PJPeters

...Or you could try contacting Garmin. They have a great technical support department.

You probably would be fine removing it, but why don't you shoot him an email first? Here's his profile page. He's a non-validated member who hasn't been active since 2003. I'm thinking he's not interested in getting the container back...

Sounds like most everything went well, except for the all-too-quick sell-out (is anyone surprised?). I'd gotten all three that I wanted (only 3! I don't ask for too much, do I?) and proceeded to try to check out. But my password didn't work. So an email to retrieve my password. Hmm... it's not quite what I entered. Okay, let's try to create a new account. By the time all was said and done, I'd managed to lose all but one of the coins, which is probably sold out, too. Typical of my luck. And, since I'm 'up home' visiting family, I'm on dial up. Ugh! Looks like I'm fated to never get a first-issue of a TSun coin. Not to say I'll give up, though!

Whoops.

Yeah, I follow StarBrand's method, though I haven't had a timeout in ages. If it does seem to have screwed up, I just back up to the original message, refresh, and see if it worked. It would be bad if I had a long-winded reply, but I've only had that issue once, to my recollection.

Google maps aren't always the best; many parts of my area are in the 'lower' resolution images. I can usually only tell if there's green or non-green (pavement) in an area. That's not too much help. And that's considering I switch to satellite view. Which I don't. I just use the map to get a cache area figured out, then off to the PQs.

I'm not trying to derail this discussion, but doesn't the 'x' mean expandable (has a slot for a memory card)? Seems like I've heard this a lot lately. Now, to return to topic. Any good handheld unit that accepts City Navigator will work well for both. You definitely want the ruggedness of a handheld; they're water resistant, they fit in the hand better, they can take a bit of a beating, and they have off-road navigation capability (i.e. direct route). I've seen on some websites bundles where City Navigator is only $100 when purchased with a new GPS. I'm sure you can find a great deal. I suppose an equivalent Magellan will do the same things, though I (and many, if not most others) haven't used one.

BadAndy,I agree TOTALLY with every word of your post ! Very well said ! I believe cachers themselves might be the eventual downfall of the sport.We're really bummed about the new rules.Kane County is huge and I'm looking at a KCFPD property map right now from 2006 and it owns(at that time,not sure how much new land they've purchased or how many preserves have been expanded),14,683 acres and approximately 50 preserves along with approximately 15 miles of our Great Western Trail,parts of our Fox River Trail that run through some of their preserves and a small part of our Prarie Path which runs from Elgin to Chicago(with tons of forks that go off in all sorts of directions). I don't know,it's just a sad day for us because we won't be placing caches in our own county.What's kind of funny is every preserve in the county already has at least 5 caches in it !!! While I'm not saying that Kane County is (or is not) being over-reaching in their policy, I don't see anything wrong with asking permission to place a cache. They manage the parks, and occasionally (as has happened in this area, probably yours too) caches with the best intentions have caused issues in area parks. Ever see a 'geo-trail?' There's more than one cache I'm aware of here that has a noticeable path from parking to ground zero. That's environmentally damaging. There's one issue. Another issue could be parking in no parking areas. There was a series of caches on a beautiful scenic drive with no parking. It was noted at least three times on the cache page, but people still parked on the drive to get the cache. The parks department, who typically don't have an issue with caching, slapped a 'needs maintenance' note on the 'offending' caches and sent the owner a separate note. Those caches have been archived by the owner. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has a permit system for State Parks. Each cache cost the hider $25 for the permit. A couple cachers worked with the DNR for quite some time to help them realize the money they could gain in day-use and annual stickers by opening up the policy somewhat. Now, our state caching organization pays for a blanket 'permit;' the hider still has to get permission from the park management, but it no longer costs the hider anything for a permit. Yes, we still need permission, but at least there's no blanket restriction. Work with the parks department, with either your local caching organization (they may have more resources than what you're aware of) or on your own, and perhaps you can be the ones to get the standards loosened.

Have we all forgotten the Grandaddy of hiking staff makers? El Diablo is still my favorite. Someday, I'll own one... (edit: big-finger syndrome)

We've got a local legend around here - Riley is a slightly overweight golden retriever. She outperforms her owner. It's a riot to see her in action. If the owner is having trouble, he just calls her over, and she spends all of about thirty seconds sniffing the cache out (as long as it's within her 'reach'). There was one where the owner spent a bit too much time looking in what he thought was the correct spot, but Riley had the scent, and was going nuts trying to get to the cache. He kept calling her over to check where he was, then used a phone a friend, and discovered that Riley was right. I'm not sure there was too much training involved to begin with. She does get a lot of positive reinforcement from cachers and the owner when she does find the cache.

Rumpelschnitz - Found it! Fars - generic unit of measure; uses include "How many fars?" "'Bout .25 fars." or "300 Fars." One of our local cachers has a habit of placing caches in easily seen, though not easily obtainable spots. Therefore, when you place a cache up in a tree, but not suicidally high, you say "look up, but not Fishing up." FTF MnG - that wonderful moment when at least four (usually more) people meet up on a FTF run. Typically, someone gets caught with their hands in the cookie jar, so to speak, and it turns into a meet and greet. These typically end up taking a good deal of time. Dirty caching - when you try to find the final of a multi by looking in the likely spots, not going through all the stages. Alternatively, cracking a puzzle cache by using the 2 mile radius guideline, looking for likely spots, and concentrating on them instead of solving the puzzle. Not always a good plan. Also used when coords are off by a significant degree; As in, "The coords put me in the middle of a parking lot, but I saw a spot where the cache could be, looked, and found." Dirty caching is a lot easier in the snow - just follow the footprints to the severely trampled spot and start looking.

And here I thought Armchair cachers 'came' from Europe to the US.

My personal best was 102 in 24 hours. We could have done a lot better, but we changed plans three times, spent over 5 hours of that driving to and from our eventual caching areas, and several DNFs. It was a blast, caching with that group. And since I don't cut and paste, it took me somewhere in the neighborhood of five days (between work and caching and catching up on sleep) to get the logs typed up. But I find I enjoy lighter caching trips better. It's a lot more fun hitting in the 30-40 (or less) range, and picking some nicer caches - nice hikes, cool multis, or fun puzzles. But maybe that's just me. Nah, probably not. LOL, looks like he will soon be stuck if he tries to cross that berm! I've been there. Getting stuck in the boonies isn't a picnic, let me tell you...

I'm on XP with Firefox. I also tried Opera, out of curiosity. It prints in a much more compact format, but does not print the second map. I tried File|Print, as well as the print link on the cache page. Both are giving me a usable printout.

I think I'm doing something right. In trying to reproduce the 'error' everyone was having with printing cache pages, I selected simple - no logs. Got a nice printout with everything but the adverts on the left side. Then, I tried it with a PDF. Got a nice usable printout. Now I'm curious - what's the problem? Or am I doing something right (wrong?)? Or has someone already fixed everything? (edit to add: Maps are showing up for me, too)

Michigan!

While I agree, some people are a bit more ... technologically challenged ... than others. Personally, I've been using a PDA since the PalmIII came out like 10 years ago. But some people I know and cache with keep using me for support for various computing issues - GSAK, PDAs, cameras, etc. Also, think of those who aren't Premium members. I realize it's an inexpensive investment, but they can't do paperless too easily.

Add me to the list of people that are vehemently opposed to the idea of auto-archiving. We police ourselves pretty well. If we start something like this, we'll have a bunch of geo-litter. The local geocaching group has a rescue mission that strives to retrieve geo-litter. With an auto-archiving program, it'll be hard to keep up, and the land managers will be much harder to persuade to let us place caches when we don't pick up after ourselves. While some people don't like the idea, it keeps land managers pretty happy that we'll go do our own clean up of a cache site. Want it archived? Just post a SBA. That's about the only way a reviewer will see that there's an issue. See? We can get caches archived if the cache is AWOL. As I understand it, the reviewers have the ability to remove a needs maintenance icon if the owners are missing. Why not? One of the oldest caches in the state came up missing earlier this year. With the owner not logging on in a year or two, I headed out to take a look. Found the container about 150' from it's original hiding spot, creating a completely different hide. I put it back where it belongs, and posted a note to let the world know the cache is back and in business. It's one of the nicest caches in the area - beautiful view, nice walk, etc. It deserved to be saved by the community. I agree with some of this post. Some of the geo-trash deserves to be archived. If I find stuff that needs maintenance in a major way, either I'll take care of it or post a NM and bookmark the cache. If nobody does maintenance, I'll post the SBA, or drop a line to a local reviewer.

I have been experiencing this issue for a couple weeks, off and on, using FireFox. It's annoying, but it's easily fixed - just drag the map and try again. It typically works fine after that.

This is just me being whiny and OCD, but on the GC Google map, the filters box isn't sorted correctly: I'm on XP, 1440x900 screen. Note that it's the same with 1280x1024 - same machine, different monitor. I also would love to see the friends find counts back, but I'm more than happy to wait until it gets fixed. (As noted on page 2) As has been noted previously in this thread, if I was the one working on this code, I'd probably be curled up in a ball, crying, while my computer was a smoking ruin in another room. Keep up the good work!

Pop a note up on the MiGO forum, or the NMG forum. There's a bunch of great people there that will be willing to help you out.

So why don't people ever use the 'preview' button? I almost never reply to a post without previewing it. That way, I know before it goes up if it'll look right.

Cool info. But I just gotta ask one question... Why aren't you out caching with all that free time instead of crunching those numbers?

There's two in this area that haven't been found yet. GC171MH and GC1B48B. Both are probably nanos (Mr. Magnetos, teeny tiny little %*#&rs, you get the idea) on an old rail bridge and old mine cart, respectively. I don't even look at 'em anymore, but they do get the occasional DNF. It's annoying, really. Why put a cache everyone will DNF on, when you can put a nice cache in a nice spot that people can find?

Nope. No auto-update of the info. I think the reason they don't have the download in the Google Maps bubble is so you go to the cache page and look at the cache before you pull it. Makes sense, really. If you just download the waypoint and plug it into your GPSr, you could miss important info. You and I use GSAK, but remember, not everyone else does. I don't know about other options, but they may not be able to look at the cache description on other programs, so they could miss important information, like hours of availability or special requirements, parking info, etc. I'm not trying to shoot you down (I love the ideas). I just think it's not very likely to happen.