Good morning everyone. Once again, there is no fun fact this week. There actually was no plan to put out a blog for this week or for the next few weeks as I wanted to step away for a bit. Take a step into the shadows and lurk around like a ninja (practicing my geocaching stealth skills). As I sit here listening to some good tunes (classic rock rules), I started to reflect on what's transpired since my rant last week. That's what today will be about. The aftermath of my meltdown.
With a rant like I did last week, there will be supporters and non-supporters. For those who gave me words of encouragement and hoped that I'd be ok, thank you. It was much appreciated. I did get a few private messages. Again, some in support, and some not really in support, but their words were done in a respectful way that I was able to let what they said sink in. Being respectful can have a bigger effect and that was something that was lacking on my part during my meltdown. Thank you to those who chose to be respectful with your words. Some kept referencing my original log to that cache. That log didn't stay very long as I had second thoughts about the harshness of it after clicking "post" and deleted some of the comments. For people to refer to the original, something tells me that a certain individual took a screenshot and was passing that around and not my updated log. Not cool. I have a gut feeling, a suspicion as to who, but my gut feeling isn't always 100% correct. With that said, I'm not going to stir the pot and keep a toxic situation boiling by pointing my finger. I'll just be very cautious around that person from now on, keeping a watchful eye out and watch what I say to them, if I speak to them ever again. As I mentioned in last week's blog, I can hold a grudge.
I wasn't really sure what I was going to do after my meltdown and rant. Right after the incident, I had messaged the president of the Manitoba Geocaching Association with my resignation as Treasurer and Stats person. That's on hold for now, as far as I know as I really do need some time to step away. The hider of the cache in question, I have put on my ignore list for now to avoid anymore situations. As for the ones who were publicly taking a chunk out of me (the haters and complainers in the peanut gallery), I was going to ignore them too, literally. I wanted to walk away from the s**tstorm that was created and leave it behind me. I know I said some stuff last week, at least hinted that I would leave nasty logs for their caches that I find, but that isn't really moving away from the situation. It just keeps the toxic situation boiling. If I did find one of their caches, it would have been a TFTC log. I had plans of quitting outright. I love geocaching. I love the hides, the travel, the adventures, the places I get to travel to and see. I love the meeting of other geocachers. We all have our own adventures and stories to share.
I did go out and find a couple of caches with my boys after the incident in question, so geocaching was still in my blood. I did have one geocache on my radar as it hasn't been found in two years. A lonely cache that was in need of some attention. I made plans with Hakliva (Queen of finding lonely caches) and off we went. What I didn't know at the time, the lonely cache was owned by one of the 'haters and complainers" as I kept calling them. The owner's name was under an alias for that cache. There was another in the area from the same owner that I didn't have and I knew Hakliva would want to get it. I wasn't about to be a stick in the mud and say no. We did run into some issues at the lonely cache and Hakliva needed to contact the owner.
Through their conversation over the course of the next day, it was revealed that the owner has plenty on their plate and wouldn't be able to maintain their caches. Hakliva asked me for my opinion which basically had me asking myself, "am I really that mad at this person?" I don't like what they said or how they did it, but a couple of the caches that were brought up in the conversation, I had found and were very good caches. Despite my beef with this individual, I couldn't let a good cache get archived. This set in motion a plan to help out the owner.
The Manitoba Geocaching Association has come under fire from individuals in the past for past practices and other issues that I'm not fully understanding. With a new executive board in place, we are trying to move forward, mend fences, get rid of the toxic environment that exists. As a board, we have unofficially adopted older caches to keep them alive and going. Anyone who is working on their Jasmer calendar will know, older caches become fewer and fewer as they slowly fall to the elements and time. The owners have long since quit playing so contacting them to officially adopt is out of the question, so we'll do it unofficially. Keep a watch on these older caches and maintain them like they are our own. We can't do this for all of the old caches, but we'll do our best to keep the oldies alive. Now an opportunity presents itself to help out one of the people who was very outspoken against the MBGA. Of course we will. Let bygones be bygones. Extend an olive branch. That is the plan right now.
Not everything has been rosy since my meltdown. I was a target by another geocacher. The identity will never be known to me but I have a hunch, a gut feeling. Again, my hunches and gut feelings aren't always correct so I won't say who I suspect. The other evening, as I was about to pack stuff up on my laptop and go to bed, I got notifications on some of my older caches. DNFs and Need Maintenance. They probably do need maintenance and if there is an issue with the container, then I'll archive instead of replacing. That didn't really set off my spidey senses, but this did. The logs were done by Ge0cacherKen. Huh?? Wait a sec. Spidey Senses were going off the charts on this one. The profile shows they had joined that very day. No finds. The comments on the DNFs were "This game is too hard", and "I'm new to this game. I don't know what a como'd (sic) bottle is." No sooner did I get those notifications, there was a new cache published in the general area of where my caches in question are by this Ge0cacherKen. I contacted the reviewer in regards to this. He asked for all the info I had and would be sending this to HQ. By next morning, all of the logs on my caches by Ge0cacherKen had been removed by HQ, new cache had been retracted, and they locked the account for "impersonating another geocacher". This was done in about an hour after the information was submitted to HQ. WOW! I am totally impressed by HQ. With that, I can see that HQ doesn't mess around either. I was in conversation with Hakliva at the time this went down and she had suggested, and I quickly agreed that contacting the reviewer right then and there was the best choice of action. This was just the beginning. Who knows to what levels this person would stoop to and for how long this would last. The general vibe I got from all this was this type of attack was beneath an adult, unless they have some serious issues that I don't want to be a part of. I tried to not let this get to me. That was hard as I knew I was a target and being attacked via cyberspace. I seriously doubt there was a cache in place. A fake submission to get other cachers looking in that area, not finding anything, then get upset with me if they haven't picked up on the fact it wasn't me as the owner. Before I submitted everything to the reviewer, I posted a note on that cache saying congrats for the first hide and that I liked their caching name. That's me being sarcastic but hopefully any potential searchers would see my note, my name, and see it doesn't match the cache owner's name. Hopefully there will be no more attacks like this. If there is, it's straight to the reviewer and on to HQ for them to deal with. I'm not messing around nor am I going to put up with that nonsense.
I have done a little bit of caching since. There are a few events coming up that I was interested in attending, but I'm not sure if I should be seen in public or just stay in the shadows. I am taking a break from posting and sharing stuff on the MBGA FB page. This has a ripple effect on others but I need a break. It was my decision to not share last week's blog or this week's blog on the MBGA FB page like I normally do. I didn't want the MBGA being accused of supporting my words, my opinions. I will ease my way back in, but in time.
That's what has happened since last week. Hopefully I can put this to rest and move on. Hopefully others involved can too. I can't control that but I can control me unless I'm having another meltdown. Until I find the creative juices to write again (could be next week, or a couple of weeks from now, who knows). Until then, be safe, enjoy, and have fun.
With a rant like I did last week, there will be supporters and non-supporters. For those who gave me words of encouragement and hoped that I'd be ok, thank you. It was much appreciated. I did get a few private messages. Again, some in support, and some not really in support, but their words were done in a respectful way that I was able to let what they said sink in. Being respectful can have a bigger effect and that was something that was lacking on my part during my meltdown. Thank you to those who chose to be respectful with your words. Some kept referencing my original log to that cache. That log didn't stay very long as I had second thoughts about the harshness of it after clicking "post" and deleted some of the comments. For people to refer to the original, something tells me that a certain individual took a screenshot and was passing that around and not my updated log. Not cool. I have a gut feeling, a suspicion as to who, but my gut feeling isn't always 100% correct. With that said, I'm not going to stir the pot and keep a toxic situation boiling by pointing my finger. I'll just be very cautious around that person from now on, keeping a watchful eye out and watch what I say to them, if I speak to them ever again. As I mentioned in last week's blog, I can hold a grudge.
I wasn't really sure what I was going to do after my meltdown and rant. Right after the incident, I had messaged the president of the Manitoba Geocaching Association with my resignation as Treasurer and Stats person. That's on hold for now, as far as I know as I really do need some time to step away. The hider of the cache in question, I have put on my ignore list for now to avoid anymore situations. As for the ones who were publicly taking a chunk out of me (the haters and complainers in the peanut gallery), I was going to ignore them too, literally. I wanted to walk away from the s**tstorm that was created and leave it behind me. I know I said some stuff last week, at least hinted that I would leave nasty logs for their caches that I find, but that isn't really moving away from the situation. It just keeps the toxic situation boiling. If I did find one of their caches, it would have been a TFTC log. I had plans of quitting outright. I love geocaching. I love the hides, the travel, the adventures, the places I get to travel to and see. I love the meeting of other geocachers. We all have our own adventures and stories to share.
I did go out and find a couple of caches with my boys after the incident in question, so geocaching was still in my blood. I did have one geocache on my radar as it hasn't been found in two years. A lonely cache that was in need of some attention. I made plans with Hakliva (Queen of finding lonely caches) and off we went. What I didn't know at the time, the lonely cache was owned by one of the 'haters and complainers" as I kept calling them. The owner's name was under an alias for that cache. There was another in the area from the same owner that I didn't have and I knew Hakliva would want to get it. I wasn't about to be a stick in the mud and say no. We did run into some issues at the lonely cache and Hakliva needed to contact the owner.
Through their conversation over the course of the next day, it was revealed that the owner has plenty on their plate and wouldn't be able to maintain their caches. Hakliva asked me for my opinion which basically had me asking myself, "am I really that mad at this person?" I don't like what they said or how they did it, but a couple of the caches that were brought up in the conversation, I had found and were very good caches. Despite my beef with this individual, I couldn't let a good cache get archived. This set in motion a plan to help out the owner.
The Manitoba Geocaching Association has come under fire from individuals in the past for past practices and other issues that I'm not fully understanding. With a new executive board in place, we are trying to move forward, mend fences, get rid of the toxic environment that exists. As a board, we have unofficially adopted older caches to keep them alive and going. Anyone who is working on their Jasmer calendar will know, older caches become fewer and fewer as they slowly fall to the elements and time. The owners have long since quit playing so contacting them to officially adopt is out of the question, so we'll do it unofficially. Keep a watch on these older caches and maintain them like they are our own. We can't do this for all of the old caches, but we'll do our best to keep the oldies alive. Now an opportunity presents itself to help out one of the people who was very outspoken against the MBGA. Of course we will. Let bygones be bygones. Extend an olive branch. That is the plan right now.
Not everything has been rosy since my meltdown. I was a target by another geocacher. The identity will never be known to me but I have a hunch, a gut feeling. Again, my hunches and gut feelings aren't always correct so I won't say who I suspect. The other evening, as I was about to pack stuff up on my laptop and go to bed, I got notifications on some of my older caches. DNFs and Need Maintenance. They probably do need maintenance and if there is an issue with the container, then I'll archive instead of replacing. That didn't really set off my spidey senses, but this did. The logs were done by Ge0cacherKen. Huh?? Wait a sec. Spidey Senses were going off the charts on this one. The profile shows they had joined that very day. No finds. The comments on the DNFs were "This game is too hard", and "I'm new to this game. I don't know what a como'd (sic) bottle is." No sooner did I get those notifications, there was a new cache published in the general area of where my caches in question are by this Ge0cacherKen. I contacted the reviewer in regards to this. He asked for all the info I had and would be sending this to HQ. By next morning, all of the logs on my caches by Ge0cacherKen had been removed by HQ, new cache had been retracted, and they locked the account for "impersonating another geocacher". This was done in about an hour after the information was submitted to HQ. WOW! I am totally impressed by HQ. With that, I can see that HQ doesn't mess around either. I was in conversation with Hakliva at the time this went down and she had suggested, and I quickly agreed that contacting the reviewer right then and there was the best choice of action. This was just the beginning. Who knows to what levels this person would stoop to and for how long this would last. The general vibe I got from all this was this type of attack was beneath an adult, unless they have some serious issues that I don't want to be a part of. I tried to not let this get to me. That was hard as I knew I was a target and being attacked via cyberspace. I seriously doubt there was a cache in place. A fake submission to get other cachers looking in that area, not finding anything, then get upset with me if they haven't picked up on the fact it wasn't me as the owner. Before I submitted everything to the reviewer, I posted a note on that cache saying congrats for the first hide and that I liked their caching name. That's me being sarcastic but hopefully any potential searchers would see my note, my name, and see it doesn't match the cache owner's name. Hopefully there will be no more attacks like this. If there is, it's straight to the reviewer and on to HQ for them to deal with. I'm not messing around nor am I going to put up with that nonsense.
I have done a little bit of caching since. There are a few events coming up that I was interested in attending, but I'm not sure if I should be seen in public or just stay in the shadows. I am taking a break from posting and sharing stuff on the MBGA FB page. This has a ripple effect on others but I need a break. It was my decision to not share last week's blog or this week's blog on the MBGA FB page like I normally do. I didn't want the MBGA being accused of supporting my words, my opinions. I will ease my way back in, but in time.
That's what has happened since last week. Hopefully I can put this to rest and move on. Hopefully others involved can too. I can't control that but I can control me unless I'm having another meltdown. Until I find the creative juices to write again (could be next week, or a couple of weeks from now, who knows). Until then, be safe, enjoy, and have fun.
crackerjackie here, the hater and complainer you have referred to in the past two blogs. I have no issue with people knowing who I am. Also, I wasn't going to bother with whatever you happen to feel you need to post in your blog, but I want to make one thing clear. I am not too busy to maintain my caches, I spent the weekend doing just that and preparing for the pirate event. I just have a lot going on this month and the particular lonely cache you are referring to was a special container, so I was going to archive it. Some caches I don't mind throw downs if they are missing, but this particular one isn't in the throw down category. Hakliva mentioned she happened to have a replacement and would look after it, so I was more than happy to let her help me out. I have to admit that I had no idea you were involved since she never mentioned it. So thanks for the help you have provided. I currently have over 150 active caches, so if they aren't special to me, they will be archived as they go missing or need serious maintenance. I am still in this game and still maintaining hides, so nobody needs to unofficially adopt any of my caches. Thanks.
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