Florafloraflora

I may be mixed about the different charges for different levels of membership. I don't know enough about the inner workings of GC.com to judge whether the price of TB tags is justified, but I will say that I haven't bought as many tags as I'd like to because I feel they are overpriced. Just my opinion.

quote:Originally posted by Dave_W6DPS:Travel bugs don't cost that much. I agree with your point about the history of the TB and using a different tag for each one. But I'd have to differ on the cost of a TB. It irks me to pay $5 plus shipping (and yes, I know about the discount plans) for a little metal tag with a number stamped on it. I can afford it, but it's annoying. I'd rather have the membership bumped up to $20 and make it so only members could launch TBs, and have the tags cost more like $2. I guess this is another topic.

Excellent - it worked! Thanks.

Hmmm, I am running an old copy of some ad blocker software* that sometimes interferes with non-ad transmissions. I will try disabling it and then loading. *AdSubtract, which by the way I recommend highly. But on rare occasions it can interfere with browsing.

When I click on the "see a map of this bug's travels" on a TB page, I can never ever get the map to load if I'm on my home computer. The page loads fine, but the map comes up as a frame with a red X. I have no problems on my computer at work (ahem... at least, in the hypothetical event that I were to try it there, it would work fine). I tries messing with the cache (!) size in my browser, but I'm not sure what else to do. Any suggestions? TIA.

Please, watch whom you call Ugly American. I was born in the country in question and I still have family there. And there's no need to lecture me about CITO. I do it all the time. You're welcome to believe what you like about the proper rules for geocaching. Your beliefs are no doubt shaped by your experiences here in the US. Having spent some time in other countries, I'm happy to try and explain some differences to you. In the US we have a problem with woods and other natural areas being trashed by overuse. We have lots of geocachers and lots of caches, and we have vigilant land managers who will ban geocaching in their parks if they feel that the activity is degrading the land. Other countries have different environmental problems: residents of rural areas chopping down forests for firewood or burning them for grazing land, or else dumping trash and sewage in wild lands and rivers because they don't have basic sanitation, or having limbs blown off by land mines buried in fields, or poaching wild animals for the world market. In this context, geocaching is at worst a harmless activity. Some countries face greater threats to nature than a tiny number of hikers who generally clean up after themselves and often leave a place in better shape than they found it. Please note that I'm not saying that the local residents are so poor, they've got bigger problems than the garbage from caches. I'm saying that the residents themselves, often through no fault of their own, are a much greater threat to the land than a few geocachers could be. Geocaching can actually help these areas as part of a larger ecotourism trend that brings in outside money. That's why the geocaching rules are better referred to as guidelines. For most of the situations we encounter as geocachers in the US, those guidelines make good sense. But there are common-sense exceptions to those guidelines. This is one.

I had to look back through my logs to find my first item. It was a Jimi Hendrix CD from the second cache I found, but that was for Mr. Kane. The first item I really coveted and took for myself was a travel bug, not until the sixth cache I found. I guess this just shows that for me it truly isn't about the jingle.

quote:Originally posted by yumitori:What happens if you place such a cache, and something happens with it? Would you return and recover the remains? Of course not. I imagine that the remains would be scavenged by people who lived in the area. I know that sounds cold, but again, I think the risk of untidiness from a looted cache is outweighed by the advantages of promoting geocaching in a country with so few caches (most of which have been placed by vacationers). For an extreme example, take this cache on Easter Island. Would you argue that it should never have been placed? I wouldn't. [This message was edited by Sugar Kane on May 13, 2003 at 01:27 PM.]

quote:Originally posted by Captain Chaoss:KAthleen (against her better judgement) feigns a seizure. Hey, it worked for Heather Graham in Drugstore Cowboy.

quote:Originally posted by Nurse Dave & LKay: That's mighty big of you to decide that for a different country. Puhleez. I don't think there's even a cache-approving authority in most park areas of this country. I was just trying to spark debate.

For looking: there's always the "talking on your cellphone" trick although that's getting harder now that everybody's getting flip phones. You can also be working on a science (astronomy/geology/biology) or photography project (light metering!), surveying, or measuring water quality. As for being seen with the cache, you only have to take it far enough away so that you don't give away the immediate location. You could be picknicking or writing in your journal for all the passerby knows. It doesn't matter if somebody sees the cache as long as they don't see you taking it from its location. And sometimes that just calls for waiting until the coast is clear, or else having a lot of people with you for camouflage.

What about vacation caches in foreign countries? Later this year I will be traveling to a place with a small but active geocaching contingent but very few caches as yet. Caching is so new there that I think the benefits of promoting the sport outweigh potential worries about geo-trash.

quote:Originally posted by Team GPSaxophone:Those are called 'Pogs' So THAT'S what pogs are. Do people still collect those?

quote:Originally posted by wfosborn:Even if there is trashy stuff in the cache, I still got to find a new place I didn't know about and have a very nice hike. So it was worth it to me! I agree. I don't cache for the loot, just for the fun of hunting. But knowing that some people do go specifically for the loot, it makes me mad the way cache contents deteriorate steadily the longer the cache is out there because it hurts the game.

Mine comes from one of my favorite songs by Sonic Youth. People don't always understand it. I've gotten some sort of "rrawrrrr!" emails in response. It can also be awkward to introduce myself to fellow cachers who might think it's something rude. But it is handy in that I can be Sugar for short and I can call my husband Mr. Kane. Fun for the whole family.

Has anybody else seen the round little quarter-size rounds of cardboard with pictures printed on them? I've left them alone on the off-chance that they are something collectible, but to the uninformed eye they look like trash.

quote:Originally posted by Dinoprophet:Around here "trade up" means to leave something equal or better than what you took -- the proper thing to do. It was recently discussed whether this is the correct terminology, but it had already become canon by then. Got it, thanks.

quote:Originally posted by Nurse Dave & LKay:A couple times a year is okay? I would say no. So the cache needs a new book or to be checked if it's gone and you say "I'll go check in 4 months"? That's not keeping up your cache very well. But a situation like that wouldn't come up more than 2-3 times a year, right? So as long as you had some flexibility you could change your schedule to accommodate emergencies. I'm thinking about this because I want to place my first cache in my favorite park, about a 2-hour drive from my house. I could visit as much as 4 times a year, but I wouldn't want to do more than that. For those of you who have caches, how often do they need maintenance?

quote:Originally posted by Dinoprophet: Note that the poll asks what _does not_ belong in a cache, not what you want to find. I think we pretty much agree on items that don't belong in caches: explosives, food, maybe knives. What I really meant is, where do you draw the line - what items are just too junky to leave in a cache? As a newbie to this forum I think I'm confused about trading up vs. trading down. I thought trading up meant you got rid of junk and took something good - kind of like movin' on up - but the way people are using it on here I'm not sure. Which is it?

Lightning bugs, yeah... Thanks, Alan, that picture of a deer tick looks about the size of the "scab" on the back of my knee. Bast**d. I know to check carefully now whenever I come in from time spent in the woods.

This cache in my area is supposed to be visited only at night, more because of the borderline status of the property (the Mormon temple for the area) than because of any physical attributes of the cache. That place is sort of spooky from afar during the day, I can't get up the nerve to go there at night.

For me the toughest call is the seedpod. This particular one looked really cool. I think it was local to the area although not to the immediate surroundings. I would never take something like that because I don't have room for a seedpod collection, but someone else might enjoy it. I would worry more about the thing disintegrating inside the cache than about disrupting the local ecology - as BrianSnat says, you probably do more damage with what you carry on your shoes.

I always try to trade up, so even if I don't take anything I leave something to sweeten the pot. But I realize that what I would choose isn't always what others would choose. For example: one of my favorite found items so far has been a little packet of tissues from Indonesia. Practical and cute, and non-cluttering. I'd rather have that than a McToy or a cheap plush toy any day. But a lot of cachers would disagree with me. I also like to leave half-pint bottles of water and travel size sunscreens. Again, this is what I would most like to find, but not everybody's preference. Sometimes if I'm removing something that obviously does not belong (a food product, a golf ball, a cheap bit of silvery plastic with no recognizable shape) I might not count that as taking anything. I just figure it's a public service and choose something else as my trade item. Personally I see no reason to clutter up a cache with junk. If you don't have anything to trade, just TNLN. As long as you sign the logbook, it counts as a find as far as I'm concerned. [This message was edited by Sugar Kane on May 12, 2003 at 09:22 AM.]

Oops, maybe I should clarify. If you vote "all of the above" that means none of the three items belongs in a cache. If you vote "none of the above" that means all the items are OK. So far we've got one of each.

One cacher's trash is another cacher's treasure. Here is a poll to fuel the debate. Which of these items (all of which I have found at least once) does not belong in a cache? 1. Cool-looking seedpod (perishable) 2. Happy Meal toy 3. Religious tract Discuss.