OCBTracker

Even my cat seems to want the site to come back up.

Lesson to self - pay more attention to post. *mutter* Downtown Phoenix has a rate of $32 a night.. I always try to look for places with the coffee cup icon since that usually includes breakfast. Otherwise, simply ignore me.. Riverside is near Los Angeles. *bonks head.*

Count me in.

Some of the tech we've been eyeing for making a cache... 802.11b router (since we've upgraded to g, this is just excess hardware) that relays coords as it's SSID. A wi-fi laptop or handheld can pick up the coords. The specs for running it off of a battery with solar power to recharge is pretty common on the net. Expanding the router idea I am considering using a junk PC running linux off of CD and hooking up a network cable to the router. Rather than using the SSID to broadcast the coords, the CD could be set up with a website for the cache. Power requirements could be satisfied by using a solar panel to recharge a UPS, but I'm half tempted to use one of the spare generators that I've worn through. They usually don't run much longer than ten-fifteen minutes. Plenty of time to boot the computer, router and broadcast the info. The laser emitter idea has already popped up on here, our only change was to use beam splitters and benders to have the cache mark the way. Surplus stores sometimes have the laser emitters that they use in supermarket checkout lines which would be much more focused and have a higher output. There's a few caches in the Los Angeles area that use CD-roms to hold data on finding the next waypoint (or next cache, or mission, etc.) I sort of fear the day that the folks at Caltech notice the caches on their campus.

I sort of look at the logbook as being, well, a log book. Logging in and out TBs makes a paper trail that can sometimes help track down missing TBs. If you don't log the TB in, perhaps someone else might not log that TB out. Perhaps I'm completely off the mark here, but I think that while experienced geocachers might not care, the new geocacher might use that as an example to log what they do to the cache (add, remove, etc.)

Bob and Dave's Amazing Race TB should be at their goal on Monday. I'm trying to work out a deal with the local CBS affiliate for some news coverage (as well as a couple trade mags) to both promote Geocaching and to hopefully improve Bob and Dave's chances. I received their video and presentation in the mail today, and if it wasn't for my wonky work schedule, I would take it over there sooner.. (Since the show airs Tuesday, a Monday drop off with filming makes it more likely for the local news to broadcast the story, or for it to be picked up by the network.) I hope they get picked as at least alternates for the show, and I hope that any coverage that comes from it reflects well on the sport. One of the most nifty tb's I've come across.

I strongly suggest peeking over on Hotwire for hotels in Riverside for your stay. Several times recently there have been hits for $42 for a 3 1/2 star hotel there. Riverside isn't all that far from Los Angeles, and there's more than a number of good caches and good cachers out there. And from experience, I've noticed that booking a Sunday night stay with hotwire can bring dramatically lower prices for rooms.

I'm soliciting opinions on a cache I'm planning. I have been facinated by a cache in Australia for a long time, called The Fifth Element which utilizes four travel bugs to decode the location of the cache. I'm planning this cache for the San Gabriel/Pomona Valley region near Los Angeles. I'm sort of concerned about a number of things, and I'd like to have opinions from others. First and foremost, since it requires finding all four travel bugs to complete the cache, how likely is it that the bugs will stay in the general area? A lot of times, it seems that bugs come and go very quickly in the area. Even with instructions printed on the bug, would the average cacher in the area keep to the rules (which is to keep it within five miles of Glendora.) The bug itself I plan to construct using a laminated photo keychain attached to the travel bug dog tag. Thanks to the miracles of technology, most drug stores now have the ability to print photos off of a digital card (so I don't have to worry about fading or running colors if the tag gets wet.) On one side, there will be a picture of one of the element stones along with the clue, and on the back side are the rules for the tb. Think this might work? And finally, the mystery cache will contain at least the Fifth Element on DVD for the first to find. I'm also considering several other Bruce Willis DVDs in the cache as well, plus quite a few memoribilia that I've located online from both the Fifth Element and other Willis movies (pins, posters, etc.) The actual box is a wonderful antique military crate which will have the four element locks on it. My concerns are, well, of course the normal geotrash that even I'm guilty of leaving in cache boxes, and the possibility that someone might go to all that trouble and nab all the videos. Any thoughts on this, or am I being particularly paranoid for no good reason? By the way, I've contacted the creator of the cache I'm emulating to make sure there is no offense in duplicating their thoughts.

Fullon said that the site should be back up by next Friday, but apparently all the files were deleted by the previous hosting company, so we'll have to fill it again fresh. * sigh *

Sounds like a cool idea, but, umm, shouldn't you post a list of which travel bugs someone has to collect? I see two of them off of your user stats page.

On the point about people logging TBs at events, coordinators should tape a piece of black tape across the numbers on TB dogtags to keep people from just recording the number (for grab and leave logging). Pretty awkward to pick up a TB and then find it went into someone else's hand after the fact, just because you logged getting it before they logged their pickup and drop.

If it wasn't such a late powwow, I'd go pick it up myself this weekend -- we'll be over at Pechanga Casino and Resort for their annual powwow (Friday, Saturday and Sunday.) As vendors, we usually don't get out until nearly eleven each night and have to be open before eleven in the morning, so it doesn't allow us much time to get out to do caching. (sigh) 'course Gourd Dancing starts at 11am, I think.

Skeleton Cache near the San Luis Rey Mission has been archived for a while, though the maintainer put in a replacement cache box. Within it is Calypso Crab which I'd really like to see continue it's journey. If someone feels the urge to go over and pick it up, that would be wonderful. I'm not really going to be in that area for a while, and am trying to avoid making a special trip. (The info that I downloaded didn't have it archived at the time, and the box was brand new when I went there.) Thanks!

** ALERT -- Withdrawl Symptoms ** You know you're suffering from withdrawl when you tell friends you can't go out to dinner on Tuesday because you're going to chat with fellow Geocachers, but forget that the site is down. You know you're suffering from withdrawl when you log onto the forums at Groundspeak to see if there are any picnic updates, and any info from the pizza party on Saturday. ARRRGHGH! I want socalgeocachers.com back online!