geoSquid

Unless the cache was spewing ebola infected radioactive waste on a daycare in session, I cannot imagine any cache related maintenance that couldn't wait for some family event to pass before the maintenance was done, regardless of how far away it is.

Weekend after labour day should have less than the usual numbers of mosquitos! woot!

Beware my plush toy travel bug... the Lord and Master of all Plush Toys: Dread Plush Cthulhu There's a cute story that someone did about Plush Cthulhu here: The Awakening of Dread Plush Cthulhu

Before placing a cache, I'd recommend finding about 10 or 15 of different types (some traditional, some multi, some mystery). That will give you a grounding on what kinds of things to think about and look for when placing a cache. After that, here's the process I have used: 1) Determine the type of cache. I chose multi-caches both times, but that may not be what you're after. Make this decision early and stick with it. 2) Choose the size of container, this will make a difference when you... 3) Recce a few potential cache spots. Consider the size of the container, location of well traversed paths, etc. What is the terrain like - is it safe? How easy can the container be hidden here? How likely is it that a muggle will find the container? Is it likely that people visiting the container will damage the environment? Ask yourself, "How much of a pain in the arse will it be to maintain a cache at this location and am I up to it?" Make sure it's not private property, or that you have the owner's permission to place a cache there. 4) get coordinate for all the potential hiding spots and hit geocaching.com. Do a search for caches near those points. You want to ensure there's no caches within about 200m of your cache site. 5) From the cache sites that pass, pick the one you like the best, and place your cache. Make sure the container is properly marked and contains a geocaching manifesto. 6) register the cache on geocaching.com and await approval. If you've followed steps 3 and 4, approval will almost certainly not be withheld. That's what I recommend. Good luck with your cache!

I've found more than two in Niagara Region and I don't even live there

I've seen 3 black bears while geocaching within 100 km of Ottawa. Must be just that time of year.

Although with the TH in The Blue Quasar, you could try for someone up near Alert

Yeah, it acutally passes through a goodly part of the populated world It should also be somewhere near portland Oregon, and some other spots. I'm actually going to Italy in the autumn.

Convert your Geocaching handle to a coordinate. Using a telephone keypad & the first five or six letters of your Username, convert your Username to a set of numbers such that A, B or C='2'; D, E or F='3'; etc. You must use a minimum of 5 letters. If your name is 5 letters or shorter, you must use the entire name & can fill in the remaining values as desired or leave them "open" for your buddy to have some leeway. ok... geoSquid = 43670843 Soooo 43 67.0843... Which becomes 43 33.0843' or 43 34.0843. Now, 43 west longitude is basically in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Those Coords in East longitude are possible. South latitude is also possible I think, however, this is startlingly convenient for a Canadian since Toronto is at that latitude If anyone lives near N 43deg 33.0843' or N 43deg 34.0843' please message me and we can complete the Where's in a name cache of course, anyone living near that number South Latitude or East Longitude would also be welcome. This is quite cute because I'm in Ottawa and could actually drive to that latitude in New York state in about 2-3 hours

I exchanged some emails with mlord, and got my #3 issue worked out woot!

So long as it wasn't Poison Ivy! Seriously, yes, I am from Ontario, and I wouldn't be destroying the Trilliums. They ARE quite hardy though, we find them growing right in the middle of paths where people must have stepped on them in the early stages of growth... MaisOui :0) Although, a perusal of my copy of the criminal code shows no prohibition on destroying trilliums. I don't have a copy of the provincial offences list, but I'm pretty sure that trilliums aren't protected there. That said, it's certainly bad form to just go trampling stuff

I've launched a few Canadian geocoins. Bit of a pain not being able to track them on geocaching.com, but it's not the end of the world either. Improvements I'd like to see: 1) Link to a translation site like babelfish.altavista.com or some other place that can translate the english cache listings into other languages, and vice versa. Yeah, it's machine translation, but it's better than nothing and would allow more exposure to this hobby, particularly for French Canadians. 2) A general item, not specific to canadians, would be a link that shows what accounts are watching a cache or TB. 3) The WAP gateway, which is a really cool idea, seems to have a few issues (at least with me, it keeps rejecting my log entries ). A WAP gateway is a very handy feature that I'd love to use more if ti worked better. Generally, the geocaching.com site is pretty good. It seems to be well run and quite stable, so kudos to the people who operate it.

I placed my first cache after I'd done about 10 or so caches. I had read all teh FAQ's so I had a pretty good idea of what needed to be done and not done. The hardest part about placing it was finding the spot to put it where it would meet the level of terrain difficulty I had in mind, was the approved distances from other caches, *AND* wouldn't get hauled off by the Ottawa bomb squad, er, disturbed by passers-by. Setting up the redirects (it is a multi-cache) was actually quite easy. What I learned from this is: ** what the terrain looks like in April is not necessary representative of what it will look like in June ** Basically, when the grass and leaves came in, my cache became harder, no doubt about that. But it's Ottawa, so by late october it will be easy again If you do your homework before placing a cache, you should have no problem.

I am often available on weekends for caching. Normally I'm out alone (!), but sometimes I go caching with my wife, or with gdewis. My MSN is dcowan69@hotmail.com You might want to join up with the local mailing list (geoqueont@malak.ca) and ask there too.

Hi Gordo. I'm the eastern ontario contact for OGA. Am interested in getting somethign going, perhaps we can organize somethign together. gdewis can probably be roped in to assisting as well. Drop me a line! email is in my profile.

Yeah, TS isn't far from wellandport. The Allenburg (I think it was called that) rail bridge I used to scoot across on my moped, usually to the bitching of the bridgekeeper. Man, I was glad to move to BC to escape that place.

It's radio, so there's going to be side lobes from the main jamming that could affect people outside the arc, and proximity to the transmitter could affect anyone using GPS near the source of the jamming. Let's say, I'm not sure I'd want to be flying on those days. It might be fun to put an event cache in Pembroke for the duration of the jamming

Pbbbt! I used to live almost in wellandport. Of course, it still wasn't quite wellandport.

C'est une bonne idée. Les caches situees en Ontario pres du Québec seraient (sp?) aussi fun pour les cacheurs dans l'outaouais.

Utilisez http://babelfish.altavista.com pour traduire l'anglais au francais. Ce n'est pas une tres bonne traduction, mais on peut la comprendre. Mon francais n'est pas le meilleur, mais je peux essayer de communiquer

Yeah, I agree BQ.. was just a thought though. It does seem that a relatively small number of companies do get some benefit from all of us participating in this hobby. On the other hand, beyond discount prices, I'm not sure how they could help. I wonder how aware they even are.

Has anyone ever approached SC Johnson & Son (the makers of Ziploc), or Rubbermaid about sponsoring some Geocaching events or clubs? Given that they seem to be significant beneficiaries of this hobby, there might be some interest. Garmin or Magellan would be obvious choices too.

oh. heh. I went looking for one and thought we just had a vacuum here I'll subscribe to that one then and kill off my new one before too many people subscribe. Thanks for the info!

I have started a mailing list for Ottawa/eastern ontario/western quebec geocachers. To subscribe, send a mail to: majordomo@tenebris.ca and in the body of the message put SUBSCRIBE geoottawa the server will generate instructions for authenticating the subscription. Hopefully this will turn into a forum for the geocaching community in the area!

I've had a Garmin GPS II + since about 1996. After taking up geocaching recently, I picked up the smaller, lighter eTrex Legend. Never had a problem with either receiver. The GPS II+ has even been swimming a few times