2009-06-03 49 -123

Wed 3 Jun 2009 in Vancouver: 49.2586105, -123.0275132 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Planning

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

Elbie

I plan to leave UBC around 16:00; according to Translink that should get me there in an hour and 20 mins (99 and then SkyTrain). I'm currently walking pretty slowly, so expect me to be a bit late.

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 there!

Expedition

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.

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 for the second time. There was one holdout, 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 Elbie's friend 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.