cimawr

Well, first, have fun on Saturday! Second, your question about manually entering the waypoint has already been answered. However, I thought it might be worth mentioning that if your GPS has the capability to hook up to a computer (and most of them do), you can also download the waypoint information to your computer, then transfer it to the GPS by using EasyGPS or GSAK. Both programs are free to download, and can be found by going to geocaching.com, clicking on the link on the left side that says "Resources", then clicking on the link for Geocaching Software. EasyGPS is completely free, but doesn't have as many features as GSAK. GSAK is shareware, which will keep working after the trial period but give you brief delays at startup and when using some of the features. However, it's CHEAP if you decide to buy it - only $20.

Yup. I've gotten it several times from one of my dogs brushing against it, then brushing against me. The WORST case I've ever had resulted from my Jack Russell swimming in a canal on a hot day, then running through the underbrush on the bank. Said underbrush, unknown to me, was full of PI; I was wearing shorts and a tank top, and she jumped up into my arms while she was still dripping wet.... which drips were, unfortunately, a mixture of canal water and PI oil, and got all over my arms AND my legs. And since I didn't realize I'd been exposed, and was outdoors for the next 4 hours...

There are a number of ways to address the issue, depending on the state of the cache, but they pretty much boil down to involuntary adoption or archival of the cache. The place to start, I believe, is to attempt to contact the owner, and/or to contact your local reviewer, whether by a private message or by posting "needs maintenance" or (in extreme cases) SBA notes.

Um... and where is that "rule" mandated?? If I go to a cache, and there's a TB there which I feel I can help - even if that's simply a matter of dropping it in another cache where it's more likely to get moved in the right direction - I don't see how that makes me "obligated" to leave another TB. Did that just yesterday, as a matter of fact; there's a cache relatively near me that's not visited often, and also isn't maintained by the owner. I pulled out the only TB in it because it had been sitting there for over a month, and was starting to get rusty because the cache repeatedly gets wet; I'll drop it in a better-maintained cache within the next week or so. I'm currently only holding one other TB (aside from one which the owner has specifically asked me to hold on to for two more weeks) and I was NOT about to leave it in there to get messed up, WRT revisting caches; so far the only cache I've revisited has been a TB hotel that I often pass, for the purpose of dropping off a TB. But I don't think I'd revisit an ordinary cache to pick up a TB unless it was a matter of noticing that a TB had been sitting there for a really long time. Edit to clarify WRT the cache mentioned in par.#3: It was my first visit to the cache, and may be my last. I knew about the TB before going simply from reading the the cache page.

I've only been caching for a few months, but I started out almost exclusively caching at night, mostly because I live in Maryland and started caching in August, when it was HOT; I'd be running the dogs from about 7-9 - too hot to take them out earlier - then go looking for local urban caches afterwards. However, I don't and won't do hiking caches at night, partially *because* of the dogs - too much wildlife out then, and harder to keep track of the dogs in the dark - and partially because a lot of the enjoyment of hiking for me is seeing and photographing my surroundings. Not to mention that most trails around here are officially closed after dark.

Out of sheer curiosity, what WAS this TB?

Ditto that! Ditto here as well... I went caching this morning in a state park I'd not really explored before, with a list of about 7 caches I wanted to find. However, because I'm not familiar with the trails, I ended up getting in a lot of walking, but not even getting near more than three of them. of the three I DID get near, I found the two traditional/small caches, and bagged looking for the third when I realized it was a micro right next to the road - I decided I'd rather spend the time keeping on hiking. We (the dogs and I) still had a wonderful morning of hiking on a glorious autumn day, seeing a river, a historic mill with a waterwheel and a fascinating canal system to power it, a six-point buck and his mate, blue jays, kingfishers, gulls...

I doubt that "everybody but me" clearly understood what he was referring to - I don't think it was at all obvious, unless you already knew the name of the cache, especially given the slang and shortcuts he'd used in most of his other posts - and there's really no need for attempting to insult me. Won't work anyway; I don't insult easily. As far as "giving him a break" - if you read some of what he was posting in other threads (including three posts that had to be edited or deleted by the moderators), you might get a better idea of why several people, including myself, decided to say something to him, as well as why I took the trouble to verify whether he really is a child. The fact that he IS a kid, BTW, doesn't let him off the hook IMO about trying to use correct language, caps, punctuation, etc. when posting. My S.O.'s (kids) are perfectly capable of using such things when it's appropriate, even if they occasionally make mistakes. What matters is that they make the attempt. First, that needs to be read IN THE CONTEXT IN WHICH I POSTED IT; I clearly referred not only to the activity of seeking caches, but to hiding caches, posting on the geocaching website, and posting in these forums. As to "adult-oriented", don't fall into the trap of thinking that means "sexual". I mean it in the sense that while it's something that's perfectly OK for children to participate in IF they do so appropriately - which includes having age-appropriate adult supervision and assitance, as well as not misbehaving - it's not something which was developed or designed with participation by kids in mind, and it's something in which the majority of participants are adults. I think it's great if kids are caching, just as I think it's wonderful when kids participate in my other sports. I don't think it's great, however, if the kids are dumped on their own without adults who have responsibility, nor if and when they behave inappropriately. In my other sports (judo and dog agility) kids who act inappropriately, and are not corrected by their parents, ARE corrected by other participants. I don't see that geocaching should be any different. And where did I ever say a 13-yr-old should not be able to do that? Obviously, there's nothing wrong with a kid running around in the woods with a GPS - or even looking for caches while he's doing it. It IS, however, not a good thing when he comes into forums populated by adults and starts making inappropriate posts (and no, I'm not talking about having poor writing skills and using slang). It can also be a problem if he were to seek caches in places not appropriate for a kid his age to go. It may be different in Germany, but a LOT of caches in the U.S. are NOT 'in the woods"; they're in urban or suburban areas that aren't necessarily safe or appropriate for a kid on his own, or are dangerous in one way or another. ( Because of that, my S.O. takes his kids caching WITH him, but he also checks out any areas he's not sure of WITHOUT them beforehand. ) It can be a problem if he places caches inappropriately, or poorly. There was another thread recently about a kid a bit younger than him whose parents had bought him a GPS and were letting him participate, without having any involvement other than driving him where he wanted to go. It became an issue because he placed several caches in inappropriate places, which then had to be archived, and he apparently got pretty upset about it. If his parents had bothered to actually educate themselves about geocaching, and involve themselves a bit more, the experience would have been a lot better for HIM. That's precisely my concern about this kid's apparent lack of adult involvement in his participation. I'm all for letting kids learn by doing, and letting them learn from their mistakes, but also for not setting them up for MAJOR ones because the adults in their lives aren't paying attention, and/or don't really understand what they're doing. (Edited per request)

You're not really "supposed to". Most cachers understand, when seeking micros, that they'll need to provide their own writing implement; and many micros specify on the cache page to BYOP. And I have to say that when I DO find writing implements in micros, they're usually a PITB - either they're so small I can't write with them ANYWAY, or they make it nearly impossible to fit the log back in.

Lamp Pole Cache. Or haven't you found one of those yet? If not, the first time you see one, you think it's cool, but by the second or third you'll be rolling your eyes and groaning.

Heh. That one, I walked away from; I wasn't sticking my hand into the ground cover where I could see rat holes all over the place, and my lurcher (I cache with my dogs, even in urban areas) was telling me Mr. Rat was at home. I was new to the game at the time, and so didn't log my visit - not being sure of how to handle it - but the hider archived it not long after, due to quite a few complaints/comments in the logs. Well, again - he can't be called a newbie, because he's been caching for several years (although his counts are still under 100 IIRC). And I don't think he's STUPID .... maybe unobservant?

That's my take on it. I may even LIKE a cache, but feel that potential finders should be aware of something the hider forgot to mention - whether deliberately or not - or wasn't aware of (like the one I mentioned in another thread which had barbed wire and tons of broken glass semi-buried in the nearby leaves), or the time I had the cops called because the homeowner on whose property line the coordinates put me thought I was a prowler. And also my take; I may think a hide's a bit lame, or sloppily/lazily put together, but I don't say anything other than that I found it, what I left/took, etc. UNLESS it's something that would really affect other finders - things like "The pencil's broken, bring your own" or "I think I might have called this a small cache rather than a regular" (which matters in terms of what people bring for trade items), or similar.

It can TRANSFER them to your GPS, yes; but it only *imports* one at a time, which is a PIA. GSAK can import a PQ of hundreds in one swell foop.

A major one is that GSAK can import multiple files and entire pocket queries. I tried easyGPS, and found it both tiresome and cumbersome importing one file at a time. What I did with GSAK (and a $3-a-month premium membership) was to first use my GPS to determine the coordinated of my home, then run a Pocket Query for a certain distance around those coordinates (filtering out virtuals, puzzle caches, and webcams, which I don't like). Then I imported it into GSAK. I ran a similar search around the coordinates of my S.O.'s house, and one for 5 miles to either side of the route I take to and fro, and imported those as well. Bingo, I now have a database of enough caches to keep me busy for the foreseeable future; about 700 of them. I also found GSAK to be far more user-friendly - YMMV. Another GSAK feature I really like is the ease of sorting databases on the fly by the criteria I need at the moment; click on the column with the cache name, and it sorts them alphabetically. Click on the distance, column, it instantly re-sorts to distance from home. Click on the bearing column, it instantly re-sorts by bearing (sub-sorting within each one by distance). Click on the "owner" column, it sorts by name of the person who placed the cache... and so forth.

I'm guessing that you're neither a parent nor a teacher, since you apparently don't understand that there are legitimate concerns WRT a 13-year-old child participating unsupervised in adult-oriented activities and online forums - for the KID'S sake. And as a concerned adult, I like to know for sure whether I AM dealing with a kid on online forums, or whether it's a troll posing as a kid (as several people suggested, some of them in fairly unkind terms, in another thread that he started). If he were my child, or one of my former students, I'd appreciate people verifying that he IS a kid, as well as letting him know when his behaviour is out of line.

Which brings to mind the fact that, at least in my area, some of the lamest caches are placed by a several high-stats, long-time members. They have some hides which are cool, but they also seem to sometimes rush out and put up caches just because they can; IOW, it seems as if part of their "competitiveness" WRT high numbers of caches FOUND also extends to caches PLACED. And we have another local cacher who's been involved for a couple of years, has a decent number of finds, but more than half of his cache hides are problematic; too close to private homes (resulting in cops being called because cachers are percieved as prowlers), behind a grocery store where the hiding spot is frequent buried under pallets of trash which are too large for some cachers to move, buried in pine needles in landscaping in an area riddled with rat holes and drug parapharnalia, etc. I'm still surprised that the grocery store one got published, since he stated on the web page that seekers might have to "move something temporary", and I would have thought the reviewer would have questioned that. Sorry, but pallets stacked higher than my head ain't something I should be expected to move to find a cache, IMO.

Yes, but... the problem with that is that the reviewers only know what the hiders tell them. For example, I recently went out on a new cache hide in a park, and found that there's an unfenced - and invisible from the path! - active railroad track right behind the hide area. The hider, when I questioned him, stated that he "believes" the cache placement "just barely makes" the distance requirement for placement near active train tracks. However, I'm betting that he never even mentioned the train tracks to the reviewer. He also hadn't noticed that there was barbed wire and huge amounts of jagged broken glass all through the woods around his hiding site... which could be a MAJOR problem for someone caching with dogs or kids, or wearing sandals in the summertime. This is a small suburban park with paths, not a woodland hide; he hid a micro in a tree right next to the path, and didn't think to look behind and around the tree, where people looking for the cache would actually go. Which, btw, leads to an answer to your question about "what mistakes do people make" - a BIG one, IMO, is hiders not taking GPS bounce into account, and examining the area for 50-100 feet AROUND their cool hiding spot to see where people looking for the cache may go, and what they may run into.

Not to mention that if you see a REAL problem with a cache - such as it being placed without permission in an area that genuinely requires it, being more dangerous than the cache page indicates, etc. - you can always either privately contact the reviewer or post a public log with your concerns.

Well, yeah - that read to me as if his first name is Don, and his surname is Kobrin.

I know two names for that game. One is "Telephone", the other is "Whisper Down the Valley".

Ditto. I went out of doors as soon as I got home from school and changed my clothes, and didn't come back in until dark, from age 6 on. At 6, I had certain boundaries I wasn't allowed to go beyond; by the time I was 9 or so, all that mattered was that I got home for dinner during the school year.

Aren't Pocket Queries only available to Premium members?

Scratch that - I took a look at his profile, and noticed that one of his teachers has logged on the cache he placed, verifying that yes, this is a male middle-school student. Makes me wonder if it's the teacher who got the kid into it, since there doesn't seem to be much parental involvement; no logs by parents on the caches, and it looks like no adult supervision/help with the cache placement, either, given that he didn't put a log book in it.

aHA. Thanks to those who clarified! Which, of course, fits into the comments/suggestions that s/he should use standard English if s/he wants to be understood - if s/he had bothered to correctly use capital letters and/or to put the name in quotes, the sentence would be comprehensible to those not familiar with the cache. I say s/he, btw, because there is no clear evidence (unless it was in a post that I've missed) as to the gender of this young person. I know females that age who post in similar style.