When John got his own phone last summer, I was looking through my own apps to see which ones might interest him. One of the first ones that jumped out at me was the Geocaching app. It had been years since I had gone geocaching – certainly before the boys were born – so they had never heard of it. What a joy it was to introduce them!

For the uninitiated, geocaching is something of a scavenger hunt with a nerdy component. The object is to try to find secret caches hidden out in the real world. The original idea is that these would be large enough to hold trinkets to trade with strangers, along with a paper log to sign proving that you found the cache. Increasingly, the ones we seem to find are micro-caches, only large enough for a very small rolled-up log.

So how do you find these caches? There is a website and app where people post GPS coordinates of the caches they have hidden. Many times they also include a hint to help you find just the right spot. As people find the caches, they make note of their discovery in the online database and leave a “thank you” to the maintainer. It’s a great way to get outside while still having some nerdy fun. Back in the old days, I would have to research potential caches on the computer at home, and then note the coordinates for when I was out with my portable GPS unit. These days, an iPhone already has everything you need to go geocaching built into one device, so it’s super easy to just pick up when you find yourself with a little unexpected free time.

It’s become a favorite hobby for John, and we try to plan little excursions for it every month or so. As of today, John has 61 total finds and has even tried his hand at hiding 2 different caches himself, though with limited success. Being a maintainer can be difficult.

We’ve had a lot of fun getting out to search for caches. Some of the hides are quite creative and I’m always surprised at the lengths people will go to make their cache a unique experience for others to discover. Magnetized key boxes get a lot of use in the geocaching community, but there are also companies that make specialty weather-proof containers designed for geocaching.

Since this is an outdoor activity involving finding stuff, we’ve been able to make it mesh quite nicely with my historical marker hunting. More than a few times we’ve been able to do both at the same time – now that’s a win-win!

It’s been almost a year and a half since I last posted here. It’s just so easy to use Facebook for “life updates” these days, and that’s where most of my friends and family go to look for that sort of thing. With the hustle and bustle of life, it’s easy to neglect your blog. That said, here’s my attempt at a general life update.

History

I’m still fairly involved with the HMdb. While I’m out and about, I’m always on the look-out for new markers. I’ve really been working to improve our collection of roadside markers from the Delaware Public Archives (whose own online listings of markers are incomplete and rather disjointed). This is a never-ending task as new markers are added, but I’m confident that our listing of these is complete for now.

The database continues to be the first place that I go to research the history of an area – seeing pins on a map just works for my brain with trip planning.

As of today, my contributions are good enough to rank me as 70th all time out of 7,683 individual contributors to the database. I have submitted a total of 583 markers, 1,489 photos, and 412 links to other websites. I’m very proud to be part of the team.

Technology

Sadly, not much has changed in my home lab since the last update. There are of course new versions of software, and a few new applications I’ve been playing with, but the large hardware changes I’ve been wanting to do are still on the back burner for now. I’m hoping that I can return to those in the new year.

Our most significant addition has been a new in-home phone system using FreePBX and several Cisco SPA525G2 desk phones. The boys have really enjoyed being able to help build this and play with it. Once I get some better back-end hardware, I’m planning to hook our system up to the outside world through a SIP trunk with an actual phone number. Stay tuned for more posts about this topic.

Speaking of things that deserve their own posts, I’ve re-entered the world of ham radio. That story will be fleshed-out soon.

Other News

Since he got his own phone last summer, John has picked up an interest in Geocaching. We try to plan an outing for that every month or so, and it’s a good excuse to get outside and move a little while still doing something nerdy. Sometimes, I’m able to get some historical markers at the same time so, win-win!

Also late last year, both of my boys worked through classes at our church and became full communing (and voting) members. It’s fun to watch them grow up and begin to enter adulthood in small ways like that. As rough as these middle school years can be (yes they are BOTH in middle school now) this is also the time when they are truly becoming themselves.

Thanks to some free tickets he got as part of a school reading program, Isaac took me to a Delmarva Shorebirds game this past spring. The boys and I have now been to games at all the Orioles minor league affiliates’ stadiums.

Also coming in a future post: I got a passport for the first time last year! There must have been a specific reason for that….