Multitasking?

I get distracted.

I have a real knack for starting overly ambitious projects. And since I make the projects too complicated, I get bored with them and move on to something else, only to return to it at some indeterminate time in the future.

This blog is a prime example of that. I set out to write about all the things I SHOULD have written about, had I been blogging all along in my letterboxing life. I actually am still working on that but it takes time. And I stopped for a good reason. I needed a picture.

Why would that be a problem? Well, you need to know me for that to make sense. I was writing about an event and a certain picture needed to be part of it. So I set off to track down that picture on the computer. I did find it but then decided to go ahead and start looking through the other literally thousands sitting on my hard drive to see what others ones I might want to use in "still to come" blogs. But as I started looking, I thought it was silly to have them all named IMG_xxxx so wanted to rename them and categorize them into folders. So I started looking for software that would let me do mass renaming of files and that I liked using. Eventually I did but noticed that the program changed the dates on the files and made it impossible to see when it was really taken. So then I set out to find a program to undo the date/time changes. Then I started looking on the other computer and pulled in even more photos... Well by this point the entire project overwhelmed me and I stopped doing it, meaning I have not been posting historical blogs, meaning I have not been posting current blogs and won't until I finish the photo project, which will allow me to finish the historical blogging project, which will allow me to start blogging current things.

Or maybe my poor fish story. On my other blog I wrote about them and their tank issues. Well, the four surviving fish have been living in a temporary tank for approximately 9 months while waiting for me to rebuild the "real" tank after relocating it. It was 7 months before I even did step one, though now am at the point of getting some plants again so one of these days...

So what has currently replaced the photo and fish projects are a couple of projects that are letterboxing related. One is that I am undergoing a combined map/tag project. What that means is that I have used saved searches on AtlasQuest to tag every remaining box in the state plus "close neighboring states" (based on some saved radius searches that cross the state lines) as well as tag them based on who still needs to find them out of myself, Artemis and/or Chimega. Each of these boxes is also on my "watch list" which is when AtlasQuest sends emails when something changes on the boxes. To give you an idea of the scale of this, as of this moment (I just counted), I have used 4464 tags. Part two of that project is that I have a spreadsheet and GPS map with all the locations marked and clues decoded (where needed) to allow for quicker planning when it is actually time to organize a trip since it usually takes me a few days currently due to all the reading of clues and mapping stuff out. Right now, I have about 350 box listing to go of the original ~1300. This one involves daily updating too since new boxes are continually added or old ones go missing/get retired.

I also am starting to sort out boxes for a couple planned trips this year. These are always time consuming since when travelling, I don't even know the general location of the little towns scattered around the area so have to check everything. Right now they are still in the "master list" stage which simply involves making a list of all boxes in the area, sorting by town then plotting the towns on the map that are "under consideration" based on whatever arbitrary deciding factor I use to eliminate things. For instance, last year when driving from Boston, MA to Portland, ME I ignored all boxes in towns that were plotted west of I-95. Why?!? Because I had to pick something...

The last project that is not far enough along yet is that I am trying to go back through all logbooks and make a few master lists:

• Accounting for ALL stamp images, meaning if there are two in a box or a double sided, the "other" image needs to be noted in my master spreadsheet (if not previously)
  
• Scan and index all pages in logbook (originally I was thinking each stamp and may some day but decided page numbers work for now)
  
• Label on the master spreadsheet on which electronic copy each stamp in found. The reasoning for all of this is when someone changes a signature stamp or when I find a hitchhiker or cootie that has no logbook, the only way I know if I have already found it is to trust my memory or in the HH/cootie case throw it into the bag and deal with it later. If I have a quick list I can simply carry the PDA with both the spreadsheet and the images and cross reference as needed.
  
• Make my own "Real PFX" count since as everyone knows, the only totals that matter are your own and what you feel like counting. This will be my attempt to categorize boxes found into the manner they SHOULD have been listed. ie, I was at an event where people were encouraged to bring a themed stamp to use for exchanges yet depending on the person, some were listed as 'traditional', some as 'personal travellers', some as 'other' and some as 'event stamps'. This will also account for those times when a box has more than one stamp inside yet each is listed as a separate traditional box. I am going to use my best judgement but essentially if it had clues I had to follow/figure out, even if for a temporary plant at an event, it is a traditional. If it was on a table, it is an event stamp. If I had to interact with someone to obtain the image, it is a personal traveller. If it is a "old/alternate" something like an alternate signature stamp, an alias or a recarved PT then it is an other.
  

Anyway, all this was said to say that is why I have not posted much recently. I am not updating my AQ profile monthly like I did previously since I am waiting to finish the renumbering projects. I am also not publishing the monthly letterboxing counts posts here (though many are saved as draft, waiting for the day I get caught back up) for the same reason. But I am not working on these projects yet since I want to scan everything first and get the main spreadsheet up to date. However, I don't plan to get back to that until I finish the mapping projects...

See, too many ambitious projects, but I am slowly getting there. So one day (soon?) I will actually start posting stuff again.