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+1. I don't need "direction to a cache" occupying a data field, but if I did, I'd select "Bearing". That's the direction from North where the cache is, and is displayed as a line in Map and a pointer in Compass. To Course could be a problem, because it directs you where the course is (for example, that line I mentioned), which is not necessarily the cache. The OP doesn't seem to be so much about the "compass pointing North", more about navigation tool selections. I'm guessing the compass is right, and the other settings are showing various things on individual devices. Still, the compass and GPS tools are subject to a lot of real-world effects. They won't be perfect at all times. If you're using "the Geocaching Dashboard" on any GPS, watch out. You may be directed to "the nearest cache" even if you select a waypoint unrelated to a cache, which would be confusing if comparing GPS pointers. AND since each device may be loaded with different sets of caches, the nearest one can be different on each GPS. In any case, be sure all devices you compare are calibrated and have found their current GPS location, and all are actively "navigating" to the same point. Otherwise, you may be seeing an effect of the Geocaching Dashboard. I'm not trying to talk you out of The Geocaching Dashboard, because it's cool and all. I used it on the main screen on my Oregon 650. But I don't want it when doing the actual Geocaching. It's confusing enough already.

Yes. The Character has a "Talk to Tequila" button. However, that message "No script to execute" shows up several times in the log. When the player enters a zone, I move the character to that zone and make the character visible. In this case, the GPS moved out of the zone because I created very small zones. This would cause the zone to become invisible but still active. Here is the entire log. 20090210142836|0.00000|0.00000|0.000|0.000|Engine Version 2.11, Player Name: Lisdowney, Device ID: 3489193304 20090210142836|0.00000|0.00000|0.000|0.000|ZCartridge:Start - Downloaded Mon Feb 9 14:25:33 2009 20090210142836|0.00000|0.00000|0.000|0.000|AttributeChanged - Parking Spot, Active 20090210142837|0.00000|0.00000|0.000|0.000|MessageBox:Show - Welcome to A Walk in the Park.<BR> <BR> This Wherigo cache will take you for a walk around a Markham Park where you will collect information. At each zone you will be asked a question about a landmark at that location. When you input the correct answer, you will be given your next set of instructions. At the end, you will be guided to the actual cache location where you can sign the log book and complete the cartridge by providing a special code contained inside the cache. 20090210142837|43.87948|-79.27620|203.363|5.194|Zone:Enter - Parking Spot 20090210142837|43.87948|-79.27620|203.363|5.194|AttributeChanged - Parking Spot, Visible 20090210142837|43.87948|-79.27620|203.363|5.194|AttributeChanged - Playground, Active 20090210142837|43.87948|-79.27620|203.363|5.194|AttributeChanged - Playground, Visible 20090210142837|43.87948|-79.27620|203.363|5.194|MessageBox:Show - You have arrived at the recommended parking location. You can leave your car here and complete this Wherigo by walking around Raybeck park to your north.<BR> <BR> Proceed to the Playground Area to the north of here. The zone will now be visible to you. Once you arrive there, you will receive further instructions.<BR> <BR> 20090210142837|43.87948|-79.27620|203.363|5.194|MessageBox:Callback - [Cancel] Executing callback script 20090210142837|43.87948|-79.27620|203.363|5.194|Zone:Distant - Playground 20090210142902|43.87949|-79.27620|203.453|5.394|MessageBox:Callback - [button1] No script to execute 20090210143008|43.87961|-79.27637|205.316|4.222|Zone:Exit - Parking Spot 20090210143008|43.87961|-79.27637|205.316|4.222|Zone:Proximity - Parking Spot 20090210143100|43.87999|-79.27652|204.846|4.827|Zone:Proximity - Playground 20090210143116|43.88015|-79.27650|206.368|3.936|Zone:Distant - Parking Spot 20090210143158|43.88052|-79.27640|203.832|2.969|Zone:Enter - Playground 20090210143158|43.88052|-79.27640|203.832|2.969|MessageBox:Show - You have arrived at the Children's Playground. Look at the Jungle Gym and count the number of slides. Talk to Tequila and answer his question correctly to get your next instructions.<BR> <BR> 20090210143221|43.88054|-79.27639|203.212|2.969|MessageBox:Callback - [button1] No script to execute 20090210143250|43.88054|-79.27639|203.212|3.112|ZCommand:exec - Tequila:TalktoTequila 20090210143250|43.88054|-79.27639|203.212|3.112|GetInput - Playground Question 20090210143258|43.88054|-79.27639|203.211|3.156|ZInput:GetInput - Playground Question -> 3 20090210143258|43.88054|-79.27639|203.211|3.156|AttributeChanged - Electric Box, Visible 20090210143258|43.88054|-79.27639|203.211|3.156|AttributeChanged - Electric Box, Active 20090210143258|43.88054|-79.27639|203.211|3.156|MessageBox:Show - That is correct. You may now proceed to the Green Electrical Box to the East. That zone is now visible. Once you arrive there, you will receive your next set of instructions.<BR> 20090210143258|43.88054|-79.27639|203.220|3.162|Zone:Distant - Electric Box 20090210143308|43.88054|-79.27639|203.361|3.190|MessageBox:Callback - [button1] No script to execute 20090210143339|43.88049|-79.27640|200.602|2.500|Zone:Exit - Playground 20090210143339|43.88049|-79.27640|200.602|2.500|AttributeChanged - Playground, Visible 20090210143339|43.88049|-79.27640|200.602|2.500|Zone:Proximity - Playground 20090210143422|43.88012|-79.27626|200.417|2.500|Zone:Proximity - Parking Spot 20090210143442|43.87994|-79.27629|203.628|2.500|Zone:Distant - Playground 20090210143651|43.87984|-79.27536|202.776|2.537|Zone:Distant - Parking Spot 20090210143746|43.88033|-79.27505|201.089|2.500|Zone:Proximity - Electric Box 20090210143829|43.88070|-79.27506|199.863|2.500|Zone:Distant - Electric Box 20090210143848|43.88073|-79.27501|203.232|2.500|Zone:Proximity - Electric Box 20090210143943|43.88047|-79.27429|204.532|2.500|Zone:Enter - Electric Box 20090210143943|43.88047|-79.27429|204.532|2.500|MessageBox:Show - You have arrived at the next zone. There is a large green Electrical Transformer Box located on the curb near your current location. On the side of the Transformer is a tracking ID in the form of 99TP99. Add the two numbers together and talk to Tequila to give him the answer.<BR> <BR> 20090210143948|43.88050|-79.27426|201.056|2.500|MessageBox:Callback - [button1] No script to execute 20090210144000|43.88051|-79.27424|199.636|2.500|ZCommand:exec - Tequila:TalktoTequila 20090210144000|43.88051|-79.27424|199.636|2.500|GetInput - Electrical Box Question 20090210144037|43.88047|-79.27422|201.412|2.500|ZInput:GetInput - Electrical Box Question -> 64 20090210144037|43.88047|-79.27422|201.412|2.500|AttributeChanged - ByLaw Sign, Visible 20090210144037|43.88047|-79.27422|201.412|2.500|AttributeChanged - ByLaw Sign, Active 20090210144037|43.88047|-79.27422|201.412|2.500|MessageBox:Show - That is correct. You may now proceed to the next zone, a Town of Markham By Law Sign north of your current location. That new zone is now visible. Once you arrive there, Tequila will give you further instructions. 20090210144038|43.88047|-79.27422|201.412|2.500|Zone:Distant - ByLaw Sign 20090210144046|43.88047|-79.27422|201.412|2.500|MessageBox:Callback - [button1] No script to execute 20090210144107|43.88056|-79.27422|201.105|2.500|Zone:Exit - Electric Box 20090210144107|43.88056|-79.27422|201.105|2.500|AttributeChanged - Electric Box, Visible 20090210144107|43.88056|-79.27422|201.105|2.500|Zone:Proximity - Electric Box 20090210144159|43.88112|-79.27435|197.463|2.500|Zone:Distant - Electric Box 20090210144255|43.88174|-79.27462|196.294|2.500|Zone:Proximity - ByLaw Sign 20090210144345|43.88229|-79.27480|198.732|2.500|Zone:Enter - ByLaw Sign 20090210144345|43.88229|-79.27480|198.732|2.500|MessageBox:Show - You have arrived at the By Law Sign zone. There is a Town of Markham By Law Sign nearby. On the Dog By Law sign there is a By Law number. The last two digits of the By Law number are the year the by law was enacted. Talk to Tequila and he will want to know that two digit number.<BR> <BR> 20090210144405|43.88229|-79.27478|198.873|2.500|MessageBox:Callback - [button1] No script to execute 20090210144413|43.88229|-79.27478|198.872|2.500|ZCommand:exec - Tequila:TalktoTequila 20090210144413|43.88229|-79.27478|198.872|2.500|GetInput - ByLaw Question 20090210144419|43.88229|-79.27478|198.872|2.500|ZInput:GetInput - ByLaw Question -> 94 20090210144419|43.88229|-79.27478|198.872|2.500|AttributeChanged - Markham Park Sign, Visible 20090210144419|43.88229|-79.27478|198.872|2.500|AttributeChanged - Markham Park Sign, Active 20090210144419|43.88229|-79.27478|198.872|2.500|MessageBox:Show - That is correct. You may now proceed to the Town of Markham Park sign northwest of this location. That zone is now visible. Re-enter the park to go to the sign. 20090210144420|43.88229|-79.27478|198.872|2.500|Zone:Distant - Markham Park Sign 20090210144433|43.88229|-79.27478|198.856|2.500|MessageBox:Callback - [button1] No script to execute 20090210144451|43.88223|-79.27486|198.307|2.500|Zone:Exit - ByLaw Sign 20090210144451|43.88223|-79.27486|198.307|2.500|AttributeChanged - ByLaw Sign, Visible 20090210144451|43.88223|-79.27486|198.307|2.500|Zone:Proximity - ByLaw Sign 20090210144503|43.88225|-79.27493|199.167|2.500|Zone:Proximity - Markham Park Sign 20090210144644|43.88268|-79.27540|198.813|2.500|Zone:Enter - Markham Park Sign 20090210144644|43.88268|-79.27540|198.813|2.500|MessageBox:Show - You have reached the next zone. Nearby is a large Town of Markham Park sign with the name of this park on it. Count the letters in the park name. Do not include the word PARK. Tequila will want to know that number. Talk to him. 20090210144645|43.88265|-79.27539|198.795|2.500|Zone:Exit - Markham Park Sign 20090210144645|43.88265|-79.27539|198.795|2.500|AttributeChanged - Markham Park Sign, Visible 20090210144645|43.88265|-79.27539|198.795|2.500|Zone:Proximity - Markham Park Sign 20090210144700|43.88265|-79.27541|199.219|2.500|MessageBox:Callback - [button1] No script to execute 20090210144900|43.88249|-79.27539|198.913|2.500|ZCartridge:Sync 20090210144901|43.88249|-79.27539|198.913|2.500|ZCartridge:Stop

We have a challenge in Ontario for finding 10 Earthcaches requiring the boat attribute. Maybe you should go find them all That question was answered (can't remember if an FAQ or the Geocache Talk episode with Bryan Roth) that all clues would be in the same listings for everyone. Bookmark the homepage for the promotion. The promotion does not require you to be using the latest version of the dashboard. (that we know of thus far)

Hi, and welcome to geocaching! I hope you and your daughter enjoy it! If you are using only the geocaching app on your phone, your experience as a basic member will be limited to traditional caches rated 2 or lower for difficulty and terrain - a good place to start, but you might not see many caches to find around you. The website will show you all the caches except for those that owners have marked as Premium only, and you can manually enter those coordinates, and still log those finds on the website. The website has some starter videos and a LOT of information on how to do various tasks. Spend some time there! Take one/leave one refers to SWAG left by geocachers - the general rule is to trade even or up, but don't be surprised to find, literally, junk, in a lot of caches. We try to clean out the garbage and leave trinkets and signature stuff. I leave wine corks, kids leave bouncy balls, little charms, etc. NO food, gum, toothpaste (yes, I did find a tube of toothpaste in a cache!), perishable items. Take one/leave one doesn't apply to trackables (a whole 'nuther side game that can be a lot of fun, and you don't have to be a premium member to do that either) Premium allows you to see ALL caches available, and for the app that means many more icons on the map for you to choose from! I waited a few months after joining to upgrade to premium; my husband had a premium membership and I just cached with him and logged caches via other methods if we found any that were premium. Find a local group (look for events to attend) and ask questions - most are happy to share tips and insights, and someone local can guide you and show you local customs and what types of cache hides are more common in your neck of the woods. Events are just gatherings of geocachers, usually at a restaurant or park, to talk and share experiences. It's a great way to meet other geocachers learn from more experienced folks!!

The "commercial business" guideline is a sticking point. But another of the problems of a “business” is that they change owners, and the new owner doesn't know what “Geocaching” is, or at least they know it's weird. And the new owner certainly doesn't want families to be drawn there from all over. This is a convenience store! A bunch of local cool old grandfathered caches have gone away when a new owner bought the property. Unless it's a mom & pop store from way back, you may not even find an “owner” to talk about it.

I know of two indoor caches, one in the visitors center of a National Park. You need to talk to the ranger to obtain the cache. The other (GC4RHPA) is in a convenience store (not in the office as stated earlier,) , kept beneath the counter, also need to see the worker to obtain it. Maybe the second one is not allowed.

I am not trying to fool anyone... My last name is Burdek and I cache with my sons our team name would be Burdek and sons... as a tribute to my time working with my father and looking forward to do the same with my sons, I had chose the company name "Burdek and Son's" 3 years ago when I started reorganizing my fathers company that he gave me the keys to 10 years ago. I have only been geocaching for 2 years and within the last month or so my boys have started geocaching with me. If you want to know more about my company feel free to email me through my profile and I will talk to you more about it there as I am not here to promote my business. I am here for geocaching not to promote my company. I have other media outlets to promote with that will target a wider population than a niche group that I am not targeting. Now if I was offering something geocaching related, that might be different. The reason I asked was because I didnt want to have a team name close enough to or exactly as my company name and end up violating a rule. In addition, if my team name and company name are the same, a local geocacher could thing that anything to do with that account would be promoting the business when in fact the company and the geocaching account would separate and have nothing to do with the other. and the whole name idea may be canned anyway as I would have to come up with a new team name if I can get my daughters to go caching with us. They have started to show some interest in going out with me and my boys. So my whole point here to you AZcachemeister is this... I call BS to you and your point of view. I am very capable of keeping my personal life and business life separate from one another. At this time the company name and team name though being the same, make sense for vastly different reasons. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ To everyone else whom responded to this point, thank you for your opinions, and I was thinking that is should not be a problem as long as I kept the business out of it. As Keystone said, I will keep in mind that I can mention the business and maybe a link on the PROFILE page as long as I do not do so on the cache page. To anyone as mentioned earlier in this post, if you want to talk to me about my business, feel free to contact me and I will talk to you through email or on the phone. I will not get into specifics and details about my company here as this is not the place to do so. Burdek and Son's is quite innocuous. Most would look at that as any other team name. Burdek and Son's Floor Services would be different and as you noted, many others would think that you were doing this specifically to promote your business. For many geocachers, mixing commercialism and geocaching is a cardinal sin. Many use geocaching to try to escape that part of their daily lives. There have been many intense discussions here on such things. I have clicked on profiles and seen someone say that they own a local business or service and have never had a problem with that as I see as simply networking. If I ever needed that service, I would probably look them up.

I am not trying to fool anyone... My last name is Burdek and I cache with my sons our team name would be Burdek and sons... as a tribute to my time working with my father and looking forward to do the same with my sons, I had chose the company name "Burdek and Son's" 3 years ago when I started reorganizing my fathers company that he gave me the keys to 10 years ago. I have only been geocaching for 2 years and within the last month or so my boys have started geocaching with me. If you want to know more about my company feel free to email me through my profile and I will talk to you more about it there as I am not here to promote my business. I am here for geocaching not to promote my company. I have other media outlets to promote with that will target a wider population than a niche group that I am not targeting. Now if I was offering something geocaching related, that might be different. The reason I asked was because I didnt want to have a team name close enough to or exactly as my company name and end up violating a rule. In addition, if my team name and company name are the same, a local geocacher could thing that anything to do with that account would be promoting the business when in fact the company and the geocaching account would separate and have nothing to do with the other. and the whole name idea may be canned anyway as I would have to come up with a new team name if I can get my daughters to go caching with us. They have started to show some interest in going out with me and my boys. So my whole point here to you AZcachemeister is this... I call BS to you and your point of view. I am very capable of keeping my personal life and business life separate from one another. At this time the company name and team name though being the same, make sense for vastly different reasons. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ To everyone else whom responded to this point, thank you for your opinions, and I was thinking that is should not be a problem as long as I kept the business out of it. As Keystone said, I will keep in mind that I can mention the business and maybe a link on the PROFILE page as long as I do not do so on the cache page. To anyone as mentioned earlier in this post, if you want to talk to me about my business, feel free to contact me and I will talk to you through email or on the phone. I will not get into specifics and details about my company here as this is not the place to do so.

Definitely, it can change this date. It might be that at the site you collect data and at home you evaluate them and draw conclusions and the lesson draws on the results. Learning is not more than reading a text or listing to a talk. dprovan: "When was that lecture on metamorphic rock?" cezanne: "It was today, April 21st, since that's when I finally figured out what he was saying. But the talk was last week." Ridiculous. That's exactly the question: Which lesson is one reporting on? You're writing a find log on an EarthCache. What possible question can there be about which lesson you're reporting on? That's your choice. Well, of course it's my choice. I suppose that's what I'm completely missing: I would say it's the day I visited the cache, not the day I visited that location before there was a cache. I think dating challenge caches on the day the log was signed is probably the right answer, but I can't bring myself to go that far. Fortunately, I think there's only one challenge cache that I found before I qualified, so the number of discrepancies in my record is small. I can't imagine anyone claiming all the learning happens at the EarthCache GZ. (I'd be a little more uneasy about saying the learning isn't supposed to happen at the site, since it kinda defeats the idea of an EarthCache for the learning to happen elsewhere, but let's leave that aside.) My entire point is that the date the learning happened makes no sense to me in dating the found log. I'm not making a fuss, I'm just discussing what makes sense and why. It makes no difference to me how people actually date their logs.

There is *no* circumstance in which I would let me kids talk to the police separately in this situation. There is no telling what these cops have been told and whether or not they are on a witch hunt. If you feel you must, at least tell the police you are not going to let them talk to your kid without a video camera recording the whole conversation. I am, in fact, a lawyer and no good can ever come of letting police talk to your kids if the police are suspicious about you. it is most likely the law that you have to let them.. sad but true.. No. Absolutely not. around here it is.. the police can show up at your kids school and ask them anything.. they MUST answer.. this is horrible policy from one point of view.. but.... if there was a problem, they need a way to find out. a child will never talk to cops about being molested with the molester present. maybe a witness has to be present too.. but the cops can question your child. it's a tough problem.. if they rescue one child.. then it works. and i believe they have some success. now.. if they question my kids.. there better be a witness or someone there.. there is a better way to handle it other than asking the kid to "step outside".. as for something constructive to add to this thread... I would go to the chief of police or the mayors office or something. they need a better way to handle this to make sure it is done better next time. you can always take out an add in the paper to alert the community to a policy that may need improvement. I'd like to see this law. No offense but until I see it, I am going to doubt that such a blatantly unconstitutional law exists.

There is *no* circumstance in which I would let me kids talk to the police separately in this situation. There is no telling what these cops have been told and whether or not they are on a witch hunt. If you feel you must, at least tell the police you are not going to let them talk to your kid without a video camera recording the whole conversation. I am, in fact, a lawyer and no good can ever come of letting police talk to your kids if the police are suspicious about you. it is most likely the law that you have to let them.. sad but true.. No. Absolutely not. around here it is.. the police can show up at your kids school and ask them anything.. they MUST answer.. this is horrible policy from one point of view.. but.... if there was a problem, they need a way to find out. a child will never talk to cops about being molested with the molester present. maybe a witness has to be present too.. but the cops can question your child. it's a tough problem.. if they rescue one child.. then it works. and i believe they have some success. now.. if they question my kids.. there better be a witness or someone there.. there is a better way to handle it other than asking the kid to "step outside".. as for something constructive to add to this thread... I would go to the chief of police or the mayors office or something. they need a better way to handle this to make sure it is done better next time. you can always take out an add in the paper to alert the community to a policy that may need improvement.

There is *no* circumstance in which I would let me kids talk to the police separately in this situation. There is no telling what these cops have been told and whether or not they are on a witch hunt. If you feel you must, at least tell the police you are not going to let them talk to your kid without a video camera recording the whole conversation. I am, in fact, a lawyer and no good can ever come of letting police talk to your kids if the police are suspicious about you. it is most likely the law that you have to let them.. sad but true.. when they talk to your child, they might be grilled and possibly asked if they are telling the truth. I cache with my family and sometimes my son or daughter.. if someone thought they were in danger.. plese pick up the phone.. that how the system works.. if you get a jerk of of a cop... then that is too bad.. I teach my kids that cops are nice and can be trusted.. i understand differently that they are people too.. nothing man ever created is or will be perfect.. especially the legal system.

It is indeed sad that a walk in the park/woods leads people to think the worst. It's a sad reflection on our society in more ways than one. I can't really fault the police. They received a 911 call to which they are obligated to respond. The majority of calls they get are for good cause and the ones that come out and say, "I know why you're here and I admit I'm guilty" are almost nonexistent. But I do agree that my child will never be questioned away from me or my lawyer. Actually, make that my lawyer. I don't care what I didn't do I will not talk to the police without one present. I have seen very compelling videos of lawyers saying don't ever talk to the police and I have been told directly by active duty law enforcement don't ever talk to the police. So if you have defense lawyers and police who typically end up on opposite sides of the table in court both telling you don't ever talk to the police, what more evidence do you need that it's a bad idea? First, asserting your Fourth Amendment rights in no way ever gives police reasonable cause. It's your right to refuse to let officers search your house, car, person, etc. and the burden is on them to prove they have reasonable cause. Second, the police report never mentioned any crime taking place. It only said that a man and a child were walking in what the caller deemed to be a "remote" part of the park and they weren't sure if the child was the man's? REALLY? What a revelation! They are not sure of the relationship of a total stranger? And that warrants a call to the cops? They must call 911 about 5,000 times a day if that is the yardstick they're using. While I support our men and women in blue completely and I understand the hassles that go along with their job, I will never use that as an excuse for me to abandon my rights. There is only one exception to that rule but I won't go into that here because it is both personal and irrelevant to the current topic. All in all though, I'm glad this ended with nothing more than a little embarrassment. Hopefully this will be an isolated incident and won't be enough to completely ruin the OP's daughter's enthusiasm for geocaching, etc.

First time posting, so I am not sure if I am in the right place. I would like to create a "bird box" style puzzle cache. It will be placed on my property on a part that is publicly accessible, so no issues there. However, the theme is where I have questions on. I want to theme the cache after the Civil Air Patrol and their contributions to the local community. Not as a recruiting tool, no information on the current squadron will be included. Cachers will have to solve three puzzles themed after the three missions of the Civil Air Patrol. Who do I talk to for approval? Thanks.

Agree with the three headed dog on this one. Also would add to avoid a call to action. OK to talk factually about CAP; not OK to ask finders to do anything other than find a cache, such as "Take a moment to think about..." If your reviewer has issues, they will let you know. Please give them the benefit of a doubt if they ask you to scale back your description, reviewers are responsible for implementing the guidelines, which prohibit any agenda. I like CAP - I was at Maxwell AFB for three years and am familiar with their mission - but we stay away from agendas here.

The events themselves didn't directly encourage people to place cache listings for the event. They were themed events that were to encourage creation of better geocaches and ideas. People can still host events just like that today if they wish - they just can't directly promote creating geocache listings (publish one cache to gain entry, eg). Those event caches were indeed judged to a degree by a reviewer and hq to become an 'approved' event for the promo period. (not that there were any strict requirements other than the event date - plenty were just "come have a coffee and talk about geocaches" flash mobs) In a sense the promo did encourage the 'hosting of lame events' just for a souvenir; but lame events aren't like 'lame geocaches' anyway. Don't attend them, they go away The key distinction is between how to make better caches vs encouragement to create geocache listings. The former is acceptable, the latter isn't.

I'm curious if there is somebody reading this thread who is able to evaluate how much money GS is "making" with the PMs. Just to be clear: This post is NOT to blame anybody, it's just to get an idea about what we really talk about. Let's try to get facts and figures instead of "thoughts" and "emotions". As an assumption I think it's not exagerated to estimate that about 33% of the cachers are PMs. Taking 25$ as a virtual amount every PM pays it should be possible to calculate the money GS earns (of course the calculation can also be done with 30$ if you want but 4x25=100 and that's easier to "compute"). Is there somebody, who's familiar with rented server farms and costs for traffic, who can evaluate what might be needed to cover a site hosting more than 2 millions (cache listing) entries? With this it should be possible to calculate the money to be payed for such a "ressource" on the market - assuming they are not hosting the servers themselves. The difference between the virtually calculated earned money and the virtually calculated payed money should give us an idea about the win situation based on PMs fees. I know that this can only be a virtual calculation as nobody knows the exact figures of members, the number of PMs and the money earned and payed by GS. But I'm wondering if we can get an "idea" of what we all talk about. Might it be 10.000$/a or 100.000$/a or 1.000.000$/a? By the way: Is the VAT, which is collected by a company in the US, payed to the related (EU-)countries where the money comes from? Or who does get the VAT which is mentioned here all the time? Isn't it, that you can get back the VAT payed in a foreign country when going back to your country? And a last question: Has anybody got an invoice from GS? Normally the different parts of the total amount should be listed in details on such an invoice, isn't it? At least it's this way in Germany if we pay in Euro. I've never seen an invoice in foreign currency to have an amount for the VAT on it. But I've not seen so many invoices of this type so far. And just to repeat it: This post is NOT to blame anybody, it's just to get an idea about what we really talk about. Let's try to get facts and figures instead of "thoughts" and "emotions".

Ah, appeal to authority! In theory, the clue types themselves could be connected to a cache property; maybe even the jewels (by colour?). Who know. Bryan Roth was on Geocache Talk on Sunday discussing the promo. I don't recall any clarification to the clue placement algorithm though. (I was partly distracted by paddling in a kayak at the time, heh)

Since you mention freezing, IF you have a tick that has latched on, I always put it in a baggie and freeze it. If you have any signs of anything of disease, the tick can be tested. At least, that is what I heard. I did this religiously when I found one latched onto my kids when they were little. I overheard one of their friends ask my son what that was (when they were snooping in the fridge/freezer). My son said, "Oh, that's our tick.". ha ha. Gotta give the neighbors something to talk about, I guess.

Because jellis is using a small stamp, and he (the CO) hasn't said anything about size being the problem, I think his reasoning against the use of stamps is that people are using the 'divide-and-conquer' group caching style of play in his area. It's done to get more smiley points. A stamp with the groups name is made and each member carries a group stamp. The group's ethos is that at least one person did get to ground zero and found the cache (or in some cases depending on the ethos of the group, at least one person got to ground zero and left a throwdown with the group's name). Sometimes this behavior is assumed by the CO when the group find a huge number of caches in a day and all log generic logs not mentioning a visit to each of the caches. Sometimes the CO hears about the groups practices through the grapevine from other sites like Facebook, or perhaps talk that goes around at events. The CO cannot do anything about this practice. They must allow it. They can not insist that finders write their individual trailnames as more concrete proof that they actually visited the cache.

I have an idea for an earthcache based on one I found in another state, but which can easily be replicated in my home state. I have a location and some general information, but I'd like to discuss my topic with someone who is knowledgeable about earthcaches before I go through the process of writing it up and submitting it, in the hopes that I can do it right the first time. Are there any earthcache 'mentors' out there who are willing to talk about submission guidelines and offer pointers on what makes a good earthcache? I know that there are websites and some FAQ pages available, but I work better with discussion and feedback.

That's true. I can't promote directly. But if all fails just let me know and I will talk with Groundspeak to get the new officer promoted.

Well, there's Cindy, a TB made from a cinder block, but we don't talk about her weight. There's also "Barry", a 3 foot long piece of railroad track.

The first hands-on videos, the Garmin press videos and the Garmin news mail only talk about GPS and glonass.

If it is a right of way easement, then the land still belongs to the landowner, the government just has the legal right to build and maintain a road there, and people have the right to drive on it. So you'd ask the landowner then. Sometimes the property might actually change hands, though. For interstate highways, it's normally not just an easement, the government takes title to the land through eminent domain. So if you wanted to put a cache in, say, a rest area, In those cases, the state department of transportation might need to give permission. It may be worth it to reach out to some of the local cache owners to get a feel for what they had to do. One last note - the caching guidelines talk about "adequate" permission, not explicit. So if a county has an open geocaching policy on park land, you don't need to ask, just make sure your cache follows whatever rules the county put out there.