WT8P's Notes to Self

I first started investing in the mid-90s after having finished grad school, paid off all my loans, and finally having some disposable income.

2002-2026 I started blogging in 2002 as an outlet.

After resisting it for a long time, I decided to plunge into using agentic AI tools to help me with various tasks.

Where to start… Unlike Iceland, where I’d be (at the time) moving around the island, I’d planned to stay in Prague.

This was my third year of the “Twelve Days of QRZ” event that runs from December 1 through the end of February.

The “bomb cyclone” we had in November was a surreal experience.

About 12 years ago, I adopted a Geobituary (GCJQGP), a puzzle cache published in 2004.

When my daughter was in college, I’d periodically visit to check up and take her on a Target trip to ensure she had all the household comforts needed.

I’ve been through the town of Pomeroy, WA, a couple of times.

I made my third trip to Washington, DC, but the first time I’d spent any time for vacation.

I just returned from ten days in Washington DC, where I got around solelyby walking and public transit (bus and train).

Between returning from vacation and being completely swamped with work, I’d been in need of a Costco run.

Before I forget, I wanted to jot down some notes about the Parks on the Air exercises I just did in Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

In the seven years since my first radio contacts, I now have a process for logging amateur radio contacts.

Three things lined up today, providing an exciting evening of aurora watching.

During one of my CW classes, a couple of my students were waxing on about the fun they had in assembling a QRP Labs QCX+ radio kit.

This recipe for Vietnamese-inspired Chicken Bun Cha bowls with fried shallots on top is based on a class I took at my local PCC in April 2023.

Belatedly following up with Part 1, my remaining time Prague had a day-trip to Bohemian Switzerland National Park, Bastei Bridge, and a lot of geocaching throughout the city.

Geocaching just sent a nice “wrap” of my 2023 activity (which I don’t remember them doing last year) that was fun to reflect on.

After my time in Iceland, I spent a few days to see Prague, which is renowned for its history and the excellent geocaching community.

Where to start… (extensively updated 2023-10-26) I initially asked a couple of geocaching friends what they did, and it was evident their visits were stopovers onto somewhere else.

… must come to an end.

Today, my last night in Reykjavik, I spent the morning geocaching around Petrin, checking out the ruins of Oskjuhlid Hill, a WW2 relic.

There’s some definitely extremely NSFW content here involving an uncharacteristically large number of dick pics.

Day 7 was largely heading back to Reykjavik, picking up geocaches along the way, and doing a food and drink walk tour to become familiar with the town (and eat something different than skyr and granola).

For today, I had booked a (small) tour through the hostel.

What a difference two days makes.

Despite some noisy hostel-mates, last night was my best night’s sleep since I arrived in Iceland.

In my trip planning document weeks ago, I had a note indicating today’s itinerary was likely going to be the wettest time here.

The jet lag last night was rough.

After clearing customs, fetching my luggage, finding some coffee and scraping ice off my rental car, I headed over to Garðskagaviti to pick up a geocache near the lighthouse.

For ham folks who stumble here, the tl;dr is I’ll try to activate four parks on the air as TF/WT8P.

I wrapped up another field day with my friend Paul (W7PEZ) in Eastern Washington.

In geocaching, there are a lot of “challenges” published, where in addition to signing the log, you have an alternative logging requirement (“ALR”) to perform some feat.

My first HF radio, the Elecraft KX3, was air-cooled and got me spoiled to the relatively quiet operation.

In mid-December 2022, N1MM (version 1.0.9758) introduced a spectrum display option supporting the Elecraft K4 radio.

In September, I was invited to participate in “Birdwatch,” now known as “Twitter Community Notes.”

In addition to all of the geocaching I planned, I also thought I’d try activating some parks.

Like a lot of folks, I had to cancel my travel plans in 2020 – this was a March trip to New York City — which left me with a moderate chunk of air travel credit$.

The cache lifecycle.

Part 1: here.

Paul (W7PEZ) and I worked field day as 2B EWA, that is, we set up with battery-powered equipment, everything self-contained.

(A belated followup to Part 1.

This can also be made in a waffle maker.

Because I had a polyp last time, I was due for a followup at 5- instead of 10-years.

The first official CHS hike was the Bullitt Fireplace Loop on Squak Mountain.

My daughter, who’s home for her last spring break ever, wanted to go on a hike before heading back to school.

To help remotivate myself to get outdoors again and, hopefully, lose some of the “Covid 19”, I’ve signed up for the Conditioning Hiking Series with the Mountaineers.

To honor the fifth month since putting down a deposit on a new furnace and A/C add-on, our existing furnace started acting up this weekend by sleeping in.

Newer update here.