Curious George

I understand that it could be really frustrating to have caches show up on your nearest cache page when they aren't really there or you have no intention of going after them. Here's two options that come to mind right away: - create a separate category for these caches that does not populate the nearest cache list but does include the ability to search by location - also list somewhere on the cache page what the general vicinity of the cache is - add the ability to delete (remove) caches from your nearest cache page. I'm not a programmer but I can't imagine that this would be too difficult. For some of these caches, if you post a position which is within a mile or two of the final location then you will in effect be giving the location, and a big part of the challenge, away.

I just spotted this thread this afternoon - I will start by saying that I never pointed fingers at anyone in particular and I have never criticized anyone personally. If anyone took anything I said as an accusation then I apologize. Everyone is entitled the their opinion - end of story. I was asked to be a "spokeperson" for the TEAM because I had been emailing them back and forth when the situation first came to light. They asked if I would pass on information to the local caching community. Whenever I posted a note from the TEAM it was cut and paste verbatim from my email. They TEAM had considered ceasing operations here and after being contacted by a number of people from across the country they changed their mind. You cannot just look at the dates of their posted caches - they post a number of caches at one time and then release them over a period of time. Some times a new cache will come up that was placed 2 months ago. Once again, I truly feel that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I was simply passing information along - if anyone doubts my position you are welcome to contact me and you can come to my house and read through all the e-mails I have received from the TEAM. As I said before, if I did offend or upset anyone then I apologize and would be more that glad to discuss it with you.

I used to be - Lt(N) - Go Navy!

I'm in

and ready to go - you know who I mean

The last week has been tough on a lot of people - let's all try to put it behind us and move on. We are all friends playing the same game, it should stay that way! And now for the news: For those of you that have been following this thread.....I got my bicycle back --- User TEAM KFWB GPS has contacted you with the following message: HI CURIOUS GEORGE! IN THE PAST TWO DAYS THERE HAVE BEEN OVER 800 VIEWS ON 'YOUR' FORUM PAGE RE TEAM KFWB GPS ABANDONING OPERATIONS. WE HAVE RECEIVED DOZENS OF E-MAILS FROM ALL OVER THE COUNTRY AND THE USA URGING US NOT TO QUIT. THE TEAM HAS THEREFORE DECIDED TO BOW TO THE MAJORITY AND CARRY ON OPERATIONS. WE HAVE SEVERAL DOZEN CACHES THAT HAVE NOT BEEN RELEASED YET, INCLUDING A BIG DOLLAR ONE. WE WILL BE ESTABLISHING A NEW TEAM NAME TO RUN PARALLEL WITH THE TEAM KFWB GPS CACHES! THE NEW NAME WILL BE "X-TREME (GPS) TEAM". THE "X-TREME (GPS) TEAM" WILL PUT ON EXTREMELY EXCITING AND DIFFICULT CACHES THAT WILL MAKE EVEN THE PAST BIG DOLLAR CACHES SEEM LIKE POVERTY! THEY WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT, COVER A LARGE AREA, AND WILL REQUIRE A LOT OF TIME TO PLAN. INFORMATION ON THESE CACHES MAY APPEAR ON A SPORADIC BASIS OR INSTANTANEOUSLY. GONE WILL BE THE DAYS OF "GUESSING" WHERE THE CACHE IS PLACED. EVERYONE NOW WILL HAVE TO DO THE GRUNT WORK!! HOPE THIS NEWS CHEERS YOU UP A BIT! THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT THESE PAST FEW DAYS.... CHEERS TEAM KFWB GPS/X-TREME (GPS) TEAM

I have never pointed fingers and I won’t start now, but there are a few things I want to say: - some people don’t have good eyes and it’s hard to read those little cache pages, hence ALL CAPS - hey, I don’t like my screen full of easy 1/1 walk to’s – that’s why there’s a little link at the top and bottom of every page that says NEXT – if you don’t like what you see then CLICK ON IT. I know that some of you will say that those of us who are so upset about losing Team KFWB are making too big of a deal out of this – but you don’t have any idea how much you have taken away, and how much you have hurt a few people that were trying to do something nice for us. If you want to know how I feel right now – imagine a little kid that all he ever wanted for Christmas was a bicycle. His parent pinched pennies and saved until they could afford it – one day there it was, a shiny new bike. Two days later it was stolen from the yard. I feel like that little kid right now. I’m not mad at anyone in particular – I’m just really upset over something that is gone. As stated before, I am not pointing fingers at anyone and I think we should all put this unfortunate experience behind us and move on. What’s done is done and tomorrow is another day. To TEAM UNDERDOG – we know who you are – too bad you won’t get to try and beat us to any KFWB caches. To end on a positive note – TEAM PHOENIX will pick up where TEAM KFWB left off. We don’t have $$$ to put in caches, but we will start placing caches that will require both physical and intellectual effort to find, watch for them.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! We loved every minute of it. Daggette said it best - you have created a lifetime of memories in a few short weeks. I have always praised your caches and had nothing but positive comments for you. But I will take the lead and publicly apologize to you on behalf of the entire Southern Vancouver Island Geocaching community. Myself and my TEAM PHOENIX team mates will continue to hunt for your caches when work schedules and logistics make it possible – I hope that you will make it possible for us Islanders to compete. Please keep us updated on your activities. Again, thanks.

There has been a lot of talk about the Team KFWB caches on these forums. The Team has also been receiving a large number of e-mails, over 2,000 at last count, many of them negative in nature. Yesterday I received an e-mail from the Team indicating that they were feeling frustrated and were going to put things on hold until they decided what to do. The Team has been trying to do something postitive for the sport of geocaching. They have been extremely generous to us. Yet they continue to receive a lot of negative feedback. They have had enough. We had a great opportunity here, and now it is gone. There were many theories about why the TEAM was doing what is was doing. There were no hidden agendas - they were trying to do something that was fun, and it became unfun for them. If this has been a grand experiment about human nature, then I feel that we have failed miserably. With the Team's permission I am posting the message they sent to me this morning, it is fairly self-explanatory. HI CURIOUS GEORGE FROM TEAM KFWB GPS! THANKS FOR YOUR 11:40 AM TUESDAY E MAIL. WE HAVE HAD MANY E MAILS FROM VARIOUS CACHERS SUGGESTING WE DO THINGS THIS OR THAT WAY - IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE EVERYONE! WE USE CAPITAL LETTERS TO MAKE FOR EASIER READING, AND WE GET NASTY LETTERS SAYING WE ARE BEING RUDE. SOMEONE SUGGESTED WE USE CAPITAL LETTERS FOR CACHES WITH CASH IN THEM, THEN CHANGE ALL THIS TO SMALL LETTERS WHEN THE MONEY HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM THE CACHE. WE GET HELL FOR CHANGING A 'START TIME', YET WE ARE ONLY TRYING TO MAKE THINGS EASIER FOR OTHER CACHERS. WE ARE ACCUSED OF DOING SOMETHING DEVIOUS. IF WE POST CACHES IN REMOTE PLACES THEN NEWCOMERS MAY NOT KNOW THEY ARE ACTUALLY LOCATED ON VANCOUVER ISLAND, UNLESS THEY CHECK EACH INDIVIDUAL CACHE PAGE TO SEE IF IT SAYS 'IGNORE THE ABOVE POSITIONS' ETC. OTHERS SUGGEST WE HAVE ANOTHER WEB PAGE - IT GOES ON AND ON - HELP! IT HAS BECOME IMPOSSIBLE FOR US TO ANSWER THE DOZENS OF E MAILS WE RECEIVE DAILY. THERE IS A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF WORK THAT GOES INTO THIS - THIS OPERATION IS NOT A MONEY MAKING PROPOSITION (NOR WAS IT INTENDED TO BE!). THERE ARE TECHNICAL LIMITATIONS TO SOME OF OUR EQUIPMENT, WHERE WE MUST PHYSICALLY BE IN A CERTAIN PLACE, AND THAT COULD HAVE BEEN IN VICTORIA, AND NOT AT A REMOTE SITE. THERE HAS BEEN SO MUCH NEGATIVE TALK ON THE FORUM PAGE THAT THIS WHOLE THING HAS GONE TOTALLY INSANE. TEAM KFWB GPS IS TERMINATING OPERATIONS IN THIS AREA, AND WILL ARCHIVE ALL THE CACHES AND HAVE THE CACHE CONTAINERS REMOVED. IT'S TOO BAD THAT A FEW CACHERS HAVE TAKEN ALL THE FUN OUT OF DOING THIS. TEAM KFWB GPS HAS STARTED OPERATIONS ELSEWHERE - THE FIRST CACHE BEING 'SHADOW OF THE WOLF' THAT APPEARS ON THE CACHE PAGE. IF WE HAD RELEASED OUR NEXT BIG DOLLAR CACHE 'WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS' IT WAS TO HAVE BEEN THE BIGGEST ONE YET, CONTAINING A GARMIN 76S, A GARMIN STREET PILOT, A GARMIN ETREX, AN OLYMPUS DIGITAL VOICE RECORDER, $1,000.00 IN CASH, A GRUNDIG WORLD RECEIVER, AN HP DIGITAL CAMERA, A SOLAR BATTERY CHARGER, A STEREO RADIO, AND ENOUGH OTHER ITEMS TO FILL FIVE LOCK AND LOCK BOXES. WE WILL HAVE TO USE THIS CACHE IN ANOTHER LOCATION. SEVERAL MEMBERS MAKE UP THE TEAM KFWB GPS - THE CONSENSUS IS TO AVOID VIRTUALLY ALL OF SOUTHERN VANCOUVER ISLAND. THIS WOULD MEAN NO CACHE WOULD BE LOCATED WITHIN AT LEAST 100 MI. OF THE NORTHERN LIMITS OF THE CITY OF VICTORIA. FEEL FREE TO USE CLIPPINGS FROM OUR LAST E MAIL TO YOU, OR THIS NOTE. THANKS FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF OUR POSITION - WE DID NOT WANT THIS OPERATION TO BECOME LIKE A GOVERNMENT RUN AGENCY WITH MORE AND MORE REGULATIONS. GEOCACHING IN GENERAL SHOULD BE KEPT AS SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE. ALL THE BEST IN YOUR FUTURE ENDEAVOURS! TEAM KFWB GPS

What motivates me to geocache? It changes from day to day and from cache to cache. But here are some of the biggies: - it gets me outdoors to all kinds of interesting places. I never needed a reason to get out before, but I find I'm going out a lot more now that I've got something else to do while I'm out there - I like the technological side of this sport - I have met some really great people who share my passion for the outdoors - hunting and gathering is a guy thing, we like it Is it about the money, NO. If you were to check with all 12 people who were part of the last big hunt, I can pretty much guarantee that not one of them will tell you it was about the money or the prizes. In fact with all the time, effort and $ that goes into going after these big caches I am sure that very few people are making money. This is a game, we play for fun and the thrill of the chase. Until you've been part of one of these caches you can't know how fun they are. Standing on top of a mountain at midnight in a howling snowstorm with 11 other people who were on the same page, priceless. Is the money nice, sure. It helps me to buy more toys so I can cache more - it's also allowing me to buy things to put in my soon to be placed caches.

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the TEAM for what they are doing. You have added a whole new dimension to the sport of Geocaching. You are also generating a lot of interest in the sport, which is something which helps ALL of us in the end. You have taken me to incredible places, helped me to meet new friends, and made it possible for me to acquire some nice goodies along the way. illegitimi non carborundum

Right on Yellowcode3 - yesterday I said that I thought this thread should die. This morning I was thinking that a new thread should be started to discuss what motivates people without singling out any one person's or Team's caches - you beat me to it. I encourage everyone to jump into the new thread and we can have that lively debate

Time to throw in my $0.02 again. I have spoken to the TEAM by e-mail on a number of occassions. There are no hidden motives, TV shows, or books in the works. They have been doing things similar to this all over the west coast of North America since the late 80's. They are doing it because they are having as much fun placing the caches as we are finding them and telling our stories. I happen to love their caches and don't have a problem with what they are doing. At the same time I also realize that not everyone shares the same opinions, and I appreciate and understand others points of view. While we don't all agree on how we feel about these caches, why don't we agree to let this thread die, it's not really accomplishing anything. If we push too hard the TEAM will take their activities to another venue, and I don't think anyone would want that to happen.

I went with Ozi Explorer and the Spectrum Maps - a great combination and they've more than paid for themselves in the last few weeks

Just remember CADET Compass to True Add East - and vice versa

$20,000 - yikes. Sponsorship is what kills a lot of great events in Canada. We just don't have the corporate base, but I would love to be proven wrong!!

Bring it on! I haven't been running anywhere near as much as I'd like. It would be great to combine the two.

Hey MBC - glad you're both back in the game! Eroyd is right, Bold Endurance is worth the work just for the view. And there are a number of other caches you could take in on the same trip. Or are you gonna get into Watcher?

Hey Bunnies - fact or fiction? How did you figure this out?

OK I take back my earlier post from another forum - maybe all those punches didn't connect with your head. Great idea - I'm with jimmyjames, I give some money off every pay cheque to the United Way - but I guess our office must be a little bigger - we raised about $30,000

Took one or two in the head???

Worked fine on my Venture - hey Mariner, glad to hear you're back in business.

I'd love to be there but have another function that night already but maybe I can sneak out early

Hey, why don't we organize a search party with some of the locals. We could all go out and have a look for it, meet each other and then have a post search party

Hey Zuuk - glad to hear you're remaining positive. Sounds like you had a rough weekend over here, but like you said, it's probably one you'll remember. Hey I wonder if you could sell your story to a phone company in exchange for a sat. phone?? Never hurts to dream