Geocaching

Our family has discovered geocaching. We're fashionably late to the game, which is at least six years old. C gave me a handheld GPS receiver for Christmas, after experience geocaching with her hiking group. Short version: folks around the world hide items in weather-proof containers (the "caches"), publish their latitude/longitude coordinates on the internet, and others seek to find them. A logbook is often included in the cache where finders can note their success. The caches can also include trinkets/gifts/souvenirs for the finders - traditionally you bring something to leave in the cache if you remove an item.

This weekend we had our second family excursion. We found one cache after a 10 minute stroll...


...and were eager for more. So I logged into the geocaching.com website with my cellphone, found another nearby cache, and we headed for it.


Instead of loading the coordinates into the GPS unit and letting it tell us the compass heading and distance to our next target, we set out knowing only the target coordinates - we used the raw readings on the device to decide what direction to walk. We could use some practice at this, as we took a very circular route!


But after a scramble to the top of a local peak, we found the second cache, a little waterlogged. The paper logbook was inside a ziploc bag and dry. We left a note on the geocaching site so the next seeker will bring a new outer container.

We had lovely views on the way back home.

Now we're planning to hide our own cache somewhere, preferably in a spot that requires a nice walk into the site (not drive-up). And we'll see if we can get the extended family interested in geocaching!

Work

On this transition into a new year, those thoughts that I do have about resolutions or change circle around how I view my job, how it fits into my life and values now, and whether there's a better version of this fit requiring either a change of job or a change in my outlook. That's been an undercurrent to 2006 for me. Today I happened on this snippet, a mid-discussion excerpt form a longer dialog about the joys of doing what you like (as it happens in this forum, work centered around bikes):

"Pensioners have typically even had a certain
personality stereotype, along with those going for a pension."

Sorry but that is such an incredibly condescending and elitist thought!!

Let's look at a few things made possible by those people who don't get to do
what they love and instead pursue a pension:
1) Roads (good luck riding without them!)
2) Clean water (good luck living without that!)
3) Plumbing (got a shovel?)
4) Telecommunications (good luck reading this without all those wires strung
around the planet!)
5) Electricity (what internet?)
6) Ships, trucks and railroads (say adios to all that merchandise you're
trying to sell!)

These and many more things are made possible by people who work really hard
at really miserable jobs all in the hopes of someday getting a pension.

Reality is if everyone only did what they wanted to do we'd all be supremely
screwed as a society! You think UPS and Postal Service people grow up
wanting to do that for a living? Ditto for sanitation workers, plumbers,
laborers, agriculture workers, truck drivers, etc., etc, etc. Imagine how
great the world would be if all these people woke up tomorrow and said "Gee,
I'm going to quit my job and do what I want to do!"

Reality is the idea of a secure retirement is a very necessary incentive for
advanced societies so that people like you can go out and do what you want
while they do the dirty work that makes it all possible in the first place.

Articulate response. This post has stayed with me today. I'm chewing on the thought that work can/should be compartmentalized as a pure means to an end. But my internal voice thorns me over the last two paragraphs - must these be characterized as miserable jobs? I know folk who do them who are no more miserable than those doing "elite" work. I'd rather focus on what would make jobs generally less miserable, and have folk be more justly compensated for them.

Visit to Coyote Point Museum

M invited us for a visit to the Coyote Point Museum near San Mateo - an environmental and community museum across the bay. They had a wonderful exhibit of gingerbread habitats put together by school children and families. Afterwards, we visited the grounds with exhibits on local wildlife.

You came by bike, you didn't drive?!

A wonderful post that turns the usual conversation on its ear. Brilliant.

Our Charlie Brown tree

Bought a Christmas tree yesterday. We chose a Norway spruce at 8 ft tall. Picked it for its shape, but it was a sorry looking tree at first. It must have lain at the bottom of some pile for a time. It's inner branches were coated with soil and the dead needles of other trees. Once we got it home, we hosed it down and and shook the branches vigorously to clean it up. It's got a fine shape and smells great. Here's a picture before decorating...



...and after.

Business trip to San Diego

Visited San Diego for 36 hours, meeting in La Jolla where the shifting morning fog and sunlight boundary added to the atmosphere. (click for full image)

Books

I've started keeping a list of books I'm watching for, so I'll have a list of things to run down next time I'm in a book store, or if you are!