Sparky-Watts

Makes ya wonder how many of those 606 they claim to have found are real, huh?

WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, as devil's advocate, you don't wanna see another thread pop up asking for rules against bumping threads? I'm with ya there, PTO!!!

Dont' touch the cache. If you have intentions of changing the container to something else, email the cache owner first and get permission. It is one thing to replace a wet log book for them, but don't change the dynamics of the cache. Yeah...maybe that cache owner wanted his tuppermaid box to be cracked and let all the contents get mushy and moldy because they thrive on repeated negative logs.....don't wanna do anything to change those dynamics, do we?

I find it hard to believe that you could stop yourself from posting on ANYTHING, old thread or not! Bwaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, and just wait a few months, because he'll bump and thump* it! *Bump and Thump= Bump his own thread and thump his chest at how many threads he's started.....'cause ya know, it's all about the numbers for the little blue guy!

If it's a constant problem that the owner refuses to fix, file an SBA on it. That usually gets their attention. Is the hider even active anymore? There was one like that near here that was constantly having logs mentioning the need for maintanence. Other cachers tried to keep it active by replacing soggy log books, but to no avail. I checked the hider's profile, and they hadn't been active in well over a year, and the complaints dated back to about a year before that (actually within a few months of the time it was hidden). The cache was located in a State Park, and it cost $5.50 to get in to look for it. Since I didn't feel it was appropriate for people to have to pay to seek a cache (it was the only one in the park) that was crappy and not being maintained, I filed an SBA, and picked up the remains so it wouldn't become geolitter. Email the hider and ask what their plans are for fixing it up. If they won't do anything about it, file that SBA. I don't see any reason for a hider to allow their cache to continually be the subject of complaints for lack of maintanence. If they don't want to fix it, I don't think they should be allowed to block out a 528' area from someone who is willing to place a decent cache.

Exactly. I am constantly scouting out cool locations. But I only order ammo cans once every few months when I've found enough cool spots. So as soon as they come in, I fill them up with swag and go out and place all of them on the same day or weekend. Why should I have to make half a dozen separate trips? That makes no sense to me. All that does is give other cachers the opportunity to obliterate your pre-scouted location for your well thought out caches with a crappy stop-n-dump cache. BS could have a year's worth of very well planned, excellent caches that he's worked for months on to make them special and to find special places to hide them, and another cacher could stop at WalMart, grab a tin of altoids, eat them on the way out to the woods, stuff a piece of paper in the tin, and poof!.....all of Briansnat's planning for that spot is shot down by another lame micro stop-n-dump. Nope....doesn't serve any positive purpose at all. And if the same cacher's scheduled dump day is one day ahead of Briansnat's, he could eradicate any chance of Briansnat's caches ever seeing the light of day, and obliterate an entire zip code with lame caches in a few month's time, and nobody would get the thrill of finding a well-planned cache by Briansnat.

I was here about a year before Briansnat became a verb. To briansnat a topic means to post something so incredibly intelligent, cogent and pithy that all further debate effectively ends and anybody who disagrees is a putz. Oh, so by the same definition, to pull a Sparky would be to post inane drivel in every forum on the board, including those that are in a language other than English? I'll have to add "Briansnat" to my list of coined phrases now! EDIT: But where should I put it? Between Subigo and Ringbone? Or between Markwell and Webfoot?

Cool....I think I'll just go ahead and copy that image onto all of my cache pages!

I can't and won't speak for "most" cache hiders, but for me personally, I'd appreciate it. I'd also feel embarassed that I let my cache go so long without any maintanence. This spring I did the exact same thing. I was planning a trip to eastern Kansas, and noted the logs on one cache where a cacher I had been communicating with for a while had broken the lid on another cacher's box. I took along an extra container and replaced the original, both as a favor to the person who broke it (and she had placed many good caches herself) and to the owner of the cache (who also had placed many good caches in the area). I will donate pens, logbooks, etc. to caches that need them, and have done so in the past. The cache container I replaced was an exceptionally difficult find, and also took me to a spot that I never knew existed, even though I'd been within a couple miles of it many, many times throughout my life. That is yet another reason I replaced the container. So, through my rambling there, yeah, I think it's good to replace a container that needs it, but totally wrong to rehide it in a "better" spot. Totally wrong.

Very well put, Lep. I've never seen the rules coming down as kneejerk reactions, and in my time here, I've never known Jeremy to be a compulsive, non-thinking robot in an ivory tower. Seems to me that everything he has done has been well thought out. In fact, I'm sure he hated to implement any of the rules, but did so out of necessity. The recent thread demanding rules on cache-placement limits isn't something that I see happening, because there is no necessity for it. Sure, I imagine there will be more rules handed out in the future, and I will reference Lep's last statement as a reason (bold emphasis in his quote).

I like those for ranking, similar to the terrain ratings. As far as actually using them to rate whether a cache is good or bad, though, they won't work. 20 years ago, I could hike all day above the timber line. Two years ago, it was all I could do to drive a car that high without passing out from lack of oxygen. I wouldn't mind seeing something like this used as a difficulty rating. In fact, I might start using it on my own caches, and may even start my own list of caches I've found and rate them that way for difficulty. Even so, a cache at 13,000 feet with a beautiful view but filled with dirty golf balls and soggy business cards, expired coupons and ticket stubs, would still rate less to me than a well-planned cache 10 feet off a parking lot that is difficult to find.

I've seen enough of Geo's posts here on GC.com to get a pretty good idea of his character, and I seriously doubt he'd intentionally cheat on a BM log. When I first read the OP's post, I was a bit turned off by it, and yes, it did sound quite accusatory. Geo has since posted the pic that was meant to be with the BM, and explained his mistake. Not a problem. I don't see why someone with such an extensive and very well documented history of finding BM's would file a bogus log, that just didn't make any sense. I've filed the wrong log on caches before, simply because I'm a bit of a dolt and don't always think straight after a day of caching. Give the guy a break, apologize for accusing him of being a letch and faking his log, and move on. In the future, might I suggest that you send a kindly worded email to anyone you think has made an error (don't accuse them of faking a log, that's always a bad start) and ask them to check it out. Don't just pop a thread accusing someone with Geo's standing, or anyone for that matter, of being a cheat. Just isn't good practice, and will ultimately lead to bad feelings.

Yikes! 34.Disorientation: getting lost, going to wrong places Uh oh!

In response to at least part of QM's last post: One "prolific" hider here in my area has an unusually large amount of garbage caches hidden under cedar trees. So many of them, that everytime I go caching and look for one of his, I can find it without the GPSr, because all I have to do is find one of those dang itchy, scratchy cedars. Now that he has so many done that way, others have taken to copying him, thinking that is the way it should be. People are hiding more and more, but rather than being creative, they are copying. So, I don't know what the answer is. I don't know how to go about getting people to hide caches someplace other than a crappy cedar tree. I have hidden 5 of them now, none of which are in cedars, only one is less than a half-mile walk, and all are out in the country. How many more have been hidden under those parameters since I hid mine? None. Not a one, as far as I can tell. I've gotten good comments on all of mine, so I know people like them, and find them challenging even if it is only because of the mosquitoes or poison ivy in the area. Still, planting 5 caches that I worked quite a while on to make good hasn't changed anything about the way others in the area hide their caches. I think rather than placing a limit on caches placed, TPTB should take a closer look at a hider's ratio of "temporarily disabled" caches to active. I know there are certain things that make caches "temporarily disabled", and often for extended periods of time, but come on....when a guy with over 80 hides has 25 of them TD'd, that's a bit extreme. And they're TD'd because they have been muggled, gotten wet, swept away in a flood, etc. Yet he's still planting (or trying to plant) more cedar tree caches a few feet off the trail, road, parking lot, etc. Our approver has cracked down on that, and I think other approvers should, too, if they haven't already.

I don't get these two. Why are they bad? If someone left me some useful software, I'd be very happy to take it. Software because of the chance of viri. Yes, you should be running an AV program to catch it, but there are still a lot of people out there that don't. Hardware because of the high probability that it isn't any good anymore, or wasn't properly packaged before being placed. I don't want to put anything into my computer that may possibly damage it, or that probably won't work anyway. Too much time and effort involved. If there's software that I want, I'll buy it. If there's hardware that I want, I'll buy that too. Of course, those are just my personal opinions, as asked for by the OP. If others want that sort of thing, fine. Just not me. EDIT: How would you know it's useful before you take it? I wouldn't, because I don't have a laptop to take caching with me, so I can't try it before I take it.

My dad always said the PC term for them was chegroes........

We have trained chiggers here that specifically go after visitors below the belt line........and no, mom won't let me scratch them in public,either!

Here is what I got with my first and last name: is a member of several professional and honorary organizations is certified to teach the personnel who train emergency response crews is a widely published photographer whose work has appeared in numerous magazines There were more, and actually were all specifically about me. Guess I'm noted on the web much more than I originally thought!

eric is updated monthly eric is funded by the office of educational research and improvement eric is real eric is used by teachers Those were some of the clean ones about my first name..... BTW, what is a "camwhore"?

That's too bad! Usually, when I get a tick attached, the way I find out is that I start to get flu-like symptoms within a couple hours. I get weak, my joints hurt, and my body aches all over....once I remove the tick, within a couple hours I feel better. Only had one tick that left a funny mark, so I showed it to the ER doc I was working with. He said not to worry, and that was that. Never had Lyme or RMSF from a tick....yet. I still have spots from ticks that got me last fall that start itching every once in a while, though.

I'll keep you in my prayers, KA...both for the Lyme Disease, and while you log all those 250+ caches you found!

I left those as swag in two of my caches, including the one mentioned in my post above. I hid the caches in winter, but I knew the area well enough to know that it's a mosquito breeding ground, so that's why I left them. Hmmm....I'll have to check the logs again to see if anyone picked them up.....the last few that found the caches have complained a lot about the skeeters!

How do I know I didn't just imagine that you posted that?

I think some people myself included would not feel comfortable sticking anything in thier computer if they did not know where it came from. Yup....Like my momma always said: "Don't put that in there!! You don't know where it's been!" Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that I, too, love to find logo'd stuff from business promos in caches. I've gotten some really cool stuff like that. My wife is in the insurance business, and she frequently brings home stuff like that, too, so I've left it as swag. People seem to like it, because from reading the logs, the next couple visits and it's gone!

There's nothing wrong with including in your log that you thought the difficulty rating should have been higher or lower. Here's a log left last weekend by a local on one of my caches. I'm not at all offended by it, in fact, coming from him, I'm pretty proud of myself for making him work to get a cache. He's definitely made me work for a lot of his!!