I had cleaned out my mailbox last night and then used Rich's machine this morning to read the new mail. Most of it's spam, but there were TWO really annoying ones. My sister is whining about Ofoto, because she says they send ads every week. I thought that was a small price to pay for free photo albums, but it's awful according to her. Since I have 7:1 spam to real stuff, and that only because of some mailing lists I'm on or the spam proportion would be higher, and since Rich and Roni both think Ofoto mails less often than that, we don't see the problem. She also forwarded the Ofoto mail where the way to get off the list is clearly bolded, and asked me how she can get off. Well. I will delete her from my list, and if she wants my Franklin room pictures, she can get them from our brother.

The other one was in relation to the Easter Egg Hunt cache we got yesterday. The placer e-mailed me to say he'd "fixed" it on Saturday and there was only one egg after the first one. How weird, since we found all four, none of them the brown one he said. I looked at the page, and he hasn't changed the description or hints, though that might explain why his coordinates were so far off. Actually, his coordinates are usually off, or he doesn't maintain his caches, plus this is the guy who, uh, stretched the truth to get the geocoin prize at last week's dinner. I've decided I'm through with his caches. They usually annoy me because I can't find them, but this one annoyed me because I did, sorry, that's just too much.

OK, the initial plan was to go to Monterey at the same time as Roni and R.J. so we could watch Alex while they kayaked, but then Roni twisted her knee and had surgery. We decided to go along anyway, in case they needed a break, and because we haven't stayed in Monterey since Bouchercon (the last time I tried to plan this, Rich got too sick). Alex and Genevieve and Monica, Roni, and R.J. had plans to go to the Wiggles show first, (their first concert! Awwww...) and we just planned to cache our way down and enjoy.

First, there was one in Gilroy that we hadn't found the last time through, but the hider insisted was still there. This time we knew it was a micro and magnetic. There were only a few people in the park, so we could look more thoroughly, and there it was, behind and beneath the sheet metal sink. Yay! A good start! Then we had lunch in Gilroy.

We stayed on Highway 152 past Bonfante Gardens to Madonna Mountain state park. There was a nice cache hidden among some redwoods (BEAUTIFUL!) and I even got a travel bug! Then when we got down to Watsonville we started north for one closeby off Highway 1, but the traffic appeared to be blocked. We tried a couple of other ways to get to the location, nothing worked, so we bagged that one and tried for another, one put out by a Cub Scout Pack.

Our first try got us onto a back road with another leading to the cache area, so Rich decided to try the narrow barely-paved one. It became a dead end, and nowhere to turn around. We made a series of mistakes here. I should have taken over, since I spied a way to turn around, backing in between the two boulders and then getting out the other way. I did get out to mark a boulder, then Rich didn't roll down his window so I could give him some help. He basically panicked and tried a couple of things but couldn't hear me yelling "stop!" as he rolled over a boulder, and gave our poor car its first ding. (39,070 miles without, not really bad.) THEN he rolled down the window. He backed partway up the road and then we made another try for this cache, found the state park, but it looked like the cache was up by the camp host and we were still too rattled to try it. Oh, well.

We went to another state park (our SP pass is getting used!) and walked up to the radio-controlled glider port, where we located another cache. There was a family there flying a glider, and we watched it dip and swirl, so neat.

It was time to go to Castroville and back to the World's Largest Artichoke. We were supposed to answer some questions, so why don't they have a postcard or at least a plaque? We finally guessed at the measurements using Rich as a two-yardstick. It was still too close to lunch to get the fried artichokes, which I love. And so on into Monterey and Pacific Grove.

Our motel (we were absorbed by the Borg!) was right on the beach, though our room was in back. (We still have a bit of a view.) Once we got in, we left a message at Roni and RJ's hotel. We went walking to another cache at a "secret point" and then walked a few blocks to the center of town to look for a moving cache. Yet again, we had no luck. (I logged this once I got home, and the last person to hide it put a lot more info in his hint, but we didn't know that till we got home, darn it.)

Back at the room, I called Roni again. I thought I heard her voice in the background, but since I was asking for "Krajeski" the clerk couldn't find anyone... since Roni used her "Yarnot" account. Oh, glorp. We arranged to meet for dinner at the Tinnery, next door to us.

Alex was thrilled about the Wiggles, and thrilled to see us, and just generally thrilled, but also over-stimulated. She reached the point she was throwing the bread, throwing her crayons... but then her meal came in a BOAT! To heck with the food, she put her bunnies into the boat and they rode around, and Roni kept popping bites in as she slowed down. She was tired, but on the whole very good.

Back at our room, Rich fixed the computer. He figured out if he took GoBack off, maybe Windows would load, and he was right! I don't have my AT&T login, but I can write again, and I'll be able to download pictures! (I'll put the editor on tomorrow, I'm very tired!) Yay!

Captains Quarters:

Dean's editorial perfectly encapsulates the Democratic approach this year; their focus isn't on what they can offer the American public but simply to vent hatred as a selling point. Here's a measure of what Dean is selling: Ralph Nader is mentioned in the text of this article eight times, not counting the headline. George Bush is mentioned seven times by name.

John Kerry is mentioned once.

Glenn:

Meanwhile, Donald Sensing and Jeff Goldstein note that the release of the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing is making Richard Ben-Veniste look very bad. Sensing:

It is baffling that Ben-Veniste made such a big issue out of the memo two days ago. He had already seen the memo and knew it had nothing about the 9/11 attacks. I can only surmise that he was sure the White House would never release it.

Goldstein:

Richard Ben Veniste knew this, too -- even as he tried using it to embarrass the Administration on national television. Because that's the kind of grandstanding nerd he is.

Neil Boortz:

Lost in all this is how the Clinton administration, which did virtually nothing to fight terrorism for 8 years, is getting a complete pass. Clinton turned down a direct offer to hand over Osama Bin Laden and yet Bush is the one that is being raked over the coals for somehow not doing enough. The reason is we are in an election year, and the Bush-hating Democrats want to politicize the tragedies of September 11th.
Where's the outrage about that? The Republicans wouldn't be able to get away with that for a second.

Finally, Megan McArdle: "Clinton didn't know. Bush didn't know. We didn't know. And the uncomfortable possibility remains that there are more events that we not only don't know about--but can't know about. Deluding ourselves otherwise isn't helping. And if it causes us to take costly, fruitless measures to reassure ourselves, it could actively hurt us."