Waymarks, Geocaching, and Whatever.

Not much of an update

2009-02-01T17:45:00.004-05:00

I figure it's been far too long since I've last posted here, and I did some pseudo-Geocaching activities today so...

So far January has been terrible in terms of weather. For the past couple of weeks it's been very cold, and more recently very snowy. For about a week straight we were only seeing highs around 10-15 degrees, with lows well below zero (-17.9 was the coldest that I recorded on my home thermometer). We have been having a little snow here and there, but gathered about 6"-8" last week. According to the local weather reports we've had about 20" of snow for January, which doubles our normal average.

Today though was very nice. We had a high around 50 and the sun was shining brightly. Dewgrl and I decided to head out to check on one of my caches. Normally this cache requires a boat, but there have been a few logs recently stating that it was accessible by hiking. We had a rather dry summer, so the water levels are far below normal.

We went to check it out, and sure enough we were able to walk to it without crossing any water, or ice. Unfortunately I forgot to bring along some wire to tie it down, so I'll need to head back out there. Once spring hits the reservoir fills back up, and usually floods. If the ammo can isn't tied to a tree, then it'll float away. The original wire I used lasted about 2 years before it rusted through. This past summer I tied it up again using some nylon string, knowing it would only be temporary. When we arrived it appeared the string was chewed through (there was also bits of an Osage Orange on top of the cache, so I assume some squirrels were picnicking there.). I'm thinking this time I'll try some small gauge chain as a more permanent solution. I'm hoping to get out there in the next day or two while I can still hike to it.

I know, it's kind of worthless without pictures, but there wasn't much to see anyhow. Everything was still pretty well snow covered. Maybe when I run out there again I'll bring the camera along.

New Gps?

2008-10-24T19:28:00.003-04:00

Recently I've been having some trouble with both of the GPSrs that I currently own. I have a Magellan Explorist 600, and a Garmin GPS V.

For a while the Magellan hasn't been holding much of a charge. Shortly after that happened, the screw where the power/data cable attaches stripped out. That has left me using rubber bands to hold the cable onto the back of the GPS while attached to the car charger. It's a pain when I need to remove or reattach the cable.

The Garmin suddenly started freezing on me. It did this in the middle of Waymarking a nearby cemetery, and the 30+ Zinc headstones there. I've done some reading, and it sounds like it's a somewhat common problem. There are also a variety of "fixes" out there, some work for some folks, others for others.....none for me. I have read that while Garmin no longer supports this unit, they are looking into releasing a patch to fix it. I assume they must be getting many complaints about it.

So this leaves me nearly GPSless for the time being. They both work, but not well, and it's really not worth the frustration of trying to get any waypoints marked.

This past August, I bought myself a motorcycle. Since then I've been thinking about a GPS solution for it. I mainly want a more accurate speedometer, and to be able to record my tracks. It'll also be nice to have along for any impromptu Waymarking and Geocaching.

After giving it some thought, I think I'm actually going to downgrade, rather than upgrade, so I've bid on a Magellan Meridian Platinum. I had a Meridian Green before the Explorist 600, so I'm familiar with the unit. I always like the Merigreen, but I thought that I would like the Exp 600 better. In the end, I really don't. The Merigreen never had any problems, even though I Geocached, and hiked a lot with it. I dropped it countless times, and had it out in all sorts of weather. So I know they're pretty rugged, and I also still have the handlebar mount for the Merigreen that I can easily transfer to the motorcycle to hold a Platinum. The Platinum has a little larger screen, and larger leather glove friendly buttons. Plus I still have the Topo software, so I can load detailed maps into the Platinum. Can't really beat the price either. Since they're old tech, monochrome displayed, antiques (in terms of tech gadgets), no one really wants them much so they're inexpensive!

Townhall meeting 9/3/08

2008-09-03T21:07:00.004-04:00

So in tonight's townhall the following has been discussed. This is a real-time rundown, so I apologize for grammatical and typographical errors:

- Phoenix has been backburnered
- The first priority for Waymarking was the forums, which are now fixed so priorities are being rearranged.
- There is still work being done to improve both Waymarking and Geocaching via incremental fixes instead of the one fell swoop of Phoenix
- Another priority is a .GPX solution for Waymarking
- .GPX will not have thoroughly detailed info at first, but will work easily with GSAK and its ilk. Variables will likely be appended to the long text description in the .GPX. Though details are still being hashed out. May work more along the lines of the "My Finds" query in GC.com
- "Garmin Content Toolkit, Orphaned Waymarks" (Garmin content toolkit was not discussed beyond this)
- Plans to aid communication on the site such as private forums
- Ways to search archived/invisible Waymarks will be addressed along with orphan Waymarks
- Setting up an "orphan queue" would require ALL variables to be optional. Variables may be switch over to a function of visiting rather than posting.
- Concern was discussed over lazy waymarkers putting out weak marks and having other folks do most of the work by filling in variables. (more discussion later, concerns are to be posted in the forums)
- Increased photo size
- Photo storage (temporary)
- Links directly to Flickr/Photobucket
- Kudos (awards one can give to other Waymarkers)
- Activation button at the end of the new cat creation wizard
- Cross linking photos to end multiple uploads when cross-posting a Waymark. Something like a bucket in which photos are dumped, and then one would be given an option to pull from that bucket when creating a WM. With possibly a 7 day "decay"
- Photo bug when U/Ling larger photos is still not fixed, but is being worked on.
- lobot mailer specific to Waymarking
- Deadbeat leaders/officers - GS may monitor how often they log in for a start. Or display average approval times on the cats
- New games (Nothing was discussed in detail, just mention that Nate and Sean have been working on new games, such as "scavenger hunt, and mini bingo". For instance, a list is generated for 10 or so nearby Waymarks based on one's own favorite cats. One then visits all in that list and earns an award. A number of these scavenger hunts could be on going in various states of completion, with a bingoesque format overall
- Removing closest Waymarks found from the list was broken with the last upgrade,

This list are just some of the ideas being kicked around over at the lily pad. They are expecting implementation of these ideas within the next 6-12 months at this point. Personally, it sounds like some great ideas upon which to build, along with some great ideas as listed.

Balooning Waymarks

2008-08-16T23:36:00.002-04:00

Have you ever noticed how Waymarks can balloon into more Waymarks? Today I decided to travel down to Columbus for a little Waymarking. I originally intended to mark a 3d advertisment for the upcoming category. I thought it had been approved, but now I see it's not listed yet. Regardless, I wanted to photograph it before it gets taken down. After that I went up a few blocks to Waymark the Greater Columbus Convention Center. While walking back to the car I passed The Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral, and marked it too.

After that I visited the Ohio State University to mark the Wexner Center in the Great Buildings category. I've been meaning to get out there for a while now, but just never had occasion to be in the area.

I began by posting the Wexner Center first, and the moved on to the convention center. While posting them, I noticed that they were both designed by Peter Eisneman. I clicked back into the Great Buildings website to read more about Eisneman, and noticed a reference to Deconstructionism. Before now I never really looked into the Deconstructionism category. When it was first approved, I didn't recognize any of the architects names being used locally, so I didn't think there was anything around here. After learning more about Eisneman, and the Deconstructionism category, I realized I could post both the Wex, and the convention center in there.

Today was largely an effort just to find a few new icons, and I even ended up with a few new ones that I wasn't expecting.

Touring North Central Ohio

2008-08-05T22:59:00.001-04:00

Copus Massacre Memorial.
Originally uploaded by Mr. 0

I'm just finally catching up on some Waymarks that I gathered over the weekend of July 26. It happened to be Dewgrl's birthday, and I had been promising to take her up to Malabar Farm State Park, which was once the home of Pulitzer Prize winning author Louis Bromfield. The farm was used by him to develop and teach new ways of sustainable farming. It, along with the Pleasant Valley area also were the inspiration for several of his books. These include "Up Ferguson Way," "Pleasant Valley," "Malabar Farm," and several others. Dewgrl had been up there once when she was little and has wanted to go back for a long time. I've been up there a few times. Once before Geocaching and Waymarking, once for some Geocaching, once...uhhh I can't remember why (it was cold and snowy, but I don't remember actually having done anything while I was there besides walk from the car, to the farm, and back) and another time just to Waymark the here.

We started the day by visiting our favorite farmers' market in Mt. Vernon. After picking up a few things, we decided to hit a couple of caches nearby. They happened to be in cemeteries, so we Waymarked those, as well as a few Zinc headstones there. After the caches we worked our way north. I wanted to revisit a memorial that I knew was out there, not far from Malabar Farm.

I posted about the memorial in the "what did you learn today" thread. I originally visited the memorial as part of a multi-cache. I had to get some info off of it, and that was all I did. I stopped, wrote down what I needed, then left to find the cache. I knew it had to be significant in some way, so I wanted to go back to see if it could be Waymarked.

Along the way we stopped at various locations that could be Waymarked, and managed to squeeze in a visit or two as well. Most of the spots consisted of cemeteries, but we did get a few bridges and such as well.

So we finally get to the memorial after being chased down the road by a couple of little dogs. They chased the car for probably about a half mile from their home to the memorial. I wasn't worried about them, except that they might try to get under the tires. I just took it slowly until I got past them. They trotted up a few minutes into us looking at and taking pictures of the memorial. They weren't unfriendly, but they wouldn't let us get closer than about 10 feet either.

Upon leaving the memorial we stopped at another Ohio Historical Marker that we saw on the way to the memorial. We then made our way to Malabar Farm.

We stopped for a late lunch/early dinner at the Malabar Farm Inn just up the road from Malabar Farm. It was an 1800's stagecoach stop. In addition they sell fruits and veggies grown at Malabar Farm next to the inn.

We weren't able to spend a lot of time at Malabar Farm as it was getting late. In all we ended up with about 50 separate waypoints in the GPS, a few of which could be cross-posted. Many of them are cemeteries which I haven't posted yet. Some of the highlights include the barn linked above, the grave of Louis Bromfield, Pugh Cabin which was featured in the opening scenes of "The Shawshank Redemption", and about 5 new icons just from Malabar Farm

I finally got around to posting the Copus Massacre Memorial in the Wikipedia category, since I couldn't find another good fit for it. It's not quite 10 feet tall, so it wouldn't fit in the Obelisks cat, and I'm not sure where else it might go....any ideas?

The best thing about it, is that I finally learned what it's all about....in rather gory detail. The Ashland County Historical Society has a very detailed account of the events that occurred here. I mostly paraphrased that information, and removed some of the details to make it a little more "PG."

Finally posted a barn

2008-07-09T22:18:00.001-04:00

An old barn in a wheat field
Originally uploaded by Mr. 0

Ever since the barn category came about, I've had a tough time getting one Waymarked. It's not that there aren't any around or anything. I mean this is rural central Ohio. There are tons of barns around here. As a matter of fact you can see probably 10-15 of them from the barn I Waymarked. The problem has been finding something interesting enough to Waymark. Maybe because there are so many of them around, and I've lived in the area for most of my 30 years, I've become somewhat jaded about them. A lot of the barns are scenic, and historic, but they're just like another one right beside it.

The barn I W'marked is right on a busy road, and one that I've passed probably thousands of times in my life. I've always known it was there, but I never paid much attention to it...until this year. I happened to be going by when the farmer was planting his crops, and I noticed that he was putting in wheat. So I knew it was going to be a good year to shoot the barn

Most area farms rotate between corn and soybeans, but will occasionally throw some winter wheat into the mix too. This year it seems that more farmers than normal have switched to wheat. I imagine this is because there were so many problems with corn last year.

Last year many farmers planted corn because it was expected that it would be very profitable. There was talk of at least two Ethanol plants being built in Ohio, and regardless of that corn was supposed to sell at huge profits due to the Ethanol "boom." As many probably remember, Ethanol was suddenly touted as the answer to all of our fuel worries. Even though it has been mixed with regular gasoline for many years, and used exclusively in some vehicles since the late 90's, it was being talked about as though it was a brand new idea. Unfortunately this really didn't pan out, it seems. There is little buzz about it, at least locally, and Ethanol has dropped back to the status quo. It's still slightly less expensive than the dino-fuels, but it still provides less fuel efficiency. In addition there are worries about diminishing world food supplies.

This year I think many had the same idea to plant wheat. It is easily planted using no-till techniques, and it can go in right after the corn is harvested in the fall. Plus it's something different than normal which could prove profitable in the long run, and it adds additional nutrients to the soil for next year's planting.

I waited until just the right time to take some pictures. I knew that it would need to be a week or so before they would harvest the wheat, it needed to be sunny, late in the afternoon, with a few clouds in the sky. Given Ohio's weather, this is a lot to expect in the short time between the wheat turning from green to brown, and the harvest.

Luckily I got just such a day. I drove out here not expecting much as it was actually a little stormy and very overcast during the 10 minute drive up. I was going to settle for it though since I knew I didn't have much time. Many of the other wheat fields had already been harvested. Just as I pulled into the adjacent elementary school, the clouds broke a little bit and gave me exactly the sky that I was looking for, and the quality of light I wanted to highlight the barn and field.

The picture posted here was taken with the Kodak V570. It's actually an HDR image. Essentially a blend of 5 different exposures taken at 5 different exposure values. Basically normal, a little lighter, a little lighter than that, darker than normal, and darker than that. This allows a for more contrast, and an image that is supposed to appear more like how the scene looked in real life. I don't like to use HDR images for most purposes as it feels a little like cheating to me. I guess I'm somewhat of a purist when it comes to photography. I don't like a lot of post-processing personally. But I made an exception for this one.

I went with the intent of posting the Waymark, but once I got home, I decided against it. Once again, I looked at the photos and said to myself, "This is just like any other barn." I finally did post it though, partially because Hikenutty commented that I should post it. I guess it just took an unfamiliar eye.

In addition there are several other barns around that I have in mind to Waymark. They, like this one, will require a specific light though, so I've not gone out to shoot them yet. One in particular is going to be rather tricky. There is a very short period of time during which the sun will be high enough to clear some trees and hit the barn, and when the sun will be directly overhead, or behind the barn.

Ciro Flex model E Photos

2008-06-23T23:52:00.002-04:00

Ciro Flex model E
Originally uploaded by Mr. 0

Over a year ago... May 10 2007 to be exact...I mentioned that I received a Ciro Flex camera. At that time I mentioned that it was probably a model C, but now I'm more positive that it is a model E. I finally managed to get through a roll of film, and get it processed.

I kept forgetting to take it with me, and also didn't want to take it out where the camera might get damaged. The Ciro Flex will take 12 exposures on one roll of 120 film. I wasn't 100% sure about where to get the film processed. When I spoke to the folks at the local Cord Camera when I bought the film they said they could process it. The problem was they would have to send it to their main store in Columbus, and they didn't know how much it would cost. They assured me it would probably be pricey. Since I had paid $25 for 4 rolls of film already, and this was my first roll through a type of camera I've never used, I figured I would try to find a cheaper route. I knew that there were going to be some throw-aways. I didn't want to pay a huge price for those. I took a chance and dropped it off at the local CVS. The cashier had no idea if it could be processed, since she had never seen 120 film before. I got a call the other day, 11 days after dropping it off, that it was ready. I just picked it up this evening.

Overall I like the quality of the pictures. The first one was shot out my back door just to make sure I had the film loaded and everything. The following pictures I took at the Scioto River, but they were far too dark. I didn't bother to scan those. After that the camera was on the shelf for a while. I got it out a couple weeks ago and took a couple of photos at Alum Creek State Park, which finished up the roll. One ended up being an out of focus, double exposure. I shot the first one, and then remembered that I needed to focus it. I focused, shot again, and remembered that I needed to advance the film....yeah I'm that spoiled on automatic cameras that I forgot to both focus AND advance the film. I advanced, focused, and took the last picture on the roll. I still have a lot to learn. Like to pay attention and advance more slowly. I only got 9 exposures on the roll, which should have taken 12. When I loaded the film I advanced past exposure #1. Then a couple of times between shots I advanced too far as well.

In the meantime I also purchased another Ciro Flex. It's the "top of the line" model F. I have a roll in it right now, but I haven't shot anything on it yet.

So here are the shots that I scanned. They are not cropped. The film itself develops square instead of rectangular.

The very first shot

One of the photos that came out too dark

The out of focus, double exposure.

Alum Creek State Park. This is the one that came out decently.

New music

2008-06-13T20:37:00.003-04:00

This has nothing to do with Waymarking, or Geocaching. I just recently picked up a few new albums. These include Weezer - Red Album, Portishead - Third, and Flobots - Fight with Tools.

Weezer's new album was just released on June 3. I actually had a pre-order for it on iTunes, but didn't get around to downloading it until this past weekend. On top of that I didn't burn it to a disc until Wednesday, and didn't get to listen to it until I was at work on Thursday. I had heard that it was somewhat of a departure from the heavy riff-laden records they released early in their career. This is true to a point. Many of the songs, like The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn) are somewhat different, but they still find time to drop in a few more subtle riffs. Some of the songs are a little more pop-esque almost soft love ballads. This certainly isn't a bad thing. I have to admit that this is probably my favorite Weezer album to date. I like the experimental nature of it overall. It's a refreshing change to hear something different once in a while. Luckily, I guess Rivers decided to stop listening to the "little bitches" who kept demanding Weezer crank out songs like those from the Blue Album. Aside from The Greatest Man..., I would have to say that I've most listened to Heart Songs and Pork and Beans, which is the first single off of the album. The link will take you to the official video for Pork and Beans on YouTube.

Portishead's new album Third was announced on Oct, 2 2007, and released on April, 28 2008 after one short setback. For those who aren't familiar with Portishead, they've actually been around for a while. They originally formed in 1991 in their hometown of Bristol, England. They take their name from the nearby town of Portishead. Their first album, Dummy, was released in 1994, followed by a self-titled record in 1997. In 1998 a live album was also released featuring music from the first two albums. From then little was heard from Portishead until the announcement about Third and a subsequent tour. It's been a long wait! I just got this one the other evening as well. I've been meaning to pick it up since it was released. I had wanted a hard copy CD, but could never find it in stores. I finally settled for the iTunes version.

Third certainly doesn't disappoint, but it is a little different from Dummy and Portishead. Third is a little more dark than the first two albums. It also has a deeper more industrial sound to it. It does take some work to listen to, as it's very complex. One time through and one might only pick up on some of the instrumentation, another time through allows one to hear the more subtle undertones mixed in with much syncopation, heavy beats, and cacophony. Yet another time through and one can begin to appreciate Beth Gibbons' poetic, meaningful, puzzling, lyrics. The first single from the album was Machine Gun which was released on March 18.

Finally, Flobots. I've been aware of them for a couple of months now. The album Fight with Tools was originally released in 2007 and then re-released in May of 2008. I happened to catch their single from this album, Handlebars, when flipping through the channels on XM a while back. I forgot about it until a few nights ago when it came on a local FM station. I remembered the song and that I liked it, so I grabbed the album the next day.

Flobots are described as an "alternative rock/rap/hip-hop" group. They formed in Denver, Colorado in 2005, and have released two albums, including Fight with Tools. This album is very politically motivated on an extremely liberal, non-conformist, end of the spectrum. They seem to stop just short of inciting a dissident movement. It doesn't necessarily follow my personal beliefs, however there is a lot of great imagery, deep meaning, and political activism. Not to mention strong beats, quick rapping, combined with guitar, bass, trumpets, and even violins.

The only thing that I didn't like about this album is a phony "underground radio" sort of sound that gets thrown in once in a while. A couple of times there is static between tracks, and it fades in and out of a fake radio station, as though one would forget they're listening to a CD (or MP3, or whatever) and suspend belief to think they're listening to the radio. I understand the idea, but it doesn't add anything to the overall feel of the record. At least not for me.

Waymarking at work, more backlog completed, and more icons

2008-05-31T00:45:00.004-04:00

Over the past week I've been working on getting the backlog posted. So far I've managed to get about 35 of them out there this week. Some of them have earned me new icons. I thought I was relatively diligent about posting Waymarks that fall into a new category. In going through these, I've found that not to be the case. In addition I've managed to cross-post a few in new categories as well. Most of them have ended up being cemeteries and Zinc headstones though.

Today was a fun day of Waymarking. Every year we have a departmental outing at work, mainly just to get out of the office and blow off some steam. This year it was decided that we would visit the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. This means I head into work at my normal time, we leave around 11:15am, and spend the rest of the day there. The weather was great for it too. We started out with a scavenger hunt of sorts, then had lunch and played a few games. After that we were free to do whatever. I stuck around a bit to grab some Waymarks. I've been out here a few times in the past couple of years, but I always seem to forget my GPS. Today I grabbed the zoo itself, the aquarium, a couple of coin-op binoculars, and the amusement park next door (Zoombezi Bay Waterpark). I really can't complain about having to work a 1/2 day, on a Friday, when it's beautiful outside, and getting paid while participating in one of my favorite hobbies!

Memorial Day Weekend Waymarking

2008-05-25T23:06:00.003-04:00

Overview of Phillip Dreyer Cemetery
Originally uploaded by Mr. 0

Up in Marion, Ohio is a cemetery that Dewgrl and I have been wanting to visit for several years now. The problems is that it is only open by appointment, or on special days....such as Memorial Day weekend. Marion Township, and those who worked so hard to locate, and repair the cemetery are very protective....and rightly so. They basically don't want people to go back there unattended and damage the place again.

During our visit today we spoke with the folks responsible for finding and fixing up the cemetery. They shared with us the great history of the area, and their adventures in trying to find it.

In addition one gentleman had a set of dowsing rods. I had always been skeptical about water witching, and dowsing rods, but it worked. I was quite surprised. Since I was actually using the dowsing rods I can say for a fact that I wasn't turning them intentionally....since I wouldn't have known where there was water underground there anyhow. I still can't explain if it was a subconscious thing, or what, but it was interesting just the same. So it was a cool extra to visiting the cemetery.

From my Waymark description:

Phillip Dreyer Cemetery is unique to the area and very historic. The cemetery was just recently rediscovered and fixed up.

In the early 1990's, this cemetery was known to have existed, but it was assumed that it was gone. A couple of gentlemen, who had relatives buried here, went on a quest to find it. The searched the fields and woods for miles around, as they only had a vague description of where the cemetery was. They finally found it in 1992. In talking to them today, they said they literally had to enter this patch of woods on their hands and knees, but soon began to find headstones. Over the years they worked to find the headstones, and clear out heavy brush and trees. They estimated that the cemetery hadn't been cared for in nearly 100 years. They replaced, and fixed the headstones they could find.

They have found about 50 of the headstones here. They estimate that there are still about 50 more stones that have been buried over the many years, and hope to use radar technology to locate them.

There are 10 families buried here, all of who are related. They arrived in the state of Delaware as indentured servants from Scotland. They eventually moved to Ohio in the late 1700's. The area where they lived, and where the cemetery is located was, at that time, north of the Greenville Treaty Line. It was uncommon for European settlers to try to establish themselves in this area. Essentially this land was part of lands set aside for the Native Americans, and was extremely wild then. Not only were the woods very thick and full of bears, bobcats, and many other dangerous animals, but many of the native tribes living here were hostile toward the settlers.

All but one of the headstones found so far have been made of limestone. Directly behind the cemetery was a limestone quarry that these people started. They also used the stone to make their headstones. The earliest burial found was that of an infant girl in 1800.

The cemetery is only open by appointment with 48 hours advance notice. The number to call is listed on the cemetery gate. They also have opened it the past couple of years on Memorial Day Weekend.

Geocaching presentation

2008-05-20T22:10:00.002-04:00

I just got home from giving a Geocaching presentation at the Marion library. I was asked to do so on behalf of the Marion County Parks Department. They are basically looking to use Geocaching to promote their parks, since they're relatively new and mostly unknown. Several people who were not involved with the park did show up, but I was hoping for a few more folks. Oh well. I was sort of fun since I haven't really done any kind of public speaking since I was in high school, but it's something I've always enjoyed. I'm weird like that though. In a one-on-one setting, or a very small group, I'm very shy and don't talk much at all. However if I'm in front of a larger group, I have no problems. I guess I'm just wired wrong.

This coming Saturday we're going to have a program at one of the parks. It's basically an extension of the presentation, where folks are invited out to the park to actually try Geocaching. There is one cache at the park, and I may be placing some temporary caches as well. We're also going to have a few GPSr's for folks to use if they don't have their own. Should be a good time.

500 posted

2008-05-12T22:41:00.005-04:00

I just realized that I submitted my 500th Waymark this evening. I hadn't really been paying attention, but I did know that I was close. It ended up being a local Recycling Drop-off that I just submitted. This particular drop-off is pretty much my secondary drop-off. There is another place that is closer to home, but the bins there are often full. When they are I end up having to drive down to the one I Waymarked. Sometimes I stop by this Waymark after work, since it is on my way home. That way I don't have to waste gas to take a special trip to drop off the recyclables.

I was planning to catch up on some of my back log, however I can't seem to find a file containing the coords for many of them. So I may have to end up pulling a BQ and wipe 'em out to start all over again. It wouldn't be a big deal since the majority of mark in my backlog are very local. I really wouldn't be losing much.

I also attempted to visit the local used book/video game store the other day, but it turns out they have closed. It stinks having to make a Waymark invisible, but even more when it was a place that I really liked. I used to drop in there when I was in town to pick up some books there. They always had decent prices (I picked up many books for a quarter) and the folks working there were friendly and helpful. It's sad to see them go.

A short hike

2008-05-05T21:59:00.001-04:00

Delaware State Park
Originally uploaded by Mr. 0

Earlier this evening Dewgrl and I decided to take a little hike up at Delaware State Park. It was nice to get out and about in this area. I had taken this hike a few times before, but Dewgrl had never been back in there. It's in an area with no real trails. Basically all one can find are deer trails back there. Actually if you look back toward the beginning of my blog you can see some additional pictures, and the GPS tracklog of the hike (link is HERE) We took a slightly different path back as compared to my previous hike, but it was more or less the same. We didn't see much in the way of wildlife, but there were a few frogs, and geese. A buzzard, a toad, and a Baltimore Oriole also made appearances. We were hoping to see some deer, but we didn't...not until we were driving out of the park. We also managed to pick up a few ticks, but it wasn't too bad considering the area we were in.

April's Photo Contest

2008-05-01T20:38:00.003-04:00

Voting is now open for April's Photo Contest. So head on over to Waywardwaymarking.com . The direct link to the voting page is HERE!

Thanks again to Hikenutty for putting this together and setting up the voting page. :)

Unplanned Waymarking

2008-04-20T21:00:00.002-04:00

Caledonia Bowstring Bridge
Originally uploaded by Mr. 0

Today, Dewgrl and I were heading up to find a few caches near Marion. Along the way we were going to stop by the Caledonia Bowstring Bridge to take a look and Waymark it. It falls into the Abandoned Bridges, Arch Bridges, and U.S. National Register categories. I happened across it when looking through the National Register. I had never heard of it before, and found little information about it. Luckily I did find a map of its location, which surprisingly, was correct. Beyond that we really didn't have many plans today. When going into downtown Marion, I decided that I wanted to stop at the Marion Star, to Waymark it as well. I knew it would fit into the Newspaper HQ category, but later found it was listed on Wikipedia. Of course, I submitted it to the Wikipedia Entries cat as well. We also passed by the Women's Club Home. I originally hadn't planned to mark this due to the controversy in the category, but since we were going right by it, I decided to stop. I submitted it just to see if it would be approved....although I fully expect it to be declined.

In all it ended up being a rather productive Waymarking day. Sure, we only visited 3 locations, but we didn't spend much time at it either.

Don't forget to vote...

2008-04-12T21:59:00.002-04:00

Don't forget to vote for your favorite Waymark photo over at Wayward Waymarking. Voting closes on the 15th, so there are just a few days left.

Nice weekend, Columbus BlueJackets Hockey, and Marion Star Newspaper article.

2008-04-06T20:42:00.003-04:00

This weekend Dewgrl and I took advantage of the nice weather and visited a few local parks to walk around. We didn't do much Waymarking, and only found one cache. That cache was one that we had found previously, but since we were in the park anyhow we dropped by to check on it.

Today we, along with my brother, headed down to Nationwide Arena for the Bluejackets season finale. They ended up losing, which was a disappointment, but it was still a pretty decent game. We did get to see Keith Tkachuk score his 500th career goal. Unfortunately since he plays for St. Louis, it was a goal against us. It came late in the third period, short handed, and on an empty net almost coast-to-coast.

I got word this evening that the Geocaching article for which I was interviewed appeared in the Marion Star today. I've only skimmed it online, so I'm not sure if there is anything more in the actual print edition.

http://www.marionstar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080406/NEWS01/804060327

Skybus airlines

2008-04-04T23:28:00.001-04:00

In an earlier post, I mentioned the Columbus based discount airline Skybus. It was announced today that they are ceasing operations as of 12:01am on April 5, 2008. Sadly they didn't even make it a full year in service. While the concept was great, and it did offer an inexpensive alternative, they just decided they couldn't make it. They cited rising fuel prices and a "slowing economic environment" as their primary reasons for calling it quits.

I only had the opportunity to fly with them on one occasion. From Columbus to Kansas City, and back earlier this year. I thought it was a great experience even in spite of my original doubts.

It's sad to see them go, but I can certainly understand.

http://www.skybus.com/

Making the move, tying up some loose ends, recent Waymarking, and excuses excuses excuses

2008-04-01T21:27:00.004-04:00

So I've decided to make the move over to Blogger after all. It's nothing against Livejournal, but I just like the features, and options over here a little better. To the best of my knowledge I've copied over all of the old posts. I'm still going to keep everything up at my LiveJournal but new posts are going to go here.

As for the loose ends, hmmm, well I seem to forget most of everything that I wanted to mention. I happened to notice some things that I never really wrapped up from some previous posts. One thing I did want to mention though. When I started copying and pasting everything over here, I noticed that Hikenutty had replied to one of my blog posts here back in June. Back at that time I had copied over a few posts, and was playing around with the site to kind of get a feel for it. I didn't really have any intention of switching over at that time, but she just happened to find me on here. Since I never really checked this site, I didn't notice the comment. So to answer your question, HN, yeah, I am switching over, so please do update your links....I just didn't know I was going to do so when you asked. :)

I've recently been able to post a few Waymarks. More than I have in recent times, really. One in particular I really enjoyed going to Waymark. Ever since the inception of the Active Rail Locations category, I've been meaning to toss a Waymark in there. This past Sunday I finally got up to the spot I had in mind, which was the Marion Union Station. I've always been interested in railfanning, but I've never actively participated. I headed up and spent a little over 2 hours there and caught 4 trains up there. I was hoping for more trains, but I still wasn't disappointed. However it wasn't on par with the 100+ trains per day that makes it a nationally known rail spot. I did have the opportunity to talk to a few folks while we were waiting, so it was all around an enjoyable, if not cold, rainy, and windy day. I'm planning to head back up there more frequently just for fun.

Some may or may not have noticed that I've not been very active with my blog, or on the WM.com site lately. There are a few reasons behind this. Mainly I've just been busy remodeling a house to put it on the market soon. Long story short, I own a home up in Marion, and live in an apartment in Delaware. For the past 7 years or so, my brother has been living at the house. The way that worked out, shortly after I bought the house my job was more or less moved from Marion to Cleveland, and I moved up there. He moved into the house since it was only about 5-10 minutes from his work, and it helped me out. He bought his own home in October, and moved out. Since I'm still in a lease with my apartment here in Delaware, I couldn't really move up there. Plus it would increase my commute to work from 30min to a little over an hour. So I'm fixing things up a little, and am going to try to sell it....yeah I know, great time to try to sell a house. I'm still hopeful though since the area is growing quickly, and the house is pretty close to where all sorts of new shops, restaurants, and jobs are being created.

The other thing that's been keeping me away is my terrible internet. I mentioned it before in the blog and I'm still having the same problems. I can connect for about 2-3 minutes, then I get kicked off for 5 minutes, and then I can reconnect for another 2-3 minutes.....repeat all evening. It's just not very conducive to computing on the internets. I think at this point I've narrowed the problem down. I've noticed I have the most problems when it's cold, and/or wet outside. I believe there must be a problem with the wires somewhere. I've just not bothered to call about it because I hate dealing with their tech support, and I know that I'm going to get the run-around and that it'll be nearly impossible to convince them that switching my modem on/off for the 100th time that evening isn't going to magically fix it.

Geocaching interview, and some weekend Waymarking.

2008-02-24T21:26:00.000-05:00

A month or so ago I got in contact with the director of the Marion County Parks District after she had posted on the GC.com forums. Essentially she had heard about Geocaching and thought it might be an activity the Parks District would be interested in. I've spoken with her on a few occasions and also presented Geocaching to a few groups in the area. She passed my name on to Marion's local newspaper, The Marion Star. After exchanging a few emails and phone calls with a reporter there, I stopped in there to do an interview for an upcoming article on Geocaching. Basically we met at the paper's headquarters where we talked about Geocaching, and I showed her around the website while a photographer took a few pictures. The reporter mentioned that she had read an article about Geocaching in a magazine over the summer, and was interested in it, but didn't know where to start. She, and the photographer both seemed to be excited about it on a personal level, so maybe they'll start caching.

After a few minutes in the office we went out to find a nearby cache. I was hoping to take them to a more traditional cache in a more interesting area, but it was pretty snowy, so some may have been a little dicey to find. The one we finally settled on was within walking distance, which made it much easier. It was a micro in one of the towns newer downtown pocket parks. As I mentioned, I would have liked to have taken them to an ammo can or something, but this one was ok in the end.

I'm not sure when it'll make the paper, but when it does, maybe I can Waymark it under the News Article Locations. Unfortunately while I was there, I forgot to get coords and pics to mark the Marion Star under the Newspaper Headquarters.

Today started out very foggy, and while we both wanted to get outside we just couldn't until around noon when it finally cleared up. After grabbing some lunch we visited a few places around the Columbus area. I managed to Waymark a Freestanding Arch, which I still need to add a few pictures to. I just haven't gotten my film developed. I also snagged a couple of Ohio Historical Markers and a Worldwide Cemetery. One of the Ohio Historical Markers also falls into the Irish-American Historic Places category as well. I so managed to sneak a visit in for an Ohio Historial Marker.

A few more out of the backlog

2008-01-23T21:25:00.000-05:00

I managed to post all but one of the Waymarks that I discussed earlier; the ones I just had to get posted now. The one that I didn't, I realized I don't have decent enough pictures, so I'll have to head back out to that site soon to take care of that.

Anyhow I managed to resubmit the Honda plant in Marysville, Ohio. I originally submitted it to the "First of its kind" cat back in November, however it was declined because there is no sign on site showing that it was the location where the first Japanese car was built in the U.S. It was suggested that I submit it to the Superlatives cat instead. I kept meaning to do that, but never thought about it when I was able to do so. In addition to that I submitted a Horse Crossing Sign in the "Uncommon Crossing Signs" cat, a Drive-In Movie Theater (I'm hoping to get back there this summer to catch a movie, and Waymark the neon there. I want to get some good night shots), and a Former School.

The former school has actually been pretty high on my list to get posted for a while. I didn't attend this school, but I did go to school in one of the other 3 Marion County School Districts, and I worked directly across the road for a few years. Also, Dewgrl, DID go to this school, and graduated just a couple of years before the story broke that led to its closing. In short the school was built on a waste dump that was formerly part of a U.S. Army base and POW camp during WWII, and into the early 1960's. In the late 1990's a former student of the school noticed higher than normal Leukemia rates in students who attended the school. After some misleading information, and cover-ups from the Ohio EPA and Army Corps of Engineers, over 75 chemicals were found on the school's campus at hazardous levels. The schools were closed in 2003, after the OEPA, Ohio government, and Army Corps gave money to build new schools elsewhere. A longer, more descriptive narrative can be found on the Waymark page once its approved. I guess because it was handled through the Army Corps, it never seems to have been listed as a Superfund Site.

Waymarking Kansas and Missouri

2008-01-08T21:24:00.000-05:00

This past weekend Dewgrl and I went out of town for her sister's wedding in Knob Noster, Missouri. We flew into Kansas City, and had a little down time during which we did a little Waymarking and Geocaching. On Thursday, after we arrived in KC we visited the GARMIN HQ for a Waymark visit, and to grab a virtual cache. It looks like there are many who are doing some armchair caching on this one, but we really did visit there. After that we drove over to a great BBQ Joint. One of my goals in going out there was to try real Kansas City BBQ, and this spot fit the bill perfectly. I had a few more Waymarks that I wanted to visit but we were both a little tired from traveling, and with our bellies full of BBQ we just wanted to get to our hotel, which was on Whiteman AFB. Since access is obviously restricted, we had to have Dewgrl's sister meet us at the main gate to get us in, and take care of getting our passes and such. She was running a little late, so we took spent the time in nearby Warrensburg finding the Several Bridges Road (Version 2) cache there. We finally got our passes and into the base where we were lead to the hotel. Once there I logged the caches and Waymark visits, and we went to bed.

Friday was mostly free for us. The only things that were planned was a tour of the Oscar 1 site on base, and the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. We got up early that morning to run out to Otterville for the James Gang cache. We DNFed it, and I'm pretty sure that it's not there any longer, however it was still an interesting site to visit. This spot was a location where the James Gang robbed a train for over $20,000. While there I waymarked the Blue Star Memorial Highway Marker and the site as an Infamous Crime Scene. On the was back through Sedalia we stopped for an early lunch at a local diner which was great! We got back to the base, and met up with the groom to be for our tour of the Oscar 1 facility. Basically it is one of several sites around the U.S. that were used from the 1960's until 1993. These underground bunkers were sites from which the Minuteman missiles would have been launched. Because of our nuclear disarmament agreements most of these sties were dug up and destroyed. This one was left due to it being one of the only ones located directly on a military base. The silos and missiles that it controlled were destroyed though. The tour guide, who is stationed at the base, made what could have been a dry, boring tour, a lot of fun. The groom's father also worked in one of these facilities elsewhere so he was able to provide much additional information as well. Following that we drove past the flightline to see the B-2 bombers that were out on display for a visiting officer. I also got to see a few A-10's that were tied-down outside the maintenance wing. Once that was over we had a little more time before we had to go to the rehearsal and dinner, so we drove back out to a Missouri Historical Marker we had passed to Waymark it. We also found another Blue Star Memorial Highway Marker there, and directly behind the park where these markers were located was a cemetery that we drove around to find and Waymark. On the way back to base again we made a quick stop at the Backroad Bridge Micro cache. The rest of Friday evening was taken up by wedding festivities.

The actual wedding was on Saturday. Everything was held on base, which made it convenient for travel. Everything was within just a few minutes of our hotel. It turned out to be a nice day, and it was a beautiful wedding and reception.

Sunday we had to check out of the hotel by 11am, and head back to Kansas City to catch our flight home. We got up early and went back into Warrensburg where we visited the Courthouse which is also on the National Register among other things. In front of the courthouse is a statue of "Old Drum", a dog that was the center of one of Missouri's most interesting damage suits, and from which we got the term that a dog is "Man's best friend." The statue is also the center of a virtual cache which we logged as well. On the way back to the base for the final time we found another MO Historical Marker which we Waymarked. We got back to base around 10:30am, checked out, picked up some folks that we were taking back to the airport and traveled to KC on our way home.

Ahhh finally back to some Waymarking

2007-11-05T21:23:00.000-05:00

As you may have noticed I've taken a bit of a break from posting here, and haven't really been very active with Waymarking. I've just been a little busy lately and haven't really had the time to do much on the site lately. I have managed to grab a few Waymarks here and there, but they've pretty much all just gone into my backlog for now.

This past weekend however I was free so I took the opportunity to visit a few places that I've been meaning to get to for some time, as well as knock off another county worth of Ohio Historical Markers....sort of.

I started out the day by heading to nearby Marysville, Ohio so I could mark the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company for the Publicly Held Corporation Headquarters, then on to find a new historical marker. I hadn't done my research to see that it was already listed, but I got to visit it anyhow so it was no loss what-so-ever. From there I headed just outside of town to hit up the Honda plant there since it was the location where the first Japanese car was made in the U.S. in 1982. I marked it under the First of its kind cat, of course.

I left Marysville heading further west to stop in Bellefontaine. I've been here several times before for other Waymarks, but there was one Ohio Historical Marker that I couldn't find before. I wanted to stop again, because it's the last one I need to complete Logan County. I'm pretty convinced that it's missing. There are photos of the marker from November of 2006, and I'm 99.9% certain I was in the same spot, but it's gone now, which is a shame. After that it was a quick stop for lunch. While at lunch I mentioned to Dewgrl that there was a small cemetery not far from the park where we tried to find the historical marker. I had already been there, so I didn't think about it, but she wanted to see it, so we went back out there. It was only a mile or two away, so it was no big deal, plus I hadn't Waymarked the cemetery before. So we marked Blue Jacket Cemetery in the Worldwide Cemeteries cat.

Along the way to Rushsylvania we happened across the Stanfield Pioneer Cemetery, so we stopped to look around, and of course Waymarked it. Then it was on the Rushsylvania Cemetery (I intend to Waymark it, but haven't posted it yet) to see the memorial for Jeremy Michael Hodge. He was a National Guardsman who was killed in Baghdad in October of 2005. There have been several local television and newspaper articles about the headstone because it's large and very detailed. It's almost life size and features a portrait of him on the front. While walking around the cemetery we also found some Zinc headstones which I still need to submit. We quickly stopped in Rushsylvania on our way though to Waymark the mural there, which, again, I haven't submitted.

After leaving Rushsylvania we headed north toward Kenton and the surrounding areas to mark Hardin county's Ohio Historical Markers. We stuck out on the first two. One of them had only a vague listing of its location, so it really could be anywhere, the other I know we found the location, but there was no marker. While looking for the first one, we stumbled upon another cemetery, which also had a Zinc marker. After missing the second historical marker we moved on to the next nine markers in the county and did manage to find all of them. There were a few stops along the way for various cemeteries we passed.

The sun was starting to set about this time, and we still had one more stop we wanted to make before it got dark. Yet another cemetery in Fostoria, Ohio which I had seen pictures of over at Geocaching.com. There used to be a cache there and it looked interesting so I wanted to visit and Waymark it as well. We got out of there just before the sun set, and headed on up to Toledo to grab dinner at Tony Packo's

Tony Packo's has now been marked under the Celebrity Hangouts. Dewgrl is a big fan of the television series M*A*S*H, so she has wanted to stop here for a long time, and I've always wanted to see what all the talk was about. Packo's was discussed in several episodes of M*A*S*H by Maxwell Kilnger, who was played by Toledo native Jamie Farr. Farr liked Packo's so much that he wanted to make sure that it was included in the scripts. Farr still visits from time to time. Over the years hundreds of celebs have visited there and have signed hot dog buns (they use foam buns actually) which are hung all over the walls. I personally was pretty impressed with the food. I didn't expect much going into it since the featured menu item is a hot dog, but it's actually really good. They actually use a Hungarian variety of Kielbasa, which is cut to various sizes for different hot dogs. They're then loaded with onions, chili sauce, and shredded cheddar cheese. They also offer several kinds of chili, along with a few other things that I forget about now.

400th waymark listed.

2007-09-25T21:21:00.000-04:00

I just had my 400th Waymark accepted. It ended up being the Rolls Royce Neon Sign that I listed. I posted several others this evening, including a History Museum, 2 Bells, a Caboose, a Professional Sports Venue, a topiary, a Unique Steeple, a Static Aircraft Display and an Exact Replica which was a cross post of one of the bells.

This past weekend while gathering those, I also managed to visit a few Waymarks as well.

Along the way I took some pictures of a couple of other sites, that I thought I could fit into a category, but now I'm not so sure. Specifically there is the Field of 6' tall Concrete Corn in Dublin, Ohio (can be seen here, here, here, here, and here). This was a public arts project to memorialize Central Ohio's agricultural beginnings, and to symbolize the corn fields, and homesteads that stood here before they decided it was a good place for highways and office buildings.

The other is locally famous "Art" sculpture/sign/whatever (can be seen here, here, and here). It's located at the Columbus College of Art and Design in downtown Columbus, OH. It stands probably about 50' tall, and bridges the street there. The local folks like to have fun with it. There is one perspective where photo can be taken with a couple of light poles that can be made to look like the letter "F" in front of the "art" sign.

Waymarking Visits....

2007-09-20T21:20:00.000-04:00

I just got off tonight's Waymarking chat....a little abruptly since I lost my connection for some reason....and there was some pretty good dialog this evening.

One thing that was brought up was the requirements for visiting Waymarks. Most seem to be in favor of reducing or eliminating visit requirements. This is something that I completely support personally. Sure, there is a possibility that folks could "cheat" or that people will just log their visits with "TFTW," however that's not something that really concerns me. If people want to log a visit on my Waymarks when they haven't actually been there, that's their problem, and their loss. It really doesn't effect me in any way. With the quick logs of "TFTW," again, that's the visitor's thing. If someone isn't inspired to write a novel about a Waymark of mine, that's certainly understandable. I don't expect everyone to love the Waymarks I've posted....people are entitled to their own opinions.

I think that fewer requirements will help new folks better embrace Waymarking. If we keep telling people "Sorry, that's not good enough. You need to do this and this, and post a picture showing this...." then folks aren't going to want to try to visit, or post Waymarks anymore. Certainly, it's nice to see folks post photos with their logs, but there are still plenty of folks who don't have digicams, and don't want to figure out how to use one. There's no reason why I should exclude anyone from playing just because they don't have the want, or means to post photos. In the long run I think most will still post photos, and really, it'll make the photos that DO get posted that much more of a surprise, of sorts. I don't like having to meet special requirements to tell others that I visited a Waymark. To me, it's about being there and experiencing the location, and arbitrary and difficult photo requirements actually take away from the experience for me. I'm more worried about meeting the requirement than reading the sign, or looking at the sculpture, or whatever.

Of course this doesn't really apply to the "Waymarking Games" department, since many of those are set up a certain way that would still need specific requirements.

On a side note a few folks were discussing traveling to various parts of the world to go Waymarking, and to visit other folks. I've been thinking about doing the same. Especially since Skybus came to town earlier in the year. $10 airfares to many major cities makes it much more attractive to travel around just for the heck of it. I don't know how much they've been advertised in various destination cities, but there has been a lot of talk here, since they're based out of Port Columbus International Airport.....so I invite all of you in, or near their destinations to come out to Ohio for a day or two. :)

Hockey is back, and weekend Waymarking

2007-09-16T21:19:00.000-04:00

Tonight I was in attendance of the Columbus Blue Jackets first pre-season game, against the Nashville Predators. I wish I could say that I was excited about this year's team, but to me, it looked a little lack-luster this evening. To their defense, there have been some pretty big changes in the organization from the top down, and they only had two days of training camp before the game. They're also trying out some new lines this year. One in particular that should be interesting is Rick Nash and David Vyborny being centered by Nikolai Zherdev. In the past Zherdev has been a wing, but they decided to try him in center since he's always had a tendency to center the puck anyhow. Unfortunately Vyborny left the game early tonight with an injury to his left leg. Nashville's Martin Erat made a cheap hit on Vyborny. Vyborny laid on the ice for a few minutes, but was able to get up and skate off, although he was assisted by a few teammates. Last I heard he was taken to the hospital, and nothing is going to be released, or decided about his condition until morning. All in all, it should be an interesting year. Hopefully they can make it to the playoffs this year, and lose the title of being the only team to have never been to the playoffs.

This weekend Dewgrl and I managed to grab a few Waymarks. On Saturday we had only planned to go out for some breakfast at an Amish style restaurant in a near by town. After we left there I decided that I wanted to grab the two Ohio Historical Markers in Madison County. After marking the second one I wanted to go to nearby London, Ohio, to Waymark the courthouse, but we decided to head out to Springfield instead to see the Madonna of the Trail out there. In all we got the two historical markers, a few cemeteries, an infamous crime scene, a few Zinc headstones, a solar power location, an outdoor warning siren, and probably a few that I've forgotten. I haven't posted most of them yet, simply because I've been lazy, but I'll probably get on that soon. Over all it was a beautiful day. It was much cooler than it has been recently, and it was nice and sunny. It made for some good pictures.

Nothing much new.

2007-08-20T21:18:00.000-04:00

Last week I was on vacation with no real plans of any sort. I spent most of the week visiting a few places around the area, and driving some of the backroads to get there. This lead to visiting so smaller rural towns with a few Waymarks along the way.

I've already posted a couple of Lustron Homes in Team Farkle 7's new category. I've been interested in this since it was first brought up in the forums. It was something that I never knew about, and found there were a few in some nearby towns. I also grabbed a few new Ohio Historical Markers, a lighthouse, a unique weathervane, and a few others that got me some new icons.

In addition to that Dewgrl and I spent some time up in nearby Marion, Ohio. The Marion Area Convention and Visitors Bureau up there is have a contest of sorts called Marion's Amazing Treasures. Basically they have a list of various interesting and historical sites in and around Marion. You visit them and get either a stamp or sticker on a "game card." There are locations that are manned, such as the Union Station, and those that are unmanned like the Harding Memorial. The manned stations involve speaking to someone or taking a tour to get a sticker, and the unmanned stops have a green wooden box that has a small stamper inside so you can stamp your own card. Depending on how many of the 30 squares you check off, you qualify for various prizes. Many of the locations we were already familiar with, but some we were not. Either way it was still interesting to visit the various locations. It worked out well that I was on vacation...Dewgrl works nights so we were able to get to most of the various museums and such that hold odd weekday hours. There are still a few we need to visit, so we're planning to wrap it up this weekend.

Aside from the running around I got a little caught-up on my W'marking backlog. I mostly went through and posted those that are in categories I hadn't covered yet to get some new icons. I still have plenty more Waymarks to get through, so I've got some work ahead of me still.

Racing, and jumping through hoops..

2007-08-06T21:16:00.000-04:00

I haven't been posting on here much lately because I've been somewhat busy. There have been a few new caches to go after, Dewgrl has recently found a love of rockhounding, I've been going up to Mid-Ohio for some races, helping my folks build a shed, and catching up on my W'marking backlog. The weather has been fairly hot lately as well, so I've opted to minimize my activity outdoors. It's pretty much typical for Ohio in late July-August, but it's been a mild summer up until now so it just seems worse than it is. The other day my thermometer was reading 101.5°f. Some of that is due to radiant heat because of where the outside sensor is located, but it wasn't too far off. Plus the humidity has been way up there. I also observed that this past winter my thermometer recorded a low of -17.1°f, so we've had nearly 120° difference in temperatures.

This past weekend I was at Mid-Ohio with my brother and sister-in-law for the Honda Supercycle Weekend. I've watched a few superbike races on TV, and have always wanted to go up for this event, but just never made it. I was there on Saturday for practice, qualifying and a few races. After getting sunburned at the last 2 races I've been to up there, I thought I was doing everything right. I picked up a light, long sleeve, fishing type shirt, put on jeans instead of shorts, and had on my everyday ball cap. I forgot to put any sunscreen on the few exposed areas thought and am suffering the result. I ended up with a decent burn on my face and neck, resulting in some blistering on my chin...maybe next time I'll remember the sunscreen!

As I also mentioned I've been working through my Waymarking backlog when I've had a few free moments. For the most part everything has gone smoothly, and most of them have been posted in categories that I've posted in before, so no big deal. This evening though I posted one in the Rails to Trails category. I didn't realize it before I went to post that they require one to not only upload pics to the gallery, but to also post them in the long description as well. I know that some folks do this on most of their Waymarks anyhow, but it's not something I'm accustomed to, nor regularly practice. I guess it wasn't too much of a big deal, basic HTML is easy enough, but it just seems unnecessary. Uploading into the gallery or posting in the description, one or the other, would suffice. It just seems arbitrary to require both. I did so to meet the requirement, but I'll think twice about marking, next time I come across some rail trails.

A few new postings

2007-07-19T21:15:00.000-04:00

I finally managed to hunker down and get a few more Waymarks posted this evening. I've been meaning to work on them for a while, especially since I grabbed a ton of new W'Marks this past weekend.

This weekend started out as just going to a nearby farm market, in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, to see what they had to offer. Dewgrl and I make it out there every couple of weeks. Interestingly in going out to this market we pass near at least 3 other farm markets that are much closer to home. We just like this one since they have a large variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, and baked goods. The main reason we drive about an hour, instead of 5 minutes to the nearest one, is their selection of organic, grass-fed, free range meats. For me personally it's not that I'm some eco-snob or anything, I just prefer the taste, and it tends to be lower in fat and cholesterol....which is a big plus for me.

Anyhow, neither of us had anything to do on Saturday, so we decided to explore a few cemeteries that we always pass on the way to the market. We both like to explore old cemeteries for the history they offer...plus we were Waymarking them, and looking for Zinc headstones as well as Revolutionary War veterans, and bells which frequently appear in local cemeteries. We then decided to make a drive down to another cemetery in Kirkersville, Ohio, about an hour further away, that we had tried to find before. Along the way we managed to find an anchor, a few more cemeteries, and an Ohio Historical Marker. From the cemetery outside of Kirkersville, we traveled up into Granville, Ohio to grab some lunch. On a whim we stopped at an old Victorian themed cafe. I got a tuna melt, which I greatly enjoyed. Dewgrl got some turkey panini sandwich thing...I think, which she wasn't too fond of. After that we walked around the main part of Granville to grab a few Ohio Historical Markers, a bell, a few National Register spots, a museum, and some other Waymarks that escape me right now. We then headed back toward home, stopping along the way to check on one of my caches, and Waymark the spot, since it's a covered bridge, and on the National Register.

Sunday started out with a trip to the nearby Olentangy Indian Caverns. After taking a few Waymarks, and the tour, we headed up to the town in which I grew up, Prospect, Ohio. We planned to take a look at their progress in demolishing the Truss Bridge that I had Waymarked here. It's sad to see this go. It's really about the only thing this little town had in regard to history. As I mentioned on the Waymark page, to some it may have been just a rusty piece of metal, but it was a source of pride to the townspeople.

From there we were going to visit the Prospect Cemetery to mark the Zinc headstones there, since there are at least 11 of them waiting to be marked. We didn't make it there though. We ended up getting sidetracked by a few other little cemeteries, then decided to save it for another day, even though we passed right by it on the way home.

blah blah blah....racing...blah blah blah

2007-07-01T21:13:00.000-04:00

It's been a little while since I've posted here. Mainly because I've been busy, I haven't had much time for Waymarking or caching lately. I did manage to get up to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course this weekend, and Waymark it, but it wasn't my main goal in going there.

Normally I head to the Pontiac Excitement Nationals for the pro NHRA drag racing, at National Trail Raceway. This year the moved it a little further away to Norwalk Raceway Park. I haven't been to that track in years, and I kind of wanted to go up there since they've updated the place, and this is the first year they've held an NHRA event. On the other hand I've always wanted to go to Mid-Ohio, since I've never been there but heard plenty about it. My father grew up near there and if I remember correctly he worked there for a little while during his youth. I've never asked, but I sort of suspect he may have raced there, or at least been around the track. He mentioned before that he knew the original owner very well, and my dad owned several different British sports cars when he was young...so putting 2&2 together....Anyhow, like I said, he talks about Mid-Ohio frequently, and I always wanted to get up there. I guess I always thought I wouldn't enjoy it as much since I always enjoyed drag racing, and NASCAR so much. I've watched plenty of road course events on TV, and found it a little hard to follow.

So I was left with the choice, drive almost twice as far and pay over twice as much for a ticket to go to Norwalk, or go to Mid-Ohio for the Vintage Grand Prix. Cheaper all the way around won out, and I have to say I'm really glad I changed my "tradition." I enjoyed the racing, the track and the atmosphere immensely. I think I've even found a new favorite racing genre. I guess seeing it live is a completely different experience. I now see where road courses are much more about the driver and the track, than it is about the cars. In drag racing, and NASCAR, a poor driver can still do well if the crew can manage to dial the car in just right. It just doesn't seem to be as much of a challenge to the driver when compared to road courses. Mid-Ohio was just a great place to spend a day. I also found that the food and souvenirs were cheaper than what they've been at most other races I've been to, so that was a nice bonus.

Today was spent cleaning up my Jeep and putting the interior back together so I can sell it. I don't really want to get rid of it, but I rarely drive it anymore, and can use the garage space, so it's gotta go.

Waymarking and Google Earth

2007-06-12T21:12:00.000-04:00

I see now that you can download Waymarks into Google Earth. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet, as the laptop I'm posting this from runs very slowly (need to burn a bunch of Waymarking photos to CD and free up some room, among other things.)

I think this is a pretty cool deal. For me personally, it'll mostly just fill some free time, looking around at different waymarks on GE. It is one step closer to .GPX and PQs. For me those aren't that big of a deal. If I want to visit some Waymarks, it's still just as easy to download waypoints using .LOC files....I really don't need to take the entire description of a place with me at all times. I only need to know the logging requirements, and I'm good to go. I guess I don't understand why there are folks out there who refuse to participate in Waymarking just because .GPX files aren't available. Sure, it means the Waymarking site and functionality is different from Geocaching....but that's the whole point of Waymarking being a separate site.

A little more catch-up.

2007-06-09T21:03:00.000-04:00

I had a few moments free this evening so I decided to go through a little more of my back log. I posted 5 locations in the US National Register of Historic Places; The Hotel Harding, Ohio Wesleyan University Student Observatory, The Dr. David Henderson House, the Hanby House, and Towers Hall. All of those were quickly approved by silverquill, and I'm beginning to think that he does nothing except approve Waymarks :) . In addition to those I also stacked a few locations as well. I dropped The Oldest Concrete Street in America into the "First of its kind" category, after previously listing it under the Ohio Historical Markers, and Superlatives categories. I also put the register for Ohio's highpoint into the Summit Registers, and Guest Books categories. While technically I didn't mark this in any other categories, I did mark the highpoint itself, which is only a few feet away, in the Superlatives, and Ohio Historical Markers categories the other day. The First of its Kind, Guest Book and Summit Register haven't been approved yet.

Hikenutty's reply...

2007-06-02T23:17:00.000-04:00

A few days ago I mentioned having posted over 100 Waymarks in the Ohio Historic Markers category, to which Hikenutty replied. I was going to reply to that, but I figured I'd just do it as another entry since I realized that what I had to say was a little lengthy.

Having posted that many in that category really goes back to how I started in Waymarking. When Waymarking first came around, I looked at it, but I wasn't all that interested. There was nothing about Waymarking that turned me off, as a matter of fact, I had always enjoyed locationless caches, it was just that I was too lazy to take a couple of minutes to really explore the site. A few months later in some of the local Geocaching forums there was a challenge thrown out to try to get the Ohio Historic Markers above the Pennsylvania Historic Markers in terms of being the largest. For what it's worth, PA currently has more Waymarks listed in their category than Ohio has markers in the entire state....in other words, no way we'll ever win.

So from there I decided that I can certainly help in the effort, and I've always enjoyed stopping to look at the markers when I run across them. My first foray into Waymarking was solely in Ohio Historic Markers, and I took a couple of trips around through other parts of the state, just to mark historic markers. One day I decided to finally sit down and see what else Waymarking had to offer, and realized that it is really appealing to me. So a lot of the reason that my numbers are so high in that category is that I concentrated just on that one category for a while before getting into full-blown Waymarking. Because of that I feel that my numbers appear a little inflated for the category, but who cares, since I've had fun with it just the same.

Minnetrista Geocaching Event

2007-06-02T22:27:00.000-04:00

I just returned home from Muncie, IN where I stopped over for the national opening of the GPS Adventures Maze exhibit. It's a pretty cool little setup they've got going on, and from the sound of it, it's going to be touring the US. I suggest checking it out if it comes around to your neck of the woods, especially if you have children. In conjunction with the maze the folks at Minnetrista have set out a few pseudo-geocaches to be found on the grounds. I ended up getting there a little late, so I missed the social part of the event, but I still went out to find the pseudo-caches, along with a few other real caches out there. Along the way I met up with some folks from Cincinnati and spent most of the afternoon chatting with them, and finding the caches. So it turned out to be a great afternoon.

The event started at 2pm, and I decided to get an early start to take a more "off the beaten path" route to Muncie. I wanted to Waymark a few Ohio Historic Markers, as well as have a more relaxed time getting there. I could have run Interstate 70 almost all the way from home to Muncie, but I just didn't want to do that. Between the Waymarking, and several bad thunderstorms which reduced visibility to about 20', literally, and produced some decent size hail, that's why I ended up getting to the event late.

One issue I'm constantly running in to with the Ohio Historic Markers is the lack of documentation about their location. All of Ohio's markers can be found at RemarkableOhio.com, but due to the nature of Ohio's marker program information can vary widely. Ohio is somewhat unique in that the Ohio Historic Society (OHS), who sponsors the program, doesn't actually come up with ideas for the markers. The markers are left up to the community, organization, or individual who wants a marker. Essentially someone submits and idea along with text for the marker to the OHS, and then the OHS decides if it's truly marker worthy, and then has the marker cast. So it's nice that the state isn't force feeding history down our throats, and they also recognize that someone who has lived all their lives in an area where a certain piece of history happened or exists would know more about it than they would. The issue comes from the fact that they didn't really keep much record of the markers in the early days (the first marker was placed in 1957). So now when you look at the markers you may get anything from exact coordinates for the newer signs, or vague descriptions for the older ones. Even if an exact address is given, it is still subject to being completely wrong information. The most vague description I've seen for a marker's location just state "Mt. Vernon." Granted Mt. Vernon, Ohio isn't exactly a metropolis, but it's a sizable town, and it's hard to tell where they may have tucked the marker away. I've still not come up with that one, although I have a much better idea where it may be based on some photos submitted by a user of the remarkableohio.com site. Along similar lines markers get listed on the website sometimes many months before the marker actually gets placed and dedicated. There was one in a nearby small town that I looked for 3 times because it was listed as 2006 for its date, but I later found out that it didn't get placed until sometime in May of 2007, which would be about a year after I first tried to find it. I ran into something similar today with one marker I tried to find, but I ended up finding some other interesting Waymarks near where the sign will be.

There were 3 of the markers that I couldn't find today. One hasn't been dedicated yet, and the other two I just simply didn't see now that I've looked more closely at the pictures and descriptions. Oh well, some other time. I did manage to get a few other marks that I wasn't intending, since I only meant to get the Historic Markers and anything in the immediate vicinity, but there were a could of things that I couldn't resist. I also grabbed a couple of visits while in Indian as well when I left the event.

I took the Interstate to get home, and it really reminded my why I like to stick more to the US and State routes instead of the interstates. It's much more relaxing, and I really enjoy going through all of the small towns along the way. Sure, it's usually much longer not taking the interstate, but I'm not so sure we're better off traveling the quickest route. I find when I do that I wait to leave until the very last minute, because I can, then I get frustrated with traffic that is going to "make me late," even though it was really my fault for not leaving earlier. Then you zip through the countryside never being aware of what the area really has to offer in terms of people, unique places to eat, interesting history, or whatever.

A quick double stack tonight.

2007-05-29T20:58:00.000-04:00

I didn't intend to do any Waymarking today, but an opportunity presented itself that I couldn't pass up. This morning at work I was listening to some local talk radio, and they mentioned a train derailment that happened to be about 5 miles north of where I live. I looked up some info online at the local news stations to get more of an idea as to what happened. When I saw that there were no injuries, I immediately though of Waymarking.

It happened about 4am this morning, where a little back country road crosses the local CSX rails. 24 cars filled with office equipment left the tracks, essentially creating a big mess. There were no vehicles at the crossing, and the engines were well past the crossing, so like I said, no one was hurt.

So for this I was able to mark it as a News Article Location since it already appeared online and in the local newspaper, it's not approved in that category yet. I also listed, and it was approved, in Railway Disaster Sites. Nothing like posting Waymarks only about 16 hours after they happen. :)

A little waymarking this weekend.

2007-05-28T20:57:00.000-04:00

Since Dewgrl's sister was in town this weekend, we didn't get to do too much Waymarking. However when we dropped her off at the airport, I took some time to grab a few marks. Of course we got the airport itself, some abstract art inside, a static aircraft display, and I managed to find a few time capsules in there as well. When we left, we also stopped at a nearby pet cemetery, and another aircraft display almost right across the road from the pet cemetery. On the way home we decided to stop over at Hoover Reservoir, since it was sort of on the way home. I visited a couple of Ohio Historic Markers, and also marked 3 others along the way. Doing this put me up to 101 Waymarks posted in the category. My 100th was this one, which isn't approved at the time of this writing. We also Waymarked the dam at Hoover Reservoir, and the Disc Golf Course. Needless to say I was excited about getting my 100th posted in the Ohio Historic Markers.

How quickly time passes

2007-05-22T20:52:00.000-04:00

I realized it has been a while since I've posted here. I've just been a little busy lately with class starting, getting the details ironed out for the trip to Hawaii, and other little things here and there.

I've still been doing a fair amount of Waymarking, in spite of the fact that it's been a while since I posted any. A couple of weekends ago I grabbed a few Waymarks in downtown Columbus, since I was there. I marked the LeVeque Tower which falls into several categories; The US Register of Historic Places, Skyscrapers, and Art Deco - Art Nouveau. I took a lot of pics of this building, as it's pretty much my favorite in Columbus. It's just very pleasing to look at, and it's unique in its design as compared to the other buildings downtown. I also Waymarked the Santa Maria Replica. I have several others that I haven't yet listed, including 3 Ohio Historic Markers, 3 Neon Signs, the Capitol building, a couple theaters, a couple more skyscrapers, a few US Register locations, a fire fighter memorial, a lion statue, a space flight memorial, and probably a few others that I'm forgetting. I also found several spots on Capital University's campus that can be Waymarked, but I've just never remembered to bring both my GPS and camera to class with me at the same time.

This past weekend Dewgrl and I took a trip over to Pittsburgh because she wanted to get some bookshelves from the Ikea there. That happens to be the closest one to us, and I like visiting Pittsburgh anyhow. I never knew much about Pittsburgh until my brother moved there briefly several years ago. I spent the weekend with him once and he showed me around some of the interesting features of the city that he had found. A few years later I traveled there several times when I was attending the University of Akron. I originally was attending college for a degree in Communications with which I would seek a career in radio broadcasting...long story short that bubble was soon burst, and I decided to change majors. While there I participated with the college radio station (88.1 fm WZIP), which at that time was the biggest college radio station in the US in terms of listener-ship...I'm not sure if it still is, since that was a while ago, but I would have to imagine it still holds true. The next closest college radio station was about 1/2 our size. I'm getting way off topic here.....Anyhow I had an on-air shift (Wednesday 9p-Midnight), and did weather, news, sports, and helped a little with production. The sports piece of it had me driving to Pittsburgh once in a while to cover Penguins' games and interview players. It was this that introduced me to, and hooked me on hockey.

So anyhow, on the way to Pittsburgh we stopped to Waymark one of the newest Ohio Historical Markers, which also should fit into the Firsts category. We also visited a couple of out of the way cemeteries, which will fit into Worldwide Cemeteries, of course, and weird story locations, as well as one spot that may fit into the firsts category as well. In Pittsburgh, we grabbed the bookcases, then headed up to Cranberry, PA visiting a couple of Waymarks along the way, and then grabbed dinner, and a couple of cases of beer that I like that I can't find at home. From there we headed back into downtown Pittsburgh. While in the area I always like to stop at an overlook of the city called Mt. Washington. The Leprechauns had Waymarked another spot in the Cityscapes category that I had never heard of, he/they also have a cache there, so I decided to check it out. In spite of getting lost and dealing with traffic in the dark and rain, it ended up being a truly rewarding spot. There was no one else there, unlike Mt. Washington which is very popular among locals to hang out, and tourists to visit, and the view was beautiful. I have to give Leps many thanks again for bringing me there, as I wouldn't have known about it otherwise, and it has now given me a better spot to visit when I'm in town.

Let's see.....Sunday was spent stopping in at a Historical Museum for a very small little town (Radnor) a little north of where I live. I had been trying to get in there for a while, but they hold odd hours. They just happened to be open when I went by on my way elsewhere, so I stopped. There wasn't a ton of stuff to see, however everything in the museum was owned/worn/used/made/whatever by local residents of the little town, so it was interesting to see its history. From there I visited with my brother for a bit, then Dewgrl and I went out to see if a certain cemetery was open to the public yet, and then visited with her family for a bit.

The cemetery that I mentioned is the Phillip Dryer Cemetery just outside of Marion, Ohio. This cemetery was pretty much lost for a while, and then someone basically stumbled upon it and started campaigning to restore and save the cemetery. From vague reports I've read the cemetery sits on the edge of an old quarry, and had started to fall in, plus it was somewhat vandalized, or it's an active quarry and they wanted to mine the land the cemetery sits on...or something, I don't honestly remember now. They eventually restored the cemetery. There was an article in the Marion Star newspaper a few weeks ago stating that they had officially dedicated it. Between the time it was rediscovered and now, we found where the cemetery is. It sits far back in a farm field in a small wooded patch. There is a gravel drive leading to it, but there is a gate at the road that is locked with a sign stating to call the trustees giving 48hrs notice if you would like to visit the cemetery. Since neither of us have any relatives buried there, that we know of, we didn't really want to bother anyone to come out there just so we could look around a little. Since it was recently dedicated we thought maybe it was openly available now, but that's not the case. It's still locked up.

Well that was certainly long winded enough, and I really should be doing homework, so...uhhhh....I don't know, insert some witty exit statement here.

The Ciro-Flex arrived today.

2007-05-10T20:51:00.000-04:00

Today I received my Ciro-Flex camera that I mentioned below. I also got the working Ciro-35...sort of. I took the additonal insurance on its shipping, and I got my notice that I have to go to the post office to sign for it. So I should be picking that up tomorrow.

As I also mentioned the Ciro-Flex came with a ton of extras; the original manual, a couple of advertisements for the camera, a filter adapter, a lens hood, a lens cleaning brush, two Kodak flash guides, a GE Photo Data Book from 1950, several informational booklets that originally came with the camera, another book purchased separately at the time that is somewhat of a basic photography guide using this camera (written by Bruce Downes, copyright 1950), and a letter to the original owner of the camera (see scan below) from Ciro Cameras from when it was here in Delaware, it also came with the bottom half of the original box.

I'm still trying to determine exactly which model this one is, as they were made in models A through F. I'm positive that it's not a F, which is the top-of-the-line model, even though it came with a booklet extolling the virtues of the F. Because it has the Rapax synchromatic shutter, it is either a C, D, E, or F. It's not an F because it's not stamped as such on the side, it also has an 85mm lens, and a maximum aperture of f/3.5. The F model had an 83mm lens and a max. aperture of f/3.2. Based on the pictures I've seen around the web I'm leaning toward this being a model C.

In one of the original booklets that came with the camera it shows how the camera was made, and includes several photos of the outside of the factory and various people inside building the cameras. Using the photo of the outside of the factory, I should be able to waymark the building in the "Photos, then and now" category, as the factory still stands today.

Again as promised, here are some pics. It did come with the original case, but I forgot to grab a pic, and I'm just too darn lazy to take more pics right now. :) Same as yesterday, excuse the odd colors, and you'll notice that the pics are a little lesser quality. Dewgrl took our newest digital with her today, so I was stuck using one of the other two we have. I first took some pics with a 2.1mp RCA camera I have since it's the newer of the two, but it doesn't have a macro function, so those pics were horrible. I then broke out my old Olympus D-320L which doesn't even have a mega pixel rating (it shoots 640x480) but has a much higher quality lens and a macro mode....although it eats 4 AA batteries like they're going out of style, even without using the display screen. The pics below are from that Olympus.

The front and side showing the focusing knob.

The front and other side with the hood up.

The front of the camera

The letter that was included with the camera. Interestingly, it mentions that the shutter allows a speed up to 1/400, but it might take some extra work to get it into that position, and that it'll work better with more use. The shutter does indicate 1/400, and it is still a little hard to get it to turn to that setting. You can click on the image to get a larger (which you can then also click again to zoom in), easier to read image of the letter.

1/2 Ciro 35 Cameras arrived

2007-05-09T20:49:00.000-04:00

I received the first of the two Ciro 35's that I mentioned earlier. This one is the one that is not functioning. The shutter was stuck open, and I assumed that the shutter blades needed cleaned. I managed to get it apart, and found the blades to be a little dirty, but still lightly oiled. I don't have the right kind of lubricant to return it back to a "like-new" state, plus I noticed this wasn't the first time the camera was opened. The heads of some of the screws were stripped a little, and at least two of the shutter springs were missing....I think I also lost another one. I did, however, manage to get everything back together. The shutter is now closed, but still not functioning, so I think this one is just going to be a display, even though the paint on parts of the body is a little rough. I had never before taken a camera apart, so this little exercise made me realize that I should never go into camera repair. There are far too many little screws and bits, and my hands are far too unsteady to make a career out of that. Considering this is a simple camera from 60 years ago, I can't even begin to imagine opening up a modern film, or digital camera.

As promised, here are some pics of it. I apologize for the odd color in some of the pics. The best lighting here in my humble abode happens to be on the stove. I didn't figure you all wanted to see my stove top, so I grabbed a sheet, which happens to be an olive green sort of color, to cover it up.

The Ciro 35 and its case

The front of the camera

Back

Back, with back removed. To replace the film the entire back of the camera slides off.

Top

Bottom

Camera in its case. I image many vintage camera are similar, however I like that the camera is fully operational when in its case. You can just unsnap it, lower the cover, and shoot. There is even a piece on the bottom that screws into the tripod mount which allowed you to mount the camera, in its case, on a tripod, and also secures the camera in its case.

Waymarking Sticker Seekers

2007-05-05T20:48:00.000-04:00

I finally got around to getting a couple of stickers, and a waymark listed under the Waymarking Sticker Seekers category. As of this writing it hasn't been approved. Strangely I ended up with another interesting waymark code. This time it's WM1G0D (It's a zero, not an "O"), I guess the site just doesn't know what to think about me, I'm either WM1BAD, or WM1G0D....which is it? :)

Additionally I'm thinking about transferring this blog over to a personal site so I'll have more control over what additional information I can add in the sidebar and such...I haven't looked into it yet, but if it's going to be a pain, I won't bother. Otherwise look for an update to the url soon.

Finally, I ended up grabbing a few more Waymarks today. I did stop up for the Ohio Historical Marker dedication, however I either read the site wrong, or they ended up moving it to tomorrow due to the weather, but they didn't have it today. The marker has already been placed, and it's there for the reading, so I went ahead and took pics of it. It's directly next to a marker that was placed in 2003, so it's now a "two-fer" there. I also marked a Goodwill store, independent coffee shop, possibly a Super Fund site (I have to do more research, but I think it should be listed as a Super Fund site), a history museum, a sundial, a rose garden, grave of a famous person, a couple of sites on the National Register of Historic Places, a cannon, a couple of former schools, a WWII memorial, a firefighter memorial, a police memorial, a couple of hobby/occupational graves, a bell, a golf course, and probably something else I'm forgetting.

Not much to talk about tonight...

2007-04-29T20:45:00.000-04:00

I just got done listing some Waymarks. I've slacked off about that lately it seems. I'm not sure if it's the nice weather or what, but I've just not felt like sitting down to research, type up, and post Waymarks the past couple of weeks. Regardless I posted 3 antique stores, an AM/FM Broadcast station, a courthouse, and 7 National Register of Historic Places places...one of those I've saved to submit later since I realized that the actual Register title included 3 buildings instead of just the one that I took pictures of, so I need to return to get a few more pictures. I still have about 10-15 National Register places in my backlog along with a ton of other stuff.

I was thinking about heading out to Mechanicsburg for the dedication of an Ohio Historic Marker there, but I didn't end up doing that. I really only wanted to go because I had looked very hard for it to Waymark it. It was listed on the remarkableohio.com site for a while, and it's dated 2006, but I found out that they never had a dedication ceremony, therefore it was never there until today. I knew where it should be, but I kept driving all around the town thinking that maybe the website had its location listed wrong (they've been known to do that) or something...I just never considered that it hadn't been erected yet. Oh well, I'll get out there one of these days to mark it. I am planning to go to another Marker dedication up in Marion next weekend. I grew up in Marion county and spent a lot of time in Marion, so its history is interesting to me. This particular marker is one recalling the history of a WWII German POW camp that was located where the present day Marion Industrial Depot is. You can read the marker's text here. It's pretty interesting stuff that most folks from the area aren't aware of, even though it's relatively recent history.

Something that this marker doesn't mention is some even more recent issues with the former POW camp. Near the eastern end of where that camp was, and where the Marion Engineer Depot was sits the former River Valley High school. Back in the late 1990's there was a link to leukemia cases and graduates of River Valley High School. It seems someone noticed they were developing the disease at a higher rate than other residents of Marion and Marion county. The school was closed and a new school was built a mile or two away. The EPA and various other organizations have been testing the air, soil, and everything else around there but releasing little information to the public (I need to check whether this is listed as a super fund site or not.....). One thing they did find was an area of the school yard where a rail line used to come into the POW camp. They found high levels of Arsenic in core samples taken there. It was later determined that the rail was used to import people into the camp. When they got off the trains they were sprayed right on the spot with a delousing agent. That agent contained Arsenic, and is what they were finding in the soil some 50 years later.

Vacation, and DSL problems fixed?

2007-04-23T20:42:00.000-04:00

I was on vacation all of last week, so I had to rejoin the world of adult responsibility today. It's certainly not that I don't like my job, quite the contrary actually, it's just that it's always hard to get back in the the ol' routine even after only having been off for a week. During that week I didn't accomplish much. I didn't really go anywhere, or do anything special, but it was relaxing just the same. I was hoping to catch up on my Waymarking backlog, but that didn't happen. Partly due to me just finding other things to do, but mostly because I was still having DSL issues.

I think I've found a fix for my DSL issues through. I got tired of the constant disconnects, and not being able to connect wirelessly...I wasn't able to connect my IBM Laptop, my new Mac Book, or the WII, so I knew it had to be something with the modem. I didn't feel like dealing with tech support again, especially because I'm already way over on my cell minutes from talking to them (I don't own a home phone....I have the landline service only because I have to have it for the DSL, but I don't even have a phone to connect to it if I wanted to). I decided to do a Google search for my particular DSL modem/router, which was supplied by my service provider, and I ended up with tons of links to various message boards and blogs discussing that this modem is a dog, the provider knows it, but essentially refuses to do anything about it unless you threaten to cancel. There were also several mentions of various firmware upgrades available, but no links were provided in the first several mentions. I checked the modem's manufacturer site, and they don't support it since it was made specifically for this service provider. I then thought I would be smart and check my service provider's website, only it find it impossibly difficult to get any information beyond very basic information. Finally after more digging through the Google links I came across a posting which included a link to the firmware available from the service provider. I quickly downloaded and installed this, and I've had no problems since. I'm not getting dropped (well not as often at least...2-3 times every couple of days is far better and livable at least), all of my wireless devices connect flawlessly, and above all of that the connection is actually running much faster both on my main PC and all of my wireless devices, than it was before. I'm still pretty much in favor of dumping the DSL and picking up cable though...it's a slightly more pricey option, but at least I would use the cable TV occasionally, as compared to a phone line that I don't and can't use even if I wanted to. In terms of "value" cable is a better option.....I think.....

But to bring my frustration levels back up it seems that I may have a corrupt memory stick. I just installed 2 1gb sticks in the PC about a month ago, to upgrade from the 128mb, and 512mb sticks I was running. Suddenly I was getting various BSOD errors randomly, and I couldn't find any rhyme or reason...sometimes it did it when I was asleep. I first suspected something with my video card since I am having other obvious issues with it...and because it would often throw up the BSOD when I was watching videos on YouTube. I started reading about it, and found the errors I was getting are typically attributed to either bad memory, or lack of power being supplied. I know for a fact that I don't have enough power running through this (I have a 200w supply, and the video card requires at least 250w by itself....in addition I'm running dual hard-drives, a CD burner, DVD rom drive, an IEEE 1394 card, plus I have just able every USB port filled most times (webcam, G15 keyboard, mouse, printer, sometimes a headset, sometimes the GPS, sometimes my memory card reader, and sometimes a flash drive) but I figured that for the time being it was easier to switch back to my old memory for a test. Everything is working fine since I've done that. I'm probably going to test each of the 1gb sticks to see if either is usable. On top of that I am also planning to get a new power supply as well, to hopefully end the other issues I've having specific to the video card. Who knows maybe after getting a new power supply I won't have any issues with either of the 1gb sticks.....I don't count on it, but stranger things have happened.

While I'm talking about computers.....I'm still liking the Mac Book, although I'm a little frustrated with it since I'm not used to it. I've been using Win based machines since I was probably about 12 years old, and DOS before that, so I've had about 17 years of "training" on Windows. Since I don't know anything about OS X it seems to me that I'm not able to do anything except play on the internet and look at pictures. That's only due to my lack of knowledge of the system. I was even posting some Waymarks from it last night and I couldn't figure out how to actually edit photos...I could only look at them...although I figured out how to get the file info so I knew which pic I wanted to post in a given Waymark. I just need to give it more time...plus I tend to be stubborn and don't read manuals and such until I'm about ready to chuck things in the trash, so it just adds to my frustration, and then makes it worse when I finally read up on something and realize how simple the procedure really is, and that I was making it 100's of times harder than it had to be. It's a stupid trait that I recognize in myself, but yet I still do nothing to correct it....hmmmmm.

Macbook

2007-04-19T20:41:00.000-04:00

I just received the Macbook that I ordered late last week. Dewgrl and I ran a few errands today, and I was worried that the FedEx guy was going to show up while we were gone, but he actually pulled up about 30 seconds after we got home.

So far I've set it up, and I'm currently downloading the various updates for it. I picked this up mainly because my current laptop doesn't work that well, and my PC isn't exactly portable, so I needed something new for the college courses I'm going to be starting in May.

I've never owned or even worked on a Mac of any sort. Even though I've only been on here for about a 1/2 hour (long enough to boot up, start the updates, figure out what program gets me on the net, and download Firefox), I'm really liking the OSx, the speed, and ease of use. The display is physically smaller than the WinXP laptop I have, and I was concerned about that, however that doesn't seem to be any issue. The graphics are nice and clear on this MacBook.

For what it's worth it is a MacBook, not MacBook Pro. I opted to grab a refurbished one instead of one brand new. It still carries the same warranty and everything, so I'm not concerned about it. It has a 13.3" glossy screen, 120gb hard drive, 1gb ram, and the "superdrive" or whatever that reads and writes CDs and DVDs.

I still have a lot of stuff to learn and figure out on here, and I won't have much time for that today, but like I said I do like very much what I see so far. I am still concerned about compatibility with the programs and games I frequently use on my PC and WinXP based laptop, so we'll see how that all works out for me.

This past weekend

2007-04-17T20:34:00.001-04:00

I finally got out on my little trip that I discussed earlier. The primary goal was to visit the Serpent Mound outside of Peebles, Ohio, mainly to log it for the New World Ancient Evidence, and the Impact Crater categories. I think that it's a great, local, example to put into each of those categories. Even though there are plenty of closer mounds I could log for the New World category, I really wanted to get the Serpent Mound listed. The Serpent Mound though ends up fitting into many catergories. At that park alone, I got the two mentioned above, a Lookout tower, an Official Local Tourism Attraction, a Scenic Overlook, an Ohio Historic Marker, and still to list are a History Museum, a Long Distance Hiking Trail, and a Scenic Hike.

I had once visited the Serpent Mound before with my family when I was a little kid, but I didn't really remember much about it. I do remember, even though I was probably too young to really appreciate it, that I was impressed by its size. Even now probably some 20 years later I was still impressed by it. Going down I was worried it would be a bit of a disappointment. Kind of like how your elementary school seemed huge as a kid, but if you ever go back you realize how small it really is. But that wasn't the case, and I'm planning to head back down there this summer to spend a little more time. This past Sunday was cold with a biting wind and impending rain/snow, so I didn't make a full day of it. I just visited the museum, walked around the mound and took pictures, looked at some of the other burial mounds in the area, and grabbed a Geocache, there placed by the Ohio Historical Society. That ended up being my 1300th find, so I'm glad that it was an interesting area. The hide wasn't particularly hard, nor was it an epic hike or anything, but I like it for the area that it's in.

In addition to all of that on the way down we spied several Waymarkable locations so we made sure to stop on the way back up. In the small town of Hillsboro, which is the county seat of Highland county, Ohio, there were tons of stuff to find and part of the reason we want to make a return trip to the area. Some of the more interesting things we found were an Ohio Bicentennial Bell, which is now listed in the Bells category along with three other interesting bells. In front of the Highland County Historical Society building was the largest bell I've ever seen. I noticed that the casting marks on it indicated that it was made in that same town. Behind the same building was a bell that was stamped "USS Hawaii, 1945" and another bell stamped "U.S. Coast Guard Cutter "Northwind" 1943". Not knowing the history of the town though, I was confused as to why these were sitting there until I got home and started researching. It turns out that the C.S. Bell Company was a very famous bell manufacturer in its day. They produced many bells for schools, farms, churches, and missions....including one that was listed among the "Bells That Changed The World" used on Molokai Island by Dr. Damien to call the stricken lepers to worship. They also produced thousands of bells for the U.S. Navy, many of which were used on ships as Invasion Bells during the storming of Normandy. The large bell in front was the largest bell ever made by the C.S. Bell Company, and even though I don't have 100% information I'm assuming the USS Hawaii bell and the Northwind bell were both made for those ships. I've also found that town of Hillsboro has an annual "Festival of Bells", and this year should be especially interesting as the town celebrates its Bicentennial. So that's another reason that we want to head back down there this summer.

Other than that there were many other waymarks in Hillsboro. We got a few of them, but decided just to wait to do a more extensive tour later. Up the road a little way is another small town of Leesburg which we pretty much entirely waymarked. The only exception was 2 independent pizza shops. I didn't want to mark them without having actually visited and tried their food.

On the way home we stopped for dinner in Grove City (a southern suburb of Columbus) then headed into downtown Columbus so I could mark a Cityscape that I've been wanting to mark for a while. It turned out really well as the downtown area was deserted at 10pm on a Sunday night, and because of the wind there was little smog which helped my pictures come out very clear. This was also pretty much my first endeavor in photographing a skyline at night, so given that I felt the pictures came out rather well.

In all I ended up with 59 waypoints in my GPS, one of which was just updated coords to a cache that was a little off. The rest were Waymarks, some of which can be cross posted, so it turned out to be a much more productive day than I was expecting. Even with all that Waymarking, we found time to grab 4 other caches in addition to the one at the Serpent Mound for me, and 5 for Dewgrl. There was one in downtown Columbus that I had found previously but she hadn't.

Easter Sunday Waymarking

2007-04-09T20:29:00.001-04:00

This past weekend was a busy one. Saturday was filled with Easter dinner with my family, and then a trip to Nationwide arena to watch the Columbus Blue Jackets lose their final game of the season. In spite of their loss, it was a really good game, except for the officiating, and I'm excited about the Jackets possibilities for next year.

Sunday I had planned to take that super secret trip, but didn't due to the cold and snow. We decided to stay closer to home. We headed out to nearby Marysville, Ohio to grab some lunch, and got a few waymarks while we were out there. Those marks include a couple parks, several playgrounds, a few basketball courts, an old church, a water tower, several payphones, a couple ghost signs, a steakhouse (which we didn't know existed before this), an airport, a couple welcome signs, an independent doughnut shop, a couple independent pizza joints, a relocated structure (I need more info on this one, it's still on steel beams and has stacks of wood under it, so it's obvious that it was moved or is being moved...I just don't know anything about it) and even though I don't like the "corporate" waymarks so much we did get a McD's, BK, Subway, Wal-mart, Dollar Store, Starbucks, and a Dairy Queen. There is still much more to be found in Marysville, but we're going to wait until it gets a little warmer so we can walk around and enjoy it more.

After leaving Marysville I decided there were a few more places I wanted to stop on the way home...sort of. We ran by Mill Creek Golf Course which is where 2003 British Open Champion Ben Curtis grew up playing golf, so I got that listed under the golf courses category. We also got a boat ramp, fishing hole, and even though I didn't think about it at the time a river/stream confluence. I'm going to need better pics for the confluence though. We also got a couple of truss bridges, benchmarks, another old church, and a train bridge.

All in all it was a good waymarking day aside from the cold and snow, and the change of plans from our original intentions.

I was hoping to get more caught up on my backlog this evening, however I'm having difficulties with my DSL disconnecting every 5 minutes again. I should call the tech folks, but from all the previous times I know I'm going to get the run around and I really don't feel like dealing with it tonight. Usually I get disconnected for a couple minutes and then it'll reconnect. So I call as soon as I get disconnected and by the time I'm through the IVR it's reconnected. At that point they always tell me that since my internet is connected and working that I'm obviously not having problems so there was no need to call (This is almost verbatim from 2 of the 6 people I talked to 2 weeks ago when I was having the trouble). They will eventually see that I'm calling in every 10 minutes, since they always want me to call back when I get disconnected. Finally they tell me they put in a trouble ticket and I'll get a call back in 24-48 hours, but I never get a call back. It usually does start working again for a week or two through so I've never bothered to call to find out if my supposed trouble ticket was actually resolved or if it was just a coincidence. I really just need to cancel this service and get something else at this point.

At least I've learned to copy and paste any info I've typed up on my waymarks before I go to the next page. I've lost a lot of typing on some of them in the past.

More Waymarking

2007-04-05T20:23:00.000-04:00

Since last I wrote I've been trying to catch up my backlog. I've finally convinced myself that I'll never be completely caught up, so I'm not trying to rush any of them. I tend to enjoy more historical locations since I always learn something about my little town, and I can show others some of the lesser known history of the area. Even though Delaware is a small town of about 25,000 people there is great history here. From the Scioto Trail which the Native Americans used to travel from hunting grounds in present day Kentucky, to Lake Erie, the early settlements of Ohio, Presidential history, clear up to present day, I think Delaware and the surrounding areas have a lot to be proud of. With this, it sometimes takes a decent amount of time at the library, or separating fact from fiction on the net. A great example of this is the Perkins Observatory which I listed in the Astronomical Observatories category, and the Weird Story Locations. I still need to get it listed under the U.S. Register of Historic Places, but I've not gotten around to that yet. I spent about nearly 2 hours researching it, and typing everything up, even though I'm reasonably familiar with its history, having visited there in the past, and using it for a locationless cache back when they were around. I'm hoping to get up to the Delaware Historical Society soon to get some information about several Waymarks I've been sitting on for a while.

I also managed to get out on Tuesday to enjoy the 80° weather we had....had being the operative word....it was about 35° yesterday, and 30° today with snow all day long...and dragged Dewgrl along as well to grab a few waymarks between dinner and a few errands. I think she just humors me in my Waymarking endeavors, but she does like to find bells, so I try to make sure a few of those get thrown in when we're out. On Tuesday I grabbed a used bookstore which is also a used video-game store, a ghost ad, bicycle shop, independent coffee shop, antique store, 3 bells, 2 playgrounds, a community park, a pier, 4 Weird Story locations (one of them being Perkins Observatory, which as I mentioned can be cross posted in Observatories, and U.S. Register), an outdoor basketball court, another used video-game store, and I also grabbed a few additional required pics for a couple of Neon Light locations, more required pics for a couple antique shops, as well as some coords that I needed.

I've also posted an antique store, an outdoor warning siren, a public library, the above mentioned basketball court, the above mentioned Weird Story Location, and the above mentioned pier. I also posted the above mentioned observatory, bicycle shop, and combo used book/used game store, but those have not yet been approved.

I also posted an Underground Railroad site which got denied due to my own lack of attention. Along with the pictures I took of the location, I also posted a few historical pics of some the people mentioned in its history. I copied the images from the Ohio Historical Society's website a while back and intended to get permission to use them. It was one of the later marks I posted last night, so I forgot that I hadn't yet asked for permission to use them. Thankfully the approver was more attentive than I was and denied the listing. I sent an email to one of the contacts at the OHS last night, and received a response today. It turns out that they typically charge fees to use images from their site, however, since I've worked with them in gathering pictures and information of many Ohio Historical Markers (which I've been Waymarking as well as providing the info/pics to the OHS) they were kind enough to waive the charges for me. I just need to send in a form and then I'll be set to go. So for now this Waymark is going to sit inactive and unapproved until I get the formalities out of the way.

In addition, The Blue Quasar gave me a little bit of a laugh last night as the approver for my public library. In the approver notes s/he said "You didn't have to remove the bricks and stick that cement block in then chisel the word library.. a picture of the sign would be enough... A for effort though." Maybe it's not so obvious in the smaller picture uploaded to Waymarking, but in the high-res original I have it clearly shows that the "library" sign is cast iron. So I didn't chisel anything, all I had to do was get the sign cast and then bolt it into the brick when nobody was looking....like I would have the time for all the chiseling. Ahh, the lengths we'll go to in order to ensure our Waymarks get approved. :)

Speaking of approvals, I had my outdoor basketball court approved by bootron who mentioned reading this blog from time to time. So, many thanks for the approval, and thanks for stopping by bootron!

Well I guess that's about it for now. I don't have any real plans for any Waymarking soon, but who knows what will happen. This coming Sunday I may be visiting a great place a couple hours away that'll net me a few interesting waymarks, but it all depends on whether it's open, being that it'll be Easter Sunday. I'm not going to tell you where it is just for the fun of building suspense. Additionally, even though some may not see Waymarking as being as adventurous as Geocaching, I'm considering filming some of my Waymarking trips and posting them over on YouTube, partly to spread the word about Waymarking, but mostly just because it'll be fun for me.

A history lesson from Ebay?

2007-04-02T20:46:00.000-04:00

Who knew that you could learn about local history on Ebay? This evening I sat down with the intention of posting a few waymarks. I got one listed in the National Register; The Palace Theater, in Marion, Ohio, which is currently pending approval. I started thinking about the Picture Perfect Postcards category and thought I would run a quick search on Ebay to see what vintage postcards there are for Delaware, and the surrounding areas. That way I can avoid any copyright issues by not "borrowing" pictures off the net. So I punch "Delaware, Ohio" into the Ebay search and see something about a camera, called a Ciro 35, in the results. Upon clicking on it the description reads that this camera was made during the 40's and 50's here in Delaware. I had never known that cameras were ever made in this little town. Upon further research I find the company started in Detroit, moved here to Delaware for a few years, and then was bought-out and moved to Rochester, NY.

The first camera I came across on Ebay was not working, but I refined my search and found another one that is supposed to be in perfect working order. Having an interest in photography, vintage/antique cameras, and local history....I just had to have it. The working camera had a BIN on it, so I took care of that right away, and also placed a bid on the non-working one. I don't have any vintage cameras yet, so these are perfect to start my collection. I'm looking forward to getting it (or them if I win the 2nd one) to use them, and get to know a little more about the cameras.

I did manage to snag a few old postcards to use for the Waymarking category, and they will also make nice collectibles. Sticking with my joy of history, I always like to look at old photographs and postcards that show how things used to be.

Completely off topic, I wonder why the "exhausted" smiley face guy is crying? I clicked on it by accident when picking my "mood." When I'm exhausted, I'm just tired....not sad and crying...odd.

Map Corps and Waymarking.

2007-03-31T19:13:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in my last posting, I spent some time today grabbing a few more waymarks and working to complete my current quad. It was relatively uneventful, and I didn't spend as much time as I had anticipated at either activity since it has been raining and dreary all day today.

I did manage to get 17 new waymarks while out there. These included a Quonset hut, a cannon, WWI memorial, a peace pole, old church, ice cream stand, water tower, Dairy Queen, fire house, SuperFund site (thanks Hikenutty for approving that one so quickly), outdoor basketball court, playground, community park, Masonic Lodge, observatory, and a U.S. National Register of Historic Places....uhhhh place....I also got a bowling alley, but I'll have to get more information before I list it, and I thought I had a welcome sign, however I didn't pay close enough attention to the category before to see that it has to have a slogan on in....obviously the one I marked doesn't.

I managed to get a few of them listed already this afternoon, but I still have some work ahead of me to get 'em all up there.

The only excitement for the day was my visit to the SuperFund site which is the Delaware Landfill. I wasn't sure about going out there this afternoon, since I really wasn't sure if it fit the category or not. Looking at the other sites posted in the category, they had much more information pertinent to their sites. This one I found had very little. I decided to head out there anyhow and grab the coords and some pics. I first stopped at the main which was closed, locked, and posted that it was closed permanently. I grabbed the coords and a picture there, and headed over to the other gate. I found that one to be open, but I didn't try to go any further in. I stopped my car right at the gate and got a few more pictures. As I was jotting down some information a Delaware City Police office came around the corner in his SUV. I had to back up to let him through and he came up beside me. I worried that I was going to get ticketed for trespassing. He asked what I was doing there, and I explained. He told me that they had been having trouble with illegal dumping there and he wanted to make sure I was "tossing out some beer bottles." I apologized for causing any alarm and he left, as did I right behind him. it all just sort of surprised me since there is on the one way in, and I didn't see anyone back there. I guess maybe they are patrolling the area due to the problems they've been having out there. Seems to me they should lock the second gate to help stop that.

New video card, and a few more Waymarks posted

2007-03-31T01:23:00.000-04:00

This afternoon I received a new (to me at least) video card that I've been waiting for. The PC I'm using came with on-board graphics, which were poor at best, and recently I've been having a lot of trouble with it causing my system to crash. I picked up a slightly used BFG GeForce 6200oc card on Ebay for a decent price. So far everything is working very well with the new card.

I managed to catch up on a few Waymarks this evening. I figured I should do so as I'm planning to go out tomorrow and finish my Map Corps quad and will probably pick up more Waymarks along the way. This evening I posted 2 Neon Lights; Bun's Restaurant and The Nectar Candyland, both of which were promptly approved. The following have not been approved as of this writing. Ohio Wesleyan University under Universities and Colleges, a water tower, a webcam, and an art museum.

So we'll see what tomorrow brings. I know for certain that I'll be getting a Quonset hut, a couple of ice cream stands, and a cannon, but I'm not sure what else I'll find.

Wii, and playing catch-up.

2007-03-28T21:56:00.000-04:00

It's been a couple of days, but not much of anything has happened lately.

I did manage to get the aforementioned Wii. I ended up being first in line for it at Circuit City. Dewgrl and I got there around 5:45ish, and were the only ones in the line until about 6:30. The majority of people didn't show up until around 7:30-8:00a, even though they were supposed to start handing out tickets at 9am. We had intended to get the ticket at 9a, then go grab a bit of breakfast and come back around 10a when they opened. Circuit City didn't end up passing out the tickets until 9:40a. At that point we figured we'd just hang out until the store opened, which they finally did at about 10:10a.

I've played the system a little bit over the past few days and have really been enjoying it. The new gameplay and controls are great, plus I can still play all my old favorite Game Cube games on it as well. I'm still getting used to it, but the included games really help as tutorials to get one used to the controls.

In waymarking notes, I haven't bagged any new locations since the last writing, but I have made some lists of places that would have potential waymarks, and scoped out a few as well. I did work through some of my back log tonight by posting the Delaware County Jail and Sheriff's residence under both the U.S. National Register of Historic Places (not approved yet) and Retired Prisons. I also got a Time Capsule up there. A shooting range, and a truss bridge. That truss bridge happens to be one of my favorites, since it's where I grew up and pretty much the little town's biggest pride and joy....even if it's just a rusty old bridge. Sadly it's going to be torn down later this year to make way for a newer, stronger, safer, but more boring bridge.

Unplanned Waymarking

2007-03-25T00:10:00.000-04:00

Dewgrl and I ended up doing a little impromptu waymarking this afternoon. I headed up to Prospect to visit my folks, and on the way grabbed a truss bridge, benchmark, a river gauging station, and an airport. After leaving there, I got another truss bridge, then headed further up into Marion. My intention was to grab some lunch, and head to the library to try to get some information about a few other waymarks that I have in my backlog.

In Marion I didn't intend to do any waymarking, even though I know there are many around town. I did grab two places on the National Register of Historic Places, the city hall, a bell, a time capsule, and the municipal flag. Then I went to eat, and visited the library.

The library ended up not having much information, which wasn't surprising since it's in a different county from where the waymarks are that I was looking up. I just figured it would be a good start since that library has a more extensive section on Ohio history than the one in Delaware county. Maybe I'll stop by the Delaware County historical society one of these days.

On the way home I stopped in Waldo for a mecca of waymarking. At the town hall there (1), there are two cannons (2-3), a bell (4), a WWI memorial (5), a WWII memorial (6), an Ohio historical marker (7), all in front of the hall, along with a warning siren (8) on the top. Right behind the hall is the fire house (9)...which wasn't open so I couldn't get the fire trucks inside. Across the street is an independent pizza joint (10), a post office (11), and another place that may or may not fall into a category (12?)...on down the road is a community park (12 or 13), which has a playground (13 or 14).

I planned to go home after that, but we decided to visit another little town nearby to see if any waymarks could be found. There we found another warning siren, a water tower, library, town clock, 2 payphones, post office, independent pizza place, town hall, fire department, community park with playground, and outdoor basketball court, and a 100+ year old church. Just up the road is a "country church" that was a significant part of the underground railroad.

Following that we ran a couple more errands, then headed back to Delaware where we checked on a couple places that are waymarkable, which they are, but it was getting too dark to get decent pictures. But now we know where they are and how to get there to record them later. Finally we hit the local Wal-mart to grab a few things...and of course waymark it, and headed home.

All in all it ended up being a very good day for waymarking, however it's put me even further into backlog. It seems I'll never get caught up on these things.

An interesting thing I noticed today about waymarking is that when you stop for one waymark, you end up noticing many other things that are often nearby. What normally seems like it's going to be a minute or two to getting some pics, and coordinates often turns into a half hour or so of documenting everything nearby.

I should be getting to bed, since I'm getting up in about 4 hours or so to run down to the local Circuit City, as they're supposed to have Nintendo Wii's available. Gotta get there early to get in line, as I've been wanting one since they were released in November. I've already picked up several games, and accessories in anticipation, but I've not been able to get my hands on one yet. Hopefully tomorrow (or later this morning, for that matter) will be the day!

Blogging waymark.

2007-03-23T21:47:00.000-04:00

I just listed this blog under the "bloggers" waymarking sub-category. I ended up getting the waymark code WM1BAD. Nice!

Sorry, that just amused me for some reason. It's like a random personalized license plate.

It's Been Awhile

2007-03-23T20:36:00.000-04:00

As you can see, it's been a while since I've last posted here. Not sure why, but I just sort of forgot about it. Once in a while it would pop up in the back of my mind, but I never did anything about it. I've been on many hikes since the last posting, but I've either not taken my camera, GPS, or both. I figure I'll now make this blog multi-purpose. I'll try to remember to record my hikes, and I'm also going to start including my Waymarking and Geocaching adventures here as well.

For those not aware of what Geocaching and Waymarking are, here's a crash course. Or feel free to ignore what I have to say and visit http://www.geocaching.com and/or http://www.waymarking.com for yourself.

Geocaching is a GPS based "treasure hunt" mixed with a little hide and seek. The basic premise is someone hides a container in a park, or where ever, and records the coordinates of said container using a GPS receiver. After obtaining permission to place the container, one then posts the coordinates online at geocaching.com with a little description about the "cache." Once posted others can then input those coordinates into their own GPS device and then head out to find the cache. The original hider of the cache will normally stock it with small trinkets, and the subsequent finders can, if they wish, trade a trinket they bring along with something inside the cache. Some caches are large with lots of "swag" inside, others are too small for anything inside. However all caches must contain a log book of sorts. When someone seeking the cache finds it, trading is optional, but you must sign the logbook. You can then record your adventures on the cache's page at geocaching.com. It's a great way to get outside, and get some exercise. Geocaching is also great at introducing people to places and things they may have not known was there otherwise.

Waymarking is a branch of Geocaching. Back in the day there was what were called virtual and locationless caches. These were eventually disallowed and the locationless caches completely removed from the geocaching.com website. They have essentially been moved to Waymarking.com. The idea here is a gathering of waypoints of various sites of a historical, interesting, or utilitarian value. You can find anything here from the local McDonald's and Wal-Mart, to Civil War Battlefields, and ancient Roman sites. I've been getting more and more interested in the waymarking aspect of things. I like to "show off" my local neck of the woods, and along the way I'm learning things about my own hometown while doing research. The way it works is everything is broken down into categories. Let's take McDonald's for example. There is one large heading for all McDonald's restaurants that is run by a group. So I, as a waymarker, can do two things within this category; visit, or list. As a visitor, I can look to see what's near me, or what's near to a place I may be traveling to. If a particular McDonald's is listed, I can post a "visit" to that McDonald's. On the other hand, I can also "list" McDonald's restaurants. For example, the McDonald's right down the street from me is not currently listed on the waymarking.com site. I can go there, snap a few pictures of the building, and get coordinates of the location using my GPS. I then "list" the waymark under the appropriate category. Once it's approved by the group, I now "own" this waymark.....sort of like owing a cache in geocaching. I get notified when people visit it and whatnot.

Now that I've bored you with all of that information, go and visit the various sites and give it a try sometime!

Glacier Ridge hike

2005-10-29T15:00:00.000-04:00

Today I took a 2.2 mile walk through Glacier Ridge Metropark. I'll add more in a bit. I'm a little busy right now, so hopefully later this evening I'll get to the commentary.

This windmill provides some of the power for the park.

It's hard to see, but there is an old truck in the woods. It is the former site of the Engine Geocache.

Zoomed in on the truck.

A pic of the trail, and a little bit of the wetland area.

Looking at some of the woods.

The trail, leading into the woods.

In the woods

Looking back toward the parking area. There is a small pavilion, a playground, and a few picnic tables here.

The aerial view.

The TOPO view.

The elevation profile. As you can see it's a fairly level walk. The highest point being 1018', the lowest 983'.

Delaware State Park Hike

2005-10-22T11:00:00.000-04:00

First off there are a lot of pics in this one. Secondly if you ever want to see the full size pics, feel free to go to Photobucket.com where I store them. http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b327/Mr-0/ is my album. Thirdly, I did this hike on Sat. Oct 22, 2005, but I just got around to posting it today, Monday, Oct 24, 2005.

Today started with a stop at the G&R Tavern in Waldo, for a famous fried bologna sandwich. I had been craving them for a few days, so I figured I'd get my fill. After munching on that and some fries, I decided to take an off trail hike in a part of the Delaware Wildlife Area. I had been back in here a couple of times before, but I never had my GPS with me to record a track log. I started out parked right by the levee on Panhandle Rd. I walked west along the levee until I saw a bit of clearing in the woods to the north. From there I followed a small spring until it ran into the reservoir at the cove near the dam. I walked along the ridgeline above the water, until shortly after the mouth of the cove. From there I dropped down into a wash out, and down to the water level of the reservoir. I continued along the edge of the water until I got near to the spot of a former cache I placed, actually the first cache I placed, that was taken a long time ago. I looked around a bit just in case it would happen to be there, but of course it wasn't. For reference it was Where Eagles Soar ( http://tinyurl.com/dlxvw ). After that I headed back down to the edge of the water, hiking through some mud. It seems that they're in the process of letting the water out to bring it down to winter levels, so it was a bit of a mess there. Eventually I made my way back up the levee and took a look at the dam. I had been there earlier in the year when we had all of the bad floods, so I wanted to take another look to compare that day to today. Below you can see comparison pictures. The one with the level marked near 45 is when it was flooded, the one where it doesn't register on the scale is today. After that it was an easy walk back to the car, following along the levee. I took a bunch of pictures from here, since even through the day started out gloomy and overcast, it started to clear up, and bring the fall colors out a lot. The whole trek was about 2.4 miles round trip.

Just after leaving the levee. It's too dark to make out anything. I suck at pictures.

Another one too dark.

Near the beginning of the small spring.

Just a look at some of the brush and stuff.

The woods on top of the ridge along the eastern edge of the cove.

A look northward up the cove. The spring runs into here at the right of the picture. The cove bends a little to the right nearer the top of the pic, then turns back left into the reservoir.

Not sure what I was after on this pic. Again, I suck.

Some bright yellow foliage along the ridgeline.

The work of some busy beavers.

A nearby tree where the beavers have just begun.

A look north on the reservoir.

Another northernly view of the reservoir.

More woods along the reservoir.

The wash I dropped down into, to get to the edge of the lake.

Looking north west.

Once again, looking north.

North again, looking along the eastern edge of the lake.

More industrious little beavers.

Not sure exactly what this is. The other end of the chain is attached to some telephone poles. Looks like it may have been a dock or boat ramp or something.

Looking westward over the reservoir, and look the water even goes uphill here. Amazing!

Looking north from the levee

Pic from early in the year, during the floods.

And the comparison pic from today. If you look at the flood pic you can also see the little island of trees in the background are, well, and island, but not today.

North again, from the dam.

And why not, one last time, north from the dam.

Looking east along the levee.

A little fall color.

A little more

More yet

The orange tree in the distance is right where Panhandle Rd. crosses the levee. The car is parked across the road from the tree, more or less.

Closer to the tree from the pic above.

Closer yet

Very close..looking northward.

Very close, looking up.

The aerial view of my trek. It was done in a counterclockwise loop.

The TOPO view

The terrain profile.

Blues Creek Preserve Hike

2005-10-16T22:13:00.000-04:00

Today I went for a hike at Blues Creek Preserve, part of the Delaware County Preservation Parks system (http://www.preservationparks.com). This was a nice little hike, that took me about 2.2 miles round trip. I started from the main parking back near the playground area, and took the grassy trail starting to the west. That took me around a prarie area along the treeline then back to the road. I crossed the road and turned north on the main gravel path to get to the foot bridge over Blues Creek. After looking at the scenery there for a moment, I headed back south, where that main trial passes behind the playground, and becomes the "nature trail." Had I continued north at the bridge it would have been a short walk through some grasslands and second growth woods to a small parking area near the entrance to the park. The trail system here is setup a little differently. The 2 main loops spur off of the nature trail....sort of. Once you hike back the nature trail long enough you see a sign that announces the "Shagbark" trail. It's the first loop shown below, to the south. It loops back around through some fairly thick woods. There also appears to be some small streams that run through there, although today they were dry. After getting back to the main trail, there is a sign announcing the "Bluestem" trail to the south. I headed around that loop. It's a grassy trail through another prarie/grassland area. The trail loops back onto itself, leading you to turn back north to get onto the main trail again. Heading north I completed the Shagbark trail, back through the playground and to the car. I enjoyed the hike, and it didn't seem like I had hiked as far as I did. Mainly due to the fact that there are few elevation changes along the way, I believe. It was a cool, crisp day with the sun peeking out from behind a mostly cloudy sky.

Taken from the southern side of the Bluestem trail looking north. This was taken with no filtering in place on my camera.

Another shot from the same spot looking north and a little east. This was with a circular polarizer on the lens. I like how the sky was darkened, but I need to play with the settings to get the landscape to show up too.

The aerial view of my track log.

Seymour Woods State Nature Preserve Hike

2005-10-15T22:34:00.000-04:00

Now that the weather has turned cooler, and the leaves are starting to change, I decided it would be a great day for wandering in the woods. After running a few errands, I headed down to Seymour Woods State Nature Preserve. I started by heading straight up the trail, to the cabin. From there I headed to the left, walking through groves of pines, and beech before coming to the foundations, and old silo there. I spent some time taking photographs of the old homestead before heading on. From there I crossed the entrance trail and out into and old field that is being quickly filled in by second growth timber. I took more pictures of some oak leaves that were just beginning to change to a deep red color. The veins in the leaves were still green, and from below, there was a dark green background provided by other trees, spotted with deep blue sky. I continued on around crossing back into the deeper, older woods. In places it becomes quite dark with the trees blocking the sunlight. I wandered over to look at the stream running through there, which separates the preserve from Camp Lazarus. From the nature preserve you can overlook a large ampitheater, used by the BSA camp, built into the high cliffs of the stream. A short time later I took a moment to rest; sitting on a bridge over a small spring that runs into the stream. From the bridge you can see where the spring has cut through the layers of shale, leaving them exposed. After that it was a short walk back to the cabin, and thusly out of the park almost 2 miles later. On the way home I picked up some pictures that I had dropped off earlier in the day.

Here are the pics from the hike described above.

An aerial view of the tracklog for my hike.

One view of the cabin on the way in.

One of the foundations. I didn't pay attention to the fact that I was shooting into the sun, but it still made for a sort of neat effect. For comparison. This was taken in almost the exact same spot as the picture from last year of this foundation, shown almost at the very bottom of this entry.

Same foundation as above from the other side.

Some old tin cans and a Crown Cola bottle....
"Bottles and cans just clap your hands, just clap your hands" - Beck "Where it's at"
I've had that song stuck in my head ever since I took that picture.

Inside the silo looking up

Leaves

More Leaves

The valley.

The shale bank of the little stream

Some mushrooms I saw along the way

Another view of the cabin. This is on the way back out.

The pictures below are from last year, when I first visited SWSNP. I still haven't used up the roll of film I had out there today. But that's the cabin, foundation, and silo mentioned above.

The cabin

The same foundation as shown above, in pretty much the same spot as the sun blured picture.

The silo