Col. Bucky

Some of us are just more spontaneous. Just imagine having to make an unscheduled trip to take your wife to the spa for her weekly back waxing because her hoopty broke down at the Piggly Wiggly. You're sitting there bored out of your mind and tired of counting the flies on the Happy Meal some rug-rat chunked out the window, so you whip out your magic smart phone and voila! You pull up c:geo in live map mode and there's a cache in the same parking lot you are sitting in! It's like Christmas, only without the fat man watching you sleep :-) Seriously, there's nothing wrong with planning a geocaching trip with your bug spray and Steve Irwin jungle hat already checked off your list, but sometimes you may be out somewhere new and you don't have your gps handy and you don't have a pq downloaded for the area you are in, etc., etc. Having an app on a smart phone with a live map option is the ONLY way to go in that situation. You're there. The caches are there. You have the app to connect the two of you on your smart phone. What more could you want?

This is the post I agree with the most. Once you've used c:geo, it's hard to look at another application. I'm a premium member, I bought the GS application and I will still use c:geo until it doesn't function. I'm really, REALLY surprised that GS didn't come up with something like this to begin with. Hopefully, things will get brighter once the API is released. I was just really fascinated driving through KY last week and seeing caches pop up on the screen as I was driving down the road. THAT'S what people want! Seriously, if I'm going to go to the trouble of doing a PQ, then I'm going to tether my phone to my laptop and run it through Clyde-god's GSAK program first before sending it to my Oregon for caching. Phone apps are meant to be quick and easy. c:geo is definitely quick and very easy to use.

I was introduced to the online GIS services offered by most states. The North Carolina GIS plots show the properties in various formats and it's free. Here is the NC website to give you an idea: http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/gis/counties.html

A lot of us in Western North Carolina call it a "geopile". You're walking through the woods, minding your own business, when you happen upon a stump with a bunch of sticks and leaves heaped up over it in a not-so-natural way. That's an obvious geopile

That's a really good suggestion. There are geocaching organizations in most areas and, if I were visiting somewhere I'd never been before, I'd try to find a web page for one of those organizations and ask some of the locals where to cache. Who better to know the area than its residents?

You said it. I feel spoiled being an NC native. We do have it good here. I do have a couple of other places I have fallen in love with. Wyoming/Colorado area, subtracting Denver from the mix, of course. (It's an NFL thing and I'm a Falcons fan ). I also love the Dakotas. I LOVE central Kentucky. Wonderful people up there. If I had my choice of places to move to, it would be a toss-up between Richmond, KY, and Laramie, WY.

That sounds like something a constitutional scholar would say. I agree wholeheartedly. After reading back through the TOS, I think it bothered me more that GS was so exclusionary in the scope of their rules. If I'm the 1% that doesn't like something, then I can get it banned from the other 99%. That's too progressive for me.

OMG... LOL! That was like a train wreck. No matter how bad it may seem, you just can't look away!

I think the original question you asked about the caricature of Obama was a very fair question, BUT... by going straight to Groundspeak and then to the forums with this, you took away any opportunity for either the cache owner or the poster to quietly rectify the situation outside of public view, if they felt the situation warranted it. At least give someone an honest chance to respond to a situation first instead of going over their head and then letting them find out about it secondhand like this. That's what us barefoot hillbillies call rude. If you disagree with them at that point, then go to a higher authority, but give other people the courtesy to address issues you have with them FIRST. That's just basic human consideration.

Aha! Now it all becomes clear.... Maybe read between the lines of the original post and the topic of this thread should be "Is it okay to publicly parade someone on a family forum as a racist without informing them first so that they can defend themselves?" Im not going to say whether or not I think the picture is racist because I dont think thats the issue. The underhanded nature of this thread is a far worse crime than posting a caricature of a president. If the picture is so offensive to you, why make a thread about it linking everyone to the image? You are just getting more people to see it. I think this post may be the most accurate one out there. It's no secret that Atrus and Ozguff don't exchange Christmas cards and that works fine for both of them. A quick email through Groundspeak asking either the cache owner or the person logging the picture the question about it being an objectionable photo would have gone over a lot better than dragging it onto a public forum. At least both parties would have had a chance to address the issue before it was turned into a widespread public debate. Asking if something is objectionable is like asking what you think makes the perfect hamburger. 100 people will give you 100 different opinions and, in their minds, they are all right. As for violating the TOS, I wouldn't think so. If Groundspeak says it doesn't, then it doesn't and that pretty much ends the discussion being that they are the final decision maker on things of that matter. I found the picture Atrus posted no less offensive than THIS picture. I saw that and it scared the bejeebus out of me! LOL! Seriously, if you(meaning anyone and not singling out one person) were offended by the caricature, then put the cache on your ignore list. We have enough eggshells in life to walk on.

NCMAG was formed so the geocachers of Western North Carolina could have an interactive website with forums and visitors to the area could have a place to find local information and meet their fellow geocachers for trip planning purposes. Beginners new to geocaching are provided with all the tools and websites they need to get started with geocaching as well. Everyone is welcome regardless of where you're from, so come on over and join the fun at www.ncmageocachers.com!

Am I correct in that all ALR-related caches are now being relegated to the mystery/puzzle cache category? That looks like a simple change.

Test post

It sounds like you need to take a bit of your own advice. I did take my own advice. I did a personal reassessment, decided what was truly important and moved on. It pained me to do it because I truly enjoy the hide, but enough is enough. I've got too many other things I'd rather concentrate on. I do plan on becoming more active in the geocaching community, but not in that regard.

I'm the owner of the cache with the questionable log, so I hope it's okay for me to add my two cents worth. The one thing that really turns me off in this little region I live in is the nitpicking that some folks do where it concerns geocaching. What everyone needs to do is step back and realize that this is only a game. It's not life or death. It's not a job you feed your family on. It's a game, period. Heck, you don't even win anything because there is nothing to win. It's supposed to be about the fun and the challenges. If Atrus, or anyone else for that matter, had inserted a link to their employer or solicited for a cause in a log, then I would have asked that person to change it. I asked the starter of this post to change the wording in his log for the same cache because I thought that his log was inappropriately worded and he did so graciously. It's not an issue and the matter for me is dropped. What it boils down to, though, is that it's MY cache and that it's up to ME to decide whether or not I think someone is sniping or soliciting in their online log. If it looks that way, then it's up to ME to handle the situation. I resent that this was brought into a public forum and my taste for geocaching is starting to sour over time because of stuff like this. Why Atrus should have to defend himself in a public forum for a log posted to my cache is beyond me. If someone is concerned about something in a log on one of my caches, then it needs to be brought to MY attention, not dragged out here. I'm kind of disappointed in the person who complained about the log looking like a solicitation because that same geocacher has an entire SERIES of caches out where the log you have to sign is an advertising item from his OWN place of employment with his name and business number on them. I've never had a problem with that series because the puzzles are really challenging and the cache hides themselves are often times even more challenging to find than the puzzles were to solve. It's a great series and I enjoy working on it. However, I would never complain about it as being soliciting because what another cacher does with his or her caches is between them and Groundspeak and does not concern me outside of meeting the cache requirements and signing the log. I could care less if I had to sign a petrified hotdog, just as long as I was able to find it eventually to be able to sign it. Let's face it, folks. If your life hangs in the balance because others don't play the game the way you think it should be played, then you don't have much of a life to begin with and a personal assessment may be necessary. There are many more important things in this world to be worried about than a game. Please let this thread die a quick death instead of being dragged into oblivion with pettiness and sniping. I've archived all of my caches as a result of this post and I won't be hiding any more in the future. When the fun is gone, then it's time to move on. Merry Christmas to everyone and best wishes for a new year! Team Bucky

Several fellow 60csx owners and I have been having this same problem with the screen freezing up while navigating. Mapping software is being used, but we're not sure if that's the cause. It almost seems like the unit is trying to process too much information at one time and is getting overloaded. Not sure as to the solution for that, but you are definitely not alone.

Clearly hard to beat, but we recently found a pair of dirty surgical gloves (with holes in them) and half a marijuana joint Hey, don't "bogart" that j. Seriously I hope ya disposed of it properly. Uh, IF one were to find another one or something of a similar nature how would they turn it in to the cops without getting busted themselves??? Digital_Cowboy You don't. Guilty until proven innocent. Better to just grind it under foot in the dirt than to turn it in innocently and then having to hire a lawyer to explain your way out.