Otter and Lemur

quote:Originally posted by yumitori:If folks want to decry the such behavior regardless of participants, I have no great complaint with that, leaving aside of my personal opinion of its appropriateness. But to call one subset sick and wrong while politely snickering at another is less than fair. Yumitori, a variable in this equation that you should be aware of is the degree to which the cacher is or may be made an unwilling participant to some degree by the activities of the people engaged in sexual congress. Teens boinking in the woods are regrettable, in my opinion, because it shocks and embarrasses all of us, and I don't particularly think I'd enjoy coming upon such a scene. But I wouldn't worry that they'd harass me, provided I didn't stand around gawking. Men cruising for sex in a rest area that I happen to have stopped at in order to seek a cache may well come right up to me, even if I in NO WAY seek them out, and may in fact decline to take a hint several times over, until I am forced to tell them to go away. Though I did not have to do this, other folks posting to this thread have had to. Furthermore, cachers hunting a cache in a gay cruising area, especially if they're there after dark, may wind up being arrested along with the cruisers. Our local state police apparently hit the rest area that I originally posted about now and then, after dark, with portable searchlights. I definitely think it'd be awkward, to say the least, if one was up in the woods caching and the police came along with their lights sweeping up everyone they came across. Thus, for me, the "unwilling participant in what they're up to" is the part that I like the least. If I find two people of any gender having sex in a state park, I can simply walk away. But if I'm in a non-secluded, basically public, place and I'm followed, approached, solicited, and so on, simply because I'm there, or if, what's worse, I get arrested because I'm there in the first place, that's definitely not a Good Thing. Would you agree? -- Jay

quote:Originally posted by Snoogans:I would like this thread to be about the concept of "counting coup." OK. So be it. I find the concept a little annoying, and I'll try and explain why with an example. At a recent event in Vermont, a TB was introduced in honor of one of the cachers' 250th find. The TB was supposed to be 'passed around' at the event, and at the end of the event, various people did indeed go back to their computers and 'grab' it or pick it up from the event cache and drop it off again. Not everyone did, though, but they certainly had every chance to do so. After a few days, the bug owner placed the bug in a traditional cache. Fine so far, right? Well, the bug has been picked up from the cache, logged, placed in another cache, and picked up again. Still fine, right? The problem is that the bug owner, so proud of her bug, is still encouraging everyone local to go "log" it. I strongly suspect that what's going to happen is that the bug is going to be 'grabbed' from the various caches it winds up in by various local cachers at the owner's urging. It won't be physically grabbed, though, so it'll still be in whichever cache it's in. People will go to the cache and find a bug they weren't expecting, will log it, will go place it, and when they try to log the placement they're going to find it was 'grabbed' out of their inventory by another one of our locals. To complicate matters still further, the bug was picked up today by someone who is definitely not from around here, probably traveling through on business, and will probably get dropped off again several states from here. So there's going to be this bug roaming around Indiana or whatever that always vanishes from the cache logs, and no one's going to know why. The whole thing strikes me as a little pointless. IMHO, the bug owner should not have placed the bug in a traditional cache until she had the "hey, everyone, 'grab' the bug into your inventory" thing out of her system. Once it was released, it should be allowed to behave as a bug normally should. -- Jay

quote:Originally posted by Snoogans:I would like this thread to be about the concept of "counting coup." OK. So be it. I find the concept a little annoying, and I'll try and explain why with an example. At a recent event in Vermont, a TB was introduced in honor of one of the cachers' 250th find. The TB was supposed to be 'passed around' at the event, and at the end of the event, various people did indeed go back to their computers and 'grab' it or pick it up from the event cache and drop it off again. Not everyone did, though, but they certainly had every chance to do so. After a few days, the bug owner placed the bug in a traditional cache. Fine so far, right? Well, the bug has been picked up from the cache, logged, placed in another cache, and picked up again. Still fine, right? The problem is that the bug owner, so proud of her bug, is still encouraging everyone local to go "log" it. I strongly suspect that what's going to happen is that the bug is going to be 'grabbed' from the various caches it winds up in by various local cachers at the owner's urging. It won't be physically grabbed, though, so it'll still be in whichever cache it's in. People will go to the cache and find a bug they weren't expecting, will log it, will go place it, and when they try to log the placement they're going to find it was 'grabbed' out of their inventory by another one of our locals. To complicate matters still further, the bug was picked up today by someone who is definitely not from around here, probably traveling through on business, and will probably get dropped off again several states from here. So there's going to be this bug roaming around Indiana or whatever that always vanishes from the cache logs, and no one's going to know why. The whole thing strikes me as a little pointless. IMHO, the bug owner should not have placed the bug in a traditional cache until she had the "hey, everyone, 'grab' the bug into your inventory" thing out of her system. Once it was released, it should be allowed to behave as a bug normally should. -- Jay

quote:Originally posted by Renegade Knight:I'm looking forward to your post on benchmarks. I have nothing whatsoever against benchmarks. They involve getting up and out of one's chair and going out and using one's GPSr and finding something. I've located a benchmark atop the highest point in Vermont, for example, and found doing so to be interesting.

quote:Originally posted by Breaktrack:So it's okay to have "wank-off" traditional caches that set a bad example for newbies, but not "wank-off" virtuals. Locally, it seems that for a while new users who wanted to get in on the whole cache-planting phenomenon would simply look for a convenient roadside marker and place a virtual. Actually finding a container and putting some sort of trade loot inside seems to have been too arduous an endeavour for them. I gave up searching for local virtuals after I could, and did, claim them without actually going to them, based purely on being able to look up the answers to whatever questions they asked on Google. I was a little frustrated to see that the same thing is the case elsewhere in the world as well; for every interesting virtual I've seen listed on the site, I've now come across nine pointless virtuals that I'm sure I could solve without leaving my desk. I characterized these as "wank-off" because there seems to be no point whatsoever to them: they don't involve an interesting hike, they don't involve an interesting marker, they don't involve an interesting anything. -- Jay

I find that after some initial fuming, I've come to agree with the restrictions on virtual caches. I went and had a look at the virtual caches online in the area I grew up, and I quickly realized that without traveling there and without much special knowledge, had I been so inclined I could probably have satisfied the claiming requirements for those caches in about five minutes on Google. Most asked a question about major landmarks that could be quickly identified simply by reading the cache description and looking on a map and going "ah, right, they're referring to the X monument"... and a matter of minutes later there was a page found via Google describing the X monument in plenty of detail. In at least one case the answer was actually basically given away in the cache description itself. I know that theoretically people are cheating themselves out of the trip to see the location themselves when they get all stats-oriented and such. But on the other hand, all those wank-off virtual caches I see out there set a bad example for newbies, who assume that they likewise don't have to put any meaningful effort into setting up their caches. -- Jay

quote:Originally posted by yumitori:Hey, Jeremy? There seems to be a bug in the forums. I can only find thread after outraged thread about gays having sex in public places, but none of the threads complaining about caches at places euphemistically named 'Lover's Lane' or something similiar seem to show up on my computer... When I go caching at a "lover's lane" location, I don't expect to find women coming up to me and following me around the park and basically acting like my only reason for being there is to have anonymous sex with her. That's not true of the gay cruising locations that people have been posting about here. But in general, I don't think that people should be having sex in public at rest areas and public parks, period. Your typical teenager looking for a quiet, secluded spot to make out with his or her girlfriend doesn't typically pick a downtown park or an interstate rest area in any case. It's the weirdos who specifically *do* seek out such areas for their activities that are the problem, regardless of their gender and sexual orientation. -- Jay

The Vermont State Parks have asked me (since I asked them about their policy) if I had a copy of any other state's official policy regarding geocaching. Does anyone have a pointer to or a copy of any state's official policy regarding geocaching? My correspondent at the Vermont State Parks said, in part, "This subject came up at the National Association of State Park Directors conference last month and most directors felt there was not a problem at this time. North Carolina was just beginning to put a policy into effect." If anyone can forward me a link to or copy of a policy, Vermont would likely use it in formation of their own, and in the end, I think it would benefit the sport here in the Green Mountain State, avoiding a patchwork of "yes you can" "no you can't" decisions by local park managers who don't understand what geocaching is in the first place.

quote:Originally posted by ~erik~:Geocaching is supposed to be a family activity. I don't think I'd want to expose my kids to what you describe, would you? There are parks popular for such illicit rendevous in my city too. Several have caches in them. I was followed into the woods once while searching for a cache but made it plain that I wasn't there for what my shadow was interested in. He left me alone. I would have no problem returning there to look for other caches, but during daylight hours. If the park you're thinking of is as bad as you describe it to be please pick another one to hide a cache in. If you want to be confrontational and "reclaim the park" why not contact the police for help and place your cache after it's been reclaimed? erik - geocaching.com admin (speaking for myself, not all approvers) I think I'm going to tell my caching acquaintance, the one who wishes to 'reclaim' the area, that she's on her own. I just know that if I did it, it'd blow up on me in some way.

Over in the 'general' forum there's a thread going on relating to caches in areas that are used heavily by men cruising for anonymous sex. (Generally, the caches were placed by people who were not aware that their chosen locations were used for this purpose, and only found out when cachers reported being approached during cache-hunting.) If you're not aware of the thread or not following it, you may find it odd that I'm even mentioning it over here, but bear with me. The gist of the matter is that I went to place a cache last night and found that I had selected for my cache location an area *heavily* used for cruising. I decided not to place the cache because I felt that heading up into the woods where all the guys who I watched pairing off had gone would probably have conveyed the impression that I too wanted, um, company. I mentioned this to a very experienced local cacher and she said "we should reclaim that area, it's not right that people interested in public sex should drive others away and basically hog the area." I blinked at this, and said "well, 1) I think people who went hunting the cache would get very upset with me if they got stalked for sex during cache-hunting, and 2) I expect the cache would get disturbed a lot because any place I'd be likely to hide it would also be likely to be used by the, um, clientele. And 3) the police once in a while go there and harass the guys up in the woods, and I'd hate for the geocachers to get mixed in with all that." Her response was, "well, mention it all in your cache description, choose an inexpensive container you won't mind losing, and strongly recommend that people not put travel bugs or other valuable trade items in the cache." She seems very strongly of the opinion that we shouldn't just surrender and not "reclaim" the area. I said "um" and she said "ask the gc.com approvers." So, okay, I'm over here in the geocaching.com forums. If I created a cache and mentioned in the description that the cache is in an area used illegally for cruising, recommended that the cache NOT be used for travel bugs and valuable trade items, recommended that it would possibly be better not to go after dark, and so on, would a geocaching.com approver go "um, er, no way" or would it be approved? Any comments on this?

I don't agree. The difficulty rating system is meant to enable someone who wants to do a cache to quickly filter out the hyper-difficult ones without having to read the descriptions one by one to see which ones can be done in an hour and which ones require more commitment. Once you've identified that one *is* difficult, you can then go on and read the cache description to find out why it's difficult.

quote:Originally posted by Jamie Z:Is there a pickle park icon we can use? Something like this? We can't use that exactly because it's actually from the website of the Mt. Olive Pickle Company, which probably doesn't want to encourage people to think of gay sex in public parks when thinking of their products, but some graphic artist could come up with some variant on it.

quote:Originally posted by The Frantic Cachers:There is a park near me that is notoriuos for this sort of activity. There are two caches in the park (don't want to name caches but in Hackensack, NJ). If you find the caches read the logs. Thankfully the police have cracked down and it is in process of being "cleaned up". I found, rather easily, the two caches you referred to. The log entry from the cacher who had a weirdo following him around the park creeped me out severely. I lead a very sheltered existence: I've never yet found crack vials while caching and when I found tires in a park while caching I was so shocked I immediately organized a C-I-T-O event to clean it up. Finding out about this whole world of, um, "pickle parks" is jarring my comfortable insular little mindset. - Jay

quote:Originally posted by Pantalaimon:Maybe you could place a virtual cache here. I think a bunch of cachers in the woods running around with digital cameras trying to "log the cache" might cut down on the unwanted activity. That's a BEAUTIFUL idea. "Hey, guys, hold on a second while I get a GPS fix on your coordinates. OK, done. OK, now smile for the camera." Man, though, as owner of that cache, verifying that everyone had complied with the rules of the cache and posted the right 'proof' would be, um, gnarly.

quote:Originally posted by Papa Bear 4:How often have you had non-geochers find your cache? I have had a person find one of mine, only to log a somewhat rood entry, and then later on it appears that they stopped by again and logged another entry? These were in the log book only! Should I move it? Not sure if they are waiting till something good is left or what? If it's getting found repeatedly, yes, it should be moved. We've had caches here in Vermont that were getting found by local kids and disturbed frequently, and consequently had to be removed for six months until the kids gave up looking for them. We'll see if they start interfering with it again. But in general, I think if you're concerned about accidental finders screwing with your cache, please put the standard stashnote.doc or some variation on it in your cache. I find a lot of caches that don't have anything in them to really say what they are, and thus, they look like dirty plastic containers with slightly damp logbooks and a bunch of Happy Meal toys, which doesn't exactly engender in your average muggle a sense of "I must respect this cache and leave it alone."

Last night I went to a location in Vermont about which I had often thought "This'd be a neat location for a cache." It was a public rest area along I-89, not one with services (that's further along the interstate) but with parking and a few trails to walk your dog, and, incongruously, odd concrete sculptures that someone in the Vermont Agency of Transportation must have thought would look good there. I had a cache with an interstate theme all ready to place, but when I got to the rest area, I noticed a LOT of empty cars parked there, and a few cars with single men sort of standing around in front of them, boredly smoking cigarettes. At first I thought "well, they've just pulled over to rest for a minute before continuing on down the highway," but then a couple of them headed off up the dog-walking paths into the woods, and they didn't exactly have dogs with them. I waited for a bit to see if they'd come back down the hill (I naively thought they'd gone up into the woods to pee) so I could sneak up with my cache, my GPS, and my headlamp and place the cache back well in the woods. They didn't come back down. They stayed gone, up in the woods on a dark rainy night. Either they were chasing the legendary short-tailed Vermont forest bat or they were, um, doing something else. One of the guys standing around eventually gave *me* a look and headed up into the woods himself. He was gone five minutes, but eventually came down the hill again and gave me a very puzzled look. I looked blankly at him, and he took up station in front of his car again. Yes, most people wouldn't take this long to realize what was going on, but I did. Call me sheltered. I looked the rest area up on Google later and found it referred to in a few places as a well known rendezvous spot for anonymous sex, so it wasn't my imagination. I won't be placing the cache there; I figure it would stand close to a 100% chance of accidental finding by folks seeking a dry spot up in the woods, given the frequent nocturnal excursions up there, and in any case, I read on one website about the Vermont state police periodically going up into the woods with searchlights. The last thing I need is to read about geocachers up in the woods after dusk, logging a cache find, getting rolled by the cops who think they're there doing something else entirely. Interestingly, one of my fellow Vermont geocachers, told about my experience, promptly said "we should reclaim that area by placing a cache there and making it plain in the cache description that we're reclaiming the area for non-sexual uses." I sort of went "um, you go right ahead." Has anyone else found that an area they'd spotted as a potential cache location had to be disqualified for anything remotely like this, or, worse, found after placing a cache, that the location in question was getting used for similar purposes? Do you have any other advice relating to this? -- Jay Furr, Richmond, VT

Pamela's handle is 'flask'. In fact, she hates being called "Pamela", but what are you going to do? Newspaper reporters have a hard time understanding subcultures.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/bfpnews/living/1000h.htm

quote:Originally posted by Jeremy:You're right. I determined the issue and fixed it, so new logs will now update the date properly. The "Latest Travel Bugs..." section of each state's home page is still not working properly. For example, I placed TB TB122D in cache GCH0HC this past weekend, and said bug was claimed a day after I placed it, and none of this is showing up on the Vermont page.

The "Latest Travel Bugs..." section of each state's home page is still not working properly. For example, I placed TB TB122D in cache GCH0HC this past weekend, and said bug was claimed a day after I placed it, and none of this is showing up on the Vermont page.

The "Latest Travel Bugs..." section of the state home pages is still not updating correctly. For example, I placed TB122D in cache GCH0HC on Friday, it was claimed on Saturday, and the "Latest Travel Bugs..." list for Vermont shows none of this.

A group of Vermont geocachers held at CITO event today at Pearl Street Park in Essex Junction, VT. You can see details from the event at the cache page or see photos from the event at OFOTO. We brought about 14 tires, 20 full bags of trash, and a heap of rusty car parts and chunks of scrap metal out. One late-arriving cacher who frequents the park was heard to say "you took out all my landmarks!" Evidently the park just didn't look the same without the godawful amounts of trash everywhere.

I find that part of what causes travel bugs to go missing, and take this with a grain of salt, is folks who create them and place them with nothing more than the little silver dog tag attached. Novice cachers just go 'ooh, that's neat' and put it on the back seat of the car and forget about it. I've taken to attaching a laminated 1/3 sheet of paper with very specific instructions and explanations about how travelbugs work, including a polite admonition not to take the bug at all if the person in question rarely geocaches and might not be able to place it again in a reasonable amount of time, how to log that you have them, how to log that you've placed them, and so on. I think some people who pick up and take travel bugs just don't know how they're meant to be used. When I pick up a travel bug that someone else dropped off, if there's little or no instructions with it, at the very least I print off the travel bug web page associated with that travel bug and I stick the page, bug and all, in a Ziploc bag.

quote:Originally posted by Doc-Dean:They can always be moved out later if they resurface. Getting them in there is the tricky part. If the TB owners don't respond to messages asking for them to be moved to the travel bug graveyard, then there they sit, forever, allegedly in the cache in question but not actually there. Since people are going to that cache specifically in search of travel bugs (you'd think they'd read the log entries, but I guess some people prefer not to), it's a source of frustration for quite a few people to get there and find no TBs, time and time again. As far as I can tell, if the owner of a travel bug isn't interested in moving the bug to the graveyard, it stays in the cache forever, or until a geocaching.com admin moves them, which is why I started this thread.

I'm sure they should, but I don't own them or have their tracking numbers.