I’ve just recently noticed that box status changes are showing up in the View Finds list of my newer boxes. I’ve never noticed it before and does not seem to be this way on my older boxes. Is this new? What is the purpose of this?

That is gorgeous!

What camera did you use?

We have had so much cloud cover here, can't see and stars or anything.

condo

Wait . . . . it says Volume 5? Did I miss a season???

Which one did you watch?

csk

It's been there for several months now, but relatively new in comparison to the age of AQ. =)


Sometimes, people want to know when the status of a box was changed or what it used to be set to. *shrug*

-- Ryan

I watched volume 5. My Netflix queue showed I had already watched season 4. I kind of assumed that had already been discussed eons ago. Did we not talk about that season?

I went back and looked closer at my Netflix queue, and it doesn't actually show me as having watched anything from volume 4. I clicked the "play" button on the series, though, and it just started me off with volume 5. It's like it doesn't want us to know about volume 4 or watch it!

Very weird.... I think we have another Unsolved Mystery to figure out!

So... should I watch volume 4 first? I still need to watch the first episode there, though.

-- Ryan

Hello friends! I was hoping to get some advice and opinions on how I can protect a series of queer themed letterboxes.

Some context:
Too Long, Didn’t Read summary at the bottom because I know I’m long winded. ;) It’s nearly 5am and my personal overthinking hours, hah!

I created a small series of stamps earlier this year for Pride that featured animals I personally associate with each letter of the acronym LGBTQIA. June was unfortunately too hot for me to get out and plant, so I’ve just held on to them.

I do live in a very conservative area of North Carolina, but there is a little pocket of LGBTQ+ community. There has been a small local pride event here the past two years in October, so I was hoping to plant the boxes this month. However, I am concerned about posting the listing publicly. I love it when people find my boxes but this series is really special to me and I would like to ensure the boxes safety as best I can.

I highly doubt any boxer would intentionally vandalize a letterbox, and would likely just ignore the series since it is clearly labeled “queer critters.” But living in the rural, conservative South has taught me that you can never be too cautious.

TLDR: I live in a conservative area and am concerned about the well-being of a series of LGBTQIA+ themed letterboxes if I plant and list them publicly.

So I’m wondering, what measures should I take to keep the boxes safe? Here are some of my ideas, but perhaps I am entirely overthinking this.

• List the boxes as Word of Mouth and have people contact me directly for clues
• Restrict the series entirely to a “whitelist” of sorts (I think I can do a restriction for the LGBTQ Group?)
• Plant the boxes in a more liberal area slightly farther away from home
• Keep the boxes with me as personal travelers or postals

In all of these traditional plant cases, I would likely have the series restricted to AQ members at the very least.

What do y’all think? Am I overanalyzing this, or do these measures seem necessary? I want these boxes to be an “I see you and we exist” sort of safe haven here in conservative Western North Carolina. I want to share the stamps and for the boxes to be found, I just want them to be found by the people they’re intended for.

Thank you kindly for reading and I’d greatly appreciate your thoughts!

- Jay

Where's the giggle button. Hehehehe

Hi, Jay.

Unfortunately, this group isn’t a private group. I don’t recall signing up for this group, yet posts from it appear in my feed. I’m telling you this because you should know that there may be people reading your post who would not be supportive of queer-themed letterboxes.

Personally, I’d list the boxes as WOM, but even then, they can go missing. If you’re really protective of them, I’d keep them as PTs.

Good luck,
Mary

I would personally put a plant and find restriction on them. For example to even have the clues show up you need to of found AND planted a certain number of boxes.

I would hope that even letterboxers that are not supportive of LGBTQ+ would be respectful enough of the hobby to say "these aren't for me" and ignore them.

By putting restrictions it prevents people who are logging on for their first couple times from seeing it. Especially once someone has planted a couple of their own boxes they may understand the work that goes into it and be far less likely to mess with them. Is that true for all? No, but you greatly reduce the worry.

Personally I am in NC and I can tell you all the letterboxers I know here would either love to find those or if they would not, they would opt out of finding that specific series. But the letterboxers I know in this state would not go out of their way to trash them.

Perhaps you could clue them in a way that members of the community would be more likely to find them? If muggles can't find the boxes, they can't harm them.

Thankfully, it’s extremely rare for people to deliberately trash boxes! As you say, most people just avoid boxes they’re not interested in. And those rare people who deliberately trash boxes could do it for any reason (maybe they hate Mickey Mouse) and live anywhere.

To me, it sounds like Jay is very protective of these particular boxes, so putting them out there in the wild might not be a good solution.

I know Jay puts a lot of work into carving - beautiful stamps btw (I hope everyone gets to see some one day) - and like all of us, hates to think of a series or even a box going missing due to the hateful actions of others. But there are already some boxes out there that do not appeal to all. Religious, alcohol, and naughty stamps come to mind. Personally, I've look for every kind of box even if I'm not a part of the target audience. I'd look for Queer Critters, too. NC is a bit out of the way for me but I'd at least like the option to search.


I don't have any suggestions on how to keep the boxes safe (beyond what you've already thought of) but I hope you don't mean that you want the boxes to be found ONLY by the people for whom they are intended. That's too sad.

Mary, Quite Contrary

Sad this is even a topic...

Add restrictions... that filters out some...
Make it a mystery box... that filters out even more because often, people look at mystery boxes as an after thought
Just list the county they are in - not specific addresses in the initial listing

All of these filter things so people will have to actively search for them :)
If you were planting in Maine - we'd all look for them.
Good luck!
Kathleen

I think Episode 1, Volume 4 is best, to keep things in chronological order.

csk

I suppose the way that would probably give you the most peace of mind would be WOM.

I’d hate that see a white list that restricts them to members of this board.

Not sure, but I think 🤔 unless you ignore a public group the posts will show up. And AQ has put me in groups just because I posted once. :::shrug:::

Okay... Still have to watch that one, then!

I am an older letterboxer and I use both these message boards and the Atlasquest Letterboxing Facebook page. I use Discord too and would join a Discord Letterboxing group if one got started up! That said, if use waned over time, and activity was low, I'd probably stop checking it...

Release in 1957 comes our second black and white film . . . Night of the Demon/Curse of the Demon.

The premise is as follows:

Dr. Julian Karswell is a cult leader who is under investigation for his claims of having supernatural powers. To flex, flaunt, or both, Julian uses his power to curb the lead investigator’s drive by sending a demon to kill him.

But the first investigator was just the beginning. There are others in paranormal world who also does not believe Julian, including an American by the name of John Holden. And John is willing to go the gambit to disprove Julian and his so-call powers.

So, Dr. Julian sets out to show him who’s who in the Demon world.

Will John, the skeptic, come to accept the truth?

Will the evidence presented to John win out???

Will that dark, dank, scary cloud ever stop following John????

Having said more than enough, on to my Kitty Claws:

One Kitty Claws for the cast. Everyone delivers, including this creepy version of Burl Ives. (It’s not really him, but still.)

One Kitty Claw because I actually enjoyed the movie. It’s 1957, not too deep, doesn’t veer off course, and I didn’t fall asleep. (Twice)

One Kitty Claw . . . well, I kinda go back and forth here. Some of the 1957 “special effects” work and some really, really don’t. But I think if I were pre-CGI and pre-technology/movie magic of 2024, of the special effects that didn’t work, might work in 1957. Might. So, we will give it an A for effort.

So, sitting on a comfortable 3 Kitty Claws, I do recommend this movie on a dark and rainy night, with a large cup of your favorite hot fair trade chocolate.

Okay, I can’t believe it but we are halfway done with our Halloween Movie-thon.

Next up from the jar is . . . Nope.

csk

I have never had a problem with these boards. Sure there's more modern platforms to run it on but it works.

I also don't have an issue with FB. I think most issues people have with Facebook can be offset by keeping up with security preferences. That being said, I don't post a lot - mostly just read.

Letterboxing also has a good presence on Instagram. There's Letterboxing sub on Reddit. Some of the people here it looks like. But not a dedicated "Atlasquest' sub.

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Letterboxing/

Happy Day to you, and especially to the rest of us made better by your example and participation!! Thanks for all you contribute. 😊😘👍🏼🎂🎁

Going to try and respond to most folks all in one post here! I appreciate everyone’s input.


Rocklun, thank you! I know the group is public (which is one reason I was considering having the group itself be a restriction—it’s easy and public to join but I figured you’d have to make a conscious choice to join in the first place), but honestly I had no idea where else this post would go. Once again, operating under the assumption that those who disagree would simply ignore the thread.


Munkeybee I totally agree! The P/F count restrictions I don’t use much but could be a good option. I really don’t think any established boxer would hurt them.

I am hoping to do a class of sorts to introduce a few more people in my community to letterboxing, and while I doubt anyone would intentionally damage boxes, I’m operating with an abundance of caution.


Certainly not! While they are made with an audience of LGBTQ and allies in mind, anyone would be more than welcome to find them as long as they don’t wish them harm.

And just some additional thoughts:

I do want these boxes planted in the wild if at all possible! I am protective of them in the sense that I don’t want them destroyed, but if they go missing, I’ll just end up recarving them eventually. I just don’t want to be in a situation where they keep being deliberately destroyed or something.

Like I said, I highly doubt that would even happen, and hopefully they’d simply be ignored by someone who disagrees with the contents. Maybe I’m just paranoid due to experiences in my personal life ; v ;

Yes! She truly does rock.

I received a very fun filled fall package from my pal. I loved that it was all themed and everything was so beautifully crafted. The scarf is amazingly soft and I LOVE the spoon that came with the mug and hot chocolate. Everything is so cute and matching even the packaging/presentation was so fancy. Thank you for the thoughtful box a great way to usher in the fall!

Agree 100% - totally rocks! Happy, happy day to you. 🎈🎉🎉

YEA!!!!!!!!!! Rocklun does rock. Such a warm welcoming heart and has a great sense of humor.

I met her when looking for one of her boxes and this 'crazy bird lady' with binoculars was watching us. Guess I wasn't being to sneaky. Turned out to be Rocklun....😂

Happy belated cake day! It was nice to finally meet you at L&B NC and see you again at the GLG. I agree that you do rock!

So, for Volume 4, Episode 1 comes the timeless mystery of Jack the Ripper.

His reign of terror begins in the East End of London on August 31st, 1888, and will continue until November 9th, 1888, leaving in his vicious wake at least five unfortunate victims.

So, two question are immediate.

Why does he stop killing since he was never caught?

And who was this bastard?

Well, the truth is . . . this isn’t a timeless mystery anymore. In fact, I am quite surprised that Netflix did an episode on him and moreover, I am surprised that they didn’t’ “mystery solved” this one.

Why???

Because we know who Jack the Ripper is/was.

We do????

Yes.

So, one of things we need to be in constant reminder is that not all evidence is public knowledge and not all intel is made public by the police.

And as they mention in V4,E1, police officers were stealing evidence from this case. And one piece of evidence that went “missing” was a shawl found near the body of Catherine Eddowes.

This shawl eventually makes it way to auction and was purchased by Russell Edwards in 2007. With this very important piece of evidence, he has it analyzed for DNA samples.

The samples come back to . . . . . .

Catherine Eddowes and her killer . . . . .

Aaron Kosminski

Aaron Kosminski????

Who the hell is that????

Aaron Kosminski was a barber from Poland who moved to England sometime in 1881 or 1882. He suffered from mental illness and was actually a prime suspect as Jack the Ripper.

However, there simply wasn’t enough evidence to pursue Aaron, as odd as that sounds for as many people they rounded up on very little to none evidence.

Now before we close the book on this solved mystery, I want to point out that Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly are considered Jack’s Canonical Five . There were other murders that were committed in 1888. In fact, 11 women were brutally murdered from April 1888 to February 1891. Most of these were women were prostitutes. Combined, all of these were call the Whitechapel Murders.

So, do I think he did more? Yes. I don’t know what the criteria that solidified these 5 versus the remaining 6 because by comparison to the murder of Mary Ann Nichols, his “first” to Mary Kelly, his “last”, his vicious attacks got more horrifying. Granted, in the solitary case of Mary Kelly, he had all the time and privacy in the world because Mary Kelly had her own room, as oppose to a dark alley that anyone could have stumbled into, at any point, and interrupted him.

Plus too, keeping the numbers of victims low keeps the pressure off the police. Can you imagine how the public would have reacted if they knew there were 11 actual victims, instead of 5. There is some underhandedness going on here, to be sure.

But also, to be fair, this is one of the first serial killing known to the general public. Serial killers weren’t necessarily a thing.

So, to recap Aaron Kosminski is Jack the Ripper.

And yes, I believe he had more victims.

But why wasn’t this shouted from all the rooftops of London????

I suppose it’s the same reason why we still have “no cure” for cancer. Imagine all the books that would never be purchased, or all the sensational tours that would never be taken, or all the glorified pubs and eateries using Jack as a draw if everyone knew the ending of the mystery.

Money. The money would go away.

Csk

Sources:
Liverpool scientist: How I solved the mystery of Jack the Ripper - Liverpool Echo
Jack the Ripper identified as Aaron Kosminski after DNA analysis on victim's shawl, claims author (msn.com)

You may want to list it as a 'members only box'.

You can even put a note on the clue sheet that 'if anyone knows any non-members that would like to find it, please pass it on to them'. It might limit the finds, but at least you have a little protection having more experienced boxers look for it then not.

I did a couple of 'LGBTQ' theme boxes and that was a concern of mine, I personally just decided to wing it and so far all is fine. (but I live in MA, a liberal state)

With that said, like most boxes, no guarantee once its set out in the wild, that it wont go missing at some point.


Well, maybe its me, but I wouldn't care what the theme was. If there is a stamp to be found and its not an 8 mile hike, i'm there....lol. For me, its all about the find.

Yes, Rocklun is one of the best! She is so welcoming and knowledgeable. And puts me to shame on the trails! She hikes like a champ. Happy AQ day