Team Dredd

I will admit there were a few times I improperly logged finds when were starting out but we don't anymore; experience is a good teacher. We have a cache we adopted (GCVWZC) that is the farthest we have out in the rural area in one specific direction, you have to drive by numerous other caches that are much easier to find and it is way out there, even after the pavement ends. On July 20th a find it log posted for the cache from a cacher with 7 finds between 2012 and now that simply said "We Found It!!!", which I found a bit odd due to the container and nature of the cache; it has a camera in it, is uniquely camouflaged, good swag etc. This cacher hasn't logged a find since March 2013 and hasn't been on the site since the same month. The same cacher logged a find for another cache in the main urban area (not ours) named "Find your Tree", which actually isn't far from where I work. There is nothing specific about the finds but something nagged at me about them so I actually checked both logs today just to satisfy my curiosity, especially after keeping up with this thread and some others. Guess what? Neither log was signed by this cacher. I sent them a message today but haven't heard back from them yet. Doesn't make me mad or anything because it is just a game after all, I just don't get it. What, do people just sit around and decide to look at the geocaching map and randomly pick a couple caches to log as found? I mean the logs don't say anything about they found the spot so logged it as a find or anything like that, I really think some people just get on a smart phone and log stuff as found when they don't even look for them. I guess if I don't hear from them I will just delete the log and chock it up to . . . . well, you know.

No there is a helpful tid bit we hadn't thought of. I think I will ad that to our TB pages. Thanks.

I picked up one of our caches for container maintenance early this morning (Mt Olive, by historical marker). When I opened it this morning it had the typical army men and small stuff. Also had a paper printed business card that had a geocaching person's Geo name and location on it (Near Atlanta Georgia). The card was done up nicely and looked pretty cool as it appeared as if it was home printed on a computer with a spot for that says found this cache with a date and time spot with a hand written date. Hey to each his own, but when I checked the log they hadn't signed it, just tossed the card inside - "sigh". It also had a group of nails in there, the kind that are hooked together to go in a nail gun. ???????????? Oh well.

Glad to see you asking this, wish all cachers would try to log visits. We own quite a few TB's and really prefer to see them move via visits instead of just sitting in a geo kit for several months. PLEASE log them when you visit a cache.

That used to be the consensus around here too until someone was actually arrested for stealing caches. He was caught in the act. I believe the outcome was a slap on the wrist as long as he promised not to do it again. But he did get in a heap of trouble. So, yes, there are some jurisdictions that will prosecute cache thieves. ** Edited to add these links: Cache maggot arrested Outcome of arrest Glad to see his sorry behind got caught and humiliated! This was apparently in New York, not Florida it looks like, and not on the ROW either, but hey he got busted! So cool that one of these cache thieves got popped. Although we have had a few caches come up missing I am only aware of one of ours that was repeatedly done and I believe it was deliberate. A commemorative cache to my best fiend who got killed on a motorcycle. As soon as we would replace it it would disappear. I was wondering if someone was reading the logs so we replaced it a couple times without posting a log that it was replaced and then I would check on it on the way to and from work and it would stay until either someone posted a find or several days went by. We ended up moving it a few hundred feet to the other side of the area and marking it a premium cache; it is still there. Cache thieves exist for what ever cheap thrill they get. We try real hard to avoid muggles seeing what we are doing but sometimes it just happens. We have also talked after leaving a cache and we both wonder if the muggle will do something to the cache. We have decided not to grab caches sometimes if the muggle traffic is to heavy or if a muggle or group of them are really eyeballng us.

Good Grief

My joking aside, that is a good point.

Stop sign to stop sign doing Chinese Fire Drills, except all occupants hunting the micro while the people behind you blow their horns at you. Sounds like fun until a Cop with no sense of humor sees you.

This response is in reference to the repeated mention of charging someone with theft for taking a cache in different topics. I am ONLY pointing this out to Florida and am not disputing anything or arguing with anyone specifically. I have read several posts in different threads that mention someone stealing a cache container should be charged with criminal theft. This would not be done in the state of Florida, and I imagine it is the same in most states. A geocache is considered abandoned property if it is left on the right of way here; regardless of whether it is a game piece or not. Its just like your trash when it is put out by the road, when your trash is piled out by the roadway for the trash service to pick up anyone can nose through it and take what ever they want because it is abandoned (one good reason to always shred or burn any credit card bills etc). I do not condone taking a cache, we have a few on the ROW but not at someone's house, but there is no criminal recourse that can be done by the CO. The same thing as when someone takes a geo-coin and then boasts about how they are keeping it in their collection. The geo-coin was put out to travel thus abandoned somewhere by the owner, and once that happens keeping it is simply a sorry thing to do, not a criminal thing to do. Just like taking a container. Once again I am talking about ROW here in Florida, I have no idea about the UK, China, Canada or anywhere else. I am not talking about a CO who has a cache on his own property, or a cache on some other type of private property with permission, each scenario is different and would be approached differently. There may be lots of "what ifs" to this, like municipal ordinances that deal with the ROW etc. etc. etc. If a CO could find a police officer new enough or confused enough to write a report for theft of a cache from the ROW here, and then a supervisor to approve it, it would abruptly dead end at the State Attorney's Office anyway as a "decline to prosecute"

This was posted on one of our Multi caches last month. So they found the clue container but didn't find the container with the log in it. How can they mark it found? Still contemplating deleting the log. Found it 06/23/2014 Could not find last one

Granted we are not the most experienced cachers in the world, but I enjoy placing and maintaining caches as much as MrsDredd enjoys finding them. We have 26 placed caches and only one is close someone's house, its across the street from someone who caches and they know about it and were ok with me putting it there. Hiding a cache outside a stranger's house without permission is odd. In my line of work I see so many people that do things simply without thinking it through first, not with any direct intent or malice. But then a lot of people simply don't care and do it anyway. We don't mind having to use some stealth when finding a cache, it's actually pretty fun sometimes. However, neither of us like feeling as if we are "sneaking" around near peoples houses or feel like we are doing something that will invite a home owner or property owner to call the police or confront us, so when we come upon a cache hidden like that we usually think better of it and go on to the next one. We haven't found to many like that around here, but we made a trip to Savannah Georgia a while back, kind of a mix of checking out the historical areas and grabbing some caches. We went to several locations where a container was in an area we didn't feel comfortable sneaking around in and bypassed them. One was even inside a fenced in lot with a locked gate, but the cache page let us know there was a way around the fence to go in and get it, so I guess it was ok???? Yeah that was a "bypass" and move on, how to those get approved anyway? they wouldn't around here. We did find a some really cool caches around there though, some were a bit different that's for sure. Granted the right of way here is public, but there are way to many spots (including right of ways if that is your thing) that are worthy of a cache, no need to place one where you know it may invite confrontation or upset someone who owns the property next to it. Placers should think of how they would like it if strangers kept parking in front of their house and then poking around in the hedges in their front yard. If I did not know about caching and that saw someone doing that I would confront them. Not nasty and insulting, but I wouldn't like it. Some people don't care, but then others are like us and are pretty private people

Definitely

Here is an older thread about this that may help http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=206193

That is a really good looking coin! Very nice job.

People who move our cache containers away from where they were originally hidden because they think it is oh so cooler to put it over in the spot THEY would have hid it in! Okay it's like this, we hid that cache container there because it is OUR cache and WE decided to hide it in that specific location. When someone finds a cache in spot "A" what in the Sam heel motivates them to move it to spot "B" because they think that spot is cooler than the spot we hid it in?? Now I am not talking about someone coming upon a cache that is obviously in the wrong spot because it is lying out in the open, oh no no no am talking about the cacher couple who locates one of our caches in spot "A" and one says to the other "Hey Sue, wouldn't this cache have been cool if it was over there in spot B"? "Why yes Bob it would, lets just put it over there where WE think it should be". Seriously?????? If we wanted it there we would have hidden it there in the first place! Or how about the cache couple that finds one of our caches that is deliberately in a tough spot to get to? I can almost hear their conversation, "dagnabbit it Jane it sure was hard to get that cache out of there wasn't it, slap wore me out". "Well Bob, just toss it over thar on the ground in the shrubs and make it easier for the next cacher". "Dagnabbit you knocked the lid off when you threw it! Oh well don't worry about it lets just hope it doesn't rain and get our business cards all wet".

I like to find items that do not get wet and soggy, and are a bit unique to specific cachers. Hard to think of anything right off, we do like things like golf balls sometimes. Especially when signed by another cacher and where they are from, we like to move them. For us things that are another cachers "signature item" we will almost always pick up and move. You mentioned seeing the other threads about bad swag, the worst swag etc, read them. I read through them pretty thoroughly and decided not to leave some of the swag we had been leaving (oops, live and learn) and leaned a lot about what people do not like finding. By reading what people hate to find (business cards, any candy or food, most anything that will get wet and soggy, anything that will leak or melt, green corroded pennies etc etc) you can get an idea on what to leave. I have been to some very well stocked caches but not taken anything because I didn't have anything equal or better.

We have quite a few TB's out it is one part of caching I really enjoy, marking one missing after 10 days is sort of jumping the gun IMHO. Marking one missing will make it no longer show up in who ever has logged it into their inventory when they picked it up as stated above , IF THEY LOGGED IT when they picked it up. We have some that are still with us that we haven't released into the wild yet, waiting on the right cahce as we move along, but quite a few are out on their journey. We keep pretty close tabs on the TB's we have released (as best we can anyway). Usually with ours, the ones that show no activity for a while are actually with a cacher. For some reason that we just don't understand sometimes a cacher, including experienced premium members grab TB's with the intent to move them but don't log them as retrieved. Then they will go about caching for months carrying the TB but never show it as visited. Then they will drop it in a cache like they should and even post in the cache log sometimes that they dropped a TB but never enter anything on the TB's page. I don't know why they do that but it is common and usually after a long while the TB will be found in some cache and logged by another cacher and the journey begins again. We will send nice courtious messages to cachers who we believe have one of our TB's that wasn't logged for months to see if they have it. We usually get a nice response and sometimes the response is yes they have it and they will drop it off somewhere or another. We thank them courteously with out asking or requesting they do anything, and then just make a note of it so we know. Just recently this log showed up on our TB "TB5QTJS - Badge on Patrol": 07/06/2014 foon discovered it Visit Log RavRobin, BenH57, and I found this TB in Chomp This! in California, not Dry Eyes in Tennessee. Wonder how it got moved? BenH57 took the TB, so maybe he'll do the research? According to this post (thanks Foon if you read this) Someone moved it to a cache a thousand + miles away in California without ever logging it and it was found and retrieved by BenH57. Even though it wasn't logged it is still cool that it moved that far and we enjoyed seeing this post. It still has not been logged as found or retrieved and still shows in the Dryeyes cache in Tennessee. After 90 days or so we will send a courteous message to Ben to see if he still has it just for an update. I guess my point to the original poster is I would suggest waiting a while before you mark a TB as missing. Also, if you are the type of personality that gets bugged out by your TB's going missing, you can always put out a PROXY, just be careful to make sure they are really missing before you go that route because if the original shows up you will have two TB's moving around with the same tracking number and it will become confusing. We have a proxy out for our TB "Shawn of the Dead" (a zombie TB). It was placed in a cache by the CO and then almost immediately after the CO archived it because the container was known to have been destroyed along with all it's contents. So far that is the only TB we have put a proxy out for; except some Geocoins that were laminated proxies to begin with but they have not had to be replaced. On one last note, a CO can also mark a TB as missing from their cache if it is not in the cache it should be in. We refrain from doing this as well because of circumstances just like "Badge on Patrol". After 30 days of so if a TB still shows in one of our caches and it is not there we will post a note on the TB page and send a message to the owner that it is no longer in the cache, then we just let the TB owner handle it. My point here I guess would be I suggest not to be to quick to mark someone else's TB as missing either.

From the Guidelines: The short answer is, you are responsible to check if it's OK, and the expectation, according the the Guidelines, is that you will Delete any bogus Log Entries. The most common way of checking whether the Find Log is valid or not, is to see if the User signed the logbook/sheet. It's usually considered polite to email the User through their Profile to explain the Log Deletion ahead of time, in order to give them the opportunity to correct the mistake, like you've already done. You can also report the User to Groundspeak if you wish: Email Us +1 on this. We had a newer cacher log found on four of ours in one day a while back with some of them duplicate finds a few hours apart. From the way the logs were written and duplicated we were suspicious because they found over a dozen caches total in one day in the area (at the time we checked anyway) and other people's caches had duplicate finds as well. They had no validated email account to ask them; also the duplicate logs on the same caches had words just a bit different in the post so they weren't accidental duplicates. While at work the next day I stopped and looked at the four logs and guess what, they had signed one of the four logs they allegedly found (signed "pocket park"). Needless to say we deleted all the duplicate finds and three of the four that did not have the log signed. Maybe we shouldn't have been so quick to jump the gun and delete them, but the way we see it is if you find a cache then sign the logbook and don't try to bloat your numbers by logging the same find twice.

You're welcome.

It is there in the android app. When you open the specific cache you found click "Found It". When that window opens look for a small (very small) icon that looks like a trackable tag, mine is at the bottom in the center. Click on that small little icon and it will bring up a list of TB's in your inventory and gives you the option to visit or drop them. In that same area you should see a small icon on the bottom left that allows you to upload a pic, and on the bottom right you should see a small ribbon that allows you to mark it as a favorite. Hope this helps.

As an example, we have a non-premium cache that is a small container inside a partially hollowed oak log that is part of a broken off of limb from an oak tree. Of course it is at the base of an old oak tree in the bushes. The original container was hollowed out a lot more than the one we are replacing it with so the sides were quite thin with a wooded plug put in the end that fit snug in the hole. Didn't take long for it to get broken open so we retrieved it and repaired it with some glue and a wire tie. We checked on it the other day and the log was broken open into pieces and the small container laying on the ground next to it in the open; no email message or anything from anyone letting us know it was in this bad of shape. Granted the elements did contribute to the condition of the container. I have found another small log and made another similar container that is stronger than the original. I guess my point is that some of us actually take time to make containers that are not just a small simple container (nothing against small simple containers, we have those too). Some containers take time and effort and it is very gratifying when a cacher posts a nice log about a container or the cache. Other cachers getting enjoyment out of finding a cache and container that you have put this kind of effort into is a big part of why we place them. The new container is finished now with the original log inside and we will be placing it back in it's spot soon, and will be changing it to a premium to try and protect the container from the brand new cachers that haven't learned to respect custom containers yet. We have talked about this and have no intent on making all our caches premium. But as we mature in the caching community we will continue to try and make our caches a bit better as time goes by.

So sorry about your wife.

We downloaded a layout for "Muggle Cards" then personalized it and made it front and back, even put QR codes linked to www.geocaching.com. We have laminated ones in our cache kit that we regularly leave as swag for other cachers; and of course the laminated ones have Team Dredd printed under "Compliments of". We have them in Publisher template to print on business cards. IF ANYONE WANTS THEM SEND US A MESSAGE AND I WILL EMAIL THEM TO YOU. You will need publisher or a program that opens .pub files to open or edit them. If I knew how to post a link so someone could download them somehow I would, but I have never done that.