Welcome to my World of Wonderment

Our planet is a neat place, full of weird and unusual people doing weird and unusual things. One oddball thing I like to do is geocache. What other activity is there that makes people travel hundreds of miles to climb a mountain, wade a river, and fight a Bigfoot, just to be the first person to sign a piece of paper rolled up in a 35mm film canister stuffed in the knot hole of a tree? I can't think of any other sport that has such a great mix of technology and the wonderful outdoors. A lot of geocaches are placed in a beautiful setting, or hidden in a challenging or unique way, or in a historical setting. Geocaching allows the finder to share in some of the hiders favorite places, and along the way you get to meet some interesting characters, and occasionally learn something new. While this blog is primarily a geocaching blog, I also use this place to post the occasional funny video or weird news story, or as a platform to rant or rave about something I really have to share. But for the most part this website is about you, the weirdo walking around in circles, talking into your GPS unit like it's a phone, pretending your taking pictures of a phone booth to find find the tiniest micro-cache, or circling your car around and around a light pole in a parking lot trying to retrieve a cache without even getting out of your car.

7/24/08

Watch Your Step

From the Washington Post

A patient at George Washington University Hospital fell from a fifth-story ledge overlooking New Hampshire Avenue in Northwest Washington yesterday afternoon after threatening to jump for several hours, police said.

The man climbed onto the ledge about 12:15 p.m. and for four hours paced and peered at the ground. He fell just before 4:10 p.m. after trying to climb down. The man lost his footing as he tried to move down the building and briefly hung off the ledge by only his hands before falling feet first.

His body partially hit the concrete and a large inflatable air mattress police had set up while trying to coax him down, police said.

A crowd of about 20 people were horrified as they watched the scene unfold.

"When he fell, there was just a large gasp, like, 'Whoa,' " said Mike Adeniran, a 20-year-old junior at George Washington University.

lThe man, whose name was not immediately released by police, was still breathing at the scene, readmitted to the hospital and listed in critical condition, said Officer Josh Aldiva, a department spokesman.

The man had been taken to the hospital yesterday after being involved in a car accident.

During the standoff, police and ambulance crews cordoned off much of Washington Circle and several city blocks along New Hampshire Avenue and 23rd Street, between I Street and the circle, snarling traffic and preventing some residents from getting to their nearby homes and apartments.

Witnesses who saw the man climb onto the ledge said he was originally clad in a blue hospital-issued shirt and boxer shorts, with white bandages covering his arms.

By 1 p.m., the man had stripped off his shirt as a group of police, fire and security workers congregated on the rooftop several stories above him and SWAT teams surrounded the building below.

Marina Streznewski, who lives in the 900 block of New Hampshire Ave., a few blocks from where the man fell, said she came out of her home about 1 p.m. to see a gawking crowd snapping photos of the man with their cellphones.

"I looked at some of them, and I saw what was reflected in me -- I wanted to tell him, 'Please don't jump. It's not worth it,' " Streznewski said.


This reminded me of the horrible movie The Happening. This trailer shows the best part of the movie in the first 10 seconds. So now you have no need to ever watch this movie.


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