Month: June 2010

It’s Digital Cable Month 2010

Stopped off at the cable place on the way home from work today. Saturday the Tour de France starts and to get Versus, the network that carries the race, we have to upgrade to the Digital Plus tier. It costs and extra $20, but it is worth it for the three weeks of Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwin narrating the bike race and watching the beautiful French countryside glide by. While my CSR was filling out the “paperwork” I picked up a channel guide and noticed something called “Value HD” which offers most of the usual cable channel’s HD versions. I asked her how much more would that be, $4.95 came the reply. What the heck, we have a HDTV this year, it’ll be worth the extra five spot to try it out.

We got home and quickly realized that we had no real place to put converter box. It is a lot larger than last year’s model which fit on top of the tube TV. At first I figured I’d place the flat screen TV on top of the converter box, but it was full of holes for cooling and I didn’t want to melt the TV’s plastic base. Even if there was room, I couldn’t place the box sideways because there were holes there as well. Next we thought that we could just place it on the floor in front of the armoire, it’s only for a month. I doubted the remote would work with it there without having to hold it high over our heads to get the proper angle to clear the coffee table. Didn’t matter, the cables weren’t long enough. It ended up on the empty shelf to the left of the surround sound/DVD player, the only down side to this is we have to keep that door open when watching TV. Small price to pay.

The remote they gave me didn’t match the instruction sheet they gave me, so at first I couldn’t program the cable remote to operate the TV. That meant we now needed two remotes, one for channels and one for volume. I did a internet search for the model number of the remote and found several helpful sites that would offer me the manual – for a fee… But then I decided to RTFM and there on page 3 of the cable company’s booklet were instructions for the remote. Now we are making progress.

I then started surfing through the HD channels and of the approximately 40 available it seemed like every 4th or 5th was viewable. That’s no good. So I then checked to see if we could get Versus, the whole reason for getting the converter box, and we could (unfortunately it isn’t offered in HD though.)

As always the Digital Plus comes free with the half dozen of each Encore and Starz movie channels. I checked them out seeing if I could find something to watch and as I surfed them I kept on going past and discovered that I could also watch all the premium channels, HBO, Cinemax & Showtime.

So, should call and complain about the missing HD channels and take the chance that when they correct that they will also yank the free premium movie channels? or should I keep my mouth shut and enjoy the movies and learn to live without the missing 2/3s of HD channels?

Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 710

More Bread Crumbs

On Sunday evening the cache owner of the Bread Crumb Series received 3 emails from me. The first one was was sent using the contact form on geocaching.com to let him know that we couldn’t make out the coordinate snippet in #3:

My wife and I re-did the Bread Crumb Series this morning (explanation coming via a log later) and the coords on #3 are totally unreadable, so all we have for the North Augusta final are:
N33? _ _.006
W081? _ _.892
Could you fill us in on what the correct minutes are?

Thanks, Brian

P.S. The black paint on the #3 container is flaking off in your hands when you hold it. #6 was full of water, but the log was OK in its baggie. We cleaned out the the soggy stuff and dried off the unaffected items.

The next one he would have got would have been the automatic email generated as a cache owner when ever anyone logs a Found or DNF on one of his caches. This is what I wrote in the log for the Greenwood final:

We did the bread crumb series in November and when we got to the final location in Greenwood it was muggle city. We came back 2 months later (New Years Day actually), had the place to ourselves and made the find. Didn’t know it had a GC number that could be logged on geocaching.com. We thought that was kind of weird, but we were new enough to geocaching that we figured sometimes that happens with these bonus caches. After all it is not about the numbers, it is about the hunt. Right?;)

Last week, while researching caches to do along the North Augusta Greenway, I found one at the far end from where we have been looking called, End of the trail ‘North Augusta’, and right there in the description it said: “This is the North Augusta end cache for my bread crumbs series # 1-6. You need the clues from each of the containers in that series to hunt this cache and the one in Greenwood.”

HUH!?!? So I searched in Greenwood for something called “End of the trail” and sure enough there is the other one….you do get credit for finding the final caches in the Bread Crumb series. We’ve been robbed! We have more finds than we thunk!

So today, because we had tossed out the coordinates for this hide (having already found it), we headed to Greenwood re finding all 6 of the Bread Crumb series on our way. When we arrived at GZ we had the place to ourselves again and after a spider web busting walk, made the grab for the second time in 6 months. Opened it up expecting to look back and see our siggy, but a new log sheet was started in February. With no proof we had actually been here back in January, I signed the new one with today’s date. Which, when you think about it, works out OK because now I can log it online today as well.

After I logged the find, I used the contact form again to make a couple suggestions that might be helpful to people like me in finding out the names of the two final caches:

Maybe it is just us because we were are sort of new when we first ran into the Bread Crumbs, but we didn’t know that the two finals for the series had GC numbers and were loggable on geocaching.com.

It might be helpful if you plugged them (with name & GC#) in the descriptions of the 6 bread crumbs caches like you do for your other caches along the way.

I don’t know if you can rename an already published cache, but it would help them turn up in a keyword search on geocaching.com if you could put the words “Bread Crumb” in between “End of” & “Trail…” in the titles.

I’m not sure which one, or if it was a combnination of all three, but I pierced someone’s thin skin. Within an hour I received this scathing stream of conciousness email back from the cache owner:

well I am sorry my bread crumb finals were not to your approval. how ever if you read the whole discription in #’s 1-6 they tell of the two end caches BY NAME.And since you are the only one that has complained of the name and that you could not figure out the bonus caches then I will have to conclude that it might be you. I’m sorry if this comes off alittle abrasive but I have already had a big mouth cacher that did not approve of my final containers. And I am going to say the same thing to you I said to him. I paid for all of the items for these caches as well as the means to put them out from NA to Greenwood, I don’t remember anyone else helping me with either of those.To that end I am not going to rename my caches and further more not reading the cache descriptions is not my fault as well. I have 49 hides as of right now which 48 are active. I put these caches out to further the sport and for cachers like you. I don’t do it for my benifit. So yes I do take it personal when someone has a complaint. If you read any log that I have ever wrote you will not find anything in them that I have said that would be disrespectful. I have done some caches that were great and some that I thought really sucked but I would never ever post that nor would I ever tell the cache owner of it. I have 620 finds I see you have 400 plus, that is enough finds under your belt to have a damn good grasp on how this game works. So please read the cache pages before you complain to me about one of my caches. And again I appologise if this offends you but I take my caching very serious. If you need the coords to an end cache please fill free to email me again but it looks like you got it figured out……..kaboyd

WOW! He tells me three times that the final caches are there in his Bread Crumb descriptions, but I’m betting he hasn’t looked in a while, ’cause both Donna and I have read all 6 cache descriptions multiple times and there is nothing there. Maybe they were in the very beginning and he edited the descriptions and somehow dropped any mention or he is thinking of his other series, Cacher’s Dash which does mention the final by name. Rather than respond in kind and counter his diatribe point by point, I decided to try my polite best and replied back with this:

kaboyd,

The trouble with electronic communication is that you cannot see the expression on a person’s face, nor hear the infliction of their voice and it is sometimes easy to misinterpret what is being said. I am sorry if anything I wrote via email or posted in the log for the Greenwood final upset you in any way.

I never meant to imply that I was unhappy with the series, *or* the final caches. As a matter of fact we think the Bread Crumb Series is one of the top series in the area. Each hide is well thought out, evenly spaced mileage-wise with nice spots for parking nearby. The caches are just far enough into the woods so you wouldn’t be seen while you hunt them and with the containers being the same, you know just what you are looking for. As a bonus the route is a 2-lane road through almost entirely undeveloped land, making for a very enjoyable drive.

My only complaint was that I didn’t know the finals were actual caches with CG numbers on geocahing.com. I re read each description in full this morning and while the finals are mentioned, no names or GC numbers are given. Here is a direct copy of the descriptions:

This is a small lock type container camo painted that contains a log book and a pen. It is big enough for some small trade items. These caches are in the woods so be careful.

I designed the Bread Crumbs series #1-6 to lead cachers from North Augusta to Greenwood or Greenwood to North Augusta. In either location there are many very good caches that you can goto once you have reached which ever city you are heading for. On each container you will find clues for two finishing caches. One is in North Augusta the other is in Greenwood. you must complete the series # 1-6 in order to find either final cache. Also don’t forget my other two caches that i have along this route. One is “In the middle of nowhere”(GC1MH7R) the other is “Cachers Dash # 1″(GC1N1GB) which is another series of caches i have that leads you to a 5 stage multi cache. Good luck….kaboyd

As you can see, the only 2 cache names given are for the two other caches you have along the same route, “In the middle of nowhere” & “Cachers Dash #1” which is why I suggested adding the series final’s name & GC# in the descriptions.

Also, if you would, please email back the snippet of coordinates for the North Augusta final that are in bread crumbs #3, as they were to faded for us to read.

Thanks
Brian and Donna Bogardus
BTR & D2!

It has been over 24 hours since my last email and I haven’t gotten anything back from him, not even the coordinates for the North Augusta final. I worked out several possible combinations of whole minutes to combine with what I do know about the coordinates and plotted them on a Google Map and think I have a good idea where the final is. We’ll probably head over and hunt it this weekend (like Donna wanted all along.)

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 707

First First To Find

A strange alignment of circumstances allowed us to get our first geocaching First To Find. The cache was a mile into Hitchcock Woods, it was published at 11:00AM, it was a very hot & sticky afternoon, then a really nasty set of late afternoon thunderstorms rolled through, and a wife who usually takes a late evening walk suggested we walk together in Hitchcock Woods.

As I read the description I thought I knew exactly which trail it was hidden on, turns out I did. We at one time had a cache on that same trail just 51′ away called “No Horses Allowed”. So we drove over, parked on Dibble Road and headed for the cache location not really thinking we would be first. When we got to GZ Donna immediately pointed deep into a bush. I pooh-poohed that idea as there was no way you could get in there without damaging the bush. We then spent 5 minutes wandering in circles looking for likely hiding spots until she ended up back at the same bush calling, “I found it.” It wasn’t where she first thought, but it was real close.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 706

Bread Crumbs

While out caching in September one of our finds was called Bread Crumbs #2. I knew it was part of a series of caches from my reading of the description:

I designed the Bread Crumbs series #1-6 to lead cachers from North Augusta to Greenwood or Greenwood to North Augusta. In either location there are many very good caches that you can goto once you have reached which ever city you are heading for. On each container you will find clues for two finishing caches. One is in North Augusta the other is in Greenwood. you must complete the series # 1-6 in order to find either final cache. Also don’t forget my other two caches that i have along this route. One is “In the middle of nowhere”(GC1MH7R) the other is “Cachers Dash # 1″(GC1N1GB) which is another series of caches i have that leads you to a 5 stage multi cache. Good luck….kaboyd

So I alertly wrote down the snippet of coordinates that were on the cover of the container. Donna and I put it on our wish list to do the series in the future. The future turned out to be 2 months later in November. We started at Crumb #1 near Exit #1 of I-20 in North Augusta and worked our way to Greenwood. We skipped #2 because we already had that one in the bag. Each hide was well thought out with an nice spot for parking and it was just far enough into the woods so you wouldn’t be seen while you hunted. All the containers were the same, so you knew what to look for, and the route was 2-lane through almost entirely undeveloped land. The only one that gave us any problem was #6, it was slightly over 40′ from where our GPSr said GZ was, but once we had it we had all we needed to find the two final caches.

The Greenwood final cache was right up the street in a little park. As I turned into the parking area it was jam full of cars and loads people milling about. There was some sort of soccer game going on, so we opted to not even try. I backed up out of the lot and we came home, figuring we would come back in the future. The future turned out to be 2 months later in January. It was a sunny New Years Day, so we took a nice little top down drive back to Greenwood hoping there would not be a soccer game going. Turns out the place was deserted. Cool. About 400′ into the woods we found the cache. It was an odd looking container, almost looked like a miniature ships wheel with a screw off center.

We signed the log and left behind a couple of small trade items. Felt kind of weird finding a cache and not getting to log it as a find. I had searched Geocaching.com for the key words “bread crumbs”, but nothing came up in our area besides the numbers 1 through 6. And even though we wouldn’t get “credit” for either, we decided to do the North Augusta final in the future.

Last week while researching caches to do along the North Augusta Greenway, I found one at the far end from where we have been looking called, End of the trail ‘North Augusta’, and the description read:

The above coordinates are bogus.This is an unusual looking container that contains a log but byop. It is big enough for a few trade items (small) Also it is in the woods so be careful.

——————————————————————————–
This is the North Augusta end cache for my bread crumbs series # 1-6. You need the clues from each of the containers in that series to hunt this cache and the one in Greenwood.

HUH!?!? So I searched in Greenwood for something called End of the trail and sure enough there is the other one…. You do get credit for finding the final caches in the Bread Crumb series. We’ve been robbed! We have more finds than we thunk! We had a good idea on where to look for the final caches to see what date we had signed them, so we could log the finds on the web site, but knew there was no way we could find them again in a patch of woods without the actual coordinates. Trouble was after we found the two finals we tossed out the coordinates, so we will have to do #1 through #6 all over again.

Guess what we did today? Right. We set the alarm for early, ate breakfast and started out following bread crumbs. They were not too difficult to find the first time though and this time we made short work of locating each container. Park, walk a hundred feet into the woods, open the lid, grab the coordinate snippet and on to the next. We found a fly in the ointment at #3 though, the bonus cache coordinates were faded beyond recognition. The only thing I could make out was that they were for North Augusta, so we continued on to Greenwood, figuring we would worry about that little problem in the future.

There was no soccer game at the Greenwood park and after a spider web busting walk, we found the odd shaped container for the second time in 6 months. We opened it up and seeing as there was a new log, meaning no proof we had actually been here back in January, I went ahead and signed it. I’ll go online later today and log the now official find of the End of the trail ‘Greenwood’.

Because it was still early, we went over to Greenwood’s Rail to Trail where there was a series of 6 caches to look for. We started at the high numbered end and found #6, DNF’d #5, found #4, 3 & 2 before the combination of the heat, the distance left to #1 and the fact that 4 of the last 6 folks to look for it came up empty caused us to turn around and head back to the car. On the way back by we made another pass at #5 and couldn’t find it again.

Because it was such a pretty top down drive up, we drove back home via the same Bread Crumb route, but this time we had the top up and the air conditioner blasting. Donna wanted to try the North Augusta final next weekend, but I talked her into giving it try today so we could cross this series of that wish list. Bad move. It was now past 11:00 AM and it was probably above 90° and even though the North Augusta Greenway was still shaded, there was no breeze and the humidity was just as high as the temperature. We didn’t have the whole set of coordinates because of the faded Bread Crumb #3, but because both Donna and I remember finding the North Augusta final before, we figured we could spot the trail we thought it was off of and work it out. Using the trail, the degrees and the decimal portion of the minutes we had we could locate the cache. As we looked for that side trail a conversation, turned into a misunderstanding, which escalated into a DISCUSSION, stopping short of an argument, so after a half mile we did an about face and went back to the car defeated.

Because I didn’t blog about finding the North Augusta final I can’t pick out the date we did find it. And now looking back through our finds, I can’t seem to see any other found caches that would have put us any where close to the area where it should be. The only two times we cached near that end of the Greenway was in August of last year, before we even thought of doing this series. Maybe we didn’t do it. Odd.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 705

Me & the Tin Man

There is a building along the northwestern section of Our Fair City’s bypass that started life as a hardware store. That lasted maybe a couple of years and then an auto parts store moved in. It lasted maybe a year. It sat empty for a while before becoming an auto paint store which I bet didn’t last 6 months. It has sat empty for a half dozen years since, probably because no one else wanted to take a chance of their new business only lasting 3 months…

I don’t don’t know when this tin man showed up, but it seems like it might have been there since the very beginning. It looks like the perfect place for a geocache, so this morning Donna and hopped on the tandem to ride over and check it out, plus grab some breakfast at the somewhat nearby Dunkin’ Donuts. We ended up riding for a total of 15 miles.

After the bike ride we hopped in the Emperor and picked up a couple items at Lowes, a few things at Walmart and did our weekly grocery shopping at Krogers. Tonight we made a return driving trip to Lowes for something completely different and had dinner out at Chik-fil-A. With all that driving I think we might have equaled the mileage covered via bicycle in the morning.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 703

Top Count Placeholder Two

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 700

Top Count Placeholder

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 695