rothko-n-meta

so i must kiss one of my first travel bugs goodbye... ich vermisse berlin *almost* made it from the UK to berlin, but hasn't been moved in over two years. i've sent a couple messages with no reply. *sigh* my other bug, mr. pinchy, was supposed to travel all around the UK but somehow ended up in FRANCE. ?!?!? he's still moving, though, so hopefully he'll get back to where he belongs.

akulakat, how did you get the dirt stuck on?? (eeevil!!) i did an art project thingy where i mixed dirt with rubber cement and then tried to attach it to masonite with yet more rubber cement, but it started to come off after a year or two. i think it was just too thick and heavy. roth

oh man, i haven't paid a visit to deuceofclubs.com in ages, not since obsessively reading about the mojave phone booth (which, sadly, has now been removed) years ago. thanks for reminding me about it -- there's some great stuff there.

well... we haven't been at this very long... but so far meta and i have found 7 in massachusetts and 3 in the UK (in dorset, visiting his parents last month).

keeping one's dog on a leash and picking up after it do not automatically go hand in hand. that website seems to assume otherwise...

i dunno, i kinda like the toothy grin. (don't ask me why as i honestly have no idea...) roth

this made me think of something i saw when i was caching in the UK last month. someone in the area had made up stickers with a little logo and their team name on it that they used to stick in the log books -- saw it in a couple caches i found. kind of a neat idea.

was going to suggest topozone.com but i see someone beat me to it. as for your eTrex legend, i got one a couple months ago and am totally loving it.

when i dragged meta to northern MN for a vacation a couple summers ago (he thought the entire state was like the flat boring southern part that i'm from, so i had to show him otherwise), we bought sawyer's controlled-release DEET formula (20%) at REI and were astounded by the stuff. on the trails up around split rock lighthouse we saw mosquitos head toward us and then literally do U-turns to get away from us once they got to within about two feet. it's a lotion with some sort of time-release protein thingy that keeps the stuff active for much longer than other products. i know it came in second behind deep woods off in that NEJM study (234 minutes vs. 302), but deep woods off just doesn't really do it for me -- must be my body chemistry. DEET is certainly scary stuff... and if i slathered myself full of it every single weekend i might be a little worried, but i really don't use it too often, so i figure i'll take my chances...

as for me, well, mark rothko is my favorite artist. it was a somewhat impulsive choice way way back in college when i started using IRC, and after 11 or 12 years i'm basically stuck with it now. i tend to use it in real life as well, especially with people i've met online. i don't like my given name much and "rothko" just seems to fit better. meta has been using that nickname for a long time as well. his sense of humor is pretty bizarre and obscure and tends to involve meta-level upon meta-level (though sometimes i think he's just plain free associating) to the point where sometimes nobody gets his jokes except him, even when he explains them...

quote:Originally posted by Bender:Why would you wanna find that many in a day? just so you wouldn't have any caches to find in the near future?? yeah, that's what i was thinking. i don't own a car and so if i can't get to a cache in the city on foot/subway/bus, i'm not nearly as likely to go after it. i've got a zipcar membership -- a really nifty car-sharing service -- but even though it's cheaper than renting, an all-day cache outing would still be pricey. so i don't wanna find every single cache in the boston metro area within a month. then there'd be no fun for next month! plus, meta and i went after 4 this past saturday and i was about ready to die by the end of it. way too much walking for this pasty geek. (you won't see me going after any of those 5-star terrain caches any time soon...) -- rothko

quote: Unfortunately I can't make it to London around those dates, but I would have loved to! I am holding a TB who needs to go to the US. I was thinking of mailing him to a friend's partner who lives in Oregon, but handing him over to a fellow Cacher would have been much more fun! hubby and i will be in bournemouth next week -- if that's at all convenient for you i'd be happy to bring the bug back home to massachusetts with me! rothko

rothko: edits college textbooks and the instructor's manuals, CD-ROMs, etc that go with them meta: builds websites and does other techie stuff to keep the sales force of a really huge hardware & software company informed about the products they're selling

this married couple just started out too -- had our first two finds today after a false start last night on a tricky one. hopefully it will get us outdoors and away from the computers a lot more often!

meta and i went out today and found make no wake and 50-1-9 -- our first finds! last night we tried finding barbecued cache but it outsmarted us (twice -- once before and once after dinner...), though i'm thinking i've finally figured it out now. third time's a charm, right? (right???) this is so much fun! we're going to the UK in a couple weeks to visit meta's family in bournemouth; definitely plan to do some geocaching there as well. plus i've ordered a handful of travel bugs to plant while i'm there; probably try to get one of them back home and one of them farther afield in europe or something. (...and so if anyone has a bug in the boston metro area that wants to go across the pond, let me know and i'll see if i can swing it.) i'm doomed, i know it... --rothko

thanks for the tip! i hadn't looked there. oddly enough, somebody just asked the *exact* same question over there, so now i know the answer! (which is, sadly, that the pricey garmin maps are the only option. i suppose we'll be over there enough times throughout the years that i should just quit whining and look at it as an investment, heh.)

quote:Garmin MapSource Metro Guide Europe or MapSource Roads & Recreation are you ONLY alternatives. Expensive but accurate, at least as far as roads go, anyway. dang. i was just going to ask that very question here myself; was hoping there was a slightly less expensive option. i'm in the states but will be in bournemouth later this month visiting the in-laws. i suppose that as the years go by we'll be over there enough times that perhaps i should just look at it as an "investment" and quit complaining...

testing, testing, 123....

hubby and i are going to bournemouth later this month to visit his family. we just picked up an eTrex legend and would like to do a little caching while we're over there. do i really have to fork over a huge wad of cash for a set of maps for all of europe, or is it possible to get maps country-by-country somewhere? hubby's looked around and hasn't found anything. thanks!