TeamIDFC

9 days from posting to FTF. I wonder how long it will take for the Seattle version to be found if/when it gets created?

We've done some paddling in the last few days and can attest that Alice and Phantom were both gone, but are now replaced and back in action. Beaver is still there and in great shape. As for those thinking it is too cold to paddle, I offer you this icy reminder of why we live in the Northwest... That's MsIDFC playing ice breaker through about a 1/4 inch of ice in one small part of Lake Alice. Too much fun...

For those interested, Bellevue Blackout is now posted... Have at it...

So that you could use the topo sort of like a basemap and use an alternate source for trails which could be updated much more frequently. Sounds like that's the plan here. Which brings up a semi-related question: I was viewing various maps in MapSource and was not able to figure out how view more than one at a time. I really wanted to overlay the topo or trails over the street map, but I wasn't smart enough to do it. Can it even be done?

I'm not positive that this is the same set of coordinates (i.e. M10B filter), but here goes... -- Although all the filters have not been transitioned to the new WSGA site yet (only Counties so far), the old site still has them. Go here and copy the whole set of coords. Open GSAK Choose Set Filter Choose the Arc/Poly tab Set Filter Type to Polygon In the Arc/Polygon Points field, delete what it there and Paste the coords you copied from above Click on Go. -- That will bring back all caches you have in GSAK inside the polygon that represents Bellevue. You can refine the filter to only include certain types, ratings, found/not found, etc. If you need help with refining it, let us know. The only thing to add is to ensure your GSAK database contains all the caches in Bellevue - you need to have pcoket queries set up to do that. I have PQs for every cache within 50 miles of our house (by date) so I know I've got everything in Bellevue, for example. -- Michael (MrIDFC) PS: I think I've identifed a spot for the final, so I hope to get it built up here soon...

Double ditto agreement. Wandering into a new area and seeing a trail system laid out makes caching/hiking that much more pleasurable. I can't tell you the number of times we've taken "the long way" to a cache since we knew what the entire trail system was - much better than the wander and backtrack-type excursions we used to do.

Woo-hooo! Toot your own horn time! I finally solved Cryptonomicon! The worst of the mysteries left has fallen!!!! (how many hours? ug! thank you for a reference to a tool!) We've got a line on 11 of the 15 left (either solved or ready for another attempt). We will complete this challenge!

After 2.5 years we've got 1/5th as much as someone that has 1/2 as much as the Washington's #1 cacher.

He's tormenting us on the way to the Blackout...

I may need to take you up on that offer just to eliminate my excuse! Do you have two so Elroy could go along? I only have one, Chili Pepper, which you are welcome to borrow (be sure you can transport it!). I can't speak for anyone else, I'll just say that some other cachers with similar kayaks (less-expensive 10-footers that are durable and easy to use) include MarcusArelius (who lives near me), Prying Pandora, LandRover, Johnnie Boy.... I/we have two, but they are mid-sized (12') and sit on a trailer. If you've got a truck/SUV with a hitch they are an easy 2-fer possibility...

Make 'em do 163 Houses!! Interesting. Beware the Sunken Forest and Sunken Forest EC are both technically in Issaquah, so they are already out. 163 Houses, however, would be in Bellevue (at least off-shore from Bellevue). I've been using the MTB filter for my calculations and, as it is a good map of the shore lands, it would indeed avoid 163 Houses - even though it is so close to shore. Given that I've said the GSAK/MTB Bellevue filter is the toolset, I am comfortable with it as the gospel. So, no 163 Houses for the Blackout. Hey, that still leaves the Slough caches and Phantom! Ok, so the slightly revised rules are: Subscriber-only GSAK/MTB filters are the gospel for in/out Moment-in-time honor system PS: MsIDFC says that if anyone completes the blackout they can portage from our house and save the 2 mile paddle...

We've gotten a decent chunk, but I definitely think we'll go for the clear-out this year when the weather gets nicer...

The nature of the blackout would certainly be transitory - you would achieve it for a moment, celebrate, then start the clock to see how quickly it fades. (It reminds me of the software development concept of Zero Bug Bounce. The devs do all they can to get to zero - and it is usually about 3am and only lasts until the first tester comes into work in the morning to see what they've broken.) Here's what I'm thinking about: Subscriber-only: there are already subscriber caches in Bellevue - you couldn't do this one without them GSAK required: given the nature of the wacko city boundaries the only reasonable way to check is to use Mount10Bike's city filters Moment-in-time honor system: the finder is free to find the cache when they complete the challenge (since we can't do the email-the-coords thing anymore the coords will be in the listing), but they are requested to send TeamIDFC a GPX file with all their finds in Bellevue. Similar to the way King County Thomas is done. I'll then update the cache listing with their completion date, find date, and how many hours it took until they were undone by a new cache… Now I just have to find a spot for a final. Back to the maps…

For some reason I decided that MsIDFC and I should try to find every cache in our hometown of Bellevue. - Did you know there are currently 178 active caches in Bellevue? - Did you know there are some insane caches in Bellevue? - Did you know anyone idiotic enough to try and find them all should be institutionalized? Given that we are making good progress (down to just 15 with a decent line on 5 of them) it dawned on me that there should be some kind of celebration of this dubious milestone. Ok, but what kind of denotation should it have? A cache, obviously. But what kind of cache? I had two thoughts: 1) Moderately insane: "A century of Bellevue" - a cache open to anyone that has found 100+ caches in Bellevue (active or not). 2) Completely nuts: "Bellevue Blackout" - a cache open to anyone stupid enough to follow in our footsteps. I think #1 is reasonably obtainable for anyone caching on the eastside for a year or so. I know #2 is only for the moderately insane. But, there are a number of folks that have found a goodly number of the "harder" cache in Bellevue, so there should be some arm-chair folks that have a pretty good start. What do folks think? Will anyone go for #2 or am I just going to be placing a cache and not have anyone even think of making at attempt? Any input appreciated...

I've gotten a couple asks about the likelihood of our paddle caches surviving STORM 2009 so I went through and did a quick assessment of their chances. The "Probably Gone" ones will be disabled today, the others will have notes with warnings if folks still want to paddle and check them out. Somehow I think we are going to revisit our paddle cache placement theories after this. People are going to be climbing a lot more into trees in the future… Definitely Fine: 163 Houses: It is submerged, and just floats with the adjusting lake levels Probably Ok: Is Shady a Lake? It is sitting up pretty high in the tree stump - 4 feet or so. If it gets flooded the city is underwater... Bonus Desire? Besides being easy to find with the increased water levels, the reach is also easier (I could barely get up there in the summer) Way better than an NRV paddle cache: While it is on the highly flooded Snoqualmie, it is a good 20 feet up off the waterline hanging in a tree. Bellevue has a slough? Part III: It is magnetic, so it is probably still there, maybe a bit wet. SR: R2K #3: Bows: Assuming it was put back correctly it is there, though underwater. Could go either way: Alice in Paddle Wonderland: Is sitting in/on a huge log that might float up with the increased lake level, or might be stuck and the cache could be underwater. Beware the sunken forest! It is tired to the stump with a fishing line (as it disappeared once before). Decent chance it is underwater/floating now, but it should stay attached at least. Bellevue has a Phantom paddle cache? The small lock-n-lock is supposed to be wedged up a couple feet in a tree, but it has been found on the ground a couple times. If it stayed in the trees, we're ok. If it dropped, it's gone. I suspect the latter. Bellevue has a slough? It is reasonably up in the trees, so it is probably ok... Pine Lake has a paddle cache? Similar to Alice: if the log floats up and doesn't roll over, it is fine... Bellevue's slough to lake multi paddle: Hmm, the first stage is likely still there (though submerged). The second stage is like Alice/Pine. Lake Margaret has a paddle cache? The micro is definitely underwater. If it was wedged in well it is still there, if not... Beaver Lake has a paddle cache? Lock-n-lock sitting atop the fallen logs. Might be ok, might have floated off Probably gone: Lake Desire has a paddle cache? Shadow Lake has a paddle cache? Spring Lake has a paddle cache? - All three were only about 2 feet off waterline this summer - likely floated away. SR: R2K #4: Photos: I've little doubt the film canister washed away... Damm, we placed a lot of paddle caches this year...

If you put it up here around Seattle, we will! We've already got the label as "the kayak people" - I'm happy to let someone else get the "SCUBA" label...

To harken back to those fun-filled snow days, I offer for your reading entertainment this family email I sent about TeamIDFC's little xmas "adventure" driving through the snow from here to Sacramento after our flight was canceled. Long, but periodicly amusing... ------------------------ The holidays. A joyous, happy, full-filled time of the year. Snow. A joyous, fun-filled, happy natural occurrence. Seattle. A lovely waterfront town full of happy, fun-filled people. Snow, in Seattle, at the Holidays. Not a town full any longer of fun-filled people. A town filled with people not going anywhere. A town full of people trying to get away for the holiday and not having much luck. Such brings us to before XMas. Saturday the 20th was a snowy, white day. TeamIDFC ventured out and about, then wandered back home in the lightly falling snow. We learned that Alaska Airlines had canceled half their flights. Hmm. But - the weather was supposed to get better. Sunday the 21st dawned cool, with more light flurries of snow. The airport was still a mess, but the weather forecast called for warming and clearing, and our mid-day Monday flight looked good to go. We felt very sorry for the folks that had already missed their flights, but we were feeling pretty good about ours leaving as scheduled to Sacramento. That evening we started packing up to fly out and began checking the web. Could we upgrade to first class, etc, etc. About 9:30 MsIDFC refreshed the flight status and suddenly our hearts sank. The flight was showing canceled. Hmm, that's weird - they don't usually cancel a flight in the middle of the next day this soon. Something smells fishy. So, we tried to call. A lot. Then MrIDFC hooked the computer up and autodialed. A lot. After 350 dialing attempts with nothing but a busy signal, a call to MsIDFC's travel agent, and some checking of the web we learned that there was no way we were going to get out on our flight. Turns out our pals at Alaska had the plane, had the crew, would have a clear runway, but had run out of de-icer. Ok, so they'll get more, right? Well, that's the rub. The de-icer was coming by truck and was stuck east of Spokane. There were already thousands of people that had been bumped, Portland was also mostly closed, and there are only about 4 flights a day from Seattle to Sacramento. We were now at the back of the line to try and get rebooked. In other words, it wasn't gonna happen. So, at about 9:45pm we decided that if we wanted to have XMas with MsIDFC's family and sisters, as well as go to her sister's baby shower, we needed to drive. Minor point, though - it was still snowing. A LOT. Oh, well - load the car and let's see what we can do! So, we headed out of town about 11pm Sunday night. The roads were still snowed, but reasonably packed in most places... Given the late hour and Sunday night timing, there were few other cars on the road which meant we were able to drive our own pace most of the time. The GeoMobile (Toyota Land Cruiser) has all-wheel drive, traction control, and anti-slip, so it is pretty nimble in the snowy conditions. Yes, we were "those people" that bombed along when others were crawling. We decided that we were just going to go until we were tired, but about the time we got south of Tacoma we realized how valuable leaving at night was. Usually we sit in traffic from north of Tacoma all the way through Olympia, and then again in Portland when driving south. Just imagine those people on a snowy, icey road in the morning... After midnight on a snowy Sunday there were large chunks of I-5 that we had all to ourselves. We decided that we wanted to get south of Portland so we could avoid their Monday morning commute traffic snarl, so we drove until about 3am and crashed at a Super 8 in Wilsonville. Not surprisingly, there was quite a bit of action in the Super 8 lobby at that time. Plenty of folks heading both north and south for the holidays. A few weather updates from the northbound folks told us we still had some action to look forward to tomorrow... After a 3 hour "nap" we got up, showered, and found a Les Schwab to by some tire chains. We'd made it this far, but we knew if we didn't buy them we'd wind up needing them, and if we did buy them we wouldn't. Turns out we didn't. We had about another 30 miles of snow on the road - actually the worst sections of it thus far - really chunky, hard, almost pot-holed packed snow. But, once we got near Salem we started seeing the semi-trucks on the other side of the road putting their chains on so we knew we had gotten south of the snow. After that it was just your normal long-distance I-5 drive south. All told, it took us about 13.5 hours which isn't really all that bad. 4 hours of it was pretty white-knuckle, but we made it nonetheless. Moral of the story? Move to a city where the infrastructure has the capacity to handle a mid-sized weather event without having the entire city come to a crashing halt for a week. Oh, and if you are driving from Sacramento to Seattle, avoid the cars throwing rocks (broken windshield) and the highway patrol (speeding ticket) when coming home…

Hmm, circular reference?

The tempature of the sound is about 45 degrees this time of year. That's 10+ degrees warmer than the air temp - balmy!

Does anyone know if it has been asked? Given the amount of pro-active work they do on clearing/cleaning/plotting, it might fit into that sort of set up?

Notably, does anyone know why there isn't a scuba cache at the Edmunds Underwater Park? It just seems to scream for cache given the huge number of visitors it gets... I'd place one in Lake Samm, but it would be such a lame dive - grey, murky water, etc, etc...

Having been caching a few years now, MsIDFC and I tend to make goals to accomplish to give some focus and direction to our caching and travels. Washington DeLorme, Washington Counties, etc, etc. As this is the time of year folks typically make new years resolutions, I thought it would be interesting to have folks propose their geo-resolutions here and we can look back next year and see how many of us were able to accomplish them. So, starting out for us: MsIDFC and I have been diligently trying to find every cache in Bellevue for a while now, so we're making a geo-resolution to finish it up this year. That means solving some insane puzzles, so some of you might be getting geo-mails for some help... We've gotten all but 2 grids for the Oregon DeLorme, so we need to finish that and take a trip to Bend for the final. Similarly, we've got all but 2 counties for Counting Counties in Oregon, so we need to finish that up and make a trip to the southwest cost of Oregon for the final. Anyone else? Someone has to commit to being the next to finish the Fizzy, don't they?

MsIDFC and I had grand plans to venture forth today and nab a couple of caches. Yeah, right. 5 bottles of champagne, a breakfast casserole, a DVR, and comfy couches conspired to keep us inside and warm. But, I'm sure others were more ambitious. So, just like they do on the news with the "first baby of the year" I figured we could have a little fun with folks offering up their geo-firsts of this year. So, without further ado, I offer the following categories (and encourage the creation of others): 1) First find of the year. I assume someone was out caching around midnight and made a find. How is wo/man enough to admit they were caching instead of reveling? 2) First DNF of the year. Perhaps even more embarrassing. Were you out around midnight and DNF'd? 3) First FTF of the year. Might be a little longer to see this on filled...

At least one of our caches is snow-friendly...

Anyone up for a paddle?