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This past weekend was our big Family Camp Out with Pack 529 and it sure was a busy one! I was hoping to get out there by 3:00 to begin set-up, but when I left my office at 2:59, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. However, Jason & I did get out there pretty early. We soon found Ranger Bob & Mr. Tom showed up shortly after.

We got the dining canopy up and then our tents, then Jason & I sat down to eat as the others trickled in & set-up their tents. That night, everyone was chowing down on Hobo Pies (or, to be politically correct, “Mountain Pies”) - both pizza and cherry or apple filled. Of course, Smores were on the menu as well. Jason & I cleaned up shortly after 11 and were in our tent by 11:30 or so.

Saturday morning, like most days, I was up at 5AM. Too bad nobody else was. Or, maybe it was a good thing. I got to spend some time alone and I walked some trails & took some pictures. Seeing the moon set over camp was pretty neat.

Mr. Ed & I were the cooks Saturday morning, making up pancakes, sausage and coffee for the Pack. But either somebody forgot to bring the 2nd box of pancake mix, or some creature stole it during the night, so everyone ate except the cooks. Oh well, I was in the beginning of the line at lunch time!

For the most part, the boys entertained themselves. There were a couple of organized games, and some of the kids went fishing, but for me, it was go-go-go. Bringing in firewood, or prepping dinner, or cleaning up something had to be done. Prepping dinner a couple hours ahead of time worked very well this year: we had an assembly-line packing tin-foil dinners with seasoned potatoes, frozen veggies, a ripped up burger patty and salt & pepper. More family members came for dinner, including Laura & the girls. In all, we ended up feeding 52 people that night!

After dinner, the boys & leaders got into their uniforms for the moving up ceremony. Jason moved from the Bear den to Webelos I (and so did I). It was a nice ceremony after which we changed back into our play clothes and got ready for another campfire. Another leader approached me during the fire and asked, “Was your pie iron the aluminum one with the metal handle?” I replied, “I heard you say, ‘was’”. The pie iron had melted in the fire! If you’re going to get a pie iron, make sure it’s cast iron!

During the campfire, the sky got dark and the winds really picked up. We could see lightning in the distance and hear the rumble of thunder. We scrambled to put away what we could and rounded up everyone into a nearby cabin. We all had our phones out, watching the weather radar as the kids just acted like nuts in the cabin. After a bit, we decided to calm them down, turned off all the lights except for a single lantern, and told some ghost stories. When the rain slowed & the lightning was gone, we headed back to our tents. I found water in ours and with the threat of more lighting that night and home being only 20 minutes away, Jason & I took off. I snuck in a quick shower then slept in my own bed Saturday night, then we both headed back the next morning.

I thought everyone would be sleeping when I got there Sunday, but a few were up trying to figure out how to use my coffee maker. Coffee is very important, especially when camping. We enjoyed breakfast (leftover sausage & cereal (hot & cold)) then started to clean up. Most of the pack was gone by noon.

When Jason & I got home, we quickly unloaded the car, ate lunch, and then were out the door to watch Laura’s cousin play softball. I enjoyed the game, and hopefully will catch them again Thursday night. After the game, they came back to our house for Chiavetta’s chicken. Then a bit after 7, I went upstairs to watch TV & rest. I think I got too much sun that afternoon as I slept from 8 to 9:45, then went back to bed until 8:00 the next morning! That’s what happens when nobody else in the house needs to wake up (the kids had the day off of school).

I’ve got 2 more camping trips planned for this summer: 1 with the Cub Scout leaders to plan next year’s activities, and another at Summer Camp with Jason. Both are going to be completely different experiences (one w/out any kids, and the other I don’t have to plan!).

This entry was posted by Eric on Monday, June 23rd, 2008 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Outdoors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I just got word that the ZipCodeGuy is giving away his Zip Code Database for free! Zip Code databases are great when you’re targeting regional offers, such as gas prices, dating, or practically any zip submit offer. With this database, you can do tons of things, like lookup nearby cities and show singles that are there (well, not really, but the user doesn’t need to know that when they’re signing up) or their photos on a zip code map of the region (using Google Maps API).

If you’re lazy, combine this with an IP database and you have some pretty powerful info on your hands. Or scrape, I mean, reference city-data.com and show all sorts of info!

Even if you have no plans to use it, download the zip code database while you can!

This entry was posted by Eric on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

The market hasn’t treated me too nicely lately, so I’ve been quiet about my trades. But I made 2 sales & 1 buy this week, so I thought I’d share them…

I sold NWY at $9.12. I bought them back in November of 2006 and again in August of ‘07. I sold to break even (actually, I made $0.52) and glad to get out. NWY rates -8.1967 using my Stock Index, so I was pushing it to even get out at that price.

I sold WLT at $105.00. I bought WLT in December of ‘06 at $49.545, and more last August at $22.56. My system rates it 28.3671, so I could have stayed in a bit longer, but with a 300% ROI, it was time to get out! This is one of the rare times I completely sold-out of a stock (normally I keep my “profits” as stock in the company).

Finally, with all this cash on my hands, I had to buy something and after much research, ended up with Goodyear Tire (GT). While it only comes in with a score of 44.5440, Wall St. seems to like this one. I wouldn’t have moved on this, but the “Total Cash Per Share” is $9.212, so 44% of what I bought was cash! The mean target is 35.30, but I’m looking to get out at $28.23.

This entry was posted by Eric on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 9:52 am and is filed under Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One of my goals for 2008 was to get my body fat down to 11%. At my last weigh-in (3 months ago), I was down to 12%. When I started, I was at 22%, so I’ve made good progress so far.

Today I was measured at 11% body fat!

I lost another .25 lbs of fat, and added 1.5 lbs of muscle. I think the VO2 Max Study I was in helped, as well as all that running. Now I just want to maintain this level, maybe lifting heavier, which I’ve been slowly doing.

This entry was posted by Eric on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 8:33 am and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

I once again ran before my plyometrics class today, which means I was up at 4:30, out of the house (after eating a piece of toast w/ PB and a 1/2 cup of coffee) a little after 5. From 5:15 to about 5:50 we ran, then 6 to 7 had class. Our class was a bit hard for me today, which I think was because I ran a little faster than last time.

Father’s Day this weekend throws things off a bit, so I don’t know what I’ll get done. With rain expected for Saturday, looks like there’s no use in getting up early. Maybe I can run Sunday morning, before anyone wakes up.

I’m really looking forward to getting to bed early tonight, though!

This entry was posted by Eric on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 9:25 am and is filed under Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Lots going on in the Nagel household now that summer is here - and it’s officially here! It was hot here this past weekend - hitting 82 on Saturday and 87 on Sunday.

We had plans to open the pool, so Saturday morning I was out in the yard at 6:30 to get started on things. Aside from a backwards check-valve causing a minor flood as the filter pumped the pool water onto my lawn, things went pretty well. I shocked the pool & got the solar heater installed, set the winter cover over the swing set to dry, and was pretty much done in time to take the kids to the monthly Home Depot workshop.

It was so nice on Saturday that they decided to hold the workshop outside! In the parking lot! In the direct sun! Man, it felt like it was well over 100 degrees out there. We quickly (very quickly) got the project done & went inside. I picked up a few things for future projects and we were home in 45 minutes. Just thinking about being out there makes me sweat.

Laura & the kids went to Art Alive at the Albright Knox while I stayed home & finished up the pool and got started on the hot tub. The hot tub was emptied, cleaned, filter cleaned, and fresh water put in. I can’t wait to get in there tonight! Being in the sun all that time made us all sleepy, so we were able to sneak in a quick nap before friends came over for dinner.

After dinner we drove down to Penn Dixie to look at the stars, the moon, and Saturn. We also saw the International Space Station zoom overhead. If you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty amazing. It looks like a really, really high plane going super fast. The Space Station travels at 17,000 miles / hour. Hopefully we’ll be able to see it tonight, too (at 9:47 here in Buffalo).

Sunday morning we were all up early and headed up to the cottage to have fun & get some work done. I was up on the roof with my father-in-law (who I still insist on calling Mr. Bishop, although my mother-in-law is “Mom”), finishing the front of the garage roof. That went pretty well, despite the hot temperatures. Hauling 90 lb. rolls of roofing up a ladder is much easier this year now that I’m in better shape. The hardest part is remembering where NOT to step, as we haven’t done the back side of the garage yet, and that’s where we were bringing the supplies up from.

When we were done roofing, Jason was out playing in the water and almost floated back to Dunkirk in his raft, and I had to run after him (fully dressed, mind you) before he was swept out too far. I think I went out about 150 yards - but the water was still only chest deep. Lake Erie, by the way, is still pretty darn cold these days! As soon as I got to him, Jason said, “I know… I’m dead.” How can I be mad at him when I get a response like that??? And besides, any 9-year old boy gets in situations like that. I’m just glad he’s OK.

Coming home from the cottage is always an adventure, but we pulled right into customs (no line on a Sunday night!) and got though after answering hardly any questions at all (just “Citizenship?” and “Anything to declare?”). It helps having the packet of paperwork all neatly presented for customs.

Then there was Monday… boy, was it HOT. And there’s no A/C in my office yet, and my office is in the attic. Well, I wasn’t very effective at work yesterday. It was just miserable. I took some time to get in the air conditioned car and headed to Best Buy to buy a new camera. Ours is dying, and with Rebecca’s pre-K graduation coming up, I didn’t want to take chances. I’ll write a review on the camera soon - so far, I like it.

This morning I signed on to the computer, checked email, etc. then turned off IM, email and all other distractions. I worked ’til lunch, ate and quickly checked in, then back to work ’til 4:30 before checking in one more time for the day. I had a SUPER productive day today and can’t wait to try this again tomorrow. Some things still take time, like working in PHP, then realizing I need a header, so going to Photoshop and making it, then editing the CSS to display it, then back to the PHP task I was originally working on, but I feel like I got a lot done today.

OK - this is a long post. Quickly - the vegetable garden is coming along very nicely and we’ve already harvested some spinach for a salad the other evening. I think Laura is getting some of the lettuce out today. Fresh picked spinach tastes far superior to the stuff you get in stores!

This long post is proof I need to blog more often. I’ll try to get 1 more in this week!

This entry was posted by Eric on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 5:24 pm and is filed under Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.