Ditchdigger

I never liked signals special handshakes or things like that, What if I get it wrong? We are suppose to be observant so I agree with the ones who say to just pay attention to the others in the area, it has worked for me. Not paying attention reminds me of the two guys standing staring up at a flagpole. A woman comes up and asks " what are you doing"? They reply "our boss sent us out to measure this flagpole but we don't have a ladder to reach the top" The woman reaches in her purse pulls out an adujustable wrench, loosens the bolts at the base, lays the pole down, takes out a tape measure and says 18 feet 3 inches, and walks off. One guy turns to the other and says " isn't that just like a woman, we needed the height and she gives us the length" Moral: sometimes we miss the obvious answer.

I work for a local farm drainage contractor. We put plastic tile in fields. So I spend alot of time outdoors, in the mud and I mean in the mud sometimes over my head( we can trench down to 7 feet) which means I am dirty,tired and it's late when I get home. I don't go caching nearly as often as I would like.

I am mainly a lurker also, but I don't see a problem with it. If I was in a conversation with several people and others knew more than me I would just listen. That's one way I look at this message board. If everyone who looked at this replied we could not possibly read them all. Also, my other view is that this is kind of like a newspaper. I read it and unless I get really inspired I don't respond. I have learned alot here and appreciate those who share their knowledge.

Interesting that the Illinois Dept. of Tourism does not consider Illinois and Chicago the same place. I remember those adds and did not catch that point. I always use the old saying "Chicago is a nice place to visit, but I don't want to live there".

I am not a biologist and don't know one spider from the next so I assme they are all bad. I try to steer clear and leave them alone, because what I do know is that most of them are beneficial and help us more than they hurt.

I agree with those who say there is too much anger and argueing here. I do read often and learn most of what I nned to know. Being fairly new to this hobby/sport/obsession, I don't have too much to say but I listen well. If your are in a group of people, does the one not speaking alot get called a lurker?

I see no problem with items with business info on them.(eg pens, golf balls, highlighters etc.) One person in our area puts a coupon for a free pizza at his restaurant, another puts seed packets from his Seed and Feed store. One or two of these is O.K., but to load up the cache with several flyers is going too far. I read a comment on cache swag that said " If it's not worth walking half an hour into the woods for then it's not fit for trading"

I have always lived east of Mattoon, so I say central. However I had an idenity crisis at SIU-C. Students from "southern" Illinois wanted to know what part of northern Illinois I was from, and you will never guess what the kids from Chicago asked. I guess we are just the part that keeps north from south.

My son gave me this title for another website, because of our obvious other hobby and the year I was born.

Can't believe you are trying to futher this "OLD WIVE"S TALE". Extremely dangerous, more cruel than a snipe hunt, dumber than "if you put salt on a bird's tail you can catch it" THIS IS RUSSIAN ROULETTE WITH POISON IVY. Can't believe the moderator allowed this to remain. Just finished my first case of poison ivy and can't possibly imagine the horror of having that creeping plague inside my body as well. Golfguy55

Well, if you had said it was a jazz fusion band I would say GO FOR IT(especially if you could put some in my area) but seeing how it's not, then I say it's a shameless plug. Just kidding GO FOR IT

I am a noobie and have noticed many references to using maps. So far my cache finding attempts have been in familiar areas, but that will change as time and gas money allows. My question is, when you are going for a multi and you don't know the final destination how can you print a map to take with you? I realize one could use a PDA(if I had one) and download maps from a lot of the area. Is it possible to get a remote idea of the final cache or is that giving to big of o hint? Sorry if this is located on the boards somewhere else but I search about as well on the computer as I do in the WILD. Golfguy55

Don't forget to use the hints if given. You can wait until you get to site, look for awhile, then if no success decrypt it with the key on the page. It sure helped me today. I am a noobie also.

Just wondering if we are concerned about the mileage of the TB, or are we worried about who moved it and where? If the answer is the later, why do we worry?

Somewhere in the forums I saw that someone researches old benchmarks at the library(I think, but I don't remember where I saw it). I was wondering what references do you look at? Do all counties keep such information, and do they keep them at the library or the courthouse? I have found a couple of easy ones and even got to record one as destroyed(that was a cinch, they tore down the water tower). Hope to find more.