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Chi-Town Cacher

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Everything posted by Chi-Town Cacher

  1. Thanks for the input BlueDeuce. I'll definitely be checking on Amazon and probably some other places.
  2. I took a year off from caching and am now starting to feel the itch to get back into it. The only problem is my tired old brain has forgotten some important information. I realize I could search online and find it, but I don't have much luck with finding anything on the internet and am hoping a couple folks will throw some of their wisdom out for my benefit. I've got a pretty good idea of which GPSr I will be purchasing based on my previous caching experiences, but for the life of my I can't remember the names of some of the online vendors that sell GPSrs. I can remember eBay (yep always a bit of a risk, but I'm pretty experienced there so I generally do good at picking good sellers) and Amazon.com. However, I know there were a couple other online vendors that frequently had good sales, but I can't remember any of their names. So if anybody can just share some names of good reputable vendors online so I can start researching prices it would be appreciated. I will keep an eye on the Garage Sale forum here since I know that can be a good place too, but I'm not too patient and if what I'm looking for isn't listed soon I'll probably just opt to pay retail and get caching sooner. Thanks in advance and happy caching!
  3. Thanks for the suggestion. It's a good idea and I'll do that. Have a great day!
  4. I'm having to take a break from geocaching for about a year or so and I have a geocache that I am looking to turn over to somebody that is willing to care for it. It's a pretty unique puzzle cache and although it has only been found 30 times it has been selected by 7 geocachers as one of their favorites. The cache is located in Chicago near the general area of N. Milwaukee and W. Devon Avenues. If you'd like to check out this geocache CLICK HERE . If you'd like to adopt this cache I'd be willing to show you the specifics of how it is run and answer any questions you may have. I realize that the cache description is way too wordy and could use some serious tweaking and that the cache itself could maybe use a better hiding spot and as the new cache owner of course you would be welcome to make any changes you see fit. If I can't find somebody to adopt this geocache (I'm pretty much a loner so I don't know any geocachers here in Chicago)then I'll have to archive it. Based on the positive reviews from the people who've found it and on a favorable review of it on the Chicago Geocaching Podcast I think it would be a shame if I had to archive this cache. If you'd like to adopt this cache and are able to perform maintenance on it if needed please contact me. You can reach me by clicking on my user name and when my profile pops up click the link to send me an E-Mail (sorry I'm an old fart and don't do IM's so please send an E-Mail message and not an IM on this forum site). Please make sure before you send the message to me that you click the box to include your E-Mail address with your message so it will be easier to contact you. Happy caching!!!!
  5. Welcome to the addiction! Don't be worried though since even though it is an addiction and can make sane people act pretty silly at times it's generally a pretty harmless addiction. Just a random suggestion, if you really want to amp up the fun factor of caching take a child with you (if you don't have one borrow one from a tired mother and she'll love you for it). Watching a childs face light up when they're digging through the SWAG is an awesome thing! Happy Caching!!!!
  6. Greetings! I think I have a pretty good suggestion for you on a regular sized cache in downtown Chicago. The last official Found It/Did Not Find It log was a DNF, but I was there about a week ago and as you'll see by my note for the cache I can assure you the cache is still where the owner put it and at least according to my GPSr the coords are very accurate. The cache title is Tribute to our friend Frazer with a GC number of GC1NXCX . This cache is located a short walk from the Adler Planetarium building on the museum campus where all the major museums are located. If you take the subway (locally called the L) to the Roosevelt stop and go up to ground level there on Roosevelt St across the street from L station is a bus stop and you can catch bus number 146 out to the Adler Planetarium and get off there for the short walk (about 1/4 mile) to ground zero. A word of WARNING: At ground zero the area is strewn with large and small concrete blocks so if you or anybody in your party has balance issues you may want to pass on this cache rather than possibly risking falling and breaking a hip or something. It's not dangerous it's just not as stable of a walk as say a stroll through the woods. Trivia: If you need to buy bus and L passes for your stay for unlimited rides for 1,3 or 7 days while you're in town you can get those passes at Roosevelt Street L station main entrance near the bus stop you take to go to the musuem campus. Have fun and welcome to the finest city in America!!!!
  7. Thank you so much everybody for helping me. Now that I know how to work with this situation it's very easy now. I'm back up and running and I can upload more pics again for TB owners so they can see where their TBs and geocoins have been visiting. Again, thank you everybody and happy caching!!!! If an admin wants to lock down this thread now that is fine by me. If not that's fine too.
  8. Thanks for moving it. I should have known the correct category. I guess I had a brain fart. I'll also check out the Feedback site you mention. Happy caching!
  9. Well, I'm not a newby, but on the other hand I make no claims to being computer savvy. I used to be able to very easily upload pictures to a TB or geocoin, but for the last several days no matter how many times I try it keeps giving me a message saying there was an error and I need to return to their (gc.com's) home page. Of course I've gone back to the home page and started over and keep getting the same error message. I've even tried it on both a Dell and a Gateway computer just in case gc.com didn't like Gateways for some reason which is my newest computer. Even with going back and trying a Dell computer I got exactly the same results. I'm guessing I'm missing something very simple or maybe in the last month they've changed the procedures for uploading pictures, but for the life of me all of a sudden I can't figure out how to upload photos which I'd been able to do easily as lately as mid January. Thank you in advance for any help you can provide me during this time of frustration.
  10. Next Monday the 14th I'm heading down to Key West, FL to cache for a few days and thaw out my tired old bones. I've seen lot's of videos of waterspouts and would love to get some pictures of some next week. Is February a good time to spot them? or should I plan on coming back at some other time to satisfy that obsession of mine? If Key West isn't the best location for seeing them then what part of the state should I cache if I want to see them as a bonus while collecting some smilies and great memories? Thanks in advance and maybe our caching paths will cross.
  11. Greetings and welcome to the game. I'm surprised nobody else has answered yet so I'll take a stab at trying to assist you. While I don't consider myself illiterate on the general uses of a GPSr I also readily acknowledge that there are lots wiser folks around this forum than me. So to put it in plain English read what I have to say, but take others advice more to heart since they probably are more GPSr savvy than I am. 1. You mention paperless caching and I may be wrong, but I think most GPSrs capable of paperless caching also have an option to route you on roads as close to the cache as possible. Then you find a parking space and switch your GPSr over to hiking mode in the routing options. If you have a GPSr that is paperless caching check out your owners manual under routing options and you should be able to find the info you need. If you don't have a paperless capable GPSr then what I'd suggest is just tell it which cache you want to go to next and then it will give you a straight line pointing to the cache location. Say for example if the cache is off to the Northwest I'll jump on a road that heads North and head North until the GPSr indicates the cache is pretty close to straight West of my location. Then I jump onto a Westbound road and get as close to the cache as possible. Then basically keep repeating that process until you're as close as you can get in your vehicle. 2. Yes, there definitely are some ways to tell how far a cache is from a parking location or other spot. Since I'm not GPSr tech savvy I'll leave that explanation to one of the more knowledgable folks here. I don't want to give you my way which may be several steps harder than necessary and confuse you. If you are wanting to go on long hikes and are a premium member (a great value in my humble opinion) then you can create pocket queries that search exclusively for caches that require a substantial hike by searching for caches with the hiking required attribute. Actually I see there are 3 hiking type attributes you may see. One is a person with a backpack and a walking stick, one is for hikes less than 10 kilometers in length CLICK HERE to see an example of that (towards the top of the page and right below the map) and rounding out the hiking attributes for hiking geocaches is the one very similar to the one I mentioned above is the hike greater than 10 kilometers attribute. On the other hand if you are wanting to avoid long hikes you can design your pocket querie to not include caches with those attributes. If you're not a premium member seriously consider becoming one if possible so you can get the most from the geocaching.com website. If you're not a premium member then you'll have to manually check out each cache description page to see if it has the cache attribue symbol you're looking for. Also, if you're trying to avoid any hiking look in the description of the cache for wording like P & G which indicates it's very close to the parking area. Another way to avoid long hikes is to stay away from caches with a high terrain rating. The last suggestion isn't foolproof though because maybe it has a 3 rating because maybe you have to climb a tree, but it may only be 50 feet from parking. Ok, I've rambled on too long so I'll put an end to this "book". Hopefully you'll find a tidbit or two that's beneficial and even if not it will bump it back up to the top where better qualified people will spot your message easier and can respond. Welcome to the game and happy caching!
  12. Merry Christmas and Happy Festivus everybody. Have a safe and fun New year!
  13. Greetings! I sent you an E-Mail at the E-Mail address linked to your profile page so if you're still interested in selling please read my most recent E-Mail and reply. I've got the funds and can immediately pay as soon as I am satisfied with the additional information you provide. Thanks and happy caching!
  14. I'm pretty new to my current city I live in so I can't say how TB prisons are handled here, however I can assure you it's not too unusual to see logs in west Michigan that state they weren't moving trackables because they couldn't comply with the written Prison rules on the cache page. Those are current logs, say in the last year that I'm referring to. I'm glad to hear things are much better in your area! Maybe there's hope that what's happening in your area will eventually spread worldwide. veit - Most people here seem to be against your ideas, At the risk of being roasted alive and being flamed by the regulars here I agree with you on everything you've said here. I have NOT read anything that is linked to in this thread so I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with those comments, but I do wholeheartedly agree with what you've written in this forum post! I have my own theory of why people are so afraid to take any public action and if you're bored sometime feel free to contact me via my profile page and I'll be happy to share my observations with you on a one on one basis. At a little over 600 finds in a couple years geocaching I know I don't qualify as a wise old veteran cacher, but neither am I a wet behind the ears newbie. The only reason I mention my smiley count or years geocaching is even though I disagree with those things being used as deciding factors in whether a person should be speaking out on this forum I do know that to some people those are factors that they take into consideration. I'm not much into the Forums anymore so if anybody replies to my post they are welcome to do so, but just be aware that I probably won't see it and probably won't be replying back to you. Happy caching everybody!
  15. I'd have to agree with sabrefan7. Your log was very appropriate and nothing offensive. After reading a lot of the logs I think the cache owner needs to mellow out a bit and not take comments from other cachers about geese too seriously. I think it was just a coincidence that you logged your visit on a day when the cache owner was in a "fowl" mood. Happy caching!!!!
  16. I did log the find but Cockroach Cabin is logged as "Needs Maintenance" so for some reason this does not log as a "find". As you've noticed the Needs Maintenance log will not get you your smiley and increase your find count. In addition to the Needs Maintenance log go back and do another log for that cache and as the type of note make it a Found It and then your stats will be accurate again. Doing 2 types of note logs is normal and appropriate if a cache needs maintenance. Again welcome and happy caching!!!!
  17. Welcome to the game/addiction. I've been at it about a year and a half now and regret not learning about it sooner. Like you I also have a Delorme PN-40 and am loving it. You're doing very good on your perfect find percentages so far! I've stopped keeping track, but I think I DNF about 15% of the caches I search for. Just keep in mind when you start to get a few DNFs it's perfectly normal and if every cache we searched for was very easy to find this little addiction of ours would be pretty darned boring real fast. Keep moving the TBs and geocoins along their owners will really love you for it! Happy caching!!!!
  18. Life's interferred with my lurking around the forums recently so I'm just getting back here and finishing reading everybody's responses. First off to all of you that responded I thank you since it gave me a pretty good idea whether I was just being a cranky old man or if maybe my gripe may have had a little merit. With that being said I'd like to clarify a couple things. First of all as the OP I should not have put the desparaging remarks about micros in my original post, they were really OT from what I really wanted to hear responses about. I'm sure that the discussion would have gotten off topic eventually since micros are a hot topic, but my comments probably started the discussion off on the wrong setting. I'll try and do better in the future. Just for the record I am not a micro hater normally even though my original post would lead folks to believe otherwise. Yes, most days I do filter them out and ignore them since they are not the type of hides I normally prefer to seek. However, once in a while I do enjoy them and even specifically sought out a LPC as my milestone 500th find just to be different than what lots of other folks do for their milestones. To Bittsen you said I'm an elitist because of my frustration with the incorrect classification of micros sizes. That seems a bit harsh, but I suspect that due to my bad wording in my original post I kind of opened the door for that kind of criticism. I can assure you I am not advocating the demise of micros I just want cache owners to correctly classify their caches sizes so cache seekers can make an informed decision on whether they want to search for them or not. Thank you to all who've taken the time to share your opinions. Happy caching!!!!
  19. Hi. First and most importantly welcome to the fun! The best advice I've seen given is to remember to also look up since not every cache is on the ground. I'd say a 50% find ratio without using a GPS is pretty darned impressive. I did worse than that with a GPSr when I first started. Chrysalide's advice is probably the best so if you at least remember that you'll have a great time! Again, welcome!
  20. I'm curious if something in this area is a problem throughout the country/world or if it's primarily a localized problem here in SW Michigan. The problem I'm finding a royal pain in the arse is the fact that lots of cachers around here seem to believe that any container that can hold a stubb of a pencil qualifies as a small cache. I'm so sick of hunting for a small sized container only to have it turn out to be a micro that the owner doesn't know how to classify correctly (or doesn't care to). A lousey little film cannister is a micro and not a small cache like they're frequently classified around here. The way I see it I have about 3 options that I can choose from to deal with this problem. First I could ignore the problem and pretend there are not a bunch of not so educated folks wasting my time searching for micros that are mislabeled as smalls. I have to say after 500 finds I'm getting tired of pretending I don't mind that somebody has wasted my time yet again hunting for a piece of garbage micro that the owner misclassified as a small geocache. My next option is to change my PQs so they not only leave out micros and unknown sized geocaches, but also add smalls as ones to leave out even though I really do enjoy hunting for an accurately classified small geocache. My last option is to instead of logging finds on mislabeled caches to maybe intead post a note to it warning others in all capital letters that the cache is misclassified and it really is a micro and not a small as the owner originally said. I'm leaning towards the last option and just hope that the cache owners can be shamed into correcting the erroneous cache size. In case anyones wondering I have on numerous occassions contacted cache owners vie E-Mail to suggest their cache sizes be corrected and so far none have ever replied or corrected the bogus info. Ok I'll stop my rant now and wait to see if it's a local problem or if it's a problem on a much bigger scale.
  21. Yeah Cachensfun thanks to your mother teaching me I do know how to ride a unicycle. It's been many years since I rode one though, but I'm assuming it's like riding a bike and once you master it you've got it for life.
  22. Colts fan here I'm with Cachensfun on this one!!!
  23. Personally I have 2 hiking staffs made from Colorado Aspen. I absolutely love the coloring on these sticks. I'd try to describe it, but being colorblind I'd probably be off by a mile. Not only do these sticks look very nice they are incredibly lightweight and strong. My staffs are very thick, about shoulder height and look like they'd weigh a lot, but every person who picks one up comments on how light they are. I weigh 240 pounds and on several ocassions I've had to put the majority of my weight on them to stop falls while geocaching and they've so far always done a great job of handling sudden stress and lots of weight on them. If you'd like to see a picture of one of them feel free to contact via my profile page and make sure you tell me your E-Mail address and I'll be happy to send a couple pictures of them. Happy caching!
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