Have A Cow, Man!

So, I got up Wednesday morning, and—as I usually do—I went through my morning rituals. I did morning ablutions, I got some breakfast ready, and as I ate, I read the morning news and all manner of online gubbins. I checked my email, and hundreds of messages were waiting for me. My early-morning brain went, “What the BLANK?” My slowly waking higher functions, on the other hand, knew exactly what it meant.

A brand-new Geoart had appeared! I had been hearing whispers about one for a while, but I didn’t know much about the details, only that one was in the works from an unlikely source. The likely source would have been our own Bartman914, the man responsible for most of the Geoarts in the area. I have woken up to hundreds of emails because of him on multiple occasions. Unfortunately, we don’t know how much longer he’ll be able to annoy us with his insane and copious hides. He’s been having cancer-related problems for a while, and who knows how much longer he’s going to be able to hide (or find) anything. He’s given us a lot of enjoyment with all the hides he’s made for us (no, seriously, he’s the number thirteen hider in the world), so a group decided to hide some for him.

Any resemblance to Bart Simpson is totally coincidental and would never hold up in a court of law (allegedly), so don’t sue anyone. The Geoart’s appearance has already caught the attention of cachers all over the state, and a bunch of us are busy working on the puzzles. I even made a spreadsheet and everything. How else are we going to coordinate our efforts for over three hundred of them? And that’s not even counting the 150 Traditionals that dropped along with them! We’ve all got CITOs this weekend (if you’re in Texas, you should be going to one of the many CITO Across Texas gatherings), but after those are done, no doubt some of us are going to take a shot at some of these, depending on how many we solve before tomorrow. And I have a feeling we may see a few friendly faces from far away as well.

Yesterday evening, I went to an Event for International Talk Like A Pirate Day. Bartman and the Geoart’s COs were in attendance. Some of the scuttlebutt around the tables was about the new cache drops and what a pirate’s favorite letter is (no, it’s not r; their first love is the c). But unbeknownst to me, greater things were afoot. The blessed ammo can for the Texas County Challenge was also in attendance for Bartman himself! I don’t know how I never noticed it before, but he had never finished it. At least, not until two weeks ago. Had I known a TCC signing was going to happen, I would have been more properly attired! But my clothing was not important. All that mattered was that I was there as he put his pen (or rather my pen since he borrowed it) to the book and became ennobled, the 361st person to sign the log.