Well as you can see life has been keeping me busy. I hope you all have been popping over th Podcacher and following the shows. Some of them have been pretty fun.

This weekend was Champoeg 6. The yearly gathering of crazies in and around the Portland area. We also had special guests down from the from lair. We hope you had a great time Heidi, Rothstafari, Miss Jenn and Spoon. It was really great to meet you and we really appreciate the support and sponsorship from Groundspeak.

I shot about 275 photos and am in the process of sorting them as I write this. Check out the photo gallery for the best of the best, and the worst of the worst.

Show 103.0: Earthcaches!

On this geocaching show today, you will find an announcement of a unique caching event in Philadelphia, the debut of the Caching Pump Video and some new bumper music, as well as the return of the PTC (volume 2). Also a chat with cooperphoto about earthcaches.

Listen To The Show (53:28)

Show 104.0: PodCacher Trail Mix

This show contains a “trail mix” of geocaching tid-bits for you - stories, audio, interesting caches, listener tips, milestones, show feedback and more!
Listen To The Show (51:29)

Having fallen a little behind on bringing you the latest Podcacher shows I have decided I would not use this week’s post to catch up. However I would like to congratulate Podcacher for celebrating their 100th show and still going strong. Their is one show that was posted since the last update I made that I would like to highlight. It is a mid-week micro and deals with camo ammo cans. There are some great tips for old and new alike that might not yet have learned good technique to blending their hides into the environment.

Podcacher Show 100.1: PMM - Ammo Cammo Demo

Listen To The Show (17:31)

On this geocaching nano-show Sonny describes in more detail how to create a camouflaged ammo can with paint and weeds. There are also pictures to accompany the tutorial. For more details and links to the pictures click here.

Podcacher Show 97.0: Puzzle Caching - part 1

First of a two part series on puzzle caches. We certainly have our fair share in the Portland area. And I have heard many times that we have some of the best to be found. Tune in to this podcast and check out what happens in the other parts of the country.

Listen To The Show (46:28)

Podcacher Show 98.0: Puzzle Caching - Part 2

Second part of the puzzle caching series. This one concludes the series. Also included is a first to find race between two cachers to solve a new puzzle.

Listen To The Show (58:28)

Podcacher Show 99.0: Spring Fling, Moonpies, Torcher and more

Audio from various caching events around the country. Also a great adventure story from a group of cachers attempting an extreme cache in North Carolina. Don’t miss the drawing of the 2nd referral contest winner(s).

Listen To The Show (43:04)

While I do not cache for numbers, it is sometimes cool to see how you are doing. Not as a comparison to anyone else but simply as a reflection. I have noticed lately several profiles that had a cool break down of the stats for that particular cacher and the other day I clicked on the link for a stat generator called Cache Stats. What I found was a very cool little program that reads a GPX of your finds, a pocket query that paid members can generate, and parses it to give you a lot of cool things. It will list each hundred level milestone, give you a break down of caches by year, find rates, most finds in a day, parse logs for a phrase such as FTF and cout your FTFs and a whole lot more. It can even allow you to specify a number of find goal and they date you wish to achieve it and then project how many finds per day you will need to get there. Here is a screen shot of the main program:

And a screen that lets you list your favorite caches in several categories:

It also exports the cool HTML code of the stats and even US and world maps for posting on your profile, or other web pages. This output is a bit too big for here, but you can see an example on my GC profile HERE.

As I said, its not about the numbers. But sometimes the numbers are fun to look at…

What the heck is a “snake dog”? Listen to this week’s show to get the low down.

Listen To The Show (53:49)

This week’s show contains live interviews from Geocoinfest 2007. A chat with Mike and Ben from GeocoinStore talking about pathtags. If you are an avid coin collector this show is for you.

Listen To The Show (54:54)

Once again running a bit behind on posts.

Podcacher Show 93.0: Interview with High Finders

Last week’s show contained some good insight from a few folks that really get out there and play.

Listen To The Show (1:00:00)

Podcacher Show 94.0: Creativity in Geocaching

This week’s show focuses on something that has always drawn me to the game. The creative level of some of the hides and containers that I have found. It seems that this is becoming a lost art, akin to tight programing in a drag and drop world, that I would hate to see lost. Have a listen and perhaps think about how you can help revive the art of the creative cache in our community.

Listen To The Show (1:06:00)

At long last TPTB have updated the published hide guidelines. Upon review I have to say that they do not look a whole lot different then the November 2005 version, but there is some rewording that should make it easier to understand. Also you can see some “growing up” beginning to creep into the game. There are still some “guidelines” that I have been requested to comply with that are not published, but perhaps we will see more frequent updates now that the game has become so popular. If you have not yet see the guidelines they can be found here New cache placement guidelines.

This week features an extra-strength show jam-packed with caching stories, listener audio, FTF attempts, contest giveaways and more. We highlight some challenging cache hunts from listeners around the world. And don’t miss the official kickoff of The Great PodCacher TB Migration.

Listen To The Show (1:04:05)