[seldom|seen]

TB hotels shouldn’t automatically be prisons. I don’t do much caching lately but I am going to try to keep a closer eye on TB’s and GC’s coming into the area this year. If there’s a mission that suits me or a TB that I have an interest in, I’m going to go grab it.

I just released a bunch of TB’s this past weekend with very specific, interesting and heart-warming missions. I am trying to get others to not only get creative with their caches, but also with their trackables. Many TB’s have a generic “Move me as far as you can” or “I’m in a race with so and so to get to” mission which is fine, but doesn’t do much to inspire cachers to grab them and share in their mission unless the route or destination appeals to them. I find that a little personal experience or a goal to revisit some event or place from one’s past makes for an interesting and compelling mission.

So, I’d suggest putting a watch on the few closest “prisons” in your neighborhood and when something of interest gets interred therein, go ahead and mount a prison break. The trackable owner will thank you.

[seldom|seen]

@-cheeto- wrote:

Congrats!!! It was fun being part of your milestone frames 🙂

A 1200th milsetone log for my event, a great GC prize for your LCG December win donated and handed to you by the “objects in mirror are closer than they appear” player, and a 200 point game at the 10th Frame. What more memorable of a day could a guy ask for?

Oh yeah, another re-adjusted final FTF opportunity, also awarded by me. 2 months ago you and I were battling it out like a Jedi and a Sith lord and here you are getting all these good vibrations from the King of Sellzup. Let no one say that the lord of this kingdom is unfair!

Congratulation, and keep and eye on the rearview….

[seldom|seen]

@zuma wrote:

Congrats on reaching the 1K milestone. Way to go. 1k is the best milestone, and I am sure that you enjoyed it.’

Also, it is great to see the silver ammo can tradition start to spread statewide. Thanks Sagasu for making that happen.

zuma

OK Zuma, straighten me out. Silver for 1K, does that mean Gold for 2K? I placed a Platinum for Sagasu’s 2100th (was supposed to be for his 2K, but he wouldn’t sit still long enough for me to complete the gyrations to get “A Triangle of LOVE, JOY!” published) and am working on some new ones, both 1K and 2K.

[seldom|seen]

I had heard tales of the approaching milestone as I usually get the inside track on these adventures in the making, but I too was unaware that the accomplishment was complete prior to the event until the Old Man arrived and started telling his tall tales.

Congrats Pete and you’ll just have to wait for another milestone before you get an s|s tribute cache placed. I know you are long overdue. Just be thankfull the Rat Bastard tribute was placed long before you got active in the game again.

Hmmm…. I’m already envisioning your next milestone….

[seldom|seen]

@RSplash40 wrote:

Have you gone out of the metropolitan area’s and tried it? How’s the phone and data reception out there?

The other downside is the lack of music storage, I have 10gb of music on my itunes now, granted, don’t listen to all of it but I have another 900+ cd’s I’d like to get on it, even if I was to pick just the songs off each cd I like, 8gb nor 16gb is going to cut it.

It’s sporadic. Sometimes in place where I should have a signal, I don’t. And sometimes in places where I’d never expect to get a signal, I do. I’d say I have a decent signal for caching 85-95% of the time. Not as good as my GPS for reception, but I gladly trade the accuracy of my phone for the few frustrating times I have no reception.

Like I said, the frustration comes with the lack of zoom functions on Google maps. Who’s oversight was that? I just saw someone with Google Maps on a Palm and there were the zoom buttons! What the frack?

About storage. Not to worry, give it a year and solid state storage will be caught up to the point where everything you have in your collection will fit on a new phone. It’s just a matter of time.

[seldom|seen]

@kbraband wrote:

The problem with this poll is that it doesn’t give good guidance to the board. Instead of having the choices follow a natural progression of “very positive” to “neutral” to “very negative,” the choices seemed confusing. The final choice started to come closest to my opinion: “I really dislike the new logo. The colors are drab and it communicates nothing about our organization.” But then the poll author added what to me seems a complete about-face at the end: “But I will live with it” which, if selected, could be interpreted as an endorsement of the new logo.

Yup, sorry. There was supposed to be one last option that said “I absolutely hate it and want to vote on something professionally designed” That’s why I had the “But I will live with it” on the last one listed. Once I published the poll and saw that the last option didn’t get added, it was too late to do anything about it. Beside that last remark I thought the range was still, in essence, “very positive to very negative” and just let it ride.

I’m not a polster, but I did take stats in college and know this is pretty week poll. However, my intent was not to provide the BOD with direction, but some measure of the reception of the new logo by the “voting” members, since many of the blog statements about it are so polarized.

You’ll never get 100% participation, so you have to use what you do get as a representative slice of the whole. That being the case, these results speak volumes about the luke-warm reception of the new logo. 35% in favor 26% don’t care, 35% not in favor. I’ll say it again – this is not what you’d expect from a strong logo.

If I were running for the board, I would be lobbying for a secondary course of action. To spend another $150 dollars to post the project to 99designs or a similar work-for-contract site just to see what panned out. But I am not running for the board (my wife would be filing papers) and so all I can do is raise awareness. This whole discussion will eventually die, but not before I, as a professional logo designer, have attempted to prove my points about the weakness of this re-branding.

[seldom|seen]

Now that’s one big smiley! Wish I’d have thought of that!

[seldom|seen]

@Sagasu wrote:

Great to see the number of participants in January so far! It’s a wide open race with two weekends left, and this old horse will be staying close to home.

Nice to see the old horse actually found one this month! 🙄

[seldom|seen]

@SammyClaws wrote:

I know it easy for someone to be a critic, but this poll seems to be measuring how contented people are with the new logo. It does not seem to be geared to finding out what they like or dislike about it. It seems a bit confusing as to what the goal is for this.

You are right. I should have reworded the opening statement to say “pick the best option that fits the way you feel about our new logo”

I am trying to get a temperature reading here. I’d suggest that a new logo should be loved by a few, liked by many, disliked by a few and hated by none. That’s the barometer I’m used to for a re-branding a logo, primarily because of the attachments to an existing logo can be strong. If anyone close to the process with a vested interest in a company says they hate a new logo that a majority of others like, then we go back to figure out why. VERY rarely does anyone HATE a well designed logo, and if a logo elicits that strong a reaction from someone within the company it’s our job to determine if it’s just a prejudice to it or if there is seriously something wrong with a logo. We’re used to shooting for 75% approval of the vested party (or a vote among out designing piers) before presenting a final version.

Look at the results of the poll. 35% think it’s great or good. a middle 26% don’t care or are tired of it and could go either way. And 35% either dislike or hate the new logo. There is no bell curve here like there should be with the majority of the class weighing in at the center. Quite the opposite, it’s nearly an inverted bell curve. Now, you can interpret the results any way you want, but I suggest that this shows a poor overall grade for what was supposed to be a BOLD FRESH re-branding of the WGA. We should be shooting for 75% and be looking at 4-5 options that the majority like and have trouble choosing from.

[seldom|seen]

@teameverest wrote:

@gotta run wrote:

@teameverest wrote:

two of those archived caches on our list
have been fixed.

Your welcome….. 8)

“As the cache owner, you are also responsible for physically checking your cache periodically, and especially when someone reports a problem with the cache (missing, damaged, wet, etc.).

Your maintenance plan must allow for a quick response to reported problems.”

Is over a year after force-archiving quick? I guess that’s open to interpretation.

Better late than never…

I respectfully disagree with that last statement. If an issue is raised with one of my caches, I feel that I MUST, at the very least, respond immediately with a note telling prospective hunters that I will get out there soon. For me, “soon” means anywhere from tomorrow to next week depending on distance and weather. Personally, I feel REALLY bad if any of mine are disabled for over a month because it means one of a few things are happening:

1. The cache is really to far away for me to get to and take care of. I have a couple great caches in Mountain and I usually get up there 2-3 times a year. Last year, the few times I was in the area playing the LCG, I couldn’t get to them because of really bad road conditions but what I DID do was coordinate with a fellow cacher to do maintenance on them when he was in the area, and now they are fine.

2. The cache placement or container is problematic and needs to be addressed. Sometimes I think a cache will weather just fine and a month later I will hear it has water inside. As a creative cacher, I do push the limits and putting custom containers in the field also puts more responsibility on me to make sure they last. A poor container is bound for problems. I think many of your early and now archived caches fall into this category and maybe a little extra effort to place better container would help. I do understand that as a college student it’s difficult to cough up $5 for an ammo can every time, but maybe you could start a club like the one at UWSP and come up with other ways to generate cache to place lasting containers.

3. I have too many caches to maintain! Yeah, I know what all of you are saying :)… It is true that I have many caches, but what I try to do for the remote ones, as has been suggested, is find an area cacher to act as trail-boss and watch them for me. I even send replacements to the trail-boss, just in case. I have called on my trail-bosses in the past and they have always been accommodating and responsive – a testament for the people in this sport and their desire to keep Wisconsin caches up to snuff.

There are options for you. The Cache Rescue Mission, while it shouldn’t be a crutch, can help you when it’s difficult to get to one of yours. I know how remote your caches are. I’ve been to a few. I replaced one (Radke Point Woodpecker) and left another (Westlund) since it’s location was suspect. They are often on the Lonely list which means they are very remote or are in trouble. I have a cache of my own listed as a rescue mission right now. Thankfully, after reviewing all of my caches, I only came up with one that fit the “Maintenance” category of the CRM page.

About your containers and placements. After attempting “In the Middle of Nowhere” and doing “Lost Boy Scout” in the middle of summer, I became acutely aware of your caching style and hides and now know what to expect. I can tell you that I don’t look forward to them. For me there is nothing redeeming about walking some distance though what might be private property to find a coffee can full of rotten stuff. Taking me out in the middle of nowhere to fumble around in some of the thickest vegetation I’ve even been in is no thrill for me either. Was it memorable? Sure, a memory of me wasting an hour and getting scrapped up and pissed off, likely the same memory I would have even if I had found it.

Now, there is nothing wrong with placing challenging caches and some cachers really get off on making those finds. I can appreciate that and even have a few that fit that bill. But, at the very least, we need to step up and make sure our remote caches are in good shape. It’s one thing to hunt for a missing keyholder on a guardrail and come away empty, but quite another to drive long distances, bushwhack 1/4 mile through thick vegetation and come away with a DNF because a cache was likely missing or the cords were off.

I would strongly encourage you to get out and find some more remote ones by other experience cachers. You have a very low find count compared to you remote hides and I think a little more exposure might be just the ticket. I would also suggest that you carefully consider what you are putting others through to get a find. Sometimes it’s difficult to know what we are in for even when we read previous logs and your cache description should make it very clear so we are prepared. I think your “In the Middle of Nowhere” description does.

Now I think twice about going after one of yours, even though I love a challenge and a difficult terrain hunt. Not necessarily because of the place or terrain it’s hidden in, but because it may simply not be there. This is not the kind of preconception you want fellow cachers to have of your caches.

I do hope you continue to cache and improve the quality and placement of them. I do like the fact that you are placing challenging caches, despite my own experiences with yours. I will be watching your new ones to see if they are worth the journey!

Please just take this as constructive criticism.

[seldom|seen]

Plenty of s|s puzzle caches for everyone to get over the weekend, and a bunch of them are lonely. Maybe a requirement for logging the Lonely event should be a lonely s|s cache find either 48hours before or after the event? Just kidding.

What, you say you haven’t solved them? No problem, I know a couple other events where you can get answers…

[seldom|seen]

@Lostby7 wrote:

The Rock Elm Disturbance GC16KZC .
Seriously, how many caches have a meteor impact to feature?

That is pretty friggin cool Lostby7! One of my new favorite caches will be “Lost By Seven” which is a long overdue tribute cache to a certain fellow puzzle maker and inspirational soul. Now, I just have to figure out where to put that sucker….

[seldom|seen]

There was one that got completely quashed. “The Fizzmaker” which was going to be a cache with Giz where you had to conduct the Mentos and Diet Soda experiment to see how high you could get your fizz to go.

No amount of convincing got me to a resolution on that one and I had to completely change it to “I’ll Come Bounding Back”, which is still a fun one for kids, but not what I had intended.

The good news it that I found the perfect spot for this one and just have to wait until spring to try getting it published again.

[seldom|seen]

@Team Black-Cat wrote:

It’s obvious that S|S is very passionate about graphic design. I certainly don’t want to start an argument here, but I have to disagree with his assessment of what makes a good logo. I can come up with dozens of logos that are recognizable a country mile away that express little of the companies they represent.

These are all little more than letters, yet each is very distinctive and easily identifiable.

I am not trying to have an arguement, but have a discussion about what makes for a strong logo and why I don’t think our new one is.

Thanks for these examples. Let me break them down a bit (from my standpoint):

1. GM – What does this communicate? Class, style, precision, motion, quality, fluidity, smoothness. All qualities I want in a car that I might buy from GM. Many car company logos employ some chrome-like embossing and fluid lines to represent the deep sensual emotions that chrome elicits. Now, arguably, GM could have a crappy logo (see TBS), and still be recognized because of market saturation.

2. IBM – The inspiration for IBM’s logo was part early dot matrix printing which had visible lines running through solids colors and part LCD monitors whose characters were also broken by lines. Can anyone deny that the IBM logo uniquely represents early computing and printing? It has everything to do with the company and business machines.

3. I don’t recognize or know this logo. What is the National Network? This one fails for me since I don’t recognize it and apparently I should. A network for what?

4. This is a really poor logo. Sure, we recognize it, but only because we are saturated with it in various media to the point where we can’t help but recognize it. Perhaps that’s why TBS recently re-branded themselves as being “very funny” with a much softer, friendlier logo that looks like a smiley face?

They also work well for printing or silk screening, which is a major concern for WGA.

I’d argue that deespite GM’s strong and instantly recognizable logo, that it’s not easy for someone to silkscreen the gradients in it using solid block of color.

As for the four square Geocaching logo; yes it has color and motion, but I’ve never been able to figure out what that guy is yelling about… Is there any relevance to the colors, or are they just there because they look pretty? (It’s the latter.) What does the circle represent? The flag I get…
The original Geocaching logo was very expressive of the sport, but it was also way to “busy”.

Might the guy not be “excited” that he found the cache? “Hootie!” The circle represents the journey to get there and that caching involves a treasure-hunt type quest. That’s what dotted lines and “x” makes the spot represent to us from our early childhood and our first pirate stories. It’s unmistakable. The flag has more to do with early GPS caching iconography, but to this day we still see the pinheads on our handhelds and iPhones for GZ. The colors to me represent caching in all seasons, part of what I tried to incorporate in my logo entry. There simply aren’t that many outdoor sports that are doable “year-round” and it’s part of what makes geocaching so appealing. Anytime, anywhere. Green=summer, Yellow=spring, Orange=fall, Blue=winter. It’s not a stretch to think some someone put thought into the color choices. Everything about that logo is deliberate. It communicates so much on so many levels it’s hard to deny its effectiveness on a subconscious level. Please, tell me what our new logo would communicate to someone not familiar with the sport? Something outdoorsy perhaps that happens in Wisconsin, maybe hunting related. That’s about all I get out of it if I try to look at it from an outsiders perspective.

I am not arguing about the merits of any of the other options, I am simply trying to communicate why our new logo is a poor choice to represent the WGA.

[seldom|seen]

@zuma wrote:

What we tried to do was to freshen up our logo, and have a fun contest for that logo. It was never the intent to have a million dollar logo. It was never the intent to upset people, or meant as a vehicle for rancor to disrupt our normal friendly conversations. To me, friendships and fun going out caching with friends are more important than how we choose to rearrange a few electrons in an electronic design.

zuma

OK. I’m gonna go over my viewpoint one more time, even though I know everyone is tired of this and tired of hearing from me – I’ve said so much already. But I want to be sure that everyone knows where I am coming from and is not under the impression that I am not being vocal because another logo that I favored didn’t win.

First, Ralph presented a great summation of the spirit of the logo contest and also of the spirit of our organization and the work our volunteer board performs for its members. I cannot imagine what the organization would be like without the commitment and that our BOD and moreover our members bring to the sport in Wisconsin. One only has to look at the success of the LCG in it’s virgin year to see the passion that many of us bring to this ridiculous game of looking for junk in tossed tupperware! And, it will continue to grow despite how some of us feel about the look of our logo or the state of our website. The logo isn’t the only dated thing about wi-geocaching.com.

I also agree that, despite the delays, the BOD did follow the process outlined and agreed upon. I would point out, however, the specific lines concerning the final adoption and approval of the logo chosen by the body. It is clear to me that the BOD had the final say in the process and it is precisely this reason why the final decision took so long. I appreciate that the BOD put more weight behind the choice of the voting body than their own personal preferences. This is all commendable. I wish however, that more weight would have been given to the thing itself and voices of the professionals who know a thing or two about the process and what makes not only for a clean bold logo, but a strong distinctive one.

Forget the legal stuff, the purpose of branding is to create a recognizable identity, independent of others out there that compete for your attention. Now, here’s where I will agree with much of the “who really cares if it looks like the WA logo”. Nobody will. We aren’t looking to get members to cancel their membership with Washington Geocaching Association nor they from us. I have come down hard on the similarity issue, but only from the standpoint of looking at the process from the eye of someone in the trade. The similarity issue would have been the end of this logo a long time ago. Part of any logo design process is to see what else is out there, for similar companies, so we don’t end creating a similar looking logo.

The point I have been trying to make is about the quantitative nature of the logo, not the quality of it. Yes, it’s clean, bold. What it isn’t is expressive about what the WGA is. You could substitute any word for “geocaching” under the graphic element and the logo as a whole would be just as good for a dozen other associations in Wisconsin. You should not be able to do this with a strong logo. The nature of the business it represents should be intrinsically tied to the graphic elements. From a designer’s standpoint, this is a really weak logo. The previous one at least communicated some elements of the sport and had a little motion. Not only does our new one not tell a story about who we are, but it also conveys NO sense of the excitement of the sport, NO joy of caching in and with Wisconsin geocachers – there’s not a shred of motion or energy in it at all.

Now, you might think it’s a tall order for some simple graphics to do this but it is exactly the kind of design directive that we, as logo designers, base our concepts on to create outstanding logos.

Humor me and look at the Geocaching logo for a second. What do you see? Bright colors, motion, action, excitement, a goal, success, completion, fun. It’s all there. There’s no G, there’s actually nothing in the logo “bug” itself that identifies it with geocaching.com. And yet, it is VERY STRONG logo. If you saw this logo once for the first time, you’d be curious to know what it stands for. See it ten times and you instantly recognize it, even if you’re 50′ away from a guy sporting it on a baseball cap. I would argue that the WGA letters and the outline of Wisconsin are superfelous and repetitive. We spell it out underneath, don’t we? I’m being a little tongue-in-cheak here but imagine a pair of muddy boots and a walking stick above or next to the words. Imagine a backpack with a GPS, a flashlight and a bottle of water sticking out and the letters WGA embroidered on it. My point is you can communicate a sense of exploration and adventure with very little by way of graphics.

I hope now have a better appreciation for the reason why I am not happy about the outcome of this process. If I had the money, I’d submit to 99designs right now, just to show all of you what we could have gotten for strong logo options.

Now, here’s a proposal. This is the one we voted on as members and the number one choice. We could submit the project for $150 bucks to 99designs and see what comes to us in a week. Then we put it up to a vote between our new logo and the best 5 options from logo designers, similar to the way our existing logo was put up against the top 3. I’d say put it to a vote of the body. Conduct a poll. See if more that 50% are unhappy with the final choice and would like to see a round done by logo designers at the cost of $150, the minimum award on 99designs.com.

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