As most of you very quickly figured out, the whole AmeriQuest theme was this year's April Fool's Day joke. I just took some of the more ridiculous (but sadly, real life) news and applied it to AQ from people's obsession with pronouns to the "savings" that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has been posting (including double-counting items and wildly inflating the real amount of money saved) and renaming things that nobody asked for or wanted just to sound more American.

But this was clearly just a spoof. AQ does not get government grants to run, but given the recent chaos in the grant process, it seemed like a good hook to blame all these changes on.

If you really liked the theme, it is still available through your Theme Preferences, and the About page where the changes were announced is still available to enjoy. =)

Wassa suggested renaming the Billboard widget to the "Signal Secure Messaging" app, which I did halfway through the day, but as far as I can tell, nobody ever noticed that and I suspect he's deeply disappointed in you all. Feel free to apologize him and perhaps consider reinstating his $2.13/year salary. That idea alone was worth at least $2.13. ;o)

-- Ryan

Sooooo Happyyyy to see
“ATLAS”Quest and Marjorie back !!!

You are so witty- thoroughly enjoyed this one!

wow, I didn't Webfoot still had it available!

This whole thread of conversation is cracking me up!

~ Basset Parent

From one satirist to another, you nailed it!

Good one GT, funny and timely! The banter surrounding it also added to the fun. I even learned a lesson: Being blonde is not for me and I will just be satisfied with my silver hair. After all, I earned every one of them.

It was certainly an “interesting” look for you, Silver Eagle! 🤣

I'm not close to BBNP, but I planted a box on highway 118 which runs between the west entrance to the park and the town of Alpine, TX. AQ #362230, named, appropriately, Big Bend National Park. Just a plug for my lonesome box. :)

If you want a meet up, I'm in Santa Fe, if you are heading up I-25 on your way to CO.

Ya I'm a day late, but my trailname change is too obvious - Old Red White & Blue.

I’ll definitely keep that in mind, thank you!

Whew, I'm glad I didn't go through with changing my trail name to Trekkie Person!

TG

The current way my search results sort is alphabetically by name of the letterbox. Is there a way to sort alphabetically using the location (that way if the addresses all match up, they get lumped together)?

This is assuming you don't search using the "nearby" way, because I think that will usually lump locations based on distance and thereby lists things "together".

In my humble opinion it was the best April fools prank yet.

if you sort by distance and have the box addresses (real or custom), the 'same address' will be together. Be aware that subtle differences in how the addresses are noted may cause the boxes at the same address, but with different address formats, to not be together.

Very much not together. I always scroll through the ::::entire:::: search result.

It was really funny, but I don’t think anything can top the year GT showed us how to melt down and reuse our scraps of pink stuff…

A very belated Cake Day wish to you both..sorry I missed it! Can’t wait to hear about this year’s adventure!

Belated Happy AQ day to you both! Eat more cake : )

Shelly

I went ahead and added such an option, which you can find as the last search option on the Advanced Search page. Actually, you can find it as the last TWO sort options on the Advanced Search page, depending on precisely how you want your locations to "lump together." The "location name" will sort based on the alphabetical listing of "location name + address + city + county + state + country" while the "location area" will sort it in the opposite direction of "country + state + city + address + location name". It makes a difference!

Just as an FYI, however, I don't think you'll find it as useful as you think it would be. Locations that are listed identically already did get grouped together when you searched by distance because they were all listed as being at the same point. If they weren't lumped together, it's because they weren't listed identically in the first place and therefore sorting by name won't lump them together either.

For instance, one person might list their box as being in "Lincoln Park" while a second person might list it as "8011 Fauntleroy Way SW"--both are correct and lead to the same place, but they're listed differently in the database and they'll be sorted differently based on the name of the location.

There can even be two locations that look like they are listed identically but really aren't. For instance, sometimes people somehow list the same city twice--once with the county specified and once with a "mystery" county (i.e. no name). AQ thinks these are two totally different places, and they'll be sorted as if they are in two different counties.

There are even times when one city ends up with multiple spellings (e.g. Saint Louis vs St. Louis), and they'll wind up sorted separately.

And it's entirely possible for larger cities that someone used the "area" of the city rather than the name of the actual city it's in. For instance, Alki is a part of Seattle, so it's entirely accurate for someone to list a box in Alki as the city being "Alki" or "Seattle". But they're going to sort into two different groups, even though the are in the same area.

But if you somehow find these sort options useful despite their limitations, you're welcome to use them. =)

The precise formula for comparing locations is literally to smoosh the location name, address, city, county, state and country together as one long string and sort that string alphabetically. The states and countries are sorted based on their full names as listed in the database (e.g. "United States" instead of "US" or "Arizona" rather than "AZ".) And if a piece of the location is missing, it's not used at all in the comparison string. (E.g. If the address for Lincoln Park were missing and no county name for Seattle was listed, the comparison string would look like "Lincoln ParkSeattleWashingtonUnited States" for a "location name" sort and "United StatesWashingtonSeattleLincoln Park" for a "location area" sort.)

Anyhow, it's what you wanted, but it definitely has limitations you need to be aware of as well.

-- Ryan

Wow! Thank you for adding that! And I appreciate the description of the limitations as well!

I put a box in downtown Cheyenne, WY but it doesn't show up on the default search. The system has my box as 15.4 miles from the city center but it is actually pretty close to downtown.
I just want letterboxers to find my box and think they won't see it when they search Cheyenne.

oooo! when was that one? I don't remember it, but it does sound interesting. I really did enjoy this one however ;-)

That one fooled me! I was so disappointed when it turned out to be a prank!

That was 2013, and you can find it online at Baking Your Own Carving Blocks.

It's the only April Fools joke that I felt there's a good chance I could have fallen for if I wasn't the one making it! =)

-- Ryan

For some reason, someone added the location of Cheyenne as being near Iron Mountain--so your box distance was being measured from there. It was messing up the searches for all boxes in Cheyenne.

I've moved the center of Cheyenne to the correct location so the search results should be a lot better now!

-- Ryan

Yes this is one on my list!

Thank you!

Am I the only person scratching their head over the 10% tariffs imposed on the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands? Has anyone told the resident penguins and seals about this, and if so, what was their response?

If someone understands how putting tariffs on uninhabited islands 1) is a "National Emergency" or 2) restores the "Golden Age of America," please let me know! 😵