A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

Pathtags

A ‘lil HooHaa: Contest 1

Wanna win something? How about my new Ireland pathtag?

Here’s what it looks like:

Pretty sweet tag, eh?

This is a simple contest — and my first one! This will run just about a week, so you have a little time to come up with an educated guess as to the answer.

But wait! There’s more! You can win ANOTHER  pathtag! Actually, two people can win, depending on how good your guesses are. Because I don’t know how many responses I will get with my first contest, here’s a rule I am putting into place:

IF five (5) or fewer than people enter the contest (multiple entries, if earned, don’t count as new people), I’ll allow it where the same person can win both pathtags.

IF more than five (5) people enter, that means winners can only win one of the pathtags. Should one person sweep and get both correct, they’ll win the Ireland one and then the next two will go in the order of caches. You’ll see what you have to do below.

Nuts and bolts

Now for some quick normal things — this contest is simple and entrants will be able to see their answers. On my return from Dublin, I will look at everything, post the answers and winners and send out the prizes. Should you win, I’ll need a mailing address. This contest is open to anyone — in the USA or international. The winners will be notified on this blog and via my twitter account. The winner will then have to e-mail me an address.

Entrants are allowed ONE entry and please do not edit your entry once you have posted. The entry MUST be in the comments section. A correct entry will include your name and the answers to the contest questions. Please identify the answers for which question. (ie: Pub trips: xx).

You can EARN up to two more entries by tweeting this contest or posting an entry on your blog. If you do that, please let me know. HOWEVER, please wait a minimum of one hour from your last guess so as not to flood all the guesses. If you do either of these, please make sure you note that in your guess (ie: Second guess via tweeting your contest) so I can go check and verify. That means, also, making sure you have your blog address so I can check it out!

The contest

This contest is going to make you guess. You have to think about this a little. The winners will be whoever guesses the closest to the actual answer (you can go over).

It’s as simple as a guess.

You can guess once for each part of the contest, and note the above in the Nuts and bolts section to see how to do things.

Ready for the contest?

Some quick details on my trip so you can put it into perspective: I am arriving mid-morning on a Wednesday and leaving mid-morning the following Tuesday. So, basically I’ll be in Dublin and doing things for about 5 1/2 days. That’s the only thing I am releasing. If you want to investigate more, read past entries of the blog.

This contest will close at 10 p.m. EASTERN TIME on Tuesday, June 29. I get e-mails of all things posted and every comment is time-stamped, so if one comes after that deadline, it will be deleted and not counted.

FIRST PART — My Ireland Pathtag is the prize for this one.

I’m asking you this — how many pubs will I visit on my trip to Dublin? Remember, Dublin has more than 1,000 pubs! Pubs will include any bars, micro brews, traditional pubs etc. But I have to actually visit them, not just be in them.

Some things to note — I will be going on a few pub crawls. We might stop in one or two to eat during the day. I might go out after the night falls to investigate. Who knows?

SECOND PART: How many Geocaches will I find while in Ireland? I only am planning one full day of caching there, but I do hope to do some throughout the trip. Do your math and hope for the best. The winner will receive this pathtag:

Final things

Remember, one entry per person unless you do one of the following:

Twitter this contest — mention the contest and blog. Use the following to make it easy:

@softball29 is having a pathtag giveaway contest on his blog – www.hoohaablog.com. Enter soon as it ends June 29 at 10 p.m. EST!

BLOG about this contest on your blog, but mention the contest and link back to here as well! You must mention that you have done these in your second and/or third entries, but please make them different comment entries! Only one entry per comment and only three entries (if extras earned) maximum!

Have fun!

More later!


Countdown Clock Codes

Argh!

So I went out a little while ago for a FTF. I hadn’t gone after a just-published cache in a long time. Nobody had logged and I didn’t figure anyone else was crazy enough to do it, right?

Nope!

I get there and the log has been signed by a new caching couple in the area.

Argh!

Ahhh well, it was a way to get out for a few minutes, grab a cache and waste a few moments!

I also did a bunch of work tonight in getting about half of my pathtags in the mail for the Holiday Pathtag Exchange. I did a special Christmas tag. Not sure if I ever shared it with everyone here, so if I didn’t, here is the blueprint:

The finished product is amazing. The glitter is awesome. If I can find a way to take a good photo of it, I’ll do so soon.

Now, it’s time to try and shake the rest of this cold!

More later!

Pathtag clubs

Many of you know I’m into pathtags.

I have two out (one personal, one from an event we held in July) and my collection is nearing 200 tags. I am working on getting a way to display them, rather than just having them in a small lock-n-lock container.

Anyway, my third is being worked on and I’ll be getting into the Christmas Exchange this year. The concept of that is simple — you sign up for so many exchanges. The person in charge then randomly selects addresses and sends them to you. You then package the tag you have up with a card and send it on its way to the recipient.

The amount you choose to get in on to send — say 20 — will be how many tags you’ll eventually get back in return. With a lot of people involved, I am having a Christmas tag made and will likely be signing up for 75 in the exchange. That should be fun to see a flood of tags coming in!

Anyway, as I was peeking around the pathtag forum, I realize how many awesome things there are out there and I really need to pay attention to the site more.

People make what are known as community tags. The plan is then to order 150-200-250, whatever — but everyone buys stock in the tag (in other words, you sign up to purchase a certain amount of tags). Once all the money is collected and the tag is ordered and received, the tags are then sent to the recipients.

Pretty cool concept.

As I look over the many that have passed — some recently — I am mad at myself for not paying attention. There are some sweet designs! I have contacted some owners in the hopes of there being extras and me being able to jump on board late, but if not, I know I’ll be paying attention to more of these soon!

I just hope there are some tags like this coming out in the near future!

Pathtag ideas?

OK, here’s the deal.

I know it’s nine months away, but pathtags take time to design and have made, so I’m thinking now. So, let me bring this to you — my readership.

My goal in Ireland is to have one full day of geocaching and then some sporatic grabs (virtuals etc.) throughout the other parts of the week. If there’s an event during that time, you know I’ll try and find a way to hit that…

So, with that in mind, here’s my plan. I am going to have a pathtag made up specifically for this trip. I’ll probably only get 50 made (unless it’s a really sweet design, then maybe 100) and I’ll use them to give to local cachers I happen to meet and in some caches over there during my travels.

This is what I am hoping you can all help me with — what should I put on this tag? My caching name will obviously be on it as I want any tag I make to have that on there. But besides that, what else? Any design thoughts or ideas?

Send them my way in the comments section!

I’m off to Philly tonight to watch the Phillies and caching along the way. So by the time you read this, I’ll probably already be in the Philly area.

More later!

Tackling Central Park

I’ll have some other posts coming up about my recent vacation — both caching and non-caching. But, I wanted to start out with Central Park. Ever since the trip to Maine got, unfortunately, canceled, I had put my eyes on trying to complete an amazing multi-cache in the Bridges and Arches of Central Park.

This is part of the description from the cache page:

An extensive multi-cache (offset) that brings you on a tour of Central Park’s historical bridges and archways. Bring a calculator if you intend to solve in the field!

hit counterWelcome to the Bridges and Arches of Central Park! This ambitious challenge takes you on a grand tour of the most famous park in the world. Central Park covers over 800 acres of greenery and recreation areas in the middle of Manhattan, so prepare for a long (but pleasant) walk.

It was long, indeed.

For the day, four of us logged probably 10-12 miles traipsing through Central Park. Now, I’ve never been to Central Park, so that was fun. And, it was one of the cooler days of the week, which was nice. Still, that many miles and getting other caches in the park (including a longer whereigo cache), meant jumping around a little and having to find a lot of things as we broke off trails and such.

Essentially, the goal is to find all of these bridges and arches — 32 of them total. In the end, you do some math, get the final coordinates and go seek said cache. While at it, of course, there are many other caches in Central Park to grab.

Here’s Darren, Jim and Heather getting the needed info from one of the spots:

This day wasn’t just about all the walking though. Allow me to give a brief look at some of the things that were used/done during the day.

We came into the city with Darren’s truck — not a small one, either. That meant finding parking, too. We did eventually find parking, many blocks away. We got to the starting spot, just to get a call from Jim and Heather saying they, too, were having problems finding parking.

Once they arrived, we started by going into the Apple Store — which is quite the spot — in the hopes of loading Darren’s GPS with the Central Park Whereigo cache. No luck.

Then it was off on the hunt.

We did a handful of the bridges and arches and caches while we were in the midst of doing the Whereigo cache. Once finishing that, we then set forth into finding all the bridges and arches needed for the final. Mind you, we’ve already done a ton of walking (2+ miles according to my pedometer).

For the rest of the Bridges and Arches cache, we did the following items:

  • Walked
  • Paid a guy on one of the ponds to row us from one side to the other.
  • Climbed hills
  • Took a subway
  • Rode a carousel

Heather and Jim being paddled across the water:

Turns out that guy paid $12 to use the boat for an hour. Darren forked over $10 to take us across. Not a bad deal for that guy, eh?

We hit a handful of caches that day, too. One was near this statue, of which Darren seemed to like:

Back to the Bridges and Arches cache, however. A lot of these were really nice. I probably should have taken more photos, but I have to be honest — as the day drew on, it got harder and harder to stick with it. The feet started to hurt and even though it was cooler than in previous days, it was still pretty hot. It was all starting to catch up with us. So as we got nearer and nearer to the finish, it was to the point where we started to kind of push onward.

At one of the arches:

We stopped and did a couple of virtual caches as well, and here’s the group getting the needed info at one of them:

After doing the final ones at the one end of the park, we had to go back to the other end to get one last one. We did that as night was setting in and we all stopped at some benches to figure the final coordinates. However, knowing about where the cache was, nothing was adding up. Now, this got frustrating.

We knew things were wrong, but thankfully I had the phone number of the cache owner. Problem was, we couldn’t get him. Jim and Heather couldn’t get two people they knew who had done it. And as it got closer to 8:30 p.m., the reality that we might not be able to finish this cache was setting in and it was very annoying.

We opted to walk to a place we were going to eat and halfway there, I got the phone call from the cache owner. Yes! We figured where our error was and we soon had the real coordinates and were on our way to get the final cache. We found that with relative ease and the best part is each finder gets a coin for finishing. I left a couple of my pathtags and we happily signed the log book before heading off to finally eat dinner.

Oh, I got a big hamburger and fries — I had earned that meal! Good stuff.

After that, it was a taxi ride to where the truck was parked and then we dropped Jim and Heather off at their car before heading back to Darren’s place. What a day turned out to be.

In the end, we figured 10-12 miles worth of walking. In the end, we found 14 caches, but the Bridges and Arches was the crowing achievement. It was one heck of a challenge to do and I’m glad to say I got to do it with the others who went along. It was a fun time for sure.

During the day, we also did ride the famous Central Park Carousel, which for $2 it was something that had to be done. Not that carousel’s are thrilling rides, but being that close, we had to do it. This carousel has been in operation since 1871, so that’s pretty cool. It’s really old-school and kind of neat how it’s just set in the park.
The best part is knowing this park — which is so country-like — is in the middle of New York City.

I’ll have more about the vacation and other items soon.

One other thing — starting Monday (24th), I’ll be back to updating the photo blog on a regular basis. Stop by!
More later!