I found some old MetroLink tickets that hadn't expired, so one day last week I rode the train over to the Maplewood suburb, got off, and walked home. It probably wasn't much longer than my usual walks to the grocery store, but at least it was a change of scenery. Along the way, I passed this hill. About 20 years ago, this used to be a favorite sledding spot for kids, because it was so steep. But with everyone becoming lawsuit-crazy, the city planted bushes, erected fences, and finally built this brick sign to keep kids from using it as a playground. Sorry to see it go.
I also took a walk over to Forest Park. I tend to avoid that area, because it is so popular, but I was on a mission to check out a geocache. I happened to walk by the ice skating rink. I was sort of surprised it was open, given that so many recreational facilities are still shut down. But I guess, since it's out in the open air and everyone was wearing a mask, they deem it safe. Of course, I just noticed the girl in the photo is wearing her mask around her chin...
Speaking of geocaches, I'm working on a virtual one called The Land of Make Believe. Rather than looking for a real container with a log book, you have to find different monuments around the city and search for clues on nameplates. The first clue led me to Cinderella's shoe.
I spent more time on Zoom this week with my fellow robotics friends trying to figure out how we were going to hold a competition virtually. The national organization wanted us to have each team take videos of their robots and submit them for judging. How boring. So we've been trying to work out the bugs for judging it live via Zoom. This seems like a workable option to me, but of course at present, it's all theoretical. Anyone who's ever logged onto a computer knows, if anything can go wrong with technology, it will. This should be interesting.
