Sunday in January

Yippeee! I have a computer again! After first losing my main computer two weeks ago (I blame AOL for it, I hate AOL) but not panicking about the loss because I still had the laptop which has 10 times more memory and RAM and hard drive and all of that good stuff, I then lost the laptop also. Well, I kind of lost the laptop, the screen went totally black and we think there must be some kind of bulb in it which needs to be replaced. But since it is only 8 months old, we need to send it back to the factory to be repaired. They arranged to have Fedex come to our house to pick it up but didn't take into account the fact that we work and no one is home during the day. After several frustrating calls to the service center in India, we think it will finally be picked up at Bill's mother's house tomorrow and hopefully, it will be home next week sometime. In the meantime, Bill was able to get the regular PC functioning enough that I can retrieve my email and play online again. I love you, Bill!!

Today is the playoff game to see who goes to the SuperBowl and there is a bit of tension around here. Bill is a diehard Steelers fan and is totally counting on this to be their year. I am an Eagles fan but my second favorite team is the Steelers (gotta keep that Pennsylvania thing going) so I am hoping too that they make it. We will see later on today.

In the meantime, to work off some of the tension from anticipation and from painting half of the house in preparation for the new carpeting that we are getting, I made a trip to Nolde Forest to clean up the last of my unfound boxes there. Today I successfully found a bonus mystery box after three other failed attempts. I was so happy to find it that I almost cried when I moved the rock and it was there! I also found Lightnin' Bug's Berks County Beryl and checked on my own Swan Lake. I have been a little worried about Swan Lake because it is a driveby and it is near Nolde but had not had a recorded find but was happy to see that it is in good shape. I had taken my new GPS along to try to find some of the geocaches which are there but by that time, I was ready to head back to the car. I have discovered that I am in a lot worse shape than I want to be and need to start to get toughened up for the spring letterboxing season.

I wasn't quite ready to head for home so I decided to pursue some of the markers for my Markeroni challenge. I also decided that since it was a beautiful, sunshiny Sunday morning, I would attempt to locate some of the historical markers in downtown Reading, a place that I don't normally visit, especially alone. There were four or five right near what might be considered the square in Reading, the intersection of Penn St. and Fifth St. so I parked my car and walked to the markers to take photos. Wouldn't you know it, at one marker, there were two homeless looking people sleeping in a bench so I took my picture and skedaddled to the next one which was in an unoccupied area. As I made my way to the next one which was right on the corner of Fifth and Penn, a lovely city resident decided to empty his stomach on the street in front of me, then he staggered over to the trash can next to me and finished the job. I snapped my picture and started walking rapidly back to my car and heard him calling after me, "hey miss, hey miss, come on back!". I learned my lesson, no more going into the city alone for me, not even for my hobbies. Now how do I manage to convince Bill that Markeroni's might be more fun than letterboxing is for him?