Metaphor

I was at the spot of a micro cache on Monday. I couldn't find it. I know I was at the exact spot of the cache because my next stop was to go hiking with the owner of the cache. He asked me where I looked, and I told him... his response was, "yea, that's the right spot." I didn't ask for a freebie, and he didn't offer one. I logged a "dnf". I also logged another "dnf" on another cache that day. If I had found the micro, and signed the log, I would have logged a "found it." That's how I've played from March of 2002 until now. Only once have I logged a "found it" after being offered by the owner-- and I signed the remains of the somewhat out-of-the-way rural micro cache, which the owner verified on his subsequent maintenance visit. He offered me the opportunity of changing my "dnf" to "found it". I still feel a bit guilty that I didn't actually sign the log, only the remaining physical evidence of the cache. Monday, I also submitted four waymarks for the Maryland Historical Markers category I help to sponsor. For three of them, I didn't have to leave my car. I pulled up, stuck my GPS out the window to mark the spot, backed up, took the requisite pictures, and submitted them when I got home. I could have approved them myself, but offered them up to the other category reviewers. If I had not submitted the information correctly, I know they would have not been accepted by the group. The intent of the action has nothing to do with the outcome. I intended to find two more caches than I did, but I didn't. They were there somewhere, but I didn't find them. That means that I will probably go look for them again sometime. I am pleased to see that the forums (here, and elsewhere) are addressing these issues, and I'm getting the very strong impression that way more geocachers are against slack logging practices than are in favor of them. If you are going to go caching, make it your intent to be on the up-and-up in the way you play your -- and all of our -- game. After all, you are the only one who has to look yourself in the mirror... but your actions are seen by a lot of others.

Grrr... those dagnabbed tax-and-spend liberal Democrats!

Must be hot where you are as well. Maintenance logs are a good thing, as are SBA's. They are different from DNF's (of which I proudly logged two today). Also, not all email filters will allow an email, especially if it comes through a personal account, and not gc.com. Reading your name in the paper for a bad thing is a very good way of getting the problem solved...trust me on that one.

Excellent sentiments. A lot of folks miss this aspect...Welcome aboard.

If I have a long distance plan for a TB, I'll email the owner for permission to hold it. If I don't have an upcoming trip, but can't get to a cache in a while (three weeks?) , I'll drop it off in the nearest to home of my caches. I won't harvest bugs though, with the sole intent of taking them to bring traffic to my caches.

I had a similar discussion with a friend yesterday out on a boat. His son, who is studying in the Adirondacks, just bought a gps. Dad thought is was great until I asked if the son knew how to use a topo and a compass. He didn't, and I explained the inadequacy of gps receivers -- all the usual problems. Later this summer, the three of us are going out and I'm teaching a little basic map 'n compass.. Reliance on electronics is a common problem with ocean sailing (and power boating). A lot of those who get lost and need assistance don't know how to use the basic compass for direction, and when electronics fail, with no sight of land, they get lost pretty quickly. It's not necessary to be able to use a sextant, but at least be able to use a compass. I'd almost say it should be a prerequisite for gpsr use-- my compass has never failed me...

In the past they have sent them to the charter groups in a bunch of 100 to go out at events. I don't remember the number but wasn't last years total number of jeeps 5000? I don't recall cachers being able to request any to be sent to them? You are right, that is how they have done it in the past, but this year you have to fill out a form and even if you send one in they can still reserve the right to not send you one. We all know the big names on the forums will be getting one at least...oh well.... I would hope, if they do anything but a random draw, they would look at a cacher's previous record for placing jeeps or tb's... However it gets done, I'm sure someone will complain about it somehow. I will only whine about the folks wh get one, but don't move it on, not how Groundspeak chooses to distribute them.

I disagree. The more this kind of game is hidden from the forums, the more some will find an excuse to legitimize this kind of play. A situation like this should be regularly called out, as should all the other recent 'revelations" of less than, well, let's say, rule-bending practices to inflate numbers -- pocket caching, logging your own caches to circumvent rules, cheesy cache vandalism for speed purposes, moving caches from coordinates to facillitate fake logs... these weren't very well-known until the forums exploded last month. Some may want to play this way, but I'll bet that of a majority of geocachers will find any of this distasteful. Sort of a "checks and balances" system -- heck, even the Supreme Court would agree to keep it out in the open...

Brian, you always have just the right thing to say! You're the best!

Brian, you always have just the right thing to say! You're the best!

I wouldn't think of it as a responsibility, but I have moved a a few bugs that have lain for a couple of months in my caches that are less visited.

Is this where I ask if I can use my GPSr on an airplane?

Jasmin (my Golden Retriever) went with me once. She just didn't get the idea that we were supposed to sign the log, not chase the squirrels in the woods. We've agreed to do other things together instead.

Brian's the best. He always has just the right thing to say!

Sheesh! I go caching for one day, and the forums go all to heck. (found six, including two multis, dnf'd one, walked away from three because they weren't my cup of joe when I saw where I would be looking. Drove 187 miles@$2.75/gallon for an average of 23.5 mpg in a 1996 6 cylinder 2 wheel drive Ford Explorer with 203, 500 miles on it... ) One person's opinion (mine): The forums are not filled with mean and nasty people. Mean and nasty people are pretty quickly put down by the regular posters. There are scads of topics that are not controversial, but they don't get the airplay the more scandulous ones do. Controversy happens and is the stuff of good forum debate. Debate means that a difference of opinion is necessary. The "Peaceable Kingdom" would be a dull place, if a lion didn't eat a sheep once in a while, but if all the lion did was eat all the sheep, the Kingdom would cease to be a Kingdom. Bad lions in the Forum Kingdom deserve to be beaten up by the flock of sheep, when necessary. But some sheep need to develop thicker pelts, and realize that they are lying next to lions. I like the forums just the way they are.

Brian, I think you're way off base. Maybe that's why I agree with you as much as I do. Brian, Atta boy!

While there was no mass piling on, the person here made the one post, and never posted again: Here Maybe "Run off with pitchforK" (singular) would be more accurate in this case. Honestly, I do find this forum to be a little rougher than many of the other forums I have been part of. Most of those I don't visit much any more, if at all, but after 5 years I am still hanging around. It looks to me like the one who did the Noob-stomp bot more soundly stomped by the regulars... the rest of the thread was legitimate discussion about the OP's request.

Never mind taking back the forums, lets get the pitchforks and torches and go after that ref! I'll bet his career as a World Cup referee is pretty much over. I wonder if US will appeal Pope's yellow to red to allow play against Ghana? But we digress...

How long have you got between flights? (all times are O/W) Best Bets: Trev's 8-ball and Touchdown II-- south, 10 minute drive; Andover Overlook -- easy multi, 5 minute drive, 15 minute walk, 15 minute clue and final decipher; B-17--interesting micro (is this an oxymoron?), 10 minute drive; ChooChoo-- 20 minute walk; ET -- close by, but I haven't looked for it. I've read it's hard to figure the code. BWI has a walking trail around its perimeter, so the ones I've listed are accessible by foot, as well. Hope this helps...

For what it's worth, I just added this to my remaining TB's and coins: <b> ***Please do not drop off at Mega-Events.***</b>

Gawddamm! This is what I love about being an American!

Oh yeah, and the USA finally played for real in the World Cup!

As I said in an earlier post, yesterday morning there were 38 positive, pleasant, informative threads running, three complaints and four negative ones stemming from what has become one of the biggest controversies in the four years or so that I've been watching these forums. We choose to read what we want to read. Secondly, I'm willing to forgive someone for a mistake made, but I'm not willing to accept fundamental changes in what geocaching has been and will become. One poster (because of my screen set up, I often don't see the names of the poster unless I scroll over-- a nice feature for anyone who feels it's a personal attack to disagree with someone in the forums) claimed that it's about the people, not the cache. I disagree. As a pretty much solo cacher, I'm not impressed by what I have seen coming out of mega-events like GW4, and have no desire to ever attend one. That isn't what it's about, but rather a corollary; geocaching wasn't about hanging out with scads of people who claim that any variation of the game is alright, that any situation can be justified... Don't get me wrong, I like socializing, but I can do that in any of a hundred situations. It's not geocaching. Geocaching is going out and finding a cache placed by another geocacher, and making a sincere connection with another person in this world, that in all probability, I will not ever meet. And I've had many such connections, here and abroad. Go to mega-events and be what ever you want to be, but don't try to dictate the game at its basic level into a corruption where one really doesn't have to make a sincere connection with another cacher. We all have personas that we wear in public, personas that we create for others.. Thirdly, I agree that this whole post was an attention-getting ploy. I'm sure I wouldn't have opened it, given the recent controversy. I would have posted in any one of the multiple threads that are out there that don't have controvery. This thinly-veiled attempt at victimhood just extends the controversy in another directon. You're all probably great people up close, so have fun at the mega-events, and in your local organizations (as I do when i've attended a few of my local ones), but please, enjoy the sport/hobby/game for what it is, not for something that has to have the ante constantly upped for it to be interesting. Most of the best games out there have lasted for generations without that.

I think DaisyChain would be an excellent hider. Her caching area is also the second most beautiful part of Maryland... If two were needed in Maryland, I'd be willing to set one up here on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

I want to be in that group.