[TS]

100th Poster on this thread!

Oh Yeah… Oh Yeah!

Shall we write you in as a “Will Attend” then?

[TS]

quote:

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Originally posted by EnergySaver:
If you didn’t do anything wrong, why not now do what’s right?

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I suspect that he wasn’t supposed to be burying cats in the park and didn’t want to explain why he was looking under rocks…

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The cat story:

Saturday morning we were placing caches for the WGA campout. Another couple had set out at the trailhead about the same time. They would frequently stop to take photos as we combed the area for our first hiding spot. After finding a suitable location, we made the hide and paused to do the paperwork. As they came past, I volunteered, “I suppose you’re wondering what we’re doing.”

“Well, yes, we noticed that you seem to examining just about everything.”

So we explained geocaching, the upcoming event, and showed them our hide. Yes, they had heard of geocaching, it sounds like fun. As they turned to go on their way the man asked his wife, “Do you think that I should tell them about the cat?”

“Yes, go ahead, tell them about the cat.”

He explained that their cat had died a while back and he decided to place it’s remains in a local park. As he gathered stones to mark the grave he uncovered a camouflaged ammo box. Just as he picked it up he realized that it probably contained drugs or other contraband, and now his fingerprints were on it! So he hurled as far away as he could and got out of there.

A few days later, a friend stopped by and told him of geocaching. The friend went on to vent his frustration about a cache he hunted earlier in the day with no success. Asking his friend about the location and container, he realized that what his friend was seeking was the container he had pitched away a few days before. Together they returned to the spot to find the cache and replace it, but to no avail.

So this is another good reason to label your caches. And if you’re out looking in a park for a camo ammo box under a stone and instead uncover a dead cat, I guess you could count that as a find…

TS & Lorie

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Evidently jthorson completed his mission of getting the switchbox to Tie in an efficient manner.

I mentioned to Geopink that I was considering donating the contraption to the WGA and he accepted the offer. So it’s now the property of the WGA. It is my intent though, that the device should be made available to other event hosts that may have a need to use it.

I’m not sure how much force the toggle switch can withstand, so care should exercised when transporting it.

TS

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I think that GPS units will stay with RS-232C serial ports for a while so as to be compatible with NMEA interfaces. The venerable RS-232C is being phased out of both laptops and desktops; not surprising really, it’s been around about thirty years.

The USB to RS-232 converters are a good work-around, but the software drivers must be installed on the host computer before they’re connected.

TS

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I probably should have explained the Spinner/Plucker combo in greater detail as they have uses other than porting geocaching data to a PDA.

Spinner creates a folder of linked HTML files from a .GPX pocket query file. In addition to running Plucker to convert them, you can use your browser to read them locally. Just point your browser to the index.htm file in that folder. This is handy if your internet connection is slow or if you want to bring the data along on an unconnected laptop. You won’t get all of the graphics, but recent logs, travel bug info, hints, nearest caches, and such will be available.

Plucker can spider the cache folder or a web site and convert it to a PDA readable form with hyperlinks. You can specify the depth of links to spider from the starting page and filter out links outside of the original domain to eliminate off site advertising. It can build a folder on your hard drive that acts as a offline mirror of the pages spidered. There are countless uses for Plucker beyond geocaching.

You can also download a free Adobe .pdf reader for your Palm. Due to the small screen size, .pdf maps are difficult to use, but possible in a pinch. However, you can carry lengthy documents in your Palm and run text searches for the information you need. I’ve found this to be very useful compared to carrying stacks of manuals and spec sheets in my truck.

[TS]

Here’s a link to a page describing, step by step, the Plucker/Spinner method of going paperless: http://www.geocacher-u.com/resources/paperless.html

Plucker is really written to be a web spider for loading web pages and their links into a Palm PDA, so it has uses beyond geocaching, like loading the recent newspaper to your Palm for reading when you’re away from your main computer.

[TS]

I’m sorry that I’ve taken so long to respond to a topic that I started; things became very busy suddenly…

I’m glad you guys had fun joking about eggplants; that started as a joke between me and EnergySaver. Nice job, Cheesehead Dave, adding the user interface to the eggplant. Using a plain eggplant for geocaching is a lot like divining for water with a forked stick.

Yes, Tie, of course you can use the switchbox for the WGA campout. And yes, we intend to attend the event, schedules permitting. But it’s probably best to get it to you a couple of weeks before the event as we may be late in arrival or unable to attend. I’ll contact you via e-mail to arrange things.

TS

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Strangely, the owner of the cache I refered to earlier resurfaced on the same day. She has moved out of state. I was able to contact her via geocaching.com. It’s sounds like we’ll be able work out getting her cache cleaned up.

TS

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I agree with the need to clean up abandoned caches. In the case of traditional caches, there’s usually nothing left to be removed, as the reason it was archived is often because it disappeared. However, when an early stage of a multi-cache goes bad, the subsequent stages become unfindable to those who haven’t been there before.

Here’s one that’s been bugging me for a couple years: GCH5TA. In this case, only one group of cachers found this six stage series before the first micro disappeared. I attempted to contact the owner through logs and e-mail offering to help fix or remove the cache, but received no response. I even tried contacting the first finders with no results.

Chances are that five stages of this cache (and someone’s travel bug) are still laying around on WDNR land and have now become geo-litter. While cases like this are rather rare, there should be some mechanism in place to determine the coordinates of the later stages to allow for a volunteer clean up.

TS

Edited for typo.

[This message has been edited by TS (edited 04-01-2006).]

[TS]

Bec is correct. 28 people are mentioned in the “will attend” logs, with 22 staying at the group site. If you can open a excel spreadsheet file, here is the current attendance list.

TS

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The Rock Island Getaway II is now listed and approved on geocaching.com. Nice write up, Mr DCexplorer.

[This message has been edited by TS (edited 02-27-2006).]

[TS]

The Rock Island Getwawy II (2006) is now listed on the wi-geocaching.com events page.

[TS]

quote:

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Originally posted by Matter23:
Has there been a date established? I would like to know so I can take vacation days if need be. Thanks.

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Yes, June 23, 24, 25 (the weekend AFTER Father’s Day and the weekend BEFORE the July 4th weekend). The group site has been reserved for these dates.

TS

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Yes, Brian, things are different on Rock Island. And that’s a good thing.

We visited the island in October. They now have a laptop computer in the check-in booth. Seems to be a self-standing arrangement, not networked into the DNR. If the park manager is on hand that weekend, he may be able to work out a refund. The part time summer staff would probably not be able to do it.

Now that the site is reserved, it would seem that the event is a go. While events are generally listed a maximum of three months in advance on geocaching.com, is it possible that the event could be listed a bit earlier wi-geocaching.com? Involving two ferry rides to get there, participants need to plan well in advance to attend. Also, because the event’s coordinates are remote, it doesn’t appear in many “nearby caches” searches.

TS

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