Mom-n-Andy

If I have no prior knowledge of the cache location, container or placement, is it legitimate for me to seek the FTF? WHY NOT? Would you suspect foul play if you were a local FTF Hound? WHY WOULD YOU CARE IF THEY DID? If yes, what if I explain in my log that I had no prior knowledge of the details of the hide... would you still be put off? NO, I WOULD WONDER WHY YOU FELT THE NEED TO EXPLAIN. Seriously, it's a game. As long as you follow the published rules of the game (i.e. the "guidelines") all else is fair. FTF is a side game played by a minority of the participants and has no bearing on the "main" game. Around my area, FTFs are usually "scored" by people who happen to be off from work and in the neighborhood when a cache is published. Why should that confer any distinction?

After all that, I'd enjoy finding a container that fit the puzzle somehow instead of being a generic lock-n-lock.

I just write the HTML. The simpler the better.

Swamps. Mud. Mosquitos. Poison Ivy. Especially when the CO bypasses perfectly nice areas to hide a cache there.

Both sound like a lot of fun. I think optics would indeed be too fragile and if people think they have any value they will likely go missing eventually. The PVC with crosshairs sounds workable if the cacher can get it into the proper orientation, not sure how you could arrange that. Either one of these ideas would get a favorite point from me.

I'm not Jewish, but I think a yarmulke might also have religious significance. Maybe you could contact a geocache reviewer in Israel and ask about what might be appropriate.

A Get Out of Hell Free card.

It has taken me to every park in my town, county, and neighboring counties. Otherwise I'd probably still be just doing my walking in my neighborhood.

I feel that if the most "offensive" thing I found in a cache was a religious pamphlet I'd be pretty happy. And I have only found 56 caches. I am a Christian, but if I found a pamphlet for muslimism/judaism/hinduism etc... I would hardly be "offended". I don't know what it is about religion, but the only people that seem to get mad about it are some (READ: SOME) agnostics/atheists. As much as I would love for it to happen, I don't care whether or not you are my religion. But for some reason you seem to care that I am. [/rant] Back to what I was originally saying... I have found a plastic... err... phallus in a cache. I went ahead and took that out. What is it about atheists and agnostics? We are tired of being told we are wrong/immoral/evil/going to hell/etc. And we don't like religious political activists who try to inject their interpretations of the Bible into the laws of a country which was founded on the principle of religious liberty. That being said, I have no problem with Christians who go to church, feed the hungry/clothe the poor/care for the sick, and respect my beliefs.

Now that you're here, I hope you will join the game!

Maybe you're interpreting the hint wrong. as a puzzle author myself i've seen it happen with mine. I see your point, but it still comes across as not nice.

Since the cache page clearly states that the puzzle will be changing, I think it's fair. You can decide whether to play or not. What I find strange and annoying is the hint: "Trusted circle of friends can contact me."

It depends on where you are going geocaching and what conditions you are trying to survive. Have you heard of the rule of threes? You can survive 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, and 3 weeks without food. So unless you are stuck in the woods for quite a while, you don't NEED a lot of food to survive, but if you're out overnight a granola bar or candy bar will make you feel better. If I were you I'd add water purification. I carry some Micropur tablets in my first aid kit all the time. It doesn't take long to become dehydrated in hot weather, I saw a guy pass out after a couple hours of hiking because he wasn't drinking. Iodine tablets work well too but taste bad (the taste can be covered up with a drink mix with citric acid). Your local EMS or similar store can guide you. Make sure you have a Nalgene too.

So someone who didn't have a smart phone would just have to return to a computer to get each set of coords and move on to the next stage. A pain, but doable. There are at least a couple of places that you can send an image from your cell phone to via mms. If the QR code can be decoded you get the contents back by text message, so you don't have to return home. Sorry, don't have the addresses in front of me but google will turn them up. It can also be a lot of fun to team up with someone else who does have a smart phone or chirp-enabled gps or whatever device is needed.

The time needed to get one smiley would probably deter most. You could do separate caches with the final being a puzzle as you suggested. Another approach would be to set up a challenge, with one cache released each week or so leading up to some kind of celebration. They are popular in this area but do require extra work on the part of the CO. Examples: https://sites.google.com/site/occachechallenge/ and https://sites.google.com/site/sdoschallenge/

LOL. This stuff is so poisonous that the people in the movie Signs were able to defeat the evil invading aliens by splashing small quantities of the chemical on them! Good thing they had some of it on hand!

Wear light colored clothes (makes it easier to see the ticks.) Wear long pants, especially if you have hairy legs (it's easier for ticks to grab onto hair.) Tuck shirt into pants and pants into socks. Use bug spray. Remove your clothes as soon as you get home and check for ticks. If a tick bites use one of these to remove it: http://www.campmor.com/outdoor/gear/Product___88774 Don't try to remove a tick by grabbing its body, putting anything on it, setting it on fire, etc. Use the tick remover and follow directions. You do not want to do anything to distress the tick and cause it to regurgitate its stomach contents into your bloodstream. After you remove the tick, clean the bite with alcohol. Consider saving the tick in a baggie or other container for identification if you do get sick. Put tick preventer on your geodog as recommended by your vet, and check him for ticks too.

He actually included the word "jerk" in his log?

Technically, c:geo would likely not violate the terms of use. Your usage of it might. One of the "terms" states: "You agree that you will not use any robot, spider, scraper or other automated means to access the Site for any purpose without our express written permission."

Didn't read the thread, but I have an idea. First off let me say that I watched exactly 2 episodes of that show. In the second episode MacGruber (intentional misspeeling) stripped the wires off of a detonator and plugged it into a cactus to blow up the bad guys. Feh... I checked out for good. Maybe you could do a 5 star difficulty cache using potatos to unlock the cache. It could be done. Love the potato pics! The cache writeup would say "special equipment required: 10 pound bag of potatoes".

Radio Shack carries a voice recorder module for around $10 USD. You can put it in a plastic box and mount that in an ammo box. It's a good idea to remove the "record" button so someone can't inadvertently record over your message. People have been known to put these in ammo boxes with a switch that activates the sound when the box is opened. :-)

but, but...what would happen to the Darwin Award each year? You have to actually die or be otherwise rendered incapable of conributing to the gene pool to get a Darwin Award. I am curious how the OP knew that the nano would be up inside a soda machine?

I'm not offended as a geocacher, but I'm appalled that he would curse in front of the little kid you can hear giggling in the background. Or is that what parents do these days?

I have one that only cost around $25 in materials, but it took me at least 100 person hours to create. At minimum wage that's $725.

Nice try.