Wooden Cyclist

Now hold on. I got my degree in psych and working in sales. My friend majored in geology and is working in ...sales. Seems to me that the psych credtis are just as valuable as the geology credits.

How about this: If you post a voluntary photo of you at the cache site with your face shown, any incorrect answers to the questions will be forgiven and you log will be allowed to remain.

Completed the tutorial and my first Wherigo using OpenWIG on a BlackBerry Curve 8330.

They could also be proxy cards for geocoins. Oh, and welcome to the hobby. If you are like most of us it will turn into your obsession soon.

Requiring a photo showing anything specific is now considered an ALR for earthcaches. See guideline #6.

I'm putting my first earhcache together and noticed something unexpected in the guidelines. In the latter part of guideling #6 "Requests for specific content in the photograph (must include the visitor's face, for example) will be considered an additional logging requirement and must be optional." Has this always been the case? Most of the earthcaches that I have found required a picture showing my face and a feature at the cache site. I always felt that it was justified because the photo proved that I had actually been there. But this guideline seems to take that assurance away.

Most of the events I have been to have had attendees in the lower and upper age ranges but, as knowschad has observed, the 15-20 something ages aren't there. I do see quite a few adults that are younger than 50 though. I notice this because I turned 50 a few months ago. I'm hoping that Garmin and Samsung will team up and market a big screen, HD, GPSr for old eyes like mine. Edited for clarity, but not very well.

Good point! So someone sets up an account then waits for four months to get started they would be qualified to hide a cache? Just playing devils advocate here. Some people would find 100's in their first four months others might not leave the house. The same goes for setting a specific numbers of finds. I could log dozens of LPC finds then be qualified to hide?

I think Wood Cicle dude above you got it right. We are NOT a small group. The fact that there are nearly a million active caches all over the world proves that. However, there are idiocultures within geocaching as well. I.E. Some geocontinuums advocate multiple finds on event caches to get credit for event temps while others certainly do not. Some geocontinuums are densly seeded with p&g film cans every 528+ feet while others would hound them into archiving a less than local standard hide. Idiocultures stick out like a sore thumb at mega events. They often wear matching shirts and set up their own tent as a gathering place. I wish I was as smart as that Wood Cicle guy.

Umm, I plead the 5th.

About 300, and I feel like I waited too long. Read the guidelines and posts about hiding then jump in. In your first cache description you could state that it is your fist cache and invite comments and advice from the finders. I did that and got a few good pointers from the local cachers.

Oh yes, I agree this is absolutely true. My encounters with fellow cachers out in the field over the past year have been 100% friendly and positive. Not so much in these forums. I think many forum visitors perceive unfriendliness when that is not really the intent. Written words in this context are easy to misconstrue especially when opinions differ. There are people on this forum that I almost never agree with, yet when we meet at events it's always friendly. The forums aren't the real world and should never be taken as such unless an actual threat is implied. Well put Snoogans. Discussions that are done by email or other printed methods often go awry because the intent of the messages is not understood. When you add tone of voice and body language the intent becomes much more clear. There is also the anonymous aspect of posts that lead people to post in a tone that they would not use in a face to face conversation. Now back on topic. Is Geocaching a sub-culture? Looks like it meets the criteria. Some of the posters in here seem to think that it cant be a sub-culture because its just a game or its not a religion. Look a it this way. You can be a member of several sub-cultures and no one of them necessarily defines who you are. They don't have to dominate your way of thinking. Sub-cultures are something you participate in and sometimes you don't even know it.

Be careful. If you make it too hard and nobody finds it for several months then it may get archived.

I read it and it makes sense, but don't you lose caches that have been published recently? If my date range ends 12/09 wouldn't I miss the ones that were published in 2010?

Tell me about it. I know the feeling. My name is based on two of my other hobbies, woodworking and bicycling. When I tell people that they look at me with skepticism. I only bicycle occasionally now so no longer have the lean look of a long distance bicyclist. Instead I have to took of a semi-sedentary middle aged man.

I cache in a very wide area. I can easily drive outside of a 500 cache radius and quite a number of times have driven out of a 2000 cache radius. On other occasions I start cache far away from home, sometimes on a whim or because I'm just in the area. This freedom to not be confined to a small area is one of the aspects of the hobby I enjoy immensely. Right now I have several overlapping PQs to make sure I have sufficient coverage. This is wasteful because of the overlap and also means that I don't always have the most up to date information on the caches I visit. So more and bigger PQs would be very appreciated. Include date placed in your PQ and there will be zero overlap between queries of the same areas. The mobile phone apps allow to Geocache on a whim anywhere you go with cell coverage. All you need is a data plan. Having said that - Interesting to see and that an incresed limit is forthcoming. How does including date placed eliminate overlap? You have posted that suggestion before and it looks very interesting, but I don't understand it. I use four PQ's to cover my sales territory and may use up to 3 of them on a given day. Eliminating overlap would be very useful.

This is Sadie. She has no idea why we are in the woods, but she loves to come along with us.

They give watches to reviewers?

Here are pictures of staffs that geocacher El Diablo used to make. I don't think he makes them anymore but he might... http://www.geo-hikingstick.com/ There was a thread in this forum some while back about carving staffs but I am no good with the search engine on this site; you might can find it. I saw an El Diablo staff at a recent event. Very nicely done. Seeing his work has motivated me to try carving on mine. So far I have only practiced on scrap wood.

Got a picture? I am getting ready to put some carvings on mine so I would like to see what others have done.

Putting my considerable bulk on them is how I lost all 4 of my poles. That is why I use a hiking staff. Much stronger and versatile.

Unless the owner wants it to go to remote or rarely visited caches. TB2FWWF

Ok, here is the scenario. A local person becomes obsessed with Geocaching. They quickly become very good at both hiding and finding caches. Their hides get progressively better and better by being both challenging and interesting. The other local cachers look forward to seeking these caches. The hider gets a reputation for his hiding skills and the caches are the subject of many conversations on the train and at events. The logs for these caches reflect how much people enjoy them. Then, sadly, an event in the hiders life takes him away from caching abruptly. A few local cachers take it upon themselves to maintain these top quality caches because they feel that it would be a loss to the geocaching community if the caches were archived. They also feel that they are giving something back to the hider in return for the effort he made while he was still able to participate. Adopting the caches is not possible because the hider is out of contact. The caches remain in play for those who haven't found them yet. The logs and cache descriptions are readily accessible for anyone who is interested. Why would anyone not want these to stay around?

I bought a trackable Geopatch and put it on my geobag. TB36EA8

I did that recently. When I got the CO's voicemail I left "Hey Mike I think I decoded the hieroglyphics for your puzzle cache. I just wanted to confirm the coords with you". In the return voice mail was a short message giving me the correct coords. If I had known that he was gonna do that I wouldn't have spent four hours working on the answer.