brslk

Does that mean that roads and bridges did not exist before structured governments? I doubt that. Then you should study history. Infrastructure has always been built by governments. Take a look at any anarchy today - most lately Somalia and Afghanistan, and see what happens when 'the people' are in charge. As much as I often disagree with TAR, I agree with this post of his. Not so much about Somalia or Afghanistan but his knowledge in general about reality. Without Government, There is no infrastructure. Unless of course you live in a kingdom or benevolent dictatorship. Either way... average Joe may have built roads or bridges but to keep them usable for many years requires structured Governments. Bruce.

Indeed... I even used to want friends....

Agree with what has been said already and wanted to add, sorry about your friend. Bruce.

That is far from what I saw on the video. You and especially the person taking the video were speaking extremely loud. You were also not exactly tiptoeing (reference was made on the video how loud the leaves were to walk on) and you are not exactly "kids". I am also not a hunter but can empathize more with the hunter than you and your group. He may have been rude and disrespectful first but you weren't exactly smart in your response to him. Line of fire has nothing to do with it. Nor do circus parades... get real. Bottom line is no one was right here and you endangered you and your friends lives and posted it online. I wonder if he would have had a video camera and taped you, how many people on hunting forums would be thinking how stupid and rude geocachers are? Bruce.

Just a thought but, wouldn't any unit you like do in a protective clear case? Bruce.

Depends on the rating. If I know ahead of time it isn't going to be easy then I spend more time.... If it is "supposed" to be easy then less... I and my better half mostly look until one of us finds it, depending on our schedule. I love finding a difficult one (to me) but I also like the easy finds. I have no set time limit Bruce.

Thanks. Now I have that song stuck in my head! Worse yet... I have 99 rouge luft balloons stuck in my head. Bruce.

Buried! ACK! From what I understand... caches that are buried under compost heaps are not really buried. It's like if you placed a cache in a field and snow fell on it... you did not bury it. Bruce.

Remember, some people cache with kids and we don't want children to be cut up. I have no idea why you would defend a broken glass container...

The scenery was different than anything I've ever seen. It was sunflowers as far as I could see.... and then flat dirt as far as I could see. Being from a big city (Los Angeles), I've never seen so much of nothing. It was great! Excellent reply. I have no idea why others chose to respond to a question asked to you. Bruce.

My opinion is... I have a 65 year old mother and would not like to see her wandering around the woods at night alone. Do your best to protect yourself and make yourself safe however you can and do not do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. Try to find a caching buddy if you can. I agree with most of the advice offered here so far... pepper spray... a cell phone and a large dog are excellent. The other day my GF and I were looking for a cache in the woods just off a major road when I heard a loud panting sound (I had hoped my girlfriend was feeling randy) but no... a very large dog came running right towards us. I told her not to move or look it in the eye (the gf that is). Turned out the dog was just as startled by us as we were by him and he ran away quickly but kept his eyes on us. At that moment I wished I had the pepper spray with me that I keep in the car (I am a courier that often delivers to rural locations with dogs running all over (never used it yet)) It was a relief to hear someone whistling to the dog a few moments later. A dog, a wolf or even a bear... when caching in the woods even in the city, you may encounter things you wish you hadn't. (not to mention creeps of the human kind) Bruce.

I hope that I don't come across like Cliff Claven here, but according to the guidelines, cache maintenance is 100% the resposibility of the cache owner. That said, many cache finders will do some cache maintenance when they can, such as drying a wet container and log, adding new log sheet when they come across one that is full (frequently just a small temporary log)... stuff like that. What they should not do is replace what they believe is a missing cache without having conclusive evidence that the cache has been muggled, and even that is subject to varying opinions. people actually replace a cache that they believe has been muggled? I have seen some containers that could use replacing but I wouldn't do it unless asked to by the cache owner. The most I would do is send the CO a pm to let him/her know. I will replace ziplock bags and such but never an entire cache. Bruce.

Look on your cities website and look for property taxes. That will usually show who owns the property.

the problem with this line of thinking is that your actions do have an impact on others regardless if you realize it, disagree or just don't care. By going into a park after hours, looking for a geocache, you are representing the entire geocaching community. When the park ranger, camp host, cop or neighbor who owns a home across the street from the park that you have just tresapssed on after hours, catches you they immediately develop an opinion that ALL geocachers must be that way. Even if they don't think that we are all that way most, or even some is bad enough in their minds. People who live near these areas and the people whose job it is to enforce the rules of said parks don't care if you are alone. They figure if your like that then there are probably others and they would be right in that sumation. When you speed to a cache, or any other location you are on your own at that point, but the second you break out your flashlight and start rooting around in shrubs looking for a cache or bushwhacking through forests on the way to a cache because you can't see the trail that would be obvious in the day light, you are casting a bad light on all of us. And if you've driven 20+ miles to the cache only to discover that the cache is in a park that is closed after dusk, get a clue. Almost all parks are closed once the sun goes down so it would be best for you to just stay home, set your alarm for an hour before sunrise and look for the cache once the park opens. You guys do have a good point. As for the "get a clue" part, I think you should re-think that statment. That may apply to your area, but most parks where I am from (Calgary, Alberta Canada) do not have hours. I am very frequently night caching in our parks, and this was the first time I have seen a sign. I will give you that I probably shouldn't have broaken the bi-law even if I had driven that distance, but that is just what I did. Maybe I will e-mail the cache owner and suggest he add the park hours to his cache. Just because you don't know the rules, does not mean there are not rules. From the City of Calgary website (http://www.calgary.ca/DocGallery/BU/cityclerks/20M2003.pdf): BYLAW NUMBER 20M2003 Page 4 of 20 PARK USE Hours 4. (1) All Parks shall be closed to the public between the hours of 11:00 o'clock in the evening and 5:00 o'clock the next morning, except: (a) the Park known as the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary which shall be closed from one half (1/2) hour after sunset to one half (1/2) hour before sunrise; ( the Park known as Shaw Millennium Park which shall be open to the public twenty-four (24) hours a day; and © where otherwise designated by the Director pursuant to this Bylaw. (2) (a) No Person shall enter or remain in a Park when it is closed to the public; ( No Person shall enter or remain in an area of a Park which is closed to the public. Most cities in North America have similar Rules and Bylaws. Not trying to be snide. Just trying to steer you in the right direction. Happy caching!

Well, my friend, first of all, "sour grapes" is a term that is generally intended for the loser of a competition. I neither consider this to be a competion, nor myself the loser, if it were one. I also don't sense a single sour grape within myself or in my responses to you. Thanks to the several of you that have vocally supported me in that. I may, however, have the last word here, no matter how tempted I am to lay low and chuckle at the fact that you and your own ego had it. You came here spewing fire and brimstone about how something needs to be done about all these caches that you didn't find that just have to be missing. My first reply to you was (in part), "To my way of thinking, I would probably only post a Needs Maint log (if the log was like paper mache)" Sorry I was so condescending in that reply. My bad. Next, I asked the perfectly logical question, "I want to ask you how it is that you know that the caches were missing? Because you didn't find them?" If you don't find a cache, you obviously have no idea if it is missing or just very well hidden. That is a reasonable and commonly asked question here, and is not "condescending" in the least. Your reply included one, and only one cache. Your original post referred to a "rash". I replied to that with, "I thought you were referring to a glut of geocaches, not just one. Is this really all about just one single cache?" Did I not have perfectly good reason to ask that question? You gave me one example, not a "rash", and you didn't even state that it was only one of many. A cache with no more complaints than a single wet log complaint, at that. At this point, you begin to complain that I have gone off-topic because I asked for some better examples that we could look at. You begin to complain about regretting that you asked. You still haven't given me, or any of us, enough information to answer your original question, for Pete's sake!!! Finally... FINALLY... you provide some concrete examples. Three of them, to be exact. I took my time to take a look at all three of them and to post my opinions about each circumstance. That took some time, my friend. My replies did not go against your complaints about cache maintenance... in fact, in two of the three cases, I suggested that you email the cache owner, and if you didn't get satisfaction, that you then post a NA log. I'm guessing that I spend a good half-hour of my time trying to give you a fair answer. I don't know what more you want except for somebody to pander to your complaint that we have a "GC owner's maitenance" issue. I think, from what you eventually posted after all my "off-topic" and "condescending posts" does indicate that two of the three examples you posted may indeed have issues, and I offered suggestions on how you might deal with those. Until now, I have not yet mentioned one thing about your own attitude. I think this is the third time in a week that I agree with Knowschad. Hell will now freeze over and pigs will fly, but when someone is right, they are right.

You honestly think that would be appropriate? Really? Seriously? (edited to remove non related annoying picture) Not too sure about a beer exchange cache but why are adult only caches considered so wrong by some? I'm not talking about porn or drugs... just things that adults might like to exchange? They could be placed....err.... nm... found the flaw in my thinking when I realized that the caches could be found by ANYONE, including muggling children. First time I have changed my mind mid-post... decided to finish it just to celebrate the moment.

AWESOME!!! That quote should be engraved in a bronze plaque. Thank you. Perfect explaination of how some of us feel. Yeah, toss a film can with a scrap of paper inside underneath a spruce tree and forget about it... OK... "TFTC" is probably an equal trade. But buy a lock 'n lock or ammo can, spend $20 on swag, a few bucks on gas looking for just the right place to hide it, an hour or two working up an enticing cache page, spending a few hours or days doing cache maintenance when you would rather be finding caches... "TFTC" is tipping a penny for great service and to my way of thinking, is selfish and extremely rude. I couldn't agree more. That pretty much sums it up for me.

Feb 12/2010.

Oh... I thought you meant you wanted to find 350 caches over the weekend!!! You plan to find 2 caches in a four day weekend? I think that with careful planning, you can probably do that. Why? Why what? Your post made it seem that 2 caches per weekend didn't live up to your standards. There is no way to detect sarcasm via words and yours seemed rude and condescending. If I am wrong then I am sorry. If not, then please do not try to derail a serious discussion that I think is important.(no smiley added)

Wow,... is that ever insulting. Seriously. I saw it coming but thought well... nm... I didn't mean to insult anyone?? I guess my poor attempt at humor was just that... poor... My apologies. Like I said, I saw it coming. You apologized and that's good enough for me. We shall never speak of this again. (unless I make the same mistake(which is likely))

I'm pretty sure that a LEO does not follow the guidelines of GS and it reflects badly on all of us. I would like to see how you feel different?

Oh... I thought you meant you wanted to find 350 caches over the weekend!!! You plan to find 2 caches in a four day weekend? I think that with careful planning, you can probably do that. Why?

yep I reckon the Rat was keen on taking the toys - my next cache should have some lovely surprises for the next rats!!!! ...now that will solve a few problems..... Careful, that sounds like you might be threatening to leave it booby trapped? Without knowing more info, we can't tell what happened and can only assume that it very well could have been moved by rodents. Quite leaving Cheese as swag. I had the same problem. Gouda you to post this thread. "gouda".... brilliant... A bit cheesy but still brilliant!

Wow,... is that ever insulting. Seriously. I saw it coming but thought well... nm...