amianda

is anyone else having trouble searching via the main geocaching page? when i type in a city or a zip i get sent back to the main page, not to a search results page. Frustrating because I'm trying to head out to a friend's place and do some quick caching with her. Oh well, better luck next time. Thanks for updates!

weasr is good. J/K i like Muggle.

Not a story about a GPS but oh well. So my husband and I were working on like our 4th or so cache one day and it was a DNF. Frustrated, we took our time getting back to the car. Our roommate was poking around in some debris on the side of the road and he stood up, holding out a check for over 100 dollars. It was a corporate check, printed out with the payee's full name and home address. On the back, it was already endorsed and had the payee's account number written out. When we got back to the car, we plugged the address into the car's gps unit and found it was only a few blocks away. You should have seen the look on the man's face as we handed him the check. Apparently it had been in a mostly empty box in the back of his truck, which he'd lost while driving and didn't know where. He was amazed we found it. Fun times

I don't have any cards, but I do think these would be cool. They're for a card game designed to have custom cards made by people or corporations. Bit pricey though. http://www.masterofespionage.com/how-to-ad...romo-cards.html

Amianda... Well, I used to sit around and dream up names for characters and possible future children. In college I did this by combining or mixing up existing names. Amianda comes from Amy + Amanda, and originally I was going to use it for my firstborn female child. I liked the name so much, however, that I started using it for myself on online games and message boards, email, whatever. It stuck. People sometimes call me Ami in real life because they don't know my real name. So, even if I were to have kids sometime in the future (seems unlikely and that's ok) I couldn't use the name for a child because it is really my name now. Anyway, boring story but there it is. My real name is Kelly, btw

There is some pretty crappy stuff out there. The worst we found was a couple of caches in the same area that were filled with springs, nuts and bolts. Weird. I thought it was really odd on the first one, completely surreal on the 2nd. Why would someone leave such things? Regardless of whether the items are cool for me to keep, I try to trade with every cache that has items. I have my bag of TIs, some of which are really great and some of which that are just ok. I try to trade up all the time, but if it is not possible I try to leave 2 items for every 1 I take. If I take something I don't want for myself, I put it in the trade bag for the next cache. I really like the swag aspect of caching even though I haven't really found "treasure" so much. I think it's fun to see what other people leave. I especially love SI's and leave mine in addition to any other swag I might trade. Of course I also love finding trackables, but that's not swag. Anyway, I really like the person on this thread that said they realized they weren't helping alleviate the problem and decided to try to contribute towards good cache swag. Great attitude, I wish more people could be like that!

I apologize to bring bad news, but your link doesn't work. It appears that you may have copied this link from a source which truncated the address (by adding the elipses and taking out part of the address because it was so long). I suggest going back to the original page where you found the address and clicking through to the article (assuming it still exists on the web) and copying the actual, entire, address from your browser's address field at the top of the window. Then you can repaste it here. I am interested in reading. Thanks!

Ringo- I just wanted to say that I love your cards! I really like the stats on the back, and the space for you to write what cache you're leaving it at, and what number of find and such it is for you. That's awesome, and I would totally collect these (if I was anywhere near you and had a hope of finding them)! Great idea, keep the creativity coming!

I haven't yet hidden a cache but I went out seeking some this past weekend that had a high terrain difficulty (4). In the description of the caches the CO explained that the area, after a heavy rain could have high water and getting to to cache site would be more difficult. Since the caches were located in a canyon with a creek in the middle and a waterfall at the end, water level would play a significant role in determining the terrain rating. The CO's solution was to note in the description that the terrain rating was for the area durning rainy season, and that if the water level was down it could be as low as a 2.5. I thought this was a good compromise because it gave you the worst case scenario, told you why it was rated that, and gave you a realistic rating for other times. Anyway, hope that helps.

The cord with the silver tip on them, and the jumpring below are ... well i was going to say cell phone fobs. I want to say that's what they were called in the Fire Mountain Gems catalog, but now I'm not sure. Wait, I has the internets to search upon.... Aha. True name is lanyard, but they are listed under cell phone findings on Fire Mountain Gems. Linkage.... cell phone findings

Yes ALRs are banned (where you require someone to do something or it doesn't count). But for your spy scenario, I think the following wording would work as a suggestion: Your mission, should you *choose* to accept it, is to collect 3 items of trash in the part and properly dispose of them before finding the cache and logging your find. You can't force them to do it, i understand, but probably many people would anyway, since it's fun and a good idea anyway. Sounds awesome, and good luck!

Yeah the 'hersheys' bar of soap, especially if you made it that thin, would be good. Also good - if the soap was not harmful to the environment, so people could use it in the woods, with streamwater, or whatever where there wasnt a sink nearby. I also like the wipes idea, expecially if there were different kinds (and they weren't too heavily scented! Don't mind the grumps around here. Sometimes people can be unnecessarily mean. On the other hand I did think you were being a tiny bit impatient at the start of the thread, no offense. My mantra is as always, everyone calm down, take a breath, and try to be friendly.

There are many products out there that serve these purposes I suppose. But I like supporting people who like to design and make producs on their own. This weekend our top concerns were mosquitoes, flies, and sunburn. I don't really keep products on me that help with any of these things because i'm kind of lazy and my geobag is already huge and heavy. Perhaps some travel or small sized containers of items like this would be nice. A kit that can be used for 2 or so people but easily carried (and not lost at the bottom) in your geobag? my $0.02!

My caching buddy is my husband, Greylurk (aka Adam). We met about 4 years ago and our relationship built slowly at first but then we moved close together and we started hanging out more and getting interested in each other. He introduced me to caching in... it must have been early 05, by taking me to a geocache site in Treepeople Park in the Beverly Hills area. At the time I thought it was fun but I had plenty other stuff I liked to do and didn't really get into it. Not long after that we moved in together, later bought a house together, got engaged and then married, and now we've rediscovered Geocaching together! Ever since one of us suggested to the other that we go geocaching again about a month or so ago, I've been hooked and we go all the time! Honestly, my husband is so good for me, very supportive, always keeping me entertained and motivated... I don't know what I'd do without him. Here's a pic from this weekend's caching adventures in Altadena, CA, at Millard Canyon Falls.

OMG biting flies! One of the main things I absolutely do not miss about louisiana!!! Gah. Those things are terrible.

Hehe, well we own a 6ft long Red Tailed Boa so we're not overly fearful of snakes. Of course, we respect them, especially the poisonous one, so Greylurk got this pic from 5 ft away on maximum camera zoom! Don't mess with snakes in the wild, you never know what's gonna happen. Personally, my phobia is ticks. I have no problem with most insects and even spiders are ok. But once i got a tick on me and as soon as i saw it i freaked out. Couldn't bring myself to touch it even to get it out of my skin! Fortunately there was someone present who could handle the extraction without freaking out or passing out, which i might have done had i been forced to make the removal on my own. Now I check every time we go out to a wooded area. Or rather, I make Greylurk check!!! :/

So true. We took some newbies out caching for their first time, and I explained why I was paying so much attention to sprinkler heads to the "dad" of the group. I was gently proding them with my toe (as the ones I've seen are simply set into a hole and not attached to anything or weighted down so they're kinda loose in the ground), and he quickly set to work molesting each one! I had to stop him from trying to unscrew the lid of a sprinklerhead that was obviously attached to a below the ground pipe system - some people are kind of dense. The idea of testing whether or not there's a spring inside is a good tip. Thanks for whoever suggested that.

I like having the ability to write my own log. My enjoyment of a cache may not be exactly that of what my husband liked or didn't like about it - though we're similar in taste in many ways, we're obviously not truely one person with one mind. So I like the idea of keeping my personal account separate from his because of that. On the other hand, I do think it's a little foolish to keep up with other people's stats and compare them to yours. Mostly the team stats idea would be for me what the individual stats are - a marker of where I've personally been, where the team's been. I think it would be fun to combine my stats with others that I cache with frequently, to see our group's total, but for group use only. I liked the idea someone else had in another forum about hiding the 'found' stats from external eyes and keeping this for the account holder only. I suppose a team stat page would be even more useful if that were the case on Geocaching.com . As the scouting user said, I think a team page where team members could come and go, perhaps moderated by a Team Captain sort of individual who created and maintains the team page, would be useful and fun for groups that change. Even with my husband/wife example, we have a roommate who will come with us on many caches. I think if he moves out, especially to another town, he will be less inclined to go out of his way to come with us, and our team would change. I suppose it's not a necessity for the website (obviously it's lasted this long without it) but it would be nice to have, IMO.

Hmm, having to wait so long without any feedback is frustrating. I've never placed a cache, but there have been several times in other areas of my life that I've had to run something past someone else before it was official, and any delay without reason causes problems for me. So I understand what you've probably been going through. I'm not anyone important or anything, but since reviewers are volunteers it seems to me that Groundspeak can't really just contact someone in your area and tell them to be a reviewer. Someone needs to step up and tell GS that they want to help out that way. Perhaps you can talk to some of your geocaching friends down there and see if anyone wants to volunteer? I'm not sure of the protocols Groundspeak uses when choosing reviewers, but it seems like a good place to start. I am guessing either that, or wait for the current reviewer to get around to you. Of course there may be a reason he seems to be slow with you guys, but I wouldn't try to guess what it might be. Happy caching!

I love my Geocaching notebook. It's a 1 in binder with two pockets on each inside cover, and I put 5 tabs in there. The tabs have things like "Not Found" "My Caches" "Notes" "Information" and "Found" on them. Not found is for all the caches I have identified in areas I frequent that I would like to hunt. My Caches is empty as of yet but someday will have printouts from all the lovely caches i will place . Notes has blank notebook paper and some field notes from different caches, plus printouts of caches I've tried to find but suspect are MIA, so I can notify the COs. Information is right now filled with stuff I've printed from the Geocaching webpage and FAQs so that I can easily reference things in the field and, in the case that my notebook gets lost or stolen, someone else can learn about the sport and have a ready-to-go notebook to use . Finally the last tab is for my Found caches. This was alot easier to keep up with when I had ready access to a working printer, but as someone else mentioned could fill up quickly. I suppose I'm lucky to have to 'manually print' my caches now, so I tend to get 3 -4 caches on a piece of lined notebook paper with the cache info on it, plus my notes on when i found it, who was with me, what the circumstances were so I can properly log stuff back on the website. I wish I had a picture of the front cover, I've been filling it up with stickers from all over the place. If I make another one of these notebooks some day, I will try to find a sticker from each city/location I cache at to put on the cover. Anyway here are the pics from a few weeks ago. It's had some love since then, in the form of being knocked around in my caching bag. Upgraded that, so now I can carry all my stuff in one big canvas messenger bag (but it's so heavy!): And as you can see, I try to take pictures of interesting caches and things I see on the way with my trusty polaroid camera Pictures are kept in the back pocket for now. I will be getting another notebook to put trade items and sigs I pick up in. Since I only have one or two right now it hasn't been an issue yet. Most people recommend protective plastic sheets with pockets for slides or coins. Haven't been out to the numistmatist shop yet to see what they might have.

Well, my husband and I already have 2 accounts. He started caching long before me (but his numbers were kind of small until recently), and I signed up recently with my own account. We most often search together, but I'm known to seek caches near my work and around our home when he's not with me, and occasionally he does the same. But, in actuality we're a team. I would like to show that by having a team name and such, but don't want to create a wholly new account for us together (not only because I've just signed up for a year paid membership), and I don't want to go back and log all our 'together' finds with such an account if I had to. But I'd still like to have something on the site that says we're a team. I'd be happy with another Tab on the profile, even, that just listed team mates. The stats idea was just a thought. Perhaps the only caches it should count towards the group total are ones all members have logged individually, but only count them once. You have a family account, so you already have the group stats thing going on. I dont. That's all.

Wow, that sucks. Hopefully they'll come through with a patch. As for my original question, the majority of people here seem to use the Iphone *or* the Curve, with some other people finding good results with other devices. This is good news. Thanks for the help, yall!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the current way to create a team or group profile on geocaching.com is to simply make a new account with the group name. In the profile section, i have seen people list their members. And the only way to claim past finds for the group is to go back and relog with the new account. I think it would be great if you could create a group profile that wasn't an account, just a page with your team info on it. Members could join the group like the friending process, and once they'd been confirmed as part of the group, their total finds could be calculated together on the page. Duplicate finds would be counted once only to the group total, of course. Each person's individual stats could be reposted on the group page directly from their profile. I think it would make the site cleaner in terms of users, and groups could be disbanded or changed as time went by without too much trouble (just leave the group or add more people). It's a big change, and I know many people are doing it the other way already, but I think it would be a good thing... Thoughts?

I'd be more comfortable if the money wasn't going directly to some other geocacher out there... Like someone else said in one of these threads, if I want to give a person money i'll just mail him a check. Let the money go to a charity of that person's choice instead Anyway, I agree with your assessment that there is no reason to argue about the FTF thing because there are no rules about it and there is no gain if you rack them up... Just thought I'd add to the silliness.

Went to an event a couple of weekends ago, found 15 caches in 7 hrs. We had 6 people in our group and 2 cars, so that wasn't very efficient. Also, stopped for gas and food and bathrooms at least once each. My husband thinks we can do better just the two of us on our own and is very excited to go to another caching event. So far, I'm not a huge fan of the all day event caching thing. I mean, the afterparty was great and I loved meeting everyone and playing games and such, I just don't think I'm a power cacher. I'm there for the hunt, and I like taking my time. I enjoy the sunshine and the being outdoors and the walking around and stuff. Not this rush rush rush, each cache blends in with the previous 3 thing. But that's just me. And I'm still new. Perhaps once I've gotten to the point where it takes me 3 seconds to identify the cache location in a new spot I'll think differently. Right now, it's so not about the numbers for me. But, this is a sport that is very customizable to the individual players...