Team GUI

Happy New Year everyone. Been so long since I have been here, I couldn't remember my password and had to reset. Perhaps 2011 will mean some caching again. Life got in the way.

I am looking for a good place for Google (aka GUI) to swim. Does anyone know of any others? And of course caches nearby would be a plus.

I went to NJ to help my daughter (BRS) get her house ready to sell. (Yup, it sold!) She won't exactly become a CVC cacher because she is moving to SF, but I think we should give her special week-end membership status as I imagine she will be visiting us in Stockton ---- she BETTER --- and naturally we will go caching. OF kindly emailed me a note when her cache went up. She advised that I run out and get it since it was so close to me. Little did she know that running out would be a 3000 mile run! I hope BRS and I will find it when she arrives shortly before Thanksgiving. Thanks for the heads up. Although we had little time for caching while I was back East, we did include a night cache. My first. It was great fun. Two caveats. Mark the car. (thankfully we did) Bring extra flashlight batteries. (we didn't). Hmmm, do you take the batteries out of the GPS to use in the flashlight? Caching in central NJ has an interesting advantage over most of the hunts I have done locally. There, you can pick a cache, park near it, and instead of find cache, walk to car, drive, find cache, walk to car, drive, etc. you can find cache, walk a half mile, find cache, walk a mile, find cache, walk a half mile --- and after several miles through gorgeous fall foliage you have found several caches, had a nice walk, and enjoyed the scenery instead of the freeway. It is like the caches in the Ripon park, but on a much larger scale. I loved it. (But it's still good to be back!)

Gee guys - I was gone for less than a month and things exploded around here while I was gone. Glad that the fallout for Camel ended up being minimal. (unlike the poor guy at LAX!) The next time I leave I will make sure to log on. I checked email, but not the forums and have now learned that it takes a long time to read 7 or 8 pages of logs - especially if you just must follow the links! 100 - WOW. Camel's troubles make me wonder if some of the earlier caches that I found -- near tracks, under bridges -- are still around. Scary stuff. I hope that cachers don't really pull their large caches - just caches in questionable spots. It's good to be back.

Handicap? There is another blind cacher in Stockton?

Whoops - I mean Duck FARMER - not Duck Hunter. Sorry.

Although I told Green Achers the story, I was saving it to tell the rest of you at an event. I guess we have been outed. Duck Hunter and I climbed up the embankment off March Lane up toward I 5 where we were poking around in the bushes with SKI POLES looking for CVC Tag. Duck Hunter was near the top of the rise close to I5 looking back down toward the off ramp. I was part way up the hill but closer to the March Lane sidewalk with my back to the off ramp when we heard someone screaming at us. Not wanting to turn around I asked Duck Hunter if the person was yelling AT US. "I think so," she said. "Is it a cop?" I asked. "I don't know." "Is she in uniform?" "No" So I turned around, leaning on my ski pole to watch a very agitated woman waiting for the walk light. It was obvious that once the light changed she intended to rush toward us --- and rush she did. When she reached the sidewalk beneath us, she began giving instructions in a measured authoritative voice. "Walk toward me. -- Slowly now. -- That's right. -- Just keep walking. -- Hold on to the cable that is right by your left hand. -- That's good. -- Just keep walking. -- slowly. -- You are about to reach some rocks. -- Be careful." By now I am thinking - plain clothes cop or raving lunatic, and I wasn't sure which. I followed her instructions until I was within about 15 feet of her. Hey, she looks like a nice lady, but she is bigger than I am and 15 feet is plenty close enough, thank you. I'm not sure I know how to protect myself with a GPS and a skipole! For all we knew she was armed and dangerous! "I really don't understand why you want me to come any closer to you," I said more frightened than assertive. (I was trying to sound assertive!) "Oh my gosh," she exclaimed burying her face in her hands. "I am SOOO embarrassed. I thought you were blind!! You are playing that caching game!" She explained between numerous gasps of "I'm so embarrassed" that she had been driving East on March Lane when she saw two blind ladies about to walk right up onto I5. Wanting to save them from certain death, she made a U turn on March, parked in the gas station lot, and hightailed it across the street to talk us down the hill from our certain doom. After she left, and Duck Hunter and I recovered from our laughing convulsions, we thought about what a kind and caring person she was. We wished that we had thought to ask her name. Duck Hunter did wonder why she thought we were blind since we were wearing glasses!

And to think it was just last week that I sent a half a bucket of roofing tar to the dump. Isn't that always the way? As soon as you toss something out you find a really GOOD use for it.

Whole Stuffed Camel by Mirj 1 whole camel, medium size 1 whole lamb, large size 20 whole chickens, medium size 60 eggs 12 kg rice 2 kg pine nuts 2 kg almonds 1 kg pistachio nut 110 gallons water 5 lbs black pepper salt to taste 100 servings | 10 hours 0 minutes cook time 2 hr 0 mins prep time 1. Skin, trim and clean camel (once you get over the hump), lamb and chicken. 2. Boil until tender. 3. Cook rice until fluffy. 4. Fry nuts until brown and mix with rice. 5. Hard boil eggs and peel. 6. Stuff cooked chickens with hard boiled eggs and rice. 7. Stuff the cooked lamb with stuffed chickens. 8. Add more rice. 9. Stuff the camel with the stuffed lamb and add rest of rice. 10. Broil over large charcoal pit until brown. 11. Spread any remaining rice on large tray and place camel on top of rice. 12. Decorate with boiled eggs and nuts. 13. Serves a friendly crowd of 80-100.

Congrats Green Achers on your outstanding performance on Indiana Jones. You work well under pressure - even with spies watching. See --- nothing abusive (for a change ) BTW, wasn't that a female Black Widow that pointed your way to one of the stages?

Welcome back! You have been missed!

You are forgiven Mr. Achers. BRS and I had a great time today. Tomorrow we will try to find your DNFs!!! We enjoyed the Indiana Jones cache but can't figure out why only women can find it. Women 3 Men 0 Of course it does take advanced intelligence along with logical thinking skills and perseverance. Perhaps that is the explanation. gauntlet? What gauntlet?

Thank you!

It would be interesting to learn what features put Cachemate over the top for you. What does it have that the others do not, and what do the others have that Cachemate lacks? As a brand new user of Plucker I am not yet wedded to anything. Since you have done all the research, can we pick your brain?

I tried paperless a year ago and threw up my hands in frustration. Do NOT try to use MobiPocket. Ron Streeter recommended that I check into GPX Spinner and Plucker. Unfortunately about that same time I stopped caching ---- sometimes life gets in the way. Although I downloaded the programs, I never worked on getting anything up and running. Fast forward to this week.... I was bitten by the caching bug again and decided to give paperless another try. Between Spinner and Plucker and my GPS V and a Palm Vx, paperless really appears to be a reality. I was amazed at the various indicies in Plucker. I can search by ID, cache name, who placed the cache, etc. If I want the hints decrypted, the hint index is easy to use. Caches I have found are in a normal font. If I haven't found the cache, it is boldface. I can read the description, recent logs, and a list of nearby caches. Spinner along with EasyGPS puts the caches on my GPSr by name, not just number. I love that. I think you have to be a paying member of Geocaching.com in order to download the files in the format you need for all of this. Small price to pay. I am brand new at this, so others probably have more and better information, but if you want the opinion of someone as new to paperless as you are, you have it!

Hung a U on March Lane to watch Sanruft search for Tag. It was delightful meeting him, his wife and their darling little one. Since he was planning on taking Tag back Modesto way, I gave him no clues. I could SEE Tag while I was talking to him. Stockton cachers - WHERE ARE YOU? At 4:25 it was still in place.

Ryan - Being senile, I need all the help I can get. I am not sure how you are counting legs. Are you counting the original placement (where the cache is locked) as number one and the next place you go as number two or are you counting the original placement as zero and the first place you are sent as number 1. You talk about fixing #3 here, but on the cache page you talk about #2 being gone. Then you say "you must go to the second leg again for they are new coordinates in a new place but in the same area so the coordinates are the same. " Maybe I am the only one who is confused , but please help out an ole' lady. Just let me know what your numbering system is. Thanks

Stockton cachers unite. Those folk in Modesto may steal our precious. SOMEBODY go get Tag. Look at it this way - In and Out is close. You could find Tag instead of cooking dinner.

My bad. I was there just AFTER you. Of course that doesn't solve the problem. We both need Ryan!!

Yup --- I was there before you. Where is Tek?

We have another new Stockton cacher -- Duckfarmer. I really want her to get her own GPSr so that I can have mine back! She doesn't want to spend a lot of $$$$. (Heck I just got her to buy her very first computer so we have to give the gal a break --- actually we have to give her husband a break. Any suggestions? I have a GPS V, but that's out of her price range. By the way, my daughter in NJ (BRS) has a new 60CS and she loves it. I think someone on this forum asked about them a few posts back. Lightweight - at least compared to mine - easy to read, tons of map storage space and the color is cool. The 60C and 60CS are well out of Duckfarmer's price bracket though. Anxious to hear suggestions. I want my GPSr back! BTW I placed CVC Tag yesterday afternoon ----- good luck.

Three cheers for Mr. Toad's Willy and yes, what DID ever happen to those trophies?

Don't give up hope. I'm still rooting for the Magic School Bus to come in. The race hasn't really been over for yonks! Mr. Toads Willy came in TODAY and he was in fourth place. My Timmy and Tammy are stuck in an archived cache in Ohio. I think that the archive is temporary. Hope so anyway.

Last year at this time some of our family (Birdbrain) introduced Geocaching to us. Nov 29, '02 we found our first cache. Friday afternoon (11/28) we made a mad dash for seven caches in order to hit 100 caches in our first year. We arrived at the Flower Cam at sunset for our one hundredth find. Thanks to Green Achers who kindly grabbed the image for us. Thanks to Birdbrain who introduced us to this silliness and to all the cachers who hunted with us, placed caches for us to find, searched for ours, helped us enjoy event caches, entertained us with emails and helped our TBug win the Cannonball Run. Hmmmm. Now we need a goal for next year.

quote: We have a visitor coming to the greater CVC area and I was asked which must do caches we have to offer. So.... in my humble opinion, here's my list [in no order]. Feel free to add yours as well. ---------------------------- The visitor mentioned above was Team SigJ from Houston, TX -- Team GUI's son and his family. The constraints of time and small children limited them, but they found a dozen caches - five from Green Achers' list. For those with little children, Don't Panic should be added to the list. The kids loved it. By the way, Bill of SigJ found Gung Ho Fat Choy entirely too fast. Shamed me and many other CVC cachers who needed multiple trips to the spot! Thanks for the list Green Achers.