So many achievements have been reached recently! Silverquill reached 5,000 waymarks, then SaoPaulo1 reached 12,000 and the collective 200,000 level was reached. Wow!
I'm a relatively new waymarker, having started posting regularly about six months ago. I had a personal push to reach the 500 waymark level by Sep 1st. For my 500th, I submitted my first Lucky 7, knowing SaoPaulo would probably approve it quickly. It was really a Lucky 9, with one of the included waymarks overdue for approval. Whether he noticed that or not, I guess the approved eight were enough to let it pass.
Now I'm taking a reminiscing look back at my first six months. Initially I set out trying to post, not visit, just the closest waymark to my home in each category. I later found out this was a form of grid waymarking. Somewhere along the way I did start posting multiple waymarks in categories that I was more interested in. As I passed the 500 mark, I had 331 different categories waymarked for about a 1.51 ratio, similar to others who've written about their progress. I really admire RonJean who are still posting at a 1.1 ratio in their grid, as that was my original goal.
Along the way, I've learned much about about my neighborhood and nearby cities. My outlook has changed, as now I'm always looking for something of interest to others. I'm always researching some new category that I need. I started watching and reading the waymarks of others as they came in. I got encouraging words and coaching from many people like Silverquill, TheBeanTeam, MNSearchers, DopeyDuck, fishingwishing, Team Sieni, sfwife, Redneck Parrotheads and others. I got a new camera and a better GPS unit. I now use an RSS reader to follow certain categories and certain individuals whose work I admire. I love the beautiful photography of the Dorcadian Team. I so admired the presentation of the Bern das Brod Team, that I communicated with him to ask how to improve my work. I think my photos and waymarks have improved over the months. I like to use HTML links to tie my waymarks together, such as waymarking a college or park with links to other waymarks contained within them.
After a few hundred submissions, I wondered how all this approval machinery, that I couldn't see, worked in the background. I started reading the forums. I finally found an emerging category and joined early enough to become a manager. I finally approved my first waymark. I'm gaining experience as I go and getting comfortable with the process. I now check my RSS reader pretty frequently to see what's new. There's never any spam there, like my E-mail has.
I still geocache and now have a matching streak of 180+ consecutive days with a find going too. Of course I'm waymarking along the way. My waymark count is catching my geocache count. I even have a waymark backlog like many of you. Geocaching has taken me to places where I found waymarks that I might not have found otherwise, so I find the two activities complimentary.
I am enjoying waymarking more and have come to follow the postings and travels of several you out there. It's vicariously traveling with someone, such as BruceS as he leaves Missouri for Oregon, Montana, Pasadena and now Louisiana. It's fun watching Marine Biologist fill up the last tiles of her grid and her out of the way travels to get a new tile. I saw SaoPaulo1 leave San Jose, as he posted waymarks at the SJC airport, then a flurry a restaurants came in from an intermediate stop at LAX and finally a new set of waymarks started appearing from Brazil. Ignoring the delay in the approval process, it's amazing what your waymarks tell about your travels. It's like I'm traveling with all of you.
It seemed like my first 25 waymarks came quickly, the 50 level took a while, and then I stopped watching because the other levels seemed so far away. Suddenly, I've attained a level that I thought I'd never reach. My family has embraced my activity and supports it by watching for things they know I'm looking for. They even put up with me on vacation saying, "Let's make a quick stop here for a few minutes."
Some categories don't interest me enough to post more than once and others I feel like I don't have the expertise to even do. I guess I just need to learn more as I already have. Zippy the Pinhead seemed like an oddball category to me at first, but I've come to enjoy the research and hunt for these unusual sites.
I wish I'd gotten started sooner, but I was only a moderately active geocacher as reverse location caches got spun off. I find myself babbling on to my friends now about the places I go and the things I find. It funny how I'll go out to find just a couple of specific places and come home with 6-8 other interesting places as well. I never go anywhere without my camera and GPSr now and I'm sure you can all relate to that. I'm having the time of my life and feeling productive as well.
Let me toss out a thought that I've had recently. I view the current community of waymarkers as the "pioneers" in this activity. At the rate we're finding U-Hauls, Whispering Giants, NRHPs, etc. I think that five years from now, many of the truly interesting places will have been posted. As people join our community later, new waymarks will be harder to find and visits to the waymarks of the pioneers may become the main activity of the future. For this reason, I think it's important for us to make the initial posting the best that it can be or even to update it over time to keep it fresh.
I've probably said enough. Thanks for accepting me into this community.
Doug Korns