ANNOUNCING THE 1ST ANNUAL TRAVELBUG CANNONBALL RUN!

February 16, 2003

Here is the obvious winner! Toby the Tortoise is officially entering the race and is on his way to Brogan in New York. The tortoise may not be fast, but he always keeps moving. Remember the moral of the story, “Slow but steady wins the race”!

Toby the Tortoise

Scott & Charlotte

Team GeoDillo

February 16, 2003

I'm not very good with creating websites, but I can do some fun stuff in Adobe Photoshop. I'm a newbie, and am not a racer in this race, but I LOVE the idea. I'd be more than happy to work up a graphic that could be regularly updated on the website. In my mind, I'm picturing a map of the US, and each vehicle will have a small image which will move across the country, of course with a line behind them tracking where they've been. Email hypuractiv@aol.com if you'd like me to work on something like this.

Dummy.

February 17, 2003

All the bugs that are currently in my pocession have been moved to the event page (GCCD3A), as new bugs arrive they will be recorded and placed there also.

February 17, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Brogan:
All the bugs that are currently in my pocession have been moved to the event page (GCCD3A), as new bugs arrive they will be recorded and placed there also.

This is a great move. Now we can see all the other bugs in the race.

Thanks, Brogan!

February 17, 2003

Thanks, Brogan. Gimpys Viper (the sure winner) ,should be in your mailbox within the next couple of days. I sent him out 2 days ago.

Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.

February 17, 2003

Columbia (TB7659) is ready for launch.

2.6k · February 18, 2003

I'm very near the finish line and I'm in the race. How wrong would it be if I saw a bug getting close and I grabbed the bug and placed it in a hard to get to cache?

Not talking about grabbing it and holding it, just moving it to a cache that may require a bit of work to get to.

george

Pedal until your legs cramp up and then pedal some more.

February 18, 2003

The Spokane Cachedashers sent off our entry today to the Cannonball Run, 'Little Red Wagon'. We may have little wheels, but we are a real Radio Flyer Wagon, so we have the utmost confidence in our abilities to climb those mountains and meander through the prairies. In the spirit of our Euro-American pioneers, we felt a wagon was the only way to go on this tough long journey and we only hope no slackers hop on our wagon along the way... good luck to all the other contenders. Wagon Ho!

The Spokane Cachedashers

TBug Page: http://www.geocaching.com/track/track_detail.asp?ID=25889

February 18, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by georgeandmary:
I'm very near the finish line and I'm in the race. How wrong would it be if I saw a bug getting close and I grabbed the bug and placed it in a hard to get to cache?

I'm entering a bug myself, and I'd say that'd be along the lines of the original Cannonball Run, wouldn't you? Now, if you did that to ALL of them, then that's a bit much... but to the first couple (long as it's not mine) would be fine.

-Mixster

February 18, 2003

Team seven27 has enlisted the aid of earth's mightiest superhero for our entry into the Cannonball Run.

1.8k · February 18, 2003

georgeandmary queried:

quote:
How wrong would it be if I saw a bug getting close and I grabbed the bug and placed it in a hard to get to cache?

I don't think it would be wrong at all. I plan on moving any Cannonball Bugs I find as far off track as I can (I think this bug wants to go to Zimbabwe! ), while not holding on to them for more than a few days total.

"I'm sure she would have been thrilled to find so much pooh in a little metal box."

1.4k · February 18, 2003

MiGO racer went out in the mail today. Let me know when it arrives if you can Looking forward to this trip.

--------

trippy1976 - Team KKF2A

Saving geocaches - one golf ball at a time.

February 19, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by georgeandmary:
I'm very near the finish line and I'm in the race. How wrong would it be if I saw a bug getting close and I grabbed the bug and placed it in a hard to get to cache?

I'm very near the starting line, & I'm in the race. I'll be at the Byrncliffe Event when the bugs are released. If someones bug showed up in a cache in Massachusetts the following week, ,would that bug have to get to the finish line via the state by state border rule from there, or does that rule just apply for forward movement thru states between New York & California. Far be it from me to suggest that any fellow, self respecting Cannonballer would take the shenanigans to that level, but if it were to occur to a lesser extreme, what would be the ruling?

Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.

February 19, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by georgeandmary:
I'm very near the finish line and I'm in the race. How wrong would it be if I saw a bug getting close and I grabbed the bug and placed it in a hard to get to cache?

I thought we had agreed that racers would not be allowed to touch any bug in the race. I don't see it in the offical rules though.

February 19, 2003

So, how is the start of this race going to work? Are the going to be handed out to the folks at the gathering? What if there are more bugs than people to take them?

3k · February 19, 2003

And thanks to Ttepee handing me a travel bug tag set, I can. I'll be getting the bug in the mail soon. Is there a complete list of rules compiled in one place? Or a card we can print up and laminate to attach to the bug?

Cache you later,

Planet

I feel much more like I do now than when I first got here.

6.5k · February 19, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by FosterBass:

quote:
Originally posted by georgeandmary:
I'm very near the finish line and I'm in the race. How wrong would it be if I saw a bug getting close and I grabbed the bug and placed it in a hard to get to cache?

I thought we had agreed that racers would not be allowed to touch any bug in the race. I don't see it in the offical rules though.

None of the people that entered the race can touch any of the racers??!!

6.5k · February 19, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Planet:
And thanks to Ttepee handing me a travel bug tag set, I can. I'll be getting the bug in the mail soon. Is there a complete list of rules compiled in one place? Or a card we can print up and laminate to attach to the bug?

Cache you later,

Planet

I think the answers no to both

February 19, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by welch:
I thought we had agreed that racers would not be allowed to touch any bug in the race. I don't see it in the offical rules though.

quote:
None of the people that entered the race can touch any of the racers??!!

I like that.

Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.

February 19, 2003

The original rules state that racers cannot touch each others vehicles. So I think we can assume that if you have a bug in the race, you cannot touch anyone else's bug at all. You should be able to help your own bug along though.

Scott

February 19, 2003

I just read through all the posts - every one of them on every page - and not once did I see a rule that says you can't touch another racer. Quite the contrary - it is definitely in the spirit of the Cannonball Run. Read Brogan's very first posting announcing the race. Though there was much discussion as to whether this would be fair or not, I never saw that the rules changed. Hopefully no one would trash someone else's bug, but "shenanigans" are expected.

Did I miss something?

February 19, 2003

I just finished submitting a Cache Page for the CannonBall Run TB Race included in it are the offical rules, hopefully in will be approved and avalible for all to see very shortly.

Just so you don't have to wait, for rule is:

You can move your own bug, but you are not allowed to be in posession of another racer's bug.

You can however ask another cacher to "help you out"

As stated before there is no easy way to police this whole event so you are all pretty much on the honor system here.

On a whole different topic, any ideas out there for different awards (other than the obvious ones)?

2.6k · February 19, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by dwgogo:
Though there was much discussion as to whether this would be fair or not, I never saw that the rules changed. Hopefully no one would trash someone else's bug, but "shenanigans" are expected.

Did I miss something?

If you can't have some friendly shenanigans with competitors bugs then you need to change the name of the race. No shenanigans and it's not a canonball run. It's just a plain ol' cross country race.

How about that for a name?

george

Pedal until your legs cramp up and then pedal some more.

2.6k · February 19, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Brogan:

Bugs are allowed to travel only one state at a time (states must share a common border )

Bugs must be physically placed in a cache in each state visited.

Everything else is fair! You can ask local cachers to help you out by moving your bug along, or by delaying someone elses! In the spirit of the original race, interference is suggested!

These are the orginial set of rules and i think we should stick with them. That's what made the race sound fun.

george

Pedal until your legs cramp up and then pedal some more.

6.5k · February 19, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Gimpy:
Vey Good Monday is an awful

quote:
Life

February 19, 2003

Sorry, I probably should have explained the "original rule" about not touching another's bug. I was referring to both the original Cannonball Run movie (if memory serves) and the USA Network Cannonball Run 2001. In both, the rules state that you can't touch another competitor's car. I think the rational behind this is that you could basically damage someone's racing vehicle beyond repair and therefore put them completely out of the race (which is not very fun for anyone if eventually there are no competitors).

The "anything goes" mentality of the original races had to do with the teams. You could, for instance, try to barricade a team in their hotel room, prevent them from getting gas, or convince a police car to pull them over. If this rule is not applied to this race, one could conceivably grab every bug that comes by, mail them to a friend in Sweden and essentially put almost everyone out of the race (equaling no race at all). I think the fun of this race comes from the fact that you can only tamper with someone’s racing bug by proxy. It's easy to take someone else's bug out of the race. It is another thing altogether to try to convince other people to divert competitor's bugs.

I was basically assuming that the rules for this race would probably be similar and would therefore not allow any competitor to touch another competitor's bug. I apologize if I implied something that is not true about this race (although from Brogan's last post I guess it was more than an assumption).

Mainly I just want clarification of all the rules, and some example to explain the potential exceptions (like the body of water question).

Scott

February 20, 2003

Brogan named it, and he makes the rules. Like most things in life, all that want to play, play by the rules. As long as they're clarified before the start. I just think that if contestants are allowed to grab opponents bugs, & send them off on a tangent, the amount of bickering on the boards will get unbearable. I could be wrong. It's up to the man.

Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.

6.5k · February 20, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Brogan:
Just so you don't have to wait, for rule is:

You can move your own bug, but you are not allowed to be in posession of another racer's bug.

You can however ask another cacher to "help you out"

Brogan You're already breaking this rule. You not only have another racer's bug, but a whole bucket full

And If Gimpy shows up at the starting point (the gathering), the only racer you can give him would be his own, right?

February 20, 2003

Where the heck is the events page? and how do I get there?

quote:
Originally posted by bitbrain:

quote:
Originally posted by Brogan:
All the bugs that are currently in my pocession have been moved to the event page (GCCD3A), as new bugs arrive they will be recorded and placed there also.

This is a great move. Now we can see all the other bugs in the race.

Thanks, Brogan!

February 20, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by bobthecat:
Where the heck is the events page? and how do I get there?

You can find the Byrncliff Event Gathering by clicking that link.

Alternately, you can hit the Hide and Seek A Cache page and put the waypoint number in the search field.

February 20, 2003

As I have posted before, I am ineligible to win the event because of my role in it; actually I had thought that there may be a local cacher attending the event who would also want to be part of the race, that is why I entered the Pace Car for this event, if Gimpy shows at the Gathering then that will be the bug he leaves with. Also the Green Achers entry is ineligible to win so it will be used in case a second local cacher/racers shows up, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that a third one doesn't show!

February 20, 2003

Cannonball Road Rescue has just pulled up to the starting line. He's only there to 'help' disabled travelers... hehehe. With all the crappy weather we've had this should be a nice break so see him doing some traveling as I'm obviously not.

-Mixster

6.5k · February 20, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by CannonBall Run:
Re: welch

As I have posted before, I am ineligible to win the event because of my role in it; actually I had thought that there may be a local cacher attending the event who would also want to be part of the race, that is why I entered the Pace Car for this event, if Gimpy shows at the Gathering then that will be the bug he leaves with. Also the Green Achers entry is ineligible to win so it will be used in case a second local cacher/racers shows up, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that a third one doesn't show!

Does touching a racer not your own, make you ineligible to win?

February 20, 2003

I'm going to attend the Byrncliffe Gathering for one purpose only. To get together will fellow local cachers & meet up with some of the folks that have placed caches I've found, & folks that have found some of the caches I've placed. The same reason I went to the Letchworth Gathering & the one in Syracuse. As stated earlier, we're also going to get into some discussion regarding the forming of a NY State Geocachers Association. Sounds like a great event, as the others were. We've got a great selection of caches in this corner of the state, as well as some great cachers. I will NOT be leaving the event with a travel bug in tow. That was never my intention. Cachers are some of the finest people I know, & I'm just going to hang with them for a bit.

Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.

February 20, 2003

The Radakovitz-Family Racing team has sent in our entry. See our car at:

Car #2112

Good Luck to all!!

[This message was edited by Geogeek65 on February 20, 2003 at 11:56 PM.]

February 21, 2003

What's the matter Gimpy???? My Pace Car isn't good enough for you??? LOL

February 22, 2003

Yellow School Bus Travel Bug is on it's way...the USPS said there's a good chance that it'll be at your door on Monday.

  Yellow School bus

There is nothing like a Packrat who is a geocacher.

February 22, 2003

The Heavy Chevy is on it's way from Utah!

February 22, 2003

Any word lately on the progress of the tracking page?

February 23, 2003

The gentleman who has been working on a Race Tracking site has informed me that due to the number of bugs (47 as of this morning) that there is a problem with creating a mapping page to display them AND update them on a regular basis.

My expertise ends at the human body....anyone out there know how to set this up in a relatively simple format?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Brogan

1.8k · February 23, 2003

I design user interfaces for a living, and I can't think of an easy way to build a single map showing 47 different paths and not have it end up looking really muddy.

For an example, check out my Family of 5 Bad Ducks + Mom pages, which incorporate this map as part of their tracking. With only six bugs, it's still a challenge to see what's going on.

I might be able to do it if I just show current positions, and not their paths, but that'd still be a bit muddy. Let me think about it a bit more.

"I'm sure she would have been thrilled to find so much pooh in a little metal box."

1.8k · February 23, 2003

Well, I can build something like this test Cannonball map, but it has to be manually updated, so if I do this might take a week or more to see changes.

I'd also need to figure out a way to set up a puppet account to still all these guys on a watch list, and then filter it somehow into my e-mail box. Any suggestions along these lines would help.

"I'm sure she would have been thrilled to find so much pooh in a little metal box."

February 23, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by travisl:
I'd also need to figure out a way to set up a puppet account to still all these guys on a watch list, and then filter it somehow into my e-mail box. Any suggestions along these lines would help.

Sounds like you have it mostly figured out. Just filter messages based upon the email address used for the puppet account.

What would be neato would be to have a program which would look at a watch list containing all the racing bugs and automatically generate a waypoint file for Streets&Trips, Then all you'd need to do is periodically regenerate the map...

Hmmmmm.....

1.8k · February 23, 2003

quote:
Sounds like you have it mostly figured out. Just filter messages based upon the email address used for the puppet account.

The problem is that I only have one e-mail address that comes in through Outlook. It's the one I regularly check, and the one that gets all my bug-watch and cache-watch messages. My puppet account (TravisL2) and my main account share the same underlying e-mail address.

I don't know of any free account that I can get to dump into Outlook, nor do I know a way to have cannonball bug-specific messages filtered into their own subfolder. Either one would work.

"I'm sure she would have been thrilled to find so much pooh in a little metal box."

February 23, 2003

I already have a GeoCaching Sock puppet account under the name CannonBall Run that I would be willing to hand over. I believe that I also have at least two more e-mail addresses from my ISP that could be used thru something like Mail2web.

Does any of this help?

February 23, 2003

Great job on the map! I agree that a page with lines indicating paths would be a bit confusing. Just the current location would be simpler. I wish I could help out more with this, but I am a wee amature with HTML. I would have no idea how program that. However, now that you made this public, I fear you may get many requests from folks for specific icons! All I can do is support ya on this, but it looks great so far!

February 23, 2003

I am a java and PHP developer. I will gladly contribute to the cannonball website, as best as I can.

Everybody start thowing out your suggestions for ideas.

I think we should show a leaders board, not just for the closest bug to the finishline, but also for leaders like 'most caches visited', 'most miles travelled', 'most states visited', etc...

February 23, 2003

quote:
Originally posted by Egnix:
What would be neato would be to have a program which would look at a watch list containing all the racing bugs and automatically generate a waypoint file for Streets&Trips, Then all you'd need to do is periodically regenerate the map...

Hmmmmm.....

Okay...I've convinced myself...

I'm going to see if I can write such a program. I'm not making any guarantees, so don't discontinue other efforts! But I'm going to see what I can do to have something that will spit out a file with the current coords of all the bugs.

2.6k · February 23, 2003

It would be nice to have have rankings based on how far each bug is to the finishline. The bugs will end up being spread out all over the place but who ever is actually closest at any time would be "in the lead".

If you can do that, you can show change in placement since the week before. If it has moved up in position, down in postion and maybe how long it's been in that position.

You would only need to update it once a week or so.

The map looks good, you don't need track lines. You can always click on the bug's profile to see that.

george

Pedal until your legs cramp up and then pedal some more.

February 23, 2003

I like the idea of "most miles traveled" but if you want to do that, be aware that some people placed their bugs in their own cache before Brogan "grabbed" them and therefore have already logged substantial miles. Maybe those users should be notified to delete their previous logs so that all the bugs start out with 0 miles.

As for map ideas, since the bugs most likely will spread out across the continent, maybe a main page with icons for each bug that would be a clickable image map. Each state or region would be a clickable shape that would then zoom to the new area showing more detail. It shouldn't be that hard to do, although I’m no programmer. I could do it manually every few days but I'm sure there are users out there that could write a script for this kind of thing that could be dynamically updated.

Scott

ANNOUNCING THE 1ST ANNUAL TRAVELBUG CANNONBALL RUN!

Recommended Posts

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment

Link to comment