sholomar

I'd rather it be something that at best 10% of the population is interested in rather than something everyone at work talks about. But whatever, it's a great way for families to get out and spend time with each other, and maybe we'd have less micros if there were more cachers. Finds are pretty sparce around here, sometimes going months without one in caches. Once enough people are interested in it the gossip effect takes over and pretty soon everyone knows about it. Not sure what that percentage would be.

go for it! I appreciate a good, clever find and plan to place some of my own. It's not a bad idea though to throw in a good one in next to a bunch of micros that others have done, as some people do like the numbers thing and having a bunch together will increase the find rate of all of them. I must say though that if every cache was full size or regular, I'd get bored with them too. I'm glad they are relatively scarce and appreciate the efforts of those who do place micros.. I just have to take them in measured doses until it gets warm out and I whip out the road bike and circle the Watertown area to get all those close proximity ones.

there's ways to get around c:geo's issues. Download the maps and store them on your SD card per the instructions on the site. Buy a premium membership, do pocket queries, and load them onto the phone. I do this because I don't have a data plan, and only use wi-fi for the phone's internet. I log my finds when I get home.

there will always be obsessive compulsive types in every field, competitive or otherwise, that take it to the extreme. I suggest letting them, and relaxing and not worrying about it. Everything in moderation.

Yeah there is a preponderance of micros hidden in state parks around here where I'd like to place some regular sized and unique caches.. we shall see what happens! Still plenty of room. Still I think hiding all those tiny plastic micros does more harm than good to the hobby. People find them and they may think the hobby is silly if that's all they find... especially since good state parks and other scenic areas are at a premium where I live. I think the person in question should tone it down a bit.. they've literally placed hundreds. I will make up for it by placing mostly regulars and trying to think up some creative containers as well. Good to have some variety.

I made these because I didn't like the line spacing on some of the ones found online, I like writing with larger text myself, and I wanted it to work with my duplex printer. These work for me with my duplex printer. They are based on ones found online but basically made from scratch. Let me know if they work with your duplex laser printers. I printed with foxit and made sure my printer was set to fit to size 'letter' 8.5x11 in printer properties since this has the effect of centering the document. Without doing that it will not center up on a duplex printer so one can cut with a scissors and have the log in the same spot on both sides. If you have any requests let me know, these are easy to make. https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8qN7nUrjNTwLVI5ZDVHYk9RRy0xZU9JaWE0UmZEZw https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B8qN7nUrjNTwandDaUQ0ek5UOXFqSkVybzZtelNTZw

muggles that kind of make me stop my attempt more than anything.... or if the cache is rated 4-5 stars as I don't expend significant time looking... if it's not found in 5 minutes I'm onto the next one at least in populated areas. I'll look longer in state parks and out of town, but that's slim pickins out here.

if they are a micro and I don't feel I spent enough time trying to find them....

I dislike the caches in the area that say 'watch out for muggles' and you've got a micro hidden at a stop sign right in the middle of a residential area with houses all around. I guess you have to put caches somewhere but I don't plan to use residential areas.

I log micros as found without signing the logbooks from time to time. If I can hold them in my hand, open them up and see the rolled up piece of paper inside it counts. If they are inaccessible it does not count. Those are my standards I have no problem with them. This is especially true if the log is wet or the micro container is one of them tiny plastic ones where the log can be difficult to remove. If others must absolutely sign it to meet their needs more power to them.

very creative! thought about golf pencils with my geocaching name on them.. figured they may not be thrown away as fast as a laminated piece of paper and would provide some use. But these.. obviously blow that boring idea out of the water.

geocaching does seem to have it's share of profit mongers like all hobbies I've come across. Trackables would be more popular if they weren't $8-10 each for something that probably costs a dime to make. I just do pocket queries with my premium account and load the caches in the GPS that way. Same thing with using my own downloaded maps. The idea of over and over consuming bandwidth just to download map images that can be stored on a memory card and loaded without using data seems a bit silly to me. Be happy you get as much as you do from geocaching.com without having to pay, I say. I have no idea how much money they make, they are not a public company.. but they do have the monopoly on geocaching at the moment and basically get free advertising when we link to their site on our caches.

I converted the map of the entire midwest using their instructions and the link to the maps they provided then got a premium account and did pocket queries for 500-1000 caches within 100 miles of my place as a good start... so now they can all be done offline and it doesn't violate the terms of use either since I'm not actually contacting the site with c:geo at all, just using the software with the list that I pocket queried. When I find the cache I delete it from the phone and log it on the site when I'm done.

I buy eneloops and use the charger they come with. They are not perfect though. Despite their claims, if you do not use them regularly they will discharge and even die if you let them drain all the way and stay that way awhile. They will not sit in a cabinet for a year or more and 100% of them survive just fine, from my experience.... they must be used.

haha wish there was a way to rep people here.

no, but there's literally nothing around here threatening.. no snakes, bears, wolves, criminals, etc... just the cold.

I plan to place caches with my smartphone and google maps, but will compare the coordinates closely and if they don't match up, I'll figure out why and make sure everything's accurate. If necessary I'll bust out the car GPS for a third opinion but I don't see it will be necessary. My phone always gets me right up to every cache. Bottom line, I'm not the type to not have attention to detail. The caches will be accurate and stay dry and monitored, or they will be archived by myself. No film canisters with soggy unreadable pieces of paper from me. I could see how using just a smartphone could be problematic in large cities with tall skyscrapers, or areas of the country that are virtually all trees with no open areas (field or farmland) as my smartphone craps out in dense forest cover, even in the winter with no leaves on the trees. I would then purchase a capable unit if that was the case .. but there's not many trees out here, and no tall skyscrapers either.

for the tech savvy, a used android phone such as a droid 2 would be better for the price you'd pay than a GPS unit of the same price, mainly because you can have a full featured paperless GPS with a large screen with the right software, and good android phones also have compass and mine gets as close as the better GPS units from what I've read here. I paid 70 bucks at cowboom, which I don't think there's a decent GPS at that price point. I don't believe there's any droid 2's in stock there now though. You'd have to know how to root the phone, and knowledge installing software. Again, for the tech savvy. I didn't buy it for that, I bought it to have a cheap, good phone to use with page plus, it was only after I got the phone in the mail that I discovered what geocaching was. I wish I'd have wrote down the exact thing I searched for that lead me to it's discovery.. I don't remember. Installed large openstreet map files to the memory card and did pocket queries and stored them to the card so it's all offline. Don't want to use data unless it's wifi networks. Droidwall prevents any data leakage on 3G.

I've got about an 80% success rate with my droid 2.. one I didn't find and I read the comments and someone said it was a good 20 feet off from posted coordinates. Generally I'll sweep an area outside the treeline a couple of times and zero in on where I need to stop and walk, then I'll just put the droid away and start looking manually. Usually I can get within 5-10 feet if I'm not in the woods. If I still can't find it I'll sweep around to the other side of the cache's location and do another sweep to narrow it down more. Of course with 9 posted finds I wouldn't take my advice as gospel or anything.

got mine ready for cheap... $70 used droid 2 fitted with c:geo, the midwest map downloaded and converted from the following site http://download.geofabrik.de/osm/north-america/ (this site tends to go slow but for some reason today it went at my cap of 12 megabits and downloaded the whole thing on under 20 minutes) so offline map of entire midwest stored on memory card for use. Then got a premium account today, did a pocket query, searched for 500-1000 caches within 100 miles of wherever, proceed to download, move entire thing to phone, bam.. done. Don't need their online maps at all. Extra battery or two along with car charger and window mount.. super accurate for $120 plus $30 for a premium account. Everything done offline since I don't want to pay for a data plan. 30 bucks for the premium saved me a couple hours or more of moving them one by one to the phone, easily paying for itself many times over depending on how many caches I pocket query. Now I need my profile title changed to the 'premium members' group though.

haha very nice.

this is how I found my first one in October however the container did not have the word 'geocaching' written on it anywhere so it took until I got my droid 2 in January before I actually knew what geocaching was.. and for whatever reason Feb before I signed the log. I found this one http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=866e955b-578a-4fce-891f-c13cae2cbb6e

most of the micros I've found so far have either been wet now or were in the past so they were a smeary mess. I'm going to be honest and note this every time I find one like this, but I won't post need maintenance, I'll just post I found it. Hopefully it's not par for the course that all people leave micros in this shape. Anywhoo I saw they had 1mm bold ones and ultra fine ones on amazon and may order some of the refill cartridges for these to see how they write. Might come in handy for dry micros. Just ordered some '38 specials'

it takes time to tweak things, I'm sure it will all get sorted out. Give them a week or two.

I like the pilot gel pens which I buy to use at work for online reporting and assorted paperwork. Also known as "pilot G2/07" blue ink, fine point. Bought some of the 'recycled' ones and 'limited edition' ones too for the heck of it. They are made in Japan too which is nice. They provide the non-gel versions made in china free at work but there was a stray gel 07 laying around for some reason and I got hooked. You should be able to find these at your local wally-fart. Or they are on amazon... as are the 'limited' editions. It's rare for me to keep track of anything but my keys and wallet... training myself to not just leave these pens laying around wherever and losing them took some time. If I leave them at work they'll inevitably disappear by the time I get back. (like how I got my first one.. found it laying around at work and took it. )