Rattlebars

I have a ton of stories since I'm a "nightcrawler" (see avatar) when caching. One of the best is a geocache that was almost two miles from the nearest parking way out in farm country along a power line right of way. It was the dead of winter and it got dark at dinnertime so I wasn't out too awflully late. I'm making my way back to the truck when my cell phone rings. It was my wife calling me to tell me that a cop had called her and asked her why my truck might be parked where it was. She had explained "adult treasure hunting" to him and told him that's what I was up to. When I got back to the truck, he was very interested in hearing about this "treasure hunt" thing. We talked for about half an hour and I think he actually went to Target the next day to buy one of those GPS things. Least he said he was going to anyway. I've had about 10 encounters, all pleasent. It's YOUR attitude that will key the LEO's attitude every time. Just smile and be calm and polite.

I can only speak to it in that the P2D would have been my choice, but it was not available when I purchased my P1D-ce. The 2 uses the same DAYLIGHT producing CREE LED. The switching is more convenient, but it is a little larger then the 1. The 1 is a bit hard to use because of the need to turn the bezel to switch among all the modes. Click here for my interesting log for a night time find.

Adding or editing your avatar is done on your profile page. Go to your account and click on "Edit my Profile" on the right hand side. Scroll down and you will see YOUR AVATAR and YOUR PHOTO. Click "change/edit" or "choose avatar" under YOUR AVATAR. Upload a photo of your choice to your profile page by clicking on "upload a new photo" or choose one that's already there. Double click the photo you want to use as your avatar and it should show up under the button on the right. This is where it gets tricky.... Now, above that photo on the right will be a button "Select Avatar" which you MUST CLICK or your changes won't take. Then, you also have to click "re-register the changes" link in the text on that page. voilà - you got it!

Congrats! Now yer famous and yer caches will be harder to find! I suggest showing him Merinelli's 4 x 4.... that will keep him busy all day! I like your Telescope too, that would be an easy one..... GCPCNZ

On the Gold Wing or in the truck... Steely Dan (favorite Gaucho) Donald Fagen - Nightfly or Morph the Cat Watercolors at times on the XM. NOTHING while on foot.

Ok, this board crashed twice when I posted.... oh well....

Encrypt and Decrypt prompt works ok, but is now backwards... When you first look at a cache listing, the hint shows "Encrypt/Decrypt" but if you click, the hint gets "Decrypted" but the link shows "Decrypt" as the "command" on the link. Then it will show "Encrypt" as the "command" if it's displayed "encrypted"...... Shouldn't it show the opposite?

For the other forum! I clicked the wrong forum! Many apologies....... end this thread!

When you first look at a cache listing, the hint shows "Encrypt/Decrypt" but if you click, the hint gets "Decrypted" but the link shows "Decrypt" as the "command" on the link. Then it will show "Encrypt" as the "command" if it's displayed "encrypted"...... Shouldn't it show the opposite?

That is so wonderful! I just e-mailed my local library yesterday about placing a cache on their property or inside the library itself. They haven't e-mailed me yet, though. This is a neat idea! I wouldn't mind some inside info for help planning one of my own! The cache listing is NOW self-explanatory, but when first listed it mentioned nothing about anything being inside the library. We had to figure that out after searching for about 20 minutes outside to get our FTF on it. The mag key holder with the hint in it is attached to the door to the courtyard and it looks like part of the door mechanism. All in all it took us about an hour to find it. Great fun! It's up to you how to list yours. The "dictionary" is a "fake" book, which is really only a box that looks like a book.

Ditto! Made a trip to the OBX recently and caching made it fun (I'm not fond of beaches, but went to please the family).

This cache is hidden inside a library inside the dictionary which you must request from the librarian since it sits on the shelf behind the counter! Awesome! http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...08-f9e8a5e25338

I cache almost exclusively at night. Probably 80% of my 500 logs have been nightcrawling. We have coined the phrase "NIGHTCRAWLING" for such a practice. We once found a five stage cache which was all micros after midnight in dense underbrush. Nobody could believe we did it in the dark since most couldn't find it in the daylight! Several of our caches were set after midnight. Nothing beats the woods after dark especially on a cool clear night. Cemetaries too, but don't tell on us. Team Rattlebars is notorious for nightcrawling.... locals will always state in their listings "NO NIGHTCRAWLING" if they don't want us around after dark (but hey ) We have a good list of excuses for the LEO's (Law Enforcement Officers) for after dark questioning and some of them know us by now and might stop and say "Find it yet?" We have several logo's that pertain and all our pages have this background.... And this is our logo..... And this is my favorite flashlight, the Fenix P1D which is 135 lumens and no bigger than your thumb (do a google search on Fenix or check eBay). This thing is like daylight!

I'm using a Dell Axim 5 with 2002 operating system and GpxView from here http://strandberg.org/gpxview/ . I also use GPS Babel since it quite handily converts GPX to Magellan thru the serial port to my Meridian Color. As you can see, some of this stuff is dated, but I'm not a rich man. One can get a Dell Axim 5 on eBay for about $50. I tried using an old HandSpring Visor which can be had for about $30 on eBay, but could not read it. Not enough contrast. I do have the software to upgrade my Dell to 2003 so I can use the other programs but have not installed it as yet. Finding that what I have is adequate and will try something new during the winter. Dell Axim 5 GPX View GPS BABEL That will get you paperless for around $60 or so.

That's the largest Ammo box I would agree, but we have a larger container here: GCPB9E Motor City Gem

Tho I get them at my local Mickey's Army/Navy - these are 1/2" diameter...... http://cgi.ebay.com/LOT-OF-12-GPS-ID-HOLDE...1QQcmdZViewItem

I have a muggle "uniform" which consists of a cheap hard hat, a florescent orange mesh vest and a clipboard. These are all stashed in the truck. If I encounter heavy traffic, I will don my "official" gear and not worry about being seen. Harbor Freight sells all the equipment for about a $10 investment.

We don't use packs except at times a small leather fanny pack for some essentials. Instead, we use fisherman's "safari" vests and we have our team logo as a patch on them....

Well, I was pretty much done with this thread but there are two posts I must reply to... First of all, I was NOT trying to circumvent the guidelines. I was trying to follow what I believed to be the guidelines. Quite frankly, if they employed someone who could write above the sophomore in high school level AND if they dropped all the politically correct happy speak in the guidelines, they could easily SHORTEN them by more than 30% - EASY. One word means one thing in one part of the guidelines and something complety different in another... the guidelines look like what they very likely are - a collection of clauses that evolved over some time - sloppy and confusing. They need a concise and coldly logical re-write. That's precisely what this whole bloody thread is about. The approver offered NO suggestions but simply archived the cache without comment other than a terse "read the guidelines" remark. Well, I HAD read the guidelines very carefully before setting this rather difficult terrain cache and believed I was within the parameters of the guidelines. After the archive I made some requests for clarification, but a response to the requests was - shall we say - not forthcoming. Only after I relisted the cache as a mulit with two PERMANENT and UNMOVING (pun there) waypoints, did I get any response and any suggestions. I in my initial post and those thereafter, quite honestly told why I did not choose to accept any restrictions and preferred that this simply remain a metaphor of my original intent. Nowhere in this thread have I made a statement that would lead anyone to believe that I was uncooperative. Others, however, have made comments that would lead one to believe that I was uncooperative, but I won't name names. I came here trying to learn. I got help from some and got beat up by others in typical forum style. I'm a veteran of forums. But they never change... so I don't hang around them very often...

Delusional - that's a good one. I came here asking for opinions and help to understand geocaching, not abuse. Bottle up that anger and hide it under the bed. You may need it someday for something important. Semantics - rules ARE semantics (visit link). To think otherwise is dimwitted. Well, 528 feet is left out on a multi among other things like a log book in each container etc. But again, my complaint. If one is not a forum hound, "seen it stated" is meaningless unless one must peruse 18,000 topics and 350,000 posts. Why is that not stated EXPLICITLY in the guidelines. Ran into something similar with a cemetery micro. Suddenly, there were extras I was not aware of.... wastes reviewer's time and if I were one, I'd insist on better written guidelines - I'm busy enough. Actually, no. The guidelines define the initial "the first cache or waypoint" while the final is described also as a cache. The "cache" is not described strictly as 'the box with the logbook' (and if you read the guidelines, there are a number of things left out for "each cache" as stated) but, very strictly speaking the final is also a cache so it can't move. A multi normally has only one logbook for all parts. But, true, all parts are "caches" each and every one. I'm in agreement here, now. One reason I asked. Thanks for your help - at least thanks to those that were helpful...

A general reply to the latest posts: I would have brought this up whether or not the cache in its now revised stationary form was approved. It has been as GCPEEP. I was looking for reasons and I've heard a few good ones in today's posts. I'm simply trying to learn. The guidelines are vague and if there are liability issues at the Supreme Court level, they need stated plainly for us underlings so we don't waste our time nor waste our overworked reviewer's time. I read that very carefully and explicitly as a whole and DID NOT read it selectively. This cache was not a "traveling cache" having a permanent starting point anchor. A well stated rule would say "a cache or any part of a cache" cannot move. The second portion of that guideline implies that a cache that won't be there (like "event" caches) tomorrow will not meet approval, but caches that meet the first "permanence" portion (or "goal" if you will) of the guideline are ok (reading the ENTIRE guideline, that is, as it should be read). Litter: That was not my intent with "disposable" as you very well know. I'm in agreement with those who say that using this web site in any underhanded fashion is NOT the way to go at all. I would not suggest that in any form. If one uses the services here, one should comply with the rules (if one can divine what they are exactly). Keystone: Thank you for your unending pateince with me and your extra efforts on this one. Please see the first part of this post as per your reviewer note to me today. This thread is not an attempt to get the listing re-revised to its intitial form (it's just fine as it stands - a "metaphor") and I'm not exercising any "right" of appeal here, I'm merely trying to learn what the guidelines actually are. But your post today has "real estate" implications. I was very careful in my first cache in this area to place the waypoints far enough away from each other so as not to "capture" the entire area away from other potential placements by others. Perhaps there are more things I need to learn...

Reasonable arguments, yes, but .. and some still exist, tho this self admitted "traveling cache"Rover seems to be a precursor to Travel Bugs or some variation thereof. No different from possible muggling and, as we needed to do once - take a cache for a ride in the truck to thaw out the lock. It seems unreasonable that approval is witheld on the highly unlikely chance that frequent finders (who would probably encounter one another along the way) would descend on this difficult terrain cache at the same moment in time and cause any more of a problem than muggles or those incompetent finders/re-hiders of regular caches. Rules are bent by malicious wisecracks all the time, considering the number of caches I've had to repair. once again, we return to the unstated list of seemingly secret rules....

WOW! This seems right up my ally.... but when would I find the time to find the caches to ...... that's really cool tho...... will look over the head scratchy program when time permits... thanks for doing the work and posting here... Anyway, JEEP.COM... Ok, shoot me if I'm showing my greeness (I'm kinda new to global navigation) but could your 100 yards be the difference between NAD27 and NAD83 on the decimal stuff???? JEEP.COM confuses the crap out of my Magellan unless I fiddle with its NADs a bit.... then it's happy as can be... (interpret how you will)

Worry? Caches are disposable so I rarely worry about them... But that "control" word..... to a born iconoclast such as myself, that word has connotations indeed. My actual beef is that the guidelines are poorly written PCspeak. There seem hard and fast rules that are not stated explicitly there and one is left to guess or to pour over some 18,000 topics and 350,000 posts to glean the tidbits necessary to not waste a few days work on a hard to hide cache. There should be some centrally located place to go where these "control" parameters are laid out in some detail... if I've missed that place (I'm sorta new here), please guide me to it. I feel that the imprecise guidelines lead to boring caches (there's a box or a pill bottle at these coordinates), of which there are too many... But I must say (all the while trying not to appear too much a toady) that my approver has great patience with our little group and is a reasonable, friendly fellow on most occasions.

Placing a creative cache is a bit of work, especially if the terrain is rated 3 or 4. I recently listed a cache which was abruptly archived without notice or chance to edit. Please know that before placing the cache, I poured over the "guidelines" pages (being creative in placements, I have them memorized by now) and was sure that the cache met the STATED guidelines. Here's the gist. I previously placed a 4 star by 4 star cache in a deserted area which is two miles square (if you'd like to look it's GCPCNZ Merinelli's 4x4). I thought that it would be interesting to place a cache that "orbited" the other cache. It would a multi which starts with a PERMANENT & LISTED MICRO in which there would be the coordinates for a secondary final cache which "moved" from time to time around the PERMANENT LISTED MICRO and the coordinates inside the micro would list the new location of the secondary. The initial micro and the listing here would NOT CHANGE at all. I felt this did not violate the "traveling cache" taboo since the listing and the start would be PERMANENT. I invited finders of the secondary to move the secondary (within the guidelines and some rules of my own) and then return to record the new location in the permanent micro, something which I would do from time to time as well since I frequent the area on my quad. I felt this cache would be fun for both the owner and the searcher. It would meet the the stated guideline because stage one is PERMANENT and stage two is "anchored" to it. But no go.... I must express here that my approver did a bit of work on this one after archival by posting about it in the approver's forums for review (thank you!). Their consensus was that the secondary could be "moved" but only to a few other pre-determined locations. This would not be fun for the owner or the searcher and not meet my intention (both could participate in a little game of hide & seek rather than just move a game piece on a fixed board). I would like your opinion on this one. I think it meets the guidelines.