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Team Dredd

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Everything posted by Team Dredd

  1. I just post the information in a log so the first few people that find it can read the log if they are curious as to why it hasn't moved in so long. I have to post a log anyway to grab them from missing status when we bring them back to life (since we always mark them missing when they are actually missing). Would be just as good to make a note on the main cache page to I suppose, that way it wouldn't rotate down and off the page.
  2. I was talking to a geocaching friend on the phone this afternoon about a 5/5 cache he has been working on lately and asked him when he was gonna finish it so I could go after it. He said he abandoned the idea because he got tired of going back and forth with a specific reviewer (that I will not mention). He told me he is so tired of cache after cache getting denied because of what he says is the reviewer's preferences, or new-more restrictive guidelines. It made me think back to a meet and greet that we attended last year. While at the meet and greet several cachers were in a conversation about getting caches approved. Some of them that have some caches out already said they will not try to publish anymore caches in the area because they feel it is getting ridiculous to try to get a new cache approved; "like jumping through hoops" and getting nit picked about specific phrases used in their description that some specific reviewer just didn't like so they have to keep changing and altering. This may be partly to blame for the decline around here, at least by the local cachers anyway. Before you bash me to bad for saying that I want to say that we own 30+ caches and I do not have a problem getting a new cache approved. Sure a few have been declined, but there has always been an explanation and a link to the specific guideline to go along with why it was not approved. Most of the time we just correct what the discrepancy was, or if we can't make it conform we just abandon it and move on. We have only been placing caches for a few years and though we are familiar with most of the guidelines we certainly are not experts and have no idea if the guidelines are becoming more restrictive. I do know we have attempted to place caches in similar areas as existing caches, or in a similar fashion as an existing cache and have been told our cache is against a guideline; which turns out it was. So for those of you that have been around a while this question is for you. Are the guidelines and reviewers becoming more restrictive than they used to be? Can this be one reason of many to contribute to the decline?
  3. I have noticed some found logs like "found it yay" around lately. Only a couple I think on ours, but on other caches too when I am logging our finds from the computer after we get home. Started noticing that a couple months ago. One pair recently found a couple of our caches out in the "outer areas" without finding the easier ones along the way. Prompted me to go look at some cache logs since the caches they found were not that easy in terrain or difficulty, and are not found often (needed to check on a couple of them anyway). Sure enough the pair of Yay Sayers hadn't signed the paper logs so those specific yay logs went into delete history.
  4. I have found cards and other things in caches already with the QR codes on them. Geocacher's cards with a QR code that take your phone straight to the profile page or their specific website. There is an ammo can in one of the surrounding counties around here that has a large QR code on the inside of the lid. It takes you to the CO's profile page or the theme of the cache or something I don't remember now. One of the items we keep with us to give to muggles or police asking questions, or to drop in caches, is a laminated Muggle Card done up nicely that explains geocaching. After seeing the QR codes in some other caches we incorporated a QR code onto the muggle cards that takes them to geocaching.com Although we are newer to geocaching, I also agree with the others here that opening an actual container and signing a real log is part of the attraction to this game. The oldest cache in this area is a cache named Big Pine Cache just south of Amelia Island. It has the original log book from 2001 inside; talk about fun! Finding that thing sitting way out there all by itself and then seeing a log book with the original signatures. Man, I want to go out and find a cache now.
  5. Not sure if there is any one thing that would make me quit, with the exception of some unforeseen health issue that would prevent it. Although we have only been caching a few years compared to most of you, we have already seen the decline in quality caches and the increase in cache trashing etc. I think if we ever did just quit (and were still able) I would post on all our cache pages that our caches are up for adoption, and monitor our email for adoption requests. We have a mix of typical caches and some very creative or special containers, I would hate to see the special ones go away from lack of maintenance. For the ones that did not get adopted I doubt we would pick them up, would probably just let them run their course.
  6. When we buy a trackable (coin or tag) I take a high resolution scan, or good up close picture depending on what it is, and if our TB goes missing we have the option of creating a new one. We have a few out like that already (proxies) from one that have disappeared or were taken by a brand new cacher that hasn't found a cache in over a year. I would suggest caution when putting out a copy with the same code. Don't put one out after just a short time because if the original starts moving again then there will be two moving around. We wait a year or longer depending on the circumstances of how the original disappeared, and even then we move it around in our inventory for a while just in case. We had one that was placed in a cache, then the next entry for the cache was the CO archiving it due to it being destroyed by machinery. We were pretty sure the TB went with the cache so we didn't wait to long to put a proxy out on that one. Long story short; we do it and we got the idea from others who do it so shouldn't be a problem.
  7. Definite slump around us when it comes to new caches being hidden in our county. Curious if whatever the "barcode" thing some of y'all are talking about could be responsible. Someone send me a message about that so I can see if that is happening here. While looking for some caches I have found a few cards zip tied to trees and stuff with a barcode on them but didn't pay much attention to it, doesn't look exciting.
  8. We missed lots of caches when we were starting out, especially before MrsDredd was involved and I was doing it alone. I can't tell you how many caches we went back to look for that we originally missed. The second time around we found them right off and couldn't believe we missed it the first time. Still happens sometimes.
  9. There is a place in our community that I thought would be a great spot for a hide. I like caches with a bit of history, and this place has some history about how long it has been here, how it got here and the history of the original owners. We went there and looked around and saw a few interesting spots to put one since it is bordered by woods on two sides. Then got to thinking about the people who now hang out here most of the time near the woods-line, and especially after dark. MrsDredd also said she liked the idea of a cache there, but thought it could create a problem if a cacher showed up and bumped into the wrong person there, especially if something unscrupulous happened to be going on at the time. It is not urban either so it's not like it was an alley cache. Bottom line; we didn't place it just because of the possibility that a cacher may run into trouble while looking for a cache at this spot. Having said that, there have been several caches that we have pulled up to find (usually urban micros) around the Jacksonville area that we decided against because of the area or the time of day and the muggles hanging around. If we pull up to a cache, especially some urban micro cache and don't like what we see, we just go on to the next one. An area that we may not approve of may not bother another cacher in the least.
  10. I hope the cards are not paper or the standard computer card that turn into mush
  11. We like finding the wooden nickels from other cachers. We don't keep them but we do move them. We always send a message to the nickel's owner letting them know we found one of their coins and where we found it; if the nickel is numbered we of course let them know which one we found. To each his or her own I guess but we like finding them. We have found I guess about 4 or 5 of them so far, although none lately. A couple have been in pretty bad shape from getting wet and moldy, but one of them had some kind of clear coat on it like spray varnish or something and it protected it pretty good. We went to the website (www.wooden-nickel.com) and set up a design for our own but have just never spent the $ for them.
  12. Thanks for posting this information; I learned a lot that I didn't know about ROWs. (Though your tone seems to be quite angry--or maybe that's just my interpretation.) After reading some of these posts I would suggest checking state laws and local or county right of ways. Apparently Florida and my county are different than a lot of other places. I would be upset if I had to pay taxes on, and be responsible or liable for a ROW. Our property lines stop at the ditch line (or similar in sub divisions) and I am not responsible or liable for the ROW. I have a few caches on the ROW but they are not in front of someone's home, and if there is a home around none of our caches are i a position to cause a cacher to have to nose around in front of a home. But then we have no caches in sub-divisions either. One thing I agree with is the point brought out about the type of ROW. I am a bit off the road and there is a power pole on my property for electric and phone. In this case the utility companies have a ROW to the power pole, but the property is strictly owned by us. They have to drive in through my driveway to get to the pole and Florida Statutes awards them that ROW that I cannot deliberately block. They can come on my property for maintenance and even tree trimming. If someone were to try to place a cache there it would be a problem.
  13. We have quite a few trackables out. We enjoy the TB part of the geocaching game about as much as finding caches and really enjoy watching them move around. We try to keep up with them but unfortunately they do disappear regularly. When we purchase a new TB, whether a coin, cute trackable or just a tag I take high resolution scans of it and save them. If the TB is taken by a new cacher (sometimes they stop caching as quick as they started) we will send a nice email inquiring about it. If no reply we mark it as missing, and in a year or so we put out a nicely laminated PROXY and send it on it's way. If it just goes missing from a cache we will send some nice inquiring messages after a couple of months. If we don't get any informative responses we mark it as missing so it doesn't continue to show up in the cache. If it doesn't turn up, time to turn up is always depending on the circumstances of its disappearance, then we will put out the nice PROXY. Unfortunately we have several marked as missing right now and are just waiting to see if they ever turn up. If they don't it will be PROXY time. You have to be careful with proxy TB's though. If you put one out to soon and the original starts to move again it can be confusing. I have heard Ground Speak has locked some TB's that has happened too. Haven't thought about using the code for a T-shirt to be used at events and stuff but that is a really cool idea too.
  14. Replying to the last post it made me think of something that seems to be happening more and more with these young kid cachers lately; at least to some of my cachers anyway. It Irks both of us when someone hunts down one of our caches and then takes a picture of the container IN IT'S HIDING SPOT!! I think pictures are cool, and I don't mind a picture of the container so much, but don't take a picture of the container in its hiding spot in a way that shows every future cacher exactly how and where to find it. If I wanted that done I would do it myself and then make the difficulty a 1. Does anyone else delete those kind of pictures from there cache page? We do on some of our caches and always put a very nice explanation in the delete log so the person who posted understands why.
  15. We have replaced some containers we know are gone, but not finds like mentioned in the quote above. There are some caches around us that I think are good caches or in cool spots but the CO's are long gone. If we notice a container has several DNF's and is in an area where I drive by it at work (on road all the time) I will check it, if I am sure it is gone I will usually post an Archive request. But a few of them I have replaced just because I liked the cache. I guess that is not really a "throw down" though, I don't carry throw down containers around. I only had one of our caches replaced with a throw down; it was by a long-time cacher I know and the original container was there too, it is just hard to find. The throw down had some "found it" logs and I didn't realize it had been replaced until one of them posted a picture of the container and it wasn't mine.
  16. Checked out tb-rescue.com a while ago. Cool site. I signed up to try an help some poor TB's if I can. Listed one of ours that has been stuck in a cache for over 4 months. Also signed on to try to rescue one down in Jacksonville this week.
  17. Think if it were your cache what kind of logs would you like to read? I love to read good comments about our caches. Now that being said, we have some very basic caches (especially some of our first ones) so I don't really expect much on their logs, but even on them "found it" is pretty lame. But we also have some pretty good caches in nice historical spots with awesome views or with pretty unique containers hidden with a sort of theme or twist that we and some friends put a lot of effort into. I'm not sure why, but we really like to place caches that other cachers will really enjoy, and when someone leaves a good log about their experience it makes all the effort and maintenance worth it. Sure we left some of those short logs when we were new, but not anymore. Write something that you think will make the CO smile. We found an 11 year old cache the other day that hadn't been found in about 17 months, it was a real trek and I enjoyed it so much I probably wrote to long of a log and left too many pictures, see cache http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCE7EB_jungle-cache as an example on one of my logs for a cache I really enjoyed. You don't have to leave long logs, but compliment the cache, or the CO, or at least the experience finding it if the cache warrants it. Trust me, as a placer any small tidbit of positive information is very appreciative.
  18. So let me get this straight. Because some people cannot afford a premium membership no-one should be allowed to hide premium caches because it isn't what - fair? Trim all the out of this thread and that is "basically" what I am getting from it. You know that sounds an awful lot like a much bigger issue. Hey I got an idea, lets just have the Government take premium member information from Ground Speak and then take and extra $30.00 out of all premium member's taxes! Then they can provide a premium membership for all the people that can't afford one! Or even better, lets get a law passed that it is illegal or some kind of discrimination for Ground Speak to mark some caches as premium because it isn't, what's the word . . . . fair. Then we wouldn't even have to worry about it. You know, there is a really really nice up-scale resort near hear that I have never stayed at because I can't afford it. Come to think of it I don't think it is fair that I can't afford a membership there, how dare they!!!!. I think everyone, including me should be able to stay there regardless of how much $$ they or I don't make. And then while we are all lounging around the pool like on Caddy Shack I'm gonna do two things; buy a Baby-Ruth bar, and then hide a bunch of micros all over the place (non premium micros of course). We have a premium membership because we decided to spend $30.00 on a membership (instead of spending it on something else) because I CAN make that decision, at least until P****i and R**d find out that horrible unfair premium memberships exist. I'll sum it up like this. When we were growing up we did not "have" that's for sure. My Daddy fought in WWII for our ability to have a choice (like marking a cache premium) He was gone all the time working to support us, left before we were up for school and usually got home tired and late in the day. One of his sayings we all hated to hear growing up was, "no body ever said life was fair, suck it up". So we absolutely will mark a cache as premium anytime we feel like it. If you don't like it, suck it up. Contact P****i, R**d or even O***a I really don't care. Now blast away at me for my opinion if you want to it is ok, we all have the right to voice our opinions. At least for now.
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