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Smith… and I ain’t no Jack Mormon, if I belonged to a church it wouldn’t be the Latter Day Saints, but an anagram thereof…
You’re an addict, go get some help! Oh wait, I think I might have something for maladies of this type…
@sandlanders wrote:
@seldom|seen wrote:
I wonder why they never show these guys landing?
They pull ripcords for parachutes at strategic moments and land just like regular parachuters. Guess it’s not spectacular enough to show (unless the chute doesn’t open).
That I knew, however, you just expect to see these guys “coming in for a landing” and pulling a swan dive.
How soon before someone pastes it and the clip ends up on one of the sensational viral video shows like “caught on camera”? I give it 6 months.
But, I’d still do it once to experience it, though my wife would never let me. I wonder why they never show these guys landing?
You guys are always giving me Dirty ideas for caches! Wait, did that one already, Rats…
09/21/2009 at 9:11 pm in reply to: Ever been fingerprinted by police for caching? Oh Lucky me. #1913441@gotta run wrote:
@seldom|seen wrote:
leaving me with the grumpy old foggy who was intent in giving me the fear-of-God treatment in case I ever decided to cache in Appleton again.
Well that worked pretty well, didn’t it!
Actually, it did. I don’t linger for more than a few minutes to place new caches and I’m always looking over my shoulder….
In the last words of Marvin, “Man, I don’t even have an opinion!” Now quick shoot me in the head before someone in Wisconsin gets this lame idea.
09/19/2009 at 4:02 am in reply to: Ever been fingerprinted by police for caching? Oh Lucky me. #1913439Never printed while geocaching by I was cuffed and tossed into a squad and threatened with the charge of possession of burglary tools – a needle-nose pliers and a mini screwdriver which I was using to affix a pill bottle cache to a guy-wire. An overzealous cop with 2 younger troopers who rolled their eyes and split when they found out what I was doing, leaving me with the grumpy old foggy who was intent in giving me the fear-of-God treatment in case I ever decided to cache in Appleton again.
09/19/2009 at 3:51 am in reply to: Should placing a geocache inside a roundabout be banned? #1914285I also meant to add a bit about the “keep the kids safe” aspect of this discussion. I have a couple myself and I have taken them to some crazy places, spots where even veteran cachers would question going. Tower climbs on open stairs, spelunking in unmarked caves and cliff climbing. Now, my wife and most people I know would probably faint if they saw some of my family antics, but I am always right there with them and have their safety in mind. I want my kids to grow up confident that they can face almost anything life presents and part of instilling that trait is presenting them with what seem to be insurmountable challenges which, with care and guidance, are not.
Recently, 2 of my caches have been highlighted by Park Personal to be moved or removed for the sake of children’s safety. One from the top of a young pine tree with many climbable branches (the kind of tree I myself was climbing when I was 5) and one about 7 feet down in the bottom of a cistern. Now, to me these are remedial and to my kids present the same kind of challenge that I mention above. “Well, if dad can do it, so I can I” but to some cachers and to those individuals who are thinking they will be held responsible if someone gets hurt on their watch, they are dangerous – accidents waiting to happen.
In both cases I had to make the point that when we get into this sport, we realize there is no premium on cache finds and that we all play to our strong suit. That each of us takes responsibility for our actions and for the people we choose bring along, either to cross a busy street or to climb a shear cliff face. As echoed many times in this thread, you don’t have to get every cache out there and you should know what you are capable of attempting. At the same time, challenges are presented and part of the sport, for me at least, is going beyond my comfort zone, and with that automatically comes a little risk. Today, gotta_run found himself scaling a rock monolith the likes of which, had it not been for the cache I placed there, he may never have attempted to climb. I suspect he feels a little more confident in himself and his ability after today and to me, it’s one of the most underrated aspects of this sport and one that I consider worth all the time and energy I put into it. If every cache that presented some element of danger were outlawed, it wouldn’t be much of a sport for me and I probably wouldn’t be playing, after all…
Milestone #700: Four letter interruptions: Pear, Hiro, Moon, Japa, Apol, Glen, D-Day, Sput, Saig, Chal. and Iran, Kent, Olym, John, Muni, John, King, Oswa, Bobb, Dian
Milestone #800: What do three Dave’s have in common with a fourth?
Milestone #900: Four lines of two letters equals four numbers then two numbers, or six letters.09/18/2009 at 11:18 pm in reply to: Should placing a geocache inside a roundabout be banned? #1914284@zuma wrote:
However, freedom to me includes the freedom to make bad choices. What really is freedom if it does not include the ability to make choices, some wise, some not so wise.
That includes freedom to place and find caches in asinine and stupid places. Because if only ideal cache locations were permitted, it would not really be freedom, would it? You are free to choose if you want to place a cache in a dumb spot, and I am free to choose whether I want to go find that cache or not.
So I voted no in the poll, and see I am in the minority. It surprises me a bit that people in the most free country in the world are so quick to embrace infringements on that freedom. But we see this same rationalizing of mandating good choices generalized to people’s desire to have rules put into place that demand people only make wise choices, whether those choices are about owning guns, smoking, eating cheeseburgers, wearing seat belts, wearing helmets on motorcycles, etc.
As as cache owner of many caches that test the limits of the “guidelines” and many times infringe on the borders of what’s acceptable and what is not, when if comes to personal and public safety, I have to agree 100% with Zuma on this one.
Most of the local geocachers don’t bother with mine because they require a certain amount of desk time or are of the “dangerous” tree climb hide and that’s just fine by me. In fact, I tailor my caches to a certain segment of the geocaching population to cull out all of the park-n-grabbers that would find a stupid roundabout hide hard to pass by. The only way a cache like that would be memorable for me is if I DID get hit by a car while getting it!
Now, I understand the “bad name” that can be given to the sport when some fool (like myself on occasion) is looking at his iPhone instead of watching the road and rear-ends someone. But lets be frank. There are a thousand ways the geocachers can give the sport a bad rap, many of them mentioned in this thread. Caching on private property, climbing fences to shortcut caches, lurking in the dark in residential neighborhoods. All of which I have done, mind you. But, I have also done a great deal to try to improve the image of geocaching in the area like organizing and participating in CITO’s, working with area Organizations and police depatments to educate them about our sport, and putting on classes the cross the line between caching and other civic duties like reporting and removing invasive plant species.
That’s the balance. Place whatever caches you want, but try hard to minimize the ramifications if your placement results in some kind of bad press, inevitable with the public paranoia in this era, and moreover counter it with good interaction with the public and good press when the opportunity presents.
But don’t, place any more guideline limits on cache placements, we have enough of those already!
@gotta run wrote:
Boy, it is really strange seeing caches on which we were the last finders (in May!) on the current list! Nobody else solving puzzles?
A whole big mess o’ purple in the Appleton area…a certain “junkie” has some good opportunities…
Regarding the list itself, I’m sure that a sertain|someone will bemoan the scarce|scenarios for LCG points in his home turf…
I’ll take what I can get and give what I can’t
Just realized that I need to drop a few more clues in this thread to get me caught up to 900. Just have to figure out which ones need the extra little push…
Just a follow-up to my initial post. The comment I made about not wanting to attend was directed at the MEGA status and the potential to be in the midst of 500 other cachers. It was not about the intention of attendees to try for 50 or 75 finds which is certainly commendable.
Personally, I cannot think of any better sport for those of you who can get your families out, together, to do something that you all enjoy! Indeed, that’s probably THE SINGLE BIGGEST argument I use to get newbies into the sport and I try very hard to place cachers that both parents and children will remember. I hope everyone had a great time and came back with untold memories of caching with the kids at Cache Ba$h 2009!
@gotta run wrote:
BUMP.
GCMTEJ
This one I’d go for the Cache Rescue on, the Lone Pine…. Not so much. I see they are both on the CR list. May have to develop an excuse to run to Point soon…
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