fishiam

Sadly, it is this sort of generalization that ruffles my feathers (well, fins actually). I don't know where you city cache but I've cached in several large cities and my experiences seem to be very different. And I have 4 children (ages 2 to 13) who thrill to city caching. Some city parks can handle larger caches but many simply can't - an altoids tin, a small lock 'n' lock maybe. But sometimes, just a bison capsule will do. It is so easy to point out a lame capsule and say - See, See, That's What I'm Talking About. So, don't hunt city micros if you don't want but unless you've done lots of city caching (and it seems you haven't) why paint them all with such a broad brush?

Micros provide a wonderful means of getting to know a city such as Seattle. There are pocket parks and breataking vistas all over the place that one would generally not encounter in everyday life. I have learned so much about this city I have lived in for 20 years thanks to geocaching. And, at least here, there are very few of the type of lame hides listed in other posts here. Many of them are found after solving a puzzle, others are straight forward hides but tastefully done and point you to some historical fact. Many city parks, as well all of dowtown, would not tolerate an ammo box. Micros are perfect for an urban area. So enjoy your forest and mountain caches but why feel the need to run down micros just because you prefer your ammos cans in the woods? I just planted three micros as part of a multi cache (that ended in a container) and thanks to this thread ... I'm gonna go place a half dozen more micros! peace, fishiam

Just wanted to add my thanks for this as well. First time I've used Greasemonkey and I got the whole thing installed and working in a couple of minutes. Most excellent, mon!

I can confirm that there is a large concentration of puzzle caches (and puzzle caches listed as multis making them doubly difficult), many quite ingenious, in and around Seattle. For a sampling, check out puzzles by in-city puzzlers Camp Latona, markta, and globalgirl. I undestand there are some avid puzzlers out in the 'burbs but I don't venture out there too often peace, fishiam

5206 caches within 100 miles of zip code 98105, where i live in Seattle, WA peace, fishiam

Here in Seattle, there is a series of caches placed by Dayspring all using a tube. The set of caches are Totally Tubular!, Totally Tubular II, Totally Tubular III, and Totally Tubular IV. These four caches routinely top most people's favorite Seattle caches. Each of them involves a black PVC tube about 12-18 inches long secured to a fence post. The trick is to figure out how to obtain the bison capsule inside. I won't give away the goods on these in the forums but if you are interested you may email me and I'll tell you about them. peace, fishiam

I enjoy putting prizes for the FTF. It promotes some excitement and a race among the locals. In a recent cache I put a brand new, uncirculated 2005 Washington Geocoin, a couple of months ago I put in a new 2004 Washington coin. I've also left brand new TBs, TB tags, bison capsules, etc. peace, fishiam

Well, I have visited there in the sense of walking by it 100s of times and even waited in there as friends went in to get fries. As for being a general commentary, it was actually a specific one to that McDonalds for being WM1. But anyway, delete away - I recognize the futility of my actions.

D'Oh! Now you can see why I have so many geocaching DNF's!

Ah well, I knew it was too much to hope for! Some text indicating that only 50 waymarks are listed would certainly have cleared that up. But why the limit of 50? EDIT - Just visited the waymark and saw that my original note written about 2 weeks ago was apparently deleted (it was admittedly negative but is that wrong?) I added a new note to see if it too gets removed.

I haven't been following the forums the past week so I apologize if this was covered. A couple/few weeks ago there was muich discussion about the inclusion of a McDonald's category. Personally, I was against it but then I saw that Waymarking was going to be much larger than just interesting people/places/things. Anyway ... WM1 - the very first waymark was (sadly) a McDonald's in dowtown Seattle. Out of curiosity I checked in on the McDonald's category and saw that it apparently is no longer listed. Am I just missing it or was it yanked? peace, fishiam

Met up with Moun10bike, nolenator, FauxSteve, markta, OldBaldEagle, nevcowpok, and k7-wave while getting my coins during lunch today. Besides getting 4 of these just beautiful coins it was most pleasant talking caching with such an august set of cachers. Jon, thanks again for going to all the trouble to distribute the coins! peace, fishiam

for what it's worth, I too came across something odd on a terraserver map. Nearby the posted coordinates of a puzzle cache GCQ0HX a little icon shows up at an intersection - of a parent holding the hand of a child. Here's the image. Look to the left side for the icon; the red dot shows the posted coordinates. This icon only shows up in very limited situations. If I zoom out further or zoom in, or try to center the image at that intersection, the icon does not reappear. It will show up if the centering is done near the cache location and the intersection remains on the western end of the map. It seems to be a very odd bug of some sort. peace, fishiam edited after playing around some more Here's the same intersection but zoomed all the way in and icon did remain in place. Still, as you try different zoom and centering locations, sometimes it's there and sometimes it isn't.

In an earlier topic elsewhere I admitted that a warped find/hide ratio irked me. After reading some responses I have come to accept that is just the way things are and it's not all bad. But ... what does continue to bother me is the case where there is a really warped ratio of FTFs to hides. IMHO, those who avidly chase all the FTFs in an area ought to do their part to share the wealth for others. Or is this also an outdated Pterodactyl concept? peace, fishiam

A cache of mine is devoted to this topic. The actual station in question is KEXP 90.3 (web site http://www.kexp.org). The station plays a highly eclectic mix focusing on local and indie type music during the days and specialty shows on evenings and weekends. they have won a couple of Webby Awards for best online radio station. Listeners from around the country sing their praises. peace, fishiam

For the last few months we were buying the lock 'n lock containers at Uwajimaya in downtown Seattle. I went there two weekends ago and couldn't find them there (they'd moved them at leat once). so, I'm not sure if they still have them there. Another place I found those exact same containers was at a place called Storeables located in University Village (and no doubt many other places). peace, fishiam

Jon, I plan on meeting you at the Cash Cache on thursday to buy a few coins if there are any remaining. Perhaps you could keep us updated as to the continued availability of coins, particularly as Thursday is at the end of your schedule. Or .. could I ask for a few to be reserved? peace, fishiam

He took the "geo-stash" idea and ran with it and made the site you see today. (And renamed the "stash" to "cache" to remove any obvious detrimental connotations.) Not to weigh in on the LB vs. Geocache debate but I do like to keep history straight. The person who came up with the name "geocache" - after much debate - was a fellow named Matt Stum. You can read original post here.

This is starting to remind me of the early days of Yahoo (around 1995). At the time they were trying to index the web and really ended up indexing the world. They had to decide upon categories and sub categories and it became enormous. But they did something right judging by the results. Other indexing sites were far less successful, in large part because they weren't well organized. It will be interesting to see how this "indexing by enormous committee" plays out, rather than having it done by a dedicated small team.

You bet. But you also have to understand that to create a well featured Waymarking.com web site I am unable to take on that narrow view. And no, I'm not cutting on your views as narrow in the way of "stupid." In fact I very much respect your beliefs. What I mean is we have to take into account as many views as we can. Besides, it is a testament to geocachers that the category was downgraded so quickly. If anything this is a positive point that waymark categories with commercial aspects can co-exist with other types. I won't quibble over whether my views are "narrow". I am just now getting a sense of the massiveness of this project. You intend to take over the world, don't you? I will be very interested to see how this grows and develops and I certainly support the basic premise behind this ambitious project. I suspect the Popularity Filter will play a key role in making the site usuable to most waymarkers. Still ... part of me will continue to wish that the focus was on local and interesting. peace, fishiam

I subscribe to the Small is Beautiful attitude toward life. The movement towards having a small number of super providers for everything in America is sad. McDonald's was one of the first to chase out of town local ma and pa dining establishments (as happened in the small town in Michigan where I grew up). So, no I wasn't beat up - I just don't like what has happened ... and there is no debating that such places have had a serious deleterious health effect on both our youth and nation. I appreciate I am in the minority here but I can still fight for what I believe in, right?

And speaking personally .. just as there is no GC1 (at least reachable via the search page) it would be great if all of a sudden there was no WM1

Whenever I travel I try to find out what the local non-profit and college radio stations are because that's all I listen to. My own bent against large, profit oriented businesses being waypoints is why I don't suggest a more general radio station category but if that is the direction Waymarking.com goes then there could be a radio station category with subcategories of college, non-profit, classical, jazz, etc. peace, fishiam

The part I don't get is why the waypointing of commercial businesses? If I travel somewhere and I want to know where a Starbucks or Dairy Queen or Gap or Fred Meyer is I can use AAA, Google Earth, or a myriad of similar business locators. While I know the Waypointing site is not following the Geocaching protocol, there is as I understand a semi-strict prohibition of promoting a commercial interest in a geocache (though quite a few McDonald caches have slipped through the net). I even had a geocache rejected because it invoked the name of a local non-profit radio station. Unless the goal here is to create an uber-database of all commerce in the U.S why not restrict the waypoints to people, places and things of interest without allowing at least overt commercial tie-in? peace, fishiam Upon further reflection, I would alter my viewpoint to suggest that Waymarking of unique local businesses (such as the brewpubs category in which I did create a waymark) would be of value to local and visiting waymarkers. But do chain franchises really need to be waymarked?

Don't know how I missed that - I thought I'd scanned the (now very) long list of proposed categories. Obviously I missed it. Can I archive or remove this topic? peace, fishiam