GPS_Runner
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Posts posted by GPS_Runner
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Confucius' Cat, I think we are on the same page. Thank you for your comments on LE. They are spot on.
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When you say most, would that be closer to 51% or 99%? I've been a cop since '82, which means I've dealt with many different law enforcement agencies for the last 26 years or so. Probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 different departments. None of them use badge numbers. That puts my ratio at 0%. Of course than means there are still gazillions of agencies out there which I haven't had personal contact with. Maybe those are the ones still using the antiquated badge number system?
(On a side note, many of the cops I know, who are exasperated at having to explain that badge numbers went out with Hawaii 5-0, will give citizens their employee ID number when asked for a badge number, rather than attempt to educate someone whose mind is already made up. Personally, I think this only exacerbates the problem, as the citizen will walk away from the encounter thinking that there really is such a thing as badge numbers)
I rarely get involved in these types of discussions. I usually just shake my head and move on... But this just seems like such an odd issue to have caused people to have become "exasperated." The patrol officers where I work have badge numbers. So do all the surrounding cities and counties. My badge had a number too, until I promoted. Now my badge has my rank insignia.
I also happen to know that Los Angeles PD, the California Highway Patrol, and the New York PD all have numbers on their badges (I have seen them). Maybe they are just backward and antiquated departments though.
But to get back to the OP’s topic, Rangers, just like police and sheriffs deputies, are people. We all have baggage, and sometimes it spills over into our work lives. That being said, it does not excuse poor behavior.
I like to assume the best of people. In law enforcement we tend to see people at their worst. Let’s face it, no body calls the police when the love of their life proposes marriage, or their first child is born. Then call us when their drunk husband is breaking down the door, or their kid is wrecking the living room.
I’ll be the first to admit, it gets to you, and every so often you can’t help but unload on some poor person who has gotten them selves into a mess and wants me to get them out. Again, that does not make it right. But we are all people.
In the case of the casual cachers? Who knows. While this may be the first time you have run into this particular ranger, it may be the 200th time the ranger has had to explain that park rules prohibit caching. Again, unloading on someone who has nothing to do with the previous 199 cachers is not productive, but it happens, because rangers are people too.
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I have never seen what was described above but I have come across more than one couple on a blanket and they were not GeoCaching :-)
I am frequently on the local University campus in our city. I have noticed this same thing. I assume that they area all students, because sometimes they appear to be working on very strenuous multiplication...
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I use an HP iPaq rx3115 with a Pharos blue tooth iGPS receiver and GeoScout. The rx3115 is not bad, if a bit on the old/slow side. But the Pharos blue tooth iGPS is great. It gets me to within feet of the cache every time. I also use my Forerunner 305 from time to time.
What I’d like to know is why more people don’t use GeoScout. It has lots of great features. You can enter your geocashing.com user name and password and it will download caches, along with logs, hints, and maps automatically. It also logs your travel bugs and connects to my blue tooth iGPS automatically.
And the other day when I was placing a cache I discovered another cool feature. Averaging. If you stand in one place it will take multiple GPS readings and average them. In just about a minute it had averaged about 150 readings and displays the margin of error in meters. In my case, it was about 1.2 meters.
Seems a lot easier than downloading with this, then converting with that. Not trying to sound like an advert or anything...
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Ok, I'll be the odd man out here. I edit the previous log. I will change the DNF to Fount It and add the find information to the existing DNF text:
_______________________________
This the original DNF text.
EDIT: On 1/1/2000 I returned and located the cache
_______________________________
I do this because it keeps the integrity of the cache log (people can read both the DNF info and the eventual find), and it prevents lots of searching on DNF's to see if I found them later.
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Ok, since this thread was revived from the dead, I thought I'd add my two most recent camo boxes, along with 2.0:
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Go to your local Dollar Store, or .99 Cent Store and look around. You can find all kinds of things there that someone may like. I cache with my kids a lot, so I try to leave things other kids would like (cars, plastic snakes/lizards, flashlights, balls). Try to avoid things like knives because kids love them but can't have them. Food is a bad idea too.
But above all, dont trash a cache with rocks you found on the trail, or the arm of your broken dark glasses. I hate finding garbage inside a cache.
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Dog's find things because they have associated an odor to something positive, as in the case of the above mentioned tennis balls. You can train a dog to find ANYTHING if you associate it with some type of reword. The more they want the reward, the harder/longer they will search. Some dogs will search harder for a toy reward; some will search harder for a food reward. The hard part will be finding an odor that is common among many caches, but not so common that the dog finds it lots of places other than a cache. Paper is an example of something found in many caches, but is so common the dog will find it everywhere.
You could also train your dog to track. Tracking is done by following ground disturbance or providing the dog with a sample of what they are to follow. Since you don't have a sample of the cache before you find it you would have to train them to follow the ground disturbance. That will be a problem for most urban caches and rural caches that are along popular, well traveled trails. Your best bet would be to get the dog close to the cache and have them try to locate human odor or ground disturbance.
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Ok, I think my second attempt went a lot better. Keep in mind, I'm not really too worried about any optic deception, this is more of a pride in my cache thing.
Camouflage 2.0:
And, this is attempts 1 & 2 together:
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I think that Geocaching is possibly one of the most expensive sports to get into i think, next to paintball at least
- You need a GPS (at least a $100 one) plus if your serious you can spend up to $500
- Paper and ink or a palm pilot
- Lots and Lots of gas
- A car if you dont allready have one (I myself am hurrying up on buying one cause im tired of borrowing)
- Goodies
- Materials and things to create your own caches
- Etc Etc.
Im not complaining I gladly spend the money but would you agree that Geocaching is probably the most expensive sport to get into?
Try hang gliding:
My new Wills Wing Sport 2 starts at $4375
High Energy Harness: $750
Reserve parachute: $550
Full Face Helmet: $200
Ram 2500 MegaCab 4x4: $45,000
Lumber rack to carry a 16 foot glider: $600
Lessons so you don't go splat: $1000 (could be more or less depending on how fast you learn)
Ok, I already had the MegaCab, but all the other stuff is a must!
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All I see is a table and some tacky wallpaper. Wheres the cache?
It does kinda look that way, hahaha. I think the camo is more for decoration than any optical deception. I hope to place it near where I hang glide, in the rocks. That way I can fly over it and maybe see people looking on the weekend.Me and my wing:
.JPG)
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This is my first attempt at Camouflage. I have an idea of where I'm going to place it too. The green base coat is a textured Rust-Oleum and the brown is a multi-colored textured Rust-Oleum.
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How about just BLM/State/Federal land? There has to be someplace to see those!? I can't imagine they change that often.
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Is there a place on the net where I can enter GPS coordinates to see if the location is on Federal, State, BLM, or private property? As I drive to the local lake there are several places I see that would be great places to hide a cache. There are no signs or barbed wire fences, but it would be nice to check.
Is there a Google Earth or Virtual Earth overlay/plug-in (or something) for this?
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It appears that there in not enough charicters avalible to enter a TB or coin in GeoScout. Am I missing something?
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Speaking of Jeep TB's, I just released one: Yellow Jeep 4x4 #1598 . But I forgot to get the friggen number! How do I get the number so I can put this Jeep back into circulation? I have read the faq about sending an email to the owner, and I did, but I'm guessing there will not be a reply in the case of the Jeeps. If one of the previous cachers has the number I'd love to add it to the cache where I dropped it.
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I'm new to geocaching, but when I do it is usually with my kids. They love the excitement of finding something that I see as clutter, in the way of closing the lid. I think the swag is a great thing for keeping the interest of the kids, and without their interest, I don't get to geocache. So even though I would prefer not to trade swag, it helps keep me in the game.
I do get rather annoyed at the photocopied money that is so water damaged and crumpled that even the kids see it as litter. I often feel the urge to go through a large cluttered cache that I can hardly close the lid on and remove the things I see as damaged, or without redeeming quality, but I leave that to the cache owner. I don't have any of my own yet, but I'm working on it.
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Speaking from experience, I can tell you that most cops have neither the time or interest to deal with such things. In most cases police will get rid of calls such as this in the quickest way possible; by asking you to leave. Of course if you are foolish enough not to take that opportunity, then officers are forced to move on from there and you get what you deserve. Personally, if the police ask me to leave, I’m takin’ the easy way out: smile and wave.
Geocaching and the Forest Service :angry:
in General geocaching topics
Posted
I agree. And maybe I was not clear, I was never talking about assaulting or intimidating someone, I was talking about telling people they just did something stupid without using all the current politically correct jargon that keeps some stupid people feeling warm and rosey inside.
I think I said this, didn't I? I think I said "that does not make it right", and that it "is not productive". I don't disagree with what you have said. And we do pay WAY too much money for WAY too much government. But I think you miss the point. If you have some evidence to show that rangers are not people I would love to hear it. I'm almost positive that all the rangers I have encountered were real live people. Some of them were nice, others I could tell probably had failed the background and/or psychological testing for police/sheriff jobs. But they were all people.