Taoiseach

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- Yay! I'm expanding my boundaries, as far as my position as the National Capital Region's Letterbox Advocate! Ehh... is exactly what I think of them too - There's a reason as to why they have their own separate icon. I don't really accept the notion that the Letterbox Hybrid icon is for the purposes of cross-listing. You could cross-list a Letterbox as a Traditional, if that's what you want to do...

Based on another thread on these forums, I'm guessing that I'll be seeing this container soon!

yvan eht nioj

I know... I know... Nonetheless, putting out a traditional and calling it a Letterbox Hybrid is unimaginative and lame! Especially as I would hazard that a good portion of these Letterstamp Traditionals aren't cross-listed

I thought so too, but I suppose not. I have only found one and it was at the listed coords. I dunno? Don't be discouraged by people who are so dreadfully uninspired (and quite frankly lazy) that they can't make a Letterbox Hybrid better than any other crappy Traditional. I call these examples of lazy caches, that really do nothing better than get their owners another icon 'Letterstamp Traditionals.' Despite the poorly worded Guideline on the matter (This is really my only gripe about the way Groundspeak does things), Letterbox Hybrids are not Traditionals! If this is the way people want to play the game, I suppose that we could all post the finals to our puzzles, Multis and Letterboxes, and let people find them as Traditionals, if they're so inclined... Anyway, on to the serious matter at hand. Letterbox Hybrids are effective clue based Multis. As they are required to have some element of GPS usage, a well designed Letterbox should have both GPS based stages, and traditional letterboxing stages. An example of this, is that all of my Letterboxes have you start at the posted co-ordinates (this is generally considered to not be enough GPS Usage). After going to the posted, I instruct the finder to look for an object (e.g. A 'Large Wooden Object'). This continues, as the finder is lead throughout the cache, visiting various locations, that they reach based on my instructions, rather than co-ordinates. Along the way, the finder picks up some information. Once you reach either the end of the course (or perhaps at some other point along the was, as is the case with my 'Welcome To Ottawa' Letterbox), I instruct the finder to mark a waypoint, and to adjust it to something along the lines of N45 xx.x12 W075 xx.x34. After doing so, I have the finder do something with the information that they gathered along the way, in order to determine a distance and bearing. From there, I have the finder make a projection from their waypoint to the final. The need for a projection puts GPS usage into the equation. To put it simply - 1) Start at the posted co-ords 2) Lots of Letterboxing fun, picking up information, such as numbers along the way 3) Projection (required GPS usage) 4) Final cache I point you to all three of my Letterbox Hybrids, as well as the Nearby 'Welcome to Gatineau' for further examples of what a Letterbox Hybrid should be. You certainly don't have to make them as long and complicated as I do... Unless you want to, that is! Of course, All Letterboxes need to have a stamp in them... Preferably a hand carved one. I have 3 Letterboxes hidden, and Five stamps out in the Ottawa Area. However, despite what so many people have been lead to believe, the stamp is not what makes it a Letterbox. There is a standing offer out, that if any local cacher wants to put out a proper Letterbox Hybrid, I'll happily carve them a stamp. Now, I don't want to have a make a lot of them, however if anyone here is interested, send me a copy of your potential cache description. If somebody were to impress me, and it won't cost me an arm and a leg to mail it to you (one would easily fit into a standard envelope), I might be willing to make one, and send it to you! I know that geocaching.com's guidelines do technically permit Letterstamp Traditionals, however they are just lame. It's Icon Hunting, and nothing more. As far as I'm concerned, One Letterstamp Traditional is lamer than 50 LPCs!

Not too long ago, myself and another couple of cachers were up in Gatineau Park looking for a Puzzle Cache We were so happy when she found the 'cache' - Now, this fellow usually doesn't have the best containers, but it seemed as though he had outdone himself this time. It was a very poor Tupperware-like container wrapped in a garbage bag. We were quite happy to have found the cache, however when we opened it up, I noticed a distinct lack of the signitures of our prominent local cachers in the (very small) logbook. As it turns out, we were well over a mile off of where the puzzle final was, but we managed to find out that we had found a ciste!

That would go over well... Based on my name, could you imagine if I put an ALR* on all of my caches that Englishmen couldn't log finds? *Yes... Yes... I know... Greetings from The National Capital Region! (AKA Queb-tario)

Cache saturation applies only to physical stages - i.e A Final, or a 'Stage of a Multi cache' (Including both containers and tags. Saturation does not apply to any non-physical stages, such as a question to answer off of an existing plaque or structure, or a reference point, as well as any EarthCaches, Virtuals, Webcams, events, meaningless posted co-ords for puzzles, etc.

Go down to Windsor for the day, I guarantee you'll have your fill Somebody in Ottawa put out 50 LPCs in one night a while back - I'm sure that you can imagine how they're doing now... Thankfully, they're slowly getting archived I'll admit that I have one LPC, but it's a puzzle final, and a slightly different style lamppost... Still no excuse (with around 60 finds, I didn't know better), but I've actually been complimented in my choice of lamppost!

How about moving it to Canada for the first time? I say Ottawa/Gatineau

Sláinte Mhaith! A toast to people will actually putting my cache back right, now that I've shortened the cord (I doubt it ) If there are fifty right ways to do it and one wrong way there is at least one cacher that will do it that one way. The problem here, is that everyone who finds it seems to put it back wrong. It's partially my fault for making the cord a good foot too long, but I think that people don't realise that there's a hole that it can poke out of at the bottom. Somebody stole my disposable camera this time too! (It was an ALR cache) I'm hoping that the adjustment I made will at least help with the problem... It's a good spot, but I need to come up with a better hanger, I think.

Sláinte Mhaith! A toast to people will actually putting my cache back right, now that I've shortened the cord (I doubt it )

That will work just fine. But it looks like this one is going to last a while, perhaps I should consider something from Tennessee. Jim How would you feel about both? Hey great idea! Cold blue with a GJ chaser. Jim I guess you need something to kill the taste of the Blue (gag) How about some St Ambroise? I even knew that one of the beer snobs would chime in. I am surprised it took so long. Ah, I had to go out and do maintenance on one of my caches...

That will work just fine. But it looks like this one is going to last a while, perhaps I should consider something from Tennessee. Jim How would you feel about both? Hey great idea! Cold blue with a GJ chaser. Jim I guess you need something to kill the taste of the Blue (gag) How about some St Ambroise?

If t were my cache, I would appreciate it, as long as you told me right away. I couldn't possibly predict whether or not this particular CO would feel the same, though...

I've only got one cache and have been plotting out several more, so this has been a subject on my mind. How hard do I make the other ones? who do I want to serve? I've been reading the logs from my one cache which is very easy. I've repeatedly gotten "First find for a child" and in general other people have had it be the first cache they find. People have written about the joy of the child when finding their very first cache. How can I top that? I would not be getting those logs from an evil micro. What is it I want to do here? Bring joy or frustration into the world? My caches are decided. 'Wow, this is the best cache that I've ever found' or even as little as 'Seal of Approval' from a prominent local cacher s pretty nice too. I highly doubt that my latest cache will ever be anyone's first find, but people seem to enjoy it

What do the logs say? tftc took ammo box left lock n lock. Oh, we haven't a clue who's doing this - We don't even have the name of a sock puppet account! Every time it's happened, it has either been the next finder or the owner noticing that their ammo can is gone. It's all very bizarre Oh, and dubkid420, you might enjoy a cache that I found recently called 'Not for Whiners' - I hope you take good notes on which caches you've found - With no record, you might visit the same caches over again!

My caches aren't so much 'hard' as they are ambiguous. Also, as for my hides, they're not usually that well hidden, otherwise spectacular, but that's mostly because I like to keep them within reasonable walking distance of my house

Etch an identifying mark somewhere onto the ammo boxes. It would be interesting to see if they turn up as a new cache! I know - I'm waiting to see a new profile, with 9 finds, and 30 hides - All Regulars out in Mer Bleue or Stony Swamp...

We have a cache thief with a rather bizarre MO What he does, is steal Ammo Cans, carefully move all of the contents into a poor quality plastic container (sometimes even cammoed!) and re-hides it as found. Anyway, my solution to a cache thief would be to put out a bunch of really long, complicated and ambiguous Letterbox Hybrids, Multis & Puzzles... Oh, wait, I already do that!

170 some odd mile west, though you might be, if you ever find yourself in Ottawa, let me know - I'll bring you by an Urban Large

Bring along Bibbits & His Machete!

Hey - Now there's a good idea for a website feature - Allow other users to post a 'Performed Maintenance log' that would clear off that icon! Excellent! We're starting to have some helpful people come out of the woodwork!

Well, under my plan, pretty much everything from the first two years would be protected But caches from later than that can have historical merit as well. If you take out the adoption part, you run into exactly what we're faced with now - Needing a reviewer to do simple things like taking off 'Needs Maintenance' icons, etc. So what are these methods to do this without adoption? Give a community organisation administrative powers over such caches without adopting them? Perhaps something along the lines of giving them access to reviewer tools, only without the ability to publish or archive caches? I'd be ok with that.