[Jeremy]

I would also be in favor of “templess” WGA events, but I think the tradition of full strength events with enough temp caches to occupy most people for the whole day should also continue… maybe just at the Geo-Picnic, and remove temps from the Geo-Campout (except the night caching of course)? As Rhonda said, removing the temps from an event would make it much easier to plan and execute, so maybe we could add a couple extra socialization only (templess) events to what we are currently doing? These templess events would be good for the winter months when a lot of people are in geo-hibernation and the weather is poor…

I don’t think reducing the number of temp caches to encourage socialization is a good solution. (In fact I was pushing for more temps and the use of more trail systems at the last Geo-Picnic.) Either there are no temp caches or there are sufficient temps for the number expected to hunt them. If there is a small number of temp caches grouped close together near the “base” and 200+ people hunt them, we are going to have congestion problems (people crossing paths while hunting the same cache), damage to the environment, and the formation of volunteer trails… it would likely not be pleasant experience for the participants or Mother Nature. We could drop the number of temp caches if they were more spread out than we normally have them, but a lot of people are not interested in hiking a mile just for one temp find.

[Jeremy]

@shine_like_a_star wrote:

@Cheesehead Dave wrote:

Generate a GPX file of all your finds

😳 Er, how would one go about doing that? 😳

Run a “My Finds” Pocket Query.

If you are a premium member of geocaching.com, click on “My Account” in the main menu, then click on “Build Pocket Queries” under Premium Features. At the bottom of the screen that appears, there is a section titled “My Finds”… click on “Add to queue” to have a My Finds PQ generated and sent to you.

The file that gets emailed to you is a zip file… you need to unzip it to pull out the GPX file that Dave’s DeLorme tool needs.

[edit]Looks like you are not a premium member, so the first step would be to pay your $30… or you could figure out the map pages you’ve completed by hand (I did it in about an hour) and enter them into the WGA site.[/edit]

[Jeremy]

@Coastiegirl04 wrote:

For page 57, is anyone going to place one there, Cuz i have already scoped the place out and have a place to hide one, but i just want to make sure no one else is already hiding one there yet

I was going to find a place for one (or at least see if there was a place to hide one) on page 57, but I didn’t make it up there last weekend… and I probably won’t be able to get there until Labor Day weekend. So I’d say go ahead and hide one.

(But please do not put it in the water a couple miles offshore! :D)

[Jeremy]

You can now enter your completed DeLorme maps on the WGA site as well. Read this news article for more information. The only real reason to list them here is so you can have them shown along with your other region stats (county, state, country finds).

@Team B Squared wrote:

I really like the website, it is very nicely done. I would be very proud of it if I were you!

I second this opinion. It is definitely an excellent site… the maps just blew me away.

Dave, have you ever considered becoming a webmaster for the WGA site? I know you are using the same technologies for the DeLorme site as are used on the WGA site so you’d be familiar with what we are doing here, plus there is always a long laundry list of ideas that are just waiting to be implemented. (I’m asking this publicly to try to shame you into helping… :twisted:)

[Jeremy]

Bec, don’t forgot about the recent Geocaching Pictures for the DNR topic which has a lot of pictures of kids and adults geocaching. Some of these may not have enough resolution to be printed, so you may have to ask the original posters for a high-res version… but at least it is a start. There were also many pictures taken at the picnic, but I’m not sure if any of these would be suitable for publication.

[Jeremy]

@GrouseTales wrote:

Ahhh, the good ‘ol days 🙂

Brian, this is why your avatar is so appropriate… you old codger. 😀 I’m not going to say geocaching was better in the old days, but it was certainly different. A lot of people didn’t like what geocaching evolved into and are no longer active… but a few of us senior citizens have adapted to the changes and still manage to get out and geocache once in a while.

Seriously, I heard about this brand new site (geocaching.com) via a letterboxing mailing list in September 2000. After signing up for the site the first week it was “live”, I was disappointed to find there were no caches within 50 miles… in fact there were no caches in the state. Later that year, a cache would be listed in the Sheboygan area but I never made it up there to find it before it was muggled.

Finally after the snow melted people started putting out caches. For my first find in March 2001 had to drive to the Horicon Marsh from Milwaukee (for one(!) cache… I couldn’t stop for a quick find in a Park and Ride or go caching for a whole day in West Bend ;)). The next weekend I scored a FTF on Ken’s New Prospect cache and also found his still active Pike Powder Hike and was hooked.

[Jeremy]

I don’t think the permissions were set up properly to allow all members to upload photos to this album. So you tried to upload something and were denied, give it another shot. If you still have trouble sharing your pictures or have questions on how to do so, please let me know.

[Jeremy]

Oops… this file was available for download from the new WGA site, but there was no link to it so it was impossible to find. It is available for download here:

http://wi-geocaching.com/info/WisconsinWiFi.loc

I added a link to it to the Web Links module so it is now accessible. As Bill said, this file was put together by kbraband (I think) back in Nov 2004, so it is kind of out of date.

As far as sharing other Wi-Fi hot spot locations, I guess we could start a Wiki page to do this where everyone could add the ones they know of, though it would not be as convenient as having a LOC/GPX file with the coords of all the spots. Any other ideas?

[Jeremy]

@CB&MB wrote:

OK, understandable, but maybe just a note somewhere saying they can still attend.

I have added such a note to the event page on the WGA site Bob.

If you are going to attend or are thinking of attending and didn’t register, please consider sending a note to the WGA secretary so we at least have a rough idea of how many extra people we can expect. If we know 50 more people are coming, we can try to have stuff (booklets, sheets, water, etc.) on hand to cover this, but if 50 people show up out of the blue we’re probably going to run short of something.

[Jeremy]

@Cheesehead Dave wrote:

I’m currently working on a Wisconsin version to fulfill all your DeLorme Challenge needs…

Cool Dave… let me know if you need any help. If people really get into it, we could start tracking this in a separate category in the State/County/Country stats module on the WGA site. It would also be nice to have some little award people would get if they completed the challenge.

I was also going to scope out a spot for cache on page 57 in the next couple weeks. Hopefully there is some public land in that small sliver that can be used to hide a cache… otherwise no one will ever complete the challenge 😥 (or we’d have to exclude this page).

[Jeremy]

This information is still on the new website… it is just buried in the backwoods of the Wiki. Here is the link:

Help Spread The Word

And if anyone has ideas for new banner images, let me know. We’ve had these ones for awhile (forever :D), so it may be time to offer something a little different. With the speed of the new server, we also have the capability of serving up dynamic images (like the geocaching.com stats bar image) that change automatically.

[Jeremy]

@kbraband wrote:

Hey! Bald is beautiful, not embarrasing. 8)

Ken, if this is true why are you wearing The Hat in your avatar picture?

Err… on second thought maybe I should just shut up, agree with you on the “bald is beautiful” thing, and keep my hat firmly in place. 🙂

[Jeremy]

The event listing has been published on geocaching.com:

GCXHRJ – Way Up Nord Fall Camp Out Bash ‘n’ Cache Part Deux

Anne, I had to shorten the really long name you gave the event to list it on the WGA site. If you are looking to shorten it you can remove the Fall part… last time I checked, fall doesn’t officially start until September 23. 🙂 In fact, hopefully it is not too hot this time.

I’m sure it will be a great time even with it being held earlier this year. This was probably my favorite caching event from last year, and assuming nothing comes up (and my loan for the gas it will take to make it Way Up Nord is approved ;)) I am planning on attending again.

[Jeremy]

@The5Xplorers wrote:

I noticed that the cache page for the picnic says to bring food based on your geocaching.com username, but the registration page says to bring food based on your last name. Which is it?

I think it was or is supposed to be last name… at least that is the way it has always been in the past. I think there are too many Team X and GeoX type geocaching usernames to have a nice even distribution of names (not sure I could mathematically prove this though ;)).

But as Decrepit says, this whole thing is really just a guideline, and no one will be policing it. If you make a mean 25 layer salad using all organic vegetables grown in your own garden but find yourself in the desserts category, or if you can bake a gigantic cake and decorate it with all kinds of geocaching related things (see the photos from our first picnic) but are in the chips category, etc…, feel free to bend the rules. The big thing is that we don’t end up with many people bringing the exact same thing.

I have adjusted the cache page on geocaching.com to match what the registration page says on the WGA site to avoid further culinary confusion.

[Jeremy]

And people complain that the GPS and ammo box in the WGA logo look like unrealistic. How about we replace the earth in the Journal graphic with the outline of the state of Wisconsin and go with it for the new WGA logo? 🙂

@kbraband wrote:

Those of you who attended the first-ever Wisconsin geocaching event in August 2001 may remember Stanley Miller, the Journal Sentinel reporter who wrote today’s story.

Thanks for the blast from the past Ken. The article was worth reading over again just to see this now famous quote:

Sometimes I think aliens are messing with the satellites, playing Pong with me, and I am the ball,” Worske said. “This is driving me crazy. It’s all these trees.”

[Author]

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