Last Day Of The Year

I ran across the words ceteris paribus, which means "all other things being the same", pretty much, in a comment thread digression discussing the merits of direct impingement cartridge case extraction vs. gas piston , the original topic being the number of National Emergencies declared by each president since 1976 and how many are still in force.

I am about 75 pages into Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon, and I think I'm gonna give up for now.  Eight hundred pages is too much to handle in a paperback, the print is too small and the margins don't allow me to see the end of the sentences down there deep into the gutter without splaying the book, which is an anathema to me.  So I think I am going to return it to the library today, unfinished.

I love the rain today, but I hear it's a mess on the 8 through the mountains.

It being the end of the year I guess I'll have to do all my statistical calculations soon, books read, miles ridden, caches found.  

Best wishes for the new year!

Sunday & Monday

Sunday I went geocaching.  Big surprise!  I went to Santee and Lakeside and even braved Wildcat Canyon Road to pick up a few caches on Muth Valley Road.

Here's a pic from the path at Lakeside River Park:

That evening I made a salad for dinner.  I may have dumped too many Bacon Bits on there...

While logging my finds yesterday I noted there were bunch of caches just to the north at Oakoasis County Park.  So I went there TODAY (Monday).

I missed the turn the first time so I had to turn around and hit it the other way, which I did.

Parked (no charge!) and headed out on the trails.  Lots of oak trees!



I can't remember what these flowers ARE, but I'm pretty sure they ARE NOT lemonade berry flowers. I think.

There was a lot of hiking involved, but most of it was pretty flat.  Except the parts that weren't!

I was most impressed with the views of the San Vicente Reservoir.

Here are a couple pics I took from one view point.  Vote for your favorite!

Picture #1

Picture #2

After a GREAT DEAL of further hiking along secret trails I got to a view point that was quite a bit closer.

I particularly was entranced with that island (Lowell Island), which is not an island until the water level comes up a bit more.

I found thirteen caches today for a 100% find rate. For today. Only.

Down In The Swizer

Feeling somewhat better than I did Friday I got out and about a bit today.  I picked up the yarn bins from Mrs. D. today.  It's only a year late!  We had a nice conversation, too, and I met one of her sons.  I was of no help fixing her computer, though.

After that I headed over to Switzer Canyon to find some geocaches, and saw this backyard railroad as I was returning to the vehicle.  Looks like it has not been run in a while, what with the plants growing over the track.

I went after one more cache on the other side of of the canyon, then I called B. and we met up at his new digs and had a bit of a chin wag, and watched a bit of Lawrence Of Arabia on the telly. 

I made it home just as dusk was settling in, so that worked out!

Christmas Eve 2014

I went geocaching this morning, because I am weak.

I went down to Robyn's Egg Trail, to start, in Mission Hills.  I drove down, not on the freeway, but on El Cajon Blvd. the whole way, not wanting to deal with traffic.  And it wasn't too bad, either.

After parking the vehicle and the obligatory DNF (Did Not Find) at Pioneer Park (where the bodies are!) I headed down the trail.

And I have no idea why it is named Robyn's Egg Trail, Google was un-helpful.

Parts of the trail are in not-so-great condition, I must report.  This might be a good place for some enterprising Boy Scouts to place old Christmas trees to control erosion, as I read in Boys' Life oh-so-many years ago.

As you can see the trail narrows and is collapsing.  Which way to fall, into the ditch or into the cactus?

Yikes!  I was so scared I jiggled the camera during the taking of the picture!

Spooky and narrow, this is a fun part!

We can see all the way to the airport down there!

My first selfie today!

I like this one, too.  This is another of our San Diego "Sewer" canyons as I decided to call them.

Zoomed in a bit, there's a light at the end of the canyon!

At the bottom of the canyon I walked around the commerical area to find four more geocaches, including one at the brewery complex.

I then returned back up the canyon, making one more find there, a multi, for a total of three in the canyon proper.  I ate a granola bar and headed over to Balboa Park.  I went down Richmond St. to the secret dead end bridge and found the cache there.  Last time I went for a cache at that spot I rode the bike, not knowing you can drive there.

Next I drove over by the golf course and found some more caches there.  Found these stairs, too.  Grumpy cacher wants to know what they are for, as they don't go anywhere in particular.

You may have seen this pic on The FB

I tried to get as much as possible into this picture.  There's an airliner going by, a city truck doing something noisy to the sewer down there, and a selfie, of course.  The stairs in the picture above would be up that draw just to the right above my hat.

I lay on my back to get this shot of a different airliner, not the one above, silly!

I found eleven caches today, near as I can figure, so that is enough of THAT!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

Floodtime In National City

I decided yesterday today that I would go down to National City and see the King Tide.  So I did. I left the house around 5:30 AM and got down there around six.  I knocked off a few geocaches, then one hour before the King Tide peak, about 7:00 AM, I stopped by THE SPOT and took some picks.

First thing I did when I got there was take a couple of selfies.

Trying for something not scary, but with ducks.  Yup, there are some ducks there, some where.

The water is high, but not super-high, yet.

There's a nifty walkway so you can get right out there and see stuff.

There is a lot of trash floating around, and the playground nearby isn't looking too good.

 

Here are some ducks!

Did I mention where this is?  No?  It's West 18th St. and Hoover St. in National City.

Here's a couple of shot of the road crossing, a little bridge, if you will. One with car...

And one without.  You can see the tide is quite high, but remember there is still an hour to go!

Okay, I left for an hour and found some more geocaches, then I came back around 8:00 AM.  The water is now out into the street.

I parked here on Hoover St. first.

Yikes!  I wonder how clean that water is?  Good thing for this business it is Sunday!

Headed towards the walkway, but looking back over there, I walked around that corner earlier to get the "bridge" shots.  Not now!

Yup, I think we are full-up here!

I drove the truck around the big puddle to get these "bridge" shots.  Gently hitting an underwater curb in the process.

The chain-link fence is filtering all the trash in the water!

Flood time on the Mississippi was an expression I used a lot in my youth.

Gotta have one shot with a car in it, makes it more interesting.

This last shot is completely out of order, but I'm too lazy to change it.

I found eleven geocaches this morning, and did not find five, I think.

Then I came home and had pancakes and coffee.

On Sunday we went to Pottery Canyon Natural Park in La Jolla.  It's a little park, there aren't any tables or benches or play equipment.  Just a nice little walk and some historical interest.

Plenty of eucalyptus trees and their leavings on the ground.

In La Mesa, by the Auto Zone, we saw this truck with a load of a couple of drop tanks, I guess.  Probably for the La Mesa Air Force.  Just seemed unusual enough to warrant a pic.

At work I took these pictures (as opposed to the pictures above, which M. took) of a flowering...WHAT?  I have no idea, and nothing shows up on the internet.

I finally figured out that the stick into the ground is not a root, just a stick.  So obviously someone set this up.

But they certainly look like they are growing out of what ever that is.

Thanks for visiting!

Reading The Print-Out The Doctor Gave Me

Well OF COURSE broccoli is high in potassium, why would it not be?

Slightly Drizzle-ly

I saw a new geocache pop up EARLY this morning, around six-ish, so I was inspired to go for it.  Except I wanted to do some caches on El Cajon Blvd. first.  So I did.  And those caches, for the Cake series, were delicious!

Then I headed out to Tierrasanta.  Along the way I found it had rained, and the rising sun reflected blindingly on the road. 

First I went to the new cache but didn't find it.  Too bad, because it was titled "12/13/14", and that's today's date.

Next I went to the creepy swimming pool cache.  No one was there, because, RAIN, so a quick find was made and I was outa there!

After that I drove up the hill a bit to a Nano cache, but didn't find that  one.  I DID find this view across Mision Gorge to see the fog coming through the pass from Santee.

I found another cache, then I went for this one down this abandoned road.  It turned out to be my 3,000th find, and so have reached another of my geocaching goals for this year.

File size:  TWO megs!  But you can REALLY zoom in!!

I found this cache very amusing.

I then drove home, and now that this blog entry is finished I'm going to take a nap!

Feels Like Friday

Hey, it stopped raining again!

Well, it was raining this morning!  When I came to work this area had all that freshly compacted red dirt that you will remember from yesterday, and a few minutes later the men (You men?  You Orelly men?) had covered it up with this plastic, and you will notice that one corner has blown over from the tremendous morning wind.  

I think I had maybe four students come to check out books today.

Upon leaving I spied this cable television splitter that predates my starting work here.  No longer in use, I'm afraid, just a little bit of history.  The bungalows are going to be demoed next year, I hear.

Under the library bungalow there is palm tree struggling to survive.

Driving to my medical appointment  I spied a Kalifornia Christmas Tree! Not really, it's been there for several months.

The elevators were temporarily not working when I arrive so I went up the stairs.  Nice view out the windows.  Of Walmart.

I took the stairs coming down, too (my choice, this time.), and it was much easier. Going down the stairs.  Going WITH gravity.

I went to the Staff Holiday party and had a nice time, but I missed the White Elephant gift exchange.  But I didn't miss the food!  Ate too much sugar, I'm sure!

Oh, my doctor gave me a referral to a neurologist, for my weird foot-thing.  She said one muscle is pulling enough.  So I don't have that going for me.

Also, when I got home, there were reminders of next week's medical stuff.  How fun it's gonna be!  At least there will be geocaching!

P.S.  You gots to see the socks I received today!  Soon, it will be soon...