TimasaurusRex

You would think when someone has been looking at these forums for over a year and placed a couple of caches and all, I would know what an LPC is - but I can't find it anywhere. I tried searching the forums for the term, but then search blows up on me - not sure if it's because it's not a "real" word, or because it's only three letters, or what, since I can do other searches just fine (definition, acronym, meaning), etc. Here is how it was used: "Log Date: 4/22/2006 Well, I suppose when you're looking for a 1/1, you find lots of LPC. SL" Or am I just an idiot this morning?

Yep - I think it's even worse for me - my wife thinks it is stupid and weird - and not "good weird" either. Fortunately, she likes to bird watch, so we have a temporary truce in the geocaching battle right now, in hopes that we can combine the two. That was four months ago, and still we have not gone out together yet. Maybe this weekend - I'm going to try real hard to get her to go and have fun and make a day of it with me and my son. Just remember: "Never give up! Never surrender!"

Saturday I went caching with two friends - within five minutes of our meeting at the park, we saw a guy get his bicycle stolen as he went into the restroom - when he came out, he raced after them, screaming and surprisingly, he almost caught them (both on bikes, peddling sedately away). At that point the words my wife uttered the day before started to haunt me, "Ewww. That's not a good area." and I just laughed it off. On the way to the first cache, we saw clothing, trash and what looked like several campsites and lots of graffiti too. I was wondering why anyone in their right mind would hide a cache there, but understood after I saw the view of the city below the hill. The next "find" was hilarious, when my friend Ohgr literally "stepped in it" - "it" being a huge pile of what may have been human crap, possibly Bigfoot - yes, it was that big and a bright red (not blood, possibly berries). After I left (found two caches) my friends Ohgr and Maria went to find a third cache and came across a porn stash and what looked like another campsite - they logged it as a DNF when they realized the crackheads in the park were watching them. Ain't caching just one adventure after another?

Sorry I haven't posted in a while - quite a bit later than I should have. Several months ago I posted that Magellan had replaced my SporTrak Map with a Sportrak Pro - which was awesome! Then, my world fell apart when my Pro developed cracks too! I sent it in and they replaced it with a brand new Meridian Gold, including a new windshield mount! These guys rock! I have been told that the Sportrak Color uses a different case, and as such none have developed the cracks. I encouraged my mom to buy one at Costco - they are selling them for $200 right now - that's awesome for a color screen, barometer and a true 3-axis compass! Don't get discouraged - Magellan will take care of you!

I have the Meridian Platinum, but for geocaching and autorouting in general, the Meridian Gold, with a decent sized SD Card (64 MB for $28 at Wal-Mart) will work perfectly. I love the DirectRoute's autorouting capabilities - it is very easy to use. I just had a buddy find the Meridian Gold, brand new, at Wal-Mart, for $120.00 because they were making way for new product! You can't beat that deal. But, even at full price, you can get a Meridian Gold for $200 and the software will knock you back another $100 - so $330 alltogether - a hundred or more dollars less than any of the Garmin Autorouters - although they ARE nice. My buddy loves the Gold, and he started out with a Garmin Etrex legend and was hardcore Garmin until he got the Gold. If you want to experience these units first hand - go to a geocaching event and ask around and see if anyone will let you use theirs for a cache, just to get the feel - the Magellans are very user-friendly and easy to use. I would also reccomend the Sportrak Pro or Color, but without the removeable SD card, they are a little limited in map-holding capability. (I started with a Sportrak Map, went to the Sportrak Pro, and now the Meridian Platinum. Write me if you have any specific questions about the autorouting.

I was out caching the other day - as someone had just posted a cache - and I wanted to be FTF - about 3 minutes into the hunt, along came another cacher and we said Hi and then we were looking in the same general area, but he found it first - I was way bummed, especially since it turned out he had already had quite a few FTF's and I had not had any. Luckily, I was FTF on another cache that very same day, so I guess it worked out. It was nice seeing another cacher, that didn't have three eyes, as my wife still maintains that I am crazy and that no "normal" person in the entire world would geocache. I was wondering too if there was any established protocol - should the latecomer ask if they want company and be prepared to come back later - especially on an FTF, or is it just every geocacher for themselves?

I have a Magellan Windshield mount (with suction cups) and a Magellan carrying case for sale - both for the Magellan Sportrak series. Both look brand new & I have only had the case about a month. I am selling, because I just upgraded my GPSr to a Meridian Platinum. I also have three sets of Sportrak Manuals and an extra PC data cable if you are interested. I don't have a price in mind, but any reasonable offer will be accepted - you must pay for shipping. I will only accept Money Orders or Cashier's checks. Thank you. Please contact me via timgesner@yahoo.com if you are interested - or just post here.

I bought an ST Map - it got cracks & Magellan repaired it twice & then replaced it with a ST Pro, which also got cracks, unfortunately. I never dropped it or anything, but did keep it in my car, so maybe it's a heat issue. They finally offered to give me my money back or replace it with a Meridian. I took the Meridian, of course and spent a little more money with them to upgrade it to a Platinum, with the temp., barometer and 3-axis compass. I bought a 64 Meg SD card and I love the coverage I now have! Keep with it - Magellan has the best customer service and I have dealt with a lot. They will make it right and you'll probably end up with a lot of extra stuff for your unit, too!

I had the same issue with mine - I quickly learned that it just takes a sec to correct for movement and such - very accurate and after Magellan fixed the crack issue, I was 100% happy with the unit.

I started out with the Sportrak Map, which was awesome - went to the Sportrak Pro - even better! Now I have the Meridian Platinum with a 64 Mb card - and it rocks! It holds so much map data - very detailed and I love the ability to have multiple cards/map setups. I use Streets and Destinations, but I am looking forward to having the DirectRoute software soon - Since I need to be able to arrive at the places I geocache! The address lookup and the soon-to-come routing will make the larger expense of the unit much more palatable to my wife, too!

Yeah, I wish I had had one of those printouts - I was on my second cache ever and a park ranger parked at my car and over her loudspeaker announced that if I didn't return to my car, it would be ticketed and towed. I came running out of the orange grove I was in, carrying my 1-year-old son. She was quite suspicious and asked me what I was doing. I stumbled around the explanation and finally said, Have you ever heard of geocaching?" She had, so that saved a lot of sheepish muttering. Turns out I had parked in a no-parking zone and I was told to move. I was also warned of the park closing in another 20 minutes and I never did find a way to go back and park legally, without dragging my son down a ravine, across a stream and through some really thick brush to get to the cache. Oh well.

Okay, here's my take on Magellan's Tech Support - I've contacted them four times now, and every single time I was very impressed by their helpfulness and speed of repair services. Four calls also got me a free windshield mount, three sets of manuals, two wrist straps, a free belt case, an upgrade to a Sportrak Pro and then they finally offered to give me my money back, or upgrade me again to a Meridian Marine. I took the Meridian, of course. For my money, they have been the best tech support I have ever encountered, bar none. I have worked tech support for 10+ years for computers, and while I am pretty knowledgeable, I could never offer a bunch of free stuff, along with my sage advice.

I started out with a Magellan Sportrak Map - $140 on E-bay, including shipping. Bought the Streets and Destinations software from Radio Shack - on sale, for $40.00 - Very cool buy. My Sportrak got cracks. I sent it in and they repaired it and gave me a nice Windshield mount and new manuals too. My sportrak got more cracks. I sent it back in and got back a new unit, with a new belt case. More cracks. I sent it in again, got a Sportrak Pro in return! That lasted for a month - Another crack. Learned today - free upgrade again, to Meridian Marine! Any day now it will be here... Despite the cracks, if I was looking to buy another GPSr and I only had a little money, I'd buy another Sportrak Map again, without hesitation. The cracks didn't affect operation at all, it was just the principle of the thing - & look what my principles got me - a free upgrade to a Meridian! Now what would it take to get that DirectRoute software, case, Car adaptor and windshield mount too?! Oh yeah - principles.

Hi - Timasaurus here - it's actually been a few days since I last Geocached, but it's only because I'm waiting for my new Meridian Platinum to arrive. I guess I've got it kind of bad - I'm hiding my geocaching from the muggle I'm married to. I pretend to go to the store or for a long walk with my son and it's a good thing that so many caches are at parks, so I don't have to lie about taking my son to the park. How I'm going to explain a completely different GPSr attached to my windshield, with the new DirectRoute software, I'm not sure. "It's so we don't get lost when we go on vacation....", yeah, that sounds good! Okay, so I need help. Maybe i could join Southern California Geocachers and they could help! :-)

My first multi-tool was a generic knockoff that broke in a matter of days. I often borrowed a friend's Leatherman, which I liked, except that it often pinched my fingers. Then I found the Gerber Multi-plier and it's one-handed operation - that was wonderful for me, as I was working as an aircraft electrician in the Army at the time. Admittedly, the best things about it were the easy-to-use pliers and the knives (two of 'em!) were shaving sharp! The other tools weren't much use, but in a tight situation, they were better than nothing. After the army, my Gerber went in the toolbox and I started carrying a nice Wenger Swiss Army Knife. The Wenger has a cool auto-locking/unlocking mechanism for the screwdriver - very handy when you are torquing down on something. My only complaint was that it didn't have a phillips screwdriver, and the next model up, was too big for my pocket (the main reason I stopped carrying the Gerber). Then I "lost" my Wenger and broke down and bought my first Leatherman - one of the Squirt models, with cool blue handles and the pliers (not the scissors) - I later found the Wenger I thought I had lost, but it doesn't even compare to the Squirt. It is now the one thing I never go to work, or geocaching, without. Oops - a little off-topic - what do I use it for? Pulling those dadgum tiny logsheets out of Micros, prying out micros from their hiding spots, poking at things inside micros, thorn and splinter removal when searching for micros hidden in trees, and , oh yeah, pinching shut those dadgum micros made out of Altoids tins, so they can never be opened again! Okay, just kidding about that one, but I COULD, if I wanted to. If Leatherman/gerber ever made one with a GPS/combo - I'd be all over that! :-)

As to the stick I take with me, I use an eleven inch holly wand, with a phoenix feather in it's core - it is nice and supple and gets me through so many sticky situations!

I had one myself a while back - "Geocaching: Grounds for Divorce?" That got some attention. Course, I wasn't just posting to be controversial - my life is still pretty messed up as far as my wife and geocaching is concerned, but no divorce yet....yet.

I had someone leave with a cache - It only happened about four weeks ago - I had spent about a month, working on a multi-puzzle-cache - each location had to be visited in order to get the "parts" neccesary to put together the device that would allow the finder to actually reach the final cache. I worked out puzzles that had to be solved to find each location and had placed all of the pieces - all I had to do was post the cache and I would have been done. The next day I took my son for a walk past the location and the cache was gone! I couldn't believe it - I had a brand new cache, camo'd to blend in with a brick wall, about five feet behind an eight foot tall chain-link fence and it was gone! It was an urban cache, near some houses, so I figure, even though I was pretty quick placing the cache, I must have been seen and whomever saw me, stole it and never replaced it. How's that for dissapointing?

My "nemesis" was a silly 1/1 magnetic cache - I went and looked for it four times until I finally found it. It was called "guarding...something" I don't remember right off hand. Well, I looked and looked and the fourth time I looked in the exact same spot for the twelfth time and I found it - I wasn't thinking "magnetic" and was looking in the crook behind the guard rail and its post, just not at the TOP of the crook. Duh. Well a month or so later, I was looking for another cache called Guarding the Target and wandering around in circles I saw another guard rail and that's when it dawned on me - "Guarding" was FREAKIN' code for guard rail! Talk about the obvious-fish smacking me in the face! Well, now I know, if it says guarding, just ignore everything else and look on the guardrail. That is of course, until some genius decides to really screw with people and... Hey, i just got an idea for a "revenge" cache! (insert evil laugh here)

Yeah, I forgot to mention when I said earlier that my Sportrak Map had the cracks - I haven't found anyone yet who has the cracks with the Sportrak Pro - I truly believe they used a different plastic for their Pro cases & also, the cracks that I had with the ST Map were so small to almost be unnoticeable. I almost didn't even send it in, they were so small, but I did it, just because it was still under warranty - not for any true concern over the unit being waterprooof or not. For the price, feel and reliability, not to mention all the great features - go with the Pro - you really won't be sorry.

I realize that I may have been too vague, concerning the prices of the objects I have for sale/trade. Here is what I am asking for each item - I am willing to do a partial trade: I am looking for DirectRoute and a car power adaptor. Mapsend Streets and Destinations USA 4.0 - $35.00 + 5.00 shipping Brand New Sportrak Map/Pro etc. Data cable - $15 + 4.00 shipping 2 Full Sets of Sportrak Map/Pro Manuals - $5.00 + $3.50 shipping (each) Also, slightly unrelated items that I have for sale: swords (antiques and replicas), fencing gear, and a few firearms - just e-mail me directly and I will tell you what I have or I can e-mail you a phone number and we can talk. Thanks,

I started out with a Sportrak Map - I loved it! It held a lot of data - I have the Streets & Destinations software, but not quite as much as I wanted. I live in Southern California & there is a lot more streets, street names, and points of interest than you might think. My unit developed the stress fractures and after having the case replaced once under warranty by Magellan (they threw in a car mount and a fresh set of manuals for free) it developed them again - although I don't understand how - the plastic was supposed to be different. Magellan was awesome about the whole thing - they truly have the best customer service I have ever encountered - and I've encountered a lot! They replaced my unit with the Sportrak Pro for free! I really love the extra memory - it makes it capable of using the new DirectRoute maps and it will hold about half the state of California, which is great for me. I have two friends who have GPSr - one has the Etrex Legend and a Geko 101(?) and the other has a Lowrance I-Finder - all the units are very nice - I would be happy to have either the Lowrance or the Garmin. The Lowrance might be a unit you should consider, because of it's relatively low price, and it's larger than normal screen, coupled with the fact that it has the memory card feature. Of course, that memory card needs maps, and then you are back up to the $200.00+ range, but with multiple memory cards, you could definitely hold the info for all of Maine and anywhere else you wanted to go. Lowrance maps have a really cool mapping feature that allows you to download map info for corridors of travel - whereas the Streets and Destinations software for Magellan only allows you to choose up to four rectangles of map info to put on your unit. The Lowrance unit is not waterproof, but comes with a waterproof "bag", and is still useable in the bag, so that shouldn't be too big of an issue - it also has replaceable faceplates - of different colors - kind of neat, but truly unneccesary. Ultimately, beside being jealous of a few features of each unit, I am extremely happy with what I ended up with - it's a unit that should last me quite a long time & has great reception and features and is extremely easy to use. If you will be doing any GPSing under tree cover - and knowing Maine, you will, that should be an important thing to look at - I read reviews and articles from the most recent issue of Backpacker magazine just two days ago that said the Sportrack Pro was the best basic model for the money, because of it's reception and memory size, and that the Garmins and the Lowrance had reception problems in heavy tree cover because of a different antenna design. Check out this review of several different units from PC Magazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,758358,00.asp They seem to be very fair in their reviews. Sorry if this post is too long - I love geocaching and I get excited about stuff like this! :-)

I have copy of Magellan's Streets and Destinations USA - Version 4.0, in great condition, including the original box, for sale. Please make an offer - if I don't sell it here, I will probably just put it on E-Bay. (I'm trying to upgrade to DirectRoute) Also, I have an extra Data cable that fits the Magellan Sportrak series of GPSr and probably a whole slew of other GPSr's by Magellan. I am looking to sell it, or make a trade for a car power adaptor for my Sportrak Pro. I don't need the power/data connector, but I am willing to consider one, if the price is right. I also have three sets of manuals for the Sportrak Series by Magellan - two sets include the French instructions. Make an offer. Please contact me via timgesner@yahoo.com or at tges@prime-line-products.com if you are interested. Thank you.

I hate to tell everyone this, but my replaced Sportrak Map got the cracks again! I sent a nasty e-mail to Magellan and they sent an e-mail back asking me to call their customer service number. I got a little busy and forgot - a week or so later they called me! They replaced my Sportrak Map with a brand new Sportrak Pro! I love it too! Now I can put the entire lower half of California on my GPSr, where before I couldn't get a tenth of the state on it - Now I'm wondering how to afford the direct route software! :-) Now I'm regretting the nasty part of the e-mail - Magellan has really come through for me - and the turnaround time was less than a week to get my new one - you can't beat that!

Not true - I filled it out and got back an e-mail that said - "please call us at..." I was too busy to follow up on it and didn't call them back - that was two weeks ago. They actually called me yesterday - and get this - BEST NEWS YET - they offered to replace my Sportrak Map with a Sportrak Pro!!! I guess it's because I already sent in my unit once - I was very happy when I got it back, but my unit developed new stress cracks, so I called them back. No, I didn't drop it. I must say, any of you who think Magellan/Thales has bad customer service, you are dead wrong. They honestly have the best customer service I have ever encountered & I work in a customer service-laden industry - anyone who has encountered any customer service for internet, computers, software, or anything electronic in the amount I have will instantly recognize Thales as, hands down, having a great customer service. Yeah, maybe they produced one product that is having problems, but it's a really great product, other than that, and they are taking care of it. I know it's hard having to wait two weeks to get your repaired unit back, but hey, that's two weeks of planning your next cache, downloading the waypoints of your next twelve-hundred finds and two weeks more of complaining in the forums!