Seeker_Knight

Amen

I have not problem with moving on with a location if normal and courteous actions have been taken. If someone does not respond to a email or message and the normal DNFs etc, then by all means, move on. At some point we will all die, leaving all the caches lost forever. This makes sense, and I agree completely. I just don't like the idea of some upstart being overly anxious to move in on a cache they didn't think up, maintain or monitor over time. Seeker_Knight

Finally got the artwork done and working up the first few coins. Still have to tweak the laser settings a bit, but it's getting there. These are going to be some nice swag items. I may even pay for tracking numbers and send a few on their way. Seeker_Knight

Having suffered a prolonged illness that kept me out of the game for a time, I tend to have differing opinions on this matter. Let's just say we are not likely to agree on handling things this way, even if it does fall within the letter of the guidelines. Often we find that what is legal is not always morally correct. And a great degree falls within the parameters of interpretation and personal opinion. So I respectfully agree to disagree on this topic. Seeker_Knight

Edge seems to having lots of issues lately. Not just in here, but in general. Another example of Microsoft releasing a problematic software and letting the public do their testing for them. Seeker_Knight

That is what the Forums are supposed to be. An exchange of knowledge, ideas and opinions. Yes, they do get heated at times. That is the nature of things. We just have to find the happy medium where we can do this and not be overly offensive. Seeker_Knight

Has this degraded into an activity which promotes takeovers and the like. It USED to be a friendly activity. Now it seems a LOT of people just want to move in and take over the best spots late in the game. It is Geocaching, NOT Monopoly! Seeker_Knight

Could also be someone who has an axe to grind with the CO.

The root problem in all of this is quite simple. Our society has evolved to a stage where people no longer have to stand socially accountable for their actions and attitudes towards others. The end of the schoolyard fight after school, or the anticipated brawl at the local bar following a severe disagreement have gone the way of the dinosaur. In the "old days" you had to be wise enough, and tough enough, to know where the social line was. If you had the courage to stand and fight for what you believed, you could say just about anything. You might get your *ss kicked, but you had that choice. Otherwise you became part of the background gossip chain, and you had better hope you didn't get exposed, or you would get "called out" to atone for what you had said, and that was even worse. NOBODY liked a coward who didn't have the courage to just speak their mind. Even the guy/gal who lost a fight over a disagreement was held in higher social esteem than the snake who ran around gossiping. Anyone who know what the original Newsgroups were like will remember them like the "Wild West" of the internet. Some of those would degrade into absolute threats of violence. Other times they would get invaded by cowardly "Trolls" who figured out how to hide their identity, and wreaked havoc on a thread, a topic, or a whole newsroom. It actually got scary at times. These people would track people down and do physical harm to them. Many times the authorities would get involved. I'm talking some real serious stuff. Actual criminal prosecution etc.. I've seen both sides of this, so I know what these moderators are trying to prevent. I am still old school, and have no fear of speaking my mind. But then I would also have the courage to stand for what I believe just like the old days. Been there, done that, took the lumps, gave a few, paid the Dentists and the lawyers too! I personally feel that nothing should be said on any public media that you wouldn't say in public and in person. Only problem with this is that some of us are of the temperament that we have a much higher threshold for acceptance of social penalties than others. I learned this at twelve years old. Some guy accused me of insulting his girlfriend, which was not true. But we both believed we were right, and that fight lasted 45 minutes. In active fighting time, that is an ETERNITY! Both of us walked away from it half dead. He later found out who had actually started the rumor about his girlfriend and was man enough to apologize. The atonement came in the form of two cold beers he stole from his Dad that we drank together. And that was the end of it. Now we live in a world where anyone of any stature, be it coward or conqueror, can simply run their mouth without fear of reprisal. And this is why we need to adhere to these guidlines more than ever. There is just no way to settle things on the schoolyard fight, or the barroom brawl anymore. If I have offended anyone by my statements, please understand my old school attitudes, and accept my most humble apologies. Sincerely Seeker_Knight

Beautiful location!

I found one that was inside a galvanized steel fence post. You had to remove the top cap, but then there was no string to retrieve the actual cache. Turns out there was a small hole at the ground level, and the bottom of the pipe was filled with concrete up to that level. You had to bring a gallon of water and plug the hole at the bottom. When you filled the pipe with water, the cache simply floated to the top. As soon as you unplug the hole (My daughters finger worked nicely), the water drained out and the cache just dropped back down to the bottom of the pipe where it stayed relatively dry. Brilliant idea! One of the best I have ever seen. Seeker_Knight

The wife and daughter have a whole vocabulary like this. At times I think I'm in a different country! Look through a modern dictionary and you are likely to find a lot of new words that once were "slang", are now accepted by prominent dictionaries. I guess that's how the language evolves. Just imagine if you went back a few hundred years. You might not even recognize the English language that they might speak. Seeker_Knight

There is gonna be a complete meltdown in civilities at home when the six cases of Dollar Tree toys arrive later this week! It is not easy being married to a guy like me! Seeker_Knight

"Written by a former Greek slave, in the late to mid-6th century BCE, Aesop's Fables are the world's best known collection of morality tales. The fables, numbering 725, were originally told from person-to-person as much for entertainment purposes but largely as a means for relaying or teaching a moral or lesson." WIKIPEDIA I inherited a very old book of Aesop's Fables. It is so old that it is hand written, with leather binding, and some very brittle pages. As a child, I loved when my Mother would pull it down from it's shelf and take the time to read it to my siblings and me. Always stirred the imagination and seemed quite adventurous to me. So when I was thinking about great swag or possibly even trackables, it came to mind that kids might still enjoy a good story. I have an engraving machine, and a good supply of Baltic Birch plywood on hand. With 725 Fables, you might never run out of topic material, and it would be of some literary value as well. My main concern is that the "moral of the story" part could be construed as "Setting an agenda" by the more snarky players. What do you think? Could even be done on Laserable Aluminum, ceramic tiles, or even marble if it got really popular. Like everything, the possibilities are endless for someone with a bit of imagination. Could even make a great theme for a Geotrail. Seeker_Knight

Has anyone suggested using a virtual cache as a means of providing location information for the graves of family members? This could be a really valuable tool for anyone doing genealogy research. It would also help people locate loved ones in these huge cemeteries that exist today. Always takes me a while to locate the people I am going to visit, even knowing about where the graves are. Could also be a great joint venture with a genealogy service like Ancestry.com. The technology is already developed, so why not lease the service through to them, and maybe put that branch on their website as a source of some side income. Just floating an idea. I know headquarters doesn't want to commercialize geocaching, but it could be a profitable way to license out the system they have developed. Seeker_Knight

That quote included the entire email I received. Nothing was omitted. Seeker_Knight

It does happen in some remote areas. I used to work for Baltimore County Rec and Parks in Maryland many years ago. I was assigned the Double Rock Park duty, which required me to report directly to the maintenance office in the basement of the main rear pavilion in the 111 acre park in the middle of suburbia. It was a desolate location, even though it was merely a few hundred feet away from a regular neighborhood. When we go there, we were the ones to unlock the entrance gates and swing them open, so nobody had been in the park with a vehicle yet. One day I got there, and on the covered patio above our little office, I saw what I thought was a stuffed dummy hanging from the roof rafters. I figured the kids had been in there the night before and thought it would be a good prank. Upon getting out of the truck and walking a bit closer, I realized it was a real body. Some poor kid had chosen that as the place to end his life. How tragic, creepy and UN-nerving! The police were called, and the coroner came. It is something I will never forget, and I still get a weird feeling if I go into that park even now! Seeker_Knight

Soooo...... What exactly are these points? How do they work? What are the limits etc.? May also be nice to have a quotation of the exact wording that caused the violation to prevent it again. Seeker_Knight

I believe that is what was in the email I got as copied below... Hi Seeker_Knight, You have been warned by Rock Chalk for a comment made in a topic, Help maintaining abandoned Caches Reason: Abusive Behaviour Content: Help maintaining abandoned Caches Penalty: Given 1 points which will never expire. Note: Hello, I'm Rock Chalk, one of the Geocaching Forums moderators.

Then why do I keep getting notifications that various people have quoted me from that post Seeker_Knight

I have no idea what the points are, but I have one of them apparently forever!

I HAVE LEARNED THAT A PERSON MUST NOT DISAGREE WITH CERTAIN PEOPLE ON ANYTHING, OR ELSE YOU GET PERMANENT PENALTY POINTS, OR BANNED FROM A TOPIC IN WHICH OTHER PEOPLE ARE CONTINUING TO QUOTE YOU IN. AND MAKING AN APPEAL GETS IGNORED. WHAT HAPPENED TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH? IS THAT A VIOLATION OF TERMS OF SERVICE. OR ARE TERMS OF SERVICE ABOVE THE LITTLE DOCUMENT WE CALL THE CONSTITUTION? THE FOLLOWING IS THE MESSAGE I GOT WHEN I ATTEMPTED TO READ THE MESSAGES IN WHICH I HAD BEEN QUOTED.... Sorry, there is a problem You do not have permission to view this content. Error code: 2F173/K

Dedicated this one is! Seeker_Knight

They had to do that back then because of the equipment/materials/process they used. You would have to use very bright conditions, and a super long shutter speed. So long in fact that there was no shutter on the camera, but only a lens cap. You loaded your film, set your focus on a glass screen, put in the coated plate (with emulsion you made yourself) and removed the lens cap, using a watch to time the exposure, then popped the cap back over the lens. It took so long, that they actually had metal braces that went around the waste and sometimes the back of the neck to keep the person still. Any movement would ruin the shot. So smiles and such were not encouraged. Seeker_Knight