Yup! We have a new group! :)

Sooo Ray and I talked with a couple that we are friends with and they were interested in some of the things we were talking about trying to do and so we all decided to just go and do it, and we all founded a new little group for us all to be involved in on the side along with our main groups!

w00t!

Got a site all set up and it is definitely a whole different angle than the other groups we are all in so this should be interesting and fun and refreshing for us all, and best part is, it shouldn't conflict at all with the other groups since we are all willing to find ways to make this work between all our schedules, yay!

So we all got our heads together and have settled on the name "Paranormal and Energy Research", and here is the blog I started when ray and I started first kicking this around in all seriousness (renamed the blog once we had settled on a the name, LOL):

http://paranormalenergyresearch.blogspot.com/



But the main site will be located here:

http://paranormalenergyresearch.com/


I suspect that we will take a while to get geared up, and who knows how much we will use the site and blog, but at least its all up and there and available for when we want to use it all!

Starting a little group of our own mayhaps!

Ray and I keep kicking around this area of doing what we wanted to do way back in the 90's and start up our own group since the groups that we are both in seem to go stagnant from time to time.

Not sure how that will go but ANYTHING is better than just twiddling one's thumbs and NEVER getting to go check out a location!

Things change, evolve, directions shift ...

Well, eventually I needed to make a decision to leave the FM group but on GOOD terms. Well, haven't really told anyone why - no one has asked, but really it's moot anyway, they run stuff like they want to run it, and no one else seems to have issues, and I just can see the writing on the wall (for me).

Sad too, because I really liked it, but ... well when a group evolves and changes and is no longer the group that you joined, you either decide to stick it out and adapt, or seek to change it back, or realize that particular ship has sailed and just go off in your own direction, no harm, no foul.

I opted to do the latter. Still like the people, still hang out with them here and there (and Ray has decided to stay since it's not bugging him as much as it will me - again, I can just see where stuff is headed, nothing happened yet but I can just tell how stuff is gonna go and I'd rather be proactive at avoiding drama when I can as it relates to me anyways! LOL), but just could see that the direction they were going to start going in and were evolving into, just wasn't going to mesh well with me or the person I am and I refuse to enforce MY opinions or feelings when my opinion was not asked for or trying to make any group conform to MY preferences, cuz thats just not how I roll.

Much better to just gracefully step down in a nice, peaceful, pleasant matter and just go my own way, in my opinion. Basically just opted to "take one for the team" ... one last time.

But still hoping to learn spiritual stuff from D. - which was my main motivation for joining anyway!

So yup, now just a member of SGHG which is cool, only they too are in a period of slow activity.

Might need to seriously talk to Ray about starting up something between us like we had talked about in the late 90's, lol.

Should be getting a K2 soon, which will be great, been wanting one of those for a while!

A new bag!

Well one of the guys that is a member of Flying Monkeys Paranormal Group had this pretty cool little camera bag that he takes with him on investigations that I completely fell in love with!

The duffel bag that I'd been using is a NIGHTMARE. It's just one big open bag, and trying to find things in the dark is a complete PITA.

So I'd been scouting around for a new bag for a while - I wanted a lightweight and small bag, one that could be worn with a shoulder strap or just as a bag, that would have enough room for the essentials - digital recorder, emf reader, thermometer, k2, flashlight, extra batteries, pen and paper, some band-aids and my camera and cell phone ... the basics.

This little bag looks IDEAL - and I found one on eBay for under 20 bucks including shipping. I should get it by next week, yippie!

If anyone is curious, it's a LowePro EX120. I found an EX140 in Walmart for about 17 bucks, but it was larger than what I had wanted, so eBay it was.

I found a picture of it on the web ...

Not bad, huh? Looks like ti will be ideal and it is nice to know that another investigator that has been doing this for a while has found that it was suited for that sort of thing, so I expect this to meet my needs for a while.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than that tired ol' duffel bag did, that's for sure!

Northern Calfornia Paranomal Chat Forum

Soooo I started a little forum that is not associated with any groups, just for folks that might want to hang out and chat and talk ghost stuff in the Northern California area.

Another ghost hunting friend of mine and I thought it might be fun to start one up - just to have some sort of online hangout to blab ghost stories or share and brainstorm about some potential investigation sites.

Right now it's just me as she hasn't joined yet ... but anyone pretty much is welcome.

You can find it here:

http://paranormal.topic-board.com

It's nothing grand or special - just a tiny simple little forum! :)

RIP Katie :(

One of my best friends EVER died very unexpectedly today a year ago.

She was someone that really got me into the paranormal - like a decade ago, long before any of the ghost shows, and she had one of the most active houses I've ever been in.

Over the years, the house quieted down, but our interest never wavered.

She always told me when she died she was going to come back and tell me - and it wouldn't surprise me to find that she's still around.

I love and miss her SO very much. We never got to go camping in BigFoot territory or UFO hot spots, we never got to go ghost hunting together, but we talked about it a lot ... life just got in the way. We had so much fun together ... but life is far far far too short.

Hug those you love TODAY - just because you *can*. Hold them tight and say that you love them and just savor and cherish that moment in time. And then store it deep in your heart.

{{{hugs}}}, Katie. I freaking love you. And I miss you every day so very much.

Underground Tour in Sacramento

So we took the Underground Tour with the Flying Monkeys Paranormal Team - nice folks!

They are the group we checked out, and then went to the Columbia State Park with.

The tour was alright, I really enjoyed the history lesson and the stories ... but the underground bit was a smidge weak. The one "room" we accessed was fairly sterile and well, it was so that they could do tours and not risk hurting anyone.

My cameras both acted odd though. One camera died amazingly quickly. The other shot in a really odd setting. It's taken pictures fine since then though, but most of my images were lost or worthless. My digital recorder also turned itself off repeatedly.

Not saying it's paranormal, just saying it was a little strange. :)

Of interesting note, we found a little juvenile fruit bat on the ground ... having handled bats as a kid (yes I was one of *those* kids lol) I knew enough that when they exhibit behavior like that ... you generally just let them be, as that can be a sign of rabies when they are someplace they shouldn't be and are disoriented, best to not mess with them.

But seeing that it was such a public place, and dogs and kids everywhere, tried to get the nearest business to call Animal Control ... which they had no clue about. So I found an empty cake container in the garbage, washed it out, scooped the bat in it and then found a park ranger who gave me a number of a local bat rescue person.

Bless her heart, she was in the area, and came RIGHT away to check out the little fellow. While we were waiting for her, some guy came up with ANOTHER bat! LOL! so he put his bat into the container with our bat and then we had TWO little fruit bats for her.

Well she came with a suitable container and leather gloves, and scooped them up and checked them out, turns out that they were juveniles that hadn't quite learned how to fly yet, so she just packed them up and took them home with her.

We decided to walk along the river a little bit and took some pictures, and then headed home after grabbing a hotdog. Which we totally walked out without paying for! I didn't even realize that we had basically dined and dashed until we were back in the car in the parking garage, ACK! So I drove right back and paid for them, cuz it's just the right thing to do. Hate to make some poor kid's register short and risk their job for a couple of hotdogs, know what I mean?

Anyways it was a fun day and full of unexpected little surprises and adventures, lol!