2024-05-07 32 34

Tue 7 May 2024 in 32,34: 32.0185824, 34.8002112 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Location

In an industrial park in Holon, in the parking lot. There's a gate guard; it's unknown if the point is before or after the guard. The parking lot may belong to a Mexican supermarket named Tres Pesos (on one side) or a furniture named A Million Chairs (on the other), or to something else entirely.

Participants

Yerushalmi (talk)

Plans

Should be easy enough. Train to Tel Aviv, bus to Holon. Walk to the point (if in front of the gate) or ask politely to be let in (if behind it). Then I'll check out the supermarket (because I like to try unusual foods) and the furniture store (we need a new couch).

Expedition

Train to Tel Aviv, bus to Holon. The first thing I noticed was that the furniture store had closed - well, not closed, but moved to another city.

I then walked to the point. It was in the middle of the road to the parking lot, right in front of the gate. As usual, first thing I did was screenshot, and second thing I did was take the panorama.

While I'm taking the panorama, the guard walks up to me.

"Hello," he says.

"Hello," I say, while continuing to turn, completing the panorama.

"Can I see ID?" he asks.

"Sure," I say, and hand it to him.

"What are you doing?"

I try to explain.

He calls in somebody else on his walkie-talkie for backup. Okay, this might be more serious than I thought.

I explain the idea of random points, tell him that I do this every day, tell him that yesterday - it was actually two days ago, of course, but I got a bit flustered and forgot - the point was in Beit Guvrin, I show him the Geohash Droid app.

He tells me that this is a secure/security installation and that I can't photograph. He points at the name of the company - Elbit - and says that I should know this already.

Now, I know that there *is* a very important company called Elbit, but I didn't know anything about what it does. Turns out it's a major defense contractor. Oops.

Well, I still have something of an American accent even living here for twenty years, so he must have understood why I didn't know what Elbit was. And I'm guessing he concluded I was a harmless weirdo. He asked me to delete the panorama and I complied; I asked if I needed to delete the Geohash Droid screenshot too and he was okay with me keeping that.

On my way out, he told me to take a look at the signs. I had come into the driveway from the right side of the street; had I come in from the left side, I'd have seen the giant sign that said "no photography". Embarrassed, I apologized profusely for being an idiot and headed off the way I came.

Halfway down the block I realized the Mexican supermarket was in the other direction and I *really* wanted to check that out because I'm a fan of unusual foods. But I'm not a moron, and decided not to turn around and cross right in front of the place I was just kicked out of. The supermarket will still be there some other day (unless it's like the furniture store).

On the way to the bus stop, however, I did go by a fascinating candy store with a lot of cool things I've never seen before, so that made up for missing the supermarket. I bought some stuff for the kids (though my choices were limited due to kashrut, celiac, and my refusal to buy anything made in China). From there, bus to train, train to home.

Photos

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  The furniture store is closed

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  Proof

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  An example of a candy flavor I've never seen before. It's not kosher, though

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  An truly enormous gummy worm