A Day of Milestones

We hit the road this morning with some caching friends with the goal of making our 3,000th find. Hunting in and around Swartz Creek, Michigan we not only found our 3,000th cache, but our 1,000th find for 2009. YOGO FTF #3 - Country Carriage (GC1YHFF) made our 3,000th find and was disabled shortly after for the owner to replace the damp log. The shock was that we found a total of 54 caches today, much more than I'd expected, and hit our 1,000th for the year -- our personal best -- at We Have A Warrant (GC1JD1B). We did DNF 4 caches though and skip over a couple we decided would take longer than we wanted for a numbers day, especially being that we weren't terribly sure about how much light we'd have to complete the cache (sunset was at 5:26PM this evening for the Flint area). Probably the most memorable hide can in a great cammo job on one find (posted to TweetReel) and available below in a lower quality version:

Overall it was a great day, not because of the milestones (though they were fun), but because we were able to enjoy an amazing November day with some great friends.

iGeoCacher version 2.4

A new version of iGeoCacher hit the app store last night. Version 2.4 boasts improved file import performance. It is a free update for current Users.

Geosphere Version 2.1 Now Available

Another iPhone app update available from the iTunes App Store is Geosphere version 2.1. Geosphere has quickly become my favorite "offline" geocaching tool for the iPhone and I'm glad to see this update finally dropped by Apple. This release adds some bug fixes and a bunch of new features.

Layars for iPhone Updated to Version 2.1

One of the updates I spotted in the iTunes App Store this afternoon was the Layar Reality Browser. This looks more like it's little steps to improve the application than a bunch of bug fixes or feature additions. I look forward to where this app could go however as more folks jump in with additional layars.

First Midwest Meetup Results

Our Midwest Meetup event (GC1YRRG) is now in the past and boy did we enjoy it! It was the first time we've recorded an actual show with both xpunkx and I in the same location, then add in the live audience and it was really a blast. We broadcast the show live through TalkShoe and even had a summer caching story despite an issue with internet connectivity in the venue. Following the show we had the chance to meet with many of the cachers and finally met many of the names and voices we knew through the show and logs. Of course we found a number of things we'd like to have done differently (like having a mike to capture the audience reactions) and we hope to incorporate those things into the second Midwest Meetup whenever that might be.

Below is another one of these iPhone videos (shot and edited on the phone) for a little bit of the flavor of the recording.

Watch the Geocaching Podcast site or feed for the full show 126 audio to be posted soon.

Thanks to all the attendees (at least 42 by my count) for helping make the event a memorable experience.

Midwest Meetup Event Prep

It's been quite a week both in prepping for the Midwest Meetup event (GC1YRRG), not to mention work and personal life stuff. We're planning to not just record a live Geocaching Podcast episode from the event, but to also broadcast live through Talk Shoe. If you can't make it to the event at 3:00PM in South Bend, perhaps you'll be able to join us through Talk Shoe at 3:30PM for the live recording. Anyone who shares a summer caching story either in person or through TalkShoe will be entered into a drawing for a $50 Cache Advance gift certificate. The first 50 people at the Meetup will also be getting one of the goody bags (see the video below).

To give folks a little idea of what we're doing (and to play with the new app) I put together a little video of tonight's efforts. This was done completely through the iPhone using the ReelDirector app. To think that all this power is in such a tiny little device.

iGeoCacher version 2.3

In the iTunes Store this morning is the new version of iGeocacher. Version 2.3 includes a new "SONAR" feature, and auto sort by nearest to present position.