Snail Hairs Clan

Dogs, like humans, can catch Lyme, ehrlichia, and rocky mountain spotted fever. Your mileage may vary of course, depending on where you live. I've also been informed by the vet office that ticks removed promptly present less risk of infection. Apparently after the tick has been feeding for some time, it can regurgitate into the bite area and it is this that is really the vector for disease transmission. Also from a post a couple up, ticks respond to motion, heat and carbon dioxide.

Is a WAAS satellite harder for GPS unit to get lock on? I've noticed that I rarely get a differential info indication. Is this more a function of where I am at (Northern California) or that there are less WAAS satellites? I own a Garmin Rino if this makes a difference.

Next time you're in a veterinary office, see if you can get the veterinary techicians to show you what method they use to remove ticks (Not the doctor, they just assign this duty to the techs). Vet techs remove ticks all the time, sometimes many on just one animal. I've generally seen two main removal techniques, depending how long your fingernails are.

I believe that is actually an acronym. An anagram is what you get when you reorder letters to make a new word/phrase, such as: GEOCACHING = CHOICE GANG But I would visit that store just for the name, if I saw it. What's inside?

The only items that come to mind are: 1. A Lego minifigure that was missing its arms. Our youngest team member removed this but didnt trade for it. He later fitted the Lego figure with prosthetic arms (really.) 2. Some promotional radio station bumber stickers. They had been folded up to fit in the cache and so weren't in the best condition, which made our removal decision easier. In both cases we traded for other items and definately 'traded up' so I guess you could say we technically did exchange for it but that certainly wasn't our intention. I realize cache owners rightly have more latitude with their own caches, so I guess a related question would be: Do you take items out that make you when maintaining? (Besides obvious trash)

have you found that this improved your cache any?

Although we've only gone on a few hunts so far, we've already come across our share of trash in cache. There have been obvious (bottle caps, wrappers, etc) items or things outdated (last year's tides schedule). But where do you draw the line when cleaning up a cache? I realize the line "one man's trash is another's treasure" might be thrown about here, but what I'm hoping to see is personal guidelines that you might use or examples of certain situations in which you made a judgement call and removed items (even if you also decided to trade for something else or simply restock the cache with some of your own swag)

I just checked this out, unfortunately my model cable isn't offered and just found out it costs about $35 at store. So that makes me feel like my time wasn't wasted and plus (perhaps more importantly) I think I earned a couple more McGuyver points...

After our first few outings, entering the cache locations quickly became tiresome. So I looked in my electronics junk box and found everything I needed to make my own cable. (We use a Garmin Rino) What you need: 1. DB-9 connector (female) for connecting to PC serial port (COM1 or COM2) 2. An appropriate length of ribbon cable. Only needed if you use the press-on style DB-9 connectors. You might be lucky enough to have some junked computer part that already has a serial cable hanging off it. 3. A couple of jumper wires that fit .1 inch headers. (I realize these aren't the pins on the Rino, but my jumper wires seem to fit just fine) Cut in half and you have connectors for Rino end. Or for less expense, make your own with crimp-on connectors and a little heatshrink tubing. If you dont have the crimp tool, you can fake it with some pliers and maybe a bit of solder. I was hoping to find a connector that fit the Rino, but no such luck. 4. Small length of heatshrink tubing to cover up soldering. 3 wires from the DB-9 connect to the Rino cable end: DB-9 pin 2 (RX) connects to pin 3 (data out) on Rino cable end DB-9 pin 3 (TX) connects to pin 2 (data in) on the Rino end DB-9 pin 5 (GND) connects to pin 4 (ground) on the Rino end the other lines are not used for this application. Remember to reverse the cable view shown in the owners manual (pg73?) when looking at the Rino unit. Dont worry if you accidently switch the TX/RX lines at first, this wont harm either the PC or the Rino. This little project be more effort than its worth for some, but if you have a soldering iron and the inclination, it took me about 5-10 minutes to assemble and test the cable. Mark your wires for easy identification! A future hack: I also have a spare 12V auto plug; can anybody that has the auto power adapter measure the voltage it provides and post it here? I have pretty good idea what it probably is but wouldn't mind knowing the exact figure.