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sillygirl & jrr

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Everything posted by sillygirl & jrr

  1. +me and countless others !!! +me too!!! Seriously, does Groundspeak (or whoever the shadowy characters are behind the scenes) even acknowledge that this is a problem? Have they responded at all to the complaints? I haven't seen anything but stone cold silence....no change to make the search results more readable, no change to the ridiculous 30 mile limit, not even a link on the search page to a list of instructions on how to use the darn thing, nothing! At the very least, they could simply leave a link up to the old search. + us and most of the local (Hawaii) cachers who never come to the forums... I used to have an old car. I had a mechanic who was reliable, I could call him up and talk to him (or his one assistant) on the phone. He'd help me decide if I needed to bring the car in right away or not... When he was done he'd show me the hole in the hose, or the old worn out parts and ask if I wanted them back. He always believed there was something wrong it I told him the engine was making a funny noise or the brakes were squeaking too much. Now I have new car, it's fancy enough to come with "free" routine maintenance, for which I have to return to the dealer. I don't talk to a mechanic (or anyone who works on cars). I have a "service advisor" who never answers the phone. I get to play phone tag with someone who doesn't know much about me or my car. After the visit, the service advisor seems most concerned about the ratings I will give on the survey I'm going to get in an email. I miss the mechanic. I am beginning to think Groundspeak has gone the way of the car dealer... It seems no one who works on the code or designs the site has been here to tell us why they messed with our perfectly usable search engine & why we can't keep it. jrr
  2. Aloha from a small rock in the middle of the Pacific. Since I was referred here by Geocaching HQ Support after my inquiries about the new search feature, figured I would come by. Funny I haven't visited regularly since about the time the "Groundspeak.com" forum went away and TBTB (does that acronym still work in the new world of hashtags and memes?) started referring us to the "Help Center." (Irony any one?) I'd like to thank those who have already expressed my feelings of frustration about the workings of the new search feature. I would also like thank those who have found & posted "work arounds." Which begs the question, why to we need to "workaround" the search page to search for a geocache? (Ironic, yes?) I especially like (not) that to find an archived cache (for which I have the GC Code) I must to navigate away from the search page and go the Home Page. Home page, I haven't been there since they stopped posting all those cool geocaching photos...ah memories. I am reminded of that middle school assignment where everyone has to write instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The next day the teacher tries to make said sandwich following the directions word for word, hilarity ensues ... Yes s/he knows how to make a sandwich, just not with directions that take for granted you already know most of the steps. We all know how to search for a geocache, we just can't do it with the new search page. Do we NEED to keep this monstrosity or can we get our old user friendly functionality back? I am asking this as a serious question. I have been caching long enough to remember the days when you couldn't log a cache on a Sunday, the site would slow down and give error messages for hours at a time. All the code got re-written from "hobby" code to grown up geek code. There were changes to website; not everyone was happy, but the changes were necessary so that the site could grow and we could have cool fully functional apps for our smart phones. (Sorry if I am over simplifying, but that's how I remember it... ) So is this one of those absolutely needed for the future sorts of changes or is it something that works more efficiently for programmers than for the everyday users? If it is the former and someone provides a cogent logical explantation for why it is necessary, then I could be patient (as I'm sure would others) while giving suggestions on how to make it better. If it is the latter, then please give us back our old friendly and fully functional search page, or at least go back to the drawing board with more input from users. (I, like may other premium beta-testers, assumed the new search would be IN addition and not instead... (I did dislike enough to fill out the feedback survey, and I dislike surveys almost as much as I dislike the new search page.) jrr PS: In surgery they have a saying: better is the enemy of good.
  3. Aloha! Can you tell the Geohana isn't very good about keeping up with the forums. There are a ton of caches that would make a great milestone. None of these are quite the epic adventure of that Maui cache, but look at these: GCQH09 Cache of the Holy Grail that one pretty much begs for a quest! GC1FRYW A Nano in the Woods (expect the unexpected) both of those were hidden by Dadwrap his caches are always worth doing. If you want your adventure to be even wetter then consider: GC29FFF Davey Jones' Locker GC148PG Tail of the Lizard GC13WBE The Great Sandball Fight GCQTQ Pele's Lap Pool GC2MDQ7 Ahu o Laka it's an Earthcache, & it might be cool to have an event at the sand bar! (It does requires a boat). You could also consider CRider's "Underworld" caches which take you to little known bunkers and irrigation tunnels. I haven't done most of them, but I'm sure any the finders would be glad to help. There are at least a dozen great hikes to take you to the summit of the Koolau mountains giving you 360 degree views...depends how long a hike you want. Hope we get to see you while you are here. (We will be on the mainland for a bit and get back 4/27). jrr
  4. I was going through my bag of "holiday" geocoins and found a glitter gnome with a green jacket & red hat, the metal finish is shiny gold.
  5. Has anyone managed to activate one? I keep getting coin is not found in our system. If I missed the universal code can someone email it to me? (I don't get board PMs b/c of the "&" in our geonick. Mahalo, jrr
  6. Got my pix (very happy with the way the coins look) and tracking number, were they shipped UPS or USPS? My tracking number doesn't seem to work.
  7. Our Honolulu Event is published, GCYTFR Is there a bookmark list for the Multi event? jrr
  8. Yes that is what I had written down, the invoice charged $0.33 per coin. (I ordered 100 coins and assumed I'd be charged the "minimum."
  9. I got two invoices, though they are for the same amount. I assumed it was because I asked to check out via paypal. As for pricing, the first price sent to me was 0.35 more per coin than I anticipated based on the original info on the website. The price on today's invoice has decreased by 0.03 per coin, although the amount for shipping is more than I accounted for. (When I originally sent my info in I jotted down the price + shipping to get an idea of how many we need to sell to break even. I may have gotten the amount for shipping wrong; haven't checked the site to see if shipping info is there.) I agree with others that it would be nice to see the revised prices up on the site. jrr
  10. Owner log: "09/28/2012 Temporarily Disable Listing Seems to have fallen victim to construction. Will replace when construction is pau." Confused tourist: "09/30/12 Found It .....This Cache seems to have gone AWOL, probably due to the construction in the area.....However, we are leaving tomorrow and I had one TB left so I grabbed a plastic bag and put my TB in it and then stuffed it into the hole that I thought where the cache would be......Hopefully, somebody will find it and send it on its way......"
  11. Here is the Hawaii version Since I am art deprived, I just emailed our color choices. jrr
  12. We just got ours (submitted colors over the weekend), will post later when I'm at home. jrr
  13. Aloha, I believe on Maui there are no active underwater caches. The Earthcache, "snorlleling a volcano" requires a commercial boat trip to a snorkeling spot. On the Big Island there are at least two caches near Hilo that require getting wet: GC38XK0 is a multi with an underwater stage and GC39932 is on dry land, but you have wade/swim to get to it There are also 2 earthcaches in the Puna area at places you can snorkel GC2TDPK & GC1PR24 There are a couple under water caches here on Oahu. Just FYI, the strong offshore currents & waves around the islands mean these sorts of caches generally require lots of maintenance & are often short lived. jrr
  14. As you can tell by my previous post,I think you should replace the cache and log it as find. I have done exactly that on several occasions. Further opinions: 1. By contacting the cache owner and and making plans to get to GZ prepared replace a missing cache with an appropriate container, you have already put in more effort than 99% of geocachers out there. And despite what some have said in this thread, I don not believe this is the same as leaving a "throw down" container @ GZ just b/c you couldn't find a cache. I am sure future cachers who find your container will appreciate the effort even if they don't always acknowledge you. (If you do replace it put it on your watch list to see future logs.) 2. Remember asking for a consesus here is sort of like herding cats.... You are only getting responses from those who read (and post) in the forums; and that is a very small minority of the caching community. What passes for majority around here may or may not hold in your own area. 3. I am guessing (as I haven't reviewed the profiles of other posters to this thread) that most of the "don't replace; cache should be archived" opinions come from cachers who live & cache in ares with lots of caches and lots of cachers. They may not have ever visited a country with 25 caches or an island with just one. In other words they have not been in your exact circumstance. I have; does my opinion get more weight as a result? That's up to you. jrr
  15. This is one of our "found it" logs: "When one is travelling to an island with only 5 geocaches, doesn't finding them all seem like an important goal? We thought so. Because the cache was disabled, we got in touch with the owner, who gave us pretty specific intstructions on how to find the cache. But like the previous seekers we could not find the old container. Fortunately, we had come equipped with our "cache doctor" kit and were able to replace this cache with a new container full of goodies, including a White Jeep TB. Thanks for bringing us to the birthplace of Hula on Molokai and a great beach." While I don't travel nearly as much to far flung destinations as NYPaddleCracher (thanks for the thoughtful post), I do live in a "vacation destination" & think there are differing standards for missing caches in areas that lack a Geocaching community vs. the rest of the world. Nothing worse than going on vacation and realizing there are no caches to find! I see this sort of replacement as a gift to the caching community. When we replace a cache like this, we generally put it on our watch list, we enjoying knowing that others get to find what we left. I'll also say that by getting in touch with cache owners in situations like this, we've made some lasting geofriendships. For replacing the cache in the log above, we were sent a geocoin as a thank-you and that was the beginning of a whole other obsession! So I say do what makes you feel comfortable and enjoy your trip! jrr
  16. We found this cache, though from the hint I believe the hide has been changed since then. We would have rated the cache we found a 2.5 or 3 star. Back then it was listed as 'magnetic' which was technically true, though the container was stuck to magnetic tape affixed to the ceiling of a small rock cave, as opposed to any of the metallic objects nearby. I haven't found the current hide, but seems like it is equally tricky As I remember the coordinates are fine. The other issue with this cache is actually the terrain rating; you have to climb a short way down the breakwater rocks to reach the cache. And while this can be done in slippahs, we've had a few tourists as us for help on this hide: some of them had refrained from going down where the cache is because it didn't look like a 1.5 terrain to them. Which brings me to the fact that this cache is very close to Waikiki and as such most of the seekers (now that all the locals have found it) are visitors. Folks from other places may have differing ideas of terrain ratings. I'd say any terrain from 1.5-2.5 is acceptable for this cache, but to encourage visitors off the grass you might want to increase it. We tend to give pretty explicit hints for our caches near Waikiki (mostly because we travel too and know how frustrating it can be not to be able to find a 1 star cache with no hint!). jrr
  17. This thread works for Earthcaches as well.. Found it 02/19/2012 "Had a Problem came 3500 miles with a printed out cache sheet only to discover that when we got to top and coordinates that the sheet we printed out did not print the questions. Plus I coulndt put a photo on the computer or even transfer it to email on a bet. I was inb (sic) the Navy here 44 yrs ago and am digitally challenge and will never enter the digital age too many other things to do in this life that are more fun and important that playing with electronio stuff' tftc"
  18. Everything you have heard about not leaving valuables in your car is correct. We usually snorkel with a small "fanny pack" drybag big enough for wallet/cellphone. If we are out all day and need to leave some things in the car then we make sure to hide them under the seats & lock the car. The most important thing is not to leave camera bags, backpacks etc. on the seat/dashboard where they are basically an invitation for a break-in. That advice works for well populated areas. When we park at remote trailheads (or places where there is evidence of break-ins) we take everything of value with us and leave the doors unlocked. The thieves are looking for stuff to sell and aren't likely to take your extra towels, t-shirts or other stuff you might not want to take on a hike. Heck they don't even bother taking the "spare change" in the cup holder. As for events, there is also the location where we are hosting an event on 2/29/12, it's not too far from Waikiki and has the advantage of food being available. Happy caching, jrr Thanks jrr for your quick answer and the info on finding favorite points on caches. I ran a query and will use the method in the future. The photo is great. I hope they may still be around in late March. Do you folks request permission to hold events at restaurants like the kaka'ako kitchen? It looks like a busy place. We have always just shown up. It's a pretty casual place, you order at the counter and they bring your food (in styrofoam containers) to your table in an covered open air seating area. In the evening on a weeknight it's not usually too busy. Another restaurant/dinner option might be Nico's Pier 38 (it's farther from Waikiki, but more centrally located for kama'aina), and the food is awesome. They used to be open only for lunch but recently moved to a much larger space and are now open til 9. At dinner you also order at a counter and have food delivered. We were there the other night and there was a large group (maybe 25). We asked the bartender if how they felt about large groups and she said it was fine. If you have more questions feel free to send us and email. jrr
  19. Everything you have heard about not leaving valuables in your car is correct. We usually snorkel with a small "fanny pack" drybag big enough for wallet/cellphone. If we are out all day and need to leave some things in the car then we make sure to hide them under the seats & lock the car. The most important thing is not to leave camera bags, backpacks etc. on the seat/dashboard where they are basically an invitation for a break-in. That advice works for well populated areas. When we park at remote trailheads (or places where there is evidence of break-ins) we take everything of value with us and leave the doors unlocked. The thieves are looking for stuff to sell and aren't likely to take your extra towels, t-shirts or other stuff you might not want to take on a hike. Heck they don't even bother taking the "spare change" in the cup holder. As for events, there is also the location where we are hosting an event on 2/29/12, it's not too far from Waikiki and has the advantage of food being available. Happy caching, jrr
  20. I agree with everything Geogerms said. Since you have a bit of time try this. Run a PQ using GC134PB Pineapple Experience, as your center point. Search for all active caches within 35 miles (or just click on the "all nearby caches link on the cache page). This will give you (as of today) all 879 active caches on Oahu. Now go to the preview list and sort the list by favorite points, (click on the little blue ribbon at the top). If you found the 32 caches with 10 or more point you will find what you are looking for. Don't pass up the multis on the list, they are some of the most fun. And as a wildlife preview, this photo was taken near GC2PN3F today. (As they say around here, "lucky we live Hawaii.") jrr
  21. If I were driving around Oahu with friends who didn't cache here are the the places I would take them They are all worth going to cache or not! Each is uniquely Hawaiian in some way & none require more than a 5 minute walk from parking. GCMFAC Secret Menehune Fishing Spot be careful crossing the road and go through the tunnel for the view. GC12KJE Kaniakapupu walk through the bamboo forest to a place where 10,000 once feasted at a luau. GC134pb Pineapple Experience retail therapy & Dole whip (some people prefer it to shave ice) GCE332 A Leap of Faith and GC2PN3F The Spitting Cave of Portlock a 2fer physical cache and Earth cache at my favorite place on the island to watch for whales. Dolphin, monk seals, and honu are also often seen. A steep 3 minute descent (there's lots to hold onto) to great views. And if you want a short hike 1 mile RT, GC2CKZK Pill Box View will take you to a great view of North Shore waves...and if the waves are huge (and they a predicting a big swell next week)this is a great place to view them without the crowds! Aloha! jrr
  22. While at home waiting for the UPS guy to deliver iphones (still not here), the Mailman stopped by with a heavy box! Very pleased with our coins & happy to trade with any event organizers. After the event will likely have a few extra for sale/trade with others. jrr PS: We did not have a tracking number the priority package just showed up.
  23. Yup! On the geocaching.com main page click on the the "Play" menu and select "Hide & Seek a Cache". Then in the "by State Page:" drop down menu select "Hawaii" and click "Go". On the page the opens, you should see the upcoming events (and sometimes some that have already past) under the "Events, Past and Present..." heading. You could come to the event tomorrow & meet some cachers who might be willing to set up a time to speak with you when you have your equipment. Currently the next event on Oahu is scheduled for November 11th jrr
  24. I believe that when you hide a cache you can set any date as the hide date, check out This cache I think the hider set that date for the story of the cache; we ended up changing our find to a note so it didn't show up as "our oldest cache found." Once that cache was archived the hide date can no longer be edited. If you use GSAK to generate stats you can change the hide date of a cache. jrr
  25. Actually you can get a dozen of them for $6.25 here. http://www.orientaltrading.com/hibiscus-print-beach-safe-containers-a2-34_689-12-1.fltr?Ntt=beach+container They.work quite well as cache containers as they are water resistant, fit into all sorts of places, can be suspended or even magnetized. jrr
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