[Team Deejay]

Hmmm, looking at the prizes, it looks like they get better as you go down the list, i.e. 4th place looks better than 1st. Oh well, not planning on winning anyway!

[Team Deejay]

Yep, Knoffer’s right. Apparently they upgrade the Pocket PC version about every 6 months and never upgrade the Palm version. Just ignore the emails unless they say PALM version.

[Team Deejay]

😯 😯 😯

Wow! That was fast! Great job, Brian!

[Team Deejay]

We can heartily recommend the virtual GCH58F, located in the Kohler Art Museum. We lived in Sheboygan for 4 years but never made it inside this place until hunting this cache. After getting the required information, be sure to take a tour of the bathrooms (seriously!). Definitely a one of a kind experience. Just ask at the desk for directions to all the bathrooms and check it out.

[Team Deejay]

@Timberline Echoes wrote:

All we know for sure is that they should have 18 caches approved for the 1st of March that will have punches in.

This thing is starting on Thursday? Is this a snowmobile caching event?

Seriously, who is placing these caches? I guess I thought you guys and Team Outcast were placing these.

[Team Deejay]

@marc_54140 wrote:

Congrats, there, DeeJay. But with all the great weather you been having down south, why are you not at 1000?

Well, we’ve been busy buying snowshoes…..

Actually, Saturday was pretty nice. Nobody was in the parks except the workers, who apparently thought we had escaped from a mental institution or something. People came out from the park buildings to greet us (or more likely to see what kind of maniac would be out hiking in a blizzard) on 3 different occasions. But we had fun anyway, and thats why we do it.

[Team Deejay]

Thanks, guys! One point: We are not racing with anyone. We both have enough goals, targets, and objectives in our work lives. We geocache for fun and exercise, and the numbers just flow from that.

[Team Deejay]

RSplash, maybe you should stop dressing like a terrorist when you geocache in the mall!

Seriously, if you cache in the city (or along highways), you will sooner or later get questioned by the police. Usually they are having a slow day (or else they wouldn’t have time to bother with some kook in camo examining a pine tree), so I have had luck recruiting them to help with the search.

On the other hand, I would say that caches placed on private property (like shopping malls and parking lots) have a better than even chance of being placed without permission. I tend to NOT undertake extended searches for these to avoid drawing attention to the situation. (It also helps to leave the camo, backpack, waders, hiking stick, 4-D-Cell flashlight, and machete in the car when searching in a parking lot, just my opinion.)

[Team Deejay]

Alright Justin! Good job!

[Team Deejay]

We went out yesterday and grabbed some of the Cache to Eagle series. (I had a meeting today and Julie worked last night, so today was out.) I love caching in the snow and ice.

[Team Deejay]

I have a 128M MICRO SD card. Can you use that?

[Team Deejay]

The sad thing about the original inquiry is that now it has closed all Milwaukee county parks until futher notice. No new caches for a while. All should honor this or it may make future negotiaions difficult.

First of all, what is apparently happening in Milwaukee County is that they were already working on a policy when Jim called, and didn’t want to give him the new rules until they were approved. Nobody ever said the parks were closed, and it is certainly not true that his inquiry was the cause of their new policy.

That said, when you place a geocache, you have to check the box on the submission form indicating that you read and agree to the Guidelines for Placing a Cache. To quote from the guidelines (hoping they don’t sue me or something), “By submitting a cache listing, you assure us that you have adequate permission to hide your cache in the selected location.” This is not our rule, or a parks department rule; this a geocaching.com rule. If you don’t want to follow it (or any of the other guidelines), you should not be placing caches. I am guessing that a lot of people just assume that, since there is already a cache in a particular park, it is ok to place more caches there. Sorry, but this just isn’t the case. You have to get permission from the property owner or manager.

My original point was that we need to get involved with the government before it gets involved with us. If you spend any time at all working with government agencies, you will understand the wisdom of this point. In general, bureaucracies are lazy, and allow themselves to be pushed in whatever direction is easiest. (This is why there are so many lobbyists.) If we approach an agency with “Here is what we are doing and here is what we think you might want to do to keep track of what is happening”, 99% of the time, they will accept it as suggested, modify it slightly or even just say it is unnecessary to do anything (a popular choice among bureaucracies). If WE do nothing, sooner or later, some other group will approach them with some reason for banning or restricting geocaching, and they will follow their suggestion instead. This could be the result of a bomb scare, an angry neighbor, or even another outdoor activity group who doesn’t like sharing their territory. Basically, we know that many of the various parks and recreation agencies are aware of geocaching and are considering guidelines for their lands. Why would we not want to be proactive and get involved with their policy making? If we wait until they have already made policy, it will be too late.

[Team Deejay]

You waited for the swamp to freeze??? Wimp! 😆

Seriously, great job and a great cache to pick for a milestone.

[Team Deejay]

I’ll be glad to help you through it. Send me an email at drsecond AT scj DOT com.

[Team Deejay]

While the MCP policy seems to already be set to go, I’m wondering if we should be taking a more proactive stance with ALL the parks departments in the state. It seems that we would be able, to provide the various parks departments with a “recommended” policy for Geocaching which we could live with. I could see the Milwaukee county bureaucrats coming up with some unworkable policy because we haven’t gotten involved. (Crossing my fingers that this doesn’t happen.) On the other hand, the DNR policy (where we were closely involved) has proven to be very workable, and I, for one, appreciate the structure available when seeking permission to place a cache.

Here is my thinking: For each of the 6 regions of the state, we could put together a team of people, comprised of at least one person for each county, to communicate with the various parks departments regarding geocaching. We could start by simply contacting the agencies and offering to provide information on Geocaching at one of their board meetings. Part of the program could be to provide some recommended policies to those departments who wish to implement them. At the same time, we could put together contact lists for each parks department, so that area hiders would be more likely to seek the necessary permission.

This is bigger than it sounds. In Racine County, for example, we have Racine County Parks, Racine City Parks, Wind Point Park, Caledonia Conservancy, Caledonia town parks, River Bend Nature Center, Sturtevant Parks, Mount Pleasant Parks, Burlington Parks, Waterford Public Works and Rochester Public Works (I think the parks in Union Grove and Wind Lake are County Parks.) Milwaukee County will be even worse. But we have lots of people willing to volunteer, we just need someone to step up and organize the effort. I believe we would need authority from the board to represent ourselves as the WGA. Are there any board members willing to get this started? I’ll raise my hand right now to join the SE WI team.

I believe we are going to get “regulated” regardless of what we do. We will be much better off if we get involved in developing the rules, rather than letting the bureaucrats do it for us.

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