Freak the Norm Factor

I went out benchmark hunting today. I wound up finding neither of the ones I was looking for. The basic problems were the facts that I had no good place to park and both locations had a freak the norm factor to it. I define the freak the norm factor as any hobby or activity that is both harmless and out of the norm enough and yet public enough to make those unaware of the hobby to get suspicious about what you are doing. Geocaching, benchmark hunting and waymarking can count at this. Whether it is a a person using a gps to find something or the fact that you are finding a hidden container and then replacing it can be unnerving to those who are not familiar. It is sad that this is a part of life. These hobbies are really cool (at least to those involved.) but to those outside, it can also be scary.

It reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode called "the monsters on Elm Street". (I hope I have the title right.) Some weirdness happens on Elm street and all the tech starts shutting down. The inhabitants get isolated and they start blaming each other for the problems based on each other out of the norm behavior whether they are an insomniac or a ham radio operator. It ends with the street doing a melt down and shows that aliens have set this up to have the inhabitant kill themselves off for the aliens. It is funny how this 40 year old episode is just as timely now as it was then. That is one reason I think the show has had such a large following even now. It poked at ideas that we are still dealing with.

I think it is sad that with this post 9/11 world, we are still having this paranoia. I am not saying that this is unique to here and now since the McCarthy hearings had the same issues with the communists. There are threats in this world but when we start mindlessly demonizing things, then we can get into trouble.