One year, one month, and 18 days ago, I found my 2000th geocache. Today, I found #3000 and while that seems like a lot, last year I was the 4th person in MN and now I’m 7th.

My goal is usually about 1000th caches a year. Last year I made that just fine. This year, as I stated above, I didn’t. I wasn’t all that happy about missing the goal I had set but the simple fact of the matter was that I was fairly burned out from our caching trip to Green Bay, WI. Caching has changed in the last few years for the worse. Too many people hiding pieces of shit in parking lots, on private property, and in other areas just because they want a number rather than the desire to bring someone somewhere nice and interesting.

While I have watched plenty of people come and go in the activity and wondered if the loss of interest would happen to me, I somehow pressed on and made sure that I was doing everything I could to better caching in Minnesota.

I really hope that caching returns to the days of old when people didn’t hide pieces of shit magnetic keyholders under lampskirts, 35mm film canisters hanging in every pine tree they can, and other shitty containers in inappropriate places. If it does continue that way I don’t know how much longer I will be able to cache.

I didn’t start this activity saying, “Honey, let’s run around all day touring the parking lots of Rochester, Woodbury, and Oakdale finding magnetic keyholders!”

Thanks to both Dave and Chris for accompanying me today. While it rained 90% of the time we were out, it was good to spend time with my friends.

My mother comes to me to find stuff on Google for her. Her last request before this was fairly simple… Find an obituary of a specific person and in a specific newspaper. I had that result in about 45 seconds. I even gave her the link so that she could find other obituaries she required just as fast.

Tonight she asked me to do a favor for my aunt. My little cousin wants a Webkinz Sherbert Bunny. This is apparently the Tickle Me Elmo or Cabbage Patch doll for 2007.

Well, I did a bit of searching and came across numerous retailers that were offering these items for extremely inflated prices. I saw quotes all over the board. Everything from $16.95 CAD to $89.95 USD. The most common, however, was in the $39.95 range. Apparently these stuffed toys normally go for about $12/ea.

The cheapest one I found was from DVDBoxOffice.com priced at $16.95 CAD. Based on what I have read about them and the small scale scandal over the XBox360 and Wii sales (during the height of all that bullshit), they are slow to ship (so bad that people just outright canceled their orders rather than deal with the wait times). One person even claimed that DVDBoxOffice.com asked them to fax over their CC statement so that they could “verify their billing address”!

If you’re out looking for one of these “treasures”, good luck. You’re going to be paying at least $40 for the Sherbert Bunny. If you’re paying more than that, you’re probably getting ripped off.

Kim and I always enjoy going out to see baseball games. While I’m there to simply watch the game while eating nachos and a Dome Dog, Kim is there to enjoy spending time with me, figuring out which specials we should utilize, and getting her favorite yummy treats.

Last season we were very, very bad Twins fans. While we were still out seeing live baseball with the Saint’s games we attended, we didn’t visit a single game at the Metrodome even though we had a few chances. It seemed that something was always coming up and/or we just didn’t feel like it that day. Mostly it was because of me ending work at 6pm instead of 4:30 on the opposite end of the metro making it difficult for me to get home, get Kim (who has to take care of the dog), and get back to the stadium before game time.

This year I was bound and determined to be as good of a fan as I was in years past. Kim did some intensive research online and figured out the best ticket prices to take advantage of (even bringing in a Mountain Dew can to get $10 off some decent third base line seats) and chose a few dates for us.

It would seem that we aren’t the only ones purchasing tickets as it’s been reported in the Star Tribune that Twins’ tickets are selling fast. I hope that they can make their attendance goals. Kim and I were discussing last night how awesome it would be to actually get to see a sold out game in the Metrodome. I should have taken off 4/3 and gone to the home opener ;)

Anyway, we went down to the Apple Valley Twins Pro-Shop and picked up our tickets. I wanted to get a nice fitted hat as well (with the M on it, not the TC) but 7 1/2 was too small and 7 5/8 was too big. Bummer.

We’re planning on attending the 4/14 game vs the Devil Rays with friends as well as another Saints’ game sometime in early May.

I’m looking forward to another season of baseball and one of the last in the Dome. I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea of an open air stadium, especially one that doesn’t have a retractable roof… I won’t bother to get into the details as everyone knows how fucking stupid they are about this, but it’s still annoying that I’m paying elevated taxes and ticket prices for a stadium that will fucking suck.

Go Twinkies!