Hi - I'm Judi from Team Psychokiwi. You'll find lots of letterbox clues for NZ boxes in Atlas Quest, and there are even more clues on our pages at http://www.psychokiwi.org/letterboxing/nzboxing.htm

There is also an active yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NZLB/

We encourage people to host their clues on AtlasQuest because of the excellent searching facility. Seems like Ryan has managed to list just about every little tinpot town in NZ.

Any questions, just sing out!

Cheers,

Judi

and I love letterboxing in New York even more!

What happened this weekend? Oceanwytch and Nautilus and Culex - not representing at the MG? You guys missed a wonderful weekend.

Looks like I'll just have to put something together for Maine this winter.
Whaddya say Laura?

As part of my Southern Letterboxing tour next month, I will be in the Charlotte Area planting some letterboxes and hopefully finding a few boxes! I am up for meeting some local boxers and exchanging signature stamps! Lets plan something.
-Amanda

Just a reminder that double-bagging the logbooks is very important in the Pacific Northwest. These letterboxes will get wet and every little bit helps in protecting the paper parts of the box!

-Amanda from Seattle

Ryan put this one up just for us! I guess we can tell Susan about it if she really gets into letterboxing in RI :-)

-Amanda

Forget Lemony Snicket! These are the true "Letterboxing" books for children. John Bellairs has been called the Stephen King of juvenilte fiction and these books are wonderfully creepy! The Curse of the Blue Figurine features a BOOK that is actually a BOX! (reminded me of some letterboxes that I have found) Also, at the climax of the book, they are in Franconia Notch, NH! The White Mountains! WOW Someone really needs to hide a Blue Figurine Letterbox up that way.

Another Bellairs book, The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn has the hero solving a mysterious message to find a treasure! (Sounds an awful lot like letterboxing to me!) See if you can figure it out!

-Amanda from Seattle

I know that this has been mentioned on the main board at Yahoo! This movie looks like a letterbox quest adventure. It is coming out November 19th. It stars Nicolas Cage. Someone go see it and report back! Heck, I will probably go see it...I'll keep you guys posted.
-Amanda from Seattle

If anyone finds the letterboxes that we hid here in 2002, be sure to let us know! It is a lovely area and I highly recommend a visit even if you don't find the letterboxes.
-Amanda from Seattle

Georgia letterboxers rule! Just thought I'd remind ya.
Mark

The word is that Ron Howard is going to make the DaVinci Code into a movie.
Rumor has it that he has already recruited Akiva Goldsman who penned the adaptation of A Beautiful Mind to write a screenplay.

And Howard is supposedly in talks with Russell Crowe for the lead.
Kate Beckinsale is being considered to play Sophia, the dark-haired female protagonist and love-interest for Crowe.

-Amanda from Seattle

This is my favorite movie themed letterbox and I have not even found it yet!! The Movie Mystery box by Brett and Penny is my second favorite. (again, I have not found that one either! I need to get out more!)
:-)
-Amanda from Seattle

Nancy Drew Takes Manhattan are two letterboxes that I just hid at Black Diamond Regional Park near Antioch, CA. This is a huge park and could support more letterboxes. There is alot of interesting history in the area. I suggest that when you go out to find my boxes that you hide a box of your own as well!

-Amanda from Seattle

Well, after another hour of working on it, I finally figured out what was wrong! Very subtle bug.... I used the CSS statement 'position:relative' to move the corners of the content window into the proper location. The thing is, it still leaves an 'invisible box' behind holding the old position of the image as a place saver that mis-aligned everything that butted against it.

Anyhow.... I moved the corners INTO the content window which solved the problem and all is well. =) Yippie!

-- Ryan

Ryan - I love the seasonal stylesheet you used...nice touch!
I appreciate all the small details you've added to this site.

I love the seasonal stylesheet you used...nice touch!
I appreciate all the small details you've added to this site.

Thanks! It does get boring looking at the same color scheme and pictures day after day, and I thought a little variety would make things more interesting. =)

It took about a week before I got that Halloween theme working completely right--I had to change a lot of things where I had hard-coded stuff that really belonged in a central location so it took some time to fix it all up where all theme colors were located in a single, easily changeable place.

This November/Thanksgiving theme--took a few hours! CSS is SOOO cool! =) I can really whip out new themes very quickly now! Definitely be looking for more throughout the year. ;o)

-- Ryan

Ryan said:

I used the CSS statement 'position:relative' to move the corners of the content window into the proper location.

AHHH, no wonder I couldn't figure it out. I was thinking html, not css. Didn't even look at the top of the source code, just that bottom area in question.

Congrats!
Mark

I appreciate all the small details you've added to this site.

Thanks! It does get boring looking at the same color scheme and pictures day after day, and I thought a little variety would make things more interesting. =)

Yeah, check out the SE list if you ever want some compliments on AQ! We all really dig this site. And I've noticed that a lot of folks are simply putting in the address for AQ in the box logbooks they plant.

I'm still interested in seeing a Hall of Fame for sig stamps and the long-awaited beer dispenser!
Cheers!
Mark

I'm still interested in seeing a Hall of Fame for sig stamps and the long-awaited beer dispenser!

You know, it's amazing how much time I spend trying to decide what to work on next. Should I work to improve existing features? Or work on adding new features? I really like it when I can kill two birds with one stone, sort of speak. Like while creating these message boards, I created the mailing system to help eliminate the dependance on e-mail along the way. A stepping stone to bigger and better things. =) I never set out to replace the e-mail system--it was just a useful offshoot of working on the message boards and gave me time to test the system thoroughly before incorporating it into the larger system.

Ho hum, ho hum.... What to do next? Just fixed that little bug where these messages were displaying the wrong date the post was generated. The bugs are there--if you look closely enough. All the *obvious* ones I've already fixed! =)

-- Ryan

Ryan, I think you've poured a lot of time and effort into what you have. Give it time for folks to really "use" it. My only gripe is that folks from Maine don't list all their boxes, so I can't really record the finds that I have.

I like the differentiation between hitchhikers, but I don't agree with you in that these aren't applied to your planted count. I suppose I'm just a purist, if I carve a stamp and put it out in the world - I have "planted" it. That is why I left some of my hitchhikers listed as mystery boxes - so that they still "count"....ooh! listen to me, all about the numbers..... ha ha ha

I was just talking up this book over the weekend with a friend of mine. This book was a fast read and I'd love to see it as a movie!

While boxing at the mystery gathering, Phyto planted two boxes. The towers right now is listed on atlas quest and is the only location for a clue! good luck

I also count my HH finds as F's. And that doesn't happen at Atlas Quest. But no big deal.
Because so many boxes (especially in the New England area) are not listed on AQ the counts will not be able to accurately reflect your PFX. It's just a ballpark figure.
I just keep trying to get folks to use it. It's hard to teach the old dogs new tricks, but hopefully the newer people will embrace Atlas Quest.

-Amanda

I had recommended Da Vinci Code on the main yahoo board when it first came out in hardback. I blew through it and really enjoyed the story. I totally saw it as a "letterboxing" book. Unfortunately, that was a very controversial recommendation. Several people took offense at the way the church was portrayed in DaVinci Code. I hope the Movie turns out well!
-Amanda

My only gripe is that folks from Maine don't list all their boxes, so I can't really record the finds that I have.

Yeah, but even letterboxing.org isn't a complete source of all the boxes out there. You can remind people that even if clues are word-of-mouth or otherwise have clues *not* for the general public, people can still list the existance of a letterbox without actually listing a clue. And that way others can still record finding it.

I've had SOOO many people asking they'd like to record found boxes that aren't listed in Atlas Quest, so I've started trying to think up a good way to do that. The biggest problem--from a programmatic standpoint, is what happens if somebody records a box that isn't listed on Atlas Quest, then the box later gets listed? How to reconcile the two?

The irony of all this is that my original vision of Atlas Quest was simply a place to record finds and plants--I never intended to create a search feature, but when that inspiration hit that one could search for boxes within a certain distance of a given point, I *loved* the idea and abandoned my original one. The original idea was mostly a tracking 'stats' kind of thing, while this one is more of a tracking actual boxes kind of thing. A very different kind of object model to work with, and very difficult to reconcile the two.

But I'm thinking to think of a simple way to combine the two. Or at least relatively simple. Sometimes I simplify concepts to make them work, and you'll see plenty of that on Atlas Quest.

For instance: A series, as AQ expects it, are boxes that the planter would expect people to find on a single outing. I know there are series such as the 45th parallel that are hidden all over the place. And originally I tried to make it work where a person could record a letterbox series--or a series of letterboxes. Such a subtle difference. But I was working myself into circles with that logic. What about a series of series? (One could have a "Latitudual Series" made up of series from each parallel.) When I came to the conclusion that people would always be thinking of new and twisted ways to hide boxes, I chucked the idea of trying to handle EVERY eventuality and required at a series be what the planter would expect a person to nab in a single hike or outing.

Then, of course, there's the simplification I made that gets the most complaints--about not allowing people to record boxes that the owner hasn't listed. Though, I'll admit, I justified that count partly on the basis that I thought some people wouldn't want their boxes even MENTIONED on a website. Based on the feedback, I'm thinking there might be a couple of people who feel that way, but I may have over estimated a possible backlash. Hmm.....

Another thought I had--which I hadn't really told anyone--was I didn't want Atlas Quest to become the definitive source of what makes up a PFX count. If you look at the Hall of Fame, I tell people not to take it seriously and just use it as fun. It makes it easier to tell people not to take the numbers too seriously because they are CLEARLY wrong in many cases! If I worked really hard on getting official counts, people might start taking those numbers more seriously. Numbers are fun, I think, but I want people to enjoy letterboxing for fun--not for the numbers, and it was a way to encourage having fun while not focusing too much on numbers.

But wow--there are soooo many people asking me to add the ability to record all of their finds, I've really got to figure out a solution for it. I don't even think it's about the numbers (not for most people, at least), but rather just a place they can point people and say, "Look! Here's a list of the boxes I've found!"

I'm babbling now, I know....

I like the differentiation between hitchhikers, but I don't agree with you in that these aren't applied to your planted count.

*chuckle* Hitchhikers are another one of those rare breeds that are devilishishly tricky to count properly, and I ended up choosing not to deal with it at all. Hitchhikers have the unique ability to be found by the very person who planted them, or to be found multiple times. The 'official rules of counting' on letterboxing.org say you cannot count a HH as a find if you planted it, and no letterbox--including hitchhikers--cannot be found more than once. From a programmatic standpoint, it's a heck of a lot easier just to count whenever the box is found--regardless of if the person had found it before or originally planted it.

Then, some people count their HH separate from Ps and Fs since they are so different than the normal letterboxes. I kind of like this idea, and am thinking about implementing it like that. Everything gets counted that way--even if it doesn't follow the 'official rules of counting'. I'd love to hear what other people think of how hitchhikers should be counted, though. Preference definitely goes towards what's easiest for me to implement, though! ;o)

I'm also concerned that if I start counting HH finds, people who pick them up at gatherings because they were sitting at a picnic table will say, "Yeah, but I found them on the table and should be counted!" Which is totally against how I think HHs should be found. Well, I don't mind so much if they copy the stamp into their logbooks, but I'd rather they not fill up the logbook in the hitchhikers which stamps from people who really didn't find the box, and I'd rather that HH not get counted as a find. I figured if I didn't count HHs, then people have no incentive to cheat on their HH found count. =)

Anyhow.... here's my proposal: Hitchhikers will be counted separately from normal letterboxes. All finds will be counted--even if found multiple times by the same person or if the creator of the box finds it. How would people feel about counting HHs using those rules?

On another note.... while implementing the ability to track exchanges, I learned from my mistakes. You can count an exchange whether they're listed on AQ or not! (Originally, I didn't envision it that way.) Rather than ask the user to try to reconcile exchanges with actual AQ accounts, I just use a simple test. Strip out all the spaces and compare it to trail names for AQ accounts, and if it's a match, it'll create a link automatically. If it doesn't match, there's no link. Elegantly simple and straight foward. =) Not a perfect system--especially if two people have the same trail name they like to use. Then sometimes people might type in an exchange that doesn't quite match up with the user's account. (For instance, some people might type 'Ryan' if they've exchanged with me, but my AQ account is actually named 'Green Tortuga'. AQ wouldn't be able to tell they refer to the same person.)

But then, it's just exchanges. If there are some missing links--it's not a big deal.

My original vision of exchanges would have also allowed one to track the date of the exchange and/or where the exchange took place, but then I started thinking--was that information really necessary? I might wonder if Phyto has met Team Green Dragon, but I probably won't care when or where such a meeting took place. Tracking extra data would be more work for me to implement and more work for people to enter exchanges!

All-in-all, I'm really happy with how the exchange system works. I had a ball entering mine! =)

To make a LONG story short, I've got some ideas about how to count hitchhikers. And I'm trying to think up some good ideas about counting finds for unlisted boxes, though I've been having more trouble on that count.

Happy trails! =)

-- Ryan

and I love letterboxing in New York even more!

That's right--leave California and forget about all the wonderful people out there. *sniffle*

-- Ryan

Honestly, I count hitchhikers as finds when I find them - and would not ever count my own as a find if I did run across it. I was merely talking about planting. In my case, a hitchhiker is no different from the effort that I put into a regular box except that it moves. I consider it a form of moving art project that reaches more people than a regular box. I'm all about mass consumption of art and such...this has very little to do with boxing when you get right down to it.

So my point is that I consider the hitchhikers that I've carved and released as part of my "P"'s but it doesn't matter! Everyone counts differently, and that's what makes it fun!

I also wish more people were creative with their hitchhikers and more of them were hand-carved. I'm really getting off the topic though - this is about atlast quest, and I'm babbling about hitchhiker carving and art.
Sorry!

I started this topic on another post, and I'll continue it over here. I think there is an overall lack of quality hitchhikers.

Hey Ryan Boxdn from the Big Easy. The site is looking good man. Just giving you credit where credit is definately due. Also saying hi to everyone else here and soon to come.

So my point is that I consider the hitchhikers that I've carved and released as part of my "P"'s but it doesn't matter! Everyone counts differently, and that's what makes it fun!

Yeah, that's part of fun, but it's not fun when you're trying to make a website that *everyone* likes. The art of compromise is great, though, because then I can make everyone upset and still be able to tell them I did something. ;o)

Just kidding, of course.

I'm really getting off the topic though - this is about atlast quest, and I'm babbling about hitchhiker carving and art.

You know.... there is a hitchhiker board here too. =)

Oh, BTW: Congrats on the gold trophy! Not too many people have reached that level (on AQ or otherwise) Of course, you are including some of those hitchhikers in that P count, so maybe I should wait a couple of more weeks before congratulating you. ;o)

-- Ryan