bblake

When dealing with small, undetonated, homemade nuclear explosive devices, I have always found it helpful to clip the blue wire. No, wait, it's the red wire... or was it the yellow? We just returned from our first find and we took our 4-yr-old daughter with us. Of course we're always concerned for her safety, but she had a great time. Mostly. She did get quite upset when we had to stop searching for the first one which was either MIA or hidden very well. I'm planning on hiding a cache of goodies just for her in the woods close to my house tomorrow, and taking a walk with her to find it -- she already knows how to follow the waypoints on the gpsr, and it helps to give her an idea of what the 'game' is all about. Not that finding goodies is what its all about, but you know what I mean. Family time, fun, thrill of the hunt, the challenge, just getting out of the house, whatever you like about it.

I have seen this response before. To me it seems less likely that one would find a virus-infested CD or other media left by a fellow geocacher than it would be for you to get a virus or other undesirable spyware/malware/etc. from the things many of us do all the time -- run file sharing software, run personal game/file/ftp/web servers, surf the web with browsers that aren't 100% up-to-date or have a history of not being 100% secure (ie IE), open emails from people we don't know, etc... I would take some precautions like turning off the 'autorun' feature on the drive before putting in the CD, scanning it for viruses, not running any .bat, .exe, etc. files on it, making sure my personal firewall was running to notify me of any attempts at outgoing connections, and fogging the whole inside of the PC with antifungal jock itch spray and some Lysol BTW, as soon as I find a cache big enough I am putting about 60 original game CDs in it!

Same thing here, but if I click on 'Log Out' on the geocaching.com site then it does let me in the forum (using Firefox) and I'm already logged in to Groundspeak. Hmmm... Maybe I should lot out of the forums, log back in geocaching.com, then come back?

I didn't see this one listed in that thread (maybe I missed it)... might just be the same thing, though. http://terraserver.microsoft.com/

Exactly -- pack a couple of MREs and you are good to go! MMMmm... the cherry nut cake is the best... sucks when you get stuck with the cheese packet though, would always trade for some peanut butter. Seriously though, those packs aren't bad. Don't care much for the boots, though!

It might depend on the profile. http://kingoftheinternet.ytmnd.com/ bblake

I use a Blackberry 7510 with Nextel/Sprint service and the pseudo-wap site works great. Haven't tried posting logs from it yet, but may try it tomorrow. A place with no internet access? Yipes! bblake

Thanks to those who posted the links to the legislature and threads re: the subject. I would have searched but the forum search function is broken, and thought asking to be easier than Googling. Wow, this is ridiculous. How would one prove that someone was in fact Geocaching in a cemetary or on a historical site? Anyone carrying a GPS in such an area would be under scrutiny, so they'd have to stake-out the cache to catch the person in the act, I guess, unless they posted dated photos of themselves doing it. And maybe that would help take some pressure off the drug dealers, pedophiles, rapists, etc. while law enforcement could be busy catching the *real* criminals and making sure they are put behind bars for up to 30 days and forced to do 100 hours of community service. Here are some other dumb SC laws from http://www.dumb.com/laws.htm • A railroad my not remove itself from a town of more than five hundred people. • All schools must prepare a suitable program for Francis Willard Day. By law, if a man promises to marry an unmarried woman, the marriage must take place. • Charleston: It is against the law to drive a motorized vehicle on King Street. The Fire Department may blow up your house. This law was made so that the fire department could create a fire brake. • Dance halls may not operate on Sundays. Every adult male must bring a rifle to church on Sunday in order to ward off Indian attacks. • Fortune tellers are required to obtain a special permit from the state. • Fountain Inn: Horses are to wear pants at all times. • Horses may not be kept in bathtubs. • In some church in South Carolina, every man must bring a rifle to church on Sunday to ward off Indian attacks. • In some town in South Carolina, it is perfectly legal for a man to beat his wife. But only if its on the courthouse steps on Sunday. • It is a capital offense to inadvertently kill someone while attempting suicide. • It is considered an offense to get a tattoo. • It is illegal to communicate with a woman using obscene messages. • It is illegal to display a confederate flag on a courthouse. • It is illegal to give or receive oral sex. • It is illegal to sell any alcoholic beverages on Sunday, unless you own a private club. • It is legal to beat your wife on a Sunday morning on the steps of the state house. • It is perfectly legal to beat your wife on the court house steps on Sundays. • Lancaster County: It is illegal to dance in public. Merchandise may not be sold within a half mile of a church unless fruit is being sold. • Musical instruments may not be sold on Sunday. • No work may be done on Sunday. An exception is that light bulbs may be sold. • Performing a U-turn within 1,000 feet of an intersection is illegal. • Railroad companies may be held liable in some instances for scaring horses. Spartanburg: Eating watermelons in the Magnolia Street cemetery is forbidden. • When approaching a four way or blind intersection in a non-horse driven vehicle you must stop 100 ft from the intersection and discharge a firearm into the air to warn horse traffic. *** bblake

Ah... South Carolina, home of the big Confederate Flag debate, the NAACP boycotting tourism because of it flying on government property, the politicians agreeing to take it down only to move it to another location on government property, and meanwhile they're still flying the flag under which slavery thrived for many more years than it did under the Confederate Flag (the United States Flag!). [ducking] Anyway, if enough people get upset over something (like the pictures referred to) then there's a big fuss about it in the media, which in turn puts pressure on the politicians, so lots of money will be wasted on creating legislature that doesn't really satisfy everyone involved. I haven't followed the issues with geocaching in SC... actually have seen nothing about it in the news, ever, and I'm in southeast NC. I have been interested in geocaching for years but just started participating recently. Does anyone have any links to info about the SC legislature re: geocaching, etc? I am interested in protecting and promoting geocaching, but I haven't been involved in it long enough to make suggestions about how to manage "incriminating photos". bblake

Thanks for the info about Foxit Reader -- just downloaded it and it looks great. Adobe Reader keeps getting more bloated and intrusive with each new release, and Foxit is only about 1MB and doesn't require installation. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php bblake

The sad part of it is that you may not even be safe putting a CD you legitimately purchased at the mall in your computer... www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004144.php Always good to keep 'Autorun' turned off on your CD/DVD drives -- especially when dealing with "questionable" media, like something you found in a box under some leaves in the middle of the woods, or a music CD from Sony-BMG. bblake

The Wal-Mart in my area currently has good discounts on basic Garmin Etrex units, and of course with Wal-Mart you can return just about anything besides opened DVDs and computer games you are not satisfied with... bblake

I'd like to hear opinions regarding caches for premium members only vs regular. Does this make it any less likely that the cache would require maintenance, be damaged, etc? I'm asking because I haven't decided to make my first one for premium only or not -- wondering what the pros/cons of doing so would be. I signed on as a premium member immediately -- definitely a small price to pay for what you get (but don't go raising it now, guys!) bblake

Excellent tips -- thanks for posting the link.

OK... tried again and got the same thing, so I did post a 'Needs Maintenance' log on the one with the invalid email address.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm trying to email the virtual cache owners once more before posting a 'needs maintenance' log. One of them appears to be an active user based on their profile -- might just need to update their account info, or maybe there was a problem with their mail server at the time. One thing is certain -- I'm hooked! bblake

Hi -- another newbie here... So far we've found two very easy virtual caches and logged the finds. Not sure about one thing regarding virtual caches -- both said I had to email them something to receive credit, but there was nothing to keep me from logging them on the site. Didn't get a response from one owner, and the email came back as undeliverable to the other one ("BHI Anniversary"). Are we on the "honor system" with virtual caches like this, or all of them, for that matter? I'm planning on hunting some traditional caches in my area this weekend, but I'm not sure what I'm expected to take... Do you normally take everything but the log book and such, and leave an equal number of items, or what? Just wondering what the etiquette is regarding this before getting started. Are cache owners expected to restock their cache if they take all your goodies and leave a bunch of broken McDonald's toys? I have a location planned, have the container, the contents, title, coords, etc. all planned out for my first hide, but figure it will be best to find a few first before taking on the responsibility of maintaining one. I have read most of the FAQs on getting started but I guess you have to "play" for a while to see how it really works. Thanks for any comments or suggestions (the helpful kind, I hope) bblake