Kabuthunk

Awesome. Unfortunately my wife isn't a geocacher, however she's fine with me caching, and I worked it into my wedding day: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=250a3cfa-07a6-4956-92e1-c5fdf00500ba Also, I had the coordinates to the church and reception hall on the invitations But I wouldn't have been able to use geocaching to propose to her. Awesome plan though.

Actually, the cache was stolen, so I think he might have been the culprit

Oohh, that reminds me actually... if we could nominate animals, I'd nominate these guys I came across on the 8th: A cute train of momma skunk followed by several (I think 3) baby skunks.

I wouldn't mind nominating this guy as my muggle of the month . He startled the bajesus outta me! Although in his defense, the same is probably true of him.

When I build a geocache, the price of it rarely factors into it. I've made very few geocaches (and very sadly had to archive two of them yesterday, one due to theft, the other due to hunters setting up their hunting treestands in the area, and me feeling this area is no longer safe), and generally the entire process of building them, swag, camouflage, etc will end up costing about $30 to $50, and probably about 20+ hours of labour (some less, some far, far more). And technically, the FTF prize would in itself be around $50 to $80 on its own if you were to buy it in a store, but since I make chainmail, a titanium intricately woven chainmail bracelet costs me far, far less than to buy it outright.

So I was recently informed that geocaching now has its own statistics page (extra nice, since any of the 'downloaded' type stats programs have a tendency to dislike Linux if I recall correctly). It seems to have pretty much everything that itsnotaboutthenumbers had, minus the word/character count for your logs. Does anyone else miss that? I always thought it was really interesting to wander over to a random geocacher's profile who had a high log length and read the stories that the posted for their caches. I made a suggestion for it, but I don't know how often those get checked or implemented. I've really got to start spending more time perusing the geocaching site as a whole and seeing what new stuff is kicking around. But yeah, primary purpose of the topic, anyone else miss not having a stats page that shows word count/character count? I can't find even a single stats program that does this anymore, online or offline.

A damp, moldy old empty matchbox. I cleaned it out of the cache, and replaced it with some random actual swag (since the cache was pretty sparse at best anyway). I later received an email from the guy who left it there trying to justify leaving it... he claimed that he left it because 'some people collect matchboxes'. Yeah, some people collect rocks, too... but a handful of gravel isn't exactly good swag. If 99% of the planet considers the item garbage, then maybe you shouldn't be banking on that other 1% to find the cache before your very moldable item gets moldy.

Now THAT'S dedication, especially to something you just started. Imagine how fun it will be when you can actually walk properly!

I've gotten a lot of good feedback on my cache that involves following instructions to make a string figure: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=9c6d4c03-bb9a-4b3d-83ad-88c5e3be2bbf

On my wedding invitations, I put the coordinates to both the church and the reception hall

I attempted to check on my own cache. In the middle of winter Without a flashlight Without a GPS Without a shovel Without gloves or any other appropriate winter wear. To say the least, I was unable to check on the cache. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=affbefc7-62e7-47cf-9fc0-878141568001

Hell, sounds like my kinda cache! Note, this is my last log: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=94626b48-5af9-4db8-8ba5-5f634b22e24e This is not out of the ordinary... this is an average log size for me. It's a common occurrence for me to have to shave down my log by few sentences or a paragraph to get it to fit into the 4000 character limit. I like to give people something to read for the exact reason you made this topic . Wow. I tend to make my logs depict the advenure, and most of em are not nearly half the size of that. But I don't post plain TFTC logs... Okay maybe I did once ore twice when I was a newbie, but now I know what the standards are. Actually, re-reading the linked log, it looks like I went off on a tangent a bit more than usual there about the container size. In general, most of the bulk of the log is dedicated to the cache, the hunt, and generally a story about my fun with the cache. Oh, and in reference to your 'when you were a newbie' comment... I think I always started out wanting to make longer logs. My shortest log ever was within the first month or so of geocaching... it was a DNF log that was 63 words long. The length just kinda kept on going up from the beginning. I like to tell stories I guess.

Hell, sounds like my kinda cache! Note, this is my last log: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=94626b48-5af9-4db8-8ba5-5f634b22e24e This is not out of the ordinary... this is an average log size for me. It's a common occurrence for me to have to shave down my log by few sentences or a paragraph to get it to fit into the 4000 character limit. I like to give people something to read for the exact reason you made this topic .

I highly recommend using Goop brand glue instead of a hot glue gun. I've used that Goop stuff to glue down carpeting in cars, glue rocks to the surface of a cache container, fix a cat-chewed GPS antenna, glue things to walls, everything. Once it's 100% dried, this stuff seems dadgum near indestructible, yet is still rubbery so it won't just crack off if it's bumped against something. Anything that I make at home, it's pretty much a guarantee I'm using that, or JB Weld for a more rigid attachment. But yeah, since you already use Goop, maybe give JB Weld a try if you can find it. Amazing stuff.

So I recently went through my geocaching kit, to make an itemized list of everything that's in there so I can respond to the occasional topic that comes up about what's in your cache kit (much like this topic, but modified a bit). I soon realized that what was once a strictly geocaching kit has ballooned into my all out camping survival kit. SO... post what you (as far as you can recall) started with in your caching kit, and what it's now become. I'll start: Originally: Digital Camera + case Palm pilot (paperless caching - cachemate = awesome) Garmin GPSMap 60Cx 2 spare AA batteries Pen Notepad Swag Signature items Currently: digital Camera + case Palm pilot GPS 4 x spare AA batteries Carbiner x 2 (actual rock-climbing ones, not the crappy ones) Nylon strap w/buckle to kinda attack it to my waste as well as the shoulder strap - easier to jog/run/bike with Pencil Fischer space pen Mechanical pencil (can never have enough writing instruments... useful when group caching) Pad of waterproof paper Multitool Chapstick Mag lite mini (the 2xAA type) Swedish firesteel Compass Silver survival blanket thing Folding knife About 8 feet of camo duct tape First aid kit - usual first aid kit stuff inside About 15 feet of twine About 2 feet of 18 gauge stainless steel wire Lighter 2 spare ziplock bags for caches String Head lamp Spare mini-pencils for caches Spare mini logbooks for caches Pencil sharpener Pair of thin cotton gloves Bandanna (excellent to avoid the sun baking my head too long) Binoculars Emergency whistle 18 feet of parachute cord (in the form of a Survival Straps bracelet... I wear one on my at all times as well) Signature items Swag After some re-arranging, I surprisingly still have a bit of room left in there. I was thinking of adding either some water purification tablets (no clue how good those things work though, or if it's mainly a scam and I should just boil water instead), and some kind of emergency food supply (like a few of those energy gel packets), but I'd want it to have like... no expiration date for years and years, since I don't want to have to replace it every 6 months or something stupid. Any suggestions for that, or what I might add to a survival kit? Note: This conversion kinda took place because this also became my camping/hiking/general outdoors kit as well. I don't have any decent pictures of the page, but this image shows it's size compared to me... it's obviously the lump hanging at my side, so it's not gargantuanly big either.

My caches go with the theory of if your name isn't in the logbook, it isn't on the webpage. If for whatever reason you can't sign it (despite the pencil in the cache, etc), I'd accept if they took a picture of them with the cache and posted it on the site. Otherwise, unless they have some direct physical evidence of locating the cache, then their name isn't staying on the website. On a related note, when I happened to be caching at a time when it just happened to be convenient, but didn't have a pen, I coincidentally had a fork with me, and scratched in my initials as best I could. Course, having unique signature items, where I have various sizes to fit in any cache size, also helped. The next cacher found my sig item and filled in my name with ink instead of just the indent in the paper

I had a tonne of condoms left over from the sex ed sessions held in my classroom. I thought - hey great swag. But then I thought - if you trust birth control left in a cache, you deserve what you get. So now what do I do with them? They can turn into really giant water balloons. Not really throwable with how much water we got into one, but dumped out the window of our 5th story apartment, it makes a pretty crazy water-explosion on the concrete below

Or failing that, geocaching I believe will not resize an image if it's either less than 115k in size, or 600 pixels wide. Even if converted to a .jpg, if it's not shrunk down it should still be stereogramable.

I think this DNF of mine pretty much sums up the sentiment in this topic

Worst I've found was several years ago. It was literally... a black kitchen garbage bag. The tradeables and logbook were just tossed inside (can't remember if the logbook had a separate baggy, but the tradeables for sure didn't). It was rolled up and crammed under a bush at the end of a grassy area on university property. Other caches at the university... excellent. This one... seriously, what were they thinking? At the absolute bare minimum, it wasn't "oh hey... cramming this bag under the bush might get it torn apart and full of holes anyway". Can't remember what happened to it, but I imagine some cleaning crew probably came by eventually and threw it out, thinking it was someone's... y'know... garbage.

You were bored, so you thought you'd troll the forums. Great... you're one of THOSE types. On another note... making a separate account for your GPS itself sounds like a somewhat amusing idea, if it's passed around a lot.

And gramps would never recognize it. Nor would Antiques Roadshow. True, the antiques roadshow aside (since they're an outside party... so it would be like asking a hockey nut about needlepoint tools), the experience your gramps would recognize. And that's what you're preserving... the experience.

Nnno, I'd much more highly prefer if they put it as micro. If I'm geocaching on the go... which is virtually all of my geocaching... I don't get a chance to read the cache description typically. However, the icon name on my GPS is set to show the cache size and type (ie: T 23SD4 M, the middle part being the GC code without the GC). At least if it shows "M" instead of "O", I'll know to look for a small cache container, instead of 'possibly ANY size of cache container'.

I just have a medium-size camera case for my geocaching kit, but I've managed to cram a lot into it. Don't have a picture of it all spread apart, but the contents are: Garmin GPSMap 60Cx GPS (clipped to side) Canon Powershot A510 digital camera (clipped to other side) Five or six spare ziplock bags Bag of signature chainmail balls - Regular size - Micro size - Nano size Generic swag for trading Any TB I happen to have picked up Pair of thin cotton gloves Three spare micro-pencils Two spare micro-logbooks Pencil sharpener Mini maglight Chapstick Gerber Clutch multitool Emergency silver blanket Emergency medical kit - Needle + thread - Gauze - Medical tape - Antiseptic wipes - Bandaids About 6 feet of camouflage duct tape Fisher space pen Pencil Mechanical pencil Emergency whistle Silva Polaris compass Four spare AA batteries PalmOne Zire 31 palm pilot Head lamp Bushnell 8x21 binoculars Two feet of 16-gauge stainless steel wire Six feet of twine String-figure string Nylon strap with buckle Pocket knife Waterproof notepad Lighter Bandana About 8 Advil and Aleve apiece. Yeah, it's more of a generic survival kit than anything else. All I need to find is some kind of energy gel with a well distant expiration date so I don't have to worry about replacing it often, and I'll be set. Maybe some water purification tablets, too. Any other suggestions for what to get into there, I wouldn't mind hearing and seeing if my bag has room for it.

I at one point made my own hiking staff out of a stick that I found in the bushes while caching one day, covered it in several coats of varnish, and added a leather wrist strap. Otherwise, for more casual city hiking, I recently found and bought Komperdell Featherlight Foam type hiking sticks. I got rid of the stupid wrist strap glove thing, since my hands just sweated inside of them. Nothing beats a regular old loose leather strap for my likings. It took me forever to find hiking sticks that I liked though. I've tried, and absolutely hate the collapsible or shock-absorbent ones. So I was glad to find a rigid one all the way up.