When I started being involved in Toastmasters, I stopped being as directly involved in Geocaching.
I still supported the State group and helped out with events, helping to organize and run them.
I apologize to the active community that I stopped keeping up with the Cache Maintenance. I filtered my emails, meaning to check them, but they stayed filed, being very busy with Toastmaster, especially in the last year.
I went back to check, and found I had over 36,000 emails from Geocaching. Part of the problem was that I had way too many items on my watch-list. I had too many notifications. And, having so many cache hides, there were 10s-of-thousands of repetitive logs on the many series we've hidden.
I recently cleaned up almost all the unread emails, trying to identify any obvious issues where possible. If I missed a useful log in all that noise, I am sorry. I've cut my watch-list down to the minimum. I've started slowly addressing maintenance issues.
A giant thanks to all those who have assisted us with maintenance over the time!
However, I never stopped caring about Geocaching. I still get a twitch driving past an unfound cache. Yet, I just suppressed it. In fact, I think that holding inside didn't go unused. The energy and ideas have been growing and maturing.
For education and leadership, I've been able to take skills I've learned in Toastmasters, and applied them to Geocaching.
I also took an old idea, and updated it. There seemed to be a whole lot of energy stored up inside of me, as it is more extensive than I imagined. You might be surprised where it will lead. I am very excited to see how it will go, and how it will be received.
At some point, I want to get back out to doing some finds. I'd love to get some on hikes. Perhaps get the new one on top of Pikes Peak, via a hike. The mountain has been calling me, and it has been years since I took on such a hike. I would need to get in better shape to try again. I need to make time for that this year.
