Frodov
Bronze Member
"Digital Detection" - or - "Memory in the Mud"
Ok Ok Ok.. so it wasn't really mud, but it was in the dirt!
Today was a glorious day to be out detecting. A Day off, Fantastic weather, and plenty of time to indulge myself. After sleeping in late this morning.. another rare indulgence, I loaded up my detector and gear and headed to one of the larger parks in my berg. I should probably have gotten out earlier to avoid all the other folks that wanted to get out and enjoy the weather, at the same park, but I managed to get away from the busier areas and find myself alone for the most part. I decided that it would be a good day to check out the picnic shelters and the volleyball pitches... and of course parking for said shelters and play areas.
The first shelter I picked was a fair distance from any parking.. at the top of a hill, probably why no one else was bothering with it, when more convenient shelters were available.
Of course I began swinging my 'tector on the way up the hill, and getting targets along the way. I found a quarter first thing, always a good start, followed by a few pull tabs.. *sigh* But things did pick up, I found some can slaw and even a bottle cap or two. <grin> Oh I found more coin, pennies mostly but it seems that I hit on a theme for the day early on. I kept finding those danged twist off bottle caps (old style) for "Clearly Canadian" bottled water.. and a couple of Canadian pennies. <shrug> Oh well. It would seem that someone had had a party recently at the shelter I began searching at, there was glittery mylar confetti everywhere, and remnants of cheapy party favor toys scattered about in all directions. I'm thinking it was the innards of a Pinata (sorry, can't make the little squiggly thingy over the "i")... we do have a rather large immigrant worker population here bouts. In less than 30 minutes I had found over a dollar in clad, and a handfull of pull tabs (old "duck call" type) and some forgotten or forsaken temporary tattoos. Anyone want a couple of goofy green monkey tats? or a parrot? a silly looking leopard perhaps? Well before too much longer I started eye balling the next shelter over.. and it's volleyball pitch, so I detected my way back down the hill and hopped in my truck and scooted over to the next shelter (one hill over). Parking in the gravel I tried my luck in the rocks on the way to the pitch. I am still amazed at how many coins and things I find in the gravel of the parking areas. I guess no one else, locally anyway, bothers to detect in the rocks. I know it's hard to dig, but I've found that there's very little digging involved anyway.. Coins don't sink in gravel like they do in dirt and grass. <smile> The just get dusted over or turned on edge between the rocks. More's the better for me I guess. <smile>
It was at this second volleyball pitch that my detecting day took a turn for the digital. I went all new age and high tech.. I hit a target that looked like a nickel on my detector. "Great" I thought, "Another pull tab". WRONG! I zeroed in on it then pin pointed it with my Bullseye.. then probed with my handy dandy little knife/probe (see pic.. I modified a utility knife from work to use in detecting)...
well it was an odd looking nickel... long? I pulled the grass back and carefully cut a slit in the roots then pried under the edge of my target and up popped this long little stick. A memory stick. A Flash drive. COOL! But it was in the dirt, under the grass, out in the rain and all for who knows how long.. what are the odds that it would still work? Very good actually, more on that later though.
Memory stick in my finds pouch, along with all my other finds up to that point, I continued hunting. More clad, more junk, loads more fun and relaxation. Cleaned out that shelter ( is any area ever REALLY cleaned out?), and time to move on to another shelter, and volleyball pitch. I noticed that I was not the only one detecting these areas though. There were little digs all over the place, not squirrels this time, these were little plugs and holes.. only whoever made them didn't bother to fill them back in behind themselves. Bums! One thing about cleaning up behind someone like this.. is that you can find whatever they miss. In this instance it was quite a bit. <smile> Whoever I was following behind obviously didn't have a good pinpointer if any at all. I'd say that 1 out of every four holes they dug still had targets in them.. and most were coins!
The third volleyball court for the afternoon was a SANDLOT court. And Yes, there were coins in the sand. Yet I found more coins in the gravel parking area alongside the pitch than actually in the sand. Go figure.. well.. I guess the evidence of another detectorist would lead me to believe that they probably detected the sand lot as well, but the gravel was virgin territory. <grin> I found coins, pull tabs and car parts. At least I think they're car parts. One object is this big metal ball with a hole through it and a slot in one side perpendicular to the hole through the ball. It's all chrome or at least polished metal of some sort, about the size of a billiard ball. I'm thinking it's some aftermarket car part of the Tricked out show car variety.. perhaps someone can identify it for me from the picture.
The "T" looking thing is probably a hood ornament, or the remains of one anyway. Oh.. and wheel weights. Imagine that! Finding wheel weights in a parking lot. <chuckle> Lead sure sounds a lot like gold doesn't it?
After searching one more vacant shelter and volleyball pitch, the fourth for the day, I decided that I'd had enough for the day. One, I was ignoring all the "nickel" targets that started popping up, just knowing they were more pull tabs. And Two, more and more people were coming into the park and it wasn't so relaxing anymore. Time to call it a day and head for the house. Besides, The University of Kentucky was hosting The University of Florida here in Lexington for a little game of Football. *sigh* Kentucky lost, but they played a hell of a game. Go Gators.. yeah yeah yeah..
At home I emptied my finds bag out and sorted through all my treasures from the day's hunt. Pull tabs in a little pile, junk metal in another and counted up my clad.
$5.71 in clad, not counting the three Canadian pennies and one lone Wheat penny. Oddly enough one of the Canadians was found just inches from the wheatie.. and they were BOTH the same year!?! 1952
They weren't that deep so I don't think they've been there for a long time. Oh well, I have them now! <smile>
Back to the Memory Stick.. or Flash Drive that I found earlier. I brushed off the loose dirt from the outside casing and gingerly removed the USB connector cover.. it was clean, and dry. So, I plugged it up to my computer and guess what? It still works! There were/are a bunch of pictures from someone's College Graduation ceremony. I'm guessing that one of these three guys is the owner of the flash drive, or at least friends of his. "His"?? you say? Well there are a bunch of other files on this little drive besides the pics. Things like resumes, Thesis papers, grant proposals and applications and lots and lots of technical data. This guy is some sort of electrical engineer or is studying to be one. On one document I found both an email address and a postal address. Hey! How convenient! I hopped right on to the internet and sent him a little note about finding the memory stick and asked if he still needed it and the information on it, and told him to drop me a line if he did. If that email address is still valid and active, I might just get this little piece of high tech wizardry back to it's rightfull, if butter fingered owner. <smile>
Ahh.. the things we do for our hobby.
Have fun everyone, hope you all can get out and enjoy the weather like I did today. Happy Hunting all.
Frodov
Ok Ok Ok.. so it wasn't really mud, but it was in the dirt!
Today was a glorious day to be out detecting. A Day off, Fantastic weather, and plenty of time to indulge myself. After sleeping in late this morning.. another rare indulgence, I loaded up my detector and gear and headed to one of the larger parks in my berg. I should probably have gotten out earlier to avoid all the other folks that wanted to get out and enjoy the weather, at the same park, but I managed to get away from the busier areas and find myself alone for the most part. I decided that it would be a good day to check out the picnic shelters and the volleyball pitches... and of course parking for said shelters and play areas.
The first shelter I picked was a fair distance from any parking.. at the top of a hill, probably why no one else was bothering with it, when more convenient shelters were available.
Of course I began swinging my 'tector on the way up the hill, and getting targets along the way. I found a quarter first thing, always a good start, followed by a few pull tabs.. *sigh* But things did pick up, I found some can slaw and even a bottle cap or two. <grin> Oh I found more coin, pennies mostly but it seems that I hit on a theme for the day early on. I kept finding those danged twist off bottle caps (old style) for "Clearly Canadian" bottled water.. and a couple of Canadian pennies. <shrug> Oh well. It would seem that someone had had a party recently at the shelter I began searching at, there was glittery mylar confetti everywhere, and remnants of cheapy party favor toys scattered about in all directions. I'm thinking it was the innards of a Pinata (sorry, can't make the little squiggly thingy over the "i")... we do have a rather large immigrant worker population here bouts. In less than 30 minutes I had found over a dollar in clad, and a handfull of pull tabs (old "duck call" type) and some forgotten or forsaken temporary tattoos. Anyone want a couple of goofy green monkey tats? or a parrot? a silly looking leopard perhaps? Well before too much longer I started eye balling the next shelter over.. and it's volleyball pitch, so I detected my way back down the hill and hopped in my truck and scooted over to the next shelter (one hill over). Parking in the gravel I tried my luck in the rocks on the way to the pitch. I am still amazed at how many coins and things I find in the gravel of the parking areas. I guess no one else, locally anyway, bothers to detect in the rocks. I know it's hard to dig, but I've found that there's very little digging involved anyway.. Coins don't sink in gravel like they do in dirt and grass. <smile> The just get dusted over or turned on edge between the rocks. More's the better for me I guess. <smile>
It was at this second volleyball pitch that my detecting day took a turn for the digital. I went all new age and high tech.. I hit a target that looked like a nickel on my detector. "Great" I thought, "Another pull tab". WRONG! I zeroed in on it then pin pointed it with my Bullseye.. then probed with my handy dandy little knife/probe (see pic.. I modified a utility knife from work to use in detecting)...
well it was an odd looking nickel... long? I pulled the grass back and carefully cut a slit in the roots then pried under the edge of my target and up popped this long little stick. A memory stick. A Flash drive. COOL! But it was in the dirt, under the grass, out in the rain and all for who knows how long.. what are the odds that it would still work? Very good actually, more on that later though.
Memory stick in my finds pouch, along with all my other finds up to that point, I continued hunting. More clad, more junk, loads more fun and relaxation. Cleaned out that shelter ( is any area ever REALLY cleaned out?), and time to move on to another shelter, and volleyball pitch. I noticed that I was not the only one detecting these areas though. There were little digs all over the place, not squirrels this time, these were little plugs and holes.. only whoever made them didn't bother to fill them back in behind themselves. Bums! One thing about cleaning up behind someone like this.. is that you can find whatever they miss. In this instance it was quite a bit. <smile> Whoever I was following behind obviously didn't have a good pinpointer if any at all. I'd say that 1 out of every four holes they dug still had targets in them.. and most were coins!
The third volleyball court for the afternoon was a SANDLOT court. And Yes, there were coins in the sand. Yet I found more coins in the gravel parking area alongside the pitch than actually in the sand. Go figure.. well.. I guess the evidence of another detectorist would lead me to believe that they probably detected the sand lot as well, but the gravel was virgin territory. <grin> I found coins, pull tabs and car parts. At least I think they're car parts. One object is this big metal ball with a hole through it and a slot in one side perpendicular to the hole through the ball. It's all chrome or at least polished metal of some sort, about the size of a billiard ball. I'm thinking it's some aftermarket car part of the Tricked out show car variety.. perhaps someone can identify it for me from the picture.
The "T" looking thing is probably a hood ornament, or the remains of one anyway. Oh.. and wheel weights. Imagine that! Finding wheel weights in a parking lot. <chuckle> Lead sure sounds a lot like gold doesn't it?
After searching one more vacant shelter and volleyball pitch, the fourth for the day, I decided that I'd had enough for the day. One, I was ignoring all the "nickel" targets that started popping up, just knowing they were more pull tabs. And Two, more and more people were coming into the park and it wasn't so relaxing anymore. Time to call it a day and head for the house. Besides, The University of Kentucky was hosting The University of Florida here in Lexington for a little game of Football. *sigh* Kentucky lost, but they played a hell of a game. Go Gators.. yeah yeah yeah..
At home I emptied my finds bag out and sorted through all my treasures from the day's hunt. Pull tabs in a little pile, junk metal in another and counted up my clad.
$5.71 in clad, not counting the three Canadian pennies and one lone Wheat penny. Oddly enough one of the Canadians was found just inches from the wheatie.. and they were BOTH the same year!?! 1952
They weren't that deep so I don't think they've been there for a long time. Oh well, I have them now! <smile>
Back to the Memory Stick.. or Flash Drive that I found earlier. I brushed off the loose dirt from the outside casing and gingerly removed the USB connector cover.. it was clean, and dry. So, I plugged it up to my computer and guess what? It still works! There were/are a bunch of pictures from someone's College Graduation ceremony. I'm guessing that one of these three guys is the owner of the flash drive, or at least friends of his. "His"?? you say? Well there are a bunch of other files on this little drive besides the pics. Things like resumes, Thesis papers, grant proposals and applications and lots and lots of technical data. This guy is some sort of electrical engineer or is studying to be one. On one document I found both an email address and a postal address. Hey! How convenient! I hopped right on to the internet and sent him a little note about finding the memory stick and asked if he still needed it and the information on it, and told him to drop me a line if he did. If that email address is still valid and active, I might just get this little piece of high tech wizardry back to it's rightfull, if butter fingered owner. <smile>
Ahh.. the things we do for our hobby.
Have fun everyone, hope you all can get out and enjoy the weather like I did today. Happy Hunting all.
Frodov
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