Find Now, Log Later?

All of our aeronautical charts also use nautical miles. Using our GPS devices, we are navigating by latitude and longitude. 1 nautical mile is the angular distance of 1 minute of arc on the earth's surface.

I don't think it would be too difficult to round it down to 160 meters or up to 165 meters ... call it the ".16 kilometer rule." Actually, I don't know why we even use the "528 ft rule," because nautical miles (approximately 6080 ft or 1.852 kilometers) are the standard used in navigation. (And obviously, .1 of a nautical mile is 608 ft./.185 kilometer.)

How do you believe such problems will be sorted out? By attrition? By inexperienced cache hiders improving their technique? I don't think so ... A quick sampling indicates that in many areas, the majority of "dump-and-run" caches were placed by cachers with considerable experience, who usually also own a number of "good" caches. To me, that indicates a conscious decision was made to place "dump-and-runs." How will "Darwin" sort that out? I think "Darwin" has already spoken ... that's why the number of film canister/hide-a-key caches attached to lightpoles/pay phones/under mailboxes/to guardrails/in the flower pot/food court at the mall, etc. are logged with such great frequency when great caches with hikes of as short as 1/8th mile (shorter than the hike from the parking lot to the mall) continue to be ignored.

A specific type of throw-away cache was being discussed: Caches that were placed specifically to boost an individual's hide count and the find count of those who were with them during the "placement." I am not surprised that the owners of such caches do not archive them: Logs by other cachers serve to "legitimize" the cache. Unfortunately, such caches also seem to often lead directly to a proliferation of "copy-cat" low-quality caches in the area. And most unfortunately (or most fortunately, for those who consider "any find a good find"), it is clear that some areas are now inundated with such caches. We agree that such caches constitute a minority of all caches placed and are placed by a small minority of geocachers. I think we also agree that means that the majority of caches do not fit that description and were most likely placed by their owners with the intent of others enjoying the experience.

'Amen' to The Lil Otter's letter. RE: the quoted statement: It seems to me that in many cases, caches of the quality described were NOT placed "for you to hunt," but rather were placed to raise the owner's hide count and/or the find count of the people who were with the owner when it was hidden. I would also argue that little, if any, thought, time, or effort is usually expended on such placements ... they are merely stuck in the first location spotted.

On this we can agree ... and I'd wager we have in common several of the senders "in our (respective) corners." Because there is no doubt that there is more than one game being played. La-dee-dah, indeed!

Yep, that explains you pretty well!

(I removed Team DEMP's name from the quote because this is a commonly heard statement and my response is not specific to Team DEMP.) So what's wrong with bagging only one cache over a several mile hike? I can see this being a problem if the individual is into the game purely to amass "smiley faces." But if the individual is into the game primarily to get outdoors for some physical activity and to visit some new and interesting areas that the individual would probably not visit otherwise, then I don't see why the number of caches available in the area should be a consideration. I do, too. But I don't think it has been established that some of the "forgotten" caches mentioned are necessarily "hard." Personally, I don't "give a hoot" what anybody says. It must be pointed out, however, that by far the majority of the "forgotten," "neglected" or just plain "hard" caches in this region require no special skills or equipment ... they simply require an expenditure of more time and/or energy than the majority of geocachers are apparently willing to make. For example, I can't imagine why Middle'aNowhere has been found only three times in the year it's been there. It's even been ignored by most of the "Can-Do" crowd. Also, Windbeams Windfall, which is a tougher hike than many. "Pretentiousness isn't called for." But I agree with you to a certain extent ... Thank God that those of us who work at night aren't condemned to spend our available free time watching the crap on TV you day-workers are "forced" to endure.

I really enjoyed all of those caches ... but face it, most geocachers are unwilling to put more than a minimal physical effort into seeking caches. They prefer to use the "drive-up window" and have caches handed to them.

Really? I would have thought that someone would rig a micro so that it appeared to be a film canister tossed beside the road, but when a whiner picked it up, the "Monty Python" 20-ton weight (or massive foot) would get 'em.

I'm sure you understand I was referring not to "teams," but rather to "groups" of individuals who cache together and log separately. With that in mind, if your pup has its own geocaching account, you should bring along an inkpad and stamp your pup's paw print in the logbook. (Actually, I know of several people who use ink stamps or printed stickers to log their pets in logbooks. Strangely, I've also met some adults who cache with their young children ... the kids have online accounts but the adults don't, yet the adults do the actual 'caching' while the kids amuse themselves in other ways. The kids get called over to trade and sign the log once the adults have found the cache.)

Bingo. And very often, one can't discern the quality of the cache (micro or otherwise) from the cache description. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of impressively constructed cache pages where during the search for the cache it becomes abundently clear that the cache owner put so much thought and effort into creating their cache page that none was left when it came time to assemble and place the actual cache. An on-topic inquiry: Which weight sledgehammer is best for "micro cache bashing?"

My least favorite physical-log entries are the ones written by people who "found" the cache days or weeks before the cache had actually been hidden. I have never been able to figure out why those logs almost invariably read "thanks for the GREAT cache!" How would they know? I also dislike logbook entries where one person will sign for an entire group and list everyone's name ... can't the other members of the group take the time/make the effort to at least sign their own names? I notice that each member of such groups has absolutely no problem finding the time to claim their find online. If, however, logbooks are to be used by cache owners to verify online entries, such 'global' entries are worthless unless there was also photo-documentation of the entire group at the cache site.

Where middle-aged men with expertise in nothing but an obsolete video game and who are incapable of holding down a steady job can leech an existence off a succession of women.

Actually, I was commenting on the Dante quote. But "whatever."

There's no need to repeat myself ... Gotta head off for work. Chris, just bookmark that comment.

A scene from Mel Brook's Blazing Saddles: [Rev. Johnson is addressing the town] Reverend Johnson: Order, order. G*dd*mnit I said "order". Howard Johnson: Y'know Nietzsche says: "Out of chaos comes order". Olson Johnson: Oh, blow it out your a** Howard.

To the contrary, Chris: I would never accuse you of being an authority on anything.

Air traffic controllers, like lawyers, are trained not to use ambiguous terminology ... when they do, confusion results and bad things happen. Nice analogy; it suggests to me that you didn't bother to check the facts before voicing (another) uninformed opinion. I must say I'm surprised to see "must not" listed as a synonym for "may not." "Must not" is an imperative. "May not" is not. Out of curiosity, Mopar, in what tense is the sentence from the guideline we are discussing written? It's rather important to its meaning.

If you think that is what the guideline states, then you must have written it. And/or repeatedly misinterpreted it.

I don't see that changing the name from "traveling cache" to "parasite cache" makes any difference, because both "have the goal to move." And I point out for about the 150th time that "may not be approved" is not synonymous with "shall not be approved" or "are prohibited." It does appear that the approvers are on the same page, but the page they are on does not correspond to the actual wording of the guideline. Issues similar to this one keep recurring because the guideline gives people "false hope." It also gives you approver-folk one heck of a lot of grief that could be easily avoided. So how about somebody in a position of power taking it upon him/herself to either revise the guideline to accurately reflect the manner in which the guideline is actually applied ("realized"), or revise the interpretation and application of the guideline to be in agreement with the actual wording of the guideline?

The question posed in the opening post of this thread was in reference to "traveling caches that don't travel (but are supposed to.)" That description describes the month the caches sat in Chatham exactly. "Cache availability" was not part of the question. There is a high probability that our definitions of "reasonable" differ markedly. The question was posed to the general community via "the public domain." As is the case with most forum threads, this thread demonstrates that responses from parties not directly involved amount to, at best, mere speculation. That's sort of like using Roto-Rooter to perform an angioplasty. I presume that if someone had a genuine concern about the caches, they would have contacted me directly via PM or e-mail. Certainly, such an inquiry would have been "reasonable." No one made such an inquiry. So enjoy your speculation. Who knows; perhaps as a group you'll arrive at a consensus regarding my intentions and then you can get those caches moving again. There's only one problem ...

Do you own the caches? Did you, or any of the people who logged the caches during the month they sat in Chatham, make any attempt to move them on? Did you query the individual holding the caches directly? Didn't think so. So don't worry yourself silly now ... I suggest you show the same concern for where the caches have sat the past month that you demonstrated the month previous. As far as you are concerned, there is no difference ... you ignored them then; feel free to continue ignoring them.

You see, I created my "virtual-multicache" to bring people to the inner city to help dispell such fears that are, in large part, not based on fact. It's off-topic, but I have to mention that I found some of your comments to be highly ironic. Having sat on a Federal Grand Jury for the past year and a half, the number of major crime (including drug and weapon) cases we heard targeting individuals residing in or near gated suburban communities outnumbered the cases targeting inner city people. I would suggest that anyone who thinks a homeless person asking for spare change is a sign of criminal activity should stop and consider for a minute how some of their neighbors with no visible means of support are financing their ostentatious McMansions.

What does a guy with no finds and only 36 posts know? Let's see ... mathematically, my post/find ratio is "undefined," so I don't know.