No more ALR caches

In case you haven't heard the news, the geocaching.com guidelines have been updated and ALR (Additional Listing Requirement) caches have been banned/stricken/outlawed/disallowed... whatever word you prefer. Here's the new guideline text:

Logging of All Physical Caches

Geocaches can be logged online as Found once the physical log has been signed.

If it is appropriate for your cache location or theme, you may ask the cache seeker to accomplish an optional and simple task, either close to the cache site (normally within 0.1 miles or 161 meters) or when writing their online log. For example, wear the goofy hat inside the cache container and upload a photograph. Cache finders can choose whether or not to attempt or accomplish optional tasks. Cache owners may not delete the cache seeker's log based solely on optional tasks.

This guideline change applies immediately to all logs written from April 4, 2009 and going forward. Older caches with "additional logging requirements" (ALRs) are not grandfathered under the older guideline. If you own an existing cache with mandatory additional logging requirements, we request that you:

• Cease deleting logs based on additional logging requirements.
• Review your own cache listing to see if the ALR can be made into an optional and simple task, or whether it must be removed altogether.
• Adjust your geocache listing by editing the text then contact a reviewer to change the cache type, if appropriate.

Compared to some parts of the U.S. and the world, I think this change won't affect Iowa geocachers that much because I've seen very few ALR caches submitted in Iowa. Many ALRs had nothing to do with geocaching, such as the requirement to draw a picture, stand on your head, step under a waterfall, sing a silly song, etc.

What do you think? Do you (did you) love ALRs and think this is a terrible idea? Or did you hate them and think it's about time they were written out of the guidelines?

Yesterday's blog post

For those of you who may still be scratching their heads about my blog post yesterday describing changes to the guidelines... think about the date on which it was posted. Yes, it was an April Fool's joke. No, there are no such plans in the works.

But wouldn't it be nice?

My thanks to General Disarray, who reviews caches for Oklahoma, for letting me borrow the idea. I understand Heartland Cacher, who reviews for Nebraska, also played this prank in the Cornhusker state.

New guidelines take effect today

As some of you may have heard, there are modifications in the works for Geocaching. I would like to take this opportunity to inform you of some of the changes to take effect starting today. These changes are being implemented in order to take geocaching back to its roots.

Cache Size: Cache containers must now be of the one quart size or larger. No “nanos”, matchstick containers, or film canisters will be published.

Cache Content: All caches must contain a logbook (not log sheet) and items for trade. Fast food toys will be added to the list of items disallowed inside caches.

Permissions: As all land is owned by someone, all cache owners must obtain permission from the landowner in writing and fax or email this to me. This will be kept on file for the duration of the caches existence. *fax number to be added to my profile*

New Saturation Guidelines: The .1 mile rule still applies to caches placed within public parks. There is a new guideline for “linear” trails (sometimes referred to as “power” trails). This guideline states that caches must be placed no closer than 3-4 miles apart and must be in a location that will “wow” your fellow cachers.

Logging Guidelines: 1. Physical logbook: your physical log must contain more than just a signature. 2. Online Log: Acronyms are no longer an acceptable way to log online. You must write a minimum of three sentences detailing your experience. Logs containing “TFTC”, “TFTH”, “SL”, etc will be deleted.

As more information becomes available to me I will make it available to you via this site and my profile. Let’s continue to make Iowa the best state to geocache in.

Cherokee's "Welcome Spring" Event

When I saw that Tonedog52 and Wonderboy are hosting an event in Cherokee the weekend of May 16, I put it on my calendar but I seriously didn't think I would be able to make it there because we'll traveling to Okoboji the following weekend. Well, after thinking about it for awhile I decided what the heck, it's going to be right in my old 'hood (I went to high school in Cherokee) and my mom lives there. So... I have made plans to be there. It should be fun to explore some of the newer parks that were not yet public areas when I lived there. If you're planning to attend this event, I'll see you there.

Today is my anniversary

Eight years ago today I embarked on a pathway of joyful bliss and began a new journey that would lead to greater discovery, understanding and happiness than I ever imagined would be possible and a deeper appreciation about what is really important in life. No, I'm not talking about getting married, although that's been terrific too. I'm talking about geocaching. Eight years ago today I found my first geocache. Her name was Beverly. She was just a little plastic container under a bush, but for me it was love at first sight. I don't keep in touch like I should, but it was good to virtually check in on her today just to see how she is doing. Although she is getting up there in years, it looks like Beverly continues to be active and is still entertaining and enlightening her visitors.

Why do people cheat on virtuals?

Just a heads up -- if you own a virtual cache and you care whether anyone is placing bogus finds on it, you may want to check for a find by a geocacher named The-Sledge. He/she posted a find on my American Gothic virtual cache today and dated it Dec. 31, 2007 -- so it wouldn't appear at the top of the list, I guess. I deleted it. I see he posted many other finds in many states, supposedly on that same day. I don't understand why anyone would go to these lengths.

La première dérive

My daughter is undertaking an interesting GPS-based project today for one of her art school classes. She calls it Dérive, which is French for drift. Jacey has been geocaching with me a few times over the years, so it's interesting to me to see how she is applying her experience with GPS to create this project. You can read the blog she created for this here. I'm not sure I completely understand what's she's doing, but I'm looking forward to reading about it and viewing her photos.

Heading home

If you submitted a new geocache in Iowa that was published this past week, you may be interested to know that I clicked the "publish" button from Grand Cayman. We were there this past week on a scuba diving vacation. In fact, we still there... er, here... waiting at the Grand Cayman airport right now for our flight home. I just discovered there's free wifi here, so I'm online killing time for the next hour and a half. Mary is on her computer too, and she's telling me the temps back home are supposed to reach the 50s today. Looks like we won't be hit with the frigid temps that Midwesterners experienced this past week. Woo hoo! Here are a couple of photos from the past week. These were taken by Matt Leverson, a professional video shooter from Albert Lea, Minn., whom we met down here. You can see more of Matt's photos and videos at his web site. When we weren't diving, we had time to look for a few geocaches. We did manage to find two that were within walking distance of our hotel.

The day the music died

I'm two days late posting this, but it has now been 50 years since the music died.

Total caches published

This morning I noticed an announcement for an event hosted by Minnesota geocachers to commemorate Surfer Joe's 10,000th published geocache. This is a well-deserved honor for my fellow reviewer to the north, especially when you consider that he's been reviewing for just three years.
This got me to thinking about how many geocaches I have published. In a post last September, I wrote that I had published close to 6,000 geocaches in my 5+ years of reviewing. I don't recall how I arrived at that figure, but upon checking this morning, IowaAdmin has officially published 6,491 caches since the summer of 2005, which is as early as the "published" log type goes back. I probably published an additional 1,000 in the 12 months before that. And for a year prior to creating my "IowaAdmin" I.D., I reviewed geocaches in Iowa and Wisconsin using the I.D. "WGA2". Because WGA2 is now owned by a different reviewer, I don't have an accurate way to know exactly what my total is. My best estimate is that it's now around 8,000 caches.

Happy New Year's 2009!

On this first day of 2009, I know that some of my friends celebrated by going geocaching. However, I participated in a different outdoor activity to mark this first day of the year. My daughter and I went kayaking. The weather wasn't great -- 23 degrees, wind gusts up to 30 mph and snow falling -- but the challenging conditions seemed to make it that much more fun. And before you start thinking that we are completely nuts, I should tell you that the lake -- Columbia Lake near Portage, Wis. -- is a cooling lake for a coal-fired power plant so the water temperature is in the 70- to 80-degree range year round. That doesn't make the wind any less bitter when you're putting your kayaks back on top of the car, but it does make the paddling a little more bearable. How ever you celebrated today, I hope you had a good one. Here's to a great 2009! (It's got to be better than 2008, right?)

Iowa had largest cache % gain of any state!

Last January, I posted here about Iowa geocache statistics that were compiled from geocaching.com by my fellow reviewer, Riviouveur, who reviews caches for France. He recently provided me with an updated spreadsheet that once again shows Iowa in relation to the rest of the world, and Iowa continues to show a very high rate of growth in number of geocaches. In fact, for the period of Riviouveur's latest spreadsheet (May 2007 to early December 2008), the U.S. state with the largest percentage gain in active geocaches was -- drumroll, please -- Iowa!

Here are some details. We grew from 2,943 caches on May 30, 2007 to 6,260 caches on Dec. 7, 2008. That was a gain of 3,317 geocaches, which was a 113% increase during those 18 months. That equates to approximately 184 new active caches per month. If you clicked on the link above to my previous post, you saw that our previous rate was 155 new caches per month, so you have really picked up the pace during the past year.

According to Riviouver’s latest calculations, Iowa now has 43 caches per 1,000 square kilometers, (up from 28.7 in his previous report). That puts us 38th out of 143 regions (countries and states) worldwide in terms of cache density (up from 51st in his previous report).

In terms of population, we currently have 209.9 caches per 100,000 population, which ranks us 21st on the list of 143 worldwide regions. (Previously we were at 140.4 and in 28th place.)

Once again, the numbers included in the spreadsheet are ACTIVE cache figures. Reviewers have actually reviewed more caches than those numbers indicate. The numbers are the net of total caches submitted minus those that have been archived and minus those that were not approved for listing.

In case you're interested, the state with the most caches per 1,000 sq kilometers is Rhode Island, with 307.3. Alaska has the fewest caches per 1,000 sq kilometers with 1.6. The state with the most caches per 100,000 population is Utah with 523.5. New Jersey has the fewest caches per 100,000 population at 60.9.

Roundabouts

On my way to and from one of my office locations, there's a newly constructed roundabout that I now pass through. It's so new that occasionally drivers in front of me seem to be confused about what to do so they slow down or even stop before entering. It's all I can do to keep from yelling, "Keep moving!" But I tell myself not to get too excited. After all, it's something new to them. They'll get the hang of it...eventually.

Yesterday I reviewed a geocache that was placed in a roundabout (the first geocache in an Iowa roundabout submitted to www.geocaching.com that I can recall). Since I had not come across this before, I had to do some research to find out how other reviewers are handling roundabout caches, and to find out if there are any applicable local traffic regulations about walking inside roundabouts. Some reviewers say they use the rule of thumb that if there does not appear to be any pedestrian walkway into the center portion of the roundabout, it would appear that pedestrians are not welcome in the center portion, and therefore neither are geocaches.

Think about it -- how distracting would it be to some drivers if they saw someone poking around in the bushes or rocks inside a roundabout when they're already trying to watch for merging vehicles while trying to find their exit? And it's not just me saying this. The Iowa DOT has a web site that gives advice about roundabouts. (I orignally wrote that previous sentence as "the IDOT gives roundabout advice" but that didn't sound quite right.) The IDOT says this: "Never walk though a roundabout or cross the center island."

Bottom line, unless you seek and obtain special permission for your specific geocache from the local governing municipality, I'm not going to publish geocaches that are placed inside roundabouts .

Useless hints

As I have previously posted, useless hints are just that -- useless. I was reminded of this tonight when I read a post in the IGO forums complaining about useless hints. Bottom line: When you create a new geocache, if you're not going to give useful information in your encrypted hint, leave that field blank. If not, all you're doing is frustrating your fellow geocachers and diminishing their opinion of your cache.

Paperwork -- sometimes it works!

Success! My effort to follow-up with the internet service provider of the web site that ripped off my blog content appears to have paid off. As I mentioned in my previous post, I sent a document -- about 12 pages of explanation and samples of material copied from this blog -- to the ISP. After waiting only a few days, I checked the offending web site and found this message:

ForbiddenYou don't have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally,
a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to
handle the request.

It appears the ISP quickly realized that their customer was doing some bad things and so they took them down. I don't know if they will resurface on a different URL, but thanks to the power of Google searches, I'll be ready. :-)

Ripping me off on the web

A couple of weeks ago I received a Google alert that a web site mentions IowaAdmin. (I will not mention that site by name here so as not to give them any additional visits from my site.) So I checked it out and discovered the site has duplicated several posts from my blog -- some credited to me, most not. I posted a few comments on that site politely asking that they remove all these posts because it appears I am the one who is selling geocaching goods on that site, which I am not. The site is also advertising for sale geocaching gear from Groundspeak. When I click them, it looks like lots of copyright violations and re-selling of Groundspeak stuff! So far they have not responded to me. It looks like they removed my comments and now they have added even more of my blog posts. This evening I sent a formal letter of copyright infringement to the Internet provider for that site. We'll see if this helps.

I feel like someone has broken into my house and stolen some of our stuff. Have any of you ever experienced anything similar?

A gift from the Frog

I recently received an unexpected gift from Groundspeak, the company that owns and runs geocaching.com. It's a glass award to mark my five years of being a volunteer reviewer for their web site. During those 5+ years I have published close to 6,000 geocaches, which comes to approximately 100 per month. I don't know how many others I have reviewed but not approved, but I'm guessing it would be an additional 10 percent to 25 percent. Sometimes you encounter people who just seem to have a grudge against me, geocaching.com and the world in general. But by far it's been an enjoyable "job" and it's been great to meet and/or talk to so many interesting geocachers.

Another kayak video

I have posted some vacation photos here in the past. Sometimes I felt a little weird about doing so because, by my own definition, this is primarily a blog about geocaching and the review process. But some of you have been kind enough to comment or e-mail that you enjoy seeing my vacation photos. Because of that, and because I haven't posted here for a number of days, here's another installment of vacation images -- this time as a video. If this bores you, well, don't watch it.:-)

Technology is great... when it works

The past few evenings have been frustrating because we've been having problems with our Internet connection at home, making it tougher for me to review new geocaches and communicate with those of you who submit questions and details about your caches. I thought I had the problem fixed about two weeks ago after I replaced the cable modem, but now it's acting up again. I've been compensating by logging on at work to keep up with the review queue, [shhhh!] but it takes more time to review at work because I don't have all the reviewer reference links and files on my work computer that I have accumulated on my home computer over the years. So, thanks for your patience if you've noticed a bit of a delay this week. I'll try to get things repaired by the cable company.

A pretty amazing new geocache

Iowa Tom would be proud of this a new geocache called Captain Crunch created and hidden by geocacher linuxonthebrain. If you're in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls area, you have to check this out. I don't want to give anything away but I have a feeling you won't be disappointed. I just hope it doesn't get damaged or stolen anytime soon.