You're Not A Geocacher Unless...

9.4k · June 6, 2006

I'll start:

You're not a geocacher unless ... you have sat at the top of a mountain, cache in hand, enjoying a spectacular view after a long day hike.

June 6, 2006

You're not a geocacher unless:

There are scratches on your legs, sweat on your brow, exhausted, yet with a smiling face becuase your name is on a log...

20.7k · June 6, 2006

You are a member of at least one cache listing service, have found at least one cache, have logged your find online and plan on looking for more.

2.6k · June 6, 2006

unless you've pushed your way through knee-deep snow and slush, wet feet and all, just to find that one cache that you've itching for, and then TN execpt for wonderful memories, and a desire for dry socks, and LN but a trail in the snow.

June 6, 2006

Unless you have bushwacked a mile through the forest and given blood to mosquitos and thorns for a piece of plastic you could have gotten at the Dollar store a mile from your house. And then thought to yourself, this was fun.

June 6, 2006

You're not a geocacher unless....you have been brought to a cool spot you never knew about before and had fun finding a cache of any type.

11.3k · June 6, 2006

You're not a Geocacher unless ... you have enjoyed the camaraderie of others on a great day of finding caches together:

Although, I also think you are not a Geocacher unless ... you also enjoy searching out those elusive containers all by yourself. :laughing:

2.4k · June 6, 2006

unless you smell like DEET from May through October.

June 6, 2006

You're not a geocacher unless...... your homepage is your "nearest unfound caches" page.... or you at least check it once a day!

c'mon..... 'fess up! :laughing:

P.S. done did all of the above so far.... even the snow! (typed from Sunny Florida)

20.7k · June 6, 2006

one word ... chiggers.

June 6, 2006

.... drag a sleeping 6 year old from her warm comfy bed to the car in order grab a FTF that was published at 10 PM.

5.9k · June 6, 2006

From some moron in the magazine:

Sometimes I want to go back

Back to the beginning when it was new and new to me.

Way way back, before, when a new cache brought excitement

and anticipation

Do you remember?

I remember

Back when it was all just harmony and lyrics

Before it became rock and roll and big business

Before the background noise masked the laughter

Geocachers had interesting places to hide their treasures

and we marveled at the views

When one cache in a day was sufficient, and three was exhausting

Previous to that film canister secreted in the rubble of a shattered building

Before an unexceptional tree on an equally nondescript half-acre lot

was the objective

Once upon a time, when 100 finds made you remarkable

and 500 made you a fanatic

In those days when there was more community and less schism

Remember:

You discovered a park right there in your town

The stunning vista atop a mountain you had little reason to ever climb before

Sitting in the cool damp forest in front of an unopened cache box, enthralled

Slogging down the beach, the cold wind enraged,

and icy rain on the back of your neck

Sunshine on your face as you reemerged from the park’s tree line

Another hard earned notch in your belt

Did you wear a knowing grin while others wondered what you were doing?

Those days, you know?

When common sense was the primary guidance

When I didn’t have to second-guess

Or be second-guessed

When fun wasn’t complicated

When we were equals to our children in the passion of our sense of wonder

Edited June 6, 2006 by Criminal

June 6, 2006

You're not a geocacher unless ...

The day you learned about Geocaching you ran down to WalMart to buy a GPS receiver because that was the only place that was open and you just couldn't wait! No, not another day, not another hour. You NEEDED (imperative verb) to get in on this!

2.4k · June 6, 2006

one word ... chiggers.

uh-oh... I might have to turn in my geocaching badge.

As far as I know, I have never seen a chigger. I wouldn't even recognize one if I saw one. (It's some sort of bug, right?)

20.7k · June 6, 2006

one word ... chiggers.

uh-oh... I might have to turn in my geocaching badge.

As far as I know, I have never seen a chigger. I wouldn't even recognize one if I saw one. (It's some sort of bug, right?)

I've never seen one, but I know when I've walked through a bunch of them earlier in the day.

June 6, 2006

You're not a Geocacher unless... you've reached barehanded past an angry rattlesnake to yank an ammo can from its nest.

22k · June 6, 2006

You call in sick and go caching, And you really are sick!

2.1k · June 6, 2006

"You're not a geocacher unless...". This phrase implicitly requests the proof that:

Given some action/event has occurred, you now consider yourself a geocacher.

The definition of that action/event results in the completion of the original phrase. Too simplistic of an action/event, particularly one unrelated to the activity of geocaching one could easily presume, would not accurately complete the statement. For example, "You're not a geocacher unless you've been outdoors" encompasses a number of people who have not even heard of geocaching and so it is difficult to acceed to them being known as a "geocacher" as a result.

Instead, one should presume the action/event of "geocaching" would be therefore necessary to give rightful claim to the term "geocacher". The actions and events that compose geocaching are far too variable to select any one or even few components and call them as valid as the whole. The result is that "You're not a geocacher unless...you geocache".

Put into a more familiar phrasing:

I geocache, therefore I am a geocacher.

In that way, each time we geocache we define what it is to be a geocacher. Our existence as a geocacher is only as good as the self-evidence that our consciousness provides us upon introspection as to whether we've geocached, no more and no less.

June 6, 2006

you drag the wife and kids out of the house with gps in hand and cast on ankle with torn muscles and a fracture.

5.7k · June 6, 2006

Now that it appears as though everyone on planet earth and possibly well beyond is a geocacher, I totally and completely retract this comment. "If you are wheel chair bound, you can never be a cacher." Thank you very much. :laughing: Cache on Garth! ;-) Astounding.

Edited June 7, 2006 by Team Cotati

38.2k · June 6, 2006

"You're not a geocacher unless...". This phrase implicitly requests the proof that:

Given some action/event has occurred, you now consider yourself a geocacher.

The definition of that action/event results in the completion of the original phrase. Too simplistic of an action/event, particularly one unrelated to the activity of geocaching one could easily presume, would not accurately complete the statement. For example, "You're not a geocacher unless you've been outdoors" encompasses a number of people who have not even heard of geocaching and so it is difficult to acceed to them being known as a "geocacher" as a result.

Instead, one should presume the action/event of "geocaching" would be therefore necessary to give rightful claim to the term "geocacher". The actions and events that compose geocaching are far too variable to select any one or even few components and call them as valid as the whole. The result is that "You're not a geocacher unless...you geocache".

Put into a more familiar phrasing:

I geocache, therefore I am a geocacher.

In that way, each time we geocache we define what it is to be a geocacher. Our existence as a geocacher is only as good as the self-evidence that our consciousness provides us upon introspection as to whether we've geocached, no more and no less.

Don't you have some studying to do?

4.8k · June 6, 2006

If you are wheele chair bound, you can never be a cacher.

:laughing:

1.8k · June 6, 2006

You're not a geocacher unless ... you’ve traversed a mountain, (stupid switchbacks) had a cherry seed spittin’ contest with your hiking pal while having breath taking views of Mt. Rainer as a back drop.

Geocache GCD

well that's just the short of it....

Pepper

June 6, 2006

one word ... chiggers.

ABSOLUTLEY........lol

You're not a geocacher unless you can spell cache, have seeked cache AND have the chiggers to prove it. :laughing:

5.7k · June 6, 2006

To wit, Carleenp: "You're not a geocacher unless ... you have sat at the top of a mountain, cache in hand, enjoying a spectacular view after a long day hike." Crimminie. :laughing:

6.5k · June 6, 2006

You're not a geocacher until you have explained this obsession of ours to someone who has never heard of it and they:

A: start getting that glazed look in their eyes, and are just dying to say-"you do what?" but are too polite.

and/or

B: had them say "wow that's cool, take me with you."

Have diverted a perfectly normal road trip or drive to look for "just one".

Edited June 6, 2006 by wimseyguy

June 6, 2006

"You're not a geocacher unless...". This phrase implicitly requests the proof that:

Given some action/event has occurred, you now consider yourself a geocacher.

The definition of that action/event results in the completion of the original phrase. Too simplistic of an action/event, particularly one unrelated to the activity of geocaching one could easily presume, would not accurately complete the statement. For example, "You're not a geocacher unless you've been outdoors" encompasses a number of people who have not even heard of geocaching and so it is difficult to acceed to them being known as a "geocacher" as a result.

Instead, one should presume the action/event of "geocaching" would be therefore necessary to give rightful claim to the term "geocacher". The actions and events that compose geocaching are far too variable to select any one or even few components and call them as valid as the whole. The result is that "You're not a geocacher unless...you geocache".

Put into a more familiar phrasing:

I geocache, therefore I am a geocacher.

In that way, each time we geocache we define what it is to be a geocacher. Our existence as a geocacher is only as good as the self-evidence that our consciousness provides us upon introspection as to whether we've geocached, no more and no less.

deep dood deep

6.5k · June 6, 2006

Wading into waist high grass and nettles, past hoards of biting insects to look for lost tupperware, in August, while being covered in a mixture of sunblock, DEET, and sweat, is something you've done.

June 6, 2006

Not a cacher till....

Burning a sick day=FTF!!!

You check out every hidey-hole when walking anywhere, woods or city, just in case.

You no longer groan when the coords lead you to a tank. :laughing:

You bite back at the skeeters!

Hand entering coords is as fast as dialing the phone.

You've read this thread.

1.7k · June 6, 2006

Gee. Im depressed. By Jeremy's definition, Im not a real cacher. My back and hip, broken by a fall down stairs 14 years ago, with permanent damage, prevents me from ever climbing up a mountain top again.

A cacher is someone who loves the thrill of the hunt. Who uses a gps to find new places, to enjoy the hunt. Who finds the day satisfying just by getting out and looking for a cache.

June 6, 2006

From some moron in the magazine:

that's a tad harsh - don't you think?

DISCLAIMER: The following statement is not meant to be an attack or insult!

....unless you wrote it and are trying a bit of self deprecating humor?

5.7k · June 6, 2006

Gee. Im depressed. By Jeremy's definition, Im not a real cacher. My back and hip, broken by a fall down stairs 14 years ago, with permanent damage, prevents me from ever climbing up a mountain top again.

A cacher is someone who loves the thrill of the hunt. Who uses a gps to find new places, to enjoy the hunt. Who finds the day satisfying just by getting out and looking for a cache.

Careful dude, careful. :laughing:

18.9k · June 6, 2006

....the back of your Jeep starts looking like this (actual picture taken 6/6/2006 - not a prop - tends to always look like this) - (love the orange ammo can eh?)

Edited June 7, 2006 by StarBrand

1.8k · June 6, 2006

Gee. Im depressed. By Jeremy's definition, Im not a real cacher. My back and hip, broken by a fall down stairs 14 years ago, with permanent damage, prevents me from ever climbing up a mountain top again.

A cacher is someone who loves the thrill of the hunt. Who uses a gps to find new places, to enjoy the hunt. Who finds the day satisfying just by getting out and looking for a cache.

Don't even be depressed silly...any thrill from any hunt or your journey there is a good day no matter what the terrain!

I use to hate the switchback part of my journey, now I hate skeeter, chigger, snake and spider part of my noswitchback journey! Guess it all depends on the region where you cache. Lord knows there are no mountains any where near the gulf coast where I cache now.

Cache on.

Pepper

3k · June 6, 2006

...you've placed a cache :laughing:

We love finding finding the cache as much as the next cacher, but our defining moments will always be First Cache, First Geocoin, and First Cache Hidden (and found). The FTF on our first approved cache changed everything. Suddenly all the hiking, taking coords, taking coords, double checking and taking coords meant so much more than ever before. The sum was truly greater than the parts and for the first time we were giving to the community that continues to give so much to us. :laughing:

June 6, 2006

-You've had to explain the sport to a police officer.

-You'd rather have poision ivy than a dnf.

June 6, 2006

You call in sick and go caching, And you really are sick!

Now that's what I'm talkin bout! Been there done that... that one made me :laughing:

2.6k · June 6, 2006

Unless you have fed the PIG, accepted food from the PIG at least once, been flamed, have flamed others, have kicked off a thread be TPTB, and have posted to at least three different treads on the ‘numbers’ debate in a day.

Oh wait…. wrong thread …. I thought this was the “You’re not a geocaching forum posters unless” thread.

:laughing: :blink:

3.3k · June 6, 2006

I'll start:

You're not a geocacher unless ... you have sat at the top of a mountain, cache in hand, enjoying a spectacular view after a long day hike.

Find #600

Find #700

Your not a geocacher unless you lead by example, hiding great caches, in great locations.

Edited June 6, 2006 by Kit Fox

June 6, 2006

Gee. Im depressed. By Jeremy's definition, Im not a real cacher. My back and hip, broken by a fall down stairs 14 years ago, with permanent damage, prevents me from ever climbing up a mountain top again.

A cacher is someone who loves the thrill of the hunt. Who uses a gps to find new places, to enjoy the hunt. Who finds the day satisfying just by getting out and looking for a cache.

I would like to think that the "mountain" mentioned in Jeremy's posting was metaphorical... Just my two cents.

Now go climb your mountain and geocache. :laughing:

1.8k · June 6, 2006

Gee. Im depressed. By Jeremy's definition, Im not a real cacher. My back and hip, broken by a fall down stairs 14 years ago, with permanent damage, prevents me from ever climbing up a mountain top again.

A cacher is someone who loves the thrill of the hunt. Who uses a gps to find new places, to enjoy the hunt. Who finds the day satisfying just by getting out and looking for a cache.

I would like to think that the "mountain" mentioned in Jeremy's posting was metaphorical... Just my two cents.

Now go climb your mountain and geocache.

You know HHD1 I think your right! :laughing:

Pepper

1.4k · June 6, 2006

You're not a geocacher unless..........you've dragged 3 kids into the woods, up the trail, through the bushes, over the rocks, in the mud, around the prickers to the top of the mountain, then having to explain to mom you did what :laughing: with the kids when you went camping.

June 6, 2006

Unless you have taken 4 children, all under the age of 6, pushing a stroller, in the dark, through the dense trees and your flashlight gives out and you realize that you have no spare batteries other then what is in the gps that you need to get back to the car.

Has anybody ever navigated with the use of a gps backlight and the flashy leds of childrens shoes? Now that is an adventure.

And yes, the cache was found and the log signed by the light of blinking led's.

(I now carry one of the flashlights that you just spin a handle to power it.) :laughing:

6.4k · June 6, 2006

Funny, according to many of the emails I've received in the last week, you are not a geocacher unless you have a gazillion smileys in your stats. Or you're not a geocacher if you have more forum posts then smileys (notice I didn't say cache finds either time, because nobody else knows how many caches someone has found and not logged online). Or one is not a geocacher if they haven't logged someone's pocket lint.

I much prefer all the definitions I've seen posted here so far!

June 6, 2006

You're not a geocacher unless..........you've dragged 3 kids into the woods, up the trail, through the bushes, over the rocks, in the mud, around the prickers to the top of the mountain, then having to explain to mom you did what with the kids when you went camping.

So cute! They are definitely keepers, right?

1.4k · June 6, 2006

So cute! They are definitely keepers, right? :laughing:

School lets out Thursday, I'll rent them out cheap :laughing: , the boy can work the mower and the girls will supervise.

It's all about the fun baby

5.7k · June 6, 2006

Gee. Im depressed. By Jeremy's definition, Im not a real cacher. My back and hip, broken by a fall down stairs 14 years ago, with permanent damage, prevents me from ever climbing up a mountain top again.

A cacher is someone who loves the thrill of the hunt. Who uses a gps to find new places, to enjoy the hunt. Who finds the day satisfying just by getting out and looking for a cache.

I would like to think that the "mountain" mentioned in Jeremy's posting was metaphorical... Just my two cents.

Now go climb your mountain and geocache.

You know HHD1 I think your right!

Pepper

That would be MY right if you don't mind!! :laughing: :blink:

3.9k · June 6, 2006

Well, Jeremy’s question appears -- to the untrained eye and the impatient and ever-restless mind -- to be simple on the surface, but yet in reality it is fraught with deep meaning, and any serious and sincere response consonant with integrity and with full immersion in the relativistic amanuensis, as, of course, as it bisects the muse, must emerge forth organically from the psyche and the soul, modulated by the heart, will demand a soulful memory-tolerance of anamnesis, indeed, it will require a deftly-guided extended meditation on focus, style, remembrance, soul-mission, time, and technology, yielding a rich and organic and nearly orgasmic but yet stable and remarkable and yet dynamic fruition of the dialectic. Indeed, any serious discourse would almost unerringly read much like the musings of Jacques Derrida in his classic work Archive Fever 10, and yet must deftly wend through at decontextualized archetypal but post-colonial immersive protocol, yielding perhaps, nay, surely, an immersive stance, one which does not neglect Mogenson's archetypal psychology, else the discourse become moribund and even fecund.

And so, allow me to make perhaps a feeble effort at answering this seemingly solid and sound but truly intangible and apocryphal question, one which I am sure wrenched itself from the heart and soul of its author with an audible rending tear, and to which any serious repartee by any other than a dilettante or a poseur would demand that we would invoke the soulful memory-tolerance of anamnesis, suppression into unspeakables and hyponmesis, the latter of which I posit is only possible within a theology of absolute-others and in the sublime and yet at-times horrific company of technology, much as referenced by Derrida in Archive Fever 9 Further, any such serious endeavor will suggest that an immersive, rather than controlled, dialectic may well be an inherently self-negating anti-structure of psychological experience, dialogical rather than dialectical, that avoids domestication of otherness, moves through tragic incommensurability and, most importantly, allows moments of embodied convergence between the decontextual/ahistorical and the contextual/post-colonial venue.

And so, proceeding with my inquiry, which is transcendentally and concomitantly a comprehensive cognitive and soulful response to the question posed to our intimate linguistic community by Jeremy about none other than the soul of our passion, the nectar of our addiction, the ripened and lusty frit of our endeavors and yearnings, I am moved to observe that we must of necessity here stray into the realms of archetype and archives, simultaneously treading somewhat lightly and yet with cognizance in the realms of the unconscious, the formative ethos, the etheric influences perhaps best cited by the German mystic Rudolf Steiner and yet not ignored -- nor belittled -- by the theologian Teilhard de Chardin in his musings on Cyberspace and the Dream, all the while under the baleful and knowing gaze of Karl Rahner, who would, of course, realize in an instant that this dialectic imbues and expresses – and also, strangely negates in negative space and Kantian spherical geometrics -- none other than the tension of the foundations of faith squared off against the pacification offered by technology, all the while mindful of the decontextual and historical post-colonial dialogical – and yet incommensurable – tragic thesis that the anti-tragic fear of destruction is intrinsically connected with the concept of the archive coupled with the notion of the outside, which, represents – in a limited closed universe and also in Hegellian space -- the demand created by geocaching as it established itself as the archon, the exterior place where the archives need to be placed and conceptualized according to an ineffable and yet inviolable and intrinsic Law. Without this projection of an exterior image, an object, if it were, a cache, so to speak, there would be no archive, and thus there would be no geocache for the geocacher to seek and in intimate linguistic community of geocachers to contextualize the experience and allow projection beyond self-negating anti-structure onto the broader canvas of experiential and God-driven paradoxical immerssive hyponmesis which is simultaneously dynamic and dymanic, yet strangely manic when considered in the light of the third evolution of the second instance of the fourteenth iteration of benevolent universe hypothesis of the Christian mystic Father Theophane.

And so, the above-referenced dialectic neatly leads to the summa of my thesis, namely that there is nothing outside the cache, there is nothing but logging a find or a DNF or a log, preferentially in both the object world and in the projected image world of online community and discourse, wherein we witness the employment and yet the exigesis of writing as supplement and also as a capstone watershed for the soul and psyche in establishing a synthesis based on analysis and on the search, wherein an endless chain of substitutive signification with differential references is nearly and neatly forced, in the psyche of the geocacher in the field, to question the relation of technological tool – namely a GPS receiver -- to the supplement, to this need to fill the void, and so I would like to address the question to our innermost psyche, to our innermost Consciousness, and the answer that shouts forth from the silence and stillness is simply that “Geocaching Is”.

And, with that final synthesis and exposition, I must wind my discourse and my reply to a close.

Edited June 6, 2006 by Vinny & Sue Team

22k · June 6, 2006

Gee. Im depressed. By Jeremy's definition, Im not a real cacher. My back and hip, broken by a fall down stairs 14 years ago, with permanent damage, prevents me from ever climbing up a mountain top again.

A cacher is someone who loves the thrill of the hunt. Who uses a gps to find new places, to enjoy the hunt. Who finds the day satisfying just by getting out and looking for a cache.

I would like to think that the "mountain" mentioned in Jeremy's posting was metaphorical... Just my two cents.

Now go climb your mountain and geocache.

You know HHD1 I think your right!

Pepper

God bless the mountain climbers.

June 6, 2006

the boy can work the mower and the girls will supervise.

Because that's what we do best, right? :laughing:

You're Not A Geocacher Unless...

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