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I'm not religious about it, but generally if I'm really revisiting a cache (as opposed to just checking to see if it's still in place), I'll open it and sign the log again, yes. It doesn't take much to talk me out of it, though, like if it's hard to retrieve or has some delicate camo that I don't want to disturb.

Another 'not while caching' experience.... I was out hiking in the redwoods of northern California when I ran into Big Foot, or Sasquatch, as he likes to be called. (Turns out he has a complex about his huge feet. But that's another story.) He was just sitting along the riverbank sipping his morning dew while leaning back on a rock with his enormous legs propped up on a log. You can imagine my shock! And as startled as I was, I continued to approach him and called out, "Good morning!" Of course, this startled him in turn and he just about jumped out of his skin! Regaining his composure, he looked over, knodded his head and said, "Wassup?" We spent the morning chatting about global warming and the negative effects of carbon emissions on the Northwest ecosystems. Ugh! Who knew Big Foot was such a talker?! Anyway, we split company and went our separate ways. We exchanged numbers but I never return his calls (he can talk for hours....talk...talk...talk).

Rhyming logs ... cool . I my home zone, there is the mystery cache GC522C5. It turned out to be very hard to solve, and it took almost 9 months until the FTF was logged. It's an all time record for a cache within ~100km from my home. 6 months after the publish, with no FTF in sight and the cache being _the_ talk on many events, I logged the following note. The cache title, "4 Gurken", is German for "4 cucumbers", in case someone actually reads it and wonders about the reference . ------------------------------------- Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody, alternate lyrics: Bohemian Mystery Is this a real cache? Or is it mockery? No-one can tell me, so it still is a mystery. Open your eyes, look up to the tree and see! There is a T5, should not be hard to get. because it's 4.5, no D5, not too high, not too low. Be the first to find it! Doesn't really matter to me, to me. Hooray! Just found a cache. Turned a stone and then I saw the box - just like so many more. Found it! It was such a fun, and now I'm gonna search another one. Caching, oooh! Such a thrill to make a find, today it's great and it will be tomorrow. Caching on, caching on, as if nothing really matters. Too bad, a mystery sends shivers down my spine, head is aching all the time. Help me, anybody, I've got to find the solution to the riddle I can't solve. Help me, oooh (be the first to find it) I just wanna log, I sometimes wish I'd really clicked on "Ignore" ... (* guitar solo *) I see 4 little green cucumbers on my screen, And a hint, and a hint! But what is the solution? Cucumbers are lazy, brain is going crazy, see?! The reviewer (the reviewer) The reviewer (the reviewer) The reviewer eahmschaugo The one who knows I'm out of mind now, nobody helps me! He's out of mind now, will someone help him out? Help him ignore all this dadgum mysteries! Easy come, easy find, will you tell me where? No, never! No, we will not tell you where (tell him where!) No, never! We will not tell you where (tell him where!) No, never! We will not tell you where (tell me where!) Will not tell you where (tell me where!) Never never tell you where. Never tell me where. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no! Oh the cucumber, the cucumber (oh cucumber, where are you?) An FTF is just out of reach for now for me, for me, for meeeeeeee!!!! So you think you can tease me and laugh in my face? So you think that there should be no FTF race? Oh, owner, can't do this to me, owner! Just gotta find out, just gotta find out where it is. Any other caches, Anyone can see, Any other caches, don't look just as haunting to me. (Be the first to find it.) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

That is - in other words - exactly what I said. The rest of your posting talks a lot about numbers. Numbers of waymarks in a category, numbers of officers. But you never talk about the subject of a category. Whether it is an interesting subject or not. To make it short: It seems that you prefer to have prevelant and global waymarks and I prefer to have interesting waymarks and don't care that much about the numbers. Fortunately we both are allowed to have our own opinions.

Well, please don't get me wrong, but I don't think that it is up to you (or anybody else) alone to decide what is "outstanding" for the entire planet. We are all people from different countries of different ages with different interests and so on. What you would call an outstanding category might bore me to death and vice versa. Don't get me wrong: I don't think that your opinion is wrong, I'm just trying to explain, that my opinion isn't completely wrong either. Now for the prevelance: The category "Ancient Traces and Roads" needed more than 10 years to collect 261 waymarks worldwide(!). If we had to decide TODAY, if this category should pass peer review, would you vote against it? I know that I wouldn't. Simply because there are people out there who would be enthusiastic to see them and this category would help them to get all the information needed to find them. Next example: "Glaciers", 12 years, 77 waymarks. Next: "Martello Towers", 10 years, 55 waymarks. And the list could be continued for a while. If all these categories would have failed in peer review, how boring would this hobby be? To get some facts I checked Wikipedia and found a list of all Romanesque buildings in Austria, which is a quite small country. I was very surprised to see that the list contains 136 buildings, 4 of which are in my hometown Wien. I know that we have one or two ancient roads, some glaciers and - as far as I know - not one Martello tower. But still all these categories would get a positive vote from me. Furthermore, if I could do what I wanted I would kick out the thousands of McDonalds Restaurant waymarks to make room for a few hundred Romanesque buildings, but that's a different story. The point (in my humble opinion) is: The prevelance criterion doesn't include a specific number, because it would be impossible to define one. Some things don't exist in large quantities, because only a few of them survived for hundreds or thousands of years or simply because there aren't endless volcanos on this planet. So, if we talk about buildings that are hundreds of years old, we have to accept that there are less than from younger periods.

Here is what was sent to my account by the above waymarker: "I don't expect this to help my cause but you are an officer in the Iowa Historic Markers category. WOW, talk about a category which is NOT GLOBAL. Shame on you! " I'm going to REALLY try to be diplomatic about this since you are obviously pissed off and not thinking clearly. I will tell you right off the bat, however, what you did is truly outside the boundaries of acceptable social norms - I guess it is to be expected in these days of computer anonymity. Act first, get called out on it, then apologize - pretty much par for the course in this day and age. First, I did not create the Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, or Oklahoma State Historical Marker categories that I officer, and, as a favor, became an officer to keep them alive. So, no, actually, I'll take your thanks and not your shame for doing that - I had NO control on whether or not those categories were created or not. If you look at the dates of creation of those categories, three were created at the time Waymarking was created and Oklahoma was created in 2008. For more of your information, Missouri Historical Markers was created by one of the early founders of Waymarking - the late GEO*Trailblazer1. I was more than honored when I was asked to take a spot as an officer in a group that he founded. I think I would try to get my facts straight before I went on an email blast, but that is just me... Second, I gave my HONEST opinion in both the forum and in the Peer Review - DEAL WITH IT AS AN ADULT!!!!! Everyone isn't going to like your category. I thought then, and I think now it is a niche category that is limited in both of those buildings that CAN be waymarked and WHERE they can be waymarked. You knew EXACTLY how my vote was going to be. If you didn't, go back up about halfway up this discussion - I said it would be a tough sell because of the limits of geography. Sorry, I didn't sugarcoat, I didn't lie, I didn't blow smoke up a certain orifice - I told you exactly how I was thinking then, and it was exactly how I voted in Peer Review. At least I had the guts to keep my comments public, I could have hidden them and as well as my name. It's crappy emails like you sent is the reason that the tickbox to keep comments hidden is there. I was at least trying to give you some feedback, obviously, not wanted UNLESS it was of the positive kind. Third, you actually got some very nice comments from some VERY well respected waymarkers in Peer Review. WHY, do you then feel the need to go ahead and slam other waymarkers like this? Are you really that insecure of the category passing that you feel the need to lash out at negative comments? If my actually very calm comments in the peer review section touched a nerve like that, just imagine the first time you deny a waymark? You will learn very quickly what "Shame on you!" REALLY means when you read what an angry waymarker writes. In conclusion, this is the second time this year someone from across the pond has felt the need to admonish me through a private email. This is a global hobby, not just one for either the European or North American areas. Seriously, and I really say this with the utmost respect, what you said in the forum and privately was totally uncalled for. You should have researched more about those State Historical Markers before you decided to put some of the Waymarking population on email blast. Seriously, you look really immature by slamming fellow waymarkers in the forum and in private emails. I'm not holding my breath for an apology, although one is certainly due me and the rest of the waymarkers you decided to go on full tilt. To the rest of the Waymarking population, I'm sorry you have to read the above diatribe from me. I guess I could just have bitten the bullet and taken the personal attack, however, our friend above has decided the measurement of certain body parts is in order. I guess from now on, we have to agree with EVERY category that comes down the pipe,

On every single forum or reading-based-thing which I have ever interacted I have always made up a new way to pronounce "usernames" so that it makes sense in my own brain. I was somewhat satisfied to learn that I pronounced niraD correctly, but that is not always the case. Sometimes I say letters that don't even exist or mix it all up so that my mouth can say it a way I want it to be said. My husband introduced me to the Wheel of Time books. There is a character named Siuan in the books. He calls her "Swan" (like the bird) when we talk about her. I don't have a different way to say this name. It doesn't look like swan is right, but there is nothing to say it is wrong. We understand one another when we say "Swan" to talk about this character. I find geocaching to be very similar. I probably "say" a lot of the names wrong, but it really doesn't matter. If I meet them I will ask but then I am more likely to call them "Ann" than 4cheet0hcarrier when speaking to them so it still doesn't really matter.

Thanks for the enjoyable read! Talk about epic road trip. There was a post awhile back that showed a route they took through Europe to get as many countries as possible.

Yep. I believe folks sometimes confuse faceboook with forums. Disagreeing with another once on a local caching site, they said, "you couldn't talk to me like that on faceboook, a mod would stop that" after I called bs on something said (I was where he mentioned, he wasn't...). I asked "what would be the purpose of a 'discussion' where everyone agrees with you ?".

Thanks for the enjoyable read! Talk about epic road trip.

A. Responding does not necessarily equate to "being nice". B. You can never control whether someone is "offended". Even a "nice" response could end up being read as a swipe at them or rude response. I'd rather let them get frustrated by no response than interact with someone who chooses not to put effort into a solve...or at least say they did. C. Not responding to lazy cachers takes precisely zero effort, so it already has an advantage over any interaction at all. and... D. I've actually been interacting with you about this, yet you still feel the need to talk about it and make me out to be some rude jerk. This is PRECISELY the sort of issue I'm talking about. By pursuing this discussion, you are actually, in a way, proving my point.

I have only run into LEOs while caching once. Los Angeles County Sheriff. It was in Castiac and at night. They saw my car pulled to the side of the road and me running about with my Surefire light. They said good evening and I responded back kindly in turn. I asked if they had heard of Geocaching and the one officer had. I said that was what I was doing. They seemed convinced and wished me a good night. Now my local law enforcement generally know about it. Being a gun dealer, I also sell them a lot of guns. So even if I ran into a local officer that didn't know me and what I was up to, I have Taft PD and Kern County Sheriff's officers actual cell numbers in my phone. If needed could simply say, "Contact Sgt. Eveland or Senior Deputy Nance and ask them if they know who Wesley Morris is and what is Geocaching." They wouldn't even need to see that I had their cell number. The one thing I would caution everyone else against is ever, ever talking to security guards. Just don't do it. You do not have to talk to the police, but sometimes it won't hurt. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TALK TO SECURITY!!! If a security guard ever asked me what I was doing, I would tell them, "Nothing." If they want to know more, I am not telling them crap. I would simply leave. If a police officer shows up after security calls them, I would cooperate with the police and then just tell the officer straight up, "No way in hell am I answering a security guard's questions. I'll talk to you, but security gets nothing." Probably 9 out of 10 cops would actually respect you more for it and tell you to have a nice night. Security guards, the carnies of the non-circus world!

Meh...I don't feel like responding to every request for a hint on my puzzles. I don't feel like it's reasonable to expect me to always respond. I don't get offended when others don't respond to my own messages. All this talk about what is "reasonable" is...ummm...unreasonable?

Hi All. Brand new here (haven’t found a single cache yet), but the whole concept is so cool i am now after my first one. Tell me: is it addictive? :-p Anyway, I’m Brazilian but now living in Berkshire, UK. If anyone wants to talk that’s nearby, give me a shout!

I will state my problem as simply as possible without the techie talk because I don't know the techie talk. We live in the Shediac area of NB which is a summer tourist area. We have 428 active caches. This time of year we get many notifications about our caches. It is extremely important to me that the reasons for the notification appear early in the subject line so I can quickly see if there are caches with problems such as DNF or Needs Maintenance, etc.. I may also be getting dozens of Found it logs from the same person. It is easier to go through all the notifications if I go through all the ones from the same person at the same time. So I also need the finders name to appear early in the subject line. In other words I much prefer the old notifications which said:[LOG] Owner: ggoguen_1 found Lourdes (Traditional Cache)(2). It is also useful to see who was out finding our caches. I also set 4 filters to send the notifications to a separate folder if certain caching words appear in the subject line. Well it seems that the changes somehow short circuited my filters because todays notifications ended up in my inbox. I guess I will have to wait to see what will be the final decision before reworking the filters. PAul

And you are entitled to it. And entitled to share it. Nobody is wondering if geocaching is a particularly dangerous activity. For that matter neither is eating at a restaurant. Unless you happened to be in Luby's Cafeteria in Waco, TX on October 16, 1991. And going to high school isn't considered particularly dangerous. Except on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High. The fact is bad things happen to good people doing innocent things. Haha. I don't want everybody to carry. I just don't want ANYBODY to second guess or lecture me on my decision for doing so. I think on this point you and most gun owners see eye to eye. I think that means that it shows through your clothing. I kinda guessed that. I wonder why "print"? I would think "fit" I guess I watch too much "How do I look" and not enough "Sons of Guns" on TLC. Nah. The guy on "Sons of Guns" thinks he's the only one smart enough to shoot a gun. He makes some pretty cool stuff but I wouldn't look to him for your normal every day gun owner kind of information. I carry rockets everywhere I go so I can just shoot it back up in a tree. I live in Tennessee so I don't have to worry about printing. Although I CC 99.999999% of the time I don't care if somebody gets a little glimpse. Why would you say that? Did some of the comments cause you to get your underwear in a bunch? I am one that has a problem with this thread. My issue, as I have already stated, is that you guys want to talk about guns, not geocaching. There are forums for talking about guns. I don't go there to talk about geocaching. I do. I often talk about other aspects of my life on gun forums. Guns don't define me and neither does geocaching. At least not by themselves. But together they form pieces of the puzzle that is me. I also play drums but I would be willing to bet that you wouldn't poo poo all over this thread if he asked how many geocachers play drums. Being new here I could be wrong and I would be willing to concede if I am but I have been down this road so many times before that I doubt it. Seriously, if you have that much of a problem with gun owners why would you submit yourself to the torture of reading this thread? We're not going to change. You're not going to change. The only thing accomplished is some people will increase their blood pressure by either championing the anti-gun cause or by championing the pro-gun cause. It's for this same reason I avoid like the plague any religious debates. They never end pretty. Back to the OP: If I'm out of bed and not on my way to or from work, I'm probably carrying. My Kimber Ultra Carry II is my near constant companion. I currently have an OWB leather Don Hume holster but I have a guy making me an IWB holster. I do have to worry about some of the city parks in TN though. Our state legislature allows carry in parks but gives city/county governments the ability to "opt out," creating a very lovely little patchwork of allowed and not allowed areas for you to navigate. So basically you have to know the law about every square inch in the state. Oh, and IBTL too.

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.. FYI: Alkhalikoi is a police officer.

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.

"Ok, so if these people really thought that you were a child molester, the question in my mind is why did they let you out of their sight? Why didn't they come close enough to talk? This would have served two purposes: first, and most importantly, it would prevent you from doing what they suspected you were up to; second, it would allow them to ascertain what you were up to." I've worked in government for many years and if there is one true thing in the world it is that the public would much reather contact some agency and get it to do XYZ than talk to another human. Sometimes that is good, wouldn't want some little old lady going to talk to the local meth cook. Sometimes it is a pain like when you get used as a weapon in a neighborhood spat.

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.

You may be right. I'm trying to understand why someone would suggest that a CO would be better off placing a string of traditionals caches along a route, rather than make the same experience a single multi-cache. That was basically what someone suggested in another discussion thread, and it rubbed me the wrong way. I can see that, but I'd take the advice as the simple practical comment: very few will do 1000 stage multi, so do a 1000 traditionals, instead. It doesn't much matter why that is. Even what you quoted in the OP sounds like nothing more than "don't bother me with a multi", not "if you do a multi, I won't get as many smilies." What's struck me about the quality question is that in almost every response to the quality poll, people keep calling it "quality" when what they talk about is what they like. I appreciate this thread in this context, because I think what we're seeing is that the multi-trad vs. multicache discussion boils down to what people like and not at all about which has more quality. Specifically, some people like lots of simple, individual caches, so by what right do we say those caches don't have "quality"? Yet dissing power trails in just what way is a prevalent position in the quality discussion.

The case you made is that numbers are the only reason for people to pick multiple caches over a multicache. I argued against it. It doesn't really make sense for you to turn around and talk about the fact that you can imagine a situation where the numbers really would be the only difference. Although I like multicaches, my point was that many people (most people, actually) don't like multicaches, so you just strengthen my argument by making the multicache in your thought experiment devoid of anything that would make anyone at all want to do it. All the more reason for people to pick the traditionals instead. I'm not really sure I know what point you're trying to make, but I think the multicache doesn't support it. I think what you're trying to say is presented just as well with the thought experiment of 2 traditional out in the desert 100 miles apart vs. a string of 1000 traditionals strung out a tenth of a mile apart. I think you're trying to suggest that it's only an obsession with numbers that would make the 1000 cache string more popular. Would that be as valid a thought experiment to get to your point? There are people that do power trails. Some of them, I guess, do it just for the numbers, but I think most do it for the challenge. Yes, the mind numbing challenge. I've considered trying one for that reason, but haven't had a reason to be near one. Furthermore, even if you could prove that the only people that ever did power trails were people that had no interesting in geocaching beyond the find count, I'd still just say, "More power to them!" There's invalid about being motivated by numbers.

It isn't really a "use at your own risk" kind of issue. It's really more of a "don't talk about these things on our foums" issue. For example, someone might want to discuss... the differences between an unauthorized smartphone app and other apps (Groundspeak's app and/or the authorized API partner apps). the latest location-based game that isn't geocaching. a new geocache listing site, and the new features it introduced, or the mistakes its making, or whatever. what geocache listing sites are best for cross-listing a cache (in addition to listing it at geocaching.com). what geocache listing sites are best for listing cache concepts that were not published on geocaching.com. the details of an upcoming geocaching trip that includes someone banned from Groundspeak's forums. There are any number of conversations that would not be allowed on Groundspeak's forums. Groundspeak is perfectly free to set such rules for their forums. But those rules may discourage local geocaching groups from using their forums.

The app was convenient, so it brought more new people in to try the hobby. It's no surprise the more new people mean more mistakes, but I think it's the number of new players, not the fact that many of them were using the app. Have you really seen much of that? It does happen, but only a few caches a year. And, man, talk about being discouraged: the newbies that get into it and drop a couple sub-par caches get bored really fast when people complain about bad placement and poor containers, so they rarely plant more than a couple such caches before giving up. Since I don't believe this happens often enough to worry about, I'm against "doing something about it" just in general, but the fact is that some of the best COs in my area started out this way then quickly learned from their mistakes. We'd have missed out on a lot of good caches if the process had discouraged them from trying because they'd fail. More new players, more problems makes sense. But, the ratio is different between the groups. Lets say we get 100 people that stumble upon the app and 100 stumbling upon an article in a magazine or newspaper. It stands to reason that more app users will make mistakes because they download and immediately try to play. At the same time, the article readers get more information right off the bat and thereby tend to make less mistakes. Mas38's statement is certainly what's happening in my area. The vast majority of new app owners only stay with us for a short time. New names pop up once or twice and then they're gone never to be heard from again. We are lucky though that they don't tend to place caches in the short time they're interested.

The app was convenient, so it brought more new people in to try the hobby. It's no surprise the more new people mean more mistakes, but I think it's the number of new players, not the fact that many of them were using the app. Have you really seen much of that? It does happen, but only a few caches a year. And, man, talk about being discouraged: the newbies that get into it and drop a couple sub-par caches get bored really fast when people complain about bad placement and poor containers, so they rarely plant more than a couple such caches before giving up. Since I don't believe this happens often enough to worry about, I'm against "doing something about it" just in general, but the fact is that some of the best COs in my area started out this way then quickly learned from their mistakes. We'd have missed out on a lot of good caches if the process had discouraged them from trying because they'd fail.