Morton Fox's journal

Cloudy, 50-55°F. One of the busiest shopping days of the year but I went geocaching first, dinner second, and shopping last because one must have priorities. :) It was raining lightly as I headed out but I knew the rain would stop and it did after the 3rd cache of the day. On my last trip out here, I ended the day in Sicklerville. This time, I went past Sicklerville into Winslow. Then I worked my way towards Clementon, finding most of the geocaches along the way. There were some interesting cache locations this time. "2 Cents a Pound", "Penbryn Remnant?", "In the past it went somewhere", and the two Pillings Lake caches are all at ruins in wooded areas. "2 Cents a Pound" is next to a long rectangular pit with railroad ties going across the top. Not sure what that was supposed to be but I would guess someone could inspect or work on the underside of a train if it is parked there. Pillings Lake is a lake that has vanished. It shows up as a lake on the map but it's just a few creeks and a swamp now.

For dinner, I went to the co-branded Long John Silver's / Taco Bell in Berlin and had a fish & more. I'd been using a Comcast wi-fi hotspot every time I went to LJS/Taco Bell in Mantua but the last time I was in Berlin, there wasn't a Comcast wi-fi hotspot. Well, I noticed that Comcast recently installed a wi-fi hotspot in Berlin (It's not even listed on their website yet.) but guess where it is. Just outside the LJS/Taco Bell! Either they've been following me around or someone at Comcast really likes this co-branded fast food.

For shopping, I headed back in-state. It was past 8pm by then, so the Black Friday crowds had pretty much gone away. I knew it was too late to get any doorbuster specials but I still got a few deals. I got free coffee at Borders, free (after rebate) batteries at Big Lots (to add to the enormous stash of batteries that I already can't finish. Haha!), and about two months' supply of breakfast (cereal and oatmeal) at BJ's Wholesale. Well, technically, that last one was a 3-day special, not a Black Friday special. I missed the $99.99 Nook Wi-Fi special at Best Buy but I suspect that price or better will be back, so there was no need to wait outside the store at 3am.

( The caches... )

One thing I noticed after doing yesterday's research on HSAs is that the insurance company itself offers a no-fee HSA with Bank of America as the trustee. There is a certain degree of lock-in though. The no-fee part of the deal applies only as long as I keep the same health plan. Also, there is a fee for closing the account. On the other hand, their HSA does offer a small selection of mutual funds from the Columbia family of funds, although not anything I find particularly interesting.

Anyway, I went to the bank this afternoon to open my HSA. This ended up taking most of the afternoon because the teller was new to this. This bank branch doesn't see very many HSA applicants and she had never done any HSAs herself. So she went down her checklist carefully and made sure all the forms were filled in. I made an initial deposit by transfer from my checking account and I should be getting a checkbook and debit card in the mail in about a week. One immediate benefit is I can lower my 4th quarter estimated taxes. However, there are also a few expenses I can use the HSA for soon.

After that, I had a Doublicious at the nearby KFC. Then I got 3 months' worth of breakfast cereal at BJ's Wholesale. (In-store coupon for an astonishing $15 off. How could I resist? :) ) Also, on the way home, I saw a new Big Lots store that is apparently opening the day after tomorrow. Great. I won't have to go to Dover any more, other than for geocaching, of course.

Another sunny-and-45°F day. There's been significant snow melt but not quite enough yet in Kent County. At "Kent's Newest", in particular, I was knee-deep in snow once I left the path and entered the woods. That was quite an adventure. The whole area was deep in snow so I had to step on the snow until I saw enough of the outline of a log. By amazing luck, I hit the cache on my first poke through the snow with my walking stick. I was just as lucky at "Little Bit of Sympathy" in Killens Pond State Park. It was another snow-covered area with few visual cues. While thinking about this cache hide, I idly picked at something that was sticking out of the snow and found the cache underneath.

"Zen and the ancient art of geocache design" was the hardest cache of the day even though it happened to be on a snow-free patch of ground. When we got there, there was already another group of geocachers standing at the cache site. They couldn't find the cache either. Seven pairs of eyes didn't see the cache. While we were looking, I came up with an idea that turned out to be correct. We just weren't looking hard enough at first. The other group left. Shortly after that, I checked something that I thought we had already stirred up and found the cache.

Ended the day with a bit of shopping at Big Lots, which was having a special only in the last four hours before closing time. It's almost as though they knew my schedule because that's when I was done geocaching for the day. It's a very dangerous discount store. :)

( The caches... )

Sunny and 55°F. Compared to last week, this is rather Summer-like weather. Went geocaching down in the Dover/Camden area with some stops in Townsend and Smyrna along the way. Also got some errands done: Dropped off the tree branches at the yard waste collection center on US-13, got another week's supply of bread at the Wonder-Hostess bakery outlet in Cheswold, and shopped the Big Lots in Dover. (Didn't get the specific item I was looking for but there were other useful things there.)

Since the weather was a bit warmer, we took on some of the more substantive geocaches, the ones requiring either longer walks or more searching. There were a few today that did take a while to find, although not for any good reason in retrospect. "goin' a little nuts...#1" shouldn't be a challenge to anyone with experience with this kind of hide but the way it was placed combined with soft coordinates just puts a whammy on you. "Watch out for Trolls" - Made a bad assumption on this one and only realized my mistake after reading online logs on my cell phone.

( The caches... )