A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

geowoodstock

Here’s a story… of several travel bugs…

If you are a geocacher, I hope you know what travel bugs are.

Or geocoins.

Or anything that one moves and is trackable.

For those of you on the outside looking in, allow me to give you the definition as described by Groundspeak:

What is a Groundspeak Travel Bug?
Simply put, a Groundspeak Travel Bug is a trackable tag that you attach to an item. This allows you to track your item on Geocaching.com. The item becomes a hitchhiker that is carried from cache to cache (or person to person) in the real world and you can follow its progress online.
What does a Travel Bug do?
It’s up to the owner of the Bug to give it whatever task they desire. Or no task at all. Part of the fun in owning a Travel Bug is inventing new goals for the Bug to achieve. A Bug’s goal may be to reach a specific country, travel to 10 countries, or simply to see the world.
How do Travel Bugs work?
Each Travel Bug has its own unique tracking number stamped on it. This tracking number is used to prove that one found the item and allows finders to locate the personal web page for the travel bug.
Travel Bugs are tracked with the help of users who go online and “grab” them from caches, or receive them from users. The idea is by picking up and dropping off Travel Bugs on the web site you are mirroring the Bug’s real world adventures. Each Travel Bug has its own “diary” that follows its movements.

This was one of the coolest things, to me, when starting as a geocacher. It was cool to grab these items — whether a true Groundspeak Travel Bug, or a geocoin, it was a lot of fun to move them along to another cache in hopes of helping the traveler in its goal.

Sometimes, helping it isn’t possible, so one can either move it to another cache (which I often to to make sure the owner knows it’s still out there) or by discovering it, which also lets the owner know it’s there. That being said, I’d rather my TB moves a little bit in the wrong direction than just be discovered and left in a cache. These things are supposed to move.

Now, let me say this — I was once a newbie geocacher. On my first day, I picked up a geocoin. I held it for a couple of months as I learned about these items. They aren’t keepers — and I knew that — but I didn’t know if I should drop it away from its goal etc. But I learned and soon realized how cool it was. Of course, I wanted my own!

I bought a bunch of travel bugs (which come with two dog tags — the original and the copy. The copy is in case you need to eventually release the item a second time. More on that later). I sent them out into the wild. And then I waited for those e-mails to come pouring in telling me someone had picked it up and moved it along.

Sometimes I had to wait a while. Other times not long at all. After a few moves, sometimes the bug would stay with someone for a long time. And keep staying with them. Over and over and over. Phew.

The thing about travel bugs and geocoins is, well, many disappear.

There’s no rhyme or reason why. Sometimes, it’s because someone stole it. Or somebody grabbed it and forgot they had it. Or one of so many reasons. It’s just how things go. But when you get the official Groundspeak Travel Bugs, you get two dog tags — one to send out and then a copy. The copy is there in case you need to re-release it.

I’m one of those people who hold out hope that, eventually, my travel bugs will come back into circulation. I’ve seen stories where a travel bug is missing for years and then, out of the blue, come back into play. But, I have several that have disappeared in the past couple of years and I’ve decided to give up on them and re-release the copies. With GeoWoodstock this weekend, I figured it would be a good time to break these out and send them back into the world, in hopes of them getting some miles and moving along.

We’ll see how it goes though!

In total, I’ll have seven travel bugs being re-released this weekend and I also have a handful of other travelers that I am bringing with me to GeoWoodstock. I’ve changed some of the goals of a few of my travelers, so it will be fun to watch them as they travel again.

How about you guys? Any good stories — good or bad — about travelers?

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.

Notes from my noodle: June 23 edition

One week!

A week from today/tonight, I’ll be heading out to Western New York and Pennsylvania to attend my first GeoWoodstock. I’ve been looking forward to this since it was announced last year that it would be so close. The weekend is shaping up to be a good one, so hopefully, Mother Nature will cooperate! But who can tell with the weather as the Northeast has had threats of thunderstorms for a lot of the warmer days. It will likely be hit or miss, so we’ll see.

I’m also going to work on a story for the blog and for a geocaching magazine while down there, so that will be fun.

For those of you who aren’t geocachers, GeoWoodstock is the biggest event of the year — the crowning jewel for many. There are more than 3,000 people expected at this event, which is a one-day affair at the Warren County Fairgrounds in Pennsylvania.

This is the ninth straight year GeoWoodstock has been held.

On top of the main event, there are several other smaller ones. Three of them are on Friday and two on Saturday (three total with the big event) and one Sunday. I’m hoping to hit all seven events, so we’ll see how that goes.

Of course there will be some geocaching, though I’m not sure how much will get done Saturday!

It should be a hoot, though, and I’m looking forward to getting away and thinking about geocaching for a weekend. I can’t wait to meet a lot of people and such, so it should be a blast.

And for readers of the blog — if you are going to be there, drop me a note! I am hoping to meet as many people as possible down there.

***

I don’t know what’s going on, but three of the last six or seven postcards I have received through Postcrossing have come in an envelope.

That stinks.

I’m one who like to receive the postcards with a stamp and postmark on it. I save all of these cards and just having one that is written on and put in an envelope kind of stinks. I even have it in my profile that I would rather not receive cards in an envelope. I know some people like that. Some people like the card untouched in an envelope. That’s their right, I guess, but I can guarantee I’ll never send a postcard in an envelope for this hobby. It seems to take away from what this whole thing is!

To each their own, I guess, but when I start scanning them in for an eventual personal book I am going to make, it will stink to have them not have stamps etc.

As of writing this, I’ve sent 97 postcards (that have been received), have nine more traveling and have one expired (which means it either did not arrive there or has not been logged in the 60-day span given before Postcrossing “releases” it. On the other end, I’ve received 92 cards so far.

***

I don’t usually write about a lot of current event/newsy/political things on this blog, but I saw something the other day on Twitter that blew my mind.

Someone, posting in regard to the death of Jackass star Ryan Dunn, said, “Does it matter if Ryan Dunn was drunk? The outcome isn’t going to change.”

Really?

That has to be one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever seen written.

It turns out that Dunn was more than two-times the legal limit in regard to his BAC levels. Also, it’s reported he was driving in upward of 140 miles per hour.

With another person in his car.

So yes, dear Twitter user, it DOES matter. He killed himself and another person because he was extremely irresponsible.

And you, ma’am, are an idiot for thinking, on a social network like Twitter, that it didn’t matter that he was drunk and driving.

***

I need to get out and take some photos. I haven’t been out with the camera in a while and I’m really missing it. I need some inspiration.

On that note, I’ve started the wheels in motion to get the second year of the HooHaa 52 rolling. The idea of the 52 is a 52-week challenge. Each participant takes a photo a week for a full year. Each week, a new theme is posted and a different member posts it. This way, the people participating have a lot of control over this challenge.

I’m hoping to start it up in a couple of weeks and have reached out to many people who participated and finished last year. If this sounds of interest to you, let me know. I am only allowing a certain number of people into the group so that it stays small and participants get more than one week to name a theme.

If interested, a couple of things to note. Be sure you’ll stick it out with us. We had too many people drop out last year (we had a lot of people, though), which made it so I had to come up with random themes too often and that got me a little burnt out at the end. The other is, you’ll need to be on Flickr (you can have a free account) as the group is on there.

Leave a comment or e-mail me if interested and I’ll let you know how many slots we have left etc.

***

And to close this edition of Notes from my Noodle, I give you my Twitter entry of the week, which comes from former WWE superstar “Stone Cold Steve Austin.

“Locked my keys in the truck @ super wal mart today in town. What an idiot. Thanks to Pursch Motors for the help. Gonna go kick my own ass.”

He did follow that up by posting a photo of the guy trying to unlock his truck and said:

“Guy trying to unlock my truck…just gave myself a Stunner….time for a cold one…cheers.”

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.

The countdown to GeoWoodstock continues…

Well-hidden caches are still something I love to find!

I was starting to re-write my profile on geocaching.com and thought I’d just bring it to the blog, too, to show my start and current state of geocaching — to me that is.

In late February of 2008, a friend asked me if I had heard of geocaching. At that point, I hadn’t. He explained it that it was a bit like letterboxing, just with a GPS. Being the two of us were planning on trying letterboxing come the spring, geocaching seemed like a perfect match.

He had a pair of handheld GPS units and we set out to find a few.

My first was at a covered bridge (GCKFXY) near my town and we found that one quickly enough.

We found five that first day (three of which are now archived!) and I was instantly hooked. A few days later, we went out again and found six more caches. This game was insanely fun and addicting.

I didn’t, however, have my own GPS unit. So speliopirate lent me one of his for a few weeks so I could investigate this game a bit more. The following day, I went and grabbed two caches as I learned how to use these GPS units.

It built from there.

Not too long after those first few outings, I decided to invest in a GPS unit of my own. I hemmed and hawed between the lower-priced Garmins and the 60 CSx. I finally decided to splurge on the CSx, figuring I wouldn’t be looking to upgrade any time soon. I’m still using that unit to this day and love it (though it’s apparently been discontinued). I really believe it’s the best GPS out there for caching, but that’s my personal preference.

I’ve gone through several stages of geocaching — from the rush of getting as many as I could in a day/week/month/year, to being a bit of a FTF hound to today, where I’m more interested in events, good and clever hides and I don’t frown upon a multi cache that takes several hours to complete for one smiley.

It’s what I love most about this game — everyone plays it how they see fit.

Since I started, I’ve met some great people (and a few I wish I hadn’t met!), made some excellent friends and had some great adventures. I’m a little slower with the game now as I don’t rush out for new caches and I usually keep away from caching at night, unless the cache is a quickie or meant to be done at night. I figure people put a cache out for a reason, I might as well see where the cache is located!

I still dislike caching solo (I just don’t find it as fun as when I go with people), but I don’t rush anymore and I just kind of like strolling along and finding a few good caches. It’s still an entertaining game, still adventurous and still fun to find an ammo can in the woods under a pile of sticks.

As for what’s in the caches, I still trade and move travel bugs/geocoins and I love trading for signature items. Outside of that, I usually just dig signing the log and trying to look through the logs to see who has been there before me.

In a few weeks, I’ll be heading to my first GeoWoodstock, a mega event that will attract more than 3,000 people. There are workshops and vendors and people and caches. For the weekend that I’ll be there, I plan on hitting up seven events. I’ll look forward to meeting many people, taking a lot of photos and grabbing a cache or two. This is the event that people look forward to each year and I’ve been planning it since I heard it was going to be somewhat close to me (it was announced that Warren, Pa., would be the event home at last year’s event in Seattle).

One year of waiting will end in about 20 days. The only big downfall of this year is that with the lack of a job, I wasn’t able to get a pathtag made before the event. That would have been fun to trade them there, but it is what it is. I’ll bring all my old ones that I have left and see if I can at least trade a few. And maybe I can trade some signature items, too.

If you are a reader of my blog and plan on being at GeoWoodstock (and any of the smaller events that weekend), let me know and maybe we can figure a way to meet up when there. I’d love to meet some people that I’ve only known through the blog/twitter etc.

I look forward to a great weekend and hope Mother Nature deems it a worthy weekend to send us some beautiful weather. Even if not, I think it will be one heck of a fun experience and really am excited to see an event of this magnitude.

And, for the record, it would be cool to own one of the caches on the grounds where the event will be or one of the ones nearby. Can you imagine getting like 2,000 e-mails with people finding your cache… in one weekend? That would be interesting.

The countdown continues for GeoWoodstock 9. Hopefully it lives up to expectations!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.