Ingress Level 6 brought to you by Zipcar and Jamba Juice

I had a pretty big step goal today on my Pebble activity tracker.  When I got to work, I didn't have any time to play Ingress before starting my shift, so I decided to play a bit at lunch time instead of waiting until after work.  I ended up going to the Embarcadero, where I hadn't captured or hacked any portals before.  It is hard to believe that I'd never been over there, but I have so many other directions to go in that I've just never made it there before today.

I started out taking out two portals and placing resonators to capture them.  Attacking those two portals depleted all of my exotic matter energy so I needed to recharge.  While doing so, I noticed someone attacking another portal that belonged to my faction, so I walked over and added some resonators and portal shields to try to thwart their attack. 

I walked down Justin Herman Plaza and attacked a third portal.  I depleted it entirely and placed the first resonator to see someone else filling the portal.  I located the guy a couple of minutes later, adding to one of my other new portals.  His handle in the game is Nymfamous.  We then noticed that Moschops, the Level 8 agent I had met last night at Jack London Square, was somewhere in the Embarcadero destroying Enlightened resonators.  We located him near the fountain where my wife, our friend and I met the San Francisco Mobile Plus Photowalk last March. 

Suddenly there were three of us, teaming up to destroy the enemy's portals.  I was a bit late getting back from lunch.

Moschops also discovered that the local Jamba Juice location was now a portal.  I fully expected that would lead to Zipcar spaces becoming portals and by the late afternoon, that's exactly what happened.

I left work a little before five.  I needed a little less than 5000AP to reach Level 6.  I captured a Zipcar Location portal and headed up Mission to capture another.  After that, I made a few links on an existing portal and thanks to some assistance through Level 5 from the San Francisco Resistance and corporate sponsor portals for Zipcar, I am now Level 6 in the game.

To celebrate, I captured the Seabiscuit and Tanforan Assembly Center portals in San Bruno and my wife and I went to Westlake Center Jamba Juice, where I captured that portal as well.  I've already gotten around 10000AP just capturing those three portals from the Enlightened and destroying the links they had tied to them.

I've attached my new Level 6 avatar, complete with gratuitous corporate logos!

Jack London Square (My first farming experience)

We visited Oakland's Oracle Arena for a show with Muse on Sunday.  

The show ended before 10:30 which seemed odd to me but I was fine with that because it left time for me to do something I'd wanted to do but hadn't thought would happen.  I then had the opportunity to visit the fabled Level 8 Ingress Portal Farm at Jack London Square.

My wife pulled in near the Amtrak station and when I stepped out of the car to hack the first portal, I saw a face I'd recognized from the Resistance Google+ community I am a part of.  Moschops, a Level 8 Resistance Agent was walking up the sidewalk toward me.  I smiled, showed him the app on my phone and shook his hand.  I'd finally met one of the folks that has helped me along the way so much in the game.  He gave me a bit of a direction of an order of how to hack the portals on the farm and I touched most of them twice before he gave me a series of powerful item drops.  Forty five minutes to an hour later, I had completed my first farming experience and we headed back across the bay with an app full of items.

A Trip to Beautiful Yosemite

On Friday night after work, I went a different route than usual playing Ingress and walked straight up Howard Street, starting at the temporary bus terminal up to essentially UN Plaza but two blocks away.  Then I went down Mission and did a bunch of stuff in between.  It was more a gathering resources mission than a point gathering mission in the end as the whole city was a nice shade of blue.  Those resources definitely came in handy over the weekend.

We visited Yosemite Valley for the weekend, arriving late Saturday morning.

While in Yosemite Village, I had cell phone signal and captured my first Ingress portal in the park, the Yosemite Post Office, which was actually located around 100m north of the post office.  I was surprised at the strong cell phone signal I had within the park, but it made for some fun portal hunting along the way.

On Sunday, after checking out of our hotel, our first stop was the post office and train museum in El Portal, where I claimed portals.  After about an hour of driving, our friend pulled in to a gas station in Mariposa, where I got seven more portals, including the oldest courthouse in California among others.

My wife drove the rest of the way and we dropped our friend off at his house and headed in to Walnut Creek for dinner.  While walking down Main Street, we heard the distinct chirp of the Ingress scanner app emanating from a car.  I noticed that there was a blue portal there and decided to hack it on the way out. 

After dinner, I hacked some portals and we headed home.  In the end I got around 20,000AP from fifteen portals in Yosemite (6), El Portal (2) and Mariposa (7).   We walked a lot and saw some amazing sights in nature.

Keys

 I got a pile of portal keys dropped by a high level Resistance agent as I was coming in to work, so I can build big, strong links and fields and hopefully get closer to or actually to Level 6 while walking to the Adventures of Pete and Pete Reunion event.   This weekend is going to be walking and hiking within Yosemite National Park, which should be an awesome experience.

Operation Juice Club

The Niantic Project did their third advertising tie-in yesterday when Jamba Juice was featured and by following the clue to my nearest Jamba location, I found a poster with a postcode on it that got me some cool items in the app.

I shared the code with my local SF freedom fighters and went about my workday as normal.

After work, my wife and I canvassed open Jamba Juice locations for more codes.  I walked through the city and found two other Jamba locations, getting to just over 230,000AP along the way but finding no more posters.  My wife had no luck with Peninsula locations either.

I hacked the two enemy portals at Tanforan mall while waiting for her and my phone, which I forgot to charge at work, was at 1% battery life when we reached the next Jamba location that did have a poster.  The loot at the second location for me wasn't as good but at least we each found one. 

We grabbed a nice dinner to go from Daphne's and tried one last Jamba on the way home without success.

Quick Ingress Update

I reclaimed my train car and weakened the heart sculpture portal before work.  I took a five minute break and got 4000AP worth of links.  I coordinated with a L8 Resistance member, who answered my call for help.  Ingress is a lot more fun as a team.  I also got in to the community on G+ just as they made a change to their verification process.  From today onward, you need a referral to get in.  I didn't know anyone on the "inside" so I wouldn't have gotten in if I hadn't talked with the community moderator last night.  I got lucky.

This evening, I travel to the Google campus after a dental appointment to pick up my Resistance tee shirt from a Googler friend.  Again, I really hope this game isn't ending on Sunday and that the "endgame" is only for the Niantic Project ARG and not for Ingress as a whole.  With the many upgrades they've made to the app, I'm thinking they are just stopping the internet based ARG and maybe this will lead to new features/levels and opening the app up to the public.

We'll find out soon enough!

Turning San Francisco Blue since November 2012

I spent a good hour hacking my newly taken over Serramonte Mall portal last night while waiting for my wife's commute.  It got me some good items.

When we got home, due to fears that the online game may be ending this weekend, when I won't be near the internet to experience it, I downloaded 460MB of Niantic Project ARG files, in case the possible endgame manipulates it in any way.  Always good to preserve the past in case the future comes too soon.  

I also was confirmed and am officially a part of the San Francisco Resistance, a team of ~40 people who are Level 4 or higher and have a faction the color of smurfs.  I was welcomed by the guy that authored the Resistance Level Guide that I have been using since shortly before reaching Level 3 in the game.  His leveling tips made me continue when that last part of being Level 2 was most frustrating.

I officially join the true freedom fighters of the SF Resistance after acquiring 214113AP on my own.  That alone proves that you don't have to be a part of a group to enjoy the game.  I was disappointed when the Ingress app didn't let me choose a side back when I got my invite and started playing.  In the end, I am very happy to be a part of the faction the app chose for me and the side I picked seems to function much better currently as a team.  After all, they were the first people in the world to deploy a Level 8 farm of portals and they even crushed the Enlightened's portals on the Google campus with a synchronized attack on Monday which lead to 8 Level 8 portals in a light shade of blue in Google of Mountain View.

I don't know when or if I will have a chance to team up with the awesome Resistance folks, but it is good to be a part of their ranks.

When I get to the city, time permitting, I am going to help rebuild the FiDi after a takeover by the green faction and a  raid by a high level Resistance member late last night.  Unless they pick up the pieces quickly, the green faction are in for a crushing defeat in this capture the flag game this week.

Shades of Blue

I left work on time today and found out too late about a high level Ingress meetup as a result.  That will teach me to be tired and want rest. 

Based on internet postings, it appears that the Niantic Project internet ARG is winding down to an endgame this Sunday.  I hope it doesn't also mean the end of the Ingress phone experience because I have grown quite fond of using the app and would definitely miss it.

Either way, thanks to my wife and a friend who works at Google, I am getting an official Resistance tee shirt.  They are currently only being sold at the onsite Google store where you have to be an employee or a guest of an employee to visit or make a purchase.  Our Google employee friend picked up said merchandise for me today.  We will likely meet up after my dental appointment tomorrow or later this week.

When I get home, I am going to provide proof of my Ingress identity to the leaders of the SF Resistance to gain entry into their Google+ community.  I am excited to join their club... even if it all ends on Sunday.

More fun things

On Thursday, I assisted my coworker that got his Ingress invite before me to improve his score in the game a bit.  We tried to meet up with other players at lunchtime but failed.  We did each get around 20000AP on the day though thanks to the powerful attacks I can deliver at Level 5.  I captured a full sculpture garden on Mission Street and got a bunch of high level items from upgrading a few other portals.  My coworker is closer to Level 4 for his trouble.  All of that took around 45 minutes.

We also each got a Pebble activity monitor at work on Thursday.  It gives you a walking goal to complete each day and paired with Ingress, it is an awesome motivator to get me out and about.

On Friday, most of the office was out.  I still played some Ingress though.

Today, I worked but also had time for Ingress, taking back my sculpture garden and a few other portals in the city and then heading to Berkeley for more Ingress, including a near 20000AP run just in links between nearby portals.

Level 5

I've been playing Ingress for almost two months now and finally this evening reached Level 5. 

November 20 - Start game at Level 1
December 7 - Upgrade to Level 2 (Doggy Diner Head)
December 10 - Upgrade to Level 3 (Doggy Diner Head)
December 13 - Upgrade to Level 4 (Union Square)
January 16 - Upgrade to Level 5 (Daly City Post Office)

The trip to Universal Studios and a break today that had me building a bunch of links to The Mechanics statue were the big leaps forward I needed to get to Level 5.  Now I need an additional 150000 AP to advance to Level 6.  Since it took me two months to get the first 150000, I have a feeling I will be Level 5 for a long while!

I captured my lame add a portal shield/remove a portal shield/add a portal shield technique for leveling up with a Screencast app to preserve my leveling up forever.

Southland Adventure

On Saturday morning, we got up, had our complimentary cinnamon roll and cereal breakfast at the hotel and headed over to Universal Studios Hollywood.  I had prepaid for discount tickets through Wild at Work, a corporate program my employer is a part of.  We got three days for a discounted price around 12% off of the regular one day pass cost.  We got inside the park after redeeming our passes at the annual pass center and immediately headed to The Simpsons Ride.  We had to wait ten minutes, even though we were first in line.  There are parts of the ride that are built in to the queue experience.  In the end, the ride wasn't worth the five years built up hype.  It was okay, but I certainly wouldn't wait 30 minutes to an hour to ride it on a busy day.

We did The Transformers 3D ride next.  It was a bit better than The Simpsons Ride and while it was shorter, the queue went even faster and our rescue of the Allspark riding along with Evac went pretty smoothly.  I liked the experience on The Transformers ride a lot, even though I can't see 3D.

After The Transformers ride, we walked through the small NBC Universal Experience exhibit.  It was mostly a bunch of props from recent films, with a highlight exhibit about Paranorman, complete with the stop motion character models that were used in the film.  There were also reproduced fan letters from the early days of television, complaining about the late start time for Leave it to Beaver and asking for 100 autographed photos from Alfred Hitchcock for a "fan club", among other things.  The exhibit was short and sweet and we figure it would be a good place to hide out if the lines got congested at the bigger rides in the lower lot.  There was no congestion while we were there.  It was only forty degrees and not many were braving the cold to go to the amusement park.

Because of the cold, we decided not to ride the Jurassic Park log ride.  We instead walked into the Dino Play area for kids and were asked to leave because we had no kids with us.  I captured some Ingress portals including a prop raptor in front of the ride and the escalators between the upper and lower lots and we headed back to the upper lot to do the studio tour.  The only other lower lot ride, Revenge of the Mummy, was temporarily closed.

We got our photo with Shrek and Princess Fiona, another with SpongeBob SquarePants and saw Curious George, Beetlejuice, the mummy and Frankenstein's monster roaming the park.  Earlier in the day, we saw Donkey from Shrek "selling waffles" and making fun of a guy that wore a tee shirt and shorts to the park "on the coldest day of the year."

Our tram tour was full of me capturing Ingress portals, on the Amity Island set, the Bates Motel, the Psycho House, the War of the Worlds set and the Grinch set.  I would have also captured the new King Kong entrance but the 3D King Kong portion of the tram tour broke down.  They gave us laughable priority passes for "any ride in the park except The Simpsons Ride or Transformers".  That's pretty much just the Studio Tour or The Mummy which were both broken.  I didn't mind, it meant we could leave 15 minutes early and we have two other trips any time this year we can take to do the rest of the studio tour.

Berkeley Weekend and my first Portal Submission

Over the weekend, we visited Berkeley for two performances with Vienna Teng at the Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse.

On Saturday, we got to Berkeley a couple of hours earlier than we should have as we had offered to have lunch with a friend who decided to come later than we expected.  We ended up wandering Berkeley in search of the public library and made several wrong turns that resulted in a bunch of Ingress AP before eventually reaching our destination.

On Sunday, I earned some more AP in Ingress and also submitted the Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse as my first portal submission to Niantic Super Ops.  Let's hope it gets approved and they keep the Vienna Teng marquee!