Adventures in Geocaching

Spring is Here!

2008-04-05T19:22:00.001-06:00

Although I haven't been Geocaching much lately, I am REALLY enjoying this spring weather. It makes me want to go out and cache.

Year in Review: March 2007 - March 2008

2008-03-18T14:44:00.005-06:00

Over a year has gone by since my last post. Sadly, part of this is due to my own lack of geocaching over the past 12 months. In fact, I've only found 16 caches this past year. In this post, I'll bring you up to speed on my adventures in geocaching and let you know some exciting news about the Texas County Challenge.

This past summer, I took my family with me on a business trip to Boston, MA. It was fantastic and we all had a great time. However, no trip out-of-state would be complete without finding at least one geocache in the process, and that's exactly what I did - found one geocache, Troll Lord Magnar - Boston's Mine. It was a nice cache in the middle of the Boston Common near a large statue and an old WWI mine. Although my family and I walked all over Boston during the week we were there, this was the only cache that I attempted to find. Otherwise, I found a couple of caches in north Texas near the Oklahoma border and a handful here in central Texas.

There was much more excitement with the Texas County Challenge. Just to refresh your memory, the Texas County Challenge is a physical cache that can only be found after finding or hiding a cache in all 254 counties in the state of Texas. In April 2007, TxOilGas became the first geocacher to complete this challenge. In May, his finds and hides were verified and he was the FTF on the Texas County Challenge. Later that summer, the second, third, fourth, and fifth cachers to complete the challenge also found the cache. A HUGE congratulations goes to TxOilGas (FTF), Blizzard (STF), Little Red Wagon (3TF), Enduroking (4TF), and les7h (5TF).

After the celebration event for the 5TF, les7h, I handed the reigns of the Texas County Challenge to the #2 man, Blizzard by allowing him to officially adopt this cache.

Tags: Geocaching, Adventures

The Hunt for More Dallas Coin Finale - Part 2

2007-03-03T13:00:00.000-06:00

This is the second part of my account of what happened in the final hours of the Dallas coin hunt in the Dr. Pepper: Hunt for More treasure hunt.

Knowing that it was already after 2:00am and we would be returning less than 2.5 hours later, we decided that we would just go and grab a bite to eat at Denny's before returning to the park entrance around 4:20am. As we were approaching the park again, we saw what we thought was the same police car driving away from the park. Shortly after, we could see the first of many cars re-entering the park well before 5:00am. My wife and I decided that if we were going to find the coin and win the hunt that we would at least do so honestly and play by the rules. One of the official rules says, "Do not enter locked or closed premises or premises without authorization." To us, this included White Rock Lake park until 5:00am, so we sat and impatiently waited.

We knew that if the coin were just recently hidden between 2:00-5:00am under the small footbridge closest to the stone tables (the same bridge that we had thoroughly searched hours before) that it would easily have been found already by the pre-5:00am searchers. So we decided that we would thoroughly search one of the other bridges in that section of the park. There were two road bridges and one additional wooden foot bridge over the creeks branching off of the lake giving us a 1 in 4 chance of searching the correct place. Because of the words "amble," "ramble," and "rover," we thought our best bet would be the one remaining large footbridge over the creek instead of the two road bridges.

As soon as our car's clock said 5:00am, we drove to our bridge location and began our search. When we arrived, we were the first car parked there, but not the first people searching. One of the cars that we could see driving through the area before 5:00am was apparently dropping people off at the various bridges in the park and leaving again trying to avoid being caught by the police officer. Even though we knew we weren't the first hunters to search this wooden bridge, we gave it a good hour of our time anyway.

We grabbed our flashlights and climbed over and under every inch of that wooden bridge while trying to avoid spiders, wasp nests, and who knows what else. My wife and I both slipped and fell into the creek (feet-first thankfully) at one time or another so we both searched the creek bed under and around the bridge. We looked under rocks, in piles of debris washed up against the side of the bridge, under and over all of the bridge supports and girders, in the cracks between the planks, and in every possible nook and cranny. Finally, we decided that we had looked in and around every possible hiding place on and under that rather large wooden bridge and called off our search after almost an hour. At this point, we felt confident that the coin was not under our bridge and knew that if the coin were under one of the other 3 bridges that it was probably already found.

But we still didn't stop. We looked under and around the original small stone footbridge and both of the road bridges although not going into the water to search since these bridges crossed rather deep sections of the creek and smelled like raw sewage. Once we were convinced that we had searched all of the bridges in the area without success, we started our search on other areas thinking that maybe the clue didn't mean a bridge but instead was something that we would normally just step over instead of walk or drive over like a large rock. We searched drainage ditches under roadways, under all of the slides and playground equipment that kids could climb over, and even resorted to fanning out over the area looking under individual rocks, sticks, trash, and anything else that a coin could be hidden under. Still no success. After almost 8 hours of searching and waiting all through the night and early morning with only a few hours of a break at Denny's, we were tired, wet, and physically exhausted from our search. For one last attempt, I called for advice and maybe an additional interpretation of the clue. My mom suggested that maybe it was talking about "going over" the park guidelines possibly on a sign about dogs. With this latest interpretation, we drove around that area of the park and searched on, around, and under every sign that had any sort of rule including several ones about dogs.

Finally, after around eight and a half hours of searching every square inch of that park and zero hours of sleep, we said goodbye to some of the other hunters still hanging around and left Dallas around 9:30am. While talking with some of the other hunters just before we left, we compared clues and clue interpretations. Interestingly, none of the hunters present at the time interpreted all of the clues. Nobody understood "DeagleD". Nobody understood for certain "don't lose your head." We were the only ones that understood, "the truth shall set you free," but were the only ones NOT to understand that "Legal Hill Fop" was an anagram for Flag Pole Hill. Some of the hunters we talked too heard from another hunter that a guy found the coin in a small black pouch under the small stone footbridge at 3:30am, but who really knows if that is accurate.

Overall, there are several possible scenarios for what happened. The coin could have been found by accident earlier in the week. The coin could have been hidden after the police officer made everyone leave the park at 2:00am and found later by someone who sneaked back in before 5:00am (most likely scenario in my opinion). The coin might not have been hidden yet and could have been hidden later that day when all of the original hunters left. Or, all of us at White Rock Lake who didn't correctly interpret all 30 clues might have been searching for a red herring in the woods.

Whichever scenario turns out to be true (and we may never really find out), we had a fun time and enjoyed our late night adventure in Dallas.

The Hunt for More Dallas Coin Finale - Part 1

2007-03-01T13:24:00.000-06:00

On January 23, 2007, the Dr. Pepper: Hunt for More began. This nation-wide treasure hunt let Dr. Pepper fans, geocachers, and ordinary people have a chance at finding large cash prizes hidden across the country. Each day, for a period of 30 days, participants entered codes that were found under bottle caps onto a special website and were given clues that led to one of 23 hidden coins. Each coin was worth between $10,000 and $1,000,000.

"Clues revealed online each day will provide hints to help Dr Pepper fans/detectives locate the money. The clues will test consumers' knowledge of geography, history and world events." - Dr. Pepper: Hunt for More press release

For 29 days, I entered codes online and deciphered cryptic clues. Before long, I knew that the clues I was given were directing me to Dallas, TX around White Rock Lake. This is my account of what happened in the final hours of the Dallas coin hunt in the Dr. Pepper: Hunt for More treasure hunt.

Late Tuesday night, my wife and I dropped the girls off with my parents and made a late night drive to the White Rock Lake area of Dallas. The 29th clue that came out earlier that day describing the location of the hidden coin strongly indicated that the coin was hidden near the stone table area of the park. We made a quick stop at the Casa Linda Plaza and looked for anything out of the ordinary before venturing into the park that night around 10:00pm.

When we first arrived, we were alone in that area of the park and began our diligent search all around the stone tables, the picnic tables, the pavilion, the drainage ditch, around the playground, inside the plumbing covers, in hollow spaces in tree stumps, and under the little stone foot bridge. We searched, drove around the area looking for other possibilities, and checked the Internet for the final clue from 10:00pm until 2:00am. During that time, other cars arrived and we could observe several individuals, couples, and even one larger group searching the same area with flashlights - so we knew we must be at the right place. Also during this time at around 11:30pm, a Dallas police patrol car arrived and began slowly driving through the area with his spotlight observing the searchers.

As the hours passed by, the final clue had still not been released online. Finally at 2:00am exactly, I was prompted to enter another code and receive the final clue! It said, "Amble and ramble make like a rover. Look under this thing that you'd normally go over." Our first reaction was "THE BRIDGE!!!!" We had thoroughly searched the little, stone foot bridge adjacent to the stone tables just an hour before this last clue, so we immediately headed off in the car to the next nearest bridge just a few hundred yards away. We had looked around this bridge before, but not crawled under it. By this time, there were at least 3 other cars just sitting around the park area waiting for the same thing we were. At almost the exact same second that we started driving, all of the other cars must have received the clue and started leaving the stone table area heading to one of the other bridges including the one that we were going to.

Also, at almost the exact same second, the Dallas police officer who had been there for quite some time started driving by each car one at a time telling all of us, "I know that there is a contest going on, but the park closed at 11:00pm and will re-open at 5:00am. I have been told to issue citations to anyone still found here. You can come back at 5:00."

Sadly, we drove off and discussed our game plan for our return at 5:00am. Only this time, we knew for certain that we wouldn't be searching alone. We also found the police officer's timing extremely questionable since he had been there watching us all for over 2 hours. We suspect that he was told to clear the area at 2:00am to make way for the person hiding the coin and to keep people out during that time.

4, 3, 2, 1... Jeeps!

2006-09-21T12:58:00.000-06:00

A short while back, I noticed one of the new green Jeep travel bug icons next to a local cache listing on one of my regular pocket queries. I made a mental note to go out and find that cache on my way home from work that day. However, by the time I actually finished my work and could go home, I checked the pocket query to see if the Jeep was still there and noticed two more Jeeps in another nearby cache. This time there was a new 2006 green Jeep and also a 2005 white Jeep. I went home, grabbed my GPS and some good swag including a couple of new movie DVDs (I wanted to trade fairly considering I was planning on snagging all three jeeps), and dashed out the door with my 3-yo daughter behind me to find these three jeeps in two caches. Success!

I managed to come home with two green 2006 Jeeps and one white 2005 Jeep, but the fun didn't stop there! After putting the girls to bed and sitting down on the computer to log these exciting finds, I ran the same PQ expecting to see the same three Jeeps and noticed one more green Jeep pop up on the list. I couldn't resist finding 4 Jeeps in 1 night, so I grabbed my GPS, another DVD, and my headlamp flashlight and dashed out the door again! I ended up approaching this cache from the worst possible way and spent just over an hour getting to the wrong location and back again before I finally found the cache and my 4th Jeep TB for the night!

4 Jeeps at
3 Caches in
2 Hours on
1 Day

4, 3, 2, 1... Jeeps!!!

A few days later, I met another cacher, LifeonEdge, at another nearby cache and we swapped two of my green Jeeps for one of his green Jeeps and a yellow 2004 Jeep. Now, I have in my hands a yellow 2004, a white 2005, and two green 2006 Jeep TBs ready to be distributed! I think I'll plan a meet-n-greet event soon and distribute them that way once I complete the 2006 Jeep's missions.

Tags: Geocaching, Adventures

Site CSS and Template Changes

2006-09-20T11:54:00.000-06:00

Recently, the Blogger site has been having some "issues" with displaying all of the images that make up part of the site template. Because of this issue, I've decided to pull all of the CSS and template related images off of the Blogger servers and place them on a separate server to be independently hosted. Now, if the Blogger image and CSS servers go offline the site will still display as it should. The photos, maps, or other images associated with each individual post will still be hosted by Blogger, but everything with the template will no longer rely on Blogger.

Also, I've made the post titles links to the permanent URL for each post.

Because these are fairly significant changes, please let me know if you discover anything that isn't displaying as it should. Thanks!

Tags: Website

PodCacher Ultimate Motivational Primer

2006-09-15T12:27:00.000-06:00

Sonny and Sandy at Podcacher.com have created a really great 2 minute audio file designed to pump you up and get you ready to go caching!

Check out The Caching PUMP!

Tags: Geocaching
Resources

Spiders and Madness

2006-09-03T08:13:00.000-06:00

After our 45th day of triple digit temperatures, we are finally getting a little relief from the heat. Hopefully my caching adventures can start picking up again more than they have for the past few weeks.

However, I did manage to get out of the house and do almost all of a new cache series around our county a couple of weeks ago. I use a super secret program on my desktop computer to keep me informed of new caches to help me get a jump on FTFs. I'll write about this secret little program in a later post, but now back to the topic.

One night a few weeks back, this program alerted me to about a dozen new caches that had just been approved around 10:30 p.m. By this time, the temperature had finally dropped into the mid-90's and it was a fairly moonlit night. I'm normally not a huge fan of night caching except for specially designed night caches because I typically have a hard enough time spotting cache hides in daylight much less at night. But this didn't stop me that night! I calmly walked into our bedroom where my wife was already getting ready to sleep and mentioned, "I know it is 10:30 at night, but the news tonight was boring and it looks like Leno is going to be another re-run. Can I go out caching?" Surprisingly, her answer was yes!

I grabbed my GPS, a couple of flashlights, a printed Google map of the new caches spread all over the county, and headed out! I left my home about 10:45 and spent the next several hours driving a loop around the entire county finding caches every 10 miles or so along the way. All in all, I drove a little over 84 miles through Woodway, Waco, Hewitt, Moody, McGregor, Crawford (yes, President Bush's Crawford), Speegleville, and back to Waco again. I ended up finding 11 of the 12 caches I was searching for in the Guardrail Madness series and came away with 10 FTFs. Unfortunately, I entered in the wrong coordinates for the 12th cache and spent about 45 minutes trying to get to one particular area that I just couldn't quite get to.

GRIM001 - Of Salads and Sagegrass (Traditional Cache)
GRIM003 - The Far Crossing (Traditional Cache)
GRIM004 - Crossroads (Traditional Cache)
GRIM005 - Domage (Traditional Cache)
GRIM006 - The Fishermen (Traditional Cache)
GRIM007 - The Homecoming (Traditional Cache)
GRIM008 - Where is Nowhere? (Traditional Cache)
GRIM009 - Down on the Corner (Traditional Cache)
GRIM010 - Down South (Traditional Cache)
GRIM011 - Past the Glare (Traditional Cache)
GRIM012 - A Stone's Throw (Traditional Cache)

But the story doesn't stop there! While searching miles and miles of country road guardrails, I was quickly reminded of one of the other reasons I typically do not like night caching - too many "others" out caching with me. I don't know how far north, east or west these things live, but around central Texas these things can be found out in the country abundantly. These "things" that I am referring to are the GIANT yellow and black spiders known as the Black and Yellow Argiope. Unbeknownst to me, these giant spiders love to hang out at night between the posts of guard rails like the ones I spent all night searching for. One location had more of them then all the other spots put together. I probably saw at least a dozen of the smaller (1-2 inch) spiders and probably half a dozen of the larger (3-5 inch) spiders every few feet around one cache.

Tags: Geocaching, Adventures

101, 101, 101, 101, 101, 101, 103?

2006-08-05T08:48:00.000-06:00

Geocaching in Texas during summer is always a hot experience. For the past 6 days in a row, we've been hitting an afternoon high of 101°. Last night, a local weathermen came on the air and said the words we've all been waiting to hear, "It won't be 101° again tomorrow." Unfortunately, he soon followed that statement with, "Instead, I predict that the afternoon high will reach 103°."

With temperatures like these, it is almost too hot for even the local park-n-grabs. Unless things cool even slightly, my geocaching activities are on hold. Until we get back down into the upper 90°s, consider me "out of the kitchen" because I can't stand the heat!

Tags: Geocaching
Adventures

Cheap Signature Cards - Update

2006-07-25T13:42:00.000-06:00

My 250 free geocaching signature cards from VistaPrint have arrived! The cards I ordered look exactly like they did on the online preview and arrived much faster than I anticipated. The edges are clean, the text is clear, and the overall quality is really great. I still wish I had more customizations and designs to choose from at no charge, but I can't complain about free. Thanks VistaPrint!

Tags: Geocaching Swag

PayPal and Podcacher

2006-07-24T12:19:00.000-06:00

I neglected to mention two other small additions to the Adventures in Geocaching sidebar, PayPal and Podcacher. If you are feeling generous, I've made it very easy for you to donate to Adventures in Geocaching by using the small PayPal donate button on the sidebar. :)

In addition, I've included a small embedded podcast player right underneath the Podcacher.com button. This mini-player will allow you to listen to or preview the current Podcacher.com podcasts directly from this site. The Podcacher.com podcast is a family-friendly, weekly podcast all about geocaching. If you aren't already a Podcacher listener, I highly recommend that you check it out!

Tags: Website

Social Bookmarking and Geocaching Categories

2006-07-23T11:58:00.000-06:00

For the past couple of weeks, I've been hard at work making some subtle, but hopefully helpful changes to my Adventures in Geocaching website. If you are a regular visitor to the website and not just a subscriber to the feed, you might notice a few of the changes. Ideally they are all so inconspicuous that you probably won't even notice until you happen to use them.

First, I've changed the way I have been tagging posts. The little section at the bottom of each post that normally said something like "Tags: Geocaching Software Reviews" has now been hidden. It is still there, so if you are just dying to know how I tagged a particular post, you can View Source and see the tags, but now they won't be taking up space in the posts themselves.

The reason that I decided that seeing the tags is no longer as important is because I've changed the entire Previous Posts section of my sidebar to display previous posts based on topics instead of just the 10 most recent posts. Typically, Blogger hosted websites show the 10 most recent posts under Previous Posts - as did this site. Now, you will see a drop down box with the tags I've used as categories or topics. Selecting a topic from the list will show you the previous posts for just that topic. For example, if you wanted to read my previous posts that I've tagged as being about geocaching software, just pick "Software" from the topic list and the Previous Posts list will suddenly change to show you just the 5 posts about geocaching software. Obviously, choosing the category "Geocaching" will return a very long list of posts since almost everything I write about in Adventures in Geocaching is about geocaching!

All of these topics reflect the way I've tagged posts at http://del.icio.us/AventuresinGeocaching. Each time I add a new post and tag it at Del.icio.us, it will automatically be updated in the appropriate category list. This was accomplished using a script called Freshtags and by re-tagging every one of my older posts. I'm also now using Del.icio.us bookmarks to display the Links and Blogs sections dynamically so all I have to do to add a new Link is bookmark it instead of editing the Blogger template. Both of these items can help make this a much more dynamic geocaching site instead relying on hard-coded HTML in my sidebar.

Finally, the last change involves the use of social bookmarking links at the bottom of each post. If you use one of the more popular social bookmarking services, using the icons below each post, you can now quickly and easily bookmark a post at Del.icio.us, Blinklist, Google, Furl, Simpy, or Slashdot. You can also quickly Digg any post or add to your favorites at Technorati.

If you haven't begun using one of these social bookmarking services to keep track of your web favorites, I highly recommend giving them a try. All the ones I've configured are totally free and most fully integrate with most modern web browsers. Using these can make accessing your favorite geocaching websites a breeze from any computer. In addition, sharing your bookmarks publicly or submitting to sites like Slashdot or Digg really help gain exposure to Adventures in Geocaching. The more people that publicly bookmark or Digg a post, the more visible the post becomes and the more traffic this site will receive. Learn more about social bookmarking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Bookmarking or http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf.

Now comes the begging section of this post.... if you would be so kind as to choose one, two, or a dozen of your favorite Adventures in Geocaching posts and bookmark and/or Digg them, I would be most appreciative. :) Using the icons below each post will automatically fill out the title and URL for you, so all you really have to do after signing up is add your own tags/description and click OK.

Tags: Website

My Stats

2006-07-21T08:59:00.000-06:00

This week, Mike and Barb at http://www.jestcaching.com/ wrote about a really exciting new program for all of the stats junkies out there! This is from their post titled "Review of CacheStats."

I stumbled across a program called CacheStats written by abcdmCachers. As many of you know I am a bit of statistics freak. This program is really cool. If you are a premium member you can do a pocket query on your finds. Once you import the unzipped GPX file it displays a bunch of interesting stats.

I, of course, immediately downloaded and tried out this program myself. As you can see below, it works great! I did discover that it won't take a GSAK .gpx export of your finds. It relies solely on the MyFinds pocket query to get its data. I was able to quickly mark my FTF's and even declare a couple of "favorite" caches. The example below is a slightly condensed view of the results that is displayed in an iframe because of limitations with Blogger.com's handling of HTML tables.

Tags:
Geocaching
Software
Resources

Caching in the BBQ Capital of Texas

2006-07-18T11:21:00.000-06:00

Each year, in the heat of the summer, my in-laws flock from all around the country to the small Texas town of Lockhart to visit the rest of their central-Texas family. On our trip to Lockhart this year, I thought I would honor that yearly tradition with a couple of new geocaches and by finding the ones already there.

Last year, Lockhart had only one geocache located in Lockhart State Park about 10 miles outside of town, but none actually in the town itself. However, over the past several months, a few Lockhart-area geocachers have hidden 14 geocaches inside the town itself and a few in nearby communities. Of these, I was able to successfully find 13. I'm fairly certain that the last one, Lockhart Series #2, is actually missing since there weren't very many potential hiding places and they were all empty.

Since Lockhart is just a couple of hours from home, I thought this would also be a great place for a couple of hides. The small town of Lockhart, TX is typically known for only one thing - BBQ. In fact, it is home to three of the Texas Monthly magazine's Top 50 BBQ Restaurants and has been called the "Barbeque Capital of Texas." However, Lockhart is also the birthplace of the fictional character Americus from the Natalie Portman movie "Where the Heart Is." Although the movie was set somewhere in Oklahoma, it was actually filmed throughout Central Texas in Lockhart, Austin, and at Baylor University in Waco.

The movie starts with a pregnant Novalee Nation (Natalie Portman) being abandoned by her boyfriend at a small-town Wal-Mart. After accidentally being locked in the Wal-Mart overnight, she decides to camp out in the store for the next few months until she finally gives birth one night in the store to her daughter, Americus. When she is discovered, the media frenzy that followed dubbed Americus, "The Wal-Mart Baby." My new cache, Birthplace of Americus, is located very near this famous movie set location.

Yes, Sonny, it IS a Wal-Mart LPC!!! But, it is there for movie history reasons only. :)

The second cache hide, Plum Creek Reunion, is located near the Plum Creek Inn where my family reunions are held each year. This particular spot in Lockhart is also a great location to watch the single engine planes take-off and land at the Lockhart airport just a field away. The airport isn't a commercial airport at all, just a landing strip in the middle of a field for crop-dusters, flight students, and other small aircraft. There was even an old bi-plane there while we were at the site during this year's reunion!

Tags:
Geocaching
Adventures

Geocaching Stats Bar Changes

2006-07-14T12:25:00.000-06:00

For anyone who uses the Geocaching.com stats bars on a webpage, forum signature or anywhere else, you will need to update your signature code. Groundspeak moved all images to a new server and the web is littered with thousands of broken stats bar images.

EDIT: Nevermind most of this post. Raine, a Groundlackey, just fixed the server so that either the old WWW or the new IMG server name will work. However, if you want to update your page to the new server anyway, you may continue reading the rest of this post.

Luckily, it is a quick and easy fix. All you have to do is change the "www" to "img" in the IMG tag of your HTML code. That typically is the tag that looks like "<img src= . . . ." However, be sure NOT to change the tag that looks like "<a href= . . ." or the link back to your profile will be broken.

For example, find the line that looks like this:
<img src="http://www.geocaching.com/stats/img.aspx?txt=&uid=4322750f-a3d6-4ee9-8ba6-c71b8da22675">

and change it to look like this (use your own UID code of course):
<img src="http://img.geocaching.com/stats/img.aspx?txt=&uid=4322750f-a3d6-4ee9-8ba6-c71b8da22675">

Also, if you've never created your own stats bar for a webpage before, you can generate one with the correct code changes at http://www.geocaching.com/my/statbar.aspx.

Tags:
Geocaching
Website

Cheap Signature Cards

2006-07-12T14:29:00.000-06:00

Several geocachers that I've met have created personalized business cards to use as signature items or "found-it" cards that are left in caches. Most of the ones that I've seen are homemade from color printers and tear-out cards, but some like the promotional ones from PodCacher.com are professionally printed.

If you've considered having some professionally printed cards, but didn't like the high cost associated with that, you might want to check out a company called Vistaprint. For the cost of postage (about $5) Vistaprint will send you 250 color business cards. The catch? Their choices of stock designs are fairly plain, and there's an advertising line on the back of each card declaring free business cards at Vistaprint.com. You are also forced to click through several pages of expensive add-ons that they encourage you to buy before being allowed to check-out of their online store with a set of free cards. I finally choose a design and ordered them with the cheapest shipping option, so I'll let you know how they turn out (in about a month or so).

Below are some examples of their business card templates and how they might look as a geocaching signature card.

Tags:
Geocaching
Swag

Stats and Rankings

2006-06-30T12:29:00.000-06:00

Stats! Huh-yeah.
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing.
Uh-huh!

Many geocachers that I've met in person or online are absolutely obsessed with stats. You may even be one of them. If so, this post is for you!

Part of any great sport or game is the element of competition. Geocaching is no different! Well, almost no different. Geocaching is a little different because there are so many unregulated variables that make a true comparison virtually impossible. There are at least 5 different cache listing services - each with their own rules or guidelines. There are also so many different views of what makes a "good" hide or a "true" find.

Does a group hunt count for individual finds?
Does a find count if you've had to call or ask for help?
Are harder hides worth more than easier ones?
Should a foreign cache logged at a local event be allowed?
Can a find still be logged on disabled caches?

Personally, I think this short paragraph from a May 2005 article by Chuck Williams in LowCountry Weekly called "An Insider's Look at the Geocaching Controversy" sums this up the best.

In geocaching, everyone who seeks a geocache is a winner, whether they find the actual geocache container or not. The real thrills are the search and the locations, not the random key chains, Mickey D toys and other trinkets that fill a geocache container. The real nugget that the geocacher seeks is the logbook to sign and prove that s/he has really been there and found that. The scorecard is a personal one.

For me, the real thrill of geocaching is the hunt without all of the stats involved. But with that in mind, there are still several sites on the Internet dedicated solely to tracking stats and ranking geocachers based on their total number of hides, finds, and hide-to-find ratio. Even I'll confess to browsing these from time to time to see where I fit in the grand scheme of geocaching. These are two of the main national Geocacher Ranking sites.

KeenPeople.com Stats - This site allows geocachers to register themselves and record their own statistics from any listing service which are then used for the overall or state-wide rankings. Geocachers are allowed to enter how many of each type of cache they have found and hidden. Cachers can also record many other details like how many other Geocachers they've met, how many travel bugs they have found or released, how many times they have CITO'd a cache site, how many times they were FTF, or how many states they've cached.
Grand High Pobah - This site automatically grabs geocaching statistics from a select number of "high profile" Geocaching.com geocaches from each country and state. It only tracks the number of hides and finds from each cacher, but since it does it automatically, the stats are much more accurate and up-to-date than the other ranking sites. Unfortunately, this site only displays cachers with over 200 finds and cachers must have found one of the "high profile" geocaches in their state in order to appear in the rankings.

Tags:
Geocaching
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Request for Prayer

2006-06-16T16:04:00.000-06:00

I would like to request from any and all of you who pray, please say a prayer for me. Monday morning, I will be undergoing a collection of 4 relatively minor surgeries. Even though they are all minor individually, having all four at once is likely going to create a long, hard, and painful road to recovery over the next three or four weeks. I won't be doing any geocaching, but I will still try to get an informational article or two posted during this time as I feel up to it. Please pray that the surgery goes well and that my recovery is as quick and pain-free as possible.

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Personal

WiFi Caching Map - Revisited

2006-06-12T15:49:00.000-06:00

Just over one year ago, I posted an article titled "WiFi Caching Map" that gave instructions on how to use your GPS receiver attached to a laptop computer running NetStumbler and a program called JiGLE to create a visual map of the various WiFi hotspots in your local area. The map from that original post looked like the one below. The results are decent and it is a fairly easy way to quickly see WiFi coverage in an area.

However, since my discovery of GPS Visualizer that I mentioned last week, I thought it would be a good idea to go wardriving once again and try out a new tool like GPS Visualizer. The instructions are basically the same as the previous tutorial, but instead of loading your file in JiGLE, you simply upload your file to GPS Visualizer and let it do all the work for you. GPS Visualizer uses your recorded NetStumbler coordinates and the signal strength of the detected wireless networks to map the approximate location of the source of the wireless access points that were detected. To create a map like this one on a Windows XP computer, follow these steps:

Download and install NetStumbler from http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads/.
Connect your GPS to your laptop with a data cable and configure your GPS to send a NMEA compatible signal in your Interface Setup screen.
Start NetStumbler and begin driving through your neighborhood. Each time NetStumbler picks up a signal, it will show its listing on the main screen and generate an alert sound.
When you are finished with your drive, close NetStumbler and save the NS1 file it generates for you on your desktop.
Connect to the Internet and visit http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/map?form=wifi.
Choose your preferred output type (SVG, JPG, PNG, Google Map, Google Earth KMZ, or Yahoo! Flash) from the Output Format drop-down box.
It is not necessary to change any of the other options, but you can customize the results if you'd like.
Browse for and upload your saved NetStumbler NS1 file from the left side menu.
Click "Draw the Map" and view your results!

I've loaded several example images below to demonstrate the various types of output that GPS Visualizer can generate. These maps are all created from the same NetStumbler file in the same geographic area as the original JiGLE map above.

SVG Format with USGS Aerial photo

Google Street Map

Google Hybrid Map

Google Earth

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Wardriving
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GPS Visualizer Tutorial

2006-06-01T14:00:00.000-06:00

"GPS Visualizer is a free, easy-to-use online utility that creates maps and profiles from GPS data (tracks and waypoints), street addresses, or simple coordinates. Use it to see where you've been, plan where you're going, or visualize geographic data."

Out of all the geocaching-related mapping programs including the various Google Earth overlays, this simple online utility has by-far the most WOW factor. This short tutorial is designed to quickly help you take a simple GPX track file downloaded from your GPS to a fully interactive and color-coded map on Google Earth.

Begin by downloading your own GPX track file from your GPSr or by using my sample file, here.
Visit the GPS Visualizer Map page, http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/map.
Change the first drop down box called "Output format:" to Google Earth and allow the page to switch you to the specialized Google Earth form.
Change "Altitude mode:" to your preferred style. For my flight path example, I selected "Extruded."
Change "Colorize by:" to your preferred style. For my flight path example, I selected "Speed." All other options on this page are completely optional and do not need to be changed from the defaults.
In the right-hand column, click Browse and find your saved GPX track file.
Click "Create KML file" button and view your results!

Note: If you have an older computer and can not use Google Earth, you may still follow the general steps above except on Step 3, you may choose Google Maps or another image format. However, your result will be 2-dimensional instead of 3-D.

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How to Go Geocaching

2006-05-29T11:38:00.000-06:00

http://www.wikiHow.com is the newest site from the company that brought the world eHow.com. "wikiHow is a collaborative writing project aiming to build the world's largest how-to manual. Our mission is to provide free and useful instructions to help people solve the problems of everyday life."

wikiHow.com also contains one of the best over-all "How to Go Geocaching" guides that I've seen to date. But the best part is that since it is a wiki, it can get even better!

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Leave No Trace

2006-05-22T09:25:00.000-06:00

In keeping with last week's theme of environmental awareness, I thought I should also mention another great non-profit organization called Leave No Trace. The Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and inspiring responsible outdoor recreation through education, research and partnerships.

There are 7 principles of the Leave No Trace program:
(information obtained from http://www.scouting.org/boyscouts/resources/21-105)

Plan Ahead and Prepare
Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
Dispose of Waste Properly
Leave What You Find
Minimize Campfire Impacts
Respect Wildlife
Be Considerate of Other Visitors

An excellent article edited by Ken Braband was published online in April 2002 on the Wisconsin Geocaching Association website about this topic and how it relates to Geocachers simply entitled "Leave No Trace."

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Geocaching
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Tread Lightly: Responsible Geocaching

2006-05-19T11:56:00.000-06:00

After digging through the Groundspeak forums for more information about Tread Lightly, I came across a fairly short thread in which Jeremy Irish posted a link to a Tread Lightly guide that he helped author entitled "Responsible Geocaching". This article is in the same format as the other published Tread Lightly guides for responsible hiking, camping and boating which can all be found on the main treadlightly.org website. The organization has also formatted this guide into a really well designed PDF brochure that I highly recommend viewing.

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Geocachers Encouraged to Tread Lightly

2006-05-18T15:56:00.000-06:00

Article by Treadlightly.org

Marrying high-tech gadgets with rugged outdoor travel, geocaching has become one of the hottest new forms of recreation. But some are warning that its popularity will take a toll on the nation’s public land if not done responsibly.

In geocaching, participants use global positioning systems (GPS) to direct them to hidden treasures or “caches.” Caches are usually low-priced trinkets and are most often placed in backcountry settings. There are at least 250,000 caches hidden throughout the world on any given day.

“Unwanted tire tracks, damaged vegetation and disrupted wildlife can be harsh consequences of irresponsible geocaching,” said Patti Klein, National Stewardship Coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management. “We encourage geocachers to check with their local land manager for regulations and practice minimum impact behavior at all times.”

"Tread Lightly!," a nonprofit organization that educates people to recreate responsibly, recently released tips to help geocachers minimize their impact on the outdoors.

TIPS FOR RESPONSIBLE GEOCACHING
Check with local land managers to determine regulations before placing or searching for a cache. The National Park Service, for example, has strict geocaching regulations.
Keep vehicles on designated roads and trails.
Use the “track back” feature on your GPS unit rather than flagging and marking trails.
In addition to your GPS receiver, always carry extra batteries, a map, compass and know how to use them.
Practice the “lift, look, replace” technique. If you lift a rock to look under it, replace it exactly as you found it.
Following a trip, wash your gear to reduce the spread of invasive species.
Traditional geocaching is not appropriate in areas designated as Wilderness.

CACHE PLACERS
Avoid sensitive areas including cultural sites, wetlands, caves and steep slopes.
Avoid burying a cache in the ground.
It is the cache owner's responsibility to maintain the cache and the surrounding area. If the cache area becomes impacted, confer with the landowner on how you will mitigate the impacts, and seek their advice as to whether to relocate the cache.
Never place food items in a cache.

CACHE SEEKERS
Use maps to find a route that will minimize impact.
If you notice a path has started to wear in the vicinity of a cache, notify the cache owner via email.
When allowed to hike off designated trails, spread out in open country. One exception is in deserts, where hikers should travel in single file and try to walk on hardened surfaces such as slickrock, gravel or in sand washes.
After you’ve finished searching for a cache, the area should look as though you were never there or better than when you arrived.

"It is important for the worldwide geocaching community to tread lightly on the environment in order to maintain the natural beauty of our outdoor resources,” said Bryan Roth, Co-Founder and Vice President of geocaching.com, the web’s dominant geocaching site.

Geocaching.com also created a program called “Cache In, Trash Out” to help the sport make a positive impression on public land. Further information can be found on their website.

Additional tips for responsible geocaching are available on Tread Lightly!’s website at www.treadlightly.org or by calling 1-800-966-9900.

Tread Lightly!(R) is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower generations to enjoy the outdoors responsibly. Tread Lightly!’s strategic educational message, along with its training and restoration initiatives are designed to instill an ethic of responsibility in outdoor enthusiasts and the industries that serve them. The program is long-term in scope with a goal to balance the needs of the people who enjoy outdoor recreation with the needs of the environment.

CAPTION: JILL SCOTT, A GEOCACHER FROM OGDEN, UTAH, STUDIES HER GPS UNIT TO FIND A HIDDEN CACHE. GEOCACHERS ARE ASKED TO FOLLOW GUIDELINES TO HELP THEM MINIMIZE IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT AS THEY HIDE AND SEEK.

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DMOZ

2006-05-12T13:41:00.000-06:00

Have you ever browsed Google's directory for geocaching sites and been curious where these listings originate? Have you ever wondered why some websites get spidered by Google and others do not?

The answer to these questions is DMOZ Open Directory Project. "The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors."

Just recently, I've been selected as a volunteer editor for the category Recreation/Outdoors/Geocaching/Personal_and_Team_Pages. To help build this category, I have been adding and reviewing some of the geocaching blogs that I'm aware of and read, but I need your help. If you know of another good geocaching blog or geocaching-related personal web site, please let me know by suggesting it to the directory using the link below.

In addition, I will soon begin adding many more XML links to correspond with blog sites that provide RSS or ATOM feeds. If your site provides a valid XML link to your content, please suggest that URL as well.

Suggest a Site

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	Plan Ahead and Prepare
	Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces
	Dispose of Waste Properly
	Leave What You Find
	Minimize Campfire Impacts
	Respect Wildlife
	Be Considerate of Other Visitors