Zoptrop

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandals

I just throw it on ground & try not to step on it.. forgetting it is not really an issue.

Perhaps a hose clamp or zip tie can hold the container to one of the legs near the top of the leg where it meets the bench (especially if the container was on the "backside" of the leg)?

I've had mesquite thorns go thru the bottom of my tennis shoes - not about to try caching barefoot in central Texas.

Gout can be painful. Naproxen (Aleve) usually handles small flare ups, but I have found profuse sweating (via cycling 30-50 miles several times a week) really helps to eliminate the uric acid build up that causes gout. At least it works for me.. at first my gout was misdiagnosed since it would cause pain in the arch, side, top of foot and in the ankle. It wasn't until I got the classic "big toe" pain that a simple blood test confirmed hyperuricemea (or whatever it's called). Some people swear by cherries and/or cherry juice. Anyway, prolly won't help with PF but if my case is any example, sometimes what is called PF maybe something else. At first the ER Doc did an x-ray because he was convinced I had some kind of stress fracture. Then he gave me a shot of Prednisone (steriod) and the next day I was better. Since then I keep a couple of prednisone tablets around in case I get what I call a "grand mal" gout attack in the middle of the night (the kind 3 or 4 Aleve won't even make a dent in).

The two I've found were actually put on by the cache hider and they were put on sign posts (no parking, park hours, etc.) which in my area usually aren't capped off - rather than fence posts per se.

FWIW... just a tool to me. <blasphemy>However I don't cache very frequently so even caching is just "something to do" every now and then. </blasphemy>

Sorry you got freaked out at McKinney Falls.. it's not as urban as some of the other parks, but civilization is encroaching on it more and more. I've seen some weird stuff on the Barton Creek Greenbelt, but have never felt afraid while doing the limited caching that I do. "...except he was wearing a 99 cent paper "Indian" headband with some red, blue, and green feathers and carrying a hiking stick/staff with the same type of decoration" I've seen that guy walking near Ben White and 290! He makes Leslie look modest.

I got one a Target for $20. No zoom though. Ended up using it as an FTF prize in a cache later on.

Security made me leave mine outside (I had to hide in flower pot near the door) while attending a concert once. I no longer carry it since all the 911 homeland security flight rules, etc. Have cut my leg with it and ruined several pants pockets over a period of time too.

Reminds me of the film "The Wanderers". There was a gang in it called "The Wongs" and their motto was "Don't F with the Wongs". Hmmm.... sounds like somebody's idea of a joke that didn't garner the attention they intended and so they got bored and went away. In high school we kidnapped someone's little smurf doll and held it for ransom (complete with note made from cut-out letters pasted together and grainy video tape.) The guy didn't play along (200 green m&m's was the ransom) and so the whole thing wasn't any fun. We ended up giving back the doll.

I think Dinoprophet said it best... In 2004 there was a whole "paper" log exchange about "Vote Kerry" - "Vote Bush" that I didn't know was going on until I read the paper log while checking on one of my caches. No one mentioned it online. It was funny!

I got some of the "lick & stick" tatoos from Groundspeak to put in caches as trade items. Now all I gotta do is find the time to find some caches...

1. Eat Candy 2. Place Cache

I've seen laminated cards attached to TB's that say something along the lines of "Stop! I am not an ordinary trade item..." and then goes on to explain what a TB is and its purpose. Lots of bugs get taken out of caches by people who don't understand how they work. It happened to mine too.

Something about all of this isn't sounding right... How are they going to ticket you? Does your cache have your name and address in it? Of course you should make every attempt to comply, but you may want to independently verify what you've been told too.

Out hiking with a group and one of the hikers had a GPS and showed us this "hidden" box near a trail. Thought it was totally cool.

What fun! Such a cool way to do it...

Maybe the issues could be quarterly, or bi-monthly? Would that relieve some of the deadline pressure? Human nature says probably not, chaos theory and all (or is that the entropy effect?). If TC was ressurected and tied into premium membership, that'd spur me shell out the $$ to join. When I sign up for something that involves a fee, I want free crap. Stickers, newsletters, etc. Just a thought...

The Texas Hill Country is home to rattle snakes and I'm amazed that there aren't snakes mentioned in the logs as much as there could be. I guess that's a good thing...

That sounds like some scary jungle bushwacking. Not sure if I'd have stuck with it, being in a foreign place and all... I bet you are a more confident person now after having gone through all that. At least it didn't involve getting arrested or anything. That would have made the story more exciting though.

Power lines had me searching about 300 feet away from the actual cache location. Even walked away and came back several times and the GPS never waivered in where it "thought" GZ was. It wasn't until I gave up (and got away from the power lines) that the GPSr suddenly decided the cache was really on the other side of the trail.

Recently in the news... In Austin, a real live bomb was left out side a clinic in a "soft-sided cooler" (the kind most people carry their lunches in) And in Las Vegas recently a bomb was left on top of a car in either a backpack or some other innocent-looking container (depending on which news source you read) and killed the man who moved it. And once again in Austin, police were called to investigate a suitcase on a sidewalk, but x-ray scan showed it only contained crayons (?).

During the last presidential election people were writing "Vote Kerry!" or "Vote Bush!" when they signed the logs. The funny part was it seemed kind of spontaneous and no one mentioned it in the online logs at all - only in the paper log. I thought it was a hoot when I did cache maintenance and "discovered" the statements.

Or... they could be hobo signs (for really big hobos), or maybe they were left by "low men in yellow coats".