tractordude

Hey Tom; First, welcome to the caching community. Not sure where you are in the world, but I notice you just grabbed one of my caches (Park~N~Hide, Rohnert Park/Cotati, CA) and have gotten a few in the Santa Rosa area recently. If you're living in the Santa Rosa area, you'll have a number of event throughout the year where you can meet local cachers. There are some pretty creative and helpful cachers around here and a great cross-section of clever cache types to hone your geosenses on. As to the muggle problem: the phone idea is a good one, and you can even use a GPSr as though it's a phone; people don't know it's not. You'd be surprised just how many people are totally unconcerned about what you're doing when caching. It's actually a cause of concern for me that they are not more aware of their surroundings and what odd behavior people are displaying, but that's a subject for another conversation. Another idea is to get a cheap construction vest (the mesh kind are really affordable) and wear it when you cache. Even in urban areas, drawing attention to yourself has an opposite effect and makes you look like you belong doing what you're doing. I'm in Santa Rosa and would be more than happy to go cache with you some time and offer some pointers, show you some of the more creative hides, etc. Heading to a Giants game today but am around weekends if you want to take a short caching run. When I'm not working I often head out caching with findingbill and cache with Team G Scouts also. You could always join us. Feel free to ask questions any time, general caching questions or questions regarding any of my caches. I'm always glad to help if I can. Kai [Tractordude]

It is a sad fact of geocaching life these days that geocoins get stolen. There is little we can do about thieves other than putting out "virtual" versions that have laminated pics of the coins with the numbers present so people can log them and get a semblance of what the coin was like, but as the sport/hobby/game becomes more popular, so the percentage of lost and stolen coins and TBs climbs due to not only the thoughtless, selfish and highly dishonest actions of a lawless few, but also because of the rising numbers of cachers who just don't care about the etiquette of geocoin "finding", "discovering" and logging/placing. The biggest problem with a "virtual" coin is that the finders never get the tactile experience of these sometimes exquisitely beautiful coins in their hands. I wrote an article for FTF Geocacher magazine recently ("Geocoins: Cache and Carry?") on the subject hoping that some of the uninitiated might understand more what they mean to owners and the value of allowing them to go on and do what they were meant do do. Perhaps it will enlighten some who just don't take them seriously and stop some of this activity, but, really, if you have geocoins and want to put them into circulation without losing them, though reviewers and geocaching.com frown on it and will delete "virtual" coins they find out about them, it is an option. You can always put out another, or put out the actual coin. One must understand the angst the officials must deal with when addressing such things and why they feel it necessary to disallow such "coins" in caches (ask a reviewer, they will tell you why they don't want to allow it), but then anyone who does embrace the concept and is responsible about their geocoin finds and DOES have some coins out there might see that they seem to be trying to have a "look the other way" attitude on some of this activity simply because there is not much they can do to rectify the situation and surely it frustrates them as well. Seeing people say things like "they will be stolen, period" shows a lack of faith, certainly, but it is not unrealistic to expect them to be stolen. I wish I had a better response than just to say "educate, persevere and focus on making your geocoins less likely to be misappropriated by adding laminated directions to your coins", but I'm afraid that would be my response, at least for now. I have many expensive geocoins, most of which are not activated or in circulation for this very reason. However, I do include them sometimes as FTF gifts in caches, just to spread the joy of geocoins around a bit. I have found that Europe is a better place for them to survive, if that helps. Geocaching can still be an activity whereby socially curious and responsible folks can share such things without the fear of them being ripped off by loathsome thieves, but it takes a concerted effort of placement and follow-up on the owners' part to make sure they are giving the coins the best chance to survive in the wilds with such things as laminated directions asking that they be placed in safe, premium member caches (something I have found helps, when it is adhered to by finders) and a friendly approach to prodding those who have logged a find on your coin but have not put it back in a cache. I, too, like to believe in people, and geocachers, by and large, are good people. Faith might be a naive approach, but I think it works better than negative attitude. If nothing else, collect your coins and when you're done holding on to them, sell them on eBay. They don't really go down in value if you're diligent and prudent in you purchasing.

In the last six months or so, I've noticed that the Groundspeak servers seem to be rather uncertain about what is html code and what is not in descriptions of caches when the "The descriptions below are in HTML" box is checked. I use graphics in all my web pages for caches. Some show the code, some do not, but I'll tell ya, it's really frustrating that there is a bunch of html coding screwing up the descriptions on handhelds and that there seems to be no way of assuring it doesn't happen. Does anyone else have this problem? Anyone have a fix? Am I doing something wrong all of a sudden, after successfully creating 70 plus cache pages, or is this another in a long line of Groundspeak tech problems they don't want to spend money to fix? Help!

Here's the URL for support. I'm sure it will get to them. I've sent one message myself also. http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/home/supp...orward=escalate

Has anyone else had their Oregon (mine is a 400t) screen jitter, where the image will not stay constant on GZ, when you reach the location on GZ itself? I had this happen a number of times yesterday when going after a series of caches. It didn't do it at all of them, but did at most. I was zoomed in on the cache and when I arrived the screen zoomed out a bit and would jump to show me at a previous location a short distance away from GZ, and would not stabilize no matter what I did. Even after leaving the screen and going back through "Find Geocache" it still jittered and jumped around. Very odd!

This is a beautiful coin... one of my favorites. Here are some larger pics of mine (it's the trackable version) that'll hopefully show some of the awesome detail. I'd suggest getting one if you see it at a fair price.

This is a beautiful coin... one of my favorites. Here are some larger pics of mine (it's the trackable version) that'll hopefully show some of the awesome detail. I'd suggest getting one if you see it at a fair price.

This is simply amazing! I have been thinking about getting an expensive unit to do this because I have gone through so much paper. Having to pick a route and print out pages, then not be able to vary my route or lose all the info on the caches I might come across, ugh! This is just too cool!!! I don't know if the satellite page was always there or not, but I didn't know about it before. It really helps when unsure of the accuracy due to tree cover, etc, and getting logs like "I finally found it 40 feet from where you said it was" are disheartening. Now I can put down how many satellites were in view and the supposed accuracy at placement. Plus, I can simple do a screenshot when I place a cache and all the info, including coords are right there! Knowing all the info about a cache; placed date, last four attempts (F/DNF), last found, TBs, DECRYPTED HINTS! Awesome! Thanks so much for doing this macro. SO appreciated! I got the info from one of the Northern California reviewers (Krypton) at Groundspeak who I talk to occasionally. He bought a Nuvi right after I did and gave me your link yesterday. There was some serious tweaking and some frustration getting it up and running but, MAN, was it worth while. Thanks again!

This is simply amazing! I have been thinking about getting an expensive unit to do this because I have gone through so much paper. Having to pick a route and print out pages, then not be able to vary my route or lose all the info on the caches I might come across, ugh! This is just too cool!!! I don't know if the satellite page was always there or not, but I didn't know about it before. It really helps when unsure of the accuracy due to tree cover, etc, and getting logs like "I finally found it 40 feet from where you said it was" are disheartening. Now I can put down how many satellites were in view and the supposed accuracy at placement. Plus, I can simple do a screenshot when I place a cache and all the info, including coords are right there! Knowing all the info about a cache; placed date, last four attempts (F/DNF), last found, TBs, DECRYPTED HINTS! Awesome! Thanks so much for doing this macro. SO appreciated! I got the info from one of the Northern California reviewers (Krypton) at Groundspeak who I talk to occasionally. He bought a Nuvi right after I did and gave me your link yesterday. There was some serious tweaking and some frustration getting it up and running but, MAN, was it worth while. Thanks again!