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swizzle

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Posts posted by swizzle

  1. We have a trail around here that is accessible to people with limited mobilities. They are however required to get a special permit which allows them to use a 4 wheeler on the trails. I'm planning on placing a few caches on this trail which would most likely require a 4 or 5 foot stick to retrieve. If anyone else has any of these types of caches can you help me out and give me some general ideas and pics on how you've set up your caches? I'm also considering a puzzle cache where you use things that you see at waypoints to get the coords for the final. Sort of a multi with only one container to deal with. Any other ideas would be great. The one thing I don't want to do is set up 500 more LPC's. I want to set these up in nice locations, on nice trails that do have access. Swiz

  2. A second caching site devoted to kids doesn't sound like to bad of an idea. I would think that more multi's would be fun for kids. Something with a puzzle that they need to figure out to get the final. Every year I set up a 10 stage multi for our annual "company picnic". We invite company over and have a picnic. With kids it would be easier to set up an exciting multi if you don't have the .10 mile rule. The more finds along a short distance really gets them pumped up. Especially when the final was hidden in the middle of all the stages, right under their noses the whole time. I would definitely suggest that all of these "Kids Caches" are kept away from other caches and if possible done in small groups. We always have 10 to 12 kids to do the treasure hunt and they talk about it in school for weeks afterwards. If you can get such a website going then I have a few places that I can set up such a cache just for kids. I'm not sure if I could keep it stocked if 10 groups of 10 kids hit my cache every month though?

     

    Now back on topic. I kinda think that the kids that area disappointed in the lack of toys are the ones that have their parents telling them about these magical toy boxes in the woods. These kids are dreaming about the toys that they want and see on TV and ultimately I think the whole family suffers from disappointment. Try not to get your kids so hyped up and then when you do find a decent cache you'll be twice as excited. Just my opinion. Swiz

  3.  

    I dont think you should feel guilty.Trash is trash.If it looks like trash "or smells like trash" and you pitched it, I feel you did the cache a service.I have found some pretty nasty stuff in a few caches and felt it would have been wrong to not "CITO" it.

    I am low on funds myself.I have an electrician friend that is saving me those "knock outs" from electrical panels.They are about the size of a half dollar,and they throw them away.I am going to try file the kinda sharp edges off them and use metal stamps and make coins out of them.Free! Maybe you can find something free to make some swag with,or use my idea. :)

     

    I agree. I do the same thing. I throw out really gross stuff that is obviously trash (empty pop cans, really moldy toys, shotgun shells, etc.) and I don't feel one bit of guilt.

     

    I love the idea of the electrical 'knock outs.' Both my brother in law and Dad are electricians. I'm going to ask them for some. Thank you for the cool idea.

     

    I just might take you up on that. I'll have to buy the metal stamp kit from harbor freight. I think its around $15 bucks. I'm sure a phone call to any electrician would get you a bag full. Time to fire up the bench grinder and pull out the leather gloves. Swiz

  4. Yup I was talking about the tick twister. I just can't see spending $4 for 2 pieces of plastic but it is a great little device. I've used it several times and a couple times I got the little buggers soon enough that it didn't itch. I quit smoking in 2001 so a lit cigarette isn't going to be the best swag item to add to caches. Besides these are the ones that are the size of the O's on this page. A lit cig that close to them is gonna burn my hide too. Just seems like you could make the same device(s) for under a $1. If I found these in the dollar store then I would definitely add them to anything bigger then a 35mm film can all spring, summer and fall. Swiz

  5. I recently found a swag item in one of my caches that I had to snag. Its a tick removal tool. They look like 2 mini prybars. I looked them up online and they run about $4 each. I'd like to find the same type of tool but cheaper does anyone have any ideas where I could get something like that? Its just 2 small pieces of plastic. Seems like you could find them a lot cheaper. Swiz

  6. I don't have a lot of money so I struggle sometimes to find the coolest dollar store items to put in my larger caches. Kids generally don't care if its a cheap toy or not. They play with it until it breaks and then go on to the next toy. One thing I've noticed myself is when I cache alone I don't plan on taking anything but a smiley from a new land. I don't bring swag with me and don't take anything away unless its trashed. I've found quite a few caches that were waterlogged with cloth and paper items just nasty and destroyed. I do bring along baggies, extra logs and such to help to maintain the cache but rarely bring extra swag. A lot of times when I find caches like this I leave with several items headed for the trash can but have nothing to give. In one cache I actually added a lock n lock to the ammo can because it had a bad seal. I feel I'm doing my part to help maintain a cache but now I think I should feel a bit guilty because I don't drop in a McGeoToy or something of that nature. I would like to create my own signature item to add, would that make it a little better even if it isn't a toy? Swiz

  7. These are the best prices I was able to find on 25 sheet 8.5 x 11

     

    http://www.amazon.com/Rite-In-The-Rain-851...mp;sr=8-1-spell

     

    http://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-...mp;sr=8-1-spell

     

    Rite in the Rain $9.95

    National Geographic Adventure Paper $19.95

     

    So for 25 sheets, I'm sticking with 2x. I concede I didn't check other quantities.

    Fair enough. Seems rather silly to buy 200 when you only need 25 just to save on price per sheet, I agree :huh:

     

    Cool now I just need money in the bank. Come on next Friday. Getting paid every 2 weeks sux. Swiz

  8. I already ordered the free sample about 3 weeks ago. Still waiting for it. I may put in another order for it. Sorry about the security thing trying to download on your computer. I didn't have anything like that on mine. I'm running foxfire and Windows XP as well. I had some of the dura-rite and I like that stuff. With fresh pen you can smudge it but I doubt you could wipe it right off. The closest Fed-ex office is 60 miles away. I'd really like just a few sheets, say 25 to 30 to print out a few logs. I'm planning on doing some underwater caches and I have a container that will hold up long term. I just want something that will deal with a few drops from the wet cachers logging it and maybe a little added protection if they don't screw the top back down tight. I'm tempted to cut down a USPS mailer to try to fit it in my printer. Swiz

  9. GC1BB52

     

    This one is off by 300+ feet. If it wasn't for someone else posting the coords we never would have found it. I think the only reason for the coords being so far off is the fact there's another cache a couple hundred feet up the road. 39 people have found it and they all say the same thing that the coords need to be updated because they lead you to a no tresspassing, construction zone across a busy highway. She changed the log in the cache but hasn't attempted to change the coords. Whatcha gonna do? Swiz

  10. I was going to buy some of the dollar store lock n locks. I took the lid off of one and put it back on. The first latch that I tried to hook back on snapped right off just as easy as bustin' a potato chip in two. I looked around the shelves and there were several others in the same condition. I bought other lock n locks from wally world a couple years back and they're still going strong. Then the last batch I bought from wally world was crap. Not even a full season and I need to replace one. test them before you buy them.

     

    As far as film cans go. Look on ebay you can buy the white fuji film cans rather cheap or I suppose you can go ask at wally world and get a bunch for free. I just asked last week and got close to 30 of the white ones. Swiz

  11. I like bending the rules.

     

    Do you like ruining things for other people? The guidelines are there to protect the game so we can all continue to enjoy it. "Bending the rules" could have serious consequences for people other than yourself.

     

    There's a big difference between bending and breaking the rules. I have no intentions of putting any cachers in danger or into any kind of trouble. Happy Cachin' Swiz

  12. I'm having a bit of problems wrapping my head around the ALR thing. An underwater cache requires that you dive below the water to get the cache. Isn't that an additional logging requirement? The same question goes with nudie caches, and that one out in the ocean that you need an ROV to retrieve? I have plans to set up an underwater cache in the near future. I like bending the rules. I have the container all set and ready to go. Swiz

  13. How about the friendship bracelets. I'm practiced enough that a number of them will actually be fairly complex patterns, and they'd fit into most caches.

    Would those be interesting to find?

    I'd include a card/note with these, so people will know thay are handmade, and more valuable than a storebought one.

     

    You'll need to make 627 of these if you want to go on a run to beat the record for caches in a 24 hour period. Swiz

  14. If TPTB could come up with a PQ that was category specific, I think it would work.

    I could set my PQ to limit results to only those categories that appeal to me.

    I don't know if this is even possible, but it sure sounds good in theory.

     

    IAWTC.

     

    In theory yes. With the filters already set in place using the search engine it should be able to return the PQ results you want. How many are willing to sort through the 900+ categories to find what they want. That remains to be seen and why I think it has the potential for further complaints.

     

    I hope I am wrong, but I don't see the PQ as being the big fix that many seem to envision.

     

    Up until recently the focus appeared to be the creation categories and waymarks to build a visitable database. Waymark creation has seen many updates over the past years/months that has focused on improving that experience. Since that is my primary interest in Waymarking I am thankful for that.

    The many calls for PQ's here and at the Groundspeak Portal seems to indicate that the tide is turning and people are now calling for a valid and easy way to visit the locations.

    A difference between Waymarks and Virtual caches has been that you can get a pocket query that contains both virtual and physical caches in an area and load this into a GPS. Then as you go about geocaching you might stop at the virtual caches as you are going from cache to cache. Often when travelling out of town I'll just load up all the caches in the area I am going to. Maybe I'm staying in the downtown area. When I look to see what near my hotel, I might see the LPC in parking lot down the street along with a virtual a few blocks in the other direction at some old historic building or a unique piece of public art. While I might prefer to find a cache hidden at the old building or the art, I still might find a virtual there more interesting than going to grab the LPC. My guess is that many geocachers enjoyed the serendipity of finding an interesting "best kept secret" while out and about looking for geocaches, whether or not there was a physical cache there or a virtual.

     

    I would like to see virtuals come back myself for a rather simple reason. I went through the time and effort to hunt down and waymark over 250 items of interest. Most of which I did some fairly extensive research on. On the other hand I have about 37 or 38 active geocaches at this point in time. Every weekend I get several nice logs from my geocaches and I've received a total of 2 visits on my waymarks. There's just not many people involved in Waymarking and to set up these waymarks to bring people to something interesting seems like a big waste of time to me. I can get more hits on a good cache on a weekend then my most visited waymark all year long. The only good thing about a waymark is the fact that you can place them in more places and practically on top of one another. They just don't get visited much because the real audience is here on the geocaching site. Out of all the waymarks I've created I've only visited 1. Why you might ask? Geocaching is more fun and more interactive. You have a container for trackables that you can send on missions. If your a numbers hunter then you love to see your smiley count pile up. You can track all the coins and trackables that you've ever found and a waymark is well its there. You drive up and 9 times out of 10 its right there. No thrill of the hunt, nothing telling you to do this and that as an extra logging requirement so that you learn about a place. You find the waymark, take a pic and post it on the site. TFTW woohoo!! So in my honest opinion Vituals should come back or to make them more visitable then create a special icon that transcends the 2 sites and allows you to get an extra smiley for each waymark visited. It will still never be as popular as geocaching but that little digit for each one would boost a lot more interest in Waymarking. Swiz

    Waymarking is a much more open concept than a virtual cache. It is likely that many people are interested in Waymarking as more of an online tool to find out about interesting places. Some will no doubt like to visit those places as well. But the idea of logging a visit online to "score a point" won't make much sense to them. The number of logged visits to waymarks is picking up, but these will probably never be as popular as logging a geocache to get you find count up.

     

    A sense of entitlement to a find/visit log has to change as well. If you hide a phyisical cache, you've spent some time selecting a hiding place and hiding your cache there. You may have spent some money on a nice container and stocking it with swag. Hopefully you have made a commitment to maintain your cache. I think it only goes that if I find your cache I thank you in my log. If there is a problem or if I didn't find the cache, than logging a needs maintenance or DNF would be appropriate. If you hide a virtual, I would certainly want to thank you for sharing a interesting location - especially one I would not have known about otherwise. But you really haven't put in as much effort as physical cache owner (IMO). I would thank a waymark owner the same way. However, I can understand that fewer people would feel the need to log a find on virtual or a waymark.

     

    During the first few months I geocached, I visited a number of virtual caches. I did not log these as I was generally disappointed that instead of having a cache to find I was being asked to read some plaque to answer a question - usually where I could have found the same information online. Eventually, I did a virtual that took me to a National Park where I had to hike to view point. The confirmation was silly (counting the stairs up to the view point). Yet I wanted to thank the hider for bringing me to a park where I probably wouldn't have stopped if it hadn't been for the virtual. So I broke down and logged my first virtual. After that it was easy to rationalize virtuals as caches and claim a smiley for them. I much prefer the idea of these locations being waymarks so that I go and visit them in their own right instead of just to get a smiley.

     

    Personally I don't care about another smiley. To visit a waymark for me is to either visit my own or to visit ones that I have no interest in whatsoever. In my area there's around 300 waymarks and 256 of them are mine. I had more fun hunting them down and doing the research to do a decent write up then I did visiting a rest stop waymark. With a 1,000 different types of waymark to look for I can't easily do a search for the types that I like to visit. I did my bit to get some waymarks started in my area and I now realize that I can still do all the work without creating a waymark and still have fun. That allows other people who might be interested in waymark hunting to have some targets to hunt out themselves. I tried to stick with mostly historical waymarks. I get Waymarking and I understand the whole process quite well. Unfortunately it is more of a tool to find interesting locations then it is a game. Most geocachers out there now are numbers oriented and waymarks can't move TB's & Geocoins. So most just don't bother. If people are using my waymarks to have a fun vacation then great. I'm happy for them but I'd like to hear a bit more about their experience. That's all I'm saying. No matter how i word it it still sounds the same. The dull thud of beating a dead horse with an ammo can. Swiz

  15. Inside my safe is a sticker that says "AS TO FIRE RESISTANCE - RATING: CLASS 350-1HR" So this thing should start melting around the temperature that it takes to bake a cake. It also says that its not meant to store firearms, other weapons, combustable materials, (isn't paper combustable?), or medication. It does have a nice soft rubber gasket on the inside and a 30 cal fits in it rather nicely. There's gotta be a good way to keep the lock from rusting without filling the keyhole full of WD40. Swiz

  16. True. Hadn't considered that.

    I'll experiment with a couple of other options.

     

    I'll ask my daughters tomorrow. I am sure they would have all sorts of crafty ideas.

     

    If you laminate them then punch a big hole in the top of the bookmarker first for the string and once its laminated punch a smaller hole in the middle of the big hole. Any part of the paper that's showing will be the first to start sucking in water. You could also try map sealer first and then laminate them. I was thinking either just a plain bookmarker or use paracord if you really feel that you need some string. I also like the ceramic tokens idea. Swiz

  17. I saw an ammo can just yesterday that had a lock applied to it.

     

    These do work pretty well, yeah. We encountered one recently that was super tough to open, but a little WD40 and it opened smoothly. Thankfully we had that in the car or I think it would've been a DNF. :)

     

    I buddy of mine had a similar set up with his ammo can. Some one took the ammo can and the next cachers logged a DNF. The cache returned after the DNF with a screwed up lock. The key to the lock was on a TB and was suppose to stay in the area. You find the key first and then hunt down the cache. It worked for about a year before the key TB came up missing. The lock ended up getting cut off and now its just a regular cache with a puzzle icon.

     

    I was thinking about using some type of foam plug to cover the keyhole and a strip of rubber from a small bike inner tube to hold it in place. It would just need to be slipped over the whole safe. If you do plan on using the safe then make it a harder cache to find and place the safe a distance from the main road. Less visitors on a tougher cache means its less likely to need replacing. Swiz

  18. I would place a cache close to it. Place the Needs Archiving listing and then post the new cache as "The Ghost of (fill in the original cache name here)". I have a cache that I adopted from a friend of mine. He placed the cache next to a cache named Samuel T. Wilson. The cache owner went awol and he emailed the guy to ask about the cache. Once the cache went missing he placed the new cache in its place and titled it "The Ghost of Samuel T. Wilson". We still don't know what happened to the cache owner. Placing a new cache does 2 things. It allows other a chance to come back to a spot where the original owner had intended to bring people and it gives them another smiley. In my case I adopted this cache from my buddy because he gave me the name and password to his account and told me to do whatever I want to his caches. He just has no more interest in caching anymore. Just try to do it in a respectful manner and good luck with it. Swiz

  19. I have to confess that I am not a fan of the 35mm film cans...

    In the picture, Swizzle showed one of the (kinda) clear film cans, with the lid that snaps into the body. I've always thought these, even by themselves, make great cache containers. My beef is with the black & grey film cans whose lid snaps over the body. Those things are almost universally crappy. Although, in the Swizzle configuration, I bet even the black & grey ones would fare better than normal.

     

    Are those grommets made of brass, or some cheaper alloy?

     

    I'm wondering if there is some way to chemically discolor them after application?

     

    They're brass plated. Might be able to rust them up a bit. I still think that the coat hanger bit is better. Another thing I read about recently is soaking your O-rings in Armour All for a few days before placing a cache and they'll last a few years longer. I'm thinking that these rubber inner tubes will start to crack and split in just a season or 2 so a soak in Armour All might increase there cache life. I plan on starting this practice real soon on caches that I place farther from home. Like the one I'm waiting on the reviewer for right now is 40 miles away and requires a 1.1 mile hike and a half mile paddle. Swiz

     

    Actually the best thing to soak O-rings in is Glycerin. It preserves rubber. People who fly rubber powered model airplanes use it to get longer flight time.

     

    Where do you find Glycerin? Swiz

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