Letterboxing Stats

I've already posted to the Announcement board about the Statistics Label Creator, but it just occurred to me that some of you might like to see it in action to get a better idea of its purpose. So, I'm using it on this blog. =) Just below that little picture of me is my stats label. Currently it reads "P199 F1167 X328", but as I list more plants, finds, and exchanges, the numbers will update automatically it.

To read all the nitty gritty details about the feature, check out my original post at Atlas Quest.

We explored.... and conquered!

Last week, I attended the Explore and Conquer event at Fort DeSoto SP, just outside of Tampa in the alligator infested swamps known as Florida. I'm a bit late for this report, mostly because I was in Florida and not hooked up with my usual computer comforts such as that annoying little cable I need to transfer photos from my digital camera to the computer and, well, time. I spent several days thru-hiking the Pinellas Trail, a 34-mile long foot and bike path through Pinellas County. Not including the 2.5 mile (one way) spur over a causeway as well, so that took up some time.

But I digress.... I'm just making excuses. =) Truth is, I didn't pull out my camera until after the event was over, and that was just to take a picture of a sunset along the way. Like it? I'm submitting it for consideration to next year's Project X. I think it's good, but based on last year's winners, it's pretty intimidating. I hope the judges like it! =) I also saw a dolphin swimming around nearby, but alas, no photos of that little guy.

When Amanda and I arrived at the event, we were SHOCKED to learn that nobody had carved an event stamp! I was pushed into it, and whipped together a stamp. Perhaps not my best work, but it turned out acceptable, I think. Just ask anyone who was there.

Marjorie made herself comfortable in the sun a bit too long. Might be awhile before her feathers grow back. Anyone out there get a picture of Marjorie tanning herself in the sun? I missed my chance, but I have to keep a good working relationship with Marjorie since she is the AQ mascot. She wouldn't have liked me taking pictures of her in such a sensitive predicament.

Papa Bear and family drove all the way out from Tallahassee for the gathering, but we suspect that's because they ran out of boxes in their part of the state to find based on their performance at the event. They were off looking for boxes before they even had a chance to catch their breath! Papa Bear also talked his brother, Super Frog, into attending. Super Frog found his first letterboxes at the event, and works for the parks department in Clearwater or something to that effect. And--get this--he thinks letterboxing would be a terrific thing for their parks and wants to encourage it there. I suspect a lot more boxes in Clearwater might be showing up before too long.....

Papa Bear also brought water from the famed Fountain of Youth, purchased from a guy who was 150 years old. Tastes terrible, but there's always a dark lining on every silver cloud, right? =)

This gathering was especially interesting since it was made up mostly entirely of new letterboxers who'd never attended an event before! Papa Bear and family hadn't been letterboxing very long to begin with, and Super Frog didn't find his first box until the gathering. But also in attendance and very new letterboxers included the Six P's and the Yaker Family. The only other long-time letterboxers in attendance outside of Amanda and myself was Kilroy.

Near the end of the day, Amanda's dad, George, also came out for a spin on his new wheelchair. He lives just a few miles away and this was his first letterboxing gathering as well. If he suspected we were all crazy before, we've certainly confirmed his suspicions now! =)

We came. We explored. And we conquered. And it wasn't until near sunset we parted ways and headed back from whence we came. I finished hiking the length of the Pinellas Trail, then headed back to Seattle to learn that after just half the month, Seattle had already broken the record for most rain in November EVER! Yes, indeed, it was a good time to be in Florida. =)


I took this picture of Seattle just before leaving for Florida. Alas, all those fall colors are now laying in the gutter, soggy and wet from all the rain.

The Bleeding Edge of Technology....

I recommend you skip this post. Really. Do something more valuable with your limited time.

Usually, when it comes to technology, I'm opposed to it. Yes, you heard me right. I'm a techno-phobe. I've never had a cell phone, nor do I ever want one. In case of emergency, I'll be the guy at the phone pay wondering why it doesn't work when I try to call 911. Assuming, of course, I can find a pay phone. Last time I needed to use one, I found three that didn't work before I succeeded with one that did. Took me an hour to make the phone call.

But I digress..... Do I use a PDA? No. I like the old fashioned pen and paper better. I have a PDA, thoughtfully donated to me by Speedsquare to develop features for all you PDA people out there, but I tried to find a box once with clues from the PDA. And I didn't like it. So it mostly collects dust now. I still keep it around for testing purposes, though, when I need to update or change the PDA code on Atlas Quest.

Even when it comes to programming, I prefer the "tried and true" than the bleeding edge of technology. There's a reason it's called "bleeding edge." When I first learned of Google allowing little people like myself to display their maps on my own website for free, I was THRILLED! How cool would THAT be?!

And what did I do about it? Absolutely nothing. Why not? It was bleeding edge technology. If you read the documentation, they warned that it was new. The API (basically the "language" used to talk with a given application from a programmer's point of view) could change with little or no warning breaking the application. Bugs had yet to be found, and work-arounds developed.

So I did nothing. Choi did include the maps, briefly, on LbNA, and well--it learned why it's called the "bleeding" edge. =) Don't get me wrong--Choi's a great guy and this isn't meant to embarrass or diss him. Had I gone jumping into the Google Maps myself, I'd probably have had the same problems he ran into. In fact, I learned from his troubles. You can call it a failure if you'd like, but I'd call it research and educational. Have you ever noticed that you can't go to http://atlasquest.com ? Try it. It bounces you back to http://www.atlasquest.com every time. Choi doesn't know it (though since he's probably reading this, he does now!), but it was his experiences with Google Maps that made me implement this change.

Frankly, I like atlasquest.com better than www.atlasquest.com since it's shorter and quicker to type. But that www is so ingrained into the web culture, I went with the flow. Guess that makes me a dolphin. ;o)

Anyhow, Google Maps is up to version 2.x, and I figured by now, it's a heck of a lot more stable than it would have been when they first introduced it. At the very least, it has cool new features that version 1.x didn't have like that little overview map in the lower-right corner of the map.

But I digress..... Why am I talking about bleeding edge technology?

Because I accidentally just stumbled into it. I was checking my blogs and they had a link for the "new blogger"--just click a button and they'll convert your existing blogs to Beta Blogger.

I clicked. It was an automatic impulse. It says "click here", and without even thinking about the consequences, I clicked.

I regretted the action almost immediately. I tried posting a new blog entry, and I got an error message. Tried posting it again. Another error. Next thing I know, I had three copies of that post listed in the management section of the blog, but none of them showed up IN the blog. I deleted all but one of the postings--or tried to. Got more errors when I tried to delete the extra posts, so I wasn't really sure if it deleted anything or not. Not that it mattered since my post wasn't showing up in the blog in the first place.

Another thing happened. AQ started complaining about the atom feed it pulls to generate the "Letterboxing News" on My Page. One of those little pieces of information AQ picks up is when the post was created. The old feed had a label called "created" that I used to display and sort blog entries by the date and time they were created. The new feed didn't have that. I had to look through the XML to learn they changed it to "published".

So I had to update AQ to first look for "created," and if that's not found, check for "pushlished."

And I thought--thank goodness I discovered this problem on my own blog when none of them needed to be displayed in Letterboxing News. Had Mark and Sue Pepe, for instance, converted their blog to use Blogger Beta, their posts would have stopped showing on Letterboxing News. Who knows how long it would have taken us to realize something was wrong. How long would it have taken us to figure out there was a change in the XML format with Blogger Beta?

When I logged in today, I saw that post I made which never made it onto my blog suddenly showing up on the blog. And those posts I deleted are no longer there. Seems to be working now.

Of course, the ultimate test to know if everything is working correctly is this post. Yes, you fool, you read this long, rambling post to finally get to the point of why I wrote it.

This is a test. This is only a test.

You'll know it passed if it shows up in Letterboxing News within the next hour. =) If it doesn't--well, you probably didn't read this post anyhow and you'll still think I'm a genius and can do anything with technology. ;o)

Learn from me: It always pays to let someone else use bleeding edge technology first. *nodding*

-- Ryan

The biggest thing to hit letterboxing since cooties!

I was going to say the "biggest thing to hit letterboxing since Celtic Quinn," but that seemed almost too cruel for a title. =)

But seriously.... This feature is HUGE! Letterboxing maps are now available for your viewing pleasure. When you perform a search for traditional letterboxes on Atlas Quest, you'll now see a small link in the upper-right corner of the page that reads "Map Results." Don't let the size of the link fool you, though. Click it and AQ will plot the first 100 unique locations of letterboxes from your search results (minus the mystery boxes, of course!) onto a Google map. It works for pretty much any traditional search you can think of.

Check out the newest letterboxes.

Or all the boxes found along I-95.

Or all of the boxes I planted around the world.

Or all of the active, handicap-accessible letterboxes in the state of Massachusetts.

Or all of the letterboxes planted on Dartmoor.

Use your imagination and have fun! =)

The calendars are IN the mail!

Yesterday evening, I posted a message to let everyone know the official AQ 2007 Letterboxing Calendars had arrived, and I was frantically packing them up for shipping today. This morning, though, I realized I was four envelopes short of what I needed. So off I walked to a nearby drug store (Bartell's, if you need to know) to pick up a few.

Oh, the adventure!!! I walked through a small alleyway to get to Bartells rather than the drive-in entrance, and was a bit surprised to see what seemed like a hundred high school students coming from Jack In the Box walking along with me. What is this? A mob or something?

Just outside of Bartell's, though, it suddenly became clear. It was a fight! Two kids put up their dukes and circled each other menacingly before they took a couple of swips at each other. One of them got hit pretty hard and he practically started hugging the other guy, then they both crashed to the concrete ground rather hand. It was sad. Such a stupid thing to be doing.

I didn't even stop to watch--I watched what I could while walking past and entered into Bartells telling the lady at the front counter that there was a fight going on outside and it might be prudent to call the police. Her eyes opened wide, and she said she noticed all those kids walking past and was wondering what was up, and prompted told all the other employees about the fight going on outside asking if she should call the police. I continued with my shopping, but most of the employees went outside to watch the fight.

I picked up five envelopes large enough for the calendars (I only needed four, but I figured having an extra one around wasn't a bad idea) and when I came back to check out, the lady I first told about the fight was on the phone with the police (or at least a 911 operator--who mans those things anyhow?) giving all of the pertinent information about the fight. One of the other employees who'd gone outside to watch came back in to say that they were "taking it to Jack In the Box to finish" and looking outside, I could see the mass of hundred or so students walking in that direction.

I finished my purchase, and the lady at the counter thanked for me letting them know about the fight. I told said I just happened to be passing by (which was the truth) and it looked like someone could get hurt pretty badly, but there was no way I was going to break up a fight with a hundred hormone-challenged kids egging it on.

I waved goodbye, then took a different route back to Amanda's place to avoid the mob headed towards Jack In the Box. The risks I go through to get these calendars to you.... *shaking head* =)

Speaking of which, I thought you might enjoy seeing the piles of calendars ready for shipment. That's the main reason I created this particular blog entry--to show off the picture of me sitting behind all the orders I have packed and ready to go. Needless to say, I didn't carry all of these to the post office on my back--there was just a little too much for that. I actually packed up my car and drove (*gasp!*) to the post office. I carried as much as I could, stood in line until it was my turn.

"You've been busy, have you?" the postal clerk asked me.

"Yep, and there's more in my car," I replied.

He waved me off saying to go get the rest and he'll get started on what I brought in already, and it took three more trips to the car to get all the packages. It took awhile for him to key in all the orders, and during a brief period when there weren't any others in the post office to mail stuff, I gave a stack of orders to a second person and had the two of them working to mail off all the items. =) I worked on filling out customs forms for the international orders while they were typing in the domestic shipments.

After returning to Amanda's place, I had her take a picture of me with the receipts from the post office. The shorter one is from the guy who helped the first postal clerk with some of the orders. The total bill came to $311.82--just in case you were curious.

And that's all I have to write. For now..... Happy trails!

Thinking ahead to the AQ 2008 Letterboxing Calendar

Some of you folks out there might be wondering about where those photos from the letterboxing calendar comes from. The answer: premium members. One of the secret benefits of premium membership. The calendar project was codenamed Project X for the first year since I wanted to put it together to surprise everyone with it and wanted to allow premium members to mention it without using that word 'calendar' to spoil the surprise.

After that first year, codenames were no longer necessary. Everyone knew about the calendar! But it was still fun calling it Project X since it sounded more cloak and dagger--and as everyone knows, cloak and dagger stuff is fun. Unless you work for the CIA, of course. =)

The project, I must admit, has grown far larger than I ever anticipated, and I've been adding all sorts of features to help me keep track. Last year I added the ability for premium members to upload photos which meant I didn't have to keep track of all the photos in various e-mail accounts which is how I got the photos that first year. This year I created a shopping cart to help keep track of all those calendars that were purchased. Last year I kept track on a pad of paper and it was a total nightmare. As an added benefit, I could add additional items for sale in the shopping cart besides the calendar with almost no extra effort, so I did. =) You can blame the calendar for my creating that feature, though. I just couldn't keep track of everything with a pen and paper like I did last year. I just couldn't.....

Not surprisingly, I guess, there were problems associated with uploading photos that I implemented last year. Not only did I get dozens of e-mails from people wanting to know if I got their photos okay (which I wasn't really keen on having to manually check every time someone uploaded a photo since that feature was supposed to make my life easier), but several photos *didn't* get uploaded properly. Other photos were beautiful but, sadly, not of a high enough resolution to be used for the calendar. Other people uploaded photos then e-mailed me information about the photos, nearby boxes, and even suggested quotes that might go with the photo. But once the information was separated from the photo, it made it awfully hard for me to keep track of which e-mails went with which photo.

So I vowed to improve the ability to upload images. Now people can see what they've uploaded. AQ will check that the resolution is high enough to be used in a calendar and tell you when you try to upload a photo that won't work. You can provide as many additional details with the photo to your heart's content. And hopefully, that will not only make your lives much easier, but mine as well. =)

Where am I going with this story? Now I think it would be fairly easy for me to handle large quantities of submissions. I created some administrative features so I can view small versions of submitted photos and only download the large versions for photos I'd likely use in the calendar. (Bandwidth is a serious consideration for me since I still primarily use dial-up connections.) And, as a result, I've decided to open up calendar photo submissions to everyone! No longer is it just the realm of premium members. For premium members, nothing changes, but those of you without premium memberships will now find a new option under the 'Toolbox' menubar option called Project X. Click on that to read about calendar submissions, what sorts of photos I'm looking for, examples of submitted photos, and so forth.

Because I'm now accepting photo submissions for the 2008 letterboxing calendar! =) Get pictures of those beautiful fall colors! Think about where you might get some nice winter photos. And start submitting your best pictures today! =)

Postal Shenanigans

I'm back in Seattle--got in yesterday evening. Today, I walked to the post office to check my PO box and happily found two large boxes of PZ Kut waiting for me. =) There was a bit of Speedy Stamp in them too, but mostly PZ Kut--50 blocks of it to be exact! I feel like I could carve a thousand stamps and single-handedly populate the whole western hemisphere with letterboxes. Thanks Diana, a.k.a. Webfoot, of Spampeaz.com fame.

Now that I'm flush with PZ Kut, I've started working on filling all those orders made on Atlas Quest last month. Most of the orders are still in the waiting queue since I have yet to receive the calendars and most people had those in their orders. I'm expecting those to arrive on the 16th at the earliest. But in the meantime, there were about a dozen orders for carving blocks that did not have a calendar in the order, and I've spent most of the afternoon and evening preparing them for shipment tomorrow.

Well, okay, I've also been getting my ducks in a row so I'm set to go when the calendars do arrive. Printed out all of the orders which took the better part of an hour to do. Nice little stack of papers. Spent another hour sorting through them all separating the non-calendar orders from the calendar orders type of them. And another half hour just stamping my green turtle stamp on all those orders. Sorry if I don't write you all a personal message, but there's just too many orders to do that with them all! I did read all of the letters and notes that were sent with the personal checks, though, and thank you for that. They were entertaining to read. =)

Another couple of hours I spent updating the administrative part of AQ to update the order statuses, print shipping labels from AQ, and display useful information like contact information. Little did you know--until now, I hadn't really done much work on the administrative part of the shopping cart. ;o)

Late this evening I walked back to the post office to pick up a bunch of Priority Mail envelopes and packed up the non-calendar orders. I also tried using their website for the first time to print shipping labels and postage. There was a worried moment where I thought I lost one of the shipping labels (with postage!). Turns out, I packaged it inside the order. Oops. =) I tore open the Priority Mail envelope to retrieve the label and postage, but now I'm short one Priority Mail envelope. I'll have to get another one, but it can wait until tomorrow morning. It's already 11:20 tonight, and it's way too late for another trip to the post office tonight. *yawn* When I drop them off at the post office, I can pack up that last package properly.

So those of you with non-calendar orders--your orders will be in the mail tomorrow (Wednesday). Those of you with calendars in your orders--I still don't know exactly when those will ship, but I'm crossing my fingers for the 17th. I do know they're in the mail and on their way to me! That's the good news. =) The bad news was I had them shipped to Amanda's place and did not realize that Amanda was going to put her mail on HOLD until the 16th since she was going to be out of town. (And she did not realize I'd be back in town to pick up mail a week before that.) So it's entirely possible the calendars are already at the post office, here in Seattle, perhaps a mile away from me. Completely and totally inaccessible to me until Amanda gets back on the 16th. Argh!

But then again, when I tried to order ONE calendar to make sure it looked good, it took three WEEKS for the calendar to arrive from the time I placed the order! The estimated shipping time said 2-6 days, but from the time it shipped, it still took over two weeks to arrive. If that happens again, the calendars probably won't arrive here in Seattle until the 24th or so. I'm hoping it's a bit faster this time around--I can't imagine it could be slower--but I will ship those calendars as soon as I can get my hands on them. And I've already printed out the orders, sorted them, and stamped them. Tomorrow and the rest of the week, I intend to get all of the shipping materials ready so when the calendars do arrive, I can shove them in the envelopes/boxes/whatever and take them to the post office within 24 hours. Umm, and I'll try not to include the postage *inside* of the packages. =)

Yes, I'm babbling, and that's my cue to say goodbye. Goodbye, folks!

The Blue Diamond Saga....

Most of you probably know about the blue diamond by now--there are quite literally hundreds and hundreds of posts made on AQ the last couple of days on the subject! I'm posting this here to get out of the "where does the thread begin" problem. Here are a few thoughts and musings that I thought would be important to reiterate.

First, the system of voting is new and data is scarce, and it is not expected to be anywhere near accurate in the immediate future. So please, don't be quick to judge just because some boxes you think deserve a blue diamond don't have ones or vice versa. As of today, there is about one vote for every three boxes listed on Atlas Quest. Considering that many votes are for the same boxes, perhaps one out of every five boxes actually has any votes at all. This means that four out of five boxes aren't even in the running due to a complete lack of votes! It'll take time before a meanful collection of votes is collected.

Second, for those people who prefer not to have their boxes in the running for a blue diamond, you can opt out from your preferences page. You can choose not to vote for other people's letterboxes. There is absolutely no reason you have to participate in this little experiment at all.

I'd like to emphasize that. You do not have to participate. Ever. At all. You don't have to have your boxes ranked, and you don't have to vote on other people's boxes.

It sounds like that's not good enough for some of you. Opponents to the idea don't want others to participate either. I'm rather perplexed at this attitude--why should you be concerned if I want to put my own boxes up for a blue diamond designation? I'm very sorry if this bothers you and your conscious, and I'm more than happy to allow you to opt out of participating yourself. But please, be considerate of others. If they want to participate, let them. Why should you get worked up because someone wants to vote on a letterbox planted by someone else who wants people to vote on their boxes?

And finally, the blue diamond should not be taken nearly as seriously as some folks seem to have done so. No, it's not an exact science. No, someone else's idea of what makes a "perfect" box may not be the same as yours. There may not be enough information about a letterbox to systematically assign blue diamonds to letterboxes. And no, it's not a tool that should be used as the sole basis for what letterboxes to find. It's a single tool inside a large toolbox with lots of other tools. Some people may use the tool, some people may not, but it's available for everyone.

And remember, letterboxing should be fun. =) I've found it rather amusing to watch the diamonds bounce around from box to box as AQ tries to figure out which boxes really are the cream of the crop. It's kind of interesting to see diamonds show up on a box I wouldn't have expected but you know--that's a good thing. It's just more proof that we all don't think alike, we all have our own individual preferences, and the variety of boxes out there will continue to grow.

Now get out there and start having some fun. =) Life does not begin nor end at Atlas Quest.

Sending Condolences

As many of you already know, both Goose Chaser and Boxer in TRAINing have passed away recently. If you'd like to send a card signed with your signature stamp to their families, here are some addresses that you might find useful:

Paula Clemmens Egolf (Goose Chaser)
Runge Mortuary Chapel
838 E. Kimberly Rd.
Davenport, IA 52807

I'm not sure if the address I have for Boxer in TRAINing should be made public, so if you'd like to send a card to Funguswoman (his daughter) and the rest of their family, you can send them to me and I'll make sure to forward them on to Funguswoman:

Funguswoman
c/o Ryan Carpenter
PO Box 16131
Seattle, WA 98116

Additionally, I'll be setting up a tribute section on Atlas Quest for our fallen comrades. My development code is still a bit of a mess from an unrelated feature I've been working on for quite some time now, but as soon as it's cleaned up and working properly, I'll be setting up a tribute section for them. In the meantime, however, if you send AQ mail to Goose Chaser and/or Boxer in TRAINING, I'll include your notes, thoughts, and memories of these two with the tributes.

The AQ 2007 Letterboxing Calendars are in!

With the roaring success of last year's first letterboxing calendar, we're back again with the second annual letterboxing calendar--with twelve new months of beautiful pictures taken by letterboxers, for letterboxers. This year, we've also added several important dates for our self-imposed letterboxing 'holidays' throughout the year.

On a related note, last year, I had a terrible time keeping track of all the orders by hand--terribly difficult with the flood of orders coming in!--so this year I created a shopping cart system for Atlas Quest to help better organize things and let Atlas Quest automate the task of keeping track of orders for me. It's new, but also allows me to keep track of orders for more than just calendars. You can also order a box of 144 AQ mini pencils, Mastercarve, Speedy-Stamp, PZ Kut, or--if you can't make up your mind and want to try all of the various carving blocks--a sampler kit that includes all three!

You should know before you order--this is a temporary shopping cart system. It was designed to make things easier for me, but it's not intended to be a permanent fixure on Atlas Quest. The idea is that I'll collect orders for three or four weeks then, at the end of that time, put in bulk orders with the suppliers to nab the best deal I can. I'm not really interested in selling one sheet of carving block at a time, so you'll notice all of the carving block options require at least a three-block commitment.

It's also slanted so premium members get the best deals--they're the ones that financially keep Atlas Quest up and running, and I've marked some items below my actual costs for their benefit. (I figure they already paid for it with premium membership in the first place!)

In addition, it means you shouldn't expect to receive your order until at least a couple of weeks after I close the shop. It takes time to order the items in bulk and wait for them to arrive before I can mail them off to you! It's not fast, but especially for premium members, it could be very cost effective! =)

At the moment, I plan to keep the shop up until the end of September at which point it'll close and I'll order everything needed to fulfill your orders. Calendars will still be available directly from the supplier after this time, but will cost $16.99 per calendar if you order directly from them--and it won't be available from them until *after* the marketplace on AQ closes. So there's definitely an incentive to order through AQ--even for non-premium members!

I've started an FAQ for other questions you might have, but if I've missed anything you want to know, be sure to ask!

Did I miss anything? *looking around*