WayCool Waymarking

Need Your Help!

2008-10-14T07:45:00.000-07:00

Hi guys. I don't typically get my blogs mixed together - waymarking is for waymarking and the dog blog is, well, for the dogs. But I could use a little help.

Many of you out there know that I am really active in dog rescue. I am the grant coordinator and a foster parent for New Rattitude, a national rat terrier rescue non-profit. With the hit that the economy has taken, it is meaning a big increase in the number of dogs that are being surrendered to shelters. On top of that, many puppymills are being shut down (a great thing). Just a couple weeks ago, two operations that shut down created close to 300 rat terriers that needed immediate rescue or they would be put to sleep - that takes a lot of money and a huge volunteer force. On top of all this, charitable foundations have had big losses in the stock market this year which means less grant monies being made available to animal welfare groups.

Here's the easy way to help (unless you have some spare cash lying around that you could flip into the New Rattitude Paypal account. :) Two animal welfare Websites are holding contests right now and the winning group gets a $25,000 grant in one contest and a $10,000 in the other. In the first contest at the Animal Rescue Site, they are also giving the top vote getter in each state $1,000. In this contest people vote daily for their favorite animal shelter/rescue group. Voting continues through December 14th. All you have to do is save the link in your favorites and go to the site at least once a day. Some folks say you can vote on every computer in your house, a few times a day (you know, so everyone in the family has a chance to vote), but you didn't hear this from me. Right now New Rattitude is 1st in the state of Georgia (where we are incorporated) and 28th nationally. This is down from the 17th place position we held for quite awhile, so we can use more voters.

Just type New Rattitude in the "shelter name" line and choose GA for the state (no city is necessary.) This will bring up the shelter's name and a vote button. Vote daily! Please!!

The second Website with the $10,000 grant is Care 2. They are also randomly drawing shelter names weekly for a $1,000 prize. This one is even easier, because you only have to vote once.

So there's my waymarking pitch for the dogs. If you want to learn more about Team Hikenutty's crazy fostering adventures, be sure to check out our dog blog. Heck, one waymarker has even adopted one of our foster dogs so who says waymarking and fostering can't mix!

Off-season Waymarking

2008-10-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

It just seems like there's no time to find any cool waymarks these days. My waymarks have been limited to either crossposts, or ones that are somewhere around town and in categories that don't interest me. You know, the fast food category waymark that I pull off the arterial to get on the way to the dry cleaners. That kind of thing. Bo-ring.

It sucks because now that the school year has started and the wet, cool weather along with it, there really isn't time to get out for a fun day trip. The weekends are full of winterizing and yardwork, and driving Hikenutty, Jr. around to rehearsals. There's no time for a nice day trip up to the islands or east, into the mountains, or better, a weekend out at the coast. Nope, the closest we get to saltwater is peering out the bathroom window at the tiny sliver of the Puget Sound that amounts to our "water view". Don't you just hate it when responsibilities get in the way of your fun!

So, maybe this week I'll stop to waymark the wagon wheel on the housing development sign near the grocery store, or the demonstration garden next to the dog park, or the Methodist Church on the way to the mall. I could really use a waymarking day trip though. I think we'll need to plan one soon - a hike or country drive. We're in Washington, so we just need to pack up the summer clothes, and get the rain suits back out. If you don't let yourself get wet here, it could make for a long waymarking drought.

The photo above was taken in one of Washington's wettest places, the Olympic Coast. The sea star was enjoying a reliably, cool, moist day in Olympic National Park's Ruby Beach area.

Fearing a Visit

2008-09-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

Do you ever waymark something that you hope no one will visit? A waymark that shames you? Only the gridders know what I am talking about. No one else out there would stoop so low. Recently, I haven't done many of these, but being a gridder I try to waymark at least one of each lame McGutbomb type category that ends up on the grid.

I still have no idea why anyone would want to waymark these. I guess if you had this deep love for a specific hamburger joint, maybe I get it, but I just can't understand WHY someone would have a deep abiding love for a fast food place or a grocery store.

One of my most embarrassing waymarking moments was when a waymarker posted a note to my waymark for the Wendy's "restaurant" in our town. Their log was one word - "Why?" I totally agreed with them and E-mailed explaining myself with the shame of an addict - trying to make excuses for this habit of mine that led to photographing fast food locations. Oh the shame! The humiliation!

Thankfully that was one of the only visits I remember receiving for my commercial waymarks (non-indie commercial, that is.) I may have visits to my Sonic Burger waymark, but that isn't as shameful to me for some reason.

So, remember, only YOU can stop commercial waymarking! Vote no when you see that next category that comes up and makes you scratch your head. And before you create a category stop and ask yourself, "am I creating this because I'm dying to see waymarks of these places or am I creating it just because I want to start a category?" If you want to start a category so badly, check the forums. Often good ideas are thrown out that never end up going anywhere. Contact the person who had the idea and see if they mind if you run with it. If it's someone like me, they'll probably be relieved that someone else will be doing the work to get it started.

Out of the loop

2008-09-09T16:12:00.000-07:00

Boy, I am so out of the loop lately. Here I am continuing to curse the forums and they are actually working now!! You guys could have told me! Well, Bruce actually did tell me.

I browsed through a few different threads and it didn't seem like there were any crazy Web-battles going on, which was nice. The constant grousing was really getting on my nerves. It seems like actual debate is an art that has been lost, at least online.

I also missed out on the town hall that Groundspeak held last Wednesday. My plan was to re-learn how to connect to the damn thing because I am hopeless with those types of things and then join in. However, time got away from me and by the time I remembered it was 6:30pm and well into the conversation so I didn't bother.

So, what have I missed in the forums over the last 4-6 months since I've been a regular there? Any major discussions? Any threads that I should take the time to go back and read? Any that I shouldn't read? ;)

Hope all is well with the waymarking masses and that there are good things coming in the near future as far as Website functionality goes.

Kilroy was where?

2008-08-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-08-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-19T15:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

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.

Remembering Why I Waymark

2008-07-27T20:46:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been a little disgusted with waymarking and haven't been hunting new marks with the gusto that I used to. After so many new chain categories and a few just plain lame ones it was losing the luster that it once had for me.

Well, over the weekend I remembered what it is that I love about the hobby. With Hikenutty Jr. in Wyoming with his grandparents we decided to head up to North Cascades National Park for some camping and hiking. As I thumbed through the well worn pages of "Pacific Northwest Hiking", a hefty bible for Washington and Oregon hikers, I found a hike that looked interesting - tiny little lake in a box canyon, views of glaciated peaks, wildflowers and WHAT's THAT?!!! A rare spot in Washington where carnivorous plants grow?!!! I didn't even know that carnivorous plants grew in the Northwest. I figured they were all down in the south and southeast. I still didn't have a waymark for the "Carnivorous Plant Localities" category so here was my chance.

So I looked up a photo of "drosera anglica" on the Internet and off we went on our camping trip. I figured my chances of actually seeing a small patch of plants located somewhere along 2 miles of steep trail was slim, but hey, it was worth a try and we would still get some great scenery.

The hike was short, but grueling. The first 1/4 mile seemed more like a mountain goat trail than a hiking trail. This was the kind of hiking where arms were needed to help scramble up at places, not just your legs. For the last half of the hike I carefully scanned the nurselogs and tree trunks for anything unusual. I did find an awesome, bright yellow slime mold, and several beautiful types of wildflowers, but no drosera anglica. Oh well. I figured I could always hit the Seattle Conservatory - they have some carnivorous plants. We finally crested the last ridge and below us lay the pristine little lake with Pyramid Peak towering above. We threw down the daypacks and walked over to the lake with the dogs and there on the multitude of logs floating in the lake were scores of drosera anglica plants - tiny little rose hued plants nestled amongst the moss. I was ecstatic! What a find! How cool. I carefully walked out to a patch of plants on one of the floating logs that was lodged in the rocks on one end and squatted down for some macro shots. Somehow I managed to get a bunch of pictures without me or the camera falling into the very deep lake. (My little dog Frodo was not so lucky when he tried to get to a dragonfly. He jumped onto the log before I could stop him and promptly went for an unwanted swim.)

Anyhow, I now have my carnivorous plant waymark and it's one that I am proud of - not just an exercise in filling the grid, but an awesome, memorable experience. I would have taken the hike with our without the waymark waiting for me there at the end, however, I never would have learned about the rare plant life that grew there, or have been watching close enough to see the slime mold or the pipsissewa blossoms, or the funky lichen that I still can't find the name of. I wouldn't have brought along my wildflower guide and learned the names of several flowers that I hadn't seen before. I would have seen the surface and missed all the glorious detail.

So... I'm still irritated by the path that waymarking is continuing to follow due to lack of guidance and fine tuning. However, I'm learning to change the way I waymark, learning to change my mindset when I head out to waymark, and most of all, learning to lighten up because afterall, this is about learning and having fun in the process. If you want to check out my carnivorous waymark, WM4A2X, you'll find more pictures of this interesting plant and the beautiful little lake that it is found on in the ruggedly beautiful North Cascades.

Sounding off on the Seattle Art & Seek

2008-07-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of art waymarking but I have a few problems with the new "Seattle Art & Seek" category. Although I like the fact that Seattle is using waymarking to show off its art, having its own special category doesnt' seem to meld with the direction that waymarking has gone. In fact, I remember several months back a new waymarker in the forums had asked about creating a similar category for Denver's public art and the people of the forums overwhelmingly said no. The reason being is that almost any sculpture or artwork can be waymarked in the existing art categories.

Seattle has an incredible collection of art and a large community of art patrons that make sure that collection continues to grow. Just look at the Olympic Sculpture Park, a park full of world class sculpture that was almost entirely gifted to the community and unlike most parks of this caliber, you don't have to pay to visit it. But I went to Chicago last year and they have a collection that is equally deserving. I'm just back from D.C. and the sculpture there was awesome. My point is that nearly every large city around the world has a collection of art worth waymarking. Do we really want a category for every city's art collection?

Being fond of filling out my waymarking grid, I can't help feeling bad for the other gridders out there who aren't so conveniently located to Seattle as I am. I would be supremely irritated if say, an "Art of Atlanta" or a "Sculpture of Sydney" category started. I started the abstract sculpture category on waymarking.com and the goal was to see public sculpture around the world. There's already a ton of Seattle art in that category, I know because I waymarked a lot of it. Maybe I would have less of a problem if this special waymarking promotional category were a non-grid category. Leave the grid for the categories that have a more global or at the minimum, a national reach. This sets a precedence that I don't want waymarking to follow, and if you read my last post, you'll remember that precedence in waymarking is something that folks oddly hold sacred.

Lastly, the category seems to have been created by a geocacher. What's with the gps photo requirement, huh? Waymarking has happily moved away from the "prove you were there as a waymarker, not a tourist" attitude and now this? Since the category is already in place, I'm not going to get all uptight and boycott it or anything, however, I won't be able to add much to the category because I don't have gps photos of any of the many sculptures that I have waymarked in Seattle. And I'm not going to waste the time and the gas to drive around getting gps photos of things I've already waymarked. I'm not a caching coin addict, so the waymarking coin is not a big enticement for me. Tacoma News Tribune did a waymarking contest (using existing categories) and I won a book there - much more useful.

So there are three artworks in this weeks list of art that I won't be crossposting thanks to the lack of a gps photo: Seattle Mural, Neototems, and Olympic Iliad. Olympic Iliad is shown above. Next time I happen to be up in Seattle for some reason I'll try to find a sculpture to waymark in the area that I'm visiting, but until then I won't be able to participate. I'm a Washingtonian who lives in a suburb of Seattle. I'd love to hear what you Midwesterners and East Coasters think.

Precedence

2008-07-13T15:56:00.000-07:00

One of the things that irritates me is this belief that once something has been done on Waymarking.com within a category, or on the Website as a whole, people feel it must always be done that way. You know the argument - "There are already so many fast food categories that it would be unfair to start saying no to new ones," or "we've never allowed that in the category so we can't start now - that would be unfair to people who have had similar waymarks declined." Well big, flippin' WAHHHH. I think people can learn to deal with the change. No one's going to quit waymarking because a category chose to go a different direction, and if they do, well, did we really need such a big baby on the site, anyhow?

Don't get me wrong. Precedence can be very helpful for a group's officers when deciding whether to approve or decline something. If a group has determined a certain borderline type of waymark shouldn't be accepted, it makes it easier to review when that type is posted in the future. But sometimes, when a precedence is regularly being challenged, maybe the group should go back to the drawing board and see if maybe the category requirements need tweaking.

The fast food/commercial waymarking groups are the ones that originally started my pet peeve with this whole issue of precedence. Over and over in the forums I read "but it wouldn't be fair..." Grow up people! Waymarking needs to stay flexible and evolve as the site grows. If something gets tried and doesn't work then move on. Don't continue a bad decision just because it might hurt someone's feelings if the site changed its approach. Most people know my issues with chain waymarking, but I have more of an issue with people who are so rigid that they can't look at the full picture because they are so focused on the "but we've always done it this way" mindset. Be openminded. Look at issues from multiple perspectives. Change will not kill you - trust me.

@#$%ing Forums

2008-07-03T18:07:00.000-07:00

Okay, maybe that was a little harsh, but I am extremely frustrated. I haven't been visiting the forums lately because I just couldn't take it anymore. I have a very busy life and when I weigh the time it takes to read the forum posts (due to time outs, etc.) and the enjoyment I get from them, the annoyance of time outs is just too much.

I try to multi-task and work in another window, but even that doesn't make up for the frustration of all the hoops one has to jump through just to read a post. God help me if I want to actually reply to one.

What is most frustrating to me is that I think the forums are an important part of what waymarking is all about. It's a community managed Website - we get to vote and have a say about what categories are created. So communication is key to keeping things growing in a positive direction. The forums are a great place to discuss and learn - IF you can spare the time to try to get the posts to open. I can't and I feel like the result is that I've been cut off from a group of friends.

Anyhow, if you haven't seen me on the forums lately, this is why. My backlog is so huge now that I need to focus on getting waymarks posted when I happen to have a spare moment, not the forums.

The photo above has nothing to do with the forums. It's a photo of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. We recently vacationed there which is part of the reason for my large waymarking backlog and why I'm not taking time to wade through the forums.

Frickin' State Historic Markers and Burger Chefs and ....

2008-06-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

Are you noticing a theme here? Although I was able to grab several categories that are next to impossible to find on the West Coast while on vacation in D.C. I was very frustrated by some of the waymarks that I was trying to find. I mean, do I really want to look for a Dunkin' Donuts while on vacation? I think not.

Of course, I've already bitched about my Toynbee tiles experience, but the State Historic Marker categories were almost as bad. Although I find the markers interesting, I really have no desire to hunt them down. I'm more interested in seeing historic places, not signs about them. Anyhow - I figured that I could take care of the Maryland, Virginia and Delaware categories on this trip and the Virginia one was quite easy. You can't spit in Virginia without hitting a historic marker. But in Maryland we had problems. The signs weren't as prolific and someone had gone through and posted the majority of them. I ended up having to settle with just a visit to a sign that I knew had been waymarked.

In Delaware I staked out a very cool sign that I saw located next to a lighthouse that I wanted to waymark. No one had posted it so I felt safe just having the one waymark to post for that category. I mean, how many waymarkers are going to be in Lewes, Delaware? At least one other it seems. Today when I went to post my waymark I learned that in the interim between when I originally checked the category and today someone else posted it. So for Delaware I ended up with just a visit as well in the SHM category. I would have waymarked backup markers if I had seen any, but there weren't that many markers in this tiny little state.

Other frustrations: checking out 3 different supposed Burger Chef locations to find all of the buildings demolished; checking 3 different Lustron home locations before finally finding one that hadn't been demolished; almost losing my tollhouse waymark; not taking the correct photos and therefore losing my Civil Defense Shelter sign waymark. There were many more, but now I'm just boring you.

My outlook on waymarking has definitely changed. In the past I might have dragged my family around looking for those blasted historic markers, but there's no way in hell I'm going to spend my well deserved vacation waymarking signs when there are endless 17th century buildings, and world class sculpture and incredible architecture to be seen. Although I'm still a grid hound, I'm not so compulsive about it and it has definitely made waymarking more fun for all involved.

The photo above is of the historic Chesapeake & Ohio canal and lock 19, one of 74 along the 185 mile canal. And yes, it was already waymarked along with most of the other remaining locks along the canal. :o/

Frickin' Toynbee Tiles

2008-06-21T20:05:00.000-07:00

Okay, we are still in D.C. but I thought I had to quickly vent before I start packing up for the flight home. Over our 5 days in D.C. I have visited about 8 different spots where there are SUPPOSEDLY Toynbee tiles. Nothing.

I even emailed several waymarking friends, begging for tips and they sent me a link to a page that gave the street corners of 2 tiles that were spotted in 2006. We visited those today and they had been recently paved so the tiles were gone. I bitched and moaned about it, but then Bruce said that a pain in the ass category is better than a super common category anyday, and it put things in perspective. It was a lot more fun finding and waymarking a Native American trail tree today than waymarking the Dunkin' Frickin' Donuts shop that I had to waymark for an icon (there aren't any Dunkin' Frickin' Donut shops in Washington.)

Hope you all are having a safe and fun summer. Happy waymarking!

Unnamed Sources

2008-06-11T08:56:00.000-07:00

Do you ever come across the ultimate online reference for a difficult-to-find category and then refuse to share the wealth? I'll admit that I've been known to sit on some Websites, even though I have a great category resource page over on waywardwaymarking.com to share this type of information. I don't hold back forever - just until I have a chance to waymark one for myself. After that I'm all about the sharing. Recently I hemmed and hawed about adding a certain Art-o-mat Weblink to the category resource page because there are less than 100 possible waymarks in that category (I believe) and I only have a visit so far. I would have held onto it if there were any spots listed that I could find in the near future (Oregon, Idaho or Washington) - but all of the machines in my area had already been posted. So I begrudgingly added the link to the resource page.

So am I the only stingy waymarker out here? I'm guessing that most of the gridders have been known to hide a resource or two. Who knows, I may still have some great ones that I'm not unveiling. I would tell you, I promise, but then I'd have to kill you. :)

I urge everyone to share their national and international online resources that pertain to specific categories (I don't include region specific resources so the page doesn't get too unwieldy.) Of course, I understand if you have to hold onto it awhile to get first dibs. I'm not looking for the sites that the category description already shares, but others that you come across that would help people locate waymarks within a specific category. Informational Websites are great, but information is often easier to come by than a great database or site locater. My goal is to build up the Webpage so all of us can use it as a resource. Just email me if you have something that you think might be a good addition to the page.

The photo above shows one of the two Art-o-mats that we have visited. This one is in Oak Park, IL, and the other is located in downtown Tacoma, WA. If we get a chance we may visit the Washington D.C. Art-o-mat in the the Tenleytown neighborhood next week.

2K

2008-06-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

I don't often pay attention to my numbers but last week I realized that I had hit the big 2K - 2,000 posted waymarks. I had noticed when I was around 1,900 and thought that I should pay attention so I could see what the 2,000th waymark would be and then promptly forgot.

One of the things that I love about waymarking is that it isn't really competitive. Well, it is, but it's more "self-competitive." Lots of people create personal goals or have certain numbers that matter to them - some try to fill the grid, some try to fill in the map, but less people seem to be driven by total waymarks or the "stats" as geocachers are so fond of showcasing.

I'm personally a grid-hound, but I also have a personal goal of reaching 100 waymarks in several of my favorite categories. A long term goal of mine is filling in my profile map as I waymark my way around the U.S. I also come up with weird little mini goals on what seems like a monthly basis. Anyone out there have their own interesting personal waymarking goals they's like to share?

I was hoping that number 2,000 wouldn't be a lame waymark, like a McChain, and I'm happy to say, that I wasn't disappointed. Number 2,000 was a cross-posted waymark into a new favorite category of mine, "Great Buildings of the World." The EMP (Experience Music Project), a controversial building designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, is located in Seattle next to the Space Needle. In fact the Seattle Center monorail from the 1962 World's Fair passes through a portion of the building. The photo above shows the track as where it enters the building. It's a wild sculptural building the the architect thought of as a "Temple of Rock." The building holds the "Experience Music Project," an interactive rock music museum created by Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen. There is also the Sci-Fi Museum and Hall of Fame inside.

The next big number for me would be 5,000 but that's a few years down the road. For now I'll just keep myself happy hunting down waymarks for my favorite cats. This coming week we'll be heading for D.C. which should get me a good head start on 5,000. :) Happy waymarking!

Vacation Countdown

2008-06-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

So we are trying to prepare for a vacation/waymarking adventure and it feels like we are not ready for it. There's so much to do at home that I haven't had time to do much scouting out of waymarks, which is a shame because I know there are several categories that I can get in D.C. or Virginia that aren't available here on the West Coast. I'll have to do what I can and not stress about it. We'll find the waymarks we can and just have to head back east at some point on another vacation to conquer the categories we've missed.

We ordered a gps navigation system for the trip that has a big database of pre-loaded POI's and it should be arriving in the next day or two. When Team Mindawg was here we played around with theirs and loved it so we decided it was hightime for updating our gps. The current one is a Magellan, several years old with a failing keypad and that doesn't sync with our current computer. Truly a pain in the ass, but not broken enough for me to justify throwing out. We'll still use it as a back up, especially for hiking, but the new Garmn will be our primary system now. It's a base model Nuvi - simple, basic, pretty much all we need and for a couple hundred bucks, well worth the money. It seems very user friendly, but I'll need to make sure I completely understand its ins and outs before we head for D.C. because I wouldn't want to miss any waymarks because I couldn't figure out my gps. Ah, one more thing for the "to do" list.

If I make it onto the plane with my sanity next week it will truly be a miracle.

To Visit or Not to Visit: That is the question

2008-05-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

So, as usual things have been crazy busy thanks to work, two new foster puppies and my son's music lessons and concerts. I try to chip away at my waymarking backlog by attempting to find time to post 3-5 waymarks each day and typically, as the approvals come in, I log visits to the marks. There are mixed views on logging visits to your own marks, and different reasons to do so. Back when I started waymarking, I would log visits to everything and then do simple substraction of my total waymarks posted from total waymarks visited to figure out how many visits that I had posted to other folks' waymarks. Why I felt the need to know this at that time is beyond me. Other waymarkers who I looked to for mentoring did it and so I decided I should too.

Now though, with the awesome filtering functionality that the Website has, this visiting doesn't seem necessary any longer and it is growing increasingly cumbersome for me to get around to. I usually let the approvals sit in my E-mail inbox for several days, until there are so many that it becomes overwhelming. Why? It seems pointless. Can anyone think of another reason that I should keep this up? It's a total pain in the butt and now seems like a waste of time.

Although it's fun to reach milestones in total waymarks, I don't really care about the numbers and rarely could give you a guess within about 150 waymarks or so as to how many I've posted. The only reason I'm watching numbers at this point is that I want to see which waymark will be number 2000. Geocachers who are just starting out often will assume that the self-visits are all about pumping the numbers and that always pisses me off because they are looking at waymarking from the "I have more icons than you do" perspective that is oh so common over in geo-land. I mean, most hardcore waymarkers could care less about their visit numbers. They are focused on their "posted" count if they are into numbers.

The photo above is from the gallery of one of my recently posted waymarks that is in my backlog of waymarks needing "self-visits" posted, Coupeville Wharf and Warehous, Central Whidbey Island Historic District. It would be cool if the Waymarking site put the check mark next to the waymarks that you yourself posted instead of having to visit to see the check. It helps when you are doing searches to see those checks and quickly know which waymarks are yours.

Another fun sticker-seeker visit

2008-05-19T08:21:00.001-07:00

Although we were sad to say goodbye to our foster dog Suki, we are so happy that we she has joined Team Mindawg and will spend the rest of her life being as spoiled as she deserves to be. We had an awesome weekend exploring some of Seattle and Tacoma's best spots and thanks to the 85 degree weather had a chance to hike up so Team Mindawg could find the Washington Ape Cache. This photo shows Suki standing in triumph atop the cache. Most of the trail was still in 2' plus deep snow, so we were pretty wet after hiking, but it was worth it.

We even managed to find a waymark for a new category and will log visits to some of the many waymarks within the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle. (Dang you US.Globetrotters for waymarking the news stand!) The yearly cheese festival was going on in the market, which was fun (I'll try to waymark it in the festival category soon) and Team Mindawg was able to meet up with a friend at the Pike Place Starbucks location (first Starbucks store).

Hopefully they will come back and visit us soon and we can take them to some of the other awesome spots in Washington.

Dog-Marking

2008-05-16T07:15:00.000-07:00

No, not that kind of marking!! Waymarking with dogs, silly. My two blogging worlds are colliding today and an online waymarking friend, Team Mindawg, is flying out to Seattle to pick up one of our rescue dogs that she is adopting. They have been waiting patiently for Suki to heal up from her mange so she can be spayed and after 5 months of treatment, Suki is now spayed and ready to head to Denver to join Team Mindawg on their waymarking and geocaching adventures.

Team Mindawg will be staying with us for a couple days of waymarking and geocaching in the Seattle-Tacoma area before flying back to the Rockies on Sunday. And after months of gray skies we will be having our first warm weekend with temperatures reaching the mid 80's. Yahooo!! I can just feel my waymarking backlog growing as I type.

Anyhow, the photo is of little Suki, the newest Team Mindawg member, who will have many happy years of waymarking and caching ahead of her. When she was first flown to us she was such a sick little girl covered with mange and fighting an intestinal infection, but now she's a typical, spunky little terrier. She was going to be put to sleep because she had mange and wasn't considered adoptable! Can you imagine that! Now when people at the off-leash park find out that she is a foster dog they are ready to take her home and I have to let them know that, nope, she's already got a family waiting.

Digging out of a backlog

2008-05-12T08:35:00.000-07:00

My backlog is tiny in comparison to some that are out there. Personally, I try to keep up so that my backlog is never more than 25 or so waymarks. Of course, I said TRY. Sometimes you visit a place that is so spectacular that you come home after the weekend with about 75 waymarks and no time to post them. Such was our incredible weekend in Ebey's Landing National Historic Reserve on Whidbey Island.

I've managed to post almost 30 waymarks from the reserve, our incredible, inaugural camping trip of the season, but still have over half of the marks to post and don't know when I'll manage to finish them all. In the meantime, the grid continues to grow like some out of control monster and I don't know when I'll have time to check out the new categories.

In fact, my grid mania is starting to fade. Not completely - I can't avoid a compulsion that well - but there is less of an urge to run out and find a Disney or Lego store just to get a box on the grid filled. I mean, who really wants to be hiding from a mall security guard, trying to take photos for some business/commerce waymark when they could be waymarking a piece of sculpture, a scenic hike, a park, a neon sign or a historic building? Not me, that's for sure. So I'm not saying I will stop waymarking the commerce categories, but I'm no longer going to make the effort to fill those boxes. If I happen to be at a mall (a rare occurence) I'll take my camera and GPS in with me, but until then I won't worry about it. Life's too short.

For now I'm going to continue to plug away at that backlog and ignore the new categories. Team Min Dawg will be visiting this coming weekend and I need a clean slate for all of the waymarks that we will be finding when we visit Seattle and also hike up to the Ape Cache on Snoqualmie Pass. The weather is supposed to jump 15-20 degrees on Thursday and hit the mid 80's. Let the waymarking season begin.

So here are a few photos of our camping trip on Whidbey Island. The photo above was taken from Ebey's Landing and shows Admiralty Inlet and the beach of Ebey's Landing to the left and the bluffs and Ebey's Prairie to the right.

This is a view out to Admiralty Inlet and the islands beyond from the historic Coupeville Wharf. I highly recommend the cafe and gift shop at the end of the wharf featuring products of Whidbey Island artisans.

Fort Casey was one of three forts designated as the "triangle of fire" and charged with defending the entrance to Puget Sound. It is now a state park and all of its old batteries can be explored. Great spot for flying kites. Also, be sure to visit the historic Admiralty Head Lighthouse, near the battery area. The top photo shows several of the immense batteries, the inlet, and the Olympic Mountains in the distance. The bottom photo shows our waydog, Frodo, peering anxiously from Battery William Worth's watchtower.

And finally, a shot of the Olympic Mountains, Admiralty Inlet, and the paragliding field at Fort Ebey State Park from battery 248. Fort Ebey was built specifically for defense of the Puget Sound during WWII when there was worry over the threat of Japanese submarines entering the Puget Sound to destroy the Bremerton Naval Shipyard. The views from the park's bluff trail are incredible and I highly recommend their campground over the campground at Fort Casey, especially for tent campers. Make reservations though, because the island campgrounds book up fast.

Happy waymarking!

Playing Catch Up

2008-05-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

I promised I'd post about our awesome camping trip, but life got ahead of me and I've been trying to catch up all week. Each day I promised myself I'd get around to posting in my 2 blogs, but was unsuccessful. Heck, I haven't even finished editing my photos from the camping trip, let alone posting a few waymarks. Right now I'm trying not to think of the backlog or I'll get overwhelmed.

A waymarker and I were exchanging a bit of brief e-chat this week and she was talking about how she wasn't waymarking as much because she gets overwhelmed by the steady stream of new categories and can't keep track of them all. She had this awesome idea - a monthly Groundspeak LoBot with links to all of the new categories that have been approved within that month. When a bunch of new categories come through it can be easy to miss a few and this doesn't seem like it would be too tough of a solution. All the new waymarks in an area would be overwhelming, but new categories would be really helpful. Just a thought.

Okay, time's up and I have to get back to my crazy, hectic life. Just thought I'd check in and throw out the above idea. Hopefully I'll get the Whidbey Island photos edited this weekend and will get a chance to at least get them on Flickr, and maybe even get a few waymarks posted.

It's about time!

2008-04-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

So why do I have a photo of a pile of crap posted in this blog? It's because that pile of tents, sleeping bags, gear bags, sleeping pads, etc. is our camping gear waiting to be loaded into our CR-V tomorrow morning for the first "waycamping" trip of the season! Finally the weather has cooperated and there will be high temperatures in the balmy lower to mid 60's on both Saturday and Sunday! The night temperatures will be around 45 degrees which is a bit chilly for tent camping, but we've camped in worse (try 35 degrees in a rainy windstorm). Also, we have two little dogs who love to sleep at the bottom of sleeping bags and they make awesome foot warmers.

So the camera and gps batteries are fully charged, the maps are printed and we are SO ready to hop on the ferry and get this weekend rolling. I've printed out the National Park's driving tour (we're camping at a fort within Ebey's Landing National Historical Preserve) and have extra flashlights packed for exploring the military batteries at the two forts (Fort Ebey and Fort Casey). This particular preserve is actually the first National Historical Preserve in the United States, created in 1978. It's different than a National Park or National Monument in that the land within the preserve is all privately owned. The area is a pristine example of early settlement in the islands of the Puget Sound. By the 1970's the area was still not much different than it had looked in the early 1800's when it was settled. Many of the early homes, businesses, barns, farmlands still existed. So the National Park Service purchased the development rights from the owners of the properties within the reserve. Then a locally elected management group was set up to maintain the preserve. The farmers can still farm their land, people live in the old homes, and the old buildings of early Coupeville (a historic town within the preserve) are still filled with small businesses. However, now there are mandates in place that limit development within the residential and business areas and the farms cannot be subdivided and turned into new housing developments. The two WWII era forts within the preserve are run as state parks. It's a wonderful park unit within the state of Washington that very few people know about.

So, I'll report back on Monday to share the adventure.

New Categories

2008-04-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

I have to say I'm a bit shocked. Usually when I go to the category review page and see over 4 different categories to vote on almost every one of them is by a new waymarker that has gotten overly excited and doesn't quite understand what creating a category entails.

I feel a bit bad for them, but often, it's "nea" down the list of them with pretty much the same explanation: "You need to take more time writing up the category. The long description is an important part of the category, because it helps people understand what is being looked for - it can't be skipped. Also, you need to think through some posting requirements so, again, people know what you are looking for - we can't read minds." Yada yada yada....

Today when I opened the voting page and saw 5 categories that I needed to vote on I thought, "oh man - not again!" Boy was I surprised as I read the categories and they all seemed to be well thought out and written. The "Water Parks" category needed a bit of work, but it still worked. At first I thought the "Historic Houses" would deserve a no vote for being too broad, but as I read through their detailed description I better understood the category. Although I think a better name would be "Historic Houses: Pre-Victorian" so they don't get a bunch of Victorian houses submitted by folks that don't stop to read the category description and requirements before they post.

It felt good to be able to vote yes for a change.

Postponing the Crazies

2008-04-19T08:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm sitting here gazing out the window and snowflakes are softly falling from the sky, drifting past the blossoming cherry tree and the bright yellow daffodils in my back yard, Bach's cello 1st cello suite plays endlessly in the background (not because I have a CD in but because my son is practicing cello) and I once again curse the weather. If you've never heard Bach's 1st cello suite you really should - it is the essence of melancholy and is the perfect soundtrack for this tableau of suburban sorrow.

I will not be camping this weekend. When I took the dogs out last night to fertilize the lawn I realized that crazy or not I would be miserable sleeping outside in this weather. Earlier in the evening I had actually begged my awestruck husband (I'm always bitching about being cold) to camp out on the windy and snowy bluffs of Whidbey Island and called him a wimp for not being willing to consider it. But last night in the snow with the dog crap steaming in a pile of snow at my feet, I finally accepted my lot. The weekend trip to the island would have to be postponed. All that planning - the lists, the maps, the perfect campsite, the printed out driving and walking tours - now sit in a forlorn pile on the coffee table.

So now we are hoping to camp next weekend, our last open weekend before school gets out and we fly to the east coast. I might actually crack if we have another sunny week that ends in snow and rain. I NEED a day of blue skies. Even just one day would do me, but I swear I'll go psychotic if I don't get out for some camping and hiking soon.

A last minute day trip has been planned, a sad replacement for the weekend I had planned, but it will still be fun if I can let go of the bitterness. We'll be driving down to Centralia, Washington (named for its location halway between Seattle and Portland) and then taking Old Highway 99 north, visit a sculpture park along the way, and end up in Olympia for a late lunch at the Spar Cafe, maybe some time at the Olympia Farmers Market, and a quick stop at Wagner's European Bakery for some goodies to eat tonight while we watch a movie. We'll be hitting a couple roadside attractions along the way, some beautiful old historic architecture, and waymarking some great vintage neon which I'm sure will console me a bit.

The photo above was taken last weekend at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma. It is an example of Western Washingtonians thinking that the blueish tint to the overcast sky is actually sunshine and heading to the beach. You see, it's been so long since we've seen true sunlight that we forget what it looks like. Of course they are still wearing Goretex ski coats. Any Washingtonian worthy of the title knows that you can't put away your Goretex until the 4th of July.

Spring Craziness

2008-04-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

Every spring, usually in early April and sometimes even as early as March, I start to get an itch to get out of town and go camping. It's like the stuffy air of a fall/winter spent inside starts to get me a little nutty and I crave fresh air and forests. The problem is that the damp season here in Western Washington lasts from about September through the end of June. I mean, we get some beautiful days during that time, don't get me wrong, but the chance of those beautiful days falling over a weekend are rare until late June. The photo below, taken from Deception Pass at the north end of Whidbey Island, was taken over just such a weekend - a glorious sunny stretch in October a couple of years ago.

Well a couple of weeks back I decided I couldn't take it any longer and planned a weekend trip to Whidbey Island for this coming weekend. I crossed my fingers and hoped that the stars would aline and we would get a beautiful weekend.

Well, as that began to look increasingly unlikely I figured we could stay in a hotel and just spend the days outside. No such luck - a couple with a fourteen year old teen and two dogs are about as welcome to hotel managers as a couple of lepers. Anyhooo - so the weekend is supposed to be off. But now I'm totally invested. I mean - this place is a waymarking paradise: central Whidbey Island is a National Historic Reserve co-managed by the National Park Service and a group of locally elected officials. It has been kept much as it looked in the late 1800's with wide open prairies, windswept bluffs and beaches, a small town with most of its architecture from the 1800's, and not 1 but two forts that have been turned into state parks with a ton of batteries to explore. The entire reserve is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district. I've downloaded walking and driving tours, trail maps and read up on the history. I have a list of good restaurants and cafes. This is killing me!!!! I must escape this suburban hell!!!

So now the question is do we stay home and take a day trip on Saturday down to Olympia or do we brave the cold (and possible snow) and head to the island anyway. Mind you, we are pretty hardcore campers so when I say "camping" I mean a three person backpacking tent in a walk-in campsite, not a motorhome with a heater, toilet and microwave. The predicted weather is highs in the mid to upper 40's and lows from the lower to mid 30's. At this point there's about a 30% chance of precipitation and the snow level is down to sea level, but central Whidbey is in the Olympic Mountains' rain shadow. How bad could it be? I don't mind cold weather camping, but I don't handle wet and cold camping well (which is why I hate snow camping.)

Our 14 year old is game, but this is a kid who wears shorts year round. Hmmm... well, stay tuned to hear if decide to embark on this mad adventure.

The photo above was taken during a past season of madness. We were backpacking in the Cascades up off of highway 2 and when we hit the last 1/2 mile we discovered that the trail (and our campsite) would be in snow. This did not stop the guys from swimming in the pristine glacial lake - or me from laughing at them after they hit the water and tried to scramble back out before their muscles seized up from the cold.

On the road again.... (I wish)

2008-04-14T17:54:00.000-07:00

Well, we're not on the road yet, but I'm definitely itching to see the Tacoma area in my rearview mirror. Team Hikenutty absolutely LOVES road trips of all lengths, which makes us a big fan of the highway categories. So far the Website has categories for the Mother Road (US66), the National Road (US40), the Dixie Highway, the Pacific Highway (US99) and for Lincoln Highway Markers. I WANT MORE!!!

You'd think that those five would be enough, but recently I bought a couple of books that have me thinking of other great highways that could use a category.

First, I think that the Lincoln Highway could use a second category that is wider reaching. Currently only highway markers can be waymarked along that route, but last summer while traveling along the Lincoln we saw some awesome spots. Old service stations, vintage motels, roadhouses that have been open since the 1920's, road camps, and more. These places deserve their own category! I'm fine with the current category keeping its focus on the roadside markers, but I think there is some great Americana along the route that should be grouped together in its own category.

(L) Muffler Man in North Platte, NE; (R) Old Lincoln Hwy. motel in Cheyenne, WY

One more category and we should have the major east/west highways covered. We have the center of the country covered, but what about up north? Highway 2, dubbed the Great Northern, is the longest of all of the great transcontinental road trips in the U.S. and also the most stunning of the east/west passages. It takes you over the Cascade Mountain Range and past the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, over the Rocky's and through Glacier National Park, the North Woods of Minnesota, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, into Canada, over Vermont's Green Mountains, through New Hampshire's White Mountains and ends up in Maine's beautiful Acadia National Park. Along the way you'll experience gorgeous spots and plenty of vintage Americana. I've never really travelled this route however I have been to Grand Coulee Dam country and here are a couple photos of that area.

(L)Banks Lake, a Grand Coulee reservoir, seen from atop Steamboat Rock; (R) Steamboat Rock

Now that we have the east/west covered, I'll move on to the north/south corridors. So far the only full, cross-country north/south route that has a category is the Pacific Highway, US 99, which confusingly doesn't get near the Pacific Ocean. I propose four more - yep four - north/south routes that are all truly exquisite road trips.

First (and nearest and dearest to my heart) is the Pacific Coast Highway, US101. This is completely different than US99 (which is full of Americana, but very light on scenery). Many consider it to be the most beautiful long distance road trip you can take in the U.S. and I would definitely agree with them. Sorry to all of you easterners out there but there isn't much that can beat US101's views of the Pacific. You'll start up north in one of my favorite stomping grounds, Olympic National Park and from there you'll head south, hugging the coast. See the beautiful Hoh Rainforest in Washington, the many peaceful, pristine beaches of Oregon, Redwood National Park and Big Sur in California. And as many of you know, kitsch can only reach its full potential in beach towns for some reason. Maybe it's the salty air. I've travelled 101 from it's beginning in Olympic National Park down to San Francisco and the roadside attractions just can't be beat. These places should be gathered together in a Coast Highway category and I'd be willing to lead it if anyone is interested.

(L) Redwood National Park; (R) "Hole in the Wall" in Olympic National Park

Now I'll move across the country to the Atlantic Coast to U.S. 1, the "Colonial Coast Highway". It dates from 1926 and originally ran from Fort Kent, Maine all the way down to Florida's Key West. This summer I'll see the Atlantic for the first time (other than flying over it in a plane) and will have the chance to drive along a small portion of this road. It travels through some of the Nation's first and greatest cities and nowhere else will you get such a taste of history while you're on the road.

Moving back across the country to the wild west we'll hit the next great highway that should be waymarked - U.S. 93. Jamie Jensen, in his book "Road Trip USA: Cross-Country Adventures on America's Two-Lane Highways", calls it the "Border to Border" road trip but in fact it starts far north of the Canadian border (also numbered as highway 93) up in beautiful Jasper National Park. This trip is an exercise in extremes. The first half is spent in the Canadian and U.S. Rockies, and the second half in the Southwest's desert region. There you'll drop into Las Vegas, cross the Hoover Dam, cross route 66 west of the Grand Canyon and then head into the lush Sonoran Desert. Lots to see and do and above all else, WAYMARK! I'd show you a few photos of the southern portion of this route, but alas, they were taken before I owned a digital camera.

And last but not least, the Great River Road, which follows the mighty Mississippi from its headwaters in Minnesota to its mouth at the Gulf of Mexico in New Orleans. We spent a day travelling along the river road last summer and it was quite enjoyable. I would love to spend some time along the northern portion of the road some day. I hear that Minnesota's portion of the road is incredible. There have to be a few folks in the Midwest who'd be interested in starting this one up.

(L) Mississippi River overlook in Davenport, IA; (R) Riverboat Paddlewheel

So there you have it. Six new, amazing categories just waiting to be created. I think the two coastal highways should be first. Any takers?

Category Dictatorships

2008-04-10T12:16:00.001-07:00

It has always been a pet peeve of mine when category creators view a category as something "owned" by them. These category dictators see group officers as people to share the work load, but nothing else. In their opinion, they thought up the initial idea and could care less what anyone else's opinion is. I don't see it that way. They are leaders, not owners, and by refusing to listen to officer's suggestions they limit the category.

Close-mindedness leads to categories that become stagnant. If there needs to be some tweaking of the category it helps to have open communication, as I talked about in my last post. Without this communication and tweaking to waymarkers become frustrated and don't continue to submit to the category. Unless I am extremely interested in a subject I won't submit more than one waymark to a category that is unclear as to what type of waymarks they're looking for, or to a category where the officers are rude when they make comments. There are plenty of other categories out there to take up my time. I kick it to my ignore list and move on.

Another issue I have come across as an officer is when leaders go through and re-evaluate waymarks that have already been approved. Nothing is more irritating as a waymarker than to have a waymark approved and then denied. If an officer is regularly approving things that the leader doesn't think fit, then the leader isn't doing their job very well. It indicates that either the category needs to have a few changes or the group needs to sit back and discuss reviewing practices and what is and isn't acceptable. Just re-evaluating an officer's approved waymarks and not politely discussing the problems is micro-managing. It treats the symptoms and not the main issue.

I'm not saying that the leader's vision for the category means nothing, I'm saying it doesn't mean everything. We all share the Waymarking Website and a single person cannot own one section of it. A category is created to share places with the world and a leader is only the category's guide, not its god.

This has been your latest installment of Janell's Pet Peeves. For more, just ask me about chain store categories. (kidding :) The photo above really has nothing to do with this post. The Victorian triplex is posted in the "NRHP - Contributing Buildings" category which is led by a person I've found to be a great collaborative leader, JimmyEv. So I guess that it has a tiny bit of context.

Great groups have great communication

2008-04-07T15:17:00.000-07:00

Something that I've noticed lately: the better the communication, the better the category. When a category is approved and the officers start reviewing waymarks they soon find that maybe the category definition or requirements aren't as clear as they expected they would be. That's okay, because if a leader and the officers are doing their job they will talk about issues that are raised and adjust things accordingly. No category is perfect and even the most well written and thought out descriptions might need some tweaking over time.

Discussion, disagreement, even debate, is necessary - in some categories more than others. Next time, before you hit that "vote" button when reviewing a questionable waymark, consider sending out a group email and asking the group about it first. Often there are underlying reasons that things are going to vote - something unclear in the category description that could be fixed. Why not talk it over and see if there's a way to make things clearer. It will save you work in the long run by limiting the posting of waymarks that don't fit the category. It will definitely make people who post to your category happier, because no one likes to put the work into posting a waymark and then have it declined.

If officers in the group don't have the "email group member" ability then be sure to email the group leader and see if they will change this. If you are the group leader, then what are you waiting for?! Go make the changes so your officers can better participate in discussions. I assure you that your category will benefit from the change. There really isn't a reason not to do this. In fact, I wish that it was an automatic feature for officers. Maybe make it automatic, but allow the leader to take back the privilege if an officer is abusing it.

Anyhow, just my 2 cents. Happy waymarking!

How small is too small?

2008-04-01T13:49:00.000-07:00

Recently I was voting in peer review for something and at the time thought that the available waymarks might be too small in number for the category to be viable. So how small is too small? I can't remember the exact voting criteria, but I know that one of them is "abundance". I've always thought that could go either way - there are so many possible waymarks that there's really no reason to waymark them (my beef with most fast food categories) OR there are so few that they will be too difficult for people to find.
When I think about it though, if something is interesting with maybe a bit of historic importance thrown in, doesn't that make it exactly the type of place to be waymarked so others can find the spot in the future? If there are only 50 possible spots worldwide, wouldn't it be great to create a place where interested folks could find all 50?

Here's another thought. What if the 50 spots aren't worldwide, but they are all in one small area? Would it meet criteria then?

There really is no exact answer. Drawing the line somewhere would be foolish because there are too many factors involved. This is yet another example where being too rigid will limit the Waymarking Website. Better to embrace the fuzziness of the criteria in this case than to create some silly line in the sand.

So here's a confession though. When voting, I admit that my willingness to vote "yea" for a category is definitely affected by how interesting the category is to me. Try as I might to be objective, there are times when I just can't swallow a category and I might invoke the "too many/too few" criteria. I try not to do that very often, but sometimes it happens and I know I'm not the only one who does this so don't get all "holier-than-thou" on me. I'm not saying it's good practice, just that it happens.

Just thinking as I type here, so sorry if this post is difficult to follow. If you do understand what I'm talking about, let's hear how you feel. Oh, and the photo above is 8Nuts MotherGoose's photo of the Dubuque Shot Tower which we visited last summer. "Shot Towers" is one of those categories were the total possible waymarks are very limited, however, it still seems like a worthwhile category.

Car-marking

2008-03-28T08:50:00.000-07:00

I've noticed recently that several of the category descriptions say something about waymarks with "photos taken from car windows will be denied." Well, I'm here to tell you that most commercial waymarks that I post have photos taken from car windows. Who cares?! Now, I realize that you don't want a photo with an antenna running through it or part of the car door in the shot, but if it's a business, it's not like we are photographing a breathtaking or even interesting subject that needs extra care taken with the angle of the shot. Why would I get out of the car to photograph a cigar store, or a Burger King, or a Pizza Hut? I'm not going inside the places, for God's sake!

Now I know that some of you are saying, "but you have to get out of the car anyhow to get the coordinates at the door." Actually, no, I don't really. For the sake of the category officers I will try to get as close to the door as possible, but again, puleeeeeease, what is with this requirement?! If I take the coordinates from the first row of the parking lot, 15 feet from the entrance, is some poor waymark visitor that's going to show up, find the coordinates, and then say, "damn it! There's no McDonalds at this spot! Where the hell is the McDonalds?!" No, they will know where the McDonalds is from a mile down the road. That's what thirty foot golden arches are for.

Sometimes, it is important to be absolutely exact with your coordinates - a benchmark, a historic marker, a Toynbee tile.... But a restaurant or other business establishment is not a tiny, difficult to locate spot. If you can get a person within 20 feet of the door, unless they're an idiot they should manage to look up and notice the business. An exception to this rule might be a business inside a mall - then it would be important to get coordinates at the closest mall entrance, not from the far reaches of the parking lot. But that's the thing, people. There are always exceptions. Being rigid will just cause your category to lose some perfectly good waymarks. Is a waymark really less worthy of your category because the coordinates are 15 feet from the door? In my opinion, no.

So before you hit that deny button, take a deep breath, count to ten, and then ask yourself "is this really worth turning down a perfectly good waymark?" My guess is that 9 times out of 10 the answer will be (should be) no.

I'm sure that some of you are wondering if a denial spurred this diatribe. Nope. I have never had a waymark declined because the information and photos were taken from my car. It's just that most of the ultra rigid requirements, IMO, are detrimental to the hobby and really turn new people off from continuing to waymark. This is just the most recent of the many rigid requirements that I happened to come across right before writing this blog post.

Oh, BTW, the photo above is of "Bob's World Famous Java Jive", a US Route 99 Americana landmark in south Tacoma, and YES, I took this photo through my car window.

Bingo!

2008-03-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

Assuming that my weather station waymark that I just submitted yesterday is approved, I finally got around to finishing off my 2nd bingo on the waymarking grid. Since weather stations aren't especially exciting, I thought I'd post some photos of favorite waymarks from this row of the grid.

Oregon Trail - Independence Rock in the "Wagon Roads and Trails" category - Many emmigrants left home in the spring, hoping to make it to Independence Rock by July 4th, hence the rock's name. Names of the many travellers are inscribed on the rock.

Left - Pick-Quick Drive In - Fife, WA in "Independent Diners"; I highly recommend a stop here if you're in the area. It's extremely popular, so you may wait awhile, but if you love drive-in food (burgers, onion rings, hand-scooped milkshakes in about 40 flavors) you'll love Pick Quick.
Right - Sears Tower in "Engineering Landmarks"; From 1974 to 1996 the building remained the tallest in the world at 1,730 feet.

Henry M. Jackson Visitor Center - Mt. Rainier National Park in "Googie Architecture"; I have several favorites waymarked here and although the Space Needle is a googie icon, I went with my favorite, the soon to be demolished Jackson Visitor Center in the Paradise area of Mt. Rainier NP.

Art of Chicago in the "Waytours" category; my favorite part of visiting Chicago was the art. Everywhere you turn there seems to be another world class sculputure - Chagall, Picasso, Calder, Moore, Miro - they're just sitting there amidst the skyscrapers waiting for you to find them.

Corina Bakery in "Independent Bakeries"; This little family owned bakery is somewhat hidden with a side entrance in the Merlino Art Center, but don't make the mistake of missing it if you like cake. I love the lemon coconut layer cake and a cup of french-pressed coffee, my husband is nuts for the Red Velvet cake, mother-in-law loves the hummingbird cake and my son is a fan of their super huge lemon bars. Don't miss it! News Tribune Review

So there are some of my favorites from grid row "27". There were some Engineering Landmarks, Googie Architecture, and Waytours that I REALLY wanted to include, but that would have made this long post even longer, so if you have the time check out my waymarks in those categoriers. There are some fun ones. Happy waymarking!

Coal, Fossils and Graves: A reason to visit existing waymarks

2008-03-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

I know that most waymarkers live for finding a new spot to waymark, but this weekend I went on a hike specifically to visit one. It was an old ghost town located near the town that I grew up in and I had heard stories about the town and mines of Franklin from my great uncles, both miners. Thanks to the new Franklin waymarks I finally knew where the town was and how to find the trail to get there. We hiked the short muddy 1 1/2 mile trail, knowing that pretty much whatever could be waymarked up there was already posted. Boy would we have missed out on a fun afternoon if we had decided to go off looking for new spots to mark.
The best thing about a ghost town hike is that if you keep your eyes open you will see things that others may have missed - the ruins of old buildings off under 75 years of moss and duff, a coal car trestle amongst the alders, old tangles of cables and rusty pipes, and for us, fossils!

The waymarks we visited where the Franklin Ghost Town, Franklin Mine, and the Franklin Cemetery, all waymarked by Prying Pandora. While at the mine, a covered 1300' deep hole in the ground (covered with grating) that you can drop rocks into, I mentioned to my son how many leaf fossils can be found in coal and the stone in coal mining areas. He gave me the "uh-huh mom" nod as he continued throwing things into the mine. So I wandered over to the sheer rock wall that was behind the mine opening. It was AMAZING! This rock wall, about 8 feet high and 10 feet wide, was covered with leaf and twig fossils. It was like an imprint of the forest floor - millions of years ago. Above you can see one of the photos that I took of it.

Then we hiked on to the abandoned cemetery that some boy scouts and school kids had dug out of the blackberry briars. Daffodils, which had been planted on graves over 75 years before, had naturalized and were blooming everywhere. Bleeding heart was sprouting up and soon their purple flowers would take over when the daffodils finish their show. It was beautiful and touching and so peaceful.

Anyhow, I just wanted to write this and remind you to check and see what other waymarkers in your area (or an area you are traveling to) are out marking. You may just discover a no longer hidden treasure. If you are in the area and decide to visit Franklin a word of caution: the area is riddled with mines and there have been many cave ins in the past, resulting in 1300 feet deep holes. Stay on the trail!

Below are some of the photos from our lovely Sunday hike.

A bolt on an old coal car

Exploring moss covered ruins; a bolt being camouflaged by nature

Another old building's foundation

The mine

A grave at the cemetery

Another grave; Berry blossoms

A coal car trestle near the cemetery

The Neon of Tacoma

2008-03-12T08:12:00.000-07:00

I was looking at a discussion post in a Flickr.com Tacoma group and noticed that the Ed Murietta article on Tacoma restaurant neon has been published. Very cool article, especially how they attribute the whole Waymarking Website to me (Sorry, Groundspeak. He misunderstood the difference between the Wayward Waymarking and Waymarking Websites.)

The author interviewed the restaurant owners about their signs, and also some local neon artists and put together a very interesting article. It was very cool to learn some background about the signs, and the different owners' dedication to their vintage neon extravaganzas. So, I thought I'd give you a little photographic sampler of some of my favorite neon in the Tacoma/South Sound area.

The Poodle Dog Restaurant - day and night

The Frisko Freeze Drive-In near downtown Tacoma on 6th Avenue, and the Golden City Cafe in South Tacoma

The Lucky Silver Tavern in South Tacoma and the Pick-Quick Drive-In in Fife (burgers and shakes to die for!)

The Flying Boots Cafe in South Tacoma

The Daffodil Motel north of Tacoma in Milton - day and night

There are many more beauties here, and don't even get me started on Seattle signs, but I've got to get back to work. Happy waymarking, everyone!

Wearing Wayward

2008-03-11T09:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, just a quick ad here. Our Website, Wayward Waymarking recently opened a little store selling a few items with our logo on it. Here Mr. Hikenutty is modeling the ringer T.

So you, your kids, or even your dog can spread the word about the fun hobby of waymarking! Come on - you know you want one. Help pay my hosting fees so my husband will stop griping! :)

Alright, advertisement over. If you decide you want to check the store out at a later date, you'll find a link on Wayward's home page. Happy Waymarking!

Reaching Saturation

2008-03-04T07:54:00.000-08:00

I'm meeting fishingwishing for coffee today as she makes her way home from Seattle and something she joked about made me think. She said, I was thinking of stopping in Tacoma to do a little waymarking - is there anything there that you haven't waymarked?

My answer - "there are a ton of McDonalds there that are waiting to be waymarked." I thought about it and when it comes to history/culture categories Tacoma is pretty much done. Well, except for "NRHP - Contributing buildings". Tacoma has 5 National Historic Districts, if I remember correctly and I have waymarked the contributing buildings of the two smallest ones. There's a residential district called the North Slope Historic District that has over 750 contributing buildings, so unless BruceS moves to Washington state, I don't see that getting cleaned out anytime soon. :)

Some people like to save waymarks for other people - they feel guilty about saturating an area with waymarks. Personally, I've never had a problem with it. I would rather have a place marked so that it's out there on the Web and interested people know how to find it. And sometimes I do leave a spot - for instance, there are two Ansel Adams photo locations in Western Washington and I've waymarked one. I've been to the other spot, but am leaving that for someone else because this category has so few possibilities. For most categories though, I figure that people can still post a visit. And in my defense, there are only about 10 of the nearly 700 categories that I have saturated. That leaves a lot of possibilities. I guess if I lived in a remote area I might feel a little guilty, but come on - Seattle is barely touched when it comes to waymarking. Bellevue and the eastside are even cleaner slates. That's a lot of waymarks there for the taking within a 30-40 mile radius.

So, if you want to come to waymark in Tacoma, here are some categories that you will find plenty of spots waiting to be waymarked, not necessarily because I hate the category, but because it's just not my thing:

Police and fire stations, art galleries (love them but don't tend to waymark them), any of the business commerce categories other than indie breakfast spots (Tacoma has almost no good spots for breakfast - if you find one PLEASE waymark it), bells and anchors, bridges (especially RR bridges), Wi-fi hotspots (most anywhere downtown has free wi-fi and I just can't post every building in the city), ghost signs and murals (again, almost all the downtown buildings have ghost signs and although I love them, I don't tend to waymark them), benchmarks (I think I have one posted in Tacoma), stained glass, libraries, Starbucks (I've waymarked one in Tacoma and trust me, this is Washington so that leaves about 30 or 40 for the rest of you), indie coffee houses (again - 30 or 40 of these are available - it's Washington for Christ's sake), most of the sports/recreation categories, municipal parks (tons of them), weird story locations and haunted locations (lots of old buildings listed on "haunting" databases), post offices, Washington State Historic Markers (check out Point Defiance Park), "building buildings" (constant construction of downtown condos), fountains, any of the cemetery categories, playgrounds, golf courses...............

So if anyone is planning on spending some time in Tacoma, there's a long list of categories that really need help getting to the saturated level. Just be sure to let me know you'll be there so I can meet you at one of those coffee houses that I left for you to waymark so we can do a "Sticker Seeker" visit!

The photo above is of a 1889 Queen Anne Victorian house that is a contributing building to the Stadium-Seminary National Historic District. I'm slowly working my way through this district and waymarking all of the primary and pivotal contributors. It will take awhile since there are over 175 contributing buildings in the neighborhood.

Neon in the News

2008-02-26T11:58:00.001-08:00

I received an interesting call yesterday from a reporter with the Tacoma News Tribune who was doing a story on the vintage neon restaurant signs of Tacoma and what the look and style of the signs say about the restaurants they advertise. Of course when he did a Flickr search using the tags "neon" and "Tacoma" he happened on a few Hikenutty photos. After seeing my (Hikenutty's) set of neon photos and realizing he had a compulsive sign person on his hands he decided to give me a call because the Tribune still had my number from the Waymarking article they interviewed me for last Spring. He figured I might know who Hikenutty was since she waymarked in the Tacoma area.

We chatted about what waymarking is, what my Website Wayward is all about, and who this "Hikenutty" was who had a bunch of photos on Flickr. Some of the questions that he had for me were tough to answer. Why do I photograph them? What is it about them that I like so much? What are my favorite Tacoma area signs? (I had to give him three there - Poodle Dog Restaurant (night), Daffodil Motel (night) and the Golden City Cafe.)

How do you know why you love a certain thing? I love that neon can be art and science at the same time. I love how an old broken down, peeling sign looks - the colors and texture. I love how easy it is to turn an old sign into a very cool photograph. I love the history contained in some of them. Put that all together and add a complusive personality, and you end up with lots of sign photos. Plus, it helps that everyone in team Hikenutty is, well, nutty about old neon.

So for those of you out there who compulsively post waymarks to a specific category, what is it about that category that you love? What drives you to find yet another example to share with the Waymarking community? I'd love to hear any comments that you might have.

Smile for awhile

2008-02-18T16:40:00.000-08:00

We had the good fortune to spend the day with the waymarker S5280ft (Smile) on Sunday and decided to drag the poor jet-lagged soul up to Mt. Rainier with us. It was a full day and by the time we finished with dinner it was about 12:30 a.m., Michigan time. Hopefully we didn't wear him out too much, but it would have been criminal to pass up the chance of showing off a wintery Mt. Rainier on a clear day (few and far between in Washington state.)

I grew up in Washington and had never once been up to the Paradise area of Mt. Rainier National Park during the winter. The roads were clear and sanded, but at the top the snow towered an amazing 10 plus feet on either side and it was like driving through a tunnel. Only the top of the great googie style Jackson Visitor Center stuck out of the snow and a 12-15 foot deep channel was carved out so visitors could get inside.

The mountains are my favorite part about Washington. As great as Seattle and Tacoma are, I'd rather hit the hills any day, so anyone coming to visit us be forwarned. In fact, you might want to have a little discussion with S5280ft before you let us know you'll be in town. He might have a few words of advice for you. :)

Above is a photo of the historic Paradise Inn. Currently it's being restored - well, it was being restored last summer and restoration will continue on the far side of the inn once the snow melts off in the early summer this year. We also stopped at the Longmire Administration area National Historic District so S5280ft could waymark a few Washington State Historic Markers, but alas, they were all under about 10 feet of snow. We did find a couple at lower elevations, thank goodness.

The above photo shows Paradise's Jackson Visitor Center, sunk in the snow with the sun setting behind it. I love this shot, particularly because it may be my last time to see the building. It is slated for demolition this summer when the new visitor center that was built last summer opens. It just can't handle the snow loads that Rainier gets at this elevation and the energy spent to keep the snow melted off of the slightly slanted roof just doesn't make sense. If you want to see a few more photos of the building check out waymark WM1M0N.

Thanks so much to S5280ft for taking time out of his busy schedule to ride up to the mountain with us. You have to admit, it is a pretty incredible place for a "Sticker Seeker" waymark visit photo. ;)

The Backlog

2008-02-13T09:17:00.000-08:00

I was reading BQ's thread in the Waymarking forums about how much his backlog was overwhelming him and that he finally got to the point where he dumped his backlog waymarks and just started from scratch. Quite drastic. But it reminded me that I had about 15 waymarks in my backlog that I wanted to post to the "NRHP Districts: Contributing buildings" category. I sat down to start in on them and realized that my sheet of paper with all the coordinates and notes written on it are in my camera case, which is currently with my husband in Orlando. He's working at a builder's convention there and wanted to bring my camera to take some photos of the firm's display.

Anyhow - the result is that my good intentions will have to wait until he returns on Friday with my camera. I did post a few of them and saved them to submit later, but I hate not having the reward of completely finishing the waymark if I'm going to spend the time writing the descriptions and uploading photos.

I've really been enjoying the category lately, since I found a site that has online pdf's of the historic district narratives in Washington state. These can be tough to find, and so on Wayward Waymarking I've created a page to list the various states' historic properties databases that include narrative information. Right now we have Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin and Washington links listed (thanks BruceS) but would love to have any links that you might have found when posting in this category.

The photo above is of a the Ralph Metcalf house, a colonial revival style residence that is considered to be a "pivotal" contributor to the Stadium-Seminary National Historic District. The district is a historically intact residential area within Tacoma that was popular from the 1890's to the 1920's. It has wonderful examples of nearly every residential style current in the Pacific Northwest between 1888 and 1930. Also located within it are the public Stadium High School and the private Annie Wright School (previously "Seminary" - it's a boarding school for girls) for which the district is named. To learn about the district and see more photos check out my Stadium-Seminary National Historic District waymark in the NRHP category.

Waymarking injury

2008-02-03T18:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning we were killing time in Tacoma while my son was at orchestra rehearsal so we wandered over to the Stadium-Seminary National Historic District to waymark some of the contributing buildings within the district. This primarily residential district has over 175 contributing structures, so there's plenty there to photograph. I figured we'd waymark all of the "primary" and "pivotal" contributors along Yakima Avenue (33), or at least a get a few blocks done before we got too cold and headed over to the coffee shop to warm up.

We made it about 5 of the eight blocks when my feet went out from under me and I found myself skidding down the sidewalk on my side. There was ice over the top of a mossy spot on the sidewalk and that combined with the slope just took me down. Had I been paying attention to where I was going rather than gawking at all of the beautiful old Victorian architecture I probably would have seen the slick spot. Luckily my camera and gps were fine and other than a nasty scrape along the heel of my hand nothing was injured but my pride.

Troy, who was listening to NPR in the car while I walked down the block to photograph a particularly interesting turreted house, was disappointed to have missed the fall because he couldn't make fun of me.

The photo above is of the Charles Tucker Residence, a quaint Victorian on N. Yakima Avenue built in 1890. I haven't got around to waymarking it yet, but when I do it will be in the "NRHP Contributing Buildings" category.

Musings on gratitude

2008-01-29T16:53:00.000-08:00

I'm kicking back at my favorite cafe in downtown Tacoma and feeling a little like I'm back in college - art everywhere, people studying (although they are studying computers rather than textbooks,) world music playing and the steamer of the espresso machine forming some odd, musical harmony line. Does a taste or smell ever send you reeling back in time? Out of the blue I decided to have some almond syrup in my latte (my drink of choice back in the day) and all of a sudden it feels like school days. It was just my birthday and I'm guessing this is what happens when only one year south of 40.

I guess it's better than what I was doing before I got here. Bitching. After dropping off my son at his bassoon lesson I left to go find something to do for the next 2 hours. In the spring and summer I typically fill this time doing a bit of waymarking, however with dusk hitting around 4:30 it's not like I can really get out there and take any photos. So I was driving downtown (Tacoma) and as I drove I was making a list of all of the things that I was pissed off about (constructive, huh?) So here's how it went: my son bitching at me because I want to leave on time to get to his lesson, the wet worthless snow that I was having to drive in, the ice sheets that will be on the freeway by the time I need to drive back home, the constant rain, the early dusk that keeps me from waymarking, the fact that there's no parking to be found around One Heart Cafe and I will have to park 3 blocks down and lug my laptop up to the top of the hill where the cafe is, the fact that I will have to walk alone in the dark with a computer through a not so great part of town when it's time to go home.... Then after I parked I saw a lady pushing a shopping cart with all of her possessions in it through the wet sleet and I woke up. What a jolt of reality. My stupid list vanished and I felt lucky - lucky to have a computer to drag up the hill, lucky to have my warm, dependable CRV to be driving through the snow in, lucky to have the money for the hot cup of coffee and sandwich that I would be buying to munch on while I sat farting around in a warm cafe. And now there's a jazz band setting up and I'll get some live music for the next hour. Boy, life is all about how you look at things.

So, apologies for my off-topic musings. I have no waymarks to chat about, but I sure am having a good time visiting one of them. The coffee's perfect, the band is jamming and I have a couple of hours to kick back. How great is that?

P.S. - The photo above is of the chair that I'm kicking back in at One Heart Cafe', except now it actually has a sheepskin across the back of it making it more comfy than seems possible.

Ready to Waymark!

2008-01-23T12:07:00.001-08:00

Things have been so crazy busy lately that I haven't had a chance to do any waymarking. I didn't mind so much when it was overcast, but the last few days have been those beautiful, clear, cold days and have made me long to be out taking photos and finding new spots to waymark.

Over the weekend we took my in-laws to the sculpture park in Seattle and got some beautiful shots in the park, however I've waymarked just about everything there so there's not a lot to do other than upload some photos.

I did do some searching on the Internet for some new categories that I want to waymark and found a couple places that I want to visit on Saturday. It's my birthday, so I'm going to request a little waymarking time to soothe the sorrow of being one step closer to 40. ;)

The photo above shows Alexander Calder's sculpture "Eagle" framing the Space Needle. Below are a few more of the photos taken at the Olympic Sculpture Park in downtown Seattle. In order: "Seattle Cloud Cover" under a Seattle cloud cover; Ferry crossing the Puget Sound, seen from the park's beach area; shadow of a tree cast on Richard Serra's 300 ton "Wake".

Take your time when creating a category!

2008-01-15T12:50:00.000-08:00

I know that most of you who read my blog have a lot of experience under your belt when it comes to creating a new category. This post is to urge you to positively mentor new waymarkers who might be a little over excited to see their first category on the grid.

Recently I've noticed some categories coming through peer review that would make wonderful categories, but I still feel I have to vote no on them because either the description is too vague or the requirements are odd or even non-existent. I try to leave a lot of kind feedback about how I think it's a great idea, but "here are some changes you might want to make and then try sending it through peer review again."

When you first get into waymarking it can be a blast and many people want to fully throw themselves into the hobby! That's great!! Let's welcome them with open arms AND a little kind advice when they stumble because they've tried to run before they can walk, so to say. The longer a person waymarks, the more familiar they become with the typical posting requirements, how a category is structured, and how broad or narrow a range of category can be.

Kudos to the seasoned waymarks who I see joining groups just to help out a new person who isn't sure about how to go about creating a category. Sometimes its a topic they aren't even interested in, but they give of their time anyhow, and it makes a big difference in the quality of the categories. I had this kind of help when I created my first category, Abstract Public Sculptures, and now that I've been around awhile I can pass on what I was taught by elder, waymarking sages. :) And now I'm seeing people that I've helped go on to help other beginners. To me that is the true spirit of the waymarking community. Sure, you get some asses, but they are everywhere. Concentrate on the positive and you will find it everywhere!

A familiar icon

2008-01-07T09:29:00.000-08:00

So, I've been meaning to post about icons for awhile but have never gotten around to it. Koko has been an icon-making machine and is just pumping those cute little 1/4 inch wonders out as fast as she can.

I can't help but brag about the "Freestanding Arches" logo, though. Doesn't it look a bit like the photo I've added to this post? That would be my oh-so-cool Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch, a Civil War memorial that we waymarked in Hartford, Connecticut. I'd love to think it is so awesome that it deserved to be the category logo/icon, but if you check out the more recent additions to the category you'll notice that the European arches have definitely got this one beat. I think it was more the fact that it was the only old arch that was in the category when she was looking for icon examples. Or maybe it was the fact that I am such a kiss ass about icons. :)

Some other icons that I've noticed lately -

Beaches: Did you notice that the "Beaches" icon is the "Nude Beaches" icon , but she added clothing to the the people?

Roller Skating Rinks: How about those disco lights behind the skate? Tres groovy!

Tattoo Parlors: Doesn't this one just make you wince?!

Other detailed masterpieces: The closed drive-in icon with its tattered screen, the whitewater rafting icon that shows 6 paddlers working the water, the miniature landscape painting for the Natural Springs category icon, and last but not least, the Noodle Shop category's noodle bowl, complete with chopsticks - I swear you can see the chopped scallions and bean curd in that one!

The bad side of being addicted to the grid

2007-12-31T19:07:00.000-08:00

Some people specialize in one category, and others have a goal of filling in their category grid. We are a little of both, specializing in several architecture, history and of course, neon categories, but still working to fill in that grid.

I have found that as a gridder I end up doing what I call the "grid run." A grid run is when you are out on a specific trip that's only purpose is to pick up new categories to check them off of your list. This is not usually the fun and interesting type of waymarking you do on vacation, or when you are waymarking in your favorite categories. Sadly, it is the compulsive type of waymarking that is done not for interest in the category, or wanting other people to find a cool spot that you have happened upon, but for the sole purpose of seeing a tiny 1/4" icon fill in a hole on your grid. I consider it a lower form of waymarking, however I am more guilty of it than most so don't think I'm judging you for your compulsive need to fill up the grid. :)

My husband is home from work the week between Christmas and New Year's Day so we ended up doing a grid run one morning when we had nothing else to do. These were the stops - Jack-in-the-Box, the local hospital, a wastewater treatment plant, a closed drive-in that was replaced with a Lowes Home Improvement Center, and an independent movie rental shop (ended up that it had gone out of business.) Now I'm not passing judgement on these categories (other than maybe the Jack in the Box one) but a trip like this is the waymarking equivalent of washing dishes - it's boring as hell, but it has to be done. Well, it has to be done if you are compulsive about filling up your grid.

So is there anyone else out there who does the occasional "grid run"? Have you found a way to make it a bit more interesting? If you have let me know how!!!!

A White Christmas!!!!

2007-12-25T14:32:00.000-08:00

It snowed on Christmas! While some of you are rolling your eyes as you think of the snow shoveling that you still have to do this afternoon, we are ecstatic. See, in Seattle there are only 5 Christmases since 1909 where there has been snowfall on December 25th. Mind you, this is lowland Puget Sound snow - heavy, wet sloppy snow that melts on contact with the ground - but it is snow nonetheless and we aren't going to complain. If you squint your eyes and look up at the sky you can almost pretend that you aren't standing in the soggy patch of green moss you call a lawn, but are instead in a beautiful winter wonderland.

In fact we may walk down to the Puget Sound when I finish here to enjoy snow on the beach of Dash Point State Park. On the way we can waymark the local waste treatment plant that sits in an idyllic little forested spot on the way to the park. What could be more "Christmasy" than waymarking a waste treatment plant I ask you? I'm always looking for a chance to grab a new icon. ;)

Merry Christmas and happy waymarking!

Holiday Interference

2007-12-20T08:51:00.000-08:00

The holidays and my new stint as a rescue dog foster parent is definitely cutting into my waymarking time lately. It seems like I just get ready to sit down and post a waymark when the puppy needs to go out, or the dogs start to fight over a toy, or I remember that I still have shopping to do. It took me two full weeks to post the waymarks from my day and a half in Vancouver and typically I would have had those done pronto. Oh well. I'm having fun with our foster puppy, even if that means I won't be posting into some of those new categories anytime soon.

Have a happy holiday season everyone. It's been a wonderful year getting to know all of you waymarkers out there.

Are people ever happy?

2007-12-18T11:47:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder if people are ever happy. This last week I've had a couple of waymarks approved that have complaints about the waymark that have nothing to do with what the category requires. Now I pride myself in trying to give each waymark my best effort. When my photos don't seem to fully describe the place like I want them to I try to add links to Flickr photos or a youtube video of the place to the description to add another perspective. So when someone complains about an evening photo for a place that I can only get to in the evening, it irks me.

I think that people need to remember to hold waymarks to the category standards, and not their own. Someone may have posted a waymark that you would have spent more time and energy on. It's too bad, however you need to get over it and move on.

The Sweet and the Bitter side of the Vancouver weekend

2007-12-07T07:56:00.000-08:00

I am finally getting around to posting about the wonderful weekend that we experienced up in Vancouver on the 1st and 2nd. It snowed the whole time we were there and the city was blanketed in a layer of soft snow. We rode the miniature train in Stanley Park through the lit displays, wandered the parks beaches, marveled at their incredible collection of totem poles, spent an evening on Granville Street taking in the old theatre and hotel neon, wandered Chinatown and the famous Classical Chinese Garden there, and saw some great landmark neon signs on Hastings Street. (Photos below: Third Beach, Brockton Point Lighthouse, Inukshuk on English Bay Beach)

I was struck at how international the city was. Like Seattle there is a large Asian population, but in Vancouver there are small pockets of town with Greek or Indian markets and restaurants serving food from seemingly every region of the world. (Photos below: Entrance gate in Chinatown, Totem Poles in Stanley Park)

On the down side, the poverty in parts of the city was astounding. Drug use and prostitution happened right out in the open, rather than down dark alleys as is usually the case in Seattle. Garbage littered the streets, and matresses were lined up against the walls with people huddled there to keep warm. Panhandling was aggressive and unnerving and my heart went out to the people stuck out there in the cold. (Photos below: Ovaltine Cafe, Save on Meats butcher shop, Hotel Balmoral - all on Hastings Street)

My biggest disappointment was that the huge, ornate dragon sign that I was so excited to waymark was gone. Several other signs were missing also. Vancouver at one time had one neon sign for every 19 people in the city, and many of those were spectacular. Only a handful of the extraordinary signs remain. (Photos below: Cambie Plumbing and Heating on Fraser, Only Seafoods Cafe on Hastings, Yale Hotel Jazz Club on Granville)

I was able to find waymarks for most of the Canadian specific categories, several National historic sites and British Columbia historic plaques, Canada Post, Tim Horton's, Curling Clubs (okay, not Canada specific but just about). I also found waymarks or visited waymarks in some difficult to find categories like gender separated entrances, Guinness World Records, and inukshuks. We didn't find any Canadian benchmarks, thanks to that beautiful blanket of snow, but we can always visit again. I've been wanting to take a trip to Victoria anyhow.

Waymarking, eh?

2007-11-30T12:26:00.000-08:00

We're heading up to Vancouver, British Columbia this weekend for some long overdue Canadian waymarking. It will be our first waymarking trip out of country and although I'd prefer to be heading to Jamaica rather than the icy land to our north, it should be fun. We'll only be there two days, so who knows how much time we'll actually get to do the tourist thing after the hours sitting at the border crossing. I'm hoping for waymarks in at least 10 new categories and I plan on waymarking some spectacular neon signs. One I've had my eye on ever since I saw it featured in a coffee table book on vintage neon. Next week I'll post about some of the new waymarks we've found so watch for it, eh?!

A Reason to Waymark McDonald's

2007-11-26T11:30:00.000-08:00

I have long been opposed to the waymarking of fast food locales. I mean, the food is terrible, the atmosphere is non-existent... Why?! But on Saturday while on a long waymarking trek up old highway 99 with a full bladder I finally found a reason to waymark them - so you can find a place to pee! They are much easier to find in urban and suburban areas than say, a rest stop, and for the most part they are clean enough that you don't have to worry (much) about touching anything. So, although I still don't plan on waymarking any myself, I am no longer bitter about the category's existence. (PS: If you are offended by my sarcasm, feel free to rip on my obsession with old buildings or neon. I can take it.)

This neon plunger that I waymarked on Saturday has nothing to do with waymarking McDonald's, but it just seemed to be a good match for the post.

Kickin' back at the Waymarking Cafe

2007-11-20T23:13:00.000-08:00

I spent the evening kicking back in my favorite coffee house while my son had his monthly group bassoon lesson. My typical M.O. is to wander around Tacoma a bit after I drop him off at his lesson and grab a few waymarks, and then I make my way over to the One Heart Cafe where they have free wifi (and terrific coffee and atmosphere.) There I kick back, edit the photos that I took on the way over and then post a couple waymarks before I head back to pick him up. Two hours of heaven.

Unfortunately it's getting so dark that by the time I drop my son off at 4:30 I don't have enough light to get any photos, other than of neon signs. That would be fine but I've already waymarked all of the good neon signs in the city of Tacoma, so I guess I'll just have to work on my cross-posting backlog when I'm back for the December bassoon lesson. Sometime in the Spring I can start working on waymarking some of the Victorian Houses in the historic district near the coffee house. That will keep me busy for awhile. There are 950 contributing buildings in the district. :)

The photo above is of half of the back lounge area of the One Heart Cafe, my favorite coffee house. Tonight a jazz pianist came in to practice on their piano so I had live music to waymark to.

Happy waymarking!

Flickr Waymarking Group Photo Contest Winner

2007-11-16T11:07:00.000-08:00

There's a group of waymarkers who love taking photos while out waymarking and so the waymarker Ambrosia created a group over on Flickr.com where they can show off their favorite waymark photos. We are always welcoming new members so if you are interested be sure to check out the group's page on Flickr.

The group hosts a monthly photo contest and the photo shown above is the winner for the October contest whose theme was "lines." Mr. 0 took this great picture at the Claibourne Cemetery Mauseleum. Use this link to see all of the photos that were entered in the October contest (and there were a bunch of great ones.) We tried out a new way of voting for this contest and it worked so well that next month we are going to open up the voting to any waymarkers, whether they are a Flickr group member or not. This way more people will have a chance to see the creative, beautiful photos that the group is uploading and maybe join in on the fun themselves.

Currently the November contest is underway and this one has an interesting twist. The theme is the letter "W" (for Waymarking) and the winner's photo will be used as the logo for the Flickr photography group on Waymarking.com. The "W" can either be an actual letter, say from a waymarked sign, or it can be a "found" letter that exists in the visual linework of the photo. The contest will run through the end of the month and then voting will take place between December 1st and 15th. If you're interested in joining in on the fun head over to the Flickr group and read the group thread about the November contest. If not, then we hope you'll join us for the voting process when that begins. You can find the current photos that have been entered in the November contest here. We also have a page for past contests that you might be interested in. Currently there are just the September and October contests shown there, as we just started up the contest this Fall (or Spring, depending on which hemisphere you're reading this in,) but it will continue to grow.

I'll try to keep everyone posted on the current contest and when voting cycles start and end. Happy waymarking!

Un-waymarkable Waymarks

2007-11-07T11:16:00.000-08:00

I've always been somewhat vocal about my opinion that not everything needs to be waymarked. The point of Waymarking is to mark unique, interesting places - places that aren't on every street corner. I hadn't ever come upon a place that I thought was really incredible and not had a category to waymark it in. It just doesn't happen that often. I mean, there are over 600 categories. A place is bound to fit somewhere. Typically categories like "Official Local Tourist Attractions" or "Roadside Attractions" can accommodate some of the truly unique spots that don't fall within any of the other categories.

Well this week I came upon not one, but two places in Seattle that are incredibly cool that I can't find a category to waymark them in. One is an old Seattle standby that we've been visiting for years, the other a cool new specialty shop. I figure that I'll tell you about them here and maybe someone else will think of a category for them (but no "Best Kept Secrets" category - I want to waymark them in a way that I can truly describe the spot.)

First is a new one that I had never heard of until researching their neon sign. The place is called "Real Soda." It's based in California, but has an office in the Fremont District of Seattle. This is a place specializing in soda pop. Not the Coca-Cola and 7-up type soda that you find on your grocer's shelves in aluminum cans, but sodas like pure cane sugar Coca-Cola in bottles, imported from Mexico, Bavarian Nutmeg Imported Virgil's Special Edition Root Beer with ceramic top, Mystic Seaport Creamy Birch Beer, Tianfu China Cola.... The list could go on forever. These guys stock over 700 varieties of soda imported from around the world, all in glass bottles. They call their Website the "bubbly backdoor that transcends the aluminum curtain beyond which you will find a paradise of effervescence excellence." They even have a great neon sign guys!! Where, oh where can this wonderland of soda and nostalgia be waymarked, I ask you?!

The second spot I couldn't find a category for is Archie McPhee's, "Outfitters of Popular Culture", a retail location that truly can't be classified. Located in the Ballard district of Seattle, Archie's has long been a must stop location each year in the search for Team Hikenutty Christmas stocking stuffers. Here's a short list of a few items that you will find for sale at Archie's that you just can't do without: an electronic yodelling pickle, a boxing nun puppet, a librarian action figure complete with shushing action, bacon shaped bandages, corn dog air fresheners, a bobblehead Jesus, gummy haggis, world's largest underpants, glow-in-the-dark Flesh Eating Zombie play sets... These are just a few things I found in their catalog, which is nothing compared to the actual store. This weekend we'll be heading for Archie's to pick up composer action figures for Hikenutty Jr.'s music teachers and some Shakespearean insult gum for a friend of mine. I'll take some photos but if you can't wait for those to be posted take a look at the store photos that they've uploaded to Flickr.com. You can also take their helpful "Are You a Nerd" test to find out your nerd level (BTW, I scored 209. Does that mean I'm cool, or that I need to work harder at it?)

So if you have any ideas of where to waymark these spots, or have a spot that you would like to share but don't have a spot to do it on Waymarking.com, then be sure to comment on this post and enlighten us.

P.S. I shamelessly ripped the above photo from Real Soda's Website, but since I have drooled all over my blog about them, I don't think that they'll mind.

Beer me

2007-11-02T22:22:00.000-07:00

I have sunk to what some folks would call a new low. I have just waymarked my first beer sign in the "Neon Sign" category. Never did I think that I would head down this sad and lonely road, out wandering strip malls, hanging out in front of taverns... It's addiction plain and simple. ;) Two months ago I would have chuckled at the thought of waymarking a beer sign but all that neon gas is going to my brain now. Just like a campfire, the warm glow of the glass tubes are mesmerizing.

I'm sure you waymarkers out there have that special category, that rules your life with an iron fist (you benchmarkers and Texas Historic Marker nuts know who you are.) If you don't, just wait, because you will if you stick around Waymarking for long. So don't start judging me.

You have to admit that beer signs have come a long way from the the typical logo-style signs of yore. In this lounge alone I saw a palm tree, this crab, and a ship. Next time you are driving through suburbia open your eyes a little and look for the glow. Take away a few preconceived notions and you might start to see the art in modern neon advertising. I mean, would it really make this little crustacean better if it read "seafood" instead of "Corona"? Ah, the deep questions that Waymarking makes you stop to ponder.

Controversial Categories

2007-10-29T08:04:00.000-07:00

Last week Groundspeak held one of their town meetings and the topic was "Political and moral agendas and where (or whether) they fit in with waymarking." The topic was a hot issue thanks to a recent category called "Pro-Life Billboards" that went through peer review. My initial reaction was anger and disgust at the use of the Website to promote a specific agenda. This is a fun hobby promoting unique, interesting spots to visit. Who would look forward to visiting one of these nasty pieces of work. Obviously I lean to the left on this issue, however it went beyond that. I would be equally irritated to see a category like NARAL Headquarter's or something like that on the Website.

After thinking it through for awhile though, and listening to Opinionate's arguments (who by the way should consider a job working for a freedom of speech group) changed my thinking and helped me get past my bias towards the topic of the category. I mean, what is "controversial?" I'm not trying to get all existential on you, but what is controversial for one culture might be the norm for another and who am I to push my opinions on someone else. It is a dangerous thing when any group tries to push their ideals as the only ideals. But I won't go so far as to totally agree with Nate. Groups that deal in violence and intolerance do not have a place on Waymarking.com.

So what do we do with these controversial categories that come up? And how do we keep the site family friendly? Where do you put a category for say, good spots to find a prostitute, adult video stores, or (the example used in the town meeting) Neo-Nazi Headquarters? (I in no way want any of these things to be categories. I'm just throwing out some examples.) One idea that was thrown out was to create a 16th department on the site that would be for controversial categories or categories with agendas. There could be a radio button added during the voting process and after you vote yes, no, or abstain you would click on the button if you believe the category belonged in this section of the Website. It's one option for an issue that will likely come up more and more as the site grows.

So.....Any opinions on this topic out there?

70,000 Waymarks

2007-10-25T18:01:00.001-07:00

Did anyone notice that Waymarking.com hit 70,000 waymarks today? That's 20,000 waymarks since July 1st when Bootron noted the 50,000 mark. The site seems to have hit its stride and I've been happy to see new active waymarkers, both posting waymarks and joining in on the forums. Just wanted to announce that good news. When I have more time in the next couple of days I'll post my thoughts about the recent town meeting that Groundspeak led. Happy Waymarking!

Unlucky 7

2007-10-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

Today I had decided that I was going to do some armchair waymarking - you know, categories like Lucky 7 and Waytours where your waymark is actually a collection of other waymarks. Anyhow, I put together a couple of Lucky 7 waymarks and was in the middle of posting one when I accidently hit backspace. GONE! All that work was gone. I was going over the top too. I had added tons of html - links, photos, you name it - along with a description of each of the waymarks listed as part of the Lucky 7.

Now one would think that this loss taught me a lesson and instead of starting over I opened up MS Word and first typed the waymark information up there. But no, I did indeed start retyping the waymark into the submission form. This time I had completed the whole waymark. It was beautiful other than one typo that I caught, so I hit backspace to jump into that section and correct the mistake and @#$%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You guessed it. Gone. All gone.

At first I had to grip the edge of the table to keep myself from tossing my laptop across the room. Then I decided to be more constructive and to write this post with a plea to Groundspeak. It would be so nice if the site autosaved the submission page as posters filled in the info. For simple waymarks this doesn't matter, but for the more entailed waymarks like the history categories or some of the games this would be so helpful. Even now as I type Blogger is saving this post in the off chance the power goes out or I do something stupid. If an autosave feature is asking for too much, what about a window that opens when you try to navigate away from the form and warns you that you will lose your work if you continue. It could say something like - "Hey, BOZO! Yeah, you! Do you realize that by leaving this page you will lose all of this information that you've typed in?!" - or something to that effect. I know that you guys get requests about new functions for the website all of the time, but the painful loss is fresh in my mind so I decide to beg while I can still visualize that fresh, totally empty screen in my mind. Please, help this poor fool and save me from further loss!

The above photo is of a glass installation by Dale Chihuly at Union Station in Tacoma, Washington. The piece, entitled Monarch Window, is waymarked in the "Abstract Public Sculpture" category and is one of the waymarks that I plan on using in my new "Union Station's Lucky 7" waymark when I calm down enough to post it.

Let's see the visit logs!

2007-10-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

Much talk has gone back and forth in the forums about how to entice people to visit existing waymarks, but people haven't really been talking about how the visit logs are used. Isn't that what they are for? Leaving information for people who might want to visit in the future? And yet how often do you come across an interesting waymark and actually read the visit logs? I almost never do, and yet it's not because I'm not interested in them. I just never think about them because they're hidden there at the bottom of the page and I have to click the link to read each log. It's tedious and it doesn't need to be.

I've always wondered why it is that the waymark logs aren't handled similarly to geocaching logs. It would be so great if the last 3 or 4 logs showed at the bottom with a link you could click to see them all. If logging waymarks is to become an integral part of the hobby of waymarking, they need to have a little more emphasis on the page. If it's likely that no one other than the original waymark poster will see the log, then I'm not going to spend as much energy as if it's going to be sitting there at the bottom of the page for all to see. Also, if the databases for the categories are going to be used as a referral system for things like restaurants and hotels, as some have suggested, then what a visitor thought about a spot is as important as the waymark itself.

It would be a simple change, one that might change the community's perspective on how worthwhile a waymark visit is. If a visit log is just to give the original waymark poster a pat on the back, I can't see that logging visits will ever catch on, gps photo or not.

Neon's Illegitimate Sibling :)

2007-10-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

I've been posting about the neon dilemma and in my last post I talked about the resolution and how a new category was going to be created for the less artistic of the neon signs that have no place to be waymarked. Well I'm happy to say that the new category passed peer review and is now open for business.

Although some signs don't have the gloss and style needed to make it into the Neon Lights category, the Neon Sign category will provide a place for these simpler and yet still interesting signs. Will the category collect a lot of boring signs? Probably, but the lesson that I have learned is that what is boring to some is wonderful to others. I'm glad to see that open/closed signs have been excluded, and I'd like to see typical beer neon excluded, but other than that I think that the officers did a great job putting together the category. I'd also like to see a variable added for the estimated age of the neon so that eventually if a search function is available to filter the drop-down variables folks who aren't interested in the modern stuff could filter that out - something like "20's -50's", "60's & 70's" and "80's to current". Who knows if that will ever be available, but I keep hoping.

This post is not dissing the "Neon Lights" category. I'm a member of both groups and I understand the desire to keep the category focused on only the artistic, pictorial style of neon. It was wonderful that the group was able to support this new category and pave the way for a smooth time in the peer review process.

I've transferred over the 12 signs that I had posted in the Neon Lights category that work better over in the Neon Sign category. Soon the Neon Lights group will be reevaluating the signs that now fit better in the new category. If you get a few declined, bear with the group and know that there's another home for those waymarks.

Neon Resolution

2007-10-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

Well, the long and confusing days of the neon category are almost over. BQ kindly hosted a chat group so that all the officers and interested parties could work things out. Unfortunately I was down for the count during the meeting thanks to my lingering cold so I missed the conversation, but other officers have filled me in and it sounds like things are going to work out well. The final choice was to go with 2 categories. The existing "Neon Lights" category will be a repository for those over-the-top neon creations that people happen upon. Typically these are pictorial in nature and were created during the 1930's to 1950's. The rest of the more basic neon, such as the old parking garage sign shown in this post, would fit in a new second category that Team Farkle 7 is creating. This category is very open and unrestricted and will create a place for the neon signs that aren't quite dazzling enough to make it in the first category. This category is currently in peer review and hopefully it will pass.

It will mean a bit of work for the officers over at Neon Lights. The category description will need to be rewritten slightly and the category will need to have many of the current signs either reevaluated (declined) or switched over to the new category when it comes available. It will be worth it though. In the end everyone will get what they want. There will be one category focused on stellar neon, just like the category founders envisioned, and a second category for all the rest of the neon that, while it may not be stellar, is still deserving of a category.

It is a great example of how when a group works together challenges can be worked through and the category can become even better than when it was first started. I really urge all of you leaders out there to discuss changes with your groups and communicate any concerns as soon as they come up. Your category will be better, thanks to the joint effort.

You know your obsessed with waymarking when...

2007-10-08T11:37:00.001-07:00

...You drive out to waymark a Nike missile site even though you have a raging sinus/ear infection. I couldn't stand it. Everyweek I try to find a waymark in at least 2-3 new categories that I haven't waymarked in before, but this week was coming to an end and my regular Saturday waymarking outing was cut because I was too sick. By the afternoon though, it was killing me. Sinus infection or not, I was going to waymark that damn missile site. So I talked my husband into driving (I was too "medicated") and in addition to my typical waymarking accoutrements, I armed myself with a box of kleenex, cough drops and a puke bowl.

It was nice to get out, but it wasn't the most interesting spot to be waymarking in. The missile site was turned into an off-leash dog park and was a big treeless area with not much to see other than a few remaining foundations and lots of cute dogs. After walking around the 37 acre site I had used up all of my waymarking gusto so we cut the trip short and headed home. I fell asleep on the drive back, clutching my kleenex box and camera and woke only once to talk my husband into stopping to get the car washed. I still needed to waymark a coin-operated car wash. :)

Category Evolution: My Conflicted Thoughts

2007-10-02T17:46:00.000-07:00

Recently there was a debate on the forums about whether a state historic marker category should change to allow "official" and "unofficial" markers so that only one category is needed, or whether a second category should be created to manage waymarks that are unofficial. At first I thought the state historic marker categories (SHM's) were being rigid and uptight. It seemed so silly to have yet another SHM category. Now, I still think that there is an overabundance of non-global categories and that waymarking should shy away from the creation of another 20 or so "unofficial" SHM categories. There are too many of them already. But I now see that it was easy for me to ask the "official" SHM categories to change because I had no investment in the categories. I didn't value the markers. They all seemed the same to me so why not put them in one big category and be done with them?

Now all of you historic marker lovers out there need to just calm down and read the rest of this before you get your panties all in a bunch. Although I haven't changed how I feel about SHM categories, I do have a lot more sympathy for the leaders who wanted to limit their categories to something very specific.

Some of you know that I love vintage neon signs. They are my favorite thing to waymark and when I helped as an officer during the creation process of the neon category I wanted to limit the category to only the great old neon of the past. I didn't want a bunch of boring everyday neon that is easy to find. I wanted great old signs like the cowboy sign above - signs that did more than say "open" or "Bob's Market". You know the ones. The category was approved in peer review with the requirements that the waymarks posted be "unique" and "creative". The officers embarked in a rough ride of what the group definition of "unique" is. I grimaced everytime a simple, modern, neon text sign was approved, thinking "why would people even bother to take the time to waymark that? Why would they want their name on a waymark like that?" Several times the wording of the posting requirements was altered to try to better explain what type of signs the category was looking for. It didn't work. Eventually a rift grew in the officers and now no one knows what to accept or deny.

The result of this rift is that a second neon category is being formed to create a place for the "Neon Lights" rejects. It stopped me cold because I realized that exactly what I had railed about in the SHM categories was happening here. Some people wanted to limit the category, others wanted to expand it, and the result of the officer's not bending resulted in the current push for a second neon sign category. So here I sit, trying to decide which is more important to me: restricting the category and have a second category for the more basic neon signs, or to ask for the category to evolve into something more inclusive. I'm a hypocrite if I push to keep the neon category restricted to unique, creative signs. That's exactly what I was frustrated with during the SHM debate. At the same time, if the requirements are loosened the incredible vintage signs like the one above will get lost in a watered down category.

In the end, I have to side with letting the category evolve. I won't enjoy wading through the waymarks to find vintage neon, but I still believe that it is better that the category evolve than having two categories for a subject that really only needs one. Maybe a drop-down list variable could be added to differentiate between vintage and modern, textual, and the more elaborate neon "pictures". If the site had the functionality to filter waymarks by a drop-down variable it would make the decision easy. I would value this functionality far beyond being able to download GPX files because it would slow down the creation of redundant categories.

Sorry that this is so long, but it's a topic that I'm struggling with right now and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Thanks.

Happy Waymarking!
- Hikenutty

Rain, rain and more rain: Waymarking in Washington State

2007-09-30T10:31:00.000-07:00

So, the rain is upon us in ernest here in Washington state. We're not talking a downpour: a storm with a beginning and end. No, we're talking gray skies and a steady drizzle that will continue through April. Okay, I'm exaggerating a bit, but not much. We will have some dry days, but the gray is here to stay. Blue skies won't be back until spring. It will slow my waymarking, but it won't stop me.

So Saturday while my son was rehearsing with his orchestral group in Tacoma we wandered over to the New Tacoma Cemetery to do some waymarking. The grass was deep and spongey with moss, each step squishy with water, as we wandered the rows looking for the grave of a Medal of Honor awardee. The water slowly seeped into my shoes, soaking my socks and numbing my toes. After five minutes the grave was found and a transformation had taken place in me. I had let go of my longing for more sunshine and resigned myself to the long damp fall/winter ahead of me. I started to appreciate the beauty of the drizzle and what it means for the landscape: mosses of every shade of green, from deep evergreen to a startling chartreuse; evergreen trees everywhere that in the winter try to make up for the lack of color elsewhere; the sound of the water dripping from leaf to leaf like some massive yet gentle percussion instrument.

It is what you focus on that gets you through the gray season here. You can either mope around inside about the summer you're missing, or embrace the simple beauty of the rain and get out and experience it. Whatever the case, get your raincoat and umbrella out. You'll need them.

The picture above is of a moss-covered gravestone I came across while waymarking the waymark "Pfc. Richard Beatty Anderson, Marine Corps" in the "Medal of Honor Graves" category. After waymarking at the cemetery we warmed up and an incredible bakery, Corina Bakery, in downtown Tacoma with french-pressed coffee and cake.

Posting a Waymark from a Waymark

2007-09-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

Have you ever posted an Internet cafe or wifi waymark from the waymark? I suppose those of you who pay for wifi on their cellphones or PDA's find nothing interesting about this, but it was kind of cool to be sitting inside an internet cafe and doing the write-up describing my surroundings. I felt a bit like a restaurant reviewer and was trying my best to not seem sneaky, but I didn't want a waitress looking over my shoulder and seeing a bunch of pictures of the place on my computer. I didn't feel like explaining waymarking - I just want to kick back on their comfy couch, drink my coffee and post away.

I sat there and posted waymarks for the building (an old Odd Fellows Lodge,) and for Dog-Friendly Restaurants, Internet Cafe and Wifi hotspots (the One Heart Cafe that I was sitting in.) What a cool location. The Merlino Art Center is this great old building that was built in 1925 as a fraternal lodge but is now an art hotspot in the very artsy town of Tacoma. The building holds a non-profit indie film theater, a cafe, 2 art galleries and a bakery on the retail level and above it is filled with artists studios, most of which are open to the public on the third Thursday of each month. I hear the bakery, Corina Bakery, is excellent and I'll have to go back and waymark it, along with Two Vaults Gallery - one my favorite art galleries in the city.

So it goes without saying that a pretty artsy crowd hangs out here. Typically I wouldn't be too out of place here, however last night I was covered in Nike swag given to me by my sister who works for Nike at their HQ. What can I say? It was free and comfortable. I had my t-shirt, pullover, and hat on and "swooshed" my way through the restaurant while onlookers stared. The uniform of choice at the Merlino is funky mismatched clothes, Converse hightops, and multiple piercings so I stuck out like a sore thumb. That's the funny thing about the arts community. They get very pretentious about not being pretentious. :)

Some of the above waymarks are still waiting to be reviewed, so you might not be able to view them immediately.

Say Goodbye to Visit Requirements

2007-09-21T07:23:00.000-07:00

Last night was the 2nd official Waymarking Town Hall and I am officially no longer an IRC virgin. I have been initiated into the world of IRC and I quickly learned that I need to brush up on my typing skills. What a great tool, though! A conversation that would have taken a week on the forums took an hour in the town hall (give or take a few minutes for Canadian jokes. :)

Anyhow, the main topic of the night was whether or not there should be requirements to log a visit to a waymark. I was surprised because it was pretty unanimous that the visit requirements be done away with. How many shots of a McWaymark are really necessary and who's going to visit said McWaymark if they have to photograph themselves in front of a fast food establishment? It's not just about the business/commerce waymarks though. Do we really need to be waymark police? Will it kill us to have to put up with a few "TFTW" logs? I don't think so. If someone feels the need to be an armchair visitor, who has lost out? - you, who had the experience of being there, or the person who missed that chance and is lame enough to lie that they were there. When all is said and done, people will get out of the game what they put into it and no requirement is going to force them to have more or less fun. Sure, it's nice to hear what other people think about a place that you took the time to create a waymark for, but I'm guessing that for a cool, unique waymark you will still hear all about what people think. I realize that waymarking games might still need some requirements, but that's different, so if you disagree with me, don't start bringing up games to support your argument.

I'm offering up an alternative to the requirements that are currently out there: Visit "suggestions". There's no reason that you can't ask people to let you know how their visit went or to upload a picture they might have taken, just don't MAKE them do it. Let them know that the information from their logs gives a waymark a wider perspective and makes it a better waymark. Thank them in advance for helping out and bettering your waymark with their information. Kill them with kindness and I bet most of your visitors' logs will be even better than when you required them to spit out specific information.

If everyone out there who agrees with me takes steps to promote this change to visit logs then we have the power to make a difference. State your opinion (WITHOUT YELLING) in the forums. Post about it on your own blog. Most importantly, go back and edit all of the categories that you lead so they now have "visit suggestions". For groups that you're an officer in, not a leader, email your group leader and ask them if they would consider changing the category's visit requirements. Make it your waymarking mantra and before you know it, visit requirements as we know them will be a thing of the past. At the end of this post is some standard text that most categories could use as visit suggestions. Feel free to copy it and use it to edit the categories that you currently lead or to offer it to leaders of groups that you're an officer in.

I think that for waymarking to grow outside of the geocaching, gps-toting world this change is important. If you agree PLEASE take the initiative to start today and go change the visit requirements in your categories. And for those at Groundspeak who read this, PLEASE change the "Visit Requirements" text on the category creation page to something different. It doesn't have to be "suggestions", maybe just "Logging a Visit", but taking away the word "requirement" will jump start this change.

Go forth and "suggest". :)

Here's that text that I offered:

To help give a different perspective and to better the waymark for future visitors please tell us about your visit and upload a favorite photograph you took of the waymark. Although visiting this waymark in person is the only thing required of you to receive credit for your visit, taking the time to add this information is greatly appreciated.

Surprise Disoveries

2007-09-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been browsing the grid and all of a sudden you remember a location that you can cross-post into an especially tough category? Or out of the blue remember a location that you drive by daily that would fit into one of those tough categories? This happened to me three times this week.

For my bingo I needed to find a WWII Site and a Railroad Disaster site. I knew of several WWII sites that I could use, but the railroad site eluded me. Then out of nowhere I remembered some info I had come across when doing research for some of my Seattle monorail waymarks. The monorail had crashed at the Seattle Center station back in the 1970's and I have that station waymarked in 5 or more categories - a happy discovery.

Another discovery was a forgotten shipwreck. I was looking through past summer photos and remembered a cool park that I had visited two summers ago on the Pacific coast. While there I waymarked the ruins of an old ship, the S.S. Catala. I hadn't thought about the category at the time - just waymarked the place so I could find it later on my next visit to the coast. So I loaded the info and photos up and at this point am waiting for it to be reviewed.

The final find is a place that I drive by every Saturday on my way to downtown Tacoma. There's a gated community with a faux lighthouse that's used as the guardhouse at the front entrance. I've always thought that it was so cheesy, especially for a development with only about 10 houses that have a water view (of the distant industrial Tacoma harbor). The gatehouse isn't one of those. As I drove by it today it finally clicked, "hey, a landlocked lighthouse!". I'll be finishing the submission of that waymark later today.

There are so many categories now that it's easy for me to forget about a few until I browse the grid trying to fill in holes. As new categories are created I forget about some of those older waymarks I have that can be cross-posted. It's my own version of being a dreaded armchair waymarker. So you waymarkers out there, don't forget to look back at some of those old waymarks. You never know what you'll find.

The above photo is of the S.S. Catala. It was taken the day before it was discovered that the ship was full of oil. A couple friends and I just happened to discover it on a girls weekend to the coast. We returned home to see it on the front page of the paper. The EPA is now excavating the vessel and removing the oil from this protected habitat of two birds on the endangered species list. So far 13,000 gallons have been removed from 2 of the 5 tanks.

BINGO!

2007-09-11T13:22:00.000-07:00

So after months of focusing on trying to fill up my grid I finally have a bingo. We took a two hour drive up to the beautiful Port Townsend area to waymark Fort Worden in the "World War II Sites" category. It was pretty exciting, because believe it or not, I don't really focus on trying to get bingos (20 category icons in a row on the category grid.) My favorite thing is more of a "blackout" style of playing, that is, trying to grab as many icons as possible and fill out my grid, no matter where the icon might be located on the grid. When I notice that I have 17 or 18 in a row though, I sit up and take notice. This was one of the few rows that is possible to completely fill without having to do a lot of travelling out of the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S.

It was a great day and we had a lot more fun that we expected to have at Fort Worden. The weather was beautiful and the clear blue skies allowed views of the islands and Mt. Baker. The best part was climbing around in and on the old batteries built in the early part of the 20th century. 150 photos and a sunburn later we hopped in the car and headed for home, crossing our fingers that the waymark would be accepted. The only disappointment of the day was that there was a Wooden Boat Festival taking place in Port Townsend and it was so crazy we couldn't find parking to stop at our favorite ice cream parlor, "Elevated Ice Cream". It was rated as one of the seven best ice cream shops in the nation on the Food Channel and I can vouch for it. The ginger ice cream is to die for! Oh well, maybe my next bingo will bring me back to town. :)

The photo above is of the Point Wilson Lighthouse backdropped by Mt. Baker. The lighthouse is located on the grounds of Fort Worden. Rose Red has waymarked it in the Coastal Lighthouse and NRHP categories, and I have included it as a stop in my Fort Worden Waytour waymark.

A "Fast" Visit

2007-09-09T23:47:00.000-07:00

I go on and on about how much I can't stand chain business categories, but I have to admit that as much as I hate them, I always try to post one waymark (or log one visit) to a category before I chuck the category over into my ignore list. A bit hypocritical, but I'm a slave to the grid. The thing is, I always assumed my fast food waymarks would sink into database oblivion, never to be heard from again. I was wrong.

Today I came home from a day full of sun, beach, and waymarking to see that I had visits to about 10 of my waymarks. I read through, and this guy really seemed to have enjoyed the waymarks - the fair, a BBQ restaurant, and a few more I can't remember. Then I see the last one - Wendy's. I was mortified. Someone actually logged a visit to my one and only Wendy's waymark. And here was the log - "Why?" I felt the need to email back and say thanks for visiting my waymarks and thanks for rating my Wendy's restaurant a 2, because I think it sucks too.

So the moral to this tale is - if you don't want to be associated with a waymark, don't post it folks. Will I learn my lesson and not post to the new KFC category if it's approved? Probably not. That could mess up a grid bingo! Hopefully you aren't as addicted to the grid as I am, though, and you can learn from my embarrassment. ;)

Category Crush

2007-09-06T08:09:00.000-07:00

At the danger of angering some of the folks who read this blog, I'm going to go on a little rant here. What is with all of the lame categories lately? I understand people getting excited about waymarking and wanting to jump right in and create a category, but give me a break! Some of the things coming through peer review I find odd - boy scout created footbridges rather than just plain footbridges. I have to admit I wasn't especially fond of the footbridges category, but it's grown on me. However - is this really a category that needs to have other variations? And the Jeep trails category - who cares what club/vehicle type creates the trail? Isn't the off-roading category sufficient?

The recent flood of new categories can be seen as a good thing, though. It likely means that a lot of new people are starting to waymark. But it is bringing up a flaw in the system. Categories are getting approved that are duplicates of other categories and peer review isn't weeding these out. Take the recent "Exceptional Restaurants". This sounds very similar to the "Independent Diners" category (which is for all recommended restaurants, not just diners.) Do both of these need to be on the category list? Or Domino's pizza (seen in peer review - I don't know if it passed) - doesn't that fit in the "take-out food" category? Peer review works on some of these duplicate categories, but not all of them. As more people start waymarking, more of these categories will make it through peer review and the grid will be clogged with narrowly focused categories. And as BruceS noted in the forums, once a category is approved, it's on the grid for good.

Silverquill recently proposed a mandated submission of category ideas to the forums before they are allowed to go to peer review. Yes, this won't always work because people will list it in the forums and then not really look at the comments being made. It also will leave the evolution of waymarking in the hands of the small group of people who frequent the forums. But something needs to be done! And it seems like some type of category discussion prior to peer review is the answer. At the very least there should be some place where people can submit the category idea and people more familiar with the grid can let them know which categories are similar and if their idea duplicates another. I'd love to hear some opinions on this. Anyone? Or is it just me who is bothered by this.

Waymarking Town Hall

2007-08-31T13:23:00.000-07:00

So, I just finished reading the chat log from Waymarking.com's first "town hall" meeting that took place a couple days ago. The whole time I was reading it I kept wanting to jump in and add my opinion and then would remember it was over. :) Wow! What a great tool for brainstorming about ways to improve the game.

For those of you who don't frequent the waymarking forums and missed out on the chat announcement, there was a live chat meeting this week to discuss the Website and also some new ideas of future upgrades, etc. The plan right now is that these live chat sessions will take place every two weeks or so, and each session would have a specific topic that would be focused on. It's a great opportunity to share your opinion with the folks at Groundspeak who are shaping the future of the game.

My only worry has to do with the fact that I am a technological moron. I have never in my life participated in a live chat session and will first have to set up the software etc. on my computer. On the off chance that I am able to muddle through this (or that my computer savvy sister comes up from Portland, Oregon before the next chat session) I will definitely be joining in the next chat. (I can't believe that I missed an opportunity to complain about GPS photo requirements!)

Waymarking Flickr Fun

2007-08-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

As many of you know there's a Waymarking group on Flickr.com that's devoted to featuring waymarkers' photographs of their waymarks. The waymarker, Ambrosia, started the group and I moderate it with her. We are a pretty laid back group and don't really have the typical Flickr group list of rules. There is no photo limit - all we ask is that the photos are from waymarks that the user has posted or visited on Waymarking.com, and that you add the tag "waymarking" to the photo. Currently there's a thread going in the group about ways to add some fun and I wanted to post a few of the ideas we've come up with.

What I'm most excited about is the scavenger hunt idea that we're working on (the group is still working on the idea, so what I'm describing here isn't set in stone.) On the first of each month a thread would be started that announced the theme of the contest and then a list of 5 (maybe 10) categories that the members would need to find and waymark (waymark must be posted within the month of the contest.) Members would then post their best photo from each of the waymarks they posted and the photos would need to also fit the month's theme. At the end of the month the group would then vote on a favorite photo from each of the categories, and the thread would be closed with a list of the winning photographs and also the first person who was able to post a waymark in each category.

Themes might be seasonal (holidays seasons, weather, etc.,) or visual (vertical lines, curves, etc.) or even something else wild and wacky that I come up with. The challenge would then be to find something in the listed waymarking categories that also has a tie-in to the theme. The theme might be something totally unrelated to waymarking, for example - the color red. If one of the categories in the "red" month's contest was Abstract Public Sculpture I could post the above photo of my waymark for the very red "Eagle" sculpture by Alexander Calder in Seattle, Washington (assuming that it was a new waymark for me.)

Another idea for the Flickr group that isn't as fun, but will market Waymarking is "comment promotion." As a way to promote waymarking, we want to come up with a small block of html that people could copy & paste to the end of their comments about waymarking photos that would have a one sentence description of waymarking and links to the Flickr group and to Waymarking.com. How this works is that often one photo might be in the gallery of several different groups. Right now if the photo's description tells what category the location is waymarked in the people in those other groups might not know what that means. This way people who came across the photo in other groups - say the Flickr scavenger hunting groups - they could learn a bit about waymarking.

If you have more ideas for the group or are interested in joining you can use the group link or thread link above. Currently we have 24 members and close to 200 waymarking photos. We'd love to have you join us.

Kiss Hunting

2007-08-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to post a waymark in the Kissmobile Sitings category so about 6 months ago I checked the Kissmobile Website and discovered that it was going to be in the Seattle-Tacoma area in August. The problem is that although they are great about keeping a schedule on their Website, they only tell you when they will be in a region, but not where in the region they will be stopping. The Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area is a pretty large place for a Kissmobile (K.M.) to hide. It just wasn't worth the hassle so I gave up.

Then last week I spotted the Kissmobile on I-5 driving home from Seattle. I was tempted to turn around and follow the thing, but I was with a non-waymarking friend and I didn't think she would get it if I yelled "tail those giant Hershey Kisses!" I restrained myself, but it reignited my compulsion to post a waymark in this category. I did one last web search to see if anyone in the area had listed that the K.M. was showing up at their store or event. SUCCESS! In just 2 days time, their last stop before heading to Eastern Washington, they would be in a town about 20 miles from our home.

So today we drove out and at noon, just as they were setting up we took our pictures - 2 fun pics and the required pic with a waymarker and gps in it as well as a required pic of the license plate. It was fun to grab the waymark, and the new "Kissables" candies they were handing out were pretty good - think m & m (Smarties for those of you up in Canada) meets Hershey's Kiss.

Our Kissmobile waymark hasn't been approved yet so it might not be visible yet. Hopefully soon though.

A Weekend in the Hills

2007-08-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

I've been busy posting the 20 or so waymarks that I found while camping and hiking on Chinook Pass near Mt. Rainier National Park. Early Saturday we started a hike up to Sheep Lake and Sourdough Gap along the Pacific Crest Trail. For those of you who aren't familiar with the trail, it is a 2,600 mile trail that runs from the Canadian to the Mexican border through some of the most beautiful spots in the country. The wildflowers were gorgeous and the view from the gap was amazing. We continued past the gap into Mt. Rainier National Park, but didn't feel up to continuing to the next 2 gaps along the trail. It was freezing cold, but at least the area wasn't fogged in. There are some camp sites at Sheep Lake (seen in the picture above) and I think we might backpack in next year and use the lake as a base camp for further hikes. I waymarked the hike and surrounding area in many categories, including Named Mountain Gaps, Scenic Hikes and Hiking Footbridges.

After the hike we drove over to the Sunrise area of Mt. Rainier National Park. In my opinion this section of the park has the best views of any of the major visitor centers. Paradise is great for wildflowers, but if you want vistas of Rainier and limitless amazing hikes, head to Sunrise. Here we found many more waymarks, including one for the elusive Ansel Adams Photo Hunt category. Others were Scenic Overlooks, NRHP (still to be waymarked), National Parks of the World, and another Glacier waymark. The Ansel Adams waymark was one that I've been wanting to go and waymark since last winter. Unfortunately the weather wasn't cooperating so you can only see the lower half of the mountain, but there was enough of Emmons Glacier showing to see that it was the same area. I only know of 2 landscape photos that Adams took in Washington State, so I was glad to be able to grab this one.

Some of the above waymarks haven't been approved at the time that I am posting this so they may not be visible on the site yet. We were able to post waymarks in 6 new categories this weekend. A big disappointment was that the two Smokey the Bear signs had been removed and instead there was just a small painted smokey on one of the fire risk signs, so no Smokey waymark for us.

Unfortunately the weekend ended on a wet note. It rained steadily all night and we discovered that our REI backpacking tent leaks! Our Kelty family camping tent was put through a tough test of a full night of pounding rain in the Midwest and not a drop came into the tent. Now, our supposedly superior backpacking tent leaked not just from near the base, but overhead and I ended up suffering the equivalent to Chinese water torture as it dripped icy water on my forehead for half of the night. And this was Washington rain! A slow drizzle, not the pounding stuff we dealt with in Iowa. Time to break out the seam sealer, I guess. We broke camp at 6 a.m. and headed home, only stopping to waymark a VFW hall and a church steeple on the way home.

Heading to the Hills

2007-08-17T08:09:00.000-07:00

The road trip threw our usual camping/hiking routine out of whack this summer - typically we try to head into the mountains every other weekend starting in early May, and sometimes even March or April if we have a dry weekend. It's some of my favorite waymarking territory and definitely the place that revives me after a grey winter in the 'burbs.

This weekend we'll finally be heading up into the Cascades for a trip and I'm very excited. The plan is to camp at a Federal campground near Mt. Rainier National Park and then to drive to the top of Chinook Pass to do some hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail. It's the only trail in the National Park that you can take dogs on, so we didn't have many choices of where to go, but it's wildflower season and the sub-alpine meadows should be sublime right now. The crest of Chinook Pass is one of my favorite spots in the Cascade Mountains, full of wildlife, wildflowers and wild landscapes. I waymarked the pass in the American Guide categories and it was one of my favorite waymarks to put together because I have so many memories up there.

I'm hoping to pick up a few categories this weekend - Smokey the Bear, Named Mountain Gaps (we're hiking up to Sourdough Gap), and a few more. I might even have a chance at an Ansel Adams Hunt waymark, but it depends on the weather. It will be refreshing to list a few waymarks in Washington again. I'm still slogging through all of the vacation waymarks from the Midwest.

The photo above is of Tipsoo Lake with Mt. Rainier in the background. The lake is near the top of the Chinook Pass and is a beautiful spot for a day trip. Bring a picnic and stroll around the lake. In early August the meadow will be thick with wildflowers. The lake is next to a CCC built comfort station with tables near the parking area. Stay on the trail - this area is very delicate.

Waymarking Photos

2007-08-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

It's always a disappointment to me when I have to photograph something for a waymark on a gray day (which happens quite often here in Washington State.) The difference between a sculpture set against gray, versus one set against a brilliant blue sky is amazing - it brings out an energy in the object being photographed, and the colors just pop!

Yesterday I spent the day in Seattle visiting the new wing of the Seattle Art Museum and taking a friend to see the Olympic Sculpture Park for the first time. Last time I was at the park it was pretty gray but this day was a day for taking photos. I took pictures of EVERYTHING! The colored glass "shadows" on a gravel path, a vandalized pane of glass in the "Seattle Cloud Cover" piece, every possible shot of the Calder sculpture with the Puget Sound in the background... When I started taking pictures of the gravel path my friend wandered off to make sure people didn't realize she was with me. ;) The shots turned out great though and now I need to get around to adding them to the galleries of all the different sculptures that I have waymarked in the park.

Oh - little photography tip for those taking photos of landscapes. Divide the image you see in your lense into 3 rows both horizontally and vertically. Never have the horizon line, or main horizontal line of the shot running straight through the middle of the picture. Either have it at the imaginary line at the top or bottom third of your shot. Also, if there is a subject that is part of the landscape shot - say a lighthouse on a bluff near the coastline - don't center the subject! Frame it so the subject is on the left or right "1/3" line that you've drawn vertically through your shot. Seems picky, but it will make a world of difference in your landscapes. So often I see waymarking pics come through that would be magazine quality shots if only they had been framed using the "rule of thirds".

The above photo is of the piece "Seattle Cloud Cover" that runs the length of the pedestrian bridge in the park. The light was being cast in all of these wonderful colorful shadows and I must have taken about 30 or more photos of the gravel alone. This shot shows the end of the piece and the shadows that it casts. I liked the perspective of the shot.

Paperless Waymarking

2007-08-11T19:13:00.000-07:00

When you're out waymarking it's nice to have something along to remind you what the requirements are for specific categories. Some of the requirements seems so obscure and it is more than irksome to have something denied because "you MUST have a photograph of the sign showing exactly in the center AND the building showing in the background AND you dancing a jig with your fingers held up making a W for 'Waymarking' AND the gps balanced on top of your head with the time and date stamp showing". Okay, I may be exaggerating a bit but sometimes the requirements are downright silly.

To solve this problem I had been printing out my spreadsheet that lists all of the categories with their requirements coded so they would only take up a single line. Even so I would end up with about 10 pieces of paper that were hopelessly out of date within a month.

The Waymarker, flipflopnick, came up with a great idea that he made available on the forums and on the community tool section of my Website, Wayward Waymarking. He created simple text files of all the category desriptions/requirements and then downloads them to a PDA. It doesn't take up too much space because they're .txt files and they are there at the touch of a button. When new categories are added to the directory, you can just upload the updates. We'll be getting updates from flipflopnick monthly and you can either just download those or make the new text files yourself. No more wasted printouts! If you don't have a PDA and want to go paperless, they can be purchased on Ebay fairly inexpensively - you don't need anything fancy. Of course, this may be a good excuse to buy one of the new ones that do everything but drive the car for you. :)

Grid Chat: The latest and greatest on the grid

2007-08-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

Did anyone notice that if you click on one of the grid squares that instead of just opening the category's page it opens the category's page with a filter to only show the waymarks you've posted in the category? It's just a simple thing, but very handy, that's for sure.

And yesterday row 28 of the grid was finished off with the new National Trust, UK category. To me this category is a big step. Regionally specific categories are so interesting - they focus on waymarking things that are important to a specific culture and its history. For the hobby to continue to grow worldwide it's important to encourage waymarkers in countries outside of North America to create a few of their own regional categories that speak to the people of their country/region. So a hearty thanks to Brentorboxer and her team of officers.

Lastly, a few new icons I've chuckled over on the grid. The used video game store icon now has an NES controller perched above the storefront - go Nintendo! The Independent Diners icon is near and dear to my chain restaurant hating heart. It's a knife and fork with the word "chain" above it crossed out in red. Heh-heh-heh. :) And as a dog lover how can I not just love the Self-serve Pet Wash category's icon? A dog all sudsed up. Just plain cool icons? The new stained glass flower for the Art Deco/Art Nouveau category, and the Sydney Opera House for my 2 Master Architect categories. And one more thing - did any one notice that it looks like the soldiers on the icon for "Battlefields" are doing Tai Chi? It's a slow motion battle, I guess. :)

Milestones!

2007-08-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

This week team Hikenutty hit 2 great milestones for a waymarker. Thanks to our 2 week road trip and the several hundred waymarks collected along the way we have hit 1,000 waymarks posted this week. The second milestone for us was to waymark 100 waymarks in a single category. We hit 100 this week in the U.S. National Historic Places category.

Now, I know that waymarking isn't just about the numbers, and as many of you know, I've always been a proponent for quality over quantity, but even so - it feels great! :) I'm not a numbers girl and I haven't really been thinking about where my count stood until I was checking out the changes on the profile pages this week. I saw that I was getting close to 1,000 which is not bad, considering my one year waymarking anniversary was in June. Okay, I'm done patting myself on the back now, guys. :)

Still, the biggest charge for me in waymarking is not in how many waymarks I have listed, but in the charge of walking around a corner and being surprised by an extremely cool place/thing just waiting to be waymarked. I look much closer at the world around me and instead of just breezing down the street, I check out the buildings, art and public spaces. That new perspective on the world around me is the most valuable part of the hobby.

The picture above is of the First National Bank in Davenport, Iowa. It was the first National Bank opened under the National Banking Act of 1863, so it truly is the "first" First National Bank. It was my 100th waymark in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places category. My 1000th accepted waymark was a beautiful wave shaped sculpture made of driftwood at the Figge Art Museum, also in Davenport, Iowa.

Profile Page Updates

2007-08-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

The team at Groundspeak has yet again added some goodies to the profile sections of the Website that will make the game even more addictive for those of you who love watching your number of waymarks posted and visited slowly (or quickly in some folks case) rise.

On the forums awhile back folks were talking about wanting some kind of award icon added to users' profile pages to let folks know what level they've reached in their total waymarks. Yeah, I know. There's already the little red and white box showing the count, but isn't it fun to get ribbons? A little like the gold stars you earned on school work back in elementary school. The awards start at 25 waymarks and go all the way up to 5,000.

There are other treats, too. On the right sidebar of your profile page you'll see a new box. In it are some great new site functions that you'll be sure to enjoy. You can now click on the "view gallery" link in this box to see all the photos that you've posted to Waymarking.com - your own personal Waymarking photography gallery. If you have Google Earth on your computer you can click on the "Waymarking Footprint" link to see the areas you've waymarked around the world highlighted on the globe. Another Google Earth feature is that you can now click on "Download all My Waymarks" to download your waymarks in .kml format to Google Earth in one fail swoop, rather than page by page, like you used to have to do.

There are probably additional upgrades that I haven't noticed yet, so if you guys see anything that I missed be sure to add it in the comment section of this post.

OH! I almost forgot! The Geocaching.com and Waymarking.com profiles have now been separated so you can personalize each profile to its own Website. Don't panic when you click on your profile page and much of the previous info that you entered is missing. Just go over to geocaching.com and copy the old parts you want to use from your geocaching profile over to your waymarking profile. Here's our new Waymarking specific profile. I love that this has been separated.

Not to be ungrateful, because I LOVE the new profile page set up, but I had one more suggestion for the U.S. map section of the profiles. It might be cool to have a key to the map along the side that shows the different shades of blue and what they stand for (i.e. "1-10 waymarks" and a small box with the lightest blue in it). Just a little extra something, in case you're bored and looking for things to do over there at Groundspeak now that this update is up and running. :)

Seriously, thanks to everyone over at Groundspeak for constantly continuing to upgrade the Website making it more user friendly and just all around a fun place to hang out on the Internet.

New Category Ideas

2007-07-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been itching to start a few new categories. I went through a phase when I first started waymarking when I had tons of ideas and really enjoyed creating categories, but then I burned out on it. I guess everyone probably does that - you start waymarking and have all these cool ideas that you want to turn into categories. Then, I realized it was a lot easier talking other people into creating the group and just joining as an officer. You still get the fun but only have to do half the work. :) Did anyone else go through that category creating phase, or is it just me?

Now I'm getting the itch again. I keep getting ideas and then forget to write them down. I remember two of them, though: "Unintentionally humorous signs" (read the last post) and then "Old theatre marquees/signs". I've wanted to see a theater sign category on the grid for a long time but didn't want to work through all the logistics as to what the requirements would need to be. I'd still be glad to pass the theatre sign idea off to someone else and join as an officer, though. Any takers?

The sign pictured here is from the Balaban and Katz Chicago Theater - a historic theater built in 1921 that can be found in the Chicago Loop. I'll be waymarking it soon in the U.S. National Registered Historic Places, the American Guide, and the Official Tourist Attraction categories.

Do Not Hump Under Any Circumtances

2007-07-25T08:17:00.000-07:00

So as I was wandering around a very cool old railroad complex and roundhouse in Evanston, Wyoming I came upon an old dining car that had these words on the side of it. "DO NOT HUMP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES." I had a good laugh since I have a 5th grader's sense of humor and then had my husband explain the railroad lingo behind this funny sign. It seems that to "hump" a railroad car is to use a small hump in the tracks to get it to roll to where you want it. The car goes over the hump and then the hill causes it to roll further without having to push it or tow it there. I'm sure that's a simplistic and possibly not-quite-correct explanation of the term, but it will do.

When we got home from our trip I posted the photo on flickr with the tag "sign" and it has become my most popular photo by far. None of my cool neon sign photos or funky art shots or architecture shots come close. I guess everyone appreciates a good chuckle.

The waymarker Team TGF saw it and said there should be a category for unintentionally funny signs. I know that someone brought up the idea a long time ago, but it never went anywhere. It would be a great category though, and if I don't remember to bring it up in the forums and get it going, someone else do it. It would be a great companion to the "odd business combos" group. I found one of those in Evanston too - a combo fireworks store and liquor store originally called "Porter's Fireworks and Firewater."

The Rainy Days of Summer

2007-07-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Most people know that Western Washington is known for its damp weather. I was born and raised here, and although I don't have the proverbial webbed feet I am well equipped for handling the rain - at least for 9 months of the year. However, I am not able to comprehend how to deal with a week of rain in July, especially after returning from a vacation in the blazing summer sun. It is absolutely ridiculous! Yesterday I had to dig out my rain suit to take my dog to the dog park. I couldn't even remember where it was. Usually I don't have to start looking for it until mid to late September.

Anyhow, Washington's rainy weather is prime waymark posting weather. It sucks to waymark in, but ahhhhh, a steaming hot cup of coffee, a nice warm laptop on your lap, and a backlog of waymarks to post is a great way to avoid the rainy day blues. Of course I feel a bit guilty because Troy is out working on the deck while I'm nice and dry and cozy inside. I'll just try to shut my ears to the hammering sounds and occasional exclamations of @#$% and work on my monster backlog of waymarks.

The above photo is of gorgeous Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park, South Dakota, where we camped while in the Black Hills. It happily reminded me of how summer SHOULD look. The park is waymarked in the American Guide category, and eventually I'll waymark the lake in the category by itself. It's on the aforementioned backlog.

Proud Waymarking Moments

2007-07-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

Have you ever posted a waymark that you're especially proud of? Maybe one in a category that's really difficult to find, like shot towers? Or, best of all, a waymark that is an incredible find for a specific category? For me, these are the moments that get me addicted to waymarking.

It's never been about the numbers or the bingos for me, but instead about these WOW moments during the hunt. Of course, don't get me wrong, I love watching my waymark total grow and it would be great to have a bingo, however, what I love most is finding a great waymark. Sometimes I happen on them by surprise while I'm out looking for another waymark, or sometimes I stumble upon info on the internet, but either way it's pretty cool.

Over the last few weeks I've been having these moments fairly regularly. Vacation can do that for a waymarker because so many of the waymarks are happy surprises in areas that are unknown to us. I was over-the-top excited to be able to waymark not just a Miro and a Chagall, but also a Picasso in my pet category, Abstract Public Sculptures. I love posting any cool art that I stumble upon in this category, but to get to post several famous pieces was pretty exciting. They're just such great editions to the category.

Penny Smashers is a category that is fun, but I hate standing in a gift shop and photographing a machine. It makes me feel like the weird tourist who photographs everything. We smashed over 20 pennies on this trip but only waymarked a few smashers. My favorite was one at Fort Hays, the movie set to "Dances with Wolves" because of how unique it was. They had an old Black Hills Gold gold press and when you paid the guy your money, he would use tweezers and at just the right time guide the penny into the press. It was really cool and I loved posting such a unique waymark to the category.

We also posted a waymark in one of the more difficult categories, Literary Sites. Of course with Sandburg, Dreiser and Sinclair writing in Chicago, there are plenty of sites to be found. Our waymark is of the historic Stockyard Gates in south Chicago for the book "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. I found an amazing passage about the workers waiting for jobs at the gates and used that as the inspiration for the post. For some reason I am always excited to post in categories like this one, the Immortalized in Lyrics category, or the Ansel Adams Photo Hunt. It's so cool to find the spots that inspired these artists. Hey that gives me an idea! We have a category for locations inspiring literature, music and photography. What about one for visual arts? Locations that can be seen in famous works of art. It could be linked to an art database. Okay, now I'm rambling.

So, I'd love to hear your comments on this and learn about some of the waymarks that you're most proud of and why. Happy waymarking!

Oh - the photo above is of the sculpture "Flamingo" by Alexander Calder and was another famous sculpture I was excited to waymark. I've also waymarked his "Eagle" which is located in Seattle.

Reviewers: Waymarking Ambassadors

2007-07-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

I know that I've talked before about how it irks me when reviewers are rude or they don't explain why something is denied. This post is about the opposite: the positive reviewer and the difference they can make.

Now, as many of you know, I've been posting up a storm following our road trip across the midwest. I've noticed how much I look forward to reading the reviewer's comments. Some of them are pretty funny, others express what they think about the waymark, most are very positive. It still gives a warm-fuzzy to a diehard waymarker like myself to hear someone likes my waymark. I'm not fishing for compliments here, but I'm just trying to point out how much more those comments would mean to a brand new waymarker.

People put a lot into their waymarks, at least most people do, and its nice to know that at least the reviewer took the time to read through and learn about the spot. It feels good to hear, "Wow, what a cool spot. Thanks for posting the waymark." And as a beginner, it helps bring the person into the waymarking community. And not just when a waymark is accepted. I had one denied this week and the reviewer said something like, "This is a really cool waymark, but the category requires a photo of a sign or a picture on a map with the name of the place showing. If you can find something like that please resubmit the waymark." As a reviewer, if someone posts something in the wrong category, I try to point them in the right direction. For example, "This is a great piece, but it isn't really an abstract sculpture. We'd love it if you'd post it in the figurative sculpture category instead." Being postive and helpful is the key.

Think about it. Most likely the first contact a brand new waymarker will have with the waymarking community will be with a reviewer. That makes you reviewers out there ambassadors for the hobby of waymarking. Think of that when you have that list of some 20 new waymarks to review. It's easier to just breeze through and not type any comments, but what a difference your comments can make.

The above picture is of Devil's Slide, in Utah near echo canyon. It was the waymark that I spoke of above (denied, but I resubmitted it.)

Post-Vacation Backlog

2007-07-12T17:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, many of you already know that I'm a slave to the icon. The cool grid and all of the Website's awesome icons really get my compulsive side going. I'm not really excited about the bingo - I just like seeing the grid fill up and this trip has definitely added a bunch of icons to my grid. My guess is that when all is said and done, I'll have icons for close to 50 new categories. Weird how a 1/4" picture can get a grown woman all excited. It's like back in elementary school and getting gold stars on your homework (only much more stylish :)

The quest for categories has caused me some hemming and hawing as to which waymarks to post first. I'm torn between the waymarks that will get me a new icon and the waymarks that are just really cool or are in my favorite categories. I opted to post the new category waymarks that are hard to find and that might be posted out from under me (take note Bruce, Farkle and NevaP.) So rare or regional waymarks like Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple, my Mies van der Rohe IBM Building for the "Master Architects: International Style" category, my state historic marker waymarks, and Historic Survey Stone have been waymarked. Next, I've been trying to post the waymarks that I think are really cool (or weird) - Frank Gehry's Pritzker Pavilion, the Jolly Green Giant, the Spam Museum (an oddball museum - you can't get much odder than Spam), famous sculptures by Picasso, Calder, Miro and Chagall, and oh so much more.

It's gotten to the point where I have to limit myself on computer time. I get so excited about posting the waymarks for some of these places that I'm not getting any work done. I swear I must have spent about 6 hours total on the computer the other day. I took most of today off from the computer to catch up, but watch out - tomorrow I'm back, baby!

The above photo is a detail shot of the coffered stained glass ceiling of Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois. It is one of my favorite buildings and it was an awesome experience to get to wander around the building and soak it all up. He was truly a genius. I went overboard taking pictures of the church so be sure to check out the gallery.

The After-Vacation Mess

2007-07-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

We returned from our trip on Monday and I've been busy unpacking, shopping for groceries, and all the other chores that need to get done after a vacation. In fact, I could you a vacation from the chores of vacation. This mess is worth it, though. We had an incredible time and saw a lot of the country that we'd never seen before. Already we're talking about where we'll go next year and it will likely be a road trip from Washington, D.C. down to Atlanta, Georgia. For now I need to concentrate on catching up and logging all of the waymarks from this trip.

Yesterday I posted about nearly 50 waymarks, half of them in the neon category. I'll post some more today but I really need to concentrate on updating the Wayward site features and tools. My biggest heartache was finding out that the Overland Stagecoach station that I waymarked won't fit in the Butterfield Overland Stage Markers location. It's a cool restored station and barn in Wyoming, and I can waymark it in a couple other categories, however, I really wanted that Butterfield Stage icon. Oh well, maybe on the next trip to the in-laws I'll find one.

The photo in this post is taken from my Rapid City Laundry waymark in South Dakota. It was one of the first neon signs that we came across and got all of us so hooked on the neon category that we stopped in a ton of little towns we never would have pulled off the interstate for, just to check their downtowns for neon. This is an action sign and the laundress moves up and down, scrubbing her laundry in the tub.

Road Trip: Iowa and Nebraska

2007-07-06T20:22:00.000-07:00

Well, we're finished with the driving portion of this vacation and are back in Wyoming for a few days before flying back to Seattle. It was an exhausting couple of weeks but so much fun that we're already talking about next year's trip. The last 2 days on the road were spent in Iowa and Nebraska. We had both fun and frustration during this part of the trip.

Iowa: In Iowa we met up with 8Nuts and MotherGoose in Davenport for some waymarking fun and great Iowa grub. I don't think that Hunter will ever stop talking about his barbecue dinner. They found us some great waymarks for categories that we still needed marks in, and even took us to a travel bug hotel so we could exchange some bugs that we had brought along on the trip with us. Unfortunately, after we said good night and went back to our tent a storm rolled in dumping 4 inches of rainfall in 6 hours. In the morning we were dry, but the bottom of our tent was like a water bed because the tent was resting in a 4 inch poll of water. While wading through the site and taking the tent down chiggers feasted on my ankles and I am still itching the 35 bites they took out of me. We had time for a couple more marks and breakfast with 8Nuts and MotherGoose before we hit the road, which made up for the rough night.

Nebraska: Hmm... The last time I was through Nebraska I was 6 years old and all I remember was that it took what seemed liked years to get to the other side. 32 years later it was pretty much the same experience. A gripe I have is that they don't sign their rest areas well at all and I missed all but one of NevaP's great waymarks and caches along the way. They don't even sign the restaurants/services at each exit. It really was a pain.

So, we'll be back in Seattle on Sunday and I'll get Wayward Waymarking updated, my emails caught up, and start in on the enormous task of posting the several hundred waymarks that I've taken and all the caches and travelbugs that we've visited. I look forward to sharing these great spots with the waymarking community. If you've emailed me and haven't received a response, know that I'm not ignoring you. Things will be crazy for the next couple of weeks, but I'll be returning emails soon.

Happy waymarking!

Road Trip: Midwest

2007-06-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight we've finally made it to the Chicago area after 2 days of driving from Rapid City. Last night we stayed in Minnesota on the bluffs of the Mississippi River and I was squealing like a little girl about the bugs. God, give me a good old Washington state slug any day. They grow mosquitoes the size of mosquito hawks in Minnesota and I spent more time hiding in the tent than enjoying the views. I'm embarrassed to say that I have this weird panic thing when I comes to mosquitoes. I have seen bears and huge elk across the trail from me on backpacking trips, held tarantulas, let huge Australian stick bugs crawl all over me, but put me in a cloud of mosquitoes and I panic. Even the clouds of these ugly big moth things in Dubuque today didn't bother me. I know - weird. Anyhow, I have survived my multiple panic attacks and am ready to brave the cockroaches of Chicago tomorrow. We'll be in the area for several days so I'll try to post again before we start the trek back to Wyoming.

The picture above was taken at the Spam museum, which I joked about in a past post. We ended up stopping there and were happily surprised. The place is an amazing museum. I'm not joking! There was all of this history, fun and goofy interactive games, and much more. Even for an anti-spam person like me it was a blast. Seriously! Once you see my waymark you'll believe me.

Road Trip: South Dakota

2007-06-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

Today we finished our time in the Black Hills of South Dakota and drove across the state to Sioux Falls, stopping at both natural and unnatural highlights along the way. The natural stops where Sylvan Lake, in Custer State Park near our campground. What an incredible spot - you can climb the huge boulders out in the middle of the lake, and then cool off afterwards with a swim in a pristine mountain lake.

After stopping there we continued east to the mother of all roadside attractions - Wall Drug. We had a blast in this land-o-kitsch. Truly, you have to visit this place to believe it, but be prepared to leave a hunk of cash behind. A couple bucks here, a couple there, and before you know it your wallet is much lighter.

Next we moved on to Badlands National Park. What a beautiful area! If I had it to do over, I'd make sure to hit this area early in the day so we could do a hike before it got too hot. Also, pictures of the formations would be much better with morning or evening shadows. The pic above is from one of the many overlook areas along the loop road through the badlands.

We had a few more adventures in some wild places, but you'll have to check out my waymarks in the next month to see them. Tomorrow we cross Minnesota and camp on the bluffs of the Mississippi River. I'll try to post to the blog in a couple of days when we get to the Chicago area.

Road Trip: Evanston, WY to Devil's Tower

2007-06-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

We had a long, hot day on the road and reached our campsite at the entrance to Devil's Tower National Monument with a rain storm chasing us down. The tent was up in record time and we went to the pool for a swim in the rain. Like any good Washingtonians we didn't let rain spoil our fun. The view from our tent looks out over the tower to one side and the red cliffs above the Belle Fourche River about 50 feet to the other side. Amazing! Tomorrow we'll hike the monument early in the morning and then head over into South Dakota. The photo for this post was taken from our campsite looking at the cliffs above the Belle Fourche. We'll be in Custer State Park at Sylvan Lake for the next two days so no wifi until the day after that. Waymarked some incredible stuff today. Can't wait to post the waymarks, but we're too busy having fun. I'll have time to post a few when I'm back at my in-laws in a week and a half. Happy Waymarking!

Way-Vacation Countdown: 1 day

2007-06-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

We've reached that final, exciting day before the road trip. I likely won't be able to post for a couple of days because we'll be busy in Evanston, Wyoming shopping for supplies and packing up all of the gear that we sent ahead for the road. We'll probably have internet at Devil's Tower, so I'll try to post to the blog from there.

The toughest part of this trip will be leaving our dog Frodo for 2 weeks. I swear, I wasn't even this bad when my son was a baby. It's ridiculous. Shuttle Express picks us up to take us to Sea-Tac Airport at 4:45 am (I know, it's painful) so we'll be taking him to a friend's house tonight at 7. The hardest part will be leaving her house, because he'll give me that hang-dog look that's so pathetic and then give a little whimper. He works that look - uses it daily at the dog park as he makes the rounds trying to get treats from everyone.

I find though that waymarking is not as dog-friendly of a hobby as geocaching is. Most dogs don't like crowds and urban areas and there's a lot more of that in waymarking. With geocaching (at least the caches we like to find) dogs get to run through the woods and play with wild abandon. So, as much as I would like to bring Frodo along, I couldn't subject him to a plane ride and all the hours in cars and cities. He'll be much happier running around with my friend's dogs and getting to see his pals at the dog park a few times. In fact I'll probably go to pick him up when we get back and he'll look at me like, "do I know you from somewhere?"

Bye for now. Next time I write it will likely be from someplace in cowboy-land.

Way-Vacation Countdown: 2 days

2007-06-20T12:52:00.000-07:00

One of the things we'll be doing on our trip is attending Troy's 20 year high school reunion. The reunion is actually located at a spot that I want to waymark - 3 National Registered Historic Places, Train Depot, Carnegie Library, Lincoln Highway Marker. They've renovated the town's old train depot and use it as a rental facility or for public festivals. It is the typical Western town set up - the train depot as the center of town, with the City Hall, Post Office and Library clustered around a public square in front of the depot.

It's interesting the difference between a small town in Washington and a small town in Wyoming. I grew up in a little coal mining town near the foothills of Mt. Rainier, and although it was definitely out in the country it was easy to get to nearby cities, malls, attractions, etc. In Wyoming a little town (and they are all pretty little) has nothing near it. The neighboring town is not 8 miles away, it's 80 miles away, and it's the same size as the one your in. It creates an isolation that is quaint if you are driving through, but not so nice to live with.

The culture is VERY different too. Let me tell you, it's a bit of a culture shock for a gal who grew up in a liberal area. However, the people are friendly as long as you avoid politics and the differences make it very fun to people watch. I'll be doing a lot of that at the reunion - until I wander off to do a little waymarking, that is. :)

The photo is this post is of Echo Canyon, which is actually in Utah on the way to the Wyoming border.

Way-Vacation Countdown: 3 days

2007-06-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

Our son has always enjoyed the yearly vacations and bi-weekly camping trips we take over the summer, although at 13 we are testing the limits of how much he'll put up with. Last weekend he went waymarking with us to Point Defiance Park in Tacoma and after about 30 minutes wandering a rose garden and a Japanese garden, you would have thought he had been enduring Chinese water torture for a couple of days. Of course, he wanted to get back home to a new computer game. My hope is the combo of new books to read, his Nintendo DS, and the cash he'll likely get from his grandma and grandpa in Wyoming will be enough to keep him in good humor. Plus, I suppose when you're 2,000 miles from home it's not like complaining is going to get you anywhere fast.

To keep him happy (and therefore keep us happy) he gets to earn itunes credit along the way for good behavior, and we've bought a bunch of his favorite magazines and fun little gadgets and treats to dole out in the middle of the long driving days. He's actually a really great traveller and has been since he was an infant, but he doesn't handle heat well and that will be the problem. We also have a bunch of geocaches planned at rest stops along the way and 3 small squirt guns for water fights when we stop.

I suppose the real problem will be if he reads the blog and sees this post. Then I'll be in trouble. :) The picture in this post is from our most ambitious trip which took place about 4 years ago. All three of us backpacked the Lost Coast of California. We drove out into the middle of nowhere and then hiked about 30 miles along the pristine coast. We saw sea lions, and a herd of elk sunning themselves on the beach. Sea otters would pop up out beyond the surf and watch us playing on the beach. We didn't see a single soul the entire time we were on the trail. Amazing. Here Hunter is playing with a kite we packed along on one of the beaches we camped on. He did a great job as that's a grueling trail and most adults have trouble with it. I know that there's no way he'd tolerate it now.

Way-Vacation Countdown: 4 days

2007-06-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

Only 4 days now until we hop on a plane to Salt Lake City, and then in a car to Wyoming. We've been planning the trip for a year now, so it's pretty exciting to be getting so close. I love this time before the trip. Everyone's so excited, things are getting packed, last minute chores getting done (unless of course you spend your time blogging).

We've sent two large boxes containing our backpacking gear to Troy's parents in advance of the trip. This weekend we packed up the rest of it and I was horrified at the amount of clothes that Troy wanted to bring. I told him he packed like a girl, which wasn't taken well. In the picture you see three suitcases. The two small ones standing against the wall are Hunter's and mine. The large one on the floor that Frodo is sniffing questioningly is Troy's - and that's after I had him put back about a third of his clothes. God, it's not like they don't have laundromats in the midwest. It won't kill us to do laundry once on the trip. He needs city wear, hiking clothes, running clothes, 20th class reunion clothes, and driving clothes...

He suggested we take a 4th suitcase, but I put the brakes on that. It will be bad enough dragging 3 suitcases, a laptop and various carry-ons through the airport.

Well, I'd better get moving and get a few of those errands done that I was talking about. I'll be back tomorrow to talk about way-vacationing with a 13 year old.

Competition

2007-06-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

When the Engineering Landmarks category showed up in the directory I looked through the various databases listed in it's description and found a local bridge on a list that was only about 15 miles from home. The problem is that the bridge, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, has already been waymarked in other categories - by two people in three different waymarks - and for all I knew those waymarkers were busy crosslisting the bridge in the engineering category as I was dinking around looking through the databases.

One of the waymarkers, Rose Red, is currently taking a trip along the Oregon Trail with limited computer access so I was safe on that count, but Prying Pandora is quick on the draw. I needed a picture and coordinates and I needed them fast.

Having waymarking competition in my home area is a new thing for me. A couple weeks back I waymarked a historic church in Elbe, Washington on the way up to Mt. Rainier National Park only to come home and find that someone else had already waymarked it. ELBE!! A town with about 5 people in the middle of nowhere!! Not to worry though. The waymarker had a home base south of me.

But lately I've been watching with worry as Prying Pandora, a well-known local geocacher with a few thousand cache finds, has started listing waymarks. Her home waymarking base is only a couple towns NE of our town and if she's becomes as avid a waymarker as she is a geocacher then I'd better worry. This is all in good fun of course. It's very exciting to have someone visiting my marks and leaving marks of some cool new spots that I didn't know about for me to visit.

Yesterday I visited her Tacoma Narrows Bridge waymark in the "Suspension Bridges" category, pondering whether I would beat her to the punch listing it in the engineering category as I was stuck in traffic on the bridge, high above the Puget Sound. It's a new waymarking era for the Hikenutty crew. We can't poke around when a hard-to-find category gets listed on the directory. I think I like it, though.

My engineering waymark, "Tacoma Narrows Bridge", was approved yesterday just hours after it was submitted. One more category down, only 250 or so to go. :)

Oddball Museums

2007-06-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

The blog's featured waymark this week, Mutter Museum, is a museum focusing on odd medical rarities. It's waymarked in the oddball museum category and it got me thinking about a few of the odd museum's that I've happened upon while researching waymarks for our road trip. We likely will only stop at a couple of these, but here are a few that we came across: the Squirrel Cage Jail Museum (a wheel of jail cells that circles with a hand crank), the National Museum of Roller Skates, Hormel's Museum of Spam with its "World's Largest Wall of Spam" (for those of you who've never been subjected to the horror of eating or looking at Spam - it's a chopped and formed pork (supposedly) product cushioned in a gelatinous ooze and packed in a can - UGH!), and a barbed wire museum which also sports the world's largest plow, I believe. It never ceases to amaze me that any item, no matter how mundane, will be loved enough by some person to have its own museum.

In the past I used to poke fun at the people who are obsessed enough with something that they could create a whole museum to it. Of course, that was before I started a whole Website and a blog dedicated to the hobby of waymarking. I can no longer point fingers. ;)

Goggling Google Earth

2007-06-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Groundspeak unveiled the new Google Earth networking function on waymarking.com this week and it seems like it will be a fun new addition to the features on the Website. Not being a techie-type person, I'm still mucking around, trying to figure out what I'm doing. At this point I haven't found a way that it can make my life any easier, however, it is fun to look around at where a category's waymarks are located.

I did notice that I had typed in the coordinates of one of my "Musician Statue" waymarks wrong when I submitted it which showed the statue of classical composer, Grieg, somewhere out in the middle of the Cascade mountains rather than in the middle of the University of Washington campus in Seattle. Nice to get that fixed as there's a geocacher that checks the coordinates of many of my waymarks and emails me whenever he finds a mistake. I don't even know the guy, so it's a little creepy.

Anyhow, I think that the Google Earth feature will at first be just a fun addition, but as it is refined will become a useful tool. I'm looking forward to the day when you can waymark along a route - a feature available on geocaching.com. Of course, there may be some amazingly helpful feature to Google Earth that I'm missing. I mean, we're over a month into the new updated search functions and I'm still figuring out how to use them to their full capability. I'd love to hear how you guys are using Google Earth, so send some comments as to how you are incorporating this new update into your waymarking routine.

PS: How often are the photos on Google Earth updated? I looked at the Seattle Sculpture Garden arial and in the pic it showed it before construction started. The shot of my neighborhood is at least 8 years old. Call me an airhead, but I thought this was live - you know, like you could catch a guy picking his nose or something?!

Reviewer Rigidity revisited

2007-06-10T15:13:00.000-07:00

Back in April you may remember one of my weekly rants where I discussed how rigid some categories are about silly GPS requirements. My complaint was that the GPS is a proof of visit tool and if you could otherwise prove you were present, then that proof should be accepted. I used for an example a waymark that I had submitted to the "Octagon Buildings" category for a historic barn in Oregon that I visited during my younger sister's wedding. No matter what proof I could give, the leader would not accept the waymark due to the lack of a photo with a gps in the shot. "If I start now," he reasoned "then it wouldn't be fair to people who were denied in the past who had alternate proof." I was extremely disappointed because I had been excited to be able to waymark the barn using photos I had taken at the wedding. Irritated, by the category's silly requirements I popped that baby onto my ignore list. No more octagons for this girl!

Flash forward to this week. I was browsing through newly approved waymarks when I happened on a few octagonal buildings in the U.K. that had been posted. I clicked on their galleries and noticed that two of them didn't have gps photos! "Oh those poor people," I thought. They were going to have to go through the accept-deny-resubmit-reaccept-redeny process that I went through. I thought of warning them what they might be in for, but decided to mind my own business and hope that the leader wouldn't catch it. Just in case things had changed, I figured that I'd check the category, and low and behold, there was a new leader! My old pal Silverquill was now leading the category and he had changed the requirements so that gps photos are no longer required. Hallelujah! In fact, he's now leading the "zoos" category and has removed the gps photo requirement from that category also.

So today I dug back through my photos and have resubmitted the Cornelius Pass Octagonal Barn waymark. It will be its third submission and I'm hoping that "third time's a charm." At this blog posting it has not yet been approved, but I'm crossing my fingers that by the time you read this and click on the waymark link it will be there for you to see, 10 months after I originally submitted the waymark.

The Backlog

2007-06-07T13:11:00.000-07:00

I've been working on my waymarking backlog this week. Well, it isn't really a backlog, in the true sense. These places have been waymarked, but I haven't cross-posted them in the other categories that I like to cross-post to. Once I've posted something once, it gets boring to cross-post and so I put it off. This is a perfect cross-posting day, though. It's cold, wet, and grey outside (it's June, for gods-sake! When will this misery end!) and I have a horrendous sinus headache, so I'm sitting, drinking my coffee and alternating cold compresses to my face with typing up waymarks

Post waymark - 5 minutes with the ice pack - post a waymark - take more ibuprofen - post waymark - 5 more minutes with the ice pack - post waymark - cry out my misery to the dog - wipe dog slobber off of my face - post a waymark... This is my day.

I wish that I could come up with some idea of how to make cross-posting easier. It certainly would be nice to have some kind of cross-referencing system, at a minimum. I don't have any clever ideas, however, and it hurts to think so I'm going to move away from this train of thought.

Anyhow, the above picture is of the "Experience Music Project" building, built by Frank Gehry and located at the Seattle Center. This photo shows the point where the Alweg Monorail enters the building. I have the building logged and waymarked in several categories, but I just recently cross-posted the Seattle Center in the Tourist Attractions category, one of my favorite categories to cross-post in.