3rd Tuesday, 4th month, fourth year.
Alack, alas, alack, last month's description went well awry didn't it ?!? We thought the focus would be on Beethoven, but poor Phso4us got sucked into the Shakespearian political maelstrom and diverted us accordingly. Harumph. Well no politcal refernces this month. But we can, of course, acomodate Herr Beethoven: on 18 April 1805, Ludvig wrote to Breitkopf and Hartel reiterating his intentions to help Bach's poverty stricken daughter. He proposed that his Oratorio [Christ on the Mount of Olives) be performed in concert along with his third symphony (Eroica), and that the proceeds be devoted to Madame Bach. Fine fellow that Beethoven. We don't think Madame Bach was poverty stricken due to her obsessive collectiong of geocoins, but we can't really be sure.
Albert Einstein, Thor Heyerdahl and Piet Hein all died on this day. We don't think any of them ever found a geocache, more's the pity, but they did give us the theory of relativity, kontiki and soma. On a more positive note, actores James Woods and Rick Moranis were born on this day. To the best of our knowledge, neither one has died yet, so they still have a chance at obtaining a geocache find.
Thor got Zekester interested in exploring, and the frustration of Piet's Soma Cube was likley the childhood trauma that prevents Zekester from searching for puzzle caches even today. Do like the synchronicity that it was invented by Piet Hein in 1936 during a lecture on quantum mechanics conducted by Werner Heisenberg though, becuase, by the way, that whole relativity thing is kind of important:
According to the theory of relativity, due to their constant movement and height relative to the Earth-centered, non-rotating approximately inertial reference frame, the clocks on the satellites are affected by their speed. Special relativity predicts that the frequency of the atomic clocks moving at GPS orbital speeds will tick more slowly than stationary ground clocks by a factor of v22c2≈10−10
, or result in a delay of about 7 μs/day, where the orbital velocity is v = 4 km/s, and c = the speed of light. The time dilation effect has been measured and verified using the GPS.
The effect of gravitational frequency shift on the GPS due to general relativity is that a clock closer to a massive object will be slower than a clock farther away. Applied to the GPS, the receivers are much closer to Earth than the satellites, causing the GPS clocks to be faster by a factor of 5×10^(−10), or about 45.9 μs/day. This gravitational frequency shift is noticeable.
When combining the time dilation and gravitational frequency shift, the discrepancy is about 38 microseconds per day, a difference of 4.465 parts in 1010.[15] Without correction, errors in the initial pseudorange of roughly 10 km/day would accumulate. This initial pseudorange error is corrected in the process of solving the navigation equations. In addition the elliptical, rather than perfectly circular, satellite orbits cause the time dilation and gravitational frequency shift effects to vary with time. This eccentricity effect causes the clock rate difference between a GPS satellite and a receiver to increase or decrease depending on the altitude of the satellite.
To compensate for the discrepancy, the frequency standard on board each satellite is given a rate offset prior to launch, making it run slightly slower than the desired frequency on Earth; specifically, at 10.22999999543 MHz instead of 10.23 MHz.[16] Since the atomic clocks on board the GPS satellites are precisely tuned, it makes the system a practical engineering application of the scientific theory of relativity in a real-world environment.
How about them apples?
Ok, back to your regularly scheduled programming:
The Carroll County Caching Fellowship (C3F) cordially invites you to enjoy the pleasures of the social side of the geocaching hobby! To find out who we are and what we're about, please visit http://c3f.finditlogitspreadit.info. Come on out and meet fellow cachers, share stories of your trials and tribulations (or Trials and Tubulations!) in searching for that elusive hide, and swap travel bugs and geocoins. Here's a chance for you to experience the part of the hobby that doesn't feature poison ivy, ticks, mosquitos, chiggers, leeches, cockleburs, beggar's lice, thorns or greenbriar! Instead, come observe the oddities of human behavior as your fellow cachers wander 'round the parking lot scribbling down codes from trackable vehicles, shooting photos of each other's nametags, and generally examining each other closely to insure they have not missed a trackable t-shirt, bracelet, earings or necklace! Hear tales of DNF woe (bring extra kleenex, would ya'?). Hear tales of FTF triumph (bring extra champagne will ya'?).
Regular attendees at this monthly event include some truly stellar cachers from our local area, who are filled with caching wisdom, friendly, and eager to share their experience and help answer questions if you need assistance. If you are new to geocaching, we are eager to get your caching career off to an excellent start! We have master puzzle cachers, master woodsmen, geotrail kings and queens, prolific cachers, and once-in-a-whilers. We have Rogi! We have bugs! We have way too much hype and excitement!
But beyond all that, with all sincerity, we have a tremendous group of regular attendees who are always looking for ways to give back to the geocaching community, and are truly a pleasure to be around. All are welcome, so please come and join the crowd!
Makes you all weepy, don't it? Ok let's get back to being silly!
WARNING***WARNING****WARNING
THE GOVERNMENT OF ELDERSBURG INTERRUPTS THIS ANNOUNCEMENT TO INFORM YOU THAT THIS EVENT HAS BEEN KNOWN TO CAUSE THE SPREAD OF THE ZTB VIRUS. PARTICIPANTS MAY BE EXPOSED TO MORBID HUMOR, EDGAR ALLEN POE REFERENCES, AND SUBTLE, SUBLIMINAL AFFECTS WHICH MAY CAUSE THE DESIRE TO EAT SPAM. ATTENDANCE OF THIS EVENT MAY RESULT IN, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO SHAMBLING, DROOLING, MOANING, A CRAVING FOR SWEETBREADS, REALITY ALTERING PERCEPTIONS, AND A SERIOUSLY UNPLEASANT AND PERSISTENT BODY ODOR.
FURTHER DETAILS CAN BE FOUND HERE: WWW.FINDITLOGITSPRREADIT.INFO
WARNING***WARNING****WARNING
Bah. Pesky government weenies. Just because there was a huge breakout of zombie travel bugs all over the planet recently doesn't mean it is a problem here. That's a bunch of malarkey! There IS NO GOVERNMENT in Eldersburg. It is just a census designated place (CDP), whatever that means. Come on out, it'll be just fine!
We will be continuing geocaching crash courses in 2017. At the beginning of each session, we'll conduct a ten minute crash course in some aspect of geocaching, just to get the juices flowing and the conversations started (really this is a vain attempt to keep the puzzle cachers off topic, it never works). This month's topic, will be: TBD, open for suggestions!. Got a request? Post it in your "will attend" log!
Be sure to ask Zekester what "Be the Bug" means! No, it is not a virus!!!
Also, there are a number of caches nearby in Eldersburg, be sure to check them out!
For whom: This event is for YOU!!! Regardless of whether you have found a handful of caches or thousands of them, or you just have a burgeoning interest, all are welcome! We don't bite (well our zombies do, but we don't) , we're really nice! Honest! Ask anyone!
When? 6:00PM to 8:00PM, on Tuesday, 18APR2017.
Where? Panera Bread, 6300 Georgetown Boulevard, Eldersburg, Maryland (or just use the convenient coordinates posted above!).
Why? Have dinner. Meet a cacher. Tell a tale. Trade a coin or travel bug. Meet Rogi! Find out what "Be the Bug" means!
IMPORTANT NOTE: You are not required to purchase anything to attend this event.
This month's raffle may feature a variety of materials useful to cachers, possibly including, but not limited to: 6 volts of surging power, test tubes, tesla coils, erlenmeyer flasks filled with eau de manbear, leftover unused materials from the zombie vats, surplus from the Mercury program, a Winnebago, a haiku puzzle cache, a fully operational TV-B-Gone, a Soma Cube, magnetic toroids, an excellent recipe for oysters kirkpatrick, a stuffed whistle-pig, india ink, the ball from an IBM Selectric typewriter, meatball cupcakes, or at least a recipe for them, U-bolts, lug nuts, filberts, a pheasant claw, a mummified squid, night-vision goggles, geocacher cremains, marbles, a lego lamb, a meteorite, one hobnail boot (left one, men's 45), a funnel (it was not used in the production of more turkeys, we promise), a mixed variety of animal footprint shoes, two potatoes, a virginal, coriander, a skeleton key, a lock of Edgar Allan Poe's hair, scrimshaw travel bug, a Toot-A-Loop transistor radio, an exultation of larks, tweezers, an egg cuber, a hard copy of the budget of the Unites Sates from 1953, eyeglass repair kits, a condom autographed by "Smokey" from Las Vegas (we found it in a cache at the Pinball Hall of Fame), a wee bit of uranium ore (we got it on Amazon) a quill pen, a uphayinaphu (but not the juice, that's not permitted!), O-rings, D-rings, Sawyer, un-hatched Man-Goose eggs (fertilization status unlknown), anisette biscotti, scratch-n'-sniff test cards, a FrogKing, filet mignon, a 5.5 ounce can of unicorn meat, flibberty-gibbets, a harpoon (BUT NO HATCHETS!!!), a signed copy of Omoo, one unused but fully operational fornistat and a Bergonic Chair (we tried it on Alzarius, but it didn't work). Sometimes there's unmentionables too!. That's right unmentionables (pathtags). Oh, and also, a microwave oven. Just in cases. Imagine that!
If you pick up a travel bug, please make sure that make sure you log it out so it doesn't show up in the event list.
We are deeply grateful for the joy all of you bring us each month, and for your forebearance with these ridiculous event write-ups!