Unfortunately I only heard and saw flashes of last night's episode despite my pleas to my family to 'shh'. Hopefully I'll be able to see it again sometime. I have to say I worry about the sport that we all love being shone in the same light as crime. There are a lot of sick people out there, people constanting looking for new ways to subject their evil to the innocent. I think we all have to face the fact that geocaching provides an opportunity for that. Imagine racing off to claim a FTF only to have a pipe bomb explode in your hands. Eventually something like this will happen. Given the nature of the sport it's impossible to have it monitored/administered to guarantee cacher safety but I think some modifications could be deployed to minimize some risk. For instance ensuring that a cacher has a significant amount of finds before publishing a cache and that they have been a member for awhile. I know obviously someone could just claim finds without actually finding caches but it might help. Of course this would also cut down on newbies making newbie mistakes, like placing illegal hides (damaging public property), burying caches, etc.
Don't get me wrong...I absolutely love this sport and love introducing it to others but I would prefer that those introductions are done by word of mouth rather than plastered all over the tv for anyone to see. I've also gotta high-five bramasoleiowa on the FTF theory. I could see myself doing the same thing.
