art begotti

ick... i've found myself in a similar predicament... i just received an email stating that my gc.com membership has just been renewed... except now i am at college once again, so i will not have use for a membership, at least until winter break. is there any way to be refunded for this month? i'll go through the paypal steps that d3c1b3l listed and cancel the subscription now, but having those three bucks back would be incredibly nice... when you're a college student, laundry money is hard to come by!

actually, i think wumpus is referring to the click stick. it basically works like a combination between the arrow keys of the keyboard and the click of a mouse. you can use it to navigate through the functions of the gps pretty quickly by moving the stick in different directions, then you can push the stick directly into the gps and make a selection. (in 10 words or less: the click stick is like a joystick. it's swell!) i hold a similar dilemma in my hands (quite literally). i have in my possession an etrex legend that another geocaching buddy found at a garage sale for fifty bucks, with map software and cable. he said he'd pass it off to me for the same price if i wanted it, or he would find some other way to sell it. (ebay, local geo group, whatever.) i was this close to buying it, except i read the above statements about not working well in the woods, and they rather depress me. much of the local caching is in the woods, so i would be up a creek pretty quickly if i used this thing solely. upside: a new (used) gps would be better than my older gps with 1/3 of the screen missing, as well as other assorted problems. downside: less accuracy in forests, and i'm still having problems trying to send waypoints to the gps (a feature i definitely wanted... i'm still searching for more help online for that). so... i'll keep an eye on this topic as well!

i once found a cache called "magnetic". it was a micro at the base of a sign for "magnetic ave." the cache was stuck to the metal pole... ...with velcro.

i've taken only one stamp from a geocache container before, and yes, i know it was a geocache, not a letterbox because it was clearly marked on the outside that this was a geocache. (and it was an identical container to another similar geocacher in a series of two.) in the mistaken-identity caches you guys have had, were the geocaches marked as geocaches externally? maybe a letterboxer would not even open a geocache if they knew beforehand that it wasn't one, then they'd be off searching elsewhere.

Yep, done that a couple times. Of course it's not until you walk a good distance away that you realize that it's in your hand. i always have a pencil on me. i rarely, if not never use the pen/pencil in the geocache. my pencil always rests on my right ear, and only comes down when i'm signing a log. (there is in fact a groove in my right ear formed around where a pencil should go.) the fun part is when i accidentally leave the pencil at the geocache-- almost the inverse of you'se guy'ses problems. you have to understand, i get really anal when i don't have a pencil on me. i have gone back to cache sites to pick up my pencil...

pretty good article. i found it kinda weird they talked about the forbidden things in geocaches... but i guess it's kinda necessary too. another thing this article brought to my attention... they referred to us as "'cachers" instead of "cachers"... i know, it's a tiny, almost unnoticable difference, but i've never thought of using the apostrophe before. and if you think about it, it makes sense... takin' the place o' lett'rs removed. GEOcachers b'come 'cachers.

i have never letterboxed before, but i know the basics of it, and i know how to distinguish letterboxes from geocaches. i have, on a couple of occasions, gone to the letterboxing website, and considered starting letterboxing, as another hobby. (i haven't yet.) would i be kicked out of the geocaching community for that? it seems like the rivalry between letterboxers and geocachers is so fierce, there is no good way to make a compromise.

that's just outright impressive. i think that getting up in front of everyone in an organized fashion will work so much more than simple letter-writing. that bold sort of move will definitely get you far. props to you all! and you got jeremy's approval... how could it possibly be bad?

linketylink

i'm not here to make any judgments about any newspaper or any alderman. my concern is that, due to the series of articles that were run in the newspaper, some evil muggle who needs to get a life (whoops! sorry!) might get the impression that geocaching is a way to vandalize something... that'd really bring down the opinion of geocachers, and it'd be no real geocacher's fault.

it was supposed to be his 1001 (and it was), but i really should have mentioned something in the cache page, or done something like that. after reading mudfrog's post, i feel really bad, because i'm one of those types that really nitpicks about "legitimate" finds. i mean, yes, he found it, but in an unfair manner... although, equally so, he would have eventually found this cache anyway, right? the only thing i noticed different about his log that i found was that he didn't mention getting an ftf... maybe he acknowledges the fact that it wasn't a legal ftf, and so he didn't mention it... and in the email apology i sent last night to mr. 6:45, i did tell him that yes, i wouldn't mind it if he claimed ftf, since he was the first ftf after posting. looking back at his log though, he hasn't changed it yet... i'm just not sure what to do. i mean, i can't undo the cache, or the logs, or the ftf. gah, what's a guy to do?

keep in mind, it might not be the (potential) hider's fault at all. cache saturation might keep caches from being planted anywhere near the hider's convenience. local laws or regulations might make hides impossible. a lot of different factors play in... i think that the hermit crabs really hit the hammer on the nail with the head with their post above... there are so many ways to give without hiding.

unfortunately, all is said and done. i can't change what's already happened at this point. but, i'd like to call this to attention, so that others (or myself) might have some insight on what to do next time. this past week, i placed a geocache in honor of a friend who was hitting 1000 finds. i placed it last saturday, with the request of it not being published until after the friend actually hit 1000. on wednesday, the milestone occurred, and so i handed him a print-out of the cache placed in honor of him. with me alongside him, he found the cache (his 1001). that night, i went home and told the approvers it was okay to publish the cache. sometime during late wednesday night/early thursday morning, the cache was published. unfortunately, both him and i had already gone to sleep, so it wasn't logged as a find until later. we have some cachers in our area who are usually in competition for ftf's. last night, i had the pleasure(?) of reading the log of someone who woke up at 6:45, saw the cache pop up, and went for it... only to find it had already been found. i felt kinda guilty about it, so i sent a letter of apology to the cacher, explaining how the whole situation went down. my whole dilemma is this... should i have let the honoree find the cache before it was published? or should i have let it been a free-for-all for all interested? (for the record, i don't think the honoree would have waken up at 6:45 for the life of him. ) in my mind, at least (and this could be a totally wrong way of thinking), if a cache is to honor a person, they should get first dibs... or am i way off?

is it possible to filter out attributes from PQ's? (having only made one, i can't remember for the life of me.)

i have only been in a target store once. it was to buy deodorant, because i forgot to pack it into my toiletry bag on a trip. every once in a while, the local grocery stores have random get-these-items-out-of-our-lives sales. pretty nice stuff for only a quarter. i always seem to get the jacks sets and miracle bubbles. (i know, i know, i'm going to hell for putting the bubbles into caches... but really, i've stopped! honest!)

yeah, it looks like that would work... if only i weren't so cheap, then i might actually go for the cord. thanks for all the help, guys!

actually, i don't have that problem... filtering out "found" caches usually takes out the ones i've planted as well. how are you going about doing it? i add "&f=1" to the end of the address to filter it out... I just click the link -- you've lost me there. I'm talking about on the GC site, not in GSAK etc. try this for example: if you go to http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.asp...=60056&dist=100, you get the list of the closest geocaches in your area. but if you add "&f=1" to your web browser address, that adds the filter to remove your hides and finds. like this: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.asp...56&dist=100&f=1

serial port... assume you're talking to a really thick person here.

on a recent cache trip, i somehow coined the term "corporate muggle", meaning any muggle who works at the place where a cache is located.

actually, i don't have that problem... filtering out "found" caches usually takes out the ones i've planted as well. how are you going about doing it? i add "&f=1" to the end of the address to filter it out...

heck if i can't find the link, but i've seen another bowling ball bug... it was called "ten pounder", or something like that, but i can't seem to find it...

i think the big problem with just about any spellchecker (especially when applied to geocaching) is the inability to recognize names of people or places. living along the ny/pa border, i'm in a constant conflict between allegheny/allegany.

actually, no, i don't have a cable... i actually bought this used. (it's served me well though, i'm quite content with it.) is there any sort of purchasable cable?

unfortunately, there's only one night-cache-esque cache in my area. but looking at other logs, most people seem to do it at day. but i've been meaning to go out and do it some night anyway. i think the concept of night caching sounds really cool. i've always enjoyed walking in the dark. for reasons which i fully cannot comprehend. there's another cache a little farther out from me (GCM23Q) that's in a supposedly haunted cemetary. it's half-encouraged to do the cache at night... and half-advised against it... i've had friends that have gone there (unfortunately, the muggle type), and they say it's one of the scariest places ever at night. in all honesty... the latest i've ever done a cache? 9pm. and during the summer, so it wasn't even dark out yet.

hm... kinda reminds me of phineas gage... but without the psychological side-effects... (or is it...?)