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4wheelin_fool

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Everything posted by 4wheelin_fool

  1. I'm somehow reminded of the once popular, but now mostly insignificant comedian Steven Wright. "I woke up this morning and discovered that everything in my apartment had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica." If the local police are fans of Occam's razor, then any complex or unusual acts will not be noticed or investigated.
  2. Sure. You have just cause to alert police if you see someone acting suspicious in the public right-of-way too. How suspicious it appears to others likely depends on the area it's in and the adjacent properties. If it cuts next to residential areas, it likely gets more notice than if it just ran through a quiet industrial area. Someone's simple presence shouldn't be considered suspicious. Perhaps if I was running with a pair of bolt cutters there would be cause. Let's see a picture of you first before we decide. I'm 6'3", albino looking with a bright orange receding hairline and a huge belly. Ruggedly handsome. What I'm thinking now is that because I took a picture of the unusual sidewalk out in front of their house before walking in drew their attention.
  3. This still doesn't address the fact that it is private property (the RR), and you've been asked to stay off of it by law enforcement. The next question is if people are aware that this is still RR ROW, and to find out if they have permission to hide caches there in the first place. There is no signage indicating that you cannot walk there, only signage warning against dumping. If law enforcement makes a request, that's much different than enforcing actual laws. Often they side with whoever complains first without checking to see if their issue is valid.
  4. As I see it, there are a few options here. Go down to the station house and have the matter investigated. Find out who has legal access to the property, and if the residents have the legal basis to use the police to chase people out. If the police are being used in an unlawful manner as a tool of harassment, then a complaint should be filed. Do nothing, but warn geocachers about the situation. Advise them that they have as much right as the neighbors to be there, and as long as they are not going in at night they should be fine. Since they probably could not be charged with trespassing, they should not be concerned about it. Conduct a silent campaign of discrediting the complainants. Find out what brand of locks they use and obtain a bump key. Enter their household without leaving a trace, on a few occasions when they are not home, and don't take anything, but rearrange the furniture and leave odd items purchased from a thrift store, as well as out of season holiday decorations. Obtain the VIN number from their car by peering through the windshield and obtain a spare key from the manufacturer. Don't steal their car, but move it around the block and leave a pile of empty beer cans visible on the front seat a few times. They will end up calling the police numerous times until they wont be taken seriously. Putting LSD in their drinking water, and hacking their home phone line and breathing heavily on the line takes more effort, but is always possible as well. Just need to obtain the unique color codes of their phone line to hack it from a few miles away. Dressing up in suits and renting a new Crown Victoria and interviewing their neighbors about them without identifying yourself might work also. Yes, it might take a little work, but would be entertaining. Of the times that I've done this, we had to record the responses and reactions in detail which took most of the fun out of it. Plus, the dispatch uses of the black helicopters was unnecessarily costly and too iconic. Knock on the door and tell them what's going on and simply explain it. The puzzle piece is rather clever and unlikely to be found by anyone, and if it is, they wont have any idea.
  5. After the neighbors called the police, they were waiting outside to talk with them, but immediately went back inside when the police showed up, as we arrived back at the car at the same time that they arrived, so we made contact first. Although there was a both a police car and SUV, we only spoke to one cop. When we told him geocaching, he neither acknowledged or denied knowing what it was, only saying that it was private and to stay out. I mentioned the railway access corridor, and he said he was pretty certain that it was still private, so we said ok and left. I don't know what legal basis they would have to keep people out, as the railway would be the ones to complain. With all of the yard debris piled there, oddly I think that the neighbors would be under more scrutiny. Initially I thought to file a complaint and have the police investigate further to determine if such calls were unfounded or harassment, but since the township does not own it yet, I don't think that would be the best approach.
  6. A single DNF does not mean it's in terrible condition. Of course not. My comment was in response to the preposterous suggestion that all caches should be left active as long as they are physically out there. The vast majority of geocaches do not have active owners. Historically most people do this part time or drop out. The thread is also not about caches that need maintenance, but ones that only have 1 DNF. Your reply was the only one in that chain of quotes to mention "terrible condition". An inactive owner does not deem it to be in terrible condition. Endangered perhaps, if it eventually needs maintenance, but terrible condition if he doesn't log in? No.
  7. Sure. You have just cause to alert police if you see someone acting suspicious in the public right-of-way too. How suspicious it appears to others likely depends on the area it's in and the adjacent properties. If it cuts next to residential areas, it likely gets more notice than if it just ran through a quiet industrial area. Someone's simple presence shouldn't be considered suspicious. Perhaps if I was running with a pair of bolt cutters there would be cause.
  8. It runs directly between their houses and dead ends 100 feet past their backyard, we stayed on it the entire time. There is no pending rails to trails project, only abandoned tracks.
  9. So do the nearby residents have just cause to alert the police to someone walking on someone else's property? A normal response would have them asking what were doing at first, and then take it from there. Instead they were all milling about on their front lawn, pretending to be doing something. Then when we looked at them, they turned away and went inside quickly while we spoke to the police.
  10. Found a cache hidden on a RR track running through a residential neighborhood. It hasn't been used in years, and there isn't any chance it will be used soon, as only 80% of the track is there. We parked in front of someone's house and walked in. I assumed the property had been transferred to the township and would be eventually used for a rails to trails walking path. On the way out two police officers greeted us and asked what we were doing, and we told them. They said it was private and not to go back there. Apparently one of the neighbors had called them. It's odd, as there are signs prohibiting dumping, but the area was full of yard debris from nearby residents. I thought that the cop was full of BS, until we checked and discovered the RR still owned it. Then we found out that there are plenty of caches on it. No safety concern at all, but how do these things happen? I hide a cache and get grilled to explaining every detail. Is it trespassing if it's abandoned?
  11. A single DNF does not mean it's in terrible condition.
  12. Yes, I can sense the pent up frustration over unmaintained caches, as well as AWOL COs. Still, that should not lead to disablements over a single DNF.
  13. I'm still trying to figure out why that other thread was locked without comment. TPTB are truly a secret society. As I read the tea leaves, the door slammed shut a half hour after the "two cache monte coordinate switcheroo maintenance plan" was mentioned. I'm sure that creative NJ cacher was just joking.... There was a comment. The OP requested it to be locked. Oh and don't tell anyone, but near most of my hides are 2 more full containers 100 feet away.. Yes Ill be honest, i requested it to be locked, just as I may do this one in a day or two, I asked a question, to people with more expierience than me, I had like 30 finds, maybe, and got mu butt jumped by some people that seemed irritated. As I explained how Groundspeak had no rules on exact miles as long as it could be maintained,people were getting more angry, I was getting a bit defensive. wont lie, I wont hide my faults I had it locked so It didnt stray further, and so I didnt feel tempted to say somthing that I would regret. You did the smart thing. Your maintenance plans sound fine to me as well, as long as you are repairing something you found, not blindly replacing. Geocachers are everywhere, and quite a few work for TSA from what I've heard. If a few suspect you might be leaving throwdowns, or hiding vacation caches under a sock puppet name, you just may miss your flight. Otherwise you should be fine!
  14. I'm still trying to figure out why that other thread was locked without comment. TPTB are truly a secret society. As I read the tea leaves, the door slammed shut a half hour after the "two cache monte coordinate switcheroo maintenance plan" was mentioned. I'm sure that creative NJ cacher was just joking.... There was a comment. The OP requested it to be locked. Oh and don't tell anyone, but near most of my hides are 2 more full containers 100 feet away..
  15. And turned into litter over a DNF?
  16. The cache probably should have been archived for lack of maintenance. But it wasn't. The reviewer note says that it is disabled for possibly being missing, indicating that he did not read either the DNF or the find logs. http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC8EDF_wallowa-view Now we are being told that the reviewer checked to see if his e-mail was viable. So he probably didn't read the logs, but yet he checked his profile? The problem is not this individual cache, but a larger issue of overactive disabling. The impression is that the reviewer is jumping at the chance to disable a lonely cache over a single DNF. It also seems that e-mails were intentionally disabled for inactive users.
  17. No one wants to save caches that are toast. (Go ahead, take that sound bite to Out of Context & insert photo. ) But the worry is that the "get tough" policy may be archiving good caches. Its really simple, its call communication with your awesome and friendly reviewers. If you wanna ignore your reviewers, than that mean you dont care about your caches even its there waiting to be found. Communication is great, but not much communicating is going on when basic boilerplate logs are posted in reaction to opaque algorithms and imaginary DNFs. I'll estimate about 700 geocaches were archived in the past year within my notification range. This is probably a conservative estimate, based on an average of 10 per week and periodic batches of 50 at a time. Out of that, there are likely around 3 dozen unarchivals. It appears that the attempt to spur maintenance is not working too well and education about quality containers would work better.
  18. Must be 10 feet from trails, no more than 6 feet off ground, and prohibited near rivers or streams. It's likely the most restrictive state policy out there and not anything to be encouraged elsewhere. The good part is that they are not charging any fees, and having the taxpayers absorb the costs, probably because there are state workers who have very little to do, and this will keep them employed. If it was a reasonable policy it would have taken into account low traffic areas, and adjusted the distance from trails as needed. NJ does not have the fragile environment seen in other states, so it's an overreaching policy enforced by people who do not own the property.
  19. I'm sure that's possible as it's already scaring off people from posting DNFs. For others it has the opposite effect and increased the use of the NM and NA logs in place of DNFs. In the example I posted previously, 2 cachers posted an NA with their DNF. There had been no other DNFs posted at all. I was going to send a friendly email advising them that it was not appropriate in that situation, and tell them where I had found it, but since the reviewer catered to their whim and disabled it, I hardly think that I would be taken seriously. Why you are so dead set to save all the caches? If the CO is history, let it die a peaceful death. If I was a banker that loan money to GS, I will be mad that they "lies" to me about their database stats when there are tons of inactive cache owners that dont care about their caches and many of them are missing. I want a honest report if GS is slowing down or going faster. Junky database will be the last thing I want to be lied about. I've become jaded from easy caches in simple spots. The best ones are difficult, or in remote locations. The owner in this situation is not MIA either, just not responding. Plus the database will never be "clean". I'll bet that right now there is someone, somewhere, naively leaving a ziplock or similar container in a spot where it will be discovered or broken within a month.
  20. I'm sure that's possible as it's already scaring off people from posting DNFs. For others it has the opposite effect and increased the use of the NM and NA logs in place of DNFs. In the example I posted previously, 2 cachers posted an NA with their DNF. There had been no other DNFs posted at all. I was going to send a friendly email advising them that it was not appropriate in that situation, and tell them where I had found it, but since the reviewer catered to their whim and disabled it, I hardly think that I would be taken seriously.
  21. You keep re-stating this over and over as if it is absolute fact across every single case. I just don't buy it. I have seen many, many notes from CO's that have specific information as to when or if they will go check on a cache after DNF/NM/NA logs. Including some going on 5 months due to construction in the area of a cache etc. If the CO puts the proper information in their note, I just don't see a reviewer ignoring it (at least not in my area). That means it is not absolute fact as you keep stating it as. The reviewer is not ignoring it, but the facts are that it only delays another reviewer note for 30 days or more. Eventually the CO has to do something other than posting notes. This is not in dispute, and what happens. The reviewer has disabled the cache, and most caches can not be disabled forever. This former TB hotel was disabled due to construction at the end of 2011. There are 5 reviewer boilerplate logs in 2012 asking what's up, followed by 5 copy and pasted responses. In 2013 there were 2 more, until someone posted an NA. At that point the CO turned it into a LPC out of frustration. How do you know the CO was frustrated? Did they talk to you about it back in 2012? Seems the NA post opened the CO eyes to the fact that the on ramp/road was a permanent fixture and the cache would not be able to be placed there any more? Some of those Reviewer posts were well in excess of the 30 days you keep holding up as an absolute value. And I am fine with how it went down. I don't think a CO should get a pass after one note for years of disabled status(especially since the first one talked about temporary construction). The CO copied and pasted, thus it took very little of his/her time. Single instances dug up don't equal absolute fact in every situation. There could be several emails going on in the background you are not aware of. So you don't believe me, but you don't want me to dig up any examples either? Disabling after 1 DNF is imagining other DNFs, and now we should imagine background activity also. If there were emails going on, then it wouldn't incur 7 reviewer notes. Disabling for wet and broken containers makes sense, but for imaginary DNFs does not. You mean like imagining that the CO was "frustrated" from this log: "based upon the requests below i will convert this to a traditional parking lot cache and dash. look for updated description and coords within the next few days." And how do you know that there was no emails behind the scenes between me and the CO? You can certainly imagine DNFs...
  22. You keep re-stating this over and over as if it is absolute fact across every single case. I just don't buy it. I have seen many, many notes from CO's that have specific information as to when or if they will go check on a cache after DNF/NM/NA logs. Including some going on 5 months due to construction in the area of a cache etc. If the CO puts the proper information in their note, I just don't see a reviewer ignoring it (at least not in my area). That means it is not absolute fact as you keep stating it as. The reviewer is not ignoring it, but the facts are that it only delays another reviewer note for 30 days or more. Eventually the CO has to do something other than posting notes. This is not in dispute, and what happens. The reviewer has disabled the cache, and most caches can not be disabled forever. This former TB hotel was disabled due to construction at the end of 2011. There are 5 reviewer boilerplate logs in 2012 asking what's up, followed by 5 copy and pasted responses. In 2013 there were 2 more, until someone posted an NA. At that point the CO turned it into a LPC out of frustration. How do you know the CO was frustrated? Did they talk to you about it back in 2012? Seems the NA post opened the CO eyes to the fact that the on ramp/road was a permanent fixture and the cache would not be able to be placed there any more? Some of those Reviewer posts were well in excess of the 30 days you keep holding up as an absolute value. And I am fine with how it went down. I don't think a CO should get a pass after one note for years of disabled status(especially since the first one talked about temporary construction). The CO copied and pasted, thus it took very little of his/her time. Single instances dug up don't equal absolute fact in every situation. There could be several emails going on in the background you are not aware of. So you don't believe me, but you don't want me to dig up any examples either? Disabling after 1 DNF is imagining other DNFs, and now we should imagine background activity also. If there were emails going on, then it wouldn't incur 7 reviewer notes. Disabling for wet and broken containers makes sense, but for imaginary DNFs does not.
  23. It's not as simple as that. Posting a reply only puts off another reviewer note in another 30 days. Eventually someone has to go out and check on it. If it's a 5 mile hike up steep terrain, or requiring a boat or climbing gear, is it really necessary after just 1 DNF? ...or you can just re-enable the cache. I know one CO in our area who does this without even checking on the placement. It goes back to the poor CO maintenance issue. If we want viable caches, we need COs that actually care. Most COs feel an obligation to check on it and do not realize that they can just reenable it without running out, which probably might annoy the reviewer. Viable caches are ones that are hidden in decent containers, and in places not likely to be found accidentally. I have micros which have been out nearly 10 years with their original 100 page tiny logbook without maintenance. I recently tried doing maintenance on one and could not locate it, but others were still finding it. Education about lousy containers goes much farther than checking up on singular DNFs.
  24. No. Most lonely caches have absolutely nothing nearby. Correct. Disabling a cache with a wet logbook or broken container guarantees that it will get maintained or archived. Disabling a cache with 1 DNF, means that it could be in fine condition, which is often the case. Nobody knows if it needs maintenance or not.
  25. You keep re-stating this over and over as if it is absolute fact across every single case. I just don't buy it. I have seen many, many notes from CO's that have specific information as to when or if they will go check on a cache after DNF/NM/NA logs. Including some going on 5 months due to construction in the area of a cache etc. If the CO puts the proper information in their note, I just don't see a reviewer ignoring it (at least not in my area). That means it is not absolute fact as you keep stating it as. The reviewer is not ignoring it, but the facts are that it only delays another reviewer note for 30 days or more. Eventually the CO has to do something other than posting notes. This is not in dispute, and what happens. The reviewer has disabled the cache, and most caches can not be disabled forever. This former TB hotel was disabled due to construction at the end of 2011. There are 5 reviewer boilerplate logs in 2012 asking what's up, followed by 5 copy and pasted responses. In 2013 there were 2 more, until someone posted an NA. At that point the CO turned it into a LPC out of frustration.
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