Morton Fox's journal

Yesterday, I took the car to the service department in Mahwah for the 100,000-mile service. (Odometer reading was 101,820.) It was supposed to be a mere one-hour wait but I ended up having to leave the car there overnight because they stripped the oil pan screw and had to replace the whole thing. The loaner this time was a Toyota Yaris. This is the 2-door model. It's a small car but it sacrifices a lot of the back so the driver's compartment actually has some room. The engine isn't high-powered but the lightness of the car makes up for that so it passes the steep hill test. (Steep incline on Lake St. on the way home.)

The next day, I waited for the phone call from the service department but it never came, so I called them late in the afternoon to ask if my car was ready. It was. They didn't call because the home phone number they had in their records didn't work. The one they had was for the landline that I canceled last year but I was sure I gave them my cell phone number 2 visits ago. So I went and got my car and to celebrate, I headed out further to Ramapo County Reservation in Mahwah. I didn't go all the way up the mountain this time. I only went up to the level of the McMillan Reservoir. I used the Schuber Trail. Squirrel Your Nuts was along the way (0.5 mile from parking lot) so I got that one. It's near some stone ruins. Then I continued going 0.6 mile up the Schuber Trail. This stretch was steeper and rockier. When I reached the West shore of McMillan Reservoir, I found Ivan Meets GI Joe. Then I took the silver trail back to the parking lot. (Asphalt path. Fast, easy downhill.) Round trip was a bit over 2 miles, I think.

After that, I went to Palisades Center Mall in West Nyack. After getting a few items I needed, it was time for the dinner coupon tour. First, I went to Qdoba on the 4th level for chips and queso. The loyalty card sends me that bonus every year. Then I went to Johnny Rockets on the 2nd level for burger and fries and a mocha shake. The coupon was for the shake. I noticed that Johnny Rockets has changed their pricing scheme to be somewhat similar to Red Robin, i.e. they charge more for the burgers but each burger now comes with all-you-can-eat fries. There was wi-fi internet but it came from the Apple Store one level down.

This evening, it was cloudy but it didn't rain. So I went to Ramapo Reservation for the second evening in a row to tackle more geocaches up on the mountain ridge. Both geocaches I found this evening are higher up the mountain than the one I did yesterday. However, I find that the more times I hike up this mountain, the easier it gets. Indeed, I'm far better at this now than I was five years ago. Back then, I would almost die halfway up the steep incline and would have to sit down somewhere. (Also of note: I lost nearly 12 lbs since mid-March, although eating only Subway footlongs for dinner most nights may have something to do with that too.) Anyway, Boulder Stash is off the white trail, past the white/blue trail fork. After finding that one, I went back to the blue trail and continued onwards along the ridge to #10762: Ramapo Reservation cache. Lots of boulders there.

Today, I got a purple box from Yahoo. Inside, there was a shiny purple Yahoo! button that yodels loudly when pressed. Apparently, Yahoo is promoting this service for small businesses: http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com They must be spending a fortune though. A bunch of us were on Yahoo's mailing list and we all got purple boxes and buttons.

There's some corporate drama concerning Vaalco Energy. The largest shareholder, Nanes Delorme Partners, who owns 7.9% of the company, sent out a letter to all shareholders (including me, since I picked up some Vaalco while bargain-hunting back in the mid-January lows) stating that management is a bunch of incompetent dopes. (I'm paraphrasing. :) ) They also initiated a proxy fight to get 3 of their people onto the board of directors. Then Vaalco sued Nanes Delorme, alleging that they violated securities laws. None of this really matters to me because I'm going to sell to lock in a 75% gain anyway. So I'll give my vote to Nanes Delorme to shake things up a bit.

Today, I went to Ramapo Reservation to seek Colubrid Cache. This county park is only a few towns from home and just past the end of Ramsey, so I could go there any time, high gas prices or not. However, all the geocaches there that I haven't done yet are more than a mile from the parking area so I need good weather and a lot of daylight to tackle those after work. This evening was a good time to do one of them. The route for this one was easy. It was a steep walk up to the reservoir level and then a bushwhack along the water's edge to the cache site.

After that, I had a prime rib footlong at Subway in Ramsey, which was a repeat of the previous day's dinner. But why mess with a good thing?

Checking my postal mail, I found a notice saying that I'm a member of yet another class-action lawsuit. (How many of these am I going to get in one year?) This time, it's a bunch of Commerce Bancorp shareholders and pension funds vs. ex-CEO Vernon Hill for alleged breach of fiduciary duty and waste of corporate assets. I don't know if there's that much merit to this lawsuit. Hill neglected to separate his various businesses and keep deals at arm's length but otherwise, he ran a great market-beating regional bank for many years. It's over anyway. The company's been sold and CBH shareholders all have TD stock now.