RPW

In terms of being snobby rich? Or in terms of needing to be cleaned up? My feeling is that any place that has Amish in it will be rich but not snobs and will be self cleaning.

I agree with Explicit Dank on both accounts.

Not true. I have been around since the early 70s myself and, while a lot was free, there were BBSes that charged.

Some people just do not know that they should do the logging or do not know how to do the logging. I.e., they are newbies. I suspect that because of the growth of Geocaching that there are a fair number of people like this. As an example: Several months ago my sister-in-law went out Geocaching, got really excited about it, bought her own GPS, and eventually found a travel bug which she took home. It took a couple months of email back and forth between the two of us before she finally understood the importance of logging in the TB. And the importance of keeping the TB moving. Fortunately, knowing what the TB was called, I was able to log a note so that the TB owners were not too worried about it. Amen. Especially with TBs.

The small micro-cache $2.50 log books are not 'rite in the rain' but rather just small log books with the geocaching logo and information. The bigger log books are 'rite in the rain.' They are very nice.

The comment is -- at least to me -- not that offensive. I would just let it be.

Log books in general are useless? No, that is not what I am saying. I think that log books can be very useful and I am a proponent of them. The can be fun to sign and fun to read. That logs books can get wet and useless even in a plastic bag? Yes they can. Of course your mileage will vary. Dry climates obviously will not have moisture problems. Wet climates especially after the winter freeze/thaw cycle and spring floods will tend to be damp -- I am battling a lot of this at the moment. Small containers will tend to have problems because people keep cramming swag into them thus ripping holes in the plastic bags inside of them. Larger containers generally do not have this problem. Ye old generic tupperware tends to leak because poeple have to seal them in multiple places in order to get them watertight. Ammo boxes and anything with a 'single snap' fitting tend not have this problem. Containers on the ground tend to get damp. Containers off the ground generally are not. Log books made out of normal paper can get ruined. Log books made out of 'rite-in-the-rain' paper (yes, expensive) generally are not effected by moisture. Let us see. Last Sunday I went to a park and found 5 caches. The climate there should be comparable for all of the caches (e.g., wooded, by a small river, central Indiana so lots of weather lately) 1st cache was tupperware about 6 feet above the flood plain in the hollow of a tree. Contents were slightly damp; log book was usable. 2nd cache was tupperware, not in the flood plain but on the ground. Contents were damp. Log book (inside plastic bag) was moldy and unusable. Previous cache finder had put a new book in the cache which was still usable. 3rd cache was decon container (generally good) but on the ground in the flood plain (why?). Contents were damp; log book (in a plastic bag) was barely usable. 4th cache was ammo box. Out of the flood plain. On the ground. In good shape. 5th cache was an extra large ammo box. Out of the flood plain. On the ground. In excellent shape. The log book was Geocaching's yellow write-in-the-rain. I was able to read logs dating back from 2001.

This simply does not work. If a container gets damp then it quite likely that the inside of any plastic bag and thus any unlaminated paper inside the bag will also be wet. The wet sig cards I pulled out of the damp cache this weekend were stuck in the same plastic bag as the log book. And the container was one of the more water tight ones (a decon box) however once a bit of water got in then all of the paper went down the tubes.

After having gotten back from a day of geocaching which featured damp caches with rotting geo-cards in them -- I threw away a couple of them -- I HATE the idea of inexpensive ones. At least encase them in plastic so that they stand up to cache abuse. Or find a more interesting and waterproof sig item.

I've had glass jars in my house for over 40 years and, while I have to be maimed by them, they have cut me as they get chipped and broken. Which was the point of the poster above you: No need to blow up the discussion into something that it is not.

Well, yes, this is a good idea. It has been brought up before -- I'm too lazy to Markwell it at the moment -- and basically shot down. Personally I think that it would be nice to have it. Maybe someday.

Not to pick on programmer64 since other people have said the same thing however how do you know if they are good before you find them? I can't simply filter out all micros because some of them are very interesting and very challenging. It is hard to automatically filter out urban areas and, even if a person could do so, there are some interesting urban areas to see thus filtering out all urban areas would be a loss. As far as I know there is simply no way to avoid lame caches except to read the logs. Even this is not foolproof since too many people do not express negative opinions in the logs but rather fall back to the neutral TNLNSL. It is also a lot of work and far from automatic. If you have a good idea on how to filter them out of your search so that we don't do em then let us know. People who post comments like: are missing the point. The post is not about "micros are bad" but rather about "lame urban caches" such those as in car washes and in parking lot lamp posts. I suspect that the original poster would love to have only quality urban micros in his area.

Some people like using the navigation page and the compass. Other people like using the map. I am not sure if it makes a difference. In either case once you are close to the cache (around 20 to 30' feet) take your eyes off of the GPS and start looking for cache hiding places. If you still are having problems then using triangulation can help. There are lots of posts on this in the forums. As for why the compass arrow changes only occassionally there may be two reasons. First turn off WAAS -- under 'system' and 'settings'. While this may provide more accuracy it also takes the GPS longer to figure out what is happening. Second, the GPS can only figure out compass direction if you are moving in a straight line for several seconds. So do not wiggle around like a snake. Just walk slowly and steadily in a line.

I probably would. It does not look that hard to do. Now if he bends the bolt on the inside of the container or crushes the threads it gets harder. But then there is the trusty old hacksaw ... doesn't everyone carry around in his/her caching bag?

I did one with a chainsaw and some chisels. That wasn't the tough part. The harder part was putting on hinges. Lots of people like the cache and so the effort was worth it.

Ahh, but size is of importance to the people who make PDAs. You may desire double-As but I am afraid that you are simply not going to find any PDAs with them. It looks like you have to Break down and use AAAs Decide rechargable is good after all Or get that AA-powered recharging device mentioned above. Personally I just recently purchased a Zire for GCing. Cost $50. It has rechargable batteries but this should not be a big deal ... I hope. I did not feel like taking my $400 Palm T-C out in the field any more. I would suggest something more powerful than the Zire. Get 8 MB of memory.

I do not believe that there is a PDA with AA batteries. It would make them too bulky. The best you can do is triple-A. One place to look at is Dave's PDA compare which has a list of all (as far as I can tell) PDA available. I agree with JeepCacher that AAA batteries in a PDA last for a long time.

We just had a virtual approved in my area. Since there is lots of room for a cache and since it a multi could have made a good trip around the park I am not sure why it was approved. Guess I should have placed a real cache there -- I have a couple of caches close by that alread suggest parking at the park. Unfortunately as long we have individual approvers then there will be some spottyness in the guidelines. I am not saying that this can be avoided but rather it is just a fact of life.

My army surplus store sells them for $8. Probably buys them for $2. :-( Not all places are cheap. Thank goodness for the internet!

As already evidenced by the divided messages. I remember when I first encountered this practice. It was after an event where we were literally tripping over each other standing in line to find the caches. I was aghast at the practice and did not participate in the multiple logging -- they would not have been cache finds that I would have been proud of. However... The event was well run and the weather cooperated. A great day. The caches were organized into 3 groups. The organizers suggested that people could: Just log the event. Log the event plus all 17 caches. Log the event plus 3 "multi-caches". The caches were difficult enough and spread out far enough -- both in time (each "multi-cache" group took about an hour to complete) and not bumping into other cachers -- that I felt that my team really accomplished 3 multi-caches. So I logged our visit as such. A lot of the other attendees are logging all 17 caches. Hey, whatever tickles their fancy. Until the stats are worth something why should we get too worked up about them? True, 17 logs per person fills up my email inbox rapidly but that is why the delete button was invented.

Not to be too disrepectful of a person who has been around longer than myself, however perhaps 85 caches is too many for you to handle? If you can't keep them up then just let them go. Perhaps another cacher -- more proactive than yourself -- in your area would be happy to place and maintain one of his/her own in a location currently occupied by one of your caches but can not because of the 0.1 mile rule. Granted, it is not up to the cache owner to keep his/her caches fully stocked all of the time, but a person can make and keep up good caches. Not only in terms of nice areas but also in terms of a non-trashy swag. I try to keep all 3 (soon 4 -- whee!) of my physical caches in good condition. If I had 85 caches not only would there not be enough time to visit all of them but also I would go broke maintaining them.

The benefit is not to the cache owner but rather to cacher herself. The above does not help the cacher herself when she runs pocket queries or 'filter finds'. She needs the cache find to be registered at the web site and thus should register the cache.

But why? 1) Are people more greedy than they are giving? I.e., they deliberately 'trade down' in order to achieve some financial gain? 2) Do people simply go out unprepared to trade? I.e., they carry few or no trade items but when they find a nice item in a cache they feel like they have to trade something and thus put whatever junk they have in their pockets into the cache.They are not deliberately greedy but rather thoughtlessly greedy. 3) Do people wish to "trade even" but just do not bring valuable enough trade items along? I.e., they have a bunch of $2-$3 items in their geocaching bag but when when faced with a cache full of the $10-$20 items they do not have enough goodies to trade even (it would take at least 5 of their items to equal one of the cache's items) and therefore just trade for as good as they can. 4) Do people wish to "trade even" but without price tags can not tell the value of the trade items. As an example, I recently found a 1977 silver dollar in a cache. Obviously it is worth at least a buck but, not being in mint condition, is worth only that? Or $2? Maybe $10? Ditto with rocks or fishing lures or bracelets -- I can't figure out if I am trading up, even, or down. Value is in the eye of the beholder. A child will teach you that quickly. Anyway, my question is "why is it a GITO world?" I would hate to think that is because of reason #1 (people are greedy), am cynical to think that it is reason #2 (people are unprepared), and hope that it is only because of reasons #3 (don't bring valuable items along) or #4 (don't know the value of traded items).

iSilo costs $20. Plucker is free. That is, of course, not a strong reason to choose one over the other -- i.e., the free application may be terrible and thus the for-pay application would be a better choice. However when I tried both out about a year ago they both seemed to be about the same quality. Thus I settled on Plucker ... and thank the people who make Plucker free. You may wish to do your own trial of both applications and then let us know how they compare these days.

I am voting 'yes' for the above. Also because CITO looks good to land managers. Plus the idea of, eventually, being able to produce CITO maps. Lots of positives in the whole idea.