MartyFouts

Movin' to Montana was placed in Page Mill Pull Out the day the cache was created on 15 May 02. It was picked up 2 days later. I heard nothing about it before this morning. I was about to send email to the cacher and checked the log page. Lo and Behold. The bug's in another cache. OK, it went 2700 miles the wrong way, but at least it's moving. [This message was edited by Marty Fouts on August 18, 2002 at 02:14 PM.] [This message was edited by Marty Fouts on August 18, 2002 at 02:14 PM.]

Movin' to Montana was placed in Page Mill Pull Out the day the cache was created on 15 May 02. It was picked up 2 days later. I heard nothing about it before this morning. I was about to send email to the cacher and checked the log page. Lo and Behold. The bug's in another cache. OK, it went 2700 miles the wrong way, but at least it's moving. [This message was edited by Marty Fouts on August 18, 2002 at 02:14 PM.] [This message was edited by Marty Fouts on August 18, 2002 at 02:14 PM.]

Marty's Mahem was placed in Missouri Headwaters several weeks ago. Yesterday I received email from the last person to have logged that cache and they indicated that the bug wasn't there. It is possible that the person who picked up the bug is traveling on vacation and hasn't had the opportunity to log the find yet, but just in case, I thought I'd post a request: Anyone who can help locate Marty's Mahem, please contact me and help me find it. Thanks [This message was edited by Marty Fouts on August 18, 2002 at 02:17 PM.] [This message was edited by Marty Fouts on August 18, 2002 at 02:17 PM.]

It dawns on me, in this age of air travel, that the distance and direction you move a travel bug may not matter that much to whether you are helping it towards its goal. After all, moving a travel bug from Napa to the Marin headland would get it closer to Hawaii than moving it to Sacramento, but moving it Sacramento might well get it closer to someone who is going to Hawaii.

Check out the parks and open space preserves on the penninsula. There are day-hike caches of varying lengths in just about all of them. My favorite is _All that Jazz_ which is about a six mile round trip, mostly in shade. You can make a longer hike out of it by making it a loop, as I did. I know that there are nice hikes in Saint Joseph Hill, Rancho San Antonio, Monte Bello, Purisima Creek, and Phelegar Estate.

quote:Originally posted by bykenut:Great article! Inquiring minds want to know though - how it came about that the San Jose Mercury decided to do an article on geocaching? Also, did Mike, the reporter, go geocaching with Team Dralasites? You might try asking Mike how he decided to do the article. He's responded to my email in the past. Also, I wanted to say, (in about the fouth place,) that the article has led to at least three people logging my caches and saying that reading the Merc is what got them into the hobby. If you really want to praise the article, send email to Mike at MAntonucci@sjmercury.com and let him know. You might even email the Merc and ask them to do a follow up story.

quote:Originally posted by bykenut:Great article! Inquiring minds want to know though - how it came about that the San Jose Mercury decided to do an article on geocaching? Also, did Mike, the reporter, go geocaching with Team Dralasites? You might try asking Mike how he decided to do the article. He's responded to my email in the past. Also, I wanted to say, (in about the fouth place,) that the article has led to at least three people logging my caches and saying that reading the Merc is what got them into the hobby. If you really want to praise the article, send email to Mike at MAntonucci@sjmercury.com and let him know. You might even email the Merc and ask them to do a follow up story.

Kewl. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the Vasona Park picnic. Also that the article in the Merc has done great things for the hobby. I've already had three hits on caches from people saying that the article got them started.

quote:Originally posted by Team StitchesOnQuilts:I guess I must be confused. When I look at the caches I want to visit, I look to see if there is a travel bug in there. If there is, I'll look at the travel bug's page to see if it's goal is something that I think I can rationally do. I guess I just figure: hey, if I'm logged in anyway, why not take a peek at the bug's page and see what's up with it? So, I'm not sure why someone wouldn't be able to log in and see where the bug wants to go: isn't there time when you're deciding what cache to visit? Shannah Sometimes the bug shows up between when you last had access to the web and when you get to the cache. Perhaps the person who got to the cache while you were driving to the parking lot placed the bug. Not all bugs have good information with them about their goal -- I suspect that most don't. I used to grab ever bug I found and then see what I could do to help it. Twice I've had unpleasant experiences as a result, so now, mostly, I don't even look for them.

quote:Originally posted by geospotter: As far as protecting anything important, that wasn't the point of my suggestion here. It was to help in limiting the email usually associated with a VC. I read the email of all the logs of all my caches, and I reply individually to all the responses to my VC. Seems to me that it's an obligation of a VC hider to be willing to check the answers. Automating the process takes some of the human interaction out of a hobby that it's already possible to participate in with very little interaction. In my opinion, if you don't want the interaction, simply don't hide or seek virtuals.

quote:Originally posted by geospotter: quote:Originally posted by Marty Fouts: Passwords don't protect anybody from anything important and they add a burden to people who are playing fair. if you wanna use 'em go ahead, but don't expect me to log your caches when i find them. Marty, That is certainly your right, but I can see that having to enter a password has not stopped you from posting to these forums. Or posting your finds. Both require that you login and enter a password. (I know, there are shortcuts, but you had to enter a password at some point.) Entering a password would require considerably less time than entering your log entry. As far as protecting anything important, that wasn't the point of my suggestion here. It was to help in limiting the email usually associated with a VC. Passwords are a routine requirement of the net, because abuse of the net is routine, widespread, and potentially harmful to the person whose identity might be stolen. I find the password requirement for Groundspeak forums and geocaching.com inoffensive, because I only ever had to enter them once, and because they are relatively secret phrases that I control. This is significantly different than having to collect a cookie from every cache I visit, remember that cookie, and have it available when I want to log that find. And the difference is one of trust. As soon as distrust becomes prevalent in the hobby than the hobby is going to become something very different than it is now, and something that I don't think any of us are going to like. After all, if cache hiders don't trust cache finders, why should cache finders trust cache hiders. What's to say you really placed that cacehe? How do we know it's not booby trapped? Is it really too much to ask that we keep our hobby trust based?

quote:Originally posted by Team Golden:Marty - Who is forcing anything on anyone? Well I'm off to the freezer section if anyone wants to meet me there.... No one yet. It's a refernce to attempts by people to have locationless or virtual caches 'done away with' in one way or another.

quote:Originally posted by Team Golden:Marty - Who is forcing anything on anyone? Well I'm off to the freezer section if anyone wants to meet me there.... No one yet. It's a refernce to attempts by people to have locationless or virtual caches 'done away with' in one way or another.

quote:Originally posted by Steve Bukosky: quote:Originally posted by Marty Fouts:Of course I can tell you that. I don't care who's got how many caches. And no, to answer someone else's question, I don't look up other people's cache counts. Marty, I gotta like you because you're a geocacher. We have that in common. But if you don't like competition, let those of us that do, enjoy it. I'm starting to think your face is frozen in that expression. Steve Bukosky N9BGH Waukesha Wisconsin Steve, if you want to have an informal competition among your friends, that's fine. But don't try to change the whole hobby just to make it more competitive. Virtual caches are fine, some of them are harder than grab-and-dash 1/1 caches. Locationless caches are fine to. Follow your own advice: if you don't like 'em, don't do 'em, but don't push to take 'em away from those who do.

quote:Originally posted by Steve Bukosky: quote:Originally posted by Marty Fouts:Of course I can tell you that. I don't care who's got how many caches. And no, to answer someone else's question, I don't look up other people's cache counts. Marty, I gotta like you because you're a geocacher. We have that in common. But if you don't like competition, let those of us that do, enjoy it. I'm starting to think your face is frozen in that expression. Steve Bukosky N9BGH Waukesha Wisconsin Steve, if you want to have an informal competition among your friends, that's fine. But don't try to change the whole hobby just to make it more competitive. Virtual caches are fine, some of them are harder than grab-and-dash 1/1 caches. Locationless caches are fine to. Follow your own advice: if you don't like 'em, don't do 'em, but don't push to take 'em away from those who do.

quote:Originally posted by georgeandmary: Does it bother you that some people like to compete. It's not like there is any real prize for finding a lot of caches but competition amoungst friends is a blast. It get's you to push the limits of sanity and you end up doing silly stuff like trying to find caches at 3am in the morning or in the rain, or driving hundreds of miles in a weekend and going places you would have normally avoided. Competition is a great thing. Hell, you get two buddies in a grocery store and the next thing you know they're racing shopping carts down the freezer isles. george Remember: Half the people you meet are below average. http://img.Groundspeak.com/track/5867_200.gif A friendly competition among friends is a fine thing, and they should go for it. Someone who wants to force the hobby to be more competitive for everyone should move on to minute-wars or geodash.

quote:Originally posted by geospotter:I keep returning (mentally) to someone's suggestion that the cache creator could require a "password" to log a find. Caches placed with the password option could have the password written in the cache log, on the lid, etc. The VC answers that you seek could become the password ("How many lakes?""What's the six-digit code?"). This way the email contact would become the exception rather than the rule. I've been thinking about this a lot since the first time someone suggested it. And I've decided what I'm going to do about password protected caches, if they catch on: not bother to log them on the web site. Passwords don't protect anybody from anything important and they add a burden to people who are playing fair. if you wanna use 'em go ahead, but don't expect me to log your caches when i find them.

quote:Originally posted by mrcpu:Some of you are missing the point behind GPX. There would be no need to use plucker or even the pathetique site. You would have all the data already IN the gpx file... logs, description, terrain rating etc etc. GPX format means that you can either create a stylesheet to display the data in your web browser as you see fit and then print it to take with you, or you create a palm application that does this and upload the data to it, or you can import the data into your favorite mapping software. Using the GPX format to feed plucker or a program that goes to pathetique would be just sort of stupid. Rob Mobile Cache Command Of course, my favorite mapping program doesn't understand XML, and I want to be able to extract subsets of Pocket Query response files to put on my minimum-memory PDA. And, of course, it's nice to have the data on the PDA in a format that's a little petter compressed than an XML file.

quote:Originally posted by Team Golden:I personally feel that there is nothing wrong with competition. Yes it is a game but you can't tell me that if somebody isn't 3 caches ahead of you that you don't want to pass them. Keep in mind not everyone is the same. I read the thread and they are having fun with it so that is great. I will never catch the #1 person in WI but that is fine with me.... Of course I can tell you that. I don't care who's got how many caches. And no, to answer someone else's question, I don't look up other people's cache counts.

There are caches I'm putting off until it's cooler, since I don't feel like hiking 2 miles up the sunny open slopes of a mountain, but it hasn't effected my rate of caching, only my choice of caches to hunt.

There are caches I'm putting off until it's cooler, since I don't feel like hiking 2 miles up the sunny open slopes of a mountain, but it hasn't effected my rate of caching, only my choice of caches to hunt.

Do you place caches?

quote:Originally posted by jonboy:This tacks on to the other thread we had going, "Snake in the Grass". A virtual cache is nothing more than a set of coordinates posted on the internet. The last I heard, the National Park Service does not have authority over the internet. If this forum's administrator has been backing down to this unseemly presumption of authority, that is a grave error. This is not child pornography we are talking about here and the NPS are not on John Ashcroft's anti-terrorism team. If they think they have any legal authority to censor the internet, let them go to court. I doubt any court would even cede them legal standing. To allow ourselves to be browbeaten into surrendering our right of free speech sets a bad precedent. The NPS is facing a budget shortfall. Would picking a fight about nothing more than some satellite readings really be a wise expenditure of NPS resources? We should not seek to provoke park authorites, but neither should we surrender hard won principles in seeking to propitiate over reaching officials. A virtual cache may or may not be more than a set of coordinates, it might involve a puzzle or questions one has to answer. Legitimate reasons for archiving a virtual cache in a national park would be that it required going off trail, into an off limits area, or otherwise encouraged inappropriate behavior in the park. Just as with any other virtual cache. On the other hand, I know of no virtual cache that's been archived for those reasons. Could you point us at the cache in question?

quote:Originally posted by Steve Bukosky:Competition is fun. Keeping score matters. Have you never checked the stats sites from time to time to see where you rate? Documenting accomplishments and pride in those accomplishments is a good thing. You don't go anywhere in anything without having accomplishments documented to validate your experience. I'm frequently seeing logs where it is said that they've done, say, eight caches today and they are proud of that acomplishment. Or, a log saying how special this hunt was because they hit number 25 or 100 or whatever. People are interested in that number. Am I saying this is a big thing. No, but it is a good thing. Steve Bukosky N9BGH Waukesha Wisconsin Some people find competition fun; others don't. Scores only matter to those who do. Even those who find competition fun don't want all of their activities competitive. Same thing is true for documenting accomplishments. Looking at the cache logs on my caches, I'd say almost half the people who find the cache never bother to post on the web site. Not everyone needs there accomplishments externally validated. Some are sufficiently happy just doing them. All of those things are matters of taste, but the point you're missing in all this is that the cache count isn't set up in a way that it can be used for competitive scoring. You'd have to change a lot more than just whether virtuals or locationless count before you could realistically use cache counts for the sort of external validation of competitive accomplishment you are describing. If you want a competitive gps based sport try geodashing. If you want a competitive form of geocaching, then go invent it. But you're just not going to find it here.

quote:Originally posted by martinp13:The main problem I have with that is that no matter what final "format" you put data into, it's "wrong" for me. I want my final output to look just so and include just so much data, as each person does. And the only way we'll each be able to have that is for the "raw" data to be available for use by each person's stylesheet. Then you can boil it down to an ebook, or retain Jeremy's original look and feel, or (my choice) print 4 text-only cache pages per page. > Martin (Magellan 330) I think you'll like my GPX display program, if I ever get it finished. [;-)]