Team Noltex

Absolutely there are innocent people that die. Read what I wrote again. Someone nearly always caused it by their actions, not necessarily the person that died. It is the CAUSE of the death I find stupid, not the death, suffering and grief of the family or community.

Congratulations. These are two of the most callous posts I've seen a while. Nothing callous about it. Deaths from collisions (note: not accidents) like this are nearly always preventable and invaribably are the result of someone's stupidity. If instead you would care to refer to the cause more politically correctly as inattention, alcohol related, recklessness, driver inexperience, over-correction or excessive speed, that's fine, because it's really the same thing. A moment of stupidity on someone's part results in someone's death, a death that never would have happened otherwise. You'll note that I twice described it as sad. It is. It's not a coincidence that two cops in two different parts of the country independently describe roadside memorials the same. In 17 years I've been to my share of traffic fatalities and grieved for people I don't even know. After seeing these violent deaths in all their intimate detail, you tend to look at it all a bit differently than most folks. When I see a roadside memorial, I know the violence that happened there, the time and energy that a whole lot of cops and EMS people gave and the toll it took on them, and that someone died who shouldn't have. Each one reminds me of all the unneccesary deaths I've seen. Nothing callous about it.

As one of those cops, I never pass a roadside monument without thinking to myself sadly that it's a monument to someone's stupidity. Maybe not necessarily the person who died, but nearly always someone's momentary, chronic or tragic stupidity. A memorial to say "Something stupid happened at this spot". Very sad. Not really something I'd want to draw attention to myself, and certainly not a place I'd choose to spend the limited recreation time I have.

Oh my, hadn't seen this post before! Thanks for the compliment. We just try to put out caches that we would enjoy finding ourselves.

I tell you what, I'm looking at my cache page feeling guilty about how many times mine's been down for maintenance and battery replacement. Poor PastorDIC has been here twice from out of town and hit it on a down time on both occasions. Hopefully, with the new units I've installed the batteries won't need to be replaced nearly as often. If your planning on doing Control the Night with a group or coming from a distance, let me know ahead of time so I can be sure its all in order.

OK, well I'm not usually one for self promotion but I'll throw one out. Control the Night is a night cache unlike any other you've done yet. No glints or firetacks to follow and you even use your GPS. It's back up now after a hiatus for maintenance.

And a fine catch he'll be for some lucky team.

And now, a shameless plug, brought to you by Team Noltex. As part of last year's Geocaper winning team, JavaDuck has coerced Team Noltex and GrnXnham into helping plan this year's event. Probably to give the other teams a chance ! Last year's Geocaper was a true marvel of organization and planning and really just nothing short of amazing. Easily the most fun I've had at an event. If you have any interest in puzzles, I can highly recommend putting a team together to do this event. Think of the best puzzle cache solver you know and invite them to join you. Very clever and innovative puzzles, very theme related and a very challenging, competitive and fun day.

I've always used bracken ferns, which also usually grow in the same area as nettles. Find a young one and rub the juice from the stalk on the affected area. I havent' checked, but I think that the nettle juice is acidic and the sap from various plants is more of a base, which counter-acts the acid.

That's just sad and pathetic.

For some reason, my bookmark PQ won't go through, even after trying it several times. I can get other PQ's, just not the bookmark. Does anyone have the route caches in a .gpx file they can email me?

If you can find me a 3 volt DC circuit, for recharging batteries, that is waterproof, i'll be glad to try it. I'm not a "circuit maker," so building one from scratch is beyond my ability. Google shows a lot of alternatives, this one looks like anyone (even I) can build it. http://www.thesietch.org/projects/solarcharger/index.htm Easy enough to use that basic plan and make it waterproof! While I haven't tried it myself, adding a solar cell to recharge the batteries would be fairly simple. The problem would be that they are large enough to draw attention to the IR receiver, which would make doing the cache during the day fairly easy. Solar cells need fairly direct sunlight, which means it would have to be pretty open where they are located. The way mine is set up, the coords take you to the area of the receiver, then the remote is used to activate it so you can find the coords that are posted for the next WP. Trust me, I would LOVE not to have to replace the batteries every few months. Especially since the current ones have to have the batteries soldered in. My new ones, fortunately, have battery holders to pop them in and out. Kit Fox was one of the early cachers I started talking with about this type of night cache and I'm looking forward to him getting his cache put out. Like every other cache, it's all about finding the right location. I'm fortunate to have a large greenbelt park directly behind my house to put mine in. Makes maintenance much easier.

As a result of my night cache Control the Night being mentioned on this thread and some others, I've received numerous emails from cachers inquiring about how the flashing infrared receivers were built so that they could put out something similar. The receivers are something I've built myself from a very simple circuit I discovered. The laser circuit at the final was created from a purchased electronic kit that I added to a laser scavenged from a cheap laser level. While they are electronically simple, they do require fabrication and soldering skills that a lot of people may not have. Although I am fairly proud of my unique night cache, I'm not so proud that I need to keep it exclusive, except maybe in my own area. I've shared the circuit with some that appear electronically capable, but I'm wondering if there would be interest in purchasing ready made units? I'm not sure of the price yet, but it would likely be in the $10 per unit range, since some of the components aren't real cheap. The laser would probably be closer to $25. PM or email me if you are interested. If there is some interest, I may be able to put something more definite together.

The boys and I were at the pit shooting yesterday and the gate is now open. The main area is still filled with water, but there is adequate room to shoot, especially at the shorter distances for pistols.

Dang! You would have to pick one of the few weekends I'll be out of town. At least I'll be out of town doing some shooting, though!

As a veteran of six previous TravisL style cache machines and having organized one myself, I can tell you that it would be unlikely on a cache machine that I would consider adding in a bunch of "just released" caches to the established route. I would have already downloaded the Pocket Query, printed out the route and list of caches and have everything organized for the order that we're going to do the caches. After completing one, we jump back in the car, I call for the next cache on the list, do a goto and head toward it as someone is reading off the description from the PDA. It can be too confusing in an unfamiliar city to try to add in other caches, especially if you are in a group with multiple vehicles. I'm not saying don't add any, I would just recommend that it be limited to only a few and that they be announced at the Friday night dinner and again on the morning of the CM. That gives people a chance to plan ahead if they want to include them in their day. The organization of a cache machine is all before it starts. After that it's mostly a free-for-all until dinner.

Why? Sounds like the fun's just starting! If you think about it, almost all of the memorable events in your life, the ones that you tell the stories about later, have some element of overcoming adversity or perseverence though suffering. Wear it as your badge of courage. But then, you probably picked that up from my sig line too.

This is pretty much my line of thinking as well. The premise of geocaching is that someone hides a container with a logbook, I find it and sign it. If the cache isn't there when I arrive, it's a DNF. Simple. I claim the find because I actually FOUND IT, not that I gave a pretty good effort but came up short for some reason. People whine and complain "But I drove a LONG way to find it and it was missing so I DESERVE a find. Waaa!". Check out my log here on January 29 for my answer to that. For the second year in a row, I traveled over 6400 miles to Chile for a trip unrelated to geocaching, and each time I only had one chance at a cache. Came up empty both times. The first one I found the hole in the rock where the cache had been, but no container. Turned out it had just been disabled because it was missing. Logged a DNF, dealt with my disappointment like a big boy and promised I'd find one next year. This year, same thing. My search was both thorough and frantic, given that I had a plane to catch and the fact that my wife had told me not to bother coming home if I DNF'ed again. But no cache. It turned out that the owner had disabled the cache THE SAME DAY! He said he thought it was still there but had fallen down into the tree out of reach. Trust me, I had momentary thoughts of claiming a find, after all, who would know, right? But that's not the standard. Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is looking, even when it doesn't matter. Like claiming a smiley. I couldn't do it and be honest with myself. When the cache owner emailed me offering to allow a find, I had to turn him down. I logged a DNF, dealt with my disappointment and my wife's withering scorn like a big boy, and promise I'll find one next year. Why hold myself to a rigid standard on something silly like a game that doesn't really matter? Basically for the same reason I don't cheat at solitare. What fun would that be? If the purpose is to challenge myself by reaching an arbitrary goal, in this case finding caches, what good is it to fake it? I'd only be cheating myself, and I personally don't happen to like cheats. I accept the rules and try to play by them.

The irrigation that is used for the fields consists of a very long arm with sprinkler heads supported on wheels. The arm pivots from a base in the middle of the circle and the resulting fields are circular. I think the technology is alien in orgin, though!

I paid $2 each for my Motorola SNN5595B batteries on Ebay. With shipping it was $11 total. They are identical L-ion batteries to what Magellen is selling. I tried rechargeable AAA batteries first in my E 500, but they wouldn't last more than a few hours. The L-ion last over 15 hours and charge very quickly. If you want to charge it fast in the GPS, have the unit turned off. Charging while on is much slower. I bought one of the swivel cradles and it just sits on my desk like a docking port. Charges and downloads caches at the same time.

I think you will find that almost all map programs are several years behind in updating their streets. I bought a new Explorist 500 at Christmas, along with new Mapsend and topo software. The house I live in was built six years ago and our development is STILL not on these "new" maps. I also have a Sportrak Pro with Mapsend software that I've owned for 4 years. It's rare that I find a road that isn't on the maps. Whenever I do, it is almost invariably just a new housing development, and almost NEVER any sort of main road. The impact to navigation is negligible. If your map is missing some forest service road, logging road or an obscure dirt road, chances are it won't be on any of the new maps either. If it wasn't important enough for them to include before, they probably won't include it in the future.

Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't every cache page have MULTIPLE map view options for the cache? I've been paperless for a couple years, but it's pretty rare that I don't look at the cache page online prior to going to search for it. Near the top of the page, at the end of the line that tells which state and country the cache is in, it reads "[viewmap]". Click on that and it takes you to a map of where the cache is. Just above the logs it reads "For online maps..." and below it are TEN (10) different map options. Directly across from the ten map listings and directly below the decryption key, there is a map about 2-3 inches square on most cache pages which also shows the location of the cache. Clicking on that takes you to mapquest for a more detailed and printable map. Use any or all of these map options to show you which area to head to. Many of them will narrow the search down for you to within a few hundred feet or less. You didn't say which GPS you have, but I can only assume from your question that it's one without any sort of basemap. Not sure why the manufactures would do this, since the only way to know where you are (the purpose of a GPS) is in relation to something else. With the exception of very basic level GPS's, most now have maps that include all of the major roads in the US. More detailed maps that inlude nearly every named roadway can be uploaded to many of them. If you have a very basic GPS and the lack of maps is frustrating, you may want to consider upgrading. A GPS with basemaps is usually only a few dollars more. If you have a PDA with the caches and a GPS unit with (minimally) basemaps, you won't even need to check the cache pages online. I'm sure you'd find your searches less frustrating and confusing. Hope this helps.

DON'T USE THE AAA BATTERIES! I bought some NiMH rechargeables when I first got my 500LE, but hardly got any time out of them at all - a couple hours at best. It was so short that I thought my unit certainly must be defective. The battery clip pops out of the 500 LE and you can use the L-ion battery. I found the L-ion cell phone batteries on eBay for about 2 bucks each and now can go all day without needing to recharge. There's another thread on it here. You want to get the SNN5595B battery. It's a cell phone battery, so it's very readily available for very cheap. I bought two, just to have a spare. Two batteries plus shipping was $11.80, about the same price as a set of NiMH's. Also, the NiMH batteries won't recharge in the GPS with the cable attached. You have to take them out and put them in a charger. The L-ion batteries will. And full recharge only takes a short time. When the Explorist line first came out and I heard that they wouldn't use AA or AAA batteries, I thought it was extremely stupid. However, with the L-ion batteries and quick in-unit recharging, I'm now a believer.

Hey Travis, great to see you back. Looks like we may be making this one as well.

Sorry we couldn't make it. The wife decided we were going to go caching instead. So not a total loss.