Oh!, how your opinion of school changes after 28 years!

That's right, I am back at school. I started my classes this week at Edison Community College. I was taking three classes for the summer term. As follows:

1. College Algebra MAC1105
2. Composition I ENC1101
3. Micro-Computer Skills

Unfortunately at the last minute my college canceled my micro class, due to lack of entries. Hopefully they will be rescheduling this for the second half of summer. I was looking forward to this very basic computer class to keep me tied with my major for the summer term. I will be pursuing an associates degree in networking services technology. That's right, I'm going to be a computer nerd. I guess its about time, I have a pretty good nack for these sometimes aggravating machines. It seems to be a pretty good career to get into, if you enjoy it. English for the summer term is 3 hours and 20 minutes long, weeeehw. That's a long class. Math is 1 hour and 30 minutes, which goes by pretty fast after you've been in English for 3+ hours. :) I think both will be good classes for me to start my college off with. I really enjoy my professors and look forward to seeing how well I do. I will keep my progress posted as the summer moves along. Until the first A! Buenos Tardes!

Edison

Geocaching? Anybody up for a modern day scavenger hunt?

I was playing around the other day on my google homepage when I noticed a topic at the bottom about geocaching. I had heard of this new activity quite some time ago, but never really looked into trying one out. I guess it is a cross between modern day treasure hunting and scavenger hunts. Its pretty popular all over the country (maybe world), I confirmed this after checking on my area of megaopolis Punta Gorda which in fact had several available geocache sites to hit up. I think it works like this. You need a GPS unit, some mode of transportation depending on how far your GPS unit indicates the distance to the cache is, and some time to look. I think there have been some advancements to the game in order to keep the interest of long time geocachers. I haven't researched all of it yet so I can't give to much more info on the more advanced games. So after you reach your destination you search for the object that is cached. From the descriptions I have read you may find a container where you leave your name and any other info after finding the cache. Some of these caches have items left by people who have found the cache. You then may leave an item if you would like or take an item to another cache. Some of these people have a trademark item they leave at all the caches to indicate they have been there, that way when someone finds a cache with your object in it they recognize you have been there. One of the informative and needed sites for this is : http://www.geocaching.com/ I also found a lot of info from: http://www.wikihow.com/Go-Geocaching The neat thing is a lot of people already have GPS units and if you don't you can find one for geocaching for less than a hundred bucks. I think this would be a really fun outing for a group in a new area, it might get you into some of the undiscovered areas of that city. I plan on trying my first before long and I'll update you with how it went. Anyways if you feel adventurous get out there and cache something. Who knows you might just like it. Cordially, Joe :)

Windsurfing gear easy to sell..........Bad keyboard not easy to sell.....

I posted a couple of ads in the classifieds for some things that I have acquired over the years that are taking up space in my storage building. The first items to go was windsurfing gear that included 2 boards, 6 sails , 2 handles, and 1 mast. The funny thing was the gentleman that purchased the items wasn't a windsurfer at all, he was going to use the boards to work on a "craft" that he had patented for fishing. He was going to attach pontoons to the sides of the board and install a trolling motor for power. He said this setup enabled a person to stand on the board at any location and fish off the end. The flotation of the unit allowed you to enter very shallow water areas. The funny thing was the following day after selling the stuff, another person from Sarasota called before I could get the paper changed to indicate sold. Guess what?....this guy wanted to buy the boards to cut in half and use as pontoons on his canoe. What's the deal with people buying windsurfing boards to destroy them. I'm sure there are windsurfers around the world cringing at such a thought. Good luck to those fearless ocean bound men, I hope they have much luck with there first sails.

The next item up for sale was an 88 key Roland keyboard. This thing is a monster. I think the item is pretty old but has lots of buttons, lights, displays and other gadgets. Everything on it seems to run fairly well. The only problem is that when played the sound from the speakers sort of lingers on fuzzy after the key is released. Only a couple of bites but no takers. I spoke with a Roland keyboard dealer in Ft Myers who asked me to bring down to look at. I thought this might be the only way to sell it, fix it. So I rumbled down to Ft Myers this afternoon burning the $3.15 gas in my Landies' thirsty tank. To no luck though, the first words out of the techs mouth when we fired it up was "I can't fix this, sounds like a D/A problem. Parts probably aren't available and if they are your talking some bucks." Great news. So I loaded the behemoth back in the Landie and headed back to P.G. On the way home I was contemplating calling up my fearless sea goers and see if they were interested in a very sophisticated anchor. But instead I think I'll throw it in the river myself. (not to worry...its really going to go to the appropriate land fill.) So I don't recommend investing in any ancient Roland keyboards anytime soon. Until next time. Over and out.

The first ever entry.....

Well I guess I'm going to attempt to have a blog. I'm not sure what will end up on here but keep checking back for more entertainment. As I am sure this thing will change formats from time to time.