desmognathus

Judging from travel bug activity, I'd say things slowed down considerably.

http://geotrib.es/

One of the most useful items of swag I've discovered in a cache was a wet nap of insect repellent. They aren't that easy to find, but I did locate some on Amazon.

I put the geocachers creed on the back of mine.

How exactly does this work?

Let's see, I did this twice on Sunday, so I should remember, I think once you hit the "found it" button, the app opens up other options, like writing a note. Down towards the bottom of the screen I think is an option to drop or visit trackables.

You could shave the weight down by trimming the tag down to just the number. I've heard of people making micro TB's that way.

For a non-Garmin alternative, you could try the Delorme PN-60, which is what I am using. It has its quirks, and loading PQ's is a bit more cumbersome than it really needs to be, but it's not a bad unit for the money.

Sometimes I think I am guilty of thinking the local scenery is too mundane to be interesting to anyone. What I tend to forget is what is ordinary to me may be interesting to people from distant locales, where the landscape may look vastly different than that which I am familiar with.

This is probably just another of my hare-brained ideas, but would a formal document laying out agreed upon do's and don't make some land owners more comfortable with allowing a geocache to be placed upon their property? It might say things like the geocache would be relocated or archived at the land owner's request. It could give the land owner a better understanding of what geocaching entails and, in this respect, serve to manage their expectations. Am I reinventing the wheel here? Or possibly stepping on the junkyard dog's tail? I would think the federal government probably has a form somewhere for that. Such a document might also serve as documentation that permission had in fact been given, should a question arise regarding this issue years down the road. What other things might be included in such a document? Your 2 cents are welcomed!

I'd like to think that I've come up with some interesting missions for some of my bugs, you can check them out on my profile page.

I ordered a brass plate I can rivet to his collar with his name and number. Hopefully, he won't manage to lose that!

Wow, just think, a Ford Focus in a nano, that's got to be a tight squeeze!

BTW, does anyone know if the standard issue "log my dog" tag is magnetic? My dog managed to loose his along with his rabies tag, and I was wondering if sweeping the yard with a largish magnet was an option.

Might try some members of the local geocaching community to see if they know more as well.

Google Earth works well, too. Just download the .kml file from the bug's page.

I just ordered mine yesterday, so I don't have it to hand just now. One of the issues with the "Log My Dog" tag when it first came out was that the numbers rubbed off too easily. This has since been corrected. I suppose that same problem would exist with the standard "dog tag" traveler tags, but you could always take the number and have it engraved on a standard dog tag or collar plate. I'm not certain if it is the tag itself or the icon for the tag that you find objectionable. But, yes, once you buy a tag of your liking, you can use the number for your dog.

I try to come up with interesting goals for my bugs, things like visiting hot air balloon festivals or rodeos or model rocketry events on steroids. You can see what my bugs are up to at the bottom of my profile page, a little trick I learned on this forum.

I like this idea!

Under "Trackable Options", on the bug's page, click "View in google earth". I can even do this on my phone.

From the resounding silence, especially from the senior members of our community, I'm guessing that you are treading on untested ground here. I don't see why it couldn't work, if you lined up some sort of sponsorship system, something along the lines of Relay for Life, where pledges could be geared towards each mile traveled. There likely would be much greater variability in TB mileage, however. Ever think about changing your avatar to a guinea pig? The pool of potential sponsors might be considerably smaller, and you'd also have to line up some sort of sales force.

You might also put it into the TB rescue service, don't remember the url right off hand, but you can google it.

One way to save on postage is to let someone release a bug for you, while you release one for them. Then you just swap codes and activate them.

I've got a bug that I can't seem to drop. It's not set to collectible, but all I seem to be able to do with it log wise is to make a note or discover it. It's one of those FTF award mini trackables from coins and pins. Trigger the Fish Did I mess something up when I activated it? How do I fix it?