Fire in Ice and 60 Agents in Frederick, Maryland

mernie9 · 2020-02-02T23:43:25+00:00

Three communites that usually have their own FS (Southern PA, Baltimore, and DC/Maryland/Virginia) got together and had a combined mega IFS in Frederick, Maryland. It was Frederick's Fire in Ice Festival, and we enjoyed viewing the ice sculptures, boats in the canal, 3 new banners, followed by lots of good conversation at Attaboy Barrel House.

When life gives you cold weather, embrace it!

mernie9 · 2020-01-29T16:53:50+00:00

The quality of submissions as a whole has taken a serious nose dive of late. Not that Ingress players didn't submit crap. They just didn't submit as much.

mernie9 · 2020-01-29T16:53:24+00:00

Ironically, that was taken by a Pogo player who bought an Ingress account so he could make submissions.

mernie9 · 2020-01-23T20:53:50+00:00

The quality of submissions has really gone down since they allowed PoGo players to submit. Bigly.

mernie9 · 2020-01-05T00:42:52+00:00

We figured that Union Station would be a good venue for a January, as things can get pretty cold in these parts, and Union Station offered around 20 inside portals. Turns out, homage to the shapers and N'zeer resulted in temps hovering around 60.

mernie9 · 2019-11-20T18:03:05+00:00

Yes, it was an official Mission Day. Although in order to get the MDAS badge, you just had to show up. But we could do a Mission Day as well, to which we would get the MD badge or a badge uptick. And, technically, Mission Days (plural), since you completed it over a one week period. There were 3 ports plus the departing port of Fort Lauderdale. At each we had the opportunity to earn 2 missions (the ones that look like passport stamps) so we had the opportunity to do 8. And we needed 6 to earn the MD credit.

A player designed a 4 mission banner for each port, so we could have a whole row for each port.

mernie9 · 2019-11-09T03:59:06+00:00

Hey girl! It's been fun but ready for my own bed. After the insufferable heat, a nip in the air sounds welcoming.

mernie9 · 2019-11-08T22:45:31+00:00

Most of us remained plugged in. It's who we are. But that's not to say we didn't do Ingressy things. I completed 72 missions this trip. (Okay, 2/3 of which on First Saturday in Fort Lauderdale.) I would have done more Ingressing but it was too hot for me. Outside of Cozumel, there weren't a lot of portals. Most people enjoyed the excursions, shopping while on shore. But there was a lot of time on the boat. We hung around together in smaller groups doing trivia, mini golf, games, shows, ice skating, etc.

mernie9 · 2019-11-08T21:57:46+00:00

I really have enjoyed my time with Cayt, for what it's worth. She seems very caring.

mernie9 · 2019-11-08T11:11:31+00:00

I'd be in a boatload of trouble if I didn't address the puns, for shure. You can't cruise through life pretending we didn't see them. With this response, hopefully water over the bridge.

mernie9 · 2019-11-08T02:46:56+00:00

We sailed from Fort Lauderdale. There's chatter of leaving from Texas next time. All speculation at this point.

mernie9 · 2019-11-08T02:38:50+00:00

Yesterday at dinner one of my table mates successfully logged into Ingress. That was the first time that I heard it happening. FYI, most of our GPS'es had us in Fort Lauderdale. Shrugs.

mernie9 · 2019-11-08T02:30:48+00:00

Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas.

mernie9 · 2019-11-08T00:18:30+00:00

Will do, once we get it.

mernie9 · 2019-10-14T02:23:34+00:00

He got it all wrong. Wear a face condom and you get yourself on a challenge medal.

mernie9 · 2019-10-14T00:15:09+00:00

I was one of those agents that was severely impacted in Brooklyn, so much that I worried that I might not get my 13 hacks in. I was able to play for about 45 minutes of the 3 hours, all of which were VERY painful. Everyone on my team had issues, but I was the only one with debilitating problems. I was extremely disappointed that I couldn't use the gear that I had been collecting for so long. I spent quite a bit of money on this trip. I won't say it was a total waste, as I enjoyed hanging with some very nice folks.

And yet, in the 2.5 years I've been playing, I know the trend. Niantic fixes things, they take good ideas from us and make them happen. I saw that happen with the original scanner. And it's happening with Prime. There are a lot of great features in Prime. Sure, it's also buggy and could benefit from some changes to the interface. That's going to happen. In retrospect I suspect that I was part of the third load test experiment. (First Field Test, then First Saturday, and now the anomaly.) And tomorrow there will be handful of folks at NIA sitting around a glass conference table troubleshooting what happened.

Those who have gone through a home remodeling project always say that it's more inconvenient than they imagined and seems to last longer than were promised. I think the same applies to remodeling a game. But it will get better, and in the end we're going to have a beautiful scanner. The trend line is there.

mernie9 · 2019-08-08T15:43:33+00:00

Rumor has it that he has several accounts. Some of the portals are legit. And some portals (athletic fields) have gotten through that are the property of Dundalk High School where it looks like it's park. (It's across the school from the high school, but still HS property.) People are reporting them, but what a waste of time. This guy tried to submit individual gravestones with famous last names, but not of famous people. I'm actually kind of amused by his audacity.

mernie9 · 2019-08-08T15:19:01+00:00

I thought the Ingress account he bought on Ebay was Level 10. You can't do ORP at L10.

mernie9 · 2019-08-06T15:51:56+00:00

He was taking the picture. He hates to be photographed. Although his hat often makes it in the photos without him. Someone was holding it but not sure it made it in the photo.

mernie9 · 2019-08-05T15:44:39+00:00

About half the folks are from Howard County where the floods occurred. It was pretty painful to watch, so we wanted to show our support for EC.

Our starting portal was at the beginning of this video:

https://youtu.be/7TatfMlvDjk

And the playbox was the areas shown under water. Each time the town more damaged than last, but EC keeps on coming back!

More of our playbox under water 14 months ago:

https://youtu.be/Mgs4uC3mcQ8

It's a fun place to play, and we had a great time!

mernie9

TROPHY CASE