Blogging seems to be all the rage, so what the heck? I'll follow the lemmings over the cliff too! It probably won't get me elected President, but maybe some interesting discussions will come out of it... Beware, however: I speak my mind here, and I'm pretty frank and open. Some may be offended at the content and/or opinions. If you're easily offended, you might want to look elsewhere for reading material.

When/If you post a comment (and I hope you will!), be sure to put in a URL --- even if you just use mine (http://alan.batie.org/) --- if you don't, your email address will get put in as a link on your name, and you'll suddenly find yourself on Spam Central. Not my doing, I promise you! They scan websites for embedded email addresses. You've been warned --- I really don't wish spam on anyone (well, ok, maybe the spammers themselves)!

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October 23, 2005

First Try at Geocaching

Yesterday, in a fit of madness, I stopped in at Sportsman's Warehouse in Salem, just to see what their GPS's were going for.  My Garmen etrex Vista's joystick had broken some months ago, and I've been itching to replace it with a Vista Color, which has a wider, higher resolution screen, and is faster.  They can be had for about $255+shipping online.  Wouldn't you know it, they had them for only $300 (the standard retail price seems to be around $360-370), which after adding in shipping isn't all that much more, maybe 10%.  And I wanted to do some geocaching this weekend.

Yup, I got it.  One thing that amazes me, is that it's the first color LCD screen I've yet seen that is actually *more* visible in direct sunlight.  This is very well done.  I wish the user interface were as good.  They lost the buttons at the top of the screens that help navigate.  Instead, you have to use hard buttons on the case to go back.  I suppose I'll get used to it though, it's not *that* hard.

So, today, I tried my hand at finding the State Quarter Swap geocache.  I turned on WAAS, and the thing seems to be extremely accurate, taking me back to the same clump of three trees repeatedly, but unless it was buried in the brambles, I couldn't find it.  Of course, shorts and blackberries just don't mix, and without gloves either, I wasn't too inclined to root around in them.  And the instructions say you don't have to leave the bridge, but I don't believe it --- a container of quarters left on the bridge, or even under it, would be much too easy to see and would not last long in the open.  Anyway, photos and commentary are here.

Posted by abatie at October 23, 2005 03:38 PM
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