User:Thomcat

58 / m / 47,-122

Thom is an umpire and a programmer, devoted husband and father of two, bicycling Seattle resident and beer drinker. He plays war games and role playing games, both face to face and through email. If he's not doing any of those things on a given weekend, you might find him travelling the United States or reading a book.

My GPS is the trusty Garmin iQue 3600 (with Palm OS 5.2.1!) and yes, that's a little hula Lilo on the dashboard of my 2001 Focus Wagon. My plan is to try to visit hashes between 3 and 5, and I nearly always have a game or two with me.

Geohashes

2008-05-23 47 -117 A farmer's field near Tyler in the Spokane graticule

2008-05-29 47 -122 A rural road near Cedar Mountain; a gravel truck was just dumping a new road surface while I was there.

2008-06-07 47 -122 Located in the back yard of a private property, but the accommodating owner agreed to allow a picnic.

2008-06-12 47 -122 Just blocks from Cosmo's Deli, where the kids and I had lunch. Got as close as I could without a machete!

2008-06-13 47 -122 A driveway in south Bellevue (or Factoria), just off I-90.

2008-06-15 47 -121 Just off I-90 at 436th street; was unfortunately on private (and inaccessible) property.

2008-06-19 47 -121 Second Snoqualmie attempt in a week, this one is just off Highway 2 near Gold Bar. Got much closer, but still not on the spot.

2008-06-20 47 -122 Mill Creek residential neighborhood, and a sunny day (somewhat unusual for Seattle).

2008-06-24 47 -121 Third Snoqualmie attempt is a charm.

2008-06-27 47 -122 Medina South Park (no, I didn't see Cartman).

2008-06-28 47 -122 Between Ballard and Fremont, a block south of the visible Hales Pub.

2008-06-30 47 -122 Private property, near a pool, in the Brier neighborhood of North Seattle.

2008-07-09_47_-122 A pleasant greenspace near Pine Lake.

overall stats: 13 attempted, 10 successful (or within tolerance), 3 graticules visited, 2 Saturday 4:00 meetups, 1 First Thursday meetup

Achievements

Here's my achievements; or perhaps you'd like to see the ribbons?

• Land Geohash pretty much by default.
• First Geohasher seems to have gained a definition of "first to arrive", which I did for my first Saturday meetup.
• I've brought my kids or friends to multiple hashes now, which qualifies me for Drag-along.
• Mother Nature stopped me with brambles on 2008-06-12 47 -122.
• Mother Nature couldn't beat me on 2008-06-24 47 -121 though - take that!
• My tux still fits, although the coat is a little tight.
• Bicycle_Geohash and Pub_Geohash were both gained on 2008-06-28 47 -122
• I didn't play Twister on 2008-06-07 47 -122, although I did take photos - publishing same to the achievement page.
• Ambassador on that same occasion - we asked for and obtained permission to reach the geohash in the back yard.
• Thanks to Tjtrumpet2323, I feel old as well.

I can't claim the XKCD-100, which specifies for a Saturday meetup only. I did travel 300 miles for a Friday hash point, though.

Two separate (and widely separated) graticles within a week is not an award.

Other kinds of "first" could be first expedition in Spokane and Snoqualmie, and the definitely the first to publish photos in both Spokane, Seattle and Snoqualmie.

Oooh, here's a good one - complete coverage. Attempt a hash in every graticule in a state or country.

Wiki

• merged the Active and Inactive graticules to become the page All_Graticules
• set Active or Inactive on all graticules linked from that page.
• removed state and province abbreviations on North American graticules (except Boston).
• helped set up and edit the United States category (and others) for North America
• cleaned up double redirects; pruned several unused redirects; general cleanup