OCNA Blogger heading out on the road!

It's a Mule, not an Ass

That really is Mr.Yuck, AKA Jim, the OCNA Blogger, at a photo opportunity available at one of his own caches, which is listed exclusively on the Opencaching North America websites. That would be this cache at the Erie Canal Museum, in Lockport, N.Y. This is what we call a guestbook cache, where you sign the guestbook at a museum (in this case), or just about any tourist attraction you can think of. You could also use it for a trailhead register, or even a summit register at the top of a mountain. The blogger has made the high point of Ohio a guestbook cache on opencaching.us, for example; although technically a summit register, it's admittedly not too much of a hike for that one! It sits on the grounds of a Technical High School, which was formerly a cold war era Air Force Installation. Anyways, you can read more about this cache type on our OC Wiki, which is not a wiki in the traditional sense, as it's "closed", but there is a wealth of information about our website there, including the many unique cache types we offer. Please check it out.

So yes, we're heading out on the road! We will be attending what is often touted as the World's 2nd largest Mega Event, the Midwest Geobash, which has made it's permanent home at the Fulton County Fairgrounds, in Wauseon, Ohio, in the extreme NW part of the State. Geocachers Unlimited is hosting a little "event within the event", Geocachers Unlimited Meetup @ The Mega II  which is listed on our website, as well as being cross-listed on other alternative Geocaching websites Terracaching.com and GPSgames.org. Check us out if you happen to be at MWGB!

CacheFace.com launches CacheBlogger.com, a microblogging community for Geocachers

---

Paul Suggitt AKA Pilot Suggs from CacheFace.com is at it again with a new website; CacheBlogger.com, which was launched at Midnight GMT on June 28th, 2013. Twitter, of course is  referred to as a microblogging website, and CacheBlogger.com very much resembles Twitter, in both look and feel. Why a microblogging platform dedicated to Geocachers? Says Paul: "CacheBlogger was developed to compliment cacheface.com in such that geocachers have a dedicated social network AND micro blogging platform at their disposal where they can shout about their geocaching adventures, make new friends and share the geocaching love, no matter where they are on the planet. Other platforms may have the volumes of people using them in general, however the idea behind CacheBlogger (and indeed cacheface.com) is that the platforms are developed for and dedicated to geocachers so its easy to find cachers, make new caching friends around the world and even share ideas and adventures with people you have never met, knowing they all share the same passion....geocaching."

An interview with Stormgren-X on the 4.5lb Walleye Cache find

The Find!

This is the third post we have done here on the OCNA blog covering the epic eight day Canoe trip (nine days to reach the final destination, the village of Fort Albany, Ontario), to find the world's then oldest unfound Geocache, the elusive 4.5lb Walleye, placed by Jamie Matear way back on June 21st, 2001. This journey was undertaken by Chris Wereley, AKA Stormgren-X, of Sudbury, Ontario Canada, and his long time friend Gordon Morris, a non-Geocacher. This involved a 400 Km (250 Mile) paddle from Limestone Rapids, just North of The Constance Lake First Nations, and NW of Hearst, Ontario, to Fort Albany. The Rivers traveled on were The Kabinakagami, The Kenogami, and finally, The Albany, 1 Km (.6 Mile) wide in spots. The 4.5lb Walleye cache being along The Albany River, only 65 Km (40 Miles) shy of Fort Albany. This is one of the biggest stories in Geocaching in years, and was completed a month before this blog post, so we assume readers are at least somewhat familiar with the story. If you'd like to become very familiar with their trip, you can download Chris' 29 page journal as a .pdf from wikisend.com, a file that is only available for 3 weeks from the date of this blog post. Chris has also let us host this 29 page .pdf on our server at http://www.opencaching.us/AlbanyRiver-4.5lbWalleye.pdf but your web browser and internet connection will pay the price!! We will eventually convert that to an HTML page. On with the interview!

$10 Travelfleas.com Gift Certificate winner announced!

Sorry, our graphic artist wasn't available. We have a winner in the $10 Travelfleas.com Gift Certificate contest!! Louis, AKA Nighthawk700, a Geocacher from Baltimore Maryland, was the lucky winner. His name was drawn last night, and he responded within an hour to claim the prize. We won't disclose how many entries there were, but we hinted at it in the last blog post, and we can say dozens. The Google Doc storing the entries has been deleted as promised, along with all the entrants email addresses, which we would never use or share. Thanks to Travelfleas.com for providing the prize, thanks to all who entered, and congratulations once again to Nighthawk700. This was our first contest at the OCNA blog, hopefully the first of many, so stay tuned.

Happy 4th of July, and some odds and ends

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July! Enjoy this public domain fireworks picture, as we're all about public domain things at OCNA, be it the Leatherman Variant Logo, The Geoachers' Creed, or our own new logo. Mr.Yuck had a really, really bad day on Tuesday, July 2nd, with two separate really annoying things happening, so we'll just wish you all a great holiday, and blog about a few assorted odd's and ends here. We have completed our interview with Stormgren-X, he of the epic 9 day canoe trip to be the first to find the (then) world's oldest unfound cache, 4.5lb Walleye. We had and planned to post that this week, but we'll put that one off for a week.

New OCNA Logo

Speaking of our new logo at OpenCaching North America, we have shared that on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook, but we've never mentioned it here on the blog. Of course you've seen it for a couple weeks on the banner on the top of this blog. This is the "unlettered" version, without the text OpenCaching North America. We are very close to finalizing that design. First up? OCNA Pathtags! We will not be selling them ourselves though, they will be available through a little-known and little-used fundraiser program for Geocaching Organizations through coinsand pins.com. Don't worry though, we will not be "raising funds". The proceeds, if you want to call them that, are payable only in pathtags cash, so whenever we earn enough, we will just buy more of our own pathtags, and distribute them to promote our website. Next we will probably try OpenCaching North America T-shirts. We would most likely set the commission at zero to keep the cost to a bare minimum, and no money would be made there, either. It's all about promoting Opencaching North America!

After a slow start, the Travelfleas.com gift certificate contest is going very well; we have many entries. Maybe this blog really does have 500 readers a week, like the Blogger.com statistics tell us! Since you now have a less than 1 in 25 chance of winning, and probably even worse odds by the time the winner is drawn, feel free to go to their website and buy your own. Remember, the contest ends at 7:00 PM Eastern Standard Time, on Wednesday, July 10th. Remember to check your "spam", or "junk" folder should you be the lucky winner, because as previously mentioned, you will be contacted from a Gmail account, more specifically Opencachingnorthamerica at that domain. We will do a short blog post announcing the winner. Be sure to check back for that post next week (assuming the winner responds quickly), and also the interview with Stormgren-X.