Dan Q
This checkin to GC8KR7D Motorway Mayhem (another one) reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
The geohound and I braved an explore of this litter-filled GZ but couldn’t spot a cache among the copious detritus before the whiny little thing started fighting to get back to the warm of the car and to the rest of her “pack”. Maybe next time we pass by this way.
This checkin to GC80592 Coffee, Cache and Dash reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
QEF while stopped for a confort break on a long journey North from Oxford. The dog wanted to go with the others into the services, but had to stay outdoors with me and hunt for the cache. Solid hint!
Our beloved-but-slightly-thick dog will sometimes consent to playing fetch, but one of her favourite games to play is My Ball. Which is a bit like fetch, except that she won’t let go of the ball.
It’s not quite the same as tug-of-war, though. She doesn’t want you to pull the toy in a back-and-forth before, most-likely, giving up and letting her win1. Nor is My Ball a solo game: she’s not interested in sitting and simply chewing the ball, like some dogs do.
No, this is absolutely a participatory game. She’ll sit and whine for your attention to get you to come to another room. Or she’ll bring the toy in question (it doesn’t have to be a ball) and place it gently on your foot to get your attention.
Your role in this game is to want the ball. So long as you’re showing that you want the ball – occasionally reaching down to take it only for her to snatch it away at the last second, verbally asking if you can have it, or just looking enviously in its general direction – you’re playing your part in the game. Your presence and participation is essential, even as your role is entirely ceremonial.
Playing it, I find myself reminded of playing with the kids when they were toddlers. The eldest in particular enjoyed spending countless hours playing make-believe games in which the roles were tightly-scripted2. She’d tell me that, say, I was a talking badger or a grumpy dragon or an injured patient but immediately shoot down any effort to role-play my assigned character, telling me that I was “doing it wrong” if I didn’t act in exactly the unspoken way that she imagined my character ought to behave.
But the important thing to her was that I embodied the motivation that she assigned me. That I wanted the rabbits to stop digging too near to my burrow3 or the princess to stay in her cage4 or to lie down in my hospital bed and await the doctor’s eventual arrival5. Sometimes I didn’t need to do much, so long as I showed how I felt in the role I’d been assigned.
Somebody with much more acting experience and/or a deeper academic comprehension of the performing arts is going to appear in the comments and tell me why this is, probably.
But I guess what I mean to say is that playing with my dog sometimes reminds me of playing with a toddler. Which, just sometimes, I miss.
1 Alternatively, tug-of-war can see the human “win” and then throw the toy, leading to a game of fetch after all.
2 These games were, admittedly, much more-fun than the time she had me re-enact my father’s death with her.
3 “Grr, those pesky rabbits are stopping me sleeping.”
4 “I’ll just contentedly sit on my pile of treasure, I guess?”
5 Playing at being an injured patient was perhaps one of my favourite roles, especially after a night in which the little tyke had woken me a dozen times and yet still had some kind of tiny-human morning-zoomies. On at least one such occasion I’m pretty sure I actually fell asleep while the “doctor” finished her rounds of all the soft toys whose triage apparently put them ahead of me in the pecking order. Similarly, I always loved it when the kids’ games included a “naptime” component.
This checkin to GC9GTV3 Drive Slowly; Fox Crossing reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Checked up on this cache during a dog walk nearby. All seems good, cache is ready to be found!
Snuffles in the Snow. This morning’s freak snowfall in Oxfordshire is a source of some confusion on this pupper’s morning walk.
This checkin to GC656RM Church Micro 8564...Ducklington reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
The dog and I came out to Ducklington today for a spot of geohashing, in search of the 2024-11-14 51 -1 geohashpoint. After a walk around the fields to the East we had to give up on that expedition (for reasons that’ll be described in my geohashing log) so we decided to console ourselves with a hunt for this nearby geocache, instead.
Solving the first part was made harder when I failed to read the description properly and started counting letters in the sign, rather than the plaque, but once we’d corrected that mistake we were on our way.
At the GZ there was a clear trail that looked likely, but the dog took some coaxing to join us. As soon as I was at the coordinates (feeling like I was hiding in a bush!) and followed the hint instructions the cache was an easy find. TFTC!
This checkin to geohash 2024-11-14 51 -1 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.
Field East of Ducklington, West Oxfordshire
Not certain, but might be able to make this one!
The dog and I drove out to Ducklington, parking near the church, and walked out to these fields. Unfortunately the hashpoint turns out to be 33+ metres into a field full of sheep. That _might’ve_ been the kind of trespassing I’d have been willing to consider, were it not for the combination of the amount of pedestrian traffic (a whole platoon of birdwatchers, armed with extra-long camera lenses, and every dog walker under the sun!) and the fact that I had the dog with me (who’d have to have waited unhappily outside the field: not taking her _into_ a field of sheep, even by only 33 metres).
Instead, then, we took a pleasant walk around Ducklington and found the GC656RM “Church Micro 8564…Ducklington” geocache, so it wasn’t entirely a wasted trip. The dog’s come home and zonked out in her basket after a decent walk, anwyay!
Waiting patiently at the school gates on a distinctly Autumnal morning, our pupper’s squat stature means she’s about knee-deep in the season’s golden leaves.
This checkin to geohash 2024-10-22 51 -1 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.
Harcourt Hill Bridleway, between Cumnor and North Hinksey
I’m on sabbatical from work right now, so I’m hoping to be able to get out to this hashpoint while the kids are at school.
After dropping the kids off at school, the geopup/hashhound and I set out for the hashpoint. Coming up the “short side” of the bridleway from Botley would be a shorter walk, but we opted to park in Cumnor and come up the “long side” of Harcourt Hill to avoid Oxford’s traffic (and the inevitable fee for parking on the city’s side of the hill).
Harcourt Hill (like my village of Stanton Harcourt) doubtless gets its name from the Harcourt Family, who supported William the Conqueror during his conquest of Great Britain back in 1066 and were ultimately granted huge swathes of land around this part of the world in recognition of their loyalty. To this day, you find “Harcourt” in a lot of place names in this neck of the woods.
The hashpoint was so easy to find, we almost walked right over it: it’s right in the centre of the footpath/bridleway. Even my dog, who often doesn’t like long walks or muddy paths, didn’t get a chance to complain before we got there. We arrived at 09:35 and took the requisite photos, which can be found below. We also kept a GPS tracklog and vlogged our experience, all of which you can see below.
I’ve not properly hashed in a long while, so it was great to get back out there!
My GPSr kept a tracklog.
Also available via YouTube.
Six or seven years ago our eldest child, then a preschooler, drew me a picture of the Internet1. I framed it and I keep it on the landing outside my bedroom – y’know, in case I get lost on the Internet and need a map:
I found myself reminded of this piece of childhood art when she once again helped me with a network map, this weekend.
As I kick off my Automattic sabbatical I’m aiming to spend some of this and next month building a new server architecture for Three Rings. To share my plans, this weekend, I’d been drawing network diagrams showing my fellow volunteers what I was planning to implement. Later, our eldest swooped in and decided to “enhance” the picture with faces and names for each server:
I noted that she named the read-replica database server Demmy2, after our dog.
It’s a cute name for a server, but I don’t think I’m going to follow it. The last thing I want is for her to overhear me complaining about some possible future server problem and misinterpret what I’m saying. “Demmy is a bit slow; can you give her a kick,” could easily cause distress, not to mention “Demmy’s dying; can we spin up a replacement?”
I’ll stick to more-conventional server names for this new cluster, I think.
I’m back home from Mexico (and feeling a little worse for wear), where this young lady wanted to let me know that I was sorely missed.
This post is part of 🐶 Bleptember, a month-long celebration of our dog's inability to keep her tongue inside her mouth.
We made it! This young furbaby managed to pose a bleppy picture every single day of Bleptember. Thanks for coming along for the ride!
This post is part of 🐶 Bleptember, a month-long celebration of our dog's inability to keep her tongue inside her mouth.
“You want more Bleptember pictures? I demand payment in the form of tummy-scritches!”
(Wow, it’s the penultimate day of Bleptember. )
This post is part of 🐶 Bleptember, a month-long celebration of our dog's inability to keep her tongue inside her mouth.
Tttttthbbptt. The sound of a bleppy dog deflating like a balloon, this Twenty-Eighth of Bleptember
This post is part of 🐶 Bleptember, a month-long celebration of our dog's inability to keep her tongue inside her mouth.
This Bleptember pic looks a bit like a political poster to me. Vote Dog, for a future with More Ham, Fewer Vacuum Cleaners!
