TripCyclone
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Posts posted by TripCyclone
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That is pretty cool TeamMCH. I like the idea of a MEGA-Souvenir too. Maybe something to propose to Groundspeak.
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One of the thoughts I had about the August souvenirs is that there should be something special for those who earned all 31 souvenirs. I saw the great Mega-Souvenir that TeamMCH made and thought an animated one would be cool too. It is not very elaborate but here it is:
If anyone has some suggestions to make it better, my ears are open.
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Registration is still open for the 4th Annual Great TB Race. We are currently up to around 40 entries. Check out the original post to learn how you can enter.
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Nice, I like the point system too. My only suggestion would be to reword the card that is attached to the TB. You have points for "visiting a cache" and "visiting a cache with difficulty or terrain >2.5." Since, if I'm understand the rules correctly, technically a "visit" (dipping) of a TB doesn't get any points, maybe reword it to "dropped in a cache"? Just so the wording on the sheet matches the wording on what you do with the TB when you put it in a cache.
Thank you for the reminder. I was going to look at somehow allowing for Visits as it is a bit of a headache to recalculate for dips.
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@LauraSpain
International entries are welcome. You just need to ensure the item is shipped on time. As to where to send it, that information has now been announced. However, the specific address will only be provided upon completing the registration form.
@EVERYONE ELSE
The 4th Annual Great TB Race is now open for registration. Just go to the Great TB Race website and visit the "2012 Race Details" tab at the top of the site to find out everything you need to know to enter the race. When you first visit the site, you'll also see a post titled "Official 2012 Great TB Race Announcement". It just contains a few brief items about what is changing and where people can go to register.
The race will start in Nashville, TN this year. If you decide to register, please make sure you read the instructions on the entry form and read the information within the confirmation message that will pop-up after you submit your entry. Please note that we instituted a $2 entry fee in 2011 to help cover the cost of shipping prizes and to help in the purchase of additional prizes. That will stay the same this year. You can waive the fee through a prize donation. As with everything else about the race, follow the instructions above to find out more information.
If you have questions that you can't seem to find an answer too, keep posting them on here. I'll try to response in a quick manner.
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Okay. Arrangements are being made for the starting location. I need to put together a few documents to be provided when people register, and set up the registration process. Here are a few questions I can answer:
1. The entry fee is $2. However, we do provide a discount for families, and you can waive the fee through a prize donation. I'll provide more details in the race announcement on Wednesday.
2. The starting location will be Nashville.
Please await further details. I am aiming to have everything ready by Wednesday to make an official announcement.
Thank you for showing me that people are interested in the race.
TripCyclone
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I've never been in a TB race before, although I have helped a couple of TBs continue on their ways. How does it work? Do we buy a TB and send it to you to put in the "starting" cache? Or do we need to live in the city where the race begins? Sounds like fun.
We haven't made an announcement yet. I wanted to gauge interest first. But if we go ahead with another year, you would need to buy a TB then mail it to a provided location (still to be determined). Then, on January 1st, 2012, an event will be held where all of the TB's that entered the race will be released. You do not need to be in the city though you are welcome to travel there.
Check out the 2011 Race Details page (link at the top of the site) and look at the race rules. Minor changes to the rules may occur but the basic premise and workings of the race will be close to what we are doing this year. We had tried a few things in 2010 but decided to get rid of those elements as they caused problems.
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As we finish up with the final quarter of the 3rd Annual Great TB Race, it's time to start considering whether or not to hold the race in 2012.
The Great TB Race is not your typical race for mileage. It is a race for points. Points are awarded each time a TB meets a goal. For example, 2 points are awarded every time it crosses a state line. 5 points for a picture being posted. 20 points for attending an event. This makes things a bit more interesting by providing a variety of ways for racers to earn points as it moves. Plus, with varying amounts of points ranging from 1 point to 40 points (for attending a MEGA event), the ways that a racer can move up the rankings isn't limited by how fast or far it moves (but those can help).
The race is a year long race, with an official starting point. The past three years have started in Kansas City, Dallas, and Phoenix respectively. At the end of each month, our group of scoring volunteers tally up the scores for the monthly rankings. At the end of the year, a final points tally is done and the top five contestants will be awarded prizes. We've averaged over $200 in prizes each year. Last year, after a public vote, we instituted a minor entry fee. This helps to cover the costs of purchasing and shipping prizes.
At the moment, I am gauging interest in the race before we make any plans. If you are interested, just post a comment on here or you can go to the race website and post a comment stating your interest on THIS POST. Feel free to look around the website. You'll find the races organized by years at the top. Check out 2009 and 2010 to find pages about the prizes we awarded. There is also a "Subscription" link on the top of the site so that you can be kept up to date on any announcements we make.
If interested, please try to respond in the coming week. I would like to make an official announcement by the end of the month and the sooner I can find out if there is interest the better. And feel free to ask questions here and I'll try to respond in a reasonable amount of time.
TripCyclone
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I am currently organising a race and details can be found here http://gctrackablerace2012.weebly.com/forum.html#/
It is really easy to create and participate in a race especially if there aren't many rules!
Also I don't think that people mind if there are a couple of rules. If you wish to join a race anyone can join mine!^^^
Sounds very similar to the Great TB Race I've been organizing for a few years. A much more simplified way to handle it too. Have fun with it and if you have any questions, let me know. Be happy to help It's always interesting to see the different ways people organize races. There are some creative ideas out there.
In response to the OP, it is all up to the person entering the race. Some really enjoy them and others just don't really care. Being an organizer of one, I found several families enjoyed entering each person in the family so they kind of had their own mini-competition going. The Great TB Race is finishing up it's third year and besides TB's going MIA, we haven't had too many complaints. Each year I find minor things to change. We award points for different goals so it doesn't require any extra rules be put on the TB. The goals are things like having a picture posted, crossing borders, attending events, etc. The only extra rule that might be seen as a movement rule is that we don't count dipping in tallying scores. That was something we long ago had voted against allowing. However, it is almost inavoidable. We even have a standard race tag that we physically attach to every item to explain to cachers that the item is in a race, alongside a point chart to show what helps it earn points. We've added a message that says that points earned from dipping will be voided, which cut down on the dips, but not completely. So I'm considering how to modify the rule to allow for visits as it usually means our scoring volunteers have to take a few extra steps to account for it. But in the end, the race is designed so that we aren't placing rules on the TB...just on how we keep score.
I'd like to think our race is rather well organized. We have a standardized race tag. We get everyone to start from the same spot. We have had a minimum of $200 in prizes each year, a turnout ranging from 60 - 90 TB's, and various people working behind the scenes to pull it off. Last year, after allowing people to vote on the idea, we started an entry fee to help cover the costs of shipping prizes, and to allow us to purchase additional prizes to award (the entry fee may be what dropped us from 94 entries in 2010 to only 64 this year). In fact, I got on here to post an announcement to gauge interest for holding the race in 2012 when I saw this post. You're welcome to check out our webpage at The Great TB Race to get more information.
I've also been involved in softball29's HooHaa TB race, which is mostly a race for mileage. He made it fun and there were even some cartoons from HeadHardHat...before he even started doing the GeoSnippets videos...poking fun at various movements.
I've been happy with the races I've joined and organized.
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Team Van Dyk-"Is it just me or has the CO deleted his all-caps Note and removed the "no co-FTF" ALR from the page?"
The owner has removed the "no co-FTF" language from his cache. I would hope that the bogus find logs and other childish comments that don't belong as logs will be removed by those that put them there.
Knowing the OP, I was reading about this. Just in case you were wondering, the CO still has the language on two of his other caches:
Either he forgot that he had it on two other caches, or he still plans on deleting, but chose to remove the language to avoid further "FTF" mentions in the logs.
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Just in case anyone is interested, the Great TB Race is giving away one free entry to the race (including a free TB and no entry fee). To find out details on how you can enter, go to the Great TB Race website for more information.
Only ten days left to enter the race. Our list of entries is growing and a prize pool for the race has already started. The race begins January 1st in Phoenix with the Kick Off Event.
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With the 2nd Annual Great TB Race entering it's final stretch next week, it's a good point to remind everyone that the 3rd Annual Great TB Race is awaiting your entry.
Instead of a race for mileage, the Great TB Race is a race for points. Points are awarded every time a task is completed. The TB with the most points at the end of 2011 wins. Prizes are awarded for the top five positions. In 2009, over $200 in prizes were handed out. Over $250 in prizes will be awarded after the completion of the current race. Geocoins, t-shirts, geocache containers, there are a variety of prizes to be awarded.
Find out how you can enter by visiting the Great TB Race website. Details for the 2011 race can be found by visiting the 2011 Race Details page.
Feel free to check out the 2009 and 2010 tabs to see more about those races. And for those who have helped move some of our 2009 and 2010 entries, come check out how they did (or are doing).
Entry to the 2011 race does require that you purchase a TB and it does have an $2 entry fee to help offset the purchase and shipping of prizes (as voted on by geocachers like you). You will also need to ship the TB to the starting location. The race will start January 1st with the release of all of the entries at an event in Phoenix, AZ. Entry to the race can also make a great Christmas Gift, but don't wait until Christmas to enter...the entry period ends Christmas Day.
So get those entries rolling and take your shot at winning the 3rd Annual Great TB Race.
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I would use a different term than "Number" to refer to Sudoku puzzles. They're really logic puzzles, and the 9 digits could be anything. I think Ken Ken, crosswords, and a lot of other "standard" puzzles that have been adapted for a geocache fall into the same category as Sudoku puzzle caches, but I'm not sure what the best term would be. Calling them "Logic" puzzles works for Sudoku, Ken Ken, and similar puzzles, but not for crosswords, etc.
I struggled with a way to label these once before. Eventually came to look at them as "Newspaper Puzzles". The types of puzzles you might find in a puzzle magazine or the New York Times.
http://tripcyclone.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/ahhhthe-dreaded-mystery-cache/ I put this together a while back for my blog and it helped me personally look at classifying puzzles. The first on the list is one type I've seen A LOT less of since writing this post.
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Registration for the 3rd Annual Great TB Race is now open. For details, go to The Annual Great TB Race.
On that page, you'll find the 2011 Race Rules, the Entry Form, and an announcement regarding where the 2011 Race will start. Where will it start? After a week-long voting period, the race will begin with a New Year's Day event in Phoenix, AZ.
What is the Great TB Race? It is a year long race between travel bugs from around the world. Every travel bug starts in the same location, but instead of racing for mileage, you race for points. Points are earned by meeting certain goals. Every time the goal is met, you earn points. Goals include things like mileage, attending events, visiting caches, taking pictures, even points based on D/T ratings of the visited caches. Earn enough points and you may find yourself in the winner's circle.
In 2009, just over $200 in prizes were awarded to the top five finishers our of 81 entries. In 2010, the prize pool is up to $250, and there are currently 94 travel bugs racing for top honors.
Will you be the winner in 2011?
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Voting for the starting location of the 2011 Great TB Race has opened. ALL votes will count, even if you don't plan on entering the race. Voting will end at 10 PM CDT on Tuesday, September 28th. This vote will help to determine where the race will start at.
To participate, go to The 2011 Great TB Race Vote.
Thank you to all who vote. This is an important step in setting up next year's race. Stay tuned for an announcement on when registration will begin.
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After two years of running the Great TB Race, we are now beginning to look at the 2011 race. Before we do that, we need to take care of one critical piece of information...the starting location.
Each year, we have held the start of the race in a different location. The first year was a large cache in Kansas City, MO. The 2nd year was a more successful start with a New Year's Day event in Dallas, TX. We would like to continue with the idea of hosting a New Year's Day event as a way to release all racing travel bugs. This is where you come in.
We are looking for a volunteer to host the event. The event can be organized however you want, provided that one of the main goals is the release of the TB's. The extra effort will come in the time before the race. As the host of the starting event, the easiest way to ensure that all racing TB's are in place for the event is for you to be the receiving point for all racing TB's. In other words, entrants will ship their entries to you. You would need to take a photo of each item and make a list of all tracking numbers to be sent to me. You would also be attaching the official race tags, but you will not be responsible for making them. I will do that and send them to you.
As a "payment", so to speak, for your efforts, you will receive two free entries to the race. This means I send you two travel bugs that you can use to enter the race, one for you and one for someone of your choosing.
If you might be interested, check out the official announcement for some extra details. If you decide you would like to submit your city, post a comment there with the name of your city. Please do this before the end of Friday, September 24th. On Saturday, we will open up voting to decide the starting location.
And for those of you who might be interested in entering the race, bookmark the site and we hope to have an announcement about registration sometime during the first week of October.
Oh yeah, currently, the following cities have been submitted:
Tampa, FL
Anchorage, AK
Toronto, Canada
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I just didn't have the patience to read all that. If someone did that to one of my cache pages, I'd be peeved.
Yeah, you should actually look a bit more carefully, about half of the posted notes are the owners posting pictures of caching adventures unrelated to this cache and various single line comments. Take a close look at Woody48 (the CO's sock puppet account) and how he tries to claim that neither myself nor Jadefalcon signed the logbook. If you look carefully at the picture, you can see our signatures on the backside.
Trip, are you signing backsides AGAIN? I thought we had a long talk about that...
At least tell me you stopped using the permanent marker?
Hey, I heard you in our conversations. I've moved on from permanent markers.
Now where did I leave my tattoo ink?
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I just didn't have the patience to read all that. If someone did that to one of my cache pages, I'd be peeved.
Yeah, you should actually look a bit more carefully, about half of the posted notes are the owners posting pictures of caching adventures unrelated to this cache and various single line comments. Take a close look at Woody48 (the CO's sock puppet account) and how he tries to claim that neither myself nor Jadefalcon signed the logbook. If you look carefully at the picture, you can see our signatures on the backside.
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If you hadn't heard already, while hiking to the Project APE cache here in Washington, the rental car Webscouter. and I had was broken into. Passport, cables, power supply, a USB GPS, some swag and misc. items were stolen. Also stolen were about $700 in geocoins, $300 of which were part of my personal collection. The rest were coins that I was selling for a friend.,
Here's where I need help. We are still on the road and our internet access is in and out. I need to file a report with the police of everything stolen, and they recommended pictures for the coins. I have tracking codes for everything but I do not have pictures for everything. What I need help with is getting a good photo of every coin in my collection. So I'm asking for some help from the community in getting those photos. The best way to ensure that everyone is not repeating the work, please post a photo along with the type of coin here in this discussion. This way, throughout the day I can pull down photos to put into a document for the police.
Some of my coins already have photos, but I don't know which ones. If it's a decent photo showing the detail of both sides, go ahead and post that here. If someone sees one of the photos and might know where a better photo is that shows both sides, please post that photo in here.
Just to let everyone know, I have a solid photo of the Soaring Eagle coins. That happens to be the design I was selling for my friend and he has provided me with exactly the right photo for what I need, a photo showing a close up view of both sides of the coin, like this:
Thanks for any help in advance. I'm not asking for one person to do all the work but for multiple people to help located good photos for one or a few coins. The geocoins and passport might be the best chance of catching the thieves.
TripCyclone
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wow those are such nice coins, im sorry to hear about the theft. i hope whoever stole these gets bit on the a** by karma. what goes around comes around. not nice to hear about or happen to, im just sorry its happened.
When they stole it, I don't think they realized that there was a passport in the bag. They just stole the whole bag. So if caught, Karma will catch up as theft of a passport is a federal offense.
Thankfully, we are making up for it today. I was really bummed about losing all my cheap swag (that Halloween eraser that I picked up at Wal-mart was priceless) so we decided to swing into Oregon and grab a few more extra, unplanned counties. YAY!
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I won't be able to go, but TripCyclone will have some of my personal coins in tow. Coins come in three finishes: Nickel, Copper, Gold, and only the Gold color has epoxy. Will also trade for others' coins, but most will be for sale. I'm trying to raise some funds to create a new geocoin and I'm hoping they'll go like gangbusters
I regret to inform anyone who was interested in this coin that the collection was stolen from our rental car while Webscouter and I were on the trail to claim the Project APE cache. Our vehicle was one of two that were broken into and every one of this coin, along with my entire personal collection, my passport, Webscouter.'s USB GPS, his power inverter, and multiple cables and splitters were all stolen. A combined value of around $1000 dollars, about $700 of which were geocoins.
By the way, we could use any assistance out there. If anyone happens to see these coins pop up on eBay anytime soon, especially in a larger quantity, please contact the King's County Sheriff's office at (206)296-4155 with information regarding the account trying to sell them and whatever ID number is associated with that particular sale, alongside contacting me.
Sorry to anyone hoping to purchase this coin but thought I would post an update.
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I have a cache that would have to be partially in the ground.
Would coring the ground, which is by definition, "not digging" nor will a pointy, or sharp tool be used, or any kind of object to dig. Simply a piece of pipe driven into the ground, and then pulled out removing a core of dirt?
Next.....
If a hole existed already, and I did not make said hole. And I did not make it to place a cache, and I was given permission to place a cache in said hole..... Would that be a violation of the rules????
It will not be "Buried"
In those cases where I have seen similarly placed caches, the cache owner had gotten explicit permission from the land owner for such placement due to digging being against the guidelines in any form. In at least one case, it took several months of back and forth communication before they were given permission for exactly what you are describing. I'm going to guess that each of those cases likely had to clearly inform the reviewer of said permission before the cache was even considered. Chances are that if you cannot prove clear permission from the land owner for such a placement, most reviewers, if not all reviewers (I can't speak for all reviewers...just for what the guidelines say), are going to deny the cache.
EDIT: Oh yeah, and just a reminder that prior cache placement is usually not considered as proof that a future placement is okay. That's also something clearly said in the guidelines. Most reviewers would probably tell you that if you tried to argue "Well it's been done before."
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I am usually caching with my four-year-old son, and I plan my caching accordingly. I don't try to haul him to terrain 4.5 caches, and I don't let him run around in a busy parking lot while I am trying to covertly find and sign an LPC. If he wants to make a trade in a cache, that's fine, but if he wants something in the next cache, he has to leave behind the thing he got from the previous one. Even at four years old he can choose between two McToys and leave one behind without fuss. If he has lots of energy, we can go for a longer hike where his exuberance won't be heard by muggles. If he's asleep in the car, that's a good time to do park and grabs.
It's important to keep in mind the environment and the age of the children. Putting younger kids into a group outside and then telling them they have to be quiet might be a little unreasonable. With the right planning and some flexibility, caching with kids can be a lot of fun.
And again, I point out that my original comment was directed at avoiding kids yelling out that they found a cache when it's found, attracting the attention of muggles to the cache itself. I never once said the kids had to go outside and be totally quiet.
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Sounds like a fun time. You should start by reading the event guidelines. You cannot host an event for the purpose of hunting caches, so word it carefully.
I prefer unstructured events that focus on socializing with other cachers instead of ones that are full of activities that send people away from the meeting point/shelter/bar. Others like to play games and have activities at their events.
With regards to hosting an event to hunt caches. If you happen to pick a trail that has caches, there's nothing stopping you from grabbing them. But yes, reviewers tend to frown on cache-hunting events where the sole focus is hunting caches. However, in my experience, you are welcome to place a few new caches to be published the day of the event.
Here's a thought. Maybe you could consider making the event a caching bike race. Have some prizes for the top three finishers, and maybe a few other categories. Don't make it too long as you don't want to exclude those who might not be experienced with long distance biking. Then set some caches along the trail. The goal is to not only get to the finish line first, but to do so while grabbing as many of the caches on the trail as possible. You could even set up a required amount of found caches, but place more than that. Let's say you place 10 caches. Finding 7 is required to be in the standings. Finding more than seven takes time of your total ride time. Finding less adds time. Maybe the third person to get to the finish line found all ten caches, and their added time pushes them into first place? Just make sure that EVERYONE can go after the caches, not just those in the race. Then, at the finish line, hold a picnic. Food for attendees and racers, socializing, and you've now turned it into a competition. You might even consider having a mini race for the kids, with or without a handful of kid friendly caches.
Actually, that sounds like fun. I'd probably join in the race myself. If you do that, share the details. We have MOGA here in Missouri and it is a popular geocaching competition, though the terrain isn't very conducive for biking.
Diary of a wimpy kid
in Trackables
Posted
I still have not received mine and I submitted for it on July 1st. Guess mine was lost to this mailing problem others experienced.