Spinny
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Posts posted by Spinny
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ROFLMAO! Highlights flashbacks! Aieeeeee!
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From Get it Write:
Another use for the ellipsis is to indicate that a sentence trails off, unfinished: "We thought the doors were locked, but just to be sure . . ." This type of terminal ellipsis always consists of three spaced dots, rather than four, with no space between the last dot and the closing quotation marks. However, we should generally avoid this construction in expository writing, including business writing, because in such contexts we want our thoughts to be clear and complete. An unfinished, incomplete construction is more appropriate in informal or creative writing.Occasionally we encounter writers who use ellipses widely and without discretion in place of other punctuation marks. Such usage is always inappropriate in professional contexts. Not only does the writer appear vague and uncertain (even, perhaps, as if he or she is not confident about using other marks of punctuation), but the writing is difficult to read in the absence of more appropriate punctuation.
© 2005 Get It Write
Just being pedantic.
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General mis-use of the apostrophe, most especially its versus it's.
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Sounds like a town ready to be invaded by a huge biker festival.
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And maybe the "average" decent cache isn't one meant for the jaded thrill-seeker with a bazillion finds and a secret agent decoder ring? How about the seeker who still thinks just the very idea of walking around with one of these GPSr things is way cool, and who's tickled to find a Tupperware canister in a hollow log? As one of the new wave of Xmas-gift-induced newbies, reading through this thread's left me feeling like a cache is somehow lame if it's not something Sherlock Holmes needs three hits of opium and a violin concerto to find.
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The Garmin Quest is automobile-mounted primarily, has full auto-routing and other premium features, a large, easy-to-read display, and is small enough to fit in your pocket and is easy to carry around (and the battery's good for about 20 hours). You can enter new waypoints on the fly by moving a pointer around, you can download cache waypoint info (both .loc and .gpx formats) from this site directly into the software it comes with (and hence into your receiver), and it has both road-following and direct-to-point-arrow modes. The only limitation is it doesn't have a built-in compass so the arrow-to-waypoint pointer requires that you be walking so it can measure your direction and speed. I've yet to take it on cache hunts (it was an Xmas gift and weather's not good this time of year) but my brother-in-law's been caching with his for years and swears by it.
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Just did a search and, from my little podunk part of upstate NY, there are 2035 caches listed within a 100-mile radius. There are 20 PAGES of them within 40 miles.
An impressive number until you start getting closer to the center of gravity. I'm about 20 miles as the crow flies from the CoG, and have 1535 caches within 19.8 miles.
That is a lot! For my part, the source of my grin at our local numbers is that in this area I'm used to "cool" stuff happening Anywhere But Here. The chance of this hobby having any longevity in my particular case has gone up with the realization there are enough caches within a reasonable distance to last me for quite some time. As related to the topic of this thread, that means that quite a large number of caches has "trickled down" to this sparse neck of the woods, which intuitively tells me the overall numbers must be robust, indeed.
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I noticed there were two updates there, one for 2.14 and one for 3.something that said it was for 3.0 and up. Did you try the 2.14 update, the 3.something one, or both? If your system is currently at 2.03 then 2.14 might be as far as the updates will take you. Failing that I'd call their tech support line and ask about upgrade paths.
Good luck!
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You can order the CS v7 upgrade DVD from this URL (it's where I ordered it, and got mine today):
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Looking at the DVD insert right now. Specifically states Win98 is okay, and you need 32MB of memory and 2GB of disk space. Sounds like this has been covered pretty well already, but just got the upgrade DVD and installed it so the stuff was literally in front of me when I saw this thread; figured I'd chime in. As far as POI data, v7 added numerous local POI finds that were missing from v6.9, so for this area it was a major value added to upgrade.
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Just a note/reminder to new Garmin owners that you're entitled to a free upgrade to City Select v7. I just got my DVD (note: not a CD, so you need a DVD-capable drive) in the mail today, and installed it. With my Internet connection enabled and my 7-digit registration code (from the v6 paperwork) in hand, the wizard was able to connect to Garmin and unlock the upgrade with no hassles at all. Note it's an upgrade, not a full install, so you need to already have v6 installed, unlocked and working.
As for whether the upgrade was worth it, I tried a half-dozen local shopping spots I knew were absent in the POI database in v6 (even after I updated it to 6.9.1), and every single one was now Find-able. Plus, a major highway link between my city and the nearest neighbor city (where all the shopping is, so it gets travelled a LOT) that was too new to appear in 6.9.1 is now present. No more breadcrumbs across empty space and several minutes of "Off route, recalculating" until you rejoin roads in the database.
I highly recommend availing yourself of this upgrade!
ETA: To order your upgrade DVD visit this web page:
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Just did a search and, from my little podunk part of upstate NY, there are 2035 caches listed within a 100-mile radius. There are 20 PAGES of them within 40 miles.
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USAF 1979-2002. Enlisted as a linguist, transitioned into airborne electronic warfare, flew as part of the RDF for a few years. Finished my undergrad degree as part of a commissioning program (after many years of night school), earned my commission after 14 years active. Earned a graduate degree from AFIT; retired after 23 years while at an AF research lab, where I now work as a contractor.
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Well, dunno whether I could consider myself a lurker, since I started posting here almost before my GPSr first tasted satellite. I am, however, a rank newbie still without a first cache find, so here I am.
My wife & I live in upstate NY, with two children grown and gone and the last a high school senior. I'm retired Air Force, now a contractor at a military research lab. We love to hike, and one day last year her brother was along and diverted us to find a cache near our hiking route. It was kind of cool, but I didn't think much more of it.
This Xmas she got me a Garmin Quest, as almost a "gag gift" because I'm notoriously awful at finding my way around by car. I thought back to that one caching experience, and how we love hiking anyway, and Googled my way here to read about the whole geocaching thing. If it catches on with us as a fun thing to do (jury will probably still be out until Spring, when such things become far more sensible up here), then we'll certainly spend enough time hunting the things to consider it a new hobby.
And that's the scoop.
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I saw your post and forced myself not to type 'pssst... its in the lamppost'.
Heh. There actually was a lamppost in the general vicinity, and that was my first thought, but there was no "skirt," no gaps anywhere, and one oval access panel that was bolted on rather tightly and I expect no one would expect a seeker to use tools on such a thing--methinks that really would be over the line. Plus the co-ords were against it, and indicated the rock pond. I still harbor feelings that it's maybe not kosher to be rearranging the parking lot's landscaping?
That's the main gist of my even thinking to post about it here, wondering whether that's just newby jitters or was I feeling valid concern? If this sort of thing is really common, than it seems I fretted about nothing and I should have just blithely started digging right there in broad daylight and crowds bedamned. I just don't know, else I'd not be feeling the need to ask around.
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But it IS about caches in potentially hazardous or inappropriate places, and it's all related. That's why it's called a "discussion".
And I agree with that estimation and it gives me heart to dip my newbie toe in here and try again. This is the comment I made a little while ago, that I feel got lost in the intensity of things:
I'm kind of leery of these "parking lot" caches, especially since I tried (and failed) to locate one yesterday. From what I could tell, the actual find was going to entail digging under rocks used to fill an "island" among several others dotted around the parking lot of a very busy shopping complex. I felt very exposed and "funny" about being there, especially moving someone else's rocks while a literally non-stop progression of cars went by just a few yards away. I moved only a few rocks and then gave it up as just too weird and uncomfortable-feeling.What do other people feel about these kinds of caches? Not for the newbie until one grows a thicker skin about the whole thing?
Now, maybe I'm the only newbie with these kinds of feelings who's reading this thread and going, "Uh, oh, I was RIGHT!" but given the numbers of new people signed up since Xmas, I doubt it. So, given there's a seeming font of collective wisdom gathering here to chew on this incident, could some of you wise heads steer things towards what should be going in with these kinds of caches, both in their very existance and in how seekers should approach them? For example, how can the context of "stealth" even exist in close proximity to thousands of shoppers, unless one visits in the dead of night?
TIA.
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The printed Quest manual that came with mine doesn't discuss the features of the compass screen at all, and the downloaded version of the manual goes over them in a cursory (to me) confusing manner, and then states (incorrectly) the only time you can see it is during Tracbacks. After trying it myself briefly, I think I understand it, but want to be sure:
1. The "bug" stays fixed at the top of the screen, while the compass rose rotates underneath it so that the "bug" is always pointing at the heading you're moving in.
2. The needle points in the direction of the waypoint you're navigating towards. You try to maneuver so the needle points at the "bug" and then you're heading right towards the waypoint.
Is this correct?
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If you ... wanna show your displeasure, don't buy from them. Don't shop there.
Very good advice!
I'm kind of leery of these "parking lot" caches, especially since I tried (and failed) to locate one yesterday. From what I could tell, the actual find was going to entail digging under rocks used to fill an "island" among several others dotted around the parking lot of a very busy shopping complex. I felt very exposed and "funny" about being there, especially moving someone else's rocks while a literally non-stop progression of cars went by just a few yards away. I moved only a few rocks and then gave it up as just too weird and uncomfortable-feeling.
What do other people feel about these kinds of caches? Not for the newbie until one grows a thicker skin about the whole thing?
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That's kind of what I figured, thanks for the informed response. I expect I'll both upgrade my membership here and acquire some extra software, but first I want to actually do some caches and make sure this is as much fun as I think it'll be--then I'll be better able to justify spending some $$ on it.
ETA: yeah, the same-name thing, I almost forgot that. I just re-name each one to something I can remember before I download the next, so I can keep all the files in a safe place.
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Yeah, thanks for the welcome! I saw geocaching first hand about a year and a half ago, when we went on an extended family hike and my brother-in-law diverted us to find a cache that was located near the route. It was kinda cool, but I gave it little more thought. Then my wife gave me a Garmin Quest for Xmas this year (I'm notoriously hopeless at finding my way around by car), and I thought, "Why not?" Thus, here I am. Still haven't been on a quest, but the weather's been utterly crud (rain, when I'd actually prefer snow) for days and I work until well after dark on weekdays. We're going shopping this afternoon and, Lo and Behold, there's a park & grab cache somewhere in the shopping complex we'll be stopping at. Hopefully I'll score my first find today!
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In a related question, there doesn't seem to be a way to import more than one LOC file at a time into MapSource. That is to say, I have to import one waypoint, transfer it into the Garmin, then import the next one (which removes the old one from MapSource). They add up in the GPSr, but it's a slow, klunky process. Does anyone know of a way to import multiple LOC waypoints into MapSource and then transfer them all at once into the GPSr, or is that something one does with something like GSAK?
TIA!
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For what it's worth, I just plotted a test route from Syracuse, NY to Miami, FL and had MapSource 6.9.1 select the maps along the route. The total came to 43 maps, 71.5MB of memory's worth.
What Annoys You About The Forums?
in General geocaching topics
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*explodes*