HHH's Lunchtime GotD - Bushwack Geocache

This little guy was NOT your normal park and grab. Rather a 2.5/2.5 so I took the chance it would not take me too long.

It turned out to be a .10 bushwack in a semi-swampy woods. Took my hiking pole and handy pack with me. It's turning cold today and later tonight it's supposed to snow up to 10 inches. That's a lot for North Carolina. Anyway I am glad I found it because it was laying on the ground. I signed the log and put it back in it's apparent hidey hole.

Took me 20 minutes for this one so lunch was a bit rushed.

-HHH
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GeoSnippits: What's In Your Geocaching Pack Video

Geocaching is an amazing, fun filled way to spend time outdoors with friends and family.

As you become more experienced with your finds you realize that many times a special tool, gizmo or thinga-ma-bob is needed at one point or another to help either retrieve the geocache or to obtain the log book. This video helps show you many of those items to help make your geocaching experience even more enjoyable.

If you cannot see the player above then please click the link here to go directly to it's YouTube page:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EBgPJHVsCE

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HHH's Lunchtime GotD-All About the Place

You may have noticed already that I did not take my normal shot of todays Lunchtime geocache. Instead I wanted to show the importance of placement. In other words a great geocache is not based solely on the hide itself but WHERE you hide it. Does the area have something of interest to the hider? Anybody can throw a 35mm container under a lamp skirt but can you make the finder stop and say, "thats cool" when they get there. Make your hides memorable and it will show in the logs of your finders. - HHH
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Lunchtime GotD: Search From Different Directions

Todays Lunchtime Geocache of the Day took me in a rather thickly brushed out woods. A lot thicker than the 1.5 Terrain would have me believe. I did this during the winter so I would hazard the guess what it would be like during the summer.

Anyways, the find took me longer than expected but I prevailed. The key was to attack ground zero from several different directions. Because of the density of the vegetation I didn't spot it until the third pass. Fun but a bit more of a challenge. -HHH
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HHH's Lunchtime GotD - Pill Container / Bison Tube

This was a really nice park and grab lunchtime geocaching treat. It's a pill holder, just a little bigger than your standard bison tube.

What I really liked about this find was the very scenic pine woods you go thru to get to it. With the sun shining just so it was beautiful to just be there. Took some extra photos to remember it by. Bonus - Found a Quiznos on the way there. Love good sub shops.

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HHH's Lunchtime GotD- Vitamin Bottle

Todays Lunchtime Geocache of the Day takes me to a rather swampy wet area not too far off the beaten path. My find is a cammi pill bottle just big enough for a plastic baggie and a log book. A nice quick find on a 60 degree blustery winters day.

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What A Geocaching Record Breaking Day!

Wow! Saturday was amazing and it turned out to be a day full of new geocaching records and achieved milestones. Went out with CarolinaTrombone, UNCSweetchic (a team of three people), and Miss Geoness.

The day started at 6am with a bright sunrise and a van load of people. The idea was to attend two geocaching events. One in the morning and the other in the evening plus find as many geocaches as we could during the

day. What is commonly known as a numbers run.

Before the first morning event we were able to find quite a few geocaches. To get as many geocaches as possible we concentrated on only the ones that had a difficulty of 2 or less. That way we

could get in, find the geocache and move on at a really fast pace. The morning flew by as our tallies began to increase. We paused long enough to do a quick 15 minute meet and greet event then it was time to get back and find more geocaches. I had never seen so many bison tubes, 35mm containers, nanos and magnetic key holders in one day before. One after another flew by until we had to stop for a few moments to celebrate a milestone. One that I am quite proud of actually.

HeadHardHat Reaches 1000 Finds!

Yep the old HHH hit the four digit mark and found his 1000th

geocaching hide. I could not be more happy than to share this milestone with such a fun group of people. Miss Geoness gave me the big high five to congratulate me which made the experience complete.

Some geocachers like to save the big milestones and do something

special with them. For me this was all I needed and wouldn't have had it any other way. The cool thing was this would not be the only milestone for today. Soon after the celebration ended we were back at it. We came to get some serious numbers today so on we drove.

Geocache after geocache we continued to find as this unstoppable team marched through the Greenville, NC area. Before we knew it the afternoon evaporated and it was time for the evening event. It was held in a really nice Chinese restaurant that provided a huge buffet. Inside about 60 or so geocachers did what they do best and gabbed about geocaching, ate loads of food and swapped adventure stories. We had a lot of fun but once again the call of the geocaches beckoned and this time it was dark out.

Night caching is a whole lot of fun and it adds a bit of difficulty to the hunt. For one the geocaches are harder to see and you search most of the time via flashlight.

The next milestone reached was for CarolinaTombone who in the darkness found his 1200th find.

As the night progressed and midnight approached we all hit a personal best of 100 finds for the day. This included two events, a virtual, a mystery and a host of traditionals. What a great time!

So if anybody asks you if you want to go on a geocaching numbers run grab it with both hands and say yes. Sure we were on the road for 18 hours but the fun, friendship and memories is worth the fatigue from being in the car for so long. In fact, I am planning on my next 100 finds day right now.

See ya out on the trails!

Now see the GeoSnippits Video and experience it for yourself!

Go Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgaMcHNNuss

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Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com/

Numbers Run Today

Going for 100, we will see.

If you would like to see our entire day of geocaching goodness and if we hit 100 or not. Please check out this post. You will be glad you did. http://headhardhat-geocache.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-geocaching-record-breaking-day.html

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Lunchtime Geocache of the Day - Keyholder Surprise

Today's Lunchtime Geocache of the Day gave me a few surprises. Not necessarily the keyholder geocache itself but the very cool plastic book used for the logbook. It fit perfectly and gave the finder their own sheet to log on.

The second surprise was the empanada restaurant nearby. What a cool set of finds!

-HHH
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Cold, Rainy, Lunchtime GotD Fun.

It was 70 degrees out yesterday but only 39 right now. Did I mention it's raining ta boot but that is all part of geocaching. This lunch time geocache of the day took me down a cement path and into a patch of woods. A quick find which is great cuz my fingers are numb. On to a nice hot sub sammich. -HHH
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Lunchtime GotD: Not Quite A Bison Tube - Army Match Holder

If you never had seen one of these before you might wonder what they are when geocaching. Above is an Army style match holder container. You can get them at many sporting goods stores or an actual Army surplus store. Cost you about $2.00 and are fairly water tight. They have an Oring and screw down top. Better than a 35 mm container for sure. This was a nice quick Lunchtime Geocache Find and now I know where a local grocery store is - bonus.
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HeadHardHat Appearing at Cachercon 2010 Metro Detroit

HeadHardHat is heading to Troy, Michigan for the Cachercon 2010 Metro Detroit on Saturday, February 6th, 2010!

That's right the host of GeoSnippits Geocaching Videos seen on You Tube and weekly on Michigan Magazine TV (RFDTV Network) will be discussing Geocaching in the Media: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Besides HHH there are no less than eight other geocaching speakers sharing their passion and wisdom about the game, sport, okay obsession known as geocaching.

This is going to be held at the Detroit Holiday Inn in Troy, Michigan. We really want to see a great turn out so set your calendars and above all be there for the fun!

Check out http://www.motorcitycachemachine.com/cachercon-2010 and/or GC2158P at geocaching.com for all the details.

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Twitter me at @headhardhat

Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com

Lunchtime Geocache of the Day: Love Them Bushes

Yeah I know what you are thinking but this is a family orientated blog.

Bush hunts are usually bug ridden, wasp infested, pointy leaved pains in the buttocks. Yet every once in a while you find a nice soft bush (shad-dup) where your efforts are not so bad. This geocaching find of the day was like that. No bugs, wasps nor pointy leaves, a real joy. Though the log was pretty wet (shad-dup, shad'n up) I managed to sign my name. In North Carolina where the Holly Bush runs wild. There are a lot of geocaches in these holiday festive plants. I highly recommend when geocaching to make sure you have a good pair of work gloves in your geocaching pouch for just such hunts. They have extremely sharp leaves.

For this find though, all in all a fun lunchtime treat.

Now for some lunch and to get my mind out of the gutter :)

-HHH
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How is Your Geocaching "EGRK"?

When I go geocaching I always carry with me my "pouch o' stuff". If you watch many of my GeoSnippits videos you can see it. All army green and after several years of geocaching it is showing it's battle scars. Come to think of it so am I but that is another story. The point is among my geocaching thing-a-ma-bobs is what I call my "Emergency Geocache Repair Kit". It's not for my personal geocaches but for ones that I come across that need maintenance. Think about it, how many times have you come across a geocache where the log book is so soaked no one can write on it? Wouldn't it be nice if someone had the hindsight to bring with them a maintenance repair kit to fix that little issue so other geocachers can enjoy the find? I think that would be an extremely nice jesture. So Mr./Mrs. Good Samaritan, what would you need to do to accomplish this?

It takes very little effort and the impact is huge. All you need is some or all of the following:

Emergency Geocaching Repair Kit

- Pint sized zip lock bag
- Some pre printed log sheets of different sizes (you can get them here) http://www.techblazer.com/geocaching-log-sheets/
- Small jewelry baggies
- Large jewelry baggies
- Duct Tape
- Gorilla Glue

I am sure you can come up with other goodies to keep in your EGRK but this is a good start.

The pint sized zip lock bag is to hold the EGRK components together. The whole thing will take up very little space in your geocaching pouch.

The pre-printed log sheets are a huge bonus to have because you come across soggy log books all the time. They come in all shapes and sizes needed and techblazer's website does a great job providing all that you will ever need. Simply replace the log book if it really is in that bad of shape or add a sheet or two if it is full. You might want to get in touch with the geocache owner to see if they want said logbook of goo. Most times they are just grateful that it was replaced.

The small and large jewelry baggies are also helpful for geocaches that use them. After so many opens and closes the seal breaks and a new baggie is needed. Replacing a logbook baggie will help keep the log book dryer longer. Always a cool thing to do.

Duct tape is the universal fixer of just about anything. Many times geocaches get damaged from walking sticks poking through the top. A temporary fix would be to fix said damaged lid with some duct tape and then notify the geocache owner that the cache needs to be fixed. The duct tape will help temporarily keep the cache contents from damage.

I don't care what type of adhesive bonding you use a magnet and plastic is never going to hold forever and things break. Taking a couple of minutes and fixing a broken geocache with gorilla glue is again a fine way of helping another geocacher out. It takes a couple of minutes of effort and is greatly appreciated within the geocaching population.

So there you have it. The EGRK is a simple and highly needed piece of equipment all serious geocachers need to have on them. If everybody took a couple extra minutes to fix some of these troubled geocaches we find the game would be a whole lot less... gooey.

See you out on the trails,

-HHH


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http://headhardhat-geocache.blogspot.com/
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Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com/

Lunchtime Geocache - You Can't Win Them All - DNF

Yeah well, sometimes when you go geocaching you just can't always find the geocaches you seek. When that happens we mark them a DNF or Did Not Find it.

It's not a disgrace to the potential finder. Sometimes a geocache gets muggled, moved or just plain destroyed. Sometime even with our best efforts we didn't see it. No biggie and this happens all the time. So for me and today's Lunchtime geocache we get no smiley. Better luck next time. Just remember to keep on trying until you succeed.

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HHH's Lunchtime Geocache - The Nano

The photo above demonstrates one of my favorite must have thing-a-ma-bobs while geocaching. The humble tweezers will get you out of many a situation. Not only great for thorn and splinter removal they are very useful for retrieving log books from nanos and other small caches.
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My Last Memory of Geocaching in the Snow...

My last memory of geocaching in the snow was at the same time my first experiences of geocaching during the winter. It was completely ad hoc. I was heading up to Michigan from Raleigh, NC to pick up my daughter. The drive was as expected and I even stopped

about ten times or so to pick up some well needed geocaches along the way. I have found that you need to balance the number times you stop to find a geocache with how long you expect to take to get to your destination and justify that by how often you simply need to stretch your legs during a trip. Anyways, I was just getting to the Michigan/Ohio border when it hit. A Nor'ester came down from Canada and dumped a foot of snow on my travels. I actually had to find a hotel for the night mainly due to a very close call with my cachemobile and an 18 wheeler. Nothing like driving down the highway and suddenly you, said big truck and four other cars start doing pirouettes all at the same time to make you pause and find shelter.

The next day the sun was out and I really wanted to do some geocaching in the area. Now mind

you I was completely unprepared for the Michigan weather. My heavy winter coat (for North Carolina) of which I was wearing was really my Michigan spring jacket. My boots consisted of my tennis shoes for which I was thankful I did not just have my sandles. Not a glove in sight so I was pretty much winging it.

Cold and trying my best to keep dry I ventured out to find some frozen geocaches. Lets just say that I found geocaching after a newly fallen snow to be quite the challenge. It's not like leaves that may or may not cover a given hide. When they say blanket of snow that is exactly what it is like. Everything is completely covered and with it being fresh snow, no tracks of which to help guide you. You are relying on the accuracy of your GPS and some possible helpful terrain to find your way. With the fifteen attempts at finding geocaches I managed to get ten. Not bad in my book but that did not include getting stuck at the bottom of an ice covered hill on the only single road out of a park and other hazardous winter driving conditions of which I had to contend with. Good Times, good times.

So yes geocaching in the winter can be a very enjoyable challenge as long as you are properly prepared for the conditions. Don't be like me and just go out into the frozen tundra all willy-nilly. It's not worth the personal injury. Instead plan your geocaching adventure ahead of time and enjoy your day in the cold. You will find it an exhilarating experience to be sure.

GeoCache: I'm NOT Obsessed... Right?
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Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com

Lunchtime Geocache of the Day: Guard rail Caches

Hey, I know those guys...

It is pretty amazing how many types and sizes of geocaches that can be found with a standard guard rail hide. From magnetic patches, 35mm containers, to specialty holders like the one shown above to some rather large caches. You never know what you are going to find until you go look. So put yourself up to the test and get out there and do just that! You'll be glad you did.

-HHH
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Let Geocaching Help You Find Businesses In A New Area

There is one constant in our lives and that is change. We all have experienced it in one way or another. Be it a new job, transfer or just plain moving to a new neighborhood, we all have found ourselves in a new location. Sure now a days modern technologies make it a lot easier to find local businesses and locations in an area we are not familiar with but I have found geocaching is a great way to get yourself acquainted to the new surroundings.

How so you ask? Many, many times I have read logs or experienced it myself examples of geocachers stating, "I never knew this was here". Geocaching is designed to bring people to places they may never have gone to for any other reason. So if you want to learn more about the area you just moved into, go geocaching and see what you can see.

The first two weeks I started my new job I went out to lunch and picked up one geocache a day. By finding those first 14 geocaches I had found fast food restaurants, malls, drug stores, the post office and many other useful businesses in the area. I also have a better sense of the area in general. Exploring the terrain quickly helped me feel comfortable and not so much the outsider.

So sure anybody can pull out their auto GPS and find things close by but if you really want to get a great idea of the area you now reside. Go out geocaching during your lunch hour. Not only will you become familiar with the community around you. It is also a really great excuse to grab some mid-day smileys! Have fun.

GeoCache: I'm NOT Obsessed... Right?
http://headhardhat-geocache.blogspot.com/
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Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com/

Quick Geocache Cool Building

This lunchtime geocache is a well labeled key holder next to a really cool office building. How many geocaches are within 7 miles from your place of work?
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The Art of a Geocacher is to Create Illusion

My lunchtime geocache of the day was well thought out. It blended very well with it's host and was a pleasure to find. What I love about geocaching in general is the amount of effort which can go into a proper hide and how it is appreciated when done so. It is not easy to blend an object that does not physically belong into an area and make it look natural. This takes practice and research which ultimately can make or break a great hide. I truly believe that the art of a geocacher is to create illusion. It is what helps make this great game, sport, obsession what it is today and to the years to come.
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Looking Up Skirts

Yeah sure say what you will about lamp skirt hides. They usually have all the personality of a bowl of vanilla ice cream but a smiley is a smiley and today's lunchtime find gained me mine. Now for some grub.
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I love Series Geocaches

Series geocaches are usually two or more geocaches with a common theme or purpose. This series you find glass beads that is ultimately made into a bracelet or other craft. Only 10 more to go.
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Cold Outside Geocaching Fun

Yeah my fingers are numb but I just had to get one lunchtime geocache before getting back to work. Brrr, coffee comes to mind.
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Wishing You The Absolute Best Geocaching Goodness In 2010

First and foremost everyone in the GeoSnippits gang wants to wish all our blog readers, video viewers and television fans the absolute best for 2010 and beyond. Without you we are nothing but empty words and unforeseen thoughts on an electronic screen. From the bottom of our hearts we thank you for being here with us and look forward to the absolutely amazing adventures we will share together in the future. I can tell you right here and now it will blow the socks off of anything you have seen so far, promise.

I was looking at some of my blog posts from a year ago and wanted to hit some highlights to show you how far we have come already.

GeoSnippits Geocaching Videos - Yep a year ago we had a total of nine videos in our series. I had just finished a two parter on Paperless Geocaching using GSAK and Cachemate on my Palm TX. I was just about to make my first review on a little application from Trimble called Geocache Navigator ;) Our videos are featured on Geocache Navigator's website.

Who knew how far we would go in a year?

Currently GeoSnippits has over 40 videos in our series and is full force in season two. We are seen all around the world and currently re-translating some of our videos for Portugal soon.

We are featured on Michigan Magazine TV and seen twice weekly in all 50 states on the RFDTV Network.

GeoSnippits is featured on the FIND ME the Movie website and now featured on their Special Edition DVD for the movie.

It has been a really fun year and a whole lot of dedicated work to get were we are now. From interviews on television and Internet podcasts to being featured on WRAL News for one of their summertime segments it has been quite the thrill. Again it would never have happened if it were not for our fans and viewers.

Once again, may 2010 be an amazing year for each and every one of you and hold onto your hats when it comes to what will be happening for GeoSnippits. I have a really good feeling it is going to be our best year yet! Be safe out there and God Bless.

-HeadHardHat

GeoCache: I'm NOT Obsessed... Right?
http://headhardhat-geocache.blogspot.com/
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Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com