[Cheesehead Dave]

It sounds like a fun idea, especially when you can pull into a parking lot and see another “geo-plate” and know that there are other cachers present.

It would all depend on the cost and commitment. If there was a requirement that 1000 plates would have to be purchased, or if the registration would be $100, probably not. I’d go for $5 a WGA license plate border instead.

[Cheesehead Dave]

It would be a great way to get out name out into the general public, and if it could be combined with CITO events along with some other incentives, I think we could get enough interest to make it work.

But what road? To get the most participation, it would have to be somewhere near the statistical center of the membership. If it’s a highway in the middle of the north woods, participation would be close to nil.

[Cheesehead Dave]

I personally like the picture part of the logo. I think the text part could use some refreshing though.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a nice short name like “Apple” or “Dell”. We’ve got the 32-character “Wisconsin Geocaching Association” so that makes it a little tough to do something stylized, but still legible enough to put on merchandise.

Rather than the BOD just making a decision, I’d like to see a poll of the membership:

A – Keep the current logo
B – Mostly keep the current logo, but “freshen it up” a bit
C – Replace the logo completely with an updated design

I’d bet that over 80% of the total would be split between A and B.

[Cheesehead Dave]

I wonder. Given the large number of photos which seem to be undoctored, as well as the fact that the coordinates actually are for the described location, rather than the owner’s subdivision, and that only a handful of people have claimed a find, I think it’s actually legit.

[Cheesehead Dave]

I’m going to be completely unoriginal and also say that I would love to see a mega-event in Wisconsin.

I’ve never been to a GeoWoodstock, so I can’t speak from experience, but even though I’ve heard from people that enjoyed going, I also read about all the negatives that happened last year. I’ve spoken with members of GONIL about this before, and the vibe I get is that it’s not the kind of event that they would actively court to come to this area.

GeoBash is another story. I enjoyed going to that, and I think the reason is that it put more emphasis on getting people together to socialize, rather than just giving everyone a place to camp while they go caching. I’d like to see geocaching “clinics” as well where we could have things like “Q&A with a cache reviewer,” or “Cool cache container demos.” Jeremy Irish has also said that Groundspeak wants to be a more active by coming out to events like this and doing presentations of their own.

To make this a mega-event, we’d need a place for over 500 people for a weekend or longer, and even with an emphasis on socializing, out-of-towners probably are still going to want to go out caching, so it would likely need to be near someplace with a higher density of caches and not in the middle of nowhere.

The big question is whether there’s room for a third mega-event during the summer, or if we should offer to hold the 2008 GeoBash. That’s a decision that would be left to planners.

[Cheesehead Dave]

If you want really big screen, you could get yourself a cheap laptop and run Streets and Trips and attach that to a car mount, then use a bluetooth GPS.

You’ll have the benefits of a navigation system that you can easily upload geocache waypoints, plus you can run your geocaching software, like GSAK.

I do this when I go on day-long cache runs, although I don’t have a mount for the laptop so I have to avoid sudden stops so I don’t dump it all on the floor. It all works great, however!

[Cheesehead Dave]

Is it this one?

[Cheesehead Dave]

Personally, I use GSAK to export my cache info to HTML, Plucker to convert the HTML to a Palm PDB file and Plucker Viewer on the Palm to browse the data.

[Cheesehead Dave]

The Geocacher-U guide to paperless caching

[Cheesehead Dave]

Moo.

Moo?

MOO!

I released Ol’ Bossy in Maryland on July 5th, 2002. After four and a half years and a few close calls, I finally have her back, picking it up from brkster’s Roman Eyeballs this morning.

What’s amazing is that after all this time, the battery inside even still works! I figured time+moisture+cold+usage would have killed that off years ago.

I wish I had included a picture with the original log. Steph was just three and Matt was almost eleven months. There were two caches in this park, and while this one was pretty easy, I remember carrying Steph down a pretty steep slope through the brush to get to the other one while Kirsten waited up on the trail with the baby. By the time we got back up, Bossy had already been grabbed by a pair of cachers who were following us. After that, it was quite a trip for the cow:

Thanks to everyone who helped move this along, especially wascozookeeper, Jennifer&Dean for their timely rescues and NoLemon and badlands for finally getting him home!

[Cheesehead Dave]

Film cannisters aren’t the only “bad” container. Pill bottles are also less-than-waterproof, as are Altoids containers and AOL CD tins. Even with the log in a plastic bag, over time either the bags develop tears, or someone isn’t going to close the bag up tightly, and that’ll be it for the logbook.

Gladware containers are also pretty bad. The seals are less than perfect, and the plastic is only designed to shift between temperature extremes so many times before they start to become brittle.

My best experiences have been with ammo cans and the Rubbermaid containers that have the soft blue rubber seal around the edge of the lid. I just bought my first lock-n-locks recently and have placed two of them, so I’ll have to wait and see how well they hold up.

If you’re thinking of placing a micro, here’s a good article on container types and how well they hold up. Here’s another article about regular-sized containers.

[Cheesehead Dave]

And I bet she had her 3000th find before Wisconsin even had its 500th hide, meaning she had to do quite a bit of traveling to grab them all. I’d love to have her load up her stats into my site just so I could see the area she has covered across the country.

[Cheesehead Dave]

Welcome to the area! Besides the excellent WGA website here, many of the Kenosha/Racine cachers chat on the forums here. Stop on by anytime!

[Cheesehead Dave]

@Lostby7 wrote:

I just don’t get the attraction.

For me it would just be doing something different. I’m not a big fan of driveups either but the series provides for me an excuse to go to IL and also gives me a quirky diversion from my normal caching routine. Also this series will allow me to practice my stealth technique; after this series I could earn my brown belt in steath caching.

I think that was the attraction for me… something quirky and different, but a good excuse to spend a day caching with a group of friends.

To answer the question, with careful planning and preparation, we discovered that it’s possible to do all 99 in less than 3:45 which leaves plenty of time for lunch and finding several other excellent area caches.

[Cheesehead Dave]

@Cache_boppin_BunnyFuFu wrote:

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! I got a new Magellan eXplorist 500 Waaaahooooo and I didn’t even ask for it 😀

So, is getting a Magellan the geocaching equivalent of a lump of coal? 😉

j/k… congrats on the new toy!

[Author]

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