Muggle of the Month

[4wheelin_fool]

Ok, for a quick recap for the imaginary "Muggle of the Month" Award, so far for the contenders we have:

 

• Mr EFQ's mother
• Piddlepuss, who found a cache in her garden and handled it well, despite the paranoid conditioned response of a few people in here.
• Quan, who is not a muggle, but plays one in his yard.
• A nice lady who Coldgears met who helped him solve a puzzle, and then followed him to the cache.
• A shopkeeper that jgc3 met, who helped him find the cache, but had no idea what it was.
• Frank Kliewer who managed a team which created the first interactive GIS mapping application for the Internet 15 years ago, but was dismissed as a "muggle" in front of his house.
• A hitchiker and the person that picked him up that grabbed a cache container and came to the forums to try to find out how to get it replaced at it's original location in a thread that I remember, but cannot locate.
• A raccoon, and a few skunks that Kabuthunk thought were cute.
• A muggle in Vegas that Swineflew ran into, but of which the story stays in Vegas.
• Knowschad's avatar without the hat.

 

Any others?

 

I feel like that I'm digging for gold in a copper mine.

My friend, whose relatives cache, but not him.

 

REMOVE THE ERRANT APOSTROPHE PLEASE!

Sorry, I will fix it.

thank you very much

You're very welcome

 

No, put it back. This is MY thread and those are allowed in here.

It's ok. I don't want to put it back anyway.

 

Only a muggle would say something like that. Do want an award or something, now?

[+KBLAST]

I placed my first cache a while ago. I placed it on a guardrail in my neighborhood on a weird dead end street. I caught someone finding my cache, so I went to meet them. It was someone who had JUST downloaded the geocaching app and was trying it out with their kids. He seemed a little confused about me showing up, so I clarified that normally people don't just pop up when you are caching. He explained that he was mostly surprised by the fact that I was the SECOND person to show up to meet him! I asked what he was talking about, and he said a man came out of the house near the guardrail and gave him and his kids popsicles!!! I was a bit confused, so I went up to the house to meet this man (with my kids). He opened the door, and I explained that the people going to the guardrail were my doing. He said, "Oh... you're the reason! I just saw so many people showing up there with their kids, and I like things where people are doing stuff as a family, so I just started giving out popsicles! Here are some for your kids!" He still has no idea what's in the guardrail (as far as I know). I would definitely nominate that guy!

 

I also have a friend who I told about geocaching, so he has helped me create caches and as a land manager of an area, he gave me exclusive permission to place a cache on that land. He has made a choice to NOT cache because it's not his thing, but he loves creating stuff and being a part so OTHERS can have fun caching.

 

Finally, I'd like to nominate the muggles who came by a cache at a beautiful area to do a photo shoot. I was there and was struggling finding a cache, and they either didn't notice me or didn't care. It made finding the cache a little harder when the female muggle model started stripping down. I wasn't sure how to continue searching, as I was afraid of being seen as a creeper. This pushed me to find the cache quickly and get out of there, no matter how difficult the cache was!

[knowschad]

Ok, for a quick recap for the imaginary "Muggle of the Month" Award, so far for the contenders we have:

 

• Mr EFQ's mother
• Piddlepuss, who found a cache in her garden and handled it well, despite the paranoid conditioned response of a few people in here.
• Quan, who is not a muggle, but plays one in his yard.
• A nice lady who Coldgears met who helped him solve a puzzle, and then followed him to the cache.
• A shopkeeper that jgc3 met, who helped him find the cache, but had no idea what it was.
• Frank Kliewer who managed a team which created the first interactive GIS mapping application for the Internet 15 years ago, but was dismissed as a "muggle" in front of his house.
• A hitchiker and the person that picked him up that grabbed a cache container and came to the forums to try to find out how to get it replaced at it's original location in a thread that I remember, but cannot locate.
• A raccoon, and a few skunks that Kabuthunk thought were cute.
• A muggle in Vegas that Swineflew ran into, but of which the story stays in Vegas.
• Knowschad's avatar without the hat.

 

Any others?

 

I feel like that I'm digging for gold in a copper mine.

My friend, whose relatives cache, but not him.

 

REMOVE THE ERRANT APOSTROPHE PLEASE!

Sorry, I will fix it.

thank you very much

You're very welcome

 

No, put it back. This is MY thread and those are aloud in here.

Well, I sure wish you would turn down the volume on them, then. If that is allowed, that is.

[TheCacheSeeker]

Ok, for a quick recap for the imaginary "Muggle of the Month" Award, so far for the contenders we have:

 

• Mr EFQ's mother
• Piddlepuss, who found a cache in her garden and handled it well, despite the paranoid conditioned response of a few people in here.
• Quan, who is not a muggle, but plays one in his yard.
• A nice lady who Coldgears met who helped him solve a puzzle, and then followed him to the cache.
• A shopkeeper that jgc3 met, who helped him find the cache, but had no idea what it was.
• Frank Kliewer who managed a team which created the first interactive GIS mapping application for the Internet 15 years ago, but was dismissed as a "muggle" in front of his house.
• A hitchiker and the person that picked him up that grabbed a cache container and came to the forums to try to find out how to get it replaced at it's original location in a thread that I remember, but cannot locate.
• A raccoon, and a few skunks that Kabuthunk thought were cute.
• A muggle in Vegas that Swineflew ran into, but of which the story stays in Vegas.
• Knowschad's avatar without the hat.

 

Any others?

 

I feel like that I'm digging for gold in a copper mine.

My friend, whose relatives cache, but not him.

 

REMOVE THE ERRANT APOSTROPHE PLEASE!

Sorry, I will fix it.

thank you very much

You're very welcome

 

No, put it back. This is MY thread and those are allowed in here.

It's ok. I don't want to put it back anyway.

 

Only a muggle would say something like that. Do want an award or something, now?

No, I am not a muggle. I found 110 caches.

[4wheelin_fool]

I placed my first cache a while ago. I placed it on a guardrail in my neighborhood on a weird dead end street. I caught someone finding my cache, so I went to meet them. It was someone who had JUST downloaded the geocaching app and was trying it out with their kids. He seemed a little confused about me showing up, so I clarified that normally people don't just pop up when you are caching. He explained that he was mostly surprised by the fact that I was the SECOND person to show up to meet him! I asked what he was talking about, and he said a man came out of the house near the guardrail and gave him and his kids popsicles!!! I was a bit confused, so I went up to the house to meet this man (with my kids). He opened the door, and I explained that the people going to the guardrail were my doing. He said, "Oh... you're the reason! I just saw so many people showing up there with their kids, and I like things where people are doing stuff as a family, so I just started giving out popsicles! Here are some for your kids!" He still has no idea what's in the guardrail (as far as I know). I would definitely nominate that guy!

 

I also have a friend who I told about geocaching, so he has helped me create caches and as a land manager of an area, he gave me exclusive permission to place a cache on that land. He has made a choice to NOT cache because it's not his thing, but he loves creating stuff and being a part so OTHERS can have fun caching.

 

Finally, I'd like to nominate the muggles who came by a cache at a beautiful area to do a photo shoot. I was there and was struggling finding a cache, and they either didn't notice me or didn't care. It made finding the cache a little harder when the female muggle model started stripping down. I wasn't sure how to continue searching, as I was afraid of being seen as a creeper. This pushed me to find the cache quickly and get out of there, no matter how difficult the cache was!

 

Thank you for that!

 

Those are exactly the types of stories that I'm looking for.

[+addisonbr]

I explained that the people going to the guardrail were my doing. He said, "Oh... you're the reason! I just saw so many people showing up there with their kids, and I like things where people are doing stuff as a family, so I just started giving out popsicles! Here are some for your kids!" He still has no idea what's in the guardrail (as far as I know). I would definitely nominate that guy!

That is pretty awesome.

[+gelfling6]

I had someone similar to KBLAST's story, where I hid one on the crossing control box of a long since gone railroad, where the railbed has been turned into a walking trail. The trail passed a set of houses close by on a nearby road. Naturally, once I got the coordinates straightened out (1st time, it got posted a mile too far north, 2nd time it got posted 13 miles too far south!) the house nearest the site, had a dog, and sure enough the people were expecting it to be on the fence towards the house. (can you see where this is going?) Obviously, the dog was seeing people scouring the fence, and barking up a storm. Naturally, the home owner got curious to what was going on. and went to check it out. At least 1 cacher explained what they were looking for. The home owner wanted some more info, so I dropped by, with one of the GC.COM pamphlets. up until 3 weeks later, the home owner new what was going on, whenever the dog began flipping out. then, I went to check on the cache, and someone had muggled it out of existence. (site still there, cache, GONE!) It was based on a container someone else had on a loop trail a few miles away, a clipped-down ziplock bag, covered in duct-tape, with two magnets, stuck to the back-outside of the control box.

[+TheLucocks]

We went out to find a cache a couple of months ago in a small town called Frodsham. It was placed in a wall somewhere next to a car park which you had to pay for and seen as how we just wanted to do a cache and dash we pulled up in the car park and mummy Lucock stayed with the car whilst I went for a quick look at the wall. Immediately some old fella came up and asked us whether we'd paid yet (I hadn't even got out of the car at this point, don't know how he'd expected us to pay by then) My mum did her usual act of pretending to be a stupid female driver who has got lost and asked him if he knew the way to Tarporley (another town nearby that you get to by literally following the road we were on). He spent about 10 minutes trying to explain to my mum the directions (completely wrongly) whilst I tried to look for the cache inconspicuously as he was stood so close. My mum got out a map as he was struggling and then he spent a further 10 minutes showing her how to get there (wrongly again). Finally my mum got rid of him by saying "I'm sure we'll find it, thanks for the help" and he wandered off. We quickly found the cache and got back in the car to leave and had driven to the exit when he came and knocked on the car window having gone and got his own map and spent another 15 minutes (it felt like a decade) explaining to us again- WRONGLY- how to get there! We know he was only trying to help but we ended up wishing we'd just bought a bloody car park ticket!

It became a running joke for the rest of the day whilst we were gcing that we needed to get to Tarporley and after a long day (involving me getting lost up a mountain on my own with a dead phone and gps) we got home and there popped up a new cache published in Tarporley. We went and got the FTF on it ( our very first ftf).

We want to nominate him for being a pain in the backside who wasted alot of our time, but a very funny pain in the backside who gave us a laugh for the rest of the day

[4wheelin_fool]

There are some good stories here. Any new contenders?

[+Geo Froggy]

I suppose I need to place "the friendly muggle" in contention. I wasn't sure if he was really trying to help or just trying to scare the cachers away with talk of all the wild animals we would have to endure during the hunt. Since this cache is now archived I think it is okay to say that the cache was on the edge the woods and in plain sight of the residential area. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=65582259-1989-466d-a429-37a56e362c1b

[+mwellman]

There are some good stories here. Any new contenders?

 

I would like to nominate one of our church's ladies who is charge of our flowers. The rest of story is the May 30, 2012 log on our Friar's Friend - GC1Q1MH. The ladies do a beautiful job and you can see their work on Streetview. You can almost see the cache behind the yellow marigolds! LOL.

 

edit - second and third try on link.

Edited June 4, 2012 by mwellman

[+Gamaliel]

My nomination:

 

We were doing a once well-known and notorious power trail which was famous only because it existed before the (now-lifted) prohibition on power trails was in place. It is under new management now, but at the time it was poorly maintained and some caches were, I though, poorly placed as some were even across from people's homes. So we pull up to one of those, and the muggle who lives across the street comes out to greet us, beer in hand. And it's pretty clear it's not his first beer. He asked if we were here to pick mushrooms to sell to school children. (?!) So we explain geocaching to him, and it's clear that we're not the first cachers he's noticed, as he was wondering why all those cars kept stopping by. We never did find the cache, since he was in the habit of collecting the filmcans and seemed to think geocaching was like newspaper delivery and someone dropped off a new filmcan for each finder. I'm not sure we fully got through to him since, like I said, it clearly wasn't his first can of beer.

[+slukster]

Part of my log from a favorite cache find of mine from 2008. I don't know if this muggle is still around but he has my vote.

I tell you, what I found at stage 3 is what makes caching so much fun and unpredictable. As I am approaching GZ I see a man sitting on a fallen tree. I was a little dissappointed at first thinking I would have to come back another day to retrieve the final. As I got closer the man said hi and asked if I was looking for "that thing". Now I started thinking he was a fellow cacher who had just finished. Here is the kicker. He was drinking a can of BEER!!!! (see stage 3 hint for relevance NOTE: clue was "grab a can or bottle of beer) Now I had some high expectations of what I was going to find at the final. As I started looking he asked if I wanted some help so he started playing the "hot and cold" game with me. I found the clue but was lucky to have him guiding me since the cache would have been tough to find with the heavy fallen leaf cover on the ground. It turns out this guy was a muggle who has been coming to this spot "for 20 years". He said a man and his grandson had come by not too long ago and that is how he knew where it was. I don't think he will be joining us caching anytime soon but he enjoyed my description of the game. I asked him for his name so I could give him credit but he just laughed and told me that "you got my brother but you ain't gonna get me". This turned out to be one of the best caches ever for me!!

 

[+debbidoesgeo]

My husband (WrongTurnRick) and I were looking for a cache that, based on the coords and the title, seemed to be located at an ATM on the outer wall of a bank. It made me a little nervous to be loitering around outside a bank. I pretended for a few minutes to be having trouble with my ATM card as I examined all the nooks and crannies. Rick was down looking under the ATM when a stern looking woman walked out of the bank, arms crossed. I turned and asked her if she knew what we were doing. She nodded and said "Mm-hm' - never cracked a smile. Then she walked over to the ATM, arms still crossed, and very slowly and deliberately looked overhead. "That's what I would do," she said, then walked back into the bank! We found it quickly, and got out of there! We've had a few encounters with hostile muggles, and I was so relieved that this wasn't one of them! She gets my nomination for muggle of the month!

Edited June 8, 2012 by debbidoesgeo

[+JBnW]

I would like to nominate this "muggle" (who is now no longer a muggle, just doesn't play the game) as documented in this thread regarding this cache. Oddly enough, the whole incident happened almost one year ago, if you care to check the logs. Cool story about this whole episode, but not one for the Forums.

Edited June 8, 2012 by JBnW

[+OZ2CPU]

steve love's mom !!

she just made a profile here, so she could post 1 post..

I really admire her.. send her tons of love and good from me, please.

[+VAVAPAM]

Came across this topic while searching for the term for a not-quite-muggle Muggle.  I like the idea of an award for special Muggles!

 

I would nominate my older brother. 

He's multiple types of engineer, so I called him up to run by him the workings for an idea I had for a gadget cache.

"How are you going to keep it from doing *this*?"

"Well, if you do *that*, then it might do *this*."

Best piece of advice ever, "Use 'fender washers', not regular washers."  It's seriously cut down on maintenance needs.

 

But what makes him an exceptional candidate for Muggle of the Month is that he never once asked me WHY I was going to build such a contraption!

 

 

 

[+VAVAPAM]

Another worthy nominee:  The friendly librarian.

 

I have a library cache for which one must find the clue outside before moving forward.  It has proven to be challenging to find that clue.  I've read logs, and heard first-hand stories of the librarian giving great hints without completely giving away the location. Good on her!