The Problem With Statistics

The interesting thing about geocaching statistics is that when your cache finds are presented to you in a particular way, you suddenly find yourself with completely new geocaching goals you likely would never have come up with otherwise. What do I mean by that? Take for example, "Most Consecutive Months With a FTF", one of many  somewhat obscure statistics generated from the GSAK macro, "FindStatGen". Certainly not a statistic I would have derived on my own, but once I saw it on my computer screen, I suddenly became obsessed with keeping that streak going (I'm up to 19 consecutive months and counting).

And take the nice calendar of finds available on your geocaching.com stats page. Again, something I would have never even dreamed of keeping track of, but now that it's there in black and white (so to speak), I've gone ahead and entered all my "missing days" in my personal (Google) calendar to make sure that I'll drop everything to find a cache on those days. I don't even know if there is a challenge cache for filling in your calendar - I'm just obsessed with wanting to see 366 days filled in on my computer screen:

That's right, I said 366 days. That's because it includes February 29th, which, as you know, only comes around every 4 years. And you can bet that I, and all the other calendar-watching cachers out there, are not going to let Feb. 29th, 2012 pass by with out getting a smiley.

Cache On!