geocaching

Elias's Post on the Groundspeak Forums about the outage and status.

I'm on Twitter and just came upon Jeremy Irish's (CEO of Groundspeak) account. He's reporting that nothing was damaged in the fire nearby- they're just waiting for power to be restored.

http://twitter.com/locuslingua

EDIT: Mr. Irish tells what happened that led to us being Geocaching-less.
http://locuslingua.blogspot.com/

Today a fire hit a major datacenter in Seattle, taking the Geocaching.Com website down. Hope they have backups.... (article)

DNS provided by my ISP, Charter Communications, isn't finding www.geocaching.com.

So I changed to OpenDNS...it isn't finding it either.
OpenDNS has a neat feature:

Nameserver trace for www.geocaching.com:

* Looking for who is responsible for root zone and followed h.root-servers.net.
* Looking for who is responsible for com and followed i.gtld-servers.net.
* Looking for who is responsible for geocaching.com and followed ns2.groundspeak.net.

Nameservers for www.geocaching.com:

* ns1.groundspeak.net returned (SERVFAIL)
* ns2.groundspeak.net returned (SERVFAIL)

So Groundspeak's DNS servers are not working for whatever reason.

Anyone else having trouble pulling up caches on the geocaching.com app?


I'm connected to a network - all my web based apps work perfectly, but when I try to search for geocaches I get a "Network not available" message.


It seems at some point my app upgraded - maybe it hasn't been working since then?

This is part of log on one of my caches that posted today:

"Love the vintage photo on the cache listing, too!"

The "vintage" photo is of me when I was about 10....I am NOT vintage!!

Hi everyone....my kids want to give me a homemade "Geocaching Kit" for my birthday and i've given them a list of suggestions of things to put in it, but I'd love to hear other peoples suggestions.  I've come up with things like pens, pencils, tweezers etc - but i'm wondering are there things you HAVE to bring with you when you cache?  And yeah - bug spray is ALWAYS in my bag already lol

Full post Here.

( Conclusion and recommendation )

What is the easiest best way to start doing this....

What is the basic things you need?

I'm glad I found this community. I had actually forgotten about geocaching until this past weekend. I was camping in the Adirondack mountains, and found a cache on the top of a mountain we hiked up.

That makes 2 caches I've found, and only one was intentional. I'm really hoping to get more into this again, as the weather's nice, and the wife-to-be wants to get out and walk/adventure more.

So, HI!

I got an Geocaching.app update just after midnight last night.

They've REALLY done some work on the app! It now brings up a list of pocket queries and provides an option to download!

It doesn't list ALL of my PQ's. Not sure how it decides which to show, but I suspect it's the last few that have been run.

More on this as I get a chance to try it. Please comment with your experiences!

Updates:
To download a PQ, it has to have been "run" within a week.

frostdancer has the new iPhone with more RAM, faster processor, and an electronic compass. I need to put the gc.app on it and see how it works.

The compass on the app still pales horribly even on the new iPhone. Hopefully they'll release an update soon to be able to use the functionality of the built-in compass.

the compass page is MUCH prettier now though.

I just wanted to know if any one could give me a boost on these three puzzles
GC11T1J = Liar, Liar, Liar #1

GC11T24 - Liar, Liar, Liar #2

GC11T1Y - Liar, Liar, Liar #3

I dont need you to solve it or anything. Just point me in the right direction.

This is interesting.

The Book of Lies

Update: Press Release (There's a typo in the press release. The Masonic Geocaching Society was created in November 2008.)

I saw it first in a GPSLodge blog posting.

It's a series of geocaches tied to a novel, with the cooperation of a geocaching group.

I assume they got Groundspeak's approval as this kind of thing is usually frowned upon, isn't it?

Kinda makes me wish I lived close enough to the DC area to hunt these.

Hi all,

My s.o. and caching partner and I are budding kayakers, and one of our greatest caching thrills was picking up a cache after kayaking to it. It was accessible by land of course, but it was much easier to get to from where we were by boat, and that made us feel clever.

And it got us thinking- are there caches that are only accessible by boat? There are usually plenty around water, so we are definitely looking forward to doing more geocaching by boat, but I wondered if there were any sort of rules about how accessible a cache has to be that would prohibit geocaches on small islands, for example.

I know that a cache should be able to be maintained, and cause minimal impact upon the land, but is there anything beyond that?

Thanks for helping satisfy my curiosity!
B

I just got a notification from one of my caches:

Log Date: 6/2/2009
After a two unsuccessful searches, returned and found it quite easily.
Altho my new gps showed the location 35 feet away. Had no writing implement, tnln.

This is a micro with no pencil or pen, but isn't signing the log a vital step in completing the "find"? Should I not allow the log, should I ask him to describe where he found it?

Edit: The cacher is experienced with over 150 finds.

Edit: Emailed cacher to ask for a description of cache. Cacher replied correctly. All is well.
Also decided to look on the geocaching on what they say about signing the log and they say it is a part of a find:

"Sign the logbook with your name, the date, and a few words about your experience."

Question for you folks.

My girlfriend and I have held on to travel bugs before for a while in order to further them towards their goal. (For example, we are holding on to a cache travel bug which wants to go to Disneyland because we may be going in September.) We've always done this with permission of the owner, so that's not the question.

The question is this: do you log drops and retrieves for caches like this while you retain them in your possession? My natural inclination is not to do this, but I think other people do. It seems entirely legit, because the bug is traveling with us as we find other caches. However, the drop and retrieve is mostly symbolic since we retain possession of the travel bug. But someone viewing the history of the travel bug then gets to see where it has traveled (albeit, in the possession of one person instead of moving from person to person).

So, what do you think? Is this something you do? If this is something you don't do, do you see it as okay to do?

Just got the log notification that my TB (Chopper TB) has made it to it's intended destination of Sturgis, SD.

Now it should begin it's journey home.

Three DNFs.

Eight wasp-stings.

I know when to quit for the day.

It's not a huge goal but I wanted to find 200 caches before my one year geocaching anniversary - and I did!  I'm really excited.  Okay the excitment is tempered by the fact that I was with my friend who found her 800th cache just before HER 1 year anniversary, but still, I did it.  But she caches all the time, I only go on weekends and lets be honest - not at all during the winter, lol.  So I'm psyched - I did what i set out to do, now it's time to find a new goal :)

It's chigger season in North Texas. Probably everwhere in the US by now.

Chigger at Wikipedia.

( wikipedia excerpt )

Chigger at About.com.

( About.com excerpt )

And of course there are other bad bugs.

WebMD slideshow on bad bugs here.