Team GeoBlast

And... time to get back to the question asked please. Spoil-sport!! No, I was not contacted by her. I wasn't either. I contacted Knowschad once though... and boy did all "heck" break loose in Minneapolis.

I'd just like to add that I would strongly discourage double dipping. It doesn't make anyone happy and it is kind gross if you stop and think about it.

Richie... Can you explain what you mean "perfect to paperless caching?" If the app will allow you to access caches and then log them. I'm not sure what else you are looking for when you say paperless. From the limited exposure I have with the iPhone and using several GPSrs is using the iPhone with any tree cover or other obstruction. The chipset in both my Garmins put it to shame.

That's the difference between the two of us. I'm not troubled if the one second that it took to take a peek at the hint on my pda was for naught. After all, it barely took longer than looking at the pda and finding that there wasn't a hint. So what if we all just treated the guidelines like this.... Coordinates... Just keep em within a few miles, those resourceful cachers will find it if they look long and hard enough. Puzzle Cache... Why not list it as a traditional just to up the difficulty a little? They'll figure it out after a few emails. Terrain... So what if you need to travel 5 miles in a boat? Let's list it as a 1! People like surprises and always come prepared with a boat. Cache Hide... How about if I don't leave a container at all. That ought to throw em off big time. My point is that the whole game falls apart if selectively decide where we are going to start following the guidelines. If it is in black and white in the guidelines, just as leave it the space blank if you don't have a hint to share. It is there for a reason and it should be followed. Steering this post back on topic, let me first say that I suspect the OP is a younger person. So taking in the perceived age and inexperience into account, I mean no offense to the OP and hope he won't let this first effort to place a cache discourage him. However, some tough love is appropriate here. If someone was going to make a list of things not to do when listing a cache, leaving a long useless hint and writing a one sentence cache description would make "most" people's top five list.

Although I wouldn't have a few years ago, I couldn't disagree with this statement more. First, "quality" is about as subjective as you can get in describing a Geocache. The definition of quality have everything to do with the beholder. So is the time and energy that each individual puts into a Geocache hide. For example, there's a few hiders around here that spend months planning and executing a single hide. Their *individual* standards are not only in place but very high. To stay on topic, once you have found a few caches and decided what type of cache that you would like to seek, a very good skill to acquire and hone is how to filter the caches you seek using software, information on the cache page, familiarity with hiders and intuition/geosense.

Hi B3, I hope you know that you have a mini-fan club here rooting for ya! I've seen a few city folks get slowly integrated into doing things in the outdoors through Geocaching. Now they are contributing to threads in our local forum on trail essentials. It is about knowing your comfort level and being will to go a little beyond it each time in name of a new adventure. It doesn't matter what level you've begun at, you compete only with yourself. Now that you have found a cache, hopefully you will soon be in double digits and have gained a new appreciation for why some of us really like doing it. I am curious about one thing. What was it that made you think this was easy or that there wasn't challenge involved? I ask this because it was the one thing that probably jumped out at me over any aspect. That it would be a challenge and not be easy.

You have to wonder if they get trolled by the yogurt eaters.

I'm sorry but I find this post way off base and uncalled for. I'd really like to see how you arrived at that 9 out of 10 statistic. Did you fail to add that before any negative comment on almost any thread in this forum, that several people will have already offered help and guidance? In fact, unless you can come up with the tangible results of your study, I'd say this is about a trollish of a statement as I have ever seen posted here. I'd be willing to bet my farm that most of the cachers in this forum would welcome her with open arms too if they met her in person and I think that your insinuation that the regulars here are some sort of a sub-class of geocacher could not be further from reality. While I don't think that the OP is trolling, she did break of the first rules in any internet forum and that is on her. He didn't lurk for awhile and try to gain an understanding of the forum content or people posting in this forum. Because if she had, not only would she have had all of her questions already answered, she would have also realized that many of the things that she is so loudly complaining about are the things that a lot of people love about Geocaching. The theme of this entire thread is the same as dropping into a "I love the color blue" forum and proclaiming that there is no uglier color in the world than blue. Even when she took that approach, many people offered encouragement and advice. Why not take a moment to recognize that??

what makes you think you ruffled any of my feathers? Words like "nonsense" tend to trigger my feather ruffling detection devices.

It looks like I am striking a nerve unintentionally with some thousand plus finders with my posted list. I suppose I might have added that most of the cachers that I've become familiar with that have thousands of finds, did it in 2-3 years. I'd put you right in there with Ed Scot. Seven years of caching with any consistency is a long time in Geocaching years. Most of the people I was observing amassed thousands of caches in a much shorter time period. My list as it was just a list of things that I have observed in these people. It was not meant to ruffle feathers nor was it intended to describe one specific individuals Geocaching habits. Also, reread #4 again. "Past a few thousand finds a year"

No worries, I hope you didn't think that I was saying that high find counts automatically means you are cheating. I've seen it first hand and have a few pretty extraordinary examples of it so I know it happens but it didn't make my list for a reason. I don't think people do it that often. I also didn't say that you had to do -everything- I my list, those were some observations that I had made of the habits of people who do have a high find count. Looks like a few of them do apply to you though.

Numbers 2 and 5 apply to me but none of the rest... Looking at your profile, you really don't fit the the type of cacher that I was describing since your finds seem to be spread out over 7 years. The only thing that surprises me a little is that you are not paperless. Tough to be both GPS-less and paperless You mean you actually look at the website and print things out? In seven years, you'd think you would have developed at little more intuition than that.

I'm sorry BD, I won't do that to you again. I agree with Rockin' Roddy. If these were the type of caches I like, and wouldn't turn up on my extensive ignore list otherwise, I would probably still find them. I mean I totally disagree with Travel Bug prison's but I've still found several of them. I think you have to greet crazy with crazy. It looks to me that the honor of last to find was left wide open. Maybe you could find it the cache and then inquire if this position was spoken for too? If denied.. I would stomp my feet, make a big fuss, and then demand an explanation. In reality, I wouldn't do anything at all except come on in here and tell ya'll about it.

Yeah I thought about doing something like that on a future hide. I didn't mean to come across as taking this too serious. One thing you can't do is make people play by any sort of rules. I don't think I am going to delete any logs. I did raise the difficulty by 1 full star and added that part of the fun was the container. I hope that will encourage people to be more involved with finding the log book. That is probably the best approach to just let the non-loggers go but I know what you mean, it can irk you. As long as the cache is still there, it's never too late for an alteration. I've been known to go back two or more times to a cache to make adjustments and that I think really helps the quality of the experience in some cases. Even in the best planned caches, you need to inject a human into the equation and learn from what happens. It is hard to get everything right in the beginning sometimes. You put a lot of work into your cache. You invested your time, energy, and money to put this cache out there for others to find. You shouldn't feel bad about being disappointed when seekers circumvent the intended experience. Some of this type of thing can be controlled by altering the cache page or the hide itself. Some of it is just how people play. I've found to reach some level of satisfaction with your hides, it is best to to try to learn the difference between the two and let things slide. This definitely took me awhile. Please keep after it. Without people who devote their creativity and time for pleasure of others, this would be a mighty boring game.

How about leaving a congratulatory note in the first compartment thanking them for looking for your cache gently informing them that their hunt is not over. Try to be nice about this. A ha, ha, ha might get your bolt recycled.

Stick around and observe for awhile and you will see that there's a lot of topics that come up multiple times. Understand that to the person asking, they are new and the information is as value to them as it was to you when you first encountered it.

Numbers 2 and 5 apply to me but none of the rest... Looking at your profile, you really don't fit the the type of cacher that I was describing since your finds seem to be spread out over 7 years. The only thing that surprises me a little is that you are not paperless.

The biggest factor I have noticed is that you have to care so deeply about your find count that it becomes a top priority. In doing this you accept that there are some sacrifices in Geocaching (and in life) that you will have to make to amass thousands of finds. Here's just a few common factors I've noticed are common in folks that that have large find counts. 1. Your creed: Any cache is a good cache. You target, enjoy, and in some cases promote the proliferation of quick and easy, park and grab type caches. 2. Be highly organized. 3. Be paperless. 4. Past a few thousand finds a year, have no other hobbies or interests that come with a time commitment. 5. Be consistent and persistent in your hunting. 6. Set goals for numbers of finds. 7. Compete with others Geocachers for numbers of finds. 8. Use and master the basic software and tools on GC.com.

The OP seemed very satisfied with the answer posted by Opino-Nate. I hope you'll take another look at this post too and feel better about the responses given. I thought many of the responses were on point and constructive even if a priority opinion was added. The fact remains that a pretty good workaround exists that a would more than likely solve this concern today and this is going to have a direct effect on priority. It's just as important as it being a good or bad idea as far as I am concerned. I'm just glad that Groundspeak acknowledges that their site has room for improvement and I've been very encouraged to see the constant improvement over the past 4-5 years. The fact that they value the discussion here is even more encouraging.

You know what? This really might be something that magnet manufacturers should look at. Although placing the magnet on the inside is usually a workable solution, you lose functionality. Actually even better than a screw hole like in the hard drive magnets, would be a small bolt embedded into a magnet that you could thread a nut on.

A GPS would be helpful. Here is another thread on this same subject.

Mailboxes are considered federal property, and federal law (Title 18, United States Code, Section 1705), makes it a crime to vandalize them (or to injure, deface or destroy any mail deposited in them). Violators can be fined up to $250,000, or imprisoned for up to three years, for each act of vandalism. Great. Now Briansnat is going to get thrown in the clink for three years. With our luck he'll probably hide a cache in the overcrowded mailbox offenders ward and dare all of us to do what it takes to find it. Seriously Funny Nose, do you feel better now that you have gotten that off your chest? Naw. That's Brian's mailbox. He's allowed to decorate it any way he wants. I can see the DA having his way with him now. "Mr Briansnat.. please answer these questions: Did you vandalize your mailbox? No. Did you injure your mailbox? No. Did you deface your mailbox? No. Did you destroy your mailbox? No. Did you stick a piece of tupperware with a magnet to it? Well, yes I did. Ah, ha! A confession! Judge, I would like recommend that we impose the maximum sentence with no possibility of parole in order to make an example of him."

Mailboxes are considered federal property, and federal law (Title 18, United States Code, Section 1705), makes it a crime to vandalize them (or to injure, deface or destroy any mail deposited in them). Violators can be fined up to $250,000, or imprisoned for up to three years, for each act of vandalism. Great. Now Briansnat is going to get thrown in the clink for three years. With our luck he'll probably hide a cache in the overcrowded mailbox offenders ward and dare all of us to do what it takes to find it. Seriously Funny Nose, do you feel better now that you have gotten that off your chest?

Looks like that log is gone now. Regardless... I don't see the point of archiving this cache. It is beyond me why someone would expend the energy to get this cache archived... unless they were owners of the second oldest unfound cache and had some whacked out competition going.

Very nice attention to detail. At first I was a little taken back that you went through this much trouble to advertise your own 2500th find but then I realized it was a tribute to another cacher. Whoa. Even more cool. Machado must be a good friend. I hope you've got this one hidden away very carefully.