Picking a GPS for Geocaching

You don’t have to go nuts with spending… but I know that car GPS’s don’t really work, since you are 99% off the road for Geocaching.

You can use the Groundspeak Geocaching app for the iPhone, but we cache in such bad weather/spots that I’d hate to have to carry the phone out in the open for hours and risk it… and I don’t know that the iPhone GPS is as fast/exact as a dedicated GPS for getting within a few fee of something… it could be a cheap start though, if you have the iPhone anyway. Oh, and it’s a great app for going paperless and has tons of great features. Well worth the money. And there’s a Free Version to play around with first.
We have a Garmin eTrex Venture HC… I dunno, around $125? And it’s perfect. You do want one that’ll hook USB to your computer, so you don’t have to manually enter the coordinates.
DON’T get a Magellan. The one I bought had issues, and they refused to repair or replace it… said it was discontinued, even though I just bought it. Go to Geocaching.com and see what people are saying they like.
There’s even a very simple/inexpensive one that comes pre loaded with caches… mostly to get kids started. But I like the multi-use of a full GPS.

Young Fun in Rochester

This is totally off topic… but hey, it’s MY BLOG, right

A friend from my hometown is sending his son up to Rochester for a hockey game and wondered what 18-23 year olds could do in Rochester. So I, the old guy, left it up to my #1 Assistant pal (20 something) Natalie. Here’s what she said and some of my thoughts, directions and few other ideas tacked on. Also, this is around Halloween 2009, so some of the events will be dated if you are seeing this later. Deal with it.

(Any of these things you could google to find, or tell a cabbie… they are very well known and I’m adding the road name where I can)


OK, word is in from my young assistant Natalie:
If they are in the Halloween spirit there are a lot of great Halloween things going on this weekend like the Haunted Manor in South Town Plaza (Jefferson Road in Henrietta)- They have three haunted houses and a few other “halloween/spooky” events.

Also, Brown’s Berry Patch has apple picking and things like that, I did that this weekend and it was pretty fun. (Ken Note: I’m really glad Natalie mentioned this… I’d feel old and uncool doing it, but some of the apple picking things around here are cool… and there’s the corn mazes and if you have time to travel a bit, Letchworth State park is fantastic. Really a destination for photos, walking or this time of year with the leaves turning for Fall.)



The George Eastman House has a new exhibit. (Ken note… look, I know this is geeky, but it is sort of a cool place. It’s a total 1900’s mansion and they have photo shows up and camera stuff. A place to eat, etc. GEH is close to Fisher area too, it’s on East Avenue)

Garbage Plates from Nick Tahous (which got renamed to Stevie T’s) is a must. (ya, this and the Dinosaur BBQ are to totally great hometown places for food. Nick’s is in a tough neighborhood, right off main street…. but the garbage plate is total guy food. Dino is right downtown, like Canal street and one of the best BBQ places I’ve ever been to. Bikers hang out there too, which gives it some cred

RIT:
Always something going on at RIT. Top class hockey team. My school Even just checking out the campus is fun… they have a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, a great coffee shop, etc

Chase Run @ RIT

Photo by Greg Francis

I had the good fortune to be hired by JP Morgan Chase to shoot one portion of the Chase Corporate Challenge @ RIT today. PS: Note my new Canon EOS1D… lovin’ that camera.

I had a terrific time, and my contact Alan was fantastic to work with. It was great to hear all of the ‘Hi Ken’s’ from clients as they streamed past. Hope you all had a great run. It’s a fantastic event. I told someone it was like if every company held their office BBQ on the same day at the same place… and the money goes to local charities.

Thanks for the photos Greg!

See, I’m not kidding when I teach to get different angles… here’s my shot from that:

and the start of the race.

It was great meeting everyone from the companies I was assigned to as well. (This shot was with the new 16mm zoom I bought with the 1D)

Geocaching

The kids and I are goofing off doing some Geocaching and above we’re indicating our 2nd find.

You use a GPS to get in the ballpark area of treasure that other Geocachers hide, then search around and maybe work out clues… we’re having a blast.
The find above was in Ontario NY in Casey Park… it was ‘Yellowjacket’ themed and the swag Colin got from it was a 1943 steel penny. Then you leave something for the next finder, which Colin left one of his special $1 bill rings.

Believe it or not, I missed seeing this and was right under it looking on the ground and Colin said ‘Dad, whaaaat’s that??!” and, of course it was the cache in a cool Yellowjacket container.

Check out our first cache find HERE and more in general from Geocaching.com.

And part of the fun is that you don’t want anyone else to know what you are up to, so there’s lots of sneaking around (and buying french fries to look nonchalant at the McDonalds cache.. .(which we still haven’t found!)

Go to the site and put in your zip code…it’s amazing how many caches are probably within 10 miles of your house…it’s a world going on around you that you never knew. How cool is that!

10 bonus points for anyone who can tell what our handle is from: Spiderweb4-2

See you out on a hunt someday!

I’m Wired!

I’m a geek and love reading Wired Magazine. It’s the only magazine left that I don’t just get the info online. Wired has a fun thing if you’re geeky too… you can put your photo on the cover and do headlines and stuff. Try it out HERE

FIRST Rochester Robotics Competition

I’m just editing photos from the awesome robot competition…That was a cool challenge you had to do! I’ve posted a few quick favorites HERE, and I’ll be putting more up as time goes on.

I’ll also have a post soon about a sponsorship of a cool photo area with a free download collage and slide shows… thanks to the Finney Falcons for underwriting that, and for Xerox/FIRST for having me do the event again this year. I really love it. And RIT is an awesome host for the event. Congratulations to all of the teams!

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