After yoga yesterday, Phillip suggested that we go hunt a couple of geocaches. The first one we tried was in a nearby park that we had once considered for a hide, but someone else beat us to it. It was placed last December, but I ignored it because I misunderstood the nature of the puzzle. (I thought it worked like a multi-cache.) Last week, I took closer look at it and saw that the puzzle was actually rather easy.

The park was well-lit last night, but because of its location, satellite reception was terrible. As we approached the park, our GPS receiver gave us an accuracy of plus or minus 202 feet - which is probably the size of the whole park. Then we lost reception altogether, and never got it back. The cache description gave us no help - no clues or hints, and nothing to suggest what size of cache we were looking for. We were looking blindly for something, somewhere in the park. We finally logged a Did Not Find.

The next two caches we went after were in a park a couple of miles north of us. Both were puzzle caches - one was the 8th in the jigsaw puzzle series that I'm enjoying so much. The park was not lit and left in its wild state. We searched for the first cache in the park with flashlights, but ended up logging a DNF. For the next one, the jigsaw puzzle, we posted a note saying that we decided against hunting it in the dark, but promised to try again later.

It was a disappointing night.

Today, we went to a geocaching get-together (officially called an "event") on the Eastside. Beforehand, I was a little concerned that we have almost no experience hunting geocaches east of Lake Washington. (Before today, we had hunted just two Eastside caches.) Would we know anyone there? Would anyone know us? What would we talk about?

We crossed the bridge a little early for the event, and hunted two caches in Redmond that we had planned for afterwards. Phillip found both of those, and we were just a little later getting to the gathering. On the way from our finds to the event, I told Phillip that as our Seattle find number increases, we are going to have to venture over to the Eastside more.

I enjoyed the get-together very much. We met a few geocachers I had met at the event I went to in Seattle. We met a lot more familiar names that I was expecting to. People were familiar with us, and with our geocaches. We had some great geocaching conversations. I wish it had lasted longer.

We hadn't planned on doing any more geocaching today, mostly because we expected the event to last longer. When we got home, however, the apartment was so hot that Phillip suggested that we "go do something." Since the apartment pool was being cleaned, we went geocaching.

Phillip wasn't interested in trying that first DNF we logged last night until we get some more hints. I felt the same way. We went after the two other ones we tried last night, and found them both. Phillip found the first one, and credit for the second find is a toss-up: I actually found it, but it was Phillip's suggestion of where to look.

We looked for a third cache this afternoon. It was on the North Seattle Community College campus. Phillip found that one.

Next we stopped into Northgate Mall for something cold to drink. Neither Phillip nor I are shopping mall enthusiasts.

Then I suggested that we try one more geocache in the area: the 9th in the jigsaw puzzle series. In hindsight, I think it was one geocache hunt too many. We were both getting tired, and ended up being frustrated by not finding that last cache. (This evening, the owner of that last geocache contacted us and offered help in finding it. Geocaching is a great game.)

I finished The Maltese Falcon last night. Once again, the novel is better than the movie - much better. (I'm referring to the famous 1941 movie. I haven't seen the original 1931 version.) I re-read a few of my favorite parts at lunch today. Dashiell Hammett amazed me by being able to convey complex emotions through detailed descriptions of facial expressions. ("He stopped laughing, abruptly. His fleshy lips hung open as laughter had left them. He stared at Spade with an intentness that suggested myopia.")

Sam Spade is an interesting sort of anti-hero. Romantic, but not so much that it compromises his personal code of honor. (*SPOILER ALERT*) One of my favorite parts is when Spade is about to turn Brigid over to the police, and she's begging him not to: "His voice was soft and gentle. He said: 'I'm going to send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means you'll be out in twenty years. You're an angel. I'll wait for you.' He cleared his throat. 'If they hang you I'll always remember you.'"

(A regular reader of this blog theorizes that the lost man in the previous post is actually a sugar glider confused, once again, by waking up to find the contents of the cage rearranged.)

On my way to lunch today, I stepped out of the elevator just in time to hear a hospital employee tell a lost man that the cafeteria was behind him. The lost man turned around and walked down the hallway. Since I was also going to the cafeteria, I had to follow the lost man. I overheard the lost man say, to no one visible, "Must've turned the place around today." Then, a few steps later, he added, "I hate when they do that." The lost man did not sound at all like he was joking. In fact, he sounded quite angry.

One of my favorite literary lines is from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five: "I have become unstuck in time." Maybe I like the line so much because I often feel that way. I lose track of how long it's been.

When I began looking for a car to replace my Saturn, I thought that I had had the Saturn for the planned ten years. In fact, the Saturn was only nine years old.

Recently, I was thinking that this July will mark my first anniversary of yoga. In fact, it will be two years.

Yesterday, as we were driving around, Phillip asked me, "So, this car is now half yours, right?" I answered, "No, it's only a third mine. I took out a six year loan, and this car just turned two," I replied. "Hmm... seems like longer," said Phillip, and added, "What year is this car?" "It's an '04." "Hmmm..." replied Phillip, and let it drop. Last night, I realized that Phillip was right. Our Prius is an '03. This is 2006. The Prius turned three years old at the end of July. When I brought it in for the oil change yesterday, it had 17,190 miles on the odometer.

We logged our 200th geocache find today. I had a specific cache in mind for that milestone, but I felt like I was monopolizing things, since it was me who chose our 100th find. It turned out, though, that Phillip liked my choice, so that was the one we did. By coincidence, the geocacher who hid our 200th find was also the one who hid our 100th find.

When we started our day, we were up to 197 finds. So we planned on looking for two easy ones that wouldn't take much time and wouldn't run the risk of DNFs. It turned out, though, that our 198th find was a difficult one that we had just about given up trying to find. But it was close by a location we visited in order to fulfill someone's Travel Bug goal, so we tried the cache one more time - and Phillip found it.

Our 200th find was one of the "jigsaw puzzle" series, and so was our 201st find. That 201st find wore me out. It was fun, but I was exhausted when we got home. It was a puzzle cache that worked like a multi-cache, with four initial waypoints, three of which were dead-ends, and one would lead you to the final. The first two we found were dead-ends, we couldn't search for the third because of muggles, and the fourth one lead us to the final in a part of town we were unfamiliar with (I'd driven busses through it decades ago). The final was in the woods and was so difficult we nearly logged a DNF.

We reached our 200th find. We found a cache that had eluded us before. We looked for four and found four. It's been a good day.

OK, so here's the story with the word "orient" (to orient, or The Orient), according to Take Our Word For It, Volume 35:

To most Americans, The Orient refers to China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. To most Britons, it refers to India and Pakistan. Once upon a time, it referred to Egypt. The original meaning of "oriental," however, was "in the direction of the sunrise." When the ancient Romans made maps, they put the direction of the sunrise (The Orient) at the top. So, when the Romans used the term "to orient oneself," it literally meant "to know which way is up."

Yesterday, Phillip told me that the answer to my question about the word "solution" is obvious. He says that one often has to find the proper solution (of chemicals or drugs) to cure a problem or ailment. I haven't found an "official" explanation yet, but Phillip's answer does make sense. I'm going with it.