fox-and-the-hound

Thanks ParrotRob, that is actually what I was thinking. I don't even mind the two lists bit, I just wish I had a single profile instead of two different profiles on two different sites. Wait a sec... how hard would it be to keep your stat sheet identical on both sites? Groundspeak already carries over everything else about you, why not include that info as well?

Photoshop, Illustrator, and 3DStudioMax. Have to say though, the best designs I've seen would never have been made if they were limited by a prebuilt template. Parents of Sam's new coin is an excellent example. A simple idea introduced to the community quickly became a coin that generated a lot of interest! Maybe you could post your idea as well and our community can help out the same way.

Sounds fine to me, I've already been burned once with one of these requiring more than a bit of math and a good topo, but it's only made me more determined to return and do it next year. Next time I'll try to not fall headfirst into the ice creek on a 20 degree day I thought Fox was going to die of laughter, but he held it in - barely

You only had rain? We've been stooped by rain, sleet, snow, every stream and river we've ever been near, leaves, dense trees, and my favorite of all...dense leaf covered trees near a creek in a mix of sleet & snow & rain! Just looked at your stats 5 caches with two travel bugs on your first try sounds pretty good to me!

Fox is 38 this weekend. Hound is 32. Moun10Girl is 33.

Why? If virtuals, benchmarking, etc. are all "non-caches", then why don't we just have a sub-category on gc.com? Why a different website? Why not just a different search category?. When we travel anywhere, we find everything available at one spot right now. Why break everything up? Just give us a decent search system where you can turn on and off what you want to show up in your search and then everyone can be happy. Virtuals aren't my favorite, but I've learned a lot about the areas I'm caching in by checking them out.

If we trade, we always try to trade up. We always carry some kiddie toys in the swag-bag for the kid-friendly caches. We often carry other trade items from local caches to local caches and remark on where they came from. "Joe Schmoes Rubber Duck from Such-n-such Cache". For the less approachable and usually harder to reach caches we try to leave items that would help or enhance your next outing whether it be caching or hiking/camping, etc. A good general rule is, if you put it in the box and lement that you would really like to have that item...then "ya done good!" Carabiners, Mini Maglights, Stormproof or Pack-lite lighters (adult caches only - be discreet), emergency whistles and assorted gear. No matter what you leave, it's usually cheaper than a movie nowadays and much more entertaining.

PM'd you. Nikon CoolPix 2500. Cheap/Tough/Rechargeable!

Help! I've created monsters!! I told my parents what I'd been up to and they jumped on caching like a starving dog on a sandwhich It took all of 48 hours before they were nabbed by U.S. Border Patrol after setting off alarms on the Texas/Mexico border! Apparently it took almost a half mile of walking in the wrong direction to realize their coordinates were getting worse Now they call me at least 3 or 4 times a week since the first fateful trip. Oh, well! At least they're out doing something in their retirement

We made it I thought frapper had locked up my machine, but it turns out that it's just a little slow at times.

I agree with Mousetrap. Ziplock's new containers are great. You can also try your local dollar store. I found sport water bottles made of a lexan type plastic in green with screw on lids that were naturally... waterproof Most have wide-mouth lids now and are pretty easy to load and unload. - F&tH

Bring a walking stick and practice CITO, no one will mind and most will admire Come to think of it... I have noticed that I can never get the Mission Impossible theme song out of my head when we get close to cache

Reality is what happens, happens. The only caches I have seen that completely defeat this problem are theme caches. My favorite so far has been one dedicated to whistles. You are only invited to trade if you bring a whistle for a whistle. We all have our own strange little themes and vices so I would encourage more to indulge in these theme caches. I know I carried a New Year's Even horn over 400 miles to put in this cache because I didn't have a good "whistle" item the first time

We live near all those stone walls and see both parts of the arguement. It's a very, very simple solution. When you start a cache anywhere near a wall just put in the cache description HANDS OFF THE WALL or something to that effect. Those walls are falling apart rapidly enough as it is with a few millions oak trees and branches falling across them every year.

I'm fairly new so I've recently read and reread some of the basic rules of geo do's and don'ts. One of the first things it says is to go with a friend if you're going into the woods. There's safety in numbers and not just for self-defense. Having a partner is great for many reason the least not being protection, first aid, encouragement, and someone else to carry the camera Seriously though, bring a friend. They don't have to be a cacher to enjoy exercise and beautiful scenery. -F&tH

Very, very nice! I'll be watching and waiting. By the way, who is your charity?

What's the final file format?

Blodlizrd, you still have one of the coolest avatars I've seen. How long should we expect to wait before seing your coin? I know someone asked you that not to long ago and everytime I see your posts the question comes back to me.

We would love one, too! Great design

Like this...

That's a really nice design! That was very cool of Gridlox to help you out. The only change I might consider would be to rotate all the faces 180 degrees so that whatever sided ended up on bottom in a display case, one of the girls would be "face up". Does that make any sense at all? Just so the art matches the text on the border where the bottom edge on any side is readable. Right now as you turn the coin to read it the girls are constantly upside-down from the text. Either way it's a really nice design, hope to see it out in the field! F&tH

I was wondering the same thing. Only one of the bugs I've found had a picture posted that is open when the description comes up. The rest I've had to go down the list to look for pictures that finder-cachers had posted. Is this a newer feature that has been added?

I'm only on AI 10.0.3, but the bridge between photoshop and illustrator is being closed at an amazing rate. Similar to Corel's products, Illustrator can now do all it's vector art as well as incorporate bitmapped imaging and even masks with variable alpha/transparency. I haven't used Corel in a couple years, not because it couldn't do the job, just because the majority of my clients and contacts are using AI. It's also one of the few vertice files I can directly import into my 3DStudioMax (although that may have changed...need to update that, too). There's another forum that was asking about a list of artists available to help. It might be helpful to get that one pinned for anyone looking for help/advice. btw Blodlizrd- I haven't used Paintshop Pro in a long long time. What are the limits that you would start there and finish in photoshop?

There are definite advantages to both, but you're right in that the coin makers will find the Illustrator files much more useful. What I do for the majority of this kind of work is build my mock-ups using layers and masks in photoshop because for sheer speed in design it's tough to beat. Once I've built and rejected the layers and refined the design I break it down into essential parts and omit overlapping art work. Seperate the layers on a large page and save as a simple jpg. I import this new bitmapped image into Illustrator. Use the auto-edger to build quick vertices of organic shapes and refine them until they're exact. Use your standard tools for more basic shapes and remember to remove overlap wherever it occurs. When you're finished you'll have a basic vertice eps file that can be quickly extruded using 3DStudioMax or SoftImage, etc. by the coin artists. If you have access to these programs it's also nice to see your coin completely built in 3d with texture and color before you send it out to be minted. I just realized what this gibberish must look like to some, but it's really very basic. Best bet is still to find someone else who uses these programs a lot and enlist their help

I might be starting something here...but why don't you post a rough sketch or written idea and offer a couple coins to whoever submits the design you decide to go with? It would be interesting to see what came through and you might get a better design from multiple minds trying to help you out