brad.32

My ISP changed hands, so I had to port the race web pages over to the new server. The new URL: http://home.ca.astound.net/~brad.32/geocaching/tbrace.htm

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz This thing has to be the sloooooooooowest TB race ever. Who came up with this lame idea anyway? ... Um, wait a minute, I'm the one who started this.

The reason this one was CC was that I thought it would finish within a year and it started in Jan. That way the racers would be in the cold in the summer or fall and avoid the cold of winter and inactivity of cachers in the snow, etc.

I saw that. I'll update the map in the morning. ... as far as your previous post: yes, it's a slow race. I never thought it would take this long.

Well, it's "official". The race started 3 Jan 2004 and today is 3 Jan 2006, so the remaining racers are starting their third year. About half of the racers are still active, and Orange Chicken is in the lead, on the way to Washington, after that, it has to travel on to California to win. One day we may have a winner :-)

Yep, this race seems to be neverending... Well, the racers are making very slow progress. I thought they would be done in the first year, and the 3rd year is just around the corner.

Cartman appears to be back in the race. That bug was MIA between Jul 2004 and Apr 2005, but somehow it moved from Maine to Michigan in the meantime without being logged into any caches. He's back in the lead If you look at the current map, Lizzy is currently in Minnesota, but that's deceiving because she's on her way to Texas (way behind). http://users.rcn.com/brad.32/geocaching/tbrace.htm

... and off they go into year two of the race. This is going to be an endurance race. I haven't thought about starting a Second Circumconus, because I didn't think there would be enough interest.

One of the rules of the race is: "The race will be over 1 Jan 2005, or when all the racers reach the finish/final cache, which ever comes first. Hmmm, if the prize-winning finishers (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) don't finish in a year, then the race will continue until they do." Well, today is the day and NO bugs are even close to finishing. Only two have made it to Maine, so after a year they are only half way around. My thought with the above rule was that maybe there would be a 1st, possibly 2nd, place winner, by now then the race would continue for a short time. Should the race have Maine as the final state (e.g., reach any cache in Maine) and wait for three finishers to reach that state or do you want to wait, at this rate an additional entire year, until three TBs reach the final cache in CA as originally planned?

Does the instruction tag spell out the preferred travel method? I have some bugs that are supposed to travel by ground, but that wasn't spelled out on the tag and a number of people posted logs like "picked up this TB in California, when my plane arrived in New York I found out it was supposed to travel by ground.

I suspect the Stargate caches use the postal system, e.g., http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=123490 ... then again, they really could be using hyperspace portals, hmmmm. As usual, check with the bug owner if mailing is okay/consistent with a TB's goal.

I received a log email today because someone wrote a note for one of my bugs saying it was in a muggled cache so the bug is missing as well. I see the bug is in "unknown location" so the cache owner must have marked the bug missing. I thought the new feature was a ... last resort ... in cases where the bug owner is unresponsive. The bug was "only" placed in the cache a month ago, so the thing that bugs me is that this FYI email/note was the first I've heard of that bug's changed status.

What is karate man? A TB? What is the reference number (TBxxxx)?

I'll be in Paris in mid-July and may have some time to cache and would be interested in hooking up for that, especially since je ne parle pas bien francais. That last part seems to be the stupidest phrase in this phrase book because if I say ANYTHING else in French the listener will have figured that out.

Apparently you're talking about the Cat's Coin, http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.as...ef-b7fecc9bc485 A geocoin is the thing. The coin is like the metal tag of a TB and in your case the log book was like a hitchhiker. Taking the metal tag and leaving the hitchhiker makes the hitchhiker just a trade item (though the reverse sometimes happens). The geocoin is probably part of someone's collection now and MIA. Please contact the Cat and ask them to move the geocoin to "unknown location" because it is no longer in the cache. It may turn up, but if it's not in the cache, then it should be marked as missing.

Hmmm. I read more of the logs. Considering Loup Loup has been missing for about a year (after being in someone's hands for a year before that), the owner doesn't seem to be in a big hurry to get a new hitchhiker for the tag. If it's okay with the owner, I think in this case it depends on how gracious you want to be 1. buy a new (small) bear 2. attach a cable tie to the bear's leg 3. attach another cable tie to that one with the metal tag on it 4. take a picture of the your masterpiece (not showing the 6-digit number) 5. post the picture with a note explaining all the work you went through :-) 6. place the new bear in another cache Your mileage may vary.

The bug in question seems to be Loup Loup (http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=7181), because that's the only one listed in graciious's profile. Loup Loup is/was a bear and the bear has been missing for a long time. Do what Metaphor said and contact the owner. If you are feeling generous, try to locate a bear similar to the original, though the owner may have one in mind and might post the replacement to you. Ask the owner how the TB metal and the instruction tags were attached and see if you two can come up with something better. Those are some of the options that you might mention in your email.

Marking a bug missing (moving it to "unknown location") removes it from any caches and it can be retreived in the future if it shows up again. Moving a bug to a TB graveyard cache has been deprecated because it adds (many) miles to the bug's travels.

I've re-issued some of my TBs just using the instruction tag similar to the one attached to the original. The metal tag is kind of redundant if a TB's instruction tag has the tracking number on it. The copy tag is useful for your reference unless you keep track of your bugs through a list or something.

Snappy (http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?ID=23017) is another single-use camera. The bug owner is planning to have the finders take pictures as Snappy travels the race "track" and post the pictures.

After you activate a TB you can edit the description to add HTML tags for body. What are you trying to put in it?

Question came up last week... http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=69973

This is the third recent thread about this issue. Thank you for the response, honeychile. Now we know.

Yes, you can do that as a TB owner, but as a cache owner?

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=69409