2009-06-03 49 -123

Planning

2 blocks from Rupert skytrain station, in a parking lot. In a tree.

Participants

Xore can be there after work
Rhonda will show up about 5:30 too
Elbie should be there shortly after 17:00 as well
Elbie's cousin Stathi
Ray was also there

Expedition

Elbie and company

I had packed up my geohashing gear -- GPS, camera and chalk -- earlier that day, ready for when I got home from work and errands. I got home from doing groceries with just enough time to clean a box of strawberries and take it with me. I met up with Ray on the way to the UBC bus loop, and from there we took the 99 to Commercial, and then the SkyTrain to Rupert, happily consuming the strawberries en route.

From Rupert, we followed my GPS's advice and my recollection of the google maps imagery to the hashpoint, arriving around 17:00 and eventually pinpointing it underneath a tree. Waiting for people to arrive, we amused ourselves by climbing the tree.

Since I was in my cousin Stathi's neck of the woods, I had given him a phone call before setting out. I gave him the coordinates, and he joined us at the hashpoint around 17:15.

Rhonda

It was a gorgeous hot day and I wandered toward the seabus with sidewalk chalk, juggling balls, and my camera, ready for that rare thing: a Vancouver urban geohash.

Halfway along the skytrain portion of the route, I realized that not only had I not printed off the google maps, I had also forgotten my GPS. But, it was at an intersection I was familiar with, and the hash point was at the corner of a parking lot in the middle of a tree or bush, so I didn't worry too much.

As I crossed the intersection and walked into view of the parking lot, I spied Elbie and two other people walking toward the hash tree. Elbie saw me at the same time, and we waved at each other. Fortunately, my memory of the hash location agreed with Elbie's GPS, and we settled quickly into the real business of geohashing: attempting to juggle.

Xore

Xore, who enjoys writing in third person, spent the entire day anticipating this geohash. Not only was it in urban Vancouver, (a rarity in and of itself), but it was in a *TREE*. He could tell from the Google maps. The Internet never lies. How cool was that?

As soon as he could, he bolted from work with a trusty printout from the Googles showing where he needed to go. (He has not yet decided whether he's getting a standalone GPS device or an iPhone) Taking the bus and switching to skytrain, he arrived at Rupert statement shortly before 17:30. Unsure whether people had planned to meet up at the station or at the hashpoint, he waited for a brief minute and decided he'd rather be tree climbing than station waiting. Hoofing it several blocks to the hashpoint, he saw Stathi standing under a tree that was... moving.

Barely stopping to say hi, Xore climbed up into the tree.

Oh wow, get your branches ready. It's about to go up. Everybody in the place grab a branch. But stay on your toes, we're climbing this, let's go.

I'm in a tree. i'm in a tree

everybody look at me

cause i'm climbing in a tree

i'm in a tree. i'm in a tree

Take a good hard look

at this geohash tree

I'm in a tree geohashers, take a look at me

All swaying in the wind and a rustle in the breeze

Busting dead twigs getting poked here and there

Little itty bitty bugs getting up in my hair

Take a picture, hey, I'm in a tree branch sway

I could geohash a tree up on every day

I got my tshirt up and my work khakis

Get my juggling on with the hacki-sackis

I'm playin twister up here, got my right hand blue

With my geohashing peeps and the tree climb crew

But this ain't a joke, this is real as it gets

I'm in a tree geohashers, don't you ever forget

I'm in a tree, i'm in a tree

everybody look at me

cause i'm climbing in a tree

i'm in a tree i'm in a tree

Take a good hard look

at this geohash tree

Success

Everybody had a try with the juggling balls Rhonda had brought, and she then pulled out the juggling rings and tried those too. Unfortunately, the larger surface of the rings led them to behave somewhat like frisbees when the wind caught them, and they refused to make the nice arc required of juggling.

Then all of us decided to climb the tree, Elbie and Ray for the second time. There was one holdout, Stathi, claiming freshly ironed white shorts as an excuse; the rest of us all installed ourselves comfortably in the branches and discussed geohashing games and took photos. The GPS was sadly unable to get a signal from inside the branches, even when Ray climbed as high as he safely could with it. When Xore showed up, he immediately dropped his backpack and joined us in the tree.

After some negotiation, the juggling balls were passed up into the tree, and Xore demonstrated his mastery of tree juggling. After a few questions of who had a twister game (Robyn) and that it wasn't here, Rhonda remembered the alternate version of twister that she and Robyn had invented at a previous geohash, and explained the rules since this was a perfect tree for testing the rules to tree twister. With a bit of discussion we substituted four different chalk colours for the four different colours of flagging tape Robyn and Rhonda had originally envisioned, and all four geohashers went crazy marking spots of colour on various branches all around them.

The rule of "don't fall out of the tree" was suggested and passed very quickly, and the game began with the lone ground-bound geohasher calling out limbs and colours from his position where he couldn't see most of the chalk marks. There was little in the way of trying to unbalance the other players, and much in the way of trying to not fall out of the tree. As each player decided a given move wasn't safe for them to make, they declared themselves out of the game and climbed higher in the tree so as to not block the remaining participants.

After finishing the game of tree twister, we realized that it was 6:30PM and probably time to leave, so we all climbed down and gathered up our stuff to head our separate ways.