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Adventures in Geocaching
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Geocaching: The sport where YOU are the search engine!
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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.
- Inappropriate sharing of personal information
- Geocaching's status as a sport
- Overzealous geocachers (and people who take geocaching way too seriously)
- Rules-vs-guidelines (and reviewers that don't seem to know the difference)
- Know-it-all geocachers (and people that just like to fight a lot)
- Micros in the woods
- Bad coordinates
- Reckless disregard for personal property or the environment
- Jeep and traveling coin collectors
- Poison Ivy!
 
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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. 
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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.
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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!!! 
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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.
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