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lowracer

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Everything posted by lowracer

  1. What is an Event Cache exactly? I've read the guidelines and even posted a few successful events in my day, but I've been thinking about it lately. The event cache is an odd bird, wouldn't you agree? It's not a container hidden in the woods. There's really no requirement for a logbook to sign either. There are coordinates, yes, but none of the other things we associate with a geocache. There usually isn't any swag, not like we think of it, but travelbugs are common. There's no 528 foot rule, and they're specifically designed to be not permanent. Yet you still get a smiley if you attended, and in most areas, it's common practice to log a smiley on your OWN event if you went to it. So what is the purpose of the event cache? From the guidelines: "Event caches are gatherings for geocachers by geocachers to discuss geocaching." And paraphrased: The primary focus of these events is geocaching and the primary attendees are geocachers. -Is it for local geocaching groups to hold official club meetings during which club business and serious geocaching topics may be discussed, such as land use policies? -Is it a picnic where cachers gather to talk about caching and maybe hunt some temporary caches or play geo-games placed specifically for the event, mainly to have fun together? -We know the purpose can't be to arrange a meeting for the sole purpose of finding a cache or caches (unless you specifically call it a "cache machine" in which case --well, you can). But can an event cache be held strictly for the purpose of *planting* one or more caches, either singly or as a group? -What about birthdays and holidays? Is an event cache an acceptable way to celebrate special occasions by gathering cachers together? The focus of the event there would be on celebrating the holiday or birthday, not on geocaching per se. How about some examples of events? Can you hold one at a commercial shooting range, if you talk about caching between shots? What if you held it at a bowling alley, and you get to bowl while talking about geocaching? What about an event at a restaurant or bar, and you talk about caching between mouthfuls or swigs (but never talking with your mouth full)? Could it be held in a swimming pool or lake? Could you discuss caching while treading water? What if you held an event where you rented a big boat and partied on the lake? What if you drove the boat around to all the caches hidden near the shore and let people find them? What about the commercial aspects of event caches? You probably couldn't place an ammo can inside a restaurant, bar, bowling alley, shooting range, or other commercial enterprise without some serious 'splainin to do before it would get approved. But event caches are routinely held there, and especially with the purpose to consume the beverages or food, to knock down the pins, or to punch holes in the targets. That's kinda weird. So it seems that events can sometimes be commercial. Let's talk event caches. What works, what doesn't. What does it all mean? What is the spirit of the event cache? What kinds of events have you seen that went off really well?
  2. "Put it back the way you found it" breaks down completely as a rule if only one finder doesn't follow it. Far better idea is to affix a detailed instruction sheet with photos showing how you want it hidden. Put this instruction sheet inside the lid of the cache. That way even if some moron hides it wrong, the next cacher has a chance to see how you wanted it done and set it right.
  3. Sorry guys, it was me. I submitted a pocket query for all micro caches within 500 miles of Nashville. I could smell the server burning all the way down here in Austin. Time for another bucket of that server oil. -mark.
  4. Well, you have my sympathy. The worst are the film cans (in cammo tape) hidden in the woods where a 24-gallon action packer could easily fit without ever being muggled. I can see the purpose of a disguised hollowed-out bolt or keychain pill box hidden in a street sign downtown though, that can sometimes be an interesting hide. My solution, I filter them out of my pocket queries and don't go looking for them.
  5. 1. vcard (.vcf) format is used by folks wanting to use their iPod to store cache descriptions and hints, using the 'Contacts' feature of the iPod. Now that the GeoToad's been gigged, there may be more demand for support of the vcard format in other tools. GeoToad was open source, and I believe used the Ruby language, not sure how easy it would be to port the vcard code to GPSBabel. Anyway, I miss caching with my iPod. Once i finish finding the 768 caches I still have left in it, I'm back to carrying the PDA. 2. Thanks for that tip. I hadn't thought of that. This method will unfortunately not work if any of my group are not premium members though. 3. D'oh! Sorry about that. Clyde, this looks like a tool I'll be using quite a lot, especially now that GeoToad's under the restraining order. I am hooked on the filtering, the smart names and comments, especially the ability to tailor these last two using the various tags. Stand by for PayPal payment. (And BTW enter one more vote for a native Mac OS X version.)
  6. Feature requests: 1) Output in vcard (.vcf) format for iPod cachers. Now that GeoToad's under a cease-and-desist order, iPod cachers are SOL. 2) Group caching - exclude caches found/owned by (list of cacher userids). This allows a group of cachers to go on a caching excursion and everyone gets a fresh find. 3) Use the geocaching.com member ID number to determine cache ownership. Many of us place caches under an alias or a group name. These are not recognized as owned. For example, I placed GCJECY, but used an alias 'blue ibis,' instead of 'lowracer.' It shows up as a cache that I don't own.
  7. We're getting off topic here. The topic was "GeoToad : Is it Kosher." That question has been answered. Time to close this thread.
  8. So the proper thing to do is to stop using the program. Meanwhile, let those of us who have used and enjoyed the program insist loudly and clearly that Groundspeak incorporate the features of GeoToad into the Geocaching.com website in the form of enhanced pocket queries. And soon.
  9. Compasses make good swag, that's all they're good for. I wouldn't know how to use one. Who cares which way is north? What if I want to go east? What good would a north-pointing compass do me if I want to go East? I could make a million bucks manufacturing compasses that pointed to the other various directions that people need to go. One for east, one for southeast, etc. You'd keep a whole set of each kind of compass in your pack, then whichever way you needed to go, you just whip out that particular compass and follow it. I'm glad they invented GPS or I'd always be lost.
  10. And there's no way anyone could ever fake a date with pen on a tablet?
  11. Hate to respond to my own post but we may be sunk here on the Virtual PC thing. D'oh. I should have thought about this a bit more. There would have to be a mac driver for the Garmin 60cs before it could be even recognized by Virtual PC. I'm off to Fry's to buy a serial cable.
  12. Is this legit? Or a clever re-enactment? This can't be real. Is it? Who can authenticate this? Very cool either way. -mark.
  13. Has anyone had any success getting the 60CS USB to be recognized in Virtual PC? I'm running Win 2K on Virtual PC 6 and so far not having any luck. I've got the driver installed but Mapsource 6.3 isn't finding the device. I'm running 10.3.4 Panther.
  14. GeoToad does not let you search for benchmarks. However, it is an open source project so if you want to write some code for this, go for it. It is my understanding that the program puts a delay between each request to the server and this delay can be lengthened if desired. Further, if your request is expected to retrieve more than 350 caches, an extra 15 second delay is imposed between hits. There is a feature called shadowfetch that caches all requests to geocaching.com so that subsequent searches do not even hit the geocaching.com servers. For example, I ran a query yesterday morning and 98% of the caches were retrieved from 'local' instead of from geocaching.com. I am not affiliated with the GeoToad project in any way, just a happy GeoToad user. If ultimately Seattle rules against GeoToad, I hope they'll roll in all the features of this program into the pocket query system. I have written a quick intro to GeoToad for our local caching group. Might as well post it here. Let me know if you find it helpful: http://home.austin.rr.com/lowracer/GeoToadIntro/ -mark.
  15. What's the word from TPTB on GeoToad. Is it kosher or not? It's got a lot of nice features, but I'm concerned that it might be considered a robot or spider which is verboten. A search of 'GeoToad' on these forums brings up next-to-nada.
  16. I use a Keyspan high speed USB-Serial adapter and MacGPSPro. (www.macgpspro.com). You can do everything with your Garmin on a Mac that you can on a PC except upgrade the firmware and download mapsource maps into the unit. For that you must use Garmin's proprietary software which only runs on a PC. Virtual PC is good for this though. Edit: you can't (as referenced in a previous post) do USB yet on the mac with the 60CS. Until then there's the trusty old Serial Port. Not sure if Virtual PC will let you do USB connection to the 60CS but I expect to find out next week when my new 60CS arrives.
  17. When I get tired of hunting them, that's when I start to think of devious ways to hide 'em. Then after I've hidden a few, I get back into finding again. Also, if you wait a bit, you get some new cachers in the area and these are always fun to meet. Throw an event and make a party of it. Seeing the excitement of the new cachers can be contagious.
  18. Well I'd assume that if someone went to the trouble of posting a smiley they either: 1) Wanted the smiley enough to log it as a find 2) Enjoyed it and wanted to let me know 3) Didn't enjoy it but grudgingly posted the smiley anyway since they went to the trouble to find it 4) Cheated to boost their smiley count and didn't actually find it 5) Logged on by mistake and randomly hit mouse buttons and keys until a smiley was posted accidentally 6) Were a newbie that meant to just write a note instead but didn't know how to select 'write note' I read every post every finder makes to any of my caches. I can safely say that when they post a smiley they are enjoying it. I don't plant lame caches. So I want this stat. If you plant lame caches you can ask for a different kind of stat, thats your choice. This is the one I want. How much joy am I responsible for in this sport.
  19. Can anyone post coords for that? That sounds like an interesting micro.
  20. I would really like to see in addition to my smiley count and hidey count, a count of how many smileys have been posted to my caches. How many smileys did other people get because of me. How much joy am I responsible for. I'd like to be able to see that at a glance. Right now I have to go to each cache page (all 63 of them) and count. Thanks, -mark.
  21. The winner of the 2003 Best Event Cache in Austin was GCH3H5 - Austin Geopoker Run by Essiar. Read the cache page for some ideas. Essiar solved many of the problems you will encounter. You could contact him for more details, I'm sure he'd be glad to share. Also see GCHRKM - Austin Geopoker Run - 2nd Edition by Essiar. Having attended both events (and been on the winning team for the 2nd) I can say each was the best event ever. I still have scars from the first one. Definitely a caching event and the most fun you can have caching. The creativity level was very high on the hides. No one got a photo of the winning hide (there was a second contest running on who had the most creative hide) but imagine a picnic table under one of those metal awnings in a largely abandoned park (it was overcast and drizzly that day). The picnic table was covered in a red checkered vinyl tablecloth, there were kid toys scattered around (a big-wheel, some other large toys), there was a bucket of chicken and some other picnic items on the top of the table, utensils and napkins and plates, and next to the table on the ground was a cooler full of ice and cokes. You had to be crazy enough to invade someones picnic lunch spot, then you had to open the cooler, reach under the cokes to find the 'cache' which was an envelope full of cards. Anyway, you could probably adapt the rules from this event to fit your game, or you could make your cache an event cache and it could work out just like Essiar's.
  22. lowracer

    Server Too Busy

    I think I found the problem. The can's empty. Time to re-order.
  23. We had a good discussion of this on the forums recently. We concluded that it's not OK to log Puzzle caches by Proxy. Logging Puzzle Caches by Proxy I've never Markwell'd anyone before. First time for everything... -mark. aka "lowracer"
  24. I'm working on GC3153 Locationless "Where's in a Name" cache. My name worked out to 56 deg, 48 (or 49) .223. This runs across the southern part of Alaska, among other places. Anyone able to help out up there? I'm also going to post in the forums for the other countries this spans. Hope that's not a terrible breach of forum etiquette. You get a smiley if you help. Thanks! -mark. aka "lowracer"
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