Seeker_Knight

Some good ideas. The new container etc should be coming this week. Thank you for the suggestions. This box should hold up a while. This was my first cache and I never expected it to last so long. Since 2009. My kid whom I used to go cache hunting with is now a doctor.

I need help to maintain my cache that was created many years ago. It is named "Stairway to Cache". My health took a bad turn a while back (heart problems, stents, bypass, hospital stays etc, etc, etc), but this cache is worth saving. It is located in a public park, so you can imagine the amount of work it took to get the original permission to place it where it is. I actually had to attend hearings to do this, but finally got the letter or permission. My daughter and I loved this sport and went out every chance we could when she was younger. She has been out of country and then out of State for several years for her education. This is another reason I want to keep the cache, and keep it well maintained. I would ask my Daughter, but she is now a Doctor and has very limited time for any type of activities. I have ordered a new box of higher quality, as well as a number of trackables and a new log. I only need some energetic young person to go make the swap, so I can edit the listing. Please contact me if you live near Edgewood, Maryland,21040 and can help. I will be glad to reimburse you for time and gas. Thank You! The old "Seeker_Knight"

Ran into one travel bug that asked to be kissed by pretty girls. Handled a geocoin that wanted to visit police stations. Needless to say, the first one was the most fun!

Ran into one travel bug that asked to be kissed by pretty girls. Handled a geocoin that wanted to visit police stations. Needless to say, the first one was the most fun!

Experience! Experience! Experience! I think my Daughter's friend said it best when she said she was starting to develope her "Spidy Sense". I'm not exactly a newb any more, but I don't quite have the fine senses of the old timers either. I still have to look around most of the time to make the find. Some of the older players can just walk right up to most of the typical spots on a GZ. They have seen all the tricks after making a few thousand finds. The rest of us have to rely on our physical senses until our "Spidy Sense" developes. I know I'm starting to get it by some of the finds I'm starting to make. Had an evil little micro the other day that was hiden in a hole, located in the crotch of two tree branches, in the middle of a forest, with a bad GPSr bounce. It was not visible AT ALL! I felt the little bugger with my finger. Took a bit of wiggling to get it out too. I just can't imagine how the owner even found this hole in the tree to begin with? Go figure? If you seek them, they will come! Seeker_Knight

You just know I couldn't have slept if I didn't give this a try right away. LOLOLOL You can make .kml routes using google earth. Just type in the directions and it will create the route.... then make sure it's the correct path and save it as a .kml file (not default). Then you can upload that custom route to geocaching.com and save it as one of your personal saved routes. Then just run the pocket query on that specific route EDIT: Looks like while I was typing this up you went and tried it out

Here we go again! LOL Let me assure you that everyone who has ever played this game/sport/activity has had a bad day. It goes with the nature of the game. I've had some real mean little micros taunt me for weeks unitl I finally found them. Geez does it feel good when you finally make the find on one of these little devils! Can I say that I would have loved a few more hints? Perhaps at the moment of greatest frustration, but not at all once I made the find. This is what gives a tough find it's value. I've had two such caches that haunted me for weeks. One was a micro that was in a forest of Bamboo, where the obstruction caused by the bamboo made the GPSr bounce like a super ball. Yet I finally made the find. The other was a micro that was suspended by s shoe string in a storm drain grate. It had tall buildings all around it, to make the GPSr dance like mad. Thank heavens they had just replace it with a brand new shiney container. The original was even camoflouged. When I found it, I felt like I had whipped the world. Spoilers would have ruined that, and robbed me of that moment. The current system is pretty accurate from what I've seen. It gives the cache size, difficulty level, and even rates the terrain for us less than athletic types. I've even seen the ratings changed when enough players complained about the ratings being innacurate. We also need to understand that the owners of the caches want to have fun taunting us a bit. Why else would they spend their money and time creating caches? It has to be fun for everyone. While there is a place for the most simple caches to exist, there is also a need for others of various levels of difficulty and physical prowess. The trick is in choosing the ones that meet your own level of expertise and abilities. I love the simple walk up cache and dash, but I also love the tiny evil micro that taunts me mercilesly! Good luck finding anyone with any experience that wants to cheapen the game with spoilers. Hints and such are the realm of the owner to decide. Then the players can choose whether they want to take the challenge . . . just the way it is presented. Give yourself a chance to learn the value of a few tough caches. I have no doubt you will agree completely in a relatively short time. Nobody is trying to be mean to you! We just want to assure you that you will most likely see things very differently in due time. Seeker_Knight

I havn't done one yet, but I think you use another program to create a route, then use the find along a route function. You have to set some variables too, like how far from the path/route to search. I'll go do one and see if I can learn more. I do know it is a premium feature, so you may have to pay the $30 membership fee. Not bad at all when you consider how much entertainment value you get for that small fee. I just took a minute to run a small route and create the "Caches along the route" querry. It works easy as pie. Just use your software to create a route. I used "MapSource", because it came with my unit. You could also use "Googleearth or Googlemaps, or any one of a dozen other programs also. The main thing is that you save your route file as either a GPX or KML file. Then you just upload it to the geocaching.com site, save it, design and run the querry. It does give you the option to select how wide a path you want it to search, and also the other normal variables to customize the querry. I think the limit for the search path width is five miles. On a long trip like your planning, it will probably need to be considerably more narrow than that. Otherwise you will exceed the 500 cache limit. If you need to get around that, just make several shorter routes, and run them separatly. Good luck hunting and have a safe trip! Seeker_Knight

I also have the Garmin 60Csx. I'm not familiar with the specific map software you are using, but the setting you need is part of the units operating system, so it shouldn't matter. You can set the level of detail utilized by doing the following: Startup - Leaves you at Sattelite Aquisition screen. Press "Page" button twice - Should be menu page containing "Setup" selection Select "Setup" - Press "Enter" Select "Map" - Press "Enter" Select Icon at top that contains an "N" and four triangles Select "Detail" - Press "Enter" Select level of detail you want the unit to show Press "Enter" Press "Quit" once you have the detail level you desire. This should allow you to custom taylor (to some degree) the way your unit displays the mapping details. Hope this helps! Seeker_Knight

Druid Hill Park is one of Baltimore's premere parks, almost as old as the city itself. It is the home of the Baltimore Zoo, a major Arboretum and some vast open spaces and woodlands. You will find some great architecture in the form of Gazebo's, Pavilions and grand old buildings (whose purpose eludes me completely). It was quite the cultural space for many many years, when the neighborhood was in it's heyday, and the surrounding properties were much sought after because of their proximity to the park. In fact it was such a fine area, that most of the locals in the area would sleep out in the park during the summer to escape the heat before the advent of Air Conditioning. Such is not the case any longer. Like so many other fine areas of our Old City, it simply is not safe, with the exception of the Baltimore Zoo. The local Police do maintain enough of a constant presence to keep the local thugs at bay in that area. And I do mean "At Bay", not eliminated. This is done simply to gaurantee the financial survival of the zoo, and thereby protect the re-election goals of the politicians. As for the rest of the park . . . Let's just say that it is well known and documented as a grand location for crime and danger. It has enjoyed periods of relative peace and quiet from time to time, even playing host to some big name concerts and gatherings within the African American Community. But it always re-emerges as a hot spot for violent crime, drug dealers, body dump counts, and vice despite the repeated best efforts of the responsible members of the community to turn it around. The city simply cannot afford to maintain the level of police presence required to keep the area truely safe. Not that it would matter if they could. Baltimore City Police are also a problem, as they are well known for there less than polite and gentile treatment of the citizenship. No sane person wants to be subjected to their abuse either. If I were to go "in town" for anything, and found myself in need of directions etc, I would feel much more at ease asking a local drug dealer than a Baltimore City Cop for help. You would be less likely to abused or beaten. It is almost preferable to socialize with the criminals than the cops. The local police have become so jaded from dealing with the local "criminal citizens", that they treat everyone like a criminal. The politicians ignore this fact, as long as the numbers for crime help them win elections. Then they wonder why nobody wants to come into the city to spend money. Go figure! Hate to admit it to the rest of the world . . . but our city has been invaded and overun by the criminals as well as the Nazi style of police work and corruption that makes the whole place undesirable. There are still some nice areas in the city. The ones that don't have any regular need of police presence, which happen to be the ones that don't have too much drug traffic or murder either. They are also the areas that are just too boring to bother visiting for anything else unless you live there. I noticed that someone said there are a few hundred caches in Druid Hill Park. If you are the daredevil type, go for it. Have fun doing them while your here. I'd like nothing better than to see the Park return to a place worth visiting. It really is a shame to surrender such a great place to the scum that have ruined it. For my own wellbeing, I'll wait till some of you visitors prove it's safe again before I'm going into that zone of danger. It just isn't worth the chance for me or my family. There are thousands of caches in areas that are much more hospitable, sane and safe. I'll work on them for now.

I think most players have their share of DNF's when they first start playing. I have a couple that are just plain driving me nuts at present. My secret is to keep going back to them every chance I get till I find them. The weather, cloud cover, satelite constellation and even temperature induced signal refraction can make some wild changes in the GZ (ground zero) indicated by any GPSr. Remember how these things work. They are taking hundreds of readings of radio signals from satelites at very long distances, measuring the timing of those signals in milliseconds, comparing those results to the results of hopefully a lot of other satelites to improve accuracy, creating hundreds of triangulations of all those readings to arrive at coordinates that are located on an irregular sphere instead of a uniform plane, using an electronic instrument that is easilly affected by voltage fluctuations, signal strength, temperature and humidity, and still getting us close enough, most of the time to score some finds. It's really a wonder that any of it works at all! Imagine trying this a few years back, with no satelites, a slide rule and a log book. OOPS - Now I'm telling my age. The end result would likely be about one find a year, and then only if you were real good with math. My point is . . . Give yourself a break! If you have managed to score even one find in your first few attempts, your doing great! It does get easier as you get more experience. Like one of the other people posted . . . You will develope your own "Spidey Sense". Like any other activity, it takes time to learn it. Your going to find that developing the skills is really half the fun of it anyway! Have fun! Seeker Knight

Glad to see another player getting the bug. Most of what you need to know is at this link: http://www.geocaching.com/about/guidelines.aspx More information is available on the FAQ listed at the top area of this "Getting Started" section of the site. Just start browzing through it. You'll be surprised at how thorough the people before us have been in setting it all up for us. I guess they must have run into just about every conceibable situation at some point already. One thing I know people agree on is the importance of placing caches where they can be maintained by either the owner or another player who has agreed to help with this task. You may want to reconsider a location that requires extreme travel or hardship to access for maintenance. The guidlines are pretty specific about placement locations and permisions. In fact I don't think they will even approve a cache that is outside a certain distance from your home unless you make special arrangements for taking care of the cache. There is a lot of information contained in the FAQ, that I don't even want to begin going over in a post. What I can tell you is that I just got my 100th cache, and I have only set one out that belongs to me. It takes a lot more thought than you may think to create a cache of high quality. I am still learning new stuff all the time by what I find in the field. I think I'm ready to place a second cache now, but still need to do some homework before I act. I want to build a reputation for really good caches that people want to put the effort into. We have some old timers in our area who have spent considerable time and effort setting up the "grid" of caches worthy of the gasoline, thought and time I put into finding them. I have also seen how going off overeager and unprepared can result in wasting a great location on a poor quality cache with no imagination. I guess they have their purpose, but they are not much fun to most players. Trash caches tend to be a waste of time. It's just a good way to dispose of every empty pill bottle a player comes accross. They normally don't have anything in them, they lack the challenge of a true micro, and they don't hold up very well against the elements. Could be considered fun if shear numbers of finds is the goal I guess. I'd still rather go for a good challenge, or an easy find with some great contents. You will find as many opinions on this as there are players. Everyone tends to have their own likes and dislikes. Everything from the extrems set that wants to tackle a mountain and do some wicked base jumping to find a urine specimen jar with only a soggy log. To the LPC (light pole cache) specialist who racks up two thousand finds in a year. You will find your niche soon enough. In the meantime take the opportunity to enjoy what is already out there. You'll end up making better cahces as a result. Just my two cents worth. But that is what seems to be working best for me so far. Seeker Knight

Hi Marty, Welcome to geocaching! You are about to have some great fun if you prepare as the others have suggested. It opens the doors to some real exploration of your home area, and well beyond. Don't forget to get the whole family involved if they like outdoor activities. It's great fun for anyone. I also have a blackberry (Storm), and use it for geocaching. The thing will "Walk the dog" once you know how to use it. I use the program called "Cacheberry". The guy who writes it (still a work in progress, and likely always will be) does a great job. He also supports his software with friendly advice if and when you need it. Even though this equipment/software is awsome once mastered, you may want to use a standard GPSr for a while just to start. If you overwhelm yourself, it's not much fun. Get through the learning curve with a standard unit, then move on to the bells and whistles. Starting out with that much functionality is bound to overwhelm you, and take the fun out of the whole thing. That would be a shame. I just got started in December 2008, using a Garmin 60Csx. It is a great unit, and was highly recomended by a lot of people. The reality of starting that high up on the equipment scale, is that you have to expect a real steep learning curve. Not impossible, but not much fun at times. I managed to get through it, but it made the whole process much more like work than it had to be. What I would suggest is contacting one of the local clubs, and see if somone will take you out for a day or two just for some experience. That way they can explain what all the little features do, and why they are helpful. Some you may want right away, some you may not want till you get a bit deepr into the hobby. The whole Blackberry setup is overkill for a newbie in my opinion. I'm in my fifth month of doing this, (mostly with my Garmin) and still have plenty to learn about the actual hobby of geocaching, let alone the 900 pound gorrilla of technology at my finger tips. This program is deep, complex and powerful, but I knew I jumped in over my head as soon as I tried it out. Some of it is still in Beta, so plan to run into bugs (but not many). When you are ready, it is gonna make the fun a LOT better. Consider also that the normal GPSr units are far more accurate so far. The Compass function just came out, and it works, but not as good as a stock Garmin unit. I don't know about other brands. In the meantime, learn the jargon, habits, guidlines and social avenues. The rest will come when you are ready. I look forward to being in touch from time to time. Glad to see you getting involved! Welcome! Seeker_Knight

Hello All, Made my 100th find today without even realizing it. Found out I had hit this milestone while on a run with my daughter Ookami10491. Can't think of any company I'd rather have with me for something this special. Just wanted to share my joy with the rest of you. Some for the sake of remembering when, and some for the anticipation of. I know I'll look back on this one day as no big deal, but for now . . . WOW!

Hi RM and Welcome to the forum! For my money, I think I would have gond for the find. The rules state that the caches listed on this site have to be approved by the owner of the property if it's private property. They probably would have enljoyed looking out the window watching you hunt. May have even come out and offered you a drink or something. Most people I've met in the hobby are very sociable. Hope to see you on the trail. If you get to Edgewood, MD, look me up. I get my emails instantly on my Blackberry. We can meet and hit a few hides in the area then maybe go for a coffee. Hope the rest of your trip went well. Seekr_Knight

Plain fact of the matter is that some of them may not be suitable for winter caching. They may be fine for the warmer months though. And the reverse is true in some cases. We have plenty of caches in our area (because of marshy wet terrain) that are well suited to cold weather when the ground is frozen. It's also a lot easier to find marsh area caches when the weather is cold, because the insects are dorment. That way you don't have to donate blood to get the find. I could also see some of our caches being meant for the warm weather only. I sure don't want to wade through the water when it's too cold for the exposure, but too warm for a solid freeze. And I don't think I want to chip through a foot of ice to find a cache either. Some of em may just be better left for later in the season. I do agree with marking the attributes accurately however. I think the limit of ten attributes is a bit confining for some caches. Overall though, I've seen most of the caches I've found were marked fairly well. I think the topic should be discussed in the local clubs in the area to get a sense of what the majority of the players in the area think about it. Our players do pretty well that way it seems to me.

Having spent a lot of years in the woods as a land surveyor, I can assure you that this is NOT a good practice. Only certain types of creatures make a large paper nest in a tree. One of those is a White Faced Hornet. The sting from them is like getting stabbed with a red hot ice pick, and several at the same time WILL land the average person in a hospital. This is ussually the result of their ability to sense the direction that an attack came from, and the immediate and persistant retaliation of the hive when attacked. They are know to actually follow the exact path of a projectile thrown at the nest. From that point, the scouts sense the smell of fear in your pheremones. They in turn alarm the soldiers. Then they will come at you swifty, angrily, and in great numbers. Good advice from one who's been there . . . DO NOT THROW OBJECTS AT A LARGE HANGING PAPER TYPE OF NEST! One other note: Hornets nest's are rarely as active as a honey bee nest. You may not even think a hornet next is occupied by first observation. Watch it for a bit longer, and you may notice a very sporadic coming and going of the occupants. I've yet to see the contents of a cache worth chancing an encounter with hornets. Could make for the greatest cache that only a rare few bold people ever log. BTW - I had a honey bee infestation in the wall of my house at one time. The exterminator assured me that bees, wasps and hornets are very different animals indeed. If you are dealing with honey bees, they will release a pheremone when killed that indicates danger to all other honey bees. That is why no two hives ever exist in the same spot after one another. If the hive dies because of attack, poison or the like, the location is marked as off limits forever according to my exterminator. I'm pretty sure it's only for as long as the pheremone scent lasts though. But I don't know how long that is either. If you are going to mess with ANY type of hive, I'd suggest getting all the information you can on the type of insect you are dealing with. It would be a shame to have some innocent little kid rush in ahead of Mom & Dad, only to find the hive had become active again, resulting in an unpleasant situation at the least, and possibly a lethal/fatal situation at the worst. Is a game worth taking that chance? I know it's not for someone who is allergic to stings. But there is always someone bold enough to rush in to any situation for the glory of the find.

Being relatively new to geocaching, I can understand why some newbs are prone to complain in the beggining. I think it's just from lack of experience, and conditioned attitudes. Most Americans are used to be catered to by the business sector and the government in all of our affairs. We are used to getting our hamburger "Our Way", with service in "Less than 3 minutes". If you complain at most businesses, you get free samples, upgraded products, special service, immediate appologies or something of the sort. In dealings with the government, a quick call to your local politician will always net an acceptable result. And if you whine enough, they will even get someone to do your paperwork for you. In most cases this is being done for a program that results in some sort of free hand out by the government too! When we get involved in activities like organized sports, they have even changed the rules so that there is no loser. We don't want to hurt anyones feelings, now do we! Forgot that you took the joy of the victory away from the ten kids who worked half the summer getting good enough to be the winners, but then, they don't count do they. Everyone gets a trophy! Then comes the first forray into geocaching . . . An activity that is not operated by any organized institution. It is supported by a group of people that work tirelessly to organize the mayhem of thousands of free spirited individuals, all doing their own thing. The entire system is based on the honor and integrity of the players. The foundation of the cache system is the result of thousands of volunteers. The players range from tiny tikes, elderly, disabled and mentally challenged to the person in the utmost excellence of physical condition, and holder of multiple doctorate degrees. In the real world of having this information publicly available, it's a wonder any of the caches remain intact! I know there are some that do get muggled, but most stay in fairly good shape and in place. That is something of a miracle to me! There are enough of us that lend a hand keeping things fresh and supplied, that most caches I've run into were in pretty good order. I even added paper to a couple of them, without knowing that this was something out of the ordinary. I just assumed that all players do this type of thing. I think most players in our area do. If someone finds a situation that is really a problem, then it's only right to complain. But that should be limited to things like a cache placed in a dangerous situation. Caches that hold innapropriate materials or substances. Perhaps a cache that is unknowingly in dangerous proximity to an animals den, beehive or quicksand. Complaints should be reserved for something of the kind. One way to have fun without needing to complain, is to do your homework. The cache listings all have indicators that tell the hunter what to expect. Their are labels for just about everything immaginable. I always read these. They help a lot. Being a little round guy with a heart condition, I don't want to attempt a climb of Mount Anything just yet. I do like a good walk however, and like to push my limits as much as possible. It's one of the reasons I like geocaching. It gives me a reason to get up from the couch or the computer! As for the difficulty . . . I like the ones that make me want to bang my head against the wall, but I need the easy ones to give me a quick reward when I start to get discouraged. Nothing like a good cache and dash when you have an otherwise poor outing. Sometimes that happens. I don't know about other folks, but I have my days when I couldn't find a donut in a bakery! LOL I guess it's just knowing my limits. That little pill bottle in the bush is just right before I gorf down a couple of big macs, and give it up for the day. It sets my mood for getting up the next morning to go try the harder ones again. So far I've eventually conquered all of them but one. I'll keep swinging by that one till I get it too. No sense in complaining about it. I chose to go look for it. I just havn't mesured up to the task yet. It is not the fault of the hider. And even if the thing did get muggled, at least the owner took the time to hide it to begin with. Maybed they'll fix it, and I can find it another time. At any rate, I thank all of you who have set the caches that exist already. All of them have their own purpose, fun and charm. It's nice to find the cache-n-dash, and just as nice to find the evil micro two miles from anything resembling civilization. The system of organized caches in an event are great fun, but so is the one individual cache that someone took a lot of effort to design and camoflouge. I don't put down anyones cache. They all seem to have their place in the game to someone. TFTC

I know there are some folks who love an FTF. That is just part of the game. I got my first one a few weeks back, and it was fun to mark the milestone, but it didn't trigger any great urge to always be first. I guess I just learned the right lessons in kindergarten. It's nice to take turns with others. I also set my first cache a few weeks back. I made it a point to ask that it be released on a Saturday or Sunday morning, in order to give the "Family" cachers a better than average chance at the FTF. As it turned out, it didn't go to a kid after all, but a grown adult. That is just the nature of the game. I feel ok about it, as I did my part to make the game as fair as possible. The man that found it is a part of a family, and it likely gave hime some joy in making the find. The swag that I start my caches out with is designed primarily for young kids, but I also include stuff that is fun for adults too. I have a few more caches in the works, but have to find time to set up the permisions etc. Maybed some tike will get the FTF on one of them. For the most part, I don't even know if that is important to little kids. They get a thrill out of the cheap swag items and the adventure of the find. Maybe that is enough for them while they are young and innocent. They can always get competitive when they get a bit older and the great victory of an FTF is more of a thrill. As for the real hard core FTF'ers . . . I guess everyone needs a goal in life. For some reason I don't feel the inner drive that propels one to always need to be first. I got one, and that's enough for now. I do however, understand the old saying about sleigh dogs though . . . "If your not the lead dog, the view is always the same, and it ussually stinks!" LOL - Have fun!

Hi Wibke, Glad you found us! Maybe some day we can get over there to visit and sign some of the logs in your caches when you get a few started. In the meatime, it's a great way to stay in touch and get to know some people. The world got considerably smaller with the internet! And the field of geocaches got considerably larger too! Thanks for taking the time to say hello! Kevin

BTW - Thanks for your service and a proposed Welcome Home! I just got started back in December (3 months ago) and the bug has hit me. I love this hobby! I thought I would be doing it by myself, as I am recently separated (my wife never did like the outdoors) and my daughter is a typical 17yo. What a surprise it was to find that she likes the sport as much as I do. She began by walking out to find a few caches with me on the weeks that she spends with me, and now has her own screen name. My daughter has a sharp eye, and a keen sense of where these things are hidden. She has her learners permit, so now she can even share the driving too. I'm even shopping for a second GPSr unit, so she can hunt on her own when she gets her license, or when we go out together. I think you'll find that most of the people involved in the hobby are either retired, cache as a couple or a family. Everyone who likes the outdoors, seems to like this activity. Age plays very little importance in this activity. I've even seen people confined to wheelchairs, who are active and having a blast with geocaching. You may also be surprised to find the girls like it possibly more than some of the guys. It has to do with the sense of adventure, so gender has nothing to do with it. Lot's of girls/women have a deeper sense of romance and/or adventure than their male counterparts. And don't underestimate the gals ability either. If they like it, they are probably going to be very good at it. Must have something to do with the way the female mind works, but my daughter can find the ones that absolutely stump me. And she doesn't stop till she finds them. The females inbuilt patience is a great asset here, Go figure. I'm sure you'll find your own families balance with this hobby. Don't be surprised if this turns out to be a "bring the whole gang" activity! Everyone may want to join in on the fun. One thing you may want to consider is creating a boys team and a girls team. That should make things real interesting. Could even evolve into one of those "losing team gets to clean the bathroom" competitions, if your crew likes a good clean challenge. At any rate, the whole thing comes down to, WELCOME HOME, GOD BLESS, AND WE ALL HOPE GEOCACHING HELPS YOU ENJOY YOUR FAMILY JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE!

I also have the Blackberry Storm, and I purchased the Cacheberry program which is still in Beta for the Storm. It works ok for the most part, but still has some issues to be ironed out. It works great for using the GPX files that you get from geocaching.com, but if you try to load the caches into Mapsource, and then convert the Mapsource files back to GPX by doing a "Save as", something gets lost in the translation. You lose all the seconday information, and all your caches come out listed as question marks. This means you are going to have to mark all your caches for the day one by one using that itty bitty little keyboard. Kinda tough for a not so nimble creature such as myself. I'd love to do my editing on the home computer, and just update the info on the storm as a batch. As nice as the display is, it would still be worth doing the extra work to edit the cache info. It gives you all the info that the geocaching site provides, and formats it so you can actually use it on the Blackberry display. A nice trick in and of itself. There are some nice features in the program, and I'll have to work with them a bit before I can make any comments concerning them. One of these features is the Field Notes feature. If this works, it will make logging finds in the field as easy as pie. It also allows for a host of other online functions. Like any new program, it is going to take some time to do a good shakedown. It looks like these programmers are really inspired though, so I think this is going to shape up into a real gem in time. It offers a full array of find, sort, filter, tag, column selection to be viewed, email, mapping and setup options. Read - WOW! - for a mobile app of this type! It is just plain miraculous that these folks can make one of these gadgets do so much. A minor limitation is the lack of ability to select a group of caches to delete. So far, you have to do it one at a time. In fact, it doesn't like to delete caches at all. I deleted several, and they just stayed put. I hope they get that one worked out. It won't take long to fill up the memory with this limitation. When you register, be sure to write down your screen name and password. It is next to impossible to retieve them if you forget them (like I did). It (retrieval) will not happen by some easy to use automated system. I'm just hoping the producers of the program can retirieve mine for me somehow. The forum that they use is run by someone else, so you are pretty much on your own in that area as far as I can see. Even with that little glitch, and the few quirks I ran into, this program is destined to be a hallmark in geocaching for anyone with a Blackberry Storm. It really unleashes the power of this new toy like nothing else I've seen! WTG cacheberry!

Hello and welcome Newbs, I just got started in December, and I'm being told that I'm not even a newb anymore! LOL Your going to have some real fun with this sport, believe it. I've been running all over Maryland since December, and have seen parts of the state that I would never have seen without geocaching. What an adventure. As for the swag thing. Keep it simple. Most everyone uses dollar store items just to make it fun. In the case of a new cache, they may go extreme with a geocoin, or some other $5 or $10 item. That is usually reserved for the FTF or First to Find. After that, it's just fun stuff that normally costs very little. You will be surprised at what you can get at the dollar stores or the harware stores for about a buck. Some of this stuff is just plain fun

Welcome to the sport. Have fun!

Hi Ryan, Welcome to the sport/hobby. Hope you have as much fun with it as I am. If you ever get down to Maryland, look me up, and we can go hit a few caches together. Kevin