2014-01-17 39 -84

Location

On the grounds of the Guardian Angels School, back by the football fields.

Participants

Humbucker

Nofu

Plans

It was 10:20am. I was in a class at the University of Cincinnati School of Law, called The Financial Crisis: TARP Five Years Later. We had just cut for a 15 minute break. I got on the Geohasing wiki, to find the hash in the Cincinnati graticule inside the ring made by I-275. So close! I zoomed in. It looked like the hash was at a school, just off route 125. So accessible!

I pulled out my phone and sent Nofu a text, initiating the following conversation (minus the explanatory comments in brackets):

10:22 - Me: Geohashing. Cincinnati area

10:23 - Nofu: Oh dang. what time? i'm done at 5

10:24 - Me: That's when i'm done too. Meet at circ[ulation] desk [after my shift ends]?

10:26 - Nofu: Im [at my internship] at cincinnati pub[lic] schools. how about meet me here? right down the street, got a good parking lot.

10:29 - Me: K

12:30 - Me: Do you have a camera and gps?

12:30 - Nofu: Got a phone camera and gps, need to check my car for my reg[ular] camera

12:36 - Me: As long as we can take a pic of the gps we're good

12:55 - Nofu: hmm. might want to grab my camera since the lighting might be terrible.

5:01 - Nofu: Call me when you are here

Expedition

Nofu with GPS coordinates. See comments on left concerning doctoring of photo and muddling of coordinates and providing upon request. Here, they read 39.0872603, -84.3768082.

Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination

Humbucker with GPS coordinates. The photo was brightened to look like something other than outer space. Unfortunately, this muddled the coordinates. They read 39.0872993, -84.3768463. The original photo, with readable coordinates, can be provided upon request.

Just before my shift at the law library's circulation desk ended at 5, when I thought I would have time to write down things like the coordinates and do other preparatory things, the phone rang. Some random guy asked me if the library would have the Ohio Rules of Evidence, and then started asking me questions about how to present a particular evidence that he had for a case that he was representing himself in. Not being licensed to practice law yet, I can't give legal advice, and told him so. But this is evidence, not law, he said (I paraphrase, of course). That took several minutes to debunk, but only led to the question, Okay, so how do I get this piece of evidence into court? That would be legal advice, I said. But this is evidence, I'm not asking for legal advice.

This circle of conversation lasted for no less than 20 minutes. I proceeded quickly from facepalm stage to headdesk. By the time I was done, it was 5:05 and I was at eyeballfork.

I was late to meet up with Nofu. It had been snowing all day, and it was wicked cold out, so I went inside to wait for him in the empty lobby. After dealing with the guy on the phone at work, I was not in a good mood. A couple minutes later, a burly security guard saw me leaning on the wall, texting.

"How'd you get in here?" he said loudly, in a way that suggested I should not have.

"The door." I said, adding a shrug that hopefully made it less snarky. Like I said, not in a good mood.

"That's locked," he said. "I locked it myself."

No one but me, and now you, dear reader, knows how close I came to saying, "Looks like you suck at locking doors."

Instead, I shrugged again, and said nothing. He opened and closed the door, but did not try to open it from the outside. He loitered in the lobby with me, apparently trying to make me feel awkward so I would leave. I continued to act like I was texting, and said nothing. Right when he suggested that I call whoever it was that I was waiting for, Nofu came around the corner and we booked it. Luckily, he had the coordinates on his tablet and phone and GPS. I followed him to the hashpoint. The snow had stopped, but my dashboard thermometer said it was 19 degrees out, and it was getting colder, and windier.

What we left behind.

Night was falling when we parked in the main lot of the Guardian Angels School. We lamented about how cold it was, then Nofu gave me his car GPS and I led the way around a building towards the back of the school grounds. It was cold. Really cold. Back there, it was a football field and, more importantly, the hashpoint. It was also cold back there. While Nofu was pinpointing the coordinates, I walked up the nearby hill and drew "XKCD" in the newly fallen snow, mainly to keep from freezing. Several cars went by, their occupants undoubtedly thinking, "It's too cold out to smoke. Go inside." Nofu was having trouble with the GPS device - the coordinates kept skipping around, even when he was standing still - until we both said "Screw it, it's too cold out," picked a spot where the coordinates were pretty close, and snapped the photos. The camera didn't have a flash, but at that point, we didn't really care.

Finally, we got to run back to our cars as quickly as our frozen legs would take us, and blast the heat until we broke into a glorious sweat.