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!

Columbia State Park Ghost Tour

We attended the group's monthly meeting today and they seemed like a good bunch of folks. Fairly diverse, everyone was nice, no egos, no aloofness, felt comfortable right away, which is ALWAYS a good sign.

They were headed for Columbia State Park after their meeting, to take the Ghost Tour, and invited us to go along, so we did.

So we did and I have to say, that it was pretty cool! GREAT settings, cool stories, interesting possibilities.

The whole area is quaint, and very charming.

It's certainly a drive though - I don't think that my car would make it LOL.

The group is hoping to do an investigation there - I was way into that, if we can afford it anyway! So hopefully they will have some more information on that location soon! :)

It was an AWESOME Saturday though, to be sure! Very fun!

Checking out a new group!

Well, one of the great things about the group we are with now is that they are SO open for the team to be able to work with other teams if they want more of a variety of events or experiences - so we are going to attend a meeting by another local group tomorrow.

I think it will be a nice group - the founder of the group we've been doing things with has gone on a number of investigations with this team and spent some time getting to know the group's founder and says he is very nice but has said that they have a different flavor, in that they tend to prefer private residences and that they incorporate a more religion/spiritual cast on things, which is cool as though I do enjoy a strict clinical scientific slant on things, I am also interested and intrigued by the spiritual side of things.

Moreso likely because I have been doing my first steps into shamanistic journeying this past couple of years, and well, that will obviously come into play at some point I am sure. After all, we are supposedly trying to contact spirits, so it makes sense to have that spiritual slant included to some degree.

It will be interesting to do LoneWalk again this year to be sure!

So since the primary group doesn't look like it's ever going to be busy in a regular sense, it will be nice to have another group to work with as well I think. I really like that they have a different cast on things, because variety is ALWAYS a good thing, and it brings different things to different tables.

they will be doing a Ghost Tour at Columbia State Park after the meeting, we've RSVP'ed for it, but not sure we will actually go or not - I guess it will depend on the vibe we get and if they are nice or not. I dislike that my car has been acting up, and it's a looong drive to take especially when the engine check light has been popping on for the last two days .... so not sure it's wise to take it on a road trip far from home LOL. but we will see!

Haunted Houses of California

This was a pretty cool post, sounds like it might be fun to try to check some of these out hehe!

http://www.ghost2ghost.org/?p=297

Sure would be nice to dig up some more local "hot spots" to go check out to be sure ...