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Yes there any number of reasons I might want to ignore a cache. There's one cacher I know who was warned that a certain series of caches was not a good idea, but the advice was not heeded, so I personally refuse to search any of the caches in that series, so now I can make the dozens of them fall off my search list!! WooHoo

Are you talking about your brother? (If I'm not mistaken, Spaz is your bro, right?)

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Uh, yeah, guess it's pretty bad when you spend your Anniversary caching like we did in Concord/Walnut Creek on Sat. But it was just such a purdy sunny day not be outside! Dinner at the Pyramid Alehouse and one last cache in the parking gargage completed that romantic day! :surprise:

Hey, we spent our honeymoon caching! (in SF)

 

We spent the weekend in Oakland and Alameda caching. Rainy but fun. :anibad:

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I think that there are two sorts of Geocachers - the 'clean map' types, and the 'pick and choose' types. (which sort are you?) If you're a 'clean map' type, then the ignore list is a little like cheating. If you're a 'pick and choose', then what difference does it make? -- other than perhaps making it a little easier to pick and choose.

Good post. I am definitely the pick and choose type. I know I have no hope of clearing the map around here (San Jose) so I do what I can to find the caches the kids and I can manage. :surprise: I'm having fun with it!!

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Heh, thanks Bullit...

 

After I made those two finds Bullit told me "You're crazy man!", which from another fanatical geocacher I take as the highest praise. :laughing:

 

Congrats to BuckyDef on 800, and ND for 1200.

 

The Precious seems to be MIA. It wasn't in the last cache it was dropped in by WoW, and it hasn't been logged either on the TB page or in the forum thread as instructed. Someone may have swiped it, or grabbed it and is flaking on logging/placing it, I don't know.

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Congrats Wacka, figured you would do it despite that rain on Saturday!

 

We also hurdled thru another 100 and reached another goal yesterday. Gotta start working on those multi's and pesky puzzles now because we are running out of close urban hides and after a few more months, hopefully the parks will be hiked and logged as well, a goal before it gets too warm.

 

Also working on a few more hides. :D

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Congrats Wacka!

 

And budd-rdc is... so... very.... close... Looks like he should be hitting 1,000 in Tokyo.

I'm hoping to hit 1000 at the oldest active cache in Japan, near the city of Hamamatsu which is about 135 miles southwest of Tokyo. I've been holding back my caching for that reason, although I've spotted a few locationless cache candidates just by watching the scenery from trains.

 

The two I found in Tokyo are close to super-muggle-heavy areas, but they've been placed strategically where I was able to time my find and hide between muggles, even in broad daylight. They were clear tupperware-like containers placed out of sight.

 

The camo skills of Bay Area cachers (like WoW & PTS) would serve very well in Tokyo's urban setting. It'd be very tough to get Marky-style spot on coordinates, though - too many tall buildings, overhead wires, and trees to make signals bounce around.

 

Congrats to Bullit, GeoBrowns, BuckyDef, Nurse Dave, and Wacka for hitting milestones!

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Are you still in Tokyo? I was lucky enough to cache there last summer. Of the 4 that I did in Tokyo, only one (Odaiba; GCJJ8F) is still in existence. And that one is lots of fun to do - by all means get that one if you can. The cache is nothing special, but it's in an interesting spot.

 

I had bad jet lag, so I would wake up at 5am, go caching (on the subway, which is super easy even if you only English), then return to the hotel at 8 and go to my meeting at 9. Fun!

 

...Sam

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Copy of e-mail sent to Geowomyn .... Bad news on her excellent Ardenwood series. This stuff is depressing, I wonder if we've hit some sort of "critical mass" in the bay area where the game is awaking folks in authority and inviting such responses. Maybe we should come up with some simple guidelines on saturation levels within a park or region. Not that Geowomyn's series violated any of this. Depressing.

 

A portion of my e-mail reviewing the Ardenwood reaction.

 

I went over to Ardenwood around noon to eat a picnic lunch and pick-up a few of your caches in this excellently designed series.  While paying my $2 entrance fee the young Ranger manning the desk noticed my GPSr.  His comment, in politely official tone, "We don't allow GPS stuff in this park"; of course he meant caching as opposed to simply using a GPS device.  After realizing he wasn't joking, I questioned him on this in my best low key manner and was told that his boss had found out about the Ardenwood caches and that they would be removed because they involved digging within the park  and were not approved.  His comment, "My supervisor was pretty upset".  He also said that three caches had been removed and they were looking for the others.  I let him know that it would surprise me if any digging was involved given my experience with your caches and that I was sorry about their decision.

 

I did a quick search for "Moosic" and didn't find it, the cache may still be there but I wasn't going to look too hard today in order to avoid antagonizing the rangers.  I went on to eat my lunch and then returned to talk to the same ranger again after giving the matter some thought.  In my conversation I let the ranger know how Geocaching works and that your series had probably brought over 70 families to the park.  I also let him know that common practice was to make caches "minimally invasive" and that most of the Ardenwood caches were probably of the 35 mm log only variety.  I dropped off a couple of your Ardenwood cache printouts so they could see how well designed the series was and let him know that his supervisor could contact you via e-mail link from the cache web page.  I also let him know that normally a GeoCacher will remove their own caches if requested to do so by someone in authority as a matter of game policy. 

 

The ranger was polite but a wary and said he would pass on the info and cache sheets to his supervisor.  I  believe Ardenwood is part of the EBRP group which has had a couple of run-ins with Geocachers in the past although this was not brought up in our conversation.

 

Sigh ... Probably should have mentioned CITO and other positive things about Geocaching but it wouldn't have helped. The decision is being made above him and the impression this man's supervisor had passed on to his crew of Ardenwood rangers was uniformly negative.

 

/Lefty

Edited by KennyHannahJacob
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Wow, that's depressing. I enjoyed that series.

I think there is a real personality problem with someone in EBRP. The rangers I've spoken to in the south bay all seem either positive or neutral on the subject.

 

At some point there is going to have to be some sort of organized persistant lobbying effort to get these people on board. I'd hate to see us left with just urban film cans.

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Aargh. That's really unfortunate. Arguing with the ranger isn't the right answer, but I'm glad you tried to educate him a bit. Got to figure out how to get to the boss.

 

Ignorance is dangerous. We need to make sure that people in power have an accurate idea about what we do.

 

After the snake-bite-while-caching incident last summer in Santa Teresa Park, I was worried about that sort of backlash. So I started going to the monthly meetings of the "Friends of Santa Teresa Park" - precisely to monitor for similar silly over-reactions and to make sure that people have an accurate notion of what caching involves.

 

As it turns out there wasn't a backlash in this case, but at a minimum there's a group of involved community members who now know what geocaching is and have a balanced (and I think largely positive) view of it now.

 

I've only had a couple of short exchanges with Santa Clara County Parks people on the topic of caching. They are indeed nervous/concerned about it, and as one person told me taking a "wait and see" attitude towards it. Fair enough. All the more reason why we need to push our side of the story - publicizing things like the recent "CITO at the Workshop" - to make sure that the Parks folks have an accurate and balanced view of what we do.

 

Similarly, I'd like to get cachers out for more events in the Parks. As an example, there's a "Trail Day" at Santa Teresa in a few months where volunteers will help do some trail work. Typically 4-H, Girl Scouts, and some local mountain bike groups turn out bigtime for this sort of thing. We need to be visible at this sort of event as well.

 

I don't know if there are any similar "Friends Of" community groups exist for the parks you're having trouble with, but certainly getting involved is a good thing in moderation.. Not to be pushy; not to ask for permission - just to make sure everyone knows what we do and that we're good to have around.

 

In short, someone needs to go to some meetings. How much could it hurt?? :-)

 

...Sam

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Similarly, I'd like to get cachers out for more events in the Parks. As an example, there's a "Trail Day" at Santa Teresa in a few months where volunteers will help do some trail work. Typically 4-H, Girl Scouts, and some local mountain bike groups turn out bigtime for this sort of thing. We need to be visible at this sort of event as well.

 

I don't know if there are any similar "Friends Of" community groups exist for the parks you're having trouble with, but certainly getting involved is a good thing in moderation.. Not to be pushy; not to ask for permission - just to make sure everyone knows what we do and that we're good to have around.

 

In short, someone needs to go to some meetings. How much could it hurt?? :-)

 

...Sam

I think that's exactly what we need to do, and be very purposeful about it. We need to have a couple of us at every event and forum where the subject might come up. As long as we are strangers to them, we can become the bad guys.

 

How can we find out what meetings are coming up? Do you have the links?

I'd be happy to attend a few.

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I don't have as many as I should.

 

Friends of Santa Teresa Park. (These are the ones that I attend.)

 

http://www.stpfriends.org/

 

Santa Teresa Foothills Neighborhood Association. They are concerned about development at Miracle Mountain and promoting the (non-existent) Coyote-Alamitos Trail (turning the old drainage canal at the base of the Santa Teresa Hills into an actual trail)

 

http://www.stfna.org/stf/

 

I haven't been going to County Park Board meetings, but the chair of the FoSTP meetings does. I've been tempted to go to a few.

 

I don't know if there are similar organizations for Quicksilver or other local parks.

 

...Sam

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I just looked at the East Bay Regional Park District (which includes Ardenwood) website and noticed that they have monthly meetings for the Park Advisory Committee.

 

In the minutes for their 11/22/04 meeting, this comment was made by one of the members regarding geocaching:

"Williams asked about Geocaching. Chief Kenny said it is scheduled for Board Operations review in 2005. He advised that the District does not have a policy on Geocaching and it is not allowed at the District. "

 

The list of the meetings, along with some meeting minutes, can be found at

http://www.ebparks.org/district/meetings.htm#pac

Edited by bykenut
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I just looked at the East Bay Regional Park District (which includes Ardenwood) website and noticed that they have monthly meetings for the Park Advisory Committee.

 

In the minutes for their 11/22/04 meeting, this comment was made by one of the members regarding geocaching:

"Williams asked about Geocaching. Chief Kenny said it is scheduled for Board Operations review in 2005. He advised that the District does not have a policy on Geocaching and it is not allowed at the District. "

 

The list of the meetings, along with some meeting minutes, can be found at

http://www.ebparks.org/district/meetings.htm#pac

"Not Allowed" stikes me as a policy.

 

The statement that it will be reviewed in 2005 strikes me as "go pound sand".

 

I think it would be in our best interest if we were represented at every meeting until this comes up.

 

I am going to make it a practice to be more CITO-minded while caching in our parks. If EVERY ranger who encountered a cacher saw a trash bag in their hands it might help create an impression.

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I don't know about this organization, but in general Board Meetings exist to rubber-stamp proposals that were worked out earlier....so waiting until something shows up on a Board agenda is a recipe for failure. You've already lost at that point.

 

My bet is that the Park Advisory Committee is the place where we need to start showing up.

 

The web page posted doesn't list any 2005 meetings of the Park Advisory Committee. I called the phone # listed on the page, and they say that the next meeting is next Monday the 28th at 7pm at 2950 Peralta Oak Ct in Oakland right off of 106th street. Meetings go until 9:30 or 10. They are attended by 21 members of the Committee as well as 4 or 5 staff members.

 

One or two people should show up, do a lot of listening, take notes of names and titles, introduce yourselves to people in the hallway and at breaks, and be sure to say that you're very interested in the committee's position on Geocaching and want to make sure that the committee is well informed on the subject. Polite, helpful, informative, non-combative.

 

I'd volunteer to go, but I have to work in SF setting up a demo at Moscone for a trade show that night.

 

...Sam

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Are you still in Tokyo?  I was lucky enough to cache there last summer.  Of the 4 that I did in Tokyo, only one (Odaiba; GCJJ8F) is still in existence.  And that one is lots of fun to do - by all means get that one if you can.  The cache is nothing special, but it's in an interesting spot. 

 

I had bad jet lag, so I would wake up at 5am, go caching (on the subway, which is super easy even if you only English), then return to the hotel at 8 and go to my meeting at 9.  Fun! 

 

...Sam

I plan to visit the Odaiba cache after I get my 1000. I've been to Odaiba before, and it's the home base for Fuji TV with that funny spherical object in the middle of the building. (They have exclusive rights to broadcast Formula One in Japan, and currently involved in a takeover war with LiveDoor, an Internet Service Provider) It looks like a hostile version of AOL/TimeWarner <_<

 

There's a locationless on the way, Rainbow Bridge, which is a suspension bridge, so I can make it a two-for-one. Or if I can find a category for that sphere, three-for-one.

 

Tokyo's subways and trains are JetLag friendly - they start running around 5:00am.

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Wow, that's depressing. I enjoyed that series.

I think there is a real personality problem with someone in EBRP. The rangers I've spoken to in the south bay all seem either positive or neutral on the subject.

 

At some point there is going to have to be some sort of organized persistant lobbying effort to get these people on board. I'd hate to see us left with just urban film cans.

I hope something gets worked out, as I was looking forward to doing the Ardenwood Series... <_<

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I plan to visit the Odaiba cache after I get my 1000. I've been to Odaiba before, and it's the home base for Fuji TV with that funny spherical object in the middle of the building. (They have exclusive rights to broadcast Formula One in Japan, and currently involved in a takeover war with LiveDoor, an Internet Service Provider) It looks like a hostile version of AOL/TimeWarner <_<

As an aside for any F1 fans since budd-rdc brought it up, it seems to me that someone (media?) related to F1 had a contract of some sort with Keyhole because it some countries with little or no high-resolution image area, they often have areas around the F1 tracks covered. Suzuka in Japan is a good example, but others include Silverstone, Sao paulo, the Hungaroring, etc.

 

As for a place to hold polymer clay classes, there used to be Almaden Valley communuty center across the street from the air raid siren locationless that ProTech logged and the Jake's Play Lot cache (in normal terms, that's close to Camden and Almaden Expwy.) but they tore it down and are currently building the replacement.

 

I don't know if you'd need a resident's help (spiderwomantoo?) but Los Gatos has a neighborhood center by the library/town council/PD and it's always seemed under-utilized the many times I've been there, and it would be perfect. Contact me offline if you want me to look into it.

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Sounds like the big park group we haven't mentioned is the Mid Peninsula Open Space Preserve that covers Foothill, Purisma, Los Trancos, etc. Anyone know how Geocaching sits with those folks or if they are open to community participation in their planning sessions? They would leave a big hole if lost to the sport!

 

I also like the idea of groups of us participating in trail days, etc. Wouldn't it be neat if a group of 7-10 Geocachers showed up at the next Almaden/Quick Silver trail day all wearing Geocaching shirts and ready to put in some serious work?

 

I'm willing!

 

/Lefty

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Sounds like the big park group we haven't mentioned is the Mid Peninsula Open Space Preserve that covers Foothill, Purisma, Los Trancos, etc. Anyone know how Geocaching sits with those folks or if they are open to community participation in their planning sessions? They would leave a big hole if lost to the sport!

 

I also like the idea of groups of us participating in trail days, etc. Wouldn't it be neat if a group of 7-10 Geocachers showed up at the next Almaden/Quick Silver trail day all wearing Geocaching shirts and ready to put in some serious work?

 

I'm willing!

 

/Lefty

http://sccvote.org/content/0,4745,sid%253D...3D50662,00.html

 

Here are the dates. Lokks like Quicksilver is in April. Wonder if we could make it a CITO event and realy pull in some crowds to help?

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Bummer about Ardenwood. One day I would have finally managed to get there and do this one. Just needed someone to go with, since it seems as if I am not using my GPS - based on various comments here . . . :-)

 

For the folks amongst us who haven't been to Uvas Canyon Park:

Invasive Plant Removal at Uvas Canyon - 2nd Saturday, Feb. - April, 10am-3pm

 

We need your help to remove the non-native French Broom from Uvas Canyon in this joint effort with the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority. No experience needed. Tools, gloves, & lunch provided. Please wear long pants and closed toed shoes. Scheduled dates include 3/12, 4/9. Please meet at the Uvas Canyon Day Use Area.

 

This is a very nice park with a decent number of caches and a total killer mountain if you feel you need more once you are done. One of my favorite parks.

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Here are the dates. Lokks like Quicksilver is in April. Wonder if we could make it a CITO event and realy pull in some crowds to help?

 

I really ike that idea ..... I'm sure the cachers that showed up would represent well. It would be great to pick out 1 large projects per quarter and "sponsor" them as Geocaching events. It would be a great way to give back to the trail and park system that all of us love.

 

Do you think Jeremy and co. might consider a separate "Trail Days" icon?

 

/Lefty

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For the folks amongst us who haven't been to Uvas Canyon Park:

Invasive Plant Removal at Uvas Canyon - 2nd Saturday, Feb. - April, 10am-3pm

 

We need your help to remove the non-native French Broom from Uvas Canyon in this joint effort with the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority. No experience needed. Tools, gloves, & lunch provided. Please wear long pants and closed toed shoes. Scheduled dates include 3/12, 4/9. Please meet at the Uvas Canyon Day Use Area.

 

This is a very nice park with a decent number of caches and a total killer mountain if you feel you need more once you are done. One of my favorite parks.

Uvas Canyon has long been my favorite of the SC county parks, although Quicksilver runs a very close second. I'm going to see if I can be there on March 12 (in my CITO t-shirt) and maybe also pick up that last cache I need to find there. I also have another cache planned for that park whenever I manage to get around to it.

 

Uvas Canyon is great any time of year, but especially now when the streams and waterfalls are really flowing strong.

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Just some thoughts about the presentation of geocaching to land managers. Perhaps these folks think of geocachers as treasure hunters with metal detectors and shovels.

 

We can do a few things to re-spin our image into something they can better comprehend. By and large, in these parks we are actually just another subset of day hikers. We merely hike the trails, visiting points, enjoying nature along the way. We bring along our friends and family to experience a nice day outside. We carry a GPS to route our way, and the device is a good safety tool.

 

Many land managers bring up ecological damage, and invariably mention digging. They would probably view turning over boulders, unpiling bark and logs, and pushing aside leaves as digging. As placers, perhaps we should be more cognicent of this type of hide in regional parks. Perhaps we need to upgrade our hiding methods.

 

Of late, I've been thinking maybe the land mangers need to be part of the process by approving an official container. Maybe an approved decon container will be more palatable than a mix of rubbermaid, gladware, and pringles containers.

 

Another eco note: Use trails. We can assure them that the deer tracks we use to duck out of sight are used by maybe 6 people per week. We can present actual usage stats.

 

Final eco note (my request): let's not place caches in squirrel dens and woodpecker holes. Someone wants to live there, and besides, it's icky! Please add eco-protection notes to your cache pages-- Not in animal den... No need to uncover tree bark... Not more than 4 feet off trail.

 

Think eco, they are. Remember habitat protection for 50 garter snakes can put the skids on a $50-million project. Can certainly put the skids on an unheard of game with a $100 electronic device.

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On another note...

I am looking for a place in the Almaden Valley area to hold a Polymer clay class for geocachers. I need tables and seating for around 20, with good light. Any suggestions? (either a public spot or someone with a large rec room...)

You could try the Vineland Branch Library, but I'm not sure how much it costs. I might be able to wrangle something free (I know the library assistants there) but I can't promise anything.

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I registered the domain sigitem.com yesterday and promptly set up Workerofwood so that he could track his new handmade sig-tokens. The URL is http://wow.sigitem.com/.

 

I had set up The Petosky Stones up on http://tps.geocoin.net/ but their wooden token is more of a sig-token than a coin so I've also added an alternate URL for them at http://tps.sigitem.com/ (although I was too lazy to tell them I did this).

 

This is an open invitation to anyone that wants to have sig items tracked (I just picked up a numbered Blanston12 button today, for example). I don't charge for this service. Or, as an alternative, you can do what digitalfish and snowake have done, and just taken my PHP code and modified it to their own liking on their own web server.

 

Another alternative is that I can have <your geoname>.sigitem.com resolve to some other IP address so that you can be a subdomain under sigitem.com and have the code living on your web server.

 

I probably want to limit this to people in this area because my webserver is sitting in my house and I probably could overload it if there was too much activity on it.

 

This is an invitation for sigitem.com or geocoin.net.

 

--Marky

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Here are the dates. Lokks like Quicksilver is in April. Wonder if we could make it a CITO event and realy pull in some crowds to help?

I'll try to find out where in Quicksilver they plan to work during the April Trail Day - I've exchanged several emails with the right fellow in County Parks. I'll let you know what I find out.

 

During the Trail Day at Santa Teresa in May work will be done on the Rocky Ridge trail, which is a nice trail leading up to Coyote Peak (with my DollHouse near the bottom and with Bay Area Multiple Hills - 3 at the top). There are wonderful views from up there.

 

I've done a couple of Trail Days, and they involve a lot of work but are very fun. Think picks and shovels, filling in erosion due to winter water damage. But don't be put off by a little honest work - a large number of the volunteers for these are teenage Girl Scouts. If they can do it, so can you! :)

 

...Sam

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As an aside for any F1 fans since budd-rdc brought it up, it seems to me that someone (media?) related to F1 had a contract of some sort with Keyhole because it some countries with little or no high-resolution image area, they often have areas around the F1 tracks covered. Suzuka in Japan is a good example, but others include Silverstone, Sao paulo, the Hungaroring, etc.

Since Google acquired Keyhole recently, maybe they can spend some of that play money (stocks) to promote a marketing arrangement so Formula One fans in the U.S. can get free broadcasts like what Fuji TV provides to Japanese fans.

 

(Edit for Boulter) I meant to say "spend the play money before it devalues" :)

Edited by budd-rdc
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On another note...

I am looking for a place in the Almaden Valley area to hold a Polymer clay class for geocachers. I need tables and seating for around 20, with good light. Any suggestions? (either a public spot or someone with a large rec room...)

As for a place to hold polymer clay classes, there used to be Almaden Valley communuty center across the street from the air raid siren locationless that ProTech logged and the Jake's Play Lot cache (in normal terms, that's close to Camden and Almaden Expwy.) but they tore it down and are currently building the replacement.

 

I don't know if you'd need a resident's help (spiderwomantoo?) but Los Gatos has a neighborhood center by the library/town council/PD and it's always seemed under-utilized the many times I've been there, and it would be perfect. Contact me offline if you want me to look into it.

If you want to use the Los Gatos Neighborhood Center, I'm a Los Gatos resident and live reasonably close to the Center. My Homeowners Association uses the Center for meetings, so I know the drill there. And my wife, who does polymer clay but is not a cacher, may even want to participate. :)

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