Chokecherry

What were the complicating factors with the deaths? A tiny percentage of people will have a life threatening illness from the virus. You're more likely too with other factors that affect your immune response. Some people will get sick but the majority have symptoms that are annoying but nothing more. I suspect the rate of west Nile infection is much higher than reported since those with mild symptoms wouldn't seek treatment.

I would volunteer to help Lara croft with anything she needed as well.

I'm still more worried about the other crazy diseases ticks spread (other than lymes) more than west nile.

If you had to pick between two businesses for some goods or services you wanted, and you had the choice between a business owned by 'a friend', and one owned by a stranger which would you pick? Maybe it's just me, but I do feel a kinship with fellow geocachers for some strange reason. If they can provide a service I need, I will pick them every time. If I get 20% off, so much the better. Much like the highly discussed religious tract (advertising a religion, eh?), if you don't care, just ignore it. To me if I don't know the cacher personally they are still a stranger and one I'm much more skeptical of if they feel the need to advertise their business in a cache on top of it. I agree with the other commenter on this that if someone is an actual friend of mine I'd be getting a discount without having to dig a soggy coupon out of a cache. If i have a good or service I need I get the best person for the job not some stranger who happened to cache.

Unless something spectacular is waiting for me I won't make special trips for micros and typically I will avoid micros in the woods and then further avoid micros in the woods that have a hint stating they are in bushes.

how far are we into that site's existence now? I don't see it as that much of a threat to Groundspeak. Tacky with the cross listing but not a huge threat. That being said I have my garmin unit (60csx). I like my garmin. I don't guy new toys unless the old toys break so as long as it's living I won't be financially supporting anyone. And when the time comes to pick a new unit it will be the next little work horse like that regardless of who makes it.

I've seen on micro caches in general. With more and more people putting out micro caches instead of caches that can hold the myraid of trackables floating around people with trackables (I know from my experience) are having more trouble finding spots to put these items. I find it's is particularly problematic where there seems to be a proliferation of micros and nanos for a larger radius.

I like pins and stuff like wooden nickles. I put in lanyards a lot too.

i'm going to guess Waymarking?

You can get a reaction from the vines as well even if there aren't any leaves on them.

We have dangerous animals in our yards here.... I prefer to be out in the woods than having a viewing party of mall parking lots. That's why I go for the caches I go for. There are some inherent dangers to that. But the reward far outweighs the risk.

I looked at the cache page and here is why I wouldn't do it if I was on vacation. It looks more like a puzzle to me. As in if I go to step one I will not get coordinates to step two unless I happen to do the internet work ahead of time. That info is buried in the hint. I would probably also be skeptical if I saw the DNF there about the coordinates for step 1. I would be waiting for another person to find it first. I see you mention you and coworkers watching to see people... I'm, personally, not a fan of doing caches where I'm going to be watched as out in the open as implied in this cache. If I drive up and see an office I or business I typically drive away. It just weirds me out. I'm also a little uncomfortable in general private property caches. It's unclear of the time that I would have put into doing this. Combined with the puzzle that apparently has to be solved that kind of marks it out for me unless I lived right near by. The distance in total I'm going to be covering is unclear too. Generally for multis in the area I do a drive by at first. If the area doesn't look all that interesting or exciting I may just drive by until I'm feeling an extreme need to do a cache and am willing to look past the area.

Ummm no. I like to play baseball. I don't like to play shortstop. So I don't. That doesn't mean I don't play by the rules. But that doesn't mean I have to play every position. And there's plenty of people on the field who want to play shortstop. And not every person is good at every position. Personally I prefer if people like and are good at the positions they are playing instead of playing a position because they feel obligated to.

If my two caches vanish I won't be hiding anymore. I really don't have time to maintain a bunch of caches and find it irresponsible to hide caches if I can't care for them. Also, I only like hiding caches in places I like to go. I won't hide one just for the sake of hiding them in some random spot.

(I hope I got the quote attribution right!) Amen. I always carry a few waterproof logs in my wallet. IMO, there should never be an NM posted because of a wet or full logbook. But that's just my opinion; I know full well it doesn't mesh well with the "I'm entitled to have perfect caches" mindset that appears to be the norm today. I was caching a bit in N.D. today on vacation and took care of a few. There were 2 in which the past 4 or 5 finders were whining about wet, unsignable logs on both and damaged container on one. Of course they all logged Finds on the cache although they didn't sign the log......if I were the CO I'd delete their finds, no-sign, no-find. Finding caches is expensive......it cost me about $4-$5 for each cache I find. If CO's started deleting these no-sign finds the inconsiderate ones may see the light, from a monetary standpoint anyway, and start carrying spare logs. I took care of the two logs and replaced the damaged container as well......why not, I was there....the CO may live 50 miles away. If the entire caching community pitched in on cache maint. instead of whining and posting NM's almost all cachers could have dozens of hides, there would be more caches to find, and the ones that are out there would be in better shape. I may help an owner who appears to care for their caches. I won't lift a finger to help someone who just can't be bothered and is expecting everyone else to clean up their mess. And if the container is broken I'm not going to add another piece of paper to the already developed wad of moist nasty that is already in there. I bring sheets of paper as a replacement. Since I live somewhere where it freezes I have an expectation that a pencil or pen that works won't be in the cache and bring my own (which seems to be the norm in my area. I have brought a replacement container one time. But if the container is a mess in my opinion for sure that is the responsibility of the cache owner. Not of all the people finding it but the owner needs to get out there and fix it. And if the stuff inside is wet and mess because of a bad container it's the owner's responsibility to care for that not everyone finding it. If an owner can't maintain the caches they put they need to reconsider if they should be putting them out instead of leaving their geotrash around for others to clean up.

I totally understand the politics involved but GS confuses it more by having to locate a cache by searching under UK and on my European map not coloring in the N Ireland part of my map. It looks like I didn't cache there. I looked at your map and see what you mean. Was the cache in Northern Ireland listed as being in Ireland and not the UK that you found? I was under the impression that the maps were based off of what cache owners put as the location of their cache so if the cache owner puts Ireland then only Ireland will be colored in. If they put the UK then, apparently, Northern Ireland will be colored in. For the purposes of coloring that map I agree with you that it does appear that you didn't find a cache there at all and I do think, politics aside, they should give some method by which you can color in your little Northern Ireland area on your map without having to find a cache listed as being in the UK there.

This is just a hobby for me. There are many people who make this their entire life and take it personally and seriously. We people who see this as just a hobby don't mesh will with those people who make this a life thing. The fact we're even having a discussion on the NM thing indicates that as well. For me it's just an extra piece of information for me to look at finding a cache. For my caches I own it's extra info that something may be needed. I don't take it personally but apparently some people are bothered either finding or hiding caches with that flag so much so that there is now a thread about it with all these crazy nuanced situations where one may or may not use the the log. To me on the surface it's perfectly simple. If the cache needs some love you put the log up. Be it a log book issue or a wet cache issue or a cache page issue. But some people obviously don't think that and make this overly complicated for anyone who just wnats to do this as a hobby. Or attribute entirely too many feeling to the log. It takes seconds to clear the log if the owners wanted to on their caches. It's really not that big of a deal but people make it into a big deal. For me to keep my sanity after not even using the log with an issue (I can't even imagine the meltdown the owner would have had then). I just do a log noting I found the cache now (unless the cache is impressive then I do a longer log). I have no desire to ruffle another cache owners feathers. If there's a problem someone else who takes this way more seriously than I do can.

Last time I left a detailed message of the issue I encountered so that the owner would have absolutely all information possible so they didn't waste a trip I got not one but a handful of absolutely flaming nasty emails back and a deleted log and then in one of the nasty grams the owner noted that my message wasn't actually read so the owner didn't actually know where I was. It was a pretty serious issue which at least one other finder encountered as well and noted but I noticed that log was also deleted and then resubmitted. After that experience and apologizing many many times for apparently insulting that person I decided you know this is a hobby for me and it's not worth the angst that some people put into it. It's something I do in my free time and if owners are going to get that touchy over mentioning something (that in this case was grossly awry) it's really not worth it to me. I don't want to deal with nasty overly defensive emails. If someone mentioned an issue with either of my caches I wouldn't care. It's the nature of the cache. They need a little love sometimes. I don't see it as a personal failure to have to go maintain something but apparently some people do. So I'm done even mentioning issues in my logs. Rather have fun than deal with dramatic cachers that make this their life.

With how owners react these days I'm hesitant to even mention a problem a regular log let alone log a NM and I have a history of logging NM logs without issue. That being said I do take into consideration the NM logs on caches and agree with another poster who stated that it encourages them to look at the logs more closely. Sometimes the issues have been resolved but I find a lot of times the issues still stand. I can't say I have found a cache with a NM attribute where the issue was truly resolved by the cache owner.

Does it have to be a path light? I have solar mushrooms in my garden that you notice but that aren't as bright as say a pathlight would be. I also have a colored ball too but that's pretty bright. My neighbor has solar dragon flies which in a wooded situation if placed well one would have to take a second glance to notice. One could also put electrical tape around the light parts of those path light so they don't necessarily show a bunch of light but just a little bit.

I'll do some puzzles. If it doesn't require highly specialized knowledge I may look at it. Things with a picture and no explanation I won't do. I have the same issue with puzzles that I have with multis and generally avoid them though. If you get an unmaintained puzzle especially with a field aspect to solving it it ceases immediately to be fun for me. Last summer I figured out how to do a puzzle. Did the puzzle (which involved some field work) only to find out my coordinates weren't right. Reason being? The cache owner did not take into account nor did he adjust yearly for the flags on the poles changing places or vanishing altogether. He could have (if he wanted) easily changed his cache page so the puzzle was actually solvable with the info on site but he didn't. So I ended up having to brute force the coordinates because I was so sure I would end up some place cool when it was all done. After all why would one go through all that trouble and not bring you somewhere cool? Wrong again. Right off a parking lot. So yeah I don't very often do puzzles unless I know the cache owner maintains their stuff. I really don't like putting in all that work to end up finding a micro with a soggy log somewhere either so I tend to avoid micro puzzles. Nothing to do with the smiley. I just wnat to have an enjoyable time caching and puzzles don't often add to the enjoyment for me.

I found a field of those little stubby guys growing at one point just like that one and they're just flowers here (could be a different thing there).

I've been to a few caches located at pretty churches and like sites. I think the difference between that and the way the original post was presenting the option is that it was no longer putting it at a religious site but rather doing a cache in honor of a specific deity or religion. I was at a cache at a monastary. I got some of the history of a person there. But I didn't get a dose of Catholocism while I was at the cache. Other than the historical stuff it was a very religion neutral cache and the historical stuff was only mentioned in passing (ie: This is a Catholic Monostary and Brother so and so liked to sit here and watch birds). I have no problems with those caches but I would have a problem with a cache designed specifically to proselytize.

That's what friends are for! Just make sure they're slower than you are Out of the three of us he was the only one to get stung and in his frustration threw his great big flash light at the nest (guess who we made go in and retrieve it). I kept well out of the way of that the minute I figured out what happened. We are much more careful now after that incident when it comes to ground nests.

Doing a night cache at one point we were walking toward a stage and my friend ended up kicking a ground nest. I heard the sound of the impact and saw the nest but it was too late to warn him of what had happened. He ended up getting stung. I had just enough time to get away.