Caching After Work

 
I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and long day to do some geocaching after work. I had been holding on to a travel bug for three months, which is about two-and-half months longer than is polite. So I decided to head out to a cache I had my eye on near Lake Artemesia, an artificial lake a couple of miles from home. I walked partway around the lake, then veered off on a trail towards the cache. Unfortunately, it was the wrong trail, and I soon found myself about 300 feet away from the cache, on the wrong side of a river. You can see my false start on this screen capture from Google Earth -- I now figured out how to put my GPS tracks in that, which I think is much cooler than the mapping program I had been using.
 

I backtracked (it would have been helpful to use Google Earth before caching) and headed up the correct trail, but it was getting dark. I realize the following details (and accompanying picture) represent a geocaching spoiler, but I don't think any of my reader will actually be looking for this cache. I wanted to give people an idea of what's involved in hunting these things. The clue said "hollow tree", and sure enough, I found a hollow tree about 30 or so feet from where the cache was supposed to be. Between the inaccuracy in my GPS readings and the inaccuracy in the readings of whoever placed the cache, the tree seemed a likely candidate. But I looked inside the hollow and saw nothing cache-like, so I went on. My GPS receiver, however, told me I was getting farther away. So I went back to the tree. This time I used the light on the keychain Christina gave me. Sure enough, there was a stick-like thing in the hollow that looked un-natural. I poked it first to make sure it wasn't something weird. When it didn't respond, I pulled out the camouflaged tube (pictured) that represented the cache. I thought this was a fairly tricky find...and this only rated '2' out of '5' on the difficulty scale. I can see why I may have missed some caches in the past. This did not look like the Tupperware container I was expecting to find. I suppose now I'll have a better idea of what to look for in future cache finds. I was barely able to get the travel bug (a shell with an tag attached) inside the tube, and I made it back to my car about a minute after sundown. According to the GPS receiver, almost exactly and hour and 2.4 miles of walking. Not bad.

A True Washington Monument

 
Christina, her cousin and I went into DC on Sunday. We saw many monuments, but none was as appropriate for the city we were visiting as this one, a monument to a 1990s reorganization at the USDA. I have seen executives proud of their reorganizations, but never before one worthy of a monument.

<15 seconds of fame

Although I enjoy Tony Kornheiser's radio show, he has been driving me crazy with his speculations about the Democratic primaries. "If Hillary keeps winning states, why doesn't she have a shot?"

On Tuesday, while listening to him wonder what Hillary would get for all of the delegates she has accumulated, and knowing that Tony is a fan of Glenngarry Glen Ross, I thought of a way to put it in terms he might appreciate.

Have a listen.

Earthcaching Banff

Since Christina and I had previously visited Banff, I figured I was under no pressure to "see the sights" yesterday on my free afternoon. So I decided to do some geocaching, which led me to sights I would not have ordinarily seen.

I actually found one geocache on Sunday -- about 50 feet from the conference site. After failing to release Free State Mover #3 in Puerto Rico, Malaysia, Singapore, England and Turkey, I finally set it free. It should have an easier task of getting back to Maryland than its European predecessors.
 
In a previous post, I claimed that "virtual" caches had been eliminated. That's not entirely true -- there is a special type remaining: the Earthcache. Unlike the old virtual caches, which could be of anything the submitter found interesting, Earthcaches have to teach something about geoscience, and it has to be approved by the Geological Society of America. This approach seems like a good compromise -- it allows caches in sensitive areas where you can't put a physical cache, but it limits their proliferation to educational sites.

The first cache I visited yesterday was, in fact, an Earthcache. It was the Banff Upper Hot Springs. Christina and I had visited there, so I didn't feel a need to bathe in the springs this time. Good thing -- paramedics were treating a woman, and the line of people waiting to get in the pool was backing up.
 
My second cache was another Earthcache and another set of hot springs. As it turns out, this set of hot springs is no longer open for bathing, but it is an important place in Canadian history. When trying to figure out what to do with the springs, the Canadian government decided that they should be publicly owned. This decision eventual led to the establishment of Canada's first national park.
 
Looking for another cache, I was led to my third Earthcache of the day, Limestone Hoodoos in Banff. A hoodoo is a particular geological formation (pictured) created by uneven erosion of sediment. After taking some pictures, I headed out down the Hoodoo Trail. A sign said that walk was 1 km and about half an hour. I turned around when I reached 1.55 km (as the crow flies) -- I'm not sure what the 1 km represented.
 
I decided the day of geocaching wouldn't be complete without finding a physical cache, so I headed to Jumpin' Johnson Lake. The cache was about one-quarter of the way around the lake, but I continued to walk the whole way around. While walking, I was listening to a geocaching podcast where they had a call from a listener who had reached 500 caches about two months of caching. Given that yesterday's haul of 4 matched my all-time high, I am clearly in a different category from people like that. (I'm at 49 total after 14 months.) But I'd rather use geocaching as a jumping off point -- I wouldn't have come to Johnson Lake without it. As a result, I got some nice scenery and some much-needed exercise.

I almost got more exercise than I bargained for. As I had almost completed my circumnavigation of the lake, the trail dead-ended at the lake. I was afraid I was going to have to go all the way back around. First, however, I tried doubling back and seeing if I had taken the wrong fork. As I got on a more promising path, I noticed a rushing steam that would block a walk around the lake. Fortunately, a few minutes later, I saw the bridge that would allow me to complete my hike.

Hockey Night in Canada

 
Even though the meals here are included with my room rate, I haven't been able to bring myself to hit the dining hall for dinner. Last night, I walked into town with the goal of watching Canadians watch hockey, as well as grabbing a buffalo burger. Less than a block after reaching Banff's main drag, I found a bar that was showing the game (in fact, showing the Red Wing's first goal) and advertising a special on buffalo burger. On the other hand...there were no customers in the bar. I kept going.
  Bruno's looked more likely. There were a handful of people in there watching the game. After a check of the menu determined the availability of buffalo burger, I headed inside. As it turned out, there was one vocal Red Wings fan inside; the rest of the patrons had the grim air of people watching a bunch of foreign teams contest the championship of their national sport. At one point, the Red Wings fan started yelling at the TV when Wayne Gretzky appeared -- though I doubted his claim that he was now better than Gretzky at hockey. Other than that, the highlight was when the drunk French Canadian a couple of barstools down from me tipped over and smashed into the floor. After the manager determined there was no need for an ambulance, he told the guy's buddy they had to leave.

By the end of the 2nd period, the Red Wings were up 4-0, a microphone stand had appeared in the bar, and even the Red Wings fan had decamped for the sushi place next door. It was time to leave, so I walked to an ice cream shop that was foolish enough to accept the US dollar at par, and then headed back to my room.

Deer Prudence

Last night I headed out from my room to the "general store" at the Banff Centre. I had a less than thrilling day -- most recently, I had discovered that the phone in my room reeked of beer.

When I opened the door to the building, I saw two deer grazing not fifteen feet away. Suddenly my mood improved. I continued on to the store. I figured that the deer would be gone by the time I got back. Instead, there were now three deer. I rushed back to my room, dropped off my purchases, and grabbed my camera. When I came out, there was an employee talking to someone. I walked past him to take a picture of the deer (there were now two). The employee then advised me that it was safer to take the pictures behind glass.

He said that the deer ordinarily would just run away, but when they were in an enclosed space, they might just try to run through you. He said they knew what [pretends to aim gun] meant, and it was pretty similar to [pretends to aim camera].

As I headed inside to take the second picture below, I heard him say to the other guy, "Of course, back in the Yukon, we get a deer this close, it's dinner time."

 

 

I Have a Canadian Stamp in My Passport, Part Two

Six years ago (to the day!), I posted about finally getting a Canadian stamp in my passport after years of disappointment. I assumed that the stamping had something to do with Quebecois particularism. But last night, when I arrived in Calgary, they stamped my passport (without my having to ask). I changed passports 5 years ago, so I now have a stamp in my new passport. This new passport has been neglected by Calgary (2003) and Vancouver (2006) as well, so I have no idea why it got stamped. Either the Canadians have tightened things up, or it was at the whim of the guy with the stamp.

About two-and-a-half years ago, I sent my passport in for additional pages. They tripled the size of my passport. There is not always a clear reason for where officials choose to stamp, but they have uniformly avoided the third section. As the passport has gotten more crowded, the officials are more likely to stamp on the first "available" page, although each official has a different definition of "available".

Pages 8-12 have been completely filled up (1-7 are not for stamps). Then we switch to letters (the way they added the new pages is a little strange). A-C were full, and now the guy in Calgary finished off D. There's one space in E -- we'll see if that's the next one to go -- two on F, then it's pretty full until we get to L (though I bet the Brits would be willing to squeeze a stamp or two in). I despair whether there'll be a chance to finish it up through X and move on to the other new section before 2013.

Sign of the Times

 

Reap What You Sow

"For the second time in three days, Sen. Hillary Clinton told reporters that the pledged delegates awarded based on vote totals in their state are not bound to abide by election results."

-- CNN, March 26.

"Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson, a Democratic convention delegate pledged to support Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, said yesterday...that he now plans to support Obama at the August convention."

-- Washington Post, May 13.

Free State Mover #1: Back to England

Despite my fears, the Free State Mover #1 geocoin I dropped off in Bristol last September was not lost in Wales. After a three month stay in a cache there, it moved across the border to a cache in England. Still no progress towards Maryland, but it's better than being lost.

By coincidence, Christina and I were about 10 miles away in 2006, so I have some idea what the area's like.

At least this time Bush isn't exploiting 9/11 for political purposes...

"Even the 9/11 angel memorial on Crawford’s Main road is dressed up for the wedding party. The Steel cut-out has a wedding veil on top and a bouquet of flowers."

Christina and I independently saw coverage of this on CNN and were amazed both at the tastelessness of this, and how it was presented as part of a, "gosh, aren't the wedding preparations cute?" What, there was no Holocaust memorial handy to put a tux on?



Clearly, no one in the Bush family was directly responsible for this decoration. Just as clearly, no one had the decency or respect for the dead to get it taken down.

An Open Letter to Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

I tried sending the following to the e-mail address listed on Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's web site, but it got bounced back. So I'm posting it here as an open letter.

-----
Dear Ms. Townsend:

I'm not usually in the habit of taking advice from Peggy Noonan columns. But according to her column today, a Democratic superdelegate said that you are one of the few people who can convince Senator Clinton that the primary race needs to come to a close.

In yesterday's USA Today, Senator Clinton referred to "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans". Whether intentionally or not, this statement is the ugliest playing of the race card I've seen at the national level in years. To give you an idea of how ugly things have gotten, google "white, hard-working". The first three hits are references to her comments. The fourth is a petition for the "National Socialist American Workers Party".

As a recently selected superdelegate, you have the power to begin to help heal these ugly divisions. As a fellow Marylander and someone who has voted for you multiple times, I urge you to endorse Senator Obama.

Respectfully,
Jon Grantham
University Park, MD

Shanghai and Barcelona

Shanghai and Barcelona -- places I went in December 2006 and May 2007, respectively. Places my geocoin Free State Generic #2 went last month. When I last updated you, it had headed from Virginia to Beijing. From Beijing, it went to Shanghai. From there, it took an unexpected trip to Barcelona. It looks like the person who transported it logged it into a cache there just to record its travel, since he immediately logged it out again. It'll be interesting to see where this one ends up next.

Istanbul Virtual

When I was in Istanbul a couple of weeks ago, I didn't expect to do any geocaching. First, there aren't any "normal" caches within 10 miles of the city center. Second, Turkey wasn't a country where I felt super-comfortable rummaging around for hidden containers.

The only two caches near where I was staying were virtual caches, which as I've mentioned before is a now-obsolete form of a cache that contains no physical container. I had no expectation of finding either one -- one was on the Asian side of Istanbul, and the other was at a bridge connecting the two sides. Since I had no plans to go to Asia, how could I find them?

As it turns out, our conference excursion included a cruise on the Bosphorous. I turned on my GPS, and was wondering how close we'd get to the cache at the bridge. After all, it was a one-hour cruise, and I knew we had to turn around at some point.



As you can see from the tracking, I got pretty darn close! In fact, by the standards of virtual caches, that counts as a find! It's kind of neat that the cache essentially was our turn-around point.

I snapped this picture of myself at the cache location.



This find does nice things for my countries-cached-in map. (Click for the full-size version, where you can see I get credit for Singapore and Puerto Rico.)



Unfortunately, finding a virtual cache means I don't have a chance to drop off any geocoins. I plan to take care of that next month in Canada.

Do You Think...

Here in Prince George's County, we're watching the opening of the huge new National Harbor development. Prince George's County tends to have a bit of a chip on its shoulder about the lack of high-end development. National Harbor, across the Potomac from Alexandria, is supposed to change all this, with its giant convention center, hotels, restaurants, etc.

Unfortunately, one of the first things that happened after they opened is a bunch of people got sick with norovirus. Not good PR.

The next thing that happened was repeated sightings of mice in the rooms and hallways. Yesterday USA Today posted this gem from a National Harbor spokeswoman:

She says potential guests worried about mice should book a room close to the river (because most complaints involved rooms near the back where mice apparently got in through holes unwittingly left during construction). And she says that on request "a team will go into a room" before a guest's arrival and inspect it, down to the heating and air conditioning ducts, to make sure no pesky mice are there.

Hey, not every hotel offers to check the room for mice before you check in. "Would you like a no mice room?"

It was in this context I read a Washington Post article this morning on "how the deal was done". It mentioned none of the above problems. About ten paragraphs in, however, I got to the part that almost made me spit out my tea:

The history of the site, once an Indian burial ground, made the land even richer.

Seriously? They built it on an Indian burial ground, and they thought that was a good thing? Is anybody going to be surprised if National Harbor is next visited by a plague of frogs?

Give Up Already!

No, not Hillary. I'm talking about the media. As the Democratic nominating process drags on (and on and on...), it becomes more and more clear that the media is looking for a way to keep alive the idea that Hillary might win. Why? Entertainment value? I'm not sure.

Consider the following passage from today's Washington Post:

Clinton expects victories in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico. Obama's team expects to win Oregon, North Carolina, Montana, South Dakota and Guam. That makes Indiana the critical battleground.

No, it doesn't. Looking at Wikipedia, WV, KY and PR combine to offer 134 pledged delegates. Let's assume Hillary wins those primaries by 10% and wins the delegates by a similar proportion. The latter is a reasonable assumption, but the delegate selection rules are a little bit wacky. Obama has been a little bit better about figuring them out, but it probably won't matter here. That would give her a 74-60 advantage (rounding in her favor). Similarly, let's give Obama a 10% advantage in "his" primaries, which are worth a total of 202 delegates. That's fairly generous to Hillary, since he has racked up bigger margins of victory, on average, so far. That puts him ahead with those delegates 111-91 (again rounding in her favor).

So we come to Indiana. Let's again give her the "decisive" 9% victory she got in Pennsylvania. (You may have thought it was 10%, but the media don't understand rounding.) This time we'll round in Obama's favor, which means she ends up winning the Indiana delegates 39-33.

So if Hillary wins the one remaining "battleground", then she'll end up with 204 delegates. Obama, on the other hand, would get...204 delegates. Wow, that just shows how close the race is, doesn't it?

Except it's not. Obama has a lead of about 130 delegates even including Hillary's slight edge in superdelegates. These figures would get him about 100 delegates away from the nomination, with about 300 superdelegates left to endorse. Who thinks more than two-thirds of the superdelegates would be willing to ignore Obama's lead in pledged delegates? Who thinks more than two-thirds of the superdelegates would vote for Hillary even if everything else was tied?

The Washington Post isn't the only offender. Time calls Indiana the "next stop". What about North Carolina, which votes the same day? Well, it's a smaller state, right? Uh, no. Well, it has fewer delegates because of wacky rules, right? Uh, no. It has 43 more. Well, it doesn't count because it's not going to vote for the Democrats in the fall. Hmm, according to the same Time article, "[Indiana]'s a state that hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964..." North Carolina at least voted for Carter in '76.

So basically Indiana matters because it has the most dramatic tension. Just remember: none of this coverage is about who is going to be the nominee (it's Obama). All of it is about giving the news media something to talk about for the next two weeks.

Stuck in my hotel...

...and enjoying every minute of it.

I got in to my hotel in Istanbul about 7pm yesterday after an interminable taxi ride through pollution and traffic. Since I have today free, I called the concierge to see about arranging some sort of tour. I figured I'd be happier in a bus (hopefully air-conditioned) than walking around and breathing pollution.

No luck. The "Tour of Turkey" bicycle race is starting today, so the roads around the hotel are closed. They could put me on a Bosphorus cruise at 1, but since the conference tour includes a Bosphorus cruise, I think I'll pass. I've spent the past 7 days working, traveling, or both. The conference opening reception is tonight, so I will technically be working tonight, but otherwise a day to relax doesn't sound too bad.

My hotel room is very nice. The desk clerk apologized for not being able to upgrade me to the executive floor, so they gave me a corner room (and free breakfasts). One window has a view of some allegedly fashionable neighborhood of Istanbul, and the other looks out on the Bosphorus. I slept very soundly, despite an excessively firm bed and dragged myself downstairs before the breakfast buffet closed at 11. I plan to spend the rest of the day ensconced in the room enjoying the Internet connection.

Hilton Istanbul

Off to China

No, not me. It's another one of my geocoins. I released Free State Generic #1 and #2 just to have something to release. Free State Generic #1 is, appropriately, trekking around Maryland. Free State Generic #2, for some reason, I released in Virginia. Then, for some reason, someone grabbed it and took it to just outside of Beijing. Oh, well. I hope they love Maryland over in China.

The Merchant of Venice

Stratford

Today eight of us headed to Stratford-upon-Avon to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform The Merchant of Venice. We had dinner in a pub first and then went to the play. I had never seen or read the play. Beforehand, one of my colleagues commented that it was anti-Semitic. I promised to explain afterwards why it wasn't.

Of course, afterwards, I realized it was. I had a fairly tenuous argument that I decided not to push. Nevertheless, I'm sure someone has retold the story from the standpoint of Shylock; I think that could be a fairly sympathetic story about how the Venetians subverted the justice system to deprive him of his property and force him to convert to Christianity. It would, at least, be historically accurate.

The play was good. Not great, but good. Some of the actors seemed sub-par, but others were excellent. Still, it was hard to beat as a way to spend an evening in this part of the UK.

I took a few pictures; please enjoy.

Driving around the Czech Republic...

No, I'm not the one driving around the Czech Republic. My geocoin is.



Yes, despite my instruction that the coin wants to return to America (instructions I'm happy to see made it into the picture), the coin is still bouncing around Bohemia seven months later, as you can see from the picture below. (Note that the lines leading east are from its brief trip to Kazakhstan). Maybe I overestimated the frequency with which geocachers cross borders.

Despite being in Europe currently myself, I have no plans to drop off any more coins. Based on a brief search, the caches near my hotel here in the UK are either too small or annoying to find. There are very few caches in Istanbul, and I don't feel comfortable digging them up.