Shrektrician

I found some cachers who are logging finds to caches they never visited. One of the cachers is "[bN]SeatPirate". They logged in finds for the ET highway (0987-E.T. - GC32AGR)and numerous other Power Runs in California and Nevada (HMD-0982 - GC46E30). It's suspicious because all they have done is Power Caches with no "in-betweens". No one with 7000+ finds passes up caches! I found a cache today (Sign It - GC4N5XX) they logged a find on but they did not sign the log! They did the same with another nearby cache, which I haven't found yet (Lincoln's Cabin - GC4D0F6). There's another cache with multiple finds and no find in over a year(Happy - GC2HCX9) that they magically found. Unless these guys magically warped from the ET Highway up to Stockton in the middle of a Power run, they are cheating! looks like they have logged over 4000 finds in a couple of weeks! Really?

Multis get avoided because 1) "Mathematical Incorrectness" - I do the math and end up with a double digit number that has to go into a single digit spot. A CO told me I'm supposed to drop the 'tens' spot in a email. How am I supposed to know that in the field? 2) Ambiguous questions 3) Puzzle caches disguised as Multis 4) Do an eight part Multi and Stage Seven is gone 5) Half the time the final coords seem to be 50 feet off 6) No checksum or coord verifier. 7) Do an eight part Multi and get credit for one find. It common now to instead have six to eight Trad's and an Unknown for a final. That way you visit all the caches and get credit for multiple finds. 8) The description is in HTML rendering your GPS's useless. 9) They can take a lot of time

Start with the one and two star puzzles and ask for help. There are a few puzzle snobs who refuse to help but there are more cachers out there that would gladly help you with a puzzle cache.

Geocaching is being ruined by noobs who get coords with a cell phone. I'd say 30% of all new hides in the Bay Area have rotten coords. I say you can't hide a cache until you have at least 100 finds.

Is there a rule about the stages of a multi needing to be a some sort of "physical item". Like a micro? I had trouble with a stage on a multi and it turned out that the coords for the next stage were written in Sharpie on the back of a stop sign. There's another multi that everyone has on their ignore list because no one could figure it out. It turns out the coords were,once again, written in sharpie but this time they were on the BOTTOM of a metal electrical junction box and you had to crawl on you back in the mud to see it! Is this OK?

I've had trouble with certain cache owners who set caches with terrible coordinates. One cache will be dead on but the next cache will be pointing 30+ feet into somebody's backyard. I heard rumors that the cache owner was giving bad coords on purpose to give their caches some kind of sick challenge. When we set a traditional cache aren't we supposed to try to be as close as possible with the coords? Is it against any rules to purposely set a cache with bad coords?

I hate micros thrown in a bush with a zillion other bushes around. There are literally hundreds of potential hiding spots. The cache owner gives a one star difficulty rating, leaves no hint and proclaims "it is an easy find".

I despise front yard caches. They are almost as intrusive as Playground Structure caches. The cache owner should note that the home owner has been given permission and that the neighbors have been notified.

What's you view on caches placed on playground equipment? You can't place a cache on school property so how is a playground different? I think these type of caches might backfire. Middle aged cachers snooping around a playgrounds are only slightly suspicious.