SirDonB

It is sad that the old addage does not stand true anymore, nowadays, you are guilty untill proven innocent. I am willing to bet our forefathers are rolling over in their graves at what this nation and its people have become. With that said, I can see where Zombie stands and the "evidence" leading to his conclusion. I can also see the FTF's fustration and why he would want to return the FTF prize. Zombie reasons that it was the FTF that did it because, only one book was missing, the cache is locked with a combo lock and chained to a solid point, and the only signature in the book was from the FTF. The FTF is upset because they are being accused via "reasonable doubt" and the ftf prize would be a constant reminder of that blemish, so they want to return the prize. Let me point this out, 4 of my finds, I did not sign the log because I had forgotten my pen and it was a spontanious cache with the kids to introuce them to geocaching. now I am sure that there are people out there geocahcing that go with their kids and let their kids take items and not trade fairly. Then there are those with kids that do. There are also those that will put stuff in a cache they find and take nothing. The combinations are endless to what the person will do from cache to cache. On one of my finds, I had the kids with me agian, and was ill prepared to find a micro cache with some swag in it, so since the kids wanted to take something out, I told them we could only take one thing and to pick as a group, then since I had my 1st aid kit, we left some band-aids behind. A couple of bandaids for a silly band, was it a fair trade, MAYBE. But at least I left something and got to teach them a rule of geocaching. Now going back to zombie, though he did not directly accuse the FTF of cleaning him out in the actual post, the title of this thread certinly does. The title suggests that zombie's mind was already made up and that the FTF was guilty of the act based off of reasonable doubt. It is good that he cooled his jets later and appologized, but at that point it was too late, the damage had already been done. Reasonable doubt is a real PITA, it is all that is needed to convict someone, guilty or not. Reasonable doubt states that if the evidence points to you, then you are guilty no matter what proof you may have against it. There are lessons to be taken from all of this... What you take from this is up to you as we will all walk away with different things that we learned, but my list is: Cool down before you click the post button. Once you click the post button, the damage is done. Make sure you have all the facts before making an accusation, and leave reasonable doubt out if it reasonable doubt leads to assumptions and assumptions are the mother of all !@#$ ups when I hide a loaded cache, buy a game trap camera and aim it on the cache so I can see if anyone gets greedy when I hide a cache, dont load it up with tons of good swag when I hide a cache, put a couple of good swag in it, then restock a few good things during maintance I am sure I have missed something, but take what you will from it. We are all human and thus we live, we learn. It is the way of life.

Hahaha, I know what you mean... Of my small amount of finds so far 90% have been micro or nanos... its fustrating especially when I take the kids out to go caching with me and all we find are micro and smaller. So far I have found 3 of my 13 finds that have been large enough and have had "swag" in them. On all 3 occasions, the kids have not been with me, but i do plan on taking them back to those ones so they can find them and trade some items in them. When I start hiding some caches, I plan on hiding any size that is not of the small variety.

I must say, I am slightly disappointed with the FTF here. AS it was stated prior, they were and still are in a unique position, they were the FTF and are the only one that can answer the unanswered questions that have been presented. Aside from the FTF Prize (bino's) taken was the cache found intact and left intact? Was the cache locked and the lock wheel spun?

So last night on my way home from work, I decided to do a little caching. On my last cache for the night, I was searching and eventually found it. After finding the nano cache, and man was that small, I was trying to get the log out to sign when I see a cop car approach then pull up to my location. Next thing I know, 2 more cars show up and now I am surrounded on all sides. I have to laugh, cuz I know what it looked like to them. As I was finishing talking to the first officer that showed up the other 2 got out of there car to see what was going on. I explained to the first officer that I was GeoCaching when he asked what I was doing. Then as expected he pulled the million dollar question, "What is GeoCaching?" I kindly gave him the quick explanation, handed him a flyer I got from one of the threads here in the forums. He went to talk to his buddies to let them know what was going on and I heard one of them say that they heard of geocaching but didn't know anything about it. The officers seamed interested in it, so who knows we may get a few new cachers in the near future. After a few minutes they got in their cars and left. I did get the log out and get it signed, then put back. All in all it is a funny story looking back on it, but it wasn't all that frightening being surrounded 3 cop cars, and they were actually nice. It was a nice interaction with the cops, given the situation, LOL

I was checking out the site, got a profile over there and I am not all that impressed buy what they have to offer after being here at Geocaching.com first. It dont matter to me, based off features, GC is way better by leaps and bounds, but the one thing that I have seen in the opencaching forums that they have going for them is a better code or something like that for virtual caches.

I agree... I think the thumbs down is sort of overused. What if people threw thumbs on posted caches? You'd see lots of thumbs down from puzzle haters, hike haters, bush haters, booger haters... well, you get my point. I'm not sure what the Thumbs Down's are really there for. Maybe it would be better to have the Thumbs Up's? We don't have *non*-Favorite points on caches. Just an idea. Oh heavens, I foresee someone replying to this with "Thumbs Down" already! "Thumbs Down to you" Just kidding, but i dont quite get it either, if you dont like it, dont try it. or if you do try it and dont like it, then dont do anymore like it. not that big of a deal. but hey, it is in the nature of people to complain about everything no matter if it goes their way or not. my favorite saying rings true everywere, "I can only please one person a day, today is not your day!"

Yes, I have a friend that uses this app to geocache with, so i emailed him a link to this thread. Had I not seen it, I would have never known about it being illegal. I prefer to use Neongeo myself as I have not found a better program yet, but my only complaint is that not all caches show up on it. There is an area near me where I take my kids to the park and that park has about 8 caches in it on the site map, but in neongeo, nothing shows up there. So for cases like that if i know there is a cache that doesnt show up, I have geobegal to manually input the lat/long of a cache.

As a new geocacher, I am trying not to get in the habit of taking without putting back in. If I dont have anything to trade, I dont take anything out. I have taken my kids with me on a few caches and have explained to them that if we dont have anything to put in, we dont take out. They have been good about it and the one that they found that had some small swag in it we of course were not prepared for as we were looking for a nano. So I had to be creative since they wanted to take one item out. It worked out in the end, but as I am preparing to hide my first cache, I will have to keep this all in mind. I know that it is an honor system and there is always that risk taken, but for the fun of the game, it is one that must be taken.

I have had simular experiances. On my first cache, it was a DNF, but I didnt get discouraged since I knew I had no idea what I was looking for or doing. Also, I had added a level of difficulty from the start anyway, I stopped on my way home from work at 2300. My first cache and I was looking for it in the dark. On my way to work early afternoon the next day, I decided to stop at the same cache and look again, guess what, I found it and was hooked. My second cache was found at night on my way home again, but that is the only one found at night so far. Night caching for me will still be tried, but at this point I expect little success. The next 4 finds were with my kids and they had a blast. Now when we go out, we look for a couple of them. I know it will take time go develope my geosence and the kids will get theirs sooner, but I am looking forward to many more finds, and the kids dont seem to be discuraged by a DNF. I am glad to have a good wholsome activity to do with the kids that gets us to my favorite place, the outdoors. This is better than the TV and video games and they enjoy finding the cache and seeing whats inside even if its just the log.

Keep in mind, the exact contents are gonna varrie from region to region also. what one may have in the northeast will not match what someone in the south west might have in their kit. Though there will be some universal items no matter where you go, pack your kit according to the area you will be caching in and you cant go wrong. As a new geocacher, I do not have a caching kit yet, but will be putting one together over time and will be taking into consideration what everyone here has said they have in theres and making mine fit my area and terrain.

Thanks, it has been, and I got the kids out on a few with me and they had a blast...

Yea, there are a few organizations/clubs in the area, but my only problem is that their meeting schedule and my personal schedule dont work out with each other. I am looking to meet up with a couple of local people that have been geocaching for a little while that can show me some of the finer points to it all.

The container labels that come from Groundspeak have a field for the waypoint. I assume that is for the coordinates where the cache was hidden. The only reason I can think of for putting them on the label is in case the cache has been moved or possibly to make it look more "official" to accidental finders. Being a newbi to geocaching, I would want to assume that the line in question would be for the next point on a multi cache. I would also assume that if it is a single point, you could put the cache coords there or trailhead/parking coords as a way to help people remember were they came from. Just my $0.02

ok, so I have been geocaching for about a week or so now, found 10 caches by myself and with my kids... Have looked for a few more than what we found. Is there anyone in the Rensselaer, East Greenbush area that would like to team up with a newbie and show him the ropes? I know I have a lot to learn and I will take some slack from using a smartphone to geocache with, but its all I got ATM. If I ever get into it deeper than what I am now, I will consider a deticated hand held GPS unit later. Right now it is not in the cards for me to have as part of my asinal. I also do some light off roading with my Jeep, so if you know of any caches that are 4wd friendly, let me know, I might be game for a small drive to get one.

As far as that goes, it is interesting, but as a commando owner and opperator, I can attest that the commando indead does have a STAND ALONE GPS built in to it. it also allows you to get your coords from VZW Location services AND Google Location in addition to the stand alone GPS. I will see if I can get more specs on the commando from Casio direct and in particular to the GPS side of it and post later as i am now wondering what type of GPS in in my phone.

I am using the Casio Commando, a Verizon exclusive Android phone. I chose it because its rugadized and geared with the outdoor person in mind. I got my phone from WWW.WIREFLY.COM and with shipping the phone cost me $0.00. This particular phone runs $450 with no contract and $150 with a 2year contract. So far from my experiance with this phone and geocaching, I have found 8 caches of the 10 i have looked for. the only reason I have not hit 100% is cuz i look at night too and that adds a level of difficulty to it.