NightThree

I guess I need to look at myself again and figure out the definition of flaming, since I could've sworn there wasn't going to be any in this thread. You know, I'm not going to e-mail anyone. Someone messed up, yup. It wasn't funny, but it seriously looked as though Mr. Turner had no idea what he was about to say. He might've wrote that, but to me, it really looks like it was someone else's doing. That, and I wouldn't want to do anything against Glenn Zimmerman's report. That was an awesome piece... he sure made it seem like he was having a good time and really getting the feel of what geocaching is like (in other words, not just another report saying "yup, you've got a GPS and you can go places and find stuff"). It's a good intro to what the sport is like. Anyone ever considered that the comment might've been meant to be said in a "after you start geocaching, you won't have time for a life" way? I don't think any of us can deny that one.

I got my canisters from Rite Aid... they just had a box of 25 laying on the counter, and I asked if I could have a few for an environmental project. They gave me the whole box.

Here are my labels - use them or do whatever you want with them. I made them so that they could be kinda tracked like a Travel Bug. JPEG | Photoshop

The Veazie Railroad Cache used to be by a dump with hundreds - maybe thousands - of tires in the middle of a Bangor park. I'd tried to find the cache a couple of times, but I went back once to find a huge pile of tires outside the trail system and the place itself mostly cleaned up. Looked a lot better! Here's what I'd do: try to contact the park administrator and see if they're aware of it (especially in the larger parks, sometimes stuff just goes unnoticed). Ask if they plan to clean it up. If they do, great; if they don't, ask if they'd be willing to have a group of people help clean it up on some specified day (an event). I think it's always best to let someone know about it before you actually go ahead with it... but it should definitely get done.

I use CITO canisters (used 35mm film containers) to encourage people; they're kind of like a signature item for me. I'd love to see more people doing it! There's a thread that's been active lately in the forum about them; I linked to the labels I made in here - http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...ndpost&p=331611 - and there's a lot of great info in that thread, too. They don't take up too much space, it's free (if you can get 35mm containers and plastic bags), and it's really fun. Good luck!

In other words, it's a feature, not a bug.

If you look around, there are a lot of great things you can get for under $1 that other people would miss... dollar stores can be great places. On the other hand, you might want to take some $3-$5 things just in case there's something really nice you want in a cache. As Desert_Warrior said, the polite unwritten rule is that you trade up; leave more than you take. I try to take things that will be helpful depending on the cache location. Think what you'd do if you were there: towellettes for a picnic area, bug spray for a forest, emergency blankets or flashlights for long hikes. And the ideal thing would be to create something of your own (signature items) as Team Kender said. Leave a craft or something. It can be lots of fun coming up with things to leave. Have fun!

Definitely. That goes for bridges, urban street corners, and the like, too.

quote:100% of every national park in the country is not environmentally sensitive I don't know if I agree with that one.

Jeremy, again, you're awesome to listen and try to incorporate some of our suggestions. Thanks. I have to agree that Sissy-n-CR's setup is awesome. I especially like the way the day/month/year designations are abbreviated, where the placed date is, and the different found designation. Just because I always have to do things my own way, I came up with one of my own. Pretty much the same. Thanks again, J & crew!

Here's my personal story/testimonial, with a happy ending thanks to you guys. I went into a local Rite Aid this afternoon and went to the photo counter. After waiting for a few minutes, a woman came over. I said, "I'm doing a project and wondered if you had any film canisters I could have." "You mean the actual cases or the tubes they come in?" "The tubes." "How many do you want?" "Oh, I dunno, 10 or 20?" She looked at another store worker. "Do we need these for anything?" The other one shrugged. She gave me the whole box (24)! It was incredibly easy... all except the part where the other worker tried to get me to pay $25 for each. I loved Bruce's label, and I took a couple minutes and did my own. If anyone wants to use it, feel free... and yes, I got permission to use the CITO logo. I made mine almost like a travel bug in itself; there's a space to give it a little ID number and write your e-mail down. Edit those out if you want. There's a better quality Photoshop file at justinrussell.com/geocaching/citolabel.psd (630 KB). So thanks everyone! And thanks, Bruce!

Sleep-deprived web designer in college.

Again, Jeremy's listening and others are saying what they think in the Geocaching.com Forum. It'd probably be better to put stuff there.

(sorry for another long post, but I hope that I can be of some help) First of all, I think some people need to understand that there are two speed issues going on when you search for caches. It has to do with what The Leprechauns said. There's your computer - how fast the page loads for you. More important (I'm guessing with this update) is that the new page probably takes less time for the Geocaching computer(s) to make. To create the page you see, a computer needs to go through a database and filter out the right stuff. If that time is shortened, more people can do searches. And if that happens, hopefully the site won't crash and burn like it's been doing off and on. So even if you don't see it, I'm guessing there was a speed improvement on the other side. About the X's in the left column: I think one thing you could do with the hide found option is to use the results page as a checklist. When you're in the field, use the blank [ ] boxes to check off which you've visited. Techie stuff... Customizable style sheets would rock, but I bet those would be pretty time-consuming to drum up. Since you're using CSS, though, I think what Sissy-n-CR said would really work pretty easily; just give each row in the table a class and have it pop back a background color. Personally, I'd make them pretty faint in order to not drown out the text, and I wouldn't make any of them green due to the "your last found" text color. So maybe (in order of greatest to least precedence: - Hidden: blue (#ccccff) - Found: yellow (#ffffcc) - Disabled: red (#ffcccc) Table background colors are hidden when printing, so that'd still not disturb the checklist aspect. I think it'd work really, really well. I really like the idea of the bookmarking option, and I really would like to see a "hide this cache" option (not sure how that would work in the DB, but you're the magician, Jeremy). Using Phoenix 0.5 in WinXP, the titles of the caches change from bold to regular when I click them (in other words, when I visit the cache's page). I don't think it's necessary, but I think it's a nice feature, and it'll take some time to get used to it. I hope you're not too saddened by negative opinions, Jeremy; people don't like change, but it's usually a good thing in the end. And as always, people need to read the thread before they post.

quote:People say something about the "new search" function? Whazzat? From the nearest caches page, click the New Search link at the top of the list. It should lead you here... it's the only way to get to that page I've found so far.

Might want to see what other people have said...

Oooh... I'm excited I'm excited I'm excited! I'll be glad to see the watch notifications pop back up. You could probably just pop the icon right under the checklist marker to the left of the cache type; I don't think it would disturb the column too much. The more-than-one-type function would be really cool, but it'll probably be hard to code. If you're feeling ambitious, go for it! I personally don't have a need for it, but it seems like others do.

Sounds like fun to me... I'd just be careful what you're putting on trees or whatever (I can't think laundry detergent would be good for chipmunks ).

I like it when caches say what trail system it's on, or ones that say the cacher's gotten permission; it's always a relief to know just whose land I'm hiking or biking on. People who can't follow directions (cache finding, travel bugs, etc.), or don't respect what landowners want for their land. (In general, not just in Geocaching... like finding ATV tracks on "No ATV" land.) Caches that are hidden in places that look really, really suspicious if you're not in on the GCing thing... especially when you're a cacher who falls into the college-age "everything he does is suspicious!" range. A lot of the things that have already been mentioned, mainly: difficulty ratings that are off, things that aren't included in clues but should be, parking problems, people who can't see things from others' points of view (side note: I GC for the hunt, not for the reward), pointless multi-caches. And yeah, a hide button on the cache listings would be nice. I love this thread. As martmann said it's giving me some guidance on what to do when I start placing caches.

Good psychoanalysis, bigredmed. Seriously, the point about the difference between in solitary sport and a group one is a good one to bring up.

quote:Originally posted by Pigue:I was amazed to find that Geocaching is not allowed in national parks. As much as I love Geocaching, I have to say that I agree that Geocaching in a national park is a bad idea. While I would love to think that all Geocachers followed every rule and were 100% committed to keeping land as they found it, I can't say that everyone is. Geocaching, while it is a mainly non-intrusive sport, does involve some aspect of searching. That last 200 feet or so can be difficult and can involve a lot of stepping on twigs, turning over rocks, and such. Unless there was some way to guarantee that every single person could leave the park as they found it, I don't think it should be allowed. Remember, the goal of national parks is to quote:preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. I've only had the opportunity to visit one national park (Acadia). In that park there are many signs blocking off land, saying that it is being trampled by humans and is currently being restored. Beside those are usually signs that say "stay on the trail". While you do for the most part of Geocaching, that last couple hundred feet has the possibility of being very destructive. One more point: you're not completely right in saying that Geocaching is not allowed in national parks. Virtual caches are allowed and encouraged. If you're creative about it, you can find some really great places in national parks that keep people on the trail but lead them to a place they've probably never seen before. I've had that happen with a few caches in Acadia.

While there is no control over where TB's go, it's reasonable to assume that people will have enough sense to at least LOG them, no matter what they do with them. I mean, it's not that difficult to read the rules on the TB page. quote: If you found a bug, here's what you need to do: 1. Log this item with a "Found it? Log it!" by clicking on the text link in the upper right hand corner of the Travel Bug's page. 2. When you log it, make sure to enter in the number of the Travel Bug, AND mark a checkbox beside the bug you're logging! If not the log will *not* be updated. 3. Once you claim the travel bug, it goes into your online "inventory." That basically means the next time you log a cache find, you'll have an option to select an item from a list of items that you have to place in the cache. And I thought owls were supposed to be wise... oh, and by the way, why doesn't this "Owl" person have enough guts to address the issue himself? Maybe that six- or seven-year-old kid who's been trying to see where her travel bug is every day for the last year is still waiting. Or maybe just the person who BOUGHT a TB and BOUGHT something to hook onto it and SPENT the time to create it just to have someone steal it away and not letting him know where it is at all. Thank you, mooremonkeys, for having the class to log them.

Searching through the forums I've found a lot of topics about whether getting permission is a good idea and who to talk to, but I have a slightly different question. I think most people will agree that getting permission, if possible, is a good thing. In your experiences hiding Geocaches, have you developed any tips for talking to landowners or park staff about hiding caches on their lands? Any success stories or techniques that really seem to make them realize that Geocaching is a GOOD thing for their land and not a huge risk? I'm thinking along the lines of methods of communcation, things you give them to tell them about Geocaching, anything really. Hopefully we can help each other out; has there ever been a push to get some sort of semi-official landowner information packet about the sport? Maybe I just missed it in the search results... sorry if I did.

Sometimes a quick Internet search will even get you some information. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), for exampled, issued a memo about how Geocaches are supposed to be handled on their land. In short: you don't need to do anything as long as it's not harmful to the area. Not sure for other agencies. National parks are off-limits, of course, but I think other than that the policies vary greatly.

Or... think about it this way. Would Geocaching still appeal to you if the "cache" part was taken out, ie, all that was listed on the site was virtual caches? (Has anyone ever asked this before?) I was mostly saying that if it's getting off your butt and going to a new place, that's option 1. If you like finding the actual cache hidden at the place more, that's option 2 (or 3). Hopefully that's a little clearer.