Tochi's Hut

I've been off to a pretty good start blogging this year, 50 posts in 1H of 2007; on track for 100 posts in the year.  It seems a lot more than I expected.  Unfortunately, I've been rather lazy in the second half thus far.  A dismal zero posts until this one.

A miscellaneous post on random stuff.

After J's BBQ party, I took a stroll to Colonel Danforth Park to pick up my first Bouncy Bunny.  Stumbled across this frog in the river and spent 5 minutes photographing it, including getting on my belly to capture this shot.

It was full blast of Sunny f/16 setting, and unfortunately, I didn't realize the glare off the top of the frog. I would have gotten a leaf to give him some shade from the sun.  Oh well.

Attended COG pub night in Newmarket.  I still don't know why I went, or what made me decide to attend a gathering of GPS carrying weirdos.  I guess I wanted to see what real geocachers were like.  Anyway, the dudes were pretty much what I expected.  All the introduction goes something like this:

• Me: "Hi, I'm Tochi.  How do you do?"
• Geocacher: "I'm Geocacher Geek #1!  How many finds do you have?"
• Me: "I'm a newbie, just 30ish"
• Geocacher: "Ahh, I have 800+!  Let's see your GPS receiver!"
• Me: "What GPSr?  I don't have one?"
• Geocacher: "WHAT?!?"
• Me: "I don't look in forests.  Just simple caches."
• Geocacher: "You have to get a GPSr, it makes it SO MUCH EASIER."
• ...so on and so forth..

It was pretty cool seeing some of the latest advances in PDA and GPS technology.  I learned that the SiRF III chips fry easily in airport X-ray machines.  Some poor guy lost two GPSr before learning to ask for hand inspections.  

This guy was showing off his GPS-enabled PDA.  He had all the geocaching cache coordinates stored into this GPS program, overlaid with Google Map satellite photos.  Most other geocachers apparently did not have this feature.  I was interested in how he was getting the satellite photos feed, since wi-fi was not working.  He confided in me that he manually took screenshots of google map satellite photos and stitched them up himself.  Then he synced it up with the mapping program in his PDA.  Man, my only thought was that this guy needs a life. lol.

Part of the gang decided to tackle the hardest geocache in Newmarket area afterwards - the infamous Determination: How Bad Do You Want It?  The cache is located on an island in a nearby lake.  To get to the cache, one has to swim/paddle/walk across approximately 30-40 feet of muddy, filthy water.  Rumors said that someone had brought a canoe!  When am I going to get a better chance to do this cache?  Got there and saw the crowd gather around the shoreline.  Where is the boat?  There's no canoe or kayak in sight!  Then someone pointed out to a guy in the middle of the strait and said: "There's the boat!"

Apparently, the boat was a pair of hip waders.  The water was low enough that it only got up to the waist of most people.  However, the mud bed was so soft that people were sinking up to their knees in the mud.   It was taking people five minutes of strenuous walking to cross to the island!  You tire out very easily, but if you stop, you sink.  If you move fast, you tire out even quicker.  I ended up not doing the cache, but had lots of fun taking pictures.  I'll just wait till winter when the water ices over and sprint across to the island.

 I won't mention any names here to save a certain person some embarrassment.  A highly abbreviated version of the MSN chat:

MM: "i got conned into buying a 2GB card lol/conned = sweet-talked"

me: "how much?"

MM: "$50"

me: "$50 for 2GB?!? ... wtf"

MM: "apparently it retails for $150 and is the best card out there today"

me: "$50 isn't too much money for rich kids / [but] i think u got ripped off. lol"

MM: "i just found [the SD card from the store site - A Transcend 150x on sale for $99.99]"

me: "i find [the transcend] label funky looking / like a no-name brand / oh well / you are getting $50 discount / lolol"

me: "[Link to another store selling for the identical card for $24!!!]"

MM: "wtf"

MM ended up getting a good discount after calling the guy back.  He gets a high quality SD card and everyone (including store salesman) ends up happy. :)

Finally got to try Cooking Mama for a bit.  Cutting with the Wii-mote was so much fun.  That was really the only fun part of the game.  The wii-mote motions were not being registered too well by the game, so it got pretty frustrating.  Would not recommend.

Getting my gear in order for the upcoming trips.  Got a shutter remote release cable.  Vistek had the cheapest price in town, but their store is kind of far from the downtown core, so my friends who worked downtown could not / would not pick one up for me.  I went to the Henry's near my home, and the stupid sales guy won't price match to Vistek.  Claimed that Nikon accessories are high quality products, they don't make much money from it and they won't give any discounts.   WTF.  Bogus excuses excuses.  I left without getting the cable.  

I happen to drive by another Henry's store and decided to try my luck again.  Found a female sales lady this time, told her I wanted the cable and asked if they would price match.  She was like "of course!"   Stupid bastard at the original store.  Never shopping there again.  

Got the cable.   Spare batteries have been ordered.  Only filters remain.  Almost ready!!