Tuesday night I got word that the winners of the 2007 GOWT Favorite Cache Awards were posted. I didn't nominate any caches this year, but I was interested in the results because I knew my friend jbgreer had won an award.
As I looked over the list, I noticed two things: 1) The majority of the winners were members of the Leadership and Advisory Committees, and 2) bitbrain won two of the twelve awards.
The first was not surprising as I suspect that not many members participated in the selection process. The second, however, struck me as odd. I went back and reviewed the rules (which were posted earlier in the same thread) and sure enough bitbrain did not qualify.
I was certain that he was not a paid member in 2007 because I have a copy of the membership list dated just prior to the anniversary party.
At first, I wasn't going to say anything... After thinking about it I realized that most members would never know anything was wrong unless somebody spoke up.
I posted on the thread a comment: "Technically, bitbrain was not a paid member in 2007 so he did not qualify for an award."
Pcsenn replied shortly after: "You are correct, but since we are human, and sometimes we make mistakes, we ask that those who are perfect not be too harsh on us... But then again it does say "should" and not "must". I guess technically there was no foul... So HAPPY GEOCACHING!!!"
This is a typical response from GOWT leadership. Do not hold yourselves accountable or responsible in any way.
I responded: "Tell that to the person who came in second place...."
Chibongo simply ignored my comments and responded: "My congrats to all the winners!!!"
I was going to leave it alone because there was not much else I could say, but at this point the "Father of Tennessee Geocaching", JoGPS posted a comment: "I was the one that came is second place and it was a real pleasure to get beat by bitbrain who is da man in the Memphis area , will have to try harder next year"
I knew this was a bait, so my final response was: "I wasn't aware that you had any caches in West Tennessee (another requirement). Thanks for playing."
JoGPS then tried one last bait: "you only think you know all of my login names, but then again you pretend to know a lot of things"
Ok, whatever dude.
I expected at some point for a moderator to ask for comments to be on-topic and even noticed Moderator 1 and Moderator 4 logged onto the site at different times during the day. They did absolutely nothing.
At 8:43pm on Wednesday, the entire thread disappeared courtesy of the "webmaster".
What the overall effect of this was:
Members of GOWT can continue to have little to no confidence in the integrity of a voting system administered by the GOWT leadership. Whether voting for club officers or cache awards, you can't just say "Oops, no harm no foul" when rules are obviously violated. This appears to be lost on pcsenn and no doubt others as well.
A secondary effect was that the moderation process in GOWT is still ineffectual and the "webmaster" can still make what appears to be unilateral decisions on what content is allowed.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Shelby Farms - February 23, 2008
I had been making plans to cache in West Memphis this weekend. Early in the week I received an e-mail from my buddy jbgreer wanting to know if I wanted to go caching with him this coming Saturday. Of course I did so I came up with a list of good caches (in terms of difficulty and terrain) that was closer to his house and arranged to meet him at his house around 7:30am. I didn't tell him beforehand exactly what caches we would be hunting and just mentioned we would be revisiting his favorite railroad bridge.
Saturday morning came and as been usual for me the past few months, I had some trouble leaving on time. When I arrived at jbgreer's house (15 minutes late), he had his truck warmed up and ready to go. I showed the maps of caches I had plotted out and told him our first cache of the day would be RUSTY RAILS-ROTTEN LUMBER V 2.0 by psychicash (GC15HAB). Our initial plan was to do the easiest (least complicated) caches first and work up to the harder ones.
Before hunting our first cache, we had to tackle "the bridge".
Making it across safely, we quickly found the first cache and jbgreer did the legwork of retrieving the container. I had been worried that the previous day's rain would cause problems, but we had none.
On to the second cache, Rusty Rails: Phone Call by Nvisible & PsychicAsh (GC15NMF). It was also a quick find, even though the namesake landmark blended in well with the surroundings. I took a picture here, but it is a spoiler. Now, with the easier caches under our belts, we were ready to tackle the tougher ones.
We were closest to THE 385 CACHE by MagicRock (GC1918C), so we decided to give that one a shot. I knew it required special equipment, but wasn't sure what I needed. The previous finder's overly verbose log provided a spoiler that came in handy. We did manage to find what the spoiler referred to (thanks) and realized we would probably need to come back later with a specific item. I don't think I have ever found a MagicRock cache on the first try.
Next, we headed to Riding the Rusty Railroad by Nvisible (GC1130Z). This is a 4-stage cache that required some advance work before attempting. I did the work for stage 1 the night before. Unfortunately we had no luck with this one (the logs were no help) and since I don't care for the phone-a-friend approach (p-a-f is for the weak ;-) ), we decided to move on and try this one again later.
We doubled back and headed for The Frank Stockton Cache by psychicash (GC15H9C). This cache has a "key" that is necessary to decode the coordinates for two other nearby caches. I did a lot of work the night before to make sure this would not be a problem and when we found the cache, we made quick work of decoding the coords for The Lady... by psychicash (GC15HA3) and ...or The Tiger? by psychicash (GC15HA5) and found these two caches on our way back to the tracks. Since we had some time, we made one more unsuccessful attempt at Riding the Rusty Railroad by Nvisible (GC1130Z) before making our way back to the truck. We were pretty happy to find 5 of the 7 area caches and plan to try the others on another day.
We got back to the truck around 10:15am and I showed jbgreer a map of the next area that I figured we could go after. He agreed and we headed over to the south part of Shelby Farms.
Our next find was Keep In Touch by cgeek (GCZQWD). We found it easily enough after some walking, but somehow on the way out, I managed to seriously rip the right leg of my pants on a metal fencepost while stepping over a short fence. When we got to the next cache area, I fixed my pants with a couple of strips of duct tape from a roll that jbgreer had. For CARS! by jackthebear (GC18310), we parked on the wrong side of a small creek, so we had to walk around. Given the location of the cache, it was surprising that I spotted it so quickly. I enjoy these types of hides because they make me feel like a kid!
It was around lunchtime at this point so we headed to Chick-Fil-A for a good meal. Caching is much more relaxing when you stop for lunch.
We had three more caches on our list so we drove back to Shelby Farms and parked near the equestrian area. We hadn't cached over here for a while so we didn't remember much about the excellent trail system back here. Our first goal was 1st and 21 by savvysteve (GC16JC5). This cache was nicely tucked away and actually had some neat stuff in it (being a fairly new cache). We then headed west to tackle Bluey by tkollig (GC19AH7) and Hard by tkollig (GC19AHK), our last finds of the day. Both caches were easy finds, but you could run into serious thorns if you don't take the right approach. We had a nice hike back to the truck and I was glad the weather was fairly cool. On our way out of the area, we stopped at Wal-Mart so I could get some new pants. We then drove back to jbgreer's house where we parted ways around 2:45pm.
All-in-all we had a pretty good day. Our total find count for the day was 10. No lightpoles or guard rails to disappoint us and no muggles to deal with. My next few trips might be done solo, but I always have a great time caching with jbgreer.
Saturday morning came and as been usual for me the past few months, I had some trouble leaving on time. When I arrived at jbgreer's house (15 minutes late), he had his truck warmed up and ready to go. I showed the maps of caches I had plotted out and told him our first cache of the day would be RUSTY RAILS-ROTTEN LUMBER V 2.0 by psychicash (GC15HAB). Our initial plan was to do the easiest (least complicated) caches first and work up to the harder ones.
Before hunting our first cache, we had to tackle "the bridge".
Making it across safely, we quickly found the first cache and jbgreer did the legwork of retrieving the container. I had been worried that the previous day's rain would cause problems, but we had none.
On to the second cache, Rusty Rails: Phone Call by Nvisible & PsychicAsh (GC15NMF). It was also a quick find, even though the namesake landmark blended in well with the surroundings. I took a picture here, but it is a spoiler. Now, with the easier caches under our belts, we were ready to tackle the tougher ones.
We were closest to THE 385 CACHE by MagicRock (GC1918C), so we decided to give that one a shot. I knew it required special equipment, but wasn't sure what I needed. The previous finder's overly verbose log provided a spoiler that came in handy. We did manage to find what the spoiler referred to (thanks) and realized we would probably need to come back later with a specific item. I don't think I have ever found a MagicRock cache on the first try.
Next, we headed to Riding the Rusty Railroad by Nvisible (GC1130Z). This is a 4-stage cache that required some advance work before attempting. I did the work for stage 1 the night before. Unfortunately we had no luck with this one (the logs were no help) and since I don't care for the phone-a-friend approach (p-a-f is for the weak ;-) ), we decided to move on and try this one again later.
We doubled back and headed for The Frank Stockton Cache by psychicash (GC15H9C). This cache has a "key" that is necessary to decode the coordinates for two other nearby caches. I did a lot of work the night before to make sure this would not be a problem and when we found the cache, we made quick work of decoding the coords for The Lady... by psychicash (GC15HA3) and ...or The Tiger? by psychicash (GC15HA5) and found these two caches on our way back to the tracks. Since we had some time, we made one more unsuccessful attempt at Riding the Rusty Railroad by Nvisible (GC1130Z) before making our way back to the truck. We were pretty happy to find 5 of the 7 area caches and plan to try the others on another day.
We got back to the truck around 10:15am and I showed jbgreer a map of the next area that I figured we could go after. He agreed and we headed over to the south part of Shelby Farms.
Our next find was Keep In Touch by cgeek (GCZQWD). We found it easily enough after some walking, but somehow on the way out, I managed to seriously rip the right leg of my pants on a metal fencepost while stepping over a short fence. When we got to the next cache area, I fixed my pants with a couple of strips of duct tape from a roll that jbgreer had. For CARS! by jackthebear (GC18310), we parked on the wrong side of a small creek, so we had to walk around. Given the location of the cache, it was surprising that I spotted it so quickly. I enjoy these types of hides because they make me feel like a kid!
It was around lunchtime at this point so we headed to Chick-Fil-A for a good meal. Caching is much more relaxing when you stop for lunch.
We had three more caches on our list so we drove back to Shelby Farms and parked near the equestrian area. We hadn't cached over here for a while so we didn't remember much about the excellent trail system back here. Our first goal was 1st and 21 by savvysteve (GC16JC5). This cache was nicely tucked away and actually had some neat stuff in it (being a fairly new cache). We then headed west to tackle Bluey by tkollig (GC19AH7) and Hard by tkollig (GC19AHK), our last finds of the day. Both caches were easy finds, but you could run into serious thorns if you don't take the right approach. We had a nice hike back to the truck and I was glad the weather was fairly cool. On our way out of the area, we stopped at Wal-Mart so I could get some new pants. We then drove back to jbgreer's house where we parted ways around 2:45pm.
All-in-all we had a pretty good day. Our total find count for the day was 10. No lightpoles or guard rails to disappoint us and no muggles to deal with. My next few trips might be done solo, but I always have a great time caching with jbgreer.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Where Is Your God Now?
Seen today on MTGC's site:
With a happy heart I bring ya’ll my goodbyes from being a reviewer for Geocaching.com, the five years has been wonderful and very fulfilling for me personally. But I have come full circle is the great sport.
My family was kind enough to gather lots of toad stools and send them to da lily pad to buy me out of slavery from da frog and made it possible for me to retire hee hee , but not as a geocacher
Started out working with the Nashville Parks and Recreation department ( 2001 ) only 45 after starting this way cool sport, they were taking out geocaches and this begin a long career in the sport, within three months I started the local Geocaching club ( am still an officer ) second only to the GGA in Georgia for being oldest in the world. From there went on to work with the state parks in TN and 12 other agencies to developed Geocaching policy guidelines for their areas.
In mid Nov of last year (2007) the Nashville Parks and Recreation systems named me as head of their Geocaching Programs and permits for cache placements , I will not actually not be doing very much more work than I have been other than the buck will stop with me The park system has 109 parks with 12,433 acres plus and additional 35 miles of greenways.
As I said full circle, its time for me to set back and just enjoy the sport and let someone else have the good fortune of being a reviewer and being able to play the sport a little different than most.
Big Thanks to all of you for you support, and friendship over the years, hope to see all of ya’ll on the da trail one day
east bound and down
Joe // JoGPS // Max Cacher
I will always remember him as the reviewer who took punitive actions against GOWT on geocaching.com because he got his posting privileges temporarily suspended.
Update: 2/19/2008
On another blog I visit periodically, I read another "tribute" to JoGPS. I found this quote somewhat pathetic:
"Today I received the sad news that he has decided to step down from his responsibilities with GC.com as a Volunteer Reviewer.
Though I don't know all the reasons behind his decision, I do respect it. I have a few ideas, but I'll keep them to myself."
All I have to say to the author is that all that bitterness will eat you up inside. If you suspect some hidden reason for his "retirement", why don't you just ask him? ;-)
Friday, February 15, 2008
Hasta la Vista, Baby
Saturday is the date of 4th Annual GOWT Gathering by Geocachers of West Tennessee (GC18AZX). It is also the deadline for paying membership dues for 2008. Although I have been a member since the founding of GOWT, I will not be renewing my membership this year.
My last vote as a GOWT member is a silent vote of no confidence in the leadership and direction of the organization. My $5 membership fee will instead go to tip a waitress at Hooters.
My last vote as a GOWT member is a silent vote of no confidence in the leadership and direction of the organization. My $5 membership fee will instead go to tip a waitress at Hooters.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Caching in Halls, TN - February 10, 2008
This was another great weekend to be outside and I almost missed it. I had wanted to cache in Halls because it was a small town with plenty of caches that I had passed through on my way to Dyersburg a couple of times. I planned to go Saturday, but once again was too tired (and lazy) to go anywhere.
Since I had to make a trip to visit family on Sunday, I figured I'd just get up early Sunday and do a little caching before meeting up with my family.
I woke up early on Sunday but couldn't get energized to go anywhere. I finally managed to leave my house just after 10 am and headed north along Hwy 51. I had only 4 hours before I had to meet my family in Rosemark, TN, and after checking with my GPSr's autorouting quickly realized that I wouldn't have much time to actually cache. This didn't bother me too much because I enjoy the drive along the highway - much more scenic that the Interstate. I also needed some supplies and knew I'd pass at least 4 Wal-Marts on the route I was taking.
Amazingly, once I got on the road my mood improved significantly! I drove for an hour or so before reaching the Rest Stop just south of Henning, TN where I needed to make a quick stop and reorganize my caching materials.
Sometime around 11:30am, I arrived at my first cache stop - Concord cemetery by i_am_wood (GCQ75Z). I parked too far away so I had to walk across the cemetary (there is parking right next to the cache). The brisk air was nice and stimulating. I had to use the cache log info to help me find this one. The log was damp so I bagged it. Next, I headed north to A Drop of Water by Bashful & JimmyLogan (GC148F8). This was a quick find in a good spot.
I headed a little further north into Halls where there was a small cluster of caches. Since I was really short on time, I skipped the high difficulty ones and went after the easier rated ones.
I made quick work of My first hide by blist (GC18M7Q) and skipped the nearby Acorn to Oak Cache because I had no time to be frustrated!
Little Red Caboose by Bashful & JimmyLogan (GC148ET) was a really good hide that took some searching on my part! It was across the street from the Halls Caboose Museum. I was a little nervous searching the area because the police station was across the street.
Another Lovers Lane by blist (GC18NV7) took a little longer to find than it should have because of some trash around the cache, but was a nice find in a muggle-free area.
I was tight on time so I headed next to Stories in Stone by Bashful & Jimmylogan (GCYD2X). It was an ammo can hide, so I hoped I would make a quick find. I did, but had problems retrieving the container. The area could definitely use some TLC! The final cache I went after was The Ugly Duckling by Bashful and JimmyLogan (GCYW57). I had heard good things about this cache and wanted to at least scout the location since I didn't have time for a protracted search. I found the cache pretty quickly - the coords were dead on. The log was a mess so my signature ended up a blue blob! I took a few pictures of the structure and the nearby water and hightailed it south to meet up with my family - I ended up being only 15 minutes late!
I enjoyed the Halls area and hope to return there soon. I liked the variety of hides and it was refreshing to not do Wal-Mart or gas station caches for a change. I know that when I go back I will definitely need to set aside more time to enjoy the sights!
Since I had to make a trip to visit family on Sunday, I figured I'd just get up early Sunday and do a little caching before meeting up with my family.
I woke up early on Sunday but couldn't get energized to go anywhere. I finally managed to leave my house just after 10 am and headed north along Hwy 51. I had only 4 hours before I had to meet my family in Rosemark, TN, and after checking with my GPSr's autorouting quickly realized that I wouldn't have much time to actually cache. This didn't bother me too much because I enjoy the drive along the highway - much more scenic that the Interstate. I also needed some supplies and knew I'd pass at least 4 Wal-Marts on the route I was taking.
Amazingly, once I got on the road my mood improved significantly! I drove for an hour or so before reaching the Rest Stop just south of Henning, TN where I needed to make a quick stop and reorganize my caching materials.
Sometime around 11:30am, I arrived at my first cache stop - Concord cemetery by i_am_wood (GCQ75Z). I parked too far away so I had to walk across the cemetary (there is parking right next to the cache). The brisk air was nice and stimulating. I had to use the cache log info to help me find this one. The log was damp so I bagged it. Next, I headed north to A Drop of Water by Bashful & JimmyLogan (GC148F8). This was a quick find in a good spot.
I headed a little further north into Halls where there was a small cluster of caches. Since I was really short on time, I skipped the high difficulty ones and went after the easier rated ones.
I made quick work of My first hide by blist (GC18M7Q) and skipped the nearby Acorn to Oak Cache because I had no time to be frustrated!
Little Red Caboose by Bashful & JimmyLogan (GC148ET) was a really good hide that took some searching on my part! It was across the street from the Halls Caboose Museum. I was a little nervous searching the area because the police station was across the street.
Another Lovers Lane by blist (GC18NV7) took a little longer to find than it should have because of some trash around the cache, but was a nice find in a muggle-free area.
I was tight on time so I headed next to Stories in Stone by Bashful & Jimmylogan (GCYD2X). It was an ammo can hide, so I hoped I would make a quick find. I did, but had problems retrieving the container. The area could definitely use some TLC! The final cache I went after was The Ugly Duckling by Bashful and JimmyLogan (GCYW57). I had heard good things about this cache and wanted to at least scout the location since I didn't have time for a protracted search. I found the cache pretty quickly - the coords were dead on. The log was a mess so my signature ended up a blue blob! I took a few pictures of the structure and the nearby water and hightailed it south to meet up with my family - I ended up being only 15 minutes late!
I enjoyed the Halls area and hope to return there soon. I liked the variety of hides and it was refreshing to not do Wal-Mart or gas station caches for a change. I know that when I go back I will definitely need to set aside more time to enjoy the sights!
Monday, February 4, 2008
Not Even For the Pizza
Bitbrain's 1K Celebration! by The Disorganization of Midsouth Geocachers (GC18EZF)
This event will be held Wednesday night at Fox Ridge Pizza in Cordova. Based on the "will attend" logs it looks like it will be a well-attended event for a geocacher that most people hold in high regard.
This event will be held Wednesday night at Fox Ridge Pizza in Cordova. Based on the "will attend" logs it looks like it will be a well-attended event for a geocacher that most people hold in high regard.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
I Need a Road Trip
I wasted another beautiful weekend indoors. I have several road trips planned out but I have been too tired in the mornings to head out. After looking at a cache map of West Tennessee, it looks like I have around 600 caches I could go for. I'm looking at a number of areas, but for West Tennessee I will probably concentrate on NW Tennessee, up Hwy 51 to Dyersburg and east to Union City and Martin. The area around Jackson has lots of caches, but I've made lots of trips there over the last three years and am in no hurry to go back. I'm also looking at doing a walking tour of Downtown Nashville before the weather gets too warm. I've planned that trip many different times and never got around to doing it.
As a side note, I need to quit reading the GOWT forums. It depresses me.
As a side note, I need to quit reading the GOWT forums. It depresses me.
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