Looming

I ended up picking up an unintended FTF yesterday. It’s a little outside of Austin, and I had decided to pick up one of the other caches in that area I hadn’t gotten before, hoping I could save it for today and have an FTF for May early on. Unfortunately, the ones I chose turned out to be confusing and I wasn’t in the mood for too serious a search, so I decided to cerchez le easy. Depending on how today goes, I may attend another CITO, this one a rare Monday one. Considering I only do three or four each year, a few extra ones won’t kill me. I’m also thinking about the new souvenir I’m about to pick up.

For those of you who are new or have been living the ascetic life of a hermit, possibly under a rock even, tomorrow is what we lovingly refer to as Blue Switch Day. I also have no earthly idea why it’s “Blue” Switch Day because, from what I understand, it wasn’t actually a blue switch. Twenty-three years ago tomorrow, at the direction of President Bill Clinton, selective availability, an intentional degradation of signal in the GPS system, was turned off, changing the accuracy of a GPS unit from ±150 feet to ±30 feet. This increase in accuracy made geocaching possible and is commemorated each year with a souvenir for anyone finding a cache on that day (or the day before or after this year). I only just learned that GPS satellites after 2007 no longer have the capability to engage selective availability. From that perspective, I guess our pastime is guaranteed (on a governmental level) for years to come! This also means another caching “holiday” looms as well, but we’ll discuss that when it comes …