Yesterday, I went caching after work. I've been avoiding the area around where I work recently, mainly because the area's become infected with what several other cachers have called "microspew." Unfortunately, I have to agree with them. But that's not what my rant is about today and I'm not really sure it's a rant, but more of a bemoaning of the fact that crap happens like this all the time.
One of the caches that I went to find yesterday was Old Oak? by the4dirtydogs. It was less than 2 miles away from work, and supposedly, it had a geocoin in it. And this particular geocoin, was not just any geocoin, but a 2006 California Geocoin owned by my caching buddy, 3blackcats. I'd been lucky, because I'd already seen this particular coin once way back in October of 2006, and then again in November 2006 when a bunch of us got together when I found my 1000th cache. She released the coin into the wild shortly after that. As I was driving over to the cache, I was really hoping that it was in there, because I would have liked to have taken it up north with me next weekend.
But, when I got to the cache, I didn't find it there. There were two other cachers, both of whom I've met before, who had been to the cache site earlier in the day, so I figured that one of them must have taken the coin with them. Well, shoot, that's just my luck. Unfortunately, after they logged the cache, they noted in their logs that the geocoin wasn't there either. The way many log books are constructed nowadays, it's very hard to leave much impression in it outside of a quick signature, or the placement of a stamp or sticker, so I couldn't see anyone who might have taken the coin. There's only been about three or four cachers who have found the cache since the coin was placed in the cache on Sunday.
It's very disheartening, when a player puts geocoins like this out in caches for others to find and move along, only to see them disappear, because either someone is too lazy to log it out of a cache, or they don't want to log it because they don't want people to know they have it. What's the point? You have a coin that no one except yourself can see, because if you let others see it, then they might "discover" the coin and realize that it's not really yours and that you should really let it go. It almost makes me wonder whether it's worth putting some of my own geocoins out there anymore. I very rarely place my own in this area, because it seems like this type of thing is happening more often. I've found better luck outside of the Southern California area, so I'll probably take some of my own to place in caches next weekend. It's just so frustrating.
And to my friend 3blackcats, I'm sorry, but your coin isn't in there anymore.
Friday, May 9, 2008
A Rant
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5 comments:
I never understood why folks take coins and hitchhikers to keep either. My TBs went MIA long ago. Why would one keep investing in them?
While the idea is neat, I have found the process so problematic not to even recognize it any longer.
It isn't just where you live, Webfoot. There's a cache of ours along the Malibu coast that has been raided a couple of times, so I posted a note on the cache listing, asking people not to leave any travelers in it. What no one leaves, no one else can steal.
There's an area in Santa Barbara which has had the same problem; most of the locals know not to leave any travelers in any caches inside that area.
There's no real understanding what drives some people. For some truly unfortunates, it's a sickness, the pathological need to take what isn't theirs. For others, it's also a sickness, but a different kind of one, a criminal one. Some of them are just rotten people, while some take a perverse pleasure in it. Just as incurable as the first type of sickness, but harder to be charitable towards.
Be that as it may, I absolutely refuse to let anyone else's nastiness or stupidity ruin my fun. I'll continue to put out geocoins and Travel Bugs, because they give me some small enjoyment. Most of the several hundred that we have released are still out there, moving around. We have them all over the U.S., as well as in Australia, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands and Ireland. We had one in Thailand for a while, as well as Mexico, and one is heading for New Zealand in a couple of weeks. Every so often, one of them vanishes, but there are still scores of them logging the miles, eliciting lots of neat comments. Gotta love it :-)
Sometimes geocoins go missing by accident. For instance, one time, I found a geocoin under the seat of my car. It had been there probably for about a month. Someone might've assumed it had gotten stolen but it wasn't the case and I placed it in a geocache soon after I found it.
I concur with morton. Don't assume malice when stupidity is more likely. I lost a coin in my car for almost a year - though i did have it moved to 'unknown' and i sent an apology to the owner, before i found it.
Also, 5 days is way too short to assume it's been stolen. I've forgotten to log coins out of caches for longer than that. It may show up soon.
I've also seen numerous coins find their way into other caches but no way to figure how they got there.
People are lazy. :P
I enjoy trackables. I sometimes seek out a cache just to log a coin that's in it. I have some that people have said in their logs that they picked it up, but never put a log on the travel bug itself. So it looks like it's still in the cache but it's really not. Maybe they wait to retrieve it until they're ready to drop it??? I don't know.
Geocaching With Team Hick@Heart
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