IfIOnlyHadABrain

Thanks to everyone for your advice. I decided to give the Axim another try after reading all your posts. Apparently what I was doing wrong before was that I was using the .pdf files which were horrible to try to view on the PDA. No wonder I hated it! So I settled on Cachemate, but I couldn't get it to install (kept getting a "not a vaild Win32 application" error). Gave up on that and decided to try GPXSonar instead. Installed easily and I managed to get 600 caches on my PDA (300 near home and 300 near our cottage) in a matter of minutes and they are very readable. I am thrilled and very appreicative of the help. I look forwawrd to trying it out in the filed. I noticed that GPXSonar even gives me a place to enter field notes, which is good for me since I like to make notes about Took/Left and any adventures we may have had in getting there! Thanks again to all who responded!

I need some help/advice/wisdom from you seasoned cachers. I have tried carrying my cache info pages out into the woods on my Dell Axim handheld...and I hated it. It drove me absolutley out of my mind trying to scroll around on that little screen to read the description or the hint, or worse yet trying to decipher the needed info for a puzzle cache. Instead, what I have been doing is downloading the waypoints to my GPSr and printing out all the info pages for caches in the area where I plan to be. I usually end up downloading many more than I print, however, since my GPSr holds up to 1000 waypoints anyway. Here's my dilemma: sometimes we end up somewhere slightly different than where I originally planned to be and decide we want to do some caching. Not generally a problem, since I have the waypoints in my GPSr... but if I don't have the info page we have no idea what type or size cache we are looking for, what the D/T ratings are, we have no hint and don't know if there is any other info we may need (parking coordinates, for example). Normally we will give it shot anyway and phone a friend at home to look something up if needed, but that's not really a solution in my view. What I would really like to be able to do is print an Excel or Word table that gives just the basic info for many caches on one page, such as: Cache Name, Coordinates, Type, Size, Difficulty, Terrain, Hint, Parking Coordinates, Additional Info If I could fit the basic info for 10-20 caches on one sheet of paper instead of having to print 2-3 pages for each cache, I would be one happy geocacher. Does anyone know of a way to accomplish such a feat? I was hoping I could download a .loc or .gpx file and somehow export it to excel or something along that line, but alas, I am stumped. Anyone, please... any suggestions?

Thanks. I have to say, though, the camo job isn't holding up to the weather. I must get some GORILLA GLUE!! And, by the way, it's "sister", not "brother".

EXCELLENT WORK! How long does the camo job stay together? I would really like to do this with a few of my hides. I'll have to let you know! This is my first hide & it's only been there a few days.

My oxford dictionary defines "muggle" as: muggle |?m?g?l| (also Muggle) noun informal an unimaginative or boring person : this video game won't appeal to muggles. Very interesting. I use muggle when talking with my close geocaching friends, my 8 year old daughter & on the forums. I like it but I agree it may be just a smidgen corny. I must say though, I also like the "others"!

Well it doesn't really irrate me, but it certainly could confuse me. I can see making up words when there isn't one that fits already, but just creating additional words to use instead of existing/well known ones would probably just cause extra confusion (unless you like explaining 'geoplant' all the time? ), but whatever floats your boat. I agree with welch. I think it's a bit confusing. As a very new geocacher, (32 finds) I am still trying to make sense out of all the different aspects of this game, ie geocaching, letterboxing, Waymarking, geodashing, virtual caches, puzzle caches, micros (yuck), lions & tigers & bears,...oh wait, that's something else. Anyway, while I think it's silly for someone to argue with you over your choice of words, I do think you may find yourself explaining it a lot. Have a very geo day. How about cacheplant?

The bad thing about the yellow etrex is that it only shows the direction to your waypoint and not the distance to it...it could be 10 feet or 10 miles! My yellow etrex shows the direction to the waypoint and the distance to it. My mistake. maybe I'm thinking of the orange Maegellan explorist.

The bad thing about the yellow etrex is that it only shows the direction to your waypoint and not the distance to it...it could be 10 feet or 10 miles!

I work in a school where we just got 4 Garmin Etrex Legends for just under $500. This is the unit I use for my personal geocaching and I find it easy to operate, good battery life and my 8 y/o- 3rd grade daughter can use it with guidance. It comes with a serial cable for downloading coords, and while I think they could get on the ball and go USB, it really hasn't been a problem at all. I can find out who we order from if you like. I know we get an educational discount and they ship quickly...we ordered on Wednesday and they came in today.

Very kewl! Care to share the gory camo details? What kind of container? What kind of glue? Real or faux leaves? Etc? I don't think you'll need to worry about it getting muggled. Heck, if it wasn't for the "Y" shaped branch as a ground zero indicator, you might have a tough time finding it yourself on maintenance visits. I actually had that happen to me on my Our Tribute cache. It's a camo'ed ammo can tucked into the root ball of a fallen tree. A noob DNF'ed it, so I went out to do a maintenance check, and it took me a couple minutes to find it. My initial belief was that it was MIA. Here's what it looks like out of it's hiding spot; To be honest, it's just a wicker basket that I layed over top of a rubbermaid container (spray painted brown). The leaves are real...straight off my back patio and hot glued on. I have read that hot glue won't weather well, but I am one of those "have to learn the hard way" types. Actually I don't expect the basket or leaves to hold up well either, but I was anxious to place my first cache so I had to make-do with what I had! My next one will be better thought out! Funny that you mentiond the Y shaped log...it's actually part of the cache name! Yours looks cool too! I'll bet it blends in well! Caches like those were my inspiration!

Here are a couple pictures of my first cache. The first picture is in my house (obviously). The second is the actual placement. Feedback is welcomed and appreciated!

I had a situation last week, similar but different. (I am also a newbie) What I found was a rusty old folding knife (not a pocket size one). Knowing that this sport is supposed to be kid friendly (my 8 y/o was with me) and that knives are among the not-recommended trade items, I simply removed and pitched it. Hope that was ok.

I found one yesterday called Green World. It was located in a place known as the Audobon Greenway in Sewickley Heights, PA, which is owned by the Allegheny Land Trust. The cache was a Green ceramic container and it asked that Green things be traded.

I'm a bit of a Wizard of Oz fan. (Scarecrow is my favorite character.) When trying to come up with a GC name, I posed a few possibilities to my 8 y/o daughter...YellowBrickRoad, Lions&Tigers&BearsOhMy!, and IfIOnlyHadABrain. She picked the latter, and so it was.

I am newer to caching than you are (16 found) and I absolutely love your idea. I think a lot of people made good points about expectations, suggestions vs. requirements, etc. I will say though that, as for me, I would love to find a bug that directs me to go eat Chinese food, and I would definitely do it! I hope your bug does well, and I hope that someday it makes its way to Pittsburgh, PA. There are a few really great Chinese restaurnats here!