kunarion

You can search "Keywords" in Hide and Seek A Cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/default.aspx I've done a little name checking before hiding caches or making Travel Bugs, just to add some variety. But those names aren't required to be unique.

That's OK. Something collectible is preferable. I often find golf balls in caches at golf courses. Some people grab a ball off the ground, drop it in the container, and take something nice for it. They did not sign the golf ball, write the name of the cache or golf course on it, nor even wipe the mud off. I don’t “hate” golf balls, but it just looks like the person that places one is coveting something in the container, didn’t plan ahead to trade, and picked up the first thing they found -- the kind of ball the rest of us could have pocketfuls of if we wanted. At least there was a golf ball available, so they didn’t have to trade a candy wrapper. For trade-up-or-trade-even calculations, the value of a chipped ordinary golf ball is twenty-five cents. That’s being very generous, including delivery to the cache. If it’s a wonderful cache, add a little for sentimental value. But I've never found an old bottle cap in a cache container. Now that would be something.

Yes, with my apologies. Several local caches were humming along fine, til I came along. Well... they were soaking wet, broken, or missing stages, and had probably been that way for a long time. My team added a "Needs Maintenance" log, and some of those caches were immediately archived. Not that they didn't need it. I'm just sayin'.

This one’s pure evil, and should never be done. Ever. Don’t even think about it. It’s a cast resin "pine cone", painted to match, with a bison tube magnetically held underneath. The whole thing’s magnetically held to a tent stake. Close-up of bison tube attached to underside. Cache log's not shown. You can’t just drop it on the ground anywhere. It must be away from muggle visitors stepping on it, muggle lawn mowers or leaf blowers, etc. With some thought, you realize it’s got to be in a very well-planned spot.

I wanted to design a “Wheelchair Accessible” urban one that might be tough for muggles to spot. In the example, it’s on a brick wall, but I’d rather have it on a fence post (and a little higher up for the wheelchair), with no other outlets around, and no wires or conduits. It would have a rough splash of paint to match a painted post. It’s designed to look completely unusable, old, broken, and having no power (hence the fence). Next to a sidewalk (maybe at the Parks Office). It’s a one-in-a-million hide -- won’t be good just anyplace. Completely flat fake plug plate is magnetically held to rusty-looking box, bolted to a post. Inside is a flame-orange waterproof match tube.

I once had a light-sensitive music box. It was a circuit board a little larger than a quarter, and with its own magnet (it came attached inside the lid of a cookie tin). I've never seen one since, but thought it would be fun in some themed cache. I also thought of those inexpensive digital recorders (like the ones now found in greeting cards), although those may be tricky to rig up to activate correctly. Maybe have that in the cache log as previously mentioned. I'd invite people to record the speech or sound that they'd like the next cacher to hear.

I do. I hardly ever keep sig items, moving them sometimes hundreds of miles, and making a note when I take or drop one. It's like a trackable item, without all the fuss and expense -- sure beats buying a nice coin and getting it "lost". In answer to the OP, yes, make some interesting signature items, and place them where you like. Some people have vast collections of them (business cards, too). It’s not everyone’s thing, just another fun facet of the game. I kept a Sig Item from a geocacher called "Rebel", who must have been quite a character. Someone I think I'd have liked to meet: http://ggaonline.org/groupee_files/attachm...09_enhanced.pdf I like your logo!

Consider carrying strips of paper, just in case. Be sure to log a Note (or, if the seal's bad, "Needs Maintenance"). I bought a pack each of “Weatherproof Paper” (coated paper), and waterproof plastic “adventure paper”. When I print projects, I save the trimmings, even as thin as “nano-size” strips. That’s what I’ll use when I find a soaking-wet micro, if I choose to ever hunt those evil little things again. But that's also handy when you discover most any water-soaked cache log.

As mentioned, you could take the trash out. I sometimes don't even trade for spoiled candy. The next cacher may find just a log book in a clean container -- and start a thread about how the empty containers are -- but that's preferable, IMO. A polite "Needs Maintenance" log is appropriate, definitely for a cracked disposable container full of water. Some high traffic caches are in great spots, and it would be a shame to have them archived. And others should be put out of our misery.

Lee, the thread was originally about the "Needs Maintenance" log, the kind anyone can make. Well, I think that's what they meant. That's what the answers were about. The first time I did a NM, it was the same as the OP says. I didn't even think of doing the separate "Found It". The cache was disabled immediately (been that way since last June). A couple of weeks later, it occurred to me that I didn't log the "Find". I don't care. Changing now would mess up my count (milestone #100 would now become 101, stuff like that). I didn't sign the log. It was moldy mush. The cheap cracked tupperware container was full of trash, and full of water. I didn't add a piece of signed paper, so there's no documented "find" anyway. I washed my hands of the whole affair, then went home and washed my hands. Gross! It would be great if there were a reminder that "This NM doesn't count as a Find -- do a separate Found It log if you wish". But until there is, anyone can backdate it, or just add a new log with today's date, and say "I found it a while back", or whatever. It's a little extra work for folks who didn't know how it works, but it's no big deal.

That will come in handy the next time I need to sign a coffee pot. Waxy like a crayon but softer. It makes a wide line -- can't sign no nano with it. It may not write on a soaking-wet paper log that's on the verge of disintegrating, but it should work fine on Rite-in-the-Rain and plastic Nat Geo paper. I've started carrying a Sharpie as a spare pen, but worry that one really mushy log may ruin it. I'll test china markers, to see how neatly they can write. What's the melting point? I've never seen a china marker melt. My lake cache is an ammo can in a field, so it may get to 120°F or higher inside. I do need a writing instrument to keep in the container -- and ordinary pencils won't write on some fancy waterproof paper.

I did a test of the network where I work, to try to determine if some geocaching.com issues may be Internet-connection related. Here’s what happened: As I previously mentioned, when I do the “Search for Geocaches” (for the “All Geocaches” results page) on a work computer, the list sometimes fails to appear, and causing a “Not Found” error message. The header from the “All Geocaches” text down to the “Total Records” text with the page links is all that shows up. It happens in about a 1 to 4 fail ratio. Clicking the “Back” button often gets the page to come up. At work, the computers run an old, never-updated Internet Explorer 6, and changes are not allowed -- they’re blocked. Very restrictive. They also have lots of web filtering, proxies, who knows what, to prevent viewing the wrong kind of web sites. But my laptop runs Windows Vista, and the newest IE with all the updates. And I can connect it to the network at work. My theory is that the network where I work is the problem, not so much IE6 itself. By extension, other peoples’ similar problems may be related to their own Internet connections. I’m guessing that bits of data are pulled from various sources to form the Search results page (ads, scripts, databases, whatever). So if some of these diverse sites are blocked or corrupted by the network connection (due to, say, data bottlenecks, proxies or firewalls in the network), the Search results page dies. I’ve kinda-sorta verified this theory. Maybe. When I tested my Vista laptop on that suspect network, the “Search” sometimes gives only the header, from the “All Geocaches” text down to the “New Search” link. It’s about a 1:4 ratio of that, but the Back button doesn’t help. Slightly different results from what the workstations do, and no "Not Found" error. It looks like it MIGHT be the same network thing, with the new IE browser reacting to it differently than it would in IE6. So I don’t know if this is helpful or useful info to anybody. But I thought I’d throw it out there. If you’d like me to do any specific testing, I’ll do that. Or you may want me to explain these results more clearly...

But I was commenting on that un-linked email story, which had some key points missing, being particularly vague about any bomb squad. It only talks about one interfered cop. So it seemed to be a small issue with one annoyed police officer, and no bomb scare. I was simply a saying it's completely preposterous, wacky, insane, sensless to bring everyone back to where a suspected bomb is (especially since the accused is not allowed to get close enough to prove it's not a bomb). I wasn't saying it's not unusual. Sorry for the confusion.

According to the email story, the police had to hunt him down. During that time, the situation evidently spiraled way, way out of proportion. Perhaps the bomb squad was already on scene when he was brought back there?

Same here. Once when I was Geocaching, a LEO found my empty car near a wooded area, and stopped to call it in, and check on it. There are many situations where that would be exactly what I need. That was the one where I logged that I arrived back at the car "slightly scratched up, sweaty and dirty, and holding a used DVD". It was admittedly a little tough to explain it all.

There is a mention in this thread that the bomb squad may in fact have been involved (strange the email story didn't mention that). The conclusion of the story ("Get Permission") is, as you suggest, not all that applicable to the story, unless they're saying that cachers must check with the permission granter before the search. And to check with the police. And to avoid observant muggles with cell phones. But here's what I think is the actual moral to the story: If you're done caching, and your kid says "let's do one more cache"... don't.

True. And if it’s in a really bad spot, where people have been nosing around suspiciously, annoying shoppers and businesses, and where you might get arrested, Cachers should consider noting that in the log -- including a Needs Archived, if appropriate. At least give newbees a "heads up" in the cache description. IMHO, “permission” is irrelevant to this story. It would very likely be exactly the same, except that when the DA dropped the charges, there'd be a phrase saying “thank God they had permission to place that cache, or who knows what may have happened.” Nobody actually thought it was a bomb -- you don’t get brought to an active bomb site by the police.

Double post, sorry.

Go ahead and contact the cacher, if you like. When I've found a cache that's out of the ordinary, it's memorable. You can log it as whatever cache you were looking for, unless it's obviously the wrong one. I've done that before, GC1PH66 for one (noting it in the log). That one was found with contents thrown around (which is why I logged a Needs Maintenance), but less than 100 feet from GZ, so I think I got the right one. The obsolete cache number on the one you found may just mean they recycled the container. Or maybe they have very bad handwriting.

That cache was archived in November. It's officially been "removed" from the game. The container is likely gone, too. Sorry.

The site's looking a lot better this morning! Thank you! The extra white space between text lines is gone. It's a GREAT improvement. There's still a problem with "plain text" cache listings. Both of my cache pages lost the line feed between the Short and Long Description. The HTML cache page GC1Z0DE was easy to fix. GC1XE27 Jenny Brown, my other cache page was not HTML, and that one was NOT easy to fix (I had to turn it into HTML). I cannot figure out how to add a "line feed" between the Short and Long Description, if it's a plain text cache description. Since there's no preview mode, it's tedious, even disastrous, to fiddle with text formats on my live cache descriptions.

The GPSr won't be consistently off -- depending on the signals, the reading changes. Once you get a reading of 25 feet or less, it's time to start looking for hiding spots. That's when the cache description is important. If even the hint doesn't help ("between the three rocks", or whatever), a satellite view might. So the iPhone would be handy for that. But I'd suggest keeping a good dedicated handheld GPSr. Caches do sometimes go missing, so read some cache logs before the hunt, to be sure people are still finding it. When you can't find a cache, type a "Did Not Find" log, so others know some people can't find it. It's extremely valuable information at times. If you saw the last few people DNF the cache, you might suspect it's gone (or at least it's tricky). If you're caching as a family, and you want to keep them interested, hand the Etrex to one of the kids, and let them do the navigating. Use the hints you've read in this message list. And resist the urge to go in circles.

I checked my pocket query page, and the one I ran with 100 caches, shows "(100)", all the rest show "(500)". That's showing the number of cache results in the query. So it's a feature, not a bug.

The first time I open a cache search, the header comes up, and a few seconds later, I get a popup window followed by a "not found" page as if the Internet connection has failed. The fix is to hit the "Back" arrow, and the cache listing appears. This all happens at random while paging through the listing, too. See the screeshot below for what comes up when I click the bookmark for my usual caches. But it doesn't matter how I bring up a list, to cause the error. This is in Internet Explorer 6. The version is: Version: 6.0.2900.2180.xpsp_sp2_qfe.090804-1435 And it's on a workstation, at work. They do NOT keep IE current with updates, nobody gets to adjust any settings, and web pages go through all kinds of security hoops before they get to the screen. This workstation uses IE6, and that's it. So it's the SAME web browser that worked FINE until the new geocaching.com updates. Now there are serious functional and visual errors too numerous to mention. Sorry, I have NOT reviewed the previous 134 messages to see if this was covered already. If the plan is to not support "old" web browsers, this can never get fixed. But it's worth mentioning. As far as the line spacing, itty-bitty fonts, and color style, those are comparatively no issue at all with me. Now GC is broken. So my productivity at work has increased dramatically. Good job!

I have that. The text is microscopic, compared to this forum's text, and compared to the old site. Fit it all on screen, and now I need younger eyes to see it all.