Hi, tell us a bit about yourself.

   I am a recent college graduate now working a regular job and looking for some more interesting things to get involved in. As you might be able to tell from my videos, I live and cache in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area which is where all my videos have been filmed.

   Geocaching came along when a high school friend introduced me to it in September 2008. I embraced it and started caching after work and then on lunch breaks until I had found most of the caches within a 15 minute radius of my job. I recall hearing about geocaching once and visited the website years ago, perhaps as early as 2002, but at that point I didn't know what a GPS was or how to do the hobby. I actually still don't own a GPS myself (yet), and have to thank my next door neighbor- another fellow geocacher- for letting me have hers on a long-term loan. We've cached together a few times as well and once went out very early in a morning to get our first FTF.

   If this hobby had existed when I was in elementary and middle school I know I would have loved it. In my school's yard at recess my friends and I would make certain areas our own special part of nature, would enjoy the trees and sometimes even hide things in it. I really liked the idea that these things were out there- and that I knew that it was there but without others really realizing it. It's sort of hard to explain, but I think you can see the clear parallels to caching! I immediately loved the idea that in geocaching you can have a can hidden way back in the woods where it feels like no one has ever been and that if all goes well it will remain there for years. I often drive by a location where I've found a cache or know one exists and enjoy the secret knowledge that there is something there, sometimes practically out in the open, that almost everyone walking by has no idea about. In reality it isn't that big a deal, but I suppose it sort of gives our otherwise everyday world a bit more magic.

   I've actually been making my own videos for youtube since 2006 (on another channel) where I'd make episodes of my own series based on the world created by a popular youtuber at the time. I also just like to capture interesting things I do on tape, so based on this history I suppose it was just natural to bring my camera along as my friend Jimmy took me on my first geocaches ever. I don't know if I had even decided that I would upload the video or not, but since it was such an enjoyable experience I felt why not upload it? Episodes 1 and 2 were filmed consecutively and are two random caches we picked to find that afternoon. We ended up having a great time finding them, so we really got lucky with our choices. Jimmy had just been visiting the area for the weekend, so even though he had to leave after those finds I continued the hunt on my own and threw myself into the hobby. I didn't film any of those hunts though because I did them alone and I feel like another person being there really adds to the episode. Finally two months later I got to take two other friends on their own first cache hunt in a state park and those hunts turned into two more episodes for the series. Whenever I go on a hunt with somebody else that I feel like is going to be a special one I bring the camera along just in case.

I’ve seen a few of your videos, I like them but they’re a bit of a spoiler aren’t they?

   You know I've had a couple viewers leave me comments like this, that I'm ruining the sport by systematically showing others where caches are hidden, but I don't see it that way. First I've only made 9 episodes, and there are (tens of? hundreds of?) thousands of caches out there- so even if one wants to see my video as essentially "ruining" the cache- I've only ruined about 0.000001% of the hobby so far. Second, I don't see my videos as any different than the potentially-spoiler comments section on each cache's page. People often give away some of the secrets of the cache down there and so people know to read those with caution. I think it is only natural to view a video of finding a hidden cache with the same sort of caution if they are planning on finding it. Also, I found it funny because one of the people accusing me of ruining the sport was from Oregon. I asked in response if they had ever been to this corner of the country or are ever planning to cache here. The vast majority of my viewers come from all over and odds are will never cache anywhere near here to have their hunt ruined by my video. Even if someday they do, there are so many hundreds of other caches in this area, and I really doubt that at that point they will have remembered the exact details of a video they watched months or years before.

  I met the cache owner of the cache in my first episode at a geocaching event a year ago, and she said she was really glad to see I made a video dedicated to her cache. She actually had suggestions for other caches of hers I should make videos finding. Of course not every owner might feel the same way about this, and in fact I've sent links to the respective owners of each video's cache. I either got no response or a positive one. I even discovered that for one of the owners that I had inadvertently made not one but two of my nine episodes with caches (he has great ones!) and he is eager for me to make a video about one remaining cache to complete the set. So while no owners seem to have a problem with my videos now, there is always the chance a future one might. I would be willing to discuss some sort of compromise with them in that case- such as perhaps taking out the last 100 feet of the discovery or mixing it up to make it less easy to determine how to get there. They did place these caches out in nature though and opened them up to the public, so I feel like one more of less lose control over what others do with it at that point. For example muggled caches are a part of geocaching life, so while I'm sure there's some cache owners out there who might not like the "spoiler" aspect of my videos, there are certainly worse fates for caches than someone taking the time to make a video dedicated to it! Two words: Bomb Squad.

  I am totally amateur in this respect. With my original youtube series which I mentioned before, other people would all use webcams to record their videos but I didn't own one, so I devised a method of using my digital camera propped up on a desk recording video to mimic a webcam. As for the geocaching videos I just carry around the digital camera on record and then use very simple editing software to splice together the funny or important moments of the hide. What I'm using is merely the Windows Movie Maker, so I can't do anything special with it, but it serves its purpose. Same for the digital camera, it'd be nice to get a real professional camera someday but for the most part the digital one does a sufficient job.

Thanks! You certainly made my job as interviewer easy. I'm looking forward to sharing your videos with our readers.

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By catsnfish

A couple of empty-nesters who caught the caching bug not realizing it was incurable. So if we’re found in the woods waltzing with Garmins, lifting lampskirts while tying our shoe or looking for “gum” underneath benches, be sure to stay away... it’s contagious and the only temporary relief can be found in finding bison’s, ammo’s, nano’s, or passing coins and spreading travel bugs!

Publisher's Note: Catsnfish write the periodic column The Adventures of Catsnfish. Subscribe (free) to The Online Geocacher to get an email alert when a new article is published.