January 30, 2011

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!

6 comments:

GaryPaulson said...

It is amazing how geocaching feeds our obsessive compulsive tendencies.

Evan Gorman said...

i noticed this stat last week: how many different types of cache finds in one day? and then friday after finding a tradi, a multi, and a mystery cache, well, then i had to push for the earth cache.
Four kinds of caches, all kinds of fun

Stinger503 said...

8 months with FTFs for me so far, going for 9 tomorrow. I'm also going to try and hide a cache at least once a month

Joshua Johnson said...

Hey! I just wanted to share with you an article about a 366 calendar day challange. I am currently trying to fill up for calendar so I too can celebrate the accomplishment on Feb 29, 2012.

http://www.examiner.com/geocaching-in-minneapolis/366-calendar-day-challenge-cache-can-be-completed-2012

GeoJoe said...

Thanks Joshua. I also found a 366-day challenge cache in Nebraska: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=d6d9d1ac-7c3c-4423-882a-450266216f39

Tru2Cntry said...

It can get to be obsessive this sport called Geocaching! My current FTF streak is 15 months for FTF's, I currently have 189 FTF's going for 200 soon! I never gave my stats a second glance until someone showed me the FindStatsGen and it showed my all the different stats that can be done, just made me a little more compulsive! lol
Tru2Cntry
http://tru2cntry.com/