Yesterday evening's yoga class was the end of the current seven-week session. In two weeks, the next session begins. During yesterday's class, Lisa made an interesting announcement. Starting immediately, our class will no longer be doing the Sun Salutation (Suya Namaskar) - the sequence of warm-up asanas that were a standard part of every class. What was interesting was Lisa's reason: Our class has become so good at Suya Namaskar that, as she put it, the only thing she has to straighten for us anymore is our t-shirts.

I decided, yesterday evening, that although I've found yoga teachers who do one or two things I like better than Lisa's methods, Lisa is the one teacher I've found who suits me best.

I created two geocaching travel bugs this week. One of them was a reaction to the feeling I've gotten that too few people follow a travel bug's goal. Most geocachers, it seems, pick up a travel bug from one cache and place it in another, and it makes no difference if the bug wants photographs of coffee shops or wants to know what book you're currently reading. They just move the cache, and ignore the goal. I thought about launching a travel bug with no goal - there are plenty of them out there. But then I had a better idea. I created a travel bug with a "secret" goal. The bug knows its goal, according to the description, and will relay information to the receiver on a "need to know" basis. The way I'm hoping this will work is that geocachers will move it from cache to cache, as if it had no goal, and then every once it a while, I will post a note making it seem like the travel bug is moving toward its goal just as planned. It's an experiment. I named it "Casino Royale," after my second-favorite James Bond novel (so far). (There are many travel bugs already named "Moonraker.")

That said, the other travel bug I created has a clear goal. I named it "All Things Bunny." It wants to see anything and everything related to rabbits.

First I create a travel bug as a protest against goals not being followed. Then I create a travel bug with a goal. I reserve the right to be inconsistent.

Phillip's visiting Pet this weekend, and I decided to spend the day walking, because that's something Phillip doesn't enjoy doing. I walked from Capitol Hill, through Belltown, and up and over Queen Anne Hill. Along the way, I did some geocaching.

There's a puzzle cache somewhere on the edge of Downtown. It has absolutely no clues, other than: It's within a mile of the posted coordinates, and it's not on private property. Yet, geocachers are logging finds. Recently, Phillip came up with a guess as to where the cache might be. On my walk today, I checked it out. He could be right. There were too many people (a.k.a. muggles) around to do a thorough search. I didn't log a "Did Not Find," since I didn't spend more than 30 seconds looking for it.

There were three puzzle caches I looked for on Queen Anne Hill. I found two. The third one was in a playground full of children (a.k.a. miniature muggles). It was the second cache I looked for. There were a few children, and a couple of parents. I managed to do a pretty good search, but didn't find the cache. I returned after finding the third cache, and there even more children before, so I didn't even attempt a search. I logged two finds and a DNF.

I dropped "Casino Royale" into a cache we'd found previously on Queen Anne Hill.

I didn't walk back home. I caught the 1 bus from Queen Anne Hill to Downtown, then the 43 up to Capitol Hill.

When I got home, I remembered that there was a fourth puzzle cache on Queen Anne Hill that I'd recently solved. I forgot to look for it.

I had planned to drop "All Things Bunny" into a cache named "Very Bunny." It was the site of our 100th find. It seems like a perfect spot to start the travel bug. It's close to Woodland Park Zoo - too far to walk, and a long, but not impossible, bus ride on the 44. Recently, though, I got an email from Flexcar. It's been so long since I've used their service that they're giving me my next $50 worth of usage, through March, free. So I decided to take them up on their offer and use a Flexcar to go drop off "All Things Bunny." What I discovered, though, is that it's been so long since I've used Flexcar that my member no longer works. (What a great offer, that I can't use.)

Our computer gave me a scare this morning. When I booted up, I was greeted by a large dialog box which told me that a component of our virus scan was either missing or had not installed properly. (I just love computers and their un-informative information.) The "M" on the task bar, normally red, was black. I tried to start the virus scan manually, and got the same dialog box. I re-booted the computer, and got the same dialog box. We were suddenly without virus scan protection. I thought about our options. Going online unprotected was not one of them. Was I going to have to go virus scan shopping this weekend? Could I transfer the virus scan over from the old computer?

The dialup dialog box appeared. The computer wanted to download something. Should I connect, without protection? Maybe it was the missing component. In an act of pure faith, I connected. A green and yellow animated arrow appeared on the taskbar. "McAfee virus scan loading..." it said. Whatever it was, it was big. When it was 3% loaded, I made coffee and took a shower. When I got out of the shower, got dressed, and poured my coffee, it was at 65%.

It reached 100%, the message read "Virus scan installing..." and the "M" turned red. The virus scan was back.

Did it install the missing component? Was it just a normal update? Did the previous update install improperly? I don't know.

I laid out on the futon when I got home this evening, and continued reading The Rule of Four. I started getting sleepy, and I thought about the fact that I didn't have to worry about falling asleep and missing Gladden's eight o'clock breakfast. That thought depressed me. I've gotten used to a life without his schedule - eight o'clock comes and goes without notice - and yet he still seems to be here. The more sleepy I got, the harder it became to focus on what I was reading. I started composing a blog entry in my head. It was a blog entry that had nothing to do with Gladden or with missing him or books. It had to do with seeing Mr. TMI in the clinic today. As I composed words in my mind, I kept drifting in and out of sleep, and today's story of Mr. TMI somehow got pieced into a dream I no longer remember. Then, finally, I fell asleep and didn't come out of it until a half hour ago.

I was in a meeting when Mr. TMI checked in for his appointment. When he was finished with his appointment, however, he made a specific detour to say hello and ask me how I was doing. I tensed up. I never know what to do about him. I don't want to be rude, but I'm afraid to show the slightest interest in how he's doing, because I know that he will spend the next several minutes telling me. He seems like a nice enough fellow, but he seems to have lost any sense of boundaries. He doesn't seem to understand what are, and what are not, appropriate topics of conversation. He doesn't seem to sense when his monologue has gone on too long. He doesn't seem to know what type of language to use in a public conversation.

Today, Mr. TMI seemed to have it under control. It was unsettling. He complimented me on my turtleneck sweater, and made a joke about turtles' necks. He asked me how I've been doing. I replied that I've been fine, I've been keeping warm, and that I hoped he has been, too. He told me he's been doing all right, and he thanked me for asking. Then he said it was good to see me again, and he went on his way. It was a perfectly normal conversation, and it somehow made me a little sad. I commented to my coworker that someone must have given him either counseling or medication. Then my coworker said out loud what I hadn't realized I'd been thinking. "You know, it's strange," she said, "I should be happy that he's improved, but instead, I feel sad that he's not himself at all anymore."

A long time ago, before blogs existed, I had an idea for a blog-like web site. It would consist of interesting out-of-context bits of conversations that I'd overhear on the bus, or out on the sidewalk. It would have contained things like this: Two men are walking along the hallway of the hospital. One guy comments: "I'm glad I don't work here. I'd be late for work every single day, 'cause I'd never be able to find my way around in this place."

I ordered a couple of Travel Bugs (I have two ideas to go with them) as well as some geocaching stickers (for cache containers). Once again, I am faced with my main complaint against online shopping (and probably catalog shopping, although I haven't done that in a while): a lack of choices for shipping my order. When I am given a choice, I will always choose the US Postal Service over UPS or FedEx. I know I've written about this before.

If I have them ship to my home address, neither UPS or FedEx will leave the package if no one happens to be home. I then have to drive a few miles to the warehouse to retrieve it, make it there before it's shipped out for a second attempt, and make it there before the third attempt - or back to sender it goes. USPS will hold my package for me at the post office a few blocks from home until I pick it up. (I'm a city boy - blocks are always better than miles.)

I work in a clinic in a hospital. Everything shipped to me at work goes through the mailroom, which requires a box number. UPS and FedEx typically won't deliver anything with a box number - even if it's going to a physical address. When I worked at my previous clinic, I could get away with putting a room number on my order, because our office was across the hall from the mailroom. The mailroom would bring my package to me, but would warn me to use a box number next time. I can't do that anymore - in fact, I don't think I have a room number.

Groundspeak, the geocaching store, gives me no shipping option: UPS only. So, I have it shipped to Phillip's desk, which has an address and a suite number. The last time I ordered something as small as Travel Bugs and stickers, Groundspeak mailed it by USPS, despite what my order confirmation said. I'm not betting on it, though.

Last Friday, our clinic was dreadfully slow. Today, was exactly the opposite, starting before the clinic officially opened, and keeping up a hectic pace during the whole day. We had well over a hundred appointments scheduled, with an amazing 87% show rate. The true measure of how busy our clinic is, I keep saying, would be to somehow figure out how many times each patient approaches the front desk. We have patients who literally spend the day with us. Given a choice, I'd prefer a day like today to a day like last Friday.

Early this morning, Phillip discovered, to his dismay, that there is a web browser that displays the puzzle for "Blankety Blank Blank" in such a way that it may make the puzzle easier to solve. We discussed what to do, via email, and decided that the only thing we can do is just accept that users of that browser will have a slight advantage.

The morning, one of our favorite geocachers figured out how to solve the "Blankety Blank Blank" puzzle, but came up with a wrong solution. (We learned, later, that he used that web browser.) I emailed him to tell him that he was close, but wrong. By that time, however, he'd seen his error, and came up with the right answer. This afternoon, he became the First To Find. I really didn't expect that to happen so soon. On the other hand, it's been almost 24 hours since the cache was published, and it has yet to have its Second To Find.

Meanwhile, we've tested "Blankety Blank Blank" on the two smartest geocachers we know: smartblonde and Hoppingcrow. They both seem to be on the right track, but haven't found the solution, yet.

Recently, Phillip observed that we're getting close to our 200th geocaching find. I think that's upped our enthusiasm for the sport/game. This past weekend was almost overtaken by geocaching activity. We currently have 180 finds.

Two more jigsaw puzzle caches were published last Wednesday. I downloaded them both and started to work on one Thursday night. It was a tough puzzle. I spent over three hours on it, and it was past 11:00, and it still wasn't finished. I had to get some sleep, so I shut it down, unfinished. (There is no "Save" option.)

On Friday, the clinic was painfully slow, due to half of our providers being at a conference. At 3:30, the front desk supervisor asked if anyone wanted to go home early. My co-workers either couldn't or wouldn't, so I volunteered to take two hours of vacation and I went home early. I transferred the jigsaw puzzles to our spare computer, and started working on the puzzle from the beginning. I left it running when I went to yoga class, and resumed the puzzle when I got home. I finished late Friday night. I don't know how many hours I spent working on it. The puzzle contained the coordinates for the hide, but there was a problem. The coordinates put the cache on the other side of Lake Washington (possible, but unlikely), and the checksum didn't agree with my answer. I did a screen save of the completed puzzle, and went to bed.

I got up Saturday morning, and took another look at the screen save of the puzzle. Eventually, I saw my error. What I had seen as a "0" was, in fact, a "6." The checksum added up, and the coordinates put the hide closer to where the fake coordinates were. Then I started working on the second jigsaw puzzle.

I left the puzzle running when Phillip and I went geocaching Saturday afternoon. We found the first jigsaw puzzle cache, and were surprised to discover that we were Second To Find. As of last night, there were still only two finders for the cache. Apparently, I'm not the only person to think it was a very difficult puzzle.

One of the caches we looked for on Saturday was a traditional cache on the UW campus. We found the cache container hanging in a tree. Inside the container were at least a dozen sheets of paper. I took one of the sheets. "Surprise!" it said. The cache was actually a multi-stage cache, and it gave the coordinates for the next stage. It was .3 miles away. We were not happy about the deception, but we started walking along the Burke-Gilman trail. We stopped when we realized the second cache was in the middle of the University Village shopping mall. We were both upset - Phillip more than me, I think - about a cache listed as a traditonal cache in a quiet spot on campus, but that actually involved a half-mile walk into a busy shopping mall. We disagreed about what to do. I wanted to post a find, with a note saying simply "We are not amused" - after all, it was posted as a single cache, and we found the single cache. Phillip wanted to post a Did Not Find, and send a letter of complaint to the Geocaching reviewers. Phillip agreed to my plan, but he wasn't happy about it.

When we got home on Saturday, and started to record our finds, we took a look at the finds and notes posted for that UW cache. We discovered that a few other people had the same experience as we did - we had found the wrong cache. The one we found - the multi-stage cache - was not a Geocaching cache. It was a cache left over from some GeoTeaming event.
We suddenly felt a whole lot better, and we posted a Did Not Find.

The last cache we found on Saturday was in Ballard, so we went shopping at Archie McPhee, for swag to leave in caches.

We also stopped into the Ballard Locks, because we both needed a restroom. The parking lot there uses the new Pay Station ticket machines that are rapidly replacing parking meters in Seattle. It was there that I discovered a new trend. One of the criticisms of the new Pay Stations is that, unlike parking meters, the time you pay for but don't use is lost. The next person to park can't use the time left on the meter. As we were approaching the Pay Station machine, some stranger gave us his ticket, which still had almost an hour left on it. When we left, after parking for less than 15 minutes, we gave the ticket to a couple of guys who had pulled into the space next to us. The people of Seattle have found a way to recycle that unused time.

I finished the second jigsaw puzzle - which was a whole lot easier than the first one - Saturday evening. Again, I don't know how long it took me. I had to translate its coordinates from Hungarian.

On Saturday, a geocacher became Second To Find "The Girls" - our caching memorial to Gladys and Squeak that we hid way back in September. The finder noted that his German Shepherd had recently died, so he wanted to find our cache. We sent him an email of thanks and sympathy.

I went out alone early Sunday morning, and found the second jigsaw puzzle cache. Phillip and I did more geocaching Sunday afternoon. Among our Sunday hunts, we found a cache we couldn't find on Saturday, Did Not Find another cache, and found that UW cache.

Then, Sunday night, we hid our seventh cache. It's a puzzle cache that Phillip created. He named it "Blankety Blank Blank." (I love that title!) It was approved in less than an hour. It's hidden close to our apartment - we wanted to use our home coordinates as the fake coordinates, but they're too close to another cache. I expect that it's going to be a while before anyone finds it. Phillip is ruthless when it comes to cache hides, and he has devised quite an evil puzzle for this latest one. Of course, he's offering no hints. I can't wait to see what happens next.