Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
GPX file of our course
The title of this geogolf course says it all. Even more alarming is this isn’t from this past November, rather this is November 2006. It’s been that long since I’ve played a course.
It’s not that geogolf hasn’t been on my mind. The last two summers I have thought I would spend playing many courses. But things seem to come up. This summer I somehow stumbled back into the Neverending Scavenger Hunt. It wasn’t planned, and what suffered were the plans for geogolf. Oh well . . .
Anyhow, as I finally get some organization on my end with databases, waypoints, and the like, I decided to at least play this course I created so long ago. If there can be Christmas in July, why not golf in November or November in August, or something like that? 
Fritz and I headed for downtown, parked at the Culver Center and took off. I had sketched out the order of the holes.
GGABJX-16
We loaded up Silver with xpunkx’s Geocaching Podcast. Unfortunately, it was over long b4 we made it to the hole as it was just a piece to inform that there was no show this week. Sigh . . . Once that was over, it was time for Sarah Vaughan’s Brazilian Romance. This hole played in the backyard of 313 Sassafras. We got to within 27m.
GGABJX-15
We walked up Sassafras to 4th Street. Right across the railroad tracks, which angle across the road, is 203 3rd Street. The hole played at their front door. We accepted 4m as the distance.
GGABJX-10
I continued up 4th Street to Mulberry. Not paying attention, I forgot to turn down 2nd until I had passed it. We zipped around and followed a woman to her house. Yikes! We accepted 17m at 224 2nd Street and turned around.
GGABJX-18
A block and a half down on the corner is a yellow house at the corner of 2nd & Vine. This is across from the old Wawa and the tire store. The GPS indicated 3m at that point. It was here I saw Fritz had dozed off. Sure, I do the work and he sleeps. Fine, be that way! 
GGABJX-11
I recorded 17m for this hole; it may have been closer. But there was a strange woman fiddling with her shoes asking what time it was. I said 10 til 11 and she said, “So 10:50?” Uh huh. But she was acting odd and when I looked down I just took the 17m and kept going. This was on the side of Peter Lumber. I am pretty certain I played another geogolf hole here on another course some time ago.
GGABJX-12
Because of that strange woman, I became stupid apparently. Instead of retreating to 2nd Street, we walked up to High and then around. I came down 2nd but wasn’t as close as I would have liked so turned the wrong way on Oak. Sigh, the strange woman began calling loudly to me. I had the iPod on so I pretended not to hear her. I took the parking lot to the diner that runs beside the railroad track to avoid her. I then looped back to Broad and down 3rd Street right in the middle of Millville’s crime district. It seems now looking at the maps I should have gone down the other side of 2nd. I think there is a laundry there that I could have gotten closer. Oh well . . . I’ll take 57m and be rid of Crazy Lady!
GGABJX-14
Millville has a bad section of town and this is it. The corner of 3rd & Broad is the epitome of what is bad in town. This hole played right through there. Once I abandoned hole #12, I was happy to be moving on. I made a wrong turn on Broad and then returned right through this intersection. The hole played in the back of the house/backyard of 317 Broad Street. It was next door to a building that is for sale. Eighteen meters is as close as I could get from the sidewalk.
Sarah Vaughan’s Brazilian Romance ended after I bagged this. Next up on ol’ Silver was Lou Reed’s Transformer.
GGABJX-13
We walked down 3rd Street and around the block for this one. I expected it to play on the other side, but there was a piece of public art that I drive by a lot that I wanted to take a photograph of. This seemed like an opportune time to do so. Afterwards we zoomed around and found the hole equi-distant (and unavailable) from the empty lot and antique junk dealer. The area is fenced off. Fifty meters was all we could get. We were looking forward to crossing the street and getting out of this neighborhood to dilly-dally too much.
GGABJX-01
We crossed the railroad tracks and were once again in the better part of downtown. I carry an iPod, a digital camera, and a GPS with me all while pushing my son in a stroller. I figure I am a prime candidate for jumping in broad daylight.
Anyhow, past the Thunderbolt Racetrack headquarters we went and turned up Buck Street. We got to nine meters outside 519 Buck, a gray house.
GGABJX-02
I only had to walk a few steps from hole #1 to bag this one. Across the street to the northwest side of the intersection of Oak & Buck. This is across the street from the Millville Fire Department. I accepted six meters. I think the hole drifted back into the street. I was comfortable with this number from the safety of the sidewalk, thankyouverymuch!
GGABJX-03
I walked down Buck past our gym to the library. There is a book deposit box (huge mailbox-type) on a brick island that one can leave books in without getting out of the vehicle. This island extends down about 10 parking spaces. We got to 8m while standing in the middle of this thing. There were some cars moving about so we decided against trying to zero out the hole.
GGABJX-09
On our way to this hole we saw a group of boys bicycling. They were riding up the sidewalk onto a brick slope and then coming down. In the middle of this was a lady in a wheelchair walking riding her dog. We were scurrying to catch up and take a couple photographs. Before we could make it a police car came by and bollixed up traffic. The officers spoke to the boys for a minute or two as the old lady made her escape. We couldn’t cross the road because there were too many cars screeching to a halt because of the commotion with the police and the yutes. Fritz and I then began rooting for arrests. Those photographs would make up for the missed wheelchair. Alas that didn’t happen and soon all was back to normal. Damn!
The hole played Pine Street right before High. There is a curb cut there across from the music store just down from the drain pipes. It was here that I began wondering if this Colorado would actually display zero. I could only get one meter no matter where I stood. I’ll have to look into that further.
GGABJX-04
On the way Transformer ended and Neil Young’s Rust Never Sleeps began. I remember when this album first came out. I was a big Neil head back then. Later I recall reading a very kewl article in Surfer magazine that quoted from Hey Hey, My My. I think that was the first time I ever saw a song I knew quoted in an article.
This hole turned out to be a mistake. After playing hole #9 I was to play #6. I didn’t. You see, a new scavenger hunt popped up that requires me to once again photograph Joseph Buck, Millville’s founding father. While he is long dead, there is a statue at Riverfront Park that would do the trick. The thing is hole #6 plays before the statue coming from Pine Street. Yet I went right to the park. After securing my required photograph I noticed about 60m to the hole. I figured it must be the hole that plays on the other side of the river so off we went.
When we arrived on the other side of the Maurice River, we saw we were now 130m or so away. Time to look at what we did wrong. Yup, missed the damn hole. Oh well, we went and found this one instead. There was a postman killing time in his truck nearby. Try as I might, I could not get the 10m to nine. I was on the river bank. Not wanting to fall in and leave a most curious Fritz unattended, I took the 10m and scolded myself for the misplay.
GGABJX-06
The proper play from hole #4 after messing things up would have been hole #5, which is also on the other side of the river. Did I play that next? Of course not. No, I decided to “correct” my wrong and go back and pick up hole #6. Sheesh . . .
Fritz and I were completely drench in the hot humid sun. We found this hole at the third parking space in the public lot behind Amato’s Pizza across from Oliver Twist’s. The one meter felt good, but it was short-lived.
GGABJX-05
Once we recorded hole #6 we saw we were headed back across the river for hole #5. D’oh! Not good navigating there. But this was an opportunity to turn lemons into lemonade. Of course, that was only figuratively. We would have welcomed a glass of lemonade about now.
We crossed over and found ourselves at the Veterans Park. Recently a new statue was erected and I had wanted to take some photographs of it so after scoring the hole, we walked about 15 feet to the statue. We heard a beep f someone’s horn. It turned out to be Gert on her way of picking up our little princess. Yes, morning had given way to afternoon on this golf course. We said goodbye to the statue and moved on.
GGABJX-07
On our way from Veterans Park we called Gert to say hello. All was well and we were nearing the end. We snapped a photograph of a benchmark we always seem to photograph when we head over the bridge. Then we cut down past the municipal building and the police station. We stopped momentarily to take in how our tax dollars funded a private parking space for the mayor complete with a big sign. It must be nice to be the big cheese.
We headed up to 2nd Street and around back of Trinity Church. We played stupid once again and crossed the street only to find out we needed to be back where we came from. Nearly seven years using a GPS and one would think I could read the thing by now. Anyhow, back across the street to the parking lot. We walked in circles before I said three meters was good enough. Ha!
GGABJX-08
Almost done. We turned up 2nd Street and waited at the light at Main. One car was not courteous to us at all. Once he dashed off, we made it across. Yup, we were headed for another parking lot. This one was at the old people’s condo. We approached the assisted living office and seemed to boomerang back. I didn’t think Garmins were supposed to do that. We took 10m when I saw I should be the next row of cars over. I could see the finish line. Ten meters was good enough at this point.
GGABJX-17
The last hole. Woohoo! As we crossed 2nd Street at Sassafras, Rust Never Sleeps ended. No more music for this trip. I thought I was going to have to turn onto Pine for this one, but came up a bit short at the side door of the Presbyterian Church. We took six meters for this hole. Happily (and soaked) we walked the half a block to the truck and headed home for air conditioning.
(more…)
Posted in Family, GPS Games, New Jersey | No Comments »
Saturday, November 4th, 2006
I am away on a head cleaning tour. The GPS was this || close to being left behind. In the end I brought it because there is a shutterspot or two I want to list where I am going. I also have a geogolf course loaded. I am not certain if I’ll play it. Everything else, dear reader, is being dismissed. I have a feeling this is a step away from most of these games. And yet I still have a few caches in the works . . .
It is my hope that I will return rested from seeing my buddies.
Posted in Bob | No Comments »
Thursday, May 4th, 2006
I placed a cache recently. It was ready to be listed last week. I didn’t list it. There was something about it that didn’t quite feel right. After mulling it over for a week more, I decided this cache wasn’t good enough.
As I mentioned a while ago, I am in the process of a series of caches. All have been worked out, coordinates taken, etc. Walking Tour of Joseph Buck’s Town was going to be the first listed cache in this series. Each cache has something in it to help determine the location of the final cache in the series. Because of some things, I wanted to list Walking Tour first.
The idea was something I had been mulling over for some time. I wanted to combine both geogolfing and shutterspots in a cache. As I worked through the idea, I dropped the geogolfing end of it, although I did preserve 18 locations. I snapped photographs at 18 Millville locations. Each location had a number associated with it. If one could discern where the photograph(s) were taken, he would know the number. Doing some mathematics would reveal the location of the cache.
But after I constructed all this, I decided it just wasn’t good enough. The locations of the shutterspots were fine. But the numbers dance to plug into the formulae to render coordinates is as contrived as everyone else’s who uses the “find the number to render coordinates” method. And after dropping the golfing end of the idea, I was left with a photograph puzzle that while unique to this area, isn’t anything special. I didn’t feel like this was a good enough cache to stand on its own.
In addition, I did something with this cache that I haven’t done before: I hid it with a special purpose. I wanted to place an urban cache that wasn’t a micro and didn’t place the seeker in the eyes of the public. I succeeded in that goal as I had an ammo box hidden in downtown Millville that one would be free from prying eyes.
During this past week as I mulled over the cache, I decided that even though the location of the ammo box has a wonderful view, the location itself was lacking. There is garbage to negotiate. Parties do occur in the area. And, well, it just wasn’t special enough for me to lead seekers to.
I referred to my Characteristics of a Good Hide piece I wrote. After considering that, I decided that there were aspects of the cache that may not positively impress the seeker. There’s always that chance in that some can find fault with anything, but there were too many question marks for me to feel comfortable with this cache.
So, it is back to the drawing board. I have several other caches placed. I may shorten the series by one or develop another puzzle to complement the others that are being used here.
This is not the first time I have pulled a cache that didn’t materialize the way I wanted and I know I am not alone in doing so either. But I wonder what would happen if everyone considered their caches like this. What if everyone strived to positively impress the seeker? Would the kinds of caches that inundate the To Do lists change?
Yes, sometimes despite the best of plans, some caches do not work well. That is bound to happen. But I suspect that if cachers applied a self review process prior to listing the cache that sought to uncover flaws in design of the proposed cache we all would have a more satisfying bank of caches to seek. There will still be some caches that do not appeal to some for a variety of reasons, but “quality” in some general sense would be improved.
Anyhow, the Scratch My Itch series is progressing. I desire to positively impress the seekers of these caches. Stay tuned . . .
Posted in GPS Games, Geocaching | 1 Comment »
Friday, April 28th, 2006
Welcome to the fifth weekly installment of the
GeoCarnival.The GeoCarnival reviews geoblogs and compiles what is happening in the world of GPS games (geocaching, geodashing, shutterspots, geogolf,Coin Quest, etc.) in one convenient post per week so you can read who is blogging about your favorite activity.
We Need Your Help
If you know of a geoblog that we should highlight, feel free to let us know. We like RSS and Atom feeds, so feel free to send along those links.
Round and Round the Carnival Goes . . .
We posted this early this week so you can get caught up before all your adventures this weekend.
KelDubTX is looking for cachers over at MySpace. She and her husband have been caching for a couple years.
Shiftless finds the wonders of Google Earth.
The Fox Hill Tower Geocaching CITO Event was a success according to jestjuggle. The event brought this cacher back to the location of his first find. It’s nice when one is able to re-visit his former finds.
Team North won the 30th game of Minute War. It was a tight battle all the way to the end. They narrowly beat West as they conquered the world. Unfortunately, Team South was dead last and struggled mightily from the get-go. Perhaps we will fare better next time around.
Logging DNFs is encouraged by jestjuggle. They point out that future cachers can use this information to help someone on the hunt.
Tom Arneson completed another geogolf course this week. Whether on your lunch break or at one of the ends of the day, geogolf is great exercise fun!
Minnesota is buzzing with GPS Amazing Family Race. Sounds like a wonderful time for families in the North Star state.
The month is coming to a close and dashers are scrambling to log the last dashpoints of game 58 of GeoDashing. Right now it’s a close race between GeoTerriers and Llama League. Douq Miller closed the gap recently with three points grabbed.
Imagine finding out there is a cache a mere 260m from your home that you didn’t know about and you discover a waterfall as you seek it. A DNF, unfortunately, but Chris and Elizabeth had a good time on their recent hunt.
Caching while going to class is just something quite foreign to me, but I am certain I would have done it way back when if I had the opportunity. bariivaruha was happy to find caches large enough to exchange trade items. Hmmm . . . if new cachers are noting the size of containers, could micros be described as an epidemic?
Earth Day/CITO provided Bill an opportunity to help clean up Thompson County Park in West St. Paul, MN.
smileyjess took a break from studying to head out for a cache. She’ll be heading out again this Saturday. Happy hunting.
Sounds like a perfect cache adventure: three to five mile hike to find cache. iovnow has the details.
More CITO adventures with Randwulf.
Muddy is sick. So sick, he left work early. But found some time to cache. There’s always time to cache.
All right, technically not about a GPS game, but sept1c_tank has been following the hatchings of a bald eagle and there’s streming video. Very kewl!
Chris over at Dangerous Logic likes to move hitchhikers. Yes, a tag or other documentation accompanying the hitchhiker is valuable. Still, it doesn’t keep some folks from disregarding clear travel plans!
Sortel chronicles a cache hunt he had with friends recently. Bushwhacking instead of taking the trail is the fun.
Blogging while in the drive-thru on your way to a cache. Now that is something new! GeoDonutBlogging?
It’s difficult finding a cache when several of the stages are MIA. Nevertheless, sounds like caching in New Zealand is fun.
Andy got back in the caching groove recently and had fun re-visiting previously found caches with someone he was introducing to the game. It is fun to re-visit caches and read through the logbook.
Michelle jumped on the first non-rainy day to get out and do some caching. Sounds like a good plan.
Floopy’s seeing things on the trail. It couldn’t have been Helmut, but who was it?
What does one do when Practicum is over? Cache, of course. Cassie went out and found 51 caches to celebrate. Congratulations on completing your coursework.
Now this is good news! The thirteen original Florida counties have placed geocaches as a way to boost tourism. Bravo!
Happy birthday, Jen. To celebrate her birthday, Jen’s sister hid a multi that culminated with a party. Sounds like fun!
kendra had a very interesting day: studying, making out, caching, dinner. It’s information overload.
JeanC’s camera is on the fritz, but she still went to the CITO.
More CITO adventures are told by Legacy. He pulled four bicylces and a fender from the river during the clean-up. Good going.
Sometimes all there is to describe about a weekend is geocaching. Don’t feel bad metsfan.
Getting ready for camping after his birthday the other day, Ryan is gearing up for some caching.
Over at The Geocaching Blog, Chris put up some video from a recent hunt. He’s a new cacher, but he has a nice blog that should be read. In addition, he has discovered Scout’s GPS Games and I look forward to further blog entries about the games he begins playing there. FWIW, I think there may be a new game of Global GeoPoker coming up soon.
Tom Callaway is finding caches in San Francisco.
MustangJoni had a big day on Saturday. When the CITO begins at 10:00, you start terracaching at 5:30. Sounds about right to me.
slatrat has a new cache. Very interesting. It is similar, yet different, from Walking Tour of Joseph Buck’s Town, a cache I placed recently, but am waiting to implement something for another placed cache in the series before listing. Stay tuned. And yes, these are difficult caches to create, slatrat.
Edmonton had a CITO event and Brat&Testy participated.
Rob Usakowski over at Three Little Ladies Rabbitry writes a nice overview of caching.
Deb is back in the game! Isn’t the Lowry Park Zoo nice? I have fond memories of being there.
D. Hall’s testament about the Garmin 76CSx made it to the Garmin blogs page. Nice going!
cyan_blue tips us off to a new caching community on Live Journal.
There are some good map tools shared by My Adventures Abroad this week. More and more, I am going tow-tech in my outings and am moving toward non-GPS caching. It adds a sense of adventure.
The Wandering Williams celebrated Sam’s four birthday with some caching in Sedona.
Charlie had an interesting first date: hike up a mountain to find a cache. His date struggled with the task.
According to Phyllis, Montana’s new ad campaign features caching. Kewl!
Russ caches in Norway and looks to be having a good time doing so.
School is a lot of fun when it includes caching. This would be one class I would love to teach. Way to go guys!Geoblogging can make you famous. Just ask Jenny who was discovered by her local newspaper for an interview after it stumbled across her caching blog. Awaesome!
In addition to caches, Randomocity found osprey nests on the hunt.
Perserverance pays off. Just ask the Peale family who went back after a DNF. Trust me, we all know that feeling . . .
Infinite Loop tells us how to create a filmloop to display the latest geocoin auctions on eBay. Now, that is innovative.
Gottle received a memory box in honor of Bob.
Just curious, do micro hiders expect to read their logbooks?
Not being first did not dampen Dana’s enthusiasm for the cache she found.
Quirky Outtakes is setting up his first hitchhiker. Have fun!
Podcasts
Icenrye has another fine videocast up for this week. He documents a cache hunt as well as Änglamarkenas. It’s interesting to note how many locals have logged this one. I recall playing with this a long time ago. Never realized I was “caching” at the time.
Sandy and Sonny welcomed this week with podcast number 49. They shared the second part of their geocoin reporting complete with the release of the official Podcacher geocoin. Congratulations to you both!
The Caching Commute highlights the Creed, personal hitchhikers, and the 12 of 12 photosharing project. That last one sounds like fun. Thanks for the podcast so we don’t have to wait until Monday.
Welcome New Cachers
Sleep MoonBeams is looking forward to her first hunt with her boyfriend.
Amanda has found caching and now she is trying to recruit her friends to join her. Welcome to the addiction!
Over at the Frozen Truth, geocaching is on his mind. Give it a try. Perhaps contact Amanda!
af is ready to go caching. He is prepared to hunt sans GPS. You’re right, you don’t need one of those things to find caches. Best of luck to you! And then he found it! Good job, af!
First cache and chrisb is geophotoblogging. Awesome!
Haleth found an interesting bug while caching with his folks.
divanared4est and Dereck went caching together for the first time. Sounds like both had fun with the multi-billion toy.
_archaicangel_ went caching on a mystery field trip.
Here’s a new cacher and he is getting involved because of a buddy’s blog. Now that is a good thing.
Regional Round-Up
UTAG has announced the 2006 Spring Jordan River Pancake Breakfast.
Texas Geocaching has a new look. We like it. We really like it!
The Houston group ponders throw down caches. Interesting discussion ensues.
GeoPhotoBlogging
Featured Photo
StayFloopy @ Jenny Jump State Park 26 April 2006
used with permission |
Ragged Around the Edges spotted this sign while out on the hunt.
The Bennett family reunion featured geocaching.
smokerette ponders her hair-do.
A lone palm tree attracts cachers.
publicenergy uploaded a nice collage of cachers who found the Dustboat cache. That’s what the cache camera is for!
Don’t look now, but isn’t that Mopar and GeoHo at the Lambs and Lanyards Happy Hour?
Scratch shares a creek he found.
bmwrider was at the Clarksville Geoevent and snapped this photograph of cachers marking their flag in the GPS competition.
ConnieG’s grandmother signs the log. Ha!
UK caching looks like fun. Thanks KiloTwo.
Congratulations on #2000, Grandee!!!
Cute.
Squamloon shares command central.
What an awesome photograph, bvt! Nothing like a hydrocache with family.
Gregory captures the Buffalo skyline. Perfect! I was right where the fireworks were after a Dead show some time ago.
Cache found. Good job, gojumeister.
Tunnel fun with gimpstick.
Youngster on the hunt.
The location has been spotted. Nice area.
Fotomom is johnny on the spot.
Kiet snaps a photo of the logbook.
The Edmonton caching event in pictures.
The End
And that’s the end. Come back next week to see what’s happened in the geoblogosphere. Or better yet, write your own geoblog and get linked right here.
Happy caching, dashing, golfing, seeking, etc.
Posted in GPS Games, Geocaching, TerraCaching | 3 Comments »
Saturday, April 15th, 2006
Today was spectacular!
Being on vacation, we slept in. Or at least we tried to. Beetle had other thoughts,but she was ina great mood andthat would continue throughout the day. We had breakfast and my sister-in-law came over. THe plan was for her andGert to take Beetle swimmimg and I would go out to explore. They left and I changed gears. It was gorgeous and I decided to play shutterbug today.
After a quick visit to the post office, I decided to join the swimmers. Then it was off to walk downtown Millville. This is something I have become quite fond of. Today I nixed the geogolf course and worked on my self-designed course that cachers will see soon enough.
Stunning. Just stunning.
Iput in seven kilometers and had a blast. I went nowhere I haven’t been dozens of times previously. But it doesn’t matter. It was perfect out. Today was the first perfect spring day of the year. We have had some nice days, but nothing quite as nice as today.
Most of my walk circled the Maurice River. I just love this. Today was a Red Cross walkathon and I saw the gray shirts for a while. But the walkers tuckered out long before I did.
The rest of the day was spent with family. Beetled dyed her first eggs this evening and had a blast. She did so well as she didn’t go to bed until two hours past her bedtime. She is so sweet.
Enjoy the photographs.
Posted in GPS Games, Geocaching | 1 Comment »
