chrisrayn

I do believe you and I would get along out on a day of caching. Shortly after I hit submit, I realized I should have changed one letter to make the title more accurate. I also wondered who would first mention it. That, my friend, is you. You think like me. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. :-)

I've had to fight two. Luckily, I had a salmon with me both times. The first was near GC1KV0N, Manly Man - 1 in Bonham State Park, TX. I had my fish with me, as always, so when the bear started running toward me, I ran toward him. He was using the trail so he was moving a little faster and I was having to hop over fallen trees and boulders. When he got really close, I pulled out the fish, since I figured it was my best course of action, and when he got right up close to me, since it was the most obvious thing to do, I slapped the crap out of him with it. He had his big maw open, trying to bite me, but everytime he came in close, I'd fish-slap him. I was actually having fun for awhile, but I knew I had to finish with the cache pretty quickly, so I kicked the bear in the jollies and he fell over. Just as a consolation, since I felt sorry he was such a bad fighter, I let him have the fish. I got the smiley a few minutes after that and continued on my way. The other was at an LPC next to a gas station in the business district in Plano, TX on Coit Rd. The ole' bear felt right at home in the concrete jungle. He actually came out of nowhere and nearly surprised me. I'd just signed the log for GC17C5W, Where's Wally #3 and, let me tell ya, I sure did find Wally. I didn't much appreciate the sneak attack but, since bears are pretty big wussies, I kind of understood. I had another fish with me and slapped him a few times with it, trying to keep him away from all of the Lexus and Lincoln models, and eventually just dropped the fish as he wasn't that good a fighter. I ended it by poking him in the eyes and he squealed and ran off down the Bluebonnet Trail. I threw the fish at the back of his head as he ran off and he fell over. Panzy. It's okay...I think he got a little of his pride back though when he ate that biker a little further up the trail. Bears are so sensitive...think they have to kill something just a few seconds after a fight or they aren't tough anymore. That cache has since been archived due to all the bear attacks. So what about all of you? How many bear fights have you had? Did you actually manage to lose one, or have you done pretty well over all?

There was 1 cache outside of Wisconsin: Pennsylvania on September 13.

I agree it seems fishy. His finger may have slipped and he logged the wrong month, but then there's the lack of signature to think about. It's odd though that he hasn't logged more finds if he's just doing them from his couch. I don't know...about halfway through checkin this out, I realized that it just doesn't matter and I don't care. You got the FTF...that's good enough.

lol...for a second when you said 270+, I thought you meant Finds, not Hides. Until I kept reading. Nothing wrong with so few...just figured after a long time one would have more.

Aww...you stole my swearing answer. Dammit.

I'm planning on doing something similar, but it has a purpose. The first cache will be the first couple pages of a story, and the rest of the story will be in puzzle caches that require you to get the true coordinates from the previous cache in the series. The whole series, probably about 7-10 caches, will require about 60 miles of travel, total. But see? there's a purpose. :-)

Now, the social aspect of hiding a cache I hadn't considered. That's another good reason to add to briansnat's case that caches could be placed sooner rather than later.

While I only have 18 finds so far, my friend has over 500. She would be the once who would actually hid it. I was just trying to find out if we could hide it.. I completely disagree with the above advice. If the urge to hide a cache strikes you, go ahead and hide it. Don't worry about reaching a certain number of finds before you can hide a cache. There are people who hide great caches with just a couple of finds under their belts and some people with thousands of finds who hide crappy caches. I have and will continue to disagree with the advice you give as well, in a sense. If you have a great hide idea, there's no harm in holding onto it until you're mature enough to figure out the best way to make it work. I see no reason for someone to make a hide after 10 hides just because they have a great idea. Will that great idea be any less great after they find a few more caches? Everyone here seems to think if someone has a fantastic cache idea they shouldn't wait to hide it, as if finding 50 LPCs will turn their idea into an LPC. I can't tell you how many great ideas have been muggled, washed down a river, melted, filled with water, etc, and that's just after I've found around 250 caches. The only reason I can find for not waiting are: you want to get a location before someone else takes it, or you want to make a particular hide before someone else does the same thing. Quite honestly, though, that's just selfish, and doesn't consider the community of geocachers or the longevity of geocaches. A great idea after 200 hides is still a great idea, just a better executed one. I just don't understand this "hide it now before you gain more knowledge because having more knowledge will destroy all ideas!" It INFORMS creativity...it doesn't take away from it.

Okay, did ANYone else but me see a red-eyed, time-traveling android with a chrome-plated skeleton when he said T1, or is that just me? Back on topic, the 528 ft rule is kind of like the "gravity" rule: you can jump all you want, but no matter what, ole Mr. Gravity ain't gonna let ya stay up there. One way or another (and usually, it's pretty dern quick), you're comin' back down. I DO, however, think the Mystery/Unknown cache with a VIRTUAL stage (reference point stage), in which information must be gathered from text AT the theater that leads to the Physical cache's Final stage, is a really good bet for you. In fact, it's probably BETTER, because I know when I go caching, I often don't even see the businesses and building around me. I'm all about finding that smiley and seeing pretty nature. BUT if I'm FORCED to READ something AT a site, I'm far more likely to positively engage with whatever landmark involves the Reference Point stage. If you do this, it's completely within the guidelines and pretty much gives you what you want. My BEST piece of advice though: find at LEAST 200 caches before you do your first hide. And, if you DO hide a mystery cache, try to find around 2-5 before you ever make one yourself. By then, you'll have a much fuller knowledge of what makes a good cache hide, what locations attract the least amount of muggle attention, what locations are most rain/flood proof, and what containers need the least maintenance. Many containers (i.e. Butter tubs), after all, are a horrible idea, and that's just something you learn with more experience.

Looking at British cache pages and enjoying the colourful spelling changes. :-) No but in all serious I love y'all's work. Much as I love Texans' work as well. Ah the joys of language. :-)

I don't see why people use anything BUT Maglites... If you're caching on the trail and come up against ANYthing, snake, burglar, escaped convict, angry bear... A Maglight will knock the holy poo out of it, no contest. It's like a stronger version of a policeman's billy club. With a light in it.

Get this, get this... When a CAT finds it... And POOPS in it!!!

If you're the hider in this case, do what I did... I anticipated someone throwing crap up into the tree to knock something down, and I also anticipated one of our windier storms coming through and blowing them down so, if I do a tree climb cache of Any size, I attached it to a stable, thickish limb with either galvanize wire or cable ties. I prefer galvanized wire because of the flexibility and repositionability, coupled with overall strength (in a brittleness test by bending, it took around 50 three-hundred-degree bends to break it a piece of the wire). I've had a few compliments on my wire hides so far, and you don't get the problems like up above. My second to find on my tree cache here recently even said in her log that she's 5'2 and had to swing her GPSr at it, and even that didn't take it down. I did voluntary maintenance on it anyways and looped it back around one more time (she used her GPSr to unwind it a little bit so she could reach it). But to answer you actual, original question that you probably care about more, I think it should count as a find, but the cache FTFer deserves a stern "talkin' to."

The funny thing about all this mentioned by the OP is that there are probably tons of strategies that could work to get the cache archived. The most pathetic of strategies I can think of is the cacher who wants to make a hide going and muggling the cache over and over again, taking a poo in the location, hacking the bushes and foliage to shreds, and leaving tons of trash and bear traps. I mean heck...with all that going on...why NOT archive it? ARE YOU SOME KIND OF SADIST? so... yeah okay, quite honestly, i can't remember what we were talking about.

No...I don't like it. Disrespectful, regardless of reference.

Well, the reason I'm using the particular gravestone I'm using is that I needed a couple who were married a long time and died on the same day and were buried in or around a certain town. The story is set in a dystopia, and he logs his journey weeks after an "event," leaving the logs behind as a sort of therapy for himself, or if anybody might find it one day. It chronicles his journey to bury his parents at a cemetery, his parents last request, which is around 80 miles away. He finds horses near their property and takes them so he can make the journey. The theft doesn't matter because most everyone is dead from the "event." It's an opportunity for his life to still have meaning, and for him to do right in a world where everything has gone so horribly wrong. The names won't necessarily be mentioned, and I may not put a cache there, but I may offer the gravestone as a virtual stage of a mystery cache. It authenticates the story without confusing anyone into thinking it's real. There's no way anyone would think it possible the grave was actually the site of the people from the story, because the events are so sci-fi that no one would make that mistake. So...that's the situation. Does it make a difference at all? Also, knight, the one you posted offends me too...I would never refer distastefully. The name of that cache is quite disheartening and disrespectful. The reference I would use would only be in passing.

I have this idea for a line of caches that will stretch probably around 60-70 miles. It's going to be a set of story caches, where each cache holds a piece of a short story to be read, and the coordinates to the next mystery cache. The very last cache, probably between the 7th and 9th one, will confirm the names of the characters in the story and fit with the plot of the stories. My issue is one my girlfriend came up with: will I be dishonoring the family of the deceased by including their loved ones names in my story? I feel it's a way to honor someone, to bring more people not only to their particular gravesite, but to that cemetery as well. My girlfriend, however, noted that the family itself, if it ever discovered the cache bore its relatives' names, may be furious that they were disrespected so badly. Do you think I would be A) honoring them by including them and exposing more than the occasional eye to the fact that they've lived, or disrespecting them by making their real lives into something fictional that, other than their namesakes, doesn't really involve them at all? By the way, if it helps any, I and my girlfriend both enjoy cemetery caches in general, and find them respectful of the last resting places of so many who've died by exposing others to the fact that they've lived. She just brought up this possibility and I felt obligated to pursue it.

I went to Walmart a few months ago and got a fake dove that attached to a tree with a pretty strong clip. I hung a pill fob from its back and put it in a cedar...but I was wondering if it's going to stay there. Barring muggling, has anyone used one of these before? Should I go back and tie the whole dove to the tree, or will the clip do the job well enough?

First of all, I don't think that fence cache is a 1.5 terrain...more like a 3.0 or 3.5. Second of all, I don't think the way they have terrains now is quite right...needing special equipment...I think the requirement of a 5 should be "Must make pursuant geocacher cry and beg for mercy during attempted location of cache." Third, post the GC number of the cache so we can all take a look at it. This hypothetical stuff will just further the possibility that we won't resolve anything, just divulge our personal theories. Fourth, isn't the property owner protected by "recreational use" laws in that state? No person can sue in the event that equipment or construction on that site is being used for a purpose contrasting that of its designed purpose?

There needs to be a website where people can buy small items that can be tracked. Cell phones are pretty small and have GPS capability now, so it's got to be possible soon to do the whole James Bond "tiny magnet tracker on the bottom of a car" thing. Anyways, what WE could use them for is, if they're tiny enough, we put them INSIDE our TBs. That way, if our TB ever ends up missing, there can be a website we go to that allows us to see our "tracker"'s location live. It reminds me of this story I heard on diggnation...a girl's macbook pro was stolen, and she used remote desktop to log into her computer on occasion to see if she could snap a built-in webcam pic of the thieves. She ended up succeeding, they were caught, and she got her laptop back. It would be great if we could control such situations as well. :-) Another thing you could do is: call the police, (911 is preferable) tell them a container filled with inexpensive trinkets was stolen from you where you left it under some leaves and sticks in the middle of publicly-owned woods, follow them to the subsequent raid of a number of suspects' homes, roll in the enormous pile of your retrieved travel bugs when the suspects are apprehended, tried, and executed. But something tells me my first idea is significantly more plausible.

How could I possibly take that the wrong way? Unfortunately I am in a situation where I must spend more time near a computer than away from it. I know, I know, people aren't supposed to have opinions unless (insert arbitrary rule here) and to have opinions before that is not allowed, etc. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy geocaching but its not my life. My life is built on existing first, playing later. If I can add some playing (ie posting in a forum) while I am existing, then its a bonus. When I can get away from the computer (no it's not simply a computer addiction) then I do go out and play and some of that play is geocaching. I hope that satisfies your curiousity. Oh, bittsen, you always leave me smiling and satisfied. :-)

I know that there were lots of 09/09/09 Events yesterday. I just checked on the one in Pennsylvania and it didn't appear that there were any caches associated with it. I didn't much like the implication of this post. Please know that only about one-third of my volunteer duties involve reviewing caches in Pennsylvania. My earlier post described the caches I published in connection with a Southwest Ohio event. So yeah, I really did do what I said I did. I now regret posting about it, though. When I didn't see any caches associated with the event in PA I looked up (there is a link to it from the New York event) I just assumed that you had published those caches for a different event (the one that I attended). I never considered the possibility that you were claiming to do something you had not done. If you read it that way, I apologize. I really do appreciate the effort that you and other reviewers take that goes beyond what cache hiders already expect from you. At times being a reviewer must seem as a thankless "job". Going beyond those expected duties to publish caches at certain times to coordinate with an event is something worthy of praise. I hope that by posting about it, others won't assume that the extra effort that you put in is something that all reviewers will to on a daily basis. You've gone beyond the call of duty and it's truely appreciated. Well, until you replied to him, he could have deleted the text of his other posts and at least had plausible deniability. GAH! :-) Just kidding I loves you.

hiding rifles for doomsday? What do you sign the log book with? A jackhammer?! :-) ... You're funny. :-) Coincidentally enough, though, that is how Chuck Norris signs his checks.

If I had done that then I would have gotten my 200th cache. 200 is not a fitting number for 090909. It would have been a sacrilege to the numerological gawds. Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm shocked. I figured you'd have at LEAST 800 to a thousand caches in a full year, considering your opinions and post count. Amazed you've only got 191. What gives? Why not have more? I've barely been able to restrain myself from getting any more than 240.