Raenne

That's far from saying it's scorched earth tactics. Anyone who knows an area can tell things have been moved, even if care has been taken to try and replace things as they were. You can see slight shifts in the dirt where the rock has been disturbed. That doesn't mean cachers are scorching the earth.

Moving a rock to look under it and then carefully putting the rock back where it was is a 'scorched earth tactic'??? Wow. He was specifically saying that the movement and replacement of rocks was -not- a scorched earth tactic, and that even though it was a group of careful geocachers who replaced things as they found, you can still tell things were moved. Seems you missed a bit of the statement in your haste to bold a single sentence.

Let me get this straight: you are blaming HD for not knowing ahead of time that the Groundspeak site is broken? And laughing at him, to boot? Geez. No, I was suggesting something that has worked for me in the past when writing something long and important to me and posting it on a sometimes unreliable internet connection. I placed no blame. I offered a suggestion for the future if he was so inclined. And the laugh was for the cut-and-paste joke. I was far from laughing at him.

When I have to type something long (like a character story for an online game I play), typing it into a word processing program first, like Word or Works, is much easier. Then, I can...wait for it....cut and paste!

Is the cache disabled temporarily? Or archived? If the cache is merely disabled, you cannot place a new cache within the minimum distance. Perhaps this is the concern the reviewer has? I think patience is the key here.

Insinuated, not insulated You'd have to find a way to hint at the fact that you need good hearing to find the cache, without giving it away.

I think that's a fantastic idea! My only concern would be somehow insinuating on the cache page that the ability to hear would be required for finding the cache, without giving away too much.

You can add a "Found It" log. You don't have to edit your NM log. I've done a "Found" log, then a "Needs Maintenance" right after it. Just hit "Log Your Visit" again and select "Found It" this time.

Hi! I'm Raenne (pronounced "rain", in case you were concerned about that sort of thing ;P ). I'm female, 29, married with a 2 year old son. I work in a hospital laboratory as a lab tech. When your doctor orders lab tests like blood sugars, cholesterol, or PSAs on your blood, I'm the one that does the tests. If I remember correctly, I found out about geocaching a few years ago while doing a Google search for "scavenger hunt" trying to find ideas. I only remembered it this year while at an electronics store and saw GPSs on sale. I came back to geocaching.com and the rest is history. I lurk. I am a lurker

I think the big thing is the "Take one Leave One" that is the worst. There is a TB hotel near me that I am just dying to go to, because there are at least 10 TBs/geocoins logged into that cache and the rule stated by the cacher is to only take one and leave one in exchange. I just want to go there and take them all and send them all on their way!

Raenne is my gaming name, and I love the phonetics of it.

Added mine. 29, for the record

Can someone please tell me why this man has not been banned yet? I have a lovely private message from him, too. And, to keep this on topic, I think that PVC pipes would be fantastic containers, except for the fact that you have to rely on someone closing it right!

You know, this really is kind of sad. You call my words personal attacks, yet you referenced Special Olympics in a poor tone, advocated not "coddling" stupid people, various versions of "dumb", "lame", and "time-wasting". You called me an idiot. I actually gave you credit for your cache hides, while disagreeing with you. If you leave this forum, then perhaps it is for the best. But don't pretend I drove you away from a place you obviously did not want to be in in the first place. May your creativity and zest for clever and memorable hides be what you are remembered for, not your unfortunate attitude. Good luck to you. As much as you don't want to hear it.

You invalidate any argument you may have (and I see your point in saturation, and agree with you to a point.) with comments like this. You don't get any prizes in this game. Your prize is what you get out of it, the journey, the places you see, the logs you read, and the trackables you may move. Hyperbole much? You cannot possibly equate the problems this world has with nano caches in public parks. Then why are you here? If all you want to do is hide and find caches that make you happy and fulfill your vision of this game, then do so. But do not attempt to justify your negativity with some pessimistic nonsense about how horrible it is that people on this forum attempt to improve the geocaching by being helpful and welcoming to newbies who NEED TO LEARN. Don't participate in the forums, then. I'm not forcing you to hold my hand. I don't think that word means what you think it means. Go look up the word hypocritical, then come back here and realize that the hypocrite here is you. You post that you want to improve the game, and yet you whine about nano caches sucking. How about you TEACH people? E-mail the cache hider and offer help? Try to inspire others with your own creativity. You obviously are passionate about this hobby, but have a poor way of showing it. And, for the record, please don't equate my comments to you with those comparing you to Hitler. Those were out of line in my opinion, and not necessary.

On the contrary, it is snobbish elitist attitudes like yours that make newbies cringe at the thought of being looked down upon for not playing a game properly. People who get upset that someone beat them to "their" spot and placed a cache there first are ruining the hobby for everyone new who wants to be part of a community, and instead sees attitudes like yours as representative of what to expect. Shame on you. Select a new spot. With all the work you put into your cache, it is inevitable that if you are as great a cache hider as you say you are, your cache will be enjoyed. Too bad such a fantastic sounding cache has to be sullied by the attitude of its owner.

These are replicas of the Portas de Cidades ("Gates of the City"), a monument in the city of Ponta Delgada, on the island of Saint Michael (Sao Miguel), Azores. Ponta Delgada was declared Sister City to the city this replica resides in, Fall River, MA. GCY297

I manage to casually geocache, play World of Warcraft (an online multiplayer roleplaying game), as well as work a full time job and be a mom to a toddler Who says you can only have one hobby? ;P

What, exactly, is the purpose of the skirt anyway? I've seen plenty of lamp posts without them, or with slabs of concrete as "skirts" instead.

Oh, I agree. But can a non-geocaching bomb squad afford such an assumption?

In your second sentence of the original post, you drew assumptions about the cacher's intentions based on information you admit you do not have. If they had kids, they must have taken a bunch of stuff and left nothing but a token. You don't know that. Wooden tokens aren't bullswag either. Perhaps to you, but not to many.

The Bomb Squads are doing their job. It is better to blow up a harmless box of toys and paper than not blow up something that could do damage to property or people. Once they are called in, unless it is truly obvious that the item in question is not a bomb (and a camouflaged, tube-shaped item certainly looks like one), they will destroy it. When the media bombards the public dailies with nothing but the worst, they come to expect nothing but.

I'm not sure it is a good idea, nor fair, to draw conclusions about the intentions of or the actions of a cacher when the only information you have is from a flavor story reporter for a local newscast, who edit things down to easy, 30 second feel-good story bits. You don't truly know what the cachers left and/or took, so I don't really think it is fair to assume. You are correct in saying that it would have been good of the reporters to mention some of the various "rules" about trading fairness and the hunt being about thrills, and not toys. However, to expect such detail from a non-caching news reporter who is told to distill the story down for the public isn't fair to the newscaster, nor the cachers in question.

I'm not a veteran by any stretch of the imagination, but it is my understanding that those wooden tokens serve as signature items for some cachers, and there are some folks who do indeed want them.

I am a new geocacher by most of the standards I've seen on this forum (47 finds), however, I do plan on a hide very soon. There is a trail that winds along an inactive, unused railroad track behind the town hall of my town. There is already a micro on one part of the trail, placed by a prolific and skilled caching team in my area (4Swans). I hope to hide a small or regular sized cache (thinking one with a haiku theme, where cachers can contemplate on haikus written by previous cachers and add one of their own). I try very hard to make sure that my actions as a finder are representative of the true spirit of geocaching, and I also hope to make my hide memorable enough that I will be thought of not as a newbie with a penchant for throwing film cans out windows, but as someone with only a few hides that have true meaning. I am in the vast minority, I am sure. But then again, I like being a bit off the norm ;P