2009-07-28 49 -122

Location

Possibly a store front on Annacis Island in Delta

Participants

Plans

After work

Meet at 22nd Street skytrain at 5:25pm
Catch the 104 bus at bay 5, ~5:31pm (runs every 12 minutes) Map Timetable
Reach the hashpoint
Catch the bus back

Expedition

Rhonda

In addition to geohashing, I had to buy car insurance on this expedition as it expires today. Not my favourite activity at the best of times. Fortunately the insurance place is on the way to the seabus terminal, so I left home with plenty of time to spare to make the 16:30 seabus after my chores.

When I reached the street corner where I could see the insurance place, about a 10min walk from my house in the current heat wave, I realized that I had forgotten a critical piece of paperwork without which nobody would sell me car insurance. Not proof of ownership, not my ID - my car's AirCare report.

If I hurried, I might be able to get back home, back here, and on the 16:30 seabus, if the transaction was very fast. There was no way, however, that I was going to be running in this weather. It wasn't that much of an emergency.

Home, found the required paperwork, and back to the insurance place. Only to find that they didn't do car insurance anymore. Fortunately I had two other options within a few blocks, so I hurried to the one more on the way to the seabus terminal, which happened to be right on top of the seabus terminal. It was less than ten minutes to the 16:30 seabus departure when I walked up to the doors and saw 1) that the hours printed indicated that the company closed at 4PM, and 2) there were still people inside. I went in, despite the hours, and found out that they were still open for another ten minutes. I also found out that I needed a bright orange visitor's security badge in order to walk across the lobby to the customer service desk and the insurance sales desk, both visible from the security desk. I wondered what else they do here that requires a security pass system.

The service was refreshingly fast for a giant insurance company, and I went down the escalator and onto the seabus with more than three minutes to spare before departure.

On seabus and skytrain, I listened to an audiobook and stared out the window, and completely forgot to take pictures of transit, because I've already done that and why take the same picture every time I do a transit hash?

I arrived at 22nd St. skytrain station in good time; early enough in fact to see the previous 104 still at its stop. I opted to wait in the shade under a tree at the station instead of taking an earlier bus and waiting in a parking lot.

I sat down and sweated for ten minutes or so, and saw the 104 that we planned to take arrive. One minute before the bus' scheduled departure, xore still wasn't there so I phoned to find out he was just pulling in to the station and would be down in about 30 seconds. As he told me this, the bus closed its doors and left.

Xore

(The continuing adventures of Xore)

Xore watched the minutes tick by as work wrapped up to a close and took off for the bus loop, only to find his bus pulling out 30 seconds before he got there. Maybe 32. Drat! The next bus took a while showing up, which he waited out in the hot summer sun. Too hot. Hot enough not just to fry an egg on, but also hot enough to cast and forge a frying pan that you could then fry an egg on. And some bacon. Mmm, bacon.

Thinking of bacon, Xore rode the next bus down to the skytrain, which he got on and watched the minutes tick by on his watch. If his watch wasn't wrong (and it was -never- wrong) he would get there 1 minute before the bus' scheduled departure time. He might need to dash down some stairs and across a bus terminal, but he would make it. He returned a phone call from PhilB, who wanted to know approximately when he would be showing up at the point.

As the train pulled into the station, his watch read 2 minutes to go time, his phone rang. It was Rhonda, letting him know that the bus was there. "I'll be there in 30 seconds", Xore said. And so he was. Xore found Rhonda standing alone and forlorn at the bus stop, looking for all the world like her heart had pulled out of station. His watch read 1 minute until departure, but alas, it was not to be.

Rhonda & Xore

Rhonda and Xore got on the very next bus which took them on a meandering route about the island, which seemed primarily zoned for industrial. As Rhonda's GPS ticked down below 200m, Xore spotted a figure on a motorcycle dressed in black waiting on the roadside. He waved at PhilB and motioned for him to follow the bus. Getting off a stop or two later, Xore and Rhonda cut across several grassy patches that served to segment one parking lot from another, while PhilB followed them around the maze of lots on his bike.

Rhonda's GPS ticked down to zero, some 15m away from where google maps said it would be: out in the parking lot vs. right at the wall. Oh well, her GPS never agrees with other geohashers' GPSs anyway.

PhilB

I had possibly the easiest commute, living just a few minutes from the Surrey side of the Alex Fraser bridge. I hoped on my motorcycle and rode over to roughly where I figured the hash point was, as I had no GPS and only a Google Map.

A few games of phone-tag with xore, and I basically rode to where I figured I would see their bus. I had just taken off my helmet to rest, and lo-and-behold, there it went with xore and Rhonda in it. I just chased the bus down, and we all met at the checkpoint. Possibly the easiest geohash meet ever, which is good, since it was my first.

At the hash point

The hashpoint was largely deserted save for a few workers in buildings nearby that looked at our odd trio, wondering why we would choose to congregate at this particular point in space and time. We discussed the merits of shoelessness and recorded the GPS coordinates on the sidewalk for posterity and to notify the employees of KBC Tools that the internet had, in fact, been there.

If you are reading this, KBC Tools Employees, we salute you. The bushes outside your office were green and lush.

After that, lacking much else to do in the area, we took off in our respective directions. Huzzah!

Photos

We arrived
and marked the spot;
PhilB
Rhonda
and xore.


Tue 28 Jul 2009 in Delta: 49.1648351, -122.9660527 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox