2013-09-07 47 -122

Location

Inside a Rite-Aid across from Tacoma Community College

Participants

OtherJack

Plans

After an errand downtown I'm going down by bus... expect to be there around 2 or 3. Post here if you're coming - I will be able to read it since I have smartphone service now... -- OtherJack (talk) 14:58, 7 September 2013 (EDT)

Expedition

Easy success. Will write up once I've gotten through the backlog...

... and with the backlog finished, it's about time. This one was pretty straightforward. The Rite-Aid in question was directly across the road from a major transit center in Tacoma, which made it easy to reach by bus (though Tacoma traffic on I-5 made the Sound Transit portion a little slower than anticipated.) On arrival, I wanted to use my technique from 2012-07-06 47 -122 of counting off x and y paces from an origin near the entrance. However, when I went into the store to scout it out first, I found that the main aisle actually came straight in at 45 degrees, from the corner entrance all the way back to the far corner of the store. While this was really cool design for a random chain pharmacy, it made my method quite a bit more complicated, what with the factors of sqrt(2) all over the place.

But I figured I had to count off anyway, so I returned to my origin and went ahead. I walked west outside the north wall until the longitudes matched... it was X number of paces, but more importantly, I was directly outside the first window along this wall! Ah, windows... they would have made my job a year ago so much easier. I returned to my origin, walked south, and strangely enough the latitude numbers matched up at the very first window along *this* wall.

So I re-entered the store and carefully lined myself up at the intersection of the perpendiculars through the two windows. (I don't think I attracted too much attention.) And so it was that I looked down to find that the internet had led me to... the hair care products! Much more affordable than the flat screen TVs from a year ago, but I did not need any, so did not make a purchase. The Tim's potato chips were also nearly within arm's length, but somehow it didn't occur to me that I was going to a barbeque that evening, so I didn't buy any. Besides, my return bus was coming soon.

The ride back was notable for two reasons. First, on the local Pierce bus (back to downtown Tacoma) a guy was standing up and quizzing random passengers about Lincoln and Kennedy assassination trivia for some reason. Second, once in downtown Tacoma, I got to check out the awesome old railroad station on the waterfront with its series of perfectly round brick arches. Various parts of it were now converted into a museum and a coffee shop, where I got a fine iced tea and checked out their ancient but working piano.

At the barbeque back in Seattle, the host was a friend of mine who hailed from Melbourne, Australia. I tried to tell him of the geohashing prowess of his home graticule. He just seemed puzzled, though...