Check out the PodCacher GW13 Experience Bundle!

AIG: Check out the PodCacher GW13 Experience Bundle!

2012 Podcast Awards

AIG: 2012 Podcast Awards

I'm a huge fan of the PodCacher podcast, and I have been a long-time listener of their show since the beginning (haven't missed a show).  In fact, an article I wrote on this blog was even featured way back in Show 33: Geocaching Software in January 2006. 

Today, in addition to singing the praises of Sonny and Sandy, I'd like to pass along a request to help them.  Every year or so, Sonny and Sandy get nominated for the annual Podcast Awards, and now is time to nominate them again for the 2012 Podcast Awards.

Here is what you need to do:

• Go to the Podcast Awards nomination website: http://www.podcastawards.com. 
• We are asking you to nominate PodCacher in both of the following categories: Best Produced and Technology.
• For each of these categories, enter the requested information:
• Podcast Name: PodCacher
• Podcast URL: http://www.podcacher.com  
• At the bottom of the page, enter your name and email address, then click SUBMIT.

PLEASE NOTE: If you enter PodCacher in more than these 2 categories, your nomination will NOT count!!

Each person can only submit one nomination, but you can ask your geocaching friends (or anyone with an email address) to help out.

The nominations must be submitted by October 15, 2012!

PodCacher Show 381.0: Travelers’ Tales

AIG: PodCacher Show 381.0: Travelers’ Tales

In my last post, I shared my story about geocaching while on an Alaskan cruise earlier this year.  I also shared that story with S³ from the Podcacher podcast - a podcast all about geocaching.  While catching up on a short backlog of Podcacher episodes, I listened to Show 381.0: Travelers' Tales and heard my story! 

Check out the Podcacher podcast yourself and consider becoming a supporting member to receive access to premium, members-only shows.

Cruise Caching

AIG: Cruise Caching

As I mentioned in my previous posts, I recently returned from a very enjoyable Alaskan cruise.  One of the best things about cruising is going to bed in one city/state/country and waking up the next morning in another or on your way to another.  For geocachers, that means finding a cache in one place, going to sleep, and finding another cache somewhere else the next day - a great way to collect finds in multiple cities, states, or countries without having to spend hours upon hours driving.

Another fun thing about cruise caching is seeing other cruise cachers from all over the world who have found the same geocache that you just found - often within a few hundred feet of the dock.  Occasionally, you'll even find geocachers from your local region who have signed the log before you.  On my recent trip, that is exactly what happened. 

While visiting Victoria, British Columbia, Canada on our cruise, I saw a geocache called Jaiden's Cache (GC23RBJ) just 300 feet from the bow of our ship.  Instead of finding it immediately after leaving the ship with the large mob of people around, I decided to wait to find it later in the evening right before I got back on-board the ship.  By that time, it was already dark, but it didn't stop my search for pathtags or other small signature items.  I struck out on pathtags in every cache I found, but I did find a nice wooden nickel here.  It was dark enough that I didn't really pay attention to whose it was or what was on it; I just dropped in one of my wooden nickels and a few extra pathtags and grabbed it out of the cache.  When I could finally get it into the light, I noticed it was from Mrs. Captain Picard - a local geocacher in Texas. 

I thought it was kinda funny that I picked up a signature item from a local cacher over 2,000 miles away in a foreign county, so I sent her a quick email to tell her about it, but apparently it isn't that uncommon!

Mrs. Captain Picard:  "We dropped that wooden nickel personally a couple of weeks ago while we were on OUR cruise!  A couple of ports behind us?  HiDude_98!  On our SAME SHIP - Normasgirl from East Texas, but we didn't know it until we started logging and saw hers.  WOW!"

Volcano Caching

AIG: Volcano Caching

My oldest daughter has a strong fascination with and deep interest in volcanoes.  In fact, when she was finally old enough to have her own Geocaching name instead of what I used to call her (Geo-Baby) she chose the name LavaRocks - though we haven't been diligent in logging all of her finds online.  Needless to say, she has always expressed interest in visiting an active volcano.  Ideally, she'd like to see an actively erupting volcano in Hawaii, but this time she'd have to settle for somewhat quieter active volcanoes in Washington - Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens. 

Before our recent cruise, we spent a few extra days in and around Seattle, WA.  On one of those days, we made a road trip south towards Portland, Oregon and spent the day visiting Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens.  There were two Earth Caches that I really wanted to find while visiting:

      Narada Falls at Mount Rainier
      Mount St. Helen's Earthcache at Mount St. Helens

At a summit elevation of 14,411 ft, the clouds were so thick around Mount Rainier that we couldn't even see the top of the mountain.  Apparently the peak is only seen approximately 100 days each year.  Regardless, we had a great time exploring Mount Rainier National Park, learning about the volcano, viewing the glacial waterfalls, playing in the snow high up the mountain, and hiking on just a few of the many trails.  The forest, rivers, and numerous waterfalls around Mount Rainier make it one of the most beautiful natural places I've ever been.  It is a surreal experience watching your children play on the slopes of what is considered to be one of the most dangerous stratovolcanoes in the world! 

Further south, Mount St. Helens is a totally different experience.  Although most of the area surrounding the mountain has recovered well in the last 30 years, the area directly across from the 1980 blast is still very much a barren wasteland. Huge trees are still seen lodged horizontally in the mountainside from when they were blasted across the valley from the eruption, and the entire area is covered in a fine, gray, ash powder (as is easily seen in the aerial Google Maps photograph).  The area directly across from the eruption is now home to the Johnston Ridge Observatory which was named in honor of U.S. Geological Survey volcanologist David A. Johnston who was on duty at the USGS, Coldwater II observation post during the May 18, 1980, eruption.  This is where we spent most of our time during our visit to Mount St. Helens touring the exhibit and watching the seismometers record real-time seismic activity from this active volcano.

---

UPDATE: My thoughts and prayers go out to the four injured climbers from my town recently injured in a tragic accident last week on Mount Rainier and to the family of the park ranger who died while rescuing them.
http://www.kcentv.com/story/18854896/four-central-texas-climbers-injured-on-mount-rainier

Geocaching at Groundspeak HQ

AIG: Geocaching at Groundspeak HQ

This month, I had the opportunity to go on an Alaskan cruise that left out of Seattle, WA. Needless to say, when a geocacher is in Seattle, there is at least one place that you simply MUST go - Groundspeak Headquarters.  I made an appointment several months in advance with Lackey Sara via email and was given the not-terribly-secret coordinates (and the street address just in case).

Upon arriving at the third-floor office, the first thing you notice is the gigantic treasure chest staring at your from across the room.  I've found some very large caches before, but this was by far the largest one yet.  I wanted to look around first, but my two girls were so mesmerized that they just made a bee-line straight for the treasure chest.  To my surprise, it was amazingly well organized - a box for U.S. destined travel bugs, a box for foreign country destined travel bugs, and a box for tradable geocoins.  The rest of the treasure chest was full of other unusual items like a full-size, trackable Darth Vader mask and a giant wooden Groundspeak Signal HQ Geocoin.  I had expected to find numerous pathtags in the treasure chest too, but sadly this was not the case.  In fact, I brought around 30 pathtags (most donated by the lovely caching couple DE_Cryptoman and Entwined55) and left about half of them in the cache anyway.

Another perk of visiting Groundspeak HQ is the chance to meet and visit with some Groundspeak Lackeys.  On this visit, I had the pleasure to meet a geocaching legend and Groundspeak Lackey, Moun10Bike.  In the rare event that you haven't heard of him, Moun10Bike is a not only a charter member of Geocaching.com, he is also the father of geocoins and designed the very first trackable geocoin.  If you want to follow him, he is very active on Twitter, @moun10bike.  To help commemorate my visit, I was given one of the nice Lackey X-ing travel tags and a Moun10Bike travel tag.

The office area itself was off-limits since most of the Groundspeak Lackeys were still hard at work.  However, the lobby/foyer area is still pretty cool.  They have two large, flat-panel displays showing geocaching photos and logs in real-time on an interactive world map.  They also have a small store display where they sell hats, t-shirts, travel bugs, travel tags, water bottles, etc.  Recently, they added a photo booth too, but I didn't have time to get my picture made during this short visit.  Finally, the entire lobby area looked like an elegant cross between a high-tech computer firm and an outdoor adventure center - probably exactly the look they were going for!

Thanks, Groundspeak, for a nice afternoon visit!

---

Geocaching Pen Follow-up

AIG: Geocaching Pen Follow-up

Last night, the True Utility Telepen Telescopic Pen I ordered from Amazon arrived.  Naturally, I had the box open before I was even in the front door.  It is perfect!  Although it took me a few moments to figure out that there was no release mechanism for the pen from the cap -- just really tight friction -- it was exactly as I had hoped.  The collapsed length is just a little longer than traditional house keys and just a little shorter than traditional car keys.

Whenever I drive to a geocache now, I am guaranteed to have a pen with me!!!

Another exciting thing related to this pen was being mentioned on two fantastic podcasts.  If you aren't already a listener to the new Cache-A-Maniacs podcast network and the fantastic PodCacher podcast, you should be!  Both of these geocaching podcasts are regulars for me and feature the best news and information from the world of geocaching.  These are the two episodes that mention me sharing information about this pen:

   GeoGearHeads Beta.16: Hosting Geocaching 101s II

   Podcacher Show 368.0: An Unexpected Find

Geocaching Pen

AIG: Geocaching Pen

I generally don't post many product links on this website, but sometimes I find a particular product that just blows my mind on its usefulness. Normally, I wouldn't put a pen in this category, but I've had too many experiences lately where I happen to find a cache while out-and-about without a pen handy to sign the log. In fact, this weekend, I resorted to scratching my name in a log with a muddy toothpick because I found a cache while out of town and didn't have a pen with me in the car.

This pen is a tiny, telescoping pen that attaches to your keyring or other keychain. With this, if I drive to a cache, I'm guaranteed to have my pen with me!

True Utility Telescopic Pen on Amazon.com

RIP txoilgas

AIG: RIP txoilgas

On January 28, a local caching legend, Alan Stricklin (a.k.a. txoilgas) passed away during a caching trip in Oklahoma. I first met Alan when he became a geocaching legend by becoming the first geocacher to complete my Texas County Challenge cache after having found or hidden a geocache in all 254 counties in the State of Texas! Alan, may you rest in peace (or begin creating a Heaven County Challenge for the rest of us).

If you have special geocaching memories of Alan, please feel free to share them with the rest of us in the comments below.

Festivus: Geocaching for the Rest of Us

AIG: Festivus: Geocaching for the Rest of Us

It was exactly 14 years ago this week when Frank Costanza proudly announced that he created a new, fictional holiday called Festivus. Although Festivus is a fictional holiday, the celebration of Festivus has a very well defined set of events beginning with the "Airing of Grievances."

This usually brings participants into a circle of sorts in which each takes turns excoriating friends, enemies, relatives, acquaintances and strangers. When all who care to have taken a turn griping, there is no required hugging or making up. - http://festivusbook.com/airingofgrievances

In the spirit of Festivus, please allow me to share some of my grievances related to Geocaching.

1. Inappropriate sharing of personal information 
2. Geocaching's status as a sport
3. Overzealous geocachers (and people who take geocaching way too seriously)
4. Rules-vs-guidelines (and reviewers that don't seem to know the difference)
5. Know-it-all geocachers (and people that just like to fight a lot)
6. Micros in the woods
7. Bad coordinates 
8. Reckless disregard for personal property or the environment
9. Jeep and traveling coin collectors
10. Poison Ivy!

Tag Updates

AIG: Tag Updates

My apologies if your email or RSS subscriptions have been flooded with updates today.  Ever since I changed this site over to the newer style Blogger template that includes labels, I haven't gone through to update all of my old posts until today.  All of my posts should now be properly tagged with the Blogger labels.

PEA Contest

AIG: PEA Contest

Before I give you the information I'm supposed to pass along, I wanted to explain what this is all about first. I've been a long-time listen to the Podcacher podcast. Recently, they started a faux-secret-organization called the PEA (Podcacher Endorsement Army). Those that join are able to compete for prizes (including a special PEA pathtag) by spreading the word about the Podcacher podcast. The contest started several weeks ago and ends in 9 days, but I was behind in listening and just joined yesterday. If I'm going to have any sort of chance to win, I need your help! All I need is for you to visit http://podcacher.com/, then visit http://podcacher.com/mission1 and fill out the short form (your caching name & my caching name - M-T-P). Oh, and the best part, you are eligible to win prizes too just for helping me out! Thanks for your help! (Now for the message that I'm supposed to send out in the words I was provided.)

Hi, my caching name is M-T-P and I'm on a special covert mission. You can help me accomplish my target objectives by doing the following 1) Go to PodCacher.com and listen to some shows packed with geocaching goodness. 2) Then go to PodCacher.com/mission1 and fill out the short affidavit testifying to your collaboration as part of my strike team. NOTE: Your confirmed participation gives you the chance to win some super swagalicious goodies and it also advances my ranking among the operatives. The deadline for completion is midnight June 19, 2011 Make sure to listen to an upcoming show to see if you won. Once you have accomplished these mission objectives, please destroy all evidence and eat these instructions.

R U NUTS???

AIG: R U NUTS???

Many years ago, when I first learned about geocaching, I was driving through my neighborhood when I saw a very interesting little, metal footbridge. When I saw it, I thought to myself - "Self, this spot is the perfect spot for an urban geocache." Later that day, I went home to my computer and looked online. Low and behold, there *was* a geocache at this spot. That cache became my first geocache find!

That cache was "R U NUTS??? (UMM #7)" placed by TheGeoGoes on May 3, 2004. TheGeoGoes were prominent geocachers in the Waco area from 2003-2006 and placed numerous well-loved hides. Unfortunately, they seem to have taken an extended break from geocaching for the past several years and only surface every year or two for about a month. The cache itself was a small magnetic hide-a-key container painted to match the bridge and was surprisingly difficult to locate under the bridge. The name was always somewhat funny (and maybe a little tacky too) because this bridge is on a public path near a row of hospitals and doctors' offices, but most closely in front of a local psychiatric hospital.

Last month, TheGeoGoes finally decided to archive this cache and several other geocaches despite the container still being there and found fairly often. So in honor of that cache by TheGeoGoes and to celebrate my first find, I placed a new, identical geocache designed to finally answer the question asked by their original geocache so many years ago - I M NUTS!!!

Introducing the New Geocaching.com Website

AIG: Introducing the New Geocaching.com Website

Groundspeak recently announced that they are going to completely redo the geocaching.com website.  To see a preview of what is coming on May 4th, view this short clip released by Groundspeak.

M-T-P Pathtag

AIG: M-T-P Pathtag

I've noticed in my most recent comeback to geocaching that pathtags have finally made their way into central Texas. It is certainly possible that they've been around this area for quite a while, but I never really saw them before except for in the north Texas area where I picked up two pathtags created by TXOILGAS and Muddy Buddies at an event. In one of my recent cache finds, I discovered two other pathtags from two central Texas cachers - Entwined55 and Nip-N-Tuck.

I had been considering the possibility of creating a signature pathtag for several months, but after I saw cmiked's new Twitter icon of his pathtag, I knew it was finally time for an M-T-P pathtag.  After many weeks of design tweaks and blueprint modifications, I am pleased to announce that I approved my blueprint and production of my first pathtag has begun!

EarthCache Master

AIG: EarthCache Master

When I first began Geocaching in 2004 and throughout 2005, EarthCaches were extremely rare in Texas.  In fact, until December 2006, there were only three EarthCaches within a 200 mile radius of my home caching territory - the closest of those being almost 70 miles away.  Because of this, I have always viewed EarthCaches as somewhat of a rarity and something really special to be found.  It wasn't until October 2007 that I found my first EarthCache - Canyon Falls of McCormick's Creek (GC16PX4) in Indiana.

Last week, I found two more EarthCaches - just enough to qualify to become an "EarthCache Master" at the bronze level.  One of these EarthCaches was the one around 70 miles away from my home territory - Dinosaur Valley Earthcache (GCQMHY) in Dinosaur Valley State Park, TX.  If you've ever wanted to step inside *real* dinosaur footprints still in their natural state, this is the place to go!  The other cache was around 180 miles away - Wichita River (GC1PN9J) in Wichita Falls, TX. 

There are many other EarthCaches closer to my home territory now.  In fact, there are 73 EarthCaches within the same 200 mile radius at the time I wrote this post with some created as recently as last month.

So what exactly are EarthCaches?

EarthCaching is an Earth science/geography-based educational activity that draws from the ever-increasing use of GPS receivers and the growing popularity of geocaching. Educators and others realize that Earth itself offers its own treasures to uncover and endless opportunities for exploration, discovery, and learning. EarthCache sites, then, are “virtual” caches that provide the visitor who finds them with new knowledge or insights about the location itself - an “educational treasure” which is arguably more valuable than a trinket anyway!

Instead of leaving or taking anything from the site, visitors are asked to follow the EarthCache notes, make and record observations while at the site, and then log their visit on the EarthCache web site by reporting what they learned. Like geocaches, EarthCaches are developed by people all over the world. However, because they are meant to be educational, all EarthCache sites that are posted on the EarthCache web site must provide some scientific information about the site. All EarthCache locations that are submitted for posting are subject to approval and oversight by the Geological Society of America (GSA).
http://rock.geosociety.org/Earthcache/WebBook/EarthCaching_EducatorsGuide.pdf

If you are interested in EarthCaches, I recommend that you begin by visiting the http://earthcache.org/ website to learn more about this cache type and then search for EarthCaches near you on the http://geocaching.com/ website.  Once you find at least three EarthCaches in at least two states/countries, you too can qualify to become an EarthCache Master.

FTF Hunts

AIG: FTF Hunts

Image from http://landsharkz.ca/

One of the things that I really enjoy about geocaching is the thrill of being FTF - First To Find.  This special honor comes from being the first geocacher to find a newly published geocache, and is usually accompanied by a little Jig known as the FTF Dance - a slightly longer and more vigorous version of the normal Geocaching Happy Dance.

Over the years, I've been FTF on just over two-dozen caches.  In fact, my only traditional cache find in 2010 was an FTF on a monstrously difficult puzzle cache that stayed unfound for well over two years - GC18N56.  A couple of weeks ago, I saw another cache published about 20 miles from home and decided to be FTF on that one too since it was still unfound after several days.

However, neither of these recent FTF's were really true FTF hunts.  Don't get me wrong, I was the first finder on both geocaches and signed a clean log book, but both caches were published online for several days (or years in the first example) before being found.  This usually happens with out-of-town geocaches and difficult puzzles.

A true FTF hunt is different.  A true FTF hunt usually occurs when a new geocache is published in the middle of a safe, suburban area and is sought after by numerous geocachers within hours of being published.  True FTF hunters often have email and SMS alerts notifying them of such caches and are often ready to be FTF anytime day-or-night. 

Although I don't have email or SMS alerts notifying me of new caches, I decided to go on one of these FTF hunts anyway last week.  The cache was published in the early evening hours and was just 2 miles away in a very safe and easily accessible residential area.  I knew when I saw the cache listed on the website that it would be popular that night, but I didn't realize exactly how popular until I checked Twitter and signed the geocache log as STF. 

This is the Twitter dialog from that night.  Both of the first two messages were posted at almost exactly the same time -  9:17pm.  The last message was posted at 9:35pm. 

Blog Fade, Cache Fade, and Resurrection - Part 3

AIG: Blog Fade, Cache Fade, and Resurrection - Part 3

In the final part of this "blog fade" series of posts, I want to share with you about an exciting new service that I've integrated into the individual posts of this site - Readability.  A few weeks ago - on January 29, 2011 to be exact - the team at Arc90 released the new version of the Readability service.  Previously, Readability was a little browser bookmarklet that stripped away all the cruft from a website leaving just the text behind - almost like a print-preview if you will.  Now, the service from Readability does that and so much more!

From their website (https://www.readability.com/learn-more/):

Read comfortably — anytime, anywhere.

Readability turns any web page into a comfortable reading view right in your web browser. Too busy to read right then and there? Readability makes it simple to save your favorite articles for reading later.

Readability works on all major phones and tablets. It detects your device and optimizes your reading view for maximum comfort.

As a Readability subscriber, you’ll be a part of something bigger: a sustainable publishing ecosystem. Here’s how it works: every time you use Readability on a particular article, a portion of your subscription fees go right to the content creators. You get a fantastic reading experience. Publishers and writers get compensated for the content you enjoy. Everyone reads happily ever after.

Arc90 is also working with Marco Arment (founder of one of my favorite web services - Instapaper) to create a Readability app for iOS devices.  In addition to creating the app, Marco is an advisor for Arc90 about the Readability service so you know it will be good.  You can read Marco's blog post about his involvement with Readability here, http://www.marco.org/3044068415.

In order to make it easy for you to use Readability, I've discretely added the Readability button underneath the post header for all individual posts and pages.  Since Readability isn't designed to work on main collection pages, the main page of this blog will not contain Readability links.  So if you want to try out Readability, click on the the title of any blog post to visit that individual article.  Then simply click on "Read: Now" to see that article optimized for your reading pleasure by Readability.  If you like it, consider joining to support future development of the service and to support content creators - including me!

Blog Fade, Cache Fade, and Resurrection - Part 2

AIG: Blog Fade, Cache Fade, and Resurrection - Part 2

In the time since my first post in 2005, blogging technology has changed dramatically, so it was time that this site change as well.  In part two of this post, I want to briefly share what is new and different on this site before I return you to your regular geocaching programming. 

For those who might not know or remember what this site looked like before - and I'm not so vain to assume that you do - this site used a somewhat customized version of the Rounders 3 template provided in the old template library in pre-2008 Blogger.  

The old blue/green/tan template worked well for a number of years.  But it was not widget-based, so any customizations including side-bar changes required direct editing of the main template file itself.  To work around this limitation, I used multiple embedded JSON feeds from delicious.com (del.icio.us back then) to display both the popular posts list, tag-based categories, and the other blogroll-type lists on the page.  At the time, this was a fairly unique use of social bookmarking.  Now, it is just old and kludgy.

The new site uses a version of the Picture Window theme built from the Blogger Theme Designer that was customized slightly for my personal use.  It is widget-based and allows me to reorganize and rearrange the sections of this blog simply by dragging-and-dropping.  It uses Blogger's built-in (powered by Google) search, popular posts lists, list of followers, and category labels.

The old site contained Google Adwords at the top of each and every post.  The new site doesn't.  I still use Google Adwords, but never within the posts themselves.  They are limited to the small gap between posts and only appear after every 3rd post.

I also changed the manually-coded sharing/subscribe section to use a customized widget from http://www.addthis.com/.  This new "Bookmark and Share" section displays popular sharing/bookmarking options that are unique to each visitor based on the sites and services that each visitor has used recently.  All visitors will see the Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instapaper, and Evernote buttons [my personal fave five], but the rest could differ for each visitor.  For example, if visitor "A" normally shares links on Digg, that button will appear higher in the list.  If visitor "B" normally shares links on Tumblr, that button will appear higher in the list.  If visitor "C" normally bookmarks links on Diigo, that button will appear higher in the list.  Altogether there are over 300 various bookmarking and sharing services available to users that can be accessed under the last AddThis button.  So regardless of where you like to share or bookmark links, you can now do so quickly and easily!

Blog Fade, Cache Fade, and Resurrection - Part 1

AIG: Blog Fade, Cache Fade, and Resurrection - Part 1

Whether you are (were) a long-time subscriber to this site or are a new visitor here, you will no doubt notice that the post just prior to this one was dated over two years ago (2 years 147 days to be exact). As you have no doubt guessed, this site was a tragic victim of "blog fade" - the fictional blogging condition where blog authors gradually stop posting to their blogs and often abandon their blogs entirely over a period of time.

Sadly, if you look at my cache stats on my geocaching profile, you'll notice a very similar trend there too. When I first began geocaching in 2005, I found 168 caches that year. Since then, my cache finds have steadily decreased to almost none in 2010 (only 1 traditional and 3 virtuals at Disney World).

The good news is this - I'm back!  Of course I can't say how long I'll be back, but in just the first few weeks of 2011, I've already found 15 caches.  If you need help with the math from the chart above, that is the same number of cache finds for 2009 and 2010 combined!  While that total may not be very many for most geocachers, it is tremendous amount in a short period of time compared to the last 4 years for me.

So in the spirit of my return to geocaching, I decided to resurrect my Adventures in Geocaching blog too!