infiniteMPG

1% of the people reading the forums would be 67,200,000 people... wow! You'd think there'd be more posts... hehehe Thousands of books get submitted to publishers every year and only a rare few make best sellers. You can't control what books are written, only what books you choose to read. That's the way freedom of creativity works. Same goes for caches.... out of the thousands that get submitted some will be less then par, but even less turn out to be best sellers. We cachers only have the right to pick what we search, not what's created. Innovative breakthroughs are driven by passion more than perspiration.....

Snow???? What's snow? Just kidding.... actually some of the most fun we had geocaching was slipping and sliding around in the snow and ice geocaching on vacation at Whiteside Mountain in NC... Well.... I was the one slipping and sliding, Paddler Found was the one standing there snickering as she reminded me that she told me the pathway I was trying was too icy....

Now if GC could just come up with a way to filter logs.... Clicky-click-click..... "Made a cache run and found ten bazillion caches today. Thanks for hiding them..." CTRL+C, CTRL+V.... click! "Made a cache run and found ten bazillion caches today. Thanks for hiding them..." BEEP I'm sorry Dave, but I'm afraid I can't do that. You've already entered that as a log entry. Our system requires a unique log entry for each cache. Your CTRL key, your "C" key and your "V" key, as well as your clipboard have been temporarily disabled. Please try again.

View near Cowboy's Creeper GCZH31 when Hurricane Fay went by....

Hey Martin! I agree totally. My old Z3 is falling apart so I broke down and bought the new Olympus Stylus 1050 SW. 10.1Mp camera that is small, compact, has an aluminum slide-up cover that completely covers the lens and flash, shock-proof, freeze-proof (like I need THAT in Florida???) and water-proof to 10-feet depth. Metal body, lens does not stick out from the body but has 3X optical zoom. Also have an adapter to use a 2Gb micro-SD and I have a 1Gb micro-SD in my phone so if I run out of picture space I can just swap it with my phone's card. It's nice hauling a camera on hikes, on the bike or when 'yakkin' that I don't have to baby

ACK!!! Organized with my geo-gear, yeah, but don't EVER look at my checking account, bills, kitchen cupboards, and least of all my desk! But a man has to have his priorities!

I would probably be in that same mindset if it wasn't that I recently returned from a business trip where I stayed in Council Bluffs for a week... And today's Iowa farmer might be tomorrow's Disney Mickeyrageous tourist on the I-4 Corridor

But ya gotta admit that allowing people to vent in here keeps them from doing it behind the wheel on the road.... Micro caching threads... making driving safer for millions of Americans

Slikts normis99, mēs zināt viņu labs....

The cache listing would of pretty clearly stated "micro" so there shouldn't of been any surprise... But if you arrived at GZ and looked and looked and after scanning around you noticed a small piece of fishing line hanging from a branch and you uncoiled it and lowered a micro that was cleverly disguised with a plastic leaf or two hanging high up in the tree tops, you probably would of said "Wow, what a neat hide!". The owner obviously put time and imagination into creating it for you to be challenged by. Along the same lines if you traveled like you did and was 150-feet from GZ and there was one lone tree in the area and you could see the ammo can at the base from that distance, simply tossed down on the ground with no imagination or creative effort, you would of had the challenge of a good hike and absolutely no challenge of a good hide. In no way does size mandate quality. You could use that same type analogy with houses, there are more smaller houses then large houses so it only would stand that there are more smaller houses which are low quality then large ones. Doesn't mean they're low quality just because they're smaller, any of them are low quality because of who built them and who maintains them. Same with caches.... Hafta totally agree with SimbaJamey in the above post. I can see swag being a real draw for kids, but we don't trade swag, we like the challenges of a good hide. And if it's out in the middle of nowhere (literally), our packs will be filled with Clif Bars, water bottles, first aid and bug spray... not swag.

Wow..... no GPSr??? hehehehe Just kidding, great list. When we head out into the wild we also dump required materials into back pack but never thought about segregating it into baggies (maybe big freezer bags?). Good idea. But somethings still don't fit which makes it odd when you get spotted hiking while carrying a large bleached cow skull or rigged up tree stump up on your shoulder.... The pictures have to be online somewhere and then you use the INSERT IMAGES button at the top of the editing window (the little tree icon). When you click on the icon it will just ask you for the URL address and name of the image. After you put it in you can also highlight the image text and center it, too. Always preview first as some sites don't allow redirections and sometimes the pictures don't show up.

Never took this along to hunt caches, only to hide or maintain. But if you'd of seen some of the rusted Altoid cans we've found and the damage we did to our bike pedals and other things trying to pry them open, you'd understand this wouldn't be such a bad thing to haul along A skinny picture hanging nail in the side of a old dead tree or abandoned fence post in the middle of nowhere isn't doing a great deal of harm... and a lot less harm then people's feet or bike tires getting to it. The only time I've ever used the prying end was to pry apart some tree roots where someone hid a hide back in the wrong place and it got wedged where it didn't belong. A lot less damage then pulling out the ol' bushaxe (that doesn't fit in my case)

Don't think AR was defending anything because it was "lame", the defending is for something because it was "legal". (and belated Happy Birthday!) Slim Bob's are nothing but a heavy plastic bag with usually a magnet or Velcro attached and they're accepted. In fact if you put it to a vote I think you'd find that a plastic bag is a lot more permanent a GC container then an Altoid's tin which I believe there are one or two of those out there I agree with the ignore suggestion unless they start affecting your caches. As far as the log entries, even the NM ones. and posting pictures of the hide with a log, the owner can delete 'em as fast as people post them. Maybe start a "lame caches" or "should be archived" bookmark list and add all their's to it and get all your GC buddies to do the same. People might not hunt a cache when they see it belongs to dozens of negative bookmark lists and the owner can't do much about them

One indispensable item I forgot to show better in the owner's kit is a Euro-Pro Shark 8" Pry Bar : This is a short pry bar with a slit end like the back of a claw hammer for pulling nails, a really sturdy pry end for prying stuff (duh!), but the back side of the nail pulling end is flattened and heavy and is a neat little hammer for driving in small nails for hanging stuff with. It's only 8" long so it stores easily. And between that and my Gerber Clutch I'm set : You may think this is your regular ol' universal pocket tool but understand this guy is only 2-1/2" long and light as a feather and tough as nails! One of the best investments I've made.

I think I am guilty far too often of remembering my geocaching gear for maintenance or hunting and then when out on the trails realize I forgot my water...

Definitely!!! Think of it like the rating system for buyers and sellers on Ebay, it's a good way to tell if someone bidding on something you're selling, or selling something you're bidding on, to have a glimpse of what that person is like. Very subjective, very open to abuse, but in the long run, very useful. Have you ever noticed how a seller will pester the heck outta you after you bought something to leave them positive feedback? That's because it's seen as something very important to bring in more business.... same as a higher cache rating could bring in more cachers. Even something as simple as rating your overall experience with the cache as POSITIVE (3) - NEUTRAL (2) - NEGATIVE (1) and you can only pick one when logging a FIND (and you don't have to pick any). I think you'd also find that many owners would strive more to place quality hides and try to get that high rating so when you read a profile. people might post "Owner of 65 caches rated over 2.5!"

I'd vote yes simply because if data is made available it doesn't mean you have to use it. If we had even a simple 5-star rating system and allowed people to PQ filter on that, it wouldn't hurt the people not wanting a rating system one bit. We have filters available for size, type, area, terrain, difficulty, attributes, and many more things, and I'd bet the vast majority don't use any, they just look for caches... period. For the few that use the filters, what's wrong with giving people a "cacher rated" filter??? You don't have to use it any more then you have to use any of the other filters. Arguing against having rating data is like arguing against having a filter showing if public phones are available nearby.... And you wouldn't "have" to rate the cache when you find it, but you have find it in order to rate it. Simply make it part of the FOUND IT log page. If I were somewhere away from home on business and looking for a restaurant, I'd search on line and check out the restaurants with high ratings. Could be skewed or inaccurate but I'd bet for the vast majority, it's pretty spot on. As far as reading the logs to determine the quality of the cache.... puh-lease.... that would take about as much time as just finding the dang thing. ......need more data.

Nooooooooooo.... this is just my general "tackle box" for my maintenance runs, and it doesn't include the ammo cans, Lock-n-Locks, fake plastic animals and fruit with containers built in, some camo stuff (Spanish moss, etc), and other things that are too big for the case. If I'm doing a maintenance run deep somewhere I pull from this box and toss it in a backpack or waist pack depending on hiking, biking or 'yakkin'. If I'm seeking caches it's a totally different load, which includes hiking stick (from Indian village off the Appalachian Trail with GC crest in the handle), GPSr, Olympus waterproof camera, PDA, and a load of other gear depending on the mode of transportation. But the OP is geared more towards the owner maintenance kits. I have been used to having a little fun poked at me from my gear in my Jeep even back in July, 2006 : WeeklyPlanet July-2006 (even if they can't spell my name correctly.... hehehe)

After doing my once a month or so clean up of my GC toolbox that remains tucked in the back of my Jeepster, it started me wondering if it was at all odd for me to haul this around everywhere I went and if other GC owners might be doing the same. So I decided this was a good question to toss out on the floor in the forums. My "travel kit" for geocaching maintenance starts with a nice (and cheap from Wal-Mart) Stanley tote box with fold down sides and six side drawers : It looks pretty innocent when closed up, but after a while it's collected quite an array of necessary maintenance items. The drawers are divided into groups of things like tools such as needle nose pliers, scisors , super glue, various screws, nails, c-clips, and wire ties, a drawer of blank log sheets for micros and regulars, a drawer of a variety of velcro fasteners, one of pens, markers, bug spray, Cortaid Ivy Wipes (a necessity!!!), some first aid stuff, various plastic baggies, and regular sized cache log books. The fold down compartments are perfect to hold a wide variety of larger gear, camo paint & degreaser, camo tape, mini-pry bay/hammer combo tool, bailing wire, batteries, popcicle sticks, magnets, micro and small containers of various flavors and swag items. And the other side has camo rope, fake vines/leaves, industrial double-sided tape, 35mm's, magnetic key holders, nano containers, poncho and a few other various items. Not saying I'd enjoy explaining to the authorities what this gear is doing in my Jeep, but hopefully they'd of at least heard of geocaching So I guess I need to ask.... What's in YOUR travel kit????

I agree with everything you stated except not totally with the logging on line. Not that I mind that except there are a few problems with that. One, the dates on their finds would be prior to the date of publishing so not sure how GC website would handle that, and secondly, stat's programs like Cache Stats scans thru all your finds to see what finds you were the first person to log a find on on and assumes you were the FTF. You can edit this but for someone with hundreds or thousands of finds, that would be a royal pain. At the most I'd put a note log on the cache saying what you did and then post the find the day after the FTF logged it. But that's just MHO and all of these come to the same conclusion, FTF is in the eye of the logger 'n owner...

Good way to put it. That also puts merit to someone "test" seeking the cache or hiking with the owner and finding it before it's listed are fine, but the FTF is the first person to find it from the published listing on GC's site. Other people may of found it but in a nutshell it sounds like a good middle ground definition is as you stated, the "official" FTF is the person that finds the cache first using the information posted on the GC website. As far as the bat.... cute lil' guy!!! The "bat" I was worried about would also be flying thru the air but not using any wings...

Yeah, I have issue with Gmail in Chrome where it won't let me delete previous text using the CTRL-PAGE DOWN sequence like I can in IE7. And if using CTRL-DOWN ARROW it sometimes halts and stops scrolling, then hit delete and start it again. Can't stand where they tucked FIND IN PAGE and they have no way to use your Google bookmarks from your iGoogle page (no Google Toolbar in Chrome what I ave seen). Don't doubt that but I was trying to use the search tool today and thought it was a GC site issue until I found it was a Chrome issue.

I use Google's new browser Chrome as well as IE7, both have their good (and bad) points. I noticed today if I do an advanced search on the GC site with Chrome, and I search for anything and pick Country/State, it blinks out and prompts me for the country and I pick United States. Then it just sits there and the State selection box just reads --Not Applicable--. If I hit Search it finds things in Alabama and that's all. If I use IE7 after I select United States it blinks again and I can pick the state. Not that Chrome is going to zoom past IE users but just something to maybe look in to, in your free time

Do they have to be photos in our gallery or just any shots taken while geocaching?

I wasn't as concerned about who claims the FTF as I was about the ethical nature of finding a cache before it's published. I think GC has enuff flexibility and wiggle room to let people play as they see fit, and with things like the FTF claim, that's up to the cachers and occasionally the owners. With cache stats programs you could claim a FTF on every cache you've ever found and it would show that in your profile as fact, even though it's not. Stats like FTF's are your own personal thing because there is no way for the GC database to know anything beyond who logged a find first and we all know the FTF isn't always the first to log a find. And sometimes when people find a cache, they hide it back differently, or maintenance causes it to be moved or the camo to be changed, all these would another "flavor" of FTF (FTF in new location, FTF since the camo was changed, FTF since the magnet fell off and it was stuck up in the tree....). If you could compile cache stats from profiles you'd probably find a ton of caches that have several different people claiming FTF's on but if it makes them happier and they have more fun, then go for it!