buck09

There's a guy here in Wisconsin who is a middle school teacher who does geocaching as a part of his social studies class. Here is his profile on the site. and here's his web page at the school where he works.

Are you suggesting that "the revolution has begun?" Not really. It's just nice to know that geocachers aren't the only ones picking up trash in the parks.

Well, if you look back at that cache out in the open, it has disappeared. Suprise, suprise. The game is nicely self-correcting that way. Rating 1/1 is, IMHO lazy and I think every cacher should PM him each time they find a cache that isn't 1/1, but if the finds are decent, let the cachers decide wether they find them or now. I assume this is the gentleman you're referring to...

Quite right - although I've been on a few caches with nice big hills to walk up - 15-20 minutes of good aerobic exercise. You know, it might be cool to make an offset cache to get people to exercise... Like, give them the co-ordinates for a starting point, and tell them to run at 4.5 miles per hour for X minutes - using the speedometer built into most GPSr units - if they can keep at a constant pace, they will get to the cache. (Granted, the math nerds could figure out how to get there walking, but I think most people would take up the challenge...)

I'd suggest sticking with music that isn't copyrighted. You can get lots of great content that's released under the Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/getcontent/ or, what I'd suggest is putting together a CD exchange cache. Take a couple CD's, put them in and let everyone know that it's for trading CD's only. There's one here in Wisconsin that has been going for quite some time. Better yet, why not plug a mic into your computer and lay down some new tracks? You could be the next William Hung!!!

About once a week I use GPS Visualizer to plot out all my cache finds and then I post them to my web site. I heard about it on the Wisconsin Geocaching Assoc's web forum. Here's my map as of a week or so ago:

You admitted in your post that there are costs associated with running a website - hosting, hardware, bandwidth, software licenses. geocaching.com isn't your corner BBS - it's a massive multi-user web application. The site requires at least one full time developer to maintain it. Can you beleive the nerve of someone actually asking people for money for a service they use?!? I don't see why Jeremy can't just pay all his bills and eek out a living on t-shirt and sticker sales. sheesh... Well, how about instead of asking for subscriptions and giving people premium content in exchange, he just sold out to every pop-under spyware-riddenn advert company to pay his bills?

Take a look at this link: http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/index.asp HTH

I've got 45 finds and have run into geocachers twice - the first time, I was on the wrong side of the river, but I had pretty much figured out where the cache was anyways. I crossed the river, said hi and chatted a bit about geocaching. It was cool. The cache was 1.5/1.5, so I didn't have a problem logging it as a find for myself as well - I would have found it anyways. The second time, some friends and I were on a very steep emabankment along a stream and had been searching for about a half hour. I think it was a 3 difficulty - we saw someone approaching with GPS in hand and we shouted at them to stay back until we re-hid the cache and gotten away from the site. Turns out it was the cache owner who saw us from the road and came to watch us hunt. One of my favorite things about this game is that you can be as individualistic, community or team-oriented as you want to be. You can be ultra competitive, or be a bit more liesurely. (Just as long as you're not getting in the face of people who aren't as compltely insane about caching as you are...) I think deep-down most people have a good sense of what's cheating and what's not. that's my .02

You know, now that I think about it - the stuff that they put in diapers works astoundingly well. My Dad used to cut open (new) diapers, get the absorbant stuff out and do the coffee-gel joke too. I bet if you cut open a diaper and put the compound in a fabric bag, that might work really well.

I tend to agree - especially after watching the amaturish videos they have for this thing - check it out if you've got broadband: http://home.earthlink.net/~americanpawnocala/

I believe you need a version of Excel newer than 2000. I have 2000 and it doesn't handle XML Quite right - forgot about that... You'll need Office XP or 2003.

I don't think you really need to... You can upload the waypoints into your GPS and the maps into your GPS, and they're both in there... Otherwise, if you want to plot your .LOC files on a map on your desktop PC, Here's what I do: Assuming you have Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Streets and Trips: 1. Import the .LOC file into Excel (Data -> XML -> Import) 2. Save the Excel Spreadsheet 3. Open S&T, Click Data -> Import Data Wizard. 4. Change the colums headers so that they're correctly marked as lat, long, and name. Make sure you tell it to ignore the columns you don't want to import. That will plot all your caches on a map.

I thought those were skittles... uh-oh.

One time I took one of those button-sized compasses and left a pepsi cap for a free 16oz Pepsi. The compass didn't work. Fair Trade?

This is the ultimate cachemobile. Anyone care to bid on this?

I'd recommend the Palm Zire 21 - they've got plenty of memory and are dirt cheap. In addition, Dell has been giving them away as freebes with computers for the last year or so. That means there's a gazillion of them on Ebay, most brand new, for half the cost of what you'd pay for one in the store. (I have 3 of them...)

I guess I'll continue the lovefest - the approvers for the Wisconsin Geocaching Association totally rock. In fact, my approvers are *BETTER* than yours. So

Glad ya like it... I sent it over to the guy who does the humor section.

One of the main factors in these types of adapters is how well the assiciated software driver that comes with it works. I've never used an adapter for GPS, but I have for other serial devices. Some of the cheaper adapters drivers were junk and as a result, the software using them couldn't recognize the COM port correctly... I'd suggest going with a name brand like Belkin, Targus, etc. Oh and, once you start downloading waypoints, you'll realize that it's 1000% more time efficient than doing it by hand - I mean, time being money, having your GPS hooked up will pay for itself... Check out: http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=belkin...oogle&scoring=p

Well then, they need their own Bud Light Commercial: Bud Light Presents: Real Men of Genius (real men of genius) Today we salute you, Mr. Geocache Approver (Mr. Geocache Approver) With nothing but a PC, GPS and infinate amount of patience, you're living the real American dream - complete control over your favorite sport. (Ammo Box Approved!) Sure there's danger - thorns, bobcats, bomb squads... and park rangers? Completely out of the question. (Watch out now!) Your keen instincts tell you when a cache is in a good place, or wether it's out in the open space of a 100 acre superfund site. (Bubbling Mud!) So crack open an ice-cold Bud Light, geo boy, because we all know, when the going gets tough, the tough get better hiking boots. (Mr. Geocache Approver)

I think you should delete the log because of the poor grammar. People without a grasp of english grammer and speling should not be allowed to participate in this sprot.

That's not what I heard - last thing I knew was that they got Wil Wheaton to play one of the lead roles - they thought he was a perfect fit as a seasoned actor and registered geocacher....

Maybe you shoud have been wearing a different t-shirt...

The profile images are a bit funky still - it takes a little while for mine to update too... It's different code than the unofficial images people have been using for awhile - the old one updates right away...