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The Leprechauns

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Everything posted by The Leprechauns

  1. While generally this is great advice, I would make an exception when the cache is the oldest active cache in a country/province/state. OP would create way more drama and angst for archiving the oldest cache in the State vs. adjusting the D/T rating.
  2. I can't narrow it down to one cache, so here's my top three favorite finds from 2023: Deer Bait is Ontario's oldest cache, and it's racked up 431 favorite points since 2001. Finding it with a large group of friends was a highlight of our fall vacation to Ontario, and hiking on the Bruce Trail crossed an item off my bucket list. MarioKart is a representative example of the handcrafted caches hidden by TeamPhoenix421 at the Fulton County Fairgrounds, home of Midwest GeoBash. This one collected 186 favorite points so far. Each cache in the series featured a different classic video game, complete with dioramas and interactive elements. If you didn't get to GeoBash, find this series before it's replaced in July for next year's Mega Event! Ghostcam Cache, at the Willard Library in Evansville Indiana, is the best Webcam cache I've ever found. Others agree, as evidenced by the 730 favorite points this classic cache has accumulated. Our visit there as part of GeoWoodstock was with two carloads of friends, and the local history provided by the friendly library staff made this spooky story even more fun.
  3. For route/target planning, I use GSAK because I believe the search features are superior to those native to the website. It's easier for me to filter on just the types of caches we like to hunt and, in particular, to identify which County a cache is in. I also use Project-GC for planning, like seeing what challenge caches I'm qualified for, seeing which Counties need to be colored in on my map, and spotting holes in my grids & statistics that need to be filled. Once my planning is finished, everything lands on a bookmark List. I edit the cache names in the list to add a number at the beginning (01, 02... 10, 11, etc.) so that the list can be printed out to display the caches in the order we plan to find them. If I'm on a "county run" I will add the County name into the cache title so that I don't inadvertently skip a County. Next, I send a link to the bookmark List to my wife, and she loads it into her Cachly app. I also have an iPhone, but I use the official App. The List I made shows up and I only see the caches on my List. I also like the "Trails" map available to Premium members on the official App. Between the two of us, one phone or the other often supplies helpful information for navigating efficiently to the cache. We especially like how Cachly overlays Adventure Lab stages on the map. Once in the car, I use Apple Car Play to connect my phone to the big screen display. Then, I select the next cache and navigate to parking using Google Maps on the car's screen. On occasion, a handheld GPS is the right choice, like when we're kayaking or when driving and hiking in a remote area. The same filter I used in GSAK to create a List can also be used to export those same caches to my Garmin GPS.
  4. I met eight of the seventeen, including @Moun10Bike who is active in this discussion. I wish you'd been #9, @Smitherington! Perhaps we might meet at Midwest GeoBash.
  5. Seconding hzoi's bump. I calculated my cache finds carefully so that I could log GeoWoodstock XIX as my 10,000th find. I toured the Maze late Saturday morning, after I logged the event and found some other caches and labs. I was frustrated when my "attended" log on the GPS Maze defaulted to Thursday, when I was nowhere near the event site. The Cachly workaround didn't work for me either. I eventually gave up and locked in my milestone find manually. This cost me a half hour of my life after a long drive home in holiday traffic after GeoWoodstock.
  6. Do you use GSAK? If so, this is simple for premium members. Load your "All My Finds" pocket query into a GSAK database, sort by "date found," and scroll away. Or, use a date filter to view finds on a particular date or time period. I did this just the other day as we plan for our attendance at GeoWoodstock on May 27th. I'm planning on making that Giga Event my 10,000th find, and I was curious to compare the date to five years earlier, when I attended GeoWoodstock Giga in Cincinnati. That was the day I met my wife, and I've since moved to Cincinnati! See screenshot below. If you view any cache in the list, you will see just your own logs on that cache. It makes it easy to stroll down memory lane.
  7. Right, because everyone who wants to hide a cache should be expected to buy or use a laminator.
  8. Thank you for posting the nice pictures. I love the concept of the Australian Jasmer, which I'd call a "Jasmer Variant," because I own an analogous challenge cache called the "PennsylJasmer Challenge." All finds need to be within Pennsylvania, so the first month needed for qualifying is February 2001. (This is the first month where there are "plenty of qualifying caches" as required by the Guidelines for challenge caches.) Given the size of Pennsylvania relative to the size of Australia (or even NSW), I am sure that Goldenwattle or barefootjeff could knock out my challenge in a long weekend. For my part, I'm off to a good start on GC81G1T, having found Lanes Cove and Queens land, along with caches for 37 other months in an Australia-only Jasmer grid. Other common Jasmer Variants include Vertical Jasmers (find a cache hidden in Month X for each year from 2000 to the present) or Horizontal Jasmers (find a cache hidden in every month for Year X). These are often called "Mini Jasmers" in the cache title.
  9. I am fine with a QR Code as a stage of a Multi-Cache or Mystery Cache. It's special equipment, just like a kayak or climbing ropes. Someone who doesn't have a device capable of scanning QR codes is no worse off than someone who doesn't a kayak. They can skip a cache for which they're not prepared, or they can borrow the needed equipment. But converting over *all* caches to QR Codes for logbooks? A significant percentage of the geocaching population (handheld GPS users) is now significantly disadvantaged. Also, it will be a matter of hours before a website is set up so that geocachers can upload copies of the QR codes they find. GottaLogEmAll.com would, I think, increase cheating materially. For evidence, one need only look at the mass logging functionality at Project-GC for trackables. Recently, this feature was modified so that "only" 500 trackables per day could be input into the mass logging tool, in order to cut down the level of abuse.
  10. If you update your profile on Geocaching.com, the changes should map over to your Wherigo.com profile automatically. I just did this, to reflect a recent move to a new location, and it worked just fine. On Wherigo.com, are you looking at this page: https://www.Wherigo.com/my/details.aspx
  11. This "new link" characterization made me laugh, as I recalled how a new waymark spoiled a key element of my best cache ever - a complex multicache that took finders through a hedgerow maze using letterboxing-style directions and compass bearings, and then spit them out onto a path that led to an object holding the clue to determine the final cache location. A few years later, someone waymarked that object while doing my multicache, and eliminated the need for anyone to complete the previous two stages. They knew what they were doing, as the waymark description said "The park is well known for the many Geocaches it contains, and this particular [object] plays an important role in one of them." My multicache was the only non-traditional cache in the park, so the hint was obvious to anyone who cared to read it by following the "nearest waymarks" link on my cache page. This all happened in 2005.
  12. I encourage you not to archive your bonus cache, and to follow Max and 99's instructions for editing the completion messages. Thank you for changing your Adventure from Sequential to Non-sequential. To incorporate the clues for your bonus cache, just put part of the solution in each of the completion messages. (A = 8, B=3, etc.)
  13. Cool thread bump. I am one of just a handful of posters to the original thread who is still active. My Frisbee Fun cache is still active, too! It's now the third-oldest active Mystery Cache in Pennsylvania. I think I've only needed to maintain it twice in all those years - once to replace a rubbermaid with an ammo can.
  14. I've never focused on filling this grid because a 1/1 challenge, a 1/1.5 challenge, etc. don't feel like a challenge to me - more like a "minor inconvenience." The 410 challenge caches I've found have filled in 65 of the 81 D/T grids. If the rest fill in naturally, then yay for that, but I won't make a point of it. The minimum number of caches needed to fill in a challenge cache Fizzy grid is 162 finds - 81 for the challenge caches and 81 for the single cache required to be found in order to qualify for the challenge cache. Or even fewer than that, if finding one challenge cache qualifies the finder for another challenge cache, daisy-chain style. Meh.
  15. I own a Bigcall Challenge in Pittsburgh, and I've been telling people "not to worry" if someone on the list was no longer a Charter Member. I guess one of the reasons why this type of challenge cache is no longer allowed is because it's a moving target, as Charter Members revert to Basic membership over time. So, if the verification checker is changed, there will be people who get upset. But, if you do go through with it, I would love for the challenge checker to provide a list of which Charter Members have been found, so that people can mark their progress, in addition to the list of Charter Members they haven't found. Also, Geocaching HQ should not be an eligible Charter Member for purposes of a Bigcall Challenge.
  16. I'm about 100 logs behind, according to my "Drafts" page. Tonight I hope to log my finds from August 12th and August 13th, the weekend of GeoWoodstock in Abbotsford. You can't just write "thanks for organizing the event" when there were thousands of people there, many activities and many feelings after waiting for two years to get there. When logging, I like to recall and write about these good memories - like meeting @thebruce0 for the first time. I have no idea whether there are others like us who haven't logged their International Geocaching Day finds. I know I found many Adventures that day, so I'm already counted in the total because the finds post automatically.
  17. I was an active officer in a category that was hijacked. The category requirements were then significantly altered from the original version. I believe the category founder should have the option of retiring a category rather than watching it get morphed by a hijacker. The experience left such a bad taste in my mouth that I no longer contribute new waymarks, create categories or volunteer to be an officer. My sole remaining involvement is to guard the categories I founded or co-founded, so that someone else cannot hijack them and fundamentally change the original vision. If category retirement was an option, then I'd be gone in 60 seconds. Someone else would then be free to create a Version 2.0 of the same category, and change the rules to their heart's content.
  18. A gripe I've always had about that page: it first lists every cache for which I've ever awarded a favorite point. There is a ton of scrolling to be done before discovering my public lists at the bottom of the page. Why not display the public lists first, followed by the long boring list of caches with favorites?
  19. I'm glad that your son's cache has held up so well, and that you take the maintenance seriously. In my experience, this is the exception rather than the rule. While it might be fun to serve as a merit badge counselor, the dozens of hours I volunteer each month as a Reviewer takes up most of my available time. An inordinate percentage of that time is spent dealing with caches hidden by minors, including boy scouts. You can't begin to imagine the breadth and number of issues presented by caches from this age group that never get published.
  20. This is a misunderstanding on your part. Basic caches can be logged using the official app. Advanced Caches can be logged using a web browser. Premium Member Only caches can be logged using one of several available "backdoor" methods. The easiest one to describe is to go to geocachingadmin.com, enter the GC Code in the box provided, and then press the "Log" button.
  21. Have you posted in social media channels for Sporting Goods stores, asking for free camping equipment? If not, try that and let us know how that works out for you. In addition, specific to geocaching, please note Section 1.3 of the Terms of Use. Given that accounts used by minors must be under direct parental supervision, making it easier for minors to get premium accounts is, in my opinion, a bad thing. The parents should control whether the scout has a premium account, including paying for it. Don't get me started on the track record for geocaches hidden by scouts. I wish that hiding a cache would be removed as an option for earning the merit badge. For finding caches, a Scoutmaster with a premium membership can announce the cache coordinates for each scout to input as an "Additional Waypoint" on any nearby cache, and then navigate to it. For most caches (called "Advanced Caches" for purposes of the official Apps), the cache details and hints are available on the phone's browser, assuming there's internet service where they're camping. I say all this without any ill will towards the scouting movement. I earned my Eagle Scout badge in 1978.
  22. I'm sorry that what I view as an optimized workflow, you view as a workaround. Question for you: If you are only interested in 10% of all caches, why do you need to load thousands at a time? Do you not know where you're going? I decide where I am going to find caches, and build a list for that day or that trip. It's never more than 1,000 because I don't plan on finding even a fraction of that in a single day. I may need thousands of caches loaded over the course of a few months, but I always do so using fresh data within a day or two before any one trip.
  23. I'm also very picky about what caches make my list, whether it's for an afternoon outing or a two-week roadtrip. I also use GSAK for planning and filtering. When I have just the right caches in my GSAK database(s), I export them to a Geocaching.com bookmark List using the GSAK API. I can then see the list on my smartphone using the Official App and, if I'm in an area where it makes sense to do so, I can also export the same caches as a GPX directly from GSAK to my Garmin GPS. If I have more than 1,000 caches to export, then I figure out a way to break the caches up into logical groupings. If it's a multiple day trip, I will make a separate list for each day. It eliminates a lot of scrolling. If I'll be in several areas, each for a few days, then I will make lists for each area, like "Seattle" and "Snoqualmie" and "Abbotsford" and "Vancouver" for the upcoming HQ and GeoWoodstock events in August.
  24. Curious how 1332 caches got published in the Czech Republic with the name of a business in the cache name, contrary to the Geocache Hiding Guidelines. Here in the USA, you can't say "Dollar General" in a cache name - you have to say "50 Cent Colonel."
  25. I've found 114 caches with the Scuba Gear attribute, yet the last time I went scuba diving was 1995. This illustrates a different point against adding attributes: the rare ones get misused, for a number of reasons including challenge cache qualification. People can't even use the "tree climbing required" attribute correctly. They see a picture of a tree, think "my cache is in a forest/tree stump/hole in a tree," and apply the attribute. If people see a picture of a fishing pole as a new attribute, some would similarly think "my cache is near a lake/pond/river where people can go fishing," and apply the attribute.
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