Year: 2009

I Heart Digital TV

Because I live in South Carolina and not too far from Georgia the local cable system carries two Public Broadcasting stations, one from each state. Both these two stations, along with almost all the other local broadcasters, changed over to digital broadcasting this last Tuesday the 17th, as originally planned.

Now I don’t watch much TV period, so as a corollary I don’t watch much Public Television. Occasionally there would be something I would like to see there, but could never bring myself to watch it. You see both stations are fairly low powered affairs and the signal picked up by the cable company was, to put it mildly, crap, so the picture was mostly snow. Now that the digital era has dawned, the two public broadcasting stations are coming in almost crystal clear, so I might have to again start looking into what these stations have to offer.

While we are chatting about TV, we went out to dinner with friends tonight and didn’t make it home in time to see Terminator:The Sarah Conner Chronicles, so I’m downloading the torrent right now. We were home in time to see Dollhouse and I didn’t bother. I’ve said it here before and I’ll say it again, both Donna and I loved Firefly, but couldn’t stand Buffy or Angel. Sorry Joss, but we are adding Dollhouse to the list of Couldn’t Stands. I know last week I said I would give it time and perhaps if the internet buzz was huge and critics were claiming it as the best new thing on TV since, well, the last best new thing, I might, but they’re not, so I’m not.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 126

Signature Item

The other day I hunted up some scrap valve parts to put in the hundreds of caches we were going find because this ‘sport’ < sarcasm on > seems so easy. < sarcasm off > Well, what I thought was cool, my geocaching partner, who incidentally found the only one we have found so far, after I had given up, thought it was crap.

Back to the drawing board.* Master machinist and follow LOST devotee Mark (Hi Mark) had an idea, there were these little aluminum slugs that were in the same scrap bin, he could engrave something cool on it using one of our CNC machines.

*I love saying that, me being a draftsman and all, because I actually used to literally have go back to the drawing board.

Behold our new Signature Item – names on one side, the coordinates of downtown Aiken on the other:

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 126

Oh Crap

There are some nasty looking thunder storm cells headed our way. That is bad on so many levels. First they could bring heavy rains, strong winds and possibly spawn tornadoes. Second, because they are dangerous the local weather guys will be breaking into programing to keep us informed of there progress and that will mean they might interrupt TDTVS. We can’t just not watch it, what will we talk about at work tomorrow around the water cooler? Or third the storms might knock out the power here or in Augusta or the cable and then we’d miss the show entirely.

I had a really cool idea to that involved mixing up a photo rally I did several years back and geocaching to create an event for the MMC. I would give them a set of coordinates to go to where they would find a cache that held another set of coordinates to another cache for another of coordinates which would send them to a restaurant for lunch. Sounds kind of cool, but when I went to my GPS receiver to enter coordinates, there was no place where I could do that. I could get directions to an already entered waypoint, but where is the fun in that, if everyone kows where they are going. Are all GPSs like that? If so, that kind of kills this idea.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 125

Happy Birthday Alex

Today is Alex Ringer’s birthday. Who is Alex Ringer you might ask, I’m not rightly sure. I get a email invite from him each year to take an Enchanted Ceiling photo on the 17th of February and upload it. He also sends me a reminder at the end of December to take a photo on the last day of the year and then on the first day for submission to the Enchanted Ceiling site too and like the lemming I am I do. Above is my 2009 birthday photo for him.

Uh oh, look at the category for this post. That’s right somehow we have been sucked into this cult. While we did manage to agree not to go to the local geocaching “club” meeting last night, today I spent several minutes poking around in the company’s scrap bins looking for small valve parts to leave in the caches that we do find (instead of green lifesavers) and Donna is already declared that we are going to find at least 10 caches when we go on vacation to the American Southwest in April. The MMC has a breakfast meeting in Waynesboro, GA this Saturday and I spent a half an hour tonight downloading coordinates of the four caches near there into the GPS and printing out the instruction pages for them.

Well, were almost done photographing all the Post Offices in South Carolina…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 123

Cache

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 122

Animal Diaries

The Dog’s Diary

8:00 am – Dog food! My favorite thing!

9:30 am – A car ride! My favorite thing!

9:40 am – A walk in the park! My favorite thing!

10:30 am – Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!

12:00 pm – Milk bones! My favorite thing!

1:00 pm – Played in the yard! My favorite thing!

3:00 pm – Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!

5:00 pm – Dinner! My favorite thing!

7:00 pm – Got to play ball! My favorite thing!

8:00 pm – Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!

11:00 pm – Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

The Cat’s Diary

Day 983 of my captivity.

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.

The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet. Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates my capabilities. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a “good little hunter” I am. Bastards!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of “allergies.” I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow, but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released, and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded. The bird must be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe.

For now…

Editor’s Note: Looks like dogs Twitter & cats blog.

Close

We went for a walk in Hitchcock Wodds today, not just any walk either, it was our inaugural attempt at geocaching. I had loaded about 7 geocaches into the GPS, but we printed out the instructions for one that was accessible from a road that took us to a woods entrance for start. I started down Coker Springs road, even after it turned to dirt (well, actually mud with yesterday’s rain), but stopped a hundred yards down when I came to a berm across the road that looked high enough to strand a Miata. So I backed up the hill to pavement and parked.

We walked back down the road with the GPS in hand and it led us right to the Coker Spring House. We were right there, but after 5 minutes of fruitless searching, we were close, the GPS was reading under 10 feet away at times. I talked Donna into stop looking, go for a walk in the woods and try again on the way out because we had to pass right by there.

About a half mile into the woods I looked at the GPS for the next closest cache and it showed one about a half mile away, but the direction it was in was straight down a trail that had become a shallow stream because of the rain. Next closest was .9 miles away, so we opted to try and find that instead. Trying to follow the directional arrow on the GPS and stay on a trail that took us in the right direction was interesting. When we got within a 1/4 mile we realized that the cache was on the other side of a swamp area and the only way to get to it to go in 3/4 mile circle around the wetland. Close, but because we had already gone almost 2 miles, with about a mile to go to get back to the car, we decided to save that one for another day.

On the way back we took a slight detour to try and find the second cache because we were coming from a drier direction. Until we got close. A short squishy walk on Sand River and the GPS pointer locked hard left – up a 15′ cliff like bank. Retreat down river and then a short walk along the trail (current stream) led to a trail that took us to where the cache should be. With the GPS reading distances in the single digits we milled about for awhile and I lobbied for moving on, Donna would have nothing of it. And it was as if she knew she was that close, because less than a half minute later she shouted, “I got it.”

Fresh from our success we tried for the Coker Springs cache again and another 5-10 minutes of beating bushes resulted in a no find again.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 121