JohnTee

OOPS! While I was logged in on Forums, I didn't cache (pun intended) that I was NOT logged in on geocaching.com. Logged in and all is well. JohnTee

In the past I have been able to mark some or all of loc files and download them, 20 at a time. Now, I notice this option is not coming up with searches. The other thing I remember coming up with searches was Archived Caches. Now THEY don't show up anymore. Is this something new or am I missing something? Thanks! JohnTee

Bought my eTrex Legend at Wal-Mart for $132. No shipping or handling, immediate gratification! While it's not an end-all, be-all GPSr, it suits my current purposes. Namely hunting and geocaching. I wouldn't mind upgrading someday to something more advanced that will let me easily do street navigation. JohnTee

Man, have you guys got it pegged! Guess there's no need to check on it. Might even leave it at a 2 for the time being. JohnTee

clearpath, that is definitely like a potato gun, only it's the predecessor. My dad was in Viet Nam in '66. They used to take the old style beer cans (they were steel, straight up and down sides, with a rim on top and bottom) and cut tops and bottoms out of three, poke four holes in the top and two in the bottom of the fourth and tape them all together with black tape. Squirt lighter fluid in the front, insert tennis ball to the first joint, give it a good shake and apply flame. They used to stand at one end of the bar and shoot down a stack of beer cans at the other end. Had to let them coold down after a couple of shots as the tape would heat up, get soft and cans would fall apart. I've plans for a potato gun and have to make one sometime in the future. JohnTee

Tennis Ball Canon Cache To complete this cache you must bring a can of hair spray and a lighter. Coord's will take you to a vertically mounted pipe, capped on the bottom. Small cache sits inside the pipe, near the bottom, on top of a spacer raising the cache above the bottom (area henceforth to be known as the combustion chamber). Note small hole drilled in the side of the combustion chamber. To obtain the cache, spray a 2-3 second burst of hair spray into the hole in the combustion chamber. Immediately hold lighter to the hole. After retreiving the cache: Clean out your shorts Sign the log Place cache back in the pipe !!!CAUTION!!! Do not place any body part in front of the large opening on the top or the small opening in the combustion chamber during the ignition process. !!!CAUTION!!! JohnTee

. . . Caching On . . . JohnTee

Guys, thanks for all the input. As you can see from my low find count, I'm also inexperienced. Knew I could count on your guidance. I gave this initial user an additional hint yesterday by e-mail, but didn't give it totally away yet. I think I'll do the following: 1. If he continues to have difficulty, I'll ask him to just sit on it for a while 2. Change the rating to a '3' and then see if any power cachers have advice either up or down from there. 3. Just to be on the safe side, check just to make sure it's still there. I'm willing to bet it is . . . I can do that driving by. I'm going to the South bound rest area to set up another micro tomorrow. Have to drive past the North bound rest stop to catch a crossover and get back on South bound I-55. Having fun! Thanks. JohnTee

What is etiquette regarding logs & requests for hints? I have apparently come up with a good micro cache and had a request for additional hints. I initially posted a Log Comment with encrypted info for an additional hint. Got an e-mail that said he had already done what was in the hint and could I please give him another. Replied to his e-mail with additional hint and offer for more if needed. Didn't want to just COMPLETELY give it away! Then deleted my Logged Comment. I wanted this to be a challenging micro, so purposely did not use a 35mm film cannister, borrowed from ideas I'd seen and didn't leave a strong hint. Questions: Should I leave a better hint? Is responding in the Log appropriate? Was deleting my own log entry appropriate? Should I respond just by e-mail instead of the Log? My son SAID he thought this was an evil micro. Guess I shoud have listened! JohnTee

Get the case apart. They are assembled with Torx Screws size 10 or smaller. A hammer and a chisel take them out nicely. You'll see the discs for data storage in the center and the control head/arm assembly running from one corner to under/between the discs. Also in that corner is a magnet or two above and below the base of the control assembly. Probably two more screws holding that in. You may have to removed the discs, so you can remove the control arm so you can remove the magnets. Some HDD's may use an electric motor/friction drive assembly instead of the magnet assembly. If you have the magnets, you'll know. Your tools will stick to them very well. I just picked up three (discards from computer stores) today and got a total of four magnets out. If you have the friction drive motor, you're out of luck for that HDD. I'm batting 4:5 Magnets:Motors. JohnTee

51) Here I am, and this is where I'm at! JohnTee

4:1 Of course, I'm looking at 8 Finds:2 Hides and have already Archived the first hide. JohnTee

Just did my second cache MO I-55 Rest Area Exit 110 and it's handicapped accessible. I won't lie and say that was my intention from the beginning, but realized that it made a good handicache after the fact. Made note of it in the description and the attributes and posted it on Handicaching . I have a friend who is a paraplegic of something over 20 years. Makes you think about it a little bit. He's not into GeoCaching, but I may have to see if I can get him interested. Would make for good input on a cache. Hasn't slowed him down either. He takes care of several acres of property, woodworks, runs around on this four-wheeler and drives his van. JohnTee

The system seems to handle mixed text in the description boxes without too much trouble. I used LI for bullets in a recent description, with the HTML box checked. It went back and added the UL & /UL commands automatically. Oh, yeah. It did make any other paragraphs turn into run-on paragraphs. I had to go throw a <P> in after each paragraph to make it look right. JohnTee

bblake said: De Nada! Foxit for *.pdf FireFox for web browsing Thunderbird for e-mail IrfanView for viewing and minor manipulation of pictures OpenOffice.Org for word processing, spread sheets, etc., etc. There's a lot of great software out there that doesn't have AS MANY security problems or the bloat of some of the commercial programs. JohnTee

While many of us don't get to take full advantage of WAAS, I thought this was interesting . . . JohnTee From AVWebFlash WAAS Signal May Be Spotty An orbit change by one of two satellites providing Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) signals for precision GPS approaches could result in the vertical component of those signals being unavailable at times in the next couple of months. According to AOPA, when the move is finished, WAAS service will be lost to a couple of Maine airports until the fall. Inmarsat, which owns the satellite, is moving it further west to boost coverage there. As the satellite makes its way, signals necessary for LPV (lateral precision with vertical guidance) approaches may not be there. NOTAMs will be issued. Most pilots and airports will hardly notice the transition (non-WAAS GPS units use the Air Force's constellation of 24 satellites), but those who've become accustomed to the LPV approaches at Portland, Maine, and Concord, N.H., will have to make other plans for the summer. The westward move of Inmarsat's satellite will eliminate the WAAS signal to those airports and it won't be until the fall, when the FAA starts renting space on a third satellite, that the gap will be filled.

Some people may enjoy e-books burned on a CD. I have a reader on my laptop and another on my Palm. I ALWAYS have a book with me to read! There are literally thousands of titles available for free. For the most part, these are books that are out of copyright. As you will see from the source list below, there are some current SciFi books available. You can also get titles like the 911 report and the President's State of the Union. With files anywhere from a 1/4 to 1/2 a megabyte, you could get 2,800 to 1,400 titles on a single 700MB CD-ROM! They come in a variety of formats: *.lit - Requires the MicroSoft Reader - PC/Tablet PC/Pocket PC (free download from http://www.microsoft.com/reader/downloads/default.asp) *.html - most practically read on-line, however, can also be downloaded and read off-line *.pdf - requires a pdf reader, such as Acrobat or the much easier on your resources "FoxIt Reader" *.pdb - Palm format reader required *.prc - Palm format reader required *.doc - Palm format reader required *.rtf - Rich Text Format *.rb requires Palm Rocket Reader These are for Palm and PC; there are probably many others for Mac, and the other handheld devices. Here are some sources . . . http://www.baen.com/library/ (do you like SciFi - a plethora of authors and books) http://www.microsoft.com/reader/promotions/free_shop.asp http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/ http://promo.net/pg/ http://www.chuggnutt.com/ebooks.php http://www.ebookdirectory.com/ http://www.eoncity.net/accforms/free-books/intro.htm http://manybooks.net/ http://www.visorvillage.com/software/pc/ebooks.html I'd be curious to hear about interest in a CD-ROM full of e-books. You could even include some of the readers (the MS reader requires registration) on the disk.

Lep and Renegade, Thanks for your input. That's the kind of thing I was needing. I'll have to play with the idea of clues, multi-stages and a final micro cache that has the combination for a lock box by the front of the nature center. I also like the idea of a correct answer card to sign a log. JohnTee

Hi Geomoms, I have an eTrex Legend, let me see if I can be of some help. Coordinates are a location on the globe, specified by lattitude and longitude, i.e. N 37° 20.476 W 089° 35.081. A waypoint is a fixed location with a specific lat/long coordinate. To manually enter a waypoint in you eTrex . . . Press in and hold the thumb stick to access the mark waypoint page Highlight the location field on the mark wayhpoint page, press the thumb stick and enter the new coordinates using the numerical keyhboard. Highlight and press 'OK' when finished. You may also change the waypoint name and/or symbol. To download waypoints to your GPSr without a premium membership . . . You will need a program like GSAK A way to connect your GPSr to your computer. You probably received a serial cable with your GPSr. If you have a serial port, connect there. Otherwise, if you have a USB port and no serial port, you'll need to get a USB/Serial Adapter. Do a search for the wayponts you want to download. You'll get 20 on a page. Check the 'Check All' button and download. Open GSAK and import the *.loc file you downloaded. In GSAK choose the GPS option and Send Waypoints option That's a nutshell version . . . JohnTee

I said: See Mo Department Of Conservation, Trail Usage Regulations Thread. JohnTee

After recently placing a geocache White Oak Trace, having my FTF and having it pulled by MODC, I'm exploring some new ideas with the MODC Staff at the Nature Center. (Before anyone jumps on the 'new geocacher' for not getting permission to place a cache . . . permission was obtained from the park superintendent where the nature area is located. Turns out the nature area within County Farm Park is itself is under MODC jurisdiction.) The reason my cache was pulled is that it required the geocacher to make a short jaunt off the trail to the cache and they are very exacting in adhering to a 'stick to the trail' usage. They are otherwise very interested in placing geocaches on the nature center grounds as it could draw people to the area that might not otherwise visit the center. It would also be an additional use of the facilities and they are definitely about encouraging use of MODC areas. With that in mind, there are two avenues we were exploring on the phone. The first is possible locations along the trace that WOULD NOT require the geocacher to leave the trail to find the cache. They are going to look along the trace to see if they can find any possible cache locations. Does 'muggled' come to anyone else's mind? They are open to the idea of something like a 4x4 post with a geocaching labeled lock box mounted along the trail. Clues within the nature center could lead the geocacher to an acceptably placed micro on the nature center grounds, that would contain a combination for the lock box. Another idea would be something like a puzzle cache with a piece of PVC, requiring water, magnet, motor, etc. to reveal a micro. The second avenue is doing some handicaches along the loop of trail that is handicap accessible. Some of the same ideas could be used there. They are also willing to assist with the cost of placing caches. So . . . if anyone has other ideas that would allow placement along the trail, require a GPSr at some point and be muggle-resistant, I would appreciate your thoughts, either in the forum or to my e-mail. The trace is very large and would support multiple cache placements that would still fall under the 580 foot rule. Hmmmm, guess I'll have to do some reading to see how the 580 foot rule applies regarding multi-stage caches. For practicality reasons, may have to have first stages relatively nearby each other, or the handicaches . . . JohnTee One thing at at time. I'll get my special use permit filled out, go visit them and go from there.

Team Neos said: That's an excellent suggestion that also occurred to me this morning when I was laying awake around 0400. Just did a Google search on the following terms: "MO OR Missouri conservation OR nature center site:www.geocaching.com" And got a few good results back specific to MO. These two were probably the best . . . http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=49526 http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=58186 Richard Moore said: Thanks for that link. I've added it to what little I've found for MO so far. May be useful. I'm going to call the contact here shortly and see what I find out. Will post information for those interested. JohnTee

Wiz, you probably have a good point. I'll go back and edit it out. Don't need anyone sending them nasty messages on my behalf. Cause, as Team Neos said: I talked to the woman who sent me the e-mail and pulled the cache. Kept it very pleasant and received no bad vibes. She said she was just doing her job and I said I understood and would get it taken care of tomorrow. If anyone comes up with any references to nature/conservation center cache placements, please let me have them. Would be nice to have some 'ammo' to talk to them with. I think they can be assured that it will be a smallish number of people stretched out over a period of time that visit a geocache. JohnTee

What a day. Had my First To Find, who enjoyed my cache White Oak Trace and then it had to be temporarily disabled. I had permission from the park superintendent to place the cache on White Oak Trace . . . turns out this area of the park was donated to the MO Department of Conservation and is under THEIR jurisdiction. Will have to talk to somebody at MODC tomorrow and see if we can't work something out. Dang! I thought I'd found a GOOD spot for the cache too. What's kind of funny is the e-mail I got . . . Dear Mr. Tee . . . JohnTee

I came up with a fantastic idea for a cache container and camo for it. Woke up frustrated because I could remember the dream, but not how I did it. Kind of like dreaming you're filthy rich and waking up to find out you're not! JohnTee