GeoBlank

"Hoss" I like that. Simple

The people and the adventure is why I like this game. The occoasion good will coin test just adds to it. Thanks for the challenge.

I may be going there on the 3rd... so if you are stuck or lost I will keep an eye out for you

If anyone is interested... If you go to http://kc4x4sar.org/ and shoot them mail they can tell you when the next radio meet up is. They just did a come and get your radios tuned event at Marymoor in redmond. If there was enough interest from this community they may do another one. It would be a good way for folks to get introduced to 4x4 SAR. If you just want to get in touch with our comms person let me know thorugh email and I will give you their info.

It just seems like we had found ourselves with 3 groundpseak children that had no identity crisis... now that we have a 4th we are all screwed up. Oh wait, we don't have a 4th. The oldest child just grew a new limb out of the middle of its back... Who has seen the movien "The Dark Backward" - I recommend it (not really).

The first thing that should be done is to create a Challenges forum and direct all threads there. That way Geocaching forums can return to "normal" (whatever that is) Now onto my common rant: Wherigo, Waymarking.... all good things to do that are not Geo (location) Cache (physical container). Bring on the new cool features, integrate them on an all up Groudnspeak (the language of location) Dashboard. But don't try to put too many square pegs in a round hole. I would still vote to go crazy with Challenges outside the realm of GC.com and get the foursquare freaks to get on board and go nuts. If there was a single site only then figuring out how they fit in with everything else would be hard to not attempt. Given Groundspeak.com has links to multiple areas already it is hard to argue that challenges are caches. Sounds like they are staying.... So make the schema and process similar. Have them function in a similar way, make the review process community based. Make it so something can be pushed back to the owner. Keep owners for them... The list that is in the forums and support request site all seem pretty valid. Do not allow duplicates or something that should be a waymark. Webcams for example are a category in Waymarking.com. Worldwide challenges are locationless caches... So let the community create them. Challenges otherwise are like virtuals. So give me the ability to create a good write up and add properties and then manage it. Groundspeak founders and the lackeys I know are smart people... so lets get r done

Given the web cam category on Waymarking.com... http://www.Waymarking.com/cat/details.aspx?f=1&guid=d23f8e0b-2e43-4530-8f46-2e4fdae93ddd&wst=9&kw=webcam&st=2 Is it good for the community at large to create webcam challenges? If we did not have Waymarking.com I would say webcams should be their own challenge type. But we do have Waymarking.com. The same thing could be said for historic markers, outhouses, all kinds of stuff. One answer could be - everyone plays there game their way so who cares. Another answer could be to try and keep them both focussed with some clarity and guidance so there is not overlap.

Tough. I do not think it will be wedding themed. I do think it will have a dream cather background and maybe some sort of entertwined red chinese dragon. Hidden in the image on the back of the coin is an ear of coin. If you look really close... what is that? Morse code?

I like logs where people tell me there story and I like leaving my wisdom and adventure. However if I am out and find a dozen caches I do not spend too much time playing log catch up.... and when other people keep it simple I undertand. Knowing that my cache was visited is good enough when it comes down to the bottom line.

The good thing about virtuals is the current ratio to to physical caches is very low. This is what keeps the sport great. Virtuals at a cruise ship port in another country where there is some sort of historical statue of significants is awesome. The risk of the current challenge implementation is that the ratio of challenges to physical caches could start to go the other direction. If I want to log all sort of random things I will play with Foursquare on my phone. I want to have a good experience on the site and in the wild to go on a high tech treasure hunt. So extending the rules, guidance, and schema of challenges (and then finding the right name for them) might not impact the current sport if we really look at them in context of when and why virtuals today are good and what the risk of them could have been.

Well the 63 will end up being a bit better.... one of these days (maybe)

I went to one of them candle parties once... My wife enjoys the hike and time more than the cache itself. If I know where we are going and the destination is nice then she is happy to find several caches on the way there. Running around getting micros or hiking up a cliff is not her cup of tea. A couple mile hike into a lake and some peace from the rat race is what she is looking for. She is competetive so when I get about 20 away from another round number (500, 600, 700) then she enjoys it more. Bottom line though if you love it and she does not then you go caching early and after you get home do what she wants and don't spend the rest of your day talking about it.

Bingo! Someone understands what a challenge cache is. So as the new experience gets the kinks worked out, one of the fixes should be... "What should we call these new things?" Challenges is obviously already taken.

It has been easy to want/need to post a similar message in multiple threads these days....

For me it is all about keeping Geocaching about Geo (where) and caching (a physical container) [ - I know my greek!] advancing but pure. I would hate to damage the real sport of seeking containers that are well thought out or well hid (notice the or there... sometimes). Trying to get into a social expoding phone based experience like foursquare will only hurt GC.com and it's performance. I think Groundspeak should invest in new ideas and have them self funded. Money raised from GC.com should go to the GC.com backlog. I would also be intersted in an all up Groundspeak stats integration page to see mycaches, my GeoSims, and my Waymarks all integrated into one experience. When I want to cache though I will only go to GC.com

Garmin 6x series.... I have the Oregon 400T which I love... but it is hard to read without activating the backlight. the 63s I think are the latest and they are awesome.

IMO Geocaching is all about the location AND the container. If you can't get to the container and log it then you don't get credit. Muggles or a rock slide don't keep many people form going the extra distance with a virtual. I say let GeoFake.com or SimCache.com launch and compete with the Foursquare sort of sites that already exist and let's keep Geocaching.com about finding a physical container hidden someplace easy (1/1) or someplace insane (5/5). One way or another things will probalby work out My preference is to have this hobby continue be on GC.com and be at least as good as it has been the last 10 years.

I have a converse shoe box.... not really that functional...

Assuming the parking stub is from today I will take it. I need to check on a micro-cache near there and did not want to pay for parking. I am going to leave a VHS tape of "Convoy" (Hey - my wife made this post when I was not looking.... she must not appreciate my VHS tapes)

Great example where feature parity with other cache types would just make sense.

Warning - you will get in a habbit of dropping whatever you are doing and running out to get the new cache listing. Adivce - Keep one alert with a tight radius and another with a larger radius. I was in a meeting a few weeks ago when my close proximity to work alert went off. I excused myself from the room, ran down the road, nabbed the FTF (met a couple other caches a few seconds behind me), and then got back into the meeting before it was over. Someone who knows me asked if I had to run out and get a new cache...

I have a couple older eTrex legends (black and white ones) I will seel for 100 each and teh cheapest S&H I can find.

2 questions. When you get coins you don't plan on activating right away is it still safe to go out and get the required code (in case the parent site goes away?) When you activate through gc.com and it is integrated do they give you the code or does it instantly activate? If the coin's code comes from another site it is not tied to my account and I can just hold on to it. If the coin's code step is skipped on gc.com I may choose not to get the activation code. Hope both questions make sense. Thanks

There are enough wannabes out there who will add some pressure to GC.com but won't take them over. GC.com is doing it right and is teh defacto place to play the game. I think they have a great team of people who are working on their own ideas while listening to the community. AS a software developer it is hard to manage both your internal backlog and new requests. We need to keep applying pressure in a nice way and continue to get the sport to expand and grow. Growth ultimatley means more money for GC.com which will mean they can do more. Use the website feature request tool to enter your ideas one at a time and let the community support you with votes.

I had friends who were going to another country and I told them to go find a cache because it was going to be in an awesome spot. I said place your name in the log book and say you aren't a cache but may grow up to be one someday. Of course it had nothing about them findig it "for me" but it was fun to get a picture of my non-caching friends in a great location in another country participating in my hobby. They are not cachers... and their first find turns out to be a great place to start I did log a note against the cache....