2024-12-21 47 -122

Location

Ever so slightly inside an apartment complex in northwest Redmond

Participants

Plans

Darkid: Bike (a fairly short distance) and arrive at ~4

Thomcat: Drive, arrive similar time

Pwbriggs: In the area to cut a Christmas tree (by car), will stop on the way home (around 1). This will be my first attempted hash.

Expedition

A leak in my ceiling and a poorly timed temporary fix by the landlord indicate I may be a little late... --Thomcat (talk) 23:21, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Pwbriggs

Pwbriggs: Left home at about 11:30 with family. We arrived at a tree farm near the hash just after noon. As is the tradition in our family, we then began the tree debates, wherein we compare every tree in the field on a variety of characteristics (how cool the top looks, whether there's enough gap in the branches to build lego buildings on the branches, etc.) Naturally, it started dumping rain around then.

After around an hour of this most of the family had decided it was too wet and cold and dark (it was the winter solstice), and were pulling themselves out of the debate. The two main opinions that remained were (1) in favor of a certain tree that met most of our general criteria and (2) in favor of any tree except that one. At around 13:15, we decided we would just have to cut down a tree and get it over with. We then carried our new tree to the stand, which had run out of tree netting. For the next 15 minutes, a couple of us meticulously tied the tree to the roof while the others sat in the somewhat warmer and drier car.

A bit after 13:30, we finally headed to the geohash. The hash was located behind an apartment complex, so there was plenty of parking. None of us felt like being out in the rain any longer than necessary, so we drove around and found another parking lot in the back, right next to the hash. A couple of us wandered around trying to find the exact spot. We dug around in the car for some tape to hang up the poster, but couldn't find any. We ended up leaving the poster in the grass.

We only spotted one lady walking her dog around the apartment grounds, and nobody approached us despite having arrived on a rainy Saturday with a car full of people and a tree on our roof. Not having spotted any other hashers (I failed to check the meetup page and plan ahead), we cleared out quickly, as it had started raining again. On the way home, we stopped to pick up some warm drinks from a nearby coffee shop. We arrived home just before 14:30.

Thomcat

Leak above the latex paint makes for a nice ceiling bulge. Had to wait for a handyman to start dealing with the source of the problem (currently renting). Arrived just less than 10 minutes after 4, and parked just north of the spot. Masons parking - hopefully they wouldn't brick me in.

I walked down the sidewalk and up the slope, per plan. The ground was VERY wet. Spotted Darkid on the next pavement east and made appropriately soggy comments as we approached each other. I pointed out I thought the spot was (pretty much where it was) and Darkid picked up a very soggy printout. In the course of discussion I found out that it had been there since just after 1, and it was pretty much soaked through. Another few hours and the only thing left would be paper pulp (which is, I guess, good for reducing litter).

We left the spot shortly after. Welcome to Pwbriggs - I look forward to meeting you in person!

Haberdasher's friend Lia

This is essentially another Puppet Master achievement, except that the line between "geohasher's 'puppet' for the Puppet Master achievement" and "a geohasher who happened to be recruited by another geohasher" can get hazy. Lia's definitely shown more interest in the general concept/hobby of geohashing than Haberdasher's other friend/puppet Bob, at least. But unless and until Lia starts doing geohashes independently/interacting with the geohashing community directly, I think it counts.

At any rate. I, Haberdasher, mentioned in passing that I had heard the Seattle hashpoint was good for the day, and Lia expressed interest, so I tossed over the hash coordinates. Lia said that it "seems quite doable" if the weather cooperated, said that she didn't care about meeting other geohashers when I mentioned that possibility... and that was all I heard about it.

Until about seven hours later, a little after 6 PM Pacific time, when Lia hopped on the chat to share a picture of herself in the dark, holding a coffee cup, and showing that said image was taken at the hashpoint. (Or thereabouts. Well within GPS drift limit at any rate, though we did discuss the details of what "GPS drift limit" even entails at that point.)

Turns out Lia had gone for it, grabbing the pictured coffee after her bus for the last leg of her journey was cancelled and she had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. It was cold (and muddy at the hashpoint itself, if not along the whole journey), so the coffee was a good excuse to duck inside while she waited. She still made it to the hashpoint despite the delay, got the pictures, and then hopped on a series of busses back home, after figuring out which bus stop would make the most sense to avoid even more waiting and delays on the home stretch.

Braving the dark, the cold, and the mud, taking several busses and persevering through transit delays to make it to the hashpoint... yeah, I could see Lia joining this community in her own right. She's certainly got the spirit of a geohasher.