shunra

Ah, I now understand why a previous comment I made was misunderstood. I never contrasted the welfare of dogs with the welfare of humans. They go hand in hand. It goes without saying that the safety and welfare of all family members come first. But family members include humans AND canines. What should NOT be a consideration are our personal sentiments, if we want to make a *right* decision. Getting or keeping a dog when you cannot provide him with a suitable environment is bad for all persons involved. A suitable environment, in this case, would imply comprehensive family retraining. If Criminal for some reason should find this impossible to provide, or if any of human family members would be uncooperative, it would not be fair to Conner AND to Patch to keep them together. But only Criminal can assess his situation and the feasibility of a comprehensive family retraining, and it is not up to us to make recommendations. I am sorry if I stepped on somebody's toes - that wasn't my intention. I was trying this whole discussion out of the who-is-to-blame-and-who-will-now-be-punished sphere, and pint out that we have a household crisis here between various family members, and that the best decision must be made for all family members, REGARDLESS of how we may FEEL about it.

Thanks, EraSeek! Is that the first 20 minutes of using WAAS ever, or the first 20 minutes in a certain area, or the first 20 minutes of WAAS use on a specific trip? Today I cached without WAAS, and I had stable readings, down to one digit number of feet from a cache, and no jumps. I now understand that my use of "uninitialized" WAAS was the reason for the jumpiness last time. On my next trip, I''ll initialize it as you say, and check out the difference. When caching, do you have WAAS on all the time, or only near the cache, where accuracy really matters?

I've been trying to figure out how to do that.... But IV-Warrior was faster - that's the one.

Greenacarina, I have placed my 4 caches (and found my first 129) with Magellan Blazer 12, which also has only two decimnal digits, and isn't upgradeable either. What I have done is by pointing this out as an extra challenge on the cache page, and by asking the FTF to do a three-digit measurement. You will then be able to updte the coordinates later!

That's not extreme at all, Runhills, that's the only proper way of dealing with this kind of problem. There is no point in casting the blame on the dog, or on the owner. It's a family problem (the dog being PART of the family), and family therapy is in order, if the family members can handle it. From what I read, I have no doubt that Criminal loves Patch, and will do everything possible. The question, of course, is whether the rest of the family is as comitted to Patch as Criminal is. If this is not the case, Patch may be better of in another environment. A dog with the breeding background like Patch will have no problem adjusting to a new pack. His welfare should be the weightiest factor here.

Two few days ago, someone with 0 finds or hidesfailed in his first-ever attempt to do a cache. It was a terrain 5-star cache, and I'm not surprised he didn't get there. It was hidden by nobody less than EraSeek, who has the best hiding spots in the Pacific Northwest. This would-be cacher let out such a rant, and claimed on the basis of hearsay that the place would actually be private property, etc.. As a result EraSeek has archived his cache, which I find very sad. Check out the Hike to Ika Island cache for details.

Runhills is right, Criminal. On the authority of my wife, who used to be a labrador breeder and trainer, and who has written two books (well received, but in Hebrew, so I won't bother you with copies) about raising dogs and about dogs in a family-with-children context, you need to do either of the following two things, before it is too late for Patch to be socialized in a suitable pack: Either go ahead and find him a place where he has plenty of space to run, and with people who have experience with dogs, or find some "family retraining" for yourself, your family and your dog together. To put it very bluntly: Patch is not the problem, and the same thing is likely to happen again with any dogs you may ever have, without appropriate human behavior, which is a learned skill, and Connor is not too young to learn it. So if you were thinking about having a dog at some point in the future, you'd better not amputate Patch from his beloved family, but get the rest of your family to understand alpha orders. The involvement of all your family members in this is very important, because new attitudes will have to be learned by ALL the humans, and by Patch. Dena says: " working with that kind of a dog as a family can be an incredibly enriching educational and emotional experience. What you'll all learn will be applicable to all your other relationships in your life, in addition to making Patch a liveable pet. However, you'd have to be willing to commit to that, despite the extreme social pressure in case of a biting dog." We both hope that you'll take the harder course, because it would be better for all, in the long run - We hope you can stick the course, but wouldn't judge you if you decided to find another home for Patch. It's a tough situation, but not hopeless.

That's pretty fast, too. Yours is a virtual, so I suppose that the approval routine can naturally skip a few steps. So in your case, more of the credit goes to the FTF :-)

Yesterday night at 9 pm I was FTF on a new cache in my area, and this morning I got a message from the cache owner, saying: I replied that I have to share the honor with the fast approvers of my area. My own caches have never ever been found within 5 hours upon me having logged the hide. Have yours?

Writing SL on a log sheet is a bit silly, isn't it?

Maybe each of the team members has an individual handle as well? If not, it seems utterly silly to do it that way. There is a husband-and-wife team near where I live, where he posts all the logs, and then he adds another log under his wife's handle, which is mostly just 'see XX's post', but sometimes a bit more. From the content it is obvious that it's the same person writing both logs (sometimes referring to what would be herself in the third person, and to her husband in the first, etc.). At least it allows both of them to go out (and log) individually every now and then, which they do...

If you're in a location where your receiver can't pick up the signals from the WAAS satellites in can make sense to turn WAAS off. Having it turned on uses more power and reduces the number of regular GPS satellites that you can receive. For more on this see this web site. Thanks, LG, PDOP and RK. I read the information about WAAS you linked to. Would it be correct to summarize and say that (1) WAAS uses batteries, (2) it wastes two channels, (3) doesn't work anyway when in battery saving mode (but still wastes more power and channels?), (4) needs wide open areas, and (5) was not meant to improve accuracy in the first place, so we'd better turn it off, except on the water, perhaps?

What's the added value of the additional info in the GPX files? Is it only relevant for PDA-users?

Today was my first day out caching with my new Map76S, which is a significant upgrade from the Magellan Blazer12, which I used for my first 129 finds. The Blazer12 lacked a final digit, and coordinates had to be enteres as DD MM.MM, rather than in the more accurate DD MM.MMM format, which is used by all contemporary GPSrs. Likewise, when zooming in on a cache, the smallest unit was 0.01 mile, and next was 0.00 - no distance in ft was displayed. When I got to 0.00, I knew I was time to start looking around. With my new Map76S, the accuracy is supposed to be much better - in terms of marking the location itself, as well as in terms of guiding me to that location. However, what do I make of it that when I get to - say - 30 ft from the cache and then stand still, the unit still perceives me as moving (in the best case) or jumping dozens of feet back and forth? This was reflected on all the screens, including the breadcrumbs on the map, butd by the direction of the arrow on the electronic compass, which I switched on every now and then in order to see in which direction I should walk those last few feet. Switching WAAS on or off made no difference. (What's the purpose of switching WAAS on or off anyway? If it's an improvement, why not have it always on?) Does anyone have some good ideas for me about how to use a MODERN GPS? Thanks!

And the term Markwell? - I've been wondering about that. Is it names after one of our members, or idid one of our members choose the name by way of a statement? PS - I'm not provoking, I really don't know...

I disagree completely... Those who want to talk should talk, and those who want to cache should cache. I too find the most-posting races bizarre, to say the least, but then there are other people who find geocaching bizarre, so what the heck? Each to their own!

Hmm. I suppose you're right, that wouldn't be legal. OK, I'm retracting my suggestion.

A strange surprise I had was finding out that the logs of one particular geocacher, whom I know as very eloquent in these forums, in his own cache descriptions and in his on-line logs, consisted only of the date and his handle, no text whatsoever.

(grammar corrected) What are these words of wisdom coming from you all of a sudden, RK? You ought to make that one your sig!

I like that comment. The log being the reward for the hider for his efforts. I certainly have enjoyed most of the logs that cachers left for me! (But what do we do when our fingers are frozen? )

I have one cache within 5 minutes walking distance, and almost within view. However, it doesn't show up at that location as a waypoint on the GC site, since it's the final cache of a 9-part multi, the first of which ia 2 miles away. When I did it, I was amused to find myself circuling around my house, and then zooming in on it - almost!

It's surprising how often I need to say that I do not object to the term 'Bedouins', and that I do not find the term offensive as such, but the implication that they would be more inclined than others to pillage a cache. Labelling normal words as slurs and replacing them by other normals words would indeed be PC. But I am probably as anti-PC as you can get; I don't even have a problem with the N-word. But when you make a blanket implication about a population group like in this cache description, than that is objectionable. I hope I'm getting the point accross, this time. I apologize for not having being more eloquent before.

So far, only people not familiar with the region claim it's a non-issue. So far, only two people from the region have spoken up: One guy actively defending the notion that Bedouins would be thieves and that the comment would actually have added value, and myself, saying that it is not true, and not acceptible. So far, we locals cannot agree And therefore, I am asking that the Admins impose objective standards, which will apply to everyone.

Then you agree to the essence of my point. Not at all! I give most forum members lots of slack. Most of them seem to think that it's a non-issue. But I am from there, I do understand the complexities, and I think it's unacceptable. I didn't ask for input from forum members, I asked for input from the Admins. Perhaps this was the wrong way of doing so. But even so, instead of just saying that it's a non-issue, why not ask the cache owner to remove the implication about Bedouins behing thieves? I don't think so. Why? That's exactly my point. I would never do it either, and I would be very disappointed if the Admins would allow it. You have no idea. Most bedouins are dirt poor and live in slums, being forbidden to roam (this is true almost everywhere in the Middle East). The richer ones, however, are just as modern and technology-adept as you or I are. That, however, is not the issue here.

Yes, indeed, claiming about a Time Square cache: We took a chance with this cache site. There are signs of New Yorkers in the area. Therefore we kept the cache contents to a minimum. might upset some New Yorkers, and rightly so, as this clearly would imply that they are more of a hazard than other geomuggles. The point is however not how THEY would react, but that nobody would ever think of writing such an offensive thing in a cache description. Or can anyone find me a reference to any reference to a local population by an ethnic name or a toponym, in a cache description, in an equally derogatory sentence? Saying such a thing out of a certain mindset is in a way understandable, but trying to justify it is reprehensible. And unbelieveable. And to Bender: I'd like to say that I *am* from there, and I *am* offended. But this shouldn't be about me, but about allowing such blanket implications.