Long distance phone calls in the middle of the night, Foreign language conversations with bad translator software, Hurried photographs at exotic locales -- Sound like a trashy romance novel or a bad spy movie? Actually, its all part of my Where's In a Name? cache.

Before we get into the mechanics of the cache, let me give you a brief history of what led me here (it'll make more sense to the scheme of things later). I've always been intrigued by gadgets, how things work, etc. When I passed notes in class, they were written in code. When I mailed letters to a friend that moved away they were typed backwards and had to be read in a mirror (no PCs then, had to type using carbon paper placed backwards between two sheets of paper to achieve this ...).

I bought my first GPS, a Motorola Traxar handheld, for over $1000. And it didn't even have a map display, just numeric coordinates! Once it was mounted on my motorcycle though, a whole new world opened up.

Now, I've always been directionally challenged. But I could read a map and I could look up latitude and longitude. Add a GPS, and who could ask for anything more?

A couple of seasons of road trips later and I heard of this thing called "geocaching" while trying to find other uses for that GPS. Cool! After a couple of easy finds I wanted to hide my own. Then it was time for something a little more elaborate. In the back of my mind I was thinking secret codes and maps and globes and language barriers, oh boy!

After attending a couple of events and seeing the camaraderie between so many people from such diverse backgrounds I decided to come up with a virtual that would encourage cachers to contact other cachers that they didn't even know and work as a team. The challenge was you didn't know where in the world that other cacher would be located!

Then I sat down to work on the cache. I had to brush up on basic world geography. I had to figure out how the geocaching coordinate convention fit in with latitude and longitude. I had to provide links to mapping programs on the Internet. I had to buy a globe! I even had to learn basic HTML! After I posted the cache I had to endure the harsh scrutiny of the geocaching community! (Ok, so maybe I'm getting a little carried away here!)

When I first formulated the rough idea for the cache I thought, "Hey, this is kinda cool. Maybe a few cachers will like it. I'll get to read a few exotic logs and see some cool pictures before interest dies off."

"This cache was done in the true spirit of geocaching."Little did I know that almost three years, 1000 "finds" and almost 2000 images later this cache is still going strong! I've gotten emails from all over the world, some in languages I couldn't even identify. My cache has been the subject of more than a few threads on the forums, both local and international. I've even had more than one teacher contact me and tell me they used the cache as part of a lesson plan in geography! Not bad for the guy who still has a hard time telling east from west!

Unfortunately, with so much interest, I've had to give up replying to every single log entry as I did in the beginning. I still read them all and verify that the coordinates match up to where the cachers claim the photos were taken. I still make sure that there are two cachers working as a team for each find. And I do answer those emails where people ask for help with deciphering their name into coordinates or how to go about locating a suitable caching partner.

Wanna meet some new cachers halfway around the world, or just want to see where you Geocaching name lines up to on a globe? So, if you want a challenge, think all virtuals are easy or said you'd never do a virtual, check out the "Where's in a Name?" locationless cache. Some quotes from the logs: