Malystryxx

Someone decided that my hiding spot on Cornwall Cache wasn't good, so they made the executive decision to move it across the trail to the other side of the path. Needless to say, I'm none too pleased with this, especially since I've had many people telling me that the original hiding spot was very clever. Anyways, is there any way that someone who's visited Cornwall Cache and knows where it's supposed to go could drop in on it and put it back where it belongs? I'm stuck in Mill Creek for at least this week, and Cornwall Cache has had about a visitor a day for the last few days. I'd hate for people to log DNF's on it because of this. -Maly

Santa (through FedEx) just gave me my Legend earlier today. I spent all of our Christmas eve dinner poking buttons on it and making it do things. I don't know what I was making it do, but it sure was doing them! I want to go find boxes with things in them now. It's also 3am, so maybe I'll wait until it's light outside. I'm pretty sure the Legend will be better than our car GPS / PDA monstrosity that we've been using up till now. That was misery, those things aren't meant to be used under any kind of tree cover or out on the trail!

I got my very own Garmin eTrex Legend. Now I'm completely lost as to how to use it, so faqs, here I come! *clings to new blue toy*

An urban lookout tower, in Bellingham! It is an old fire watchtower, and looks out over the best part of downtown B-ham. See-Home, by CragSeeker

Yay! Now, what about those of us who have moved since placing pre-orders ever so long ago? I'm hoping the post office is still forwarding, but I'd love to give my correct address to whoever's in charge of handing the new shinies out.

Mine is my personal dragon, Malystryxx. Maly's just kinda been what's represented me for the last five or six years, she's the creature that all of my friends have come to assiciate with being "me." I guess she's kinda like a guardian spirit, or something. Anyways, she's a dragon with two tails, so she's unique and I like her. My friend Neogeen drew this current picture for my birthday this year, and it translated really well into lineart for a stamp. I had Sissy n' CR's make it into a stamp for me, and now it's what I sign all of the caches I find with. This one is another one of my common avatar images, done to kinda look like stained glass (by Cynthia Reep) There's more of Maly-dragon in the following links http://peachtails.com/junk/Maly-inks.jpg (inkwork for my tattoo, by Hannah Spute) http://peachtails.com/junk/maly-tatt.jpg (alternative version of the tattoo, by Hannah Spute) http://peachtails.com/junk/malydone_2.jpg (colored version) http://peachtails.com/junk/malycircle.jpg (another one by Cynthia Reep) http://peachtails.com/junk/malybadge.jpg (name-badge, by Jeremy LaMar)

Two words: angry bees

I think the tribal kinda one of mine would be too difficult to carve, so I'm hoping I can change my entry to my new avatar, the one I had turned into a stamp for sigining logs with. Pleeeease? *big sad eyes*

You know you love the NW tribal styled dragon with two tails. Alternatively, my letterboxing/geocaching stamp (mine is "Maly", "Seiryuu" belongs to my boyfriend):

"Rain can't stop us!" "From the land of rain and coffee" "Alki - by and by" (state motto) "Gateway to Geocaching" I was going to offer to design something for the coin, but I can't compete with the awesome design we've got going on right now!

In 2 years are there a lot of other logs complaining about bad coordinates? If not, perhaps you just had a bad sat alignment. Yeah, 250 feet off is beyond the acceptable level, but if they were that bad, I'm sure the logs would have been full of complaints. BTW, if you were just matching up coordinates, how do you know you were 250 feet off? The logs are full of complaints - here's the page with them. As far as knowing if I was that far off, I went back today using the letterboxing clues (off of the other site) and saw just how far away we were when we were looking yesterday.

So, using this same logic, should we take out all of the stupid McToys that none of us grownups like? Family sport means THE WHOLE FAMILY, including dad, who might want to kick back with a Bud Light after a long day of caching. I can understand being upset about a keychain that said, "I love to beat my wife after drinking a 6 pack," but just a corporate logo doesn't seem like such a big deal. And the sticker? Do you know how many people enjoy homebrewing as a hobby? Definitely not cool in my book, dude. Don't wreck what isn't yours.

1*We didn't enter our coords, we prefer to play "hot and cold" by watching N and W go up and down, walking around until we get in the right area. I copy/pasted the directions to a Word file, and printed those. They were straight off of the cache page. 2*Tree cover was there, but we made many, many passes, even leaving and coming back to the area to make sure we were getting decent readings 3*I think this is the most likely - every single entry in the cache's log mentioned the coords being off, as well as many of the visit logs on the cache's page. 4*This would be a possibility, had there been any more alien UFOs in the area. Today was blissfully free of them, however. Problem is, this cache is now 2 years old, and I guess I'm just kinda frustrated and hot and grimy from wandering around in the woods follwing the wrong numbers. We found a cache earlier in the month in the same park, in similar cover, and had no difficulities at all with our reception. It was an almost identical kind of day - no clouds, warm, no wind or large alien UFOs overhead. And yes, I did post a comment in my log of the visit, asking the owner to please go out and recheck the coords, because it seems like just about everyone is having difficulties with this one. RenegadeKnight - no, the coords didn't put us near the start point for the letterbox. Ironically, the start point for the letterbox doesn't exist right now, because it's supposed to start in an off-leash dog area, at this one bench, but that area is being rennovated and is a heap of dry dirt right now with backhoes and tractors all over.

Okay, yesterday my friends and I went out to find a local cache / letterbox hybrid, and after over 45 minutes of stumbling around in the woods using the coords given on the cache's page, we left, mosquito eaten and cranky. Today we went back, using the letterboxing clues, and found that the coords put us more than 250 feet from where the cache was. Given the terrain, and the hint, "hidden in a rotting log under forest debris," in Western Washington, the cache would have been impossible to find without the letterboxing clues. I know every GPS reciever works a little differently, with a margin of error sometimes exceeding 30-60 ft, but is it unreasonable to think that more than 200 feet is a little much? What are everyone's opnions on this? What margin of error do you work with when placing your caches? We try to keep ours placed within a 10-15 feet working area, to keep it reasonable.

Pepper competed in obedience for several years before retiring to geocaching. It's SO nice to be able to be out on the trail, have a slack leash, and watch passers-by struggling with "leaning dog syndrome" as the passing dogs strain on their leashes to see the new people and new dog. We were talking last night about training a dog to scent out a tupperware box, but we decided it'd be something like this: "Dear cachehider42, please go hide a piece of steak in your cache before we visit it. We'll be able to fight the bear and get your cache back, don't worry!" Yeah, that idea was shot down pretty quickly.

Hmm, didn't know about the getting too hot business. I've got a few cans of spray sealant around here (house full of artists), so I'll hose down our covers sometime soon. Thanks!

I wear this silly outfit whenever I can. The pants are a light cotton, and the bandana is SO important, to keep the leafy-needly goodness that western Washington trees love to leave in girl hair. Oh, and comfy shoes. If you go outside in anything but comfy shoes, you'll be MISERABLE. (note the custom pack made just for the occasion!)

We're thinking about changing our caches into letterbox hybrids, just because I really would love to get more people in on the game. I have a dozen friends who want to start geocaching, but none of them have GPS, so I thought letterboxing would be a good way to get their feet wet. There are very few letterboxes in my county (6, all in one park, and only 2 of those are easy to get to), but all sorts of geocaches all over the place. Besides, anything that's an interesting artistic diversion (such as making books or carving stamps) is okay with me!

My GC partner and I decided we were curious about Letterboxing as well, and decided to to check out some of the local boxes in our area. Of course, we couldn't bring along just any dollar store notebook to stamp in, so I threw these together: Mine: His: What I used to make them: Here's how I made them! First, I printed out the covers on matte paper, just using my inkjet. For decent resolution, I went with about 400DPI. The colored bar along the top edge of the books was part of the picture! I think the sizes on these were 3.5" by 5". Anyways, cutting out the pictures, I spray-adhesived them to the 140LB watercolor paper (which has a neat texture, and is nice and stiff). I then covered the fronts, backs, and edges of this new card using four or five layers of Mod Podge. It's water resistant when it's dry, and it didn't bleed the printing at all. I then cut down the pages for my books using an old sketchbook (the white pages in the picture). I used 3 sheets of sketchbook paper, folded in half, and used 6 of these folded groups per book, making each book have 36 pages. The back covers of these are the back to an old sketchbook, covered with adhesive glittery paper (although anything would work). I then lined them up, marked where my holes would be, and used a hammer and a nail to punch out the five holes that would be stitched through. I sewed them together using friendship bracelet string (embroidery floss), although the binding page reccomends using upholstry or carpet thread. I thought this was more colorful and fun. My friend did a book and used hemp, which is really durable. This page is where I got the information on how to bind it. I thought I'd share this project with you all because it's super easy, and would be really neat to use for doing custom logbooks for the caches you place. I'm going to be going back to all of my caches, retrieving the books, and making new books like these for each cache, with a custom cover that has artwork and some neat "splash page" about the cache. Does anyone else have any custom logbooks like these, or is it just too much work to bother doing something like this?

You know, if you're stung by nettles, rubbing the stings with the little yellow "dots" on the undersides of ferns can really help the stinging and itching. Learned that back in summer camp. No major injuries here yet, crossing our fingers that it stays that way.

Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate??? (Sorry, Rhubarb's a Monty Python fan and could not resist!) The two people I was caching with (my dragon brothers) are both geeks-in-arms with me, and of course there were a lot of of jokes about the coconut. Later, I was telling another friend about the coconut, and the first thing out of his mouth was, "Was it an African or a European coconut?" The rest of the room erupted in, "Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?" So many nerds, I love my family. I've got to say I'm pleased that I haven't yet found anything horrid or lewd, although I can't say I'll be too suprised now, after reading this thread. I won't feel so alone in my suffering, if that should ever be the case. "Remember, you're not the only one who's had to deal with this!"

We went back to check on one of our caches placed earlier this week, in the woods of northwest Washington state, and found an in-tact coconut placed in the stump where our cache was hidden. Our cache had been moved about a foot, but I'll admit for those couple of moments before finding it, we were completely baffled as to if someone had traded our cache for a coconut, or how the coconut came to be there. We still have no idea what purpose the strange tropical treat was doing in a cedar stump so far from anything.

PandyBat: A definite "no" on me placing my candy in caches. Not only would it get all melty and gross around here in the PNW, but I don't wanna share! Bilder: I haven't tried caching barefoot, I can't say I'm too fond of stepping on slimy or pointy things without shoes between them and I. Tirediron: I'm not sure I have enough fabric to produce a few thousand extra packs! This one pack already ate up two needles from my sewing machine already! Team PerkyPerks: I can't compete with style like that. KoosKoos: I'm not suprised that someone else already had this idea, and their cache pages look a lot nicer than mine. I hope the rains let up down there in TX so you all can get back to caching, it's a huge bummer that the weather is so bad down there right now. Also, I may end up making a few more packs like this just to see if anyone would buy them, although I'm not sure what kind of features people would want in their own packs.

Eventually I want to do all of the colors in their own themed caches, I went with blue first because I had a bunch of blue beads out in front of me at the time. Got any clever ideas for the names of other color themed caches? Thinking the basic colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. Might do a "monochrome" cache later, to be extra gothy.

I recently started a cache of just dragon items, and over half of the items in there were some of my leftover stock that I bring to conventions with me. Handmade bookmarks and magnets, mostly, but also some of my extra dragon pendants and beads, each in their own little tiny plastic baggie to stay in tact and dry. We've been leaving LED keychain lights like crazy in the caches we're finding, because it seems like people can always use them, and we have a massive overstock of them (I think we've got a couple hundred, yay for failed eBay ventures!). I have a "blue" themed cache being planted tomorrow, and I made little blue beady keychain things, along with some jingle bells with blue pipe cleaners, to be twisted on to walking sticks, or tied on backpacks, or whatever people can come up with. I try to keep both adults and children in mind when leaving things behind in caches. Today we found a cache that had a very disappointing collection of stuff in it, which only further fueled my desire to put more fun good stuff out in our local caches. I think cheap signature items don't have to equal something boring like a card. Magnet paper is relatively cheap to get for an inkjet printer, and all you have to do is make a page of little rectangles with your sig on it, print it out, cut them out, and there you go, a whole bunch of little sig items that may actually be useful for whoever finds it. What about shrinky dinks? They also make these for inkjet printers, you can find them here. Those just get printed, cut out, and then shrunk down. You could put them on keychains, or make awesome hitchhikers out of them. What about gluing a pin back to them, to make your own cheap little enamel pin that's totally custom?