JustAFan

I just got back from a trip to Illinois. I didn't get in a lot of caching, but managed to do 3 things worth mentioning. First, I found my 100th cache. (GC170YE - Happy - Cove - Lucky : )) Second, I found the 3rd oldest active cache in the world (GC28 - Beverly). Third, I introduced many relatives to geocaching while I was there.

One last statement from me. The truth is, NO ONE will ever get the chance to clain a FTF on my caches before it is published on GC.com. I suppose someone could get it by accident. Or a reviewer could find it. But, I will never give out information that gives anyone an advantage in finding a cache. It goes against my sense of fair play. I put nice prizes (I think) in my caches for FTF. If I give away the cords before the cache is published, I might just as well give the geocoin, or whatever, to my buddy and not bother with the cache. There are several topics about "The degradation of our game". This is just one more thing that taints the game for neophytes like myself. It reduces certain aspects of the game to an "old boys club" where you can get advantage by being buddies with fellow cachers. The experienced guys get planty of advantage just through their experience. Why do they need to set up caches just so a buddy can get a FTF? It cheapens the value of being FTF. Why not just let them log a find without actually going to the cache? From what I see on other threads, this is happening as well. Also, how is it that many cachers have statistics that show a different number of finds than unique caches? It is very disturbing that there is such a culture of acceptance of doing whatever you want to do in geocaching. I cannot quite get a handle on why it is OK to do things here that would be totally unacceprtable in any other aspect of life.

Here's the thing about it: I recently hid a series of 11 caches. Based on your sytem some of them would have been 4's or 5's. I thought the hardest of them rated a 3. On 10 of 11, 90% of the finders did not see any of them to be anything but "easy finds". Even the hardest one, which would have been a 5 on your system, at least half of the finders said "easy find". I set the initial difficulty where I think it should be, based on my own idea of how hard it will be to find. After several people search, I evaluate the ratio of smiles to frowns, read all the logs for opinions and then adjust the difficulty accordingly. It doesn't really matter what I think of the difficulty. It doesn't matter what any formula says the difficulty should be. Some caches are inherently easy to find than others, for purey unmeasurable reasons. The exact same hide could differ in difficulty based on the ambient conditions. Let's say you have a perfect little hole in a tree and you disguse the cache perfectly and you cover it with all manner of things. If there is one tree in a field and one hole in the tree, it doesn't matter how you disguise it, the cacher will go straight to that hole every time. If there are 20 trees within 3 metres of the hide and each tree has 5 potential hidey holes, then it may be nearly impossible to find the disguised, covered cache. In the end, I still think it is best for the owner to make his best abritrary assessment and revise as hard feedback comes in. Just my thoughts.

For what it is worth, at the time I had originally posted this topic, I had never even attempted a FTF. Since that time I actually tried one. I searched for 30 minutes along with a bona-fide FTF hound. No luck. Later that night, the owner double checked his posted coords. They were not posted correctly. I was searching 185 metres from the actual hide. It was 9:30 at night, the wind chill was -30C and I darn near got frostbite for my trouble. The owner nonchalantly posted a "sorry guys", and someone else got the FTF shortly after. I emailed the guy who was hunting beside me and he said it doesn't upset him. It happens all the time and it's just part of tryingto get FTF's. He should know, He hae 160 of them. If I ever had any desire to be a "FTF hound" I was broken of it that night. My only purpose to making the original post was that my curiosity was aroused. As an observer, it hardly seemed fair that there was a way to get advanced looks at actual coords for unpublished cachess. I am very new to this "sport" and would like to understand the rules and common practices. Though I have only been geocaching since Dec 9, 2007, I have made 12 hides. I thought it was imperative that I get he coords correct and give non-deceptive descriptions and hints. I did a series where the final was a calculation based on numbers collected at 10 other caches in the series. From the time I submitted it until the time someone found the final, I was on pins and needles, worrying whether the math was going to work as posted. Because of the extra concern I had, the math worked, but only because I triple and quadruple checked it before submitting. From what I have seen here, I should have eased my mind by having a few beta testers give it a try in advance. I never dreamed that this was an acceptable practice. I didn't know that it wasn't even a concern when you didn't get it right. Now I know. I will only use the basic rules for this sport as guidelines. I will squelch my tendency to participate in "fair play" practices. Uhh, I think I will also kick my golf ball back onto the fairway next time I hit it into the rough. Most times, I'm the only one who's gonna know. I think I'm gonna look for a lottery event to attend. It would be much more lucrative to get advance notice of lottery numbers than geocaching coordinates. Thanks for the readjustment of my morality.

I have quite the opposite problem, I logged a DNF on a cache. THe owner took issue with my logging DNF as she felt I didn't give it enough effort and she didn't like the DNF posted. I DNF'd 3 of her caches that day. The first one because I am an idiot and couldn't find a magnetic container on a guard rail, even though 3 other people did find it. The second was because the cache was missing and 3 or 4 people dnf'd. The last one ( the one she took issue with) was listed as a "Grab and Go" and had "available in winter" as an attribute. As I have been told by experienced cachers, the snowflake icon really means "winter friendly". The day I went hunting this there was 12" of fresh snow. Though the cache was only 80 metres from the parking and, according to the instructions, you had to cross creek by following a trail to a crossing point. After wading the snow for 150 metres I still had not found the creek crossing. As I was only prepared for "Grab & goes" that day I gave up before actully reaching ground zero. My point in posting at all was to point out that this cache was not as "winter friendly" as I thought it was going to be. She Emailed me and asked why I had logged a dnf. I replied with the reasoning. Then she deleted my post with no warning. What is happening when we can't even log a DNF without controversy?

I read the following blurb on an event cache page among the reasons to attend: "You might get the inside scoop on upcoming caches! " This is kind of disturbing to me. I always knew that some people may have friends who told them things about new hides, but an advertised way to get inside information? I just don't know about this. I'd like to think that the moment I see a cache on my notification, I am getting this at the same time everyone else does. If I had inside information, I definitely would not try to use that to be first to find. What do you think?

Here's my personal take on this. After the initial investment of GPSr, Palm computer and backpack, Geocaching is an inexpensive recreation. I am not poor. I am not rich. I CAN afford to go to the dollar store, Walmart, and Princess Auto to buy some trinkets. My budget is someplace like 50 cents to 4.00 per item, mostly around a dollar. If I go to a cache that has junk in it, I trade all the junk for "expensive" dollar store stuff. It makes me feel good to leave something for the next guy, especially considering all the kids who geocache. I went to a cache on saturday which was an ammo box. The "treasures" it contained numbered about 20, and the total value of these items was about $1.25. I pretty much filled it up with better stuff.... A magician trick I found on sale for $1, A chamois sponge I got for $1.49, a couple of hot wheels at $1.27 each, two key rings at $1 each, and a sewing repair kit for $1. For $7, I felt really good about the whole thing. I felt like I had done my part to maintain the fun in the sport. I found 10 caches that day, most of which were micros. In total, I left about $12.00 of stuff. I took home a geocoin and a couple of cheap trinkets I had little use for. I spent about 6 hours caching and had fun the whole time (except one DNF.... Oh yeah, that one was fun too). What kind of hobby can you have that is that cheap? To me, it matters little if I get any "treasures". I am 50 years old and buy the things I want. If I was 10 and had just found an ammo can after a big hunt, I'd really like finding a treasure. Sure, people abuse the system. Sure people feel a need to get ahead. It still doesn't make it any less pleasurable for me when I think of the kid who goes home with the magician's trick I placed in the cache. Or the mom who sticks the sewing repair kit in her purse and uses it to repair something that got torn in a briar patch. I truely think that it is still "more blessed to give that to receive." Phil Blasdel JustAFan

Why are TB's nearly twice as much in Canada? I thought the dollar was on par.

I just opened the page to one of my caches and, what do you know.... There's an Amazon.com advertisement there. It seems the only commercial ads allowed are ones that Groundspeak gets paid for. AMAZING! I didn't ask for an advertisement on my page. I never thought anything about it until now.

This is a long and convoluted story, but you asked for it. A decade or so ago, I was using IRC (newnet) to chat. I met someone (LadyWind) in 30schat, who I ended up dating for a short time. During that time, she dubbed me "Sir Philip". As often happened in the early days of chat, there was a big fight and I pretty much made a fool of myself.The name I had chosen made it seem like my ego wasi n control, and it stood in the way of making amends. I came back and apologized and changed my name to JustPhil. In the process of healing the wounds, I started seeing another woman (zeek) from IRC who shortly became my wife. Her geocaching name is FluffyWilson, which is another story. I moved from Southern Illinois to Southern Ontario. Segue to a time before I began geocaching.... I was a big stock car fan and participated in the racing message boards. I was a qutie vocal participant and differentiated myself from the drivers by using the "just" theme, calling myself JustAFan. At that time I stated an email account, justafan2@rogers.com. It only seems natural to use that name on geocaching as I have used that name for about 7 or 8 years.

I am another newbie. I have had my Garmin etrex Vista HCx for a week now. I was pretty appalled to find that, after spending almost $300 for the unit, I was going to have to spend almost that much more for maps to make it usable. Ibycus has bridged that gap. I have loaded the complete mapset on my unit more or less successfully. I have issues with missing tiles, but I think they are probably the same ones other people have already mentioned. The whole process is not very intuitive, not because of the maps, but because Mapsource is just not so easy to figure out. I have a wishlist item that I don't think I've seen here. I bought my GPS for outdoor adventures. I have begun geocaching, but also want to use it for fishing. Is there any chance that there is data available to add contour lines to lakes? It would be very convienient to have this included in your maps. Lastly, I am (lke some other posters) very interested in having the ontario roads labelled. I would be a willing contributor to the purchase access to the data. I am certainly willing to contribute $20. Thanks, Ibycus for all your work and dedication.