Mr. 0

So I have decided to make the move over to Blogger. I've copied all of my old posts over there, and I am going to keep them here as well. Any new posts will be made on my Blogger account. As I mentioned it's nothing against LiveJournal, I just like some of the features and settings over at Blogger a little better.

You can find it here

http://mr0geo.blogspot.com/

My yearly subscription is almost up here, so I'm considering moving over to Blogger, since I like the features there a little better. If I do decide to do so, I'll make sure to post an update here, move all of my past posts over, and update the Waymarking page.

A month or so ago I got in contact with the director of the Marion County Parks District after she had posted on the GC.com forums. Essentially she had heard about Geocaching and thought it might be an activity the Parks District would be interested in. I've spoken with her on a few occasions and also presented Geocaching to a few groups in the area. She passed my name on to Marion's local newspaper, The Marion Star. After exchanging a few emails and phone calls with a reporter there, I stopped in there to do an interview for an upcoming article on Geocaching. Basically we met at the paper's headquarters where we talked about Geocaching, and I showed her around the website while a photographer took a few pictures. The reporter mentioned that she had read an article about Geocaching in a magazine over the summer, and was interested in it, but didn't know where to start. She, and the photographer both seemed to be excited about it on a personal level, so maybe they'll start caching.

After a few minutes in the office we went out to find a nearby cache. I was hoping to take them to a more traditional cache in a more interesting area, but it was pretty snowy, so some may have been a little dicey to find. The one we finally settled on was within walking distance, which made it much easier. It was a micro in one of the towns newer downtown pocket parks. As I mentioned, I would have liked to have taken them to an ammo can or something, but this one was ok in the end.

I'm not sure when it'll make the paper, but when it does, maybe I can Waymark it under the News Article Locations. Unfortunately while I was there, I forgot to get coords and pics to mark the Marion Star under the Newspaper Headquarters.

Today started out very foggy, and while we both wanted to get outside we just couldn't until around noon when it finally cleared up. After grabbing some lunch we visited a few places around the Columbus area. I managed to Waymark a Freestanding Arch, which I still need to add a few pictures to. I just haven't gotten my film developed. I also snagged a couple of Ohio Historical Markers and a Worldwide Cemetery. One of the Ohio Historical Markers also falls into the Irish-American Historic Places category as well. I so managed to sneak a visit in for an Ohio Historial Marker.

I managed to post all but one of the Waymarks that I discussed earlier; the ones I just had to get posted now. The one that I didn't, I realized I don't have decent enough pictures, so I'll have to head back out to that site soon to take care of that.

Anyhow I managed to resubmit the Honda plant in Marysville, Ohio. I originally submitted it to the "First of its kind" cat back in November, however it was declined because there is no sign on site showing that it was the location where the first Japanese car was built in the U.S. It was suggested that I submit it to the Superlatives cat instead. I kept meaning to do that, but never thought about it when I was able to do so. In addition to that I submitted a Horse Crossing Sign in the "Uncommon Crossing Signs" cat, a Drive-In Movie Theater (I'm hoping to get back there this summer to catch a movie, and Waymark the neon there. I want to get some good night shots), and a Former School.

The former school has actually been pretty high on my list to get posted for a while. I didn't attend this school, but I did go to school in one of the other 3 Marion County School Districts, and I worked directly across the road for a few years. Also, Dewgrl, DID go to this school, and graduated just a couple of years before the story broke that led to its closing. In short the school was built on a waste dump that was formerly part of a U.S. Army base and POW camp during WWII, and into the early 1960's. In the late 1990's a former student of the school noticed higher than normal Leukemia rates in students who attended the school. After some misleading information, and cover-ups from the Ohio EPA and Army Corps of Engineers, over 75 chemicals were found on the school's campus at hazardous levels. The schools were closed in 2003, after the OEPA, Ohio government, and Army Corps gave money to build new schools elsewhere. A longer, more descriptive narrative can be found on the Waymark page once its approved. I guess because it was handled through the Army Corps, it never seems to have been listed as a Superfund Site.

I was fooling around on the PC tonight putting together some Geocaching information to give to a local parks department that has become interested in the activity, and I started thinking about some of the Waymarks in my backlog. There are a few that, for whatever reason, I got it stuck in my mind that I wanted to post very soon. There's no reason for it since they've been sitting in my backlog for a while. After a little while of tracking down the pictures, and coordinates, I finally started posting. I only got 2 posted this evening, Plane Crash Site and an Airport. I was originally going to use the Plane Crash Site for the September contest over in the Flickr Waymarking Group. I figured it would be a creative "Final Resting Place," since the plane is buried where it crashed. I didn't end up using it though since I couldn't get a pic that fit the "Seasonal Change" theme.

I still have several to post that I've had in my mind that I must do right now, but I'm not certain when I'll get those up. I'm hoping to do it tomorrow, but I doubt I will since I had that meeting with the Marion County Parks folks.

This past weekend Dewgrl and I went out of town for her sister's wedding in Knob Noster, Missouri. We flew into Kansas City, and had a little down time during which we did a little Waymarking and Geocaching. On Thursday, after we arrived in KC we visited the GARMIN HQ for a Waymark visit, and to grab a virtual cache. It looks like there are many who are doing some armchair caching on this one, but we really did visit there. After that we drove over to a great BBQ Joint. One of my goals in going out there was to try real Kansas City BBQ, and this spot fit the bill perfectly. I had a few more Waymarks that I wanted to visit but we were both a little tired from traveling, and with our bellies full of BBQ we just wanted to get to our hotel, which was on Whiteman AFB. Since access is obviously restricted, we had to have Dewgrl's sister meet us at the main gate to get us in, and take care of getting our passes and such. She was running a little late, so we took spent the time in nearby Warrensburg finding the Several Bridges Road (Version 2) cache there. We finally got our passes and into the base where we were lead to the hotel. Once there I logged the caches and Waymark visits, and we went to bed.

Friday was mostly free for us. The only things that were planned was a tour of the Oscar 1 site on base, and the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. We got up early that morning to run out to Otterville for the James Gang cache. We DNFed it, and I'm pretty sure that it's not there any longer, however it was still an interesting site to visit. This spot was a location where the James Gang robbed a train for over $20,000. While there I waymarked the Blue Star Memorial Highway Marker and the site as an Infamous Crime Scene. On the was back through Sedalia we stopped for an early lunch at a local diner which was great! We got back to the base, and met up with the groom to be for our tour of the Oscar 1 facility. Basically it is one of several sites around the U.S. that were used from the 1960's until 1993. These underground bunkers were sites from which the Minuteman missiles would have been launched. Because of our nuclear disarmament agreements most of these sties were dug up and destroyed. This one was left due to it being one of the only ones located directly on a military base. The silos and missiles that it controlled were destroyed though. The tour guide, who is stationed at the base, made what could have been a dry, boring tour, a lot of fun. The groom's father also worked in one of these facilities elsewhere so he was able to provide much additional information as well. Following that we drove past the flightline to see the B-2 bombers that were out on display for a visiting officer. I also got to see a few A-10's that were tied-down outside the maintenance wing. Once that was over we had a little more time before we had to go to the rehearsal and dinner, so we drove back out to a Missouri Historical Marker we had passed to Waymark it. We also found another Blue Star Memorial Highway Marker there, and directly behind the park where these markers were located was a cemetery that we drove around to find and Waymark. On the way back to base again we made a quick stop at the Backroad Bridge Micro cache. The rest of Friday evening was taken up by wedding festivities.

The actual wedding was on Saturday. Everything was held on base, which made it convenient for travel. Everything was within just a few minutes of our hotel. It turned out to be a nice day, and it was a beautiful wedding and reception.

Sunday we had to check out of the hotel by 11am, and head back to Kansas City to catch our flight home. We got up early and went back into Warrensburg where we visited the Courthouse which is also on the National Register among other things. In front of the courthouse is a statue of "Old Drum", a dog that was the center of one of Missouri's most interesting damage suits, and from which we got the term that a dog is "Man's best friend." The statue is also the center of a virtual cache which we logged as well. On the way back to the base for the final time we found another MO Historical Marker which we Waymarked. We got back to base around 10:30am, checked out, picked up some folks that we were taking back to the airport and traveled to KC on our way home.

As you may have noticed I've taken a bit of a break from posting here, and haven't really been very active with Waymarking. I've just been a little busy lately and haven't really had the time to do much on the site lately. I have managed to grab a few Waymarks here and there, but they've pretty much all just gone into my backlog for now.

This past weekend however I was free so I took the opportunity to visit a few places that I've been meaning to get to for some time, as well as knock off another county worth of Ohio Historical Markers....sort of.

I started out the day by heading to nearby Marysville, Ohio so I could mark the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company for the Publicly Held Corporation Headquarters, then on to find a new historical marker. I hadn't done my research to see that it was already listed, but I got to visit it anyhow so it was no loss what-so-ever. From there I headed just outside of town to hit up the Honda plant there since it was the location where the first Japanese car was made in the U.S. in 1982. I marked it under the First of its kind cat, of course.

I left Marysville heading further west to stop in Bellefontaine. I've been here several times before for other Waymarks, but there was one Ohio Historical Marker that I couldn't find before. I wanted to stop again, because it's the last one I need to complete Logan County. I'm pretty convinced that it's missing. There are photos of the marker from November of 2006, and I'm 99.9% certain I was in the same spot, but it's gone now, which is a shame. After that it was a quick stop for lunch. While at lunch I mentioned to Dewgrl that there was a small cemetery not far from the park where we tried to find the historical marker. I had already been there, so I didn't think about it, but she wanted to see it, so we went back out there. It was only a mile or two away, so it was no big deal, plus I hadn't Waymarked the cemetery before. So we marked Blue Jacket Cemetery in the Worldwide Cemeteries cat.

Along the way to Rushsylvania we happened across the Stanfield Pioneer Cemetery, so we stopped to look around, and of course Waymarked it. Then it was on the Rushsylvania Cemetery (I intend to Waymark it, but haven't posted it yet) to see the memorial for Jeremy Michael Hodge. He was a National Guardsman who was killed in Baghdad in October of 2005. There have been several local television and newspaper articles about the headstone because it's large and very detailed. It's almost life size and features a portrait of him on the front. While walking around the cemetery we also found some Zinc headstones which I still need to submit. We quickly stopped in Rushsylvania on our way though to Waymark the mural there, which, again, I haven't submitted.

After leaving Rushsylvania we headed north toward Kenton and the surrounding areas to mark Hardin county's Ohio Historical Markers. We stuck out on the first two. One of them had only a vague listing of its location, so it really could be anywhere, the other I know we found the location, but there was no marker. While looking for the first one, we stumbled upon another cemetery, which also had a Zinc marker. After missing the second historical marker we moved on to the next nine markers in the county and did manage to find all of them. There were a few stops along the way for various cemeteries we passed.

The sun was starting to set about this time, and we still had one more stop we wanted to make before it got dark. Yet another cemetery in Fostoria, Ohio which I had seen pictures of over at Geocaching.com. There used to be a cache there and it looked interesting so I wanted to visit and Waymark it as well. We got out of there just before the sun set, and headed on up to Toledo to grab dinner at Tony Packo's

Tony Packo's has now been marked under the Celebrity Hangouts. Dewgrl is a big fan of the television series M*A*S*H, so she has wanted to stop here for a long time, and I've always wanted to see what all the talk was about. Packo's was discussed in several episodes of M*A*S*H by Maxwell Kilnger, who was played by Toledo native Jamie Farr. Farr liked Packo's so much that he wanted to make sure that it was included in the scripts. Farr still visits from time to time. Over the years hundreds of celebs have visited there and have signed hot dog buns (they use foam buns actually) which are hung all over the walls. I personally was pretty impressed with the food. I didn't expect much going into it since the featured menu item is a hot dog, but it's actually really good. They actually use a Hungarian variety of Kielbasa, which is cut to various sizes for different hot dogs. They're then loaded with onions, chili sauce, and shredded cheddar cheese. They also offer several kinds of chili, along with a few other things that I forget about now.

I just had my 400th Waymark accepted. It ended up being the Rolls Royce Neon Sign that I listed. I posted several others this evening, including a History Museum, 2 Bells, a Caboose, a Professional Sports Venue, a topiary, a Unique Steeple, a Static Aircraft Display and an Exact Replica which was a cross post of one of the bells.

This past weekend while gathering those, I also managed to visit a few Waymarks as well.

Along the way I took some pictures of a couple of other sites, that I thought I could fit into a category, but now I'm not so sure. Specifically there is the Field of 6' tall Concrete Corn in Dublin, Ohio (can be seen here, here, here, here, and here). This was a public arts project to memorialize Central Ohio's agricultural beginnings, and to symbolize the corn fields, and homesteads that stood here before they decided it was a good place for highways and office buildings.

The other is locally famous "Art" sculpture/sign/whatever (can be seen here, here, and here). It's located at the Columbus College of Art and Design in downtown Columbus, OH. It stands probably about 50' tall, and bridges the street there. The local folks like to have fun with it. There is one perspective where photo can be taken with a couple of light poles that can be made to look like the letter "F" in front of the "art" sign.

I just got off tonight's Waymarking chat....a little abruptly since I lost my connection for some reason....and there was some pretty good dialog this evening.

One thing that was brought up was the requirements for visiting Waymarks. Most seem to be in favor of reducing or eliminating visit requirements. This is something that I completely support personally. Sure, there is a possibility that folks could "cheat" or that people will just log their visits with "TFTW," however that's not something that really concerns me. If people want to log a visit on my Waymarks when they haven't actually been there, that's their problem, and their loss. It really doesn't effect me in any way. With the quick logs of "TFTW," again, that's the visitor's thing. If someone isn't inspired to write a novel about a Waymark of mine, that's certainly understandable. I don't expect everyone to love the Waymarks I've posted....people are entitled to their own opinions.

I think that fewer requirements will help new folks better embrace Waymarking. If we keep telling people "Sorry, that's not good enough. You need to do this and this, and post a picture showing this...." then folks aren't going to want to try to visit, or post Waymarks anymore. Certainly, it's nice to see folks post photos with their logs, but there are still plenty of folks who don't have digicams, and don't want to figure out how to use one. There's no reason why I should exclude anyone from playing just because they don't have the want, or means to post photos. In the long run I think most will still post photos, and really, it'll make the photos that DO get posted that much more of a surprise, of sorts. I don't like having to meet special requirements to tell others that I visited a Waymark. To me, it's about being there and experiencing the location, and arbitrary and difficult photo requirements actually take away from the experience for me. I'm more worried about meeting the requirement than reading the sign, or looking at the sculpture, or whatever.

Of course this doesn't really apply to the "Waymarking Games" department, since many of those are set up a certain way that would still need specific requirements.

On a side note a few folks were discussing traveling to various parts of the world to go Waymarking, and to visit other folks. I've been thinking about doing the same. Especially since Skybus came to town earlier in the year. $10 airfares to many major cities makes it much more attractive to travel around just for the heck of it. I don't know how much they've been advertised in various destination cities, but there has been a lot of talk here, since they're based out of Port Columbus International Airport.....so I invite all of you in, or near their destinations to come out to Ohio for a day or two. :)

Tonight I was in attendance of the Columbus Blue Jackets first pre-season game, against the Nashville Predators. I wish I could say that I was excited about this year's team, but to me, it looked a little lack-luster this evening. To their defense, there have been some pretty big changes in the organization from the top down, and they only had two days of training camp before the game. They're also trying out some new lines this year. One in particular that should be interesting is Rick Nash and David Vyborny being centered by Nikolai Zherdev. In the past Zherdev has been a wing, but they decided to try him in center since he's always had a tendency to center the puck anyhow. Unfortunately Vyborny left the game early tonight with an injury to his left leg. Nashville's Martin Erat made a cheap hit on Vyborny. Vyborny laid on the ice for a few minutes, but was able to get up and skate off, although he was assisted by a few teammates. Last I heard he was taken to the hospital, and nothing is going to be released, or decided about his condition until morning. All in all, it should be an interesting year. Hopefully they can make it to the playoffs this year, and lose the title of being the only team to have never been to the playoffs.

This weekend Dewgrl and I managed to grab a few Waymarks. On Saturday we had only planned to go out for some breakfast at an Amish style restaurant in a near by town. After we left there I decided that I wanted to grab the two Ohio Historical Markers in Madison County. After marking the second one I wanted to go to nearby London, Ohio, to Waymark the courthouse, but we decided to head out to Springfield instead to see the Madonna of the Trail out there. In all we got the two historical markers, a few cemeteries, an infamous crime scene, a few Zinc headstones, a solar power location, an outdoor warning siren, and probably a few that I've forgotten. I haven't posted most of them yet, simply because I've been lazy, but I'll probably get on that soon. Over all it was a beautiful day. It was much cooler than it has been recently, and it was nice and sunny. It made for some good pictures.