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To the OP, I'm fine with joint finds on traditionals. It isn't like you were claiming the FTF for this one or anything. If you feel best finding it on your own, that is your own decision, but I would likely never delete a log on a traditional even if it was a group find. On the other hand, if the cache were a difficult puzzle cache or multi, I'd say each caching team that will be logging it should complete it on its own. Ultimately it doesn't matter, and is all personal preference, but that is how I would handle it. Additionally, if the cache contained rare prizes, and a bunch of cachers teamed up to find it and they all took something, I think that the cache owner might have reason to be upset.

Personally I think you did the right thing. If one of my caches was in similar danger I'd appreciate it being rescued, and being in a construction location it is no longer appropriate for it to be hosting a cache anyway. I too am amused by the finders after your April 6th note...

I must admit confusion as to why you state interest in educational virtuals and that you will go out of your way to do them, yet at the same time have stated a lack of interest in Waymarking, while educational virtuals is exactly what a large portion of Waymarking is (short of categories like quonset huts). Is this because a waymark is not a gc found +1? I suspect this may be the ultimate reason whenever I hear someone argue in favour of earthcaches vs Waymarking. Certainly the world heritage sites listed on Waymarking are every bit as worthy of a visit as many earthcaches, are they not? How about observatories? The list goes on. The point is, that just because they are interesting and educational to visit, as with many earthcaches, they are not and will not be geocaches in the purest sense. Worth visiting, yes, but I would argue that they are and should remain points of interest on a map rather than something to further blur the definitions of geocaching. Why not list every building, park bench, tree, utility box, fire hydrant, and no parking sign in your city? It could be argued that they are potentially educational points of interest to someone, and can be found with a GPSr. That doesn't make them a geocache. A geocache is a "cache" in a "geo"graphic location. Many geocaches bring people to interesting or educational sites, but not all do, and it is certainly not a requirement in their placement. This is a site for geocaching (see the domain name), not geo-thing-hunting.com or places-i-can-find-with-my-gpsr.com. Sure, it is ultimately up to the site owners, but the question being raised is simply why a differentiation is being made between two conceptually similar items, when one was intentionally removed because it diluted geocaching.

I hope you enjoy Japan, I fell in love with it during several months of business trips in 2004 through 2006. I hope to go back with my family some day and see more of the country. For my most recent trip to Tokyo, I resorted to the Magellan Basemap on my 500 (less than even slightly useful), and my knowledge of the area, along with Google Earth, my map book, and some Japanese mapping web sites. As long as you can track down the general area of the cache, and are not using the GPSr for navigation to get there, you should be fine. If, however, you actually need to navigate to the cache site using the GPSr alone, the options available for the 600 likely will not do it for you. Interfacing your 600 with a laptop running Google Earth may be your next best option. This has the drawbacks of extra equipment to haul around, low laptop battery life, and the need for either a live data feed or pre-cached map data. Alternately, Oziexplorer with self made maps using captures from Google Earth are a technique that I have successfully employed for caching in China since my last Tokyo trip. The disadvantage is the extra work up front in creating the maps, the advantage is no need for an Internet connection for streaming of the map data. The other option, and one you may have to resort to, is paper maps. These tend to work better than a GPSr in situations where you need to ask for directions, or when directing a taxi driver. Also, as with caching anywhere, be prepared with something you can present to authorities if they question your activities. Show proper respect in these situations and you will do fine. Japan is a very safe place compared to many other countries, and they are just trying to keep it that way. Don't forget your official geomuggle disguise kit, because if you happen to be non-asian, you are going to really stand out. I spent three hours one day trying to get close enough to one cache to grab it, and ended up coming back a second time and trying again for a few hours to get to it, with no luck in the end. I just stood out too much, and there were way too many people in the park. One last suggestion, get a Japanese mobile phone, with an english speaking Japanese friend on the other end of it. A translator who is only a call away can be your salvation when you are lost and trying to ask a local for directions, or giving a taxi driver directions back to your hotel at the end of the day. You can rent phones at the airports, roam if your phone supports 3G, or buy inexpensive phones in the convenience stores. I picked up one while I was there in 2004 that cost me about $50 including a $20 call credit. Sure, the phone and manual were entirely in Japanese, but that is all part of the traveling adventure! On later trips my credit had expired, so I just used my foreign 3G phone roaming on the Vodafone network. Good luck Feel free to PM me if you like.

I have the BC-900 and love it. Yes, as asked, it does show the current accumulated charge on each cell as it charges. It is very nice to know when you put 3.5AH into a 2.5AH battery that it is time to replace it, or just to get a feel for how far into the charge you are (if you are doing a discharge cycle, for example). Using this feature and the battery conditioning mode, I ran through several cycles on all my batteries when I got the charger to weed out the bad ones that were killing my battery life when used in sets. The automated discharge/charge cycle is used often by me, as it allows you to put in some partially large batteries and not have to worry that you will damage them via developing a memory. Also, since each battery is charged independently, you can charge all those lonely batteries from your 3 cell devices. Being able to set the charge or discharge current to one of several presets is another very nice feature. I most often charge at 0.1C to preserve battery life while still doing a full charge in half a day, but it is nice to be able to push it up to a less conservative 0.5C or higher when needed. I live in Australia and got mine from an online shop in Singapore for a decent price. This is one purchase that I have never regretted.

From the preorder web page: So the answer would seem to be "whatever it takes" to fill orders up to May 2nd for the LE, with no specified quantity on the regulars.

Wow, for once I was on the ball enough to get my hands on a set. I didn't realize they would go so fast!

I just retrieved a now archived cache of mine that used laminated sheets for the waypoints. The sheets were bent slightly in their containers. After 4 months, the edges of the lamination had given out and water damage was very evident. These were hot laminated photo paper. I had left about 3mm on all sides. I would attribute the leakage to the flex popping the lamination off, and that 3mm was too close a trim to maintain a long term seal. This does not give me much confidence in laminating TB tags, unless the area that the hole goes through is sufficiently far from the paper part of the tag. I will definitely be changing the way that I laminate these in the future.

I was just in Hong Kong airport yesterday on my way home from Beijing You should try to have some of your coins visit 2008 Olympic venues in Beijing, for example there is a cache right next ot the Laoshan Vellodrome, GCWMKD. GC caches are rather few and far between in mainland China, but they are slowly spreading & there is also a fairly active Chinese language geocaching site. There is a virtual in the Forbidden City that would fit well with the theme of your coins, and the Dragon Armillaries at the Beijing Ancient Observatory would also fit well, even though there is no cache there, just a waymark. You're looking at around 2.5KG of coins, which they will obviously want to x-ray separately. It will be a good percentage of your carry-on allowance. One concern that they will have is that it will likely be considered commercial goods to be left in the country, in which case they may want to charge you importations fees. I'm not certain what the Hong Kong import allowance is. If the exemption is high enough, you might just be able to go through the "nothing to declare" lane and have no extra hassles. They will probably want to see some kind of commercial invoice as well, to verify their value & prove you are not trying to transport currency. Good Luck!

Eagerly anticipating cc micro v2! Edit: I see they are up!

I got my coins today and must say that I am impressed. These are among the nicest coins that I have seen.

Free coins to those who can pronounce that?

LOL, made my day!

They're called travel bugs, and the tags are significantly cheaper than most coins I can't speak for other cachers, but I won't move a fake coin. I'm not going to waste my time moving a photocopy of someones coin. It just seems, well, pointless. I saw (& passed up) a few clones during my caching in California, but fortunately back home in Australia cachers still seem fairly trustworthy with real coins in caches.

Seriously, guys. Why not quote John 3:16 while you're at it??

If the wings are resin, won't the colouration be reversed on one side of the LE? Nice coin BTW

I go to the same 404 page. The other link takes me to an edit page.

Just saw this, ordered 2.

Is this kinda what you were after? Illustrator file, font changes, etc available on request. I had some time to kill on a sickie today.

Any signs of the GSA taking a trip down under?

Hi there. My parents are in Rimbey, I'll contact them and see if they know any local cachers who could help out.

If I were the bug owner, I would want it logged so that people know it is there. Likely the person who moved it never recorded the number and placed it without thinking, and later had no way of tracking down just what bug they moved. I've done that, and it has happened to several of my bugs.

Adobe Illustrator is one of the primary development tools that I have seen mentioned. If you are designing something with a 3D aspect to it, it wouldn't hurt to have access to a CAD package to render the surface of the coin and get a feel for what it will really look like. Both of course will set you back $$$ unless you have access to them already, or can find good open source, as with the tools mentioned above. I still have not figured out what people are using for creating most of their 3D designs. Are they just doing a height field from a B&W image in Photoshop, built up slowly with a brush tool on low opacity? Some of the good 3D, like Wykenwizard, I'd really like to know

Another Australian who'd love to get in on this for 2 coins please. edit: order placed through the US form as available numbers are dropping, you can get back to me with the actual shipping please. Thanks!

Trackable?