2009-10-31 50 -2

Location

Long Crichel, Blandford Forum

Participants

Sermoa - confirmed
Macronencer - confirmed
Mapaholic - confirmed

Plans

Halloween Special! We are going to get as close as possible to the hash point, but the main idea of this Saturday meetup is to celebrate the spooky season.

The hash point is in a field, but there is a road close by. A mere skull's throw South down the road is a nice spooky bend with trees by it. I have checked the weather forecast, and it's looking pretty dry at the moment. We plan to get there early-ish, to be all set up by 4pm: the trees on the bend should provide protection from what little wind is forecast, as it's supposed to be coming from the West. This makes them an ideal place to light pumpkin candles (obviously nowhere near anything flammable!). Should be fun! We will stay until dark so that we get lots of different photos. --macronencer 21:12, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

We will use the twitter hashtag #geohashingN50W2 to talk about the expedition.

Expedition

Sermoa's trip report

The fun thing is, we knew for sure we were going somewhere this saturday and we were anxiously awaiting the Dow Jones opening on friday to see where it would be! We bought pumpkins in advance; here is my preparation of my pumpkin ...

Tesco calls this a 'large' pumpkin. it's actually quite small, but big enough.
Here is my pattern ready to transfer on to the pumpkin
Pattern transferred, and lid cut off
Emptying the pumpkin, saving the seeds and flesh
Here it is, already lighting up nicey just with the sun shining through it!
Look at those lovely pumpkin seeds!
Cooking up a soup, and softening the seeds
FOOD PORN! My toasted pumpkin seeds :)
Here is everything we managed to produce from that one pumpkin!

Mapaholic and i took the train from Winchester to Eastleigh where we met Macronencer. A quick trip to Lidl for some drinks and chocolate, then we were on the road to Dorset, listening to Interview With The Vampire soundtrack for added halloween spookiness! ;)

On our way we passed the remains of a Norman church. It's now an English Heritage site, open to the public, so we stopped to have a look. It was like being on holiday and stopping just because we felt like it! :)

View of the church
Beautiful stonework
Informative sign about the site
A pony grazing nearby - definitely worth a photo too! :)

Our curiosity satisfied, we pressed on towards the geohash. It was in a field with an electric fence, so we didn't go in and we only got to within about 60 metres of the geohash, but in fact i think we had a lot more fun on the roadside where we gained the interest of a few passing cars and motorcycles.

I gave Macronencer some juggling tips. The two of us had a great time juggling whilst Mapaholic filmed us. Mike, if you keep practising, i think next time we meet you'll be ready to claim your circus achievement!

We took loads of photos! The pumpkins were a huge success: the candles stayed alight, and the darker it got after sunset, the prettier the pumpkins looked! I was so pleased. Macronencer's intricately carved hilbert curve pumpkin was simply stunning, and the "hat guy" geohasher was looking more and more spectacular as the light shined brightly through!

The drive home was spent listening to ambient and trance music, including some of Macronencer's own composition, and talking about the benefits of agile software development, pair programming, lean processes and kanban! :D

Macronencer's trip report

Not a lot to add really! I think it's fair to say that this was my most enjoyable CNR so far. We got within 61m but the point of being there was really the pumpkins! Sermoa gave me some great juggling tips, but I need to get larger juggling balls: mine are just toys and are too light. Regarding the pumpkins, I think they both looked great and I now have a taste for doing this - here's to next year!

If anyone wants to see the process of carving mine, I have pictures on my Facebook account, here.

Photos

This is the field, but it's no public access
Mapaholic and Macronencer locating the coordinates as close as we can get to them
The view down the road towards Long Crichel
A nice tree near the geohash
Macronencer makes a few last-minute repairs to the pumpkin
Hashscots getting comfortable
Cheesy grins at the geohash!
Spider! i like spiders!
Adding the bit.ly url to this pumpkin
See what we did there?
If you look very closely, i have added the date and graticule to this marker
Pumpkins really starting to glow as darkness falls
Candle in the pumpkin
Having a discussion about how to look natural in photographs
I bet you've never seen the "hat guy" looking so sinister!