WalruZ
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Posts posted by WalruZ
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Additionally, as already been pointed out, I don't run 35 a week. I only run a mere 22 and third of those are to update a website for the local group
Is redistributing Groundspeak content like that within the scope of the site TOS?
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Experienced cachers cannot resist a ready-to-hide micro out of a cache, and they're inexpensive to make.
Film canisters from photo developing places.
small plastic bags from hobby store for logs
logsheets from copy center
round magnets from hobby store
wire from hardware store
cammo and black duct tape from wally world
with these supplies you can make regular micros, magnetic micros, cammo'd hangers (duct tape the wire to the cannister). Outfit them with logsheets in the small plastic bags and mention dropping them when you visit the cache. When you revisit caches you've done in the past month you'll *always* see them get picked up.
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1. It probably was a cacher, or you wouldn't have gotten an email. The cacher probably 'explained' geocaching to whoever asked him/her what they were doing. (I always say 'scavenger hunt'.)
2. In many cases it's a good idea to qualify a stage of a multi or a final with "don't look here" instructions. In CA, for example, we often say "don't look in the ivy," or "don't look in the poison oak," or "don't go down the hillside," or "don't go out onto the freeway and search in the traffic lanes." True, you're making the cache a little easier, but you usually wind up making the experience a little nicer and prevent certain sorts of inappropriate searching. In your case, for stage 1 I would have simply said "The cache is not on the ground."
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None of my PQs have arrived in my gmail account, even though they ran early in the morning and I ran another an hour or so ago. Whazzup?
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Given the individual criteria that people use, that wouldn't be very easy to do. I filter out puzzles. Do you? What about people who want them? Or only them? People also want caches ranged out from their centerpoint. In large metropolitan areas, your centerpoint might be very different than someone elses who you know, cache with and attend events to keep up with. Here in SF/SJ CA we have 1000s of caches - pocket queries are the only way we can manage them.
Now that I've said that, I would like to say I can't understand why anyone would want 2500 caches in a query. I only have one 250 cache query (home) and a number of 100 cache queries centered on areas that I frequent - and I only schedule those on an as-needed basis. Still, if I want to run a query that has already run within the last few days I have to dummy it up in another one-time query.
Perhaps some way of including size with age when ranking the query queue?
and as well, I often look at inactivity of cachers when dealing with missing caches. They are legion, and they don't answer their email either. PQs should either be turned off for those not logged in within a month, or assigned a finite limit that needs to be manually refreshed. Eg, this query will run 50 times, then you have to reset it's limit. Every time it runs, that limit counts down towards 0.
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This is one of the gripes I have against sig items. people who leave them attach a lot more value to them than they deserve. I know there are sig item collectors, but for those that don't sig items are worthless crap.
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Sometimes looking isn't enough. Sometimes you have to handle the scenery to find what you're looking for.
(I'll get out of the way now so the double-entendres can start)
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When people ask me what I'm doing I usually say "scavenger hunt". Sometimes you can get people to help you.
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ask yourself if you really need ammo boxes. Rubbermaid hold up suprisingly well and is less threatening looking if accidentily uncovered by non-geocachers.
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whever you're putting in a puzzle that has to be solved in the field, I suggest including a checksum as a hint. ie, add all the numbers and you should get this result. two reasons
1. if you do it for coordinates (15 digit checksum), then people don't go chasing after wild gooses if they've done something wrong, which happens more often than you would think.
2. redundency. if one stage is missing or question is unclear, the checksum can be used to puzzle it out from the data that the finder does have.
you may think this makes the cache a little easier, and it does i suppose, but consider how you would feel hunting the cache and being frustrated by something missing or unclear. if you had a safety net you would be more likely to have an enjoyable find rather than an unhappy dnf, and i've found that an enjoyable find is why you put the container out.
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YOU can hide and seek caches that YOU like.
You know, I hear that a lot in the forums and today I feel like taking issue with it. You don't really know what a cache is like until you've looked for it and found it. When I go caching it's with the implicit expectation that the cache was hidden to show me, as the poster says, "a nice view, beautiful setting, or soemthing unusual I can't find in normal life." I can't really bypass crappy parking lot hides unless there's a seperate category for them.
Not that I would - I have my find rate to worry about after all...
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1. Where I come from, if you search a newspaper rack and can't find the cache somewhere you don't have to pay to access, it's a DNF. Anybody who stuck a keyhider in a pay bay would have their rear blistered by the locals.
2. self-quoted from our regional discussion group...
I simply cannot understand why people hide caches in parking lots of strip mall or big-box stores. With very few exceptions they are not the sorts of places people want to visit unless they have to. I have found some that were redeemed by their exceptional hide or cammo techniques, but generally I find them worthless, my yardstick being that a cache should take you somewhere worthwhile.Yes, I understand that some people may enjoy them, but that doesn't mean that I can't feel that those people are missing the best parts of GeoCaching.
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Part of the challenge is figuring out where to start.
BS. Geocaching is not about driving around looking for a legal place to park. It's about what happens after you get out of the car.
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1.
take an REI matchstick container, cylindrical, 3 inches long.
glue a rare earth magnet to the inside of both the bottom and the cap.
drop it in a pole, such as a cyclone fence pole.
your cache should be 'fishing' oriented, and should clearly state that to get the cache the seeker will need a string and a washer or some other steel object.
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get a bison container, the size of a very large capsule, also from REI
find a bridge with a wooden deck and look for a small hole.
take about a foot of fishing line and tie one end to the bison capsule, the other end to a twig large enough to not fit through the hole.
stuff the bison capsule through the hole so that the twig keeps it from falling into the water below.
3.
I would stay away from the snake idea. Your fellow geocachers are not going to be amused, and you might meet some of them someday.
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If you want to leave something that visitors after you are going to want to trade for, make some ready-to-go micro caches. A film cannister with logsheet and notice already in a tiny plastic bag, a key-hider (look for deals) with the same, perhaps even cammo-taped small on-sale tupperware-type caches, already with a few trinkets and logsheet. I do this from time to time - they're cheap to make and highly valued by other cachers.
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You are looking for Duck brand cammo tape. It's usually found at WalMarts in with all the other duct tape (not in the hunting section). In many cases it can render a container almost invisible. I spray paint ammo cans and use this tape on pretty much everything else.
For a fun micro, you wrap this around a film container (incuding the cap seperately), with a piece of wire under the tape such that the wire becomes a hanger.
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What's sort of unfortunate about that is that online logging is one of the things that knits the geocaching community together. When I sign a logbook I usually just date it and sign "WalruZ". IMO, most logbooks are just destined to be muggled someday, although I'm sure there are some exceptions.
What matters to me is sharing each experience with my fellow geocachers, many of whom I know from events and even from caching and hiking outings. I think many long-time geocachers will site the community aspect of the sport as a powerful continuing motivator. Seeing a new cache come up and then following the stories of people you know who find it, knowing the people who placed the cache you're persuing, placing caches that you know your geo-friends will appreciate, tooling around as part of a group caching run - that's what makes it real.
People who don't log online miss all that. Too bad.
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Or is it just that 100-finds-per-event people have *more* than you that makes this a problem since you insist on forcing them to "play the same game as you"?
You have it backwards. I'm not forcing them to play the same game as me, they are choosing to concentrate on numbers and then cheating at how they accumulate them. If numbers matter to someone, then they should get them legitimately. If they don't do so, then they are cheating.
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fwiw, I've found (just) over 2000 caches with a geko 301, and if you can get it for $50 I would jump on it. Buy it anyway and I'll buy it off you for a profit to you. I know a few other experienced geocachers who use that model as well. It has a small form factor, simple UI and is very rugged.
If you want maps, get a palm (which you'll want to get anyway) and put mapopolis on it for $40. That's the combo I use and I'm very happy with it. Although you won't see your current position on the palm, a map on the palm is much easier to manipulate than maps on, say, a legend.
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If I go log 1000 finds on a single cache, I challenge anyone to give me a legitimate way that this hurts you.
My numbers are important to me, and I've gotten them the old fashioned way - one at a time.
People who log 100 event cache finds aren't playing a "different game", or "the same game a different way" - they're playing the same game as I am and cheating at it.
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Congratulations (yawn) to TeamAlamo (yawn) for hitting 8K. Now, if you could just figure out how to get paid for it...
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and as a competing explaination, in American urban areas it's usually against the law to leave your dog's poo laying on the sidewalk. You're expected to bring along some sort of scoop or bag and take it with you. Even though it's unlikely that you would actually be cited (the police are usually busy elsewhere), people who leave dog poo laying on the sidewalk are generally considered to be boorish, uncouth, thoughtless and rude.
Dog poo in the park is more of a fact of life, although parks in my area also have regulations and signage exhorting dog owners to clean up after themselves. Some do, some don't.
My advice is to start doing more Geocaches out in the woods. There's more poo, but it's spread out over a wider area so it's less noticable.
Future Of Virtuals
in Website
Posted
The problem, as I see it, is that locationless caches were "categories" of things, of which you found an example, while virtuals are, usually, "unique" things. While Waymarking accommodates the locationless concept well (find all the redwood indian statues), it doesn't do a very good job of handling virtuals. I think that moving them to Waymarking is just a copout.