tands

The Winners! Jon and Miki and all their friends who love them and voted for them. - T of TandS

In the General Geocaching Section El-D is gifting a walking stick to a geocacher who is deemed to be nothing but good news. Jon and Miki are finalists!! Yay them. Go here: Finalists and How To Vote Scroll down to El D's finalist list for instructions and finalists... And vote for your choice, Jon and Miki if you really do know what really is good for you! - T of TandS

I just d-l'd Trimble to my BB7520. Holy agent of darkness Batman! Sif chipset in my BB gets coord lock in 5 secs cold! Marked parking spot sitting in car, went to store, bought pop, go-to'd my parking spot, drove back to work, drinking pop, BB guided me back to spot and zeroed out at 1'. My 60Cs is on the floorboard now. I told it I wasn't sending it to the Island of Misfit GPSRs. I stll loved it. Must...resist....buying.....app....resistance....futile.... - T of TandS

Also, as another poster stated, DNFs are funny. Chicks dig funny dudes. Dudes dig funny chicks. So in a way the survival of the species depends on the eventual outcome of logging DNFs. - T of TandS

Another way to look at DNFs... Logging DNFs gives you credibility. If you log a DNF each visit saying 'I am so clueless' or 'muggles guarding treasure' then when you log a 'maybe it's missing' DNF you already have lots of credibility as a DNF Authority. This works for me (not S!) - T of TandS

But if I have failed to communicate how obvious choosing Jon and Miki should be, I have to also recognize Clyde. I thank Clyde every single day. Thank you Clyde. - T of TandS

Duh! Oh Yeah... Jon and Miki's cache hides Rock! - T of TandS

For us lucky enough to live in South Carolina and know Jon and Miki there's really no contest. This pair of cachers has used geocaching to touch more lives in profound ways than I ever thought could be possible by working with the Palmetto Childrens Hospital here in Columbia, SC to create geocaching activities for children and their siblings suffering from all sorts of terrible illnesses. I've personally seen children get the gift of childhood back for a short time thanks to Jon and Miki. This is confirmed by astounded and grateful caregivers and parents: One example of the miracle brought by Jon and Miki's use of geocaching to bring grace and healing is in this thread: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=147704 And for those of us who are just plain mercenary in SC, Jon and Miki rescued geocaching here in SC almost singlehandedly by working tirelessly with the SC State Archeologist to verify and confirm that geocaching is a benefit in every way to South Carolina. This effort of education, ambassadorship, coordination and selfless dedication revealed the fallacy of the attempted geocaching ban legislation in South Carolina. With the help of Pyewacket, Sissy and CR, Heidi, Tin Sparrow, Overcached, llatnek, Geoholic28, The Commissar, Parrolet, Llenyaw and many others, Jon and Miki took the high road and demonstrated in an unmistakable way that geocachers are positive contributors to the citizens of the state. There's no way to reward Jon and Miki enough for how much they've done for geocachers and many more folks, but a nice hiking stick (or two, give them mine if they are chosen since they're a twofer) would be a shadow of a ghost of a hint of a start. If you don't like TandS blame Jon and Miki. They're our role model. - T of TandS

I use my blackberry also, but prefer the full site over the wap version. I just scale my fonts all the way down as small as possible and don't load images. This way there's a lot less clicking on 'next page' links. - T of TandS

We have three that we're pretty proud of: Ferocity and Cache Ewww Too and last but not least Scrambled - T of TandS

Actually, you can make your own waterproof paper in no time. In an open and well-ventilated area do the following: Lay out your sheets of paper on top of some newspaper. Spray them lightly with clear acrylic or better yet epoxy spray paint. Wait 5 minutes to dry. Flip them over and spray them lightly again. Wait 5 minutes to dry. Another coat if you're going to leave them continuously immersed. The 'nano-particles' are of course the paint molecules binding with the paper fiber. This home-brewed waterproof paper has held up great in our caches. Sometimes log entries written in pen will run a tiny bit when the log gets wet, but the paper never dies. In fact, there is a type of sailboat called the Australian 18 Skiff that is one of the fastest small sailing monohulls in the world. They race them in Sydney Harbor, and the races are followed by gambling boats full of spectators betting on the outcomes of each race like horse races. These 18 foot boats are usually made by laying cardboard out in a mold, placing carbon-fiber stringers and ribs on top of the cardboard, and spraying the whole thing down with epoxy resin. Then the boat-builder squeegees the extra resin off the cardboard leaving only the amount of resin the cardboard can absorb. When the hull sets up it's painted so you never know it's basicly reinforced paper. These boats sail at speeds up to 30 miles per hour and only weigh about 300 pounds with all the rigging and trapeze racks and everything. The hull-only wieght is often under 200 pounds for an 18 foot extreme performance boat. Obviously I didn't invent my technique! - T of TandS

Oops, I meant Hologram21. - T of TandS

Helping with this camp and seeing the kids lose themselves in the joy of geocaching was the most fun we've ever had with while geocaching. This event and others like it, run by the Palmetto Childrens Hospital, are a chance for anyone lucky enough to volunteer to bring Heaven to the world. Jon and Miki organized the geocaching activity for the campers, placing 9 incredibly devious and fun caches for the kids to find. Geocachers who participated include but aren't limited to ScienceNerd, Hologram13, CR of Sissy and CR, TandS, and last but not least, the Evil Llatnek. Thanks also goes out to Magellan who donated 9 GPS units for the camp to keep and use in the future. Also Hologram13 and CR drove 90 minutes to 2 hours each way to help with this. There just aren't many folks more gracious than that these days, but Jon and Miki might qualify. This event was held at the Kinard Conference Center in Central Southern SC. We arrived at 10am just as llatnek drove up. Soon CR pulled into the parking lot checking his coordinates and checking in with Sissy. ScienceNerd who up until then had been a ghost of a shadow of an enigma to us arrived and we geeked out over some science. Hologram13 arrived just before Jon and Miki who carried the trove of donated new GPS units. John Tate of the Lexington County Sheriff's Department helps out at all of these camps, and drove up in his Mule wearing a bandanna around his head like a 'Heaven's Angel' and accompanied by two other sheriffs department volunteers. Jon and Miki had spent most of the previous day with the camp counselors placing 9 incredible caches and marking the coordinates with perfect accuracy. After a short strategy session the geocacher volunteers proceeded to the geocaching activity start area, a natural ampitheater beside one of the camp's lakes. The campers arrived in a hay wagon, poured out into the ampitheater, and turned into a cloud of kid-chaos. In no time Jon showed his expertise in herding cats and had the kids organized and off searching for treasure. The campers were natural geocachers, and they even shared the GPS units. S and I were amazed at the creative hides used for the caches, and the children were astounded and hooked by having one of the best introductions to geocaching possible. Afterwards the camp invited us to stay and share a great lunch. We felt like we were truly part of the happiness there. Jon and Miki really came through for a group of children living through one of life's greatest pains. These kids forgot all their troubles for the time they spent seeking treasure. And speaking for ourselves, the geocachers who volunteered were blessed to participate. - T of TandS

Also, how about micros hidden inside a much larger piece of camo artwork. In this case it may be a bison tube inside a carefully halved and rejoined log. Searching for these is the height of caching to many, and caches of this type, while micros, are not classified by the phrase 'you are looking for a bison tube.' Since the artificial hiding rig is sometimes quite large it seems that micro might not even fit this category even though you better bring your own pen! See what comes from splitting hairs? - T of TandS

Not Enough Micros? I love micros very much. They are much more challenging and usually leave less of a mark on the environment. Long Live Gozillion Micros! - T of TandS

Hi All, The night cache links posted so far in this thread are excellent. If anyone has others they can post I would appreciate it so much! - T of TandS

Also this Cobra outperforms my Garmin 60CS in keeping 2000 log points. -T

I'd buy one of these in a heartbeat if I had the money. We always need spare PC-compatible units for events. These units also take an SD card. I wish I had the dough right now. Sure most cachers don't like them, but I've used them at events for groups like the scouts and they've worked fine. - T of TandS

I think we all pretty much agree that it's no fun to have a dog we don't know jump on us, sometimes that happens, and it can be embarrassing and sometimes dangerous but usually not, and that dogs are part of life no matter where we are, and that dog owners never intentionally mean for their dogs to bother others and try to go to safe places to let them run, and sometimes people over-react and we all are guilty of that, and the best thing is to try to be forgiving and understanding even if we feel others are under or over-reacting. I hope we all agree that we're brothers and sisters and sometimes we hurt eachother a little or a lot but very few of us intend to. I wish I could always remember to take a deep breath whenever I should! - T of TandS

Hellooo EMTJMW!!!!

Sissy, your CR made me cry! But really, I'm with CR on this one. - T of TandS

I also agree that this might be the best thing to happen. But I hate that police would have to deal with this, if the facts are as stated, when they have more important things to do. - T of TandS

I agree. This is especially true since people steal traffic and road signs all the time at great expense to various road and highway maintenance departments. - T of TandS

I love dogs and have been owned by them for most of my life, but I've been bitten pretty severely by dogs that I didn't know whom I thought were friendly as they approached me. You should never assume that an approaching dog you don't know will be friendly. That's a very dangerous thing to do. And as far as millions of years of evolution are concerned, that's a good reason to be wary around dogs you don't know. - T of TandS

What an incredible tale of woe and redemption! The pictures of the trail are gorgeous and your dog Geoffrey is a looker. Thanks for sharing the link to your excellent FTF! We've had a couple of FTFs that were a matter of principle also. One in particular was I'll Seek a Readier Path but that quest was not as beautiful as yours. - T of TandS