synergicity

I ordered an Expedition C Plus pack for $316 + shipping from Lake Powell Marine Electronics. This includes the 64 mb SD card, card reader, and the MapCreate software. I haven't received it yet so I am reserving judgement on this store. I will report back after playing with the expedition and the mapping software for a while. There is another thread that discusses how to get around the 5 card limit, so look back a few screens.

I would like to add an endorsement for Singh's "The Code Book" which is an excellent history. Add to that, "Cryptonomicon" by Neil Stephenson and you have a good background on the code world. Actually, anything by Stephenson is on my must-read-more-than-once list. I've used both to put together a multi I will be releasing into the wild in the near future. The Vigenère cipher is very fun to fool around with.

I have recently worked with my city park and rec folks to hammer out a policy (in "real" northern California, not central/bay area ). I can send the doc to you if you want. Email me at synergicity (at) mac (dot) com Be sure to fix the mail addess first.

Well, the wheels are spinning, albeit slowly. I picked up the map that the city GIS tech made. Trails and long/lat overlaid; I've asked them to make one with topo info layered on as well. I will scan this and have it available for download by the cache hunters. Also, I picked up a draft version of the city "Geocaching Identification Form" that I will have to sign. I get to have input on it and have already suggested some changes. It basically follows the geocaching.com policies, although it requires that the cache hider add this text to the cache page: "Geocache is located on a main trail. Renegade trail development and vegetative trampling is not allowed. Please be courteous." I will head out with a ranger and the parks director for a walk-through next week. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Thanks for the help. I'm glad to know I'm on the right track.

I would appreciate it if some of you more experienced benchmarkers would read this log and tell me if I did it the right way. Here it is... Thanks!

Labradoodle The Labradoodle is good with children and are easy to train. They get along well with other dogs. Extremely clever, sociable and joyful. Quick to learn unusual or special tasks. Active, a little comical at times. Can attempt to outsmart their owners if undisciplined. Friendly, though obviously loyal to their own family. Non-aggressive. Here you go...

Thanks again everyone. I got my questions answered and some great new ideas to boot. synergicity

I do like the triangulation idea. What do you think about making it a any three out of the other four caches triangulation? That way they can plot on the map with 3 and then do a double check to make sure. Quadrangulation? Do I get elevation with that?

Thank you all. I like the idea of the gradual release of the caches, keeps interest up and gives people a reason to get out. These would definitely be doable in a day, although it will be 4-5 miles walking with approx. 1000 ft vertical. And the triangulation idea, hmmm. This is excellent, again thank you for the responses.

Thanks Hemlock for the response and the subsequent email discussion. As I mentioned in email, part of the reason to not make this a multi is to raise the cache count in our area and part is because each leg will "stand" alone just fine as a cache. The fifth will be a reward to folks who find all 4 of the others. Anyone else of the 100+ who have viewed this that have a comment? I know it's not really controversial or discussing the forum moderation controversy, but come on, give me some feedback! Thanks.

I am working on my first cache placement, in a park/forest near my home in which I was surprised to find that there are no caches. I have a couple comments and some questions. First, I talked to the parks and rec director about my ideas. This involved first giving her a crash course on geocaching and gps and then explaining that, yes, there are already caches placed on city property. I felt that I was ratting out the other folks who had placed caches in the area, but when I next talked to her, she had done her homework and found out that most of the cache owners had gotten some sort of verbal permission before placing their caches. She said she would just keep an eye on those to make sure there are no problems. First worry gone. Next I explained the areas where I wanted to place my cache, a multi/series. We talked about the difficulty of getting good reception in the redwoods and where I had scouted out pockets of clear sky. There is a good printed trail/topo map of this park, but it doesn't have longitude and latitude overlaid. I mentioned that and she volunteered to have their mapping guy make one for me. I will pick up this map tomorrow in both paper and electronic versions. This was a very cool surprise. I still have to meet with the park ranger and city engineer to talk about the specific locations (there are 5) and the potential impacts on the surrounding environment.That will happen next week. I think the ranger and I will walk all 5 spots. Then if I get approval from him, I will be ready to place the caches and get this thing going. Due to the spotty reception in this forest, I plan to use the gps mainly in the ground zero areas which have clear views of the sky. I hope to use the map and a compass for part of the directions and the trail system numbers, signs, and landmarks for others. These directions will involve solving puzzles and codes probably (still have to work that out). First, does this sound acceptable so far, i.e., can I require a combo of orienteering type directions and letterbox type directions in tandem with standard GPS work? Second, these caches are going to tie up a good chunk of the GPS accessible areas in this park -- is that OK if I ensure that this is a really good cache series? Third, I plan to use four independent but linked-by-a-theme caches to lead to a fifth, which will not be findable without a clue from each of the four -- is that OK? Wow, long-winded, no? Thank you all (in advance) for taking time to read this novella and respond. synergicity (excited and nervous about his first caches)

A gaze of cachers or a narrowing of cachers

I have a fast connection so the time to load isn't an issue, and I have more problems with server freezes than image loading. That said, I am pleased with this change. Thank you PTB. I come from the era of a sig line that should be 4 lines of text or less. Less is better. I get tired of seeing the same image several times on a forum page. The avatars are not in the line of sight of my reading and aren't in the same category as the sig images. I don't turn off images because there are images on this site without alt tags, for example, the Reply To: window I'm in (with images turned off) has 11 green boxes with a hyphen. So, images turned off isn't a good option either. Where does that leave us? Oh, I know, we should write forum posts that stand alone without any need to remind the readers of your stats, or your favorite skiing image or whatever...over and over and over again. If you like the image or want people to see how many caches you have found, put a link to your profile page in your (less than 4 line) sig, and put the stats image and the skier image and the dancing pumpkins image and the annoying sound file, and the epileptic seizure inducing background image on that profile page. As you can see, I have issues with annoying cache pages as well, but I am seeking help for that. And don't get me started on email messages that use html... synergicity (betting that those complaining about losing their sig images have never used lynx to browse or vi to compose web pages and appreciated the leanness and efficiency)

Perhaps appropriate for this group: CACHING EGO

I just have to say... DaveD - You rock! Thanks for contributing here. We appreciate it.

No one's mentioned the Maha line of chargers, which I use. This site has great deals on charger/batterie bundles as well as good prices on NiMH batteries of all kind. Disclaimer: Not associated...blah, blah...happy customer...blah.

Just wanted to report back. I received the stuff I ordered on Sept 17th yesterday; 6 days for cheap ground shipping. Everything was as described. Glenn

or this two pack of basic plastic compasses: Two pack of basic plastic compasses

At www.sportsmansguide.com I found this: lensatic compass cheap

Arrowroot powder, definitely.

What is better, arrowroot powder or corn starch?

And...just cause some of us are noobs here, don't always assume that we are noobs wrt all bbs or forums. I know there are some here, with not many posts, finds, caches that have some serious history on the net, way before these newfangled forums with gui's, or even browsers. These same subjects come up over and over and over again, in just about every discussion group I've been in. From my experience, the moderators here are doing a pretty good job, way less draconian than quite a few places I've hung out at. Perspective taking is good, my communication professor wife always tells me. Another "noob" heard from.

I found the dimensions. 7" tall x 10" wide x 3" deep. Waterproof, air tight protection with fold down handle. And from cheaperthandirt where the 6 pack is around $20: Measures about 10"Lx7"Hx3"W with fold flat handle. So it looks like they are pretty close in size.

Lapaglia, Thanks for the pointer. I read the garage sale description "Upgrading your GPS unit and want to sell it to folks who are just getting started? Post your unit here.", and as I wasn't selling anything myself, I thought the General description of stuff "that doesn't quite fit anywhere else" was best. Glenn