voogadah

Hi Tahosa and sons. Just when you thought you got rid of me, I come right back! Ugly Bob was taken from Nebraska to Maryland by an unsuspecting cacher , but picked up by another who is heading to CO soon. Would you be able to collect him and check to make sure he is okay? I sent you an e-mail with the details, Bob needs your help again! Voogadah

I want to gripe, so bear with me; I'm not the griping type, usually. I had three bugs out there in the great blue yonder which were dinosaur/godzilla looking things (anyone who met and handled Ugly Brenda know what they look like). Out of all three, only one survived (brenda). Even though the tags were tied up in knots with the chain, some unscrupulous people worked pretty darn hard to separate them from the bugs. They left behind the tags, took the monsters. Now I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt, but I find it pretty close to impossible they could have "fallen" off. One of them is my beloved Ugly Bob who is in the Cannonball race. Fortunately, the world is full of wonderful geocachers, and a kind gentleman offered to reattach another dinosaur to the tags. Unfortunately, the world is also full of not so nice cachers, as one guy picked up the tags to Ugly Bob in October and is still holding them. I e-mailed him and he apologised for holding them and was going to drop them in a cache right away. Never did. I sent several more e-mails but never heard back. I can only assume the guy is dead, so if anyone is heading out west, please stop by his house and tell the executor of his estate to drop off the dog tags in the nearest cache.

Weeeelllll, sounds like a great idea, but it doesn't fit in with the rules of the race. You see, in order to participate in the Cannonball Race, the one and only specification was it had to be an item with wheels. Hence, the dinosaur on the skateboard (folks did say it was the coolest of all the racers!). Now, we can attach wheels (somehow of some sort) to a skull of something, or I can send a care package containing another uggly wuggly with a skateboard to someone who has figured out a clever way to keep dog tags attached. My assistant can use whatever means to reattach the tags, be it piercing, tying, or duct taping and then vacuum sealing him with his tags and instructions. Then we can send dear Bob on his merry way to continue on with the race. Where are my helpers????

I have a TB in the 2005 CannonBall Race and he is sitting Colorado. One cacher who retrieved "Ugly Bob" inserted a photo with his log entry, and only the dog tags were left attached to the game instructions. Somehow, Ugly Bob was severed from his tags! He was an Uggly Wuggly, a dinosaur/godzilla type rubber creature riding a skateboard. I've been in touch with the cacher who is holding his tags now, and he will put him in a cache shortly, but what I need help with is to get another Uggly Wuggly attached to the dog tags so Ugly Bob can proceed with the race. Right now he is in first place, and we want to win! Anyone in CO who can help this poor old retired postmaster on his cross country vacation?

Nope, you're safe.

testing....I hope it works

I, too, cache with the kids. They use their allowance to purchase goodies to trade, so the items are new and, hopefully, useful. Things they commonly trade in are bandanas, keychains, rubber bracelets, and such. They usually grab the coins (they love to collect coins) and really weird stuff, like a plastic bug. Hubber and I don't trade at all unless we're picking up a TB. Perhaps because my critters are older (the youngest is nine), they really hate the McToys. I'm thinking of asking the owner of a local cache (filled with junk) if I may adopt it. I guess the flip side is that if it gets muggled, the muggles even leave the McCr*p alone!

Also, most dogs have been spayed or neutered. The insecticide won't pass to potential offspring. But since kids today are popping Ritalin and such, perhaps someday in the future....

My son contracted Lyme disease here in Northwestern CT. We give our children "tick checks" every evening before bed, and we did not find any on him. The next day he said he had something behind his ear, and it was a deer tick, which we removed. Within a week he developed the bullseye rash which covered part of his face. We took him to the dr and she gave him antibiotics right away. Three weeks worth. For the next three years my son complained of chronic migraines and has developed severe photosensitivity (lights bother his eyes). I think the disease affects children differently than adults, and they still don't know everything about the disease. One disconcerting part of it is that the rash (which is a red flag) is not always present, so some peole go untreated and have pretty severe symptoms. My brother in law (who lived in Lyme, CT) was on introvenous antibiotics because it was not found until the disease had progressed. Some web sites say the tick needs to be on 48 hours, but really, would you leave a tick on and time it? My son is proof it can take less than 24 hours. It may even have something to do with the method of tick removal for all we know (the researchers may be adept at removing them, a parent or first timer may squeeze or otherwise disrupt the tick). Lyme disease is seriously nasty, and besides causing joint pain and photosensitivity, it can cause severe neurological damage. Use bug repellent if you are in Lyme territory. If you don't, you may wish you did! Check every evening and again in the morning, in the armpits, groin, behind the knees, behind the ears, and any other nooks and crannies. If you have long hair, wear it up and wear a hat (you may go to bed with one in your hair and your mate wakes up with it). Hope this helps.

Not exactly about geocaching, but those cops shouldn't really fine someone for UIPP (urinating in pulic places). I live on a state road and the front of my property is lined with trees and shrubs. One day I was outside working in the garden when I heard a car pull off the road. I looked up and saw a State Trooper's car, shortly after heard the trooper relieve himself not more than a couple of feet from me. I bet he dropped his bowels when I said, "All better now?" A few years later the state decided to rearrange the road, so outside of my driveway they plopped a port-o-potty. It seemed every person on God's green earth had to pee in it! The middle of the night they would pull up with their headlights shining in my bedroom window. One day while (again) working in the garden a guy pulls up and goes in. He was in there a good 20 minutes or so. When he came out I said, "you really ought to eat more lettuce." They finally moved the potty right when I was ready to line the seat with plastic wrap. Bummer.

He loves males, so tastey.

I bring a huge, black 185 lb. dog with me. Did I mention he has sharp, nasty teeth?

[New to this game, I recently purchased a Garmin GPS MAP76S with a computer cable. I also purchased the book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geocaching. Following the directions in the book, I went to easygps.com, downloaded waypoints into an .loc file using topographix. Now when I plug my unit into the computer and try to download my waypoints, a message comes up saying it can't open com port 1. I'm using a Dell 2400 with Windows XP, which has only one place to plug this in. I tried using a USB converter, but get the same message. Computer says the port is fine, ready and waiting, but easy gps says it's the computer. I'm frustrated and need help. Any suggestions? ] I'm back with this problem again. I contacted Dell tech as well as posting my query in their forums. You techies will probably understand the lingo here, I certainly don't! First, the guy in the forums gave me a test to run to see if the port was working, which it is not. So he told me how to enable it, but when I rebooted it disabled it. Tech support sent me a list of things to try using foreign (at least to me) terminology and I have no bloody idea what he is talking about. First he said error code #8 means the device loader for a device could not be found. What is the device loader? His advice is to, "run Windows Setup again using your Windows CD-ROM". If I try to reinstall, doesn't this mean I have to either save everything I have to a disk or lose everything I have? I'm a bit cautious when it comes to reinstalling things. Next he says, "if this is not a system DevLoader and the DevLoader cannot be found...click Reinstall Device to reinstall this device." Right. Next, "The device may not be working because the file that loads the drivers for this device is bad." This is what I call a "koan" . To fix it I am to Update Driver. My favorite line comes at the end, "We appreciate your patience and understanding." For those who missed the first time I posted this query, I have no PDA on my computer, and the rest of the thread is under the subject: GPS cable not working. Can you guys translate any of this for me? I cannot rest until I fix this thing... Voogadah p.s. CC, I tried to do the quote thing right, I hope I got it.

Thanks, CC, for your help on adding quotes. I'm still new at this and still learning how to do things. It's great to be able to talk to techies like you, this is all pretty foreign to me. I have a 12 (almost 13) year old son who is better at all this than I am, but the GPS unit is MINE, I ordered it for my birthday (from my husband) and until I'm ready to share, it's up to me to get it working I still want to know why the cable didn't work, how do you set up a com port, etc. Explain it to me as if I know nothing (since that's pretty close to accurate!). Voogadah (the closest translation is, "It's all nonsense.")

"I see what she did, but I'm at a loss to explain why it helped. I did the same thing just now, establishing a new network connection using the serial port, but it was a little more complicated for me, because I had to us a USB-serial adapter, since I have no serial port on my laptop. (Royal PITA). It's not hard to set up a new network connection, but the serial port should work even without doing this. And I see no way to specify a GPS as the connection, although it might show up if it were connected when setting up the connection." I agree I should not need to set up a new network connection. Does anyone else have a MAP76S with a cable? And if so, how did you set up the serial port? Since it comes with no software, I assumed you just plugged it in. I'm not happy not knowing how or why serial port 1 was not working. I had a hard enough time trying to find serial port 1 (or com port, as it is in the computer), even when I tried troubleshooting, the computer couldn't answer any questions. How would you set up a PDA? Do they come with software you have to load so you can use the com port? Why is there so little information on the com ports, are they top secret or something? I still would like to smack someone....

You have to go back to my first inquiry where I stated I was using easygps. One of the suggested solutions was to switch to GSAK, which I did. I decided to think like a 12 year old boy and just press every button until something worked (at least I think that's why my 12 year old is better at this than I am!). Since it became increasingly obvious something was wrong with the com port and I could find no way to to find out what may have been connected to it (if anything), I went into "connections" then opened com port 1 to use as computer-to-computer connection. It is working, so that must have been the missing link. It really would've helped if Garmin sent some directions with the cable and how to set up the port, but I learned something new. What a ride! Thanks so much.

HyperTerminal didn't work, so I next tried Start, then connect to, then show all connections, then create new connection, then connect to another computer. From there I set com port 1 (I had a heck of a time trying to find where you set up com ports) to connect to another computer. This is working, now I can download the waypoints from both easygps and GSAK. Thanks so much for your help! Mr. Gates did not make it easy!

Okay, when I go to the set-up on my unit, then in "interface", I have one window: Serial Data Format. I already had it set to Garmin. Here is the menu I can choose from: Garmin Garmin DGPS NMEA Text out RTCM in RTCM in/MNEA out RTCM in/text out none The old camera used a USB port. I purchased a serial to USB cable from Radio Shack which came with software, which I downloaded, only to find the computer won't accept it (not okayed by Windows, apparently). I'll see if my husband can load it and if not, someone should be smacked since I spent $42.00 for the cable. I will try HyperTerminal next. If this doesn't work, how do I find if my com port 1 is being used by something else? I've looked in Device Manager and under com port. What am I looking for? Under device status it says, "This device is working properly." In the Driver section it says Driver is by Microsoft, and gives the date and the version. I've tried updating it, but I get the message it is the current version. Under Details it has a drop down window that defaults to Device Instance Id. Perhaps there is something here I'm supposed to change? Thanks for your help.

I tried that already, they are both the same as what came with the unit. There are neither directions in the owner's manual, nor the quick start guide on how to set up the unit with the computer. The owner's manual says the cable is optional, even though it came with the unit I ordered. So no directions.

My GPS MAP76S came with no software for me to load. I am using a desktop Dell 2400 with Windows XP and the real serial port (I've also used the serail to USB port, changing the settings in GSAK, but still got the error message). I do have a serial port in device manager (serial port 1), but have no idea if/how I may need to enable it (I've had the computer for over a year, so I don't know if it was enabled when my husband set it up or if it was enabled from Dell when we bought it). I've never used the serial port, and never used a PDA or any other device on it. My son has used a digital camera on the USB port with no trouble, though we have since deleted that program when he got a different camera. "The garmin software has a find device function - what does that tell you?" How would I find the device function? I've visited every tab on my unit (while going over it with the owner's manual), and this isn't familiar. I've also e-mailed Garmin, but don't expect to hear until after the holiday (if at all). Thanks for your help, every bit is greatly appreciated, and I'm sure with your help I'll get this thing going.

I went to gsak.net and downloaded that application. I saved a waypoint in .loc format, chose com port 1 in GPS setup, still get the error message. Changed to com port 3, same thing. Switched to USB and still get error message. I do have the GPS unit turned on (though GPS turned off since it doesn't get reception from indoors). What is it I'm doing wrong?

I have never had a PDA, or any other device, on this computer. I already checked the com port when using the serial to USB adapter, it uses com port 3. Still I receive the message that it can't open com port 1.

New to this game, I recently purchased a Garmin GPS MAP76S with a computer cable. I also purchased the book, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geocaching. Following the directions in the book, I went to easygps.com, downloaded waypoints into an .loc file using topographix. Now when I plug my unit into the computer and try to download my waypoints, a message comes up saying it can't open com port 1. I'm using a Dell 2400 with Windows XP, which has only one place to plug this in. I tried using a USB converter, but get the same message. Computer says the port is fine, ready and waiting, but easy gps says it's the computer. I'm frustrated and need help. Any suggestions?