User:Ekorren

36 / m / 48,9

Introduction

Warning: May contain nuts.

Ekorren - that's the european brown squirrel, scientifically sciurus vulgaris. Jumps around, collects various stuff, hides things and never finds all of it again.

I found the link to geohashing on some geocaching forum. Ok, I thought, so there's something even more crazy, so let's try it ;) Then I read all of the past XKCD comics and suddenly felt at home. Given that my list of regularily read webcomics is all but short there's really no excuse that I didn't find XKCD earlier.

For a spontanous expedition bicycle will be the only reasonable mode of transport for me, so I'm somehow restricted to the nearer surroundings of my home coordinates which are roughly N 48°31' E 9°3', as well as weather-restricted. Though, the first geohash I visited was far away from home...

Statistics

	reached	not reached	Plan B*
Hashpoints visited on right day	30	5
- saturday 4 pm / centurion	6
Graticules	6	1
- virgin graticules	3
Countries	3	1
- virgin countries	1
Expeditions by type of transport:
- foot	1
- bike	19	3	1
- public transport	8	2
- public transport + bike	2
Reasons for failure:
- No access		4	1
- Transportation failure			1
- 24px Mother nature		1

• Plan B: Expedition would usually have failed in this category, but a second approach put it into another one (whether that succeeded or not)

Past Expeditions

	Date	Grat.	Transport		Comments
1	2008-10-28	49 6			On a meadow near Fentange, south of Luxembourg. Virgin graticule and virgin country.
2	2008-11-15	48 9			Near Kusterdingen, on a field. Saturday 4 pm, but didn't meet anyone as nick_mz was late and I didn't expect anyone to come.
3	2008-11-18	48 9			Reutlingen, on a cycle path between Ohmenhausen and the city centre. Déjà vu geohash and probably the only expedition worldwide on that date.
4	2008-11-19	48 9			Wannweil, at Gärtnerei Hespeler.
5	2008-11-22	48 9			Tübingen, Rammert forest, near Hofgut Eck. A XKCD'ish snowman (no eyes!) was built and I met nick_mz.
	2008-11-26	48 8			Pforzheim, in front of the slaughterhouse. Met Danatar.
	2008-11-29	48 9		30px	Sonnenbühl-Genkingen, Öschenbachtal. Ice and slope is a bad combination.
	2008-12-12	48 9		30px	St. Johann-Würtingen, with a lot of snow getting in my way.
	2008-12-15	48 9			Hattenhofen, failed due to fenced area, and there was noone I could ask to be let in.
10	2008-12-17	48 9			Reutlingen, and once more too much ice and snow
	2008-12-27	48 9			Dettenhausen, in the Schönbuch forest
	2009-01-02	49 10			Satteldorf-Gröningen, in a strange tree plantation
	2009-01-03	48 8			Rottenburg am Neckar
	2009-01-04	48 8			Rottenburg-Ergenzingen
15	2009-01-07	48 9			Pliezhausen-Rübgarten, in the Schönbuch forest
	2009-01-10	48 8			Muggensturm
	2009-01-12	48 8			Lauterbourg (France), a long walk with Ilpadre
	2009-01-26	48 9			Metzingen, another forest
	2009-01-28	48 8			Rottenburg-Bieringen
20a	2009-02-13	48 8			Horb-Hohenberg, approach by bike failed because of torn tyre
20b					second approach by train and bus succeeded
	2009-02-22	51 10			Otterstedt, near a minor road between some unexpected water. Met Danatar, Dawidi, Hans, Thomcat and Tomcat.
	2009-03-01	48 8			Hechingen-Weilheim, not an easy approach
	2009-03-08	48 8		30px	Schönbuch near Ammerbuch-Breitenholz, game reserve area and the wrong kind of snow.
	2009-03-14	48 9			Tübingen-Pfrondorf, walked all the way and back
25	2009-03-19	48 9			Sonnenbühl-Erpfingen, got stuck in snow again and had problems to get back.
	2009-03-22	48 8			Deckenpfronn, in a forest. No snow!
	2009-03-24	48 9			Dettenhausen
	2009-03-26	48 9			Mössingen-Bästenhardt
	2009-03-29	48 9			Donzdorf, failed due to fenced area
30	2009-04-04	48 8			Hechingen-Stetten, near Castle Hohenzollern
	2009-04-13	49 9			Obersontheim-Herlebach, a "quick" morning detour...
	2009-04-16	48 9			Reutlingen-Degerschlacht, a boring backyard
	2009-04-21	47 9			Mörschwil near Sankt Gallen, a great trip but the meadow was fenced.
	2009-04-25	48 8		30px	In the Black Forest far above Baiersbronn. Met Koepfel.
35	2009-04-27	48 9			Tübingen-Lustnau, in the forest. Double expedition: Met Nick_mz on first approach, second expedition for tron achievement.

How I use the symbols in this table

Achievements

Miscellaneous achievements

Ekorren earned the Public transport geohash achievement by reaching the (49, 6) geohash on 2008-10-28 via rail and bus.

Ekorren earned the Land geohash achievement by reaching the (49, 6) geohash on 2008-10-28.

Ekorren earned the Hash collision honorable mention by discovering the geocache GC11ZMH ca. 600 m from the (49, 6) geohash on 2008-10-28.

Ekorren earned the Bicycle geohash achievement by cycling to the (48, 9) geohash on 2008-11-15.

Ekorren knows he earned the Déjà Vu Geohash Achievement by reaching the (48, 9) geohash on 2008-11-18, and previously on several occasions, but the proof is a bit weak.

Ekorren earned the Last Man standing achievement by being the the only hasher world-wide to go on a geohashing expedition on 2008-11-18.

Ekorren earned the Consecutive geohash achievement by reaching 2 consecutive hash points starting on 2008-11-18.

Ekorren and Nick_mz earned the Snowman Geohash Achievement by building a snowman at the (48, 9) geohash on 2008-11-22.

Ekorren almost earned the Meet-up achievement by meeting Nick_mz, but without photographic proof, at the (48, 9) geohash on 2008-11-22.

Ekorren earned the Meet-up achievement by meeting Danatar at the (48, 8) geohash on 2008-11-26.

Ekorren earned the Frozen Geohash Achievement by reaching the (48, 9) geohash on 2008-12-12 while the temperature was around -3. This was the third sub zero hash where he couldn't bring an accurate thermometre, but this time it didn't get above zero the whole day anywhere in the area...

Ekorren earned the No Batteries Geohash Achievement by reaching the (48, 8) geohash on 2009-01-03.

Ekorren earned the Consecutive geohash achievement by reaching 3 consecutive hash points starting on 2009-01-02.

Ekorren earned the Border geohash achievement by crossing the Germany-France border on 2009-01-12 to reach the (48, 8) geohash.

Ekorren earned the Walk geohash Achievement by reaching the (48, 9) geohash on 2009-03-14 on foot, travelling a distance of 16 km.

Koepfel and Ekorren earned the Drag-along achievement by dragging some stranger in the forest to the (48, 8) geohash on 2009-04-25.

 Tron achievement on 2009-04-27_48_9 - waiting for final ribbon.

Ekorren earned the xkcd Nullaturion achievement by attending 6 Saturday meetups.

About the MNIMB: During winter neither snow nor ice or a terrain that provides generally no easy trails could hold me from doing expeditions by bike. The one in the ribbon is just one of several snow-obstacled frozen mountain hashes. After careful examination I came to the conclusion that some of them definitely beat a number of the existing MNIMB hashes but are themselves still beaten by quite a number of others which leave me humble and in awe. I take the ribbon not for a single one but as kind of a lifetime achievement.

Regional achievements

Ekorren earned the Regional geohashing achievement by reaching a hash point in all 2 graticules belonging to Landkreis Tübingen.

Ekorren earned the Reverse regional achievement by reaching hash points in all 2 regions of the Pforzheim, Germany (48, 8) graticule.

Ekorren achieved level 3 of the Minesweeper Geohash achievement by visiting coordinates in Stuttgart, Germany and 3 of the surrounding graticules.

Hashcards

Template:Hashcard achievement ... and some more later, to be listed.

Consolation prizes

Ekorren earned the No trespassing consolation prize by almost reaching the (48, 9) geohash on 2008-12-15.

Never give up on the first real problem. Otherwise I'd have a train wreck and trail of blood ribbon as well.

Tools

I run another of those online hashing tools, built to contain everything important on a glance and work on virtually every device not entirely uncapable of browsing. See here.

GPS for sale

2009-02-07: I just ordered myself a replacement for the old first generation Garmin Etrex (yellow) which I had in use on my expeditions so far. It's neither a new or a very good one, nor does it look like new (after all, it is an outdoor model), but it was sufficient to decide for a spot, track a way (with a few precautions), and also find most of the caches I searched with it yet.

Postage is affordable to everywhere. About the price, that still needs some research. To be honest, these things are sold on ebay for more than they are IMHO worth, and I need the money, so the price I would get there is kind of a guideline - minus the fees, of course. On the other hand, unlike the average ebay seller, I'm willing to share experiences and advice how to get the most out of it, and possibly throw in a piece of rebuilt electronic scrap that happens to work as a serial data cable if you don't feel like building that yourself. These cables cost a fortune alone if you buy them from Garmin.

Please contact me by mail if interested. --Ekorren 23:18, 7 February 2009 (UTC)