The OpenCaching NA 5th Anniversary Contest

[DisneyScout]

Wow! The month is almost half over and I haven't even started yet. I am still planning to participate in the contest and I've shared it with a few friends that may participate as well. Good luck everyone! I can hardly wait until my kids go back to school and I can focus better on finding caches. Sadly they all seem to not enjoy geocaching.

[Bon Echo]

Since we are close to the halfway mark in the OCNA 5th anniversary contest, I thought I would take a look at the numbers of caches hidden and published so far since August 1st. this is based on the list of caches in the “New Geocaches” list:

Number of OCNA members who placed a cache: 14

Cache types and number of new listings
Total new listings (caches only, not events) = 64
Guestbook = 19
Traditional = 12
Virtual = 11
Webcam = 6
Unknown = 4
Multicache = 3
Quiz = 3
BIT = 2
Moving = 2
Letterbox = 1
MP3 = 1

By state and province:
North Carolina = 15
New Mexico = 10
Quebec = 7
British Columbia = 5
Ontario = 4
Ohio = 3
Alberta = 3
North Dakota = 2
Minnesota = 2
Virginia = 2
And 1 cache each for the following:
Manitoba, Saskatchewan
Arizona, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, Montana
New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah

And, what I like best of all, is that only a small number of those are cross-listed caches!

This of course ignores the other side if the contest – finding caches.

[Mr.Yuck]

Thanks for the numbers, Bon Echo (too long to quote). We only have one not accepted yet webcam in the que, and a couple of unpublished BIT caches. Ironically enough, all three of them well under 100 miles from your location. I believe it was 8 people so far who have saved entry forms for editing as they go, but we've found in the past the overwhelming majority just do them all at once at the end of the month.

[Mr.Yuck]

Wow! The month is almost half over and I haven't even started yet. I am still planning to participate in the contest and I've shared it with a few friends that may participate as well. Good luck everyone! I can hardly wait until my kids go back to school and I can focus better on finding caches. Sadly they all seem to not enjoy geocaching.

Nice to hear from last year's grand prize winner! Don't worry, I probably won't start playing until the 22nd myself. No, I can't win, just for the "find more caches than me" challenge. By the way, I'm thinking 20+.

Don't worry, my kids were never into it very much either. Now 21 and 15, I can't imagine them ever creating accounts and doing it on their own.

[TermiteHunter]

Combined with the local contest it looks like the Charlotte area is participating fairly well assuming they complete the form.

I'm one of the 8.I find it easier to keep track as I go along and why not use a simple technology to do it? No trying to decipher my notes at the end

[Bon Echo]

Hey, just noticed that letterbox hybrids are left out of the contest. Was that an oversight? If we do find or hide any, can they be submitted for points?
Also, just a website note to the admin. If you visit the homepage for OCNA, and click "Upcoming Events" you get a list of upcoming events (that is good), but clicking on any event gets you to a dead end page "Cache description not found. Maybe because: Cache not found in the database. / Cache not yet published. / Cache suspended by OC Team." (and that is not good.)

[Mr.Yuck]

Hey, just noticed that letterbox hybrids are left out of the contest. Was that an oversight? If we do find or hide any, can they be submitted for points?
Also, just a website note to the admin. If you visit the homepage for OCNA, and click "Upcoming Events" you get a list of upcoming events (that is good), but clicking on any event gets you to a dead end page "Cache description not found. Maybe because: Cache not found in the database. / Cache not yet published. / Cache suspended by OC Team." (and that is not good.)

No, the file newevents.php cannot lookup the waypoint for the event for some reason. Termite Hunter reported it a few months ago (I can't fix it), and I actually stumbled on it a couple years ago (before I was webmaster). opencaching.uk does NOT have this file on their server (I just checked with him yesterday), so I can only assume our founder tried to hack up a copy of the opencaching.pl file, and it never worked. I should have just removed the link, it's actually redundant with the list of events on the main page. I will see if someone from .pl can look at it. If not, I think I will kill it.

Yup, we totally blew it and left Letterbox Hybrids out of the contest. There's a good excuse, we hacked up last year's sheets, which included finding or planting (see I got that one right) on AtlasQuest or LBNA. I would not be opposed to "adding it" to the master sheet for 10 points on the hide or find side. I will see DudleyGrunt in person next Sunday, or he can respond here if he agrees. And he is currently the only other admin, so if he says so, then it shall be.

[DudleyGrunt]

Hey, just noticed that letterbox hybrids are left out of the contest. Was that an oversight? If we do find or hide any, can they be submitted for points?
Also, just a website note to the admin. If you visit the homepage for OCNA, and click "Upcoming Events" you get a list of upcoming events (that is good), but clicking on any event gets you to a dead end page "Cache description not found. Maybe because: Cache not found in the database. / Cache not yet published. / Cache suspended by OC Team." (and that is not good.)

No, the file newevents.php cannot lookup the waypoint for the event for some reason. Termite Hunter reported it a few months ago (I can't fix it), and I actually stumbled on it a couple years ago (before I was webmaster). opencaching.uk does NOT have this file on their server (I just checked with him yesterday), so I can only assume our founder tried to hack up a copy of the opencaching.pl file, and it never worked. I should have just removed the link, it's actually redundant with the list of events on the main page. I will see if someone from .pl can look at it. If not, I think I will kill it.

Yup, we totally blew it and left Letterbox Hybrids out of the contest. There's a good excuse, we hacked up last year's sheets, which included finding or planting (see I got that one right) on AtlasQuest or LBNA. I would not be opposed to "adding it" to the master sheet for 10 points on the hide or find side. I will see DudleyGrunt in person next Sunday, or he can respond here if he agrees. And he is currently the only other admin, so if he says so, then it shall be.

I have not objection to it, but didn't we say somewhere, "We reserve the right to modify the rules up until the start of the contest," or something like that? I can't find that right now, though.

[Mr.Yuck]

Contest is over!! By the way, I found 9 caches on the site. I believe I estimated 20+. I got lazy, and didn't do any "early morning before the wife gets up at the Hotel" caching. Save for one DG BIT cache a mile from the Hotel. I also never made it to Arlington National Cemetery either, as I was near death from walking around the Zoo on a 92 Degree day. Went to the nearby National Cathedral instead, which is actually a virtual on the site, but I could have gotten much more at Arlington.

P.S. our 3rd Admin, NativTxn has retired, just this month. Too busy in life to do anything with the site. So guess what? Everyone who plays gets 25 points for beating her, she did no caching.

[KnowsOpie]

With no OCNA caches near me, I did manage to log my first one while on a short vacation to OBX. I did publish several new ones to the site.