Blood & Guts Cache

[+Perfect Tommy]

I know of one, but they don't have a name yet.

 

Did they ever get a name?

[+splicingdan]

Yeah Tommy, keep an eye out for the post.

[avroair]

What name!?! Is there one yet? Shouldn't we come up with a name before we sign the log?

[avroair]

Congratulations to The Iron Brigade and the Suffering Angels for solving the cache! Now what are they going to do while they wait for their caches to get approved?

[Suffering Angels of Iron Brigade]

"My experience has taught me that a man who has no vices has damned few virtues."

 

Abraham Lincoln

[+wilsonjw]

We're interested in either forming a new group, or joining a group that is just getting started. Are there other folks interested that haven't already committed to a group?

[+Team J&J]

Back on Feb 11, when I couldn't even make it to stage 1 of this cache, I decided to get a group together. That was a process in itself and took a couple of weeks to get everyone together.

 

We were a disparate lot...a ragtag group of escaped cons, hackers, evil scientists and washed up superheros. We banged our heads together, we searched the wide wide country, we drank ourselves into a stupor and several deserted to join the French Foreign Legion. But in the end, though the war seemed it would drag on forever, we stumbled from stage to stage until we reached the very last. Here we could not find our way...we plodded along and eventually fell asleep in a field of poppies. There we lay for a month and a half until someone sat up and said "Aha! What if ...." and I said, "Egad, man! That's just crazy enough to work!"

 

And so our quest has come to an end. Thank you friends and fellow citizens. Parting is such sweet sorrow something something. Special Huzzahs to Fizzy Magic for "Aha'ing". Now I must get back to my evil scientist day job (btw has anyone figured out the mind control device thingy yet?) Au Reservoir.

 

Team J&J

[+wilsonjw]

Blood & Guts "fell" to another team effort today. The Blind Squirrel Squad pulled together to solve the puzzle and to put this one behind us. What an unforgettable experience!

[+donbadabon]

Congrats to "B&G Anonymous, MD Chapter"!!! Welcome to the club.

[avroair]

Congrats: B&G Anonymous, MD Chapter

 

Can we join?

[+NetworkCacher]

Another batch of intrepid cachers are trying to start a new team to tackle B&G. If you're interested check out the the yahoo group, bandgconquest.

 

Yahoo BandGconquest group

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Our small Mythos and Chaos Squad, which had recently formed to tackle B&G, and which consisted of Greg (MarylandSteelersFan), Sue and myself (Vinny & Sue Team), was advised on Otc. 13th by Ekitt10 (Nik), the cache owner, that our latest solution/calculation was correct and that we had successfully finished this monstrous multi-stage puzzle cache after a 19-day effort. We have, however, chosen to wait to sign the log until we could do so in the presence of the cache owner, and so we, along with PyroNorm's team, which also finished the cache yesterday as well, will be meeting Nik at the cache site next weekend to sign the log and perhaps go out and share a burger and beer and trade war stories. I have also just learned, as of Saturday, Oct. 15, that two other teams have also just completed the cache and that we may see them as well at the festivities!

 

I feel that 85% of our success was due to Sue's incredible ability as a programmer and her appetite for, and skill with, cryptology. We had much fun with much laughter from GLM (an FTF), who came along to watch us on several stages, and fun hints and confirmations from Ekitt10 (Nik), but he never gave away too much, and let us figure out each gory step on our own! I wish to extend a big thanks to GLM for loan of some specialized gear for one stage as well, and for his humor and photos of us all doing awkward things! It was much fun! Working with Greg (MSF) was much fun, and we hope to do more caches with him in the future! Greg also happens to be a member of Team Psycho, which holds FTF on many caches in our extreme Psycho Urban Cache series.

 

Please understand that even if you manage to sail through some of the early stages of B&G, the stage 5 calculations are mind-bending, and some teams have been stuck for over a year on just this stage alone. I have also been advised that some teams never finish this stage. Indeed, residential behavioral healthcare facilities up and down the east coast are filled with people who cracked up -- permanently -- while trying to solve Blood & Guts stage 5!

 

To Ekitt10 and the other creators of this cache, I offer massive thanks for all the fun and the mind-bending puzzles! I must note that many of Nik's kind hints did not make sense until much later!

 

I must also say -- and Nik agrees -- that I believe that it is possible to solve this cache alone, without a team, but no matter what, you (or your teammates) will need the following skills and abilities: PC and web skills, programming skills, cryptology skills, knowledge of history, knowledge of the Illuminati, web search skills, ability to elude Illuminati assassins, ability to use heavy weaponry, self-defense skills, and finally, ability to withstand torture by the heartless alien reptoid reptilian servants of the Illuminati. Kidnapping along the way by renegade Freemasons, working hand-in-hand with the Illuminati, is also a very real and everpresent danger.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Gee, it now looks -- as events continue to break over the past few days -- that there are now three other teams in addition to our Mythos and Chaos Team that will likely all be meeting with Nik, the cache owner, later this week to sign the log for recent success in completing Blood & Guts. It promises to be a pretty large geocache event that day!

 

Sue and I have just finished making prototypes of imprinted T-shirts (images on front, back and shoulders) for our Psycho Urban Cache series, and, since we have some extra inkjet T-shirt transfer sheets left over from that project, we may try to create some suitably dramatic artwork and make an imprinted Blood & Guts T-shirt (image and title on front, B&G label on back) for the cache owners, and maybe one extra one to place as a trade item in the cache as well. I'm not sure that we will get this all done in time for the Blood & Guts shindig; we will just have to see how it all works out regarding time, etc., and whether we can come up with some fun images!

[+ODragon]

ack, wrong place...

Edited October 17, 2005 by odragon

[+lpyankeefan]

Hey Vinny,

 

Make mine a XXL!!!!

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Hey Vinny,

 

Make mine a XXL!!!!

Will do if at all possible!

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Dropped four Blood & Guts T-shirts in cache. Image plus legend on front; legend only on back. Two would not fit in container; they are in sealed ziplock freezer bags under container.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

All has been strangely silent on the Blood and Gust front for too long! Is anyone currently working on this one? Do any of you have any progress reports to share with us? Thanks!

[+Psyop]

All has been strangely silent on the Blood and Gust front for too long! Is anyone currently working on this one? Do any of you have any progress reports to share with us? Thanks!

 

Working, no progress . Just trying to make sense of some of the medieval units of measurement used in this cache.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

All has been strangely silent on the Blood and Gust front for too long! Is anyone currently working on this one? Do any of you have any progress reports to share with us? Thanks!

 

Working, no progress . Just trying to make sense of some of the medieval units of measurement used in this cache.

 

Psyop, I wish you the best! One thing that we, and the cach owners, have observed, is that the most successful teams and those which solve the thing most rapidly, often in a short time of a few weeks or two months, is the very small teams, consisting of just a few people. We have noticed that the larger the team, the longer it all takes to jell, and indeed, there a a number of teams which started the cache, spent a year or two on it, and then never completed it.

 

One last thing, a hint from me: I suggest that you stay in close email contact with the cache owner at all times, even issuing progress reports and telling him when you are stuck or when you are moving, and in what direction. I feel that this has multiple benefits!

 

Have fun!

[+Psyop]

 

One last thing, a hint from me: I suggest that you stay in close email contact with the cache owner at all times, even issuing progress reports and telling him when you are stuck or when you are moving, and in what direction. I feel that this has multiple benefits!

 

Have fun!

 

Cheers, sounds like good advice. I am just looking around at all of the posts on the cache page, dusting off the old brain cells, dredging up some old land nav memories (Declination diagram... hmmm, that sounds important), and trying to come up with excuses to visit up Frying Pan way. More of a lark than anything else, just looking for a way to have fun and justify a low "cache count" this summer.