baby jojo's playpen

My family had one travel bug that eventually traveled to Asia before disappearing, but I'd love to use a map of a well-traveled bug to enhance the study of continents and oceans for my 3rd and 4th graders. Is someone willing to share a screenshot of a map showing a well-traveled bug? Our class is going to plant our own bug on a nature walk soon at a local geocache! TIA!

Does anyone use MapSend Streets software with their Magellan Sportrak Pro? I was thinking about finding a copy but would like to read some user reviews first. Thanks.

There are several on the Texas Motor Speedway grounds. I found those last November during the muggle crazy race weekend.

I've wondered about this. In our area there is a family with young children that has thousands of finds. They typically find 20-50 in a day which seems next to impossible with little monkeys in tow. I've got 2 of my own and they lose interest after 10-15 on a good day. They also cache day after day after day. Not sure how they make a living. But I also question the validity of the numbers. More than once I've seen this team log notes as finds, so they get multiples smileys for the same cache. I've also seen them log finds when they are with the owner as the owner places the cache. That's not a find IMO. Since we're new to caching watching the numbers rise is kind of fun, but becoming less so quickly. I don't care about numbers if it means I have to waste time on another guard rail cache or micro in the weeds.

As far as dealing with the first cache, I would just notify the administrator one last time that the first part of the multi is missing again. Then drop it and move on to other hides. Don't try to take over the location anytime soon. Perhaps down the road the spot will be available. But just let the administrator handle it from here on out. Don't get into any more email battles with this idiot. Hopefully there are lots of other caches in your area that you can spend your gas money and time on and have fun!

I still believe that the cost/benefit analysis, the benefits win. People on a limited time budget - passing through an area on the way to some other destination - may be overwhelmed with having to read the logs on the 2500 caches in our greater Chicagoland area. Highlighting the cream of the crop doesn't mean that the others won't get found.This is where we disagree, I think. The costs of having skewed data and the uncertainty that others like the same caches as I do is not worth the benefit of having 'some type of rating system'. In Austin we have the "Austin Cache Awards" for various categories of caches. I enjoy seeking these out b/c I know I will tend to have a caching experience that will be above average. But for all the other hundreds of caches in my area, there is no way of having a clue as to the "quality" of the cache unless I read many, many logs. Now, I have my methods. There are certain prolific cache hiders in my area that I know place lousy caches. I either avoid them or expect little when I hunt theirs. There are other cache hiders in my area that I know I will generally have great hides. I search for all of theirs. But from the original example at the beginning of the thread, when you are caching in an unfamiliar area with unfamiliar hiders, you have nothing to go by unless you spend a considerable amount of time reading logs. Sometimes this is practical, other times not. So, whether Groundspeak added a system like Markwell is talking about or a system like Amazon/Netflix, it would help those of us that want to use it. I truly believe that the more user-friendly a quality rating system is, the more representative the ratings will be. If the system is set up in a way that is not easily understood or clear to use, then people will ignore it; therefore, the rating is not representative of the finders. Think of it this way -- if 25 people have rated a cache a 3 star, but after a year 125 people have rated it, it would either stay the same, rise, or fall. But the more raters= the higher reliability of the rating. If I go on Amazon to buy a toaster, I will probably trust the choice of one that has a higher rating based on a larger number of customers. I could be wrong and miss out on the greatest toaster of my life b/c it had a low rating, but overall I think my chances of spending my toaster money wisely will be greater. Dedicated area cachers are not going to ignore caches based on ratings unless they choose to do so. But folks caching in an unfamiliar area would at least have some guideline to use when deciding what to do with their limited time &/or gas money. Bookmarking is a great idea, but I really have doubts that a good number of people will use this option. It would be easier to get an overall opinion of a cache if on the 'log the find' page, you clicked "found it", "finder rating 1-5 stars", then wrote your log. Click and it's done. Anyway, just my thoughts. I really do appreciate the give and take of ideas on this thread... Kelley of BJPP

A rating system, even one such as markwell suggests, is just too subjective. If you don't like micros, a mark against. If you don't like hikes, a mark against. If you don't like ammo cans, a strike against. Too many thorn bushes, too much bushwacking, too damp, too dry, etc. all marks against to someone. A rating system is subjective. But if you don't want to look at the ratings and/or use them to guide the choices of the hides you seek, then don't use it. But for those of us that it would benefit, what is the harm in adding it as a feature that can be used if you choose to?

Thanks for lots of good suggestions here. The bookmark lists sound great. My point, though, is in order to make it truly user-friendly (thus, accumulating alot of ratings --quantity of ratings=higher validity of group consensus) it would be much easier to have an quick 1-5 star rating to click on when logging the cache. I believe in being courteous and truthful in logging finds, but many people (including myself) don't always have time to go through and read tons of logs. If more people than not aren't writing detailed information in their log then that method is not effective. The idea of bookmarking favorites (especially by category) is great. I just wonder how many people will actually take the time to do that. Again, the more info you have on the quality of a cache location, then the more representative that rating becomes. Obviously, opinions vary. But if 50 different raters rate a cache, then it is much easier to assume a 3 star cache is more enjoyable than a 1 star. But if only 5 raters have rated a cache, I might give more leeway to "weeding" out that cache out of my itinerary. Essentially, for me in the day of $3 a gallon gas, I would love to see a user-friendly, frequently used method of rating caches by the finders. That would certainly help me use my limited geocaching time to the best advantage and I suspect it would become a relied upon feature by many other cachers. Thanks! Kelley from Baby Jojo's Playpen

Not a bad idea, but the owner would have to rate it, not other cachers. That wouldn't solve anything. The idea would be for the finders to rate it (like you can do on Amazon, etc.) and the average of the ratings is what shows up. That would account for variety of opinions, etc. Plus, I've seen other threads complaining about lame caches. If caches can be rated by the finders then cache owners could get a good idea of what a "good" hide is.

I haven't been caching for very long, but I guess long enough to start feeling frustrated by caches that are hidden in generally yucky areas! For example, this weekend we headed out to an area lake where there are 25+ caches hid. Tons of beautiful areas to hide a cache. But the majority were stuck in the dried up weeds along the side of a miserable road. I love geocaching when I'm taken to a place I wouldn't have known about or a beautiful place to enjoy. But of course, none of these cache logs had said much of anything except TFTC. I would love to see a quality or enjoyability rating added to the log page. That way you can more easily skip the ones that are just not what you're looking for. I'm much more interested in enjoying the experience than in chalking up smilies. And I know, I know...opinions vary. But I'm pretty confident that most of us would rather find a cache on a nice hike or beautiful view than in the weeds or in a trash strewn area. Has there been talk of adding a feature like this??

Could you give us an idea of how inaccurate your readings are? The first thought is not atmospheric, but overheating electronics. Overheating can cause unreliable functioning of everything from memory chips to CPU's, capacitors, resistors etc. The all have an operating termperature range and your CPU will show that in its specs. Keep in mind that if your GPS is directly exposed to the sun its internal temperature can be considerably higher than the air temperature reading. JD When it's really hot here (I live in Texas) the GPS tends to jump alot. Usually within 20 feet or so, but frustrating when you think you've gotten within a decent distance to the cache only to have the numbers jump and arrow swing to all different directions every few seconds. The reason I think it is the heat is that if we go caching in the morning or evening it doesn't happen. But if we go out when it's 100 degrees or so it just gets wacky. Maybe it's the additional humidity in the air?

It's obvious to me why trees, cloudcover, buildings, etc. interfere with getting a good reading, but why does heat seem to make such a difference? During the summer we can't get any kind of accurate reading when the heat is in the upper 90's (not that it's a ton of fun caching when it's 100 degrees! ). Any idea what is going on atmospherically to interfere with the signals?

We just started caching about 2 months ago, but hit 4 states so far this summer. But here's my question... where do I paste the html code on my profile page to get the map to show up? I'm usually a little swifter than this, but the world66 site says that to put the map I created on my page I have to paste the html code. I look at the profile page and don't see anywhere to paste it. Help!