treedweller

Before a trip to NYC, I picked up some fossils nearby and put them in mini-ziplocks. I included a slip of paper with the name of the fossil (a little internet research required) and the gps coords where I found them. Cost to me: maybe a couple of pennies each. Value on the open market: even less. How do I decide what is an equal trade for that? What if I see a similar item that someone had made at greater expense? is that a fair trade? In short, fair is in the eyes of the beholder (and to a kid some things that look like crap may have been a great sacrifice). So, get over it. You won't ever start seeing diamond rings and gold bullion in caches, unless you are a very lucky FTF. As others suggested, if it bothers you that much, skip the swag and go for the trip and the smiley. Leave something nice if you feel like it. Karma will treat you right in the end. treedweller EDIT: I left them and took nothing in exchange. Sometimes, I also traded for other items.

Or you could just not do the cache. As a man who caches solo, I often take that approach. Assuming I do find a playground cache, how likely am I to want to trade for teh contents, anyway? Here's the breakdown in that argument, though. I have been working for some time on Austin's "Monster" cache. It is a 40-leg multi. After investing hours and gallons of fuel into finding the first 25 legs or so, I come upon a cache that is not just near a playground, but actually in the playground. Not only that, it is written inside the roof of the plastic tunnel of a kid-sized slide. Not only that, there are public restrooms a few yards away. Setting aside the argument that it is grafitti, not a cache, this puts me in a very awkward position. I understand why the mommies felt uncomfortable seeing me there, milling around for an hour at a time or more (no, surely it's not inside the playground--that would be insane . . .), and I felt uncomfortable being there. Who wants to be suspected of pedophilia? But should I have to abandon the larger goal of a very long, difficult series just to ease our collective discomfort? Frankly, I think this leg should never have been approved, but i am a relative newbie and don't see the point in arguing about that now. And I have stalled on the series for awhile now over frustration that legs are missing, causing me to drive well out of my way to an area with several legs, but return home in between legs to send an email to the non-maintaining leg owners. So that's my rant about "Monster." But I return to my question: is it fair to say "just don't do it" when it means abandoning a goal into which I've invested significant time and energy? Just so some mommies can stay at the park a little longer? Why shouldn't they share, and leave for the day if they feel uncomfortable? Why do I have to be the one to give up my use of the park? I see both sides of this argument to some degree, but I think the ultimate answer is to police the lawbreakers and leave the rest of us alone. Unfortunately, when a bad law is passed, that means you have to change the law before you can resume what you previously called legal activities. treedweller

Funny, I just read a lot of posts where people said gasoline prices have affected their geocaching. Recent news reports have focused on people who cancelled driving trips because of high gas prices. I see quotes in the newspaper from people who are consolidating errands and planning trips more carefully to reduce use of fuel. Seems to me gas prices have a big effect on conservation, and they are still pretty low compared to other parts of the world. I suggested another $1 in taxes on fuel (not gasoline, I might point out), but a simpler and more sensible approach would be to remove the subsidies that fuel corporations receive and let the market reflect the true cost. Either way, if the US would get serious about fuel alternatives now instead of paying lip service, we'd be far better prepared to weather the storm as petroleum supplies begin to dwindle while world demand skyrockets. Good point about the big vehicle=more expensive argument, tho. Unfortunately, the difference between registering my Ram 2500 and my wife's TDI beetle is chump change (in TX, anyway). Again, if we were serious, it would cost hundreds of dollars to register a large vehicle and tens of dollars to register a fuel miser. And, though I do believe people's willingness to drive everywhere rather than walking is a factor in our obesity epidemic, I never suggested it's the only reason for the problem. As you and others said, it's largely people's diet and,more importantly, the flat-out laziness (of which too much driving is a symptom) of far too many americans that are most at fault. But no need to thank me for the free gift of a diversion to deflect obvious flaws in your arguments. treedweller

Americans should be paying at least another $1/gallon in fuel taxes to encourage conservation of resources and reduce pollution. Artificially reduced prices on fuel have led to obese children getting driven to all their activities by parents in low-mileage vehicles who couldn't care less that they are hastening the downward spiral toward a world petroleum crisis. Alternative fuel users, like biodiesel, for instance, should have to pay TWO dollars a gallon in increased taxes to subsidize the petroleum industry. This will help EVERYONE by lowering the cost of fuel across the board for EVERY American. Besides, that's MY agenda and I say so, that's why. By the way, I'm tired of biodiesel users causing the epidemic of obese children in America. After all, children aren't eating fast food deep-fried in gasoline, now are they? Not sure why I'm rising to another of your trolls, but I must point out that we all subsidize petroleum already. And most biodiesel users I know of are using virgin oil, not waste from fryers, but those who do use fryer waste are turning a liability into an asset, as I'm sure you know. And biodiesel could be much more viable if we used different feedstocks, since soy doesn't yield as much oil per acre as several other crops could, many of them on land that's marginal for food crops. And lowering (petroleum) fuel prices does not help everyone; it leads to more pollution, more global warming, and more waste. Your analysis is selfish and short-sighted. There was a time when Americans thought about their children and their grandchildren when making plans and policies, but you are only thinking about today (and/or about trying to get my goat). treedweller

Americans should be paying at least another $1/gallon in fuel taxes to encourage conservation of resources and reduce pollution. Artificially reduced prices on fuel have led to obese children getting driven to all their activities by parents in low-mileage vehicles who couldn't care less that they are hastening the downward spiral toward a world petroleum crisis. That said, I haven't bought fuel from Exxon (now exxon/mobil) since the Valdez spill, eand never will barring extreme circumstances. treedweller Higher taxes has never led to energy conservation (except in very extreme cases). Unfortunately the one thing that would work doesn't exist, yet. There is no mass produced low energy alternative to gasoline. OT: The low gas price = fat children argument is the same as the McDonalds = fat children argument. You left out "in this country." Europe and other parts of the world pay much more for fuel and use much less of it. Sure, that's partly because they often have narrow streets that make big trucks less viable, but also they use efficient diesels more often and ride bikes, walk or take public transportation. The obese children thing is just one example of how Americans foolishly waste fuel with unfortunate side effects. Surely you wouldn't deny there are several more available. treedweller

Americans should be paying at least another $1/gallon in fuel taxes to encourage conservation of resources and reduce pollution. Artificially reduced prices on fuel have led to obese children getting driven to all their activities by parents in low-mileage vehicles who couldn't care less that they are hastening the downward spiral toward a world petroleum crisis. That said, I haven't bought fuel from Exxon (now exxon/mobil) since the Valdez spill, eand never will barring extreme circumstances. treedweller

You should be fine as long as you don't start selling them. Hard to press a copyright violation when no money changed hands. edit: oops, I see someone already beat me to this point.

You're clearly a ways off from executing this plan. A grease car must have a diesel engine, so gasoline never enters into the picture. For more info on fueling a vehicle with veggie oil, visit www.biodieselnow.com

I figured plenty of people here knew about this, but I wasn't sure how obvious it was that you could enter lat/long and get a map. Other sites (well, mapquest) have a specific button/search window for that. Plus, there's always someone who hasn't heard about the latest thing. Hell, there are people out there who still haven't heard of geocaching, if you can imagine! k

OK, that tells me you're confusing "biofuels" with "biodiesel". They are quite different. Ethanol is an alcohol that can be used instead of gasoline (with some mods, I think). Biodiesel is a methyl ester that can be used in diesel engines (no mods). Ethanol does not get a good return on invested energy, with or without subsidies. Biodiesel gets roughly 3X the input (according to the study I linked, not according to cornell). BD is part of the newest energy bill, which offers a small rebate of $.01 per 1% BD added to petroleum diesel, up to $.99 (or $1.00, depending on who you ask), but I do not believe any subsidies or other similar measures existed before that. Some might argue soy got sunsidies, but I do not count that since soy is the feed stock of choice merely because of convenience. Any veg oil (or animal fat) can be turned into BD. Actually, that's pretty much true of ethanol--it all comes from corn, but does not have to. As in the other thread ("Have gas prices affected your geocaching?"), I think this has drifted well beyond the intended topic. I'd be glad to continue discussion in the general forum (but you'll have to ping me somehow to let me know, since I usually don't read that forum). Sorry if anyone has been annoyed by my hijack. treedweller

I have no stock in google or other ulterior motives, but thought cachers would like to check out http://maps.google.com/. At first I was disappointed because I couldn't see a way to search for GPS coords., but one day I just tried typing in Nxx yy.yyy Wxx yy.yyy to see what would happen. the site automatically converted to its preferred format (xx.xxxx -yy.yyyy) and returned a map. You can zoom, pan, etc. like other map sites. You can also view an overhead satellite image of the spot, or a hybrid that superimposes street names on top of the satellite image. Check it out soon if you're interested; I read today that TPTB want to shut it down, since it might help terrorists case a target. treedweller

Sorry if you felt berated. I didn't intend to get snippy. Frankly, I get frustrated by calls to "prove it." Especially since there is almost always some crappy study out there to support innacuracies about whatever may be the topic at hand, which, to me, means if you want the facts you really have to go get them yourself. But here's one from the good ol' U S of A: www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/fy98/24089.pdf and, just for fun, an opposing view of the Cornell study: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bgoodsel/post911/pimentel.htm Incidentally, what do you mean, "there are subsidies now?" Are you talking about the rebate that allows a penny off of a gallon for every 1% BD blended into petrol? The one that has existed a few weeks, maybe months? or am I missing some other subsidies? treedweller

So, if I can peer behind the curtains of your sarcasm, you apparently do not believe this war has anything to do with oil. Again I say, enjoy your ignorance. Please note that, tho I do not support the current president, this is not meant as an attack on him directly. If the next president should be a Dem, I doubt we will see much of a decrease in military efforts to secure the last supplies of oil in the world. But, despite your wry commentary, we do pay dirt-cheap prices for oil. If you go back through this thread, you will see that the rest of the world pays far more than us to drive their cars. Which may help explain why mass transit and fuel economy are so much more important and available to most of the world than to us. In short, my complaints are with us (Americans) as a society. We have developed an infrastructure that virtually forces us to drive cars, and we stubbornly cling to the "freedom" they represent despite the billboard-sized writing on the wall telling us the end (of the petrol heyday, not necessarily the world . . .) is near. We should be paying $4/gal or more for fuel, and the surcharge should be applied to seeking solutions to our upcoming petrol crisis. Vehicles that get less than 30 mpg should pay a $1000 surcharge to get re-registered every year, again with the proceeds preparing us for the future. People who need these vehicles would find a way, and those who don't would smarten up. Of course, there would still be a prestige factor where rich people paid the fee just to show they could, but most of us would be forced to wake up and smell the oil well fires. Sorry to beat a dead horse; I realize I'm being trolled just as much as I'm trolling, and this is definitely straying well off topic. I'll stop now. treedweller

No subsidies needed; it's viable right now. Given anywhere near the subsidies that oil industry has received, it might even be priced competitively to petrol, but plenty of us are swallowing the price pill now to avoid contributing to the trade deficit any more than we have to. The site I listed is full of BD proponents, and there's lots of rah-rahing, but if you actually delve into the archives you can find plenty of honest appraisal. Look for posts by Mike Briggs if you want to avoid some fluff and get to the substance. There are plenty of people saying BD output is 3 times the input. If you don't want to believe that, and you don't want to look up the citations yourself, enjoy your ignorance. I'm in it for reasons outside this whole input/output analysis anyway. treedweller

It's too bad that, despite your best efforts, you're actually causing more harm than good, no? Believe what you want, but that is one study, produced by a "scientist" that grossly overestimated energy inputs, assumed forests would be clearcut to grow oil crops, assumed the byproducts of oil extraction would be waste (when, in fact, they make fine animal feed in the case of most crops) and in general came up with conclusions that do not jibe with a large body of evidence that more reputable researchers have presented. But let's pretend for a moment growing crops to produce oil takes more energy than can be extracted to make BD. We could reduce the deficit by: growing the oil crops without petroleum based fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides (i.e., organically). Fueling the farm equipment with the fuel it produces. Selecting better feed stocks that yield more oil per acre. And, until we utilize all the waste oil that currently gets discarded and the surplus oil that is essentially useless now, the way we produce the next generation's BD is a moot question. It's there for the taking, and can be used without modification in cars that are on the road now burning foriegn imports and producing more pollution. If that makes me a hippie troll, I can live with it. treedweller

I thought it was a thread about fuel; seems on topic to me, though I grant you not 100%. But then, isn't every post a troll deep down? I will acknowledge there are reasons (some might even say justifiable) other than oil for the wars we've been fighting if you acknowledge oil is a factor. And surely you can see that oil supplies are dwindling while demand (especially in China and India) is increasing, so oil is going to be more of a factor in future. I did not say biodiesel is nonpolluting. I do believe, though, that it is significantly less polluting than gasoline or petroleum diesel. The particulates are higher for any diesel, but CO2 is net zero (don't forget the plants that produce the oil are absorbing CO2). NOx emissions are higher, but they needn't be; unfortunately, the rotgut diesel that has been crammed down our throats in the US contains sulphur, which kills NOx scrubbers, so we don't have them on our diesels. After we get the fabled ultra-low-sulphur (supposedly by 2006), we can clean out the NOx. Meanwhile, I am comfortable with the tradeoff, since CO2 is a greenhouse gas and also a major pollutant of the majority of cars, thus worth a compromise to reduce its production. Oh, and my exhaust does not smell like french fries, since I do not make my fuel from waste oil. Actually, it reminds me of a chinese restaurant (soy oil). I'm sure not everybody likes it, but I'll bet most people prefer it to petroleum diesel exhaust. But you can ignore me if you want. treedweller

Yes, and teh study wsa totally ridiculous. It inflated energy inputs at every turn (such as factoring in food eaten by farmworkers--they wouldn't eat otherwise?). It assumed we'd clearcut virgin forests to create more cropland, which nobody I know has suggested (most BD advocates are aware that soy oil is the dominant feed stock because of convenience, not necessity). Most importantly, it lumped ethanol and biodiesel into the same group, even though BD gets significantly better return for the efforts that produce it. I don't know if this study was paid for under the table by big oil, or if it just starts with a misguided premise (i.e., if we use biofuels we must replace all current petrol usage with ethanol or BD). But the reality is that we are going to run out of oil, and we will need alternatives. Note the plural "alternativeS". We probably can't create enough cropland to feed ourselves and fuel every vehicle on the road, but we can make a significant dent in our domestic trade deficit by using it as much as possible. Hel, the amount of waste oil that we throw away now is pretty huge, even if it is only a small percentage of total fuel used. Hydrogen sounds cool, but will require replacement of the whole distribution infrastructure. Solar is nice in the desert, but some people see lots of clouds. Hybrid helps, but there are legitimate concerns about battery replacement, and they still burn petrol , and the newest hybrids are more gimmick than anything, getting very little improvement in mileage but increasing power to satisfy morons who think they should be able to win drag races and/or pull houses in their giant SUV's. The fact is, biofuels are available now, work fine in existing engines, and can be pumped the same as gasoline from any service station that bothers to put them in the tank. Before you jump to tout the one study that discredits them, you might consider whose interests are being represented, and why. treedweller PS www.biodieselnow.com

WTF? Who said anything about killing? I'm talking about taking domestically produced oil, turning it into a fuel that burns clean and gets its energy from the sun (I don't use fuel from animal fat--by coincidence, not design), and using it to fuel my vehicle. The result is a boost to farmers, a cleaner environment, less transportation costs, less reliance on foreign imports, and no money in the pockets of Big Oil corporate honchos who are more interested in making money for themselves than in conservation or environmental preservation. Oh, wait, maybe that was a reference to the killing that goes on in wars. A straw man, IMO, since I don't try to disavow responsibility for the actions of my government, even when I disagree with them, and that will continue to be true regardless of how I fuel my vehicle. And, as you might guess from my screenname, I use a gas-powered chainsaw almost daily, but I use it as little as is practical and I use it to improve the health of the urban forest here (thus further improving air quality). But if you want to post childish replies to try and get my goat, more power to ya. treedweller

They haven't affected me, since I drive a diesel Actually, I've been paying $3.40/gallon for awhile. But I get a far superior product: biodiesel. And if you take into account the subsidies, the hidden costs, and the wars, you all are probably paying at least as much. Now if I could just figure out how to get back the money I've dumped into keeping your prices low . . . But I'll keep paying the high price of BD; the feeling of driving without contributing to the trade deficit, without sending a soldier to the Middle East, and without pulluting the air is worth the difference. Not to mention the reduction in wear and tear on my engine, and the boost to American farmers, and the improved exhaust smell, and . . . well, nobody wants to get me started on biodiesel. treedweller

Hmm, does that mean no new schoolyard hides, or none at all? because I recently tried to complete a multi that ended in a school playground. It had been archived for some time, then came back up about a month ago. As a man who often caches alone, I'm all for a rule that won't leave me lurking about a playground for minutes or even an hour at a time. Besides, how likely is it that an area swarmed with kids daily will sport a hading place that won't get muggled? As for ROW, I don't mean the strip of someone's backyard under the power lines. I'm thinking about roadway medians and the like (and though I know it's done, I'm not advocating a cache that causes searchers to cross 3 lanes of superhighway). There are some nice spots around me that are city property, safely accessible from public roadways, but not official parks or other public destinations. treedweller

Agent orange will kill it. Makes it a lot easier to find the cache, too. Who could complain about that? Seriously, you're going out into nature to find a box of tupperware for no good reason. If you can't tolerate nature, look for the walmart hides and leave the woods to those of us who enjoy them. the plants won't die till long after you're gone, anyway--how does it help you? treedweller

I see a lot of hides in parks, schoolyards, etc. and I have my doubts about whether the hider really got permission. Makes me wonder how hard I have to seek ok before i hide something. Not to "out" any renegades, but how often do hides go in without permission? Is it acceptable to say, "City of X has Y policy, so I'll follow that policy 50 times without further requests for approval"? I'm sure few, if any, hide caches on private property without permission, but what about public? What about city ROW, but not a park or other official destination? just curious, treedweller

have I figured this out yet? Aha, at last I see I have.

After a little online research, someone got me pointed in a new direction on metal to cast. Turns out, zinc in the form of pennies (post 1983) costs about $2/pound. It doesn't melt till about 900*F. but still achievable on a camp stove or similar. I'm still waiting for my plaster to dry so I can try it out. treedweller

As Midway guessed, I carved a reverse impression in a piece of wood. The holes in the face of the casting resulted from moisture that boiled out of the wood--the first few were quite a bit worse than these. After drying the wood in an oven awhile it got better. My next few might have been cleaner if I'd just kept using the wood till it got drier, but each casting burned the wood a little more, so I was losing ground from both directions. For a more permanent mold, I plan to carve a positive model in wood (you might try clay for an easier medium since you claim no talent) and then make a mold from plaster (see post above). Since geting advice that I must use special plaster for investment casting, I've heard elsewhere that regular plaster of paris will work (available at most any craft or hardware store). This might be a good first step if you want to explore the possibilities, but I make no promises. If plaster doesn't go well, I have my eye on a big chunk of soapstone at the local art supply--back to negative relief carving for that one. I'm hoping it won't come to that. treedweller