TeamVasquez
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Posts posted by TeamVasquez
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The cache was sitting right above this guy in the rocks. Read why it wasn't such a great concern:
OMG! I havent seen anything like that yet when Ive been out. I have heard them but I just hold onto my gps tighter so I dont drop it and pick up the pace.
he looks like he just had lunch and is now basking in the sun digesting his food
sweet pic
Wait, Waaaiiit a minute. I was wondering where the lizard went. No wonder the snake didnt move. That was a big lizard for lunch.
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I found this one at the REI website. It's kind of expensive though. I don't suppose anyone has ever tried it? I'm torn. I guess I'll keep looking.
Could work. You think the 2-year-old could pull it?
It's a snow stroller. So, she doesn't have to pull it. She can push it. Although, I don't think she could reach the handle. She not quite 3 feet tall.
So I got this right... She doesnt have to pull it, she can push it. Youre going to buy a sled you get to ride in and she is going to push you from behind . I get it now. Maybe one of the bigger kids could help her out by pulling on the stringy thing.
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Bummer...Your wife is leaving for work in the morning and you have the day off. She says "Go have a nice time and enjoy yourself. I will see you back here at dinner time". You feel great, no chores to do and an understanding better half. You get out on the trail and you feel guilty because your having too much fun and cut your trip short and head home, get cleaned up and take her to dinner later.
Wait - I thought this thread is about Murphy's Law as applied to geocaching, and not about creative fiction?
I didnt say that it was a consistant behaviour for her....I guess it caught me off guard and she out flanked me that day. I guess shes been reading Cosmo again.
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The cache was sitting right above this guy in the rocks. Read why it wasn't such a great concern:
OMG! I havent seen anything like that yet when Ive been out. I have heard them but I just hold onto my gps tighter so I dont drop it and pick up the pace.
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I was doing maintenance from under a baby of mine and found a cache. Consider yoooooooourself lucky. Geeez, that was over 22 years ago since the last one was that little. I kinda miss those days.
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Hi Mayfields...From outsida (word?) Austin. Were out in the big metropolis of Dale..out in the Bastrop, Cedar Creek and Lockhard devils triangle area. I was just funn'in with ya. Everyone knows that those things are for when you go shopping way up north where it does snow. Wheels aint no good up there in that snow stuff in the parking lots of the Walmarts.
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I found this one at the REI website. It's kind of expensive though. I don't suppose anyone has ever tried it? I'm torn. I guess I'll keep looking.
Two year old pulling a sled...thats funny. You got it wrong though.I think that is an odd looking snowshoe. Im guessing if you wear them in pairs it doesnt look so bad. It looks like they would double as water skis or life boat if you fall through the ice. ....What will they think of next?
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Runs in the doorway out of breath to the podium where this discussion is held....."But what if it was a yield sign instead?" Runs back out of room and back into woods with gps unit.
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Bummer...Your wife is leaving for work in the morning and you have the day off. She says "Go have a nice time and enjoy yourself. I will see you back here at dinner time". You feel great, no chores to do and an understanding better half. You get out on the trail and you feel guilty because your having too much fun and cut your trip short and head home, get cleaned up and take her to dinner later.
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Are we done now? I was just wondering if we could start a new forum and disagree on something else for awhile?
Im off today, its raining so I cant go out and play so I have the time to disagree.
Unless it is Texas sized gully washer 10 gallon rain, you can too cache in the rain!
But since you are playing in the sandbox let me welcome you to geocaching and the forums. Thanks for some very insightful posts. It's always refreshing when someone actually has some personal knowledge of a situation that is being discussed in here.
BTW I was one of the NC cachers quoted in that magazine that got you hooked. You're welcome.
Get out! So your one of the ones that took all my free time from me. Good to meet you. Yup, Im all in. It was an informative article. Geez, somebody actually read my profile. Thanks for the compliments and getting me in.
On the ligther side, so did the LEOs log the find?
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Are we done now? I was just wondering if we could start a new forum and disagree on something else for awhile?
Im off today, its raining so I cant go out and play so I have the time to disagree.
Welcome to the forums!
Thanks Castle Mischief. Being an over achiever at times, I had to throw in my dollars worth in on this one. Look forward to the trying to follow along with the "Big Dawgs" as I am merely a pup.
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Are we done now? I was just wondering if we could start a new forum and disagree on something else for awhile?
Im off today, its raining so I cant go out and play so I have the time to disagree.
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OK let's clarify some things. I was the cacher who started this whole process. I got to the GZ and the cache was already destroyed. The only thing that remained was the container so I knew I was at the correct location. In the area were a number of items that with limited education on meth, but I have had some, I believed could have been used in the production of Meth.
I contacted the cache owner who contacted someone they knew on the at the police department. That was the last I heard of it until I was told about this thread.
I am not at all surprised nor unhappy that this cache was removed. This was once a place that kids played. I was very concerned that if it was a meth lab that other cachers, especially those with children not get into what had the potential for a bad situation if it was one.
The reason I wanted to do this cache in the first place was it was near the home my daughter once owned. When I told her about it she was not surprised and pointed out that OK has long had a meth problem.
So to complete this discussion the cache had already been destroyed, LEOs were asked to be there, and they were doing what they should be doing trying prevent illegal drug production. The unfortunate thing is that happened to be at a geocache.
Thanks for the clarification and for taking the time to respond. Hopefully this lays to rest alot of the speculation that was going on here. I apreciate you taking the time to report it and keep the rest of us and our children safe from these situations.
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...Thank you for allowing me to present my perspective. I expect that I will get my share of "non" fan mail as a result of my posting. I am not saying that our way is always the best way. Its just where we are these days as opposed to the way we used to do things.
It's a good post.
Personally I don't mind if a cache is blown up as part of the larger effort. We have bomb squads and such because of a real problem.
My beef kicks in in how harmless items are handled after they are determined to be harmless. The responce I want from the Sheriff, Police Chief, etc. after the fact, comes down to. Varitions of "Hey, we live in a heightened state of awareness and false alarms are bound to happen. It means the system is working, as it should. Do not at all stop living your life, having fun, caching, or buying toys for your kids. Just be mindful of what happens when you leave those toys unattended at the airport, or place your cache in a suspicous location. We aren't here to stop the fun, but to ensure that we can keep on enjoying fun things".
I want them to believe that. I do not at all like when there is a call to "Ban everthing that causes false alarms because they are annoying".
RenegadeKnight, I nod my head in agreement with you. Thank you.
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Officers disposed of the contents and destroyed the container...
Just to keep this rolling along....destroying the container may not actually equal blowing it up.
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Knowschad,
Thanks for the polite reponse. I hope this doesnt end up double posting...if so, I apologize.
Your right, it didnt say it was a bomb.
I will only add on that there are alot of agencies that dont have the resources to respond to these types of calls. Some smaller agencies will call on county resources or an adjoining agency for help. This agency may have been more than capable of handling it. Agency to agency, protocols will vary.
There wasnt enough informaion given in the article, only that it was a container. Be it that it was a 50 cal ammo can or a tupperware container, I think we can agree (yes,ok maybe) that they are all not marked with geocache decals on the outside. Even so, not all that have on sticker on one side, have another on the other side (if it were laying on its side.)
We have the ability to "swab" the outside of a container (if possible and sometimes its just not possible due to safety protocols) or a substance. We then place the sample under a tester (IR Traveler) that will give a breakdown as to what the makeup of the substance (s) is/are. This helps in trying to figure out what your dealing with. This might have been enough for the agency to handle it the way they did. I dont know.
Thanks for your perspective. These posts will help me with my presentation, it is appreciated.
Respecfully responding.
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I agree that the information from the article was very limited on what brought about the conclusion that this was an actual geocache container. I agree that media doesnt always get the facts correct before reporting information and that often information is "embellished" to make a better story.
The facts as I understand from the limited information giving are that somehow LEO 's attention was brought to a suspicious container. To me, this means that a concerned citizen placed the call to 911 and the authorities arrived on scene. I am not going to speculate on what methods they used to determine what the contents were i.e . robot, camera, xray or physically opening the container and looking at the contents. It may have been based only on what the 911 caller reported.
As all of you, I do have an opinion. I will base my opinion not on being new to this sport. I will not base this opinion on the few posts that I have in place or at this time the two hides I have or the under one hundred caches I have found.
I am an LEO. I have been for almost 23 years now. If you will allow me to qualify myself, please. If you are reading this , it is because you have an interest in what this post was about. I work for a large police department. Prior 9/11 , LEO was very limited on their handling of "suspicious packages" and bomb threats. With no formal training on these items, basically we would look around , hopefully find whatever someone called in on and either "poke" at it or "give it a nudge"and see what happens. Often times, a package would be opened up and inspected. Training in these areas was very limited as described. If it wasnt the obvious fragmentation grenade or something with wires and a battery attached to it, we really didnt know the difference.
Until recently, I did not know what geocaching was. The shift that I work with didnt know what geocaching was until I started to talk about it. Some are actually doing this on their days off now too. I will get back to this..
Please dont take this as bragging. Again, I am trying to qualify myself and give another perspective.
Prior to 9/11 , I worked for my department as a Federally licensed DOT inspector. I recieved the federally mandated training required to do department of transportation inspections on commercial motor vehicles. This included doing hazardous materials inspections on cargo tankers. I was certified to inspect hazardous materials on board these vehicles. I was certified to respond to accidents involving hazardous materials that were being transported. I was certified as a hazmat technician for five years. This included extensive training with the local fire department hazmat crews.
Post 9/11, Our department initiated its counter terrorism / wmd response team. I trained on the federal level and was a member of our WMD response team. This training was very very detailed and included training in Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives fields. Foreign and domestic terrorism intelligence and training were what I was trained in. I have been to several parts of the country where I received this training in all areas of CBRNE. I am instructor qualified at the federal level. My specialties were in receiving training in these fields and how to respond to these incidents, how to maintain incident command, train officers within our department as well as other city departments on terrorism/weapons of mass destruction. I was one of a few that would don the various protective incapsulated suits and go in where the suspicious powder or device was. I would gather this up to the FBIs standards in evidence collection in order to prosecute correctly, if possible. I have dealt with "face to face" ,things that you read about or see on the news and often seem to arm chair quarterback about. This is my chosen career and this is what I do. I have declared suspicious items as explosives and/or hazardous materials. I have located explosive devices/ IEDs at our local infrastructures. I have responded to and located explosive devices at abortion clinics, churches , schools, etc...anywhere there is controversy.
We dont just walk up to it and place a charge next to it and blow it up. We gather as much information on what we have and talk to as many witnesses as possible. When there is an indication that this item is capable of causing injury or death to the public, the item will be destroyed. It is what is done by visual inspection if possible, robot, remote camera, xray and whatever intelligence is available.
A side note, yes caches are your private property. When an item is out of your direct control and I mean there are no readily available means to know that this is yours, it is considered abandoned or in this case, a suspicious package. You know that when you place a cache that it is fair game to be stolen or vandalized. Statements like what right do LEO have....etc. I mentioned earlier that none of the shift members had any idea what geocaching was until I mentioned it recently. Yes , do I know how to find out who it belongs to etc , utilize coordinates to verify etc, yes. Unfortunately, this is not known throughout the department as is with other departments. The right is to protect people from death or serious injury. If an officer walked up and opened every suspicious package that someone called in on, there would be alot of related officer injuries and deaths. What confidence would you have in your emergency reponders? I do understand not all are fans of LEO's.
I have since returned to patrol as a supervisor and still respond when I hear these types of calls come out. I have a different perspective on what a suspicious items container may actually be now due to my knowledge of geocaches. We are trained though these days that if it is a suspicious package call, clear the area out and call in the specialists. We dont kick containers any more. This is what we train. This is how it is these days. If there is any indication that it contains a hazardous material or unidentifiable material, it will be rendered "safe" and then analyzed more carefully.
I am planning to establish my credibility just a bit more and hit my "one hundred" find mark and present this information about geocaching to my department. I will accomplish this soon.I have already begun a working on a presentation for my department regarding this information. Please understand though, larger departments implementation of training often takes time.
Thank you for allowing me to present my perspective. I expect that I will get my share of "non" fan mail as a result of my posting. I am not saying that our way is always the best way. Its just where we are these days as opposed to the way we used to do things.
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Looking for a cache that you think is on a cliff edge and being up on the top side. Believing that GZ has to be down at the base of the cliff and painfully making your way to the base around and through every kind of obstacle imaginable. Getting down there and realizing that GZ was actually back up on the top side where you started....and finding the GC right when you finally manage to get back up the
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The "Grumpy" part of TeamVasquez. Relatively new to this and enjoying the heck out of it. Stopping by to say hello. I havent gotten into the forums here>Still getting a feel for the sport. Ive been in forums in a car related field before and know how nice some are and helpful and often times, how cut throat it can be. I am prepared, I just dont have any thing "intelligent"
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Getting everything ready the night before the day you want to go out hunting caches on your day off. Downloading about a dozen or so GC's in a park that is running rampid with them. Driving the 40 plus miles to said park the next day only to find that you didnt download the dozen or so GC's like you thought and only had 2 or 3 that you actually have coords for because you didnt double check yourself...geez
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Being safe after dark
in General geocaching topics
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Wow,....Im glad physically you are fine. Was that on that shiney silver sports car you posted up on one of the other posts the other day? Ouch