Saturday Geocaching photos on a cold day in February

A cold Saturday in February Geocaching.com:

Started off the day parking at a hockey rink, walking past the soccer field and dodging animal excrement. It happens to the best of us where we get close the to the geocache and bushwack through the forest instead of getting to the proper trail head. Of course, the way back was much easier than the way in except we still have to dodge the dog stuff.

From here we park in a busy neighborhood with the nosy guy writing down my license plate. That's right the geocachers are so dangerous we need to track them at all times. A quick grab (hidden under some wood) and we are off to the next one. With plenty of muggles about we were careful to keep ourselves looking "normal" as we get ready to jump into the next forest.

This time we are dealing with a Multiple Cache (find the first one... read the GPS coordinates to the next one... search for it). After walking about in circles for about 20 minutes we stumble across the small cache and grab the location of part 2. A short walk from part 1 we set out across the park passing several muggles on the way. Plenty of dog walkers out today enjoying the brisk winter weather (-15 oC today). Getting close to ground zero (GZ) of part 2 takes us off the pathway and searching tree stumps. Lots of tree stumps. Lucky for us we got very lucky!

Next up a quick park and crawl through another forest. Wow the muggles are out in large numbers at this next stop near a hockey arena. With much circling we finally find the regular size cache hidden under the roots of a tree. But this cache is only a couple of feet from the main pathway so we grab it quickly and carry it about 20 feet away as a decoy while we sort through the contents and sign the log (SL).



Final stop for the day and we park smack in the middle of residential Mississauga, Ontario amongst the 3,000 plus square-foot houses. There are three caches hidden in the forests behind these massive homes with a creek following the path. Actually there are about 4 paths so which one do we choose? The wrong one of course and when we get real close to GZ we find that the creek is ... well... in the way! So we back track and find a proper bridge to cross while waving and smiling at the muggles. This cache is also very close to the path and we quickly grab it and open it up to SL while NOT noticing the muggle couple walk by and smile at us. Ooops we are caught!

Last cache of the day further along the creek and path up the side of the hill. This time the cache is covered by rocks next to a tree half way up the hill. It took some foot maneuvering to maintain our stance on the side of the hill. With proper footing we grab the cache, open it up and sign the log triumphantly.

We had planned more for today, but it was time for us to call it a day and come back another day. There is an inherent addiction to this outdoor technology driven treasure hunt called Geocaching.com that keeps us coming back for more adventures.

Photos of winter time Geocaching in Streetsville

Today was another great day out and about doing the Geocaching.com thing. It was a chilly afternoon and 6 hours of hunting them down provided plenty of reason for a hot chocolate and warm fire at the end of the day.

Today's treasures were scattered amongst cemeteries, church lots, urban community centres, neighbourhood forests, and shopping mall parking lots. We found everything from the very small nano sized with log only up to the regular sized with plenty of room for goodies.

Here are today's geocaching photos:


There was a light dusting of snow both on the ground and in the air which provided for plenty of picturesque photos of frozen creeks and snow swept grounds.

For one stop with two geocaches in one forest it took 20 minutes to travel between them. Not because of the distance, but because of the landscape of fallen trees, creeks, and plenty of bush wacking. What a joy to spend the afternoon in the forgotten forests of the neighbourhood.

Over the past month I have gone from "muggle" (someone that does not know about the game) to someone that can't wait for the weekend to start a new journey in search of treasures. If you haven't already it is time for you to learn about Geocaching.com and get outside and enjoy your surroundings!

Sixteen Xbox 360 Games that Rock plus guides for full 1000K achievement points in under 20 hours

If you happen to play Xbox 360 just for the 1000K achievement points then you have played some awful games (e.g. Darkest of Days) and some games that rock (e.g. Jericho) plus games in between. Games have varying degrees of difficulty in achieving the full 1000K while others are not difficult but take 20 or more hours to complete.

Here are some great games that have achievable 1000K, require less than 20 hours and they Rock:

1. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (guide)
   
2. Clive Barker’s Jericho (guide)
3. Condemned: Criminal Origins (guide)
4. CSI-Hard Evidence (guide)
5. CSI: Deadly Intent (guide)
   
6. Fight Night Round 3 (guide)
7. Ghostbusters: The Video Game (guide)
   
8. Gun (guide)
   
9. King Kong (guide)
10. Lost: Via Domus (guide)
11. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (guide)
12. Saw (guide)
13. Sherlock Holmes vs Jack the Ripper (guide)
    
14. Silent Hill: Homecoming (guide)
    
15. TMNT (guide)
16. X-Men: The Official Game (guide)

There are also plenty of sports title that could be used to gain 1000K, however, it'll depend on your tolerance level for certain sports. Generally all of the 2006, 2k6 sports titles can be completed in less that 10 hours, but they can be hard to find at retail or rental stores. Happy achievement hunting!

Another great day of Geocaching.

Another great day of geocaching with a variety of cache types in Mississauga:

• Micro caches (really small ones with only a log),
• Small caches (small one with small pencil and few trickets), and
• Regular caches (larger ones with plenty of trickets, travel bugs and geocoins to trade)

The Caches can be hidden in a variety of places:

• deep in forests
• city parks near homes
  
• back streets in bushes and trees
  
• cemeteries in trees
  
• public spaces (e.g. paper box, trash containers, guard rails)
  
• urban streets amongst landmarks
  

Report Writing Tips - Proofreading

It is important to learn to proofread your reports efficiently and here are some tips:

1) Look for Common Writing Mistakes

• Confusing "it's" and "its"
• Confusing "their," "there," and "they're"
• Capitalizing nouns that are not proper nouns, and failing to capitalize proper nouns
• Run-on sentences
• Sentence fragments
• Poor use of paragraph breaks
• Poor use of commas
• Confusing commas, colons, and semi-colons
• Shifting verb tenses

Geocaching in Mississauga

Outside today with the trusty Magellan Triton 400 GPS looking for geocaching treasures. For the muggles out there that do not know about geocaching check out the Wikipedia entry:

Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container (usually a tupperware or ammo box) containing a logbook. Larger containers can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value. Geocaching is most often described as a "game of high-tech hide and seek", sharing many aspects with orienteering, treasure-hunting, and waymarking.

Here are some snapshots of the adventures today:

What gamer web sites should be bookmarks?

Here is a mash up of great websites that have frequent updates on gaming news, xbox 360 achievements, gamertag profiles, and PC digital stores.

1) Gaming News

• www.joystiq.com: Nicely embedded videos, robust posts on the lastest gaming news.
  
• www.kotaku.com: Part of larger network, timely posts on the latest gaming news, good comments system.
  

2) Xbox 360 Achievements

• www.xbox360achievements.com: Moderated achievement guides with Roadmaps and timing for complete 1000K
  
• www.trueachievements.com: User submitted achievement guides with multiple solutions for individual achievements
  

3) Gamertag Profiles

• www.raptr.com: IM with friends while gaming and track achievement progress
  
• www.360voice.com: Have your Xbox 360 blog by itself
  
• www.mygamercard.net: Grab a gamercard like this one http://card.mygamercard.net/weeken.png

4) PC digital stores

• www.steampowered.com: IM with friends while gaming, Great sale prices and free weekend deals.
  
• www.gog.com: DRM Free classic games at cheap prices
  
• www.direct2drive.com: competitor to Steam and some exclusive content