Thrak

Gee............ and here I thought you must have made a thread about my neighbor bobolu. He follows the arrow. Over the cliff, through the blackberries, through the poison oak, straight up the hill, through the star thistle.................. he follows the arrow. I coined a phrase that's used locally --- boboluing. It means to follow the arrow even though there's likely a MUCH easier way to get to the cache.

I've had this happen a number of times. One night I was questioned by two different officers at two different caches about half a mile apart. The second one ran my DL and the plates on my truck. I just tell them what I'm doing. I'm polite and I'm not breaking any laws so I've never had a problem. I've been questioned a number of times during daylight and a number of times at night. No big deal. Some officers know what geocaching is and others don't. I've found that by being polite and always making sure I don't violate any laws - including parking properly - I haven't had any problems with law enforcement. I've been questioned when solo, when with my wife, and when with several other geocachers. When I'm questioned by law enforcement it just shows the officers are alert and doing their jobs.

kruggerands -- definitely. They're a real crowd pleaser. It's the "trade up" part. I'm sure the next cacher will be sure to "trade up or trade even". Really. Just let me know where you drop them and I'll take care of it for you.

Sooooooo You're not keen on it then? Oh, go on... Try it... you might like it. I'll be your friend. MrsB Sooooooooooooo many people. Sooooooooooooo many "friends". Sheesh................ People have a zillion "friends" they've never met. (Of course YOU would be a worthy friend, MrsB ) What's a curmudgeon to do? I don't even do television. I read instead. I may work in IT but I'm not owned by IT. I don't do facebook, myspace, twitter, etc. Nope, nope, nope.

You make baby J33bu$ cry! Please.............. NO FREAKING FACEBOOK! I'm so freaking sick of the facebook frenzy. What the heck is wrong with people that they have to have crap like this? Just say NO to social networking sites. Period.

I love some of the virtuals but I can certainly understand why they became a problem. I'm wondering how they will be reintroduced. They certainly can't come back as they were originally implemented. From what I've heard and read things got really out of hand with the original implementation. I'll just have to wait and see how they can manage to revive the concept of the virtual cache without bringing back the problems. It seems to me that the original idea was ok but the problem was the idiotic things people decided they wanted to list as a virtual. As usual, people can manage to screw up stuff pretty badly and you can't seem to count on them having any common sense.

October 18, 2005 by MorningWhisper (692 found) Yes! FTF I am sooooooo glad to see a new cache up here! Thank you very much for the hide. Took a new way up the mountain and almost lost a kid in the process, but managed to make it to the top with both of them in tow. Had to wait for Little Whisper to catch up, then proceeded to the cache. Great hide and wonderfully stocked cache! The kids had a field day trying to decide what they wanted to take. Settled on the erasers for school, and the Yellowstone keychain (Mom took the TB - thanks thrak!) Left: A Hello Kitty ring and Police car hotwheel (sorry about the little toys, but there is truly no room to leave anything larger....) TFTC! PS: The coordinates were right on! ============================================================ This was the first log for the first cache I placed. I found my first cache on August 8, 2005 and at that time the "conventional wisdom" on the boards was to find at least 100 caches before placing one. I took it to heart and after caching for 2 months I had found more than 100 geocaches. I hauled this ammo can up a steep hill to a place I thought would be perfect - only to find that it wouldn't fit where I had planned to put it. I continued wandering all over the hillside and eventually wound up at the top where there was a trail. D'Oh! I could have simply taken the trail that I knew was up along the top of the hill. As it was, I ended up placing the cache maybe 25 feet off the trail. Ah, well. It was a good hike and the cache is still in place. The TB referred to in the log was an unactivated travel bug dog tag I had left for the FTF. I especially liked the log above as I'm pretty sure I'm the first one who ever referred to the finder's daughter as "Little Whisper" in a log I posted for a cache where I had met them one day.

Doesn't "offend" me but I don't think it belongs in the cache either. I remove religious tracts, business cards, etc. that really don't belong in caches. I also remove rusted items, bullets, etc. None of this stuff belongs in a geocache. (Yes, I've found live ammo in 2 caches to date.)

That happened to a local cacher in Chico. While searching for a listed cache they found an old, unlisted cache in the same area. At first they thought they had found the listed cache but when they examined their find it quickly became obvious it had been hidden long ago and never listed. While I've never come across a cache of that type I have found a letterbox hide while searching for a geocache. We ended up finding and signing both of them - they were about 15 feet or so apart.

Can you describe what it is about your cache that makes it more interesting at night? I have yet to do a night cache that I actually enjoyed, simply because there was nothing to see. I like caching for the chance to see new areas and spend time out-of-doors breathing fresh air, hearing birds call, etc., and caching at night makes me miss out on all of that (except the fresh air, I guess...) Wow. I've only done a few night caches but I've really enjoyed them. To each his own.............

Get GSAK. Drop your PQ into it and it will automagically unzip. You can set it to send the cache names if you like.

Not only would I say NO, I'd say HELL NO! I have 228 FTF and I don't think it makes me special. It just means I was somewhat crazed on multiple occasions. I don't do the FTF thing anymore but, even when I did, I had no need to be "officially recognized" for it. This is a hobby. Treat it as such. If you love the FTF then go for it but don't take yourself too seriously just because you were willing to zoom out the door on a moonless and rainy night and rummage through the poison oak out by the river just so you could be FTF.

Non caching-related items such as business cards and religious tracts I dump into the nearest trash can. Signature items - including personal cards - are appropriate for the cache. If there are simply too many to fit you can collect them. I have a collection of signature items from various geocachers and have been known to leave a Thrak button behind in caches - especially when caching out of state. It is meant as a collectible items for anybody to take who might want it as well as a means of letting others who may know me I've been there before them.

I suppose the Jeep travel bugs weren't commercialism? How about the Ape caches?

Never eaten rat snake but rattlesnake wrapped in foil with butter and soy sauce comes out real tasty indeed. It used to be a nice treat when we'd find another rattler. MEAT was a welcome change to the freaking rice, beans, granola, oatmeal, etc. we had to eat most of the time. Yes, it tasted a lot like teriyaki chicken but the pieces were a bit "different". No wings or legs to be found.........

Did you check the page carefully for any reviewer notes? Check your email? including hidden spam folders? I am sure there is some reason...... If you are trying to publish a cache make sure you check the box on the cache setup page that says the cache is active or the reviewer will never see it. It's the check box next to the following text: Enable cache listing. It is ready for review. (If the listing is not yet ready to be reviewed, uncheck this box.) Note: Only 'Enabled' cache listings are visible to the reviewer.

I live on a cul-de-sac and we have a block breakfast every year. One of the retired neighbors came down to grab some food and when folks asked what he'd been up to lately he got a big grin and said, "Treasure Hunting!". The neighbors laughed and he told us a little bit about geocaching. The other neighbors laughed some more and poked a bit of fun but I thought it sounded interesting so I made sure to get the web address. I went home and made a geocaching.com account and started reading the forums. I read a LOT of useful stuff and then over the next week or so I started checking out GPS receivers online. I looked at a lot of different models and, the more I looked, the more I wanted it all. Finally one day I saw a GPSMAP 76CSx on eBay that was brand new in the box. The price was low so I sent myself email to check it out the next day. When I got to work the next day I got the email and looked it up and it was STILL low with 11 minutes left on the auction. I made a bid, certain it would jump to some really high price at the last minute. Boy was I surprised when I won! Then I had to go home and tell my wife I had just spent $400. At that time the thing would have cost me $632 locally though (with tax) so it was a good buy. By the time the unit arrived in the mail I had already read a zillion forum posts, tons of other online information, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geocaching and had gotten GSAK and downloaded a Pocket Query. I opened the box, checked out the unit for maybe 20 minutes, loaded my Pocket Query, and went out and found my first cache - an ammo can in a stump that had been hidden by the very neighbor who first told me about caching. I first heard the word Geocaching on July 30, 2005 and my first find was August 8, 2005. I had been an online gamer (Dark Age of Camelot) for 3 years and had wasted from 2 to 16 hours a day - every day - playing that stupid game. When I discovered geocaching I went out side and never gamed again. Geocaching saved my sanity.

Yeah, but I answer to it. There has been a few times out in public (not caching or attending an event) when I hear "Hey SNOOGANS!" Hardly anyone I know that caches calls me by my given name. I took my grand kids geocaching for the first time and another cacher came past on a bicycle. (It was actually the cache owner.) She greeted me by the name Thrak and one of my grand kids asked why she called me that when my name is Michael. I think Snoogans works fine instead of Mark. Somehow it just doesn't have the same impact and it's hard to visualize someone with a "normal" name like that creating such an interesting profile page.

Ok, I don't normally do this but.................. I can't figure out what the heck the above post MEANS! ex·ten·u·at·edex·ten·u·at·ing Definition of EXTENUATE transitive verb1 a archaic : to make light of b : to lessen or to try to lessen the seriousness or extent of by making partial excuses : mitigate <extenuating circumstances> c obsolete : disparage 2 a archaic : to make thin or emaciated b : to lessen the strength or effect of

yep...this is not facebook.... Thank Bob for that! Never been to facebook. Don't have plans to go there. No my space and don't twitter. Bah! Stupid social networking sites.

You can always use GSAK and just dump them all into the same database. It will merge them and dump any duplicates. I don't know how your current software handles duplicates but, if you have overlap in your queries, that might account for the "extra" caches if it doesn't dump duplicates.

Hmmmmmmmmmm...... Pretty lame................ NOT! I'd actually snag one in a heartbeat. I have a number of sig items I've collected. That one might make it onto my cache bag or it might go into the regular collection. Either way - yes, I'd snag one for sure. Very nicely done.

The text box to add another player is right there on top of the "Your Friends" page. Dang, I was kind of hoping it had gone away.....

I'm one of those who shakes my head and wonders "WHY???" when people place a micro in the woods. On the other hand, I just had a cache muggled. It's along a hiking trail in the foothills and was maybe 15 feet off the trail, up an incline, behind a large rock, covered with pieces of wood. It was a .50 cal ammo can modified so it was locked with a heavy duty 4-digit combination lock. When I place it I ended up with around $70 or so invested in the cache and contents. Some @^#&*$*#$ has found and stolen it. I'd guess it was the same jerk who left a glass beer bottle at the location. If the cache had been a stupid micro I doubt it would have been muggled. In order to "properly" find the cache you had to first find 4 micros in and around town and write down the red and black numbers from each. Then you had to find a 5th cache that was maybe half a mile hike in the foothills. In that cache is a laminated card telling you how to use the previously collected numbers to locate and open the final cache. The first 4 in the series are typical dumb micros but they do serve a purpose. The 5th cache is in a good place and you're quite likely to encounter quail and deer along the route. I've seen a flock of turkeys at the cache location. The final cache affords a great view back down and across the canyon. The location was chosen because of the nice hike and the excellent view Like I said above, if the final cache had been a micro it's doubtful that it would have been muggled. I guess a locked .50 cal ammo can was just too much for someone to resist. It did have a sticker plainly identifying it as a geocache but that didn't deter the a** clown that stole it.

This gets my vote for the problem. It's easy for folks to miss that little check box on the listing page.