Lostboy1966

Disclaimer: I am about to kvetch, so please start playing the world’s smallest violin for me. I released a series of Halloween-themed hides, asking my Reviewer for help getting them published in time (have I mentioned that Reviewers are awesome?). It is a series of four caches, and I assumed that I would at least get a few finds on this beautiful Halloween day, as it was perfect hiking weather. As of this writing I have zero, nada, nothing. The game really has slowed down, at least in my area. I remember when a new cache could expect a dozen or more finds in the first week, at least. It is demotivating. Anyway, even though I ask on my cache pages that no spoiler pictures be posted, here they are. I figured someone might like to see them. Happy Halloween, everyone. And if you find yourself in the area...

(Kicks leg spasmodically)

I just want to give a shout out to our Reviewers, and anyone else that volunteers their time to keep Geocaching running. It couldn't be done without you! Thank you.

Nope, I did not. Live and learn. Thank you for the reply. I've been out of the loop for a bit.

Thank you.

Thanks!

I was going to create a throw-away Basic membership to check this myself, but figured I would just ask here instead. I have a Premium Membership. I put a lot of work into some of my hide containers, and when I do I publish them as Premium in the hopes that they will last longer in the wild. So my question is what does a Basic Member see when they look at a Premium cache? Nothing? Cache description with no coordinates? Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Great suggestions in this thread. I'll look some of the products up, for sure. After a decade off, I have recently started hiding again. I've been using Gorilla Glue on Lock & Locks after scuffing up the plastic with sandpaper. So far so good, but they have only been out for a few months.

Me neither. Not that I'll admit to, anyway.

Thanks for the info. I've never posted an NA, and might do so, but not until I attempt to directly reach out to the COs via messaging. Seems the best way to go about it I suppose. For clarity, I was on the homepage.

Oh yeah, that thing I was griping about a post or two ago after it flagged my brand new 3/1.5 hide after a couple of DNFs. Yeah, I suppose it was silly of me to suggest bots, but a fella can dream, can't he?

I’m sure this has been bought up somewhere before, but I’m too inept to find the thread. So, I am trying to find places in my area to place new hides. All of my local parks are taken by hides from users with active accounts; such is life. As I expand my search radius for areas I may be able to place something I am seeing caches that are in NM or Disabled status, or have recent Logs reporting problems with the hide. I am fine with that if the CO is still active after a quick Profile check, but what about cases where the CO has not logged into the site for years (not months, but years)? I would not expect Reviewers to have to deal with this kind of minutia, but it seems to me some kind of bot comparing NM/Disabled status vs. CO activity might help clear real estate for new hides. Am I off base here? Thoughts?

Apparently if there is any upside to this virus, it is that a lot of cachers are crawling out from the woodwork (or from under a rock, or from a guardrail, etc.) in response. Welcome back!

I hear you, and I used to have pretty much the same opinion, but I must have mellowed in my old age, lol! I mentioned somewhere in this or other threads that I’ve come out of GC retirement after about 10 years, but before I continue: Disclaimer What follows here is not intended to bring up any old grognard arguments on how anyone chooses to play the game. It is just some reflections on what guided my decisions to leave/get back into hiding caches. Please do not yell at me and continue to play however you like. Thank you. So, to continue (speaks in Old Man Voice): “Back in MY day…” /s When I started playing it was a couple of years before smartphones became mainstream (i.e. you needed a GPSr to play), the game was smaller, logs were longer, and caches were bigger. Micros were mostly limited to urban areas that required stealth to find them, and they also got decent write-ups when found. I think what finally made me decide ‘why do I bother’ was when I had a Log for a hide that was simply “.”. A period, nothing else. Not even a TFTC. I started becoming disinterested and eventually started retiring my hides after not feeling like it was worth keeping up with maintenance. I still had my Halloween hobby to fall back on for tinkering in my garage, and that required far less hiking. Fast forward a decade to the sh*t show the world is now. I needed something to do, and hiding silly stuff in the woods made me happy, so why not give it another go? I have knee problems these days, so I’m not putting out anymore 7-stage Multis. I just post the Traditionals I put a lot of construction effort into as Premium in hopes that I do not get some new player with a free account damaging them. I am not overly concerned about short logs anymore, just so long as the container remains intact. And so long as nobody posts “.” as their log… Man, that one DID tick me off. Otherwise, it’s all good. I look forward to your logs if you are ever in my area, and thank you for your comment!

The base of the box is worked into the loam/leaves, just exposing the false stone cover. Hope this was helpful!

After fully drying, the 'rock' lid can be clipped on or off normally. Time for paint.

On the last coats of Glue, carefully lay the lid into the wet foam, being careful it does not expand to where it would interfere with the seal.

Then it is back to the Gorilla Glue. Several coats, letting the foam raise a little higher each time:

Once unmolded, I put in a coat of fiberglass resin to create a shell:

Then I coat it with alginate (a water-based casting material - the pink stuff), followed by a layer of plaster bandage for strength:

Here's one of my rock experiments (7 pics to follow): First, you need a rock to copy.

I've been out of the game for a long time, and just started hiding again. When I last hid a cache, Gorilla Glue wasn't a thing (at least that I knew about). I scuffed the heck out of the plastic with a 60-grit sandpaper before placing this one. It seems to be holding up OK so far, but let's see what a full round of seasons does to it. Water has a way of finding any weak seam in a container, and once it gets in all bets are off. I once hid a L&L camouflaged in spray insulation foam that held up pretty well (This hack found it: https://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=8adc5e8c-dfa1-4e31-a201-0e319b6c7ae4). I'm hoping the same foaming properties of Gorilla Glue will hold true, as I'm using the stuff a lot on my last few hides. I will update the results here as they come in.

In all of my years on the Interwebs, this is one of the clearest, to-the-point replies I have ever received when posting a question in a public forum. Thank you for helping keep my faith in humanity alive, lol! There was no additional information in the alert beyond pointing me to the cache in question. I posted an OM and it cleared.

So to stop getting bot-nagged I should paint all of my hides florescent orange and hide them under a pile of sticks in a Walmart parking lot? /s Thank you for the info. Someone did PM me of an errant cut/paste of parking coordinates today, but as I said, I saw no Needs Maintenance logs so I was confused. I've been out of the game for awhile, and had never seen this alert before. Is it something related to the new Cache Owner Dashboard doodad?

On my profile page I am getting this flag. There are no 'Needs Maintenance' alerts I can see, it's just a hide of mine that has scored a couple of DNFs, and I've had a couple of people messaging me for hints (FTF is already done). The container is perfectly fine; I was out there just a day or two ago to check on it. Is this some kind of GC bot monitoring DNF vs Found ratios, or am I missing an alert from a cacher somewhere? I've never seen one of these messages before.