Gator Man

The actual straight-forward honest answer to your question is, after you select "log your visit" and are taken to the page for text entry, look at the upper left of the Comments box. You will see a little smiley face there. Click on that and the whole menu of emoticons will magically appear for you to copy and paste!

Ummmmm, is that the one that goes "Do unto others, then run like Heck"?

Here's a trail camera that looked pretty menacing to me, all cammo'd up like a Marine going into combat!

Yep, GeoBain, that's the stuff!

As far as painting plastic goes, I lightly sand it, then spray the whole thing with an automotive product my son got for me. It is a plastic adhesion promoter, I think the brand name is BULLDOG, but it might be BULLFROG. After that dries as recommended, I apply the cammo colors. They hold up well in South Florida, can't tell you about in the snow. Concerning the other part of your question, if I were going to put out a cache that I wanted to hold up for the long term in harsh conditions, I would use an AMMO CAN. They can be found in some very large sizes, and can't be beat for durability. Plus it is much easier to hot-glue cammo things to them!

There is no good answer to the REAL # of geocachers question, since there are probably thousands of "Sock Puppet" accounts, but the ID numbering of registered accounts passed 1,000,000 yesterday or the day before.

Here's one from the Miami, FL area. Names obliterated to protect the guilty, WHO TOOK THE CACHE WITH THEM to open it, then returned it several days later! This one involved crawling for some distance in an enclosed area. (Cache was large and heavy!) DANG! got beat again! oh well. team effort here with XXXXXX XXX and YYYYYY. ultimately YYYYYY was the designated search man since we were too fat! yep, fat cachers! unfortunately our wrench got swallowed up by the troll. our designated search man almost got swallowed up also. this cache is not for the overweight and not for the out of shape. it can be hazardous. if caching at night there are mice to deal with. someone is messing with this cache. XXXXXX XXX showed me where he found the first clue and we deffinitely looked there last night. it was there tonight. we had to take the cache as we couldnt open it. our wrench was no more so we had to come home. CACHE WILL BE REPLACED ASAP.

I did one kinda like this back in 2003, GCH74V. It involved starting coords, then looking for symbols on the sidewalks for interpretation of where to go next. What I did probably wouldn't be allowed today, but my symbols were just some of many painted on city streets and sidewalks for various utility works, surveying, building construction purposes. GM

I've been a "MEMBER" for 5 years, and don't feel like I've missed a thing. I've logged, maybe, three "PREMIUM MEMBERS ONLY" caches, (Yes we can do that, look it up). I also don't carry a PDA, but sometimes cache with others who do, but it is rarely called upon. I don't even carry paper info with me, just the coords in the GPSr. Kind of makes it more fun when searching. I will admit to selectively downloading caches using EASYGPS, which has all the technology I need, usually only avoiding puzzles and multis when planning a "CACHE RUN". My bottom line is, you don't need PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP to have a lot of fun with Geocaching, and I DON'T feel guilty about it! GM

Seems like you have really touched a nerve here. Personally, I have survived almost SIX years on a MEMBER account, and have almost 250 FTFs to show for it.

I have found a few caches (micros) that turned out to be planted in the vicinity of black plastic rodent traps. I was smart enough to NOT stick my hand in one looking for the micro. I don't think you should condition people to the practice by actually making one into a cache.

A little off-topic, but chew this over. How much would you spend if you attended, say, a monthly "BEER & WINGS" Geocaching Meet & Greet Event at a local watering hole with your spouse? I bet it would be more like $30 or $40 for THAT smiley! I could also tell you a story about a city Parks employee who joined GC.com specifically to post city-sponsored geocaching events that cost $5.00 each to attend. By the third such event, the local geocaching community gave a huge HO-HUM, and the event was cancelled because NOBODY signed up to attend.

Here's what I use! http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~cvm/latlongdist.html

I know this is an old topic, but I just saw this on the CNN website. GPS sneakers locate with press of a button POSTED: 11:38 a.m. EST, February 13, 2007 Story Highlights • New line of sneakers comes with an embedded GPS chip • Sneakers work when wearer presses a button on the shoe • Father came up with idea when his son went missing • Sneakers will cost $325-$350; available in six designs MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- Isaac Daniel calls the tiny Global Positioning System chip he's embedded into a line of sneakers "peace of mind." He wishes his 8-year-old son had been wearing them when he got a call from his school in 2002 saying the boy was missing. The worried father hopped a flight to Atlanta from New York where he had been on business to find the incident had been a miscommunication and his son was safe. Days later, the engineer started working on a prototype of Quantum Satellite Technology, a line of $325 to $350 adult sneakers that hit shelves next month. It promises to locate the wearer anywhere in the world with the press of a button. A children's line will be out this summer. "We call it a second eye watching over you," Daniel said.

Looks like there has been a programming change. You only see "My caches waiting for review (view archived)" if you happen to have a cache in the approval queue. THEN you can click on "View Archived" and see everything you submitted that didn't pass muster with the approvers for whatever reason.

I found one once, and the clue was "Make sure you put the sticks back". Sure enough, when I got to GZ there was a pile of sticks covering an opening in a tree base. I quickly removed the sticks, but no cache was there! I looked around some more, and found it under a bush within 5 feet of me. I made sure I put the sticks back.

I assume people from elsewhere will eventually look over my profile, so I try to make it interesting and a little informative. Like for instance, what the weather is like in sunny South Florida at any given time!

"Discovering" isn't really new, just a re-named and resurrected activity that used to happen back in the "EARLY DAYS" of Geocaching. Back then, you could "POST A NOTE" to a TB page or Geocoin page, and it went into your numbers count. I forget the reasoning, but that option went away, along with all ICONS gained in that fashion. Now it's back, called "DISCOVERING"!

When I was caching in CT, I used to HATE seeing the hint "Next to the log" There are literally THOUSANDS of fallen logs within range of any forest hide there. The equivalent in Florida is "Under the Palmetto leaves". Arrrrrgggghhhhh!

Here's one I like, and have used! "This is an ATTRACTIVE cache." (Magnetic)

Here's one, GCP6MV. It was mine, but I archived it when the new rules came out, since I didn't want to deal with any more "Answers in the mail" VIRTUAL caches. TEDCOOL wanted to save it, so I worked with him and GEOAWARE to breathe life back into it.

Ummmm, I probably shouldn't mention this, BUT, the archived Earthcaches I checked are not locked, only archived, thus, they can still be logged if anyone so desires.

Caching in Winter can be very productive. I was just out caching last Saturday, (FEB 3rd), and found 34 caches. Of course, I'm in Sunny South Florida, but it IS Winter! Seriously, when I started caching, I lived in CT. I tried finding some caches in 6 to 8 inches of new snow, and it took quite a few frostbitten fingers to come up with any. I didn't have fun doing it. One in particular I recall had a clue to "LOOK FOR THE WHITE ROCK" As a result, the longest lull in my caching career was about five months, 12/07/02 'til 5/15/03. Night caching just isn't my thing either. I have, maybe 15 night finds. They usually happened at the end of a loooooong day, when I was ready to head home. Maybe that has something to do with it, but I don't think I would ever purposely head out for a night of caching. GM

When I create a puzzle cache, I have started including a link to GeoChecker.com. http://geochecker.com/ You can create a page that has the answer to your puzzle coordinates, either EXACT or FUZZY. You can avoid some annoying emails with an automatic checker. Any player who thinks they have solved it can enter their answer and see for themselves, before beginning an expedition! GM

DECEMBER 31st, 2001, I had just arrived back in CT after a visit home to South FL. I was out for a walk in a local park, (no snow on the ground, but COLD), and saw a couple searching for something, GPSr in hand. I asked what they were looking for and when they responded, I thought I heard "GEODES". (You know, those hollow stones with beautiful crystals inside) I helped them narrow down the area, and we found the 2-gallon brown pretzal jar hidden in the rocks on a cliffside with the treasure in it! At the time, I had a GPSr coming to me as a selected gift for something related to a large number of years with an aerospace company located in CT. When it arrived a couple of months later, I was off and running! That registered cacher was TRAWLER, total found caches as of a few minutes ago for him was 51, his last visit was 8 days ago, so he's still active, but apparently still very selective about what he searches for! HELLO and THANKS for the adventure TRAWLER!!! GM