Zarya.

The little things arrived today after many long days in the back of USPS and Canadapost trucks. Tomorrow they are going to an event as the newest part of my dragon collection. I won't gush about how beautiful they are because others have already... and it really goes without saying. There's a little problem, though - I ordered 2 LE's and 2 RE's, and the fact shows up on my invoice, but I only got 1 LE; the other is... MIA? Escaped from the postal truck or something?

Isn't that the purpose of a GPS unit for geocaching? When you have nothing else to do - or indeed, something else to do - pick up that GPS with some caches loaded into it, and go for a walk. After all, the GPSr isn't really useful for sitting at a computer tapping responses into forums all day long, and sitting at a computer tapping responses into forums all day long isn't really useful for your GPSr.

You're not alone - I've picked up many a golf ball from caches and put into caches miles from any golfing spot. Other local cachers noticed this too and soon they published a special cache... http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...ba-5f4fe551f53c ...you guessed it, a nice big ammo can on a river trail full of nothing but golf balls, golf balls, and more golf balls.

Put me on the list of rabble - Failed to Connect The connection was refused when attempting to contact www.geocaching.com. On Firefox (what else?)

Like a 19" computer monitor. Not LCDs, the old ones, remember the cathode ray tubes? I had 90% of my geocoin collection in my luggage while travelling through central America. At one point, when I was hiring a taxi, the driver - a fairly well-built rural type - opened his trunk and seized the bag with the albums in them to help me load up. His eyes widened when he tugged but couldn't lift it with one arm. After repositioning, with two arms, he managed to heave it up and over into the trunk, gasping in a strained voice, "carry gold!!" Stateside, Amtrak wouldn't check my geocoin luggage. They (or at least the counter staff at Chicago Union Station) complained it was too heavy, grossly overweight, and that even if they tried they couldn't lift it without hurting their backs, and that tiny me had to carry it on myself. I had to haul it up to the train and secure it with cable locks, which I fortunately spotted on sale days before at REI.

Staying tuned, very closely. It better come out before I go camping this Wednesday!

Birders have "life lists" of birds they want to sight before they die. I have a "life list" too, of geocoins I want to hold in my hand or add to my collection before I die. It's a pretty short list. 1) Colonel H. George Cachington Dragon Geocoin 2) Alaska 2006 (Wolf) Gold Leaf 3) Great Outdoors XLE But it's not an easy list to cross off. Each of those coins have a tremendous significance, but they are almost impossible to find as it is unless an owner suddenly decides to liquidate... and I have a gut feeling I will miss the sale if it does go on. Notwithstanding, the rest of the top 5 list would be: 4) Dragon geocoins, currently specifically a Dressel Dragon 5) Astro Winter

To share some more about the suggestion, here are a set of useful links for the surfing incognito: Firefox - The framework. Ditch Internet Exploder. Opera, Safari and Chrome users may like a foxy backup. Adblock Plus - Blocking ads in general NoScript - Blocking XSS, Controlling Javascript, Flash, Frames and Iframes CS Lite - Controlling cookies BetterPrivacy - Blocking a new class of DOM objects and flash-based web trackers And afew more for developers: FireBug - The most beautiful design and debug tool since Notepad++. Forget yslow, do a firebug net trace. On the same page are the following: FirePhp - Firebug, now in PHP flavour. FireCookie - And it does cookies too. Codeburner - How about standards compliance references?

I usually ignore newsletters coming in while on vacation, but geoswag's announcement caught my eye hot off the press while I was waiting for an email reservation confirmation. Transaction made for a couple. Looking forward to having a set of 5.

Received by other party: Eltada (1), Globy (1), Tadpole (1), modelcitizen (1), Alliedoz (1), Eleanor (1), Burgessfour (1), Doc265 (4), Geoks (2), crowes (1), TMA (1), mauison (1) southpaw (1), motocycle (2) 10 of 10 packages (19 of 19 coins) received from: Theotokos (3), Jackalgirl(3), DrJeepStr (3), Icydove (1), Geoks (1), GCdragon (2), Cheesypigs (1), Li-Z (2), Crowes (2), TMA (1) Mission accomplished!

Last year, shipping 2 boxes box containing a backpack and some camping equipment cost $55 to Canada. This year, shipping the same two boxes of equipment to the same address in Canada, with the same service (cheapest one available) cost $180. I was shocked at the post office. I had to break the bank to get two hundred-dollar bills just to get my stuff shipped back after a camping trip. I am not camping in the states ever again unless I'm actually driving down (as opposed to flying, and getting everything damaged when it goes through TSA).

That sounds like a great idea! How about a tagging system for people who want to categorize their collection into sub-collections? For example, I have a primarily dragon geocoin collection, but some coins in that collection fall into the phoenix collection, which itself is comprised mostly of a the Phoenix Series group. Then for others there are all the dragonflies, earth turtles, and tranquillities, many of which would go into a nature category as well, etc. I have a php/mysql-based geocoin gallery system designed on the backs of papers too, but have a couple ongoing website projects taking up all my time. It's amazing that you're developing a free service like that in your spare time. Go you!

Received by other party: Eltada (1), Globy (1), Tadpole (1), modelcitizen (1), Alliedoz (1), Eleanor (1), Burgessfour (1), Doc265 (4), Geoks (2), crowes (1), TMA (1), mauison (1) southpaw (1), motocycle (2) 9 of 10 packages (18 of 19 coins) received from: Theotokos (3), Jackalgirl(3), DrJeepStr (3), Icydove (1), Geoks (1), GCdragon (2), Cheesypigs (1), Li-Z (2), Crowes (2), TMA (1) All coins are in, the tranquillity from Cheesy came in time! (Although I had to dig my geocoin album out of my luggage, which was already packed, locked, and in the doorway.) Oddly, I was charged just over a dollar to receive it I wonder what's the status of the package to Doc265.

Received by other party: Eltada (1), Globy (1), Tadpole (1), modelcitizen (1), Alliedoz (1), Eleanor (1), Burgessfour (1), Doc265 (4), Geoks (2), crowes (1), TMA (1), mauison (1) southpaw (1), motocycle (2) 9 of 10 packages (18 of 19 coins) received from: Theotokos (3), Jackalgirl(3), DrJeepStr (3), Icydove (1), Geoks (1), GCdragon (2), Cheesypigs (1), Li-Z (2), Crowes (2), TMA (1) Tomorrow is the last day I will be at this address, hope the one from cheesypigs comes in!

Received by other party: Eltada (1), Globy (1), Tadpole (1), modelcitizen (1), Alliedoz (1), Eleanor (1), Burgessfour (1), Doc265 (4), Geoks (2), crowes (1), TMA (1), mauison (1) southpaw (1), motocycle (2) 8 of 10 packages (15 of 19 coins) received from: Theotokos (3), Jackalgirl(3), DrJeepStr (3), Icydove (1), Geoks (1), GCdragon (2), Cheesypigs (1), Li-Z (2), Crowes (2), TMA (1) I have until Wednesday to get the rest of the coins before I permanently move away, hope they arrive by then!

Received by other party: Eltada (1), Globy (1), Tadpole (1), modelcitizen (1), Alliedoz (1), Eleanor (1), Burgessfour (1), Doc265 (4), Geoks (2), crowes (1), TMA (1), mauison (1) southpaw (1), motocycle (2) 8 of 10 packages (15 of 19 coins) received from: Theotokos (3), Jackalgirl(3), DrJeepStr (3), Icydove (1), Geoks (1), GCdragon (2), Cheesypigs (1), Li-Z (2), Crowes (2), TMA (1)

Received by other party: Eltada (1), Globy (1), Tadpole (1), modelcitizen (1), Alliedoz (1), Eleanor (1), Burgessfour (1), Doc265 (4), Geoks (2), crowes (1), TMA (1), mauison (1) southpaw (1), motocycle (2) 7 of 9 packages (13 of 19 coins) received from: Theotokos (3), Jackalgirl(3), DrJeepStr (5), Icydove (1), Geoks (1), GCdragon (2), Cheesypigs (1), Crowes (2), TMA (1) The two ultra-rare geocachingdragon coins arrived today!

Received by other party: Eltada (1), Globy (1), Tadpole (1), modelcitizen (1), Alliedoz (1), Eleanor (1), Burgessfour (1), Doc265 (4), Geoks (2), crowes (1), TMA (1), mauison (1) southpaw (1), motocycle (2) 5 of 9 packages (8 of 18 coins) received from: Theotokos (3), Jackalgirl(1), DrJeepStr (6), Icydove (1), Geoks (1), GCdragon (2), Cheesypigs (1), Crowes (2), TMA (1)

The Phoenix AE series just came in today from Theotokos - first package from Canada!

Received by other party: Eltada (1), Globy (1), Tadpole (1), modelcitizen (1), Alliedoz (1), Eleanor (1), Burgessfour (1), Doc265 (4), Geoks (2), crowes (1), TMA (1), mauison (1) southpaw (1), motocycle (2) 2 of 9 packages (2 of 18 coins) received from: Theotokos (3), Jackalgirl(1), DrJeepStr (6), Icydove (1), Geoks (1), GCdragon (2), Cheesypigs (1), Crowes (2), TMA (1) TMA, I hope the BN nocturnal arrived in good shape?

*envious*

Whoops, checked the forum too late.. Any chance of there being an electronic version?

14 of 14 packages (19 coins) put out for the mailman on 17 Feb '09 to (and I'm using shorthand here): Eltada (1), Globy (1), Tadpole (1), modelcitizen (1), Alliedoz (1), Eleanor (1), Burgessfour (1), Doc265 (4), Geoks (2), crowes (1), TMA (1), mauison (1) southpaw (1), motocycle (2) 0 of 9 packages (18 coins) received from: Theotokos (3), Jackalgirl(1), DrJeepStr (6), Icydove (1), Geoks (1), GCdragon (2), Cheesypigs (1), Crowes (2), TMA (1) It's been quite a mailing day. I can envision tiny, valuable coins flying across the continent in all kinds of vehicles over the next few days.

There were really only 7 'trades' in this math trade. Number of groups = 7 Group sizes = 276 182 155 31 5 4 2 If anyone is reeeaaaally that interested in the loops, I can email you the raw data. Yes, I'm reeeaaaally interested in seeing the raw data! (and the algorithm too if I may) 19 coins going out to 14 people in 6 countries, and receiving 14 from from 9 people. I'm short of bubble mailers and have nowhere to get them in close proximity.. to make sure all of 'em get sent on time tomorrow, I improvised by cutting my big bubble mailers into half for the individual coins. Lowered postage cost too!

Didn't get any of my primary heart's desires, but did get quite afew neat ones, in addition to getting rid of some extras. Barring a oopsie on my part - a "9" instead of a "0" - I'm quite satisfied with the outcome of this exercise. Following the chain of trades for many of the coins was a daunting task that required an immense amount of scrolling.. I tracked about 50 coins for one chain before I gave up. The computations must have been fairly significant, which goes to say that the software must have been very well designed. Kudos!