in which we take many photographs

Well.  This is the new post that I promised in the last post, which I wrote, and which Blogger has refused to save, and which I refuse to rewrite.  You will never know what my graduation was like.

I have been in California for just over a week now.  I have spent my time well.  See Figure 1.

Figure 1: Standings vs time.  See the bright red line?  That is us.  A period of decline, occasioned by my absence from California, is followed by a meteoric rise from 22nd to 14th and counting place.  Note that first place is at the top, and the standings axis is scaled logarithmically.  Time axis goes from May something to today.

Here we can have a little talk about the visual display of data.  The above graph is not beautiful.  The lines would be better as a series of points, but there are too many teams to keep track that way.  Not all teams will be important, but like a submarine captain watching his radar for Ice Warriors, we must scan all of our competition for sudden movement.

How have we risen so fast, you may ask?  The Trekking Twins have been hard at work.  We have gone to desolate windswept reservoirs, nineteenth-century murder sites and the patch of poppies in our neighbor's front yard for glory and REI gear.

It may have occurred to you to wonder whether you can get in on the fun.  The answer, which I am happy to share with you because I am pretty sure that none of you except perhaps Maggie could possibly beat us, is yes if you are spending time in the state of California and can find one or two other teammates.  I actually encourage you to do this, because the latest awesomefun rule change is that there are no more video bonuses (for the best, but terrible timing for us-- basically all points from before I got home had an extra 25-50% bonus just for taking a video), and instead there are referral bonuses.  Yes.  This blog entry is all just a plot to get five points for my social media adventure game.

Next week we're going up to Yosemite for some real adventures.  Naturally we expect to earn some points there too.