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Chewy_06

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Everything posted by Chewy_06

  1. Usually a PQ not running for hours wouldnt be a big deal for me, but, i'm leaving soon... Created a route & a PQ - neither ran after an hour. Deleted all my old ones & re-ran the two, still nothing. Curious, i ran my finds - which ran almost immediately. Grr!
  2. We cross into the states from Canada routinely at sumas, truck crossing, peace arch & occasionally into point roberts, with and without our daughter for any number of reasons ranging from a short vacation, shopping or geocaching. Always tell the border guards the exact reason why we're headed down (or coming back). Have never been hassled when geocaching was the reason (heh, when i went down to carnation for the previous geowoodstock, the guard just gave me this "another one" look and waved me through). Passport for my daughter, EDL's for the wife and I. I do miss 20 years ago going down to the point for cheap beer & gas. We didnt even have to come to a complete stop when crossing... <sigh>
  3. Live in Vancouver = cache in the rain. No impact on my caching at all; dress appropriately, have a chocolate lab (loves the wet weather & her colour hides the muck quite well - mental note, next SUV needs to have the same dark brown interior; dried mud shows quite well on a black interior!) I bring a compact umbrella with me when caching in the rain that I use (only) for the signing process if i cant find some shelter. We find things other than the weather have much bigger impacts - holidays, cycles of activity at work, softball season now, soccer season in september are much bigger problems.
  4. I have a trick... i got myself one of the plastic clip on mini pencils for golf scorecards (they're quite slender). Snapped the clip portion off leaving myself a ~2.5mm diameter x 3.5cm long pencil. I keep it in my wallet - tucked in one of the ends where cash would go, should i ever have any for any length of time! LOL
  5. I would have no problems including reference in my log that i broke the container; I would also email the CO directly to explain the circumstances (it may help them alter so that the next one doesnt suffer the same fate); I would also offer to arrange a replacement (assuming it's something relatively common, most of which i have a few of sitting around anyway). I would not just walk away. Ive been on the other end of this - ive had my caches get damaged by people unknown and have had two lost by cachers who admitted it (one was right after an event i hosted, he came back to tell me in person), the other included a log that said "cache lost" - and emailed me privately to say he dropped it & it rolled across a fenceline and couldnt be retrieved. I prefer knowing. I dont really expect anyone to offer to pay for damage - after all, i consider my caches "lost to me" as soon as i place them; if they last, great, but if they dont, i'm not attached and wont usually cry...
  6. Feel for the OP. I'm someone who's managed to run afoul of a few of my peers by being the stick in the mud to raise concerns over things like this when dozens if not hundreds of others have not. <sigh> in your case under the circumstances described - i'd walk away & drop a note to the reviewer when you get home... I have two standard approaches: -for things that are blatant violations, i try to take pictures & contact reviewer with links to photos explaining my concerns -for things that are uncomfortable but maybe not completely, totally and obviously wrong - i'll log the find, my log will be atypically short (found it) and will usually include some sort of statement that says something along the lines of "i didnt think we were allowed to do that - learn something new everyday i guess". What i used to do, was email the CO directly to ask about the problem. This has turned out almost exclusively badly. Unless its a cacher i know well enough to anticipate their reaction as positive, i dont make the effort to do that anymore. Good luck.
  7. We just held our first meet & greet - very similar to this (we didnt have any experts or anything like that though). Our local geocaching supply store came out to the event as well & we asked everyone to bring some food. A handful of cachers came with a few doorprizes (thanks guys!). We had it at our strata clubhouse (which aside from the parking, has worked out to be a pretty good place to do these). From what we saw, everyone had a pretty good time. I also hid a couple of caches nearby & our local reviewer (who I cant thank enough!) was gracious enough to oblige me by releasing on schedule - which provided a really cool way to end the event - most of the attendees couldnt resist the urge and out the door almost everyone went to go have mmore fun chasing caches in the dark.
  8. Cache in - on the front Trash out - on the butt Ok, maybe not, it seemed funny at the time...
  9. If you want to get to the accomodations from the airport easily - i'd suggest looking at the river rock resort - it's a relatively new/nice hotel/casio development on the fraser river & is located right at the bridgeport station of the Canada line (which has a terminus right at the airport). Havent stayed their ourselves (and not likely to being local and all), but we have been to a few shows there & the buffet's not a bad deal either! Some of the other hotels mentioned are also very nice (the fairmont in particular - there's one right AT the airport), but also quite pricey (the fairmont and the sutton place in particular). trip advisor's a good place to start looking. I dont see any events during the timeframe you have, but it's still a fair way's off. the local caching commmunity can be reached easily through the BCGA's website: http://www.bcgeocaching.com/
  10. It is indeed an interesting spot. I worked on the island for ~15 years and sadly, it now marks the halfway point in my daily grind. You didnt mention the um, "aroma" that it takes on at certain times (waste water treatment plant and all!) Welcome aboard OP! hopefully you get the chance to explore some of the other nearby spots to cache (the truck pullout Northbound on 91A not far from there happens to be right beside Watershed Park...)
  11. We / I do... the dog is the reason we got into it. I dont go without her that often (and feel kinda guilty when i do - odd isnt it?) Truth be known, I've run into more cachers who recognize the chewer from photos i've posted on caches than spotted my suspicious behaviour/GPS etc...
  12. My painting technique is similar to most here. three differences on the prep side - i wash them first, i mask the bottoms & i give them an alcohol rub down first. I'll run an entire batch through the dishwasher first (an entire load of just new lock&locks after running a vinegar cycle to clean the dishwasher) to strip away any residual oils, when dry, I apply masking tape to the bottoms & trim to match the "ring" on the bottom (so the bottoms stay clear & look pretty - with the hope that should one be found by LE they just need to tip it over to see that the geo junk inside all caches ive seen of late seem to end up with, is not likely hazardous). Once ive done that, i give them a quick wipe down with methyl hydrate & blast them with krylon fusion for a base layer (lid on) After the first layer is dry, i do camo (etc) with other non-fusion paints The only issues ive seen with my technique is where the hinges flex, the paint tends to come off. The rest of them seems to wear as well as can be expected. I did note someone recommended painting the insides also, I tried that, wasnt so happy with the results - the contents of the cache itself appeared to have worn the paint away & generally made the inside look icky. Replaced it & trashed it after 3 months in the field.
  13. Im not really bothered by this idea & have actually done something similar on a few of the last hides i submitted (posted the photos to a sharing service & provided links to them in the notes). If the reviewer is curious or wanted to look (putting myself in a reviewer's shoes - i figured it would help them to see what they were reviewing vs interpreting my description), if they didnt care, they can ignore. My rationale is that I take pictures of my hides when i put them out anyway (so when i check them, i have a reference to see if there's been environmental impact and, more importantly, if it was a hide in a city park, i needed the pictures for the permission request letter anyway) - it only takes a minute to post & link to them.
  14. I have a huge peeve that I dont think is on this list: offsets. A traditional cache is supposed to be AT the posted coordinates. If it isnt AT them and you need to go there to then do something else (like a projection, or look for the third park bench to the left, then walk distance x in direction y) - then it's something other than a traditional - like a multi or even a letterbox... There was one, i spent half an hour looking in the GZ only to find out when i got home that it wasnt there - you actually had to do not one, but THREE projections from the posted coordinates - and go on an hour long hike to get to the actual GZ. I was so mad i left a snotty DNF and emailed the reviewer. Never got a response & nothing's changed. Bigger fish out there i guess. <phew>
  15. I like this idea. Not hard to print off a colourful sticky label that says "trackables not recommended for this cache" - in fact, I might well do this for one of my caches & make a supply of these to put into my "geocaching supply geocache" *its a large metal electrical box with a combination lock on it with the goal of being a place for cachers to trade supplies they have for the ones they need [which was born of me having an excess of lock & locks - but needing log books etc].
  16. There are a couple of other options too... eyefi explore & geo cards. http://www.eye.fi/products/geox2 Not GPS based geotagging though, not sure how accurate it is. Havent explored these myself.
  17. Where are you staying/going to class (approximately)? Do you have transportation? Might help some of the locals in making some suggestions for you...
  18. I wonder if it's an experiment? Kindof an "if you build it they will come" kind of scenario? I know ive been thinking about how to incorporate it just for the fun of it.
  19. I've come across a few like this that are either "liar's caches" - "demanding" you write a GOOD story that isnt true, or caches that require you to post a picture. My response has been to write the story, but to be very creative with my use of capitals - which to the astute reader tells the story of what I really think. And nO, theRe's no ceatIve uSe of inapprorpriaTe capitalization HERE. Not exactly subtle is it? LOL
  20. I dont agree with the nano-hate philosophy either. We've found some that were well thought out, well placed fun caches. We've also found some that were, well plain bad. That said, we've found tupperware, ammo cans & ziploc bags that were placed in ways that made them plain bad also. If you ask me, the size of the container isnt what makes a hide fun or not - it's how/where it's hidden.
  21. Or... draw a ton of unwanted attention to yourself! I have a Nikon D80 with a vertical grip & a couple (large) lenses I carry & routinely use while on caching treks. I have a waterproof backpack bag for it that i carry my extra stuff in and, have a Pentax W90 that's usually clipped to it for everything else. The Pentax has proven to be a great little camera so far, 12mp, waterproof, shockproof, droppable (not to be tested any time soon i hope). It's small enough to skip in my pocket when it's the only camera i'm taking & it will shoot 720p video. It's a little pricey relative to many other P&S cameras, but to put it into perspective, it's worth WAY less than my DSLR.
  22. A columbia titanium coat so i dont get soaked through anymore, two 8gb SDHC cards to photograph the adventures (so now, I can take 976 pictures during one outing... thank goodness it's highly unlikely!) & a devious new stick cache custome made by my dad! woo-hoo!
  23. My take on it is much the same as others, TB's and GC's are intended to move. In the absence of mission information attached to them that will help me determine whether I can help them or not, i'll almost always take all & move them along. If there is a mission card or something else there that indicates what the TB wants to do and if it's something I'll only hinder, then i'll leave it. In the absence of that, as far as I'm concerned they're fair game. And, if i happen to do something with one all in the same day of caching that the owner didnt want - I don't lose any sleep over it, if they were REALLY concerned about it, they'd have attached a mission card (or, posted a note on the TB's page asking the next finder to add one for them!). I understand CO's wanting there to be trackables in their hotels for future finders, but, the way I see it, there are good hotels in good places for them & these ones will tend to have TB's coming and going as people from different areas pass through. Then there's the issue of putting trackables in multis and mystery caches. My take on these is that if there's a relatively steady flow of cachers coming through, they should be ok. What isnt ok, is to drop a bunch of trackables in a little used mystery or multi - ask yourself how you'd feel if one of your TB's ended up there and languished for months... I know of one mystery cache that has a stated goal to be a bit of a GC jail - it had something like a dozen GC's in it. I took more out than i put in, but didnt really feel good about it - and had half a mind to go back and clean it out completely. I may yet make a couple stops through to pull a few more out of it. It just doesnt seem right to me.
  24. We have two units - a 60Cx & an Oregon 200 (that we got a smoking deal on with a topo map at Costco in the summer) - we love them both. The 60Cx qualitatively appears to be more accurate & more tenacious in heavy cover than the oregon, but gives up paperless capabilities beyond the creative use of GSAK in naming & for hints. Which is where the iPhone comes in handy - i'll dump from GSAK to airsharing on the iphone & end up with the full details at my finger tips & can go to the cache pages liive if that isnt enough. The oregon is primarily my wife's unit - she doesnt have an iphone & very much likes having the complete cache data right at her fingertips. She's also much less likely to be off in heavily wooded areas by herself, which means that we'll probably have both units + the iPhone with us. The difference between the 60cx & 60csx are trivial for me - my watch does both already. Ive read much about the delorme's but, cant find on at a retailer where i can see / touch it and havent come across any local cachers that actually have one. Having had a nightmarish experience with a magellan before i bought the 60cx, i'm not going to buy one blindly.
  25. Thank you, my phone does have a browser but the data plan doesn't seem worth it for me. I guess I was thinking there could be some way to only use text messaging, seeing as textmarks already can query the cache descriptions and such, I just wish there would be a way to get nearby caches through sms while I'm on the go That's fantastic - I had no idea they had a light version for phone users! Thanks for that!
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