Opalblade

While it is excellent advice that veterans be patient with newbies as they learn; I feel you are greatly overgeneralizing. The caches that were hidden as examples of bad caches for newbies actually sounds really funny in theory hehe, and yes I would have thought so when I was a newbie too - but what a pity the CO didn't do it in a fun tongue in cheek way (though that may have been perceived as offensive anyway). The minefield cache owner's comment was definitely snide. It sounds like a good thing that he archived his cache - if he was too lazy to change the coords then he was probably too lazy to do maintenance, assuming of course that the coords really were off. It may be that he or she is simply planning to move the cache further away from the minefield and the distance is so far that archiving was necessary. But two veteran cachers is not all that many people to assume that all of them have a condescending attitude. My experience in my area has been that almost all of the veteran cachers are thrilled to have more people participating, especially if they help the community by placing caches and plan events, and do what they can to answer questions and get them introduced around. Now if you are a big forum lurker you may get a skewed view of the majority veteran mentality. There are some snarky veterans on these forums that sometimes forget they were once new, have no patience for frequent topics being revisited and have an obsessive need to read every thread I suppose that would get tiresome I am happy to see that the general tone of the forums is much improved over how it was late last year Though I may have missed some of the action these past few weeks I've been distracted by all those things I neglected in my first few addicted months of geocaching

I'm in the Austin suburbs with a 15 mile radius. This time of year I'm usallly seeing anywhere from 1 to 3 most days of the week, but not all

Ooo it would be fun coming up with (innocent-looking) names for caches placed nearby

I feel your pain - I placed my third cache too close to a disabled cache that I couldn't see on my iPhone. Then I moved it but was working in very tight quarters and accidentally put it 30 or 50 feet (can't remember which) too close to another one when I wandered what I thought was just a little tiny bit from a safe distance. That second time was very disappointing because my four little boys had spent a long long time helping me to gather things to create a natural looking cover for the cache. They were so disappointed when they found out I had to move it again - in fact they refused to come with me that third time :/ But that said, there was really noone to blame - hmm well except maybe the cache owners who had had their cache disabled for several months Noone at Groundspeak was to blame anyway In your situation I think it's very unreasonable and too strong of language for you to say "how the hell" were you to know about the premium member cache. You aren't supposed to know about the premium member cache because you're not paying for a premium membership, though it seems there are workarounds I wasn't aware of. Why not solve your problem by paying for a premium membership? You have a relatively small amount of finds over your several years of geoccaching, but even so $30 seems fair for several hours of entertainment, it's what most of us pay to have a dinner out or go see a movie with our spouse. Maybe your family is on a very tight budget and $5/mo of entertainment would cut into groceries or some other vital bill. But if not consider getting your premium membership - there are great perks, beyond the satisfaction of keeping the hobby alive and well and profitable for those that run it

Yes but only one per day

How bizarre; I just found a sig item that said Tuit on one side and 2it on the other but it seems like it's from a Texan. Did go see if you had been in the area last week

Looks painful to me I did a series of 29 once along a highway and that was enough to give my caching buddy and I both huge headaches It might be different if it's a very quiet rural highway but cars zooming by while I cache is not my idea of fun.

I've been thinking about getting one of these for terrain 3's on up. I've been eyeballing this one on Amazon, fairly well reviewed and price is right. Probably won't use it enough to warrant getting a really pricey one. How important is shock absorption? http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...MX&v=glance

I've only had one hide out of twelve have bad coordinates when hiding with my iPhone. It was a very overcast day with thick tree cover and I will confess that I did not take multiple readings like I normally do b/c it was freezing and I was in a hurry. Was 106 feet off. That's the only one I've had to correct. One other time where there was very thick tree cover I borrowed a friend's eTrex to be safe But generally things go well. I'll turn the app completely off, then go to find nearest geocaches, navigate to to get the compass and take the position it gives me for myself. Then rinse and repeat until I'm happy with my numbers.

That may provide a bit of protection for at least one step of the journey Do you have the coin in a ziploc with an explanation of what geocoins are? That would help too

I do have to throw in a defense for playground hides. My mom friends and I LOVE playground caches because we can look at them while our kiddos run around on the playground. If it's one that takes a lot of concentration we'll take turns looking. I have a micro hidden by a playground. I actually wanted to hide something bigger but there was just no cover at all (it took me an hour just to figure out a good placement for my micro). Finders without children simply look for it at times that there aren't children playing. I can see where it would be annoying if you are trying to keep an area clear and you have to come back later, but just think of how excited mom cachers are to have the opportunity to get a cache while their children are so effortlessly entertained

Teeheeeheee!! And you look so... so... innocent!! LOL! Additionally, all of those micros had an obvious agenda: Help me celebrate my 35th birthday and were abandoned for the community and reviewer to sort out. They weren't abandoned. They were asked to be removed by the communitty. You have no idea what things transpired in my life at the time, so please don't make judgements. I guess I could have just archived them all and left a pile of trash out there. Plus that was 5 years ago...let it go. I think the only reason that you are seeing some judgmental responses is that your OP was a bit judgmental about a particular cache size that many of us have hidden. (not that yours is the first judgmental post about micros by a long shot!) By stating that all micro caches deserve a lame log puts many of us on the defense. SO then the simple answer is ..yes it would be rude. Yes, "Found it" and nothing else looks rude to me. Now if you add a smiley it looks great, watch: Found it

Very close analogy. Welcome to my world. As far as being "above" that sort of behavior, I would guess that the vast majority of geocachers are. However, there's still that knuckle dragging small percentage who would feel perfectly justified in confronting this guy, visiting violence upon his life because the courts failed to render a verdict which the knuckle dragger felt was in line with justice. This guy intentionally targeted a group with a whole bunch of members. As smart as he is, he has to know that some of his victims are not very enlightened. If I was in his shoes, I would be afraid. Alright... time for everybody to post a picture of their knuckles!! I'm clean. Disclaimer - that's not really me

You say that like it's a bad thing. I've learned over time that my own highly biased caching aesthetic cannot be applied to other cachers. The things that I detest will be enjoyed by many. Posting a log that stated words to the effect of, "What a crappy cache. The location was uninspired. The hide technique was an absolute creativity vacuum. The container totally sucked. I hated it", would not stop, or even remotely stem the flow of future finders, who will come along and sing its praises. The folks who like the kinds of caches I dislike are not impacted by negative logs on cache pages. I suspect they mean that you would help the community by simply saying: Found the cache with a soggy log Ok you probably wouldn't put the sad face but it looked so negative without it

Sigh, hubby keeps throwing away the peanut butter containers. Why does he always make the last pbj???

I would consider it inconsiderate if you purposefully left out only micros, particularly since that is all you have ever hidden yourself. As a cache owner I'm disappointed when I read a "Found it" or "TFTC" log, because I put extra effort into most of my containers and cache descriptions. I like to hear a little something about my particular cache, not just where they and their family/friends had lunch. If I had a film canister in an LPC however, I'm fairly certain it would all be "Found it" and "TFTC" and "Thanks for the PnG" unless something particularly unusual happened while the person was lifting the skirt. As a finder, I do try my best to come up with something to say. In fact I very recently found two LPC's and made a comment about not having realized there were caches in that shopping center. Not very exciting but I hate to JUST say TFTC When assume things...etc. I actually have hidden many caches that aren't micros, but by using other usernames. Also, the micro's that I hid under this name were special because 35 new caches all released on one day in one town was a big deal in 2004. Lastly, I have learned a lot since then, and feel I am allowed to change my opinion. I have noticed that in the middle of our regional parks people are hiding micro's along the trails. It just seems like they could have made a slightly greater effort to hide a cache worth finding. I know, I know, some micros are worth finding, but I hope you get what I mean. psst...whats a LPC...it's been a while and I don't recognize the term. An LPC is a lamp post cache. My apologies for posting wrong information but we have no way of knowing you have multiple accounts. Do know I showed great restraint in my post because like someone else has now pointed out, I also discovered that you had a great deal of abandoned caches (of various sizes come to find out) and that is a pet peeve of mine. That said, I didn't want to assume that you were in a position to adopt out or care for your caches at that time. You never know what someone has gone through. My thinking is that you should express your gratitude to all cache owners who have not only hidden a cache (even little ones take some time and effort) but are also maintaining it and eagerly opening up their email to read the latest log on their cache I'm with you on the micros along park trails making me sad. I cache with up to four of my small children and a perfect day for us is finding a nice park full of swag-capable caches

That's why I come here. Why do you? Most forums pretty much fit that description. This forum ain't got nuttin' on Usenet. I just come for the donuts, and to inject some degree of strangeness into everyone's day. Donuts! I need to start logging on earlier

His larst couple of caches where events. Ouch! Those meat ants look VERY unpleasant. And they're huge! The photo is to scale of course.

I play World of Warcraft and as I'm running around I'll occasionally see a nice big hidey spot created between a bush and a tree or a tree and a rock wall and I catch myself thinking, "Ooo that would be a good place for a hide". Way too immersive

I would consider it inconsiderate if you purposefully left out only micros, particularly since that is all you have ever hidden yourself. As a cache owner I'm disappointed when I read a "Found it" or "TFTC" log, because I put extra effort into most of my containers and cache descriptions. I like to hear a little something about my particular cache, not just where they and their family/friends had lunch. If I had a film canister in an LPC however, I'm fairly certain it would all be "Found it" and "TFTC" and "Thanks for the PnG" unless something particularly unusual happened while the person was lifting the skirt. As a finder, I do try my best to come up with something to say. In fact I very recently found two LPC's and made a comment about not having realized there were caches in that shopping center. Not very exciting but I hate to JUST say TFTC

Guys this is this member's first post ever, not that everyone isn't deserving of politeness but could we please be constructive and kind when expressing our opinions?

That does sound very frustrating as you presumably had no way of knowing going in that you would have to drive 40 miles However if the mileage was in the cache description I would consider it similar to any cache that takes a long time to get to but that you feel is worth it for the view/exercise/etc It doesn't sound like that was the case though. As to your suggestion, there are some multi-caches where the steps are not a cache (coordinates might be written on a rock for example) so technically a cache wouldn't have been found. The way it's currently set up allows wiggle room for a little creativity. It IS nice when a multi is set up as several caches you find and then a mystery cache with finding them all as the requirement. But really a different kind of animal since you have the coordinates for all right off the bat.

Thank you will do

Thank you for sharing your photos Very neat I've GOT to get something new. I'm currently using a backpack, which is great...until I have to bushwhack somewhere - then I get strung up on branches like a marionette. My stuff would definitely not fit in that little bag though :/ I cache with multiple small children so have to bring some extras I might take a peek at the one posted a bit lower in the thread.

Thank you for the tip