MOCache/MOGeo Blogs

Our family had a blast today, we got a late start but went down to Cassville to take in a few geocaches and enjoy the weather.  It wasn't until I got down there and my GPS lit up with all the caches in Mark Twain that I realized how many are down there!

We're definitely going to go back down with more time and have a picnic or something.  There's also 3 quick and easy caches in Cassville itself that were easy for my younger kids.

This area will be a great place to rack up a bunch of caches in a short amount of time as it looks like there are quite a few and most are close to the roads, though a few are on private property or have little if anywhere to pull over.

Can anyone recommend a "course" kind of area that is contained within a park/forrest area and has a number of geocaches in it?  Aside from myself and family, I'd like to take our Scout troop to such a place for a day or weekend outing.  I'm not really looking for an event such as MOGA, but something like that with permanant caches... preferably in the SW Missouri area.

Ok, after a couple more crashes I broke down and installed the latest build of the blogging application which is said to have the fix for the type of crashes we were having.  Of course this also means that there could be NEW bugs but I'll keep my fingers crossed.

As always, please let me know if the blogs crash again as soon as possible and provide any and all details you can as to what you were doing when they went down so I can get it back up as quickly as possible.  Overall I think they'll be more stable now.

To contact me when the blogs are down, go to the mocahe/mogeo home page at http://www.mocache.net and use the contact form there or email me directly if you have my email address.  Thanks,

WanderingMO

Twice now the mocache/mogeo blog has crashed after someone added a post and I'm sure why.  It's not the fault of those it has happened to, a well written application would not allow a user to crash it.  Fortunately I'm not the one that wrote this blogging application.

However, if you find that it crashes after you have posted, please drop me a line and tell me what exactly you were doing when it happened so I can investigate and find the root of the problem and submit it to the programmers to correct.  I can also go in and manually fix what is keeping the site down so contacting me as soon as possible will help me to get it back up quicker for everyone else.

Thanks,
WanderingMO

Well, the bastards got me (Illigitimi Non Carborundum = Don't let the bastards get you down)

Yesterday was my last day as a productive member of society serving a corporate monster.

The company I worked for was bought out in January and in their infinite wisdom decided to "eliminate my position" while adding a larger coverage area and responsibilities to the two guys I worked with.

So, that being said... I've never been laid off or fired before so I guess I'm due. If anyone knows anyone who would like space for a website, please let me know so I can see about signing them up. I'd really like to get the regular income of hosting to pay for or exceed the costs associated with being able to provide said services.  For several years now I've had a resale account and sold off some of the space and bandwidth while providing numerous other sites and site building for little or no money because I had a good job and it was kind of a hobby.

At the moment I'm pretty close to the break even point with my internet related debt to income ratio so it won't take much to get there. I just don't want to be applying for any sort of assistances while I'm out of work and have them tell me I gotta cut out the hosting or internet access.

Ultimately I'd like to turn this "hobby" into a successful primary source of income since I now have the time to put everything into it and it's long been a dream of mine.  Want a website?  I can help!

I went out with the kids this windy afternoon to run an errand, check on a travel bug I'd turned loose last month, and brought my find total up to 53.

Neither Geocaching.com nor the paper log where I left the travel bug at had been signed since I last visited, but both of my collectable cache cards I'd left and my newer travelbug were gone.  The cache itself was still well hidden and didn't show any signs of being muggled, so I guess it's just another case of geoBandits.

Another travelbug I'd turned loose within the past two months disappeared out of it's initial cache shortly after being placed too.  Both were simple keychains I got at wal-mart that while interesting, certainly weren't "collectables" by any means, or worth more that a couple bucks each, but it's very disappointing when you go through the trouble of getting everything together, coming up with a mission and turning them loose only to be stolen.

The first was supposed to travel around Missouri and collect pictures of some of our beautiful sights before heading out of state and sharing them with the rest of the world.  Hopefully it will turn up somewhere, but if nobody logged it out of the cache, chances are it's part of some geoBandits booty collection.  The other was a "Route 66" keychain that was supposed to travel to caches on or near historic Route 66, and hopefully pick up a few pictures along the way as well.  That one at least was "discovered" by what sounded like a teenage kid who doesn't know how to properly log a "retrieved" item.  I even emailed him with some tips and suggestions, then he never wrote back, never logged the TB, and as far as I know, has it sitting in his booty collection too.  At least this guy I know his username and probably resides in West Plains, MO.

It's really frustrating that some people are either so shallow as to interfere with the game and steal travel bugs, or else they aren't competant enough to properly log them or move them on to another cache, but what can we do?   At least my first travel bug accomplished it's mission, got restarted and is now outside of San Deigo on a new mission.

Have You Seen These Travelbugs?
(Click for their details)

GeoCachers in Missouri can now post their pictures and blogs (web diary) of their adventures here!

All you have to do is use the "Contact" form on the MOCache.Net page and let us know your desired username and display name.  We'll set up your account and email you a password which you can change once you login to the blogging site.

After that you can post all you want, as long as it is in good taste and pertains to Geocaching.

We had fun today, seeking out three more cache north of Springfield.  Two were located in a beautiful cemetary ablaze with the colors of fall.  See the pictures below.  Left four more cache cards (#3), two at the cemetery, and two at a rest stop cache on I-44.

Checkin out da loot!

I can't believe its been nearly two weeks since my last blog, but I'm not so great about blogging.  Plus, I've been busy.

Last weekend we took our Scouts out to Roaring River State Part which is also a trout hatchery.  Beautiful countryside with hills, trees that are changing and probably brilliant right now, and yes home to a number of GeoCache's!  We hunted down and found three of them, there are a few more but we didn't go just for the hunt.

I've distributed nearly all 10 of my second card that I wrote about last time, and just finished printing 10 more of Card #3 of the BSA series.  So far I've only been contacted by one person who got one of the card and we met him at Roaring River and gave him the coordinates to a couple of the caches as they are brand new to GeoCaching.  They in turn left us some "cache ca$h" for our Scouts which was a really neat thing for them to do.

I can't recall exactly where I've placed all my cache cards, but I've recorded them at geocaching.com and you can find them by reading my logs at the various cache's.  You can find it easily in my profile.

Meanwhile, here's a peek at Card #3.

I've decided that my BSA Series of "Cache Cards" will consist of 10 printings of 10 cards. This means that it will be possible for up to only 10 people to be able to collect all 10 cards. Sometimes I drop two in a cache, sometimes only one. The series will consist of some information about the Boy Scouts. Card 1 had the "Outdoor Code" on it, Card 2 contains an excerpt from the Scout Handbook that tells a little bit about what scouting is. Card 3 is an excerpt from a website about the history of Scouting and a link where it came from so people can read the rest of the story.

I've also ordered four Travel Bug dogtags which will be trackable on GeoCaching.com once I get them activate and in circulation, I can hardly wait!

This game really IS addicting!  Not to mention how much fun it is and all the great parks and trails I'm discovering.

In time I'll reveal more about myself, but for starters, I'll clue you in on one important aspect of my life.  I'm an Assistant Scoutmaster of a small troop in the south-western corner of Missouri.  I first heard about GeoCaching on a campout in the fall of 2005, although it wasn't until the fall of 2006 that I finally got a GPS reciever of my own.  That same day I found GeoCaching.com and went out and found my first cache and I've been hooked ever since.

I love the idea of travel bugs (TB's) and GeoCoins, but there is something about them that is flawed.  If they are REALLY neat, or unique, people want to keep them instead of sending them on, and they cost the owner a fairly substantial fee considering they are dropping them off in a cache somewhere and relying on the honesty and integrity of others to move them on per their wishes.

"Cache Cards" are not unique, a little research found that people have been doing them for a long time, but they're not as popular in some regions as they are in others.  Yet they are inexpensive to make, can be as customized and creative as the one creating them, and fulfill any purpose the creator has in mind, the same as tags or coins or any other travel bug out there.

What I have in mind are three types of cards, collectables, trackables, and what I call "Express Cache Cards".  Collectables will be various series of cards that are interesting, unique, but for folks to collect.  Trackables will have an official GeoCaching.com tracking number and will function as TravelBugs.  "Express Cache Cards" are the same as trackable cards, with the exception that they will be desginated for a specifc person to retrieve from a specific cache.  In otherwords, TB's with a mission to get somewhere and be picked up by a particular person.

I'm new to all this, so please be patient with me.  I can't do it all overnight, but God know's I'm trying.

The first cards I'm putting out I just pulled off the printer, and once I laminate them and get them out to cache sites they'll officially be in circulation.  My first set are a series of collectables, so if you should run across one, don't feel ashamed if  you want to keep it.  If you do, you have my blessing, in fact, I'd be honored.

The first series of cards will be related to Boy Scout information, since it was the Boy Scouts that introduced me to GeoCaching.  I can't say at this time how may cards will be in the series, or how many printings there will be of each card.  For starters I've printed out 10 copies of the same card.  Each identifies the series, card number, and printing.  That means that 10 people at least have the opportunity to get the series, if they can find all the cards.  There is no telling when or where I will drop the cards, but I'll note them here in my blog and in the cache logs at geocaching.com.  Each card is printed on business card stock and laminated to endure weather and handling.

If you come across one of my cards, I'd really love to hear from you.  Tell me when and where you found it, which series, card, and printing it is, and what you intend to do with it.

Below are images (front and back) of the first card to go into circulation.

We ran around in the woods today and a couple other locations and visited 5 sites, finding 4 cache.  I was the First To Find a brand new "Sugar Cookie" tracking bug, so that was exciting.  I'm going to try and get it to the Good Shepard Travel Bug Hotel sometime this week as well.

My kids are enjoying this even more than I am I think, even the 2 1/2 year old!  We walked to the "Across the Hollow" cache and on in through the woods and up the hill to the "Gibson Spring" cache where I found "Sugar Cookie".  Then we hiked back out again and drove around the park to the "Far Side".  After that we went to Neosho for an early dinner and stopped by the "Worlds Largest Flowerbox" on the way home.

I dropped 8 of my new cards off and have two left of the first card so I made card 2 in the BSA series, shown below.  I sure hope someone contacts me when they find them and tell me if they are keeping them or going to pass them on.  (These are "Collectables", so there's no harm or foul in keeping them.)

Who will be the first to get one these?