Geocachers, Becareful where you hid your prize [Archive]

mountainborn

02-19-2006, 09:47 AM

A few facts posted on a Geocaching forum:
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Quote:
I get Google Alerts on the topic Geocaching. A large majority of the headlines are something to the effect of "Geocaching - Gamers or Terrorists" . I think the day will come when some stupid person will use a Geocache in a bad way and will severly affect the game. It may not be a bad idea to look at the guidelines and prohibit ammo cans. But that leaves us, me at least, without a good waterproof container. I don't have many finds, but I have never found a wet cache in an ammo can.

What is the best "clear" waterproof container that you have seen, heard of, etc.? I would switch now if I had an alternative.

The most common behind ammo-boxes would be the plastic Lok-N-Lok containers. These have a gasket seal and four flanges that flip down and lock. Wal-Mart sells three sizes nested one-inside-another for about $4. - watertight and will last quite a long while.

As far as negative press and fretting over bomb-squads being called to caches, yes, it happens, no, it's not common, and as our game becomes more known it happens less and less.

Of MAJOR importance here is, of course, permission - if you have permission to place the cache then the container type really doesn't matter!

Explosives Ordinance Disposal professionals are well-trained and well-informed. Part of their continuing education is a series of messages and bulletins that go out nation-wide, indeed world-wide. Geocaching has been and continues to be talked about in these in-house training and information publications and all EOD experts will by now be quite familiar with our game and hides.

That doesn't mean they won't destroy a few - they will - Darwin's Law tells us that bomb-squad technicians who go ahead and pick up a suspect container just because it has a geocaching.com sticker on it won't be part of our gene pool for long!

Here's the deal - negative publicity is loud. It gets attention, it gets published, it gets commentary. It is designed to excite, to upset, to involve the reader, to get you to keep reading the news. Truth has little to do with it. That's why Rush Limbaugh has a larger audience than, say, NPR's Prarie Home Companion. If people can get het up and focused on 'the news' it means they don't have to look inward to their own lives!

Positive publicity, however, is much quieter.

At the moment there are 236695 active caches in 220 countries.

Maybe 5 a year get blown up.

There are dozens of articles written weekly about the positive aspects of geocaching.

I see less than 10 a year that are negative... though those 10 get told and retold ad infinitum in various versions.

It's not a crises, it's not even a blip on the radar.

Need Something To Worry About??

The Department of Labor reports 5703 deaths from on-the-job accidents.

The FAI/IPC reports that a total of 245,162 parachute jumpers made 4,848,025 jumps. 74 died, which makes 1 fatality per 65,513 jumps. Preliminary research gives a ratio of 1:64 091.

The State of Alabama reported 1,154 highway deaths and nationally 42,636 deaths from vehicle accidents were reported.

Of those Alabama reports that 508, or 44%, were attributable to speeding, at a cost to the state of $534 Million.

Of the 508 deaths and $534 Million dollars it is estimated that half would be saved by simply wearing a seatbelt.

Now:
Number of fatalities attributed to geocaches: 0
Number of geocaches found to be bombs: 0
Number of caches discovered to actually be drugs hidden in the woods: 0
Number of bomb-squad-examined caches found to contain illegal items: 0
Number of bomb-squad techs that are gonna go pick up a suspect container because it's clearly marked as a geocache: 0 (or if there are any Darwins Law will weed 'em out!)

If we just have to worry and fret, let's at least worry over what's real!

Ammo boxes are no danger to our game and are still the best container to be found!