Author Archives: Sina

Horcrux Updates

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SPOILER ALERT!

Within a few hours of hiding my first geocache, someone found it! And many more have found it since:


 

I also thought that I should probably post pictures of the actual cache for when I’m old and lost my memory.

So fun!

I’ve been asked about the cache name and hint, purple tree. Well here’s the story, as best as I can remember.

Story of the Purple Tree:

The cache is attached to a bench, as you can see above. The bench is sitting directly under an eastern redbud tree, which has a beautiful purple blossom that completely covers the tree in May/June.

When I was first courting the second great love of my life (2GL), we both worked close to the park where the cache is hidden. It was May/June and when I saw the tree covered in those beautiful purple blossoms with a bench under it, I thought it would be a great meeting spot for an afternoon coffee with 2GL.

So I asked her to meet me at that bench in the park by giving her the exact geographic coordinates, and even provided a link in Google Maps that pinned the exact spot. Alas, 2GL claimed that she was terrible with directions and maps, and insisted that I give her qualitative directions. When I thought about the best way to describe where I wanted to meet her, I simply replied “just meet me under the purple tree.”

We would meet often there even after my courtship and the blossoms faded away, and we always referred to it as the purple tree.

The Purple Tree Horcrux

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I made my first geocache! You can find it here (green arrow):


 

Here’re the full details:

TYPE:
Traditional cache (Nano)

LOCATION:
N 43° 39.747 W 079° 23.351

DIFFICULTY:
2/5 Difficulty
1/5 Terrain

DESCRIPTION:
This is a nano cache located in the heart of the Ontario Public Service.

It would be nice to have a bobby pin handy to help you get the logsheet out of the nano-container. Tweezers would be even better.

Please try to return the cache precisely to the original spot (bonus karma points if you do).

HINT:
Sitting under the purple tree.
(highlight text above to see hint)

Go and find it!

Sunflowers

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A year or so ago someone made me this painting, a copy of van Gogh’s Sunflowers (F.456).

I never posted it at the time, but it certainly deserved one, so here it is now.

The photo doesn’t show the amazing brush detail.

Family of the Year

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After seeing some tides and roaming the Cabot Trail, I’ll be back in Halifax tomorrow. Here are some key Cape Breton notes and observations.

– Nova Scotia looks a lot like Ontario.
– compared to Ontario, their tourism info centers are so helpful.
– small town Nova Scotians are much more comfortable with minorities than small town Ontarians. don’t ask me why.
– small towns are just too boring. as much as I love being with nature, I really am a city boy, in so many ways. or at least, I need to be relatively close to a city.
– and it is impossible to be a vegetarian out here, even just on weekdays.
– the Moon doesn’t get enough respect
– geocaching is so much harder when you don’t have a map!
– wild raspberries and blueberries everywhere, for no good reason — best ever.
– I wish I could draw — maybe I’ll look into that.
– in our globalized world, even restaurants in the maritimes use frozen seafood from god-knows-where (unless you look carefully, which of course I do).
– whenever you ask a server here to recommend something, for some reason they recommend the most bland thing on the menu. I just don’t get it.
– there are no words to describe what it feels like to watch a fin whale do its thing as it plunges in and out of the water while it feeds from the ocean floor. this one thing probably deserves its own post.
– full disclosure: I love whales

The Ivory Tower

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I worked at Ontario Finance for nearly three years. These are my accomplishments during my time there.

– updated/improved the way spending is estimated in the ministry’s Household Model
– implemented once a month Dessert Wednesdays
– single handedly made denim appropriate work attire

That’s it.
 

I did learn a few things, though.

– intimately learned Input-Output tables
– intimately learned the mechanics of the GST/HST system
– learned SQL
– learned a little bit of SAS, I suppose. (what crappy software)
– learned a lot about what management styles work and what management styles don’t work

A stranger’s just a friend you haven’t met

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I recently biked from Niagara to Toronto. Here are some takeaways.
 

1) You can always depend on the kindness of strangers.

– Two old retired couples biking passed you in the middle of nowhere as you attempt to change your flat tire for the first time ever without any of the proper tools will stop on their own accord, take out their own tools and help you. That’s just fantastic.
– Random residents whose house you pass by will gladly refill your waterbottle, along with the 15 other people you’re with.

2) Bikers are the nicest people on earth. (The non-hardcore Tour de France ones)

Seriously. (The Tour de France ones are just assholes)

3) It’s strange how careless my biking quickly became once I was in Toronto.

I think it’s something subconscious about being in my  city that I carelessly assume I know like the back of my hand.

4) It’s funny how after a big accomplishment, you go around justifying every guilty pleasure by assuring yourself you deserve it.

Should I really order the most expensive item on the menu? Well I just biked from Niagara, so yes, I deserve it. Should I really sleep in and do nothing all day? Well, I certainly deserve to. Do I really need this much ice cream? I deserve it dammit!

5) You also get to excuse every little mistake you make.

Why is my grammar so bad? Oh whatever, I’m just super-exhausted from the ride. Why do the anchors on Fox News sound like they’re making sense? I must still be recovering from the ride.

 

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