March 16, 2013

Find a WWFMX Near You

The next World Wide Flash Mob (number 10) is scheduled to take place on May 4th, and there is sure to be one near you. But how can you find one? Well, you can do a search on geocaching.com for all caches with WWFM in the "cache name" (I leave off the "X" in the name, because different event hosts use different variations, which may limit your search results).

This search produces a list of 270 events (as of today), but unfortunately, you can not sort by location, making it difficult to find any in your neighborhood.

You can use the Podcacher's List, by State, but while it's nice to see the number of events planned for each state, there's still no easy way to see just the WWFMX's planned for your state.

The best thing I've found to do is generate a pocket query in which, under "Selected Types", you only select "Event"; and under "Placed During", you select May 4, 2013 as both the begin and end date. Then, just select your "Radius" within your "home location".  You'll get all the events planned for that day near your home - and they will all likely be WWFMX events.

Save your query, then go to the Your Pocket Queries page and select the "Preview in Geocaching Maps" icon; and there  you have it:


May the 4th be with you, and Cache On!


March 9, 2013

Dinosaur Train Geocaching Challenge



First, let me just apologize if this is old news to most of you, but I just ran across this information on the Dinosaur Train Geocaching Challenge, which began a couple years back. Since my children are grown now, I tend to be out of the loop on the latest PBS offerings for kids these days. My daughters were brought up on Barney, Arthur, and Blues Clues; which should give you an indication of how ancient I am.

Speaking of Dinosaurs, this themed challenge cache sounds like a great way to introduce your kids to geocaching, especially any kids that are fans of the show. Information on the site states, "The Jim Henson Company has enlisted the help of PBS stations, museums, zoos, and aquariums nationwide to hide Dinosaur Train themed geocaches." Each geocache features one of the dinosaurs found on the online Dinosaur Train Field Guide and contains educational information related to that dinosaur."

So any parents of young kids who are anxious to get their children out geocaching, I encourage you to use any means necessary to do so, as that window is only open for a very short period. Believe me, it's amazing how one day your kids love geocaching with you, and then suddenly the switched gets flipped and they think you are the biggest nerd and your hobby is totally lame. And there's no going back.

Cache On!


March 2, 2013

Bomb Squad Almost Finds 2,000,000th Cache

Here's a tip to local law enforcement: A simple check of the geocaching.com website before deploying the bomb squad could go a long way toward avoiding foolish, costly situations such as what just happened in Mansfield, Ohio.

Speaking of number two million, Overwatch #1 was hidden by rAMPant1 on February 28th in Alice Springs, Australia. The FTF was claimed by tttedzeins, who so far, is the only person who's found it. Although nearly 1,500 people have signed the log to congratulate the owner for hiding number two million.


Here's to two million more!

Cache On!