Central Coast Geocaching News:
 13 May 2002 (Santa Cruz, CA) - Shake it, shake it baby!
           A few hours ago we had a relatively big earthquake here, a 5.2 magnitude.  It moved pieces of furnature! Woot woot!
           For more info, connect to the USGS: http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/nc40133364.htm
 13 May 2002 (Santa Cruz, CA) - New Content Added: Fun with Poison Oak Page
           I just added a page with information about poison oak and a copy of a hand-out that is given to students at Univ of California at Santa Cruz.
 11 May 2002 (Santa Cruz, CA) - Iron Chef Geocaching v.5
           This site has been neglected for far too long!  Much has been done and yet not much has been achieved.  ;~)  Any ways, the site needed to be overhauled and so
           here it is, finally done and looking pretty (relatively).  I hope that you enjoy the site and expect more to be developed as the days turn into weeks.
 20 April 2002 (Santa Cruz, CA) - One Year Anniversary
           Geocaching has done a lot for me in the last year.  Needless to say, I've enjoyed myself immensely and I plan on continuing on in my travels for as long as I am
           able.  In the past year, I've found over 200 caches and planted almost 40.  I've helped the sport to grow as much as I can.  And perhaps most importantly, my
           signature UCSC engraved Spoons of Great Justice have become well known and well traveled.
           I've seen things that I never knew about while geocaching, and I've barely scratched the surface.  Iron Chef Geocaching: Let's drive fast and eat cheese!

What is Geocaching exactly?  And what about Geodashing?
Well... remember when you were a kid and you wanted to go dig up buried treasure and you thought that some sprinkler irrigation piping was actually pirate loot?  Its kind of like that, only less messy usually, and its not exactly in your backyard.

Geocaching is an opportunity to get off your bum and see the world.  No, its an excuse to buy expensive equipment and get off your duff and see the world.  That's better.  For a more elegant version of this, check out http://www.geocaching.com/faq.asp for the official FAQ and stuff.  Good times.

Geodashing operates on a similar idea, only it is a race to see who can make it to as many randomly generated waypoints as possible (Geodashing FAQ).  The sites may or may not be accessible to the public, so there is a bit of a gamble involved.  This is not like Geocaching where there is an actual cache at the site.  With Geodashing, "Getting There Is All The Fun!"

Santa Cruz Geocacher  ~  Iron Chef
As a wee lad I loved to go "caploring" (I couldn't speek very gud bak den).  I thought it was great to go to places that I had never been before and see things that were new to me.  A few decades later the same still holds true.  Then one day I magically stumble upon www.geocaching.com and I think to myself "Ah-ha!  An excuse to get out of my tiny cell!"  So equipped with a Garmin Etrex Venture GPS Unit, I went out into the mountains of Santa Cruz with a few maps, some GPS coordinates, and a sense of adventure.  So far it has worked pretty well for me as I have found 218 caches.

Not only is hunting for geocaches good exercise, it gets you out to those great places that you would of otherwise probably never known about.  Sometimes you will find that there are parks or nature reserves right near your home that you never knew about.  And considering that as of 11 May 2002 there were 18132 active caches in 122 countries , which means that there is probably one near you.  If so, then once the weekend rolls around, go visit one!  You won't regret it.  I promise. And if you do regret it, then it must be one of the more memorable geocaches. ;~)

I want some more information about this wicked cool sport!
Check out www.geocaching.com which is the official home of geocaching.  There you can register yourself (its free!) and start checking out caches!  You can even add specific caches to a "watch list" that can send you an e-mail every time there is a change to that cache.  Also another hobby for some people is the Degree Confluence Project, check it out at www.confluence.org.

Why the hell would you name yourself "Iron Chef"?
Hey!  Don't be dissing Iron Chef!  I call myself that because I like watching the TV show Iron Chef on the Food Network.  Iron Chef takes cooking and turns it into a sport and since Geocaching takes treasure hunting and turns it into a sport I thought the name only appropriate.  Plus when I visit a cache I leave a spoon that was "borrowed" from UCSC's wonderful dining halls and some instant tea as a matter of habit.  Plus, since my name is "Iron Chef" I try to stick to the cooking theme whenever possible, thus the spoon and such.  I leave cooking equipment in the caches that I create and leave the spoons everywhere else!  It makes the game just a bit more fun for me and hopefully more interesting for those people that visit the caches.

Cache In, Trash Out?
OK, and now for the environmentalist speech.  When geocaching, always keep in mind that someone has to take care of our world, so it might as well be those who use it the most.  Thus, the "Cache In, Trash Out" program.  Its a nice thing to do, especially since the areas around some urban-area caches have assorted booze bottles and whatnot littering the ground (not a lot of them, but just enough to make it visible).  It is so easy to just take a plastic grocery bag with you and collect a bit of trash while there.  Even just removing a few bottles is a great help.  And conversely, don't pollute the area that you are exploring!  Everything that you take to the cache site should be coming out with you (peeing on trees is the exception to the rule).  Mother Earth would be proud of you for doing it.