Gargoyle

I've only known him from seeing him in logs and such... buts its very sad... Please accept the condolences from me and from the rest of SEPAG (SouthEastern PA Geocachers).

Sorry Shifty, I must have missed your post before I opened my mouth... thanks for clarifying. Happy Holidays!

I dont post much in the forum... and many times I do because someone posts a thread to here from the SEPAG forum. But I do have a question... I have a travelbug called SKULL. I consider it my personal travelbug and I like to use it to help log the miles from cache to cache as I find them. I also like to use the bug to keep track of each cache visited, what I left, took, who I was caching with. I dont leave SKULL in caches but it is a real travelbug that has gone to each event and cache since I created it. Is this personal travelbug what you are all referring to as a virtual TB?

My proposal is to create a subcategory under Architecture for Buildings With Gargoyles... not individual gargoyles... I think this would be fun and interesting especially in the states where we dont have as many BoGs as they do in European cities.

Hey RCGDS (River City Geocaching and Dining Society)... thats some serious CITOing... pretty impressive. SEPAG hosted our CITO yesterday... had several people to help and collected lots of trash from along a small section of the Schuylkill River in PA... had some good lunch and a good chance to see old friends and to meet some new ones. I think some of the participants will be posting some photos.

Thanks to Polgara for the nice words concerning the SEPAG website. And Megellan is correct also... it was two of us who founded SEPAG... Docdesi and myself. We started out as a Yahoo Group and soon had a pretty bad proboard forum that always went down... then Mocadeki (from the Lancaster area) gave us some webspace and showed me what a portal was. The rest was history. I don't think the SEPAG site is perfect by any means but its a good start. I took a look at Voncachstein's NEPAGA website and I think its great. I think an addition of a forum would be helpful as it helps to keep interest in the group if people can post in a forum everyday. Good Luck in getting the NorthEast website up... and remember... SEPAG will be happy to join a statewide group as long as all the other regionals are also going to join. We would also plan to continue using the SEPAG website also.

Howdy Folks, I dont come onto the forum as much as I used to but when I see a potential problem then I feel that I should come in and mention it. I have been monitoring the Travelbug Gallery and I have noticed that many people, especially newbies, publish photos of the travelbugs that show the tracking numbers. I have been contacting those people and mentioning that the numbers show and in most cases the people thanked me and either removed the photo, reshot the photo, or edited the photo to that the numbers were either cloned or smudged out. I will not go into the whole old story of travelbug pirating however I will mention that not everyone in geocaching is honorable or even nice. There are people out there that wait for opportunities to mess with our cache and our travelbugs. There are also people out there that are actually trying to be nice but instead of being helpful they end up screwing up milages of bugs. But to make a long story short... if you publish pictures of travelbug showing the tracking numbers then people cah use those numbers to screw around with you travelbugs. I have see this happen and in some case it was a little tricky to fix. So the bext thing to do is to make sure that number doesn't show before you submit the photo. I am sorry if I am rehashing a subject that has been talked to death but people are still publishing the numbers. Happy Holidays to all of you and your families from Gargoyle and the rest of SEPAG - SouthEastern PA Geocachers (www.sepag.us)

well you know... if the cache is close, and is missing and no one is able to be contacted... I would contact the local approver and ask to start adoption procedures. I say that trying to save a cache is much better then archiving it.

Yes Stayfloopy that is me hiding them around the Philadelphia area. The first one's I purchased came from Genuardi's. They had them in a set described above. Then I found some in Target... that is whjere I get them now... various sizes and shapes. To the dude that had to stick his nose in with "Ammo boxes still rule"... um... SO WHAT! We are not looking for a replacement for the ammobox. I use ammobixes just as much as I use LocknLocks. I simply think these are good alternatives to Rubbermaid and Tupperware. I have had them floating and submerged during floods, frozen in blocks of ice, covered in bugs... none of my locknlocks have leaked yet. None of the wings have come off... So I am happy. Peace! Gargoyle

Im sorry to doublepost here... I know that it bothers some people... but I have another person to add to this conspiracy... As I was checking on some other possible fakes I found more references to Sun Flower placing travelbugs in the TB Graveyard... It started to bother me because these bug were not found by her nor owned by her. Here is a thought on what she was up to... I say she... I actually think that she was a he and that he was also Herbert West... but more about that in a second... So here is an idea of what Sun Flower was up to... She would look around for travelbugs that have been inactive for some time... she would then check the bug pages for pictures that showed the TB tracking number. She would then take it upon herself to send that travelbug to the TB Graveyard. At this point Herbert West would revive the travelbug from the graveyard also using the tracking number from the photograph and then place the bug in a cache. Then in one instance... Sun Flower would then retrieve that bug and place it in a cache, actually, an event, in Central PA. Another interesting thing about Sun Flower, she had only been a cacher for a short period of time... her last time online was May 29th... which was also the last time Herbert West was online. I have taken screen shots to prove that fact... incase the REAL person behind these to cachers decides to log them in to just to further muddy up the truth.

Well... I will have a couple of travelbugs that are going missing for the second time... I may either revive them WITH MY OWN TAGS SINCE THEY ARE MY BUGS or I will report them missing and just let them go. One thing is for sure... I will not place them in the Travelbug Graveyard and I will make sure that I have not taken and pictures showing the TB numbers. I think a deactivation button (down below the "Mark Bug Missing" button) would be most helpful... thats a good idea!

Well I found something interesting... there is a cacher known as "Herbert West" who was active between April 18th and May 29th. He made posts on a few travelbug pages that he was removing travelbugs from the travelbug graveyard for an experiment. 2 or 3 of the bugs he posted on were/are pirates. He is from california but actually did visit central PA not too long before the fake bugs were found. If you look at his "found cache" list you can see that he took credit for a find in central PA. For those of you who dont know... HP Lovecraft wrote a book entitled "Herbert West - Reanimator". One of the bugs that the cacher "reanimated" was "Sweetwater Troll". http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=736 Please take note... 4/16/2004 Sun Flower placed it in Travel Bug Graveyard 5/15/2004 Herbert West grabbed it 5/15/2004 Herbert West placed it in Brown Bag Bug Swap Also note that the bugpage photo of the Sweetwater Troll CLEARLY shows the TB tracking number. Seems to me since it is only placed in the graveyard... that that tracking number will easily take it out.

The bug owner is the person that I am most concerned about.

Thanks... here is what I posted in my SEPAG forum... and this is what I really think... "There are more pirate travelbugs being found in PA... what seems to be happening... are that travelbugs either end up in the Travelbug Graveyard or go missing from caches around the country... In some cases some of these bugs have had pictures taken of them showing tracking numbers. I get the idea that whomever is making these pirate tags are doing it with good intentions and not realizing that they are actually STEALING in some cases and messing up bug reports for the bugs that aren't actually missing. In a way it is interesting but permission should be acquired before resurrecting these bugs." So far there are about 15 or so of these fakes... when it involves the bug that have gone missing then I guess its not so bad... but some of these pirates ARE effecting some of the bugs that actually aren't missing. And personally... if one of my bugs goes missing I do all I can to confirm that it is gone. When I know that it is gone I will release the copy tag. If that copy tag went missing then I would either accept the fact that the bug is gone or I would create a new bug for it myself... I wouldn't want someone else doing it without asking. And if the person is no longer an active cacher then it would be a natural process that his or her bug eventually would go missing forever... and it should be left that way... at least that is my opinion.

Its not costing the pirate any money... it is someone in PA (probably) and they are just punching the numbers of inactive travelbugs on tags... sticking them on junky little toys... and dropping them in area caches... I have found three more... still coming out of the sae part of PA... If a person has the tags... which ar quite cheap... and the tools for punching the numbers... then there would only be a tiny cost. The person doing this may also think that he (or she) is doing a good deed but in the case of a few of these bugs... it is creating a problem... (e.g. The Peace Pole TB). The pirate bug is with a cacher in NJ and the oringal was just placed in a cache in Northern California. Im sorry that I seem to be the only person concerned about this.

Well here is another problem all together... people ask why they shouldn't post pictures showing travelbug tags with the numbers showing... first click the link and look at the picture (that shows the numbers) then read the first log for this bug. http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=48802 This is another pirate bug.

http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.as...38-b21295df4555 Here is another pirated travelbug... but know one seems to care so I guess we just let it continue... the orginal seems to have gone missing at the Cresent Hill Cache. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...0e-87d6bf354cb8

I have found two more fake bugs... both with the round brass tags... these two were both dropped into the Travelbug Graveyard and then were found as fakes in Pennsylvania. One of these was placed back in the graveyard. I would like to get all these fake tags sent to me. So that I can start making notes on the bug pages that they are pirates.

One theory is that someone... maybe in northeastern PA... decided to create their own travebugs and tracking systems... but the idiots decided to use the same numbering format as GC. I was leaning towards this theory till I heard about the bug resuscitator. The only characters that appear on the piratetags are T B and the the 3 digit tracking number: "T B 123456". I also checked the "www.travelertags.com" site and these numbers dont correspond to any of their travelers.

Beware... there were 6 or 7 travel bugs found in northeastern PA recently that are attached to homemade round brass tags with TB numbers punched (engraved) in. I have found three of them and I have already found out that two of them are DEFINITELY "pirate bugs". The number that was punched in belongs to a REAL travel bug that has not been released yet (or is considered inactive). I know of two other fake tags that are in the hands of cachers that actually belong to active travel bugs but aren’t the real bugs. I have sent out a few emails trying to stop these fakes from being circulated. If they continue to travel and be logged they will mess up the log pages for the real bugs. My theory is that a small group of people from somewhere in Northeastern PA may have tried to start their own tracking system and created these bogus bugs... but they stupidly decided to use the same 6 digit number system that Groundspeak was already using... that is really pretty stupid... but the numbers coincided with a few bugs that were already issued to caches... There are also a few REAL travel bugs from the PA area that have been released with the same type of tags. These should continue to travel as usual. If anyone finds a travel bug with a round brass tag (probably bent from hammering in the numbers)... and that number corresponds to a real travel bug... contact the owner of the real travel bug to find out it the bug is real or not. UPDATE: I managed to track down one of the bug owners who has not cached in over a year. He was a little confused as to which of his travel bugs was I was referring to because he had one of his bugs pirated before... Apparently there was some dude called the “Bug Resuscitator” who was finding inactive travel bug tracking numbers and bringing the bugs back from the dead... so to speak... He apparently had 20 travel bug finds but had not found any caches... interesting trick. Well maybe this “Bug Resuscitator” is the key to this problem. Now I just need to find out who he is. Thanks for listening.

We are not sure... but the fake bugs are apparently opening up bugpages... it could actually be that the REAL bugs here activated but never released... either way... the point is that we have found about 6 or 7 fake travelbugs from 2 caches in NorthEastern PA. I have managed to get three of them and I have contacted people about 2 others and told them to NOT place the fake bugs. One or two may have already been disposed of. I am checking caches that are local to that area to see if there are anymore of these floating around. My theory is that a small group of people from somewhere in NorthEastern PA may have tried to start their own tracking system and created these bogus bugs... but they stupidly decided to use the same 6 digit number system that Groundspeak was already using... that is really pretty stupid... but the numbers coincided with a few bugs that were already issued to caches... There is also the possibility that this was done intentionally but I dont think so.

Beware... there are some travelbugs that were found in PA recently that are attached to homemade round brass tags with TB numbers punched in. I have three of them and I have already found out that one of them is DEFINATELY a "pirate bug". The number that was punched in belongs to REAL travelbug that has not been released yet. I know of two other fake tags that are in the hands of cachers. I have sent out a few emails trying to stop these fakes from being circulated. If they continue to travel and be logged they will messup the log pages for the real travelbugs. Their are also a few REAL travelbugs from the PA area that have been released with the same type of tags. These should continue to travel as usual. If anyone finds a travelbug with a round brass tag (probably bent from hammering in the numbers)... and that number corresponds to a real travelbug... contact the owner of the real travelbug to find out it the the bug is real or not. Thanks, Gargoyle (SEPAG)

This isn't that big of a deal and I am sure that it has been covered in other threads, however... I think... and I dont do that much... that when a person revisits a cache... whether it is to scoopup a travelbug or to log a personal travelbug or whatever... that that person SHOULD NOT enter that second log as a find... I am sure that some of these are done by accident... and I am sure someone is gonna tell me to relax and worry about something important... but it makes me a little crazy to see that when someone visits a cache that they log it as a second find. And in the spirit of doing this by accident... I have to admit that I have accidently logged a cache twice... ech time as a find... after I realized that I did this I went back and fixed it. Thats all - I will be quiet again...

Well thanks everyone for the feedback. I will leave it because it is a good spot. THANKS!

It seems to me that some of the people that have posted leave the impression that this cache is not in a good place. I guess if no one is seeing a problem then there isn't a problem. I guess I am just worrying too much about it. The No Trespassing sign is not for the area in question. It is for the area inside the fensed-in stadium. Well thanks at least for pointing out that there is not a problem.