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Poppa Duck

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Everything posted by Poppa Duck

  1. Cup holder works fine for the GPS. Second cup holder has either the cell phone or ambulance squad radio. Clipboard on the passenger seat with cache pages and maps. Lunch (breakfast, sometimes dinner) on the tray below the cup holder with a bottle of water. When I'm navigating with the laptop, it sits in the passenger seat with the Earthmate GPS wedged on the windshield by the green light. I keep a small fannypack under the back seat for those spur of the moment hunts. For longer trips the caching backpack gets strapped in back next to the medic bag. -PD
  2. I haven't been on an out of town business trip for several years due to budget cuts, but I have been to quite a few out of the office meetings in the tri-state area. I always manage to find time for a few stops on the way to or from the meetings for a quick hit (hmm - business meeting - muddy shoes - wonder where he's been?) I've also been known to make a few detours when traveling between meetings and during lunch. -PD
  3. Poppa made it as far as Star in the late 1970's. I do think some of the outdoor skills we learned (orienteering, hiking, first aid) apply. Currently I'm an advisor in a Learning For Life (Explorer) post and I've got one son in Weblos (bridging to Boy Scouts this year) and another ready to start Tiger Cubs next year. -PD
  4. I had one several years ago from work with a tablet based PC. It works well for the rough navigation to a parking area, but even though the PC was tablet based it was still somewhat cumbersome on the trails. I still use it for driving at times, but a handheld GPS is definately the way to go on the trails. Also I don't know if their software has changed but the precision (decimal portion) used to be only two digits. -PD
  5. Poppa took up the challenge during lunch today. Solved it in about 20 minutes - emailed answer. Sneaky but I like it. -PD
  6. Poppa Duck here checking in from Long Island. Utility worker by day / volunteer EMT by night. Been caching for just over a year - had my 100th find just in time for the boards to crash. I split my caching time 50/50 with my wife/kids and then solo. -PD
  7. I've run into fellow cachers 3 - 4 times already, although I'll say hello to almost anybody out on the trail. When approaching others, I make no attempt to hide my GPS (sorry folks was going to "unit" here but thought better of it 8-)) and let them ask the question first. -PD
  8. I just posted the following note on a cache in my area and in the interest of safety thought I'd post the following here too: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I picked the following up in the LIRR forum of the www.railroad.net website: "I was there this past weekend walking the tracks, why don't you call the cops on me and the family of 8 who were also checking out the old tracks, I'm sure the officer(s) would have taken the 4 kids and grandparents as a huge threat and locked them all up. No joke my girlfriend I saw what looked to be a fanily field trip of RAILFANS." The topic under discussion was a railfan's walk of that line and this post was in response to a LIRR employee's statement that if he found anybody on the line he'd call the cops because even though those tracks aren't active, they haven't been abandoned by the LIRR and so a) it's tresspassing to be on the tracks and b)however unlikely it is, those tracks can still see train traffic at any time. In the interest of safety (and not wanting to give the sport a bad name by having several geocachers arrested for tresspassing), I felt I had to post this especially since it seems like it's a hot topic on the other board. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The cache in question is on the embankment of a set of unused (not abandoned) railroad tracks. The family of railfans they mention (and when they saw them) match the description of a family geocaching team that found the cache this past weekend. Being in the EMS field I can tell you from first hand experience that collecting body parts off the tracks is not something quickly forgotten. So I guess my point in this post is a gentle reminder (ok a lead brick reminder) - if you're going to cache by railroad tracks make sure you keep away from the tracks - you never know when a cop (if you're lucky) or a train (if you're not) my come by. -PD
  9. Good going Z-man. Hope our paths cross again out on the trails. -PD
  10. Wonder if there's any relationship ... Well anyway glad they're back and thanks to those folks who sent me private messages on reaching 100... -PD
  11. FDNY260 - you were missed at the event yesterday. Best wishes for a speedy recovery. -Poppa Duck
  12. I always give a quick hello to people I've met on the trail. If it looks like they may be fellow cachers (and don't know the secret hand-sign), I'll make a an obtuse statement that only a cacher would recognize and see how it pans out. One time we were on the way out of a multi and met another team on the way in. They tried to palm the micro container with the coordinates and I simply said not to worry about us, we already have the corrdinates. From there we struck up a conversation and even compared accuracy of our GPSs. Another time I found a pair of newbies just staring at the area of a cache's hiding place. I said Hi and asked if they were looking for XXXX (insert cache name here). When they said yes they knew I had made them and we had a rather pleasant conversation. Several times I made the obtuse statement to non-cachers and ended up starting up a conversation about caching. So it always pays to say hi - if they don't want to respond, it's their loss. -PD
  13. Cybercam - the intent of my post was not to open up a forum for complaining, but to use it as an example that a non-approval isn't necessarily a bad thing. In my case it challenged me to improve the cache to be something other than a virtual. Maybe you can improve yours based on the comment that the approver made to you. -PD
  14. ... I'm not complaining. It was a virtual cache in NYC that had some historical significance. I made a suggestion to the approver in how I could turn it into a real micro-cache and while I'm waiting for his response I figured I'd run the idea past the group. The virtual takes you to a site that has a plaque with two sets of dates on it. My idea is to use the dates as offsets to two separate micro-caches and to claim the find you need to find either one of them. I don't feel making it a multi a this point. What does everyone think? On a separate note (from one of the other threads), while I think it is a good idea that NY have it's own approver, I don't have any complaints about NJAdmin. Considering the fact that we just came off a long weekend, I think he's been turning around approvals pretty quick. -PD
  15. Provided I can get someone to cover an ambulance shift for me, the duck family will be there.
  16. I'd have to agree with StayFloopy that most of the LI trails aren't technically challenging but can be long. There's a multi in one of the DEC areas (by Smithtown - maybe) that's a decent hike (sorry forget the name right now). There's also on in Montauk listed as for 4x4's but the trail is accessible by foot too - just a pretty long hike. I don't know if LWK-1 Footbridge is worthy of a 100th find. Instinct led me to it in a matter of minutes and it probably would you too. StayFloopy - it took the DEC about a month to send me my permit. And I've never been asked for it on the trails. I've only seen one officer out there and that was in one of the parking areas. -PD
  17. Just as a quick update, we did do the cache the other night and snapped a pic of the ducklings with the offical TONY camera in the cache. Maybe they'll end up in the magazine and get their 15 minutes of fame..... -PD
  18. If Southaven doesn't work out there is also Cathedral Pines and Blydenburg as possibilities. Both are central Suffolk, but closer to mid island / north side. I think an all day (afternoon maybe) event would be great while the weather is still warm and then when it gets cooler a breakfast type event central to several existing caches for after breakfast activities. -PD
  19. Just for clarification I was talking about the article in this past weeks issue of TONY - not the 2002 article. No links on the website to it, so thanks to SR and dboggny for putting it on their website. And I also agree that it was a pretty good article. Anybody planning on going for the TONY cache? Looks like there are 5 or 6 hits on it already. I may be out for it tonight - my wife is bringing the kids into the Museum of Natural History this afternoon and I told her to bring the GPS along too. -PD
  20. Anybody get the magazine? Last weeks's had a one page geocaching article starring sranddboggny. If I can find it online I'll post a link.
  21. I'd be interested in coming, can't make a morning event but would go for the afternoon. Does Heckscher have any caches already? If not both Bethpage and West Hills have a bunch already planted and both are on the Nassau / Suffolk border. Keep us posted.....
  22. Count me in too. If anyone wants to, I'd help set up the LI division of the NYCMAGG.
  23. BigBird, I'm based in the Long Island area. If you want email me with the caches you were trying to find and I may be able to provide a few clues. Alternatively I may be able to direct you to a few simple ones that should be easy to find. We may also be able to work out a time where we could meet up and I can guide you along on a few. In any case - don't give up - after you find the first few, your 'geo-sense' should kick in and they'll be easier to find. -Poppa Duck
  24. I know this has been discussed somewhat before but I found an unavailable cache yesterday. The Tarrytown Horsemen's caches have all been marked as unavailable because they seem to have disappeared and their email address is no longer valid. The admins allowed my partner and I to adopt several that were within a maintainable distance (and are still being found by new people), but there are still a lot out there that are valid caches but people wouldn't know to search for them. I'm thinking more about the physicals and not the virtuals. I guess my question to the community is - what should be done about them? Should someone adopt them, should we leave them be since you can still find and log them, or should someone collect them and have the admins archive the cache so that a new one could be placed. -Poppa Duck
  25. I had high ideals when I posted my original note, but the response seems to be pretty low. Rather than an organized day (figuring it'll cost at least $50 for a picnic site in one of the parks plus parking) with a poor turn-out, anyone interested in an informal get together later this summer. I'm thinking either August or sometime after Labor Day. West Hills Park comes to mind since it's got quite a few caches that we could make a day out of. And if everyone brings a picnic we could have an informal lunch as part of the day. Any thoughts? -Poppa Duck
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