On February 29th, leap day, Groundspeak (the company behind Geocaching.com) set the goal to double the number of leap day cachers logging a find (on geocaching.com) vs. leap day 2008. Considering the significance of leap day to geocachers, this was considered a fairly lofty goal, but that significance (along with a little online reward) also meant that there was the opportunity to smash the goal too. And smash it we did!
To understand the significance of leap day, consider this; geocaching.com keeps fairly detailed statistics for its members' geocaching activity. These stats will vary from how many caches per day (average) to an itemized listing of caches found on a given day of the year. This last stat is kept on a chart that is referred to as your "grid". Your grid is visible to other members, and therefore something that lends itself to being a source of pride and eventually friendly competition. [Note: geocachers are overall the most welcoming group to total strangers and least agressive that I have met. Friendly competition is truely friendly among geocachers!]
When you have made a find on a given day that square on your grid will go from a "0" with a white background, to a number with a shaded background (as the numbers get higher the shading gets darker). The grid is a very visible way to see what days you have not found any caches. The longer you participate in this activity the more shading you will see as the white squares disappear. On the grid of the most active cachers, the box for leap day may be the last remaining white box for years!
I love to geocache! I will do it by myself, I will do it with my family, I will do it with strangers. Heck I would do it in a box and with a fox... One thing I don't care for, however, is geocaching in the snow. The difficulty is amped up so much by not knowing if the actual hiding place is buried or not (on the upside you can often find footprints leading you to the beacon easily!) The only other thing that will make me avoid geocaching is wood tics, and that is reflected in my grid! When I discovered my grid last fall, I had no shading in the months of January, February, and one shaded day in July, three in June, August and December. As I said, I don't like the snow or wood tics!
Even though I have been very slow with my caching activity lately, I made a mental note long ago that I was going to get fill up that one very vital white box, even if I had to call in sick or do it in the dark. As (bad) luck would have it, on the evening of February 28th, the state of Minnesota was hit with our first very major snow storm of the extremely dry winter. The nature of the rain falling first and turing to ice covered by snow, even made my kids school district call for the first snow day in over 12 years! Until the plow came down my street, my little Civic was not taking me to any geocaches that day. To make a long story short, my plans for making this my biggest day ever went unrealized, but after three frustruating DNF's I was at least able to make sure my geocaching activity was able to add to a record setting day!
If there's one thing that I've learned from Bear Grylls or Les Stroud or Cody Lundin, is that sometimes when you are enjoying the great outdoors (or as it's called in my house - an excuse to play with gadgets and gear!) things can happen and you may end up needing to start a fire. Now as much as I'd like to introduce an ultra easy fire-starting gadget here, I'm not going to. Instead I'm going to suggest that we all learn (and practice) the skill of starting a fire without matches (or gasoline or blowtorches!)
The activity that started my love of gadgets and gear when I was young was scouting. And although I loved Cub Scouts, I never matriculated to the Boy Scouts, but I learned and have tried to live by their motto, "Be Prepared". Often this results in over-packing gadgets and equipment, and sometimes having the false security that goes with that gear. For example, when my family and I are out camping, I know that I have about 4 to 6 options for starting the campfire that dictates the level of fun for the evening.
However as we all know, plans can change and it is all to easy to be separated from the precious gear that we rely upon (even if you try to carry a personal survival kit such as this), and you will find it necessary to make do with less than the sophisticated gear to which you have grown accustomed. In this case it is prudent to learn the basic survival skills that you may be inclined to scoff at in your gadget-filled ivory tower.
This article is the most thorough I've seen on exactly how you should use your body mechanics and equipment when starting a fire with a bow-drill. What it all comes down to is that the greatest piece of gear (or gadget) any of us have is the hunk of meat between our ears and behind our eyes, and the more we understand how to function and survive with minimal gear, the better we will be able to help ourselves and others with our ever-so-wonderful gadgets and gear! This activity is going on my summer bucket list!
I've always assumed there was this artificial division between "electronic" gadgets and the perhaps more manual "tools". Today that wall was demolished and I have seen the light! Check out the Presentation Master 32GB from Victorinox, the Swiss Army Knife you can actually use at your day job!
The Swiss Army Knife "Classic" has been useful in tight spots for as far back as I can remember, it's useful tools and small profile have allowed it to be taken places where larger tools couldn't access. To be real honest, the tool is perfect for its purpose and really didn't need any improvement...but someone, somewhere in an R&D department at Victorinox decided that nothing is perfect and everything can be improved!
This little beauty has a built-in USB drive with data encryption that requires fingerprint access!! You can choose from 8GB, 16GB or 32GB, and you have the choice to have the other blades or not (for you airline travelers!). It also has an integrated Bluetooth® remote and laser pointer.
You can transfer files between work and home, keep your fingernails neat, or drive the cat crazy with that little red dot, if there has ever been a better reason to bring a gadget to the office, I can't remember it.
