Opencaching.com update.

Helloooooo all.

Thought I would chime in with a few notes, and interesting observations.

Opencaching.com

Not to be confused with opencaching.us .dk or some of the original opencaching crowd. I am speaking of the ones by Garmin.

It was interesting to note that this last week there were fewer caches on opencaching.com than the week before.

A friend that collects the data from OC.com  pointed it out to me earlier this week.  I did not ask him to use his numbers here so I will not toss him under the bus for all to see.  But there are a few things to note.  The site is not quite a year old.  They have about 17,500 caches, that were added.  Of those it appears 5-10% are unique.  So most of you will go out out find a cache and will find that more than 9 out of 10 are already on the geocaching.com website.

Opencaching stats. Top Total, Bottom new additions.

You can see the huge jump in cache submission when they had their GPS unit giveaway.  There was none when they did their chirp giveaway.  At least I don't see one. (I cannot remember when they did that.  

It could be that things are leveling off. It appears that way.  Most that I have talked to locally have not noticed a find on their caches. Some of the finds are imports.  You can import your finds from other caches, so they will appear.  So even logs that are there may be copies of the logs from geocaching.com.

Advertising

On another note.. there was an ad in backpacker magazine for opencaching.  The pics were sent to me.  I did find them rather funny.

If you look to the right you get the image that I was sent.  Below is the blowup. 

Yep you got it.  On a advertisement that is for Garmin's opencaching.com there is a nice picture of a GPS unit.  If you notice the GPS unit is showing a GC# or a geocaching.com cache.

Time to have a talk with your Advertising people .

Summary

I wonder what is in store.  Most people that I know of have never heard of the site still.  Or if they have they have not desire to do anything with it.  It does not bode well for opencaching. They are approaching the 20,000 cache milestone.  Assuming there are no more geocides, where people just archive all they have.

I think they may become a niche market.  Though I am not sure what there corner is. 

the Opencaching network seems very innovative.  They are trying new things and doing things that the other sites are not trying.

Terracaching has its "private entry".  You have to find sponsors, and people that trust you.  Their idea is to push the hide quality.  I am not sure that hold true anymore.

Navicache... meh... not sure.  Just being an alternative is not enough. 

Garmin has tossed some interesting ideas into the works.  I think it has pushed Groundspeak to respond faster.  In the past they may have planned Project A for January, B for March, C for May.  Now it appears they are working on A, B, and C for January, with C,D,and E lined for for Feb, March.  They are tackling more, faster, and trying new things.

All of this is good for caching.  What people will do next.. we have to see.

Update on 2011-10-03 16:50 by firennice

UTAG Event and Cache Day

Prologue

I received an phone call earlier in the week from Peanuts Parents.  He was wondering if I would go out to the event with him this last weekend with him.

Friday night. - The Drive

Well after a quick review of things with my wife, I got the green light.  So Friday night we headed south to Kanosh.  He has a little cabin there. 

The drive was a long one, about two hours.  Ok well it was not really long, but it was long enough for me.  I am not big on many hours in the car.  The plus is that I was able to grab caches on the way south. Normally that is a no no.  Kids are not fond of stopping for a lot of caches.  We took the time to find a mystery cache in Nephi, then stopping in Fillmore to grab another cache.

When we got to Kanosh, Utah just as it was just getting dark.  He showed me around the area, inside and out.  There is a great view of Utah's West desert with various cinder cones and old extinct volcanoes.

PeanutsParents had a ton of caches. And I do mean a ton.  So we spent a good part of the night talking and putting together many of the containers for his cache run.

Sunrise over Utah's west desert. Saturday Morning

The next morning is when the adventure began.  We left early in the morning. About 7:00 AM if my mind is correct. Things are fuzzy for me early in the morning.  We packed things up, and got everything ready.  Neither of us wanted to sleep too long.

There are no stores in Kanosh.  So food is what be had brought with us.  Well, that was some Jolly Ranchers and a few V8's.  what more could you ask for.

Our drive began and we stopped for one or two caches that Peanuts had never grabbed before even though he was nearby.  He had left them for the perfect moment. Now.

Then our drive included him placing a number of caches.  So as we headed into town and he took me to a few caches, we started to see many of the nice caches that I had never been to. 

Then off into the desert.

The desert west of Kanosh is pretty sparse.  This year as you walk around there are a number of desert flowers blooming, and a little green.  It has been pretty wet (for a desert) this year.

We headed to a string of caches that had been placed earlier this year down a little dirt road. Well that is where things got strange.  The road was no more than a few car tracks into the desert.  We needed to go three miles.  So off we went in our truck.  (Bad Idea #1) Those car tracks dwindled until we were on a ATV trail.  That was getting a little nerve wracking.  Then it turned into a cow trail only a few hundred yards from where we were going.  Then little by little a few tracks joined ours. (We did get the caches)

I am not sure that was the wisest choice, but it was not our last dumb one.

The race to the event.The roadless road.

We headed off to the event so we would not be late.  The event was about 30-40 miles to the north. Well we were heading west.  In the desert.  At one point we had a choice.  Head south, 8 miles to the road, or take a dirt road to the north. 

Well I voted for north.  It seemed logical, we were going that way.

Bad idea #2 - Eventually the road got nasty.  very nasty.  In fact it was not there.  You could see remains. It had been a road where they placed a power-line up out in the desert.  in the 70's.  but not much of one now.

I admitted that I had made a bad decision. Peanuts decided perhaps we would drive on. (Bad Idea #3).  So off we went.  I snapped a pic out the window.  You can see where the road was, but not much of a road, and few have traveled it in years.

Happily we reached the rail line and there was an option to go North or South (there was a road there).  Well once again, why go south to reach or destination in the North. (Bad Idea #4).  It was 7 miles.  but the roads were even worse.  I wish I had taken a photo or video.  Eventually the road turned into a two-track trail, then a single track. We could see where the road had been. It would have been in the 50's.  We traveled wash outs and horrible ledges. And eventually it faded to a cow trail.  Eventually as we came within a mile the road started to appear again. People had traveled it from the other end anyway.

We got to the event an hour late.  Oh yea... did I forget to mention we had a flat?  When we finally hit the highway we found out that we had a flat.  The tire was so hot I could hardly touch it. Same with the lug nuts.  Ahhh life int he desert.   Welll not many were at the event, but it was nice anyway.

Hunting for the benchmark.Drive home

The drive home was an afternoon with benchmarks.  Peanuts was putting caches near them.  We actually found three that were placed by other cachers doing the same thing.  So we were pre publishing ftfs on them.   Ahhh the joy of people with the same ideas.

We had fun hunting for them on the way.  Especially the ones buried, that we actually had to find. 

Benchmarks can be way off anyway.  A hundred feet or more. If you can find the sign marking them you may be in luck.  But even then they are buried in the sand in the desert.  So we had to work to drag them out.

That was the afternoon drive home.  We found another 10 benchmarks, making for about 20 benchmarks on the day, with about 50 caches. Plus Peanuts placed another 25-30.  So it was a long fun day.  We were tired when we made it back home.

Update on 2011-09-27 05:15 by firennice

10 years

Normally about everything that I write has something to do with geocaching, sometimes a scout post is mixed in.  However this time it is not. It is a look back 10 years go.  Tuesday Sept 11, 2001. 

I woke up that morning, and do not remember much about it. Scrambling to get things together. I was surprised to hear what was going on while I was driving into work.  Apparently a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. It was a long drive, I drove slow to listen to what happened.  There was a lot going on, and the reporters were trying to keep up with what was taking place.   They also had no real idea.

I was running late, and the radio reporter for KSL had a TV going on at the same time, and different feeds from the internet.  Trying to keep up on the information that was coming in.

I was pulling around a corner leaving the old highway to head into Spanish fork and he said. We are getting reports of a second plane going into the other tower, then a few moments later he conformed it while the tv replayed the image of the impact and explosion of the other plane.  I pulled over. to the side of the road.

I am pretty sure I heard the radio say it, or I just thought it.  "We are at war".  I was in shock, and tears came to my eyes.  I wondered at that point who we were going to go after, where would they be?  I guessed the middle east, but who?  What would become of my kids what, and what world would they grow up in.

When I got to work I had the only computer that was not in the office.  Calls came in all day long.  Everyone did not have a cell phone at that point.  People were coming over all day.  There were notes of bombs going off, other planes crashing.

I remember sitting in a pizza shop for lunch watching cnn, and the towers came down, and seeing the hole in the pentagon.

That night i remember telling my son that the world had changed.  We thought ouselves above all the fighting from around the world.  He would grow up in a world different than I. And he has.

So I wanted to take a moment to thank those that have died for the country, have fought overseas, in the towers and in the planes. thank you.

The First Challenges

I took the time tonight to put together a list of the first challenges.  Well kind of.

The list is for the 100 challenges that are active.  When archived they vanish completely.  So all I could get were those that were still active.

There are a handful that don't seem to meet the requirements, so I guess a few may vanish.  I may have some errors as well.   

Here is the list. 

CHALLENGES

CHALLENGES

1	GX1	Snoqualmie Tunnel of Light	WASHINGTON
2	GX2	Pull Lenin's Finger	WASHINGTON
3	GX4	I’m Bigger Than You!	CANADA
4	GX5	First Czech Photo Challenge - Charles bridge	CZEK
5	GX7	Field of corn	OHIO
6	GX8	Walk The Leamington Labyrinth	CANADA
7	GX9	The Long Man's Challenge!	ENGLAND
8	GXB	Run From Millie	INDIANA
9	GXD	Take a picture of the Citadel Hill Canon firing	CANADA
10	GXF	The Big Sweep	COLORADO
11	GX12	Take a Photo in your spot!	TEXAS
12	GX13	Take a photo of your self at the falls	SOUTH DAKOTA
13	GX14	The Man of Steel	ILLINOIS
14	GX15	Phoon the spirits.	CANADA
15	GX16	Stockholmania	SWEDEN
16	GX18	soccer place in Harheim	GERMANY
17	GX1A	Take a Picture of yourself with Mr. Fourth of July	ILLINOIS
18	GX1B	Hug a Lighthouse	NEW JERSEY
19	GX1C	Underjord	SWEDEN
20	GX1E	Gouda - Stadhuis	NETHERLANDS
21	GX20	Round and Round	GERMANY
22	GX21	len Helen Pine Forest Pine Canopy	OHIO
23	GX22	Act Like An A.P.E. Challenge	WASHINGTON
24	GX23	Phooning at the Coffee Shop	MICHIGAN
25	GX25	Let Freedom Ring in Tennessee	TENNESSEE
26	GX26	Freeze Frame	ENGLAND
27	GX27	BYU Victory Bell	UTAH
28	GX2A	"B" Movie – Attack Of The Giant Lobster	CANADA
29	GX2B	EMS Photo OP	NEW HAMPSHIRE
30	GX2D	Algonkian Boat Trip	VIRGINIA
31	GX2F	Ideen-Ei	GERMANY
32	GX31	PPT Challenge	PENNSYLVANIA
33	GX32	Bite the Cherry!	MINNISOTA
34	GX34	Black and White	MICHIGAN
35	GX35	Hamburg Rathaus - Hamburg City Hall	GERMANY
36	GX36	Kölner-Dom-View	GERMANY
37	GX38	Conquer the Dam	OHIO
38	GX3A	Texas Highpoint - Guadalupe Peak	TEXAS
39	GX3B	Remember The Alamo	TEXAS
40	GX3C	Mach dich zum Canaletto!	GERMANY
41	GX3D	Picture Yourself a Rocket!	OHIO
42	GX3F	Eureka!	ENGLAND
43	GX40	Get Blue&Grey to let you replace His Cache !	KENTUCKY
44	GX41	I love GIESSEN	GERMANY
45	GX42	Planes, Trains and Automobiles	CALIFORNIA
46	GX43	DIA Artwork - America, Why I Love Her	COLORADO
47	GX45	A sit on the wild side	ENGLAND
48	GX46	GCNP Thunder River	ARIZONA
49	GX47	Visit Little Sable Point Lighthouse	MICHIGAN
50	GX49	Swimming at the Potluck	MICHIGAN
51	GX4A	Nationaal Monument op de Dam	NETHERLANDS
52	GX4D	Hug a snowman	MINNISOTA
53	GX4E	Pose like an Olympic Gymnast	OKLAHOMA
54	GX50	Rails to Trails Challenge	INDIANA
55	GX52	High Five	GERMANY
56	GX55	Go Terps!	MARYLAND
57	GX58	Marche dans la Fontaine / A walk in the Fountain	CANADA
58	GX59	Take an original picture of the building works	NETHERLANDS
59	GX5A	Frisco Highline Trail Info Depot Challenge	MISSOURI
60	GX5C	Zamek w Ogrodzeńcu	POLAND
61	GX5D	Make a Royal Phoon Of Yourself!	CANADA
62	GX5E	A Capitol Challenge	MISSOURI
63	GX60	Make a fish your friend	NEW HAMPSHIRE
64	GX63	K&K Planking Zone Rosenheim	GERMANY
65	GX64	First Slovak Challenge - Bratislava, Morový stĺp	SLOVAKIA
66	GX67	Take a picture in front of Cinderella's Castle!	FLORIDA
67	GC69	Acid Tunnel	MISSOURI
68	GC6A	Kicking it with Ronald in Marion	IOWA
69	GC6B	Lady Liberty Photo Op	WISCONSON
70	GC6E	Alfred E. Vellucci Fountain out your mouth	MASSACHUSETTS
71	GC6F	Mach dich zum Canaletto! "Canalettoblick"	GERMANY
72	GC70	Take a sip!	SOUTH AFRICA
73	GC72	Subir os Clérigos	PORTUGAL
74	GC74	Sing a Tune	WISCONSON
75	GC76	Playing In Gore - Hamilton's 1st Photo Challenge	CANADA
76	GC79	Stara radnice	CZECH
77	GC7A	Storm the Fort	INDIANA
78	GC7C	Chester Zoo - Bronze Elephant Ride	ENGLAND
79	GC7D	Hug the Longview squirrel!	WASHINGTON
80	GC7E	Gib dem Esel der Bremer Stadtmusikanten einen Kuss	GERMANY
81	GC7F	Famous Mason - James A Holt	INDIANA
82	GC80	I can see for miles and miles!	FLORIDA
83	GC85	Checkers	MISSOURI
84	GC86	Mountain of Cards	GEORGIA
85	GC88	Smile at the lowest place in North America	CALIFORNIA
86	GC8A	Tell's son	LATVIA
87	GC8C	Dino Dinner	OHIO
88	GC8E	Niagara Falls	NEW YORK
89	GC8F	Fernando Pessoa Statue	PORTUGAL
90	GC92	Nebraska's First - Choose Your County Challenge	NEBRASKA
91	GC93	Mackay Statue Look-A-Like	NEVADA
92	GC94	Besuche den Donnersberg	GERMANY
93	GC96	Vai uma pinga?	PORTUGAL
94	GC99	Swallow the Eiffel Tower	FRANCE
95	GC9A	Railroad Bridge - Green River, WY	WYOMING
96	GC9B	Ständchen für Beethoven	GERMANY
97	GC9C	Photo With Snoopy	VIRGINIA
98	GC9D	Take a ferry ride to Suomenlinna	FINLAND
99	GC9E	For eene Penning!	GERMANY
100	GCA0	To be in the Smiths	England

Update on 2011-08-20 06:22 by firennice

Say Hello to Geocaching Challenges

Well we can say welcome to the new Geocaching Challenges.  After months of waiting and seeing what is in store we can now see the advent of the new system for handling Virtual type challenges.

What are they?

People will get them confused with challege caches.  Where there is a cache waiting at the end of the trail.  Try and meet a certain challenge and then sign the log.  However geocaching challenges are different in a few ways.  You are challanging someone to Perform an action at a particular location, or to take a photo at a particular location.  There will be a third type that groundspeak forms known as a worldwide challenge.  Perform some action anyway in the world.  (think locationless caches).

Differences you can see

The first thing that you will notice is on your profile page that your finds, hides and challeges are all broken out under your name.  And if you hover your mouse over challenges you see the challenges that you have accepted, completed and created.

It is a good idea so people can break down those things seperatly.  Some cachers do not want their finds "polluted" by the find count from the challenges. So this lets them see those numbers without them being combined

The next thing that pops is on your personal page that everyone can see.  This time you will see three numbers again, Those that you have found, trackables, and challenges completed.  Similar to the other without the caches placed, now you see trackable info.

I created a few challeges, but the bugs and the up and down of the website keeps me from writing more.

I will follow up soon with more info.

Update on 2011-08-18 21:02 by firennice