reasonman

Most of the caches I do are in highly trafficked areas in New York. Usually if it gets heavy with other people i'll just stop and look around. People don't really pay attention to someone looking around them in a large crowd. If there are only a few people out and my presence is a little more obvious, I'll try to make it look like I'm waiting on someone, i'll worriedly look around my in every direction, check my phone, check my watch, etc. When they're gone I get back to it.

Last year about May I was chasing what should have been an easy cache. That day my gps was all over the place so I tried to average it and, considering the hint(big tree, and I was by a large tree, though there were many large trees in the area), thought I found it. There was a conspicuous triangle made in the dirt with sticks and in it just a few inches under the dirt and leaves, a small wooden box. Obviously I thought I found it. I started working with the box but couldn't figure out how to open it as it had been sealed on all sides with screws. The details nor the comments made any mention of tools and it specifically said it was geared towards kids and was an easy family find. While I was sitting there trying to figure it out, from time to time i'd catch a whiff of something dead, but didn't think much of it since there had been reports of dead squirrels in the area. I shook it and whatever was inside didn't move much so I figured it occupied most of the space within the box, as well as not making a sharp sound against the sides I figured it was something with some kind of padding. Right then and there I realized I had dug up somebody's recently buried pet and that this was not, in fact, the cache. I dug the hole deeper, reburied it, tried to make it as inconspicuous as possible and got the hell out of dodge. I felt so awful after that it was only last week that I managed to make myself get out there again and search for that cache again(which I did find this time about 100 feet from the grave). I emailed the CO and let them know but apparently I'm the only one to have ever stumbled across the tiny coffin.

Have you ever used a capacitive screen in light drizzle (or worse)? My HTC HD2 screen goes completely crazy when small water droplets fall on the screen as contacts are made and broken and things triggered. It becomes unusable. I believe the iphone has the same type of screen (capacitive). And of course you can't use a protective case over the screens with these phones as the screens need direct contact with skin. Oh man that drives me insane. I was out with my Droid the other day and there was a light mist. I was trying to check the details of a cache I was after and "I" ended up posting a found log consisting of "x. Dffff". I'm thinking I might grab a dedicated GPSr as battery is also an enormous pain for me. Edit: I'm seeing people recommend not hiding a cache with an iPhone because of GPS accuracy. I have a Droid and it's generally on with about 6 feet of error. Does anyone else use a droid for that or know if it's accurate enough to hide with? I plan on putting a few out soon.

Oh man that's one of the raddest things I've seen. I'm a huge Greek history and mythology buff so this is right up my alley.

Arduino Still a bit unclear on the concept -- seems to be sort of programming language. (It didn't come up when I googled.) Is the novelty that the cache container does novel things when opened or what? Perhaps an interface directly with my GPSr or handheld? Please be gentle, we aren't all techies. Perhaps you can describe HOW this app is actually being used in the referenced caches. (It won't help me with these puzzles, since I'm over 2000 km from them. Still, not looking for you to be a spoiler.) I've never thought to use an Arduino board that way. Off the top of my head I can think of all kinds of great ideas. To the shop!