cnn.com — Rounding a corner on his motorcycle to finish rigging his cache, he was greeted by a barricade of police cars and a bomb squad. "I got off my bike and three officers approached me very cautiously, hands on their holsters," he said. "I was trying to turn off my MP3 player and I think they were worried I was going for a detonator."
Jan 18, 2006 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountJan 19, 2006
I really dislike what 9/11 has done to innocent things like this.I had an uncle who was kicked off a plane just because a passenger told the flight attendants that "he looked like a terrorist" (a flight from Orlando to NYC)... also, when I was in Grand Central Station today, they have armed National Guard soldiers on patrol there. I just put my hand in my pocket to adjust my iPod volume, and he stared at me, while pointing his submachine in sort of my direction. Ugh.I relate to those geocachers greatly. The real enemy is Osama, not common Americans. And public suicide bombers are in Iraq and Israel, not the United States.
silence7Jan 19, 2006
I've been geocaching for a couple years now, and stories like this are becoming more and more common. There is a very un-complicated easy to understand list of do's and dont's on the geocaching.com website, but some people don't RTFM, or at least follow it and it is going to ruin it for the rest of us.
sonic767Jan 19, 2006
There's stuff on the gc.com web site about choice of containers and placement, etc. There's also a bit of anecdotal evidence about mouthbreathing public officials getting really silly to the point of utter cluelessness about it all.Here in Sydney, Australia, I've found a few caches in less than ideal (from a "likelihood that some meathead will misinterpret and overreact point of view") locations, but since we're only new members of the Union, the full weight of "Gawd Bless America" stupidity hasn't fully rained down on us yet (y'all knew that Australia is the 53rd state, right?). Just doing a quick mental check, all of my caches are actually in clear plastic containers (except one, a non UV-stable plastic, apparently its a pile of plastic shards on the ground until I get there to fix it!) and.... yeah, they're all in bushland.Anyway, in this case, I think there's a few facts missing - the journaliar couldn't have generated such a sensational story had he told The Whole Truth, and I'd love to hear what *really* happened - bottom line for me is that this guy did pretty much nothing wrong at all, pre 11/9 no-one would have looked twice. Post 11/9, every public official is on some moronic kick, desperate to catch a "terrorist" at all costs. So much so that they'll generate a terrorist where one cannot be found.
settsuJan 19, 2006
BTW, if you think this story is bad, ask a Geocacher about how they look when bearing down on an urban cache and some of the amusing methods to disguise your activity.It's any wonder how there hasn't been MORE of these stories...
winterider68Dec 22, 2008
Osama is the guy who bailed Bush Jr out of a mess in Texas many moons ago. Bush dissed him, never repaid the loan. Learned that tidbit in Dubai in 1998.
winterider68Dec 22, 2008
Ummm, got a ticket in San Diego for planting easter eggs in a local park. I needed a permit.