In The Mountains

We went up to the lakes area at Mt. Laguna yesterday to find the oldest active geocache in California, Phil's Memorial Cache, dedicated to the faithful dog Phil.  We ended up finding ten caches along the route. Some of them Matt spotted, some of them I was able to find.  We ended up walking around 4.2 miles.  Even though it was pretty flat we were pretty tired afterwards.  And hungry!


There were an interesting variety of caches.  I had to climb down into a six-foot deep "hole" in a pile of boulders for one cache.  Another had a misleading hint, confusing west for east. Not helpful!

Some, like this one, were just hard to see. Honestly, I looked in there TWICE and didn't see it.  Matt said he finally caught sight of it from a different angle.  To take Matthew 13:13 (New International Version) out of context, "Though seeing, they do not see"

Yup, that sort of flat-looking area in there is the side of an AMMO CAN!!

We saw horses grazing the meadows, and many birds on the lake.  There were a number of woodpeckers banging about.  Many of the pine trees had holes in them, filled with an acorn each.

Looking to the east across the meadow we can see the radar dome in the distance.

So I zoomed in a bit. 

For dinner we went to Weevil Burger, which serves a pretty good onion ring.

My internet went out last night, so after talking on the phone to Abel, I just went to bed and read.

Fortunately it is back on again this morning!

Today Today Today

I told myself this morning that I could go geocaching after I did something useful, so I paid the bills and got them ready to post.  Then I finished the book I'm reading, Kracken, by China Miéville, and logged that.  Then I started having tiny bouts of sadness (Brought on by The News From Lake Wobegon on Prarie Home Companion), so I finally forced myself to get out of the house.  And so...

In the afternoon I headed out to Mission Trails Regional Park, to the Clairemont Mesa Blvd. trailhead.  I headed up the road after crossing the rusty bridge and made my first find.  Matt called me right as I was replacing the cache, the ringer was really loud!

I found several other caches, including a Project A.P.E. cache.  They are a series of caches, with clues to a final cache that you have to figure out.  The storyline is quite involved.  Lots of CLASSIFIED and SECRET information involved. Too complicated for me! Locating the log in all the paperwork was an adventure in itself! Here is a picture of the cache contents:

(Very Large File 474k)

The file is large so you can click on it and clearly see the contents.  That brown thing with the two "eyes" is an "old" map.  I especially like the Viewmaster reel.

I made a panorama of the two Fortunas, north and south. You can also see Cowles to the Eastish.

(Very Large File 2.2 MB, even the thumbnail is 24k)

Down a hillside there were these rocks in some sort of sandstone fixative. I'm sure there is a geological name for it. Possibly clastic rock?  I have seen this before, of course, but in this case there were just the two outcroppings, everything else was just plain old dirt.

(This one is 676k, even though it doesn't need to be)

The last cache I looked for was also the first, which was up a tree.  This time I climbed up it a bit, a couple of crotches, but it was just too high.  I need a trained monkey or a small child to retrieve it for me!

So I found five caches, and did not find one, the one in the tree.  It don't count if you don't sign the log.  [Long and boring story redacted]

I fed the birds when I got home, but I still haven't fed myself, and it is nine!  I must eat!  Bye!

Guilty Of Battery

I was outraged to have Radio Shack charged me $12.99, plus tax, for three tiny little Type 392 batteries, and swore never to back to that accursed place ever again.  But when I got home I found the CVS is charging $4.99 a piece for them. And I find Radio Shack charges $5.99 in a single pack. So that is sort of close.  And when I was at CVS I the conversion chart didn't have a listing for the L736, which was the original battery. But I didn't NEED three, only two, but I got one more battery for only a buck. But what shall I do with it?

I noticed that Radio Shack's online price is MUCH cheaper. Like a buck a battery. But I suppose you have to pay some outrageous shipping on small lots.

All this for some stupid blinky badge!

 (Sorry about this image, TT, it's 320KB. But, it's animated!)

Saturday Afternoon/Sunday Morning

SATURDAY

We went down to Torrey Pines for a bit of a walk.  We arrived rather late in the day, so we only had an hour and a half, or so, to go down a trail (Razor Point Trail) to the beach overlook (Razor Point), and then back before the rangers lock the place up.

So this view is looking down upon a canyon towards the beach.  The sun is getting low.

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This one is a little better, you can see the sea!

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Looking back up the trail, to the east, you can see the moon.

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Looking down at the beach, from on high.

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And here we have a hiker and his staff.

(460K)

A view to the south, from not quite at the view point.

(316K)

A panorama the stalwart hiker made for, and of, me.

(It's a big one, 1.4M)

At the view point at last, looking north. The stake says stay on trail, but you can see footprints going out there. But do they come back?

(751K)

And looking south again, but from the view point this time.

(329K)

Looking sort of west-ish, you can see some surfers out there.

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A tiny little moon back there.

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At the view point, sitting down and resting, a couple of legs.

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 We went to Callahan's that evening for dinner.  During a little walk up the strip mall, to work off "dinner", we found a geocache.  Well, I didn't spot it, but we're a TEAM!

 SUNDAY

I went out to the Stonebridge area (east of Scripps Ranch) to replace a someone's cache I broke a while ago. I did that, and did some finding, too, so as not to waste the trip.

Here is some big cactus, I have no idea what kind, but I'm sure SOMEONE does...

A lite geocache.

I found eleven caches today.  I didn't have any altercations or problems driving, either, for a wonder!

So now at home I'm doing all sorts of piddly things, like:

I didn't know what this was, I thought maybe it was some kind of rose mutant alien thing.  It was explained that it's a rose hip.  And here I thought rose hips were the petals!

The birdbath, yet again.  There were BIRDS here, earlier, I swear!

Boy, I think I am plum out of stuff to say!  I think I shall walk up to the library and get something to read!

It's Saturday Morning And I Ain't Got Anything Better To Do --

or at least, anything I am inspired to do.

Some fooling around with the camera.

Makers Mark swag came today!

I like the previous picture more better.

At work I was given a bag of pizzelle (which I had to Google to recall) that her daughter made. She said it goes great with coffee.  It goes great with tea, too!

What is the point of wearing glasses if one can't make pictures with the reflections?

I was inspired to make these pictures by the Fark.com forum Photoshop what the FBI sees from your laptop.  There were only sixteen entries, some are NSFW (Not Safe For Work). I didn't enter, though.

                                                                                                                                     

I finished another Sudoku To Go (Volume 45) book of a 100 puzzles. New Puzzles, it says, that You Can Take Anywhere!

For statistical porpoises,  here are the final results:

Easy Level --  26 Successfully Completed  4 Just Plain Wrong
Medium Level --  30 Successfully Completed  5 Just Plain Wrong
Hard Level --  15 Successfully Completed  5 Just Plain Wrong
Diabolical Level --  10 Successfully Completed  5 Just Plain Wrong

                                                                                                                                  

I am full of hope I will accomplish something today.

On The Way To Work

The sky was quite lovely on the way to work this morning. I walked around the parking lots taking pictures west, east south, but not north.

Clouds.

More clouds.

Yet even more clouds.

I'm not saying their clouds, but...clouds.

And lastly, we have clouds.

No, THIS is the last clouds!

This file is named clouds, but it is not.  It is what the FBI would see if/when they are monitoring my laptop cam.

I welcome you cloud comments. Which is your favorite?

In The Depts Of Winter, SoCal-Style

I went up to Home Depot and bought ANOTHER heater today.  Yesterday, you will recall, I purchased a little ceramic/fan heater, one that very cutely swivels back and forth, noisily blowing what turned out to be a very small amount of warm-ish air a short distance, and quite sharply raising the amount of electricity I used by an inordinate amount.

Today, for the same price (39 bucks), I got the oil-filled radiant heater. It's awfully slow to heat, but it certainly seems to warm up the room. Eventually.  But it IS darn quiet!  No fan, you see!

It was 39 degrees this morning when I got up, by the way.  Outside!

Saturday at 1:02 PM

Weekly Round-Up

I painted the TV antenna, and re-arranged the wire properly, so here is its final incarnation. I also have a nice black circle of paint on the patio blocks, as I forgot to put paper down first.

I made a new Danish Christmas heart for the collection. The star one. It was really hard, it took about an hour to weave together, having to take it apart several times.  In consequence it finally tore in one place, which I had to glue.

A couple of sunflowers grew from spilled seed on the bird bath, this one has a flower!

That is all I can think of!

Tuesday

It got progressively cloudier this day, and now it is raining a bit.

I went to Target to buy bubble wrap, but the shelf was bare. So I walked ALL THE WAY across the mall, length-wise, to Wal Mart, and they had tons!  So I picked out a roll, then some peanut butter and some tea bags.  So I waited in line, then when it was my turn I found my giant and heavy backpack did not contain my wallet.  So I had to, morally, return all the stuff to their shelves.  And so I did.

When I got home I had a call from the doctor's office.  They said my labs were unremarkable. So that is good.  I was checking reddit while I was on hold.  I was disappointed to read that the Diane In Seat 7A story was a hoax. I really should have known.

Sunday In Sloane

I went out to Sloane Canyon Road, off of Dehesa Road to pick up some geocaches this morning.  It's my first and only big geocaching trip, as it were, of the vacation week.  I found ten caches, one of which hadn't been found in nearly three years.  And no wonder, it was quite overgrown with big bushes, fortunately it was an ammo can (with a very large Geocaching.com sticker on it) buried in leaves.  But I reigned triumphant.

So here is where I went, and the ones I found today have the pink arrows.  Yellow smilies are caches I have found.  As you can see there are quite a few to go!

This might be an impressive waterfall during the rainy season!

This is Al.  I poked him with my stick to make sure he wouldn't bite me.

I also stopped by Singing Hills.  It's very quiet today, not very many people around visiting.  I looked for the turtles but didn't see any.  Maybe they hibernate during winter.

I washed the clothes when I got home, painted the TV antenna base, varnished the various things I've been varnishing, listened to the ten songs I managed to get on the iPhone, and ate something, I'm sure.

Now back to work tomorrow!