BillsBayou

Photo for my house is not as nice as maps.google.com. Your site: Google: I'll allow that I've only just looked at "Live.com" for the first time today. There may be something I need to select to get better images. You tell me. The Live.com image is also dated by a couple of years. Live.com still shows my intact patio cover of which Hurricane Katrina ate about half. Then again, The FEMA trailer in my front yard has been gone for a few months, so Google.com is a bit dated as well.

By free, I mean, come get them from my house or they're going to the dump. Yes, they leak. But then, they weren't designed to store IBM Mainframe tapes in the woods. I thought I could make this a waterproof case. I don't even have the time to try. I'll keep a dozen of them for experimenting, but I just don't want them in my yard any longer. It's a Perm-A-Store Turtle case for 3480 IBM mainframe tapes. Dimensions: 15.25"L x 6.5"D x 6.5"H. I have more than 80 of them and want to get rid of about 70. I live in the New Orleans, LA area. Bring a truck. Case closed: Case holding one of it's tapes (tapes not included). You cannot close the case with the sprite can standing. Idea of how long it is. Note the indentation for the handle. You can see the pins of the handle. You'll also note that the case has NO RUBBER SEAL. I left the case in the rain for a day and it leaked from both of these locations. Yeah. I'm realling doing a good job of making these irresistable. I'm just being honest. Don't drive more than 50 miles for these unless you know EXACTLY what these are. I just may bring them to the dump this weekend if I get no nibbles on these here or on the lageocaching.org site.

Oh wait, that was critisizm wasn't it.... Why is it some poeple can't resist commenting on issues when they have no intention of making things better The way I see it, he DID make things better. He took your suggestion of selling the permits and made it BETTER by giving them away for free. You're obviously the one who couldn't resist the temptation to comment on HIS issue but did NOTHING to make it better. Me? I couldn't resist the urge to comment to point out the LACK of logic in your comment and the LESS THAN NICE nature in which it was posted. I'm making THINGS BETTER by helping to clarify who is doing what to whom. I do so because pointing out UNCIVIL NATURE is what I do. I'm a real sweetheart that way. To RECAP: 1) You want to SELL 2) What he gives away for FREE 3) Whom you INSULT 4) On which I spot hypocrisy. Making the world a better place, I remain your play-by-play man, Bill.

PUBLIC HUMILIATION! WHOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was better than any jail time. I have to agree with GeoSquid. My initial response of turning her into the police was wrong. Jail would be an over-the-top punishment for this crime. Nevermind, she'd most likely never actually be placed in a jail cell. Then a slap on the wrist from a judge is something that'd be on her permanent record (which she deserves), but she'd never really "pay" for her crime. Now she pays. She's out the $100 and in for the teasing of her life. In the parlance of her generation, she's been "OWNED." Not one, but two newspaper articles have mentioned her. Both of which are on the Internet. Her name isn't listed, but EVERYONE at Carleton knows who she is now. "I did my time," would have been a "Tough Girl" response, but she doesn't get that. She's been outted and forced to pony up the cash for the cacher. As for her friends? Well, hell, they've got their stupid faces smiling with the criminal evidence in their hands! They chipped in too. They're not going to get it as bad as Meg, but they're coming in a close second. Someone needs to create one of those "Priceless" image editing deals: "Screwdriver to remove plate: $7 Six-pack of beer to lower intelligence: $8 Digital Camera: $90 Getting caught with a photo of your friends committing a misdemeanor: $100 Having parents who are first cousins: PRICELESS Ok, so I suck at the text.

Didn't see the link anywhere above, so here's the story from the Ottawa Sun: http://www.ottawasun.com/News/OttawaAndReg...466490-sun.html

I'm not sure if I've done any bashing of the person. I'm just recommending harsh criminal proceedings. Criminals deserve nothing less. Don't kid yourself, these people are not pranksters, they're criminals. A prank is saran wrap under the toilet seat. Using a screw-driver to remove a government issued license for the purpose of driving priveldges is a CRIME. I'll be happy to edit out anything that's considered bashing. So let me know. From Geosquid's blog: It's that last part I'm trying to help with. The part where he exhausts his patience with Meg. I'm certain he'll get his $100. Then he should contact the newspaper to let them know about it. They'll want to do a follow-up story. He can give them her full name if they do not already have it. After all, SHE'S the one who put her name on her blog.

Another good idea is to look at the puzzle caches of geocachers in other areas. Examine how they do their puzzles and change them to fit your own interests an coordinates. Ok, so maybe that's stealing an idea. You'll get zero points for creativity. That's why you look at caches more than 100 miles away. Your locals will most likely not recognize the puzzle. If your idea uses the same solution method as another cache, it's considered very nice to make note of where you got your inspiration. It's also a good idea to make this note if the solution method is so regognizable that other cachers are mentioning the other caches it in their find logs. You don't get the feeling of being "busted" if you've already mentioned your inspiration. NEVER EVER NEVER steal someone else's TEXT or GRAPHICS. That's just wrong. If you cannot re-create the puzzle for your local coordinates without plagarizing, then JUST DON'T DO IT. You'll get called out for this on the forums or just flat out reported to your local approval agent. Now then, if you cannot figure out how to solve another cacher's puzzle, it's OK. Just jot down the ideas you come up with for solving their puzzles. "Hmmmm... maybe I need to do X, Y, Z to solve this puzzle" If you think that X, Y, Z is a good way to solve a puzzle, then come up with a puzzle where you need to do X, Y, Z! If you want, you can give recognition to the other cacher's puzzle, but seeing as you're using a method and puzzle that was inspired but is essentially different, you're free to claim artistic ownership.

Geosquid's blog has a PDF. From there, I got the following link which still works: http://meghaley.spaces.live.com/PersonalSp...p;_c=PhotoAlbum I really suggest that Geosquid forwards all pertinent information to the administration at Carleton University www.carleton.ca Granted, this [bashing word removed], according to her blog, did this a year ago so she may not still be a student. However, she seemed to be taking some common curriculuum courses. She could still very well be there. As I understand university suspensions, once you've been suspended (or God forbid, expelled), you CAN NOT attend another university! Well, you can't go to an ACCREDITED university. They tend to all stick together. That way, none of your classes transfer to anywhere else! I'd like to see just how much damage Meghan has done to her own future.

I'd contact the University administration about this. If this event took place within the rules of a sanctioned event, they could face sanctions themselves. Yes, everyone in the photo could face sanctions. See if you can use the names of the people in the photo to contact them. Find out from the local law enforcement people what the penalties are for this crime. The $100 cost may be above or below some threshold that marks the difference between a call from the police and an arrest warrant being issued. I do not know the law. I've only heard rumors. Thus... In the US, this may be a misdemeanor. However, since they did this as an organized crime, it may cross into premeditation. Conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor is a felony. Theft of property from a motor vehicle may make this a specialized type of crime. Especially as it involves the removal of a government issued license. Maybe Geosquid should be contacting the local District Attorney's office (or whatever your equivalent is under Canadian law). It'd be worth my never getting the $100 back if I knew that these people had to spend a night in jail; spend money on legal defense; have a permanent mark on their criminal records; face sanctions by their university. I really don't like these people.

All of my puzzles are mazes. The simple reason is that I enjoyed creating puzzles as a child. It was only logical for me to do mazes as a start for my puzzles. You should ask yourself "What kind of puzzles do I enjoy?" If you enjoy the puzzle type, you'll enjoy creating the puzzle. Enjoying the puzzle genre will fuel your creative process. Begin by dissecting the puzzle. Identify the components of the puzzle which make it work. For example, Mazes: Step 1, What makes a maze, a maze? Step 2, What is it about mazes that can be used to hide numbers? Step 3, How can I abuse the criteria of a maze? (This is the step where I came up with some of my really wierd mazes) What if a maze had more than one exit? What if a maze had no start or end? What if a maze had no walls? What if a maze had no single solution? What if a maze had no solution at all? (Come up with a maze with these broken rules and then go back to Step 2, above, and see how it changes that area of your creation process) One of the most confounding problems I encounter is "How do I represent ZERO?" My answer is to use the number TEN. You may have another answer. Sudoku is a puzzle type that I cannot use because I live in the 30N-90W area of New Orleans. There are no zeros in Sudoku. However, I've got several ways to hide coordinates if I can find a place to hide a cache. So: What makes a Sudoku work? Sudoku puzzles have a solution Sudoku puzzles begin as an incomplete 9x9 grid Sudoku puzzles must Sudoku rules (that whole 3x3 grids arranged 3x3 with the 1-9 rules) Only digits 1-9 may be used. 1) Show a Sudoku with a maze path (yes, mazes again). The solution is 14 spaces in length. The entire path is empty but will contain the coordinates when you solve the entire puzzle. 2) Give your finders an incomplete coordinate set (N30 AB.CDE W90 FG.HIJ) and then mark 10 spots in the Sudoku with letters. The solution will give them the answer key. 3) Create your Sudoku with the coordinates in plain sight! The 14 digits (15 digits for people in the far West or East areas of the world) are the only digits at the start of the Sudoku. - This is my favorite type. You don't need to solve the puzzle at all! Heck, you can even make the Sudoku unsolvable if you're cruel. 4) Combine steps 2 and 3, above. Hide the cache coordinates in the ABCs of the Sudoku. Make the hide spot very difficult. The plain sight coordinates give the location of a clue cache that makes finding the cache easier if they go there first. You can do all this with crosswords too (plenty of blanks to be used there). Granted, I've only mentioned pen and paper puzzles. There are plenty of other types of puzzles out there. Do a "Paint-by-numbers" puzzle. Make a swirling mess of areas that can be easily imported into a Windows Paint file. Then when the finder fills in the numbers, the dark greens, blues, and blacks reveal the coordinates among the lighter whites and yellows. Make your finders print out and put together a jig-saw puzzle. (Few would do this, I fear) Have any 10-sided dice? Take pictures of the dice with the needed numbers on the bottom of the die. The finders will need to solve the puzzle by looking at all the photos to determine where the numbers are located. There's a puzzle cache in my area that uses photographs and a marked map. To solve the puzzle, you need to determine which photos line up with the letters on the map. You have to drive around town to figure it out.

Are you going to run off a couple hundred copies of the CD? You'll need to check your CD distribution point quite often. Not everyone will take just one. Some people have no control over their kids "Daddy! Mary took one, I want one too!" If there are 20 disks and three screaming idiot children show up with the cacher, you're down three disks. Trust me, I have three kids. Not that I'd take three disks, but others may just take three to shut up the little brats.

I guess I'll have to see if there's some way to seal the seam. If so, then the useability goes up.

Perm-A-Store Turtles Some of you fellow geeks will recognize these containers. These are tape boxes for IBM mainframe tape cartridges. I've got more than 100 of these little beasties. Dimensions: 15.25"L x 6.5"D x 6.5"H I did a rain test on these and they are NOT WATERPROOF. But still... what can I do with these? My wife's idea is to put a 1-gallon Ziploc inside. I guess that'd work. I'm taking them all to the dump if nobody wants them. I hate throwing away anything if it's useful. Anybody know if these have any real value outside of holding mainframe tapes?

See Richard. See Jane. Jane trades even. Richard treats the cache like his own personal goody jar. Don't be a Richard. Jane re-cammos as found. Richard leaves the cache box open on the sidewalk when he leaves. Don't be a Richard. ... more?

Why don't we just split the difference and move the clocks ahead 30 minutes and leave them the hell alone? The afternoon has gently passed me by The evening spreads its sail against the sky Waiting for tomorrow Just another day God bid yesterday goodbye Bring on the night I couldn't spend another hour of daylight Bring on the night I couldn't stand another hour of daylight The future is but a question mark Hangs above my head there in the dark Can't see for the brightness Is staring me blind God bid yesterday goodbye Bring on the night I couldn't spend another hour of daylight Bring on the night I couldn't stand another hour of daylight

"Be Kind, Please Rewind" Sure, it's trite, but it works. It's a guilt trip for anyone who doesn't rewind their video tape rentals before going back to the store. "Oh man, I forgot to rewind. I'm committing an unkind act." And it rhymes, so it's easy to remember. Man, what a great phrase. I want something similar for "Re-Cammo As Found". Be Good, Cover With Wood Don't Get Me Uptight, Put It Back Out of Sight. Cover With Rock, Or I'll Kick You In the... ...Knee

Geocachers need to be responsible for their own actions. If you're going to find a cache YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT AREA YOU ARE IN! So the cache owner didn't say "This is an off-leash dog park". So what? If you go to a park and you see dogs running around, EXPECT TO GET ATTACKED BY A FRIENDLY DOG! If you are allergic to dogs STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THE FRIGGIN PARK. Did the girl deserve to be jumped upon? No. Should she have expected it? Oh yeah. The witch in question has no business being around off leash dog parks. I see it the same way as going to a Chuck E Cheese's restaurant. Kids are running everywhere. The adults are ultimately responsible for their children's actions, but if I get greasy pizza sauce hand prints on my clothes from someone else's kids I SHOULD HAVE EXPECTED IT TO HAPPEN. Going postal on the kids parents makes me look like an idiot. The same applies to the witch in question.

I have used satellite images to find several hiding spots. I have a few yet to go. Because of the Mississippi River, our roads go in many directions other than NSEW. This has caused several "dead zone" of development that are not readily discernable using street maps. The satellite photos I've used have helped me identify several of these areas. I recommend it to anyone who is having trouble placing anything larger than a micro.

I use these attributes: I also like to include the phrase "no mobility impared" in the short description. It does not imply bushwhacking, but it does let people know that the cache is somewhere harder to traverse than grass. BUSHWHACKING to me implies: Bush: a woody shrub or larger Whacking: which must be subdued Bushwhacking: getting to the cache will require forcing your way through branches which will most likely be broken as you pass or will scratch you all to hell if you're in shorts and shortsleeves. My most recent cache invovlves the inadvertant destruction of small woody weeds in an area where the guys with the bushwhacking equipment will be glad for the assistance. Some trees just need killing. My next cache will most likely be in a parking lot. It's a busy parking lot, but I'll assume common sense and not post a "No Kids" attribute. Given the design of the cache, I wouldn't want to do it in a wheelchair, but only because of how aggravated the drivers tend to be in this poorly designed parking lot.

If there is one thing that I have learned from this crowd (or is it just the people in these forums) is this: There is no bushWHACKING allowed! You must gently coax the bush out of the way. You must then appologize for interfering with the bush's right to occupy it's bush-space. Appologize to the bush sincerely. Snide remarks smaks of species-centricity and is rude. You must also appologize to the top soil for any stresses placed upon it by your roughhousing with the bushes. It takes 100 years, after all to rebuild the specific soil compositions that made it possible for the bush to reach it's bush-potential. Disturbed soil makes it possible for invasive species of flora and fauna to exist. If for any reason, you snap a twig, you must consult an arborist or an agent of your local ag-center for advice. If the bush is a protected species, you AND the person who placed the cache must turn yourselves in for the appropriate adjudicative process to settle the matter. The local cache reviewer should also be contacted so that the cache can be properly SBA'd. You must then attend sensitivity training which are designed to make you feel bad for being a clumsy animal-centric eco-hostile dunderhead. You must also pay for land restoration surveys to determine if environmental remediation is necessary to remove any foreign species which have moved into your zone of contamination. Bear in mind, these recomendations only cover light-pole caches.

You guys let me know if you try the tutorial.

I have a 49cc 20" McCullough that's just ITCHING to do some caching. (I tell ya, it whispers to me in the night....) Gonna do some clear cutting of an overgrown lot. I'll pile the timber over a ditch and call the cache "I'll Be Dammed."

But will you gather everyone together, pull out the nails and moralize that while the nails are gone, the holes still remain? - HauntHunters Copper nails kill trees. I really hate the tree. I'd call the cache "To Kill A Tallow".

Here is something I found on the Internet. I've had requests for instructions, but I cannot find how or why it works. Thus I created my own tutorial page. I figured it'd be a good way to hide information for a puzzle cache. The only drawback is you can only use Microsoft Internet Explorer for it to work. Just depends on how cruel you want to be. Here's an example. To see the dog and the rubber ducky, press Ctrl-A from within Internet Explorer.

Of what you mentioned, I only have a problem with climbing a tower for which common sense tells you to stay off. I guess it's a matter of location that determines sensibilities. I've seen something similar to a 35mm film can that was actually set INTO the tree. The hider did it with a cordless drill and a spade bit. I've seen caches nailed to trees. I've seen a cache attached to a live leaf. (actually a very frustrating but fun nano) I've seen a cache wedged into bark. I WANT to create a cache where to claim the cache you have to drive a copper nail into a tree (I hate the tree)