Continue reading »]]> Some people trade baseball or bubble gum cards, Shane Holmes collects examples featuring geocachers.

And as the creator of this new geo-craze and the owner of Facebook’s Geocache Trading Cards page, he’s hoping you might join in.

The American (GC handle: GeoLobo) came up with the idea in 2008, having spent two years trying to decide on a signature item that he could place in geocaches and trade with other players on the trail or at events.

“My first signature item was a GeoLobo plastic token,” he says. “These were fairly cheap to make, but didn’t have the WOW factor I was looking for. In 2007, my wife (GC handle: Bluegirl) and I created a geocoin. These turned out to be really expensive and because of the price, we were reluctant to place them in geocaches or hand them out for free.”

The following year, Holmes began toying with the idea of geo-cards and, after shopping around custom trading card vendors, realised these could be produced “fairly cheaply”. “The average price of creating cards was about US$100 for a quantity of 500. This seemed like a very reasonable price.”

He and Bluegirl, who hail from Long Lake, New Year – near the Adirondack Mountains – created their “first two professional, custom geocaching trading cards” in 2008 and have issued a new card every year since, giving them a total of seven.

Other geocachers subsequently jumped on the bandwagon, designing their own versions – most using a “template-style trading card (a card where everyone shares the same theme and background)”. Notable examples include those produced for the Going Coastal Mega, Louisiana Geocaching and more recently by FTF Geocacher magazine.

Despite having started his own geo-craze, Holmes isn’t content to rest on his laurels, deciding this year to produce a series of geocaching history cards. “I wanted the series to remain open for the future possibility of adding additional cards in the future and for filling in gaps in the timeline as I discover new significant historical events, places, people and things. The first 10 cards have been designed and I currently have had six cards printed.”

He’s also created a Facebook page for other geo-card fans to trade and show off their collections. “I am trying to spread the word on geocaching trading cards in the hopes that more people create cards in the future,” Holmes says.

“I know there are a lot of creative geocachers out there. As we all know from the history and progression of the geocoin, as well as from the various handmade signature items, people can come up with some magnificent pieces of art.”

In the second half of 2012, he has plans to develop a New York card – “much like the Louisiana Geocaching Legends card but with a New York State theme”. “I am hoping to get other New York geocachers to follow suit, make a card from the template and join in the fun of trading cards.”

WANT YOUR OWN GEO-TRADING CARD?

Creating a trading card is easy to do, says Holmes.

“Come up with an idea, pitch it to a vendor and ask for a quote. There are vendors who will help you with your graphic ideas if you can provide them with a good understanding of what you are looking for – and some won’t even charge you for the additional work.”

If you’re after a complex design, Holmes prefers to provide the graphic detail himself but always asks for the company’s advice or suggestions. “My personal trading card vendor that I use is Gavin at Custom-Trading Cards. He has never done me wrong, always has great creative advice to offer, is always willing to help me with graphics, and prints and delivers the cards fast.”

He recommends choosing cardstock that is water-resistant to prevent the cards becoming damaged inside a geocache.  “Trading cards from the right vendor come printed with a glossy water-resistant coating. This is not water-proofing but it will protect against moisture to a certain extent.”

Holmes has found that using “very inexpensive” plastic sleeves has dramatically increased the life of his cards in a cache, though he notes that even with this protection, cards should always be placed in a waterproof container that also has a ziplock-bagged logbook. 

“My personal trademark is to sign the logbook and place my trading card on the page of the logbook, close the logbook, place it back in the zip lockbag, and place the bag back in the waterproof container.”

*If you have your own geocacher trading card, It’s Not About The Numbers would love to see a copy.

Continue reading »]]>

An artist's impression of the CS Beta Team

The CacheSense Beta Team, who were hard at work making CacheSense even better, recently noted the mystery appearance of a ‘cactus’ attribute.

This little fella (see left) caused some confusion throughout the team as no one could find his prickly presence anywhere throughout the GC.com world.

The sudden appearance of this attribute was also noted by some other geo-folk, who discussed it further in the GC.com forums.

Oddly, the attribute could only be found when listing an event cache, although it was noted that a change in cache type didn’t remove the spiky sign.

However, J-Rish soon clarified the cactus confusion

The cactus hazard has been removed and the hazards have been re-added for event pages. Thanks for pointing this out. Unless people lobby for the cactus hazard to return we’ll leave that off the list.

Continue reading »]]>

BOOK REVIEW

Rainbow’s End: A Romancing America title from Barbour Books
by Valerie Comer, Annalisa Daughety, Nicole O’Dell and Cara C Putman
Paperback US$7.99/Kindle US$6.99 on Amazon

I’ve read more Mills & Boon-type love stories over the years than I care to admit but Barbour’s new title Rainbow’s End is the first to ever feature geocaching.

The latest release in its inspirational Romancing America series is billed as “a geocaching adventure in the spectacular wilderness” of Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks.

Inside, we meet Lyssa, “an enthusiastic church volunteer who can’t see past her own plans”; Madison, “a city girl paired with an outdoorsy guy who gets on her nerves”; Hadley, “who doesn’t know enough about guys to realise she’s met a womaniser”; and cautious Reagan, “who meets an equally cautious guy” before learning whether they will all  ”find the treasure they’re looking for … or something else entirely”.

Sounds a little corny, right? The four-part collection was also my first Christian romance, with each novella preaching messages of faith, loving oneself and trusting in God. Not exactly my cuppa but not totally unpalatable either.

Considering the lack of bodice-ripping – or anything raunchier than a kiss – among its 352 pages, I mistakenly presumed this was a young adult title.  But no, it’s actually targeted at clean-living American wives and mothers who don’t have much time to read.

Thanks to Barbour, they can get a quick fix of romance, religion and real-life settings (aka the three Rs) without having to keep track of a complicated plotline. And to those means, Rainbow’s End  is a success: I dipped in and out of my e-copy before bed, on the bus and while waiting at a cafe with relative ease.

But what you really want to hear about is the geocaching, I’m guessing. For the most part, it’s pretty accurate, though not a perfect depiction of our hobby – just as you’d expect from mostly muggle authors. Every character uses a basic GPSr, their cellphones are purely for talking on. Each cache has a stupid, “non-rhyming” poem as its clue; there are no hides mentioned except those placed by the church; and one ammo can is poorly secreted “in the darkness” under a picnic table.

Worst of all is Nicole O’Dell’s contribution, Welcome Home, Love, in which her heroine Hadley carries a shovel in her geokit for digging up buried caches and unexplainedly moves most of the containers after she’s found them.

It also seems odd that so many of the main characters are willing to up-sticks and relocate for a two month-long church-run geocaching contest but maybe that’s normal for an American summer.

I’m willing to overlook all those foibles, though, for some light fiction that features my favourite hobby without needing one or more dead bodies to boost its plotline. If Barbour prints a sequel, it can definitely count me among its readership.

SATELLITE RATING:

*Barbour Books is offering a free excerpt from Rainbow’s End here.

Continue reading »]]> By Fran Lovell, Land Information New Zealand

Scott Taylor-Beech – pictured above – may only be eight years old but he’s already a treasure-hunting expert who uses a handheld GPS receiver loaded with internet map data to track down prizes hidden all over New Zealand.

He and fellow enthusiast Jack Braddick, also 8, are teaching their year four classmates at Wellington’s Ngaio School about the internationally popular, hi-tech game called geocaching.

Teacher Adelle Broadmore says the school has added geocaching to its year four maths curriculum to help teach map, compass and co-ordinate skills using the classroom computers. They will have their own treasure hunt in the school grounds to find hidden caches sometime this term.

Scott and Jack – shown right describing a geocache to his classmates – are exceptional examples of a generation that has been growing up immersed in digital technology since they could place a finger on a keyboard, says Mike Judd of the New Zealand Geospatial Office, which is based at Land Information New Zealand (LINZ).

As Jack, a very reflective little boy, explains: “It improves what you see. It improves how you see.” He doesn’t just look at scenery these days, he analyses it for likely cache hiding places.

Mr Judd, below, was at Ngaio School on Thursday, May 10 to help the children use the maps on the LINZ website. The maps are interactive, allowing users to layer information – such as walking tracks -  on top of basic topographical maps.

Growing Up Digital is one of the themes of the international Digital Earth Summit being held in Wellington this September. Hosts LINZ and Wellington City Council launched the summit on Tuesday, May 8 to start raising public interest about how digital location-based information can help cities to better manage their resources.

*For more information, see Land Information New Zealand’s website. Photos by Marty Melville.

Continue reading »]]> It what seems to be an odd twist on the geocache/bomb relationship, a player near Neustadt Weinstraße in Germany has stumbled upon what appears to be a bomb.

After posting the photo in imgur.com earlier today, the comments have been running hot in the associated reddit thread. Reddit user eodtech1 noted:

“Looks to be a GP ‘Old Style’ bomb. Any chance that area was used as a range at some point? I’ll blame it on the contractors responsible for clearance of reclaimed property. Haha.

Seriously though, don’t touch it. Don’t go near it. I’d also recommend avoiding that area on future geocaching operations. A lot more nasty stuff can easily be underfoot without you realising it. UXO [Un-eXploded Ordinance] is a bitch.”

And it would seem eodtech1 is probably right – searching “GP ‘Old Style’ Bomb” in Google produces a range of information, including the below image. Note the similarity in the tail section to the photo above.

Whilst many commenters have made light of the situation, just as many have expressed how important it is that this find be dealt with promptly. The geocacher has since contacted the local police and provided them with the device’s co-ordinates and location.

*Do you know any more about this explosive find? Let us know in the comments below.

Continue reading »]]> Two Austrian brothers found two human skulls while geocaching in their hometown of Linz last week.

The siblings, aged 23 and 26, stumbled upon the remains while searching below Franz-Josef Warte, an historic tower which overlooks the Danube River, as well as the districts of Urfahr and Pöstlingberg.

Their gruesome discovery occurred in an alcove on that Frienberg mountainside in Austria’s third largest city, according to media outlet Orf.

Investigators say the skulls belonged to a man and woman who died between 60 to 100 years ago. There was no evidence of the pair suffering violent deaths; however, Linz City officials have confirmed the location was formerly the site of an 18th-century gallows.

The remains were recovered by state police, who are now trying to determine how the victims got there and what was responsible for their deaths.

Continue reading »]]> UPDATE: NZ MEGA 2012

A trip Down Under for New Zealand’s first Mega may leave an indelible impression on Groundspeak’s Jeremy Irish.

The company founder (GC handle: Jeremy) told It’s Not About The Numbers that he is considering getting a Maori tattoo when he visits the South Island city of Dunedin in October.

Maori tattoos – with their thick, black spirals and curved shapes – have been called one of the world’s most distinctive forms of body art. These intricate (and often sacred) tribal designs originated with the indigenous people of New Zealand; providing both a rite of passage for the wearer and a symbol of their social status.

Traditionally, ta moko was carved into the skin using uhi (chisels), rather than punctured by a needle; however, today it is more likely to be applied with a tattoo gun – which is good news for Irish.

Not that he would be the only ‘celebrity’ to sport a Maori tattoo after visiting our shores: popstar Robbie Williams, boxer Mike Tyson and singer-songwriter Ben Harper all boost their own NZ-inspired designs.

Thankfully, Irish will have his wife and three kids, as well as workmate Bryan Roth, there to hold his hand if he does get inked while attending the three-day Labour Weekend gathering.

This will be his family’s second geocaching vacation of 2012, he says.  “Every year I try to pick at least one event to take my entire family, so this year we decided to take two trips. The first event will be the UK Mega (GC2X1TM) that I have attended over the last two years, and the second trip is the New Zealand Mega in October. I have three children who are six, three and my youngest will be two by the time we make the event.”

Irish, who posted his ‘Will Attend’ log for GC35TTR back on January 20th, says he’s never had the fortune of visiting Godzone; “the farthest I have travelled is to Korea when I was in the [United States] Air Force”. “Most of what I know about it comes from the Flying Conchords, Sir Edmund Hillary and the Lord Of The Rings movies, so I’m looking forward to visiting and exploring the real New Zealand … If anyone can recommend a good tattoo artist, let me know. ”

Despite the above illustration, It’s Not About The Numbers is confident Irish isn’t planning a facial moko nor that he wants to be inked using traditional methods but it’s probably a safe bet that afterwards he’ll claim Geocaching.com’s special icon for travel bug tattoos.

*If you have any ideas as to what tattoo design Jeremy Irish should choose or which South Island tattoo parlour he should frequent, tell us below.