Let's Look Over Thayer

Some of them don't even bunch their socks properly...

Ok, over-reaction on my part. I was just thinking about what might have happened without Minnie to guide the rescuers in... Given what I know about navigation, grid/spherical datums, inter-agency coordination, etc. I really shouldn't shouldn't be surprised. I've already known and accepted that I might not have cell coverage everywhere I am, that I might not have enough juice in my phone to make a call. That I might pass out before I am able to call. I hadn't really thought about the fact that, even if I am able to successfully transmit my location to a 911 dispatcher, that this might not be adequate given the above complications. I'd been considering a SPOT transmitter (given my penchant for solo hiking) but that won't solve the problems mentioned above... Once again, a reminder that technology is not a panacea...

Does anyone else find this statement appalling? This could be a life or death thing and it's very unlikely that anyone who has a GPS receiver is going to be using anything other that WGS84. Unless some one read off the wrong coordinates, the search should start within 20 feet of the afflicted party. Does someone have to die before they figure this out? (BTW, very glad to hear that Mike was found and is doing better...we are always glad to see Mike and Minnie at the events and we'll be doubly glad to see them whenever we see them next.)

What, no lawn darts?!?!? Looking forward to the challenge!! Sounds like a great holiday diversion!! Might be a while for me, though, with the campout this weekend and work starting to heat up a bit... What!? You have a job!? Let's see...I have a job now. And because of it, I have no time to work on these puzzles. Or, I could neglect my job to work on the puzzles. And then I won't have a job any more. And then, I'll have more time to work on these puzzles... Hmmm...I'm beginning to see a logical solution to this conundrum...

Hmmm...perhaps I've just discovered what I am doing on Saturday... What part of town would this be in? Would this be appropriate for roadbike or should I bring a mountain bike. How long will you be waiting at the end? (I don't plan on getting up with the FTF'ers...)

But if it was skunky beer then that would be a true friend because he would have saved you from drinking it! OK, point taken. The same would be true if it were Budmillcoorlobweiser...(though technically, that might not qualify as "beer")

OK, I think I got the concept, but I am now wondering what kind of friend would pour beer into the sand...? (Where I come from, that would be called "alcohol abuse"...)

Stopped by Max's Favorite Park yesterday and was able to pick up 1 each TNG #12 and TNG #12 misprint. (Yeah! Nice designs. Thanks again to all who were involved in putting this together!) In the meantime, I left a couple of Ginger cards and a couple of random TNG cards in a couple of new caches (Sculpin and Blowfish) up on the northeast flank of Black Mountain...

Well...that's one way to do it.... I found 23 of the 24 I needed to find, but darn it, the one I didn't find was probably the hardest one to get back to... By the way, it looks flatter looking down from the top than it does from the side...

I read in his log that he's going to the geo-event tonight in Tierrasanta because his sugery was postponed. Randy was there tonight. He seems to be in good spirits but he is looking forward to his rescheduled surgery.

This dock has been signed and sealed...

Pigeon Post (though technically speaking it's a piling) The cache is "Piering Around" (GCJT6J) near Pier 33 in San Francisco.

Uh...is this what you are sayin'?

WoooooHooooo! Thanks, Paul, Harmon, Tom. That's a nice design. And 12 is my favorite number, even! Uh, will some save a copy for us...? Max's is a little bit out of range for us at the moment.

Harmon. That is a great picture is there any way I could get a copy of it. Guess what? Jodi is standing behind me waiting for me to finish so we can go back up the hill, she's got something for you. John, No problem, due to file-size I'll burn a CD-R for you. Send me your home address again because my PDA crashed a few days ago. It is 72 x 8.5 inches and 15 Mbytes in size so I hope you have a six- foot wallspace for it. FYI...a handy way to send large files (up to 100MB) to someone: http://www.cutesendit.com/

I'm impressed with the amount of effort that is going into this event. It would be downright rude of us not to show up for it!

But seriously, what does it look like when you zoom way out? ... a rectangular overlay pasted onto the normal map display? Yes. Except it's a rectangular underlay pasted in front of the normal map background but behind the map objects (like streets and tracks and geocaches.) You can see this if you look closely at the two pictures. Looking at the picture on the right, you can see the gray streets that are generated from the Garmin map data along with their labels. The imaged streets (and the houses) are from the Google Earth image. Note also that you can see one corner of the GoogleEarth image underlay. All of the area with the green background is the standard Garmin map display. On the picture on the left, look at Highway 52. The double black lines are from the MTRP map. The red line (with the 52 in the circle) is from the Garmin map data. The white line that overlays the red line is my track from retrieving the Mizithra cache. (BTW, the green background on the MTRP map is really on the MTRP map. It is not the default green background from the Garmin map data even though it looks like it...) By the way, I put all of this technology to the test on Saturday when I went out to the Cache Day event at Sycamore Canyon. I find that the Google Earth images don't have a lot of contrast and thus, then the bright sun is beaming down, it can be hard to spot the trails on the display. A different display (such as what the Colorado has) might give better results. Otherwise it might be a good idea to mark the trails on the overlay with a strong contrasting color. I expect that using a map such as the MTRP map shown above would not have such a problem because the lines are already high contrast.

Honk! Not only do I know where this is _and_ who the two famous Geocachers are (they're famous, so that's easy...) but I can also name the two prominant Geocaching Peaks in the background! Edit: Looks like you guys are almost done filling up the place so I can go out there soon!

Triple Crown tipped me to some beta software that is available for the Garmin Oregon, Colorado and Dakota GPSrs. The new feature of this software is the ability upload a map image into your GPS have it displayed in the proper place on the screen. To do this, you have to have the map in the form of a .JPG file. You use Google Earth to align the map to the proper geocoordinates and the map is saved as a .KMZ file. Download the file to your GPS and you are in business. Details on the process can be found here: http://www.gpsfix.net/custom-raster-maps-g...akota-colorado/ Here are a couple of screen shots from my Oregon. The first shows a section of the MTRP trail map. In the right hand lower corner you can see my track from a couple of weeks ago when I ventured into the North 40. To get the second screen shot, I did a screen grab from Google Earth and then aligned that image with Google Earth to be able to have photo imagery on my GPSr. It's not quite as good as actually just downloading the imaging from Google Earth but it's close...

That's the cool thing about caching. You discover all sorts of things that most people never get to see. I think the most bizarre thing that I have ever found was a nun-shaped dildo. If you get the chance, ask Blondes Run Amuck about what they found one day when they were caching... (By the way, anyone know whether they ever identified the remains?) Speaking of bizarre things found while caching. I found a full set of women's clothing and a pair of fake silicone breasts in the bushes near Mt. Soledad. I don't think that beats the nun-shaped dildo however... I swear I've never been to Mt. Soledad!! I didn't do it!! Nobody saw me!! You can't prove anything!!! So you say, Mr. FlagMan... ...but we have cache logs that place you at Mt. Soledad on numerous occasions. Care to reconsider your testimony?

That's the cool thing about caching. You discover all sorts of things that most people never get to see. I think the most bizarre thing that I have ever found was a nun-shaped dildo. If you get the chance, ask Blondes Run Amuck about what they found one day when they were caching... (By the way, anyone know whether they ever identified the remains?)

Maybe we should a Lemyrium card for him...

That was a crime against humanity...(and you probably thought no one would notice...)

No cache associated with this Black Widow (as I'm sure that you'll be pleased to hear) but just wanted to share the photo anyway.

This lizard was on the wall of a shed. The cache, appropriately enough was named "Shed" (GC1WHQ5) The brother (or was it sister?) of this lizard was guarding the actual cache.