Vinny & Sue Team

Tnx for asking. Can manage only short reply. Been kidnapped by evil ChubbChubbs, who seem to have already taken over Groundspeak and the Groundspeak server in effort to obliterate all alerts about their plot to ta

I can tell you from experience that there is a cache located at/near a branch of Cache Bank and Trust in a town in northern Colorado, and I can tell you from experience that there was (at least back in 2005) a cache located near Cache St. in Jackson, Wyoming.

Well, judging by previous replies, my response is gonna be a minority opinion; here goes: I believe that it is criminal and also stupid to ever embark on a hunt for a geocache without having first read the description on the cache listing page, or at least having made a strong effort to do so, because failing to read the description can lead to accidental trespassing or arrest or even to major injury or death. So, I feel that there is no excuse for failing to read a cache listing page, and I further feel that geocachers who routinely and deliberately skip reading the description on the cache listing page for a cache prior to hunting the cache should be remanded to Gitmo and should be subjected to waterboarding and electric shock torture, because it is they who earn a bad name for our sport among land managers. Further, if the description page for a cache is written in a non-English language that happens to be the major language used in the country or region in which it is placed, then I see no problem with listing an otherwise-traditional cache as Traditional. However, if the description for an otherwise-traditional cache is deliberately written in an obscure language or in a language other than English which is not the major native language for the region/country, then I feel that the cache should, at the least, be listed as a "?" cache, that is, an ALR cache, because of the additional effort to which a conscientious cache seeker will need to go in order to log a find.

Yep. Yep again. And, as I have pointed out in the past, even the ClayJar rating system assigns a relatively high Difficulty rating to such a cache, and also to many of the other Terrain 5 caches which folks here in this thread have cited as examples.

Well, there is no way to do so for regular and Premium members, but... It is said that Platinum level members have the privilege of being able to place Platinum-member only caches and that Thorium level members are able to place Thorium-member only caches. Since Platinum level membership is limited to only about 300 people, and since Thorium-level membership is limited to only about 110 cachers, this would be a great way to grossly limit who can see your caches. That is, if Platinum level and Thorium level memberships really existed, and if you belonged to one of those levels. Of course, we all know that they do not exist, so nothing to get concerned about here....

Time to revisit Facebook and MySpace so flask has something to pick on me about.... And here is a funny MySpace story: I noticed last year that my MySpace page had received a great number of visits over a 2-day period both from a CIA server in McLean, VA and from the Holy See at the Vatican. Today, I noticed that the same page was also visited by the CIO (Chief Information Officer) of the state of Nebraska. Too funny! And, why NEBRASKA??? Is Sioneva enlisting state agencies in her plot to stalk me? I am not sure if these same visitors also hit my Facebook page, because Facebook, unfortunately, does not not allow web traffic/visitor tracking on profile pages. But... gosh... this is so fascinating that I'd better go send updates about this matter to my accounts at Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Kwippy, PixelPipe and BrightKite....!

First, I suspect that the most likely venue for your thread is in the Travel Bugs section of the forum, and I suspect that the mods will be moving your thread shortly to that section. Next, this issue, along with the concomitant issue of complaints about missing trackables, is one which has been the subject of many previous threads; you may find some inspiration or ideas in some of those earlier threads. Lastly, these events which you are witnessing may point to the fact that perhaps your area is not a good one for hiding a travel bug hotel, and rather, perhaps it might be wiser to a allow trackables to be spread out far more diffusely than in your centralized 'hotel".

Well, I almost did. (Scroll way back.) Hence, the original rating is fine with me. I vote we all (especially you) stop trying to interfere with the cache owner and this cache. And may I respectfully suggest you take your corrosive remarks ("ego") and subsequent denials to another forum or thread, somewhere else? Thank you. First, request denied. Second, as I tried to infer in my earlier post, the difficulty rating is not based on how difficult it would be for someone who lives half a world away to get to the cache area and make the find. The difficulty is based on how hard it is to make the find once you are there. Oh, no... strife and stress and slightly harsh words on the forum. I am now stressed. Poor me. Excuse me while I run to my lab and quaff two 15 ounce mugsful of radon-enriched (and radon progeny-enriched) water, with a radiance level of over 145,000 pCi/L, from my radioactive water dispenser to soothe and calm my jangled nerves. sigh...

Exactly! Well said! Of course, the abusers will likely immediately jump in here and deny that they were abusive, arguing that they were merely trying to "improve the world for the rest of us" and that the were trying to "maintain law and order"! Why is it that people who claim that they are merely trying to help us so often turn out to be our worst enemies?

Personally, I feel that the D/T rating for a cache should depend only upon the characteristics of that cache, and not upon any D/T characteristics of any pre-requisite caches. This is the rule of thumb that I follow for each of my 5/5 extreme caches that require that prospective finders must find a certain number of my other extreme caches prior to being allowed to tackle the cache. Of course, in the cases I have cited above, since my caches in question are already 5/5 caches, it is also true that the characteristics of any prerequisite caches cannot possibly raise the D/T ratings any higher!

Your "find/reach" is the problem, as you're lumping them together. Searching = Difficulty. Journey = Terrain. This cache is most definitely rated incorrectly. A cache that someone just hands you should, indeed, be rated a Difficulty 1. This cache requires a boat to get to, so it should be a Terrain 5. If I put a big orange box on a cliff ledge, clearly visible from the ground, but reachable only with climbing equipment, that's a D1/T5. **** Difficult. A real challenge for the experienced cache hunter - may require special skills or knowledge, or in-depth preparation to find. May require multiple days / trips to complete. The fact that the finder needed to take a cruise ship, and also hire a local boater to reach the cache justifies a minimum 4 star terrain difficulty. Exactly! The Difficulty rating is at least a 4 due to a number of factors, including time required. This issue has been discussed and settled repeatedly in past forum threads, and I am amazed that it has reared its head again here.

Just figured it out....My husband went to JUNK MAIL....and there were several validation codes....Now tell me who would look in Junk Mail for a Validation Code. Most of us look in junk/spam email folders regularly, and, in fact, so does anyone who is savvy enough to understand that spam email filters sometimes work in strange and unpredictable ways. It is no fault of Groundspeak that their emails were ending up being labeled as spam/junk email by your spam filter, and rather, that is a fault of your spam filter and your Internet service provider (ISP), namely, Comcast.

There is no possible way that anything like this could ever happen. Ever. Period. No way. I can't even conceive of how anything like this could be dreamed of, nor would I participate in it. It would almost be as possible as say, like, me sumo wrestling to defend the honour of the great province of British Columbia. How in the world could that ever be possible on this planet. Exactly what I have been saying! The entire concept is impossible, and it remains a mere fantasy in the minds of some forum members!

You are underpricing this rare commodity. Last person to sell them got over $6,400 on Ebay for a list of five of them.

My favorite remains the Jelly of the Month membership. Right now, I'm enjoying San Giuliano clementine marmalade from Sicily. It's awesome. Ummm... I mean it would be awesome if this membership existed. Huh? You mean that they accepted a slimy knee-jerk liberal ultra-right wing fundamentalist Socialist such as yourself? Eeek! Their standards are dropping! Next thing you know, they will even be acceptng people like Sioneva and flask. aaarrrggghhh...

No. It was more along the lines of:

AAARRRGGGHH! I KEEP TELLING YOU... THERE IS NO PLATINUM LEVEL OF MEMBERSHIP, SO HOW COULD I HAVE EVEN APPLIED? .

At least that's his story, and he's sticking to it.... .... but WE know the truth. Folks, Sioneva is just joking and is pulling your leg. I know from experience, as do many of you, that she loves to joke around on the forums, and there is no truth to her silly joshing, none at all. In any case, let me put it to you this way: If there REALLY were a Platinum level and a Thorium level of membership, don't you think that all of the following would be true: since it would be a great source of revenue, and far more profitable than Premium level memberships, Groundspeak would be advertising those levels and their attendant benefits in a never-ending attempt to recruit more members, and thus increase their revenue. a good number of the members at those levels would be bragging incessantly about their belonging to such an "elite strata" and about their exotic benefits, and we would constantly hear their tiring tales on the forums, at events, and even on the trail, till we were ready to puke. some of the more well-known veteran geocachers would, of necessity, need to disappear from the view of generic-grade geocachers for periods of time ranging from a few hours to two or three days in order to attend the exotic events and find the exotic caches attendant to those levels, and dontcha think someone would notice and that this would generate lots of gossip? And the reality is that we see none of these patterns or phenomena, and rather, we simply see an occasional joke about the putative existence of these levels of membership. This alone proves that these putative higher levels of membership do not exist. Period. End of discussion. .

Your "find/reach" is the problem, as you're lumping them together. Searching = Difficulty. Journey = Terrain. This cache is most definitely rated incorrectly. A cache that someone just hands you should, indeed, be rated a Difficulty 1. This cache requires a boat to get to, so it should be a Terrain 5. If I put a big orange box on a cliff ledge, clearly visible from the ground, but reachable only with climbing equipment, that's a D1/T5. And now we hear from the other side. The Men In Black will be knocking on his door in the wee hours of the morning to have a conversation with him about his beliefs...

Please, let me make something very clear, for this is getting out of hand. While some of us do joke about mythical Platinum level memberships and even higher and more elite mythical levels of membership such as Thorium level, and also joke at times about the mythical benefits attendant to those levels (including the parties, the chartered aircraft, the entire tiers of exotic amazing geocaches unavailable to and invisible to lower level members, the super-fast dedicated servers, the elite forum, etc.), the fact is that the whole thing is a joke. There are no such levels of membership, and there are no exotic benefits attendant to those levels. Again, there is no such thing; it is just a silly fantasy. Trust me on this. It is just a joke. Please, trust me totally on this.

Yes, we're tickled also... bittersweet on some level, but still fantastic. I replied directly to this person twice. Once asking why the hostility, and the second time, I think I'll leave it the way it was approved. I reviewed the checklist, and it still seems about right. Exactly. I agree. Thanks! And... like you... I wonder... why did the author of that odd log note exhibit such hostility and such a fierce need to control the behaviors of others, and, of strangers, nonethelss? It is not like the author of the note had ever visited the cache site, nor looked for the cache, nor found the cache, nor ever plans to find the cache! Very very very odd! BTW.... Personally speaking, you are way more tolerant of aberrant behavior than I. I would simply have deleted her/his log note without a second thought.

When filing his log find, he apparently did not log in to the main Internet part of the website, and rather, sent his log using one of then electronical digitized cellular radio-telephones, using WAP protocols only, and via the geocaching.com WAP portal, and thus kinda snuck his message onto the server backbone in a very limited and circumscribed way that does not trigger the "Last visit was..." counter.

I am very tickled that someone finally found this, and wow, seems that the finder went to some lengths, and expense, to do it as well! BTW, I have noticed a very-out-of-place (as in "it does not belong there") note by a non-finder cacher on the cache listing page demanding that the Difficulty rating for this cache be lowered to a 1. I will simply say here that I could not disagree more with the claim made by that poster. There is an old myth which, although it flies in direct contradiction to the ClayJar system, does not seem to want to die, and that old and erroneous myth claims that Terrain factors and amount of effort needed to find/reach the cache does not affect the Difficulty rating. From my perspective, and that of many other seasoned veteran cachers, that claim is not at all true. To me, the Difficulty rating of the cache is fine as it is. Lastly, I hope to find this one someday!

Even on the two caches that I found that were later retracted, all I can access is my log. Not the cache page. Yep!

I'll agree with Vinny, almost all the time it's just cluelessness or forgetfullness that leads to TB's and coins not being logged. You know, I suspect that a lot of it is also simply apathy, on the part of geocachers who are quite overwhelmed with life and who cannot focus coherently enuf to really do anything sensible with the trackables which they pick up. And, in a similar vein to your tale of the newbie in PA/NJ who stole trackables and then became a respected geocacher, I recently heard a very similar tale of a young male in his 20s from the TN/NC area where much the same thing happened over time. I remember that there was a trackable thief who emptied several trackable hotel caches located along or near major interstate highways in Maryland a year or two ago, and I seem to remember that some locals theorized that it was the trackable thief that you have mentioned above.