I slept like a log; Fudge decided to
spend the night in his basket, and that always makes things more restful. I got
up, and tried to send the dogs out for a tiddle. They both looked at the
torrential rain, and went back to bed. Perhaps I should have done so? Instead I
made myself some brekkie and looked at the Internet. Not much had happened
since I last looked at it only a few hours previously.
I did have a vague idea to take the dogs
somewhere for a walk this morning, but the rain was against us. Instead I sat
with my lap-top and solved geo-puzzles for an hour or so. I solved some using
Google, I solved others by rummaging in the exif (as one does).
I failed miserably on several.
Looking at the geo-map I seem to have
solved a couple of dozen puzzles for which I haven’t got to the final location
to get the geocache. I’ve a few days off work coming up… I might just spend one
of those days going to collect them (if
nothing better to do comes up in the meantime).
Geo-puzzling can be rather frustrating;
I’ve set a few puzzles in my time and they are intended to be relatively
straight-forward. A sudoku puzzle, stuff in the exif data, a riddle, finding
out local information, some simple sums…
However (as always) I would seem to be in the minority in intending that the
puzzles be solvable. I’m compiling quite a list of puzzles which I have decided
are insoluble. I’ve been told that in order to solve several relatively local
ones I have to know how a certain puzzle-setter thinks. Brilliant!! – I’ve only
ever spoken to the chap twice, and neither of those occasions lasted for more
than a minute. I’ve also been assured that at least one of the puzzles within
twenty miles of home has no solution – it has been put out purely to flummox
the puzzle-setter’s mates.
After a couple of hours I turned the
lap-top off and set off to work through the drizzle. As I drove I was frankly
amazed at the lack of consideration pretty much every vehicle was showing to
every other vehicle. I know that road manners usually leave a lot to be
desired, but today everyone as jumping lights, lane-hopping; it wasn't safe on
the roads this morning.
I got to Maidstone and took a little
diversion to pick up one of the puzzle caches I'd solved this morning. This was
one that has had me foxed for some months. To give my loyal readers a flavour
of a puzzle cache, this was what I had to solve:
"Just do as you are told, Stanley... ...the
contraction of a tiny unit of mass should help you avoid a shock.
Assuming the associated publication date is
EFGH, the decimals are ABA and ACD where...
A = F - E
B = F - (G + H)
C = F
D = G / H"
The puzzle was difficulty level four (one being easy, five hardest). The cache
itself was rather easily found. I won't say exactly where it was; but it was
within half an hour's drive of work (that narrows it down!) And with it found
and the secret geo-rituals done, I made my way to where I was supposed to be.
At work (!)
I looked at McDonalds as I drove past.
There were cars queuing to get in to the car park. With a heavy heart I decided
I didn't have time for McLunch and instead got a sandwich form the hospital's
league of fiends (sic) shop. This shop is a strange establishment; they get
really funny with you if you don't have the exact change for whatever it is
that you are buying, but have a till overflowing with change.
I did my bit at work. I had a few
minutes spare, so I wrote up
some CPD. I religiously record anything and everything that I might need to
write up. Much of what I think might be useful isn't. However I make a list of
what needs writing up far faster than I actually do the writing up. Today I
managed to clear my backlog so that there is nothing form more than a week ago
needing attention. I still have sixteen things in the list to review... I'll do
them later.
What with rain and work, today was
rather dull.
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