1,976 days after my first find I discovered (with another set of eyes) my 100th Geocache! Hurray. I guess that’s an average of 1 every 19.76 days. Boy is that average misleading. There have been years between caches.

Forward, on and a personal goal of 9 days between caches for the next 100!

Hurray for me!

In my last post I talked about Jeep education. My knowledge level is slowly increasing, very slowly. I am still having a tough time identifying the major Jeep CJ/Wrangler model years. My cheat sheet helps but there are still so many unanswered questions.

I currently have 7 ads published on Craigslist in order to sell miscellaneous items around the house to raise funding for said future Jeep. The largest ticket item has had two inquiries of a serious nature. Most recently, this morning, I took the item to work with me (it filled the backseat of my sedan) to show it in the back parking lot at work. The meeting was cordial enough and I think the buyer was very interested until he got to a point and realized that you get what you pay for.

20 years ago I owned an 8″ Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope manufactured by a major telescope manufacturer. It was a quality instrument. Circumstances (and lack of ample night skies in the city) led to the sale of said telescope. The money went to good use and turned out to be a good investment.

I purchased the telescope from my astronomy professor for $750 and sold the unit for $1,200. Not bad and a lot of fun in the meantime. Fast forward 10 years and the kids are at an age to teach some things about the stars. Hmmm… sure would be nice to have a telescope. One thing I remembered as I began my shopping is that even with the fancy optical instrument a star was still a pinpoint of light and you never see the fancy color nebulae – just not possible.

Maybe I could distinguish color better than with the naked eye but there was not a lot of advantage for my amateur level of expertise. The stars were too distant and I was not THAT into astronomy. So, I reason something with planet viewing capability would be adequate. To save on cost and get the best “value” for my need I purchased a “no name” telescope from the Internet. The telescope was as promised and quite adequate. It did not have the bells a whistles – but that’s OK. The low cost coupled with low usage equaled value.

The day has come to sell that telescope. Even lower usage due to a very limited backyard night sky are saying to me – “Hey, let’s put the money into a Jeep and clear a little space in the garage.” This morning was the first assembly and work with the telescope in more than 2 years. There was a lot of dust accumulated.

I made sure the buyer was aware that this was a low-end no-name brand. Initially I could tell he found the scope “acceptable.” He certainly knew about telescopes. We sighted in a tree at lowest magnification and it looked great. Popped in the highest magnification eyepiece and found light quality and field of view ample but focus was slightly blurred – a little disappointing. A definite factor of the lower quality optics. Sure the leaf was magnified 450x but the image was not crisp. At this point his enthusiasm quickly went to zero.

Now, even I know that through the Earth’s atmosphere at high magnification is useless. It’s not magnification, it’s light gathering capability that counts. Who knows maybe the mirrors are plastic. But then for 1/10 the price costs have to be cut somewhere.

I recall the difference for me in stepping down to a lesser optical quality scope. There was some disappointment to be sure. No motor drive, no right-side up left/right wrong compensation to do.

I just need a buyer who has no data to compare. Once you’ve stayed at the Ritz, Motel 6 seems kind of like sleeping under a bridge.

Jeep fund = $0, still trying.

A lot has been going on lately. A lot of weighty things. In the midst all this I find myself in “education” mode. I have found an urge to learn everything I can about …..….. Jeeps. You didn’t think the title of this post had a non-sensical meaning did you?

I am convinced the quest is borne out of an unconscious desire to get away from it all. Just have a little fun; forget about the world for a few hours. Dreaming is a good diversion, especially when it distracts and provides a healthy goal. I’d like to share a little about my 2 week trek from neophyte to novice.

• There is more than one model of Jeep.
  Until this point in time I had never distinguished between a Jeep Cherokee, Wrangler, CJs, Liberty, or Patriot much less all the variations within each model.
• No one knows the origin of the name Jeep.
  Contrary to urban legend it does not come from a slurring of the designation GP (general purpose) – it was not a general purpose vehicle anyway.
• I like the explorer quality of the soft and hard top models.
  Immediately this narrowed my quest for information to only the CJ and it’s successor the Wrangler models
• The history of the Jeep is very interesting.
  Bids went out to many manufacturers and were awarded. The vehicle itself was owned by various companies over the years.
• There are a lot of body style distinctive’s to tell a Cj7 from a Wrangler TJ or YJ.
• Towing capacity is based more on wheelbase than vehicle power and brakes.
  I can’t say I understand the physics, but I can parrot it back!

Fortunately for me I have project planning experience to create a checklist of what I want, and need. And best of all. Today I finished my CJ/Wrangler model checklist and cheatsheet as I focus on model identification.

Take a peak here.

If you can add to my knowledge, by all means please feel free to comment.

Only a few more rungs on the ladder of expertise to go.

I am still here. For those that notice… I have completed one book and have begun another. Slow moving but movement nonetheless. A Sense of History should prove to be a very interesting way to approach history and I look forward to the read.