DragonflyTotem

Okay, so what if when I go to perform maintenance on my own cache, I find out that it isn't where it is supposed to be. So I then have to find it. I can log that, right? [i'm of course kidding...but I did see a log like that.]

OK, me and you are pretty much on the same sheet of music. Anyone can drop a film canister in a big pile of rocks, or put a blinky nano in an old growth forest, as others have said. I see you've hidden mostly micros, and I'm guessing mostly urban ones from the handful I looked at. I think most active cachers who find a lot would apreciate them being out of the norm, and give you positive feedback for them. Yes, all of my hides are urban and all within a few miles radius of my home or office. I will say that none of my urbans are 35mm film canisters, but have a few lock-n-locks that were placed where the larger size could be accommodated! Most of mine fit into what would probably be "natural" caches, just not natural for where it is at and all of those are in plain sight. I do slip in some "normal" micros to keep everyone on their toes as people are now starting to assume that I'd have a certain kind of cache and have been known to slip in a nano where someone would assume a micro would be (and gotten DNFs for that). And I'll admit to one ammo can -- as there was a need for a TB hotel and that's kind of an obvious choice.

One thing to suggest that I didn't see posted above -- complain to GS! cachingbox.com is a listed "Official Groundspeak Distributor" and I bet that GS would be interested in hearing some feedback about these problems. Might get them removed, which the threat of may have much more impact than individual unanswered complaints to the company.

About Groundspeak I think that to me it comes down to whether or not I believe in the same things that GS does. If so, I give them my $30 (a pretty small amount of money to be honest) in support, believing that they will continue to do good things. I like what they believe in, and so in support of that I am a premium member.

Perhaps that's what GS needs -- a commercial like with Jared at Subway: "I did caches for lunch, caches for dinner, and I lost 245 lbs on the Geocaching diet!"

I always have my iPhone to use as others above have described, and then my 60CSx. But I keep my iPhone in a Speck hard/candy shell and have a screen protector to keep it from getting banged up.

Actually, they are Travel Bugs in every sense of the word. They are meant for "discovery" only, but all functions (I believe) are active. As such, you can plan on trying to have some entries corrected (hopefully no more than just the rare occasion). There are other ways of doing the same type of TB. Think of a shirt being worn, or a backpack with a trackable (TB) patch sewn on it, or for that matter a tattoo! A discover log as you will note, no longer shows a "location", only the fact that it was discovered, whether residing in a cache or not! I myself put one of the camo TB patches you can get from the GS store onto my hat (stitched the velcro to the hat). Also have a static cling on my vehicle. But very seldom do either one get discovered....even when I go to geoevents!

I'm terrible with recognizing Hollywood types though I do know a few myself, but this one has me clueless... Can anyone put a name to the face for me? This isn't the first "celebrity cacher" thread, it's just the only one that's bumped right now. That actress has been mentioned in several of the theads, and there's a link in her profile to her website that gives her real name, all sorts of pictures, her acting resume, etc.. She was pretty active for a while, and even an FTF hound who lists FTF's in her profile, but it looks like she hasn't found a cache this year. Thanks for mentioning the link on her profile page... I missed it the first time around (hint: scroll way down). Her name is Mary Votava. Here is her IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1847547/ I'd cache with her. Because she's so schmart, right? (she lists being in Mensa)

Everyone has their preferences but I' take a nano anyway over a hike in the woods through prickers, past leaves of three and bugs....to find yet another ammo can infested with ants and with 10 whatever poker chip things. Of the ammo cans that I have found, only one had any content worth mentioning. I've found nanos that took me to interesting urban settings. The neat thing is that we all get to hide and find what we want.

Think that it's key to remember that what is frustrating to some is a welcome challenge to others. I have hidden my share of challenging caches. But if it's just a needle in a haystack that takes no imagination to hide and takes a warped individual to enjoy searching. In the end what is the fun if nobody can find your cache? We have a bunch of those tossing a rock in a pile of rocks or tossing a hollowed out brick in a pile of bricks sorts of caches here. And for the most part they're generic sorts of caches. Or tossing a micro or nano under the straw in a straw covered lot. With the nano in the woods I found, I don't find these particularly creative. I enjoy the more difficult hides if they are least creative and take me to someplace interesting. But just a generic, "I want to make a beast of a cache because I can" cache doesn't do it for me. No disagreement here. I myself am definitely not talking about those tossed on, under or in the pile or whatever caches but am instead talking about something created that just blends in nicely....that you notice when you realize that the thing hidden in plain sight actually doesn't belong there.

Exactly on the same page as me.

Think that it's key to remember that what is frustrating to some is a welcome challenge to others. I feel very that few Geocachers like to be "challenged". Whether you're an old schooler hike in the woods to an ammo box type of guy like myself, or you're a numbers junkie running around to 50 parking lots a weekend. I pretty much expect to find every cache I set out to look for. Of course that doesn't always happen. I'm not assuming the desire to be challenged, I'm told either in email or in person when I bump into someone while I'm caching that they like them. And I do offer other clues but there are quite a few cachers around here who decline and say that they would rather make a couple of tries first. I know that for myself I enjoy the challenge. I've looked for a few caches more than once and feel great when after that then get that "ah-ha" moment. Which is different than finding something after realizing that the clue is totally lame or only understandable if you're from their planet. IMHO, the opposite of that is getting to the cache site, and before you even get a moment to ponder what might be....you look over and say to yourself, "oh look, it's a very obvious 'geotrail' to the cache." And at that point I'm probably already thinking about where I'll go to next. For the same reason that I try to not look at hints before I've had a go at it without one.

Think that it's key to remember that what is frustrating to some is a welcome challenge to others.

So can you only log armchairs, or are sofas allowed as well? And if an armchair and a sofa are both at the cache site, is that still just one find? (Sorry, it's past dinner time and I'm possibly slipping toward silly.)

I admit that I do like stumping them, at least for awhile. Frankly, that is my incentive to come up with good hides! I have been willing to give clues, and usually ask how much of a clue they want. I started hiding early on when I had few finds and realized that there were lots of neat places between my home and office where there were no caches. But the responses that I've had from some of the more experienced cachers locally have been that they were leery of hides by someone with so few finds....until they found my caches. I've built most of mine and have worked to come up with creative things and it is really quite fun to have someone with thousands of finds asking me for multiple clues before they find it. And some of my caches, if folks only knew just how many emails I get from folks who are, I don't know -- too embarrassed to log a DNF, they'd not feel so bad about not finding them first time. And I confess that I find it a bit...rewarding....to get a DNF post and email from someone with lots of finds who is positive the cache is missing...only to have me run out to check it and then tell them that it is still there! I'll also admit that some of the fun is lost when after a few finds of a really tricky cache suddenly get logged as easy, quick, PnGs, etc. and I know darn well that there is a whole lot of PAF'ing going on.

I was being interviewed by the local paper (not related to geocaching) and the topic involved local neighborhood watches (I'm a coordinator of one) and as we were driving around and was being asked about things that you look for in your neighborhood (harmless vs. call police) mentioned geocachers and some caches nearby. She had heard of geocaching but hadn't actually seen a cache. What she seemed to find amazing was how many there are in our area, and the kinds of places they can be found in an urban setting. She had a look on her face like someone who had just discovered that Harry Potter was living under her stairs....sort of how I imagine I looked when I found out about all of this myself.

I guess that if I'd known about it I'd feel guilty but I've very seldom put a successful cache find on my watchlist, so I would probably be clueless that it had happened. I know that I've always tried to be careful and have sat in my car for quite awhile waiting to rehide something with muggles nearby. But if I did find out, I'd definitely think about it and wonder if it was me that caused it...and would sure hope it wasn't!

That's a really good point. It's not like I left them out in the open or moved them from their original spots. What really boggles me though is the one that went missing was a lamppost cache... other than cachers, who looks under there? Before I started geocaching, I never even knew those bases lifted up! Just a few days ago as I waited in a parking lot for wife to come out of a store I watched a maintenance crew go to each lamp post skirt where they raised it and it looked like they did a quick check of the wiring. I've also been told by the local LEO that they have seen them used for drug deals (prompting me to ask in what areas so I can put them on my list of places I probably don't want to cache).

That's why I use a log rolling tool. Makes it extremey easy, and you can find them on ebay.

It was less than 500 feet from me. I was teaching a class at my office and there was someone in the class who kept disappearing during lunch. He told me he was geocaching and what it was. I found the web site, signed up and then a couple of days later started using my iphone to find nearby caches and discovered that one had been placed across the parking lot a couple of days earlier. Ironically I went to try another one first that was .4 miles away placed by the same CO, and the same kind of container as I was familiar with that site and thought it would be a nice first one to find. After eventually finding that one I then went to the one across the parking lot.

Wow, didn't know that I could do that there! Still wonder why I'm not getting it through the email though, but at least now I can update my stats. Thanks!!!

Exactly, it's never taken more than a couple of minutes for me either. But this is two weeks in a row that it didn't come, and at least with GCStatistic you can't request another for a week (even if you don't get it). :-(

On each Sunday I download my weekly GPX file through GCStatistics (Mac, in case there's a Windows version) and last weekend I never received the email. Forgot about it until tonight when I requested the new one, and it seems clear after several hours that I'm not getting this one either (have confirmed it's not going to spam folder, etc.). Is anyone else having a problem getting their GPX file for their statistics?

I guess that I've been dealing with it by simply not going around with may usual coke in hand....as I'm still new to this I hadn't caches last summer and just learning. Yesterday was also my first encounter with a tick while caching.

Okay, this is borderline embarrassing but I thought it might bring out some other interesting posts....but there I was today, one cache away from my baby-milestone of 200 caches. I'd managed to sneak in a couple of hours this afternoon to knock out the last seven finds that I needed. It was hot. I got thirsty. Very thirsty. And so there I was...looking for what I was sure would be the last cache before I headed home....and found the perfect cache. It wasn't that it was just a 1.5 in difficulty. Or that the hint pretty much gave it away. Or that I thought that I'd fnd the cache site to be muggle free this afternoon. No it wasn't that at all...you know that you're getting older when you select your last cache of the day over any other, based on a look at the attributes and discovering that there is a restroom at the site. Sigh.