Tonsil

Did you say jazz?

How's this?

I have a puzzle cache, Syzygy. When I placed it, I resolved to not give any hints until I had at least one finder. Nellsnake made short work of it, and since then I have helped cachers on an as-needed basis. Some people get it right away, and others (e.g. The Leprechauns ) have needed a couple of nudges in the right direction. I enjoy offering hints, and my puzzle is such that I can give hints without depriving the finders of that 'Eureka!' moment. If I know the cacher, I can gauge how much to give away. It's actually been fun for me. However, this cache has a considerable physical component as well. If it were a pure puzzle cache, I might be more reluctant to give anything away.

I have a pair of the L.L. Bean Speed Guide hikers... they're expensive to some at $200, but they're certainly worth it to me. Light and waterproof, and they don't suck in warm weather. I switch to sneakers in the summer months, though. Speed Guide Hikers

Not to sound unappreciative, Markwell, but I was already aware of the 2nd body tag technique. Other folks might find it useful, though. Another mod that does work is the use of style tags. You can drop CSS into the body and it will affect the page that way. For example: <style> <!-- body { background-color: red; } </style> That will have a similar effect as your orange pixel, without a 2nd tag (but equally offensive style code in the body). You can likewise mess with a slew of other style tags, but it's a little tricky to isolate a single table or component thereof (that doesn't have a unique identifier) without using some script. I guess the point of my post (there was one?) was that I didn't want to cause problems by modding the page, and I would rather be legit about it. Ideally, it would be good to have some design leverage without creating bad html that might choke some browser or other systems using the gpx files.

Yeah, you're quite right. The stuff I'm trying to do, mostly simple things like changing the color of the white main content table (which looks admittedly nasty, but I realize that) aren't worth opening the door to problems. The habit of dropping another body tag into the long description to change backgrounds would make Al Gore weep, and we don't really want to see that (again). What would be nice, and this falls into the category of ideas that probably won't see light of day anytime soon but are fun to think about, is this: Add in some tools to the cache creation page that will create the code for you. Allow people to set the background color of the content window, maybe the color of the main green background (although that deviates from the uniform look of the site), and allow people to upload background images. The image would then be properly linked in the actual body tag, so the html would be proper. Of course you'd have to check against morons thinking they're sly by tring to pass a bunch of script through a color code ( you go, script kiddie! *yawn*). I admit, it's probably more work than it's worth. As it is, I can always approximate what I want in a nested table, and it would probably look better anyway (keeps the 'business' part of the page consistent). Thanks for the reply, though.

Okay, so I was noodling around with a cache listing, trying to mess with the colors on the page. I used the following snippet in the long description: <script language="JavaScript"> mybody=document.getElementsByTagName("body").item(0); mytable=mybody.getElementsByTagName("table").item(3); mytable.bgColor = '#ccffcc'; mytable2=mybody.getElementsByTagName("table").item(5); mytable2.bgColor = '#99ff99'; </SCRIPT> and while it works in an offline version of the page, the live variant strips out the script tags. That's totally understandable... I mean, I would rather be limited in what I can do in a page and not have some gonad be able to insert code with malicious intent. However, it prompted me to ask the questions: What is considered okay as far as modding the pages? What limitations are there? If I start messing around with code, am I going to bring about the ire of the admins? Because I'm sure if I played with it long enough, I could figure out some way to mess with the page, but I don't want to be causing trouble. Also, it would be nice to know ahead of time what tags are stripped so I don't waste time trying to include them in a page design. Thanks!

I recently had an extremely nice woman ask me if she could copy a technique I used in a Cumberland, MD cache in a cache in Florida. I was delighted. If the other cache was closer, I might have said no, but I felt honored to inspire a spin-off. I don't think I have to worry about people copying my 2 puzzle caches. They were much harder to make than they are to solve.

Whoo! Seriously, I was getting worried.. although after dogs from hell, getting a farmer to pull out your stuck car, getting hit by the Mighty Colt, sliding into the creek during LoggerLager II, the mad micro marathon, and many other misadventures I'm too tired to remember, I shouldn't have been concerned. Cheers to a friend whose efforts have made geocaching a much better sport than it would have been otherwise! The energy you expend into this crazed pasttime benefits all of us, and I cheer you as you pass another huge milestone! Congratulations!

Did he find Syzygy? Last I heard the phone went dead. At least, I hope it was just the phone...

Thanks, Jeremy!

My page doesn't have the bolded link: Quick View | Watchlist | Geocaches (Mine) | Travel Bugs (Mine) | Benchmarks | Member Features As it is currently, you have to click on 'TravelBugs', then on the next page, a there's a link to 'List travel bugs you own'. I would like the link to travel bugs I own to be on the 'My' page right next to the general 'Travel Bugs' link in the nav bar.

In the same way we have a direct link to the geocaches we own, can we have a link to TBs we own from the 'my' page? So it would be: Quick View | Watchlist | Geocaches (Mine) | Travel Bugs (Mine) | Benchmarks | Member Features It's a minor thing, but saves page loads and wait time for those of us slobs still on dialup.

Yay. I answered my own question. Or at least part of it. As it turns out, I was running version 1.1.9 of Easy GPS. When I tried to open the gpx file, it only showed like 5 records. Once I updated to version 1.3.7, all 200 were present. I guess the old version was truncating data for some reason.

Okay. Got the new query in the mail and it is exactly what I was looking for. I don't know if it somehow got reset, someone changed something, I was just getting screwy queries in the past, or I was merely hallucinating, but apparently it's working now. I'm still confused, but hey that's nothing new. The only other thing I can think of is maybe I'm running an old version of Easy GPS at home and it's not handling the files properly. I'm at "work" so I'll have to check on that part when I get home.

While I appreciate the replies, it's not the radius - mine's set at 200 miles and there are certainly plenty of caches within that range. This is weird, though - I did a preview just now, and it's listing the caches that I originally wanted, meaning that I'm suddenly getting 200 caches, none of which I have found. Unless someone changed something, this is different than earlier today when the list contained found caches. This is on the pocket query preview on the site. I haven't received a query in the mail, yet... I'll have to check that and see if it somehow "fixed" itself. And no, I haven't been licking toads.

I tried to scope the forums first, but my apologies if this has already been handled. What I'm trying to get is a pocket query that gives me 200 caches closest to me that I haven't found. I swear the query I'm using used to work that way. However, I have noticed that I'm not getting 200 caches returned any more, if I ever was. What it does is grabs the nearest 200 caches, then filters out the found ones until I only get like 67 of them in the query. That's groovy and all, but is there a way to get 200 returns? I want a query that retrieves a list of the nearest caches, filtering the finds (and maybe even caches I've hidden!), and returns a list of 200 that are closest to me. Is it something simple I'm doing wrong? If so, how can I fix it? If not, can it be changed so it works this way? Otherwise, as I keep finding caches, I have to increase the number of caches to start with so they don't all get filtered out. Thanks for any help.

There are a lot of people in southwest PA that lead by example, but I have to mention The Leprechauns. Lep is an insane cacher, great hider, and he may or may not know someone that reviews the occasional cache. He puts way too much time into the sport/hobby/pasttime to be considered mentally stable, but we all benefit from his efforts. His event coordination is unparalleled, and it is because of him that we have such a great group of cachers and high cache quality in this area.

Since nobody has added Tri-Go (or Trigo) to the list, here goes. Tri-go is a disorganization based around but not limited to the Southwesterrn Pennsylvania area, especially around Pittsburgh. We're a Yahoo group at the moment that may or may not move to an official site depending on whom you ask. Here's the link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tri-go/ Tri-Go stands for a number of things, including "Three Rivers Informal Geocaching Organization". Members actually range from all over, and banter ranges from witty to inane. At the very least you can try your hand at QuestMaster's Lonely Cache Challenge. We've been around since sometime last year. Maybe.

I'm not sure what the deal is with the cicadas, but here (Pittsburgh) it seems like every year there are some. It doesn't seem to make a difference what year it is - i.e. there's not one year where there seem to be more. Is that a different breed? I was in Cumberland, Md yesterday and there were a ton of them. They look the same so I'm wondering if to the east there's a brood that is particularly large on a 17 year cycle that we don't get in this area.

Congratulations to one of the best geocachers in the country! You were one of the first in the area, and have some of the best hides anywhere in the world! Sure, you didn't pass 500 as fast as some people, in fact you pretty much took your time about it. And okay, maybe you do cache with a veritable herd of children who do the actual searching for you. And maybe you complain about every cache that isn't a 5 mile hike into the most remote regions of Appalachia... You know what? You're really not all that great - so why don't you stop tootin' your own horn and get over your bad self. Sheesh! Wake me when you get to 1000...

Craigsville on the Hill was a great one-hit wonder, and one of my first finds. Unfortunately, the owner let this cache go, and it has just been archived. I might take a run out that way, because I think it's still out there, even though the owner couldn't find it!

How do you think I felt? I was in the same tent!!

I just wanted to clear up some confusion about 'abandoned sections' of the PA Turnpike. Make sure you consult the available literature before assuming any particular stretch of highway is abandoned. The dilapidated quality of the road surface notwithstanding, many seemingly untouched sections of the Turnpike are still technically being maintained by PennDOT. Generally speaking, if tractor trailers are driving by, don't place a cache there.

Nah, you're just the only one to admit it. The rest claim to reside in "We'llKillYinzBurgh".