... I lurk!... I leap... I even drive over 100 miles to pickup other people's trash.. Yeah Brian is talkin bad about me and my peep's again. We gonna come up there and .. um wait, that was good things.. Nevermind.. Brian says we are good people down here and we believe him. One must also consider the temp involved. When it is 100+ degrees and you just spent 6 hours in the rocks trying to find a micro container that could be filled with a decent spit, you might not be in a great mood. Add to this someone or someones (this is in general, not recent situations) who have done things to multiple geocachers, the first thing you do is inform the group. Someone once told me about AA meetings, you get up in front of everyone, state your name and problem and then they help. (No harping on the example please, its just the first one that came to mind).. Maybe you could consider this list and others like it as a support group. I know for a fact when I finished Sprocket's 12 step program that I would have cried like a baby in relief if Cow Spots and our kids were not there.. :) Sometimes after a very frustrating day, I go find a silly little altoids tin that takes me 1-3 hours of hunting.. Why? Because I truly enjoy the game. Why did I keep looking after the first 20 minutes? because the wife was not there to beat common sense into me. Now, after 2 hours and not finding it because the friggin hider thought it would be clever to have coordinates over 45 feet off and his hint says 'Dont forget to sign the logbook' or 'its under a rock' (Well no sh**, this is southern AZ and you hid it on the side of a quary).. __Opps I digress again__ anyways, I come home to read about the heart ache of 04/04/04 and am sad I did not live close enough to search and offer support and assistance.. Do we have disagreements? Yes. Is it poor to air them? I dont always agree with that. If I have an issue with something someone does and I email them and receive an answer then I expect it to be finished. That is until I hear other people had the same problem and received the same 'it wont happen again' email. This tells me the individual who responded to me lied to me by saying it was a mistake that never should have happened. No this was something you do alot and tend to get away with because nobody ever told anyone else. We have laws in this country where people know about the crimes commited by others. I feel that geocaching is a community. If someone is causing problems, should we not be held accountable for them as well as ourselves when it comes to destruction of property? Should we not let others know who is breaking the written and implied rules so we can all watch out for each other? Ah.. I know I have lost most everyone by now, but I can only say, I love geocaching. My family loves geocaching. I will do what I can to see others do not ruin it for us. Enjoy the evening. -----Original Message----- From: az-geocaching-admin@listserv.azgeocaching.com [mailto:az-geocaching-admin@listserv.azgeocaching.com]On Behalf Of Brian - Team A.I. Sent: Monday, May 31, 2004 8:57 PM To: listserv@azgeocaching.com Subject: Re: [Az-Geocaching] RE: Explanation and apology Just a fleeting thought I wanted to put in text.... The Geocachers who are part of this list are real people. These same people are ones who came together back in April and worked as a cohesive group of 30 to clean up a very neglected section of highway on a Saturday morning when there were plenty of other things to do, and caches to find. Some even drove up from as far as Tucson and Casa Grande to attend an event north of Mesa. It might just be me, but I see little hostility in this, nor did I see any in the 150+ in attendance at the Halloween event last fall where there wasn't so much as a tortured scorpion (to my knowledge). I might agree to a very slight degree that some cliques might exist, but more so in who migrates to whom at events, when overall I believe it is a group of people who tend to agree more than disagree. When we disagree as a group, it can get pretty vocal. Of course, I could be wrong, but its at least my perception of things. Those who choose to lurk, do so of their own volition. Those who choose to enter the fray, also do so of their own volition. Brian Team A.I.