LeoGeo

Good to know you're safe. We evac'd from SR this morning, too, to a friend's house near devhead's "View of the Jewel" cache. Our host is a UCSD history professor. When he heard that campus was closed, he phoned his graduate students, and they were able to have their class at his house instead. It was raining ash here this morning, but it let up in the afternoon. Our thoughts and prayers are with you all, and especially with those who are going through this for the second (or N'th) time.

Talk about yer few degrees of separation.... So I'm in Chapel Hill, N.C., for a couple of days. I'm casually looking for a few caches to find, and I notice that in GCTVJZ there's this TB that wants to go to San Diego (TB14RWF). A TB that was originated here back in July by Orbit_Diego, who was apparently visiting down here from Maryland, and it has barely moved since. And it is in the neighborhood, which I haven't visited in ages, where I went to church and preschool when I was a kid. So I posted a little local-history lesson on the cache page, and a "Dr. Breuss" poem on the TB page. I've never even met Orbit_Diego, though his handle is somewhat familiar from SD logs. Any'y'all know him? (Oops, looks like I'm picking up my native language again, y'all -- er, I mean, duuuuuuudes!)

Howz about San Diego gives a big Wild West WOO-HOO to Kentucky's "Show Me The Cache" on his TEN THOUSANDTH "Found It" today! LeoGeo, Still workin' on 5% of that...

TFTC 500 Yay!!!!!!!!

What's the blue "X" doohickey for?

San Diego scores again! Some people (and you know who you are) will dash all the way from National City to Scripps Ranch or vice versa at 5 in the morning to get a FTF. I never seem to beat those guys to the prize, so I went farther afield -- 7000 miles farther afield -- to get the big FTF smilies! See GC15MZ2 for the scoop.

Not that I want to encourage the proliferation of micros or anything, but...I discovered a source of free, empty film canisters. The photo department at Long's Drugs in Mira Mesa had a big bin of several dozen (standard 35mm cylinders, white and black; and also those weird-shaped 24mm ones, somewhat smaller). They were being recycled but the lady said I could take them if I wanted. I guess even in this day and age of digital photography there are still 20th-century types (like me) who use "film" just like the cavemen taking pictures of mastodons! I took 6. Maybe I'll start a series...hmm, how about under lamppost skirts at the drive-thru of a Cracker Barrel next door to a Home Depot ;-)

As a homeschooler, I disagree. Gecocaching is part of our curriculum and my three kids (8,7, and 5) have a blast. They are also very respectable of the caches. I think the key is to start education at an early age. And not to forget the all important lesson of respect with whatever is taught. But no matter how much respect is "spoken of", it is better learned through example. That's what falls on us as adults to do. The part in bold changes your situation quite a bit. Yes I know I made a blanket statement but everything has it's exceptions. So you're implying that my child, who attends public school, is disrespectful? That's disrespectful. Oh, by the way, the neuter singular possessive pronoun is "its," not "it's." "It's" is a contraction for "it is." I learned that in public school, thank you very much. In what kind of school did you fail to learn it? (Yes, "spelling flames" are usually lame, but thanks to you, we're talking about the relative value of different kinds of education. Everything has its exceptions! ) I'm sorry, which one of us are you talking to? I'm the one who said I was a homeschooler, yet made no mention of anyone being disrespectful, homeschooling or not. There are three different people being quoted above, besides you.....are you aware of that? Personally, the only children I believe are disrespectful, are the one's being disrespectful. Which, even my homeschooled kids can be at times. If you read my later post, I made mention to the fact that even homeschooled children have their moments. There are differences between homeschooled kids and publically schooled kids, but I never brought any of those points up in my post, so I certainly hope your remarks weren't directed towards me. This isn't a site for a debate on schooling options for your children. And as far as the whole "it's" vs. "its" issue, I never used the contraction in my post. The contraction was misused by another member who didn't say that they homeschooled, so the faux pas is on you, dear sir. No faux pas on my part at all, dear sir. It is quite clear to whom I am talking -- to CSpenceFLY, whose post immediately preceded mine, and who used the supernumerary apostrophe -- not to you. Regardless of how many other posts preceded yours or mine, my reply is to the immediately-preceding one. If you are going to use Internet forums, then please learn how to use Internet forums, and please teach your captive student audience how to do so, you dear faux-pas'ing sir. But now that you have mistakenly accused me of having responded to you, when in fact I was responding to the person who responded to you, I do wonder whether you will teach your students to analyze arguments better than you have done yourself. Saint Thomas Aquinas, whose style of argument I recommend to all schoolers, home- or otherwise, could help you and your students understand the back-and-forth a little better, perhaps. He wouldn't have made your mistake. I also wonder whether you will teach your students that the plural of "one" is not "one's," as you seem to think it is, but rather, "ones." There is a word spelled "one's," but it doesn't belong in your sentence. I learned a lot of stuff from wonderfully talented teachers in our public schools. I learned a lot of other stuff from my parents. Thank God my parents didn't restrict me to only one of those sources, as....er....some peaple'z do to their children.

We're sweating. Hmm....maybe we could make our undershirts into TB's and send them to Siberia or Scandinavia for the winter....

I'm much less worried about the potentially undercommitted geocachers who might join our sport than with the scary, obsessive, loudmouthed xenophobes, gun nuts, and other extremist politicians we already have in the ranks, who pervert every geocaching-related thread in the forums into a rant about their wacko politics. Similarly, I'm much less worried about the potentially undercommitted residents of the USA who might join our society than with the scary, obsessive, loudmouthed xenophobes, gun nuts, and other extremist politicians we already have in the ranks, who pervert every issue in American soceity into a rant about their wacko politics. In both cases, in my opinion, the newcomers are much more likely to work hard and contribute to the sport, or to the society, than to be "selfish and materialistic people" like some chronologically grown-up but tantrum-throwing nativist extremists who have the random "advantage" of having come through the doors a few years earlier than somebody else. How about if we get back to the fun of finding canisters in the woods (and parking lots) instead of spitting on people who happen to speak languages some among us are too lazy and selfish to learn?

As a homeschooler, I disagree. Gecocaching is part of our curriculum and my three kids (8,7, and 5) have a blast. They are also very respectable of the caches. I think the key is to start education at an early age. And not to forget the all important lesson of respect with whatever is taught. But no matter how much respect is "spoken of", it is better learned through example. That's what falls on us as adults to do. The part in bold changes your situation quite a bit. Yes I know I made a blanket statement but everything has it's exceptions. So you're implying that my child, who attends public school, is disrespectful? That's disrespectful. Oh, by the way, the neuter singular possessive pronoun is "its," not "it's." "It's" is a contraction for "it is." I learned that in public school, thank you very much. In what kind of school did you fail to learn it? (Yes, "spelling flames" are usually lame, but thanks to you, we're talking about the relative value of different kinds of education. Everything has its exceptions! )

NOW it sux?

According to Prime Suspect's "GeoLex" lexicon: 'Including the letters “DPM” in a cache log was a once-secret way to indicate the cache was of low quality. DPM is an abbreviation for “des palourdes mortes", which is French for “the dead clams”. The entire French phrase is “Les longs sanglots des palourdes mortes blessent mon coeur avec un languor monotone pendant qu'ils dansent à minuit", which translates to “The long sobs of the dead clams wound my heart with a monotonous languor as they dance at midnight”. The idea was to include this phrase in a cache log to clue in others that the cache was of low quality. Rarely actually used, as the meaning of DPM quickly spread throughout the geocaching community, and its secrecy was lost.' What GeoLex doesn't explain is where that French phrase comes from. It's a humorous alteration of two lines of poetry that the Allies in WWII used as the coded signal to the French Resistance that the D-Day invasion was about to occur. The (original) lines are from a poem by the 19th century French poet Paul Verlaine. Verlaine, however, didn't say anything about clams -- or dancing at midnight. It was originally "The long sobs of the violins of autumn."

I wasn't the one who originally asked for this feature, but one reason for wanting to look at archived caches is just to read the logs. Many cachers put a lot of effort into writing their logs and making them entertaining to read, and it's a shame that their work becomes so difficult to find when a cache is archived. In other contexts, an "archive" is a place where information is preserved so that people in the future can read it for whatever their particular purpose happens to be. Cachers in the future -- or historians or scientists, even -- might want to read logs from the early years of caching just to see what caching was like in the early days, or to read descriptions of a landscape that has been drastically changed over the years by human or environmental effects, or for any number of other reasons. One of the functions of an "archive" is to preserve stuff precisely because we don't know what reasons other people in the future might have for wanting to look at it. In that light, the GC.com "archive" is less of an archive than an Orwellian memory hole.

For anybody hunting Red Jeep travel bugs, I just stashed a couple in Scripps Ranch, one in Lightning G. Mousie, and another in Lakeview Loop. Come 'n' get 'em!

Oops, dang, sorry, I meant to add this to the San Diego thread. Let's try this again.....

For anybody hunting Red Jeep travel bugs, I just stashed a couple in Scripps Ranch: one in Lightning G. Mousie, and another in Lakeview Loop. Come 'n' get 'em!

In case anybody's wondering whether to go to Geowoodstock VI near Sacramento next May -- be on the lookout for the 15-minute film about this past year's Geowoodstock. It'll convince you. I had the privilege to be at the world premiere of the movie in Chapel Hill, N.C., at event cache GC13FMF, and it was great! (I also distributed several San Diego travel bugs, from mmcgr, LLOT, et al., at the event.) Presumably the director (cacher Tool King) and producer (cacher Hypno_Hawk) will be making the movie available soon in some format to the caching community.

I'm about to spend a few weeks in upstate New York. There are exactly TWELVE caches within a 10-mile radius of where I'm gonna be (and I already found one of 'em last year). Heck, even Brooklyn, New York, is relatively cache-free. Come on over and help these poor Wrong-Coast cachers out!

My street's name is half-Spanish, half-Portugese. Must have been named by Cabrillo (or is that Cabrilho?) himself. Now that's authentic San Diego! I, myself, however, am not authentic San Diego. Having been born in Baton Rouge, I moved here and saw a sign for "El Cajon" and thought it had something to do with a guy named Pierre who eats alligator gumbo down on the bayou

For a walk with nice views of the coast, you could do a string of caches near the UCSD campus, such as "Sunset Cache", "La Jolla View", "My Favourite View #3", "Million Dollar View" (do you sense a pattern here?), "Pitcher Plant", "Swim Suit Optional", "Father's Day Cache", "Up Up and Away", and others in the vicinity. They're not all connected by a single trail, though; you'll need to come inland a block or two and walk along sidewalks part of the way between some of them. Then you could come inside to the "Geisel Library" cache and get a panoramic view of the area. Another great walk with excellent scenery (but without ocean views) is in Los Penasquitos Canyon Reserve, a several-mile-long canyon with good trails and lots of caches, from "El Cuervo de Mayo" near the western trailhead to "Carnival of the Animals" and "Geojays First" near the eastern. There are also a couple of trailheads in between, in the vicinity of the "Park Village Cache", "Spiny Norman", and "Ride of the Headless Horseman" caches. Note when planning caches in this area that a stream runs through the middle of it, and there are only a few crossings, about every mile or so. For a walk along a beach, you can park at "Bells of El Camino Real - Torrey Pines" (you have to pay to use the parking lot, but if there are spaces along the west side of the highway just north of the cache, they're free, I think), then walk south along the beach and do several very educational Earthcaches where you can see and learn about the spectacular geology of this site. Check your tide tables first -- the beach here can disappear at high tide. The walk will eventually take you down to the infamous Black's Beach mentioned in a previous post! And there are other scenic caches just north and east of the parking coords as well. Not many out-of-towners come caching in my neighborhood, Scripps Ranch, and although it's basically a suburban residental area rather than a stunning national park, there are some nice walking trails and even a couple of spots with very nice views across San Diego all the way to the sea, especially on the hills surrounding Lake Miramar, where you'll find such caches as "Lake Loot", "Geckos Galore Bike and Hike", and "It Rolls Downhill". From "Miramar Lake Overlook Park" you can, on a clear day, see Mexico. There are a lot of multi's that take you on trails through mini-canyons between the residential streets, too, such as "Jerabek Loop" and "Susan's Memory". With all the other options, I kinda doubt you'll choose this one, but hey, I had to put in a plug for my own neighborhood We've got a pretty good concentration of cachers out here, too. Finally, Balboa Park (site of world, or at least hemispheric, fairs in 1915 and 1935, and home to about a zillion museums of all kinds as well as the San Diego Zoo) has a lot of beautiful trails, gardens, and canyons, with plenty of caches, some of which are especially good places to leave travel bugs, since lots of out-of-town tourists visit the park. "Heart of San Diego" and "Red Box" are just a couple of the ones where you can start your search for Balboa Park caches. To get "Aloe Virtualis" you have to pay admission to the zoo, and final of "The Artist's Secret" is behind locked gates at nighttime, but I think all the rest in the park are free of charge and available any time. Extra bonus: if you go inside the Aerospace Museum you can see an actual GPS satellite (one of the extra ones that never got launched). San Diego is a great caching town. Have a good visit!

Well, somebody sure done fixed sumpthin'. I'm logging finds and TB's and whatnot at 6 PM PDT on a Sunday evening just as fast as if it were midnight on a Wednesday and I had the server to myself. Thanks, Groundspeak!

Since geeky interests seem to overlap (Geocaching, Where'sGeorge, Bookcrossing, Letterboxing, etc.), I figured I might as well ask: Anybody here use PGP? I'm looking to trade key signatures. (Yeah, yeah, I know, "F" has one flat, "G" has one sharp....)

Thanks! I'll give that a try.

Map for "California Counties Cached In"? I know that you can get (at world66.com) a map of the states or nations you've cached in, but is there a similar site to easily make a map of California counties you've cached in? I've only cached in 5 so far (SD, Riv., LA, SF, and whatever that place is where Palo Alto is located), but hey, I hope to fill in the map eventually! And I did get a Where's George hit once in the county of Siskskouyi, er, Siksouskeau, er, Squachicouyewo, er, way up north thar.....