Mary Hyde: Final Puzzle (oops)

[+Aquacache]

I was on vacation over the last week, camping outside of reliable Internet access, and just returned late last night. It was very disappointing to read my e-mails this morning to find out, after making sure that I received all 4 souvenirs before leaving on vacation, that I missed out on the final part of this because they only allowed you 4 days to submit the hidden word.

It's sad that you're apparently not allowed to take a vacation during the summer, at least not a whole week, when these promotions are going on. Otherwise, the work you put into the initial segments of the promotion will be for naught.

[+thebruce0]

Sorry to say, and it's unfortunate, but such is the nature of contests. If there is a limited entry period, whether it's a day, week, or month, or whatever, then anyone wanting to partiticipate has to be bound by the limitation. If I was away for a month-long contest and came back a day late, or even an hour late for a day-long content, past the deadline, I'd be SOL too.

At least once or twice it was made known that you had to log finds by a certain date to get the souvenir. AFAIK that was made known along with the promo material. Perhaps it could have be been made more clear and obvious, but that's another can of worms.

[+Aquacache]

Yes, the dates for logging your finds on caches to earn the souvenirs were known in advance, giving you up to 11 days to find and log them for each souvenir. I don't know if anyone was made aware of the hidden word that could be submitted prior to August 16th. You then had just 4 days to submit this word. And again, I don't know if anyone had advanced notice that they would only have 4 days to submit this code word. But then again, I don't spend much time on these forums, nor reading the blog comments. There were far too many other things to be done over the last month; such as, planning and preparing for a 10 day vacation (kayaked 4 of the 5 Great Lakes, along with some whitewater. Awesome trip!).

Nonetheless, I posed the question to Groundspeak directly and given my circumstances, they were very prompt and considerate enough to allow me submit the form. So all is good.

[+hzoi]

2 hours ago, Aquacache said:

Nonetheless, I posed the question to Groundspeak directly and given my circumstances, they were very prompt and considerate enough to allow me submit the form. So all is good.

Cool.  I don't even think the trackable codes get released until the 24th -- at least, I think that's what my confirmation email said -- so it's nice you were able to get yours in under the wire.

[+noncentric]

16 hours ago, Aquacache said:

It's sad that you're apparently not allowed to take a vacation during the summer, at least not a whole week, when these promotions are going on. Otherwise, the work you put into the initial segments of the promotion will be for naught.

A bit of a moot point now, but the efforts made during the promotion would not "be for naught" if you hadn't received the trackable code. You still got the souvenirs.  I'm not sure why cachers think that not getting every single aspect of a promotion means that their time was wasted. A cacher could get a handful of souvenirs, but misses a free trackable code, and that means their efforts to get the souvenirs didn't amount to anything?

[+NYPaddleCacher]

On 8/21/2017 at 10:03 AM, SeattleWayne said:

On 8/21/2017 at 6:25 AM, NYPaddleCacher said:

I discriminate against power trails.

Have you done any power trails in the Pacific Northwest? 

No, have you done any power trails outside of the Pacific Northwest?  

[+SeattleWayne]

3 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

No, have you done any power trails outside of the Pacific Northwest?  

No, I'm not too big into guard rail PTs. 

[+SeattleWayne]

21 hours ago, Aquacache said:

I was on vacation over the last week, camping outside of reliable Internet access, and just returned late last night. It was very disappointing to read my e-mails this morning to find out, after making sure that I received all 4 souvenirs before leaving on vacation, that I missed out on the final part of this because they only allowed you 4 days to submit the hidden word.

It's sad that you're apparently not allowed to take a vacation during the summer, at least not a whole week, when these promotions are going on. Otherwise, the work you put into the initial segments of the promotion will be for naught.

Who told you that you're not allowed to take vacation during the summer? Are you saying Groundspeak ought to be more consider of your scheduled vacation and run the promotions when you're home and able to complete the whole thing? If that's the case, GS has a lot of work ahead of them to make sure everyone is home and available to complete the summer promotions. 

[+noncentric]

8 hours ago, SeattleWayne said:

12 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

No, have you done any power trails outside of the Pacific Northwest?  

No, I'm not too big into guard rail PTs. 

Uhm, PT's outside of the PNW are not just guard rails.

[+Harry Dolphin]

14 minutes ago, noncentric said:

  8 hours ago, SeattleWayne said:

12 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

No, have you done any power trails outside of the Pacific Northwest?  

No, I'm not too big into guard rail PTs. 

 

14 minutes ago, noncentric said:

Uhm, PT's outside of the PNW are not just guard rails.

Working on a nice power trail in Delaware along the C&D Canal towpaths.  No guard rails.  Though I do get some humor from the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal being C&D.  I'm hiking he sections.

[+Chrysalides]

Part of the whole experience was a little confusing, but I did not encounter any major issues unlike others, got 6 souvenirs (including the bonus), as well as the trackable, so I guess I shouldn't complain. I tried to solve the final puzzle, apparently wrongly, and got a 8 letter nonsense word. I entered it anyway, and it appeared to be successful, saying I'll get my trackable code, but the email today said I didn't get the bounty, but here's the trackable anyway. An indication that I did not solve it correctly when I entered the code word would be nice, because I'm obsessive like that

I also noticed that the special icon is not displayed on all pages. In fact, it's only displayed when I view the trackable from my public profile page. If I looked at my "owned trackable" page, it shows a generic icon. Assuming that this is just a caching issue for now.

Edited August 23, 2017 by Chrysalides

[+Harry Dolphin]

Refresh, and the new icon should appear.

[+thebruce0]

Suggestion/request:

The icon is a round design, but with a solid white background (visible on a grey background stripe in the list).

Can the icon be made into a transparent GIF as some others so the image pops without the protruding white corners of the square?

[+SeattleWayne]

4 hours ago, noncentric said:

Uhm, PT's outside of the PNW are not just guard rails.

Hope not! 

[+Nastiusha]

Hey! May I ask here - what are we supposed to do with the emailed code?

[+*B'Elanna*]

11 hours ago, Harry Dolphin said:

Refresh, and the new icon should appear.

Thanks!

Been disappointed to see I got just a "cheap" generic Icon - but your advice worked out good,

Happy now and full of ideas what to do with the free code :-)

 

THanks again!

[+*B'Elanna*]

5 hours ago, Nastiusha said:

Hey! May I ask here - what are we supposed to do with the emailed code?

Activate it, attach it to a thing you like and set it out to travel.

I's like a Travel Bug Dog Tag, just without the metal plate.

[+Team Microdot]

I'd be interested to see:

1. How many people actually make this trackable code into an actual trackable item

2. Examples of trackable items that people have made

Personally I am lacking inspiration and there's a strong possibility mine won't get used

[+wälderer]

I have just found out I had the final souvenir on my account but didn't get any emails about this. Now I tried to go to the promotion page and it's not longer accepting submissions. I had missed out on the final part. Nice thing I haven't been warned about that 

 

[+*B'Elanna*]

6 minutes ago, wälderer said:

I have just found out I had the final souvenir on my account but didn't get any emails about this. Now I tried to go to the promotion page and it's not longer accepting submissions. I had missed out on the final part. Nice thing I haven't been warned about that 

 

Contact moun10bike, he seems to be involved in the process and may be able to help you.

[+*B'Elanna*]

1 hour ago, Team Microdot said:

I'd be interested to see:

1. How many people actually make this trackable code into an actual trackable item

2. Examples of trackable items that people have made

Personally I am lacking inspiration and there's a strong possibility mine won't get used

1. I already did.

2. I will print out round stickers, tape them into bottle caps and leave them in the visited caches for others to discover.

 

[+wälderer]

8 minutes ago, *B'Elanna* said:

Contact moun10bike, he seems to be involved in the process and may be able to help you.

Thanks, I'll send him a message.

[+Nastiusha]

1 hour ago, Team Microdot said:

I'd be interested to see:

1. How many people actually make this trackable code into an actual trackable item

2. Examples of trackable items that people have made

Personally I am lacking inspiration and there's a strong possibility mine won't get used

I already activated it.

Have 2 ideas how to use it - either make a sticker for a car or make my own custom coin... Probably the second

1 hour ago, *B'Elanna* said:

Activate it, attach it to a thing you like and set it out to travel.

I's like a Travel Bug Dog Tag, just without the metal plate.

Thank you

[+cerberus1]

18 minutes ago, *B'Elanna* said:

1. I already did.

2. I will print out round stickers, tape them into bottle caps and leave them in the visited caches for others to discover.

Curious, has this worked okay for you already?   What makes your bottle cap look like it would be a trackable, instead of something to be CITO'd away? 

When we do maintenance, carp left in caches goes in a bag for disposal.  We've done that for friends, they do it for us  too. 

We don't look at the trash left in caches. 

 

[+carcafan]

I have a question. I have 6 souvenirs of Mary Hyde but i haven't tracking code of the virtual TB. Maybe i don't receipt the geocaching emails. How i can win the Mary Hyde TB?

[+SeattleWayne]

41 minutes ago, carcafan said:

I have a question. I have 6 souvenirs of Mary Hyde but i haven't tracking code of the virtual TB. Maybe i don't receipt the geocaching emails. How i can win the Mary Hyde TB?

There was an email stating the TBs would be sent out around August 24th. 

[+*B'Elanna*]

3 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

Curious, has this worked okay for you already?   What makes your bottle cap look like it would be a trackable, instead of something to be CITO'd away? 

When we do maintenance, carp left in caches goes in a bag for disposal.  We've done that for friends, they do it for us  too. 

We don't look at the trash left in caches. 

 

I just hope it to be obvious enough not to be CITO'd. If it's not, I guess I'll have to live with it and continue producing new ones

https://coord.info/TB8NEZB

Another idea could be to make a trackable pocket-CITO from it - a folded bin liner, covered by a wrap with the tracking code on it and instructions how to use it.

or just print it out, laminate it and stick it to some metal disc (1-cent-coin?) - like micro-geocoins.

There are so many ideas in my head to use this code, I wish I had some more of them ;-)

[+SeattleWayne]

9 minutes ago, *B'Elanna* said:

I just hope it to be obvious enough not to be CITO'd. If it's not, I guess I'll have to live with it and continue producing new ones

https://coord.info/TB8NEZB

Another idea could be to make a trackable pocket-CITO from it - a folded bin liner, covered by a wrap with the tracking code on it and instructions how to use it.

or just print it out, laminate it and stick it to some metal disc (1-cent-coin?) - like micro-geocoins.

There are so many ideas in my head to use this code, I wish I had some more of them ;-)

So you have the TB code available to be discovered. Is that your intentions? I wanted to ask before I discover it. 

[+*B'Elanna*]

That is my intention :-)

It's even written on it: Discover me :-)

Enjoy!

[+*B'Elanna*]

1 hour ago, SeattleWayne said:

There was an email stating the TBs would be sent out around August 24th. 

Not the TBs. Groundspeak does NOT send out TBs.

The send out tracking codes. One for each, who has collected all six souvenirs and filled out the form until August 20th.

 

[+SeattleWayne]

4 minutes ago, *B'Elanna* said:

That is my intention :-)

It's even written on it: Discover me :-)

Enjoy!

Alright. Thank you.

[+miami mice]

Has everyone (except me) now received their trackable code?

[+pinkyysuee]

5 hours ago, miami mice said:

Has everyone (except me) now received their trackable code?

I have not either. I got all the souvenirs and did the word in the form and got the notification that I would receive the trackable code by today. But I still haven't gotten it. I just sent in a help ticket for it. Hopefully it'll get resolved.

[+Robert&Anita]

I had problems with my nick name: Robert&Anita. In first problem with free tractable and I contacted Help desk. I used also link from Moun10Bike. Thank you. After that I got tractable code two times, normal email and second one from Help desk. Of course, I used only one. 

This same problem exists with Magic the Gathering survey.  And one again help desk helped me with this.

After all, I would like ones again to thank to all people in support team. Great job Ladies and Gentlemen.

Generally, it is nice got free tractable but of course it is not so much important. But it is geocaching, best hobby on this planet.

 Happy caching,

Robert&Anita

[+The A-Team]

If there are any Lackeys reading this, can someone please explain the usage of the word "Alas" in so many places as part of the Mary Hyde promotion? In the context it's been used, it makes exactly zero sense. In the places it's been used (souvenir description, several emails, newsletter, blog, etc.), it seems to be used as some kind of celebratory exclamation (like "Hooray!"), but Merriam Webster defines it as:

Quote

used to express unhappiness, pity, or concern

...which is exactly the opposite of how it's being used. Is there some other fringe definition that most people aren't aware of, or has the wrong word been used? Was it supposed to be "avast" or "at last", perhaps?

I might have just ignored it as a one-off mistake, but it's been used so many times that there must be some logical explanation for using this particular word.

[Moun10Bike]

Alas, poor A-Team, you need to find a better way to spend your time than pointing out the shortcomings of some poor copy writer in the public forums. 

[+The A-Team]

8 minutes ago, Moun10Bike said:

Alas, poor A-Team, you need to find a better way to spend your time than pointing out the shortcomings of some poor copy writer in the public forums. 

If it's simply a mistake, which seems to be implied by your response, then so be it. I'll move on.

Alas, question answered!

[+dprovan]

8 minutes ago, Moun10Bike said:

Alas, poor A-Team, you need to find a better way to spend your time than pointing out the shortcomings of some poor copy writer in the public forums. 

I thought it was perfectly clear that the last thing A-Team meant to do is suggest that this was anyone's shortcoming other than his own.

[+jennergruhle]

Is there any way to re-request the e-mail with the tracking code? I got all the souvenirs, solved the puzzle, submitted the result form and got an e-mail saying that on the 24th of August I will receive my e-mail with the tracking code. I am not really sure if I really received it, but I was travelling a lot in the last weeks and did all my e-mail communication with my smartphone. I am not able to find the tracking code anymore, maybe I deleted that precious e-mail accidentally...

[+noncentric]

6 hours ago, jennergruhle said:

Is there any way to re-request the e-mail with the tracking code? I got all the souvenirs, solved the puzzle, submitted the result form and got an e-mail saying that on the 24th of August I will receive my e-mail with the tracking code. I am not really sure if I really received it, but I was travelling a lot in the last weeks and did all my e-mail communication with my smartphone. I am not able to find the tracking code anymore, maybe I deleted that precious e-mail accidentally...

Others have had a similar issue (see this thread).  Your issue will probably be resolved if you contact Groundspeak through the Help Center (bottom of the page).

[+jennergruhle]

Thanks for the suggestion - this indeed worked perfectly, I got the code e-mailed after some hours.