This topic contains 28 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by 
Thraxman 23 years, 7 months ago.
-
Posts
-
I’m sure some of you have seen this already, but I haven’t visited the web-site until just now:
http://geodashing.home.attbi.com/Looks like fun! Anyone interested in forming a team?
Looks like fun! Anyone interested in forming a team?
I’ve been to this site before and thought about joining one of the existing teams. We could form our own team but it probably wouldn’t be competitive… to have a good geodashing team you have to recruit people from all over the world, not just WI. (They pick about 30,000 random points all over the world for each game.)
What would be cool is we put together a version of geodashing that only covered Wisconsin (or the Midwest). We could pick random points and have teams that scored points by visiting these points. (It wouldn’t be hard to get the wi-geocaching.com site set up to handle this if there was interest. In fact, we could do a much better job tracking who reached each of the dash points.)
The only thing I don’t like about the geodashing concept is that because of the random nature of the dash points, most end up in areas where they can’t be visited (private property, etc.). It would be nice to have a points system that rewarded people for trying to visit a dash point even if they couldn’t get to it.
quote:
Originally posted by jvechinski:
We could form our own team but it probably wouldn’t be competitive… to have a good geodashing team you have to recruit people from all over the world, not just WI…
…What would be cool is we put together a version of geodashing that only covered Wisconsin (or the Midwest). We could pick random points and have teams that scored points by visiting these points. (It wouldn’t be hard to get the wi-geocaching.com site set up to handle this if there was interest. In fact, we could do a much better job tracking who reached each of the dash points.)Well, last nite when I was checking the site out, I looked at the scores for the current month’s game, and only two teams really had impressive scores… and no team really had a score that a team of 5 scattered around wisconsin, or wisconsin and another state or two, could compete with. I downloaded the USA list of current dashpoints, edited it down to just wisconsin and a very small area around it, and that left well over 200 dash points
The top team at the moment has done 39 dash hunts, and the two runners up so far has done 23 and 10 dash hunts. I downloaded my scaled down list into my extrex, and it shows 8 dash points within 50 miles of me. I then checked the maps out on ExpertGPS… the nearest point (just over 12 miles from me) is located just under about 360 feet off a highway (you only have to get within 100 meters to score it), and the next closest was located on a small lake… but only about a hundred feet out, so scorable from the shore I didn’t look any farther than that, because 4am had snuck up on me. Decided to get a few hours of sleep. Anyhow, I don’t think a team has to be scattered around the world to do well… just spread out a bit… realistically, one person is not likely to cover a 200 mile radius very wellI like your idea of a more localized wisconsin or midwest version of the game. Could make things more interesting by tripling the density of dash points (three per “cell” vs one), which would make many more reacable points, and institute a rule to allow some minor scoring for unreachable points as you suggested. Maybe even require four photos from each point scored (one taken in each direction), and slowly index them to produce the most complete photo map of a state anywhere
quote:
Originally posted by Thraxman:
Well, last nite when I was checking the site out, I looked at the scores for the current month’s game, and only two teams really had impressive scores… and no team really had a score that a team of 5 scattered around wisconsin, or wisconsin and another state or two, could compete withYou’re right… I took a look at the scores and most of them are pretty low. (Plus we are doing this for fun anyway so who cares if we win.)
I did notice that Markwell from IL and someone else from IL are playing… so there would probably be clashes for dash points along the Wisconsin-Illinois border. I also noticed that there are no dash points on large lakes like Lake Michigan and Lake Superior… apparently these are screened out because they would be too easy to get to.
If you want to form a team Joe, I’m in. I would be able to cover the area from Milwaukee north to Green Bay and south to Chicago, plus I could also hit points in central and northcentral Wisconsin since I’m up there quite a bit. It would be nice if we could get someone from the northwestern part of state (say around Eau Claire) and maybe someone from far SW Wisconsin or Iowa.
Anyone else interested?
Great!
Ok Jeremy, If I understand correctly, you would pretty much be covering up and down the west coast of lake michigan, with possible excursions farther inland in central and north-central WI. I live in Janesville, and figure I can normally be active in a 40 to 80 mile radius… with the possibility of going on a road trip or two out farther to score some extras in months where we are seriously in the running. You’re right, I am not overly concerned with winning, it just sounds like a fun activity, and personnally, I’d just like to shoot for top five or so to have a reasonable goal. But if it gets close for the top spot on a given month… look out
Anyhow, looks like our areas will have some overlap… which is fine. After reading the rules, team members can score the same dash point. The rule where two people hitting a point on the same day get equal points does not apply to team-mates however. But if say, you hit a point near milwaukee and score three points, and then I happen to be out that way or just decided to hit it for more points, that would be two more points for the team. SO overlap isn’t really bad.
We need a team name. We could blatantly rip off Alan and Co., and use Dash-Cows… hehe! But seriously, any ideas?
OK everyone.. A team can consist of up to 5 players. That leaves 3 slots. Jeremt Mentioned IOWA as a good location for someone. I believe lizs is in Iowa? Interested? Anyone else? Anywhere?
I will form a team tonite or tommorrow night, just need a name for it.
quote:
Originally posted by Thraxman:
Ok Jeremy, If I understand correctly, you would pretty much be covering up and down the west coast of lake michigan, with possible excursions farther inland in central and north-central WI. I live in Janesville, and figure I can normally be active in a 40 to 80 mile radius.Sounds about right. I don’t know what my radius would be… say 80 miles around Milwaukee and 80 miles around Stevens Point, WI. Wouldn’t mind traveling down to IL early in the month to grab a dash point or 2 before Markwell gets to them as well.
You’re right about two people on the same team claiming the same dash point. So even if we picked up another person from the Milwaukee area for the team it wouldn’t be all bad…
As for a team name, I really don’t know. Dash-Cows wouldn’t be the worst name if our team consisted of mostly (or all) people from Wisconsin. ‘The Rabid Badgers’ would also work. (Should strike fear into the hearts of our competitors.) I also wouldn’t mind ‘The Untouchables’. I’ll let you decide what you want for a name… it doesn’t really matter to me.
Joe… do you plan on looking for dash points this month or waiting until the next game starts up in the beginning of April? If you plan to wait, we could hold off on forming the team for a week or so.
Anyone else willing to join the team, or are you guys chicken ?
quote:
Originally posted by jvechinski:
Anyone else willing to join the team, or are you guys chicken ?Not chicken. Just not interested. I know you didn’t ask for a lengthy opinion, but here goes anyway…
Sometimes I have hard enough time justifying to myself the extra driving (fuel consumption, air pollution) done in the name of geocaching. At least when we get to most geocache locations I know I’ll be able to shut off the engine, get out and enjoy a hike.
On the other hand, geoDashing seems like an unfortunate waste of resources to pursue random coordinates. Please don’t take this personally, Jeremy and Joe. I know both of you have done a lot to further the cause of geoCaching in Wisconsin. I’m just expressing a heartfelt opinion about geoDashing.
I’m taking an environmental class called “Voluntary Simplicity” that teaches about the earth’s resources and how much we Americans consume compared to the rest of the world — so my bias is especially skewed at this moment against motorized recreation, I admit.
That being said, I’m not going to hold it against anyone who wants to try geodashing. I’m just explaining why I’m not.
I welcome your responses.
quote:
Originally posted by jvechinski:
As for a team name, I really don’t know. Dash-Cows wouldn’t be the worst name if our team consisted of mostly (or all) people from Wisconsin. ‘The Rabid Badgers’ would also work. (Should strike fear into the hearts of our competitors.) I also wouldn’t mind ‘The Untouchables’. I’ll let you decide what you want for a name… it doesn’t really matter to me.Joe… do you plan on looking for dash points this month or waiting until the next game starts up in the beginning of April? If you plan to wait, we could hold off on forming the team for a week or so.
I like “The Rabid Badgers” myself. If anything, might scare Markwell enough to keep him on his side of the state line
As far as starting the team now or waiting, it doesn’t really matter. I joined this morning. Forming a team is simple. One of us just has to announce the team on the message board, and then whoever is joining just announce that they are joining. They aren’t automated… they apparently just have someone watching the list and keeping track of who’s on what team by hand, and ditto for the dash-point finds. I DO know that there is a dash-point about 12 miles from my place that I intend to score team or no team
How about we form the team friday night or saturday morning. I noticed these forums are dead on sundays, so throughout the week we can see if anyone else here is interested. If not, we can try picking up a couple from other regions or whatever before the new game starts. Like I say, it doesn’t matter all that much, if we start with just 2 or 3 people, others can join any time.
quote:
Originally posted by kbraband:
Not chicken. Just not interested. I know you didn’t ask for a lengthy opinion, but here goes anyway…I love lengthy opinions! I’m never one to say “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
quote:
Sometimes I have hard enough time justifying to myself the extra driving (fuel consumption, air pollution) done in the name of geocaching. At least when we get to most geocache locations I know I’ll be able to shut off the engine, get out and enjoy a hike.On the other hand, geoDashing seems like an unfortunate waste of resources to pursue random coordinates. Please don’t take this personally, Jeremy and Joe. I know both of you have done a lot to further the cause of geoCaching in Wisconsin. I’m just expressing a heartfelt opinion about geoDashing.
When I first came across Geodashing, I thought to myself “gosh, that is kinda neat!” I geuss what really excited me about it is the randomness in general. Where will each dash-point take me to? What is there? And believe it or not, my next thought was similar to yours… “Gosh, those random points aren’t really all that close to each other… that could lead to a lot of driving”. I actually think about things like fuel expenditure, pollution, etc. I don’t consider myself an environmentalist or anything like that, just a guy with some common sense. Oil is not a renewable rescource, and our atmosphere can only absorb so much abuse. For reasons such as these, I make certain decisions. When I bought a new vehicle less than two years ago, I needed something that could haul some cargo from time to time, and drooled over some of the larger pick-up trucks, and even an SUV or two. But I elected to go with my cute little red ford Ranger with the peppy yet efficient 4-banger engine. It serves my purposes, and is fairly efficient. As a result, I fill its 16 gallon tank roghly once a month. The larger vehicles I looked at would have me fill their larger tanks up quite a bit more frequently. Hehe, in fact, it is scary… for me, a trip to a gas station for something other than a refill on coffee is so infrequent that I am often horrified to find, roughly four weeks since I last refueled, that as I am driving through town, I glance at my fuel gauge and it is near empty… I buy gas rarely enough that I often forget about it My cat and I live in a small single-bedroom apartment. It is big enough for us. I do not air-condition the place in the summer, and in the winter I keep it at sweater-temperature. Mind you, my utility bills are included in my rent, so I could throw a huge air conditioner in the window and keep the place toasty warm in the winter without it costing me a dime extra, but I don’t, because I am aware of the fuel expenditures involved. I choose to be somewhat conservative by today’s standards. We live in a nation where people choose to drive Chevy Suburbans (12mpg city/ 17mpg highway) as their main vehicle to and from work, no passengers, no cargo. People cool their large homes to a temperature many many degrees below what they heat it to in the winter (I never could make any sense out of that… if your home is comfortable at 74 degrees(!) in the winter, why does it have to be 65 degrees in the summer???)
I guess if it sounds like I am trying to defend myself on my plans to burn a little fuel Geodashing, well maybe I am. The way I see it, in the good ole USA I probably would rank in the bottom quarter, or maybe even bottom 10 percent when it come to personal fuel expenditures, those expenditures being by transportation and utility consumption. And I don’t think the traveling I will be doing hitting a few Geodash points here and there is going to boost me much higher on that scale. And I am not saying this to point fingers and go “look at all THAT waste… I am a saint!”. I am just saying that I have made life choices that in general are much more energy efficient than average, so I’m not going to worry to much about burning a few extra gallons of gas each month.
quote:
I’m taking an environmental class called “Voluntary Simplicity” that teaches about the earth’s resources and how much we Americans consume compared to the rest of the world — so my bias is especially skewed at this moment against motorized recreation, I admit.That being said, I’m not going to hold it against anyone who wants to try geodashing. I’m just explaining why I’m not.
I welcome your responses.
That sounds like an interesting class. And the fact that you are attending it probably gives you a lot more knowlege than I have on the topic… you can probably pick apart what I just wrote above quite easily I have been around the globe twice in my life, and have seen the way people live in many different countries. You just don’t SEE large vehicles in the hands of citizens of other countries. In fact, my small pickup truck would probably be considered a gas guzzler in most parts of the world. In Malaysia, I saw that the people somehow managed to exist just fine with very few cars… small motorcycles were all the rage in the town I was in. Hundreds of ’em The few cars I saw were taxi cabs, and they were comparable in size to, say, a Ford Focus. In fact, of all the places around the globe I have been, I can’t say I saw anyone driving anything bigger than a mid-sized american car, unless it was public transportation, or a vehicle hauling cargo. I never spent more than 3 hours in Europe, but talking to others that have been there, in some countries, people actually shut their engines down at long stop-lights. And it doesn’t stop at motor vehicles. Electric lights are dimmer, and fewer, and I Have been to many very hot regions where they just don’t USE air conditioning. In fact, I like tehir solutions for cooling off better: I found in many of these countries, if you are all hot and sweaty after hiking around and seeing the sights few several hours under the beating sun, you walk into a bar, order a Coke or Beer, and some girls will come over with a big hand fan… one will fan you while another cools your forehead with a cold, wet towel I’ll take this over AC any day… but that just don’t happen around here
Anyhow, I’ll be amazed if anyone read down this far. I just scrolled up and realized I have been quite lengthy in my babbling. But, I guess, if anything, you all know me a little better now
‘Night all…
-Joequote:
Originally posted by kbraband:
On the other hand, geoDashing seems like an unfortunate waste of resources to pursue random coordinates. Please don’t take this personally, Jeremy and Joe. I know both of you have done a lot to further the cause of geoCaching in Wisconsin. I’m just expressing a heartfelt opinion about geoDashing.
You bring up some good points Ken. Joe… I’m quitting the team. (Just kidding! )
I was planning on combining geodashing with geocaching… when I was hunting a cache in an area with a dash point, I would just swing over and check out the dash point. Plus I do enough traveling in Wisconsin to come close to a number of dash points for other reasons. If I have to go more than 20 miles out of my way to pick up a dash point, I probably won’t do it. I could see how you could label a ‘serious’ dasher who was driving hundreds of miles just to visit a random point as a natural resource waster though…
I plan to do most of my geodashing/caching via motorcycle this summer with should reduce my environmental impact. My cycle gets 45 to 55 MPG (depending on how fast I go ), can outrun just about anything on the road, and was 1/3rd the cost of my car. (I do have to worry about getting ‘grilled’ by SUVs and the other tanks on the road though.)
Remember that more energy is consumed building a typical car than is ever consumed by driving it. So having two cars and not driving them is in some ways worse than having one and driving it a lot.
Maybe our team name should be the ‘Eco-Terrorists’ or the ‘Fossil Fuel Killers’?
quote:
Originally posted by jvechinski:
You bring up some good points Ken. Joe… I’m quitting the team. (Just kidding! )
Whew! Scared me for a second there!
Anyhow, I don’t plan on making too many long dashes just for the purpose of dashing. The way I see it, every month one dashpoint will pop up somewhere near me, in my “cell”. This month it happens to be 12 miles away. I will probably go after those every month. When I am out geocaching, that will probably put me close to one or two others in a month, and if I plan them into the day, they should be no problem to hit. I head down to rockford every now and then to hit Sam’s Club, Best Buy, and Barnes and Noble (We don’t have these splendid establishments or anything similar in Janesville), and little drives like this are prime times to re-check the dashmap. Every two or three months I visit my parents in Manitowoc, so I will probably score from time to time up that way if any points happen to be nearby. Pretty much, I expect that some months I will only hit one or two points,while other months, while I am traveling around more, I figure on hitting several extras. All depends. Now, on the way to the Geo-Campout… might score lucky on THAT drive
-Joe
I wouldn’t be too concerned about the enviromental impact of driving to caches as long as you’ve found under 100 caches.
Anything more than that, I would be SERIOUSLY concerned about the impact of geocaching vapors.
Just my 2 cents
Hmmm…
We’ve found 123 caches, AND drive a Suburban!
[This message has been edited by CacheCows (edited March 19, 2002).]
quote:
Originally posted by GrouseTales:
I wouldn’t be too concerned about the enviromental impact of driving to caches as long as you’ve found under 100 caches.
Let me add that if you HAVE found more than 100 caches, you’re not damaging the environment as long as your average number of finds is not more than 10.7 per month. (I believe that’s the official number from the EPA.)
The forum ‘Old General Forum (Busted)’ is closed to new topics and replies.