TeamZebra

I saw a hollowed out pice of Birch at a flea market this past weekend that gave me some evil thoughts. A log laying out in the woods is free. Got a router? Or maybe a Dremel for a smaller one? Pop a cheap container inside it, and it's weather-proofed, not to mention a nightmare to find. Shhh... my dad is working one these types up for me. I don't want everyone stealing my idea. ;+) No doubt it has been used before, so it's not really my idea, but I do think my idea has a twist that will be unique. I'm going to save this for the encrypted hint, though. Great minds think alike--congratulations! Yes, you are correct, it has been used before. Wood Cache by Team Bert This one actually had a top on it which kind of gave it away because the top was a different color wood?? But it is a log about 8 inches long with a film canister stuck in the end of it. The cap is all that sticks out... then the "cap" of the container itself is a round piece of wood the same diameter as the log that was attached (loosely) with a screw. The screw was long enough to let the top swing around for access to the cache itself. By the time I found it, the wooden top had come loose and was lying next to the log. I thought the hint on this was really cute.

I just installed it and visited the listing you mentioned. It said there were 5 locations, but I only saw 4 pushpins. Maybe two were really close together??? But I did get the big map on one page to show, and the satellite image worked also. Looks quite interesting. Seems everytime I start using Maxthon again, someone comes up with another reason to go back with Firefox.. The Geocaching.com search on the search bar is great for hunting down caches when I only remember part of the name.

We found a couple "recycled" caches in Wyoming a while back. One was a Nesquik container (the rectangular yellow ones) covered in electrical tape with magnets in the tape. It was sticking to the bottom of a small bridge. Another, and quite a tricky cache to find, was also covered in tape and magnetized... it was one of the little tubes that you buy pencil lead in. It had been placed inside a metal fence rail.... completely out of sight. I got frustrated and started running my fingers all over the fence... felt something move a little. Bingo! VERY Sneaky. I'm not sure where they are getting them, but a few caches around here have been placed in some plastic screw top hars and seem to be working quite well. I purchased a 6.8 cup Lock N Lock container today for my first cache. Got the camo duck tape all ready to go. Pretty sad I work at Rubbermaid and can get Rubbermaid stuff fairly cheap and ended up buying a container at Wally World. I liked the rubber seal on this thing though. I had an idea while wandering around though. Could someone take something like rubber cement or electrical tape and create a watertight seal on a plastic container?? Wally world has some very cheap shoebox sized storage boxes, but the lids are not waterproof. It might not be much of an issue if the container remains upright and the log book and sensitive items are ziploc'ed... but would it help to make a gasket of sorts around the lip of the container with electrical tape?? Just a thought... didn't know if anybody had already tried this or not. How big do they make those lock n locks'?? There was supposed to be a 7.something cup one, but they didnt have any. THey were $2.87 ... 3 different sizes and all the same price.

OH no way!! Did you REALLY stick containers inside a dead animal??? Or is it one of those fake animals... I saw a link to one somewhere... Oh.. I remember now... It was on eBay!!!

Try the main page on the site he referred you to: Jeep Travel Bugs

I don't think that would really be a feasible thing for Groundspeak to be in charge of. Especially considering the fact that many bugs will have changing goals. Once it gets to a certain place it wants to go else where, etc. It's really the owner's responsibility if they want their bug to do a certain thing, they need to let people know. I've seen some where people have used those Pet ID tag machines like you see in Wal-Mart and other stores and created a goal tag to attach with the TB tag. Alot of people just put a goal sheet in a Ziploc with the TB since they think ahead to provide protection for their bug. I recently ran across a stuffed animal TB that without a ziploc. Luckily he was still dry, but I knew there was rain coming soon and wanted to make sure he stayed that way so I stuck him in a baggie before I re-released him. As far as getting a bug and then finding out once you log it that it wanted to go in the other direction... if the bug's goal isn't with the bug, it's not your fault. Unless you check the bugs webpage before you go to the cache... there's no way of knowing it has a goal until you get it home. The owner can't really blame you because he/she didn't make the effort to make the goal known.

Hey David... I posted a notice on the GETGC board about this too. There might be a few folks hanging out over there that are interested. I've kinda been haunting their forum since ours went kablooey. BTW, does anybody know when/if that is coming back up???

I was scoping out a spot for a hide today and stood for quite some time looking at a big patch of kudzu. I kept thinking... man that would make some excellent cover for the cache... but then I decided against it. Didn't want people losing kids and pets... and possibly even my cache... to the vine from heck. That stuff is MEAN!

OK... I've looked the list over and if nobody else wants them, I can take the Knoxville ones off your hands... Already have Optimistic (unless you want me to send it back to you until the end of the month?), Under the Bridge, Look But Don't Touch and Something Smells are VERY close to my home and I have logged finds on each of these so I know right where they are. If someone else would like them feel free to make a request. If not, I'd like to be considered.

I've seen ONE in Knoxville. Actually I went to Maryville (20 miles SW) to pick it up. Brought it back to Knoxville, placed it in a cache and it was gone in a couple hours!! I'm not holding my breath around here though... Just a few months ago I ran across a YJTB sitting in a cache that had NEVER been logged until the day I picked one up. The original person who was supposed to distribute it never logged it into a cache. Pretty sad, he never gave anybody a chance. I figure I was pretty lucky to get my hands on the one WJ I found... it'll probably be my last until the contest is over. I think people are hanging onto them so they have a model for the photos.

I believe the newer Legends (or perhaps just the Legend C) use USB instead of serial. I know the Vista C uses USB... Hmmm... Maybe I need to just upgrade to a Legend C then. I have an older Legend and I lost my serial cable. Not that it did me alot of good because I have a laptop and NO it doesn't have a serial port. So I had to purchase a serial to USB adapter. Quite a clunky setup... surprised I managed to lose all that cable, but it's not recoverable and nobody around here sells the interface cable for a Legend. The guy at Circuit City said I'd probably have to get one off eBay or contact Garmin. Why couldn't they just put USB connections on them from the start. I had talked to Garmin about this when I first bought it and the guy said something about goverment and said they HAD to use serial connections. I'm getting tired of inputting waypoints by hand... I want my lappie and my Garmie to talk to each other again!!

OH MAN! I wish I had known about this 3 months ago!! DavidMac is moving to another state and decided 90 days ago to remove/archive several of his caches in the Knox-Blount County TN area. He didn't want to have to go through the difficulty of transferring ownership of some 50 caches and knew he would be unable to maintain them himself. I just sent him an email regarding the adoption page... maybe it's not too late to save the caches on death row.

OOOhhh... Nice item!! I picked up a package of the Cutter Mosquito wipes out of a cache today and was quite happy with my find! I'm constantly being nibbled on (I guess I'm just tooo sweet ) while caching. I'm definitely planning on getting some more bug wipes to keep in my bag.

ONCE, then quit. Some people don't care much for "forced" music! Especially forced music that plays over and over. I hate that. I like to listen to XM or Sirius when I'm surfing and it sounds TERRIBLE when a webpage starts playing some tune over the top of it. UGH! But on the lighter side, I use Maxthon almost exclusively with a side of Firefox occasionally so I rarely am bothered by such things. Maxthon is an IE based browser that includes all the things Microsoft left out (tabs, pop-up and ad blockers, etc). I NEVER use IE or Netscape anymore unless a page just WILL not load on anything except IE. I've ran across those and unless it's something I MUST see, I'll skip it and go elsewhere. I do not like the idea of webmasters forcing anything on me, and that includes the brand of browser I will use.

There's one in Maryville, TN... thought for sure there'd be something in Knoxvillle with all the cemetery caches there, but nothing. Closest thing I found in Ktown was a cache about a block and a half from the Bijou, but not close enough to count. Never knew Wilson Hall was supposed to be haunted, but it's listed on Shadowlands. Here's the cache there (for now anyway). GCM1QZ Maryville College: Wilson

I have a Garmin Legend and a Palm Tungsten E2. I use GSAK and Cachemate and have been very pleased. The only thing I'm missing is the maps... but a quick import from GSAK to Streets & Trips gives me pushpins on my map and printable driving directions from cache to cache. Wish I could transfer those to my Palm... but Bill Gates wants me to buy a Pocket PC and run WindowsCE. No thanks, I already have a laptop infested by the windows virus... I don't want to do that to my PDA as well.

Heh.. thanks for giving me an excuse to go through my bag and inventory it. I have a habit of throwing stuff in there and not remembering what I have! I have a backpack purchased just for caching. Although most times it stays in the car unless it's going to be a long walk and I'm packing liquid refreshment. OK here's what I have in there right now: GPS (pack stays in car, so does GPS... cause you never know.. ) Ziploc bags for caches that need them 3 pens 3 pencils (1 mechanical type) box of highlighters (25 cents from work) 4 mini squirt guns 6 slide whistles 7 Micro cars - small enough to go in some micro caches 5 Hotwheels cars - some purchased new, some traded 4 mini cans of Play-doh (bought a 12 pack tube) 3 fine point Sharpie markers of assorted colors (again from work... super cheap) ***the rest of this stuff is stuff I traded for...I think*** 3 keychains (one rubiks cube, one mini notebook and one mini flashlight) 1 pair of sunglasses (for trading) 1 Coca-cola ballcap box of spare AA batteries (aquired from a friend who has an endless supply of "slightly used" batteries) ***Geez this list is long*** 3 assorted wooden nickels received as trades 1 bracelet charm (camera) 1 glow-in-the-dark skeleton 1 "God Bless America" button 1 hackey sack 1 tennis ball 1 miniature bottle of Tabasco sauce 1 viking figurine 2 rubber bouncy balls ***I really need to clean this thing out!*** Assorted coins of various origins and values including Sac. dollars and canadian coins (loonies and toonies) I use for trades and some others I have traded for. No-no items removed from caches such as a mini pocket knife and box cutters(? why?) Small multi-tool (not for trade) Mini flashlight that's attached to the pack with a lanyard and biner clip (not for trade) Digital Camera (not for trade) Orange County Choppers T-shirt (planned trade for a specific themed cache) 2 books (also meant for specific caches) 1 White Jeep Travel bug! 1 small notebook (for a cache that needs it) ***Hmmm... is that everything??*** Oh wait, there's a trail mix bar in this pocket (not for trade) OK I think that's it.. Gee no wonder I rattle so much when I put this thing on! The first items: Play-doh, hotwheels, water guns, whistles etc are the things I've purchased specifically for caches. There are alot of people who cache with their kids in this area and I like having things to keep them interested. Yeah... I do it for the kids!!! It's not an addiction!!!

How funny!! My sides hurt now... from laughing... nice stash... err... cache description by the way. And yes, I see now why you don't want people bushwacking!!

Not sure... some claimed to have them already, but I haven't seen any. However the new White Jeep TBs have the new tag shape with the same wording as last years.

Before I got my PDA I used to take print-out with me. I tried to plan my trip as best as possible using Streets & Trips and GSAK. I exported the info from GSAK into Streets & Trips which shows me all the cache locations right there on the map. Then I'd pick caches in a certain area or direction and visit those cache pages. I didn't bother printing out the entire cache page since alot of it is filler and a waste of ink when it comes right down to it. I used good old copy/paste and Microsoft Word. I'd copy the cache name, waypoint, coords, description and hint to Word. Do this for each cache and print out when I had the ones I wanted. Instead of two pages per cache I now had pages with up to 10 caches on each one!

Umm.. Why would an NT- serial number tell the cacher looking for the bug anything? They should not have the serial number until they found the bug. Unless I've missed something. As for homemade tags. I can see where that could get a few bugs left behind or (even worse) KEPT. The point of the wording on the new tags is to remind people they are not trade items and not to be kept. If they don't recognize their find as a TB because of an absent Groundspeak tag... it's probably never going to see another cache. I ran across a similar item in a cache. There's another site issuing tracking numbers for hitchhikers. They give you a few free numbers, but it's up to you to make your own tags. This item I found had a wooden nickle attached to it. How many people find wooden nickles expecting them to be travel bugs?

I just found out about the site being down myself. Just settling in from being on the road for the past two months and finally got internet again. Went to catch up on the GSMGC news and wouldn't you know it the site went POOF! I knew California was up to no good! Any ideas when it's going to be back up? I wasn't caching in Sept 2004 so I know I'll be history. Anyway... I'm working a M-F job now so Saturdays (or Sundays for that matter) are fine for me. My other team member (hehe got the hubby hooked while we were held up in Salt Lake City for nearly a week) will be working, which means I'll have nothing important going on. Just name a date and a time... I'm a second shifter, so try not to make it tooo early ZebraSE of the recently formed "TeamZebra"

Seems to me that a case could be made that the pizza sig item is a way of getting new customers. I have mixed feelings about this specific case. Is it acceptable for, say, a car salesman to leave a business card in a cache? Well, if we stop businessmen from putting their business cards in there, then we also need to crack down on other "logo" items in caches... don't we?? For example, there is a cache in Utah that contains various logo items from cacher's past employers. There's a keychain theme cache in Tennessee that has many business keychains in it. I've seen logo items advertising medicine (including stuff like Paxil and Viagra), car dealerships, software companies, etc. Would this not be considered advertising as well. Heck, while we're at it.. aren't all those McToys indirect advertisements for McDonald's?? All rules and guidelines have flaws. Lawyers make livings finding loopholes in laws and contracts. The FAQ is a loose set of guidelines... or suggestions on how we as cachers should behave. It's not an enforced set of rules. Believe it or not, most people are capable of having AND using common sense. Whether they choose to make use of that ability is up to them, but I believe the powers that be at GC.com are expecting us to be able to use ours. C'mon people, we figured out how to use a goverment sattelite system for our own entertainment... surely we can use common sense to decide what we should and shouldn't leave in a cache. If it's that confusing to you... I suggest you find another hobby. *Steps behind Firewall to dodge the flaming I am about to receive.*

No, you're wrong. Food IS a universal no-no. It's in the FAQ. Here's a direct quote from the FAQ: It's clearly not good to leave actual food in a cache. Check the rest of the FAQ to see what else you might have missed. Did I mention it's in the FAQ? OK, I know I'm going to catch flak for this, but since everyone has to be so dern literal in this discussion.. here goes. Actually that was a suggestion not to food in caches. The FAQ (yes, I've read it numerous times thank-you-very-much) says "Please do not put food in a cache." It doesn't shake it's finger at you and say "Under no circumstances are you to EVER leave food in a cache!"

That seems backwards. I use IE only when I have problems with Firefox... which is VERY rare. I've had more problems with IE than any other browser.