Snow Birds

Wow! I guess I'm playing this game all wrong! Apparently my first mistake was to think this was a game! You people take this way to seriously! I have 31 current hides. I NEVER check logs against the website logs. To me, what I find and log is my business and my game and my satisfaction. If I want a bazillion fake logs, is anyone losing any money or prestige? (not counting FTFs) Or am I just being a loser and inflating my own ego? What can it possibly matter to a cache owner whether or not I sign the log, except for the owner to be anal enough to actually care? I have logged a few finds and not signed the log for various reasons. One was last week when the container was so buried inside of a cactus that I couldn't get to it without going home to bring more tools, or risk getting my hand sliced up! No, I didn't sign the log, but I did take credit for finding it! Yeah, I found it, right there in that trap! Or next to that rattlesnake! I'm not going to come back tomorrow across 5 miles of burning Arizona desert just to sign a silly little piece of paper to prove that I had been there! I guess if that owner feels that I am not justified for finding his/her cache, then fine, delete the log! But that's just being vindictive and anal about it. This is one of only a few times I have actually come here. I was looking for something specific and came across this post. Now I feel that if this is how the average cache owner feels about signing logs, and I am being so flip about it, I might just have to go collect all of my caches and give it up! I'm here for the fun of the GAME, not to make a name for myself! I probably won't come back here! I wish I knew ahead of time where all of YOUR caches are so I could avoid them! In the meantime, I am going to continue to play the game as I like to play it. I have been doing this for 12 years and I have never had a log deleted because I didn't sign a piece of paper. 99% of the time, I do sign the paper, but sometimes I don't. If I don't at least find the container, then I won't claim it. I remember one that I couldn't open without destroying the container. I don't see it as a big deal. I guess that's just my opinion, but I will continue to have my kind of fun.

At the top of a geocaching.com page, click your name at the top-right to get to your profile page. In the bar on the right-hand side which has links to many things, look under the "Premium Features" section (the 5th section down) for "Set Up Notifications". Aha! Thanks!

I just set up my very first notification. (I have been a member for 12 years!) I discovered a few things - you can set up several notifications (traditional, virtual, multi, etc) at various locations and at various distances. So you could set up one notification for your home area and another one for the distant area by either ZIP code or GPS coords. Now I need to figure out how to find that area without chasing a link in this forum! http://www.geocaching.com/notify/edit.aspx (thanks to 96Shadow for the link)

My dedicated device was stolen, so I tried using my iPhone 4 with Geo Bucket app. It is slow to respond. I can find most caches with it, but some are ridiculously difficult. It says to go 19 feet that way. I take 2 steps and suddenly it's 23 feet behind me. I go halfway to that spot and it's 14 feet to my right! Sometimes I want to throw it in a river! As for hiding a cache, I have yet to get 3 readings that are close to each other! I am not impressed with the iPhone for caching. It works great to you get me within several feet, but for zeroing in, forget it! In that case, I resort to using The Force and forget the machine! I am going to buy another dedicated GPSr and keep the iPhone for calling my wife to let her know I'm still alive.

I have been using the free GSAK for years until recently. I used a Garmin ETrex Legend and it worked great with GSAK. My new computer does not have a serial port and a USB conversion cable didn't work, so that ended that! Now I have a Magellan Triton 300. GSAK doesn't even recognize that it is USB! The only option is a COM port. So no GSAK with Magellan. Geocaching.com doesn't recognize the Magellan Communicator, so I can't "send to GPS" anymore! I have downloaded the recommend plugin 3 times! Augh!! Magellan has a program called VantagePoint that is free. It is graphic (map) based rather than just a list of names, although it does also have a list of names. I do miss some features of GSAK, but I'm still learning VP. One advantage to VP is that it monitors the Magellan GPS for updates. One big disadvantage is that the filter function totally pales in comparison to GSAK. Also, even though I turn off all but 90 caches in VP, when I try to transfer to the GPSr, it still wants to transfer all 889 caches, which is above the limit of the Triton 300! I have to delete all caches and then add just the Query that I need. It does handle PQs very well! So, if you have a Magellan, this might work. Otherwise...sorry for wasting your time.

Plastic pile of dog poop! (best) Fake sprinkler head. (hardest)

"The Groundspeak Geocaching Logo may be used only on non-commercial items. These items may include, but are not limited to shirts, hats, coins, logbooks, stickers and cache containers." Sweet! Thanks to all of you. I may buy some stickers after payday, but this link helps a bunch!

I want to hide my first ammo can and I would like to put the logo on the side of the can. Is there somewhere that I can download a nice logo? Legally.

I have a Legend. My computer didn't have a serial port, so I bought the serial to USB cable with the little bitty CD. I tried everything I could and never got it to work. Now I have a new computer that HAS a serial port. I set the Legend to COM1 instead of USB, and it works great!

I just got my first can at Habitat for Humanity for $3. It was used for 12 gauge shotgun shells, not military ammo. Same can though. Garage sales might produce some. If not ammo cans, you can usually find lots of stuff that would make a good cache. Swag too! Pawn shops, but watch that you don't pay too much for it.

My first traditional, I tried 4 times and even got hints from the owner. I was ready to give it all up when I got help from an experienced cacher who doubled over laughing. I was almost standing on the ammo can! I just didn't know what I was looking for! Speaking of humiliating: this last weekend, I went to a cache (cache A) with directions "from the coordinates, go 100 feet in a 295 degree direction". I did this and would have ended up standing in the middle of Main Street! I tried it with a real compass and got the same results. I tried it about 5 times and always got the same thing. So I left. I got to another cache (cache and hunted and searched at the coordinates and just could not find it. I tried 3 approaches before I gave up. When I went in to log the DNF on cache B, I discovered that IT was the one with the "100 feet at 295 degrees", not cache A!! I DNFed on both of them because I got the directions crossed. Doh! Cache B was "Wyoming Cowboy". It is a plaque commemorating the cowboy on the Wyoming license plates. Cache A is a statue of that very same cowboy! So I see how I got confused, but it's still humiliating!

Hmmm....somehow I missed where a 35mm film canister was mentioned.

Well, if nothing else, I have learned to be more careful! I am still fairly new at this (58 finds in 6 years) and I never considered finding something that could hurt me. An exposed broadhead is just such an item. So I will learn to be more careful. Thanks at least for that! BTW, the "Nomex" is called "Romex". Just a nit. It's the 3 or 4 wire, heavy duty shielded cable that most houses are wired with. Confucius' Cat - "The CARDINAL RULE for electrical equipment is ALWAYS ASSUME IT IS HOT! This is especially true if you are NOT a qualified electrician." That is probably the best advice ever! I am not a qualified electrician, but I was a qualified electronics technician. I learned the same thing, and I am definitely leery of touching anything that even resembles anything that could shock me. I have been shocked by things that were supposedly not connected. Yeah, "Oops...my bad!" That line didn't help stop my arm from throbbing! It seems to me that someone who is NOT familiar with electrical stuff is more likely to be hurt by it. I have learned to respect anything labeled "High Voltage". I have seen jerry-rigs that were worse than an ammo can, that were hot! Are we teaching people, not just kids, to ignore labels? The next time someone looks for a cache and sees an electrical box, will they open it? Imagine being the owner of the electrical box and catching someone with it open and poking around! If I catch anyone even close to my electrical box, I will be more than a little concerned. A couple of posters noted that they were not at all familiar or educated in electrical things. That should be a huge clue not to mess with things like that. Someone who doesn't know what you know may be hurt. Considering the broadhead...it was left there by someone who understands broadheads and knows that you don't handle it by the blades, so no problem. But the next person who finds it may not know anything about broadheads. If I put a rattlesnake in a box and someone gets bitten, should I just shrug it off and say "Well, he should have grabbed it by the tail!"? Even if the rattlesnake head (dead) is there, if you prick your finger on the fangs, you can still get poisoned. How many people know that? Especially a 3 year old!

I could see all the neighbors thinking you were a drug dealer! "Strange people show up at all hours and look suspicious!"

I believe that in any given cache, you could find something to offend someone, somewhere. I knew a woman who was offended by a water pistol because it represented violence! I knew another woman who was offended by anything, even a picture, of a snake! She would love the Geocoin that I just nabbed that has a coiled snake on the back! It's a "Cache Critters on Patrol". Just as a fun test...next time you find a cache, look through all the little trinkets and see if any ONE of them is even slightly offensive. If you can honestly say "no", then you are fortunate! As for religious stuff, this country was founded on christian principles, so I tolerate them. I don't have to believe in a god to believe in the philosophies.

"In other words: The truth cannot and will not be insulted, humiliated or in any other way made uncomfortable by our sincere attempts to learn it, whatever the truth turns out to be ... so relax, and feel free to ask questions!" That reminded me of an evening in Germany in the AF. Four of us were on duty. Two of us were atheists. One guy was seriously religious. The fourth was just there. About once a week, the religious guy would throw out a subject at us and we'd all get into a discussion. He would throw out his beliefs and my friend and I would chop him down at every turn. (remember...he started it!) The discussions always ended up with him questioning what he believed. Nobody ever got mad, in fact, we were all pretty good friends. On this particular evening, he came in the room, looked around and said "Oh good! We have 2 atheists, 1 christian, and 1 catholic". The catholic guy was understandably a little offended! One evening, I asked him why he did this when we always ran him straight into the ground. It must be awfully frustrating. He said that we proposed ideas that went against what he believed and he didn't have an answer or solution, so it prompted him to read the bible until he came up with one! He was actually growing his beliefs by confronting us with ideas so that we could cause him look deeper. I admired him for that!

A couple of days ago, I came across a religious CD in a cache. I thought of this thread. I smiled to myself, put it back in the can, and moved on. No problem. Someone else might like it. To me it was just as valuable as the Barney doll. I left it there, too! I would have a problem with an ammo can stuffed full of tracts. But just 1 or 2, I just ignore them.

Ack! Duplicated. It said it didn't go...but it did anyway!

"The sad thing is forum topics like this that turn friends against friends" Those are narrow-minded people! Just because we might disagree doesn't necessarily mean we can't drink together! In the words of that kid on the racing commercial..."I didn't say I wouldn't go fishing with the man!" My best friend is a devout christian, probably more so than most posters here, IMHO. We talk a lot about religion and/or the lack of it. Now, after 14 years, he is still a devout christian and I am still a devout atheist. We are still best friends, we work together in harmony, and we go drinking together! Okay...he drinks Coke, but he still has a great time! Me? I ALWAYS have a designated driver! And I still maintain that although religious junk in a cache is just as much junk as all the other stuff in there, like all the other junk, I ignore it. It's no better than all the stupid business cards! As long as I can find the log, I'm good to go. I'm sure there are caches with a religious theme. If I ever find one, I won't worry about being struck by lightning if I push it all aside to find the log. I would have the common courtesy to put it all back for the next person who might like it. I don't like kids...but I don't get offended by seeing toys! I have a high ignore factor. I just read about a person who wouldn't complete a cache because the log is inside a...uh...10 inch male anatomy replication. (LOL maybe changing the track might help)

I don't think that's very nice, but I certainly understand your logic/reasoning here. But for me, if I were to find a cache and hide it back exactly as I found it, yet the way I found it was not correct because Joe Cacher a few hours before me re-hid it wrong, and you deleted MY log because of it, I'd be one mad cacher! I agree. I would be severely pissed at being punished for something I didn't do...and no appeal?? Besides, if I was going to do something bad to a cache, I certainly wouldn't sign the log or log it online. Royalott, have you considered transferring them to someone else rather than archiving them? Is there a "Cache in need of an owner" thread? Or "Help Wanted"? I have had a couple of caches that I intended to get to, but the owner got mad or had personal problems and archived them!! They were cool caches, but now they are toast! One of the caches, I had attempted and left a note about taking the wrong road and having to climb a mountain. That note pissed him off, and he archived ALL of his caches because he perceived that I was running down his cache! Sheesh! I was simply warning people not to get on the wrong road as I did. I think there were other previous problems, but rather than give the responsibility to someone else, he ruined it for everybody by archiving them all. I remember a time when I went to look for something in my yard and it was missing. I later discovered it some distance away covered with sticks and twigs. I put it back where it belonged. The next day it was back and covered again. I did this for about a week until I discovered the squirrel that was trying to hide it for himself! One of the caches in Arizona was a rubber chicken, with a film canister stuffed up it's...uh...lower end! It was finally destroyed (repeatedly) apparently by coyotes! It smelled like rubber, but it did <look> like coyote food. Quirky #3 - Bird on a Wire. It is now archived out of frustration. I have heard that sprinkling cayenne pepper in a garden will keep the deer away. Maybe this would help with caches that are suspected of wildlife interference. As a side note, I also have heard that putting moth balls in a garden will keep dogs out. Well...I had a dog that picked up each and every moth ball and piled them all up in a corner!! Downy sheets are supposed to keep cats from pooping on your lawn. Our stray cats moved the sheets, did their thing, then covered it with the Downy sheets!!!

I haven't read all of the posts. But, if you are "not active" enough, what does that make me? I have been a Geocacher for 8 years. My best year was 2005 when I bagged 20 caches. My worst years were 2006 and 2007, tied at 3 caches...in a year! I currently have 52 caches, as of 2 days ago. I'm working on hiding my first cache. Never done an event cache. I pretty much only do caches that are convenient, unless my die-hard caching friend is here and she gets me out more (see 2005 above). She shows up for a week vacation and I say "What shall we do?". She says "Let's go caching!" I look, and post, in the forums about every 2-3 years. But, I enjoy it when I do it, so I'm happy with it. When I get access to an ATV in Arizona this winter, I plan to bag my best year ever! Now that gas prices are dropping again, I might even brave a few longer distance ones in Wyoming. So, I'm not an addicted cacher, but I'm a happy cacher. ------------------ Okay...now I've read them all! By the TrailGators system (sorta), I am mostly an Anti-Social, Loner, mostly Urban, very Casual, Happy Cacher! I don't look forward to meeting people, but I don't dive off the trail to avoid them either. I have always been a shy sort, but since I turned 14, at least I can now look someone in the eyes and actually talk to them! If I ever get a chance to talk about rocks, there's no shutting me up!

"I'm curious what an Altheist flyer would look like. " I was wondering the same thing!

Do you mean the general discussion about how each person perceives various world religions and viewpoints, or the one about what to do with tracts in caches? I mean the latter. I suspect that an Atheist flyer would be removed, no questions asked. I could be wrong. I was wrong once!

If a coin with the 10 commandments is acceptable, is a similar coin with a Satanic pentagram also acceptable? How many of you would take the pentagram coin to throw away, but leave the 10 commandments coin there because it is more "proper"? How many Christian cachers would be offended by a Jewish tract trying to convert them to their beliefs? How many Jewish cachers would be offended by a Christian tract trying to convert them to their beliefs? How many Christian cachers would be offended by an Atheist flyer trying to show them the error of their ways? Would not the Atheist be justified in trying to help the Christian see the reality? I know very well that all of you "good Christians" don't think the same as the Pope. I also hope that at least most of you realize that all atheists don't think the same as the ACLU!! There are fanatics on both sides. I think this whole thread would be off in a different direction if the offending material was Atheist in nature.

I am a confirmed atheist. When I see a religious tract or pamphlet, I give it the same regard as a "Vote for Obama" sticker...I ignore it. I will no sooner vote for Obama as I will be converted by a piece of religious...uh...stuff. And nobody will convince me to change my mind on either! When I meet a religion pusher on the street, I will politely take his/her tract, smile, then drop it in the nearest trash can. Problem solved. No argument. No hurt feelings. When I come across something of a religious nature in a cache, I just ignore it. At least it's better than the pocketknife I found in a cache in Arizona! To me, anything religious is just as worthless as a chewed piece of gum, a dead battery, or a broken Happy Meal toy! I don't have a use for any of them. I very seldom swap swag. As long as the pamphlets don't prevent me from finding and signing the log, then I don't really care if they are there or not. My purpose is to find the treasure and sign the log...period. I'm not there to get an education in religion, politics, the opposite sex, hunting laws, or anything else. All I want is to claim that I found it. If the cache is inside a church, laying in plain sight on the altar, I will sign the log and leave. I won't say a prayer. I will claim that I found it though. If it is a Muslim plan on how to destroy America, then I would burn it on the spot! If it is a Muslim tract trying to convince me to read the Kuran, then I'll ignore it. (Please feel free to substitute Christian, Jewish, Morman, Buddhism, Satanism, Paganism, etc).