Thursday In Bonita

I loaded some geocache coordinates into the GPSr today and went a-searching in the Bonita/Sweetwater Lake area. I used the baseball fields parking lot as my base of operations and went east, west, and north, picking up a total of ten caches today.

I spotted this lizard hiding in a crack in an old fencepost. Shades of Journey To The Center Of The Earth!  One of three old fence posts (how come spell check doesn't like "fencepost" with an "s" on it?) I looking at. But not the right fencepost. Of course.



The cache, of course, turned out (after MANY minutes and two sessions of searching, coming AND going.) to be in the FIRST fence post I had looked at. It was covered by a spider web!



There were LOTS of horsies about, as Bonita is a big horsie area, and all these caches were on horsie paths.  There is even a horsie bridge over the freeway!

Passing the stables I noticed several horsies had their eyes covered. I wonder why?



I also saw a rambunctious mule, which reminded me of Kelly and his mule, whose name I wish I could remember.

Afterwards I went grocery shopping.

The vehicle did not die once, even though I tempted it by driving on the freeway!

Oh, here's a map of the area I just made, JUST for you! The green circles show the caches I found today. All the other smileys are from other caching expeditions. I see I actually found ELEVEN caches today. W00T!!



OK, that is all, you can go now. Thanks for visiting!

Wednesday

Got me some Hello Kitty stuff for Christmas!

Floormats:



You can't see it from here, but now I know that one side of the truck is narrower than the other side. Who knew?

Antenna Ball:



Thought I better document it before someone steals it. Can I put a GPS locator in it?

I also got the relocation kit for the fuel pump shut-off switch.  I guess my son doesn't want me to die if the engine suddenly shuts off on the freeway.  Too bad FORD doesn't feel the same way.

Anyway, I manned up and installed it today.



I have NO idea what this clip is supposed to clip on to. So I clipped it on to a likely tab. Too bad the FORD instructions did not have wire routing instructions. Maybe with a picture!



That black clippy-thing there, I have NO idea what it clips to.  Again, FORD, maybe better instructions?



This thing holds the kick panel in. Could not get it out in one piece, so had to break it. Thanks, FORD!



Neoprene pieces supplied by FORD to seal up the old screw holes. I would have thought a couple of short bolts would do the job more securely.  I have no idea what that weirdness is over to the right, and I'm not crawling under the dash again to find out!



I fired the vehicle up and it ran ok, so I guess I'm good. Time will tell if it is really fixed!

Needlenose

Hey, I was just looking at 12 Tools Every Man Should Have in His Toolbox at The Art Of Manliness and they mentioned that a flathead screwdriver can be used for getting a broken light bulb out.  After turning off the electricity, of course!  I'll share a little tip I picked up in the war.  Needlenose pliers. Stick the tips in there, pull the handles apart, spreading the tips tightly against the inside of the brass base of the light bulb. Rotate the tool and the brass base of the light bulb will screw right out.  How about that?  Just MAKE SURE THE ELECTRICITY IS TURNED OFF!!

As it said in the article,"trust me" on this.

Went For A Hike Today

For various reasons we need not go into here, I decided I better go for a geocaching hike today to maintain my aura of awesomeness. So I hiked up and over Kwaay Paay peak to find a couple of caches I was missing. There are actually three caches I needed, but since I am not a "pro" member anymore, I didn't have the coordinates for the third one.  More about that later...

I drove over to the trailhead, passing the HORDES of people going up and down Cowles Mountain. Shot this pic while waiting for the stoplight. See the little ants on the trail?  There is NO place to park along here.



I parked at the trailhead on Father Junipero Serra Trail, road, and headed up. It's pretty steep in parts, and flat in others. Mostly steep.  Lots of rocks and ruts.  I finally made it to the peak in about forty minutes. I ate a granola bar and drank some water. I located a trail heading back down the other side that wasn't marked "Do Not Enter", and made my way down. I went down a couple of false trails (more later), but eventually found the correct one.

The first cache I looked for was Splashette, named after a geocacher.  I looked for about thirty minutes and didn't didn't find it. That was disappointing, but I headed on to the next one.

The next cache was named Middle Earth. It takes its name from a nearby rock climbing route. I spotted it easily, to my relief. It had a bit of water in it, so most of the stuff was damp. I dried it as best I could.



Looking DOWN into the canyon.



The view is pretty impressive. If it wasn't so hazy, you could see all the way to Pt. Loma!



OK, so that is not really looking towards the ocean. More to the south.

After finishing up I looked around a bit for the cache I didn't have the coordinates for, and to see if I could figure out the trail down, in case I ever wanted to come back up. I THINK I figured out the trail, but I didn't find the cache. I didn't really expect to. If I just had that pro membership...

I decided to play with the GPSr "trackback" feature, and headed back up the hill to Splashette. I looked around for another half-hour, and was just about to call it quits when my poking stick struck something. Something odd.  It was the cache!



Well, NOW I was happy!  It was not till I got home that I found out that Splashette is the pro-level cache. So I can't log my find!  It was the OTHER cache, the one I didn't have the coordinates for, that was a regular cache that I could have written them down, uh, for. I mixed them up when I was looking at the map.  Why did I have a pro-level cache already loaded in the GPSr?  Because I used to be one of the exalted!  And I will again. I swear it!  And why was the other cache not in there. Well, duh, I don't know.

Using the trackback feature on the GPSr kept me from getting off the track a couple times. It was interesting to see that it tracked my false trails from the way down, too.



I really have to stop biting my nails!

I have not seen any other people on the trail, except for a couple of rock climbers way off in the distance.

I made it back to the peak, and headed back down again.  Here is a section of the trail I thought was real cozy.




Across the canyon are some outstanding rock formations. The rock climbers would like to be able to do them, but the park guys won't let them.  There's a geocache up there near the top, I've looked for it a couple of times but no joy, yet. I heard you may need a rope to get to it, and I don't have a rope, nor the experience to safely work with one.



And here is another steep section.



View of the 52 and the dam area.



I decided to name this rock "The Big Rock" 'cause its big and it sticks out in the trail.



A few feet down the trail I found another rock, which I shall call "The Even Bigger Rock", as it is bigger and also stick out into the trail.




Right about here I sighted my first human being, a woman coming up with two walking sticks. I told her she was the first person I had seen today, and she said it was like having your own private place.

Here we got the 52 and Mast. You can see the trail head where I parked. Down there by that green arrow!




I met a guy and his well-behaved dog, and later on a man and his small child, who had a very nice walking stick.  I picked up some trash along the way, but didn't have a bag for larger stuff like water bottles, so I had to leave them Next time!

Some baby dropped his Nuk.  There is one unhappy kid out there!



The whole hike took about three and a half hours, and probably covered 2.5 miles. It is claimed the elevation gain is 865 feet. Doesn't sound like much!  And yet I am beat!

Well, I don't THINK I left anything out, so that ought to just about do it!

Off My Butt

Yes, I got off my butt and went geocaching today.

I had to chauffeur C. to church, so since I had to fire up the vehicle anyway, I decided I should go find me some caches.  I've had my eye on one in a little canyon off of Fairmont.  I've been there before, on the bicycle, but didn't find it. It has been logged as "found" since then, so I decided to make the trek. I figured out I could park in one of the guests spots at the apartments across Fairmont, so I did, then made the dash across the four lanes of road. Not too much traffic on a Sunday morning, thank goodness. I hiked up the canyon to the spot, but yet again didn't find anything. Crud!

I decided to head out to Casa De Oro for another couple of caches I didn't find the first time.  I drove up the 8. Traffic was nearly at a standstill near the Lake Murray intersection, so I made the clever decision to bypass it by taking the off ramp.  Oh, no, that's where the accident was that was slowing traffic!  There was an ambulance there, tending to someone, but the police had not even arrived yet.  Of course I was in the wrong lane, but someone kindly let me in.

I headed down the frontage road.  I was behind another car that was stopped at the trolley station crossing, where the gate was down.  We waited about ten minutes, the gate did not go up.  The car ahead of me finally eased their way under the gate.  I motioned to a couple of pedestrians to raise the gate for me, and they did!  I don't know what all the cars behind did, though.

I continued over to the on ramp near Guava. Fortunately I yielded at the yield, as a rice-rocket came zooming up the ramp at probably seventy mph!  I myself wound it up to five grand to merge onto the freeway, and then made my way to Bancroft to look for them caches.

I found the first cache, hidden just as I suspected it would be, and had looked for the last time.  This time I spotted it. One down!

I drove over to the other one.  Fewer muggles around today, so I made the find quickly. I had to wait out a guy filling his propane tank before I could put it back, though.

I drove back to see how the trolley gate was doing.  It was now working, so I drove back on the 8. This time there was an accident on the Fletcher Parkway off ramp!  A car was piggy-back on another. There were two Highway Patrol cruisers, and a lot of glass on the road.  The car was smoking from the engine compartment, probably radiator fluid.

I, of course, did not bring my camera on this trip, so no pictures.  So much for getting on the news!

Wednesday Again

Drove to work again today.  It was a little chilly in the morning, but warmed up during the day. I even turned on the ceiling fans in the library. THEN, it turned chilly again.  It turned DARK! I think it's going to rain!

Don't you just hate people that park their old junk cars on their lawn?



Saw that the other day while walking home from work. Hey, my legs are STILL sore from that little excursion!

Tuesday--Continued

Our Ordereder-Of-Supplies was kind enough to take my request for some cotton swabs "just like the nurse has".  Swabs are extremely useful when gluing books back together. The ones I managed to steal from the nurse's office when she wasn't there are pretty much encrusted with glue, and are not too pleasant to hold in one's mouth.  So what I want were six-inch unsterilized wood swabs. I priced some at the drug store, but they were a buck fifty for TWO.  On the net they are around ten bucks for a hundred. So I asked the OOS to check her catalogs.  Also, I don't have any money.

So this is what I got:



Eight-inch OB-GYN sterile swabs with plastic sticks. GIANT, they are! See the wood ones poking out the side, for comparison.  I'm sure they will work just fine, but they are so HUGE!  Weel, as she said, there wasn't much of a description in the catalog!

Here's an old van I saw whilst heading to the pharmacy after work.  I think it is a Ford.  For some reason I always thought these were nifty.




I've seen this van before, and I thought it belonged to someone I knew. But today I found out it did not.

That is all.

Torpid Tuesday

So much for my unstated goal of walking thirty-five miles to work this week. 

I woke up this morning at six. Turned out I had reset my alarm to 5:30 PM. And not for the first time!

I need a second alarm clock, one for regular getting-ups, and one for special alarms.

Anyway, I got gas, returned a library book, and drove to work. And I got to listen to the DFC.

Saw quite a few bicyclists this morning, too!

Walking To Work Monday

I was in a mood this morning, or rather yesterday, or even most of last week, so I decided to walk to work today. It was around seven miles round-trip, and took about and hour and a quarter each way.

A city that outdistances man's walking powers is a trap for man.
Arnold J. Toynbee 

I wore my watch, the one with the compass.  You will recall, I am sure, the travails of putting a new battery in it.  (Time passes) Or maybe not, as I now see I didn't blog about it! Well, to sum it up, I have two of these watches, one with a compass. The non-compass one is really easy to change the battery, the compass one is REALLY REALLY hard!



On the way home I found this hobby blade handle. Compare the quality with my Excel and X-ACTO blade holders.



That X-ACTO holder on the bottom is one of a set I inherited from my dear grandfather.

Here is a closerup. Compare the knurling on the grips. And what's that blue stuff? Plastic!



Well, that is about it for today!

Used

I was looking around Google image search under my user name and found an odd picture, so I click on it to see why it was associated with my user name. I found that someone had used one of my images (with credit given!!) in a collage of office supplies they had created. Take a look!  My picture is the thumb tacks. I found them in a drawer at work.

Crummy Wednesday

Rant? You wanna hear me RANT???

The other day I took the floppy drive out of the IBM at work and stuck it into my computer, the one with the dead floppy drive.  I was trying to copy an olde Quicken from floppy to flash drive. Don't get me started on THAT!

Of course, in sliding the floppy drive out I found it doesn't QUITE clear the CPU fan. So I had to remove the fan.

No clearance!

Now with a bit a spare room to slide!

A silly little quarter of an inch, if that.

I put the IBM back together at work.  It, of course, did not work.  Dead as a doornail!!

I messed with it and messed with it and messed with. Several hours into the messing I happened to push on the battery a little, and the fan started up.  OK, says I, I must have jarred the motherboard battery.  Now we're good!

Oh, no, we are NOT good.  It wasn't booting up.  I pushed on the battery more, and sometimes it would fan up, as it were, and sometimes not. I plugged and unplugged it several times, and eventually it actually started to boot up.  I even got to the login!  Would not accept my password, though. I pulled out the network cable that I had just borrowed from an old printer I don't use.  Blue crud all over the pins!

Yikes!  I cleaned the network socket with water and baking soda (power off, of course!), dried it, and fired it up with a NEW cable.  It now accepted the login and I was flying!

Or maybe not.  When I shut down, it wouldn't restart. Or when it did, it did the F1/F2 thing.  So, I took a look at the startup configuration.  It looked ok, I hit save, and now it SEEMS to be running ok.  We shall see, tomorrow!

We had a LOT of people in using the computer lab. Of course the lab printer started acting up, and it appears it needs a new fuser.  I can't switch ALL the printers to the library printer, it would take FOREVER! So I just switched the flat-screen Macs, they are pretty easy to switch.

Tons of kids had problems using the computers, that sucks up a lot of time.  One student was using Safari and it kept quitting every time he tried to Google something.  I tried to take a look at it, but he was being so obnoxious I finally told him to go find himself another computer, and I left it for another day.

A parent came in wondering why their child had no textbooks. My bad, I ASSUMED they were using ESL textbooks, which I don't handle.  Turns out they need regular textbooks.

Another parent came in inquiring about a report that their child had been hit by another child in the library.  Well, I didn't see it, but it was apparently on my watch, so I feel bad about that.

There were a LOT of noisy and ill-behaved students running around. It's very hard to concentrate on technical problems with so much disruption. So much different than yesterday, a day that was extremely pleasant.

Well, we shall have to see how tomorrow goes!

Power Tuesday

We All Scream For Ice Cream!

On Friday we drove over to Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor for lunch.

I'm eating!

I love ice cream!

While there we tried to figure out the small print on some Mexican money. That's Diego Rivera, it is a self-portrait.

We also went geocaching (surprise) and found three caches in the mall.




After stuffing ourselves and walking off the stuffiness we drove back to San Diego.  Did I mention Farrell's is in Mission Viejo?  I felt so cosmopolitan skipping off to Orange County for luncheon!

We stopped at Califia Beach so that L. could dip her feet in the Pacific Ocean.  I watched the surfers, and the train went by.

Trains a'coming!!

We drove down the freeway a bit and stop at the Las Flores view point to see the pretty setting sun.

And then we headed home!

NOW It's Precipitating!

It has severely darkened over and is sprinkling as I speak.  It's almost like having weather!

Friday The Thunderstorm

I woke up at 6:20 this morning, which is an hour later than usual. Someone forgot to set the alarum clock.  Funny, I remember hearing the upstairs neighbor's alarm going off. Which usually rings AFTER mine does.

It was pretty much perfectly partly overcast this morning. The Winnebagos are heading east for the weekend.  I don't see no thunderstorms on the horizon, but they are still predicting 90% chance of rain.  It must be our destiny...

This morning is Breakfast Club, so I've been grazing a bit.  Back in the library one of the students brought in these evil things (see below), so I flaunted all the rules and ate one, right there at the circulation desk.  You should have seen the smile on my kisser

Slightly 'shopped...

So, I'm not sure if the picture is actually there, I think work is blocking it.

Speaking of work, I better get back to it!

Thursday Tomorrow?

Wow, it's Wednesday already!  I hear we are setting clocks forward this weekend. Or backward? Fall back? Either way, I'll have Sunday to figure it out.

Had to ferry the wife to the doctor's office this morning.  While waiting I took a picture of the headliner in the truck, as it is coming loose and I just want to document it.  One would think it would last more than five years.  Come on, it's a TRUCK!  Ruggedly built and all that!

I would have engineered some sort of plastic piece to secure it if I had designed it. Just saying, Ford!

Here is my wife coming out of the doctor's office through the rather pleasant mini-jungle-with-giant-stone-ball-fountain, with wooden bench.

I went grocery shopping again after work.  The giant vehicle next to mine had three dogs waiting for their mistress, one of whom was very barky.

 

On the way home I came upon an electric vehicle making a VERY SLOW u-turn on the on-ramp to the 8.  I guess he was losing power and didn't want to get stuck on the freeway. Or maybe he was just an idiot.

Just another instance of stupid driving I saw today. I'm glad I'm perfect!

Oh, and made a detour before shopping to my local Radio Shack.  What can you buy there besides cell phones? Why, fuses, if you must know! I needed a 1.6 amp fuse for a VCR at work. We shall see if that fixes the problem, or if there was something more serious that caused the fuse to blow. 

I also spent two hours at work on YOUR tax-payer's dime to exchange all my loose change from home for dollars. Now we will have plenty of pennies for the next book faire!

Later!