Ghosts of the Navigators

Trying to solve the puzzle for "Ghosts of the Navigators" (GC1BVAD) caused my face to freeze like this. ("Ghosts" is a members-only cache, so if you're not premium member of geocaching.com, the page won't display for you, alas.) This one has been around for a while—it goes back to early 2008—and involves finding seven caches named after famous explorers, such as Magellan, Drake, Columbus, de Leon, Lewis & Clark, de Soto, et. al., so you can collect clues and eventually find the final cache. All are hidden in Gibson Park, in High Point, NC. The seven explorer caches are relatively straightforward hides in the woods, though a few involve physical challenges—which for me was the easy part. The brain challenge...well, look at the old dude's face. I started working on the series back in September 2009; today, I found the final stage. (Mind you, if one had the notion, the entire series could be done in a day or two; for me, it was an enjoyable project to knock out a little bit at a time.) The experience was most rewarding, but I gotta tell you...give me a big old tree to climb, or a subterranean pipe to crawl into, or a swamp to cross...I'll probably be right on it. Ask me to engage the brain, though, and...oh, Lord...it hurts, it hurts!

Great big mushrooms at ground zero.

The Perfect Poop

After a long week of working—including making considerable progress on my latest scary tale—with little geocaching in the bargain, I finally got out and about today for a wee bit of hunting. There was a nice caching event hosted by Donna "G.O. Turtle" Grunkemeier at Triad Park, over near Kernersville, which brought quite a few cachers from NC and VA out of the woods (and then put them back in). After it was over, my friend Bridget "Suntigres" Langley and I hit the road to find a few in the K'ville vicinity. Naturally, about the time we started caching, the rain started falling, so the only thing to do was go to a cache that took us underground. So we went into the pipe and fumbled around in the dark for a while, only to come up empty-handed. Turns out the cache wasn't underground after all. Then, back in the rain once more, we go to a cache that requires climbing a big old brier-covered hillside. Pity I didn't wear my caving clothes because after I came off that hill, you'd swear I'd just gone caving. Or fallen off a mountain, which is kind of like, well, almost true.

Happily, I came home to an invitation to dinner from the right-honorable Albanese gang, so Kimberly and I headed on over and et some burgers of the delicious-plus variety. For dessert, we watched Dr. Oz educate us about our pee and our poop, and I learned that the perfect poop is S-shaped. Evidently, some of us are, at times, imperfect.

No, it's not fun to contemplate.

Last night, Kimberly and I, after going to see Straw Dogs and having Thai food for dinner, had stopped at the International Market and did some shopping for Asian foodstuffs. I really love that place; it makes me feel like a kid in a toy store. Among my purchases was a box of Toppo for Men (dark chocolate–filled cookie sticks), and so when I got home this evening, I had to tear into them. Be advised, this stuff is not for you sissy pants. It's for men. Got that?

A Random Tale?

Sure, why not. A couple of months back, I got to see Jaws at the Carolina theater—easily one of my all-time favorite films—and this has set me to occasionally ruminating on a particularly traumatic experience from back in the spring of 1975—the year Jaws was originally released. The main thing about the whole business is that I'm glad I saw Jaws after said trauma, not before, or I'd be shy an amusing little anecdote.

May, 1975. I was 16, and I'd gone with my church youth group on a beach trip to Garden City, SC, on a rickety old bus that didn't go any faster than 40 miles per hour. It was a long, hot trip from Martinsville, VA, and I recall driving a few of my compadres slightly batshit by repeatedly playing Godzilla soundtracks on the portable cassette player I'd brought with me (not that I was obnoxious, or anything). We stayed at the Garden City Motor Inn, which at the time was about the only commercial establishment on that stretch of beach. The inn still exists, but nowadways, it's all but smothered by the high-rise condos on either side of the property. Anyway, that first night, I recall watching Gargoyles, starring Cornell Wilde, Jennifer Salt, Bernie Casey, Scott Glenn, and Grayson Hall, on the network TV movie, and I was all kinds of excited about that (I recently picked up the DVD of this flick, as a matter of fact).

The next day, my buddy Raymond and I set out on our own down the nearly deserted beach. There were no lifeguards there in those days, and being the off-season, other tourists were few and far between. For reasons I've never quite fathomed, Raymond and I decided that we needed a long swim. A long swim. So, with little thought of personal safety or other such responsible things, we trucked on into the water and started paddling out beyond the breakers. I recall feeling quite exhilarated to be farther out in the ocean than I'd ever gone before. Yeah, I know. Dope. Well, we kept swimming, going farther and deeper, and after a while, I looked back toward the shore; lo and behold, the Motor Inn was this wee little boxy thing on the horizon, and I began to get the idea that returning to shallower water might be prudent. Raymond reluctantly agreed, and so we turned around to make our way back. Whoa. Wait. That's some current! We're swimming and swimming, and we're just not making any headway, and suddenly I'm not quite so exhilarated about my specific coordinates in time and space.

Now, about this time, I get a glimpse of Raymond's face, and it's whiter than a sheet, and his eyes are about to bug clean out of his head. I look in the direction he's looking, and...oh shit oh shit oh shit...there are fins popping up in the water, just about close enough to touch. I'm pretty sure my face is every bit as white as Raymond's, and that's when we start tearing through that water like a couple of scalded sea monkeys. Much to my relief, I see the Motor Inn gradually starting to loom a little larger on the shore. It's only now, halfway back, that I realize we had been surrounded by dolphins.

That's when it happens.

Something warm and prickly grabs my leg. Yes, that's me screaming my fool head off, and the next thing I know, I'm hauling ass up the beach, a pale white blur to anyone who might be around to witness all this. I don't know where Raymond is, I don't care, I'm just on solid ground, and I finally discover it was a mean old clump of seaweed that had grabbed me. After a while, Raymond's walking next to me, and when we get back to the Motor Inn, there's a game of touch football happening. Uncle Harry, one of our chaperones, asks us where we've been.

"Just taking a walk."

It was only a few days afterward that I saw Jaws for the first time, and I have to tell you, every heart-pounding moment of that movie took on a very deep, personal significance for me. To this day, the film's music, its dialogue, its atmosphere...all of it...takes me back to that way-too-deep water and the sheer panic of believing I was about to get et by a shark. It's not a sensation I particularly savor.

These days, I do still go in the ocean when I get the opportunity. I also respect it a hell of a lot more than I once did. One really ought to, you know.

Cache In, Trash Out at Wilson Park

After highs of well over 90 degrees and persistent drought conditions for so many weeks on end, it was a somewhat rude yet strangely welcome shock to wake up to frigid temperatures and steadily drizzling rain. The adverse weather did not stop a number of volunteers from gathering this morning at Frank Wilson Park, in Martinsville, to clean up its streams and plant trees and shrubs—all part of the 26th Annual International Coastal Cleanup effort, a series of concurrent events today sponsored by The Ocean Conservancy. Several geocachers from Martinsville, Danville, and Greensboro braved the weather and joined numerous other local volunteers, including folks from the Bassett school system and the Virginia Museum of Natural History, all prepared to get wet, dirty, and tired while turning a relatively well-manicured park into a pristine natural recreation area. Kimberly and I got back into our caving clothes from a couple of week back, armed ourselves with work gloves and trash bags, and did a fair bit of wading and bushwhacking, removing and actually taking inventory of the litter, much of which was glass that's probably older than I am. To add some allure for the geocachers in the bunch, I made it a CITO (Cache-In, Trash-Out) event so that we could get caching credit for attending. I'm sure the weather kept a good many folks at home, so it was an admirable morning's work for those who dared defy those dirty, double-crossing, dastardly rain gods. I provided doughnuts and sodas, and the Bassett folks hosted a cook-out for lunch. Kimberly and I had packed our own lunch, so we had ourselves a romantic little picnic in an isolated shelter while the rain came down with ever-increasing vehemence.

Needless to say, right about the time we all went home, the rain stopped. C'est la cache.

In the meantime, on the writing front, work progresses steadily on my latest endeavor—a story for a new, HPL-inspired anthology, edited by the redoubtable Robert M. Price. Stay tuned.

This little fellow, an Imperial Moth larva, was carefully escorted out of harm's way.

Hanging Around

See my feet?


Yep; there's a cache up there.

I spent a good portion of this past weekend adding to my total number of geocache finds, including a few that required negotiating some fairly extreme terrain. Friday evening, it was a bunch of more traditional hides along the rural routes of Ringgold, VA, a few miles northeast of Danville. From there, I headed to Martinsville to visit Mum. On Saturday, I went biking on the Dick & Willie rail trail (I know, so STFU), where I snagged a couple of Munzees (www.munzee.com; these, I have decided, are no great shakes). Then it was back through Danville to pick up a few more of the fairly traditional variety, and a first-to-find on a new trail hide in Greensboro.

Yesterday, it was back out to the trail—this time with my friend Bridget "Suntigres" Langley—for five+ miles on the American Tobacco Trail over in Wake County. Before the hike, we stopped off for a couple of somewhat hairy ones: "UP" (GC20985; the silo in the pics above) and "Dr. Evil Visits Pittsboro" (GC1HQTK; the pond drain in the pics below). The rigors of getting to the caches weren't all that bad; it was more dealing with all the black widows, which seem to have undergone quite the population explosion this year. I've probably seen more this season than in all my years combined. The most disconcerting was the one in the drain because it was hanging right from the cache itself. Fortunately, God made big sticks and left them lying around in drains for dealing with such complications.

The most physically challenging of all of them was "Jogglin' Time" (GC2RNQB)—the tree seen in the pics below, which don't quite convey the sense of just how far up there that sucker really was...

Yep; there's a cache in there, too—and a big old black widow.

Yep; you guessed it.

The Darkness Out of Time

Mental images of Lovecraftian horrors abounded this weekend, as Ms. B. and I headed westward into Tennessee, primarily to delve deep into the earth at Worley's Cave (a.k.a. Morrell's Cave), near Bluff City. Oh yes, there was geocaching involved (see GC237VH for information about the cave itself), but there wasn't much thought of getting a caching credit as our group of ten made its way deeper and deeper into treacherous, subterranean darkness. More often, I often found myself searching for Arne Saknussemm's telltale initials imprinted on the stone walls, or Sagoth artifacts from the lost world of Pellucidar. It's a fascinating environment down there, and while I've visited tourist-friendly caverns before, this was my first experience going deep into a living cave, requiring hiking, climbing, crawling, and wading in a world absolutely devoid of light. It's definitely not an endeavor for the claustrophobic or one with an especial dread of the darkness....

Without a doubt, this long Labor Day weekend has been among the most satisfying in recent memory. Late Friday afternoon, Kimberly and I departed Greensboro for Johnson City, TN—mostly in a driving rain, though it thinned out enough in places to stop for the occasional cache. A couple of them, which we found on remote country roads in almost pitch darkness, nicely foreshadowed our upcoming subterranean excursion. While driving in such a hard rain was no treat, the atmosphere proved to be outright creepy, and I doubt I could have enjoyed it more (though the real highlight might have been the barbecue at a nice little joint in Wilkesboro). Once ensconced in our rather spartan accommodations in Johnson City, I headed out on foot for a few nearby caches before settling in for the evening with Ms. B. and a bottle of good bourbon.

Saturday morning, we drove over to Buffalo Mountain, a few miles southwest of Johnson City. The park features an extensive trail system, and I'm pretty sure we managed to find a couple of the steepest routes as we climbed toward the summit. Needless to say, there were caches. Part of the hike's allure was that, except for one brief encounter with another fellow on the trail, we seemed to have the entire mountain to ourselves. We encountered no bears or other wildlife more threatening than mosquitoes, but then those mosquitoes—and a freaking little sweat bee that wouldn't leave us be—were more tenacious than Bruce the Very Hungry Shark. You've got to hate it when 80% DEET sends the buggers into little mosquito laughing fits. At least I managed to successfully swat a few, and once back down at the bottom, we availed ourselves to a fine picnic lunch we had packed.

From there, it was off to Big Rock, a scenic spot on the Nolichucky River (very near The Devil's Looking Glass), once again finding ourselves on remote, all-but-deserted country roads through forested mountains that absolutely had to be home to all manners of Lovecraftian horrors, Wampus cats, and perhaps even bigfeet. No, we didn't see them, but that doesn't mean they weren't watching us. I mean really. If you were a bigfeet, wouldn't you be spying on such foolish humans with disdain? Be honest now. A couple of more caches, and then back to Johnson City for a satisfying seafood dinner.

Cloud formation over Winston-Salem on the outbound journey, which soon dumped
all kinds of real water (not that bogus bottled stuff) on our heads.

Ms. B. and Damned Rodan on the trail at Buffalo Mountain, looking perhaps

a little less exhausted, hot, and sweaty than they really were.

Damned Rodan at Big Rock, overlooking the Nolichuky River.

Yesterday morning, it was out to the River and Earth Adventures outpost in Elizabethton, where we connected with our group of intrepid cave explorers. Worley's Cave is something in the neighborhood of 200,000 years old, and extends eight to ten miles into the Tennessee terrain. The cave was discovered and explored in the early 1800s by John Morrell and later became the property of Elias P. Worley (hence the alternate names). We arrived at the site about 11:00 AM and after a few words of wisdom from our guide—mostly about not straying off into unknown catacombs—we began our descent.

I've never been claustrophobic, and I can't say at any time I felt any overwhelming fear in the cave. But there were times that the idea of crawling 50 to 100 ft. into spaces so tight that you couldn't lift your head an inch was pretty oppressive. It helped that everyone in the group had a fair sense of humor about the whole business, and our guide was obviously quite experienced. Actually, I think the most disconcerting moment for me was entering a chamber whose ceiling was a jigsaw puzzle of rocks that appeared to be held in place only by a single columnar stone that, on its own, did not appear all that stable. In another room, one of the gigantic stalactites—easily fifteen feet in length and weighing many hundreds of pounds—had fallen from the ceiling, who knows how long ago. Last week's magnitude 6.8 earthquake was still fresh in my mind, and I found myself having to occasionally thrust that memory right back where it came from because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to be in that cave during an earthquake.

Several times, we had to climb up slippery rock faces, such as "The Devil's Staircase"—which was, in the words of one of our fellows, "like trying to climb peanut butter"—and then, conversely, slide down long slopes on our heels, avoiding grabbing any nearby outcroppings for fear of dislocating your arm. I think for some the most unsettling experience was crawling 40 feet or so through a passage called "The Birth Canal" into a tiny chamber, where we all turned off our helmet lights. The darkness was the most profound I've ever known, though I can't say it was any more disturbing than the crawl itself. Once again, it was levity to the rescue when our guide told us that, after a time, even though you can't see a trace of movement in that blackness, your eyes make you believe that you can—to which one fellow responded with, "Yes, I've been giving you the finger for the last five minutes."

The only known fatality in Worley's Cave was Mr. Worley's own son, who became lost in a portion of the cave now known as Worley's Triangle because it's the hub of a maze-like series of passages, among which even a most experienced spelunker could lose his way. Now, sometime back, a couple of ill-prepared explorers were lost in the cave for 80-some hours, and when they were found, they were huddled in one of the chambers in the darkness, convinced they were sitting in their living room watching television. I do hope they had imaginary DVD players since even imaginary television tends to air total shit, at least on the channels that I get.

Our trek took us about five miles into the earth. The return journey, for the most part, was a bit easier than the one going in, as our route bypassed a few of the crawls and climbs of our ingress. The last quarter mile to the exit required wading through an underground river, which, needless to say, was rather frigid, though by that time, we were already so wet and coated with mud that I don't think anyone particularly noticed. Reaching daylight again felt like hitting a wall of bright, hot, humid air that almost sent some of us back into the darkness until our eyes and bodies re-acclimated themselves to our surroundings.

The River and Earth Adventures company very kindly provided us with a picnic lunch. Then Kimberly and I, not content with such humdrum entertainment, headed back out into the wilds of Unicoi County for another mile-plus hike to Ramsey Creek Falls and a cache hunt. Once back in Johnson City, getting ourselves clean took something near an act of God, but we somehow managed it so we could avail ourselves to sushi and sake. A satisfying end to a most rigorous day. Alas, on the trip back today, yet more driving rain and a poorly marked detour made things a little dicey. But we're still in one piece and very happy for it.

A few of my muscles are still hollering, yes, but at least very quietly.

Who could that be crawling out of the Birth Canal?

About to go up The Devil's Staircase

We've got to go where?

Rolling, rolling, rolling.... It's the only way to get to the other end.

Ms. B. hanging out in one of the more innocuous-looking alcoves.

Ms. B. and Rodan in the underground, looking every bit as muddy,
wet, and exhausted as they really are.

Caches, Climbing, and Karaoke

A beautiful and most enjoyable day. Given the ongoing turmoil in the wake of Hurricane Irene, which passed us by with barely a big wind, it does make one thankful for being spared nature's temper, at least this time around. Got going fairly early and headed to Eden, a few miles up the road, to hunt a cache that was published last week but had not as yet been found. It's at the site of an old cotton mill, of which nothing remains but the foundations. To get to the cache site, you enter the old foundation, climb through a window, and voilà...you're at a hidden dam and waterfall back in the woods, which, from street level, you'd never expect to be there. I actually discovered the place a few years ago while hunting an older cache, which has since been archived. To my surprise, I did manage to get first-to-find on "Portal to the Past" (GC32XW0); my thanks to the cache owner for bringing me back to a favorite location.

From there, it was up to Fieldale, VA, just outside of Martinsville, for the August geoclubsouthva event (GC2Y6MB), which, this time, offered not only lots of food treats but karaoke and a new, somewhat terrain-intensive cache courtesy of Christopher "Ranger Fox" Hall. A bunch of us undertook the terrain challenge to get first-to-find...a challenge made a bit more intense when we realized there was a giant wasp nest inches from the cache's hiding place. You don't want to rile wasps while at the height of this particular terrain. It could kill you....

I decided to be a mean, rotten son of a beech and participate in the karaoke activity. I will say it didn't appear to drive anyone away, at least immediately, but those who witnessed it seem to have become babbling, drooling lunatics, some of them homicidal. Perhaps I went too far. At least several of the other participants offered far more soothing sounds. Certainly not due to any advantage other than luck of the draw, I won a nice prize—a well-stocked, ready-to-go geocache container—just for being mean enough to sing.

Many mini tanks for that.

And tonight, Ms. B. is coming round for some Chinese food and a movie. How in hell is it Sunday already, though? Monday is closing in all too quickly, as it always does....

Wonder what's happening over yonder?

Oh. It's Ranger Fox. On the trestle. Placing a cache.

Fox places cache on the trestle. Rodan thus climbs the trestle.
Rodan signs log on the trestle. Rodan getting down is the fun part.

ET Power!

If you're a geocacher, you know about the ET highway caches out yonder in the high desert. Over a thousand caches, roughly every tenth of a mile for a hundred miles, along Nevada 375—the "Extraterrestrial Highway," near Area 51. There was a geocaching event in Rachel, NV, tonight, which included caching and costuming, but most of us on this side of the country couldn't manage to get out there. So a few local cachers put together a little power trail of caches along Highway 311 (all with some variation of "ET" in their titles), and hosted their own event in High Point. I got together with my friend Bridget "Suntigres" Langley this evening, as we figured it would be fun to undertake that power trail, and went to work along the highway between Liberty and High Point. We didn't make it to the event, alas, which I know would have been enjoyable, but we did pick up 50 caches, including some that aren't actually a part of the ET series, in about three hours' time. I must say, though I certainly don't mind getting a slew of caches in relatively short order, I don't do much in the way of numbers runs like a lot of cachers I know. I generally prefer a more relaxed pace and going after a variety of different types of hides. Getting out on the trail or on the water is certainly my preference, but there's definitely something to be said for the adrenaline rush of finding one quick cache after another—especially when the hider changes it up from time to time and gives you a little something different to hunt. I suppose I could take exception to the big old black widow I found lurking under one of the containers, but that's just one of the inherent hazards of the sport. I extricated the container without mishap, signed the log, and bid the venomous little fucker a bloody happy evening.

One of that bunch tonight made for my 3,600th geocache find. Child's play for a lot of the local high-powered players, but for me, it represents a fair amount of personal history—a goodly number of satisfying, memorable trips into the field. Becoming acquainted with a large number of local cachers, who are by and large some of the finest folks I've ever met, has been one of the many perks of getting involved in this game. It really is the best activity I've involved myself in since I became an adult-type person.

Stopping for Taco Bell at the end of it all wasn't exactly a shabby thing, either.

That Ol' Dan River

Left work a few minutes early and booked up to Danville to meet up with cachers Homestyle, Homekid, and HD JP for a canoe trip up the Dan River. Spent several hours out on the water, paddling hard, and hunting a couple of caches that can only be accessed by boat. Made a short hop over to a nearby island for the first one, "3-Dan Island" (GC1YMD0), which was a quick find, then set out on a mile-and-a-half paddle upriver to hunt "Catch a Cache" (GC2Y8N1), which was guaranteed to pose a challenge, though we came out with just the tools for the job. Once we got to ground zero, though...disappointment! No sign of the container anywhere. Next thing you know, we're on the phone with the cache's one previous finder, who told us just what to look for, but this only confirmed our idea that the container is just plain gone. What a bummer! Ah, well...at least it was an excellent day to spend out on the river. We got back to the cars just as darkness fell; then it was off to the nearby Ham's restaurant, where I went to town on one of their famous bison burgers. Mercy, them critters are good! And now I'm feeling a little bit of the soreness coming on. Not much, just enough to let me know that my bones are somewhat ancient. So it's off to bed. Good night, Lucy.

Caches, Quakes, and Dead Cows

I suppose that, years from now, folks from all over the east coast may be able to look back and remember exactly where they were and what they were doing during the quake of 8-23-11. Me, I was sitting in my office, pounding keys, when the floor began to shake. Now, at The Education Center, whenever a soul of especial girth or devoted purpose strides down the hall, the floor shakes a bit. (A typical building designed by the Koury Corporation; with tenants of overall slight build and a spot of good weather, you're generally okay.) After the shaking went on for a while, I decided that I didn't care how devoted one's purpose, this was getting ridiculous and it was time to say something. I stepped out into the hall and...nothing. Nary a stomper to be seen. But folks from all over the third floor began to materialize, and it soon dawned on us that either a fault had shifted or Godzilla was on the rise.

At least we may all be thankful it didn't prove to be a major destructive event, unlike some in recent memory.

A bunch of new caches were published today, so after work, I headed out to the Glencoe area to go hiking along the Haw River, which is always very scenic, and today, the weather was cooperative—clear and warm but not oppressively hot. I put in about five miles and managed first-to-finds on five new caches, though a sixth proved elusive due to endlessly shifting coordinates...which I'll just go ahead and blame on the earthquake. A return trip will be in order.

Robin Jensen, from the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, is organizing a clean-up event at Frank Wilson Park next month, so I decided to set up a complementary Cache-In Trash-Out (CITO) event to hopefully draw some geocachers, who can get caching credit for attending. It's a worthwhile effort—part of the 26th Annual International Coast Cleanup, sponsored by Ocean Conservancy International. Here's a link to the event: Wilson Park Stream Cleanup, Saturday, September 23, 10:00 AM–12:00 PM.

This evening's caching expedition kept me out till just past sundown, so I ended up doing a late-dinner kind of thing...after a celebratory Damned Rodan's Dirty Firetini, of course. And holy cows, the dead cow was good. I put some beef spare ribs on the charcoal grill and burnt 'em just right. Seriously, some of the best ribs I've ever tasted, these were. I was intending to just eat two of the three, but they were so frikkin' good, I ended up killing the lot of them. Seemed like the thing to do at the time.

Let's have no more shaking, you hear?

Saved by Funnel Fries?

Sometimes, a combination of unforeseen circumstances and marginally good decision-making provides fodder for a little cautionary tale. Last night, Ms. B. and I spent a most enjoyable evening at the Eden drive-in theater watching Final Destination 5 and Fright Night. It's one of our favorite places to catch movies, since I've been a drive-in junkie since I was a wee young-un (according to my folks, my very first movie outing was Disney's Babes In Toyland at a drive-in theater; and do hush about my age). Per our custom, we indulged in some delicious but ever-so-naughty cheezburgers, fries, chocolate chip cookies, and tasty adult beverages. Even though the spirits flowed freely for a while, we had enough sense, or something akin to it, to put a lid on the drink at the end of the first feature.

Then...despite our calorie and cholesterol intake already being through the roof...I took it to heart to sample the drive-in's funnel fries, which I could smell cooking and had me salivating a freaking river. Oh, my lord...funnel fries are GOOD—and, I'm pretty sure, an excellent means of neutralizing alcohol. When it came time to leave, I was quite confident that I was good to drive because it had been a couple of hours since capping the bottle, and we had consumed monstrous quantities of unhealthy food in the bargain.

Thus it was that, on the way down the road, we saw a pair of blue flashing lights in the distance and figured that someone had been pulled over. As we neared the patrol cars, the vehicle in front of us slowed down, and I slowed down, as required by law, and we went on by, as we ordinarily would. Apparently, though, the officers were setting up a checkpoint and intended for us to stop, but as I could not see through the car up front, I never saw the troopers until we were past them. So, no doubt a little peeved, both of them come after us and pulled over both me and the driver of the car up front—who clearly should have understood the officers' intent.

Needless to say, the trooper asked about our evening's activities, which I answered truthfully, and he had me take a breathalyzer test. Happily, I blew well under the legal limit, and he wished me a good and safe evening—then rushed over to assist his buddy checking out the driver of the car in front of me, who, I suspect, probably did not register safely in the sober range.

So...while I clearly could have made many healthier choices last evening, at least I avoided what could have been a very ugly situation, not just for the night but potentially long-term. You can bet the mental file of the experience is brightly highlighted in my brain's little directory of folders. Also highlighted is a happy little footnote about the virtues of funnel fries....

Do drink responsibly.

As for the pictures themselves:

Final Destination 5 is less a movie with a plot than an ongoing exercise in cleverness, but it's beaucoup fun and features an ingenious tie-in to the original film in the series; I know I've seen at least one of the others, but I'm not sure which. Fright Night departed considerably from the original, which I thought worked in its favor. Colin Farrell was much better than I expected. The first half had some effective moments of intrigue, but then it just got noisy. The characters were nothing to brag on, though David Tennant was pretty good. With just a little tweaking, this could have been a decent stand-alone vampire movie minus the Fright Night title; and that's probably what it should have been.

I Has a Krud

Home from work today due to krud. Ugly summer krud. Not pleased.

On that subject, Geocaching.com, the premier website of my favorite avocation—which, if you frequent this blog, you surely know all about—has succumbed to krud as well. Krud of the brain, I'm pretty sure. The series of site updates over the past few months have steadily decreased its user-friendliness, and yesterday's update appears to have been solely intended to piss off the geocaching community. Now, if you're not a cacher, this will mean nothing to you, so forgive my choice of topic. But today, I'd rather be pissed off about geocaching than politics, the economy, publishing, and other subjects of broader scope. Just because.

Back when I started caching, in early 2008, Geocaching.com was as user-friendly as a site could be, and it—along with the geocachers I met because of it—drew me into the game with all kinds of enthusiasm. This year, in particular, Groundspeak, the company that runs the website, seems to have forgotten that it created and nurtured a wonderful community of people who share a love of caching, and that a large number of them—myself included—pay for premium memberships. Without any regard for their very substantial core base, Groundspeak has taken to implementing changes that significantly and objectively undermine the site's usefulness and even diminish the essence of the game. Yesterday's unveiling of "challenges," which are a completely different animal than geocaching itself but that count toward a player's total cache finds, has drawn significant negative but constructive feedback—the most reasonable of which was summarily gunned down by Groundspeak founder and CEO Jeremy Irish. I find Groundspeak's demeaning attitude reprehensible, and it really is symptomatic of many businesses who have grown too big for their britches and lost touch with the people who made them successful in favor of superficial glitter, probably in hopes of drawing in unsuspecting newbies.

The geocaching community is a community...a vital one...and Geocaching.com is not Facebook. It should not be styled after Facebook, and god in heaven, it should not be run like Facebook. In Groundspeak's own words, their people "got together in a room to brainstorm what should be done for the site going forward." That's what we call "in a vacuum," Mr. Irish. The ire on the feedback forums is, in my experience, unprecedented. Get a freaking clue, sir. Listen to those who've put you where you are and respect them. And fashion your product accordingly.

There. That's Damned Rodan's kruddy rant for the day. Hope you are feeling better than I am.

Seal Adventure

Given the horrible tragedy this week of losing a number of Navy SEALs in Afghanistan, it's oddly appropriate that the primary geocache I undertook to log this week was called "SEAL Qualification Training" (GC1DHDF), so named because it's a mentally as well as physically challenging multi-cache with six stages. It was originally hidden in 2008 by Ted "Sketcher" Beach, but it's only been found a handful of times, and the last logged find before me was in April 2010. If you endeavor to complete this one all at once—assuming you correctly solve the puzzle to acquire the final coordinates—it's seven to eight miles of hiking on the Greensboro watershed trails. I opted to do it a stage at a time—one stage per hike (though I did end up finding stages 3 and 4 on one trip)—just so I'd have an excuse to get out there on the trails a number of times. Thus, on my several hikes, I managed to make it a cumulative total of something like 18–20 miles. But hey, I need the exercise! This one isn't necessarily a night cache, but it is set up with reflectors so that it can be done at night; alas, except for one hike which kept me out after dark, I ended up doing most of it in daylight. I do tend to enjoy the long arduous ones (and they're particularly arduous when it's a hundred degrees out, like today), especially when they're as well-conceived as this cache. Each stage leading up to the final is a micro or small container containing the coordinates to the next stage and a numerical clue. One must put those clues together correctly in order to get the coordinates for the final, which is a big old ammo can full of fun swag.

There is a sequel to this cache, called "Hooyah" (GCV1JC), which I actually did many moons ago, and I'm kind of glad I did it first, as it was the easier of the two...a good one to ease you into the rigors of this one, heh heh.

If you're a local geocacher and you haven't found this one yet, I definitely recommend it (and its brother), whether all at once or on individual trips, the way I did. But get yourself in shape first. It's pretty rigorous.

Damned Rodan's Thai Basil Chicken

Thai food is about my favorite thing in the world, so I often try my hand at various Thai recipes. My most successful is probably Thai Basil Chicken, made Thai-hot, and I think I made the best-ever batch for dinner last night. Here's the recipe. Count on about 20 minutes prep time and 10–15 minutes cooking time.

What you need (serves two):

• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped
• 6 hot chili peppers (Serrano are perfect); 2 thinly sliced; 4 finely chopped
• 2 tbsp. hot chili oil
• 2 tbsp. Thai chili sauce
• 2 tsp. soy sauce
• 1/2 bell pepper, thinly sliced
• lettuce
• juice from 2 limes
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup chopped basil leaves
• 1 cup fish sauce (half for cooking, half for two side servings of sauce)
• 1 cup Jasmine rice
• 1 lb. ground chicken
• 1 tbsp. crushed dried chili pepper

What you do:

1. To make two side bowls of hot chili fish sauce: into each small bowl, pour 1/4 cup fish sauce and add the two thinly sliced chili peppers. Stir into each bowl 1 tsp. Thai chili sauce, 1 tsp. soy sauce, and the juice from 1/2 lime. Now let the sauce sit and blend while the rest of the dinner is in the works.
   
2. Get the Jasmine rice cooking so it'll be ready when everything else is.
3. Place ground chicken in a bowl. Squeeze in the juice from 1 lime, and add sugar and the remaining fish sauce and Thai chili sauce. Knead thoroughly.
4. Heat skillet or wok on high until it's super-hot. Then pour in hot chili oil. When oil is smoking hot, add garlic and chopped peppers. Stir for about a minute and then lower heat to medium.
5. Add ground chicken mix and stir frequently.
6. When chicken is almost done, add the basil leaves. Continue to stir.
7. Before serving, drain excess liquid. (Careful!)
   
8. Serve over rice on a bed of lettuce. Sprinkle crushed pepper over the chicken and finally place the slivers of bell pepper on top.
9. Add desired amount of fish/pepper sauce. If you're like me, pour the whole damn bowl on there. And prepare to have your ass kicked.

If I'm really in the mood to have my taste buds hammered, I start this meal with a Damned Rodan's Dirty Firetini. Sake or a decent red wine also makes fine accompaniment; last night, we had a 2008 Mouton Cadet Bordeaux, about which I have no complaints.

Yeah, man.

Danger!

I remember watching Patrick McGoohan in Secret Agent (a.k.a. Danger Man)when I was a wee young 'un, though, of course, its finer points were lost on me at the time. Having fairly recently re-visited The Prisoner from start to finish, I decided to give the original Danger Man series (1960–62, 1964–68) a look via Netflix. What a brilliant show it was, if these days relatively obscure. While certain commonalities with the James Bond films are evident in the series, much of it was conceived before the 007 phenomenon reached the heights for which it's known today. I'm convinced that Patrick McGoohan was one of the most accomplished actors of his day, in this series alone displaying a wide range of character portrayals by way of impersonation and disguise, all the while remaining true to the character of the series' protagonist, John Drake. And what a collection of stars and character actors from the day—Sam Wannamaker, Susan Hampshire, Niall McGinnis, Jean Marsh, Patrick Troughton, Michael Gwynn, Donald Pleasence, Lois Maxwell, Anthony Dawson, Bernard Lee, Burt Kwouk, (the last five of whom all appeared in various Bond films) and many more. The famous theme song by Johnny Rivers was attached only to the U.S. release; the title themes for both the original and follow-up Danger Man series were written by Edwin Astley. Despite being something of purist when it comes to original release versions, I must say, I do prefer the Johnny Rivers song. Call it nostalgia.

I have distinct memories of seeing McGoohan in Disney's The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh from the early 60s, which I would love to check out again in its entirety. It's a beautiful period piece, set in the 18th century, about the swashbuckling adventures of Dr. Christopher Syn, based on the early 20th-century novels by Russell Thondike. Originally made as a three-part television serial for The Wonderful World of Disney, an edited version was released in the UK—and later on these shores as Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow. Alas, the Disney film is not currently available (I do so hate Disney and their ultra-limited video releasing, but that's whole nuther topic). And in the 1980s, McGoohan played the darkly charismatic Dr. Paul Ruth in David Cronenberg's classic Scanners, another one I haven't seen in years and need to remedy.

Here's the U.S. opening to Danger Man, a.k.a. Secret Agent, featuring the Johnny Rivers title song. Enjoy.

Beavers' Playgrounds, Whale Rocks, and Others

Night-Ranger, MarkCase, Keegrepus, Damned Old Flying Reptile Dude, and
Ranger Fox at Beavers' Playground.

Caching excursions frequently take me to fascinating places, and yesterday's outing to the Raleigh/Wake County area was no exception. Got up before the ass crack of dawn, met up with fellow cachers Mark Case, Rich "Night-Ranger" Colter, and Christopher "Ranger Fox" Hall, and hit the road, our primary goal being the oldest cache in Wake County, "Beavers' Playground" (GC17B). Once we got to the trail, we hooked up with local cachers Greg "Keegrepus" and Linda "Pink Dolphin." We trekked over hill and dale and ended up in an ocean of various species of tall grasses, much of which rose above our heads. Getting through it proved rather harrowing, for we could hear strange stirrings around us, and every now and then we sensed a distinctly evil presence—which I came to realize was almost certainly a herd of those legendary carnivorous bigfoot beavers that populate the backwoods of Wake County. We were lucky to get out of there with our lives. At least we did pause our panicked flight long enough to sign the cache log.

From there, we made our way to several other caches, eventually ending up at one called "Whale Rocks" (GC1HM37), so named because ground zero is one whale of a rock. Ranger Fox stomped on it. Poor whale rock. We also found a most interesting cliff along a remote roadside that is covered with garnet crystals. There were a couple of young rockhounds on the scene collecting samples, and being that Mr. Case is a teacher of environmental sciences, he got downright excited and pitched in to help the young 'uns in their quest. I brought home a nice little sample of my own. It's quite pretty, and it's also big and heavy enough to chuck at a bigfoot beaver should one decide to chase after me.

Last night, Ms. B. and I gathered with several friends at ye House of Albanese for dinner (homemade tacos) and a spot of wine....well, perhaps more than a spot. It was a fine ending to an exhausting but most satisfying day of physical activity.

Keegrepus and Night-Ranger emerging from the beavers' lair. Note the expressions;
yes, they are fleeing in desperate panic from a herd of carnivorous bigfoot beavers.

Survival story: "We lived to tell the tale." MarkCase, Keegrepus, and Night-Ranger

Ranger Fox stomping on the whale's head

The Feral Kittens Are Much Cuter

Spider is clearly expecting young 'uns. Either that or it ate the feral kittens that have been periodically coming around the backyard.

She certainly wasn't so big the other day (Monday, July 18, 2011: Bad Kharma)

Another Not-Quite-a-G-Fest Day

Every few months, it is necessary to get together with my old friend Bill Mann and watch Godzilla movies, particularly when one or both of us couldn't make it to the annual G-Fest in Chicago. Today's selection...

Our comrade-in-kaiju, Wayne Miller, was hoping to join us, but sadly couldn't make it today. Alas, poor Wayne. No monster mayhem for you, old man. Clearly, the world would be a better, healthier place if more people were into cities being laid waste by giant, radioactively mutated prehistoric monsters.