Team Four Paw

"Game" being subjective sure.. The way I see your analogy is that you would be competing against yourself and using a another player to compare. It wouldn't really be a competition between the two of you if the other player doesn't feel the same way though. Yes, "Geocaching" can be whatever. Geocaching as it relates to geocaching.com I think is something else altogether?

I've been thinking about this for the last couple of days and I've come to the realization that geocaching is simply not a game. I know I've called it that before and for the most part I believed that. Geocaching on some level appears to be more of a religion to some as they try to push their way onto others and then get all defensive when you push back. Who really has the right to dictate how I play the game? Especially when the goal in the end is the same which is to find something... But then again is it the find or is it the journey? But wait there's more.... What is geocaching as it relates to geocaching.com? Geocaching.com They have a means to log your finds online, Online Journal? They have a means to post pictures of your adventures and or finds, Online Photo Album? There are Travelbugs.. Well I'm not sure where this one falls, Still a Journal of sorts. Terracaching.com (simply used for comparative purposes) A point system that awards people for hiding and finding. A log system much like a journal, but more for the finding portion of the point system. A rating system which supplements the hiding portion of the point system. No online photo album, etc.. Which one seems more like a game? To me.. Terracaching is a game. There is a point system that's sole purpose is to breed competition amongst the players. Geocaching (as in geocaching.com) is simply an online journal to record your day to day geocaching adventures. A smiley simply represents a find and nothing more. Sure you can say you have X amount more smileys than someone else, but there is no system in place to level the playing field. I mean how is it fair that someone say in Florida or California where micros are rampant that has more finds than someone in the hill country where there are more long hike caches? Now in the past Groundspeak has said that geocaching.com is not for competition. If they did we would probably see something more along the lines of what terracaching is now today. The funny part to me at least is that these people that are complaining about the rules and guidelines saying it isn't fair to pad numbers with pocket caches, temp caches, or whatever seem to have this idea that geocaching.com is a game/competition where the number of finds is your "score". Who are these people competing against and why are they using such an arbitrary number to base this on? If they are not competing what are they complaining for? "Geocaching" can be whatever you want it to be. That is something you decide for yourself and by no means should that be pushed onto others. What I don't understand is geocaching as it relates to geocaching.com. Is geocaching.com a game or journal? If geocaching.com is a game where does one keep score, surely it can't be with the smiley count? If geocaching.com is a journal, why not support/implement features that further what's already in place? I use to think it was a Game, but now after reading all the message recently, more bad than good my stance is clearly on geocaching.com being a journal and nothing more. Now, I didn't really think out this post so I’m interested in seeing what other people think and maybe point out the holes in my line of thought here. So please no personal attacks, Open civil discussion only please... if for some reason this post angers you.. type what you want to say in notepad or something similar. Wait an hour, re-read your message. If you still feel the same way then post away.

I use NVU to create the pages, then do manual editing to make it work with GC. Here are two simple ones I put together. Nothing fancy. Just simple. A Dog's will Breeze the TravelBug

So Far all these seem to work.

Thanks! Looks like Strike-thru, Underline, and color no longer work. Bold, Italics, and URL seem to be fine though.

I would search, but... What bbcode tags are allowed in the log notes? I know is allowed, doesn't seem to work. Is there a list? Maybe a legend along with the smilies should be added? Thanks,

A new stick sounds nice. Depending on the forum I'm on I use either the one on the left or one of these two.

Nevermind...

With any dog not just boxers you need to follow the alpha rules so the dog knows who the leader/alpha figure is and in return they'll respect you. Never call your dog to you to punish or repremend them. They'll start to think that if they come to you they are in trouble and they'll never come when called. Always be positive and happy when you recall your dog and give them plenty of praise when they get to you even if you feel goofy. To recall your dog you need to work on a lead line (25-50ft rope). Let them run out the line and get distracted with something. Call your dog then yank on the rope. Run backwards 10-15 paces as needed in a very excited manner to get the dog to chase you. When they start to run towards you put your hand holding the lead line behind your back and your treat hand in front of you so the dog has something to focus on. Two hands in front can confuse them. Do this several times even if the dog starts to understand. Eventually they will anticpate the yank and turn and come to you before you pull on the rope. Work with them in small sessions 10 to 20 minutes at a time. Make it fun for the dog and don't over do it. Breeze was extremely wild and hyper when we first got her. If she got out she would be 200 yards down the road in a blink of an eye. Now she stays in the yard off leash walks with me around the corner to the mailbox. Out in the woods she is the same. Never gets more than 30ft away. Occassionly I use the beep collar to remind her she is too far ahead but mostly I just say her name and she stops and waits for me to catch up. The most and effective part of her training is the alpha rules. They need to know and respect the alpha leader before anything else.

This is Breeze, a barely year old Lab. I don't go caching without her. We've found almost 50 caches together now since I got her back in early November. She is now starting to understand what caching is all about and for the most part will take me right to the cache. The other night after finding cache and another find.. and finally, Breeze after a long weekend of camping and caching. She slept all the way home.

Amazing what a little love can do. The first pics compared to the last shows a completely different dog. Sirus is all smiles now and looks much happier. It's going to be tough to let him go. I was in your situation back in November. We found a lost dog with no collar while out caching as well. The pup followed us all the way back to the car and as we loaded up he just layed down behind the car and wouldn't budge. We gave him some water and food. He looked a little malnurhised but wasn't in any serious condidtion. Given that we were close to a subdivision I assured my woman that the dog would find his way home. Her eyes swelled up and said "You're just going to have to leave me here cause I'm not leaving this dog..." So she sat in the back of the SUV in between my dog Breeze and this lost pup. They were playing a little too rough and Breeze with a dominant disposition was feeling some infringment. I called the local SPCA and got their address. It took the whole 30 minute trip to convince my woman that we were not keeping this dog. Two cats and a dog is too much hair for me to contend with. Although I may sound a little mean, I would probably cry like a little baby if I ever lost Breeze. We adopted her back in early November and that dog has my heart completely. Just look at my profile. Anyways, It was very kind of you to rescue Sirus. Should be more people in this world with as much compassion.

I miss my feeds...

Not sure if any of the local/state site admins watch this thread, but houstoncachers.org (Southeast Texas Geocachers) no longer exists. So if you've linked to it you may want to remove it. http://web.hgcs.org (Houston GeoCaching Society) should be the replacement.

Houston GeoCaching Society http://web.hgcs.org Houston (SouthEast Texas) Direct replacement/merging of Houstoncachers.org.

The cache pages are so wide now they cover up the background images people commonly use to spruce up the caches.

That is the same mount I use on my bike.. and I would have to say that its pretty tuff. At least for me. I take jumps and hop over logs with out much trouble. Just be sure that the unit is clipped in. You may also need to put in a foam spacer between the batteries and the cover. Otherwise they fit loose and the first big bump you hit the unit will shut off. The handle bar mount came with the Etrex bike mount I bought. The 60CS bracket came from my auto navigation kit I bought with beanbag mount. Since they use the same mechanism for mounting I can use either my Etrex or 60CS in both my beanbag and bike mounts.

If that adapter uses the Prolific chipset then using an updated driver will most likely fix the problem. The driver I'm using right now that works like champ is this one. http://www.zapp.ro/help/download/?.content.language=en I had an older driver and the same thing was happening to me.

If I hand you a cookie you can decide whether to eat it or not. If by "the user" you mean "everyone who uses the site" then yes, I suppose if everyone who uses the site didn't want to use filtering than it would be void. Well, you may not find the relevance but based on the billion posts on "dog friendly," "handicapped acessible," etc. posts in the past I believe this functionality has been highly requested and useful for many people. It does seem that user defined viewing of attributes would be the best implementation at this point. As for pretty icons, I'm rather fond of well designed and understood eye candy so you can quickly glance at a listing and know what is going on. I suppose if enough people do want ugly icons that aren't very useful, I can add that functionality as well. I use The Selector icons on the few cache pages I have.. So I'm not apposed to this concept. I'm totally for better filtering options, but I don't see that happening.

If the intent for these attributes is for more extensive filtering wouldn't it be counter productive to give the user the option of using these attributes or not? If the user is not using the attributes than it would seem any kind of filtering would be void. Other than putting pretty icons on a cache page I really don't see the relevance in using this concept.

Because we'll be able to search and sort on the attributes that are on geocaching.com. Only be useful if everyone updated their cache pages. Until then it is completely pointless. I mean people can't even seem submit their caches with the correct type ie: traditional, multi, etc... What makes you think they will get the attributes right? They are going to see all these radial buttons to choose from and have a major break down... Don't forget the whole moral issue here. This whole idea was ganked without so much a recognition for the originator. Texas is probably the second most active state right behind California. These actions have pretty much pissed off a whole state.

I love those guys 9key and Prime Approver. They do an awesome job. I think my intentions here is more or less to have people be more mindful when they submit their caches. This is absolutely not the best way to do it.. but today it's raining and I just wanted to stir the pot a little.

When is a multi a multi or a puzzle a puzzle? I see so many caches nowadays that are labeled as traditional when they clearly should be something else. I mean if there is more than one leg, ie "Go to the coords above, find some numbers do some math, etc" This is a multi.. Yet for some reason its labeled as a Traditional. Same goes for the puzzle caches. If I have to do anything other than go to the posted coords then to me this is a puzzle cache and should be labeled with the ?. With all these caches mislabeled its makes any filtering mechanism in any app pointless. Now I'm not saying I dislike multis or puzzles, etc.. All caches types have their place with me in which I enjoy.. I'm just saying if I don't want to do a particular cache type I should be able to filter what I want. Am I the only that feels this way? Speak up.. !

Just for the record.. I was dragged kicking and screaming back to the car. I wanted to go for Four Wheel Power. We were so close... Whats another mile in the woods ??? I mean, all I heard was Michelle yelling at me to stop making the hog noises... sigh.... Whats that guy's sig.. ? Don't fear the things that go bump in the night for those that will hunt you, will hunt you silently...??

I plan on being there.. lots of fun...

Volcano Cam ( Mt. St. Helens) http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/