March, 2006

geocaching — No Comments
11
Mar 06

The Next Geocaching Excursion and Google Maps

The Next Geocaching Excursion

The next time we went geocaching we tried for a cool one in Playwicki Park. We had to climb up a steep embankment onto an abandoned railroad bed and walk to the coordinates.

The first thing we found was a small butter container under a rock with a note that said “Not here but you’re close!”. We were pretty sure the coordinates were off and that it was hidden in an old control box for the railroad but there were some pretty scary wires hanging out so we just skipped checking in there. We did check all around and under it (which would’ve been a good hiding spot).

Google Maps – Our Geocaches

My wife and I have been hard at work on a google map program with a php backend to track what caches we’ve found and which ones we’d like to find. You can check it out here: Our Geocaches. Clicking on a point brings up the coordinates for it, the name and a link to geocaching.com. Blue markers indicate geocaches we’ve found and purple markers are the ones we plan to find soon.
[tags]geocaching, google maps[/tags]

art / lifehacks / rants — No Comments
10
Mar 06

Fountain Pens for Lefties (a Primer)

An Example of Mirror Script

Lefties and fountain pens don’t mix too well. Unfortunately, the alphabet we use was developed by righties, for righties. All you lefties know the result of a long day of taking notes in school; a nice stained side of your hand. Fountain pens are worse because you lay down more ink and it dries slower than your usual ballpoint pen.

Here’s how you can deal with that whilst using a fountain pen:

1. Quick drying ink – if you’re smearing the ink as you write, try a quick drying ink like Parker’s Quink.
2. Use a sacrifical piece of paper – Fold an 8″ x11″ piece of paper in half and use it under your hand. This is easy for lefties because most have the lefty curl while writing. This will blot the ink its sitting on top of and keep your hand out of what you’re writing.
3. Don’t let others use your fountain pen – once you use your fountain pen for long enough you start to wear the nib down to the angle that you write. If someone else uses your pen for too long they’ll ruin your angle and make your nib feel scratchy.

Your only other choice is to pull a DaVinci and write in mirror script. Oh, and lefties, don’t forget the meeting to pick the next US president next month, sshhh.

Another helpful site: Lefthanded Writing Page

[tags]lefthanded, left, handed, lifehack, fountain pen, writing[/tags]

geocaching — 1 Comment
10
Mar 06

Our First Geocaching Adventure

My wife and I had planned a really nice trip to D.C. to see the sites and try out geocaching. We tried to find travel bug hotel pretty close to our house so we could take one down there and drop it off there. We searched for a good hour and a half, mostly running up and down muddy hills but we had no luck. We left a message on geocaching.com saying we thought it got muggled and a few other people agreed and the owner checked, it was muggled and the couple travel bugs there disappeared.
We were much more successful in Washington D.C. We found quite a few virtual caches and it also got us out of our hotel room and away from the normal sites to see some cool statues and other sites around the area. It was really fun but we still hadn’t found any real, physical, cache.
[tags]geocaching[/tags]