Exploring Your Own Backyard.

I have been on the them of exploring your own back yard to one degree or another for a while in this blog. Thanks to cutting back on our budget and wanting to find out more about the area, I will be turning this up a bit both as an activity and a subject on this blog. So be expecting the weekly webness and other posts to be reflecting this. The blog will not be only on this but it will be a goodly portion. It should be interesting. It will have a focus on North East Indiana but it will not be limited to that. I hope you like what I will find.

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.

Skip Douglas Tree

My wife an I had to drop off some books at the Dupont Library in Fort Wayne. Sticking to my habit of taking notice and carrying gps and camera along, i came across this tree. It is a Royal Star magnolia dedicate the memory of Skip Douglas. The waymark for it is HERE. It may not be the biggest or greatest adventure or discovery but it is the stuff I find while living my life.

Stain Glass at the Courthouse

Thanks to waymarking, I have a tendency of looking around me a lot closer and carrying a gps and a digital camera with me. As i said in a previous post, i needed to go to the Dekalb County courthouse. (Waymark) I did both notice and take pictures and waymark the stain glass in the courthouse. They really do not make stain glass or old buildings like this anymore. Just my nevedr to be humble opinion.

Latitude 47

This week's website is I found out about from waymarking.com. It is the blog for geocaching.com. It is HERE. The waymark is HERE. I have been with caching and waymarking for a while and did not know about it. Once again, I see I still need to learn and never know everything.

Elks

I have taken to walking around the neighborhood a lot more lately. I do it to get the exercise as well as i enjoy doing it. Every so often, I see something that catches my eye. This monument was one of those things that caught my eye. It also , not surprisingly also became a waymark. (HERE) It is out in front of an old gas station that has been pressed into other use and I can not help to wonder what the story behind this is. Maybe some day I will get the ambition and courage to do some asking around. When I do, I will bring it back here.

DNR Benchmark and Waymark

I was out doing errands and I needed to go to the DeKalb County Courthouse to file some paperwork. (What is the modern life without paperwork?) I was on my way out of the courthouse while I was looking for the time capsule monument I knew that was there (HERE), I notice a bare spot in the grass. It was not your normal bare spot in the sod but an actual benchmark. Since I had my digital camera and my gps with me, (yes I am a nerd or geek), I was able to get the information necessary for doing the waymark. The waymark is HERE. the things you find when you are out looking for something else.