Geocaching Update

Well, I've found one more geocache since my last update. As you can see from the map, that brings my total number of countries cached in to 3. The one cache I found was a departure from my usual preference for caches in parks. This one was in the middle of a busy Vienna street, a few hundred feet from where the Pope had been the previous day. Unlike most urban caches, this one was huge! It was a great example of "hiding things in plain sight," but I suppose I shouldn't give away its secret.





While there, I dropped off the brick geocoin I picked up in Bristol, along with Free State Mover #2, my second geocoin whose goal it is to get back to Maryland.

The Vienna cache is a very active one. Within hours of my visit, someone had picked up the brick coin. Two days later, a Czech picked up Free State Mover #2 with the note "North!" So I guess it's going to the Czech Republic on its way back here.

If it ever makes its way back here, that is. Over the less than six months I've been caching, I've noticed a disturbing number of trackable items go missing. It's possible they are on somebody's shelf and will return to the cache world, but I have to wonder if they're permanently MIA.

Pope's in Town

Apparently I'm not the only one who decided this would be a good weekend to visit Vienna. His Holiness is here, which I discovered yesterday when I saw a sign at Stephansdom indicating he'd be performing mass there Sunday (today). His visit presumably explains the sparsely attended concert in front of the cathedral, consisting of what I can only assume is Christian rock. Enjoy the snippet below. (Or not.)

Schönbrunn

 

I've got the first two rules of taking pictures of my big head in front of historic sites:
1. Hold the camera level with my head, so the picture isn't up my nostrils.
2. Smile.

Apparently, now I have to work on:
3. Don't squint.

After a much needed late start, I took the U-bahn (underground/metro/subway) out to Schönbrunn palace, the summer home of the Hapsburgs. The guide book said it was second only to Versailles in terms of magnificent European palaces. I've never been to Versailles, so I can't vouch for that, but it dwarfed most other European palaces I've seen and definitely topped the czar's digs.

The most impressive sights were the gardens, which I wandered for half an hour while waited for my timed-entry ticket to take effect. After choosing the audio guide (I guess my other option was a live guide), I got to the desk and was told they were out of audio guides, but I could have a nice pamphlet instead. Boo, Austria! That put me in a bit of a sour mood the rest of the day. The benefit of my getting the audio guide would have been that I could have looked at the palace rather than the pamphlet. The benefit of everyone else's getting the audio guide would have been that they could have watched where they were going instead of constantly bumping into me. Still, it was neat to see the room where a young Mozart first performed for the royal family (and then jumped into the Empress' lap and smothered her with kisses) and the room where the last Emperor abdicated after 600 years of Hapsburg rule.

I wonder what changed...was Austria really so horribly defeated in World War I? They had lost wars before. Was it the fact that fewer monarchies were on the victorious side, so fewer countries had an interest in preserving the monarchy? In the US, not much history east of Germany gets taught; this visit points out certain gaps in my education.

It's About the Maps

Well, since my last geocaching update, I've found two more geocaches. The first was in Calvert County, Maryland near Hutchins Pond. I dropped off Mistr Turtle, a plastic turtle whose goal was to visit beaches throughout the world. Since he was a few miles from Chesapeake Beach, I figured he was in good shape. I picked up "More U Know", a button which

wants to travel cache to cache with the message "The more you know, the less you need".

Meh.

I brought it over to England. Maybe it will undermine their capitalist economy instead of ours. I also brought Free State Mover #1, a coin I bought with the express purpose of returning to Maryland. It's my first geocoin, so I'm mostly releasing them as an experiment.

I went on what turned into a 4.7 mile walk today. First I looked for a geocache down by the harbor. It was a higher difficulty rating than I'm used to, and I didn't find it. Since I had these items to drop off, I persevered to a cache called "On the Rocks", where I dropped them off and picked up something called GA Cacher's mtn-man Admin Brick Geocoin. That, along with Free State Mover #2, will go to Austria with me tomorrow.

As you can see from the above map, I have now visited 3 counties in Maryland. I enjoy seeing the map fill in. As you can see from the below map, I had quite a walk around Bristol. I started out on the right, headed south, decided that the cache was probably north of the harbor, walked along the harbor, discovered I couldn't walk along the harbor the whole way, discovered the cache was on the south side of the harbor, went to the nearest bridge and cut back...and ultimately didn't find the cache. Then I headed up the hill to a point where I got the clue for the other cache, headed halfway down the hill to the cache, then all the way down the hill and back to the hotel.

Sunrise Over England

 

I had trouble sleeping on the flight over yesterday, so around 5 I opened my window to discover the most astonishing sunrise. I tried taking pictures, but they didn't really capture the full range of colors I saw. In a way that's comforting -- it was a nice experience, and apparently one I can't just get looking at pictures.

That Was Awful

Through the magic of TiVo, I just learned that Michigan lost to Appalachian State today. Without TiVo, I would have had to turn to a new story to be shocked that my alma mater had embarrassed itself by losing to Division I-AA App State. With TiVo, I got to watch three-and-a-half excruciating hours (OK, there was a lot of fast forwarding between plays), have the recording end with Michigan finally leading, and then go on-line to be shocked that Michigan blew the game in the last minute.

Sigh.

At least we can still win the Big Ten. But if we can't beat Division I-AA schools, I don't know whom we can beat. Michigan hasn't missed a bowl game since I started attending there (19 years ago this month); this could be the year.

Dead laptop

I'm typing this on Christina's laptop. My laptop, which had been displaying signs of sickness since the weekend, suddenly started giving an error message instead of booting up. Sigh. I suspect it's a busted hard drive. I really hope I'm correct since a) it's not nearly as expensive as buying a new laptop and b) I just bought a new hard drive on eBay today.

We bought two Dell laptops in the past two years. This is the second hard drive failure. If the new hard drive doesn't fix things, I will not be replacing it with another Dell. Maybe a Mac?

Anyway, many thanks to Christina for lending me the laptop. I think she just wants to be able to hear from me when I go to Europe next week. :-) There's a chance the new hard drive will arrive by Saturday, but I shouldn't get my hopes up.

Teddy enjoys a treat on his 15th birthday

Teddy enjoys a treat on his 15th birthday
Originally uploaded by jongrantham

Teddy's 15 today! Here we see him carefully inspecting the remains of a treat. 15 years is a long time for a dog, particularly one of his size, so we're proud dog owners today. He's been treated very well -- at least for the past 10.5 years -- and shows every sign of looking forward to 16.

It's Not About the Numbers

One of my latest amusements has been geocaching, which I've previously written about. I've only found 18 geocaches, but I've amused myself learning about the culture of the "sport". One aspect of this culture is denying the importance of statistical accomplishments (in simplest terms, who has found the most geocaches), while at the same time tracking these statistics obsessively.

In that spirit is the web site It's Not About the Numbers, which allows geocachers to slice and dice their statistics in a number of amusing ways. To see my full array of stats, go to that site and enter my geocaching handle (pseudoprime).

I am particularly fond of the maps, in particular the by-county map.


This map shows San Diego County (where we spent the summer), Santa Barbara County (where I went last week), two counties in Maryland (Prince George's and Montgomery), as well as a county each in Wyoming and Utah. I hit the latter two during one day on my cross-country drive. I like this map because it shows some progress, but there will almost always be a little more I could add to it...I could visit caches in several different Maryland counties without too much trouble, for example.

I'm off to England and Austria next week, so I hope to find some caches there. I bought a handful of "geocoins" this month. These are trackable items. I plan to release them in Europe with the mission to get back to Maryland and see how long it takes for them to get back here.

Santa Barbara

I think they're afraid of getting sued by tsunami victims. They made conference attendees sign a waiver about the beach bbq and pickup soccer game.

Go Skins

They're up 7-0, but Campbell and Washington got hurt.

Re-Cross Country

I tried to post Day 3 from Champaign, but the Internet crapped out right as I was about to post it. I wasn't thrilled with that motel in general. I think I've developed a new rule: never pay less than $50 for a hotel room.

Also: never try to drive across the country in four days. I'm exhausted, but home (for a couple more days).

I detoured about an hour out of my way to go through Champaign. I didn't want to drive through Chicagoland again...a) I've done it, b) traffic is ugly and c) Champaign seemed like a better place to find a hotel room. But it was a pretty boring drive. I look forward to a more leisurely road trip the next time I hit the highways.

Pennsylvania

I feel like I'm almost home.

Skyline chili

I was driving and thought...ooh, I'm in Ohio. I should go to that chili place...what was it called? Oh yeah , Skyline. But first I had to get gas. Fortunately, there was a Skyline next to the BP.

Re-Cross Country: Day 2

Well, today was a little bit of a boring I-80 day. I did manage to get in a little geocaching, and I learned an important lesson: don't buy cheeseburgers from truck stops. I've driven about 2 hours more than I did 2 years ago in 3 days, so I've been packing a lot in. But I'm halfway home! Tomorrow should be easier...it's my shortest day of driving, and I don't lose an hour to a time zone.

Wyoming

My first time in Wyoming. Sadly the timing didn't work for me to stay here tonight, so I can't cross it off my list.

Pony Express

I pulled off I80 and saw that I am on the trail of the Pony Express.

Re-Cross Country: Day 1

Well, I'm on my way back East. I can't stand to take exactly the same route twice, so this time it's mostly I-80. Today, however, was mostly I-15. I am planning to make this trip in 4 days (a record for me), so I only allowed myself about a 3 hour deviation from Google Maps' claim of the shortest route. Today this took me to the Microtel Salt Lake City. Microtel has won all sort of awards in the budget category, so I thought I'd give them a try. The room seems nice. Teddy's zonked out on the floor.

Other observations (with accompanying cell phone camera pictures)...

• Utah has a proper welcome center, unlike California and Nevada


• Every time I see Vegas, they've built something new. This time it's "THEHotel".
  
• Without rain, Southern California really misses out on rainbows. I had forgotten how much I missed them.
  

In Nevada

The welcome center is in an abandoned Mexican restaurant.

Hopefully I'm attaching pictures correctly now.

Barstow

In California, rest stops are in malls. Weird. Off to find lunch.

Ali Larter is Not Nearly As Hot in Person

 

OK, that's not actually Ali Larter, that's director Kevin Smith announcing yesterday at the Heroes panel at Comic-Con that he would be directing an episode of the new Heroes spin-off. Other announcements included the introduction of Maya, a hero from the Dominican Republic, and a hero from Lousiana. (The latter was mentioned in response to a question about whether they could have any strong female characters who weren't strippers or cheerleaders.)

We Got The Beat

We Got The Beat
Originally uploaded by jongrantham

Yesterday, we enjoyed the first day of Comic-Con. We got our picture taken with Jane Wiedlin, from the Go-Go's (and with one line in Star Trek IV). We also saw "The Pixar Story: To Infinity and Beyond", a documentary about the creators of Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and other fine animated films.

Kayaking La Jolla Cove

Kayaking La Jolla Cove
Originally uploaded by jongrantham

We had a good time Sunday morning kayaking La Jolla Cove. We did a tour with Scripps Aquarium, who provided several ocean experts to go along with the kayaking instructors. I veered between being amazed that we were up that early to being amazed that we weren't the people on the cliffs staring at the kayakers. It was a lot of fun, and we'll probably find an opportunity to kayak again.

Honorable Mention

For those of you not familiar with the Style Invitational, it's a weekly Washington Post humor contest that has been running for a long time (721 weeks, in fact). In Week 717, they "asked for Googlenopes, phrases that -- until now -- would yield no hits if entered within quotation marks on the Google search engine."

When reading the results, the thrill of seeing my name in print was tempered by a feeling of discomfort at seeing my name juxtaposed with the phrase "Angela Merkel porn".

At least I got a magnet out of it.

Hotel Days

When I stayed with my parents last weekend, I remarked on how nice it was to be saying goodbye to hotel living for the next 8 weeks. Life has come back to taunt me, however, as the sewage system has backed up at the place we are renting. Around 10 pm last night, with the plumber's snake stuck in the sewage pipe, we decided to check into a hotel. Today, plumbers are out excavating the front yard. When they said that they thought the pipe was broken, I extended our stay for another day.

Still, I can't complain about the free breakfast.

Cross-Country: Days 4 & 5

Well, my web site is finally back up, so I can publish my last tracks from the journey. The detour to see Ham the Astrochimp's grave allowed me to avoid having the GPS route me through El Paso. Instead, I saw parts of southern New Mexico that I had never been through. It was really pretty -- sort of like Arizona, but greener.

Connecting up with I-10, I tried to stop at a cafe in Las Cruces I had picked out. Apparently the recommendations I had read had some basis -- the place was packed at 1:30. Too packed to leave Teddy in the hot car while I got some takeout. Instead, I continued on to Deming, NM where I search the GPS for "taco" and ended up at Tacos Mirasol. Tasty.

Then I continued on to my parents', where I had dinner and spent a nice Father's Day. Sunday, I headed out again. I was sick of being on the road, so I didn't plan any stops. So now I've got the summer in La Jolla. Less travel, more relaxation, hopefully.

Testing phone blogging

Let's see if this works.

Ham

Greetings from Alamogordo, NM, where I just paid my respects to the world's first astrochimp.

Faces in the Crowd

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I enjoy visiting the web sites of conferences I've been to in order to see if I've been captured in photographs during the conference. Since I'm rarely aware of the pictures being taken, I'm always amused to see what I'm actually doing.

The organizers of last month's conference in Finland have posted some pictures. Since they haven't posted them publicly, I won't link to them here. Rather, I've cropped out the other conference-goers.

You can see me reading news taking careful notes during a lecture and sitting by the window at the conference dinner.

Cross-Country: Day 3

Here's the map from Day 3. "Giant Head" on the map is the aforementioned Giant Bo Pilgrim Head. The little check mark at the end of the day was my Escape from Texas. The second time I drove across the country, it took 2 or 3 days to get through Texas. (OK, the fact that Ben and I went to two amusement parks and a preseason football game probably had something to do with it.) Texas seems to go on forever, so anything I could do to cut some of it off made sense. The last little bit was actually fairly pleasant, as I got off the Interstate and into the lonely, desolate territory that I enjoy in the West. A little less desolate is Carlsbad, NM, from which I write this.

Cross-Country: Day 2

On the second day of my trip, I made it from Knoxville, TN almost all the way to Texas...in fact, all the way to Texarkana, AR.

My one stop of the day was, appropriately enough, the "One Stop Cafe" in Franklin, TN. I had two delicious pork bbq sandwiches from there.

Big Goofy Head

Big Goofy Head
Originally uploaded by jongrantham

In a special sequel to last year's Big Head Trilogy, here's a picture of me next to the Giant Bo Pilgrim Head in Pittsburg, Texas this morning.

Jeep liberty

23.27 mpg...much better than I expected.

Al Gore invented the interstate?!

(For what it's worth, his son never claimed to invent the Internet.)

Back In

That was quick. The desk clerk got "instructions" on how to get the door to work. Now I just have to see if I can carry all the stuff down in one go.

Locked Out

Greetings from the Super 8 Knoxville, where I'm locked out of my room. I got up, took a shower, and was enjoying a Vanilla Coke Zero while transferring some music from Christina's computer to mine when Teddy started to stir. I took him out, moved the car closer to the room, and tried to go back in. My card key didn't work.

At this point, I had to put Teddy back in the car. He was getting sick of the stairs, so I decided to get a new card key, pack up, and go. Unfortunately, the new card key didn't work. Neither did the desk clerk's master key. She's been very nice about all this, but I'm starting to get antsy. Teddy is in the car in a shady spot with plenty of water, and someone is supposed to be here in 5 minutes...

Cross-Country: Day 1

Greetings from Knoxville, TN. I'm too tired to post the pictures from today's trip, but here's the path I took. "Anawalt" is a town in West Virginia, named for my great-grandmother's cousin (or possibly uncle). I figured I wouldn't be within 200 miles of it again any time soon, so I drove through. I forgot how much I hate mountain driving.

Time to Make the Cava

Today's conference excurstion was to Codorníu Winery. Below you can see a video I took of the machinery being operated.



Here is another one.

La Sagrada Familia

When I was growing up, the Alan Parsons Project was one of my favorite music groups. I think anybody willing to do concept albums about Edgar Allan Poe or robots appealed to the nascent egghead in me. Their last album was Gaudi, which included songs about Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. One of these songs was "La Sagrada Familia", about the cathedral that Gaudi worked on for over 40 years prior to his death in 1926. The cathedral today is incomplete and still an active construction site.

I got into Barcelona yesterday, and the cathedral was my first stop. The jaded traveler through Europe can experience cathedral fatigue, where one cathedral looks a lot like the previous one. La Sagrada Familia is different. It looks unlike anything else on the planet. One factor is that it is newer than most European cathedrals. In particular, it is part of the Catalan "Modernisme" architecture movement (apparently equivalent to "Art Noveau") rather than the standard Gothic or Neoclassical cathderal. The architecture is much more influenced by the natural world than any other church I've seen.

I got there just in time to take the guided tour in English, which was a fairly interesting overview. The highlight, however was the elevator ride to the top of one of the towers and the subsequent walk down, which gave close-up views of the amazing detail on the cathedral facades. In fact, my only regret is that I didn't end up going up the other tower right after that. I blame jetlag for the error in judgement.

Enjoy the photo album below.

La Sagrada Familia

Places Visited

Now that I've been to Estonia and Spain, it's time to update my map of places visited. Previously, I had only been considering places visited as places where I had spent the night. That seemed a little ridiculous when I had a quite substantial day trip to Estonia. Would it have been more substantial if I had just gone overnight and not done any sightseeing? So I'm revising my criterion to an overnight stay or a significant travel experience. Here's the resulting Europe map:



Map generated by World66.com

Based on my new criterion, I'm counting New Hampshire as a visited state, since Christina and I went skiing there with my cousin Ian. Here's the new US map:


Map generated by World66.com

40 down...10 to go. I think I'll make it to 43 by the end of the summer. At that point I might have to consider trips specifically to fill out the map...

And, just for completeness, here's my world map...


Map generated by World66.com

Estonia

Greetings from Spain. The previous weekend, I took a day trip from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia. It was a lot of fun...Tallinn is set up very well for such day trips. Enjoy the photo album below; I have integrated my description of the trip as photo captions.

Click here for photo album

business class

You have a Picture Mail from jongrantham

Naantali

Click here to view album

I've been trying to figure out the best way to blog pictures. Flickr, which I used for the previous post, seems to be good for individual pictures. I didn't like the way it worked for sets of pictures, though (especially since free accounts are limited to 3 sets). So I switched to Picasaweb (by Google). If you click on the album above, my comments about yesterday's conference excursion to Naantali are included in the picture album.

Finland Has It All

Pizza Menu (red ovals added by me)

Christina has observed that every country besides the US offers tuna pizza. Finland is no exception.

I don't like the idea of tuna on pizza, but I did eat at this place yesterday. Turku, for whatever reason, is lousy with kebab/pizza places. It seems like an odd combination to me, but I'm sure there's a reason for it.

I used to observe, while driving around rural America, that there always seemed to be combination video stores and tanning salons. I never knew why until later, when I read an article in the Washington Post. It turns out that several years earlier, at a convention of independent video store owners, someone made a presentation about ways to expand video businesses to include tanning salons. The idea caught on like wildfire.

Perhaps years ago there was a similar event at a Finnish kebab convention...

PS I had the falafel, which was drenched in the kind of red sauce I've come to recognize as the Hallmark of bad food across Europe. Same with my burrito today.