Audion64

Hmm, ok gotta do some verifying...... Jeans, Rustlers made in the USA (dug thru the shelves at the store and specifically picked out the USA made ones). Shoes, New Balance 620's made in the USA. Long sleeved thermal dress shirt, Sportsmaster made in the USA. My hoodie sweatshirt I just took off, hanging on chair, Rider brand made in the USA. Ok now we're getting personal... Underwear, Hanes Special Edition made in the USA. Socks, to be honest not positive (no tag) but I'm 99% sure they are made in the USA. Any other questions?? As for my kid's toys.... they themselves have chosen to make a conscious effort to look at where stuff is made when deciding what to buy. There are plenty of fun (usually scientific learning) toys made in the USA or Europe. They'd rather do without a toy than play with one that was made by a child their own age.

Like I said, I'll do my best.... unfortunately for all too many items, it's just not possible. Trust me, if there was an option available, even if it cost a bit more, I would gladly do it.

It would be wonderful if it really were that simple. Well it is that simple if you are willing to work for FREE... because by too many people's definition, THAT is the right price. Too often manufacture of products is being moved from Europe and North America to 3rd world countries simply because the workers there will (or have to) work for less, sometimes 1/100th of the European wage. Oh, the price of the product to the consumer may drop a little, usually just enough to undercut the competitors price but I've never seen the price of the product drop in direct proportion to the wage savings the company is making. If this were to happen then I would imagine a Chinese minted coin should cost about 1/10th of the cost of a North American minted coin.... that's not the case. So, who's raking in all the cash of the price differential? I guarantee it's not the workers who are actually doing the WORK of making the coins. You may feel that's capitalism at its best, all fine and dandy... I do not. So in the end, this really ISN'T about WHERE the coin (or any product for that matter) is made... it's about whether the workers are being paid a fair wage relative to the profits the company is reaping off their labour. When the companies either 1) Raise the wages of the workers or 2) lowers the price of their coins to be in reasonable proportion to their labor savings... then yea I'll gladly buy coins (or other products) made WHEREEVER. Till then I'll do my best to support people trying to RAISE the standard of living for everyone in the world rather than the greedy ones trying to get rich off the blood and sweat of the workers.

(I am in no way associated with MnGCA... although I feel their pain) Yea, I like the "what gives them the authority to speak for me" attitude some folks seem to have. What gives them the authority? Well no authority but they ARE the ones who.... Took the time, and made the effort..... 1) Made the effort to organize a geocaching group. 2) Went thru the red tape to form a non-profit organization, create a website, organize events, meetings, seminars etc. 3) Took the time and made the effort to contact the proper people at the DNR. 4) Went in with the intent of presenting a professional and organized message to the DNR. THAT is what gives them the authority. Quit griping and be part of the solution rather than slamming everyone who IS trying to be part of the solution. A united, cohesive and professional image has to be presented to the "powers that be"... if we come across as a bunch of bickering, semi-psychotic loonies you can be dadgum sure geocaching will be shut down in DNR properties. As for how someone serving in a volunteer position is self serving... not getting that. They have nothing to personally gain by trying to influence DNR policy one way over another.

Frontside artwork is done... waiting on the back which is a little more complex. I'll post images when we have them both.

I can't comment on anything else you've said in your post but I will reply to this part.... Doesn't seem to me you ARE 'trusting' them.... IE; if you have entrusted them to do the negotiating to get geocaching policies set then you will let THEM take care of it. If someone is put into a postition of leadership it is very ineffectual for them to be constantly referring to the general membership for approval for every little thing they do.... either you trust them to do what's right for the group as a whole or you don't. Either way, I doubt the DNR is going to be very open to having sit down negotiations with hundreds of geocachers at one time.

First let me say I have nothing against 9Key, and the New Mexico coin is only being used as an example because he has already stated it was made overseas.... Hmmmmm New Mexico coin, made overseas.... $7 +shipping Alaska coin, minted in the United States..... $5 +shipping Someone was saying American workers are overpriced?

Hmm, will YOU work for the same wage as someone in Korea?? Then why would you expect the people making coins in the US to work for Korean wages?

Have you thought about contacting any of the Kansas geocaching organizations and offered to help get a coin produced? Often all it takes is one or two people with the willpower to get the ball rolling... organizations are sometime hard to get moving.

That low price comes at a cost... maybe not yours but certainly someones. That choice is up to you whether that fact is important to you or not.

This is a duplicate post, please see the main discussion in the Geocoin Forums Just to let everyone know that the Illinois geocaching organizations have gotten together and are working towards getting an Illinois geocoin out before the first of the year. Representatives from GONIL, LEGS, and CIGA have been meeting via the internet and are making some good progress on the coin. We have some rough drafts of artwork and will be sending them out for finalization with the artist in a few days. It is our goal to have the coin minted and ready for distribution before the end of the year. I'll keep this thread updated with details (artwork, coin size, numbers, release date etc) as soon as those details become final. Thanks for your patience and support! We really look forward to getting a beautiful and unique geocoin out there to represent the great State of Illinois. PLEASE DO NOT FLOOD THIS THREAD WITH PREORDER REQUESTS, that time will come soon enough. Please keep any discussions on topic and refrain from using this thread for group or personal bashing. Thanks.

Just to let everyone know that the Illinois geocaching organizations have gotten together and are working towards getting an Illinois geocoin out before the first of the year. Representatives from GONIL, LEGS, and CIGA have been meeting via the internet and are making some good progress on the coin. We have some rough drafts of artwork and will be sending them out for finalization with the artist in a few days. It is our goal to have the coin minted and ready for distribution before the end of the year. I'll keep this thread updated with details (artwork, coin size, numbers, release date etc) as soon as those details become final. Thanks for your patience and support! We really look forward to getting a beautiful and unique geocoin out there to represent the great State of Illinois. PLEASE DO NOT FLOOD THIS THREAD WITH PREORDER REQUESTS, that time will come soon enough. Please keep any discussions on topic and refrain from using this thread for group or personal bashing. Thanks.

Let's see... the coins COST you $7.24/coin to make... and you decided to sell them for $5.25/coin..... Hmmm I wonder why you ended up eating a $417+ loss?!?!?

This is exactly why I've started specifically mentioning in both the online cache page and the flyer in the cache to NOT (I repeat NOT) put the pen or pencil IN the baggie with the log book. You are right, it just ends up poking a hole in the bag. And someone please tell me why they think they need to keep a darn pencil dry? Sure, by putting the pencil in the baggie you are keeping the logbook and writing tool together but I think folks can dig thru the cache to find the pencil... they're going to be digging around looking for something good to take in trade for their broken McD toy anyway.

Also if people have had personal experience with these companies a little mini review of quality, customer service etc. would be nice.

Yes, always motivated to stir things up. So....the org has posted that they are working on it. Can we assume you'll drop this now? It's not all a bad thing that he's stirring the pot. This puts a little more impetus on the Illinois organizations to get an Illinois coin out to the world... which probably should have happened sooner than this. Cav Scout just saw a need and offered to fill it. I appreciate his willingness to step aside and give the Illinois orgs a chance to get this done.

I'll stick my neck out here and say that GONIL will DEFINITELY be making a coin in the relative near future.

While GC trackable coins are certainly nice... they do in fact add $1.50 PER coin to the price. Are majority of the other state coins trackable or non-trackable? I'm not much of a coin collector so I don't know.

NOW you tell me!

The 8mb of my Etrex Legend will not even load the entire Chicagoland area because of the urban density. So I do see the need for either more memory or a unit that can take cards. But I'm not ready to jump ship to Magellan just for the cards after reading so many complaints about the firmware in the Explorists. I'm a noob so bear with me... is there a way to tell the mapping software to lower the detail level or maybe not load the location of every Starbucks... that's gotta be eating about half my memory right there!

Bad Karma man, that's all I have to say.

The point that memory prices have dropped and are dropping dramatically is definitely true. If that's the case then we should start seeing some very feature rich GPSrs in the next year right?! So yea it's probably NOT a lack of space at this point that is limiting the feature set of GPSrs but as someone mentioned... the time and cost involved in firmware development. I'm sure the manufacturers are devoting alot more time to the street navigation aspects than geocaching or any other. The market there is much larger, so it's more worth their time. That said, there should be plenty of corporate funds available for firmware development these days since hardware development is probably pretty much at a standstill. The basic electronics of grabbing the data off the satellites is probably getting to be pretty much bog standard these days. Not much you can improve upon there except maybe fighting for better signal lock in tree cover and city canyons. And yet I can't say I feel they are doing a good job of firmware development. Look at all the various bug complaints in the newest Explorist series. Seems like they are going the route alot of PC game makers have been lately... letting the CONSUMER beta test their software for them.

I know this wouldn't please everyone but it occurred to me the other day while caching how nice it would be if GPSr manufacturers would make various firmwares that are written SPECIFICALLY for the task. Firmware is changeable just like loading maps in/out... why not make 2 or 3 different types of firmware available to the user. Have each one written for a specific aspect of GPSr usage (geocaching, street navigation, hunting/fishing, etc). Alot of the 'missing' features we're wanting, are most likely missing because of limited space within the GPSr. When they are writing the firmware for a unit they have to try to cram a few key features from each aspect of GPSr usage in there and so NONE of the usage aspects ever gets all the features they want. If they would write, say a geocaching specific firmware they could devote the entire firmware space to writing awesome firmware that could have all the bells & whistles we want. GPX files hold TONS of the cache information within them, but when loaded into your GPSr alot of it is simply thrown away since there are not data fields within the GPSr software to handle them. That's why so many of us have resorted to carrying not only a GPSr but a PDA. Why not have geocaching specific firmware that would let the GPSr retain all (or most) of that information out of the GPX file? I'm sure there are alot of things people would like their GPSr to do in street navigation mode that could be added too. The consumer could download the firmwares he wants to use and swap them in/out as needed. Like I said, sure this won't please everyone cause some people use the street navigation (routing etc) part of the GPSr to get to the caching location. Oh well, those folks would be stuck with the normal 'decent all, but not GOOD at any' firmware. I realize this creates more work for the GPSr manufacturers, having to create/maintain multiple firmwares... but so what? If they want to sell us their stuff they should make it with the features we want, right?

Giving people the ability to edit their own posts (message AND title) just makes sense....why not? The ability to delete you own posts has merit too unless the moderators are willing to diligently delete 'accidental' posts, etc.

Unless there is some PHYSICAL location I don't see how this category qualifies as a waymark. I guess if the blogger wants to give his home address (which I doubt), or maybe the coords for the location of the computer webserver in some climate controlled server farm.