Techiegrl64 - 10 Years of Geocaching (blue)

This coin's current mission is to stay in my possession and be discovered by fellow cachers along the caching trail and at cacher gatherings. I will also drop and retrieve this coin in caches which represent personal milestones so it will gather mileage.

This coin was a gift from my dear friends Domino809 and her son, Spenser.



This coin was created to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of geocaching:

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release May 1, 2000
STATEMENT REGARDING THE UNITED STATES' DECISION TO STOP DEGRADING GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM ACCURACY
Today, I am pleased to announce that the United States will stop the intentional degradation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) signals available to the public beginning at midnight tonight. We call this degradation feature Selective Availability (SA). This will mean that civilian users of GPS will be able to pinpoint locations up to ten times more accurately than they do now. The decision to discontinue SA is the latest measure in an on-going effort to make GPS more responsive to civil and commercial users worldwide. to worldwide users free of charge. My decision to discontinue SA was based upon a recommendation by the Secretary of Defense in coordination with the Departments of State, Transportation, Commerce, the Director of Central Intelligence, and other Executive Branch Departments and Agencies. They realized that worldwide transportation safety, scientific, and commercial interests could best be served by discontinuation of SA. Along with our commitment to enhance GPS for peaceful applications, my administration is committed to preserving fully the military utility of GPS.. Additionally, we have demonstrated the capability to selectively deny GPS signals on a regional basis when our national security is threatened. Civilian users will realize a dramatic improvement in GPS accuracy with the discontinuation of SA.
~President William J. Clinton

GPS World
September 19, 2007

In a statement late Tuesday, the White House said that President Bush has agreed with the U.S. Department of Defense recommendation to permanently do away with Selective Availability, the intentional degradation of the civil GPS signal. Specifically, the statement said that the U.S. would no longer require that the ability to introduce timing errors in the GPS signal reserved for civilian use be built into future generations of GPS satellites; it specifically cited Block III spacecraft. The White House acknowledged that this was following on the decision in 2000 to turn Selective Availability off. This latest pronouncement from Washington D.C. effectively makes the policy change with regard to SA a permanent one.

On May 3, 2000 Dave Ulmer placed the very first geocache, The Original Stash, a black bucket, in the woods near Beaver Creek, Oregon. Along with a logbook and pencil, he left various prize items including videos, books, software, a can of beans and a slingshot. He shared the waypoint of his "stash" with the online community on sci.geo.satellite-nav, and Geocaching was born.

On May 30, 2000 the word Geocaching was coined by Matt Stum on the "GPS Stash Hunt" mailing list. Geocache was the joining of two familiar words. The prefix geo, for Earth, was used to describe the global nature of the activity, but also for its use in familiar topics in gps such as geography. The word cache is described by Merriam-Webster as "a hiding place especially for concealing and preserving provisions or implements."

On Sept 2, 2000 Jeremy Irish launched the Geocaching.com web site with 75 caches. Later that same year Jeremy partnered with Elias Alvord and Bryan Roth, two coworkers at Sunrise Identity and started a new company called Groundspeak, Inc.