Jump to content

RufusClupea

+Premium Members
  • Posts

    313
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by RufusClupea

  1. On 12/30/2016 at 9:40 PM, Inmountains said:

    And while we all have a few caches that we were not personally at, (I have a few), logging finds by the thousands that you were not at personally takes away from the friendly challenge of finding caches and misses the point entirely of why Geocaching was even started, that being to get outdoors and discover new places.

    "We all" who?  I think you've just confessed to the unforgivable sin here.  And I think you've got it a little sideways; logging any caches one was not personally at yadda, yadda, yadda...--not to mention what it says about one's personal integrity.

    Not only have I never, there are probably a couple of handfuls of caches I've found & signed--but not logged--because I was just to tired that evening, got distracted/waylaid when I got home, etc., yet I would never even think of logging one I hadn't personally found to make up for those I neglected to log.

    "You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation."--Plato
     

    • Upvote 1
  2. 58 minutes ago, anpefi said:

    Not sure if we need more attributes. Of course they are useful to filter caches, but they are quite subjective and usually underused that I do not think it is worthy to add complexity to them.

    Are attributes even included in PQs? 

    I can see their utility, but closing in on 100 finds, I don't recall ever looking at/for them.  I'm sure I will at some point.

  3. 15 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

    Clipboard is another idea. Doesn't imply you're anything other than a person with a clipboard. But it's easy for someone to infer something official. :P

    Been there a few times.  Not trying to "look" anything; I just take a clipboard along for something to write on, and/or to keep hardcopies I've brought with me.  Combined with a GPSr (surprising how many people don't know one by sight, or mistake it for a 2-way radio...) people do tend to draw their own conclusions.

    Had a clipboard with me one day while searching for a cache in an "extremely high muggle area".  I spotted the concealed hide from a combination of coords. & cache description, but between the dozen or so muggles within 25 ft. of the hide, and the maintenance crew working on the hide, there was no way I was going to pull it off, so I took a seat to ponder the situation.  Almost immediately, a woman struck up a conversation, asking me if I were a supervisor/inspector.  (I've worked as an engineering inspector in my younger days).  I told her, "No," and explained exactly what I was doing (without revealing the location of the hide).  I've not been back to find that cache, but others have found it since, so no harm, no foul...:ph34r:

  4. 43 minutes ago, Tarahead said:

    ....Then one very large black twist off container, which was definitely a large.

    Was it larger than 5 gallons/20 liters?  If not, then it was still a REGULAR (there's no "medium").  Bonafide LARGE cache containers are quite unusual/infrequent.  I think you'll find--regrettably--that Difficulty, Terrain, and Size are often misrepresented.  Lots of discussion, but little in the way of solutions to those problems (but something to keep in mind if/when you feel the urge to hide something... Be as accurate as you can, and those who seek/find your caches will appreciate it. ;)

    There should be settings in your apps to rectify the flipped orientation.  I use a GPSr, so I can't help much there; others who use the phone apps should be able to.

    • Upvote 1
  5. 16 minutes ago, DrJeckyloftheDunes said:

    I've had quite a few time where I popped out of some thick brush off a bike trail when someone was going by. I'm not sure what I would actually reply if someone asked what I was doing. Most just give me an odd look. 

    What would you ask if the roles were reversed?  Anything?  Would you care?  I'm not one to ask challenge someone exhibiting odd behavior in the woods, though I might let slip an odd look. 

  6. 6 hours ago, Tarahead said:

    I just find myself moving so quickly to retrieve and sign the log that I miss some of the experience of sitting and reading through the log and looking through the cache.

    If reading through logs and going through swag is what you enjoy, I wouldn't bother with anything smaller than a REGULAR; for the most part, there's just no room on log sheets vs. actual log books, and generally not enough room for the kind of swag worth exploring.  No-one is likely to pay much attention, especially if you're nibbling on a snack/piece of fruit; they'll assume the cache is a lunchbox.

    The key to being stealthy is looking like you belong there--not like you're trying to avoid... (what's a good word for scrutiny:P)  Bringing a dog can provide a multitude of cover--and cover stories.

    • Upvote 2
  7. 4 minutes ago, HHL said:

    There is no distance limit when you select a country or a state.

    Except that there are some countries (like USA) that you cannot select; you must select by state(s).  To get the entire country, you'd have to (AFAIK) select all 50.

    I don't think there's a way to increase the number of caches in a PQ beyond 1000, so multiple PQs by (smaller) groups of states would be necessary anyway.

  8. 22 hours ago, CAVinoGal said:

    A geocaching friend gave me a bag of small wine bottle charms that I leave in caches selectively to say "I was here" and for someone to take if they want the charm.  Not all caches are suitable.

    Huh. :huh:  Just goggled; I never knew they were a "thing" (and I live fairly close to "wine country.")  Explains what those bottle-cap thingies we found in a few caches were... (Not that that's what you meant, precisely; I see that there are many different kinds.)  Learn sump'n evry day! :wacko:

  9. 3 hours ago, Wacka said:

    Caches near playgrounds go on my rainy day list. Will only attempt them on rainy days or in the winter when there is no chance of ads being around.

    Kids?  I'm in a place (age, infirmity) where I don't even consider caching in inclement weather/climate, so that doesn't usually occur to me, but it sounds quite sensible.

  10. 17 hours ago, niraD said:

     The ideal situation is one where solving the puzzle leaves it in a state where it is ready to be solved again, but it's hard to design puzzles that way.

    Exactically.  I spoze I'd (from a designer's P.O.V.) call it part of the challenge.  A little easier if one can remember it from inception.  Nothing like getting an epiphany for a whiz-bang puzzle, only to have that "D'oh!" moment halfway or more into fabrication... :o

  11. 30 minutes ago, J Grouchy said:

    My only real "unfortunate" muggle encounter was more about odd comments or looks from strange men...usually in secluded parks.  I don't believe I need to expand on that and it's fairly clear to me what that is all about.  Comes with the territory, I suppose, when you are a solo cacher in work attire wandering a secluded park trail.

    In a similar vein, there's a local CO who likes to hide KFCs.  That's fine, but their "definition of a KFC" is one that's "near a playground".  Wanna guess how many stink-eyes a middle-aged man gets just being in the vicinity of a playground?  I won't pursue their caches anymore--at least not without a female geo-partner.

  12. 2 hours ago, on4bam said:

    We did a few. "Worst" one was a wooden cube 20cm*20cm*20cm with a locked drawer. There was a metal (pin?) ball inside that had to be lead through the 3D maze by listening where the ball was. At a certain point the ball would open the "lock" on the drawer exposing the micro with log. It took us about an hour trying to get the drawer open without success and when I turned the cube to put it back in it's hiding place the drawer sprung open... It was one of the best (and most frustrating) caches we ever did. It was one of many very special caches in 2 series by the same CO.

    Another was a PVC pipe maze where you needed to use two magnets to "lead" the key to the end of the maze. At a few points there were fixtures holding the maze in place where the key would drop so you needed a second magnet to make the key pass the fixture.

    The problem with some of those types of puzzles is ensuring that they can be reset very easily.  If it takes even half as much effort to reset than to "open", many are likely to just leave it open/solved--or very close to open/solved.  Worse yet are those individuals, who when frustrated by a challenging puzzle, will resort to brute force, lock-picking, etc. to "teach the CO a lesson".

  13. 3 hours ago, Keystone said:

    That's an obnoxious answer to provide to someone who already acknowledged their newbie status. 

    Perhaps someone more helpful could post a brief summary of what this bumped thread is about, and what's a monkey cache?

    Please check our relative join dates and #s of finds.

    It wasn't intended as obnoxious; I explained how & where I found the answer to the same question.

  14. On 7/13/2017 at 1:41 PM, dicentra said:

    We tend to leave more than we take.

    We started out that way, but over the past ~coupla months, we've become--regrettably--more disillusioned/jaded.  We're getting more than a little tired of opening caches to find water, rust, mud, mildew, slime, litter, logbooks so waterlogged they can no longer be signed, and all previous signatures are long since faded/washed away--but mostly, broken pieces of old toys or other unidentifiable bits of... well, they're unidentifiable.  That's not swag--that's trash.  (Don't tell me one person's trash is another person's treasure--that's the justification/rationalization of those who leave trash in lieu of swag.) Seems more people are takers than givers (and couldn't care less about trading equal or better), and most (from our experiences) COs of swag-sized caches couldn't care less about maintaining their caches,

    We've had to adopt a different policy.  I won't elucidate yet, because we're still fine tuning.

  15. 4 hours ago, Isonzo Karst said:

    I'd recommend staying with the PQ route to generate caches, but not by zip code. Instead, take a center point and a radius of the entire area that's reasonable. Now, create PQs for that area by DATE RANGE. This allows 100% coverage with no overlaps.  You'll have to fiddle with dates to find what yields something above 900 caches. Once you've set those up, you really never need fool with them again.

    I do something similar, but with T ratings; one could use D ratings, or other criteria as well.  It can run into problems if you wind up with enough waypoints & .GPX files to surpass the unit's limits (which could happen using dates as well).  The solution (I'm told) is using something like GSAK to combine PQs into a .GGZ.  See: How many PQ files can I load on a Garmin?

     

×
×
  • Create New...