Kilroy was where?

So, I was updating the spreadsheet that I keep of the categories and the grid and noticed that half of my grid seemed to be off one space. I wandered up the grid on the Website, looking for the culprit, and there, in the middle of one of my previous bingos was Kilroy, poking his big nose over the grid and mocking me. So unfair!!! This bald punk had stolen my bingo!!! To make matters even worse, I was in D.C. recently and could have grabbed one of the two there that Rose Red and Marine Biologist have posted. (BTW - the photo Rose Red's, posted in the gallery of her Kilroy waymark.)

I'm sure that I'll find one of these at some point, and I have no problem with the category. Just the fact that it was inserted into the middle of the grid. I think the categories are assigned their grid spot according to when the group created the category. So if a category is created and then the group just sits on it awhile, or if it fails and they don't decide to try again until months later, the icon still gets placed according to when the original category description was written, no matter how many categories have been added to the grid since then.

While casual waymarkers may have no issue with that, those of us who keep track of the grid find it incredibly irritating. There has to be a way to fix this. Has anyone else lost a bingo this way? Lost this bingo?

Benchmarking?

I never have understood the draw of benchmarking. Other than people into surveying and cartography, I don't understand why so many people are enthralled with these little disks. The historic survey stones make more sense to me, but why the modern ones? I mean, who cares? Why would someone go visit this tiny circle of bronze/brass/whatever the hell it's made of.

Personally I breathed a sigh of relief back when the "European Benchmarks" category was created because I thought that maybe continental BM categories might stop the grid from ending up with a cat for every country - as bad as the State Historic Marker categories. But it didn't stop new specific BM categories from being formed. Recently there have been two new benchmarking categories created. In spite of the European BM category, new French and Czech BM categories have been created. Surely this is a sign that the voting process isn't working to do what it was put in place to do? Are there really that many BM fanatics out there that these new country specific BM categories can pass? I don't think so.



At the top of the post you see a photo of a benchmark. So would you visit that? What about the photo above? It was taken up above the area where the benchmark photo above was taken. Now that view of Deception Pass, Pass Island, and the San Juan Islands is waymarkable. The CCC built arch bridge that I stood on to take the photo is waymarkable. But the 5 benchmarks that are clustered on a rock below? Yeah, I waymarked them to get the icon, but I don't think I've waymarked a benchmark since, and I surely wouldn't visit one unless it had an interesting history and scenic location to make the visit worth its while.

Managing Visits

I remember when I first started waymarking everyone was bitching that they didn't get any visits logged on their waymarks. Now I have times when my mailbox is completely flooded with visits. I suppose a lot of this is because I used to cross-post in every category that a spot would fit in. Now, in a less compulsive phase of my waymarking career, I stick to crossposting in just my very favorite categories. However, my past has caught up with me and I have several popular tourist spots that are stacked a mile high with waymarks and I regularly get people who post a log to every single one of them. Do any of you have these spots?

For me it is typically the Seattle Center and its famous Space Needle that cause my inbox to overflow. I think I have nearly 50 waymarks in the Seattle Center complex and there are likely over 50 more that others have waymarked. Anyone who is a tourist in Seattle stops to either visit or at least gaze up at the Needle so over the summer especially I will look to see 10 or so "'Space Needle - Seattle, WA' has been Visited" subject headings waiting there to be read. My waymarks in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Washington's Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier National Park are other favorites with visitors, as well as my Chicago and more recently, my Washington, D.C. waymarks.

Now I'll admit something I'm not especially proud of. I don't read all of my visit E-mails. I mean, I try to read at least a few, but I don't have time for them all. I've posted almost 2,200 waymarks now and visit logs have almost gotten to the point of being a problem for me. What is going to happen when I reach 5,000? 10,000? So how do you guys manage the visits your waymarks receive? Is anyone else dealing with this? Has it caused you to slow your cross-posting habit? Just wondering.

Presearch

So, do any of you hate the research that one has to do when trying to locate a waymark for a new category? For me the best kind of waymark is the happy surprise. You know, you stop at a rest area to stretch your legs and there's a Pony Express marker. Something like that.

I don't just hate "presearching" for categories that I'm not fond of. Even searching out spots for some of the categories that I think are pretty fun, like the new Philatelic Locations category, grates on me. It's just not the same as happening upon a spot. I suppose that some of the problem is that I'm just lazy that way. However, I don't at all mind doing research on a spot once I've been there and taken a waymark. I love doing that research and even enjoy writing up the waymarks.

Luckily I have some great waymarking pals who at times will send me tips - Bruce let me know that the Einstein Memorial statue that I had recently waymarked could be posted in the new Extraterrestrial category. He even gave me a link to the page about Einstein Crater. Here's the waymark I posted for that one. 8Nuts MotherGoose were a lazy waymarker's dream! When we visited them on a road trip through the Midwest, they showed up with all kinds of possible spots for waymarks in categories that I didn't yet have: a Zinc Headstone, an Iowa SHM, a Grave of a Famous Person... They even found a great spot for our "Waymarking Sticker Seeker" photo. I'm sure there have been others who've helped me out also.

So, now I still have to look up a Safe Haven place, a Big Brother Big Sister location, an Angel of Hope statue, Buddhist and Hindu temples, where Seattle's ghost bikes are located... I'm not dissing the categories, it's just I really don't have much interest in them (other than the ghost bikes) and so its a bit of a pain to find them. And even if I do find one in Washington, it may be over in Eastern Washington or something, and I am not even hardcore enough to make a special trip to Seattle to grab a waymark, which is only about a 30 minute drive. Then I will have to add it to my list of "next time I happen to be in Spokane" list.

Above you see the Burger Chef location that I waymarked last weekend. I've known about the 5 or 6 Portland, Oregon locations for quite awhile, but just managed to find the time to look for them while down visiting my sister and brother-in-law.