StormShadow

Hmmm....Is this original??? StormShadow....Shinto God of the Wind....seems a perfect fit. Try to ignore the beer belly on the god...he doesn't have to be in shape, he's a god.

A different thread I was reading said to go to Wal-Mart (obviuosly there will be one nearby) and ask at the photo lab for their empties. As far as the Altoids tin, I was going to glue a magnet into one and turn it into a cheap knock off of a hide-a-key thingee. I wasn't even thinking about the rust factor. And I gues the hide-a-key thingees are not that expensive anyway.

I know the frustration you're feeling. I went out and spent about two-three hours collecting info for 2 virtuals and then both were shot down. It was a humbling experience. One, I completely messed up because it was a commercial establishment in Carlisle, PA that we all think of as a cultural landmark. However, it clearly violates virtual rules against commercial establishments. The second one, deals with a historic marker and was archived because it was easy to find the answer on the net and wasn't "special." I'm working on retooling this one. Anyway, point of the story is, I've decided to leave virtuals alone and concentrate on traditionals. There are fewer rules and the test that the approver applies to your cache is not subjective as is the case with virtuals.

Cool. Gravity Hill looks pretty cool. What about the caches that are loctaed in the park itself? Are they good caches? The reason I ask is that I'll probably be introducing newbies to geocaching and want to make sure they have a good first find.

I'm in the Greater Carlisle Area (that's right, Carlisle is big enough to have a Greater Area!) Anyway, after the end of July I'll be headed out on a lot more caches in South Central (PA that is.) Let me know and we'll hit some of the ones on this side of the river.

I'll be headed to Shawnee, outside Bedford PA, for a family reunion in early August. Has anyone done the caches there? Also, are there any in the area (20 mile radius)that you would suggest?

Here's an article that appeared in The Patriot News (Harrisburg) this week. Technological breakthrough Tuesday, July 08, 2003 BY PAT CARROLL Of The Patriot-News If you want something more out of your trip to the woods than trees and flowers and bears, you might try the new game of geocaching. (Warning: It's an equipment sport, and one that involves using the Internet.) Here's the idea: Somebody hides a package in the woods, somebody else tries to find it. Now here's the idea on steroids: Somebody hides a package inside a thorny, brambly shrub in the middle of bushwhacking country, takes a read on a handheld navigation device, then goes home and posts the coordinates on the Internet at www.geocaching.com. Somebody else logs on, gets the coordinates and busts their brains trying to find it. If they do, they might put it back, or take it and leave an item of similar utility: a music CD for a music CD, a book for a book, and so on. Joel Rackley, a software analyst, thought it might be something fun to do with his son Brendan, an eighth-grader at East Pennsboro Middle School. So for Christmas, Brendan got a 5.3-ounce Garman eTrex, a handheld navigation device linked to the U.S. Global Positioning System. GPS is a system developed by the Department of Defense to provide navigation signals from satellites 12,000 miles above Earth. There are two signals: an encrypted military code and an open free signal for civilians to use to determine positions on land or sea. Most GPS use is by civilians, in everything from automotive navigation systems to wilderness hiking to . . . geocaching. This spring, Staos and Neonnoodle (aka Rackley and Rackley) cached a green ammo box full of CDs at North 40.16.413 (that's north 40 degrees, 16 minutes, 41 seconds) by West 076.56.39, near a tree in Adams Ricci Park, East Pennsboro. They posted it on the Web with the warning: "VERY HEAVY OVERGROWTH during summer, lots of thorns. Wear long clothes." The Rackleys had already made several finds. This was their first hide "It was pretty cool seeing more people come to our cache in three months than some other local caches in nine months," Brendan said. "I think a lot of people were surprised at how hard it was to get to. If you look at it on a map, it looks like just another part of Adams-Ricci, but if you go there, you will have to bushwhack a good 100 feet before you get to the cache site." Last month, a cache-searcher whose Web user name is jt-3rd posted, "Tried this one about three weeks ago. Considering ourselves fearless of any Geocache, we will have to admit this one SLAUGHTERED us. Sticker bushes? Ha! Those might as well have been the concertina barbed wire on a Federal supermax prison." This week, a more experienced hunter code-named Columbo said, "Required some major bushwhacking due to heavy undergrowth. Camouflage was not needed to hide this one in the summer -- nature has taken care of that. Took a CD, left a CD and signed the log. Thanks for the cache." The log is part of the geocache ethic. Actually, the cache can be just a logbook in a waterproof container, with information from the person who founded the cache and notes from those who discover it. At the least, according to the protocol, a visitor should note the date and time. Geocaching.com has a substantial log of frequently asked questions about the game, and a buyer's guide to GPS units. Buxley's Geocaching Waypoint, a site that indexes caches, puts Pennsylvania 11th among the states in density of hidden treasures, with 1,402 caches published. Buxley maps them all, with links to the directions on geocaching.com. PAT CARROLL: 255-9149 or pcarroll@patriot-news.com

Great...you guys have firmed my resolve. I'll plan to unleash a series of roughly 7-8 caches in early August. Thanks for your support.

Interesting theories. I'm pretty sure I'm ok as far as the owner of the copyright is concerned because you can't suck blood from a turnip but I'm just unsure if geocaching.com has any regs/rules against it.

So if I want to set a series of themed caches based on locales in a popular series of books, would I have problems getting approved because of copyright implications? I would intend on naming the caches the names of places in the fictional books. Any ideas?

Hope this works.

Here in South Central PA, we have Lebanon Bologna, Shoo-Fly Pie, and Scrapple. Plus about 50 types of chips and pretzels.