Hugh Jazz

I like that first one, who has that as their .sig? I'd like to buy them a root beer.

I must say I am offended, as a new resident of Kansas, at the crass commercialization and perpetuation of the "tornado myth" vis-a-vis Kansas, all brought on back in 1936 with the release of that infernal movie, "The Wizard of Oz." In point of fact, TEXAS actually has had almost three times as many tornadoes as Kansas has had, followed by #2 OKLAHOMA. Kansas is a distant number three ranked in terms of sheer numbers of tornadoes. Florida has had just one fewer tornado than Kansas, since the dawn of recorded weather history sometime around the end of the premeteorozoical era, when the rooster-shaped anemometer was invented by Neandertal bronzesmiths. In another point of fact, TEXAS leads in statistical deaths, injuries, and property damage due to tornadoes. Kansas doesn't even rank in the top five for deaths or the top ten for injuries! That's because Kansas has more desolate, barren, empty flatness than any other state, and fewer people statewide than live in Houston! So please, a more fitting coin to depict Kansas would be a featureless rectangle with the top right corner kinda chewed off like a dog got aholt of it. The coin would be perfectly and utterly smooth, with no writing, numbering or other surface features to disturb the flatness of it. And it would be made of a very very cold metal. No matter what you did you simply could not warm it up. Let's not perpetuate the myth that Kansans are constantly being sucked off the earth by Tornadoes. There are many great things about Kansas that you could put on a coin. Our sunflower, our wheat, our... ...well, our sunflower and our wheat for two but I'm sure there are many other great things... I haven't lived here really long enough to see more than that sunflower and the wheat but I'm sure there has to be something. EDIT: The preceeding post was completely in gest. The coin looks great. I've sprinkled in some smileys in case anyone doesn't get my dry sense of humor.

598 ENTER^ 80 / 7.48 What's a post?

Oh that's a great one. I can log that tomorrow at work!

Yee haw, us 'Puritans' have won! There is much celebrating to do. Turkeys to be plucked, pies to be baked, corn pone to be... uh, erm... ...poned?

You can get a lot of big swag for dirt cheap at garage sales. I use this means to fill the Hugh Jazz caches I deploy. Largest wast 24 gallons in size. You can fill up a 24 gallon container for less than $5 at a garage sale, and it's good stuff too. Stuffed animals, books, toy dinosaurs, dolls, puzzles, games.

The Ammo Can is Natures' perfect geocaching container. There is no way to improve on perfection, by definition. It's folly to even try.

Dadgum it snoogs, why didn't you post the firearm 'underground LC' a couple years ago? I coulda bagged about 500 extra smilies. Wait, I forgot, I'm a 'Puritan' now. No extra smilies for me. You know what we Puritans do to multiple-smiley posters, don't you? Hmmm?

I think you should post an event. People like to celebrate milestones at events. I think you should post an event. People like to celebrate milestones at events. I think you should post an event. People like to celebrate milestones at events.

A can of beans and a slingshot, definitely.

The cost to make the product is only one factor in the equation of its value. SUPPLY and DEMAND are probably the biggest factors in the pricing of coins. That's why you see the spike in eBay prices. Let's say I made 400,000 of my Lowracer coins. I would have to give them away in geocaches and on street corners because the demand would easily be satisfied by the overwhelming supply. They'd be worthless and I'd lose tons of money. Let's say I made 250. They'd sell for $4 each, my cost to make (roughly), but not everyone who wants one can get one since there weren't enough made to put one in every collector's hand that wanted one. Expect to see these on eBay for more than $4 within a few months. Let's say I made an additional 50 in a different metal. Same cost to make, around four bucks, but since there's only 50 of them but more collectors than there are coins, the price on these will go way up. It has very little to do with the actual cost to make the product, and more to do with how many were made, how strong the demand will be, and how many people will demand.

I disagree with all the rules that say "the sport is geocaching, not geocoins." It started with geocaching, but it has nothing to do with geocaching anymore, except in name. Put the word cache, geocache, or some derivative thereof, or the word geocoin, on a coin with just about any 'graven image,' and you have an instant collectable item sought after by many. It's a new hobby, born of caching. It's not geocaching. It's coin collecting.

Only if you are not a "Puritan."

YodaDoe, just browse around the geocoin forum and you'll get an idea what you're in for if you even pick up just one geocoin. You may be hooked. I say I'm not a collector but last I checked I had about ten sitting on my dining room table. Been meaning to get rid of these but there's something about a geocoin that you can't let it go. I carry around a coin with my own face on it to freak people out at work, and even Santa and his elves have been sighted selling them on eBay. It's either a fad or a phenomenon. I think it's too early to tell which.

I was the most notorious puzzle cache hider in Austin for a few years while I lived and cached there. I made some puzzles so hard they hurt my head to think about, even now. I put one guy in the hospital with a headache so bad, to this day he is still on meds, walking around mumbling "Voin Itch, Voin Itch, Voin Itch," or some such unintelligible syllables. It really chapped my hide when someone who didn't work at the puzzle at all would just tag along with someone who spent weeks and a bottle of Advil solving the puzzle. When I brought up the issue here in the forums, the concensus was always "if they signed the log, it's a find." I agree with that philosophy. What if the guy had been just out hiking and stumbled on the cache? Does the fact that it's listed as a puzzle cache mean he doesn't get a smiley? He found it. However he found it, he signed the log. Unfortunately this also means if he looked up the puzzle coords on a cheater website, he also gets a find. As for breaking trees, I'm not a tree hugger by any means, but there's usually always a better way besides "scorching the earth" to find the cache. If nothing else, it shows muggles where the cache is. I'd say his log stays but would I want to go caching with this individual? Probably not.

I think we should have badges. After 500 finds, and completing a test of the rules, you get a shiny metal badge to wear on your jacket that says that you are an official geocacher. This way, anyone else who sees you will immediately have to respect you. Law enforcement will see the badge and immediately back off because they will recognize that your are on 'official' business and not a child molester or tree bomber. Oh and the badge will come with five free travelbug tags, a doggie bandana, and a limited edition "signal the frog" geocoin. Badges will be presented to all qualifiers at a quarterly ceremony to be held in the little switchback by the original stash tribute plaque up in Portland OR.

These are good rules but I object to the use of the term "purist." The correct term is "Puritans." Thank you. As you can see, we "Puritans" never allow our womenfolk to cache alone, we provide protection for the entire caching party by bearing rifles and other scary firearms, and we make Granny lag behind and hunt for the cache in the poison ivy, as our young skins are often too sensitive to the devil's oils, while we scout on ahead for the next cache. And we never post a smiley twice, because this would require the internet, and it just didn't exist in its present form during the 1600's. -Hugh "Puritannical" Jazz

I didn't make this so please don't contact me about it. The question is, would you add this to your geocoin collection? That's an embedded garnet on the front side.

Great idea, hope it works. I once had an idea to place a "mow my lawn" cache in my front yard. You'd only get a smiley if you mowed my front yard or trimmed a hedge or pulled weeds or something, there'd be a list of chores that needed doing right there in the cache box on my front porch, and you could pick one and do it. It's not that I didn't think people would do my yardwork for a smiley, I just felt there'd be insurmountable quality control issues...

Can you imagine what a totally boring job it must be to hand-paint custom coins all day long? Some of the designs are so intricate. Totally boring yet extremely detailed. I bet the painters don't make a whole lotta money at it either. It's no wonder there's the occasional mistake, despite someone else having the equally boring job of checking each coin. Better go over your collections, I bet there are other mistakes out there too, waiting to be discovered. BTW the painter and quality checker were likely drinking maotai or soju, not beer.

OK I've cogitated over it and tossed and turned all night over it and I hate to admit it but I think you 'purists' may be right. There should only be one smiley logged per cache. It's a find count, nothing more, and I believe it should be programmatically enforced as such on the site. When I placed my 4-smiley webcam cache, I thought the extra smileys would bring in more finders. Now that I think of it and peruse the logs, every one of those guys would have done all those crazy things just for ONE smiley. Pretty sure of that. So the effect woulda been the same. Lotsa fun and no inflation of the find count. I'm on the fence as to whether an event 'cache' should even be logged as a find. I'm leaning toward 'no.' It's an event, not a cache. But, maybe that's a new topic (most likely an old one too). Now will you purists please let me get back to sleep? I'ts 4 AM for pete's sake.

To put to rest finally once and for all the question of posting multiple 'found' logs on a single cache page, I hereby propose that TPTB reprogram the site so that only one smiley ('found it' log) may be posted per cache page listing. And further, I propose that TPTB reprogram the site to prevent cache owners from logging their own caches as 'found,' including event caches. I'm sure this has been brought up before, but I'm bringing this up again to promote harmony and reduce angst among all the users of the site, some of whom get their feelings hurt if others post more than one find. To those sensitive souls I say, verily: "Neener, neener, neener." Remember this is a feature request only. TPTB may note it and do with it as they see fit. Commentary on pro/con of this topic is currently being discussed elsewhere, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. -Hugh Jazz aka 'quitcherbitchin'

OK that's what I wanted to see. We're apparently in agreement that it doesn't hurt you at all. If you guys honestly think that Treyb and The Outlaw and others with 4000 smileys but only 3999 'real' finds are cheaters and liars on a par with guys who cheat on their wives, you are taking this silly game way too seriously and need to recalibrate. So if it ain't hurting you, kindly "quitcherbitchin'" and let people play the game the way they want to. When TPTB feel that it is a problem, they will fix it so that only one smiley can be logged per cache page. I'm thinking that would take less time than it took me to write "quitcherbitchin'"

But none of your examples show how you are HURT by this. And to answer your question, I think it would be perfectly acceptable to post a note instead of a smiley, with the photo of the extra craziness. (wow bet you weren't expecting that answer!) Now answer my question. How does it hurt YOU? I think you are proving my point. It does not hurt you. Call someone a cheat and a liar if they do this but stilll they have not harmed you one bit. If Treyb (4000+ finds) or The Outlaw (4000+ finds) goes out and posts a DNF, will it really hurt you when you get there to find out that they only have 3999 finds? It doesn't. Man will you be P.O.'d to find out they cheated by that one smiley. You ran all the way out there, you were deceived. When Treyb is listed as 4000 in the stats, and joe_schmoe is listed as 3999 but when you dig in you find that Treyb only really 'found' 3998, how does this harm either You or joe_schmoe? Does joe_schmoe lose out on some big prize, does Treyb win the cadillac deville with XM radio that Groundspeak is giving away for the most smilies? The answer is, you are not harmed by this practice. Admit it. You (find-count purists) are not harmed whether I post one smiley or two. On the other hand, it won't kill me to post a note either, but the fact is, people are doing it and the site does not programmatically prevent it. So it will happen. You can't stop it. But it doesn't hurt you so why try? The only harm it does you is raise your B.P. when you (purists) obsess on it too much. But that's your fault. So chill out. Have a raspberry snow cone, have some popcorn. Have a smiley, they're free.

...but it doesn't hurt YOU, does it? Answer the question. Show me how it hurts YOU. don't tell me about victims and self respect and any of that other B.S. How does someone posting 2 for 1 hurt YOU?