Discussion: Eastern WA this weekend

I see you will be here on the weekend; will you come back for next races as well? Are you staying just one night?
If you have time/interest - I can send you courses from previous years in the area.

Thanks! We'll drive up Friday night and stay for the races. I don't think there will be time for additional outings, but who knows? Go ahead and send me some stuff, please.

We are hoping to come out for the May events as well. Will you make the trip over to Montana for some of ours this spring?

We'll be at the Quincy event on Saturday!

Will this be the first time Fjola and Inara will meet up? Should we bring our Animal-O setup?

It's gotta be the first, I imagine.

Fjola and Gina are going out on a beginner course, and I'm doing a medium-advanced at 10:06am, and then Gina's going out solo at 12:06pm, so I'll have Fjola around while Gina is out.

We want pictures of the girls!

The girls did meet very briefly on Saturday at the start at the very end of the start window, right before Gina and Inara's crew started their courses. (We arrived much later than planned so we missed a potential meetup earlier). I don't have any photos of them together, but Gina has some on her phone of Fjola orienteering.

The girls exchanged names and ages, and talked about their footwear. Inara commented that a lot of people can't say her name right, so once Fjola figures out that the same applies to her, they'll have a bond forever.

I'd be curious to hear about Inara's experience on Saturday's beginner course, being a year older. Fjola likes to find flags and beep them, and she can confirm the three-digit codes on the controls (after we tell her what code we're looking for). She knows that blue on the map is water, and that the course has a sequence of numbered controls, but otherwise the map is pretty incomprehensible to her.

Saturday was her 3rd time orienteering in 4 weekends; before that it was February 2020. I wasn't with her on Saturday, but I was the Saturday before on a college campus map. She likes to run, so I kind of pointed out where we should go (eg: over to the building with the green roof) and let her "lead".

When we were (slowly) walking back to the download on Saturday, a lot of other finishers were passing us along the trail, and Fjola excitedly asked all of them how many flags they found, and she told them that she found seven. As soon as we got home, she ran over to our cat and told him that she found seven flags and asked him to look at her orienteering jersey.

At dinner, we have a routine where everyone talks about a fun thing and a hard thing from the day. At dinner, Fjola's fun thing was.... kicking around the sand/dirt/dust with her shoes, haha. (Her hard thing was getting her toenails clipped, which happened the day before, but was traumatizing enough to stay with her the next day.)

I'll also mention that Fjola came across some bones along the beginner course. I think Gina said she thought it was a coyote pelvis, but Fjola is telling everyone that she found "brontosaurus bones".

Sad there are no visuals, but you paint a pretty good picture. Sounds like you’re doing everything right to help Fjola like orienteering!

Montana is famous for its dinosaur bone finds, maybe Fjola wasn’t so far off the mark.

It seems like little kids are universally interested in dinosaurs. But we've only even known that there were dinosaurs for 180-200 years. What were kids fascinated by prior to 1820?

Max was never into dinosaurs ... but most kids seem to like them. (He *did* like cars and trucks, like most little [and big] boys.)

Cars and trucks are an even more recent development!

I’ve often wondered what computer meds and gamer geeks were back before computers and game consoles.

I am also fascinated by how easily kids pick up turning book pages, considering books are also a recent invention the history of human evolution.

I should be an answer to Cristina's question, since I'm old enough that even at MIT, only a few of my college friends owned their own computers (and they were mighty primitive things that had to be soldered together). I got a calculator in 10th grade, that was pretty cutting-edge tech. Model rockets and a Radio Shack electronic project kit, but go back a decade and that stuff wouldn't have been available. In my father's generation, I guess kids tinkered with Model T Fords and bicycles. Maybe before that they hung around the blacksmith shop? But you don't have to go back very far before nobody even had books, as Carol says. Now even the most underprivileged kids (in the US) grow up with a TV.

Those were the kids who figured out rubbing the rocks together to shape them instead of just banging them, eating them, or throwing them.

Hiking, fishing and hunting have been around a while (although probably were jobs and not leisure activities for kids back in the day). Bikes have also been around a while. What kinds of kids games have been around a long time? Marbles, cards, boxing, tag, chess, etc.? Interesting discussion.

In contrast to jj, I am of the generation that designed airplanes, rockets, satellites and sent people to the moon using slide rules with three digit accuracy. Who needed to be more accurate and som of those gadgets are still flying.

Who needed to be more accurate and some of those gadgets are still flying.

Missed the target did they?

Missed the target did they?

Nope, Voyager 1 and 2 have buzzed by most of the planets and now left the solar system. My dad worked on electrical systems for V2.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_program

But that's the thing, spaceships are only barely older than I am (though science fiction goes back over a century). What did that replace? I guess pirate adventures at some point...

Stories about how the plague was worse when I were a lad.

No plague but there were other catastrophic things to survive. Like mumps, measles, chicken pox - had them all and managed. Never had polio fortunately as I know others that struggle with leg braces and breathing aids for rest of their lives. Now there are vaccines for all even though many don’t want them - a government conspiracy against us. The ramifications of these infections are far worse than most imagine.

Get the covid vax as soon as possible. Miracles do happen.

Yes they don't want them because who's died from one of those lately? No-one, thanks to everyone in the older generations being immunised. For the record I also had mumps, chicken pox and German measles when younger though was immunised against all. Heaven knows how it would have turned out without the vaccinations!

It's like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm since you're not getting wet anymore.

Measles, not the German type. Having no vax at the time, was very uncomfortable though as a kid who knew anything else. Just did it went along as alternative wasn’t pleasant.

The only one I got was chicken pox, because they hadn't developed a vaccine for it yet. I was in eighth grade and had somehow missed it, so when the little kid across the street came down with it, I went over and played with him on purpose, because I didn't want to wait any longer, the wisdom being that it was worse the older you got. It went around the neighborhood to pretty much everybody who hadn't had it yet. I was out of school for two weeks, but Stanley's father had a worse time of it, and his grandmother (who was quite old) suffered the most.

Measles vaccine came along just in time for me, but the docs kept deciding that the shot I'd already received wasn't actually good enough, and signing me up for an improved version. I forget how many of those I got, but it was at least three.

Maybe I got the mumps before I had the shot. I was only two at the time so I don't rightly remember! It would make sense.