My Apologies

This post is going to be pretty boring for those of you who are not involved in Dish Rag Tag and is Required Reading for those of you who are! I will have to show you the prizes later, our Daily Thunderstorm is here and that makes for poor picture taking

Care and Feeding of Dish Rag Tag Boxes

The boxes need to last throughout the whole race! It is important to treat them with respect. In particular: Do not tear the tape off! This will tear the box, rendering it sad and crushable. Please take the time (I know the walk from the mail box is a long way but patience is a virtue) to cut the tape with a sharp implement and open the box along its seams. If you feel like the box needs reinforcement after a rough leg of the race, add another layer of packing tape. If the top of the box is looking ratty, turn the box over, reversing the top and bottom.

How To Tag A Team Member

Let’s imagine that you just received your team’s box in the mail.

The first thing you will do is log in to the Dish Rag Tag application. The home screen will say “You’ve been tagged by so-and-so!” and give you an opportunity to report when you received the box. You should select the day (day before yesterday, yesterday, today) that the box arrived and click the button that says “I have the box!” to accept the tag.

Please note: As soon as you have been tagged by a team mate, the “You’ve been tagged” message will show up on your Home screen. Don’t say that you have the box until you really do! You can navigate away from that screen to use the rest of the site normally, just click “HOME” in the navigation bar at the top to return.

When you are ready to mail the box to the next person, log in and you will notice that the home page has changed. There is now a link that says, “Tag a Team Member.” When you click it, you will be taken to a list of untagged team members, just select who you want to tag, and click the name. You will see a link that says: “Print Mailing Label.” When you click it, a mailing label complete with your return address information will appear! Print it, trim it, attach it to the box and off to the post office you go! When a team runs out of untagged team members, I will show up on the list so that the box can return to me.

Please note: You can only tag ONE person from your team so BE CAREFUL in your selection. Your team mates may have developed a strategy for the order in which the boxes should be mailed. Keep up with your team in the forums so that you don’t accidentally mail it to someone who is out of town!

On your next log in, you will have an opportunity to select the day you actually mailed the box and enter the tracking number if you have one.

You do not have to memorize all of this! In your Team Box, there will be a card that tells you “What To Do Next” with step-by-step instructions!

When in doubt: CLICK HOME in the navigation bar.

Tracking

There are also widgets for tracking team status that you can put on your blogs! The code for each team’s status bar is on the team page (just cut and paste to add it to your blog) and if you want to go all out and track all 23 teams, the uber tracker is located in the “widgets” section of the Dish Rag Tag application.

Cheating

I trust that no one will cheat. I trust you to make your dishrags to the specified 9″(ish) regulation size. I trust that you will make the person you are tagging a USABLE dish rag with a decent stitch count. If anyone makes a 9″ dish rag on US 13 needles so that it is unusable as a dish rag, you will be Disqualified (and by extension, your team will no longer qualify for the top three prizes although Individual Merit Awards may still be won). I trust that you will not start work on your dish rag until you receive the box and that you will use the cotton in the box to make it. I trust that if your team has received specific mailing instructions from me (for instance, the box may not be mailed to someone in the same state), that you will abide by those rules. Your team is depending on your honesty to achieve the coveted Dish Rag Tag Glory.

In the event of a tie (two boxes arrive in my mailbox on the same day), the one that went into the mailbox first (or the one that the mail carrier hands to me first) will be the winner.

The waiting is nearly over! The race begins tomorrow!