Memphis… A to Z

Laurie’s got a quick recap of our Memphis trip on her blog for everyone. I microblogged (Twittered) much of the trip but I figured I’d give everyone a quick recap here as well.

a – we left early Thursday morning
b – stopped and grabbed a pic near the Texas/Arkansas border
c – found a Geocache at a rest stop where we ate lunch
d – stopped in Arkadelphia to fill up and found out they don’t like loud music
e – drove from there to Memphis
f – arrived at the hotel around 4ish and then headed downtown to Beale St
g – ended up at an Irish pub for dinner
h – stopped at the Lorraine Motel and took photos of the place where Dr. Martin Luther King was gunned down April 4, 1968
i – took some night pictures of the Mississippi
j – woke up Friday morning and headed to Graceland, home of Elvis Presley
k – it was well worth the visit but they have turned that area into a money making tourist trap for Elvis Presley Enterprises
l – signed our name to the fence outside Graceland
m – ate lunch back at the hotel and then headed to Sun Studios where Elvis recorded his first single and U2 recorded several songs while filming and recording Rattle and Hum
n – found another geocache along the banks of the Mississippi River
o – enjoyed a nap and then had dinner at Chick-fil-A
p – woke up the next morning and headed back to Graceland to grab a Sun Studio hat — funny that the Sun Studio hat I wanted was at Graceland and the Elvis keychain Laurie wanted was at a store near Graceland, not at Graceland
q – drove 4 or 5 miles south to Mississippi and found our first geocache in Mississippi
r – headed back to downtown Memphis and toured the Gibson Guitar Factory — before arriving Laurie suggested maybe we should buy me another guitar while we were there. i was all for that (and still am) but figured she didn’t realize how expensive Gibson Guitars really are. besides knowing how great the look and sound – after seeing how they make their guitars by hand we both understand why they’re so expensive.
s – found some great Memphis BBQ at Corky’s on the east side of Memphis. Laurie says it tops her favorite, Red, Hot & Blue. i may have to agree but i don’t know if any BBQ tops the great BBQ at Cyclone Corral BBQ outside Temple, Texas.
t – made a random stop at Target and bought Elvis’ 30 #1 hits — another random Elvis purchase away from Graceland ($9 compared to $22)
u – headed back to Dallas Sunday morning
v – stopped along the way for another geocache in Arkansas and dropped off a travel bug and grabbed a new one – didn’t realize till we were back home that the travel bug we grabbed was actually on it’s way to Memphis and not away from it – DOH!
w – stopped in Sulphur Springs to see family and to see Bryan and Amanda’s new house
x – it’s very Oyler-esque – all the way to Bryan’s collection of John Deere collectible tractors
y – ate dinner at Snuffers in Rockwall – mmm Snuffers
z – arrived back home around 9 after picking Presley up from Laurie’s parents

So there you have it – Memphis A-Z. Hope you enjoyed our trip. We sure did.

5ives

I haven’t done one of these in a while so I figured I’d join several together.

5ive things that rock:

5. Having my own Wiki to write about whatever I please
4. Scrubs starts back this week
3. NPR
2. Friends that let me borrow their truck while mine is in the shop
1. Watching candles burn in our new fireplace while my wife and I sit on the couch talking about what color to paint each room of the house

5ive things that suck:

5. The Iraq war
4. Amy and now Neal on The Biggest Loser
3. The Office is only 30 minutes long this week
2. Having my truck in the shop
1. AT&T Internet/DSL service

5ive songs I wish I’d written:

5. Almighty – Wayne Watson
4. One of These Mornings – Moby
3. Everything Glorious – David Crowder
2. Walk On – U2
1. Grace – U2

5ive TV shows I’d love to guest star on:

5. My Name is Earl
4. The Simpsons
3. The West Wing (might be hard since its no longer on TV)
2. Scrubs
1. The Office

5ive things I’d like to do this weekend:

5. Maybe look for a new truck
4. Frisbee Golf
3. Sleep in
2. BBQ with friends
1. Geocache somewhere new

5ive people I’m tagging to follow up with their own version of this list…

5. Thomas
4. Brandi
3. Dollye
2. Delaina
1. Eric

Govt. officials hope to block access to maps

As someone who works with GIS in my job, this story in particular caught my attention this morning.
It seems that some local and state entities around the country are trying to block the publics access to GIS maps, siting security reasons.
From NPR:

With Google Earth and GPS, people have grown accustomed to online maps of whatever they’re searching for. But the boom in digital mapping has run into an obstacle. Some government officials are refusing to release electronic maps of what they call “critical infrastructure,” such as water mains and fire hydrants.

There’s so much great information out there to help the general user/member of the public yet there are those in power who are doing all they can to hold on to that information and squash the open sharing of knowledge. Frustrating to say the least.
If I could only get my GIS information to convert to the correct file formats for my GPS unit we’d really be in business – but that may still be a ways off.
Listen to the full story online

This weekend

Another list…. 🙂

a. Ate dinner with Dan & Martha and Bob & Vickie
b. Purchased four new disks for disk golf
c. Checked out the new paint job and body work on my sister’s car
d. Visited with Kara & Tim, Mom & Dad and Grandma & Grandad
e. Did anyone just notice the arrangement of sexes on line a & d? odd
f. Enjoyed sleeping late on Saturday
g. Played Frisbee/disk golf with Phil in Cedar Hill
h. Phil’s better than us
i. Watched the Bourne Identity
j. Enjoyed What-a-Burger for dinner
k. Spent way to much time waiting on my Fantasy Football Draft
l. Went to encounter Sunday morning
m. Spent the afternoon in Kaufman at Hidden Acres
n. Tried a couple geocaches
o. Found one, didn’t find the other
p. Hid a third geocache for Casa de Blundell
q. It’s located at N 32° 22.864 W 096° 50.990
r. Slept in again on Monday
s. Drove around looking at homes and neighborhoods in Red Oak and Ovilla
t. Ate dinner with Brad & Jen and their kids in Ennis
u. Came home and that was about it for our three day weekend
v. What did you do this weekend?
w. Think you can fill a whole alphabet?
x. I may make it to Z but I guess I ran out of events
y. Over the weekend two people found our first geocache
z. Five people found our second one

So you want to merge all those waypoints/geocaches?

If you’re like me – you hate typing in all those coordinates for geocaches into your handheld GPS unit. It’s such a bother, which is why we decided to purchase the Magellan Explorist 500. Simply hook up your unit to your computer with the USB cable, run the conversion software and presto, all your geocaches are stored to your unit.
But the next problem I came across was the fact that Geocaching.com only gives you 20 caches per page on their website.
So if you search for caches within 25 miles of zip code 75165, there are 320 caches, but only 20 per page. And unless you’re a premium member, that means you’re going to have to download page of 20 caches individually and then upload the files to your GPS unit one by one.
You can download Easy GPS Companion, which does a fair job of combining the files into one .loc file. But occasionally it makes an error and your files get corrupted. Continue reading So you want to merge all those waypoints/geocaches?