WTF!!

Wow, this economy is sure depressing! And, it doesn't help matters that I forgot to budget our mortgage payment for November. I was fat, dumb, and happy, looking over the balances on our back account and thought we were doing OK. Little did I realize that those numbers didn't factor in the missing mortgage payment! No wonder it looked so great! Doh! I'm such a dumba#@. I've pretty much got everything set up on auto-pay, so we wouldn't have missed the payment deadline, but I wouldn't have had enough money in the account to cover it. Super doh! Anyhow, after rerunning all the numbers, it's kind of bleak. LOL. Oh well, heaven forbid that we'd actually be making progress or any headway. Nevermind the stock market, but am talking about personal savings and the emergency fund, and so forth. Due to my budgetary error, we've definitely lived past our means this last month or two. In fact, I think our family is the poster family for living beyond our means. Oh, and I shouldn't have looked, but my 401k is down about 35% since the beginning of the year. Just over 1/3 of our nest egg has vanished. Well, retirement in 18 years probably will be pushed back to 23. Retiring at 57 (in 2027) was always in my master plan, but pushing that back to 62 seems likely right now, and that's depressing enough on it's own.

Geocaching Adventures

Well, my geocaching adventures have begun. I've got my GPS receiver all set up, and have the necessary software to find caches. In the beginning, it was a little confusing, but now that I've got the basics down, it's kind of fun. I'm still not accomplishing anything real by hunting for hidden caches, as it's mainly just a time sink that gets you outside, traveling to somewhere that you might not have normally visited. Right now, I've found 24 caches, and have even hidden one of my own. Here's my setup if you're interested in the details: Garmin 60Csx GPS, combined with a premium membership at geocaching.com, the Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK) software, Cachemate (for downloading cache details onto an old Palm), Topo 2008 and City Navigator 2009 maps from Garmin as well. This gives me the ability to use the GPS in the car for auto-routing, and also use the GPS off-road for cache hunting. My daughter and I went cache hunting last Friday night and had a good time. We found a travel bug (a trackable item that travels from cache to cache), and then deposited that travel bug into another cache in Missouri, and even picked up yet another travel bug there to move along to a different cache. Now that the gear has been set up, it's just a matter of heading out to find the treasure. Yesterday, I headed out for an afternoon of caching. Several were Park and Grabs (PnG), and one was a 4-mile roundtrip hike in Platte River State Park. It was a fun afternoon! The hike sure made me forget that I live in corn country!

One Week Post Strain

Well, one week after straining my back, I'm on the mend. I've spent much of the last week resting in bed, using the heat pad, and just lying around and resting. In fact, I even made my wife mow the yard. I get a little better each day, and now, 7 days later, my frames is starting to straighten out too. The pain, which was probably a 9 last Tuesday, is now down to a 2. I've been doing my stretching exercises also, so hopefully in another week, I'll be back to 100%.

The markets have continued to tank. After congress failed to approve the 700 billion bailout plant last Monday, then tried again and passed it on Friday, the global markets could care less. The Dow was down another 400 points today, after being down 150 on Friday, and after losing 700 last Monday. I'm not even sure I have anything left in my 401k. Well, it's not that bad, but it feels like it.

While it was probably a stupid move (considering how the economy is taking a nose-dive plunge to rock bottom), I did buy a new toy this week. I bought a GPS and associated accessories to do a little Geocaching. It's time I started a new hobby, I haven't tried anything different in a long time. Hopefully it will be a fun diversion to the economic woes that continue to plague our country.