[Jeremy]

Anne, we had the city of Sheboygan in the SE Wisconsin region, so I’d say Sheboygan county would probably not be part of this region. Hwy 10 which runs east/west through the state was roughly used as the dividing line for north vs. south. But maybe it makes sense for Sheboygan to be in the NE region… any Sheboygan area folks have an opinion on this?

Also, the boundaries of these regions were intentionally left kind of vague to allow for some flexibility in posting about a topic that may lie on the boundary between regions (I could see posts about a cache in Sheboygan county falling in this gray zone)… but I’m sure some bean counting bureaucrat will come up with a map showing hard boundaries for the regions. 🙂

That being said, the way the Wisconsin DOT divides up the state would be similar the way the WGA forum regions are structured, except that we have a South Central region for Madison, Janesville, etc.

[Jeremy]

OK, the regional forums have been set up. The Board approved creating these forums and decided how to divide the state into regions several weeks ago… I apologize for not implementing the wishes of the Board and membership sooner.

In each regional forum, I posted some basic guidelines. The most important point is not to post the same topic in a number of regional forums… doing so will quickly make a mess of things.

[Jeremy]

This should give you a link button without having to create an image… and it looks like geocaching.com allows all of these HTML tags and the onClick property in the cache description HTML so you should be all set.

<input type="button" value="Button Label" onClick=

"window.location='http://wi-geocaching.com'">

[Jeremy]

It is sad to see some of these great caches get archived. Like Seth, I have found most of these caches and fail to see how any of them were doing any damage. Basically I feel that these dozen or so caches were “sacrificed” to appease the DNR gods and allow the 100s of other caches on DNR managed land to remain and be legal… considering the very real possibility of an outright ban on all geocaching on any Wisconsin DNR land, I guess I can live with this sacrifice.

But I would still like to see a discussion opened with the DNR about exceptions to the SNA rules. Specifically, why can’t virtual and/or earthcaches be allowed if they require you to go where 100s of other non-cachers visit each year? Did the person who created this list even know what a virtual cache is? This should be an easy sell to the DNR, and such an exception could be written into the policy without creating any “gray areas”.

I’d love to pick up my archived cache (GC7CA) this weekend, but I won’t bother because I know that there will be people hunting in a blind 100 yards from the cache and another in a climbing tree stand near the trail from the parking lot. Going after deer hunting season will allow me to pick up any litter these folks leave in this “pristine” area (which like Lone Rock was seriously damaged by natural forces… straight line winds… after it was designated a SNA).

[Jeremy]

Lemme guess… there was a GPS unit in the purse that led the police right to the purse snatchers’ hideout? 🙂 Seriously, wouldn’t it be great if you GPS could automatically turn on and “phone home” its current location if it were lost or stolen…

[Jeremy]

Belated congratulations Anne! I still can’t believe that you have the time to find all these caches, hide quality ones of your own, and organize multiple large geocaching events per year. It definitely was a great 2006 (geocaching-wise) for you!

[Jeremy]

@Gram&Gramps wrote:

Could postings in the general sections be optionally tagged so they got copied to a regional section as well?

Unfortunately the forum software we are using does not support automatic “cross-posting” of the same topic in multiple forums. You could do it manually, but then people could respond in multiple places and you’d end up with multiple discussions going on.

So for now, the answer is no… each topic has to be put in a single category, so you’d have to decide when posting whether the topic was of interest mainly to those in a region or to all WGA members.

[Jeremy]

I think having a separate Northern Wisconsin forum on the WGA site would be a good start. We can see how many postings and how much use such a regional forum gets, and could divide the state up into more regions in the future based on the results of this “experiment”.

Note that I would create a Northern Wisconsin forum category which could have multiple subforums, as elfdoctors suggested. For now, I would propose creating only a General forum in this category for all discussion related to caching up north. If necessary, we could create forums in this category specifically for cities in Northern Wisconsin or temporary ones for planning events in Northern Wisconsin.

I’m floating this idea past the Board and if they approve I will add the category next week. It might also be nice to have a “hide” feature to allow people to opt out of viewing this category if they so desire.

[Jeremy]

@Johnny Cache wrote:

Jeremy, don’t you need a set for your ankles?

No I already get those for free from the state. They cost the taxpayers a lot more than 69 bucks though… the good thing about the ankle units is that I can just call my PO and he can check his computer and tell me if I am near any caches.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2006-06-06-gps-tracking_x.htm

[Jeremy]

Very nicely done and well organized. Using the 5 Ws provides good logical organization, but maybe Why should be first or earlier to “sell” people on the activity before attempting to explain it to them?

To help those who might want to give this presentation to other groups, how long did it take you to present this material? At 60 to 120 seconds per slide, I’m guessing it took at least an hour and a half. Someone who had less time could probably remove the TB slides, etc. to make it fit.

I packaged up the presentation along with the PowerPoint viewer as a standalone .exe file. The standalone version is available here, but is even larger than the regular PowerPoint file (6.5 MB vs 5 MB). Doug, if you don’t want to publish it on the WGA site, let me know and I’ll remove it.

[Jeremy]

@SLASH354 wrote:

I seen the Garmin Foretrex at the Aldi’s on 68th & Capitol Dr. in Milwaukee on Sat ( 10/28 ) for $69.99 if anyone is interested & still looking.

Thanks for the tip. There are 6 more Foretrex units sitting in the manager’s office at this location after I bought mine tonight… this is the first Milwaukee area Aldis that I found had them in stock. Since I spent some time explaining what a GPS receiver is to the manager (no it is not a cell phone or a bracelet to track someone’s movements :)), I’m guessing they aren’t a big seller.

Now that I have a pair, I’m going to leave them alone together and should have a litter of little ones in a couple months. 😯

[Jeremy]

@NSLP#1 wrote:

I would like to know how well the AAA work for you. I just picked up one of the $69 Foretrex wriststrap GPSr units and have though about rechargables, it even has the option to chose NiMH or Alkaline batteries being installed.

Welcome to the Foretrex club. I use Rayovac and Energizer NiMH AAA rechargables in mine and can usually go a whole caching day, or about 10 to 12 hours, on one set of batteries. Supposedly it will go 15 hours on alkaline batteries but I have only run it on alkalines once or twice so I don’t know if this is true.

[Jeremy]

Thanks for your service Brian.

As only the second reviewer ever for the state of Wisconsin, you helped define the procedures followed by future reviewers as the sport of geocaching evolved and grew. I still remember getting trained by you as a backup reviewer many moons ago… it was clear then that you took this responsibility seriously and wanted to thoroughly review all caches submitted to keep the quality of geocaches placed in Wisconsin at a high level.

You also managed to treat everyone fairly. While there were many controversies over the years, all were handled tactfully and without personal attacks (at least the ones that I know of ;)). How you managed to keep your cool and just not go off on some people (or quit the reviewer position in protest!) for 3 1/2 years amazes me…

You’ve set the bar high for the reviewers that follow in your footsteps… enjoy your retirement. 8)

[Jeremy]

@Team Hemisphere Dancer wrote:

Hmmm Maybe Jeremy could put a link to this on the WGA site?

You can always help me out by submitting a link. 😉

Anyway, it has been added as an “Essential Geocaching Link” and appears in the Quick Links box in the left hand column. Also I have pulled the House of Brew site from the “Essential” category because it has been non-functional for so long and it is likely not coming back…

[Jeremy]

Very cool Dave. I had always thought of doing something similar (stats breakdowns) on the WGA site once the “My Finds” PQ parser was up, but I don’t think I would have ever been able to develop something as extensive or polished. It is probably better that you are hosting this… then this great tool is then available to cachers worldwide versus just WGA members.

Speaking of which, if this site does get used by 1000s of people won’t the cacher stats list get impossibly long? Maybe allow people to put themselves in groups for easier access… like I would be in the “Wisconsin Cachers” group and maybe the “Milwaukee Area Cachers”. This would make the lists more manageable and you could more easily “watch” the group of folks you are interested in.

If in the future you cannot handle the bandwidth costs or maintenance of this site, I’m sure we would gladly host it on the WGA site (but it would then only be for our members).

[Author]

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