Kite and Hawkeye
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Posts posted by Kite and Hawkeye
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The only reason I'd hesitate to log a 'not found' rather than a note is that I don't want to discourage others from searching with an implication that the cache might not be there unless I actually reached something like ground zero and failed to find it after a search. To me, the purple frowny face subtly suggests that something may have happened to the cache. It may also imply that I'm blind as a bat or not clever enough to find the nose on my face, of course. But I stick with the 'note' for cases where I couldn't reach the cache area because we took a bad trail, or it got dark, or I developed a stomachache, or we couldn't find a place to park, etc.
If any actual searching commenced and failed, then it's inevitably a not found, and I think there is some moral obligation to log those to let the cache owner know that either they're very clever with the hide, congrats, or something may have happened to the cache. I usually do write notes when something else stops us on the hunt, but I occasionally don't think the story about, say, the beach being mobbed on a Saturday afternoon and our being unable to find parking as a result, which caused us to skip the cache, really merits commentary on the cache's page, much less a purple-faced log, even though we actually did hit GOTO in the car. For me, the question "should I log a not found" is best answered the same as, "Well, did you look for it and not find it?" If I never got closer than a few hundred feet, no, I wasn't looking for it yet.
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After the explosive demise of Oops, I Did It Again, a new cache actually AT THE AIRPORT seems like a spectacularly bad idea. I'm surprised it got approved. The cacher that placed it has some nice hides, but has done some rather, well, odd things, as well.
By the way, how do you get the id# of a cache you haven't found? All this javascript crap results in URLS with a bunch of =2c1e067e-71db-41d3-a40c-dbf106bab820-type garbage, and I know those can't be used to make links. The only way I've seen to get the real URL is to look at my own list of posted finds/notes/etc, but obviously that doesn't include caches I haven't found or noted.
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Originally posted by Lothar69:I agree with GPS_Brian. I think caches should be approved/rejected based on their individual merits rather than based on a new rule that came about as a "knee-jerk" reaction to one situation.
I do find it frustrating when some people place, say, ten caches in one day, all of which have vague one-line descriptions like, "Another cache, go find it!" How can you really tell if they *have* much individual merit? Especially if the person placing them has a number of other caches that are in need of maintenance but aren't getting it?
But what's a maintainer to do? They can't just disapprove a cache because the description is boring, or because they'd rather the person put more energy into fewer caches. They're all in legitimate areas, all more than 0.1 miles from other caches, so they're okay. Stylistic critique seems to be out of the domain of the approvers.
And, then, I've also seen people place ten caches in one day, and they were all decent caches. They must've been planning for a while, and then went out one weekend for the placing blitz. I'd rather parcel them out more slowly to maximize the impact and let each cache get a little bit of individual attention, but that's just a personal preference. My only real objection to people peppering the area with caches is that we didn't notice the spots they used sooner and it's getting harder to find places to hide anything!
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Originally posted by Renegade Knight:If you could just get rid of that log book requirment you could actually trade in a micro.
Y'all just need smaller trade items. Our matchbox micro started with a logbook, plus half a dozen tiny frogs and polished pebbles. A few weeks later, there were a couple of stickers in it.
Man, I hope BYO pen micros don't ever get outlawed.
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Another note on stapled mini-logbooks: don't staple rigid index-card type papers together to create a log. Every time I've seen one, the staples are beginning to pull out because the paper is too stiff and it's difficult to open the book. Ordinary paper should work fine.
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Originally posted by GPS_Brian:Has anyone had any luck using a waterproof match case?
Our "Frogs on Guard" is a match container. We simply took a sheet of paper, cut a strip the appropriate width, and rolled it up to make a log sheet. Works just fine. We chose to omit the stubby pencil because pencil logs tend to smear and it would've left no room for trade items. There's a prominent warning to bring your own writing implement. I've got a bunch of micro trade items and thought they'd be more fun than a pen. It's no harder to use one of these containers than a 35mm film canister, and they're durable and waterproof (though the one I have smells a bit match-like, odd since it never held matches). It fits perfectly in its little hiding spot, and we've had a few compliments on it. Took me a while to figure out how to open it when I bought it, though!
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Even if the owners don't seem to be active/responsive/paying attention, it's still not right to deliberately take a bug somewhere it obviously doesn't want to go. Sure, there's a certain element of randomness involved, and if I wanted my TB to go straight from point A to point B I'd have mailed it... but there's a difference between, say, leaving a bug that wants to go out of state in the same state where you found it, or taking it a few miles west when it ultimately wants to go north, and taking a bug that wants to visit various US states to another country and stranding it there. Pick up another bug -- plenty of 'em don't have specific goals.
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Yrium -- thanks for the heads up on that cache notify website... we've logged three first finds this week since signing up
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Originally posted by martmann:Heh, check http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=a770d6a2-dbcd-4835-8af7-bd3088557256 cache out, the final of this multi was plundered and not replaced for OVER A MONTH, and two people logged a find.
I found it rather ironic that apparently three people teamed up, had the same experience... and two logged a find, while the third logged a not-found.
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We always leave a little rubber frog or similar item, but rarely take anything. I know a lot of local cachers who leave more than they take, if they take anything at all. The main problem with trades per se is that I hardly ever see anything I want, except the occasional rubber lizard.
When visiting another state recently, I went to find a cache that I knew had started off logbook-only, but was large enough to hold small items. There had been a dozen visits; I assumed that over the weeks, a couple of people had left something or other, and I was planning to trade for darn near anything so I could take home a little souvenir. Nope, the container was still bare of everything but logbook, pencil and explanatory sheet.
Now, I know nobody who found it was obliged to leave something for nothing, yet I still somehow felt that the previous dozen finders had been a little rude. If you enjoyed the hunt, you can leave a trinket worth a quarter. But that makes me question my own motivations -- it's all about the hunt, right, not the swag? And anyway, I've given up long ago on finding neat things in caches. Still, I wanted to see what this new area's cachers left -- their cards, their signature items, whatever, I was curious how they differed from my typical local swag. The empty container was disappointing.
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I'm staying logged in to the site, but not the forums. When I click on the geocaching.com discussion forum, I'm brought directly to the login page, which tells me I am not currently logged in... but I *was* logged in to the main site, before I attempted to access the forums. Once I've been through this loop, I seem to no longer be logged in when I get home, either.
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Sounds like exactly what's happening to me.
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Originally posted by TEAM 360:Off-set caches are approvable. Web-cam caches are approvable. I don't see why they are holding this one up.
But is giving coordinates a ways off from the cache, then simply saying 'find it,' truly an offset cache? Don't offsets usually provide specific directions of some sort? Would an ordinary cache be approved if it gave rough coordinates and then a picture of the cache area? I can see arguments for and against it, but it's not clear-cut.
Or I could be wrong, and caches like that could be popping up daily. Just haven't seen one, though Hawkeye did find a cache last weekend without the GPS, just using the spoiler photo, and it *was* fun, but I'm not sure it's something hiders ought to be making people do regularly. (In this case, it was his choice, since I'd kidnapped the GPS and taken it 1800 miles away.)
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How's this for a hint? It actually contains some slightly useful information, or did (the cache has since been relocated), but imagine decrypting it in the field. OBBZ! OBBZ!
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Hmm. My profile says Charter Member, but I only signed up for a monthly membership a few months ago.
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I collect squished pennies, so I was excited to see the Torrey Pines squished penny cache. In fact, I'm off in Wisconsin on vacation, but Hawkeye ran out to get FTF without the GPS!
While I enjoyed the web site mentioned, I did think it was plugged a bit too relentlessly. But why not place these as ordinary caches -- ditch a few of the logos and links, and you've got a perfectly decent cache, indeed one with a theme I enjoy. I see no reason why there needed to be any debate about creating a 'new category' for these caches -- they're simply themed caches. I assume the quasi-commercial aspect was the sticking point. If the owner really just likes collecting pennies, he should be willing to drop the overtones of commercialism.
If the problem is that some of these caches are non-local to the placer, well, I'd be pleased to adopt the Torrey Pines one.
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We found one 'buried in sand' cache a few months ago. You did indeed need a spade to get at it -- it was buried well. But you weren't doing anything that countless little kids don't do on that beach with little plastic shovels every weekend. It was really a lot of fun. The problem, eventually, was that there was maintenance on the beach, and the concrete firepit that had been used as a landmark got moved!
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San Diego is so extremely cache-dense that you can hardly avoid the things. Penasquitos Canyon, as Parsa recommended, can provide a nice round trip with a whole bunch of caches and some great scenery. Maddi's Funhouse, one of the caches there, is near a neat little waterfall. But you really can't go wrong, no matter where you go in the county.
The biggest hazard is probably going to be poison oak; make sure you know what it looks like. Three leaflets and all that. Snakes are a possibility, but just use caution -- carry a stick, send it ahead of you into questionable areas, don't trample through grassy areas unnecessarily, watch those sunny rocks. As long as you're not frolicking heedlessly about, you should be fine.
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Logs
in How do I...?
If you've been *taking* TBs, you should at the very least log them (and log the cache where you dropped it off, in order to make the drop show on the bug's record). Has your wife been logging online? It's nice to have every visit accounted for by at least one online log; as the owner of a couple of caches, they're fun to read, and it's always nice to know how the cache is doing and what people thought of it. You can make your logs very brief if you haven't got much time. It also is kind of fun to have the site keeping track of your finds for you.
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Looks like the values for that field are "Charter Member," "Active user," and I guess inactive (I haven't actually seen any inactive profiles.) Guessing by the way the old system works, someone gets flagged as inactive if the site tries to send them a message and it bounces. There used to be a big spiel, something like "This user is inactive. Either email bounced, or they haven't confirmed their email yet, or something like that."
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I don't think anyone could get too upset about continuing the status quo, which is to include standard, multi, virtual, event, webcam, and locationless in a total. Anything that's got its own cache page counts. That total still exists, as the numbers in parentheses next to your name when you log a cache. There's been talk for a long time about breaking locationless out into a separate count like benchmarks; I wouldn't mind, but I imagine people with significant numbers of them logged might be upset to see that parenthetical number go down. I doubt anyone will agitate to put benchmarks or travel bugs into the overall total, as those have long had their own sections on the site. I wouldn't like to see overall totals, such as those parenthetical totals, discarded entirely; I think they provide a certain amount of useful info, and a lot of entertainment (at least for me). We like to strive for those round numbers as motivation to get up and go caching when we're feeling lazy.
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Originally posted by The Alethiometrists:No, it never did show you the bugs you'd found, but wouldn't it be cool if it did now?
It's always shown you the bugs YOU found (on your "my cache page," not the public view).
I, too, would like to see totals, and I'm not too particular about whether locationless caches are included. I wouldn't like to see the categories of what goes into a total *expanded* to include, say, benchmarks or travel bugs, but I'm fine with totals the way they used to be OR with eliminating locationless. I think too many people would be too upset if virtuals were moved to a different count, so I won't even comment.
Totals still do exist -- there's a number in parentheses next to your name when you post a log, right? So I think they should be viewable on the person's profile page as well. Very interesting to look through some of the locals' stats and see how many of each type of cache they've done. I'm rather embarrassed to see that our own virtuals have been adding up (I, Kite, don't like them, but Hawkeye thinks they're fine, so we do them when they're on our route and he can talk me into it).
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Originally posted by cachew nut:Garmin has some low priced GPS units and therefore sells a lot of them. Users of these low end units will exaggerate when describing these units, rather than have to admit that they made a mistake.
I hope you're kidding, but just in case... come ON. We've found 233 caches with a yellow etrex and the only times we've had a signficant problem getting close to the cache was when the coordinates were just plain bad (such as the time EVERYONE who found the cache said it was 70-100 feet off, and they can't all have been using Garmins). We keep signal under tree cover just fine. The only times we've completely lost it are walking under a long underpass/tunnel, or hanging the unit around my neck and letting it flop face-down. It re-acquires quickly once the problem is resolved.
If low-end Garmins were really cheap crap, geocachers using them would either throw in the towel or upgrade quickly, they wouldn't blunder on and defend their Garmins out of pride. I've considered upgrading because maps would be nice, but never for a moment thought "this GPS isn't accurate enough/keeping signal/leading me to the cache, I need a better one." There are people out there who've found 1000+ caches with a yellow etrex. There really ain't nothin' wrong with a patch antenna, and I think we do a disservice to people with an entry-level interest when we suggest they have to buy something expensive to be successful at geocaching.
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I hate to say it, because I'm going to sound like the biggest wimp ever, but... steep hills. I've stopped and turned around twice because of them, the only times I've chickened out of a hunt. I pay attention to terrain ratings, but some people think a nice wide obvious path is easy terrain even when it's on a very steep grade. And it may be for some people. I can go up these paths, no problem, but I have trouble coming down again. Couple that with a weird phobia about falling, and overly steep paths (especially with nice slippery little pebbles on them) are like insurmountable walls to me.
Poison oak? I'm not allergic (yet). I will cautiously proceed in rattlesnake country (only met a real live rattler once so far). I will bravely sally forth against the playground micro, wade through prickly weeds, squeamishly send my stick after caches hidden under garbage (really! someone hid one under a discarded sweatshirt once!), but hills? I'm a baby about hills.
If you just want to know what I *dislike*, it's dadgum needle-in-a-haystack micros with no landmarks or clever hiding spots, the only remarkable feature of the area being the trash and/or nearby homeless camp. It seems like some people are so compelled to hide caches that they leave them absolutely anywhere.
Freaking log in again!?!?
in Website
Posted
I've gotten stuck in a login loop once -- I kept clicking 'my cache page' and kept getting taken back to the 'okay, you just logged in' screen, over and over and over. A simple restart of Netscape got me out of it. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but it doesn't happen all the time for me.