CrippledBlindSquirrel

Just trying to figure out how you can "own" something you've never had in your hand Would you have to "find" it in order to maintain it? If you "find" it can you log the "find" or just post the maintenance log? I'm so confused!

How close do you want to get to a bear, so you can tase them? No, I haven't But is there really grizzely bears in San Diego? Sure, haven't you seen our California Flag? The only legal way to carry in California, is to be out during legal hunting season, with a permissable firearm (based on species being hunted), and be sure to carry the correct ammunition (if you "hunt" in an area affected by the new "Condor law." If you live in the Condor Zone, you can only carry "lead free" ammo approved by DFG. Other restrictions include firearm bans in State / County parks, or no-shooting areas. Thanks to Commifornia's draconian laws, you would be better off buying bear spray. Really sucks to live in the People's Republic of California huh? Don't worry about the bears...as soon as they figure out what's going on there they will all migrate to Nevada!

First off, welcome! The GeoLex site linked above is a good resource when these come up...I still find myself using that site from time to time. TFTC and LPC are pretty common abbreviations that you'll run across, both here in the forums, and in cache logs. TFTC = Thanks For The Cache. LPC = Light Pole (or Lamp Post) Cache. That indicates a cache that's usually a quick park and grab located on or around a lamp post. Sometimes LPC is used somewhat negatively by those who don't like micro caches. People don't like light pole caches????...why would anyone get upset about caches in the middle of a parking lot full of muggles and security guards in little cars with yellow lights...I mean doesn't everyone get a secret thrill out of lifting up skirts and looking under them and trying to look innocent while they dash back to their car to write their name on a little piece of damp paper and then have to sneak back to the light pole and put it back...like you can really sneak back to anything thats out in the middle of a parking lot full of mugggl.............. .....okay I'm back now...did I say anything inappropriate???? Oh, by the way...WELCOME TO THE SPORT!!!!!

As a cache owner, I appreciate either DNFs or Notes that tell me someone either looked for and couldn't find, or started out to look for my cache, but didn't quite make it. I can tell from the comments in the log whether I have to worry about a missing cache, or not, so I encourage new cachers to log their DNFs. My own rule is to log a DNF if I actually get to GZ and look for the cache, whether I only looked for a couple of minutes, or looked for half an hour. If I didn't get to GZ for some reason, I'll log a "Note" on the cache. I look at all my logs as an "online journal" of my caching adventures. Whether it is a "Found it" or a "Didn't Find it" or a "Note," the log helps me remember what I did. Someday, these online logs might be the only way I'll know what I did during my Geocaching years . . . Okay Dokey, Here's the CBS's new logging rules based on what he has learned here and keeping his own thinking in mind. 1. I will post a DNF if I arrived at GZ, did my best lookey look, could not find the cache and have no reason to believe that I could do better with any future return and search. 2. If I arrive at GZ and feel like I am missing some important part of what I am supposed to know about this kind of hide and feel like I need to go back to school at other caches of this type or the logs and forums, I will post a note explaining myself and the fact that I'm not prepared to surrender quite yet. Who knows somebody might take pity on me and help me out! 3. If I have been back three times with no joy I will admit defeat and post the DNF while muttering under my breath about ever getting involved in this #@**# sport. In all other cases where I did not make it to ground zero I will not post any comments to the logs. I really think that I owe the owner something more a DNF but at the same time my danged old pride makes it necessary that I take a complete butt kicking before I give up!

I guess I've been looking at this in the wrong way....I'm new so I look at each trip as a learning experience. I have one that I have visited twice and two that I have visited once and haven't found yet. I've told myself when I go back the third time (each time armed with a little bit more experience) I will log the DNF if I haven't found it. Three strikes and your out and all....but based on the conversations I see here I guess I should have logged DNF's on each of the four visits. There is another one that I had to give up on when the muggles started popping out of the woodwork. I misled myself on the "quick grab" and the muggles made it impossible to stand there and think about it. I don't think I gave that one a fair hunt....Like Arnold "I'll be back!" Does this one constitute a DNF? There are two more that I abandoned before closing in on the cache because the terrain was not what I expected or the full summer foliage made the approach something I was not willing to do. I will go back to each of these when winter comes and I am prepared for the terrain as it exists. I don't think these two trips merit a DNF...am I wrong about that? And finally there was one that was just not there (a 1/1 with no surprises). I got back and checked the logs and saw a DNF posted after I loaded the cache in the GPS. I chose to email the owner and ask him to check...he seemed happy with that and was out of town at the time and told me when he would check on it. I chose to do it that way because I felt that as a newbee (30 finds) I was as likely to not find it as it was not there because it had been muggled. I guess that should have DNF #5. Is my thinking on this wrong. I am not worried about posting DNF's when I'm truly stumped by a cache AND I don't intend to return for another try, but I kind of figured that I should satisfy myself that I was really stumped by the hide. Like my tag line says...Even the blind squirrel will find the nut if he digs around long enough

Count your blessings. Over here ASDA is owned by Wal Mart, the only blessing is that it isn't an Aldi, Lidl or Netto store! Whew...For a minute there I thought that the Mother Country had slipped back into barbarianism....No WalMart????? - Is that Possible???

It wasn't me that yelled at you....I wasn't even caching that day...yeah, that's right, I wasn't even caching that day....

I've heard that one come up too. There really are more efficient ways to find someone to rob or assault than lying in wait by a geocache for a few days or weeks until a geocacher comes along. This old squirrel might be crippled and blind but they might find out that I have a pretty bad bite! Besides, I seen somebody's tag line here that says something like Don't mess with geocachers...they know the best places to hide bodies...sorry if I didn't quote it just right.

I get it now - Thanks for the help!? I'll be sure to disable the On-Star so it will be harder to find after you guys help me "move it along" and I'll be sure and leave the Pit Bull at home....after all, I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt while stealing...er...caching my truck!

I see where one can get a travel bug sticker or magnet that attaches to your ride and makes it a travel bug. I get the idea for TB's moving from cache to cache on their way to their destination but I'm not sure I understand how the vehicle bugs work. I looked for the FAQ but didn't see it and I can't puzzle out the process and etiquette for these type of TB's from some of the logs I've found a read. A little TB for Dummies please!

I didn't see a TP dispenser listed in the features...what's up with that??? Why oh why do they always leave out the important stuff?

There is no fee charged for finding or placing caches. People can if they choose to, pay a very small fee to get access to some bells & whistles that are in the "nice to have" category, but not necessary to geocaching. Get your facts straight. Millions in revenue? You would know the books of a private company... how? Besides, revenue is irrelevant. Now, if they were making millions in profit... I'd say, good for them! You're certainly free to comment on how you think gc.com should be run. There are even forums for that. But you don't get to dictate it, any more than you get to dictate how Target runs its stores. As for services that were once free now costing money - name one, please. All member-only services have always been add-ons to the basic service. Nothing's ever been taken away and made MO. Get your facts straight. I feel that Primr Suspect made all of the major points that I was about to, but got there first and said even better than I could have! Thanks! Well said! I would also add the following: From the moment that I first read the OP's post, red flags appeared on my inner radar screen, because there were -- whether they were intentional or not -- in his/her post, a number of distortions and misstatements of fact and instances of pure hyperbole. Prime Suspect has already addressed a number of them, but let's skip the content of the issues/points themselves and, just for a moment, back out the the meta-level and take a look at the OPs post and the sum of her/his distortions, misstatements, hype and mis-assumptions. It is primarily here, in doing so (that is, in stepping back and taking a look at the whole post at the meta-level) that most of the red flags appear on my radar screen, and the biggest sense that I get when re-reading his/her post is that he/she seems to have a major sense of entitlement, and that further, this sense of entitlement seems to have affected the writing style and behavior of the OP to the extent that she/he gave in to the urge to engage in distortions, misstatements of fact, broadcasting of mis-assumptions, and hyperbole, all in the name of service to his/her cause. As a result of this... I am rather disgusted and disappointed, so much so that I must forthwith go downstairs to my Revigator radium water dispenser and dispense about a pint of cold refreshing radioactive water (footnote 1) in my large ceramic mug, to better wash the bitter taste of disgust from my mouth. Footnote 1: This particular batch is quite refreshing, invigorating and revigorating, for it exhibits about 235,000 pCi/L (picoCuries per liter) of radioactivity, and, due to a particular modification which I made to my radium water dispenser, is quite high in the extremely rare and short-lived radioactive trace element astatine. WHat the heck did he just say??????????????

Owww, Owww, Owww...My head hurts now....While you are at it can you calculate the ratio of micros to regular caches in each state and maybe the numbers parking lot light poles that harbor a cache compared to the number that don't? Seriously, I am a little surprised That Georgia was low in the caches per person ratings...There are over 700 within 50 miles of my home coords and I'm not even close to the big city of Atlanta where the density has be be way bigger. Thanks for the work...I'm preety sure there was at least 8 or 10 man hours of research invloved in this.

I have tried to make my trade goods match the season/holiday that I'm caching around...The last couple or three weeks I have been trading in U.S. Flags in those caches big enought to hold them. I don't really have a favorite kind of swag...I just see what's there and see if anything stikes my fancy. I hate to see empty keyboxes so I keep some small pins that will fit in the larger ones and enrich them after I find them. I do have a questions for you guys....would be be proper to leave small bottles of hand sanitizer and other cleaning items in a cache? I have come across a source of some of these things that make them affordable for swag..I just don't know about putting that kind of stuff in a cache.

ON,YFUO! Yeah....Well....Back At you...I think!?!?

Yep...There is a pretty bad vowel deficiency in your current nick...what's the new one going to be?

Everibodi nose that you guys use shrthnd because non of you can spel...I'm ashaimed of all of you.

I thought that I would post this thread here rather than in the "getting started" section because I wanted to get the more experienced cacher's thoughts on what I have learned. I found my 25th cache today and have tried to take a look at the spectrum of caches pages available in my area in the 1/1 or 1.5/1.5 level of difficulty. I will be adding the more difficult ones to my plate going forward from here. I want to share the following observations, not because I think I represent the optimal newbie but rather because I have been reading the posts of other newbies and finding myself in some of their concerns and frustrations. After my first 30 days I have come to the following conclusions: I like the country caches much more than the urban caches. I don't mind the micro or even nano caches, I just get tired of Muggle watch. I have started doing the urban micros early in the morning and, to be frank, I often wonder just how much permission has been obtained for the placement of some of these caches. I think that when I start placing my caches I am going to use them to bring people to places I think are special. I just don't see the point in some of the parking lot caches other than to demonstrate a different or unique kind of container or hiding technique. I visited a place today that I haven't been to more than 40 years. I spent more time sitting on the tailgate remembering my youth than looking up the cache container and signing the log. Sharing those kinds or experiences are worth 100 pole vaults and I think would be the diamonds of this sport. I don't understand why Waymarking and virtual caches have been "disconnected" from geocaching. I would think that the journey and the view is just as important as the container and the log. What am I missing and why were they set off to themselves? Well that's the moss that has grown on my brain during the first 30 days of my life sentence without parole in this sport. Take it for what its worth.

I simply made up a small slip of paper that has my avatar and a short statement about finding the cache but not find the nut that the blind squirrel is always searching for

I carry a Kodak MD863 with me in the sling pack. I never leave without it because I can't go caching without the pack. It takes great pictures for its size, has shake control, a host of the other usual features and has a rechargable internal battery. I just plug it up at the end of the day and put it back into the pack when I unplug it. I just take the SD card out and put it a USB stick converter ($12) and it will plug and play in any computer with Windows 2000 and higher I also have the "big" camera - a Sony DSC-H7 that has all the bell and whistles and whiz bang features you know you need when you know you are going to be seeing the absolutely mosy beautiful view known to man...but...if that view slips up on you from behind the Kodak will get it for you...just takes a little more work and it cost a lot less money (Just in case it falls down and goes boom)

Just be sure that you call him a geobacon when he helps you with that flat tire at the dead end of some country road or comes and picks you up after you twist your ankle or break your leg about a mile from the car. I'm sure he will appreciate your sense of humor

About a year after Katrina devasted New Orleans, we found a fanny pack with wallet while caching in Kenner, LA. Inside the wallet were drivers license, welfare card, and other IDs. Figuring that this was probably a heist and recognizing that welfare recipient IDs were involved, we figured that the best thing to do was to try to return the pack to the owner. We went to the nearest store where we bought packaging and then to a local Post Office. Since this was a Saturday, we used the postal stamp vending machine for stamps to the ID address. Inserted the necessary $5.00 for the stamps. !!The machine spit out $10.00 worth of stamps.!! We stamped the package and deposited in out-going mail and left with $7.50 in stamps. Was this an omen?? Maybe it was in the stars?? or more probably concidence. At least we felt better. Oh....A Federal Crime...Theft from the Post Office Boy, you in a heap of trouble now!

Its almost like thanking your friend for hooking you on crack cocaine! Its great fun and will, if you let it consume your free time! HAVE FUN!!!

"Even a blind squirrel can find a nut every once in a while!" is a Poker saying...It is most often used by a frustrated player who has just been beaten by a hand held by someone who was basically playing dumb luck or hit the card he needed for a stupid longshot draw on the river and takes big pot. When I first came across geocaching on the web and started exploring it I thought to myself that anyone who would tramp through the woods looking for an ammo can full of dollar store items while relying on signals from the sky to find said ammo can was the ultimate "blind squirrel". Soooo...when I signed up at Geocaching.com I decided to use the name. "Blind Squirrel" was already taken so I added the "Crippled" in honor of my aching back and joints I wake up with on the morning after tramping through the woods looking for an ammo can...you get the picture! I haven't come across the first "Blind Squirrel" yet in any of the forums or cache pages yet so I would like to know something of him/her should anyone have that knowledge.