va griz

Going only by what's presented here, it sounds like a bad idea. Not because of the danger to the cacher, that's his/her choice. Rather it's the danger to geocaching's reputation when* a muggle, who did not have a say in the matter, gets a windshield/screen full of tupperware. *I say when, not if, because Murphy's law applies to caches too. Sooner or later every container will be dropped.

I think a subset of this is: 9a. I complained about xxx and now people are complaining about ME!! No fair! When I asked for your opinion I wanted sympathy, not criticism.

Maybe you could look at it as an opportunity to do a favor to other local cachers. After you go through the inquisition a couple times, and the city realizes how benign the activity is, you could come up with the surprising suggestion that they could save a lot of time and trouble by passing a one time policy instead of approving each cache. You could be a caching hero!

Your profile has the caches you have found. I did the same as others, and clicked on that just to see if you were close. Low and behold, all your finds had a red check by them (meaning I have found them too). So it seems like we have a lot of HR cachers here. You will like Newport News Park.

Logically I should get one of those smaller GPS units.

Maybe you were being chased by bigfoot or zombies and had run out of ammo . You knew there was a cache just a couple steps down the trail. You reach it and pop it open hoping to find at least one more round that will chamber in your gun . And miracle of miracles, right on top of the swag is......a log book so you can record your demise at the hands of .... Oh wait, you asked for a good reason. Never mind, nothing to see here.

I guess I can't read properly. On the one hand you say you have found a way to place the cache and still be clear of the existing caches. (Nice container by the way) On the other you seem to have gone to a lot of effort and justification to find a hypothetical way to get those existing caches archived. If it's the former you have my support and admiration.

I wondered the same thing. One of my other hobbies is shooting. I typically have quite a bit of ammunition stored up, some in cache-like plastic containers and some even in ammo cans. (You folks do know that the military uses them for ammo before they sell them for caches, right?) I've never had a round go off that wasn't in a gun at the time. As everybody else has said, it's against the guidelines and a poor idea in general. But I suspect a disposable lighter is more dangerous to a cacher.

They may have been placed without permission but you have now verified that they are there with permission. Unless you get the administration to revoke the permission* I don't see why they would be archived. *You may well be able to force that issue, but my 2 cents worth: I agree with the reviewer, working behind the scenes to get someone elses cache archived is underhanded.

I DNFed a cache lately, an easy one. When I went to log it, I discovered the pattern you've probably seen before: A couple finds a week for a long time, then no entries for over a month. So of course I figured there were some unlogged DNFs. I'm not trying to change anybodies habits, just wondering about the ratio of unlogged to logged DNFs. So this is the place for best guesses, how many actual DNFs does one logged DNF represent?

The ones that fit that criterion for me are caches in trashy locations and ones hidden on porta pottys. The most disappointing cache I found was one that had a clever write up and a couple finders commented on "good camo". It was in the woods so I thought it sounded good. Turned out to be a pill bottle hidden in an old cut off beer can. Not a terrible cache, I just felt let down.

Recently I had to archive a cache. It was a bit too fragile for it's fairly public spot and was damaged too much to leave it out. So I had the chance to compare the logs to the signatures. There were 57 online logs, three of which I couldn't match to physical signatures, and two of those were by the same cacher with one of them logged after it was archived. As near as I can tell there were 59 different signatures on the log sheet. I consider that pretty close and was happy there were not more smilies that hadn't signed the log sheet. The one that bothered me most was the FTF, who found it before it was published, took the FTF coin (not mine, I felt pretty bad about that) and despite the fact that he claimed to be a cacher never logged it online and doesn't seem to exist. So there are some real world numbers for what it's worth. I would rather everybody logged online too, but am satisfied with the majority that do.

When I hide one like that I call it a small and add in the description something like "can hold coins and small travel bugs. That gives searchers an idea of what to expect. Some people list the dimensions in the description, but it's you call.

The worst I've found are "yucky" things, like gum, mints, and other treats that turn to goo in our warm humid climate. I suspect people leave them with good intentions, but they sure slime up the inside of a cache.

Great Scott!! has done the hard work in our area: http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.a...a7-f2e33ae8b2f6 http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.a...59-b6907b7cfc9d http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.a...f4-31b7cbf96310 I hadn't thought of it but once I saw the list pop up I realized how useful it could be. Thank You.

Just out of curiosity, what is the purpose of having them meet you to claim the prize instead of leaving it in the cache? To me it isn't creepy to give away $500, that's only unusual. But when it comes across as paying somebody $500 to meet you, well, that's a red flag.

Forum topics: Can I adopt a great great grandfathered virtual? I know the guidelines say 100 feet, but the closest cache is 95 feet away and it's a guideline, not a law! From which century is the oldest cache in your state/sector?

Color me skeptical. How big of a deal can one cache be? If the "treasure" really is valuable and awards a grand prize to the FTF, it's going to still be a lottery in that you will have to be close to it to have a chance. That is if it's a real thing. Did I mention I was skeptical?

I think the biggest factor in the tone of the responces is the attitude of the first post. I remember one thread that was going along about like you described. The OP said "I came here for feedback, not critisizm". It was clear he meant he wanted validation, not disagreement. And that is the issue in those situations. From their perspective, there is simply no acceptable way to disagree with them. So that sort of attitude steers the thread into conflict from the start. This thread in contrast, is a good example of a better way to approach an issue. Bravo.

I guess I got side tracked by the quirks in the letter, but I do think it's a great idea to label caches. Even if there is no "official" sticker, it might satisfy the curiosity of a muggle that finds it and prevent a bomb scare in the first place.

I'm not smart enough to figure out how to post the map, but using my house as the center and at the same zoom level, there are zero caches on the map.

Sorry, I'm still not a believer. The "letter" says the state employee thought it was planted there. So they either saw a cacher accidently drop it before it rolled under, or they just happened to walk up to their vehichle and noticed a camo container that a cacher dropped. Either way, the cacher had to have decided to leave it there rather than retrieve it. If it was so hard to retrieve, how wold it be noticed by a casual observer? Yes there are scenarios where such a thing can happen, they all just seem very unlikely to me.

From the letter in the first post: Doesn't it seem odd that this geocaching trooper would claim there was a geocache under a car?

About the bolder part: The way I read it, that's what happened. And the majority of the replies said that asking for cash was inappropriate, and recomended asking for help instead. That wasn't the sort of answer, or polite discussion, that he wanted.

If I was the cache owner, I would beg you to log another smilie on the cache just to have that great story on the cache page.