Challenges.

Challenges have taken the Geocaching world by storm, whether that's in a good way or bad way is up to you. But they're here and let's take a look at what they offer us. First let me deal with some of the reasons people hate them.

•  They aren't challenging

Okay, this is Groundspeaks fault. If they had just named them Virtuals and then Photo Caches, Action Caches, etc. This wouldn't be an issue. Naming them Challenges obviously brings up images of "Geocaching Challenges that relate to getting a certain number and/or type of geocaches."

• I can't believe they count towards you finds! That really waters down actually caches.

Really? Oh and how are things like the E.T. power trail any better? This goes into the "they aren't challenging" argument as well. Not all geocaches are challenging, are they? What about people who already have Locationless challenges on their account, should those be taken away? How is one challenge worth less then finding 1000 micros in a row?

• This has nothing to do with caching, get rid of it!

First off it obviously does have something to do with caching as many are GPS based. Locationless caches were once a part of caching and now those have been returned via worldwide challenges. Challenges also replace virtuals which were (and still are) a part of geocaching.

• Well Locationless and Virtuals were archived for a reason!

Yup, Jeremy Irish actually discusses this in a Latitude 47 post that the reason Virtuals were retired is that it became too hard for reviewers to manage. This has been solved with a rating system. It has nothing to do with them not being fun.

• Geocaching is using a GPS to find a container, that's it.

Yes but my problem with that argument is that I could care less. If I can get equally fun games like Virtuals and Webcams and Locationless caches on Geocaching.com, then why the heck not?

• Kiss a Frog? Challenges are stupid

Okay someone could easily say the same thing about LPCs. But the great thing is that Groundspeak isn't afraid of getting rid of downvoted challenges and the fact that you can only post one per day and only from premium members. No virtual power trails here!

Let's get into the things I don't like now

1. The new log system, right now some idiot named Comatose is spamming the Kiss a Frog one with messages. Hey idiot, being an ass is still being an ass. Anyway, they look more akin to a forum which is not what people want, getting rid of the dates is a horrible idea too. My question is why didn't Groundspeak give this a trial run? Let Premium Members sign up for a beta and then get their feedback! 
2. Photo caches should be: "Take a photo with yourself or GPS in front of this object." Not: "Take a photo of you doing something near said object" THAT'S WHAT ACTION CACHES ARE! 
3. Searching isn't working properly. Fix it.
4. There currently isn't a minimum distance between challenges. This could lead to the Waymark problem where I'm logging a challenge for being on the Empire State Building, another one for  throwing a coin off of it and another one for throwing a paper airplane off of it. 

I think the worst part of this "fiasco" is that it really shows what spoiled brats geocachers are! You'd think there would be some measure of maturity for something that is (as of this second) only TWENTY FOUR HOURS OLD! But no, people are as I said above, spamming the logs, setting up facebook pages against it, disabling their actual geocaches, leaving for other geocaching websites! Are you kidding me? Honestly when PS3 players were having their credit cards stolen and online not working it wasn't this bad! It goes to what I've thought for a long time, many geocachers want to TELL YOU how you can play. To them I say "Don't let the door hit your whiny ass on the way out!".

"I've always loved a good challenge" - Lana Turner

Finally Done...

My 100 Days In A Row of Geocaching is done. I ended my streak yesterday with 101 days caching from May 5th to August 14th. I chose not to go on simply because it isn't really necessary. Beyond 100 days I would have to go for the 365 challenge, the problems with that are:

• Cache density in my area isn't high enough. 
• I will have to make it through the winter months, and my experience from Valentine's Day earlier this year (trudging through a huge snowstorm to get a cache) was not fun.

Instead I want to focus on making caches. I have 7 cache ideas that I need to put in motion. My time geocaching will be spent on filling up my calendar and finding more on specific days. I want to start a vlog and I'll also try to post more here.

For some reason, July/August have been pretty quiet, geocaching event wise. (Odd because it's peak summer months) Walking Woody's Event is this weekend and there is another event in south Haldimand near the end of the month. September will be much busier with GAGAFAP and then hopefully a triple event on the 10th-11th weekend, that's not mentioning my job and starting school!

I should also mention that I'm waymarking. Yup I know, hypocrite. But it's mostly for some geocaching challenges that require waymarking (example1 and example2), so I've just started taking pictures of everything with my cell phone and if it has a waymark I log it, if not I'll try and make one quickly. I'm almost to 200 visits and have close to 50 waymarks.

I'm actually kind of excited to see what the upcoming challenges feature turns out to be, I'm going to try and post one on the first day.