GaryCon V Photos

I realized I had never posted about my trip to GaryCon last month.

In short: awesome convention.

I ran one Learn-to-Hack game at the convention and spent the rest of the time either hanging out or playing.  I got in more HackMaster in this one con than I have in the last 5 years of game conventions combined, and I've been to more than a few cons.  The last half-a-decade I'd been volunteering at the Origins Game Fair and a couple of GenCons, organizing the HackMaster events for Kenzer & Company.  All my time had been spent running events (working) and not playing in any.

To say that GaryCon was an enlightening experience is an understatement.  Not only did I get to meet and play with a bunch of old KenzerCo friends, I got to meet some legends of the industry.  Yes, these are relatively normal guys, but still....their work has given me so much enjoyment over the years.  I didn't really sign up for any games since I was there more to chill, but I was able to jump into several and there was a big pick-up game I got into.  I didn't loose any PCs, but there were a few close calls.

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but here are some of the better ones.....(click for larger pic):

Just a Quick Update

This last week (or so) I was out of the state to attend GaryCon and a quick family visit.  My wife and I returned to the house about 1 AM on Thursday exhausted and with way too much stuff to deal with.

In addition to the stress of travel and the cats who don't want to let you sleep once you get back home, I've had some schoolwork (including a midterm exam) and a "broken" refrigerator to deal with.

Luckily the fridge wasn't actually broken, but simply won't work if you shut off the freezer portion.  Nothing a lot of cleaning and replacing of contents won't fix.  It is a smelly & nasty job, but somebody has to do it.

Hopefully I'll be getting the rest of my schoolwork caught up today so I'm not behind and then I can return to my regularly scheduled life.

In the meantime, enjoy another good mash-up:

Dropkick Murphys at the Spokane, WA Knitting Factory

My wife's birthday was earlier this week and her birthday wish was to see the Dropkick Murphys in concert.  She was able to get tickets to their November 7th performance in Spokane, WA.

I took care of the car and the hotel for the trip and did all of the driving.  We left Wednesday morning and got back late Thursday night.

It was an interesting trip.

Dropkick Murphys in Concert

My wife and I, as of late, only seem to listen to a couple of bands.  One of them is the Dropkick Murphys.

I didn't realize that the Mrs. has been stalking their website to see when they might be coming out way for a concert.  Yesterday I'm informed that they will be in Spokane, WA on November 7th, which is a day after her birthday (the 29th again I think) and if we go that would be "the bestest birthday present ever".

I'm taking some liberties with the 29th birthday and the "bestest", but she really wants to go.  Right now it looks like we will drive up on the 7th and back on the 8th.  It is an 8 hour drive, which I'm not looking forward to, but with a good band and good company, I can definitely think of worse ways to spend the time.  I'm thinking I'll rent a nice car for the trip and if we are lucky we can stop along the way to check in with a blogger we know that lives en route, and an old friend of ours lives in Spokane.

I think it'll be a fun trip.  I've already got the hotel booked and a house-sitter arranged.

Another Delta Epic Fail

Last weekend the wife and I made a "quick" trip to Waukegan, IL for the 1st Annual KenzerCon, a one-day mini-convention held by the fine folks (and friends) at Kenzer & Company.

We had decently priced tickets lined up, but we needed a day to be able to put them on the appropriate credit card for the bonus miles and ability to not have to pay for baggage.  In that day the price of our tickets doubled.  That sucks, but it happens.  With a fair amount of work we were able to get close to our original price by accepting a messed-up routing that meant we had to drive 6 hours to & from the airport and fly to Milwaukee through Atlanta.  That puts us at about an 18 hour travel day.

That isn't even the bad part!

HackMaster PC Kills at Origins Game Fair 2012

I got back from my annual pilgrimage to Columbus Ohio for the Origins Game Fair.  Attendance was way down, so much so that I didn't even see the people I knew who actually lived in Columbus.

We had four HackMaster games scheduled, but ended up only running three.  The games were a tournament in name only and the "prize" was that a member of the KenzerCo D-Team was going to run a game on Saturday for the "winners" of the previous games (determined by player vote).  The "Final" had to be cancelled due to real-life issues for the D-Team, but since we only had two players show up for the Thursday night game, I pushed back the games one session and ran the last "regular" game on Saturday and invited everyone who had played in previous games that I could get a hold of.

I think everyone had a good time and while it was a bit disheartening to be running one not-quite-full table for most of the time slots, we didn't have any problems.  There was one thing that came up though that I felt needed to be addressed.

Origins Game Fair

It is that time of year where I try to figure out what I need and don't need for the annual trip to Columbus.

The Origins Game Fair has been moved up almost a month this year and instead of being in Columbus for my birthday we get to miss out on our traditional Memorial Day weekend trip to Salt Lake City.

Between the economy and the odd move from the end of June to the end of May, a lot of the people we'd normally see at the convention won't be coming.  Heck, if not for the fact we used one free plane ticket (and one cheap ticket) and a bunch of hotel rewards points we wouldn't be going.

The weekend before a con always sucks a bit because there is all the last minute plans and preparations to be made.  We have our house sitters and pet arrangements made, but there is always some game prep that needs to happen and this year I don't have any airline status so we have to cut down on our baggage.  We never really took a lot before, but when you had two free bags each it wasn't essential for you to be super careful about packing.

All the last minute stress is completely worth it since we will be seeing our friends and should be having a good time.

Stupid Mistakes

Have you ever done something so entirely stupid that you wouldn't want anyone else to find out?

Have you ever wanted to make sure that a potential employer will remember you after your interview?

Today I think I managed to combine both stupidity and and impression when I drove two hours to a 10 AM job interview in Shoshone, ID.

I got a nice rental car using points that had a whopping 3 miles on the odometer.  It was a nice little ride and the drive out to Shoshone was actually pleasant.  Even though the car had XM radio I took advantage of the audio input jack to listen to some podcasts that I had fallen behind.  The time zipped by and I was an hour early for my interview......

Toastmaster District 15 Conference

The Mrs. and I headed down to Salt Lake City for the District 15 Toastmasters Conference.  We were generally a bit disappointed in the trip because we didn't get a schedule of events until last week but we registered and paid for our meals well before then.  We could have changed things up a bit and been able to work in a quick visit with some of our SLC friends, but we spent basically $50 a meal already and were tied down to a schedule that had us not doing much.

I have several issues with the conference, but since I was a "first timer" I have no idea if this was the norm.  Maybe it was a relatively poor conference or actually a great conference.  All I can do is compare it to conferences that I have attended before, both for work and for pleasure.  Complaining about the conference in general serves no real purpose so I have instead offered to help with the next one.

You cannot say "Put up or shut up" to me......

I think we did enjoy getting to know a few people a bit better and I consider that to be a worthwhile pursuit.

Wil Wheaton & Felicia Day Coming to Origins!

I was playing around with Twitter and saw a retweeted post from one Dave Fitzgerald: "Just found out @wilw and @feliciaday are coming to origins. First good guest stars in almost a decade. Good job GAMA."

Huh....what?  Awesome, but too bad that they are both coming to what I'm predicting (and hoping I'm wrong) will be a relatively bad convention.  Moving the con up to the same week as Memorial Day....Memorial Day during a recession, is going to really cut down on attendance.

Gary Con Weekend

This weekend is the 3rd Annual Gary Con in Lake Geneva, WI.  Carolyn and I wanted to go, but my financial situation precluded us from that event.

Too bad, because it seems like so many of our friends at KenzerCo are there in force.  An opportunity to game and celebrate the life of Gary Gygax.

Marriott & Business Travel

As a general rule, business travel kind of sucks.  It is a means to an end that occasionally has its perks, but those perks rarely make the overall experience worth it.

Someone much wiser and smarter than I am in these matters once advised me that the average employee loathes business travel.  Maybe 10% of employees are willing to travel with any real frequency, like quarterly and maybe 5% willing to travel on a monthly basis or better.  Real road warriors make up maybe a percentage or two at best.  This breakdown came from a guy who was responsible for hiring road warrior national sales reps and the numbers seemed to work well for me.

At my previous employer I traveled a fair amount....enough to make middling elite status with a couple airlines and Platinum Elite status with Marriott.  For Marriott's Platinum Elite you have to spend 75 nights a year at their properties.  75 night is roughly 20% of the year, but when you look at it from a business standpoint, that 75 days of travel lodging is 33%, which means you are out of the office a week every month...or a day or two a week.

That heavy travel year was 2009.  The economy has taken a bit of a turn since then and I haven't been on the road so much.  Marriott has been kind enough to extend my status last year and then again for this year.

I don't have a lot of travel planned so far, but who knows where my job search will take me. I can tell you though that if Marriott is going to be loyal to me, I sure will be returning the favor.

Alaska Airlines Contest?

I guess I can add Alaska Airlines to the group of airlines that cannot figure out how to use the internet worth a damn.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like Alaska Airlines, but I can't stand  high levels of stupidity, especially when they comes from the marketing folks......and for the record, if you are in sales you are also in marketing.  If you interact with the customer at any time, you are in some part a member of the company marketing team.

If you look through my EPIC FAIL posts, you'll see that in my opinion companies drop the ball either with sales or customer support.  Sometimes though, it is the actual marketing folks that drop the ball.

This morning I started my normal routine of firing up the laptop and checking my email.  There was a lot more email than normal and one was my monthly Alaska Airlines mileage statement.  The title of the email was, "Win 150K Miles in this Month's e-Statement".  I don't know about you, but I could stand to win 150K airmiles.  Hells yeah I'm gonna sign up for that contest!  That would dump 10x my current mileage into my account.  All I have to do is click the little "enter to win" button.

I clicked the link on the hour-old email so that I could go through the steps of registering for this contest.  I figured I'd have to watch a video or click through some informational screens.  No big deal, especially since I would actually want to find out about this partnership.

Too slow....I guess I should have been waiting at my computer for this contest email because getting to it within the hour was just too long.

Seriously?!  If you want to advertise a special contest to encourage people to essentially look at your company's advertising (their mileage programs are advertising efforts) then maybe you should make sure that the contest is.....I don't know....actually running when you make the announcement.

Checking out the past....

I'm still working hard on cleaning out my office, which had more than a year of neglect with me just dumping stuff into interesting piles and mounds of potential future projects.  Today was a minor victory when I got my desk cleaned off.  By cleaned off I don't mean that I simply cleared stuff of and put into other piles.

Once my desk is squared away I could start using it again.  My wireless printer wasn't working for me very well.  It prints great for my wife, but when I try to print, the printer spits out my job anytime from 1 to 23 hours later.  Now that my desk was clear I could place the printer there and wire it in to the network.

I also thought that maybe I'd try to re-purpose my ancient Dell 2100, maybe install Ubuntu on it.  I'm having problems with the install due to an uncooperative DVD drive, but that is a problem for another day.  Before I started messing with the computer though, I figured I should take a second glance at my files and make sure I'm not missing anything.  Most of my files were already migrated through several computers to my current laptop, but I did find a few orphans.

One interesting set of files I found was my very first website.  Somehow I used PowerPoint to create a website for my HackMaster game and I cannot for the life of me figure out what the heck I was doing back then.  My site had multiple pages, but all I can manage to bring up is the index page.  The other eighteen pages....well, maybe I could salvage something, but it isn't worth the effort.

I did also find a small scribble from the first time I got to meet a friend of mine.  Granted, he wasn't a friend at the time.....I was more of just a fanboy back then.  Carolyn and I traveled down to Ghengis Con in Denver back in 2003, where Jolly Blackburn and David Kenzer were the Guests of Honor.  A couple months earlier I had managed to snag a copy of Knights of the Dinner Table #1 off of eBay...for $20!  I brought it there for Jolly to sign and he did a little doodle on the back of the comic backer board.

A little fact/tip about Jolly....if you have a valuable piece of paper, do not let him hold it in his hands for more than a few seconds.  Anything longer than that and he will be either doodling on it, rolling it up in his hands, crumpling it up, or all of the above.  I have some evidence that will have to wait for another post.

Until then, here is a cute little doodle from Jolly.

My Harvest

It is day three of my recovery from being harvested at LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City.  The experience has been interesting and while I'm not 100% mentally, I think I'm close enough that I can go over the experience so far.

During the process...well, not the surgery itself obviously, but a bit before and after, I had my wife Carolyn take some photos.  Some of the more graphic ones were specifically for me to be able to see things I couldn't view first-hand and others were me just joking around.  Don't worry, I'm not going to share them all with you.  You don't need to see the wonderful bruises I'm starting to develop, although in a couple of days they might turn pretty impressive.

Keeping Track of Travel

I've mentioned several times on this blog that I used to travel a fair amount in my old job.  One of the other things I did on my old job was make tons of travel reservations for my boss.  He liked to have everything summarized on an excel sheet.  What a pain in the ass that could be.

Don't get me wrong, I like excel, but using it to make simply lists is a bit overkill.  This is the sheet just for April of 2010.  I've taken the liberty to blur some stuff out.  I found this when I went to close out my dropbox account.

I had to keep this thing updated for the boss's use and it seemed I was printing out a new one everyday.  Sometimes I had to fax them out, which meant I had to go through and remove all the color.  God forbid I accidentally let the thing autosave the document and have to go back in and color it up.  It was also very easy to give out the wrong one since so many little changes were being made all the time.

For my own travels I needed something simpler.  I don't require a hand holding, just some way of easily looking up my information, preferably one that doesn't require a lot of organizational effort since I didn't have someone to do all that work for me.

Enter Tripit.  Available online and as an app for both the iOS and Android market, Tripit simply rocks.  Once you make an account, all you have to do is simply forward your travel emails to plans@tripit.com.  That's it.  Tripit recognizes either the sender's email address, or some of the itinerary information (like membership numbers) and easily organizes all your assorted travel information.  It will provide an itinerary for your smartphone and if you go online you can share your trip or print the itinerary.

I highly recommend checking out Tripit if you haven't done so already.  Even for those who only travel once a year, I highly recommend the program.  Did I mention it is free?  If you travel a lot you might like the paid upgrade to track all of your frequent flyer miles and travel perks in one place.  I had to keep a spreadsheet for that too.


Special Note: I'm currently in the hospital having my bone marrow harvested.  Instead of simply skipping some posts or trying to blog the day before, during, or after having several hundred long needles jabbed in my hip, I figured I'd just have Blogger post some entries on a schedule.

Although I am undergoing surgery, I'm well aware that I'm on the easy side of this transplant.  If you could say a prayer for the recipient of my marrow, a woman with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, I'd be appreciative.  If you decided to get yourself on the National Marrow Donor Program, I'd be freaking ecstatic.

Delta dot com sucks

Today is my last day before I head off for the bone marrow harvest surgery.  The wife and I are flying out in the morning, so anything that needs to be squared away has to be done today.

One of those things is checking in for our flight.  Delta is good about letting you know to check in for your flight, but they totally suck at actually letting you check in like you would at the airport.

When I got the ticket information from the travel agency my handler uses, which is the same agency that is used for pretty much all governor travel, I noticed there were some things that needed fixing.  The first thing was they had me in the wrong hotel.  Now I know I should care since somebody else is picking up the tab, but I asked nicely to stay at a specific property.....a property that happens to be the cheapest on their list.  This time I was put at a hotel that is just "OK" and at the same price.  No big deal, I can get that switched in about 2 minutes since I'm still Platinum with that chain.  None of my frequent traveler information in associated with this trip, so I was going to be calling anyway to get that information synced.  In addition to the hotel I had to get my flight squared away.

This is the begging of the normal suck for Delta flying.  I am only a Gold member in Delta's frequent flyer program (SkyMiles), but quite often that is enough to get upgraded.  When I associate my frequent flyer number with the upcoming trip my companion and I are supposed to be automatically put in for an upgrade request.  Of course, this doesn't happen so I manually request the upgrade.  At this point Carolyn and I aren't even sitting together.  When I try to change seat assignments I get a message saying that it isn't possible and any changes will have to be done at the hospital.

Fun

Fast forward to this morning when I am able to check in for tomorrow's flight.  Upgrades are dished out 3 days in advance of the flight for Gold members and their companions, so if it was available I should already have been upgraded.  When I check in it asks if I would like to get on the upgrade list.  WTFO?!!!!  I already went through this crap a couple weeks ago.  Yes, put us on the *&%#$! list...again.  At this point the Silver medallion folks have already been upgraded.  What the hell is the point of earning a rewards level if you don't get to access the perks?!  This time when I ask for the upgrade it only puts me on the list, not my companion.  EPIC FAIL

You know for a 45' flight this isn't a huge deal, but this isn't the first time this has happened.  When we flew back to the Midwest to attend a friend's memorial service we went through this exact same issue.  Every time I got online we were dumped off of the upgrade list and it asked me if we wanted to be upgraded.

More important to me than getting the upgrade, which should be an earned perk, is getting to sit next to my wife on the flight, which is freakin common sense.  Earlier I wasn't allowed to change seat selections, but this time it let me change my seat..once.  I can get an empty exit row seat, but not the seat I want, which also shows empty.  The system won't let me move the seat again and it won't let me change my wife's seat at all.  WTF?  Oh, for some reason the system had dumped her frequent flyer number.  She's on the ticket with me and they recognize I'm a Gold Medallion SkyMiles member....at least for now, but I can't move my companion's seat?  I enter in her SkyMiles number and *poof* I'm magically able to not only change her seat, but mine as well and we finally can sit together.

At this point I've had to log into my account three times to fix the simplest of issues. I never had this sort of problem with United.com  EPIC FAIL


EDIT: I should note that if you complain a bit on Twitter then @DeltaAssist will often try to help.  I'll give credit where credit is due to these Tweeps, BUT instead of trying to fix things after they are a problem, pull your head out of your ass and provide a decent system to begin with!  My Twitter response:

I can understand the frustration. You are sitting together, & you're currently #1 on the upgrade list.  ^WG

Really....thanks for making us #1 on a list today, when we should have been some other number two days ago when they already gave out those seats!  At least we are sitting together.  I think I would have/might break my foot off in someone's ass if they can't get that simple thing done.  Then the whole donation would be for naught since I doubt they'd go through the surgery if I had just gone through a traumatic foot breaking-off injury.

SLC Visit

Last week I had to fly down to Salt Lake City for a quick check-up with LDS Hospital in regards to the upcoming bone marrow donation.  While the workup was pretty mundane, they want you to visit with the doctor that is doing the procedure and make sure for the umpteenth time that you are well-aware of the possible complications and are still willing to donate.

I've been pretty laid back about this process so far, but my only requirement was that I didn't want to stay at a Hilton hotel and preferred to stay at a Marriott instead.  Even though there is a full-service Marriott in downtown SLC, I wasn't asking to stay there.  Usually the Downtown Residence Inn (my favorite property) or the full service way up by the old military base are the cheaper properties.  This request was easily accommodated.

My lab work was scheduled for 1045 on Thursday, followed by a brief visit with the doctor at 1215.  To make sure I get there on time the were flying me down the afternoon before on Delta....first class on Delta!  Evidently they fly you down 1st Class so there is no possibility of getting bumped and they fly you back on coach.  I tried to explain that with SLC being a Delta hub, there is only about 8 or 9 flights the day before and the morning of that would get me to SLC in time.  Heck, if there was a problem I'd have time to rent a car and drive if needed.  Also, I have status with Delta so I'm not likely to get bumped regardless.  Doesn't matter....policy is policy.

Packing for such a short trip is a breeze.  If not for my usual tendency to overpack in preparation of possible issues I'd be able to go down with little more than my laptop bag and a quart baggie for my toiletries.  Even overpacked everything except the laptop fits into a single carry-on case.  By carry-on, I mean "approved" carry-on, not the huge bags everyone tries to get on the plane to shave a few bucks off their expenses.  My coat, a full change of clothes, and extra shirt, shorts, all my charging cables (laptop, phone, and tablet), and my toiletries.

I get in to SLC late afternoon and take a cab to my favorite hotel in SLC: the Downtown Resident Inn.  There are a couple of reasons I like this hotel, but I'll get into that later.  When I try to check in to the hotel I'm told they don't have my reservation.  What?  I used to travel with a printout of my reservations, but I never really used them.  On most trips I use Tripit on my phone. Since this was just a quick in-and-out, I didn't even bother with that.  A quick call to the Marriott reservation desk confirms I'm at the wrong hotel.  Whoops.  They had me at the Downtown Courtyard a couple blocks over.  I stayed there once and I wasn't a fan of that property, so I asked them to move my reservation over to the Residence Inn.  I didn't exactly ask for permission to do this, but since the RI is $10 cheaper I don't think they'll mind.

The Residence Inn is across from Pioneer Park.  I used to call this park "Bum Park" because it was just filled with homeless people.  I wouldn't feel comfortable walking through the park and according to some of my local friends, it simply wasn't a safe place.  The local homeless shelter is (or maybe was) nearby and a lot of folks, including those that didn't want to use the shelter would just camp out here.  In the last couple years the city has done a lot of work renovating the park and they've either pushed off the homeless or they just haven't bothered to stick around with all of the construction.  Rumor has it that SLC likes to ship off their homeless to other cities with one-way non-refundable bus tickets, or at least they did when trying to clean up the city for the 2002 Olympics.

There is a large outdoor mall within walking distance of the hotel, as well as a lot of good eating.  Just across the street from the hotel is a large Eastern Orthodox church which chimes its bells every half hour.  My room was on the top floor of the hotel and was the closest room to the church.  You'd think the ringing of the bells would be a distraction, but I kind of like it.  It was a rainy, overcast day so my picture isn't that great.

This is for David:  

My destination for dinner was just a block away from the hotel, just opposite from the park.  One block North (or at least I think it is North) is a Boca de Beppo, which is a fun place to eat, but not by myself.  Today I'm wanting to try the Italian market, which also has a decent sized eatery.  I have to have an appetizer first.  Just outside the market, on the street, is a small Belgian Waffle place.  Although you can get waffles anytime of day (can you say Brinner?), and their Machine Gun sandwich is awesome, I came to Bruges Waffles & Frites for the frites.

I could have eaten their famous Machine Gun, but I needed to go to Caputo's Market to get something to drink for later and to get a proper dinner.  Since I was in a Residence Inn I could have simple made dinner, but I needed to check out the deli.  After grabbing some sodas for later I head over to the deli and order lasagna, which comes with a side salad, and a desert of bread pudding.  The pudding was terrible and I threw it away.  There probably wasn't anything technically wrong with it, but they put small bits of peaches in their pudding and I hate peaches.  If you like peaches then I'm sure you'd find their bread pudding delicious.  The lasagna was just OK.  The place is more like an ala cart buffet with lightning fast service.  When you factor that in the meal was pretty good.  I can't think of anywhere you could get a decent Italian meal so quickly.  While I think Boca would be better, I'd say this was the best fast-food I've ever had.

After my meal I headed back to my room to try and get online to play HackMaster.  Unfortunately the hotel's internet connection wasn't good enough for me to get my game on. It was fine for surfing the web, just not good enough for the Ventrillo server or to get a MapTools connection.  The TV is filled with news of Steve Job's death and I spend most of the night watching the news while playing with my toys.

The next morning I get up early to eat breakfast and hydrate well for my blood draw.  I check out of the hotel and attend my appointments.  Although these appointments were the reason for my coming to SLC, they are the least exciting aspects of the trip. Everything is good for the donation next month.  There are some unexpected delays, but I'm still done by 1400.  My flight home is not scheduled until 1955, so I get to the airport as fast as I can to try and make the 1545 flight.  That flight is delayed a bit, so I easily get on the earlier flight.  Even though I was a last minute stand-by, I manage to snag the very last upgrade!

Good times.  Carolyn had a trip with friends to Seattle planned and they were leaving the morning of my appointments, so I was rushing home to an empty house.  Well, not empty because there was a dog, three cats, and a tank of fish waiting for me.

Shut off your damn phone!

I hopped on a plane today and of course there was that one guy who doesn't want to shut off his cell phone.  This comic sums it up about perfectly.  I don't expect "regular" people to understand harmonic displacement or inadequate frequency separation....but still.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cartoon

Farewell Gowalla

There are quite a few location-aware smartphone apps out there and one that I used to enjoy immensely was Gowalla.  Sure, it wasn't Foursquare, but that is what was so great about it.  Gowalla wasn't about being king of your local haunts.  It was about getting out in the world and seeing things.

Gowalla was basically a virtual passport.  You could tour the world or your neighborhood and check into places along the way.  You got stamps for the places you went.  Most places the stamps were the same, like coffee shops all shared the same stamp.  Some businesses and location bought their won custom stamp and there were pins for completing specific challenges or going to new locations.  I liked checking into a new state and getting that states pin.  My only disappointment was that I didn't discover Gowalla when I was travelling a lot.

Another aspect of Gowalla I really enjoyed was that there were items to collect.  When you checked in, there was a chance you'd pick up an item and the type of item you got was based on the location.  You could archive the item into your collection or you could cart it around.  You could carry up to ten items and if a location had an item there you could swap it out with one in your app.  Essentially every spot was a virtual geocache.  I loved this aspect of the app and collecting became a game for me.  On vacation or a trip I would go out of my way to see a specific spot to check in or if I knew there might be an item I didn't have yet, I would see if I could check in and trade for it.  New items came out every couple of weeks.

I worked very diligently to get all the items I could.  On one trip I detoured to a Presidential Library just so I could check in and get a moon rock.  The only place you could find a moon rock was at a location that actually had a moon rock on display.  I never would have gone to this place otherwise.  I had essentially all but a few of the publicly available items.

Recently Gowalla did away with the item collecting.  They stated they would allow users to keep what they had collected, but my passport is essentially gone.  I can see some of my location pins and that is it.  The entire app and website has been totally redesigned and their focus is on location guides and "stories".  Basically they can point out cool places to visit if you are lucky enough to be somewhere Gowalla cares about and you can tweet about being someplace.

When you check in to a place, Gowalla wants you to type something about your visit.  They are calling this combination of information and location a "story" and your friends can chime in.

Let me get this straight......you turned an awesome app and social travel tool into a brief info post tied to a location.  Have you not seen Twitter before?  For much less bandwidth (ie. time and data) I can simply open my choice of Twitter app, type 160 characters and have the program automatically affix my GPS coordinates.  What is your value proposition Gowalla?  A slow loading screen?  Telling my friends where I am before they read my post?

Fail......EPIC FAIL.

On the plus side, my iPhone screen is less cluttered since I deleted my Gowalla app, the link I had to their website, and two apps i had for helping me find items.