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!