User:Benjw
34 / m / 52,0
Hi, I'm Ben, I live in Cambridge, UK (the city as well as the graticule), and I've been geohashing since the beginning of 2009, although since mid-2009 I've not been very active, owing to an over-abundance of other things that need doing. I use a Garmin eTrex GPSr, which at least makes it possible to go geohashing even when the hashpoint is in the anonymous middle of a field -- which it frequently is, in this graticule.
So far I've driven to most of my hashes, but would like to make more of my expeditions by bicycle or on foot. I've achieved one target by completing a double hash by bicycle (expeditions to 52 -0 and 52 0 on 23 April 2009), and my next target is all-bicycle triple hash. I don't think this has been done yet, but the proximity of the prime meridian makes things a little easier here. I had an attempt at this on 23 April 2009 and cycled to two hashpoints in 53 km, but wasn't quite fit enough to make it to the third one. I guess that would give me a round trip over well over 100km, but I'd like to do one of those by bike anyway, even if it's not a triple hash.
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Current activity
I am now coming to the end of a BA degree in mathematics -- final exams in mid-October. But in order to be able to afford somewhere to live, and something to eat, I am also working full-time. This totals 70-80 hours a week and doesn't leave me much time for geohashing (or, indeed, anything else) at the moment. In addition, I was organising a wedding for most of the year (early September; it went like a dream!) with all the stress that entails. So my expeditions are usually close to Cambridge, and quite sporadic. I'll have more free time from late October. Just in time for winter. Bah.
Wiki activity
During my tremendously active period in early 2009, there were a number of 'projects' I was involved in on the wiki. However, it's been a while since I've edited much, so I'm not sure of the current status of many of these:
- A lot of my own expedition reports (2009 / 2010) are not written yet, or have photos missing. Tut. I'm gradually working through these.
- Maintaining the United Kingdom page (now badly out of date) and many of the UK graticule pages.
- Categorising all the uncategorised photos (
about 300029332818261224942818lots535 of them). User:AperfectBot does much of this, now. - Trying to make sure that the automatically-generated graticule pages are country-categorised correctly.
- In particular, almost everything in Australia should probably be categorised by state, not country.
- Obsessively correcting typos as I find them.
- Helping to tidy up the mess that is the capitalisation of achievement names.
- The subcategory tree for Category:Geohashers is also a complete mess and I'd like to sort that out.
- Naming some of the missing graticules on the world map.
Past expeditions
For full expeditions lists, see the 2009 expeditions and 2010 expeditions pages. For photos I've taken, see Category:Photos by Benjw. For the shiny ribbons I've earned, see the expedition ribbons page.
In total I've been on 41 separate expeditions, although because of the proximity of the prime meridian, which mirrors hash coordinates, a few of these have been double hash expeditions; some even by bike. (I pay for this at other times when both graticules have a hashpoint very far away.)
So far I've had 46 successful hashes, and 4 failures.
Graticules
- Cambridge 52,0: 33 successes, 4 failures;
- Northampton 52,-0: 8 successes;
- London East 51,0: 2 successes;
- Norwich 52,1: 1 success;
- London West 51,-0: 1 success;
- Birmingham 52,-1: 1 success.
Transport
- Car: 32 expeditions (inc. 2 triple, 2 double, 3 failures);
- Bicycle: 6 expeditions (inc. 2 double);
- Work vehicle: 2 expeditions.
- Train: 1 expeditions;
Locations
- Fields: 21 successes, 2 failures;
- Road/pavement/verge: 10 successes;
- Woodland: 6 successes, 1 failure;
- Grassland: 3 successes, 1 failure;
- Private residence: 3 successes;
- Golf course/sports field: 2 successes.
