GeoROCKS!

Here's my $0.02... The people who can't understand why people have more than one PQ (or even two PQs) probably don't live in an overly saturated area. There are over 100 caches within 2 miles of my home (most of which I've found). It takes three PQs for me to cover the distance from home to work twenty minutes away, and four PQs to cover the distance to my parents' home thirty minutes in the other direction. I need at least ten PQs to cover the areas I frequently travel to that are less than an hour from home. And, I've even had to filter out all micros just so that I can get better coverage with those "bubbles" and not have too many gaps. It would take about 16 PQs to cover my home area if I included micros. I've staggered my PQs so I get 2-3 per day to cover that small area. I've opened up a second paid account to help gc cover the cost. I've had to write special software to stitch all the PQs together. And I *have* to rely on automation to process those PQs so that I can instantly sync up my GPS and Palm Pilot every day. And now I have to send the PQs to the PQ-only email address I normally use *and* to my regular email just so I can tell gc that I really want the PQs that I've already asked for. Just because you don't understand why I have more than one PQ, doesn't mean I don't have valid reasons for receiving them, and valid reasons for missing errant notices regarding them...

OK, here's my essay titled "Did Geocaching Save a Life?"

Thanks, Marky!

See: Did Geocaching Save a Life?

Everyone has unique needs and unique circumstances. What works for Marky or Mopar or whoever, probably won't work for everyone, and certainly doesn't work for me. I, myself, never know when I'll be called out 10, 100, 200 miles from home with no advance notice and no way to update my pocket queries before having to leave. I live in San Jose, might be in Salinas, and then get called immediately to Menlo Park -- no chance to go home and get updated PQs. That's exactly what happened yesterday as a matter of fact. Without my large number of queries I wouldn't have been able to get the one cache in both those areas that I managed to have time for. I carry data for 900+ caches in my Palm Pilot and GPS for areas ranging from Sacramento to Merced, from San Francisco to Tahoe. That's a lot more caches than will fit in one pocket query, or even gathered in five queries. My solution was to pay for a second membership so I could have a second set of five queries run whenever I need it. Would it be easier on the system if I could query only once a day all caches in the middle third of California? Probably. Do I like using up a lot of resources? Nope. But the system doesn't provide what my unique needs require (nor am I asking it too) so I am forced to be creative and come up with my own solution. I experience no guilt either because I pay twice as much as everyone else. There's too much complaining here about how people should do this, and how people shouldn't do that. If some guy wants to download every cache in his country every day, let him. That's what the membership fee is for, to pay for resources and services. Want to save some system resources? Create a text-only version of the gc website. Stop obfuscating the URLs so that powerusers are forced to navigate through the site, wasting time and bandwidth. Allow more than 20 search results, set perhaps by user preference. Switch to LAMP, away from .NET. Allow for more advanced yet simpler queries: instead of returning 500 caches within 500 miles of a coordinate, allow for the possibility of returning ALL caches within a rectangle of coordinates, supplying the upper left and lower right. Not only is that a faster query, but it reduces the need for overlapping PQs -- another waste. I could go on and on...

I'll join the fray...

I own a GSPMAP 76S (not the CS) and I really like it. The 76CS seems to solve the few minor issues I have with the 76S: difficulty reading in sunlight, more memory, USB connection, battery life, and processing speed. Personally, I think the compass is useless and it really drains batteries, so I keep that function always turned off. The 76 series is a bit bulky which can be a bit annoying, obviously not solved by the 76CS. If I were buying again today I'd still be looking seriously at the 76CS, bt I'd also look at the 60CS. While it has less memory (56MB) than the 76CS (115MB), it's still more than my 76S (32MB) which is ALMOST sufficient as is, plus I'm curious what "a dedicated geocaching mode" means. It looks cooler, too! I also am sometimes somewhat annoyed by the fact that the buttons on the 76 series are all ABOVE the screen, not an issue with the 60 series. The 76S is my third GPS. I started with the yellow Etrex, moved to the eTrex Vista, and then the 76. The 76 is more tolerant of being dropped, and I had HUGE quality issues with the Vista (I actually went through THREE of them that were faulty), so I guess you could consider that the 76S was my fifth Garmin! The yellow eTrex I purchased at Amazon, the rest at gpsdiscount.com. As of today, at gpsdiscount.com the 60CS is $396, the 76CS is 440. Hope this helps...

Hey, my mushrooms were censored!

Yes, but you can't make s***take mushrooms out of...

That's happened to me a few times. I repaired caches, and gotten flak. I've moved caches a few feet to put them out of an obvious danger, and gotten flak. I've bankrolled geoprojects, helped in certain geocommittees and geocommunities, and even been involved in some geonegotiation with the PTB -- and gotten flak. There's always someone who is unhappy with everything. Nowadays, I'm pretty quiet about what I do and am less involved than I used to be, a unfortunate side effect of some of the petty moaning that goes on. I'll settle for just heading out to find some caches... But, every now and then, I will still sneak out and repair a broken cache -- ususally silently and anonymously, unless I know the owners.

I've done that myself. I recently replaced a cracked 35mm film canister cache with one I happened to have rattling around in my car.

I've got a boatload (OK, a server full) of hi-res digital images of caching moments, including many dozens of travel bug photos...

I managed to find #1000 on the day of my second anniversary. Other insane cachers (finding 100+ in a day) put me to shame, but I finally reached my own personal goal...

Hey, I just noticed that remark!

Boy, you confused me for a minute! I didn't recall hiding anything out there!

...bump...

Ya know, I originally reported this problem more than TWO MONTHS ago! Would it kill anyone to respond, to at least tell me that someone is going to work on it or not going to work on it?! Give me something. A response of any kind would be great!

quote:Originally posted by brad.32:TBs don't fit in micros. au contraire!

quote:Originally posted by RobertM:My understanding is that sock-puppet accounts are not allowed. Why not? I have one. I'm not trying to hide behind it, fool anybody, or be another ''Mitsuko''. In fact, my sockpuppet is a paying member, created just so I can have a few more highly targeted PQs.

quote:Originally posted by Bloencustoms:You could even devise a puzzle of your own, so devious it shames the puzzle placers in your area into submission. I have a difficulty 5 that has been more than *three months* in the making that should be released in a day or two!

Watcher is an application that ClayJar wrote that helps you to process and customize geocaching waypoint data offline. GPX Spinner is another. Both have pros and cons.

Geocaching is NOT the same. Quality is down. Quantity is up. Micros are too prevalent. Virtuals are disappearing. TPTB are becoming too commercial. That said, my first five caches were virtuals, most lame. I wouldn't create them now. Today's icons are infinitely better than last month's yucksters, but closely on par with those a year ago. I'd prefer more clamping down by approvers and widening the minimum proximity to .25 miles. If a cache says traditional but the description states that it's ''not at the posted coordinates'' then it's not a traditional and should be a puzzle cache. Approvers don't check that at all.

quote:Originally posted by Pantalaimon:Are there puzzle caches where you don't know going in that you're doing a puzzle cache? Are there caches where, once you arrive at the coordinates indicated, you discover you need to know Pi to the 15th digit? Yes, there often are. Irresponsible cache creators sometimes do NOT properly classify their caches as puzzles caches, something also not part of the approval process. Many times I thought I was just unsuccessful at finding a normal cache only to later discover while I was trying to post my DNF at home that the cache description contained ''not at the posted coordinates'' in the description. A traditional cache (as originally intended) should require nothing more than a GPS; certainly a description would not be *required*.

I only have 61 on mine, and even THAT's a pain. Yes, let's limit it to a certain number, or just default to ones currently in your possession...

quote:The reason that I think this is because micros are not ''caches'' in respect to what the adventure started out as. True, there may be a FEW micros that contain a trade item or two at the most, but the vast majority are nothing more than a log book. To me such an object seems better suited to another adventure than geocaching. I took a quick look at my list of 925 waypoints that stretch around an area that includes South Lake Tahoe, Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Martinez, Novato, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Jose, and Gilroy (not that I've really done ANY caching lately). Interestingly, of the 150 oldest caches, 11 are virtual (7.3%), 2 are webcams (1.3%), and 10 are micros (6.7%). Of the 150 newest caches, 2 are virtual (1.3%), none are webcams, and 65 are micros (43.3%). Of the last 25 caches placed, 16 or 64% are micros. The major transition from a majority of traditional to a near-majority of micro occured in November 2002 after the Bay Area and Central Valley release of dozens of prepared micros by well-intentioned mega-cachers. It's amazing how one or two people can so greatly affect the sport overnight. My point? I agree that the sport has vastly changed from the original, perhaps to its detriment. I have never been a proponent of micros, although I have sunk to the level of other prolific cachers and created several micros of my own -- it's a hell of a lot easier to put a few prepared film canisters in a backpack in preparation for a 10-mile hike than it is to pack in an ammo can. It's cheaper, too. And lighter... I'll ramble on... It does say ''Micro'' on the cache page (but not in the search results) and (as we all know) the micros can be filtered out with various utilities including ones advertised here ad nauseum -- although I agree that it would be very useful to have the functionality built into the site itself. No, I don't use Watcher or the other advertised utilities as they don't meet my needs. My home-grown utilities do exactly what I want instead. Rambling continued... I'm feeling a bit wishy-washy about this whole issue because each side has valid points; (1) micro is a size attribute; (2) I wouldn't necessarily classify a VW and a Surburban as the same type; (3) Most of the arguments against a size icon are made by those arguing that a combined type/size icon should/can not be created -- despite the original proposal that a *second* icon be used to designate size; (4) The biggest nay-sayers to adding an icon are from those who either create the utilities or use the utilities -- what about those people using library or school computers that are not allowed to install software? (5) Cache creators often don't categorize their caches properly anyway, and the approvers don't bother looking for those mistakes; (6) Would adding a second icon cause any harm or create significant work, or would it just makes things easier for some people? Adding a small 15x15 graphic with either XS, S, M, L, XL is a no-brainer; (7) the site obviously doesn't meet the needs of a large audience (including ClayJar, Marky and myself) otherwise we wouldn't have to develop or use second- or third-party utilities. (8) If no one will listen to your needs, find an out-of-the-box solution yourself -- I recently purchased a second membership to gc simply because I wanted eight PQs. After months of waiting for TPTB to make a simple change, I now have up to 10 queries! Not the perfect solution, but my needs are met. Somewhere above is a point, I'm sure. Look for it at your own risk. Enough rambling... Signing off...