astrodav
09-24-2010, 07:36 PM
I'll be heading back to college this coming Spring to finish my degree in music & begin work towards my Masters. Although I'm not going far, just to Conway, I doubt if I'll have very much time for caching. Although I attended several college classes while in the military, it's been a LONG time since I was a full-time student. So I'll most likely be in culture-shock for a year or so.
This is something I have wanted to do ever since retiring from service. Around 3-4 months ago, several events unfolded which were clearly showing me that this was the next major undertaking I was to pursue in my life. I have been swamped in preparation since then, and will be the rest of the year. Probably the most time-consuming part of this is simply the amount of time being devoted to tweaking the musical skills that I have become a bit rusty at. Unlike almost every other field of study, a musical major requires auditioning to simply be accepted. Although I am relatively sure I'll have no problem with that, almost all of any free time I have is in practice, and will continue to be so.
On top of that, I have the SAT & ACT coming up next month, which I am devoting alot of time to, hoping to score as high as possible on each. And I still have a few financial & administrative particulars which I still need to finalize in the next month or so.
I am HOPING to concentrate on 2 different instruments, piano & sax, so it appears my work-load will be fairly intense when classes start. Being as I am already fairly proficient on piano, I believe I can handle this. But I am only beginning to be able to play sax at anything near a collegiate level, so if I include that, I don't see that I'll have much free time for other things.
I have well over 100 caches hidden now. Already some of those have been ill-maintained because of my other responsibilities. I don't really see any possible way for me to keep this many caches in operation & still be able to afford them the time which they deserve to stay up to par with what I believe are the high standards I maintain my caches at. So, very saddly, over the next couple of months, I'll be pulling many of them. A few of them, I know, are already missing, disabled, & awaiting my visit. Since those are definitely gone already, I'll simply archive them.
Basically the ones which will disappear will be anything West & South of about Perryville/Morrilton, which is unfortunately the vast majority of them. Anything in the Conway & Little Rock area will stay, so that includes the ones on Hwy10, around Lake Maumelle. And I'll most likely keep several in-service immediately around Rover. During the times I come back home to visit, I can take care of those.
What I will happily do is that if anyone knows of certain caches of mine which are in their general area that they want to take over & maintain, let me know & I'll adopt them over to you. That way, a good (hopefully) cache will stay in service, you don't have to even go hide it, & you get some free equipment out of the deal. If anyone wants to take this up on any, just post here with your ideas, or send me a PM/E-Mail. I can also archive a cache, then let you take the location, if you want to do it that way. Whatever equipment is there, you can have too, since it would probably be a while before I ever picked it up.
The one GOOD thing which may come of this is that I intend to try to introduce some type of caching team to UCA & possibly Hendricks, if I can drum up some interest in doing that. I'm sure that I'll be too busy (in shock) during my first semester or so to do this, but maybe soon.
Conway is one city which I have yet to make a big caching-dent into. I'm definitely NOT quitting caching, only cuting back on my hides. I fully intend, even am greatly excited by, doing some cache-hunting in the Conway/Maumelle/NLR area when I have time. And I intend to drag a few of my new-found college friends along with me when doing this. So if it works out like I hope it will, this will start up some major interest in caching within the school. But that's a bit in the future, so we'll just have to see what comes of it.
Anyway, I want to think all who have found my caches. I love the logs & hope that I've provided a bunch of you with some very memorable finds. Those of you who have caches out now in the Conway area .... be looking for my name on most of them starting early next year. And anyone who wants to make the Old Hwy 10 run, better do it this fall. It may be gone after that. (Sorry Bruce, I really am. You did a great job on those.)
This is something I have wanted to do ever since retiring from service. Around 3-4 months ago, several events unfolded which were clearly showing me that this was the next major undertaking I was to pursue in my life. I have been swamped in preparation since then, and will be the rest of the year. Probably the most time-consuming part of this is simply the amount of time being devoted to tweaking the musical skills that I have become a bit rusty at. Unlike almost every other field of study, a musical major requires auditioning to simply be accepted. Although I am relatively sure I'll have no problem with that, almost all of any free time I have is in practice, and will continue to be so.
On top of that, I have the SAT & ACT coming up next month, which I am devoting alot of time to, hoping to score as high as possible on each. And I still have a few financial & administrative particulars which I still need to finalize in the next month or so.
I am HOPING to concentrate on 2 different instruments, piano & sax, so it appears my work-load will be fairly intense when classes start. Being as I am already fairly proficient on piano, I believe I can handle this. But I am only beginning to be able to play sax at anything near a collegiate level, so if I include that, I don't see that I'll have much free time for other things.
I have well over 100 caches hidden now. Already some of those have been ill-maintained because of my other responsibilities. I don't really see any possible way for me to keep this many caches in operation & still be able to afford them the time which they deserve to stay up to par with what I believe are the high standards I maintain my caches at. So, very saddly, over the next couple of months, I'll be pulling many of them. A few of them, I know, are already missing, disabled, & awaiting my visit. Since those are definitely gone already, I'll simply archive them.
Basically the ones which will disappear will be anything West & South of about Perryville/Morrilton, which is unfortunately the vast majority of them. Anything in the Conway & Little Rock area will stay, so that includes the ones on Hwy10, around Lake Maumelle. And I'll most likely keep several in-service immediately around Rover. During the times I come back home to visit, I can take care of those.
What I will happily do is that if anyone knows of certain caches of mine which are in their general area that they want to take over & maintain, let me know & I'll adopt them over to you. That way, a good (hopefully) cache will stay in service, you don't have to even go hide it, & you get some free equipment out of the deal. If anyone wants to take this up on any, just post here with your ideas, or send me a PM/E-Mail. I can also archive a cache, then let you take the location, if you want to do it that way. Whatever equipment is there, you can have too, since it would probably be a while before I ever picked it up.
The one GOOD thing which may come of this is that I intend to try to introduce some type of caching team to UCA & possibly Hendricks, if I can drum up some interest in doing that. I'm sure that I'll be too busy (in shock) during my first semester or so to do this, but maybe soon.
Conway is one city which I have yet to make a big caching-dent into. I'm definitely NOT quitting caching, only cuting back on my hides. I fully intend, even am greatly excited by, doing some cache-hunting in the Conway/Maumelle/NLR area when I have time. And I intend to drag a few of my new-found college friends along with me when doing this. So if it works out like I hope it will, this will start up some major interest in caching within the school. But that's a bit in the future, so we'll just have to see what comes of it.
Anyway, I want to think all who have found my caches. I love the logs & hope that I've provided a bunch of you with some very memorable finds. Those of you who have caches out now in the Conway area .... be looking for my name on most of them starting early next year. And anyone who wants to make the Old Hwy 10 run, better do it this fall. It may be gone after that. (Sorry Bruce, I really am. You did a great job on those.)