Byron & Anne

One can't help but notice that there are a lot of people posting to this thread who have no concept of what this game was like a few years ago. One can't help but think that they have precious little perspective on the direction of this game. Not all are that new. Some have been involved for a number of years. The activity has grown, yes. Changed, yes and no. It appears that more has been added instead of changing very much of what was there when you and I first started. I looked at the logs of the cache that was quoted. I see it as sour grapes. It reminds me of a very early cacher that got upset with the Planet of the Apes thing happened. He didn't archive his caches, he deleted all the logs, changed the coords and name, remove the description. I've got at least one cache that's easier to get to that's have about the same number of finds and has been there longer. I'm not worried about it. As far as I'm concerned it doing just fine. Let's take a slightly different looks at trends. I have a cache that was place July 7, 2001. Finds; Year 1 -- 16 Year 2 -- 22 Year 3 -- 17 Year 4 -- 13 (not a complete year yet. During that period there have been a lot more caches placed. This place is a long ways from any city, and the number of possible hunts has gone up quite a bit since it was placed. I don't see any negative trend.

Has the "sport" changed? Yes, in some ways. 1. There are a lot more people involved. 2. There's a lot more caches to hunt. Both urban and rural. 3. There's a lot more "rules". 4. A lot more people that insist that their "rules" be applied. 5. A lot more people "should" or "shouldn't" 6. There's a lot more micors. Larger percentage. I don't think there was very many when I first started, so the answer has to be yes. 7. I don't really remember if there was a "forums" at that time. If there was it didn't have as many "whiners" as it does now. But then it didn't have as many participants then. 8. There wasn't any local organizations trying to control their little corner of the world. 9. When I want to go caching there was less than 100 caches to choose from. Now it seems there's always a number of rural caches to hunt. 10. There seems to be more people in it for the "numbers" rather than an interesting outing. But as activity grows, people will get involved for many different reasons. At this point in time it looks like just like several other fads. I believe the number of people will decrease in time. I remember the CB radio fad days. The days when it was a status symbol to have a CB antenna on your car. Today, it's GPS in your car. As with the CB fad, this too will fade. It won't go away. The public lands will ban it or established fee schedules, or at a minimum make policies. Will gc.com continue? Depends on how they handle the down turn, when it happens. <Stepping down from soap box now>

And placed on private property without permission, no less. RK, that's an interesting angle. I randomly went through some of the oldest caches (I randomly picked GC10-GC19, and GC1A-GC1F) to see what they were: Of those 16 caches: 4 (GC10, GC11, GC14, GC15) were among Dave Ulmer's old caches that were archived and the coordinates changed, so I couldn't discern any information on them. 6 (GC12, GC13, GC16, GC17, GC19, GC1F) appeared to involve at least a fairly long hike. 1 (GC1E) is a multi-cache starting not too far from a road, but ending who knows where. 5 (GC18, GC1A, GC1B, GC1C, GC1D) were within roughly 900 feet of a road. 2 of those (GC1B, GC1C) appeared to be in very urban environments (1 right next to a building, the other right next to LAX). This is a small sampling, sure, but it seems that even the very oldest caches had a contingent of park & grabs. The first cache and a couple others of Dave's as you say were on private land. It's a tree farm that's open to the public. Another one was on BLM land. I hunted three of them before he blew them away. Got DNF's too.

Here's one for you. It's been archived a long time

What's TV?

In a single word..... YES

We've got whining about cache location and whining about hints. I'm sure there's other whining going on. I wonder what else the whiners can dream up to use the word "should" and whine.

The things I treasure are home made items. One lady paints rocks, I've three or four of them. Another couple presses flower between pieces of glass, pretty cool. Printed refigerator magnets. I traded one of my "Byron's Famous Stump Pins" for a turned Magic Wand. That's what comes to mind at the moment.

BTW, it's not urban caches that I'm against by any means. Maybe you would enjoy more urban caches if the ones in your area showed you something that interested you. As a matter of fact, Tube Torcher--one of the premier caches around--is an urban cache. (If TT is legendary and an urban cache, would that mean it was an "urban legend?" ) Yup. If that's how some want to play, then let them. Decent location and desirable location are both very subjective terms. What is decent and desirable to one might not be to another and the other way around. By being inclusive you're including more people, and thereby increasing both the appeal and the number of people participating. By trying to meet some standard for "decent" and "desirable" all you're doing is trying to control. In some activities attempting to control will have exactly the opposite effect. If you don't believe that, you need to read a bit of US history.

No, I didn't before now. However, I didn't miss much except that I see you've not read many of mine or you're still missing the point. Good for you that you had a good time finding caches with someone that you wouldn't have enjoyed otherwise. Oh, wait. That is kind of my point wasn't it? Oh, excuse me. "Caches and cache locations that are completely devoid of WOW or uniqueness." How's that? Mr Coyote Red Sir.... I don't believe that your point is being missed. Many of us disagree with it. Without seeing the cache in the initial post, I probably would agree with him if I did. Generally speaking, I don't like or hunt, or hide urban caches. I prefer to hunt and hide those out in some place that is different and someplace people might not go to otherwise, that's my choice. There is NO need to deny those that enjoy playing differently the chance to play. There is NO need to belittle anybody for wishing to do things their way. Your way, my way, and thier way might be different, but no better or no worse, just different. And different is OK.

Yeah, some of it is lame and stupid but i beg to differ. i think some of it is pretty cool. people are always going to be doing graffiti for art/expression/vandalism. it should not be done for geocaching purposes tho. Graffiti is graffiti. It's not Art. It's not anything but graffiti. It's defacing property.<PERIOD>. To think otherwise is disrespect for the property of others. <getting off soap box now>

Groundspeak is a business...... It only makes good business sense to put links to any software that encourages the use of premium membership. Both GSAK and Cachemate plus others either encourage or require the use of gc.com's premium membership. I think the back scratching thing comes into play here. Unless premium membership is a very small part of Groundspeak's income, wouldn't it be wise to do the things that will encourage primium membership. What will have been compromised by putting links to non-free software sites? What will be gained or lost by doing either? I can't think of a loss by listing non-free software sites, but I can sure think a lot of gains by listing them. Just by $.02 worth. Byron

1. The appealing thing about geocaching is NOT knowing. It's the adventure, the "what's around the bend", what's the next cache going to be like. The discovery. These are the things that make geocaching an interesting activity. Putting ratings on caches removes some of that. 2. It's not a baseball game, a movie, or etc. It's hide and seek. 3. If most caches are rated average, what's the point? To hurt the feelings of those are rated below average.? 4. Cachers have different critiera, no matter how you try to set guide lines. Case in point. I looked at your hides from your profile page. I'd rate all of them at on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 the very best) a 0. Why? Because I don't like urban caches. 5. If you don't like the unknown. Wait until there's been a lot of finds and read the logs. There's usually enough information there to give you an idea of what those that come before think.

Interesting. Here you are complaining about forum member berating people for trying to push an idea that encourages berating cache placers. Am I missing something, or there something wrong with picture?? Byron

That's one thing I wouldn't trade for. We've already had our share of raising kids. So if we found some in a cache they'd just have to wait for the next finders.

The March 2005 issue of Readers Digest has a short blurb on GPS Navigations devices. If you want a good laugh, find a copy and read it. It's on page 192

There's also a couple of other reasons for using Lat./Lon. rather that UTM. Most printed maps don't have UTM grids on them, they DDMMSS markings. And you need to carry one of the little locator things for each map scale you're using if the grids were printed on maps. If I really don't know where I'm at and have a map with Lat./Lon. and a gps I can locate myself quite easly. How? Check the corners. The coords for each corner are printed there. Set a corner as a waypoint then goto. You'll get distance and bearing. Now take your orientieering compass and place it on the map with the bearing tunned in. Draw a line from the corner on that bearing line. You're somewher along that line. Now you either measure with the markings on your compass or do the same thing with another corner. But like it's been said. we're more comfortable with the method we first learned. JYH2CW Byron

Back in the beginning Jerry Connelly cached on horse back. But he hasn't been heard from in a long time. Three of his caches have been adopted. GC12, GC16, and GC17. Is this who you were thinking about? Byron

I think the news people got it a bit wrong. There's devices out that designed to track vehicles. They have gps receivers and use cell phone technology. Information is transmitted via little used cell phone control channels. The information is sent to a web site and vehicle movement can be tracked. I think that sending location each minute would be quite costly. The one I was bit involved in testing was every 15 minutes. Since the battery drain is quite low they can be left on all the time or connected to the vehicle power where they would only come on when the ignition was turned on. What use are they? The application we were considering is to track truck trailers. There's a lot more truck trailers than tractors to pull them with. And many companies have no idea where they are located. I'm sure there are several sitting around that will probably sit where they are until there's some local reason to move them. Like paving the area they are sitting on, etc. Intersting use of technology. By the way this isn't the first case where somebodies wife or exwife's movement was monitored like this. Byron

I just checked with my resident english major. "at the address below" is correct phrase. The "at the following address" is probably a better phrase. Byron

One wonders if a French speaking forum were created by gc.com where does it end. How many non-english forums would there need to be? Does that mean all postings would need to be translated in all languages? I see a big can of worms here. Suggestion. If you want a non-english speaking forum, then create one. Just my 2 cents worth. Byron

Why is thread sounding like another thread that was recently closed. The were I referred to "turf wars". CR, Give it up.

Would it be alright if I beat a perch instead?

Actually it's almost getting boring.

LOL