I decided suddenly to set a goal for my geocaching. I started in August of last year, so I wanted to hit 250 before the end of August. I accomplished this last night by finding the FST: Eat Or Be Eaten cache. I am so far behind Richard that any attempt to catch up would be utterly futile; however, I'm working hard to change the "u" to an "er", which would make my attempts fertile.

Brad really likes Neccos. They are pretty good, but I would prefer chocolate. Yumm Chocolate. Anyways, Sitting in the car on the way to Utah I wanted to see the nutritional facts for Necco's and realized that there is only three little wafer chips per serving. What! Like you're only going to eat 3 when there is like 40 in there. What happened to 1 or 2 servings per package like with every other candy bar. I just thought it was something to blog about. Weird!

We're back from our little Idaho/Utah adventure. Of course, the big news is that we got a call on Saturday informing us that we had received two offers on our house. Upon returning to Reno we reviewed the offers, made a counter-offer, which was accepted and heard yesterday that our counter-offer was accepted. As of yesterday our house is sold and if everything works out then we'll be out of our house in less than a month.

We spent all Thursday driving. The trip was probably about 10 or 11 hours. We went up through Salt Lake City, then to Logan and finally to Bear Lake. The cabin was a three-story house right up the road from Bear Lake. It had a pool table in the basement, so we played quite a few games; however, many small children make for interesting pool partners.

Friday we went to Minnetonka Cave and took the tour. Although some in our group weren't real excited about this activity at first, they quickly changed their minds once we got inside - it was pretty cool. I was disappointed to find out that there wasn't a Minnetonka Cave Cache as the sign so brazenly advertised.

After returning to the cabin we went down to the lake. The sand was fairly nice, so it was comfortable and fun. Not so many rocks, thorns and scorpions like Pyramid. The water was cold, but not as bad as Tahoe, so nothing to complain about. We had a lot of fun there, as well.

Saturday we drove over to Idaho Falls for a family reunion on my mom's side. We saw some people we haven't seen in a long time, some people we've never seen before and played volleyball. I had some chicken for lunch, but a few feathers were still attached - they need to fire the plucker.

Sunday we headed back to Reno. It was a long, grueling drive, but we survived.

Finally, this what our new ouse currently looks like:

Today we "sealed the deal" on our new house. We signed the purchase agreement, which basically guarantees us the house. The foundation had already been poured, but they poured the slab while we were there signing papers. Now that we have a contract we can begin posting play-by-play pictures without the fear that someone else may show up one day asking why we're taking pictures of their house. There will be plenty of time for pictures since the house won't be done until the end of January.

Our current house officially went on the market yesterday. We've had several people come by to look at it, but no takers. We still have plenty of time, but Emilie is antsy. The sooner we sell, the more relaxed she'll be about the whole process.

We'll be leaving town Thursday morning for the big family reunion this weekend. We'll be driving to Utah on Thursday to spend Thursday and Friday at Bear Lake. On Saturday we'll be darting over to Idaho Falls for the reunion.

I finished reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams last night. I was a little wary about reading it because in my mind it seemed to be little more than nerd fodder; however, I have to admit that I could not stop reading it and found it to be very funny. I highly recommend it (more so than Ender's Game - my last read).

I have to say that I'm getting sick of dealing with pop-up problems at work. Why can't people just come to work and do their job? Why must they play games or browse the internet tirelessly until their system is completely unusable for work purposes? Why, why, why?

My keyboard died on me this morning. I think this is the first time I've ever had a keyboard die. It acted as though the ALT or CTRL key was stuck, but I confirmed that no keys were stuck. A new keyboard did the trick - I had one floating around so it wasn't a big deal.

I finished reading Ender's Game. Fortunately, there was some payoff at the end. I wasn't very impressed until the last chapter, but it turned out okay. I was surprised to learn that it was Ender's game. What a trip! I hope I didn't ruin anything for those of you who haven't read it...

I asked my boss about year-end reviews today. He said that he has not received the approved review from his boss yet, but expects to have it this week. The official review will happen sometime during the first couple days of next week.

As of today, August 3, 2004, KD7KYC no longer exists. I shall now be known as N7BAC. I will still respond to "Brad" but prefer to be called phonetically by my new callsign, November 7 Bravo Alpha Charlie.

I'm committed (as opposed to being committed) to cleaning up the page. As you have noticed by now, the main page is different. I'm sure you're thinking, "Hey! Your page is nothing but a cheap rip-off of Richard's page. You can think that - and you'd probably be right - but what are you going to do about it? That's what I thought.

Mike and I took a quick evening trip up to the top of Peavine last Monday. It was nice to drive up there without the effort of hiking. Hiking is cool once in a while, but sometimes you just want the reward without the effort.

I haven't had a chance to ride my bike lately. My last ride was the Saturday before last when we went on the Emigrant Trail. We only went one way and then shuttled back because of time restraints. I decided that I would go on a quick ride tonight because of my lack of riding; however, while pumping up my back tire it popped and I didn't have a spare. Tomorrow I need to get a new tire and a spare. Bummer.

I've been reading a book that is a bit out of my range of taste, but I'm forcing myself for two reasons: First, it's supposed to be a classic (or more appropriately, "geek classic"). Second, the author is LDS. The book is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It's okay, but I have a really hard time enjoying science-fiction. I've been surprised by some of the content of the book. Considering the author's LDS background, I'm surprised that the book contains as much language as it does. It's by no means excessive, but it is always unnecessary and out of place. I guess I just don't understand. I'll give the full review when I finish (I have three chapters to go).

Work-wise, I should have received my annual review by now. The fact that I haven't yet is not a good sign. Last year, most of the employees were given a painfully small increase and not given a reason why. Since the reviews are late coming this year I suspect they're going to do the same thing. If the same thing happens this year then it is likely that our group will lose quite a few good people.