diff --git a/bin/cget.sh b/bin/cget.sh
index 10149db..89b06c9 100755
--- a/bin/cget.sh
+++ b/bin/cget.sh
@@ -152,6 +152,11 @@ fi
 # Process command-line options and arguments
 #######################################################################
 
+# default to INFO logging
+if [ -z "$LOG_LEVEL" ]; then
+	LOG_LEVEL=3
+fi
+
 help_mode=false; verbose_mode=false; quiet_mode=false; local_opts=
 while getopts ":hvqFC" opt; do
 	case $opt in
@@ -161,11 +166,13 @@ while getopts ":hvqFC" opt; do
 		v)
 			verbose_mode=true
 			quiet_mode=false
+			LOG_LEVEL=4
 			local_opts="$local_opts -$opt"
 			;;
 		q)
 			verbose_mode=false
 			quiet_mode=true
+			LOG_LEVEL=0
 			;;
 		F)
 			local_opts="$local_opts -$opt"
@@ -201,14 +208,6 @@ location="$1"
 # Initialization
 #######################################################################
 
-# determine the log file
-if $quiet_mode; then
-	log_file=/dev/null
-else
-	log_file="$CACHE_DIR/cget_log.txt"
-	local_opts="$local_opts -L $log_file"
-fi
-
 # create temporary subdirectory
 /bin/mkdir "$tmp_dir"
 status_code=$?
@@ -216,7 +215,7 @@ if [ $status_code -ne 0 ]; then
 	echo "ERROR: $script_name failed to create tmp dir ($status_code) $tmp_dir" >&2
 	exit 2
 fi
-$verbose_mode && print_log_message -D "$script_name creating temp dir: $tmp_dir" "$log_file"
+$verbose_mode && print_log_message -D "$script_name creating temp dir: $tmp_dir"
 
 # temporary file
 tmp_file="${tmp_dir}/http_resource_$$"
@@ -228,7 +227,7 @@ tmp_file="${tmp_dir}/http_resource_$$"
 # Functions print_log_message and clean_up_and_exit defined in core_lib.sh
 # Function conditional_get defined in http_tools.sh
 
-print_log_message "$script_name requesting resource: $location" "$log_file"
+print_log_message "$script_name requesting resource: $location"
 
 # get the resource
 conditional_get $local_opts -d "$CACHE_DIR" -T "$tmp_dir" "$location" > "$tmp_file"