Thursday, April 21, 2011

Shouldn't have made that left turn at Albuquerque

Hello letterbox land!

So, the week is over, four day long weekend full of letterboxing planned.  Now, the weather is trying once again to thwart such activities, but I will not be swayed.  Even if I am soaked to the bone, so long as I can somehow figure out how to keep logbooks dry, I'm going.  Perhaps there should be rain safe icon on AtlasQuest...

This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to see the Bugs Bunny Symphony at the Sony Centre in Toronto (fantastic, flawless performance - loved the integration with the classic cartoons - if you have the opportunity to see it, GO!).  The performance along with it being Easter weekend has inspired me to carve a hitchhiking Bugs which I'll hopefully be able to plant this weekend in my travels, along with my other two ready-to-plant traditional boxes.

Since I don't really think there is any real spoiler in showing the hitchhiker image (which you'll probably never see in real life), here is the progress of the of the image and carve.  The top two left pics are the printed Bugs - I used both to create a Bugs that had his thumb out like a hitchhiker.  You then to the right of that see a part-way carve, then along the bottom, finishing and cleaning the waskawy wabbit up. 


Happy long weekend!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

To love and hate logbooks

Disclaimer: As I am currently under the influence of heavy medications due to some recent significant dental work that involved drilling into my jaw bone, please note that none of the following comments reflect the opinions of either myself or anyone in the letterboxing community, but rather are the official view of the voices in my head.

The weather is killing me.  Yesterday it rained, and today it is raining and snowing. It has no business snowing on April 17th!  I have had a great letterboxing trek planned that has been thwarted two weekends in a row by weather.  I also have two boxes that are ready for planting, also thwarted by the rain.  And to make matters worse, my work has decided to replace all its photocopiers to these shiny new ones that, you guessed it, do not lend to transfers.  The Hamilton library system, also brand new non-boxy photocopiers. I've been all over town - all shiny new copiers. Aren't we just coming out of a recession??? Either the recession was a lie, or there is some huge conspiracy involving the big three photocopy machine makers, the banks, and the Harper government. It's the only logical answer.

Anyways, logbooks.  I hate 'em.  I love to carve, and the logbook always ends up as the last-minute what-the-heck-am-I-gonna-use-oh-shoot.  And if I have some little books, they are never compatible with whatever size lock and lock I'm going to use.  I'm also not that big on making them, except for those for my microboxes.

But on the other hand, I love finding boxing with logbooks containing multiple entries. There's nothing like coming to a relatively older box that has many entries that you can sit and peruse at your leisure. That's why I never understood why people want to be first finders... You end up stamping into an essentially blank log book.  I love books that are filled with stamps and fingerprints and short messages with stories of how the last few people found the box.

Unfortunately, there aren't many older boxes in my area.  Well, in fact, in my immediate area, all the boxes are mine so the issue is moot.  But thanks to the hard work of some of the original Ontario letterboxers, there are some amazing boxes around that have fantastic logbooks with lots of entries if I'm willing to travel.  However, state-side boxing is a completely different story.  I guess just from the sheer number of letterboxers in the US, when you find even a new letterbox there are already many, many entries in the log.

Grumble, grumble.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Mal... bad... in the Latin

I've been a bad blogger... BAD! Many apologies.  I'm happy to say though that since last post, I've been carving up a storm and planting and planting and planting and planting (and planting and planting).

And finally, just now, I've added my newest box, Hic Sunt Dracones, which is my favourite box at this point and has been in the works almost since the beginning.  I had carved this difficult stamp months ago knowing where I wanted to put it and how I wanted the clue.  Finally, tonight I put the finishing touches on my hand-drawn map and after having planted the box on the weekend, the clue is now live.

Now I just have to sit on pins and needles until someone (hopefully) finds it.  And not for nothing, but let's just say that *I* would want to be the first finder on my new box.  Just sayin'...