Laura Hits Level 5

NavyMom59 hits level 5 today. Laura and I were out for about 4 hours.  First we farmed in the Evergreen Cemetery, there were two missions that cover the same set of portals, so we accomplished them both.  We picked this area, because there were a lot of level 7 and 8 portals, and I was in need of level 7 bursters. Another nice thing was that all portals were reachable by car.  Considering the distance between the portals, this is neccesary.

So after loading up on gear, we hit a couple of long blockers made by FlatStan and CenNova. and then we headed to Lowry which at this time was 14 portals all neutral or "ghosted".  This did require some walking.  The difficult thing for me was to let Laura have all the opportunities to make links and field up the place to grab all the AP.

But I need about 230K for the next level, and Laura needed about 36K. As a team we're better if Laura could throw level 5 bursters ( B5's for short.)

And we achieved it, Laura made L5 from Lowry and we headed for home. I thought I might get out again and work Charlotte Premium Outlets, but I have had enough exercise for the day.  It's time to take the shoes off.

A Full Day of Ingress

Laura ( NavyMom59 ) and I managed to get out of the house and on the road about 10:00 once I finally decided on what we should do.  We were going to be over Fatiallians and bookwyrm1216's house at 18:00 for a camp on using IITC. Also, we planned to go visit St Ann's about 15:00.  So I thought we could complete a mission and visit Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden which required a hacking of 14 portals. 

And as you might imagine it was a great visit even in mid February.

Of course the best part was the green house where the orchids could be sheltered from typical mid-February weather.  This place is on the West side of Lake Wylie, and we're not over there very often except to buy gasoline.  (The difference in NC and SC taxes make it worth the trip)

So we completed the mission, threw up a few Control Fields for AP, and I figured we had the time to squeeze in one more mission near the Rivergate shopping area.  I expected it to be easy as I thought all the portals could be hacked from the car.  Well, all but one as it turned out, and that wasn't a bad walk.

In fact, as we walked back I was stopped by a young boy who was interested in a Naval career and was just about to join the sea cadets, in preparation for Annapolis.   So we exchanged e-mail addresses in case he wanted to hear any of my sea stories. 

So as we begin driving up I-77, I check my GroupMe and find the SkyBlast is very concerned about a multi-layer that the smurfs have put up.  I didn't know that the Check Point was at 16:00, so I figured I could take it down after we finished with St. Ann's.  

MoxieKai stepped in and was able to attack the North East corner, and since I saw him on the IITC, I figured we had time to hit the lighthouse on the North West corner, before appearing at St. Ann's.  This was nearly a "Leroy Jenkins" move. I had no idea I would be dealing with a Level 8 portal that was well shielded.

Look before you attack - very important!

I suppose I should have known better.  It was the critical anchor for their layer cake. I might have been able to take it out, but I was too lazy to get out of the car, and I wasn't directly on top of the portal for the first L7 Burster.  I was able to take out 3 resonators pretty easily, and had I been centered I think I would have succeeded. 

But one thing to know about an L8.  It takes 8 L8 or higher agents to build one, because no agent can put more than one Level 8 resonator on a portal (Jarvis / ADA excepted) and that means when you hit a portal, at least eight agents are going to get a report, and they can all recharge remotely if they have keys - and you bet that they do!

So I expended all my L7 and L6 bursters, which was about 150 each, and realized it was a lost cause. NavyMom59 also threw what she could, but as she's still L3, it wasn't much help.  We need both of us to L8 ASAP. 

We moved onto St. Ann's after announcing we had to give it up.

Then, we picked up our daughter Hylidae59 and the three of us when to the class taught by Xzre.  
FringeDynamic, AlphaWolfHybrid, and boyintub were also in attendance. It was very helpful, as I didn't quite know how to use bookmarks, and how that made drawing fields so much easier.  We also discussed various ways to throw large fields.

I think we may host the next one.

 

"Curse You, Red Baron!"

So I was out at the First Presbyterian Cemetery on Steele Creek Road, which is a nice concentration of portals that in Ingress is known as a 'farm'.  I had hoped to blow up some blue fields, but someone got to them before I did, and it wasn't as lucrative for my AP balance as I had hoped.   However there were blue portals to hit, and as I did, CenNova was getting attack reports.

He was close by and decided to drive over to catch me.  At this cemetery there are some iron gates that they close and lock at night to keep cars out.  However, you can enter on foot, and I'm told they don't mind if agents do.

So I was half way into the place and I see a white bronco sized vehicle in the distance and someone pops out a hand and waves very cheerfully.  I wondered if this was an agent, and in particular CenNova.

I was reaching the limit of my strength to walk, but I still had half the graveyard to visit.  I was also trying to complete a "mission" which required me to hack all the ports in that graveyard.  I am finding that if I'm not careful, I can "over do it" and exhaust myself while playing Ingress.  Sometimes as I walk out there I get a little wobbly on the legs. But I also believe that it is pushing me to the level of exercise that I need, I just have to be good to give myself adequate rest.  For example, I did go to bed about 21:00 last night.  Other nights I tire out enough and then I get Laura to do some driving as we hit some good drive by portals together.

So it was CenNova, that was waving, and he drove up the back way, where there are no gates and we had a fine chat.  He opened with "Hello, Snoopy!" so I knew it was him.

On my very first night of play, there was a blue portal with just a single resonator on it near my home.  I walked up to it with Matthew to demonstrate how this game worked to kindle interest.  So I attacked the portal with my Level 1 bursters and after throwing about 30 of them, I stopped.  I told Matthew, that I wasn't sure I was doing anything, but also wondered if the enemy was protecting the portal.  Well it was CenNova's portal to begin with.

The following night I was able to make a couple of control fields from the Charlotte Premium Outlet mall to some of the portals in the area, and covered the blue portal I tried to kill the night before.

The fields didn't last long before they were popped by CenNova, and that's when I broadcast chat to @CenNova "Curse you, Red Baron!", and thus started a relationship with the other side.

Anyway, the point is that you can't really see your enemies as enemies in this game - it's all just a game.

Stephen Captures the Nautilus

Some of the fun of ingress is that you can visit unique places and add them to your collection of mission patches.  

Here Stephen and a friend visit and capture the portal for the USS Nautilus.  A museum of the world's first nuclear submarine.

Congrats, Stephen, aka SAWNo1.

And Now Kimberley Has Joined the Enlightened!

I just finished a Skype conversation with Kim, and luckily she picked the right faction before I got to tell her that this is an Enlightened family.  So welcome Rosetalon to the family clan!

Kim will be going on a long deployment  Monday, and won't be back to her home port before October.  At that time, she'll begin her separation leave.  However, I suggested that she join Ingress early, as she will likely visit some ports with cool missions and ports to hack for her account.

Missions in Ingress are a lot like getting visa stamps in your passport book. e.g. proof that you've been to France, or someplace.  With Kim's Ingress account, should could collect missions from Singapore or Hong Kong and such.  

I also had a phone call with Mom today, and talked about Ingress - she wasn't as convinced it was for her. But she'll never know till she tries it.  

Colors

Ok I've been trying to get this new color scheme to work out so everything is readable again.

The goal was to have the green agent names to be readable against the background. They were too bright, and so I needed to have a darker background but not so dark that the default black text couldn't be read.  I also wanted the blue agents to be readable - and then there are the link colors!

Anyway if you feel these colors are hard on your eyes (we all perceive things differently) be sure to comment, and I'll see what I can do.

However, it seems I've lost all photo data - I guess that will have to wait till I get home to reload them, where I have most of the files on my desktop.  I hope I can find everything!

Actually, it turned out that the photos were still in the blog site's background, but all the linking info had been lost. I was able to recover them all.

Discovered Black Lion from an Ingress Mission

Laura and I were at the urologist Dr. Zane Basrawala yesterday. ( I think I finally learned to pronounce his name correctly) We talked about the kidney surgery which has to be deferred for 3-4 weeks as my immune system comes back from the last taxotere infusion.

After the consult, Laura and I took the time to go on our first Ingress mission. A mission is typically a series of things to do like hack six portals, or make a control field or such.  This particular mission has us hack four portals around the hospital, one which was unique to us because it was further then that others. Two portals were across the street at a store called Black Lion.

I'll have to get some pictures of the place.  It pretty much a store for of really good nick knacks for the home. And I mean a really good store for that. There's only one here in Charlotte, and the closest other one is in Hickory, well to the North.

There is also a large section of higher quality furniture than you might get at a Rooms to Go or Ashley's.  We had a good talk with Steve Lentz and I mentioned that we didn't have much discretionary income due to the medical bills arising from the cancer treatments.

Well, Steve is involved with alternative medicine, and you know how those types normally turn me off.  However, there were some nutritional adjustments he was suggesting that I believe can compliment my "Western Medicine" treatments I am currently undergoing.

Of course, he wants me off sugar, and while my good friend Gerry Benitz has been beating that drum for over 20 years, it's time to get serious.  My biggest challenge is figuring out what else I should be eating other than Captain Crunch or Lucky Charms :) ! Seriously, I have to think about things like going out on Saturdays for pancakes and the like.

No doubt if we can make these changes it will help Laura with her diabetes as well.  So I promised to get in contact with Steve via e-mail, and he intends to share some of his recipes which I will likely post here. So stay tuned.

The bottom line though is that we owe this contact to Ingress, which is getting us to explore our city more.

Oh also, I spent time with Kate last night training her as a Ingress agent, and she knocked off her first enemy portal after I had weakened it so that her level 2 bursters could finish the job.  She picked the agent name Hylidae59.  The 59 we've been adding to show the family relation with my name Brangus59 and Laura as NavyMom59.

Oh and FYI, Hylidae is a a family of frogs.  I suggested that since the pejorative from the enemy faction is that the Enlighted are frogs, maybe we could find a term that would be interesting, and Kate settled on this name, because it does have a bit of a feminine ring to it.

I had to agree to upgrade Hylidae59's data plan from 2Gb to 5Gb per month - hopefully that will be sufficient. Also while shopping online at the Verizon site it seems, we can get Matthew a smart phone for $4.50 per month - though I bet I need a $20 data plan for him.  However with him working at McDonald's, he'd be happy to pay for his data.

So he's going to have to play Ingress too :P.