new hides in Limburg ... scary

A few days ago I was horrified when checking the new hides in the province (Limburg).
Of the 20 caches listed on the page there was 1 event cache, 3 traditionals and 16 !!!! misteries...
fer crying out loud.

Luckly the Alchemy series is not really a mistery series as you need the codes found in the basic elements caches to find the coords of the caches for the "mixed chemicals" or alloys. Sort of a chemical powertrail. I have only had a brief glance but it looks like lots of driving around or walking along roads. Not my cup of tea, real shame as its a clever concept. Might still have a go at it.

Short hike with friends, around Alden Biezen

Monday we (Renilde, Koen, Dirk, Edith and myself) went out for a short hike of 7km around Alden Biezen. Edith lost her cellphone... Koen and Dirk went back and found it in the car.
We continued the hike and discovered some great places, lots of caching potential, already have the "theme" for it, but will discuss this with ardaca since it closer to his place.

No caching today, did the Alden Biezen cache few month ago, when I thaught I had lost my cellphone ... irony

Toucan Pathtag, Maintenance and new hide

We havent gone out caching for a month now. The weather now is perfect, dry but freezing cold, at least all the mud is frozen solid now.

Did some maintenance on Kasteel Renesse, as the camouflage had partially dropped off to the humidity, that's fixed now.
Also the "carrier" for the second WP from Wilderpark cache has been replaced so now this short multi is setup the way it was intended to be.

Hid a new traditional which is intended as a TB motel, since there wasnt one in the area. The turnout has been great so far. Lots of cachers and plenty of TBs and coins checking in and out again. Mathieu 1 road all the way over to retrieve the counterpart of a mission TB so that its mission would be completed, and made this cache his 100th find, they celebrated that with one of the mini bottles of herbal liqueurs I left in the cache, this was hidden in the freezing cold on Christmas eve after all :-) .
Left 3 mini bottles (Jaegermeister, Underberg, Kummerling) and a Toucan Pathtag in the cache.
Arid got the first ever Toucan Pathtag dropped in a cache.


The Coolpix885 TB was also launched in the TB motel. Its our old digital camera, which wasnt working very well lately so it got replaced.


The Toucan pathtag was delivered last week, already over 50 mailed or handed to friends.
The tag turned out great, I'm happy, now to find some caches to drop these babies in!

	12/28/2008	Guinness70 performed maintenance for Wilderpark Drieling (Multi-cache)	Limburg	[visit log]
	12/24/2008	Guinness70 placed Coolpix885 (Travel Bug Dog Tag) in De TB Pauze E313 Exit32	Limburg	[visit log]
	12/24/2008	Guinness70 performed maintenance for Kasteel Renesse - sHerenelderen (Traditional Cache)

Low on cache

Seems you have to have permission if you want to hide a cache on land managed by Natuurpunt. That has brought the hiding of a new multi to a stand still.
Not sure how to handle this or just not hide it at all.

In the meanwhile, the preperations for the TB hotel are coming along nicely. Paint doesnt dry so well in these low temperatures.

Caught a nasty flu while in France during the first week of december. Recovering well, finally off the heavy antibiotics which made me feel even worse, now I've just got a nasty cough left.

Havent cached in a long while now.

Map@Syst geocoin 2b released in Belgium

The Map@Syst geocoin is a project by eXtension.org where they offer coins to be released by people around the world.
Month ago I offered to release one in my hometown Tongeren, the oldest town in Belgium, thank you Amy for accepting my offer.

The coin will be released soon, I do believe this is the first (and so far only) Map@Syst geocoin to be released in Belgium.

I learned about it thanks to Geo.Error who started the subject in the GCcom forum. And on Sep 25 2008 I submitted a request to release one in Belgium.

just TOO hilarious

http://icanhascheezburger.com

Weites Venn

Dirk, Bjorn and myself went to visit a colleague who was recovering from an operation but first... a walk in the snow at Barraque Michel. I picked the multi Weites Venn.
A 7.1km walk thru amazing snow scapes. Not an easy walk, rather tiring thru 25-30cm high snow lots of slipping and sliding but the scenery and the feeling of completion was well worth it.
We were there all alone, some bits we walked thru virgin snow.
Totally loved it, tired but satisfied.
With all waypoints given it was a great experience. All coordinates were spot on, I was worried about finding the cache in the snow with a summer spoiler but all went very smooth and fast.

Completely lost track of hitting that traditional Pont Marie-Anne Libert on the way. A good excuse to come back :-)

Great multi!

11/27/2008

Guinness70 found Weites Venn (Multi-cache)

Liège

[visit log]

hiking only day : 22km

Went on a hike today with a dozen colleagues, 16km in 2.5hrs... 6.2kmh average, talk about a brisk walk.
Afterwards we went for lunch and a beverage at De Pauze, everybody left and I went home on foot doing some cache recconaissance and found a great spot for a possible hide and 6 more kms on the clock, this time only 5kmh :-)

Hoping to hide that TB hotel soon, before sunday.

caching colleagues

Two colleagues picked up caching and a few days ago we went out on a short caching run during our lunchbreak.
We only went for 2 trads in the vicinity of the barracks : Haie des Champs and Geen Boemel, two quick finds, all though Geen Boemel did takes some minor searching since I forgot where it was we found it the first time.
Caching in a team is fun :-)

11/18/2008

Haie des Champs

Liège

[visit log]

TFTC ThumbsUp Pathtag going in production

I designed this pathtag and some friends in the PT community chipped in by ordering tags totalling 150tags. Donna from Sommer Family is our stateside helper, she will be receiving the payments and the box of 150 tags which she will then distribute to all who chipped in, this is keeping the cost very low. I am very gratefull that she volunteered for that. Keeps the price per tag low, otherwise it would cost more to ship to Belgium and then more to post the small packages of tags back to the US friends.

Hopefully we'll be dropping these tags in belgian caches soon. More tags to come, the next tag will be either a Limburg or a Tongeren one, both designs are ready.

Trilogy became a lone multi

I keep doing this : thinking of a powertrail to give more cache for the buck but then end up making it just the one or two. So again decided to turn the 3 caches into 1 multi.
Today we went out in the rain and planted some materials then Edith went home and i continued to discover the rest of the forest in the rain. Found some brilliant spots so all the plans were changed. Now I have a multi I would like doing.
Just have to place the rest of the materials and the cache.

Yesterday evening I went out and planted a traditional at a nearby chateau. Chateau Renesse in 's Herenelderen. Some back and forth with the reviewer about the difficulty level vs wheelchair accessibility but it got published this afternoon and already the FTF and STF are logged.

Same evening I went and dug the hole for a TB Hotel. It feels very weird digging a hole near a busy motorway, at night. What if someone -police- drives up and starts asking questions?
Just have to finish the protection and I can submit it. Finally I can put that big Lock&Lock box to good use.

One good thing about placing these caches : it frees up some space on the shelves in the workshop. Allthough with the plans of the powertrail there was going to be more space.

getting ready to plant The Trilogy

I have been working on some new caches, a Trilogy actually, sort of to commemorate us reaching the 100 finds milestone. Didnt expect to find 100 caches this year but with the fine weather coinciding with the days I was offwork and Edith feeling good we were going out for walks/caches more often then foreseen.

I just hope the Digimasters epidemic doesnt spread to the area I'll be hiding the caches, therefor I'm gonna speed up things and hopefully get it all done this weekend. Probably will have to do without someone testing it before putting it up for review unles someone is available rightaway.

11november : Armistice

Went out today, only did 2 caches but the multi 't Munsterbos was a great walk thru a beautiful forest with lots of variety and some brilliant scenery.
That chapel of love is the ideal place for a caching couple :-) , perhaps even a marriage proposal.

The last waypoint was also very apropriate for 11 november : Armistice.
NEVER FORGOTTEN, ALWAYS REMEMBERED.


today we hit 100 caches found

	11/11/2008	Guinness70 found De Voorn (Traditional Cache)	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/11/2008	Guinness70 found 'T Munsterbos (Multi-cache)	Limburg	[visit log]

Mollie's 2 Belgian Geocoin rescued

Today after climbing in a tree to log the Old Royal Fence I found Mollie's 2 Belgian Geocoin which was last logged in may but was still in another cache. So the coin is now back on track.
Feels good :-)

We did some more caches in that area. Great walking areas, pitty there arent more multis there.

	11/5/2008	Guinness70 placed Sheep in Love (Travel Bug Dog Tag) in De Galg	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/5/2008	Guinness70 placed Gwendolin (Travel Bug Dog Tag) in The Old Royal Fence	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/5/2008	Guinness70 retrieved TB TAZ SURF (Travel Bug Dog Tag) from De Galg	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/5/2008	Guinness70 grabbed Mollie's 2 Belgian Geocoin (Belgian Geocoin)		[visit log]
	11/5/2008	Guinness70 placed Mollie's 2 Belgian GeocoinThe Old Royal Fence (Belgian Geocoin) in	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/5/2008	Guinness70 retrieved Mollie's 2 Belgian Geocoin (Belgian Geocoin) from The Old Royal Fence	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/5/2008	Guinness70 found Daarbij die (water)molen 4 - Molen van Mettecoven (Multi-cache)	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/5/2008	Guinness70 found De Galg (Traditional Cache)	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/5/2008	Guinness70 found Het Ondersteunend Element (Traditional Cache)	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/5/2008	Guinness70 found The Old Royal Fence (Traditional Cache)	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/5/2008	Guinness70 posted a note for Abannet - GCB Event 2006 (Multi-cache)	Namur	[visit log]
	11/5/2008	Guinness70 posted a note for The Old Royal Fence (Traditional Cache)	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/2/2008	Guinness70 found Kapel van Helshoven (Traditional Cache)	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/2/2008	Guinness70 couldn't find tjenne (Multi-cache)	Limburg	[visit log]
	11/2/2008	Guinness70 couldn't find De Galg (Traditional Cache)	Limburg	[visit log]

Pulp Fiction ... THE quote

Jules: The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

got the quote from here

Some public designs

Hoping for a group buy on these. These are all fully vectored designs so they can be enlarged for blueprinting. If you re interested in getting the tag made or want to join in the group buy, contact me or check the Pathtag.com forum.

some personal pathtag designs

Been working on some designs for pathtags.
one for Tongeren, my town depicting Ambiorix. When walking in the town center you'll notice this effigy marked in a metal disc embedded in the pavement.
One for Limburg (belgian), my province. Its the official crest. And the quote is from the road signs when entering our province, its translates to "the Limburgers welcome you" whereas when entering the other provinces it will says "The province of blabla welcomes you".


And finally one for the helicopter base I am stationed at, Heli Wing.
the latin quote "semper labora" means "always working". Busy bees :-)

a pathtag is a gift, a coin is a loan

from a question on Pathtags forum

My son sold one of our Nativity pathtags on ebay. The person that bought the tag has this interesting question for me...
"I have bought this pathtag (nativity), but you are listed as the owner. How can I get it transferred to me?"
Now, I've tried a few times to put a response down in understandable terms but it just seems lacking. So I was wondering if anyone has suggestions on how best to describe pathtag ownership? Even that sounds like a strange question

This is how I would TRY to explain the difference between pathtags and geocoins:

The big difference between a coin and a tag is that a coin is a travelling item where the person who bought the coin stays owner whereas a tag is swag which can be refferenced to you.
Once the PT-owner drops the tag in a cache it is no longer his/hers. Its like dropping a carabiner, a marble a puppet, a McToy or a buisness card. The next person picking it up can keep it -or pass it on- but the tag creator no longer has physical ownership.
Its a bit like a buisness card, once you hand it out its gone and its no longer yours, the person who has it can do with it whatever they want but it can still be refferenced to you.

There is a important difference between ownership of a coin and ownership of a tag design.
Two coins of the same design will each have their independent tracking number, so one person can own one coin of that series.
When tags of a certain design are minted ALL will have THE SAME tracking number. If 200 are made all 200 will have the same tracking number.

Transferring ownership of a tag(design) would mean transferring ownership of that design and ALL the tags of that design that have been minted in the past and might be minted in the future.

The other option is to have at least 50 tags made of that design, possibly slightly modified or on a different plating (metal). This series would receive a different tracking number.

Most people buy a tag either to add to their collection or buy several of one design (made by someonelse) to either drop in caches or trade for others they wish to add to their collection.

When you give someone a tag its a gift. when you give someone a coin its a loan.

Wooden nickel update

All was revealed on the JeepsterMTJ's profile page.
There is a TB to log all the wooden nickels. The code on the back of the nickel is the TB reference the other part is the number of the nickel.

Good concept to track whatever you send out.

the mistery wooden nickel

Found a wooden nickel in Tête de chien today. No webadress, no email, no instructions, nothing to go on apart from the coordinates which I entered in the geocaching map and after zooming in I noticed a cache called "Signature Items"... interesting.
And the background of the cachepage looks like the logo on the nickel !
BINGO !

Now lets see where this takes us.

One initiation and a special encounter at a special cache

Today I drove 1.5hours to Bob, a colleague and friend who is a nature guide and wanted to see what geocaching is about. The cache of the day was the multi "Tête de chien", which is only a 20minute walk from his place. Noe, his son found all 3 caches we did together. Both Bob and Noe enjoyed the hunt.
The multi was well setup and in beautyfull scenery! Enjoyed it!

After a coffee I headed home but first had to visit a special cache with special coordinates "Geocache" at N50°00.000 E005°00.000. Quickly found it.
As I walked back to the car another car pulled up and the driver walks into the woods. We greet and it turns out to be fonduvork (also active on www.geocaching.be, we both walk to the cache and while he logs I show him my "not about the numbers" coin so he can discover it. "Oh, I also have some coins with me you can discover"... DOH... Crocodile Dundee moment : "that's not a knife! THIS is a knife"
He takes out a baggy with 11 HUGE coins, the one more rare then the next. Even one given to him by the Roth family (= the geocaching.com creators) when they attended an event fonduvork organised. Talk about rare!

Here comes the activity list for today:

	10/28/2008	Guinness70 found Geocache (Traditional Cache)	Namur	[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 found That'll be nice (Traditional Cache)	Namur	[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 found Notre-Dame du Maquis (Traditional Cache)	Namur	[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 found Tête de Chien (Multi-cache)	Namur	[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 posted a note for The Stamp Collector (Travel Bug Dog Tag)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 discovered Astrolabe Geocoin (Astrolabe Geocoin)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 discovered Official trackable LogBook Geocoin (Official trackable LogBook Geocoin)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 posted a note for "Shibushi, Japan" Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug (Unite for Diabetes Travel Bug)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 discovered Roths Anniversary Event Geocoin 2006 (Roths Anniversary Event Geocoin 2006)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 discovered Fonduvorks Vision Geocoin (Geocaching Skill: Vision Geocoin)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 discovered fonduvorks Stamina Geocoin (Geocaching Skill: Stamina Geocoin)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 discovered Fonduvorks Protecting (Geocaching Skill: Protection Geocoin)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 discovered Fonduvork Intelligence Geocoin (Geocaching Skill: Intelligence Geocoin)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 discovered Lizardtoadz Geocoin (Lizardtoadz Geocoin)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 discovered ToadZCode Geocoin (ToadZCode Geocoin)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 discovered 500 Finds Geo-Achievement Geocoin (500 Finds Geo-Achievement Geocoin)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 discovered 2007 Hong Kong Geocoin (2007 Hong Kong Geocoin)		[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 retrieved Gwendolin (Travel Bug Dog Tag) from Geocache	Namur	[visit log]
	10/28/2008	Guinness70 retrieved De bijzondere schoen / the special shoe (Travel Bug Dog Tag) from That'll be nice	Namur	[visit log]