My Ingress Anniversary

I remember November 25th, 2012 was a cold but sunny, which is rare in Seattle.  The night before my dad and his girlfriend got on a plane to go home after Thanksgiving and I was ready to get going with Ingress.

I still didn't have an invite so when I woke up I quickly checked my G+ stream and my email for the 900th time that week hoping for an invite but no such luck.  +Bryan Kroger and I went to lunch at a bakery down the hill in Kent.

At breakfast we decided that we were going to drive to Issaquah aka Issy because it had the highest concentration of portals outside of Seattle and levels were low enough that Bryan thought he actually had the gear to take some of 'em down.  In hindsight 6 portals over 4 blocks wasn't particularly dense but at the time it was the mother load.

Off we went to Issy.  We found a place to park closest to all the portals and started our journey.  It wasn't long before Bryan was out of XMP.  Bryan had heard about passcodes that would give you gear, so he got a hold of a google spreadsheet that had 20-30 of these passcodes on it.  He had me pull it up on the iPad and as he ran out of gear I was reading off the passcodes to him.

We walked together while neutralized and claimed all the portals.  Since I didn't have a scanner I got bored and wondered off while he continue to run between the portals waiting for the cool down so he could re-hack and link.  When we finally met up back at the car an hour later I found out that he had encountered his first enemy in person!  I was so bummed I missed it.  Turns out a member of the Enlightened ruled Issy in those days, and he quickly dismantled all of Bryan's work.

I asked Bryan all kinda of questions about the encounter. I quickly realized that my nemesis who owned the Post Office was probably just as human as the guy Bryan met and this was a game and I had no reason to be mad at him.  Suddenly I really wanted to meet an Enlightened enemy out in the field.

As we headed home I checked my g+ and email and still no passcode.

I spent most of the afternoon and evening scouring all the G+ Ingress information I could find.  I was just about to plug in my devices and start getting ready for bed when I got a PM from +Joe Philley with an Invite passcode!  I was so scared that somehow it would expire like all the others I'd tried so I turned on the app and typed in the code right away and OMG my scanner was active!!!!  And I was able to claim the agent name that I wanted, mistyayn.

I was bouncing off the walls excited because I wanted to go claim the Post Office. Being the level headed one that he is Bryan suggests I go outside and do the training.  Wait there's training? Oh yea Bryan had done the training a week before I grabbed my coat and ran outside.  I remember following ADAs instructions very carefully and making sure I paid careful attention because I wanted to be a good agent and I didn't want to look dumb the first time I used my scanner.   When it was time to pick my faction I was so scared of picking the wrong faction that I re-read everything three times just to make sure.

After securing my status as an Agent of the Resistance I wanted to do something!  A check of the scanner revealed that I was a block away from a clump of XM.  I was completely transfixed as the map in my hand moved me closer to the glimmering specs of XM as I walked.  That first time that ADA talked to me after training when I picked up my first clump of XM I knew this was something special and I wanted to be a part of it.

In that moment I realized two things.  First, I was totally hooked.  Second, I was really cold! I was only wearing pajamas and a coat so I needed to get home where it was warm.  On that short walk home I decided my first priority tomorrow night after work was taking down that Post Office and my second priority was figuring out how I was going to keep Bryan and I warm so we could play any time we wanted.

The Early Days of Ingress