copaX will emerge. Better get out of the way when new copaX gets here. I can't speak for him, obviously, but I get the sense that he's gonna be better focused, he's gonna have more confidence, he's gonna not give as much of a shit about what people think. But like I said, new copaX is still being developed in his cocoon as we speak. Old copax is dying, to be reborn in the form of new copaX. I probably sound like I'm rambling a bit, but I don't give a flying fuck. I'm tired. I can't sleep. I feel like I've lived years in the past 2 months. I've gone back to IM logs from before the Kendrix Situation began, and it feels like the things that happened then actually occured years ago. I've been in a sensory deprivation chamber for the past two months. I've been stuck in a time loop. I've been on the show Big Brother with no contact to the outside world.

My pessimism keeps washing over me in waves lately. Seems that mornings and evenings are bad times for me. Middle of the day I can push it down enough to function. I wake up in the morning and can barely move. Not from anything physical, just don't wanna move. Late at night when I'm trying to wind down and my brain starts to slow down, that's when the Kendrix Situation creeps back in. I'm getting closer to being ready to put an end to this "break" we're on. We haven't had any contact since I walked out of her house on New Year's Day morning and she sent me a txt message on monday night. But I don't want to give up the high ground I feel like I've finally achieved in this so-called relationship. I want her to contact me. I want her to miss me. I want her to realize that she pissed me off enough that I didn't feel like contacting her this week. Not out of anything vindictive, but I just for once want her to see my side of things. I want to know that the glimmer of hope that I've had for the past few weeks that there's some compassion and understanding in that woman wasn't misguided. But then again, the other side of me just wants her to get pissed off at me for not contacting her, so it can be the catalyst I need to just end this.

I'm a damn good guy. I deserve to be happy, god dammit. I deserve to find someone that I can treat like a queen and who will want to treat me like a king. I'm not gonna let the Kendrix Situation sour me to relationships, but it's gonna be hard not to let it make me gun shy for a while. Eventually though I'll get back up on the horse and get back out in the dating scene and meet my Ms. Right.

all right. I can't look at the monitor anymore, my eyes are screming. If anybody actually reads this entire post, hope you enjoyed a little trip inside the head of copaX

I tried

I tried. probably harder than I should've. but I tried. I tried to make things work with Kendra. But we're just making ourselves sick trying to do it. I'm not good enough for her standards in her mind. I'm tired of not being happy with myself and the changes I've made as a human being. We're not officially broken up, but we decided this morning that we needed time apart. Honestly, I don't know how I can go back to that situation again, so I'll probably have to end things here eventually, maybe this time off will make it easier to officially end it, maybe not. I dunno.

My goal after I get over the initial shock and pain is to spend time figuring out what truly makes me happy. Not what makes the people around me happy. I've spent the majority of the 30 years minus 3 weeks of my life worrying about making people happy. I do things that make someone else happy that makes me happy. I need to be more selfish for a while. And hopefully someday I can find a woman that can accept me for what I am and can be happy for me while I make her as happy as I possibly can. My pessimist side is fighting really hard to take over right now. And I've got to just do what I can to fight it off and realize that there are a shitload of fish in the sea.

I'm gonna go now, cause I feel like I'm gonna throw up.

Been a while

I've been busy with my relationship and work and the holidays. Doesn't feel like it's only been two weeks since I posted, but it has. Things have gotten a little rocky with Kendra. Nothing serious yet, just some bumps in the road that need to get ironed out. I still love her. She still seems to love me. Just got some things in the way that need to get worked out.

there ya go. that's what's going on. l8r

Haven't posted for a while

Time really flies when you've got a life. Things between Kendra and I are going great. I love her very very much, and she loves me too. I'm going to marry her someday. Just a matter of when. We've had our bumps in the road so far, but hasn't stopped us from continuing on.

We went to the MIS christmas party last night. was an absolute blast of a time! didn't want to leave, but had to get home since we both had to be up in the morning.

I know my posts are boring anymore, but anybody still reading my blog will have to put up with it for a while. My primary focus in life right now is being the best man I can be for Kendra and making her as happy as I possibly can. Between that and work and still trying to keep up with family and friends, my life is extremely full right now. I haven't touched a video game in probably close to a month now. She's just so good for me, and I can't let it slip away for lack of trying.

Well, just wanted to give those couple people who read this thing a little update.

I'm a mess

Spent the weekend with my girlfriend Kendra. We went out of town to Medina for a wedding for a college friend of hers. It was the best weekend I've spent in a very long time. It cemented in my mind that I'm truly in love with this woman. I brought her home sunday afternoon, and went home and felt sick inside and have had a massive headache since leaving her house. I didn't want to leave her there. I'm getting to that point that I can't handle only being with her once a week. I'm going to have to do something about this before too long.

Happy Thanksgiving to all

This thanksgiving I'm feeling very thankful for everything I have in my life. I'm thankful for the freedoms I have. I'm thankful for the friends I have and how they influence my life. I'm thankful for having Kendra and the way she makes me feel inside and the possibilities that our future holds. I'm thankful for my family and their health and happiness. I'm thankful that I'm working on controlling my anxiety and my worry. I'm thankful that I'm developing a little bit of optimism about life.

I can't list everyone of my friends (well I could, but I don't want to) that I'm thankful for. But each and every one of you know that I'm so very very thankful to know you and have you in my life. You all help me in ways you'll never know. and I hope that I'm able to help you all in return.

Now, back to thanksgiving preparations :) Have a great day everybody!!

Sunday post

Figured since I was sitting around waiting for the Browns game to start and for Kendra to call, I'd make a blog post.

What's been going on lately? Really the only thing going on in my life right now is Kendra. Been with her once a week for the past month now. Things are going very well. It's a strange feeling being in a relationship like this. It's so out of my norm for me to be doing this. We're going on a little getaway for thanksgiving, a wedding in medina. Rehearsal dinner friday night and wedding saturday night. We'll be staying in a hotel nearby for friday and saturday night. Should be a good time :)

Other than that, work still sucks balls. More stupid last minute decisions. Now I've been labeled insubordinate for being honest and telling someone had they been in the regular status meetings on a project they'd have a better understanding of what's going on with it rather than making us answer stupid questions for an hour to get them up to speed. I'd like to find a new job somewhere down south (akron/canton area). I'm being pulled that direction these days.

Family's doing well, sister's house has been demolished. Construction is due to begin shortly (hopefully before thanksgiving).

That's about it. Anyways, back to waiting for the game and Kendra ;-)

One Red Paperclip

One Red Paperclip

Ran across this blog on another tech blog I read. This guy started with one red paperclip and a plan to trade his way to bigger and better things. So far he's traded the paperclip for a fish pen, which he traded for a knob with a face on it which he traded for a grill which he traded for a generator. Interesting to read, and will be interesting to follow and see what else he can trade for and if he gets hung up anywhere.

wow

wow

where to begin.

umm, yeah. got a txt from Kendra "Will u b my boyfriend?"

I responded with "Have you had too many drinks with dinner or are you for real? ;-)"

then after a half an hour phone conversation it was decided.

I've got a girlfriend.

Took me damn near 30 years, but I've got a girlfriend.

wow. I'm in a daze right now.

Is it saturday yet?

Weekend's over

Let's see, what happened this weekend. Got my hairs cut on saturday. Hung out, played some Quake 4, and then got together with Kendra for dinner and dvds. Had a fabulous time. Met Billy and Mandy. Ate popcorn. Chatted till midnight when I felt like I had to go home or I would never leave. Maybe some night I won't leave.

Sunday, got up and did laundry. played some more Quake 4. Watched a little football. Go browns :-P Went over to Caryn and Joe's and passed out the trick or treat candy. Molly was Cinderella, Will was a nameless guy with a black mask that hid his face, and Ben was a mouseketeer...wait, that's musketeer, I keep mixing that up. Came home, helped mom make some pizza bread (otherwise known as a stromboli). It's very easy and very tasty. just take a roll of prepared pizza crust, the kind that comes in the tube, spread it out, put some sliced ham, some browned sausage, and some pepperoni down the center of the dough, top all that with shredded mozzarella. roll the sides of the dough over the top of your pile of toppings. spread some butter along the top, sprinkle some parmesan cheese and a little more shredded mozzarella. Make sure you seal both ends, then cut about 4 or 5 slides into the dough to let the steam escape. Bake it till brown, then cut it in thick slices. eat and enjoy!

So there you have it! A blog update AND a recipe to boot ;-)