Fearing a Visit

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

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?

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

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

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

Benchmarking?

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

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



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

Managing Visits

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

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

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

Presearch

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

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

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

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

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

Remembering Why I Waymark

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.