crake

It is a personal geocoin, in that it is my design, and the compass is my personal compass. However I designed it to be a tribute to Central Texas (thus there is no personal info on the front), thus the title. There are a lot of requests for icons, so I need to investigate that further. But for now, I do not plan on having a custom icon (but, who knows?).

Thanks, I really liked doing the design. If this goes well I will follow up with others

Yup - its ANOTHER geocoin! This is my Central Texas coin: In order to calculate how many coins to order, I am taking requests. Here's how it will work: Between now and December 18, fellow geocachers are invited to submit requests for coins online at the Texas Bluebonnet 2006 Request Page. >>>Due to my automation scheme, I will not be able to take request from this thread, so please use the online form! <<< Once I receive and approve the pre-production coin, I will send invitations to those who request coins to place their order. This will likely occur in mid-January. One week later, orders will open to those who did not place requests. This will happen on a first come, first served basis. I expect coins to ship sometime in February - just in time for Bluebonnet season! Enjoy!

Well, I just got the quote in. I had no idea it costs $2 to add GC tracking (etch and to get the numbers) . That adds up to some serious cash. Its about a 40% increase in coin cost (example $5/coin and $7/coin). Of course, it does make each coin unique, and most of the money goes to gc.com, which helps keep the lights on I suppose.

Well, my design is at the shop getting quoted, and I asked about tracking options. If it all turns out ok, I'll probably be offering a coin sometime in early 2006. And if THAT turns out, I'll do a coin every few months.

So, if a new coin is minted, what are the implications for being (or not being) trackable? I've heard the following: "It HAS to be trackable - or why bother?" "If its trackable on geocaching.com, it has to be sold AT COST!" "Trackable doesn't mean a lot, afterall they never end up in caches" "Its the quality and design that counts" "Trackable makes it YOURS" So, what's the story on tracking? Is it a requirement?

Awesome - thanks!

Got GSAK and Google Earth talking to each other and for the past hour I've been playing GE, trying to get the view I want. The problem I have is that GE insists on showing the cache names, which makes the screen completly cluttered. I can "turn off" the text by messing with the font, but this causes street names, and other somewhat important features unreadable. Does anyone know how to turn off object labels in GE?

Here's an idea. Everytime Geocaching withdraws $3 from my checking account, they automatically renew my queries... since that's why I subscribed to the website in the first place. Seriously - imagine if you had to send in a postcard every time you got a magazine at home to renew for the next issue. Afterall, Time, Newsweek, Playboy, whatever - they're just weeding out those who don't actually READ the magazines... even though they subscribed. See? Isn't that silly? Inactive cachers should be flushed by now - let's get pass this nonsense and re-enable auto-renew.

I'm amazed by the accuracy of my Meridian. However it needs to average for a few seconds, and I experience something like "look ahead" error - in that when I'm walking the GPS position seems to lag slightly. This is probably averaging (the reported location is behind me). Now, sometimes I wonder how accurate the person who stashed the cache was. Folks are suppose to average on multiple days, right?

I recently ordered some patches: NASA "worm" logo NASA "vector" logo American Flag (two sizes) and a bunch of cool "Remove Before Flight" keychains. I also printed up slogans (mostly latin, some in english) and laminated them. I drop a NASA patch or keychain, an American flag, and a laminated slogan in each cache. Unfortunately 9 times out of 10 there's nothing in the cache I'd like to take, so this is mostly a "walk around dropping off swag", which is ok, since its the hunt and going to new places that makes this fun.