mblatch

I attended the GPS Adventure Maze (GC9RW7C) at GeoWoodstock XVIII this year and would like to log it on the date that I actually attended (Aug 13 rather than Aug 12). I don't seem to be able to change the date on the website because it always defaults back to Aug 12. Today, I see there are a lot of logs on the maze now where people have been able to log it on Aug 13, so there clearly must be a work around of this. How can I change the date of my Attended log to Aug 13?

The fact that xophe runs this site concerns me greatly. As a resident of the Bay Area where he was based, I've also noticed that he hasn't been active since 2016. If he isn't actively maintaining this site and the domain does indeed expire in May of this year, that means that all of Certitude may go offline in just a few months. That would cause a major disruption to puzzle caches all over the world. I've sent a message out to the Facebook group here in the Bay Area to see if anyone is still in contact with xophe. Perhaps he can transfer ownership of the site to someone that is still active. Otherwise, something to replace Certitude will need to be developed and hosted elsewhere, though that would still be a major problem since I doubt any of the information in the Certitude database would be transferrable without involvement of the original owner.

Other than letterboxing, what other cache listing sites existed in Jan 2001? Navicaching started in 2001, but I'm not sure of the month. I did a search on that site, and there is a cache that pops up in Toledo, Ohio on 1/1/01, but it is retired and has no logs. The coordinates are also quite a distance from where Ancient Lake is located (though at least in the same general area of Ohio). Navicache Name: Soon to return Hider: GizmoGuy411 Coordinates: N 41° 36.947' W 083° 38.138'

I guess our difference here is that I don't believe he hid it in Jan 2001. All of the evidence seems to indicate that he hid it in Dec 2001 and just entered the hidden date incorrectly. I wish that the original owner who chimed in on the cache page would clarify one way or the other which is the correct date.

That is correct. However, with all of the data available, the preponderance of evidence seems to point that the true hidden date of the cache is 12/23/01. The original hider that posted the note on the cache page didn't even create his account until August 2001. Since the cache has been adopted out, I couldn't find any caches created by the other hider (Mark Robinette) to see when his account was created. It seems odd that both logs that people point to as being older than 12/23/01 were actually published in Jan 2002. I find it difficult (though not impossible) to believe that a cache was hidden in Jan 2001 and not published until Dec 2001, as evidenced by the GC code. My personal opinion is that the correct date should be listed on the cache page. If it affected me, I would probably be miffed and whine for a little while, but in the end, I would just go out and find another to fill the grid. Thankfully, I have multiple finds in all jasmer grids, so I really don't have to worry about it. I will say that if I ever go to find Ohio's "oldest" cache, I will be going to Shawnee Lookout, and not Ancient Lake.

With your special reviewer powers, are you able to look into the database to see the timestamp of when Ancient Lake was submitted for review? Pretty sure I know what the answer is going to be though based on all of the evidence. haha

I can only imagine the number of nasty-grams that were pouring into that poor cacher's email inbox.

The problem is that I don't think the Oct and Nov 2001 logs are correct. If you read my follow-up post, I did a little detective work, and the log codes for those dates actually occur after the 12/28/01 log, likely sometime in Jan or Feb 2002. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=342586&view=findpost&p=5628552

This will probably only fan the flames, but I did a little more detective work into the logs on Ancient Lake that were pointing out as being posted on 11/1/01 and 10/25/01, prior to the supposed 12/23/01 corrected date. Dates on logs can be manually changed upon entry, but what cannot be changed is the unique code that is assigned to each log (GLXXXX) sequentially as it received by the server. The log on 12/28/01, after the alleged correct date of 12/23/01, is GLJGMC, which is consistent with other Dec 2001 log codes on other older caches. The log for 11/1/01 is GLJY9Z, and the log for 10/25/01 iS GLK6N8. This means that while they are dated prior to 12/23/01, they were likely posted in Jan or Feb 2002 since their code numbers are after the 12/28/01 log. I looked up logs on older caches, and those actually made in Oct and Nov 2001 will start with GLH, not GLJ or GLK.

Since one of the original hiders is now chiming in on the cache page, perhaps he can now clarify whether the true hide date is Jan 2001 or Dec 2001. Just a thought. :-)

I'm usually not a huge fan of challenges in general, but these location-based challenges I actually do like. Personally, I think the user-defined polygon definition is being applied too broadly. Challenges where boundaries can be easily verified, such as DeLorme Grids, USGS maps, counties, latitude/longitude lines, etc should be permitted. With a broad interpretation like this, even challenges wanting a cacher to find caches in different countries wouldn't be allowed because technically the boundaries of a country can be construed as a user-defined polygon.

I really think this thread needs to end. Quite frankly, I was a bit disappointed to see something like this from the original poster, who is quite well-known and respected in the caching community. Having your name in the cache title just happens to be the way that some people like to play when they hide a new cache. I'm not saying that I understand it, but I can certainly recognize and respect it as a valid point of view. Having the CO's name in the cache title does not impact how I play the game in any way, shape, or form. There are many ways to engage in this sport, and everyone does it in his or her own way. If something this trivial annoys you that much, then simply ignore it. I have my own feelings and pet peeves about the way some things are done in this area, including some by both the original poster and the presumed intended target. However, I keep those opinions to myself ... where they belong. If something bothers me enough, I simply ignore it and don't go find the cache. Airing grievances about something as innocuous as this serves nothing more than to create bad feelings in the community, especially when it is quite clear to local cachers at whom the message was directed.

What I find to be the most intolerable aspect of this situation is the local organization has apparently silenced all dissent within the group. Several members have had their posting privileges removed and eventually their membership revoked on the FB page. Their crime, simply posting links to this discussion forum. All posts to the FB page now must be approved by an administrator, which one week ago used to number about 12....now there are 2. In response to this, I have created another FB page where members of the local group have been free to air the dirty laundry uncensored, and we have had some interesting, yet productive conversations on there. I think rather than circling the wagons and implementing Orwellian controls on communication, the local organization would have been much better off engaging the dissenting voices. Someone said in a previous post that the president had been notified but had not posed the official group response. Even if a response is posted, I'm not sure I would give it much credence. It will be the response of 2 or 3 individuals since the voice of the group has effectively been silenced and the officers involved have barricaded themselves in behind the firewall.

Or perhaps one shouldn't put caches on CEV's in the first place...since they obviously could be easily construed as something more sinister. Just a thought. haha

I went into the Safari settings, and somehow accepting cookies was turned off. Not sure how that happened since I am quite certain I did not consciously do that. haha In any case, everything is working again now. Thanks for the suggestion to check/clear the cookies. :-)

I don't seem to be able to log onto the GC.com website on my iPhone browser now. Every time I enter the username and password, it just kicks me right back to the login screen. The Geocaching App and logging into the GC.com website from my home computer seem to work just fine. It is only when I try to log in using my iPhone browser that I seem to have the problem.

Whenever I post a field note from my iPhone to GC.com, the time stamp is significantly off from the actual time of the posting. For example, I recently found a cache at 00:07 09 Feb 2012, but the posted time on the GC.com entry was 16:07 08 Feb 2012....exactly 8 hrs behind the time I actually posted the note. Every time I post, all entries appear to be 8 hours behind. I have checked my time zone settings on my GC.com profile as well as the time zone setting on my iPhone. Everything appears to be correct. Any ideas as to the cause of the discrepancy? Not sure if it matters or not, but I am in the Eastern Time Zone, and my GC.com profile is set as such (i.e. GMT -5:00).

Nik, thanks for the clarification. I think it was a case that I heard something secondhand that you had discussed at the event. As long as there are no plans to blanket archive all existing virtuals, then I have no beef with the creation of the new Discovery Challenges.

I'm not talking about a CO voluntarily archiving their virtual and moving it to a challenge or Waymarking. I heard that Groundspeak was possibly going to perform a blanket archival of all virtuals and convert them all to challenges. I just wanted to know if there was any truth to that or if it was just a rumor.

I heard at an event last night that all of the existing virtual caches may be archived and converted over to challenges. I skimmed through the forums to see if I could find if it had already been discussed and didn't see anything, so I was just wondering if it this was really true.

I am completely unimpressed and underwhelmed by the implementation of this new challenge feature. I certainly hope this isn't what is intended to be the new virtuals. I logged one just to see what it was all about and was disappointed to see it show up in my find count. I will most likely delete the "find" and give about as much consideration to challenges as I do to waymarks ... zero.

I don't usually post much on the forums since I know the types of responses that posting personal opinions can generate. However, as someone who just did a portion of the E.T. Highway series and the Alien Head 2 weeks ago, I figured that my observations and thoughts might be relevant to the current discussion. A brief background....jo.b and I (both from New Jersey) specifically planned a vacation out to the southwest to do several caching series, including the Kokopelli Man and Star in Utah, a part of the ET Highway, and the Alien Head in Nevada. The E.T. Highway wasn't the main focus of our visit , but we thought that we would give it a shot starting at ET 001 and log them as far as the Alien Head (ended up doing out to #421). On Jan 28, we started out at E.T. 001 shortly after 6:00 am and arrived at the Alien Head at around 12:30 pm. Some general observations and thoughts on the E.T. Highway: As others have mentioned in previous posts, traffic on this road is virtually non-existent. I think in the 6.5 hrs that we were actively caching the highway, we were passed by maybe 10 - 15 cars. As I mentioned in my log, jo.b and I took turns driving and hopping out of the car to log the caches. I drove for the first 150 while she logged, and then we traded places for the next 150. As I also mentioned in my log, we were able to leave the car parked right on the road for most of the trek since traffic was not a problem. On most parts of the section that we did, you could see for literally miles both in front and behind you. What is especially important to note, however, is that at all times someone was behind the wheel of the car, watching/listening for other cars and ready to move off to the side if necessary. I'm not sure if that is how everyone does it, but it would seem to me to be common sense to not just stop the car on the road with no one behind the wheel. I don't want to imply that I considered all parts of the highway good places for caches, because that is definitely not the case. There were several areas where the road turned and went around blind curves. Why not simply pull off to the side you might ask? The answer is, we did where we could. However, there were some locations where there was really no safe place available to pull completely off of the road. Some shoulders were fairly narrow with a rather steep drop off if you happened to pull off a little too far. In those cases, we quite literally had to rely on our ears to listen for any traffic that might be coming down the road. Needless to say, I was quite happy to get that part of the highway behind us. Of the 421 caches that we found, I believe that only 2 were truly missing. Of the ones we couldn't initially find, if we just did a general scan of the area, we actually were able to find the wayward cache had moved maybe 10 ft down the road...most likely by the wind, but perhaps it was an alien. haha :-p In the cases where the cache was missing, it was quite obvious where it should have been, so we did replace them with "extra" E.T. caches that we found at one location. I will say that it is definitely a very pretty area, but I'm not sure how much I really got to enjoy it with all of the stopping and jumping in and out of the car. The drive back at the end of the day was actually better because we didn't have to stop every 528 ft. :-) Having done the portion that I did, I can honestly say that I am glad that I did it ... if for no other reason than to just experience that type of caching for myself. That being said, would I actively seek out to go back and finish the remaining 600 that I didn't do (assuming they aren't archived)? I'm not sure that I would. I guess for me it was a "been there, done that, let's move on" type of experience. Do I begrudge those who like this kind of caching? No. Am I going to actively petition for their removal? No. Will I be upset if they eventually are all archived? Probably not. Some general observations and thoughts on the Alien Head: Doing this series was the actual reason that jo.b and I headed out the E.T. Highway in the first place. I love the concept of these desert art cache series and really wish we had a place large enough in New Jersey (that wasn't already full of caches) where someone could do something like this. Let me tell you, after driving 6.5 hrs with constant stopping, it was a welcome break to get out of the car and actually hike around for a while. After doing the entire Kokopelli Man and Star series over in Utah a few days before, I was really looking forward to some more desert hiking. While I really enjoyed doing the series itself, I will also say that I was quite disappointed to see the well-worn road that basically went around to all of the caches. While the road is not visible yet online, I suspect that is only the case because the currently available imagery was taken in 2006. Both the images on Google Earth and Bing are old, with the most current GIS data available online for Lincoln County, NV being from 2006. I have a friend here in NJ who is a photogrammetist, and he is going to check to see if more recent images are available. However, after looking online himself, he seriously doubts it. The road that I saw leading around to all of the caches will most definitely be visible (and quite clearly so) in any new aerial images of the location. The entire hike around the head took jo.b and I roughly 3 hours. I guess what puzzled me the most is why is it that everyone was in such a darn hurry to log them that they couldn't spend 3 hours out of their day to hike it? This is an especially relevant question since the CO of the Alien Head series specifically asks on each and every cache page (third paragraph, first sentence) that no one drive to the caches. I can honestly say that the presence of the roads did detract from my enjoyment of the area ... mainly because I was constantly thinking to myself, "Why would people be so inconsiderate as to drive their cars out here and rip up the landscape?" And whether you wish to agree with me or not, ripping up the landscape is exactly what has been done. Plantlife doesn't rebound as quickly in the desert because there is only a very short window where water is available for growth to occur. These roads will most likely take years, if not decades, to completely fade away...and I can assure you, they will be visible on aerial imagery when the state of Nevada gets around to updating them. If I had been the CO of this series and had gone out to see what has been done to the area, I personally would have archived and removed them all on the spot. There are many people out there that I'm sure are thankful that I am not the CO. haha :-) A shame really, because it is obvious that the owner made great efforts to make this an enjoyable series in an otherwise beautiful desert area. If I had to make recommendations of caches to do for others planning to visit the area, my honest opinion would be to skip the Alien Head and do the Kokopelli Man instead. For me, that was a much more rewarding experience in an area that has been better cared for. For what it's worth, those are my thoughts and observations of the E.T. Highway and Alien Head, though I'm sure there will be plenty that disagree with me.

I think we probably have a winner with that one. gerbiL cacHe here in NJ still has the original log, but it is from 25 Nov 2000.

Does anyone happen to know where the oldest surviving original logbook is? I know there are still a few old caches from 2000 out there, but I wasn't sure if most of those had been replaced or if any still had the original logbook.

OMG!! The original gerbiL container???? Can you bring it to the event? haha