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A nice thought, but...


barefootjeff

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I just received an email from HQ nominating a cache "near me" that needs some love for Valentine's Day. But...

  • the cache is 23km from me as the crow flies but at least twice that by road as it's the other side of Broken Bay and the Hawkesbury River
  • the email came through at 10:14pm on Valentine's Day, so even if I dashed straight out I'd be struggling to get there before midnight
  • it's a 1.5/1.5 P&G (it even has the P&G attribute) with 417 finds in four years and most recently found 11 days ago so I don't know why it's particularly in need of love
  • the email makes a point of it having 46 FPs, but there are closer caches with more FPs that I haven't found, so why that one?

 

So, um, a nice idea I suppose but the timing and the cache-picking algorithm probably needs a bit of work.

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I was just gonna open a thread and ask about this.     :)

Sounded like a fun idea until I saw this cache was a 1.5/1.5 P&G as well. 

Starting to see a pattern here, or is anyone seeing "other than" a 1.5/1.5  park n grab ?

 

It seems (to me) that again the site believes that favorite points is what makes a good, quality cache. 

We've seen numerous times that's just not so...

Mine has a lotta favorite points (it's "cute"...), but has been replaced numerous times because of it's easy to get to, busy location.

 -  Just that alone should have said we weren't "meant to be"...    :D

Maybe an "algorithym" is going by totals, still including when the other 2/3rds was a FTF monster and would hit any cache. 

The CO is a very good friend of mine, and they know the terrain alone would keep me from ever going there.

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13 miles for me (20 km) but a 1.5/2 traditional which, despite my find total in that designation, I don't typically go after much anymore, and haven't for quite some time.  I did get mine this morning though so I'm assuming that it was designed to be sent (globally?) on the morning of Valentine's Day in the US. 

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Distance: ~5 miles

D2/T1.5

93 FP

Cache is along some *dormant* tracks once owned by Union Pacific, now transferred to our local Transit Authority who can't find the political will/money to do much with the project of reactivating the line.   Sounds like the cache gets its FP point due to it's unique container.  I drive by the area just about every day, but haven't bother to stop due to it being basically a p&g and parking looks kind of sketchy to me.

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Mine's a 1/1 Large 6.6 miles from home.  There are 122 other caches (I haven't found) closer, three with more FP's.  We've been experiencing a very unusual winter, three snow storms in the last week and a half dumping 16-24 inches of snow.  We don't have the equipment to handle this much snow, so it's been "interesting" around here (I'm an old mountaineer, so it did bother be much).  It's just about melted out enough to go for one like this, but I may wait a bit to make sure it's available - it's part of a business display that's not always around at night, so it might or mightn't be out in this weather.

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4 hours ago, niraD said:

Aw... Now I feel left out. I haven't gotten my Valentine's Day email from The Frog yet. :(

Me neither. I guess none of the caches near me "need some love".

 

On that note, based on what people have posted here, doesn't it seem backwards? A cache "needing some love" would imply that it's a cache that doesn't get found very often, hasn't been found in a long time, or has few FPs. The caches posted here seem to be the exact opposite: caches that already get lots of love.

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The one highlighted for me is a 1D/1.5T, 36 favorites, 15.6 miles from me (across a toll bridge), 152 finds in 6 years.  It DOES sound cute, and simple, but with flooding on local roads, rain predicted all day, a successful 404 day streak ended a few days ago - I think I will pass on finding it today, and stay home!

 

There are more caches closer to me, with more favorite points, that I have yet to find.   I have no idea why this particular one was put forth as "Meant to be" for me!!

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10 hours ago, The A-Team said:

Me neither. I guess none of the caches near me "need some love".

 

On that note, based on what people have posted here, doesn't it seem backwards? A cache "needing some love" would imply that it's a cache that doesn't get found very often, hasn't been found in a long time, or has few FPs. The caches posted here seem to be the exact opposite: caches that already get lots of love.

My message didn't say the cache "needed some love".  It said:

Quote

Right now, not too far from you, there's a fun geocache that has 42 Favorite points—we think you might like it.

This Valentine’s Day, grab a friend and show some love to this geocache!

I think it was more of a tie-in to Valentine's day and it's Love theme.  I just found it ironic, that living in the HQ area, they recommended caching in the snow we've had.  I know it's a general, world wide promotion, but it's still funny to me. 

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1 hour ago, icezebra11 said:

The subject line of the email I got from GS was "Are we meant to be."

 

The match-makers tried to hook me up with a 1.5/1.5 traditional but she's just not my type.  ^_^

 

The match-makers identified a cache that has a 2/1.5 D/T rating that 20 miles away and indicated that it was selected because it had more than 50 favorite points (55).  There's an earthcache about 2.6 miles from me that has 49 FPs.  That might not seem like much but the cache with the most FPs within 20 miles only has 101, but I have already found it.  

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Mine is a throwdown in a park with a $7 entrance fee. About a half hour drive away. It's an event cache that use to be a container duct-taped to a stick. Confirmed missing in September 2018 by someone who found it before (Write Note: "I ran into a few other geocachers while finding another cache nearby and they asked about this cache as they had trouble finding it. I remember finding it last year so came over with them to check...it’s definitely gone"), then miraculously reappeared the same day. No OMs. 34 favourites. 

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10 hours ago, The Jester said:

I think it was more of a tie-in to Valentine's day and it's Love theme.  I just found it ironic, that living in the HQ area, they recommended caching in the snow we've had.  I know it's a general, world wide promotion, but it's still funny to me. 

 

Yep, we can't find a trail w/o ice, but most D/T we're hearing of should be shoveled and even have melter all around 'em. :D

Marketing came up with a little push that was timely.  :) 

Last I looked, it seemed that even those 1.5s weren't getting hit...  

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32 minutes ago, Lynx Humble said:

I went to find mine today.

 

An 1/1 with 50 FP at 3.9 km that is behind the counter and you need to ask the staff to get it. I guess it's grandfathered because it's a 2006.

 

The Commercial portion of the Guidelines dates back to 2002, which referenced the idea of commercial in kind of vague terms.  The first mention of "interacting with employees" found its way into the Guidelines in 2007.

 

One of the first logs on the cache mentions that the cache is not available 24/7 (i.e. only during business hours).  My guess is the CO updated the Description to reflect this restriction soon after.   I suspect the hiding style of the cache was unkown to the Reviewer at the time of Publication and nobody has bothered to report it since.

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Got a "recommended"  cache in email today.       Haven't recommended any caches I'd do yet...      :D

Guess it's for this latest promotion, as it has a lot of Favorite Points for this area.

A 2/1.5 pipe cache  drilled through/attached to a fence cap at an old flea market , now a park n ride.

It gets so much traffic because tourists go through here.  Folks not taking the highway, the only other way into the poconos from that direction.

I'd imagine many FP it because it's the first from the road they find.  That state souvenir maybe...     :)

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1 hour ago, cerberus1 said:

Got a "recommended"  cache in email today.       Haven't recommended any caches I'd do yet...   

 Me too. Mine was a micro "cable tied in a tree", and has %15 FPs, there's probably a reason why I haven't rushed out to look for this one  in the last 2.5 years since it was published....

 

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2 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

Got a "recommended"  cache in email today.       Haven't recommended any caches I'd do yet...

 

Mine is 23km from home as the crow flies, has 47 FPs at 29%, is described as "a quick park and grab on the Narrabean Trail", won a Gecocaching New South Wales Geocache of the Month award in 2015 and looks to be a good quality creative cache, but it's on the Sydney side of Broken Bay from here and the cache page's Driving Directions link shows it's a 90km drive estimated to take an hour and a half in "average" traffic.

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24 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

Mine is 23km from home as the crow flies, has 47 FPs at 29%, is described as "a quick park and grab on the Narrabean Trail", won a Gecocaching New South Wales Geocache of the Month award in 2015 and looks to be a good quality creative cache, but it's on the Sydney side of Broken Bay from here and the cache page's Driving Directions link shows it's a 90km drive estimated to take an hour and a half in "average" traffic.

Time to wet the kayak Jeff....

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My oh my, there is a lot of grumbling on this thread. I guess that's what forums are for? Back in February I got an email recommending a cache to me. It was a 2/15 hide with 90+ favorite points (60%) and was in a nearby area of town that I simply had never been to. Went to check it out and it was indeed a great cache, one that I had mostly overlooked and in a part of town I had never been to. What do you know? I ended up doing a bunch more cache sout there and discovered a great network of biking trails. Will have to go back with the kids to bike and cache some more.

 

Received another recommendation more recently and it is for a cache a bit further away at a National Monument. Probably a pretty cool spot, but we visited the National Monument years ago and I'm not terribly inclined to go back just for this cache. Then again, maybe I will ...

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23 hours ago, lee737 said:
23 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

Mine is 23km from home as the crow flies, has 47 FPs at 29%, is described as "a quick park and grab on the Narrabean Trail", won a Gecocaching New South Wales Geocache of the Month award in 2015 and looks to be a good quality creative cache, but it's on the Sydney side of Broken Bay from here and the cache page's Driving Directions link shows it's a 90km drive estimated to take an hour and a half in "average" traffic.

Time to wet the kayak Jeff....

 

Looking back, I see this is the same cache they recommended me to go and make love to on Valentine's Day. Am I going to keep getting emails like this telling me to go find it until I actually do that 90km drive, or 23km kayak paddle, and make the find? It seems a lot of time and effort for a "quick park and grab". What is so special about that cache?

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I just got another recommendation for the same cache as in February - but I already found it last month!  It was a nice cache and worked well for the Carnival promo, but come on tech people at GC, I found it a couple of weeks ago, can't you read your own database? :wacko:

 

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