I left on the ninth, the massive storm front that had just dumped 55 inches in Washington, DC only a mere few hundreds miles away and slowly making its way north. Despite the forecasts, I threw caution to the wind and hightailed it out of New York for a four day adventure in Beantown. There was not a cloud in the sky as I opted to take the scenic route through Rhode Island, and do some geocaching along the way. It would in fact be my first ever visit to the state too.

Oh wow... a rock...

Driving towards Newport, RI

Rhode Island was… blah. Although I drove through Newport where all the famous mansions were, Rhode Island didn’t really do anything for me. It just felt… blah. After a few hours of hunting down geocaches here and there, I decided I had seen enough of the state and continued northward. By the time I arrived at Boston it was around 3PM, the sky still as blue as the Caribbean ocean. I was about a day ahead of the storm, and I was determined to start checking out the city as soon as I settled into the hotel and stashed my car safely away at a nearby parking garage.

Boston!

I’m glad I picked the financial district too. It was immaculate, lightly crowded, and the T line was literally right outside the hotel. I bundled up and headed straight for the North End, cutting through Christopher Columbus Park and enjoying the splendid view of the harbor. Before I knew it, I was standing right outside Paul Revere’s House, amazed and awed that I was finding myself walking the same paths and traveling the same roads that so many famous men of history had once been on.

India? Fuhgetaboutit!

Still standing! Now where's my pizza??

Once the sun began to set, I decided it was time to see for myself if the Italian food here (namely the pizza) lived up to the hype. It was time for Santarpios Pizza!

Santarpios was located in East Boston, so I hitched a ride on the blue line over, and promptly got lost from there, even with my GPS. I had gotten out of the stop for Logan’s Airport, but once I got above ground all I saw were a maze of freeways and no clear way through. Santarpios was somewhere out there, but my GPS would not cooperate and insisted I had at least a 2 mile walk ahead of me. I wasn’t willing to do anything more than a half a mile, so next thing I knew I was hopping freeway barriers, dodging an insane amount of traffic moving at breakneck speed, and breathing in the toxic fumes of all the car exhausts before making it to the other side and hoofing it another few city blocks before I finally found the pizza joint.

Man this had BETTER be worth it. I walked in, asked for a booth and was promptly seated. My muscles were aching from climbing the freeway barriers, so I was glad to be able to stretch my legs and relax a bit.

Weird menu by the way. I had never seen one so brief it didn’t even have the option of ordering pizza by the slice. It included choices for the types of pizzas you wanted, and beverages. That was it.

I opted for extra cheese and sausage, and patiently waited. The pizza came after about 10 minutes and I was ready to dig in. I used a knife and fork to cut a piece and savored the moment before I took my first bite, indeed the first bite I would ever take of a pizza made in Boston. And the verdict was…

Meh.

Don’t get me wrong, it was good pizza, spicy and tasty, but there were no heavenly choirs singing, or psychedelic moments that took me to a different level of the astral plane. It was just modestly good pizza. Yes I am in fact a New York snob, deal with it.

I did note that it was so thin you couldn’t really eat a slice by hand, so I had to use a knife and fork for the most part. That’s just weird. It wasn’t until a few minutes when the crust began to harden again that I was able to fold up a slice and eat it by hand. I had another slice or two and then had them bag the rest. Good thing I had cash on me too, because they didn’t accept credit cards either.

Once my food was boxed and ready to go, I bundled up again and braced myself for the walk back to the T line. There had to be some better way to get to it, but rather than use my Garmin GPS, I went to Google Maps on my iPod this time. There appeared to be a park that separated the streets nearby from the T line, so I made a beeline straight for the park, initially discouraged to see that the gates were closed. Undeterred, I kept moving along the fence, until somehow, by the grace of God I was able to find the still open main entrance, which led directly to the subways. The park also afforded me an amazing view of Boston’s skyline in the distance, so I took a moment to take it all in, until I could hear the rumbling of the blue train nearby. I raced ahead and down the stairs, just in time to catch another ride back to the hotel, before the latest episode of Lost would start.

Returning from Wonderland: The Blue Train

After Lost ended, I was all settled in for my first night, enjoying the view of the buildings from the 7th floor, and anxious for tomorrow to begin so I could start my journey on the Freedom Trail. Outside, the city lights twinkled in a night that had been further darkened by a brewing storm.

A view from my hotel window.

Tags: boston, boulder, Christopher Columbus Park, driving, geocaching, gps, iPod, italian food, journey, new york, North End, Paul Revere, pizza, Rhode Island, skyline, storm, subway, travel
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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Yesterday was my last day off before I had to head back to work, so I decided to make the most of it by doing a relaxing afternoon of geocaching. First one I found was at a park where I once worked as a camp counselor, bringing back fond memories of getting jumped and beaten by a bunch of 10 year old snotheads 5 days a week. Ah yes, memories.

The next one was hidden in a what used to be a creek, long since dried up. The area was now a public plot of land that cut through an entire neighborhood and eventually ended at the grounds of a local high school. After checking the coordinates and looking around for a few minutes, I finally located the hidden cache at the guardrail that separated the park from one of the streets. It was a perfect day, the sun shining and warm enough that no jacket was needed. I felt myself relaxing and enjoying the good weather as I opened up the cache to sign the logbook.

Suddenly, a whale mountain of a hag beast Dede Scozzafava lookalike materializes out of nowhere.

“EXCUSE ME, DO YOU WORK FOR THE TOWN?

“Me? No, just taking a walk here, enjoying the weather.”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, ARE YOU SCOPING OUT MY HOUSE?? WHAT DID YOU PUT IN THAT GUARDRAIL???”

“Um, no, I’m not scoping anything. Don’t worry about this either, it’s just a geocache.”

“A WHAT? WHAT IS THAT?”

I cheerily explained the concept of geocaching to her. “It’s like a box that contains little trinkets and a logbook. People hide them all over the world, post the coordinates to them online, and then you use a GPS to find it. Sort of like a hi-tech treasure hunt. It’s really fun.”

She didn’t say anything much after that, and went back into a house nearby, so I thought that was pretty much the end of that. I signed the log and went to return the cache.

Then the land whale materializes again.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??”

I tried to explain geocaching again a few more times, including how you use a GPS device to find caches.

“I DON’T WANT THAT THING HERE. TAKE IT WITH YOU NOW.”

“I don’t think I’m allowed to take it, but I can let the owner know if you feel really uncomfortable about it…”

“THEY’RE SPYING ON US, ELLE!!!” She yelled out to someone apparently standing at the door of the house nearby.

“WHO DO YOU WORK FOR???” The lady apparently named Elle yelled out to me.

I explained who I worked for, which in hindsight I’m thinking was probably a mistake. Because when you combine GPS, satellites, and then the revelation that you work for a government agency, that’s not really a good combo to have when trying to explain a harmless pastime to someone, who for all attempts and purposes was acting like a paranoid schizophrenic.

“Look I have an ID here if you’re that concerned, but I really think you’re overre…”

“IDs CAN BE FALSIFIED. I CAN MAKE A FAKE ID TOO WITH MY PRINTER! I WANT THAT OUT OF HERE NOW!!”

“YOU PUT THAT THERE DIDN’T YOU!? ISN’T THAT A TRACKER??”

“Err no, it’s just a simple keyholder with a logbook inside.” I showed it to her.

Soon another neighbor walking her dog passed by and stopped to see what the commotion was about. It wasn’t 30 seconds before she started glaring at me as well like I was Ted Bundy reincarnated.

“Should we call the police?” She casually suggested. “It looks like he’s littering so they could arrest him for that.”

“I am not littering. And I don’t think I’m on private property either. This area here is a public area right?

“IT DOESN’T MATTER, I CAN SEE YOU FROM MY HOUSE!”

“YOU TAKE THAT THING WITH YOU, AND I DON’T EVER WANT TO SEE YOUR FACE AGAIN, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?? I SWEAR IF I SEE YOU HERE AGAIN I WILL GET MY SHOTGUN AND BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF! GET THE #%^$ OUT OF HERE NOW!”

“Ok, can I still take a walk in the pa– you know I think I’ll just leave now.”

I quickly walked back to my car, looking over my shoulder every now and then to see if she was in fact going to go back into the house to get her shotgun. Suddenly there were neighbors everywhere, all murmuring and staring at me like I had just landed here from Mars. They continued to glare at me with steely eyes of raging, foaming hatred. I had never seen anything quite like it.

I still had the cache with me, but no way was I putting it back now. I got out of there fast. Afterwards, I pulled into another section of the park area far away from Miss Nightmare on Elm Street, and hid the cache in a guardrail there.

Once upon a time I had gone to school here (not by choice), and I had always known something was just a little “off” with the locals, which is why I minimized any contact with them. They just weren’t… rational, ya know? But I never realized just how bad it really was until now. To be treated like a criminal and have my life threatened, this despite the fact that I was in a PUBLIC park and was parked legally, and so, what, I’m a threat because she saw me from her house from 50 yards away? Seriously? And then to talk about calling the police and working out how they can get me arrested WHILE I’M STANDING RIGHT THERE?

You know, even now I still have a naivete when it comes to befriending people in real life. I always think once I explain things and show I’m not a threat to them, they learn to relax around me. You would think logic and common sense would prevail in the end, right? Well…

The irony of it is that I when I had gone geocaching in Pennsylvania, people had warned of a similar scenario about a cache hidden at another local park there, and how if you parked on the street, one of the neighbors would have a fit and tell you off for parking in front of his house.

But see, that actually makes sense in a way. Here, I’m not merely parking in front of a house to the chagrin of the homeowner. No, I’m actually an agent for the government looking to place a tracking bug in a guardrail so the aliens can come later to murder you in your sleep. Because see, that just makes so much more sense.

Honestly, the more I travel, the more I realize just how badly growing up here had adversely affected the way I see people. I notice everyone around me is batty cracknuts out of their minds, and I assume that’s just how it is everywhere. People are paranoid, hostile, and will spit in your face just for daring to pollute their existence. They will be friendly one day and then come after you with knives the very next. In fact, I’m pretty certain that if I came back to that same place this weekend, they would all be quite friendly to me. Although, I think I’ll refrain from putting that theory to the test.

I should have paid attention when I took psychology at one of the local colleges here, and the professor mentioned that we had one of the highest ratio of mental hospitals than anywhere else in the country.

Now I know why.

Tags: camp counselor, geocache, geocaching, gps, neighbor, neighbors, parked, parking, Pennsylvania, world
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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I’ve had all week off from work due to finagling my time around and connecting Election Day and Veterans Day to my usual time off. One of the reasons October/November continues to be my favorite months.

But then of course, it rains. And rains, and rains, and rains, and rains, and rains… Man, I don’t think I’ve seen the sun since Monday. This dude is not pleased.

So instead, I opt to go to the movies, but this time I wanted to check out one that had closed captioning available. There was only one nearby that captioned a movie I wanted to see (2012), so I decided to check it out.

I knew I was in for another whirly day when my GPS wouldn’t accept the address I put in. Sigh. Instead I drove to the location and of COURSE on the way I run into a MASSIVE traffic jam. Cars upon cars upon cars upon cars, and always the guy in front of me drives too slow while the guy behind me drives too fast. By the time I had reached my destination I was gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles were white. I was about THISCLOSE to flipping my lid and playing real life bumper cars.

By the time I got there the movie was just about to start. Only problem is, I arrived in front of a gas station.

Where between heaven and hell WAS this movie theater? Google Maps says it’s supposed to be right here, and Google never lies, @&%^!

I drove some more, than drove back again. After about a few miles I see a small sign indicating a movie theater was nearby. Turns out Google Maps was about 5 miles off the mark. By the time I had finally gotten to the right spot the movie had already started 30 minutes ago.

Sigh. It was just as well, the theater looked packed, and if there was one thing I could not abide by, it was the obnoxious, ugly weekend crowd of skanky kids, tired looking parents and stupid teenage couples getting all up in my space as I try to enjoy what more than likely turns out to be a sucky movie.

Not really what I had in mind to cap off my last week off from work. Grrrr.

Ah well, I might be able to redeem myself yet if it stops raining tomorrow. I’ll be heading off to Sleepy Hollow then for some geocaching and cemetery exploring. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig’s graves will be nearby too, so I might go see that as well. My coworker of course will wrinkle his nose at the thought of me going off to see a few Yankee ballplayers, but then again what else can you expect from a disgruntled Mets fan.

Pray I don’t get ticks or run into snakes or anything. I really, really hate bugs, and I really, REALLY hate snakes. Why can’t these people hide geocaches in like a Starbucks or something? Sheesh.

Tags: captioning, cemetery, crowd, geocache, geocaching, google maps, gps, movie, movie theater, theater, traffic, weekend
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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So I got up early this morning for a 3 day trip to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, where I would meet up with a few relatives to celebrate a birthday at a bluegrass show. The next few days though would be all about meeeeeeeeeee, as I go off to do some geocaching deep in the heart of Amish Country.

So I have my GPS all set up, and I take off, first with a stop at 7-11 for some coffee.

And yep, I knew things were going to go south the minute I poured Half and Half into my coffee and the cap fell out and landed right into my cup.

“Ow, ouch, ow, ouch!” My fingers burned as I tried to pick the cap out of the sizzling coffee. Finally I wised up and used a pair of stirrers to get it out. The coffee of course tasted flat too.

Afterwards, I start heading south and already my spirits were beginning to improve, knowing I would be out of New York and breathing a bit easier over the next few days from being away from this accursed place. Then I see a road sign:

“Verrazano Bridge Closed.”

Nah, that can’t be right. Who completely closes a major metropolitan bridge anyway? Refusing to accept the warning, I pressed on, thinking the sign meant they only closed a few lanes.

THEY CLOSED THE ENTIRE @#$%^ VERRAZANO BRIDGE WHAT THE @*&$%^ GAAAAYEEARRGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

I furiously started tapping the detour button on my GPS, but it kept telling me to take the same route that was now completely BLOCKED by barriers and cops. Livid and ready to mow people down, I turned around and made my way back uptown again. The GPS finally wised up to my location and rerouted me through the Battery tunnel and the Holland. Thank God the traffic was light or I probably never would have made it out of New York alive. Eventually I did make it out and before I knew it I was zipping along on the New Jersey Turnpike at high speed.

I didn’t drive slower than 80-90… (ok maybe 100 at times) until I was finally in Pennsylvania. Breathing a bit easier now that I was out of the craphole that was New York and New Jersey, I noticed there was a geocache right by the rest area, so I decided to take a quick look so I could log this one as a find too.

Unfortunately I didn’t find it, although I did manage to muddy up my shoes and cut my hands too from the blades of the grass I was pulling up to find this bloody stupid cache. Oy! Plus for some reason my cell phone was not cooperating, so I could not access the Internet to get more info either so I could locate it.

I gave up and eventually continued deeper into Pennsylvania, then stopped by a Walmart to pick up a few things. I noticed there was yet another cache nearby the parking lot, so it was off I went. (Yep, I am in fact hooked to this.) This time I managed to find it, though not before stepping around in what I’m pretty sure now was poison ivy. I am really, really hoping that’s not the case, or this mini-vacation is going to take a very miserable turn for the worse in a hurry.

I arrived at the hotel around 3PM and checked in, dragged my suitcase up to my room and tried to open the door. After jiggling around for a minute, the door suddenly swung open and the guy whose room that DID belong to stared curiously at me.

“Whoops, sorry, wrong room.” He had just about scared the living crapola out of me too. Yeesh. I quickly moved away, only to move back again when I realized my room was directly across from his. A few minutes later, after I went out into the parking lot to grab more stuff, I saw the same guy again heading out and waving at me. I happened to notice a sticker on his car too, and it was an emblem that had become all too familiar to me. The guy actually worked for the same agency I did. We were, in fact, coworkers.

200 miles I travel and I still can’t get away from my job.

As soon as I realized it I ran to see if I could catch up to him to find out more, but his car had already left the parking lot. Are these people watching me or something??

Regardless, the whirly day finally began to simmer down as I met up with my folks again and we went off to the bluegrass show. I had a nice time, came back to the hotel, and somehow concluded the evening by having a pretty, sweetheart of a girl stop by my room so she could help light my fire.

But that’s another story.

Anyhoo, that’s it for the day. It’s 1AM, I’m exhausted and I need to get some sleep. Plus I’m starting to itch a little here…

Tags: Amish, coworkers, geocache, geocaching, girl, gps, lancaster county, new york, Pennsylvania, sweetheart, traffic, travel, vacation, verrazano bridge, walmart
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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While I was researching GPS devices to get for my car, I inadvertently came upon a wondrous thing called geocaching.

The idea behind it is pretty simple: use a GPS device to discover hidden caches around the world that were placed by geocaching enthusiasts. Once you find a geocache, you can sign the logbook to note that you were there, and also post a field note online to indicate your discovery of the cache, and your experiences in finding it too if you so desire. People also sometimes leave items that you can take with you, as long as you replace it with one of equal or greater value.

It’s the kind of hobby that for me would be an answer to prayer. It was becoming a ritual for me to spend my free time by either gluing myself to the Internet in the vain hope that I might finally get a tweet from some smoking hot virginal babe professing her undying love to me, or playing Nancy Drew mystery games and watching movies from Netflix while chowing down on Cheetos. I needed something that would put me out there and give me a reason to move around again, instead of just driving aimlessly around New York with a violent urge to mow down anyone who got in my way.

There were many fascinating geocaches in Lake Placid too, so much that I’m kicking myself for not finding out about it sooner while I was up there, but fortunately, there are tons of local caches in my area to choose from, and I decided my very first geocaching experience would involve finding one hidden in a lamp post somewhere in town.

So off I went for my very first geocaching hunt, and in the dark, cold, pouring rain too! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I arrived at the location, then followed the steps to locate the right lamp post. I had to take a certain number of steps in various directions to find the correct spot, akin to finding buried treasure, and I was exhilarated. Even the bad weather couldn’t bring me down.

Except, I couldn’t find the cache. I looked and looked, retraced my steps, looked again, and still could not find a thing. I ended up looking at each lamp post within a 100 yards of me in addition to the one that was SUPPOSED to hold the cache, and apparently I was getting noticed, as people were starting to stare at me in curiosity as they walked by. I looked up after feeling around under one lamp post to see one group walking by and eyeing me in suspicion.

“Don’t worry, I’m the lamp post inspector, just here to make sure these lights are all working smoothly.” I made a satisfactory gesture as I knocked on the lamp post. They continued walking on.

Where the crap was this @#$% thing already, son-of-a…

So then a police car pulls up near me.

Oh Lord, please don’t tell me these numbnuts actually called the cops on me…

But fortunately it kept moving on. Whoooooo… man, I really have had just about enough of cops getting all up in my space lately too. The last thing I needed was to get yet another stupid ticket, or worse, wind up in jail because I don’t know how to keep my mouth shut for nothing.

Finally, after 30 minutes of getting drenched in the rain and learning how to breathe again after the cop scare, I gave up. I’m convinced somebody had stolen this cache, and that’s what I’m gonna go with, especially considering people had been posting online that this was one of the easiest caches they ever found too, so I’ll insist that the cache was really stolen and not accept the possibility that it was right under my nose all along, and only schmucky idiot buffoons like me would be incapable of finding it.

Sigh.

Ah well, tomorrow’s another day. I’m planning to head down to South Street for a relaxing afternoon by the water, and supposedly there’s another cache right by the seaport that I can go look for. Yeah, we’ll see. I bet that’s probably long gone by now too.

Tags: driving, free time, geocache, geocaching, gps, hobby, lake placid, lamp post, new york, rain
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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So I’ve been back at work since yesterday, and well, this sucks.

What’s weird is that I would come in, and after a few hours I would just feel completely drained, like something in the air was sucking the life force out of me. I’m not imagining it either, almost didn’t go on vacation in fact because I always felt drained. But I actually felt better and healthier too the moment I started my vacation, even on a diet of ice cream and ‘boigas’, that is of course, until I came home and started working again.

Maybe there’s something in the air here, some allergen that plays life force suckage on me. I don’t know.

But for the past 2 days I’ve been ignoring my job and instead been working up a to-do list of sorts so I can get better prepared for my next trip. Which includes getting a new GPS device.

So here’s where I’m at, which I’m sure will interest absolutely no one but me: I have to decide between getting a more traditional GPS device (from Garmin likely) or I can go a more nonconventional route by getting a GPS addon for my iPod Touch, then getting a navigation app from the Apple store (such as Navigon). I’d prefer this route because it would save on having to get yet another gadget, and since I take my iPod everywhere with me, I won’t have to worry about a GPS in the car attracting would be thieves who carry big lead pipes and have far too much time time on their hands.

Only trouble is, there’s only one GPS module on the market that I know of that’s available now, and it requires that your iPod be jailbroken, along with lots of other finagling in order to finally get it working right. Eventually there’s supposed to be two possible solutions coming out soon: one being a TomTom car dock that will have GPS built in, and another possible GPS module to be released in November by Dual Electronics. There’s no indication at all as to how well either of these will work, if they will at all. Assuming they did work though, then the only downside I see is the lack of bluetooth features that GPS devices sometimes have, so I can use my cell phone hands free while driving.

So I have the option of waiting to see how these future GPS modules will work on an iPod Touch, or getting a Garmin now. For Garmin I have been looking specifically at their nuvi 265WT and nuvi 765T models. Although… assuming the iPod solution doesn’t work out, I may go for a nuvi 500, a multifunction GPS that would allow me to participate in a beautiful thing called geocaching (which I’ll write about at length in a future post.)

Other than that, I’m planning to completely dump the built-in gallery on my blog this weekend, and integrate Flickr into it instead via a plugin. While on vacation, it occurred to me that Flickr provides a great way to upload videos and pictures from my cell phone on the fly, something I was trying to do on my own with mixed results (photos uploaded ok, but my first video upload garnered an epic FAIL.) If I can integrate Flickr into my blog without killing myself in the process, it would allow me to save tremendously on bandwidth and keep my photos centralized for easier management and viewing online. Please light a candle for me this weekend, so I can pull this off without losing my sanity in the process.

And of course, I do this all for you, my beloved audience, so that you may all share in the joys and wonders that is my life.

Tags: blog, flickr, gallery, gps, home, ipod touch, job, mobile, Photos, plugin, vacation, Videos
Categories: Blog Fog, In The Coal Mine
 
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