Rev Mike

I still look for event caches sometimes... that is part of the social aspect you talk about. I don't log them as finds and most of the time ignore them and just talk cache at events but I still have fun looking for them in groups sometimes. - Rev Mike

I will assume you are asking about this webcam. I just looked at that one and it is interesting... I see no external link to the camera and just a photo on the page that will not load. I assume from what little directions are given that that is supposed to be the webcam feed and you need only refresh the cache listing while standing in front of it. That said I can't get it to work. I would suggest emailing the owner to see what is wrong with it. You may or may not get a response since he has not signed in since May. After that you might consider sending an email to a previous finder to ask how they got the picture. Hope that helps. - Rev Mike

Does not actually sound like he is a geocacher... yet. Judging from the fact that this is his only find and he did not know what it was. If all the facts are as presented I give him credit for taking steps to contact someone about it. - Rev Mike

I should have clarified that aleady but I guess I will now... I am interested in the working out part and have other equiptment for caching. - Rev Mike

Should be fine as long as you allow common sense to dictate which caches you try at night. If it is in an area you don't think you should be at at night - best save it for daylight. - Rev Mike

That benchmark at the Opera House looks to be an easy find and I have always liked multis of mystery caches that have included benchmarks. You could have people find the benchmark and then proceed at a given distance and bearing to the location of your cache or a stage of your cache. - Rev Mike

One thing you could do is to try to find the geocache page and just send a message to the owner. Or tell us where you found it (city, state, street or intersection), that can really help narrow it down, too. I'm just glad you came here to let us know about this instead of just throwing it away, and maybe you can even get into the hobby/sport! He did - He logged a find on the cache also including his contact information. - Rev Mike

Well thanks for making the effort to give it back to the owner. - Rev Mike

If and when you go find caches out in nature do you lug that with you? I have a much bigger and heavier toolbox for my benchmark stuff but if I am heading to a mark on a summit or something I just throw the bare minimum into a backpack. - Rev Mike

You could make bookmark with a signature logo or something... seems a different idea but something about you says books to me. - Rev Mike

Nobody within New York State Parks seems to have much of a clue. Some want permits, some don't, some make really strange requests. I have one in a State Park in NY and another cacher contacted me after looking at mine wanting to know how I got permission since they (at the park level) referred her to SHPO. My approach was to go right to the capital in Albany with my proposal and then the people at the top cleared my plans with the people in charge at a regional and then park level. It seems better that way - no suprises later since everyone knows about it for the top all the way down the food chain. Besides it is harder for the park to say no to their bosses than to me. The Great Smoky Mountains has been my biggest permission battle to date. The like the idea but I still can't get anyone to say that they are the person that says it is OK. Man is that a headache... I even have a plan for that one but can't get ahold of how I need to. - Rev Mike

And I forgot the most important thing - EpiPen.

That looks like a heck of a geocaching setup. This is my basic bag for caches under a 10 mile round trip: GPS Palm Extra batteries Camera Extra camera batteries Gun Gloves Blaze orange vest (hunting areas) headlamp two flashlights TBs and coins if I have any A couple of pens Hand sanitizer Water I naturally carry a bit more for longer trips. Your case looks like my benchmarking toolbox. - Rev Mike Edit - Third typo of the day.

In the interest of good faith I at least scan through their new listings if I have the time. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised one day. - Rev Mike

Could be Thanks For The Nano... but who would say that? - Rev Mike

I have EarthCache bookmark lists for PA, NY, WV, VT, MA, NH, NY and my personal favorites list. I am sure people have seen and use them but I have never had anyone rate one either. - Rev Mike Edit must by typo day.

You are the bookmark list master... I believe that I have used all of you public lists at one point or another and even own a few caches on them. - Rev Mike

Sometimes I can be quite daft so just what does mean??? I just find myself a bit discouraged when every new cache in my area is... well just not what I am looking for. There are only a couple of cachers in my local area that I will go out and look for anything they hide because their caches have never let me down. The majority of the locals are hit-or-miss, sometimes turning out something nice. Then there are a couple that I have just decided to never try another of their caches. Granted most of the good cache "real-estate" is gone but I am dissapointed to see people squeezing them in on every other street corner just because. This looks like a good spot to repost something I posted in a couple of local forums last winter: There seems to be quite an abundance of hastily placed caches sprouting up these days. The part that really gets me is that many hiders don't seem to realize that they may have made mistakes in container selection... or an oversight as to necessary permissions for the hide location. These caches remain. Sometimes the owner sees the problem and tweaks the cache a bit to reflect that. Sometimes there is no maintenance or response at all. Hiders need to be able to just say "Oops, I screwed that up" and just hit the archive button. One of my favorite quotes, "We always view our first creations as masterpieces, no matter how awful they are." One thing that I would really like to see, especially in the Erie area, is all hiders stopping to take a look at all their listings and pruning off the dead stuff. There are many caches that have been around here for a long time. Perhaps they should be put to rest. If a cache has been around for more than... say, a year and a half, decide if it is still worth being around. As owners of cache listings that old you should have enough feedback to make an informed decision. If your two year old cache gets log that indicate hiders seem to really enjoy it then by all means keep it. If your two year old cache only gets "TFTC" logs then kill it. I DO NOT want this to turn into a debate on the validity of the lamp post micro... just asking how many of them we need in one area. I think one of the biggest problems in the Erie area is there really are not any more good cache locations that are not already used. It would be nice to see some of that cache hiding "real estate" back on the market. As it stands now the locations of most new hides are just getting worse. I am convinced that this is mainly because many of us have hides in all the good spots. I would like to see new hides - better, inspired new hides. I don't care if they are from new cachers or some established names. It just seems like the "scene" around Erie is stagnant. Since we are in the grip of winter right now and not out doing too much caching - what better time to do this. - Rev Mike

Now that is a truely useful one that I don't see nearly often enough. Especially the parking consideration. Great work. - Rev Mike

Couldn't agree more. Just seems odd that some people can place so much bad and never get it. - Rev Mike edit poor spelling

Anyone in here own or have experience with a Garmin Forerunner 405? If so what do you think of it? - Rev Mike

I think the questions was some thing like who based on previous experience now ignores certain cache hiders? Not about who was caching the longest, what types of caches are crappy, or even a crappy hider's motives for placing a cache.

TFTN???

Even if you don't make it all the way up here let me know when you are planning on swinging through Venango as I still need a couple of the higher terrain caches in that county and would not mind revisiting most of the ones I have done. - Rev Mike

With all due respect (and I actually have more for you than most anyone else in the forums from past dealings) I do not believe you have found a single cache from my personal account. I am not even sure you have been through here since I started hiding solo and listing my own caches outside of the team. I agree I had a big hand in many of the caches hidden by the old team account and many of them were caches I would ignore myself the way I cache these days. Ha!!! Oh, how I wish I had... I am not sure what my motivation was at the time I adopted a few off. I only think about four or five are still out there but I wish I could still hit that archive button now. The first factor was the team splitting up. Now there are only two of us still caching and we each use our own accounts now. The most important change in my hiding format did come from experience finding caches. I used to run around like a fool looking for any cache that was listed. And then came the day I realized that was foolish and not nearly as fun as finding one or two really nice caches. My only real rule to hiding caches now is the "would I enjoy coming here" test. If I would enjoy the cache then I hide it. The time I spend scouting locations and placing caches these days is up to at least a few hours each. I try to help in a constructive fashion as much as possible and some people even tweak things a bit. But I am asking about the people that clearly do not listen or care. Heck, in one I the examples I gave above, the CO contacted me by email to ask for feedback, and promptly ignore the advice given. And sound advise it was... "If a jeep tb does not fit in the cache it should not be listed as a regular." - Rev Mike