tands

I can't believe nobody's posted our favorite standby, the acorn. - T of TandS

Yes, I guess I'm an oversensitive zealont and I can only speak for myself, not S, but we use geocaching for many good purposes. For instance, we introduce bereaved families to geocaching to help with their grief. I take it personally when Wired thinks it is a good joke to do the equivalent of 'the paper bag on fire' to me or any of my fellow cachers. Also, here in South Carolina, we've fought a hard battle to make geocaching respectable. We've gotten state agencies and the parks systems on board as partners. The mere mention of the word geocaching in the same sentence as the word prank would not be well received. If Wired magazine thinks I'm worth the trouble to target some more, so be it. I'll just speak for myself and stress that it's my own opinion. Respectfully, - T of TandS

Here's what I'm sending to Wired: Dear Sir or Madam, As a fan of your magazine for years, I am very upset that your magazine promotes interfering with the activity of geocaching. This is an activity for tech-savvy families who would seem to be your target audience. I've regularly purchased Wired at the newstand and actively accessed your web content nearly every day for years, but in light of this article, I've decided to stop visiting your site and purchasing Wired magazine. In addition, I plan to contact your advertisers, as well as GPS receiver and other consumer electronics manufacturers, to make them aware of both your lack of editorial citizenship and also my avoidance of your print and digital publications. With regret,

The geocaching activities at Camp New Horizons went fantastically today. We really want to thank all the cachers who came and helped make the world brighter for some children dealing with tragedy. Thank you Miki, CR, Hologram21, Sciencenerd, Skillet, and javelinmania for what proved to be heroic cat-herding skills. The success of the geocaching activity at this camp has the Childrens' Hospital thinking about ways to add geocaching to the already-too-full schedules of their other camps. The help these cachers gave through their time and effort makes the world a better place, and secondly, shows what kind of people geocachers are. - TandS

Here in the Midlands of SC, we often have 'after-event-caches' after our Midlands Geoholics Meetings that attendees can go for the FTF. We usually submit these caches for approval before the event along with a note asking the reviewer not to publish the cache until after the event date. Most of these caches will have 10 or 15 finds before they are officially published. If you've never got an FTF and want one, just come to one of our Midlands Geoholics Meetings! - T of TandS

I forget that every time!!! - T of TandS

I broke my ankle Saturday. Look for some new Terrain 1 hides in the Midlands of South Carolina! - T of TandS

Dear Cachers, Last year, Jon and Miki organized a group of cachers to help children attending Camp New Horizons participate in geocaching as part of the camp activities. It was the best thing associated with geocaching we've ever experienced. Sadly, Jon passed away this year. But we're honored to announce that Palmetto Health Childrens' Hospital was so impressed by last year's geocaching activities that they want to offer it again this year as part of the Camp New Horizons activities. We're coordinating with the camp organizers, so details besides the date of the activity are still being finalized, but volunteers will be needed to help with this event. Experience with using GPS units as well as herding cats is very helpful. Only those willing to be blessed by the miracle of children forgetting their burden of sorrow should volunteer! Again, the event details are being firmed up, but I'm posting Jon's eloquent request from last year below: "A while back the SCGA was contacted regarding starting a geocaching-based team building exercise for the summer camps that the Palmetto Health Cancer Center runs for kids in South Carolina. Palmetto Health runs several camps for kids and families. Camp Kemo is one, it's a week-long camp for kids with cancer or their siblings. Camp New Horizons is a weekend camp for kids who have lost a sibling to help them handle bereavement. There are several other camps, but I don't know much about those yet. The trial run of geocaching as a camp activity will be happening on the morning of Saturday, October 20th at Camp New Horizons (Camp Kinard) near Batesburg/Leesville. If the exercise works well, geocaching activities will be included as part of the other camp's activities. There will be 6 groups in all making cache runs this time, so I'm hoping to have 6 geocachers to provide tech support to the counsellors with each group - you know, making sure the kids are pointing at the right cache, changing batteries, stuff like that. We've provided some training to the camp counsellors already, but they will still will need some support until they get some real-world experience. I know many of the readers of this forum are located too far away from the camp to help, but I thought I'd ask here anyway. We've already got 3 geocachers helping out for sure so far, but I'm looking for 3 more so assistance can be close at hand for each group if there are any problems. If you can spare the morning to help out, please email me and I'll fill you in on the rest of the details. Thanks Jon" Please email us if you want to help out this year. This is a rare opportunity to truly make the world better. Travis and Stephanie ie TandS

Wow, poor Team Misguided! I bet your name was the key to becoming a Volunteer Reviewer... Groundspeak is always on the hunt for willing victims to inflict reviewer duties on. We're not in your region, but we still want to say Thank You For Your Help And Service in the often criticized and rarely publicly praised job of Volunteer Reviewer. You folks hang the Geocaching Moon! Regards, - T of TandS Columbia, SC

Any nightcaches on the East Coast of the US? The Midlands of SC has at least one, Firefly, that we placed. It was inspired by the excellent but sadly now archived The Vulchers Are Watching. Nitecachin rocks! - T of TandS

Now, I have to say that geocaching is the most expensive hobby we've come across, timewise that is. We love doing it so much, that we spend the only thing in life that is worth anything, time, on it like we're drunken sailors. Best part tho, is that S and I do it together. The most funnest thing we do, vertical or otherwise! - T of TandS

Hi, I'm dufous. I would say about 15-20. There is another 5 that I keep files on. Of course you are! - T

The thing is, it didn't really affect us until we had some car repair costs and some medical costs in a short period. Then all of a sudden it seemed like gas for caching was an extravagant luxury. - T of TandS

But that's just us and one other... - T of TandS, ie T(ravis)andS(tephanie).

Well heck, There's knucklehead, ding-dong, and dufous, just to name a couple local heros. - T of TandS

We are really getting laid low by the cost of fuel for the geo-lopy. Just whining. - T of TandS

Thanks for clarifying. To each his own is a good philosophy. I was impressed at the creativity (and agenda, conforming to my 'opinion' which I know isn't shared by all) of this cache. It impressed me as being an above average take on the agenda cache, and we couldn't wait to log it. But of course that's not for everybody. - T of TandS

Yes, small Eires, it would sure be nice to 'ignore' all LPCs, except that many times the usual clues revealing lameness are missing, so you can't ignore them blanket style. But that would be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, wouldn't it? - T of TandS

The hider says you have a month even AFTER you log it to get rid of your past sins. - T of TandS

This new cache in our area is a very creative and good idea: Promise Me - T of TandS

True, 1 and 1.5 stars caches are most easily found with the sat, but 3, 4 and 5 D hides often submit even more easily, since they rely on smarts more than gps position. I wouldn't, recommend trying anything tougher than a 2 difficulty even with a GPS until you get cocky enough to handle not finding caches. If you're really lucky, you'll discover the transcendent joy of a properly logged DNF. - T of TandS

MVillian is a most excellent hider, true, true. But our favorite hider in the Midlands, though not actively sticking out new caches, is Team Hikerman. His caches, the best of which are unfortunately now archived, are by far our favorite caches ever. - T of TandS

Hi, We had our GPS stole at Christmas, and have found a couple dozen since and only one of them was with a GPS. We go to www.flashearth.com and use the multiple maps it gives you. You highlight the coords on the cache page, press CTRL-C to copy them to the clipboard. Then at flashearth, you click in the coordinates box and press CTRL-V to paste the Groundspeak coords in. Then click the search button and bingo, you're looking at the site. We call this Sat-Caching, and love doing it. When you do this, you are taking out half the uncertainty of caching. You only have the error of the hider's GPS to account for. You just have to get good at using Sat/Aerial views of landmarks to figure out where the cache is. - T of TandS

When we hide, we really work hard to make the hide good. What's funny is that another cacher with gozillion finds once told us that until we have 1000 finds we don't know how to hide a cache. Of course, we blew off that comment. And that cacher's own hides, well... (invokes Thumper rule) So, if you like to hide, hide. If you don't like to hide, don't. Just take some time before you make that new hide to think through your cache. Is it good? Will it hold up? Can you maintain it? It usually takes us at least one or two months from conceiving a cache idea until placement. - T of TandS

This is true if the source does not say that content is the copyright of the publisher and may not be republished without express written permission. The source is a newspaper, and does say that permission is required. You may only quote news sources, you may not publish them in entirety, with attribution in research and academic documents. Groundspeak Forums is not such a place. - T of TandS