This.and.That.Kidd

I don't know if this is entry-worthy, but I figured I may as well recount my little story here. So my fiancee and I decided to turn off our webcams, shut down our computers, turn off the lights, and celebrate Earth Hour. Everything went well with her and her family up north. While a bit of an oxymoron for conserving the environment during this time, I had a shower in the pitch black. Of course, five minutes into the shower, at exactly 8:30 almost as if planned, the fire alarm for my entire dorm went off because someone on my hall burnt a couple of bagels. Clambering out into the decidedly wet and cold darkness. I texted my fiancee to let her know what had happened. She declared it the best Earth Hour ever. So loving. Once the fire department and come and gone and we were allowed back inside, I resumed my shower. Yeah, showering wasn't the most conservational activity, but considering how badly I needed one, I'd wager I already did my conserving several days in advance. Gross. And now you know. - Matt

Congrats to daveindeal and thank you for the honorable mention. It was fun to read through as new entries came in, so I'm looking forward to any future cointests that you decide to hold. The winning mission is interesting, so I'm gonna put a watch on him so I can keep up with his travels. - Matt

We guess 256. (edited right after posting because I realized the <3 could be read as 'less than 3' instead of the heart I'd intended, so I didn't want that to skew our guess)

I was thinking this same idea up this morning and realizing the same issues with safety. You mentioned a possible video message, though, and that seems like an interesting idea. I think this could be accomplished by attaching a little laminated youtube link to your TB. Subsequent discoverers with video-creating capabilities could record their own and post it on youtube as a response to the initial video, and new discoverers could simply follow the chain of video responses that way to see all of it unfold. That way, things can be digital without the risk, so long as it's hosted at youtube, not behind some tinyurl link that could redirect to somewhere malicious. Sounds like a fun idea to me, at least. - Matt

Voted! And for a coin I'd definitely like to own myself eventually. - Matt

Great cointest you have here. In contrast to the coin's wide-eyed optimism... Name: Grumblebeard Mission: Get your dirty hands off of me! We gnomes aren't the cute and cuddly little creatures you humans think we are, so don't even THINK about taking some cutesy photo of me near things like kittens or flowers. I'm in this business for one thing and one thing only- treasure! So put me in a cache with plenty of treasure to guard and MAYBE I'll forgive you for smudging me with your grimey fingerprints.

Was searching a location near my dorm again today for a cache I never have been able to find and while standing beneath the spread of a large tree, I noticed two sizable bottles. I paid them no mind and continued searching until just when I was giving up, when they caught my eye again. Then there was a slow moment of realizing I didn't just have to say 'bah, it's just trash' and that I could actually do something about it. The whole concept of CITO sprang to mind and I carried the bottles to a nearby trashcan, along with a lipgloss container I found along the way. I'm going to make an effort to be less passive about trash laying around, with most people considering it someone else's problem. - Matt

Wow, thank you so much, from the both of us. Well, Crys hasn't seen yet, but I'll be showing this to her as soon as I catch her online tonight, and I'm sure she'll be excited too. Is this the same geocoin design? http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=163073 If so, were there really only 10 of these minted? Even if there were 10,000 made, we're super happy to be the new owners of this one and hope it stays safe in its travels. Are we now free to change our little coin's goal from being a discovery coin to something else? (Like, "To one day travel to Ontario and greet its owners for the first time, wandering from cache to cache until then." or something to that effect) Thank you very much, and I hope to eventually pay a visit to some of your Tennessee caches, should I happen to get myself a car and the means to do so.

My fiancee and I would like to get deeper into geocaching and stop finding all of our caches by google map memorization. However, with a lot of life-changing events on the horizon, not the least of which including our wedding, the most we can spare for a GPS is $60-65, ideally. I'm currently in Tennessee, but the brunt of the unit's use would be occurring in Ontario, once she and I reconvene after my graduation from university. We're looking for a unit that would be both US and Canada-friendly, accordingly. I've seen the Garmin eTrex Legend going for this price range here, so we're hopeful about finding someone with one of those or something similar in functionality, preferred over a Geomate Jr. Thanks for any offers. - Matt of Crys and Matt

Thank you much for the invite, Maine. ♥

My fiancee and I recently created our first cache while I was visiting her for spring break. We live some 1000 miles apart right now, with her in Ontario and me at university in Tennessee. With me graduating this May and my cross-continental move/our wedding/our new lives controlling all of our budgeting, we're too financially restrained currently to let ourselves buy any geocoins, as much as we'd like to. If anyone has the generosity to spare, we'd love to get one out there in our name. Watching our cache's logs and past trackables we've discovered helps take our minds off the stress of distance and getting our lives together over the coming months, so having our own coin to watch would be especially fun. We'd love to participate as givers in threads like this once we're on our feet, in the true spirit of paying generosity forward, regardless of if anyone has a coin to adopt presently.

Very nicely designed coin, and such a generous idea that I know will make everyone who receives one very happy.

First guess, 59. Second guess, 72. Cool cointest!