Opalblade

Thank you I'm unsure of our group dynamic at this point but we may end up being a girl only group hence the edit

Two or three of us will be in Vegas for a convention soon and carless so was hoping to possibly find some kind female tour guides in the area .

What difference would it make? It's not like you are allowed to 'boo' while viewing a trial. Sad puppy dog eyes and geocacher tshirts might help. Or your avatar. Who could deny those eyes and happy feet? I was going for sneaky tiptoeing (a la ninja) but I can see how you could get dancing Buttercup is the quick tempered Powerpuff Girl who thinks violence is always the best solution. See her vicious glare? Looking forward to hearing how this plays out.

OW

Did some caching this weekend with a caching buddy sans kiddos. We went after some terrain 3's and on my way to a particular cache a cypress tree stabbed me just above the knee with two huge splinters (about 1 1/2 inches long). I could see the splinters sticking out of my jeans so I yanked them out and thought I was done with the whole thing but as I kept walking towards GZ I quickly realized that the splinters had broken inside my jeans. I limped on to GZ yelping all the way. I guess I sounded pretty pathetic b/c my caching buddy announced she would stand guard so I could take care of my little problems. Fortunately the cache was tucked into a steep rock wall so I had cover from that direction, but I was up on a hill and there was a trail about 100 feet downhill. So down went the jeans and it took me a nice long while to get the splinters (mostly) out. There was still a good quarter inch sticking out of each one. I was thinking all of these things: "Please let no one come walking along the trail" "I HATE cypress trees" (I'd already done a good bit of whining about them during the caching trip and on many other previous caching trips) "I'm so glad I wore a long hoodie" "I'm so glad it's a warm winter day" So anyone else ever get attacked by plants or trees or bugs and have to strip down in an unseemly way while caching?

I LOVE them!! They're SOOO super cute I would be really happy to find one in a cache Lol on the time spent in craft store funny Did you bake those? It looks like you used plastic coated wire but wouldn't that be bad in the oven?

"These blinkies look very attractive and exciting in dark." Ok my curiosity overtook me and I did the image google search for "belly button jewelry" Don't do it - just don't do it. Off to bleach my eyes out too now. Why didn't I listen! Edit - typo - I blame the bleach in my eyes

What difference would it make? It's not like you are allowed to 'boo' while viewing a trial. Sad puppy dog eyes and geocacher tshirts might help.

From reading logs and my own personal experiences, whether it's a FTF or not, my impression is that geocachers here in the Austin area almost always join forces to find caches together. I love bumping into other geocachers It's happened five , oh wait no, six times so far in my few months of caching. I'm starting to lose count already. My most recent one was when I went after five new caches. I bumped into two cachers who had already found a few and hadn't found two (a third cacher had already gone home). They joined me in looking for one of their two DNF's. We had no luck. One of the cachers had been there four times - once alone, then another cacher joined them, then another cacher joined them, then after one left the remaining two looked with me. Then after they left two more cachers came and I watched them look for the earlier cachers' first DNF, and then joined them in looking for the second DNF. Turns out they hadn't been put out yet, woops But was a lot of fun nonetheless, and the other three caches WERE there

What are these made of? Probably my "fuzzy" eyes, but they look like leather? It's wood. They sell bags of flat wood shapes at Michaels. They've been great to practice on and figure out what kind of inks/paints work well on wood

Sweet. Good thing the police had some spare time

Here are the ones I've come up with. My photo came out really blurry but they are basically hearts with a katana, "opalblade" written in cursive, then one of three types of shiruken and sometimes the year or tftc in cursive (in which case the year is on the back). I started playing around with incorporating the color red but liked just the black and silver the best. I wanted to get circles but they were all out when I went to Michaels and being the impatient type I grabbed hearts, also eyeballed the squares. Figured these could be a "I loved your cache" kind of thing. They will likely all be a little different, drawings and shape - more fun for me The hearts feel a bit cheesy but have been great to try different things on.

People always refer to the Texas reviewer as "Prime" (short for Prime Reviewer) so I assumed all the real cacher names of the reviewers were a secret. Was always curious who Prime Reviewer's cacher name was and where he/she was located. Does that vary, do some have secret identities?

I'm sorry you lost your friend Sending prayers up for friends and family.

Reread the original post - you have your facts wrong. The cache owner George put the FTF prize in his cache and there is no reason to believe it was only b/c he saw others doing it. It seems reasonable he wanted to reward the FTF his cache after publication. I liked Bittsen's proposed acronym FTFAPOGC - maybe a wee shorter though? FTFAPG BOB, the friend of the cache owner is the one who both told the OP there would be a FTF opportunity soon AND the one who brought in a third person, X, to show him where the cache was before the publish. This third person X signed the log before publish* and then announced that he was the FTF AFTER publish*, therefore lying*. This is where the cheating accusation comes in - why the lying? Either Bob/X didn't want the cache owner to know that Bob took X to the cache before publication and/or Bob/X didn't want their fellow cachers to know that Bob took X to the cache before publication b/c they were very aware of the sub-game being played in their area and that people would be upset. *Assuming the OP had the facts right.

Retrieving it is fine. The cache it is listed in is just an archived cache the coin owner is using to put their missing coins. But grabbing things is fun Ah ok didn't realize that was what they meant by "original cache". I thought it was the cache the coin owner had originally placed it in and it had only been in the hands of two people so far.

First you need to get the coin number so either go back to the cache you dropped it at and get it from there or ask the owner if they have it available. Use ""grab it from somewhere else" to get the ability to drop it in the first cache you first found it in. Then drop it into the cache you first found it in. Then retrieve it from the cache you first found it in. Then drop it into the final cache

Maybe there's a ravine you have to vault over

I understand the logic behind a lot of the comments but in this situation (assuming I have the facts correct): 1/ The CO WAS intending to cater to the FTF game - he left a FTF prize even. 2/ Bob's friend X was dishonest about when they found the cache, saying it was after the publish instead of before. 3/ Why the dishonesty unless Bob knew that it wasn't the CO's intent for people to be able to FTF before publish? 4/ X took the FTF prize - probably not the way the CO intended his FTF prize to be earned. 5/ If Bob knew about the FTF prize and that a subgame was in play in his area that both the CO and the OP enjoyed, why take X out before the publish? Whether or not you like the house rules, the CO presumably plays by them so all the ad nauseam comments about soda pop and it not being an official Groundspeak side game, and the CO could have shared the info or listed it wherever he wanted are irrelevant. And while I'm talking about soda pop - who originally made this comment? B/c it no longer looks witty when spread over multiple posts by multiple posters for multiple arguments In Opalblade world only the original poster of the analogy would be able to say it from now on, and then only in moderation

You have my sympathy - that does sound very frustrating. I'd tell Bob you were disappointed he took Cacher X out to look for it before it published after he got you all pumped for a FTF hunt, but don't be upset at him - he likely didn't realize how excited you were. You've gotten some great advice such as, don't rush out for caches associated with those two from here on out to prevent future disappointment, know that you were FTF in your heart (assuming you were STF), and that it definitely shouldn't skew your view of geocaching, even temporarily. Approach each potential FTF with the assumption that you will be STF and you will be much happier If that really is enough for you to dislike caching maybe you need to step away from it until you get to the point that you'd have to be chained down to be prevented from going after a cache Totally don't understand why people get so excitable when FTF are mentioned Sig items are a side thing some find fun that is not sanctioned by Groundspeak and that many cachers do not enjoy or partake in, but you don't see snarky dismissive comments in those threads.

Some caching websites will send you a free doorprize and of course you would then communicate to the cachers who contributed what. At the event I co organized w a friend Groundspeak's store sent us a lackey coin. Don't forget nametags so people can see at a glance who others are, especially newer cachers. The bingo game seems fun - does anyone have a link? It's a card you have to get a bingo on that has cacher attributes on each square such as "find a cacher who has found caches in five or more states". You could also make up your own

That had to be like finding a long lost relative.

...as well as a barrier to other cachers that want to place an excellent cache, but don't care to do your multi or puzzle cache. I'm afraid that I can't agree with that bit of wisdom, although the basic logic makes sense. In my short time caching I've done both excellent puzzles and an excellent multi The bigger caches had lots of excellent swag and the containers had been there for years. Of course, also enjoyed by a much smaller subset of cachers.

I definitely want to pick up some baggies, great tip Tried the dremel engraving on metal thing today. I definitely don't have the patience required. I am even more in awe of aniyn's sig items now I ordered one of those metal stamp sets so will be using that for now - no freehand for me. Reminds me of career week back in high school. At the time I wanted to be a paleontologist so I got placed at The South African Museum in Cape Town (where my family was living at the time) with a bio-geologist to oversee me. He told me the true test of whether I was well suited to paleontology would be if I could carefully unearth a dinosaur skeleton (one of those little chicken ones) out of the stone it was encased in and enjoy it. He handed me a dentist drill and walked away. By the third day that chicken dinosaur skeleton looked like the surface of the moon and I knew I was going to be going in a different career direction PS. The poor bio-geologist tried his best to hide his horror on that third day, and then set me loose on his colleagues for the rest of the time - I wandered around the museum and random people showed me what they were working on and neat things they'd found out in the field.

Huh. That's one way to do it. EDIT: Opalblade, have you looked at pathtags? www.pathtags.com Yipes didn't know about travel bugs had that rule attached to them - I may have skimmed past that part. I love pathtags and may do some at some point but want to try my hand at making my own sig items first. Have a dremel charging up right now and table covered in bits of wood and paint pens, etc Thank you for the thoughts so far. Wow wish I knew how to make a page like Digital Fish's - very very cool.