On-On

See Three States In One Day Megahash 2009

2009-06-25T05:49:00.001-07:00

East Liverpool, Ohio
Newell, West Virginia
Shippingport, Pennsylvania

Sat July 18, 2009
website

carpool from Pittsburgh available

Last Post - Redirect to another blog website

2009-06-15T12:47:00.001-07:00

Have exceeded the 1 GB of free space. Soon to re-direct to this other website

Hash in the 'Hood

2009-06-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

true trail

---
At chalk talk, special mark: "H", as for home invasion. At end of chalk talk, right from the GetGo, this trail was going to be in 'Hood Style: the hare scribbles an arrow and says trail starts here, with the arrow pointing to a fence. People start climbing and jumping over fence. Only half succeed. Many renounce and see there is an alternative route. Just Mark shows his military training style in getting over this urban warfare obstacle. Run is around a few blocks, with reclaimed residential lots by East Liberty Redevelopment Group, a non-profit that has been active in the 'hood, like, for example, convincing Whole Foods to set up shop here. We're following the FRBs, and all of a sudden, around a corner, three white guys, dressed in street clothes, are talking to a seated black man with his hands tied behind his back. We're right where the action is. A few more blasts of trombone sound, and we're almost back to the hare's house, in a house that the hare is renovating. First beer stop. Some paint ball shooting in the basement. The paint ammo is in a glass jar, and Purple Princess mistakes them for candy and chews one of them. After several turns in paint ball shooting, the pack is on back on trail. Sherpes leaves trombone, and switches to bicycle transportation. Marks lead to Black St, uphill to where there used to be a public housing project that got demolished a few years ago. We had a hash here not that long ago, it was hared by Windy Pops, a naive welsh PhD student who didn't care about the neighborhood crack houses. At the time, the local residents asked us "who U running away from?" when they saw us running. This time, no such curiosity: we're a known entity, they know us now... right adjacent to cemetery shiggy, a parked van with beverage tank... second beer stop. Pile of gravel is good overlook spot for a few. Num Nuts finds a bicycle in the shiggy. Pack is restless, on on into the cemetery, grassy fields, shiggy, woods and vines, trail is lost, and indecicive hashers don't want to get to close to fenced perimeter and never see marks that continue across the fence, so finally, technology on trail is used to voice-connect with the hare to obtain a resolution on where true trail is, and once relayed, the pack is back on the trail AND force-through the perimeter, crossing from the Land of the Dead into the Land of the Living. A check on the bottom of a dirt road and a false below that forces people on a steep slope to reach the street by crawling under a reticular urban obstacle, then shiggy on a corner, and emerging into a Extreme Makeover Home Edition went bad project overlooking the Lawrenceville Upper Ward. Beer stop #3. Some of pgh finest showed up asking us for credentials, at which someone responded "just a bunch of sweaty runners". On On back on trail, a false down below on city steps, back on top, a few criss-cross in residential streets, and a final beer stop in a residential driveway. From there is On-In, KGB borrowing Sherpes's Gary Fisher bike that carries the history of having been found while laying trail on the Hill District while laying trail in his inaugural hare trail. Back at base camp, we're relieved that our vehicles are still there, intact, no glass damage, apparently Mexi-Pad is well known in the 'Hood, and the boys took good care of our belongings. Or maybe it was Hung Like This fashion attire, with gold chain and bandana that "gelled" well with the locals. After munching tacos and sitting on barrels around what is not a campfire, but two kegs, Circle is opened and three new boots are shown how the Down-Down ritual is performed. Three pimps. Autohashers. Cyclists. Prodigals. Trombonists. Lost & Found collectors. Paint Ball mistaken for Candy. ... and an attempt was made to name Just ... but there was no karma, and it was delegated to a future date (but we know he likes to play with balls of fire, that's his Facebook picture)

Memorial Day Hash

2009-05-26T09:26:00.000-07:00

somewhere in Crafton

also, somewhere in Crafton

Avalonian Bellevuian

2009-04-20T08:25:00.001-07:00

Flea Market Beer Items

2009-04-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

Moon's 62 and WMD 40th Birthday Hash

2009-04-13T03:56:00.001-07:00

Photo Album

route

Poon Lim Landing Day Hash

2009-04-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

True Trail to last beer stop was 5.5 miles

photo album

Article on the Trib about the Landslide farming community

Article on the Post-Gazette

The farm house almost got evicted

beer stop map for Noah

that's the map that the hare drew for Noah who couldn't run and corrupted the hare for beer stop locations. Noah used that map, and got to the Snack Stop 30 minutes before everyone else, so early that he called the hare to say "when are ying getting here? I am seriously outnumbered"

Harry Squatter, without a physical map, but certainly with a mental map, got to Beer Stop 2 after talking with the hare in two short phone calls: the first to get him into the vicinity of the Birmingham Bridge and Fifth, and the second to find specific features that identified the beer stop area. What's is interesting is that Harry Squatter walked from Greenfield neighborhood on the Eliza Furnace Trail, and there were marks on it for the leg between BS 2 and BS 3. I think he saw them but ignored them.

Sex Pak, while in the vicinity of BS 2, got to the false on Second Avenue, but then, instead of returning to the last check, chose to get on the bicycle trail and walk back to Bates St. He saw flour marks on trail and felt he was back on track (but he did miss BS 2).

Bible Banger also found the Second Avenue false, believing the hare was going to use the bike trail, but unlike Sex Pak, she did return to the last check and evenutally to the area where Beer Stop 2 was, and joined the party already in progress.

Beer Stop 2 "aim-off" was a back check 8, off a ruined stone wall. Everyone except Mexi Pad looked sideways into the ruins. Mexi, for his curiosity of ruined buildings and addiction to fixing them, eventually spotted Harry Squatter that was standing on top of the slope beyond the ruins. He saw people walking by, but chose not to reveal himself. After all, he had a tank full will a gallon of East End Brewer Snow Melt fuel to slowly consume.

Noah, Buffalo Nut, Bito-Honey, HypnoTits and others, were sent ahead of the FRBs thanks to the hare short-cutting marks for them, but once they reached the back check 8, they chose not to return. They had enough. The FRBs pack 1 did return, and at the same time, FRBs pack 2 were approaching. They conferenced and determined which was the eight mark, and suddenly 10 hashers showed up at the beer stop location.

Whiff never found BS 2, apparently he chose the 7th mark as "back check 8", and took another trail from a Y intersection, found the red tent of a homeless guy, continued up the hill that eventually led him to the steps and victorian castle that was walked upon on the leg between Chatam College and Snack Stop. Whiff eventually found BS 2 and no hashers (we left) so he caught up with the pack by the time we were in the climbing stage halfway between BS 2 and BS 3.

According to a very short email from WMD, he and No Code, instead of descending to Chatam College from the Petersen event area, they chose high ground, and somehow found marks (I don't know how they did it, but very clever, because the hare didn't put any marks on sidewalks) and eventually reached the check under the Birgingham bridge. I don't think they found BS 2 or BS 3.

On Forbes, a young man approached the pack and asked if we were hashers. He identified himself as a student from Eire, and said he hashed there. We invited him to join in, but was busy with school work.

The first BS was supposed to be a Saloon on Atwood one block from Forbes, but apparently they open at 7, so Gooey Decimal, who was there first thanks for technology on trail getting advance tips from the hare, sent the pack to a second BS potential outlet, but that was closed too. Eventually, all these univ of Pitt graduates settled for a third choice, Peter's Pub, and an impromptu B mark was chalked in front of that fine establishment. 10 minutes later, the hare received a call from WMD, like "where the F are you", and soon he too was able to join the rest of the pack.

Golden Showers was never seen again after the first 15 minutes. He saw the checks that the hare re-chalked with arrows while the hare was sweeping, but apparently mis-interpreted the directionality of an arrow pointing from the Mary Schenley fountain to the back of the Katz business school, and went for a solo run towards the Cathedral of Learning never to be seen again.

At Mad Mex, the waiter at the bar was very very fast in getting food and beverages to people. Thanks to Golden Showers sweet-talk, the manager gave happy hour prices for chips and dips.

Sphinx, Reptile, Titty Boy pimped.

Reptile Dysfunction showed off his pets, safely stored inside a cotton sheet pillow case. The indian food store in Atwood had its owner and children walk out in terror to see the herpetologist demonstration, but, no need to worry, these aren't Indian cobras.

For circle down downs, we left Mad Mex at 7 PM and reached the Saloon that was closed earlier. It was still closed. Gooey Decimal again to the rescue of the Lost Hasher Crowd, and directed the pack to Spice Cafe, an underground and dark space below a indian restaurant.

Just Andy was almost named. He picked up a used CVS drugstore badge that the hare circled with flour, and he pinned his chest with it. For being the only one to do that meant something, maybe an urge to be named, as the badge name was erased. names being thrown: Cockstumer Service, Pin Me Name, No Stinking Badges. But there wasn't enough karma and once again, the naming was delegated for future time.

Just Jen was named. I think I heard "Jizabell".

Just ... was named. the exact spelling not sure, but phonetically was like "Kunt Fu Weisel".

Green Dress Run

2009-03-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

Impromptu Stop

Song to the Impromptu Stop Host

Running Downhill

true trail

'70s Downtown Full Moon

2009-03-13T05:59:00.000-07:00

true trail

church downtown

baby moon running

The Free Fare Zone was established to promote the use of transit within Downtown Pittsburgh, encourage intramodal transfer and reduce boarding delays. The Free Fare Zone is defined by the following boundaries:

* The Allegheny River
* The Monongahela River
* Ross Sreet, Bigelow Square, Penn Station, Liberty Ave @ RR overpass and 11th St.

--
Heroes' Way:

As part of this project, a sidewalk along the East side of the Cathedral will be opened to Oliver Avenue constituting the only mid-block joinder of Oliver and Sixth Avenues and providing new linkage between the Duquesne Club area and the development of Piatt Place (in the former Lazarus building). The green space of the churchyard will also be open to the public during daylight hours. Also envisioned are musical concerts by children during lunch hours in warm weather. A "Heroes' Way" is planned for this sidewalk connection to Oliver Avenue with tributes to Pittsburgh contemporary heroes such as the firemen who died in fighting the Ebenezer Baptist Church fire and the crew and passengers of Flight 93.

International Women's Day Hash

2009-03-09T06:40:00.001-07:00

true trail to first beer stop was 3.5 miles on 90% pavement, to second beer stop was 6 miles

There were two backchecks: BC 15 at mile 2, and BC 3 at mile 5.

Saint David's Day Hash

2009-03-02T08:18:00.000-08:00

true trail

true trail

neat screw...

$576,250
1817 Mary Street Unit C2
South Side , PA 15203
The Condominiums St Matthews - This unit is in the former Convent, it is the 2nd & 3rd floors, condo #C2,This condo is a 2,305 Sq Ft which includes 3 bedroom, 2.5 baths with laundry hook-ups on the bedroom level,with 2 parking spaces off street. The Condominiums St. Matthew's offers its residents the highest in luxury condominium living. Each condominium is unique in design and layout and can be custom tailored to suit individual needs. St. Matthew's was founded in 1903. The founding of the church can be traced to the influx of Europeans to the Pittsburgh area to work in the city's mills. The cornerstone for the church was laid on July 4, 1905 and the completed church was dedicated on September 22, 1906. In May, 1916 the cornerstone for the school was laid. The school opened in September, 1916. Tuition at the time was 50 cents for one student or $1 for more than one student from the same family. Teachers at the school, the Vincentian Sisters of Charity, lived in a frame house on Harcum Way until the Convent was completed in 1926. The Condominiums are located in Pittsburgh's historic and trendy South Side neighborhood

photo album

Pittsburgh Hash shirt spotted in National Park in California

2009-03-02T04:25:00.001-08:00

PMS Hash

2009-03-01T03:38:00.001-08:00

Tour du Tit

2009-02-20T10:22:00.001-08:00

pose

not much different pose

now that is what I call a beer stop...

Polish Hill war memorial

"hey, we don't have tits !"

"... but we do !"

all photos

Love Hash

2009-02-15T05:10:00.000-08:00

We started at Bito Honey's place in Regent Square, with lots of pavement until Rocco's bar in Swissvale, then a long descent into Nine Mile Run following Commercial St, and then into Frick Bar for a second beer stop, at which point trail was about 3 miles long. The beer at the second beer stop was a 7% alcohol IPA (video)

From there on, true trail reached the northernmost boundary of Frick Park, and to the Evergreen bar on Penn Avenue. Some people self-declared Ryans to be an unofficial fourth beer stop. And one person stopped at the East End Food Coop and paid for and ate some dinner food. Sex Pak and Sherpes, who created a detour for themselves after the second beer stop, and went looking for and finding the millstone reported a week earlier, tried to recconect with the pack but could not find flour marks and assumed incorrectly the third stop was going to be Ryan's or Murphy's, but then they had the chance to see the San Valentine's Day decorations on the shop's windows in the Regent Square commercial district.

all the photos

Super Bowel Hash 2009

2009-02-02T06:33:00.000-08:00

The tradition continues: Butt Wipe and Hand Job pulled another shitty hash in the woods of Moon Township. Lots of snowy trails and great shiggy, followed by the classic Super Bowel apres with unchanged menu in the past five years.

True trail was 5 miles

Reptile Dysfunction Hash

2009-01-26T09:17:00.000-08:00

true trail was 2.6 miles

Books for religious Sex Ed
http://www.mum.org/lifecyca.htm

volumes One and Two

Volumes Three and Four

in a blog

referenced in this recent book, a memoir:
page 217 from "Not a happy Camper" by Mindy Schneider
My father never had much time for pleasure reading, but this didn't
stop him from joining numerous book clubs and buying dozens of
cut-rate volumes a year. One of his purchases was a set of four thin
books called The Life Cycle Library for Young People. Sometimes I'd
sneak into the study at the back of our house and read the chapters
about dating.

posters idea resource for analversary

2009-01-12T15:03:00.000-08:00

Panther Hollow Full Moon

2009-01-12T06:31:00.000-08:00

trail was only 2.4 miles

in the poem, the reference to the Bugle from Reading is a hasher from Reading, PA, who runs with a bugle, that coincidentally they bumped into outside the front door of Mad Mex last night. Folker is a hasher from Pgh that also runs with a bugle.
---
It was the night of the wolf moon, and all through the land,
11 hashers were assembled to see what was at hand.

With Sherpes to lead them through hill and through dale.
To stop at each dumpster and search for the Holy Grail.

The trail would be hard to see and so was the moon.
And the rain caused the snow to be gone very soon.

From Big Jims they wandered out upon the tracks,
They slipped and they slided, some might never come back.

Towards Schenley and parts of Oakland that oft are not seen,
This determined band was traveling lean.

Finally they made it to Uncle Jimmy's for beer,
Most of them that is, as Moon and 3 others disappeared.

Around the corner they were, at Mad Mex it seems,
So the pack joined them there, for more beer and beans.

Though Folker wasn't here, a Bugle was found.
She hails from Reading and was out on the town.

There was an 'H' stop and Monica was there,
And a vacant house with more beer to share.

Loaded with goodies only hashers would love,
Like heavenly gifts sent from above.

We finally made it back to Big Jims
For some eats and drink, and the singing of hymns.

The night was over and it was time to go home.
Because tomorrow is another hash, with more land to roam.
--

Moon
WMD
Hairy Squatter
Noah
Mexi Pad
SexPak
Bito Honey
Golden Shower
Doggie Style
Death Marchall
Purple Princess

Finger Food Hash

2009-01-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

True trail was 4.5 miles

Photo Album
Doggy Style Photo Album

Those cool funky houses we ran next to are from a famous architect, and you can see a 2'24" documentary video clip in Houses Around Here, which you can find in any of these local libraries.

Chalk Talk

Chalk Talk

Trail Running

Pine Nuts finds the beer

Death Marshall finds the beer

At the first beer stop

in a creek below

Titty Boy climbing

Tree Log on Trail

Walkers

Waterfall, take 1

Waterfall, take 2

Waterfall, take 3

Descent

The bicycle of a fireman had two blinking lights

Winter Solstice Hash

2008-12-22T05:48:00.000-08:00

True Trail was 4.8 miles long

Video of last beer stop.

Villa Ada Hash

2008-12-16T06:29:00.000-08:00

Scouting the park before the hash

Hashing in the park

http://pgh-hash.blogspot.com/2008/12/villa-ada-hash.html

Rome hashers,

it was a shitty pleasure to hare in my home city of a quarter of a century ago in my earlier life, nice to see that five adventurous souls made it to piazza ungheria to do a Sherpes Trail, that in pittsburgh means something.

I originally thought of purchasing 10 kg of flour, but Silvia shouted to me No! No! explaining that that was way TOO MUCH. So i settled for 8 kg, and ended up only using 4 kg.

Trail was in the shiggy part of villa ada, lots of caves and other underground dwellings, formerly used by extra communitary until march of 2008, but now no longer there, thanks to the police dogs of alemanno.

knew the locations since in march 2008, did a orienteering event in villa ada, and used their 1:5000 map which also marked on the map the exact locations of the caves. so in march went to find those caves and found that many of them had people living in them.

when i went scouting yesterday, found that none of the dwellings had people in them. alemanno kept his promise.

Lots of challenging obstacles: cliffs, bamboo forests, downed trees.

the best notable event was that Hash Dog Ambra (by dog owner Just Margherita) was half-way on the cliff, and then, suddenly started sliding downward on the muddy slope, and started whining. It took about a minute before Gravity God prevailed, and the dog came sliding downwards towards its owner Margherita, that calmed the dog Vieni Qui Ambra... but knowing well too well that she was next in climbing that cliff ("if the dog can't do it, how am I going to do it?")

other notable events. at hash start, a traffic accident right at piazza ungheria, just meters from hash start. a scooter crashed against a car. the hare (me), on returing from trail marking and seeing the blue flashing lights and emergency personnel, thought that it was another case of What Is This White Powder On The Sidewalk Lets Call The Army, and took a detour and avoided a direct approach to his fellow hashers at Hash Start.

Ironman missed the first beer stop because he blew a nearby false, and took a trail with no marks for 300 meters and found marks of the second leg (from beer stop 1 to beer stop 2), but eventually Technology On Trail aka cellphone connected Just Margherita with Ironman and the four hashers that were on the first beer stop eventually reconnected with Ironman on his futile attempt to try to do the entire trail on his own.

Yes, there were cases of dog walkers that erased false and check marks, unfortunately they do not know that there is a Hash In Progress, but nonetheless, it went without a hitch.

Circle was performed next to a playground in via panama, but unfortunately there were no minors present for the pedophiles in us to prey on. The two virgins got to do downdowns, dog owner of Hash Dog Ambra got to do downdowns for acrobatic cliff climbing abilities of the dog, Ironman for missing the first beer stop.

I leave in a few hours, it was a shit pleasure taking you all for a shiggy ride in the wild side of this city park. see you soon.

--
the Patto Per Roma legalese masterpiece starts with these three sections:
considerato che
preso atto che
si conviene che

what a coincidence... the day after the hash, a leading Rome newspaper has an article on a cleanup operation in Valle Aurelia...

Poliziotti e parà sgombrano le favelas

Fuori è ancora buio. Gli uomini della task force diretti dal responsabile dell'Ufficio prevenzione generale e soccorso pubblico Raffaele Clemente e coordinati sul posto dal vicequestore Filiberto Mastropasqua si preparano a entrare in azione.

Il briefing quotidiano, che si tiene nella sede di «Roma Natura», l'ente regionale per la gestione delle aree verdi protette nel territorio comunale, è appena finito. Oltre agli agenti di Polizia e della Forestale, ci sono i militari della Folgore di Livorno, i vigili del Nucleo decoro urbano, gli addetti dell'Ama. Ognuno ha un suo compito specifico. Tutti hanno lo stesso obiettivo: far capire al popolo dei cartoni che l'aria è cambiata, che l'abusivismo non sarà più tollerato, che se ne devono andare e, soprattutto, che non devono tornare.
Sono le sette quando il gruppo si muove, destinazione Parco del Pineto. Il XVIII Municipio ha segnalato alcuni insediamenti sulla collinetta erbosa che sale da via di Valle Aurelia. È uno dei tanti interventi della pattuglia mista, che si occupa solo di mini-favelas. Da agosto sono stati identificati 900 senzatetto, 250 avviati per una verifica dell'identità all'ufficio immigrazione, dieci arrestati per reati vari, nella maggior parte dei casi furti, scippi, borseggi e ricettazione. Studi mirati hanno indicato che c'è una corripondenza fra il micro-crimine e i micro-campi di disperati. Teoria confermata dalla realtà, perché dopo gli sgomberi i reati sono calati di almeno il 30%.
L'operazione, che si svolge nell'ambito del «Patto per Roma», si concluderà tra dieci giorni.
La task force ha praticamente passato al setaccio l'intera capitale, comprese le sponde dei suoi due fiumi, l'Aniene e il Tevere, rifugio storico degli emarginati approdati nella metropoli grazie al tam-tam che dice Venite, Roma per noi è una città aperta. Il metodo «terra bruciata» è semplice ed efficace: una volta identificati, gli abusivi vengono fatti allontanare, le baracche abbattute dalle ruspe, le tende smantellate. Poi, per settimane, l'area viene controllata due volte al giorno per impedire che gli inquilini indesiderati tornino sui loro passi. Uno scopo secondario, ma non meno importante, è spezzare il legame delinquenziale fra ladruncoli e sfaciacarrozze o gestori di siti per lo smaltimento di rifiuti edili dove spesso vengono smerciati rame e altri materiali rubati.
Il corteo di auto si ferma davanti alla fornace di Valle Aurelia, zona Monte Ciocci. I paracadutisti e i poliziotti si inerpicano su per il colle. Sanno dove andare. Se non fosse così, sarebbe difficile trovare le case di legno e lamiera costruite con perizia dove la vegetazione è più fitta. Il primo a cadere nella rete è Stefan. Ha 54 anni e ne dimostra settanta. «Sto in Italia dal '95, vengo dalla Romania e faccio il muratore - spiega - Stavo dall'altra parte della collina, poi è andato tutto a fuoco e sono venuto qui. Mangio alla Caritas. Ma dormire lì non mi va, troppe persone strane che non stanno bene con la testa e danno fastidio. Da quanto tempo vivo in questa zona? Due anni. Dove ho preso il materiale per la casa? Nei cassonetti». Stefan non ha documenti e viene accompagnato in Questura per i controlli di rito.
Le baracche sono relativamente ben arredate e sorgono sempre vicino a stazioni della metro o alle fermate dell'autobus. In quella di Stefan ci sono un letto, un improvvisato barbecue, uno specchio spezzato appeso alla parete e numerosi cartoni di vinaccio spaccafegato. Il blitz prosegue. Più avanti le baracche sono due. Ci abitano in tre: i coniugi Monika e Marinel (lei ha 37 anni, lui 42) e Ioan, il loro «vicino» trentenne. Anche loro sono romeni e anche loro raccontano che si sono trasferiti qui dopo l'incendio scoppiato sull'altro versante della collina.
«Facciamo traslochi in nero per 50 euro al giorno e, d'estate, lavoriamo in campagna», dicono. Marinel e la moglie sono in città da tre settimane, Ioan dice di essere arrivato in Italia sei mesi fa. «In Romania non c'è lavoro e dobbiamo venire qui per non morire di fame», si difende Marinel, che chiede se può usufruire dell'asilo politico. Accanto alle due casupole hanno costruito anche un rudimentale wc con base in legno. Ovviamente non c'è scarico e gli escrementi restano lì sul fondo chissà per quanto, emanando un puzzo nauseabondo. «Non abbiamo i soldi per pagare l'affitto di un appartamento, per questo viviamo così - spiegano i tre - Dove andremo ora? Non lo sappiamo». Anche Monika, Marinel e Ioan finiscono a San Vitale. Mentre li portano via, una signora del quartiere passa e saluta i soldati della Folgore: «Bravi ragazzi! Fa piacere ogni tanto vedere la squadra...».
I «ragazzi» ringraziano e premono di nuovo sull'acceleratore. È quasi mezzogiorno ormai. L'ultima tappa è su via Pineta Sacchetti. Fra la strada e il parco sono state segnalate due tende. Dentro, però, non c'è nessuno. Gli «igloo» di tela vengono smontati e il personale dell'Ama li porta via. Quando torneranno, gli occupanti non troveranno che erba e fango. «In un certo senso ricordano i nostri emigranti e fanno pena - commenta un militare - Ma quando li troviamo con i bambini piccoli ci sale il sangue in testa. E poi non possono vivere così, come bestie. È nel loro stesso interesse». Senza contare che alcuni di questi poveracci rappresentano un pericolo.
Anche Nicolaus Mailat, infatti, era uno dei tanti straccioni che ingrossano le fila dell'esercito di emarginati. Fino a quando, una sera piovosa di ottobre, ha incontrato una donna che tornava a casa e ha cercato di rapinarla. Lei ha resistito, lui l'ha massacrata di botte. Si chiamava Giovanna Reggiani.

Villa Ada was cleaned up in November 22, 2008, as this article describes:

E' iniziata questa mattina l'operazione di bonifica e pulizia all'interno di Villa Ada a Roma. L'intervento, coordinato dall'assessore comunale alle Politiche ambientali, Fabio De Lillo, durerà quattro giorni e vedrà coinvolti congiuntamente la polizia ambientale, la squadra del decoro urbano dell'Ama, il servizio giardini del comune di Roma, l'ufficio prevenzione generale e soccorso pubblico della Questura di Roma, il II gruppo della polizia Municipale ed il corpo forestale dello Stato.
La task force provvederà alla pulizia, al decespugliamento e alla messa in sicurezza di molte zone della villa. L'intervento è partito questa mattina da Parco Rabin e proseguirà nei giorni di lunedì, martedì e mercoledì all'interno di Villa Ada dove, durante i sopralluoghi effettuati nelle scorse settimane, è stata ritrovata una enorme quantità di rifiuti abbandonati tra la boscaglia. Motorini, materassi, pneumatici, televisori, borse: una sorta di discarica a cielo aperto nascosta, ormai da anni, nel cuore della città, in una delle ville storiche della capitale.

"Si tratta di una grande operazione di bonifica resa ancora più difficoltosa dalla conformazione della villa. In alcuni punti, infatti, è praticamente impossibile portare i macchinari adeguati e gli operatori dovranno procedere a mano nelle operazioni di pulizia - spiega l'assessore alle Politiche ambientali, Fabio De Lillo, che ha assistito all'intervento - Questa imponente bonifica segue in pieno le linee guida tracciate dal sindaco Alemanno fin dall'inizio del suo mandato: sicurezza come priorità assoluta, rispetto delle regole, rigore per chi vive nell'illegalità e massima attenzione per il decoro urbano. Nei prossimi giorni verrà rimosso un quantitativo spaventoso di rifiuti che si sono accumulati in una delle ville più belle della città, colpevolmente abbandonata da troppi anni. Lo testimoniano le numerose baracche che abbiamo trovato nascoste nella boscaglia".

Other related activities about finding "stuff" in the shiggy:

Geocaching:
Noon Boom geocache in the Gianicolo
Le Giostre di Gastone in Villa Sciarra
Fistful of Steps in Trastevere
Monte Mario steep slopes (this one is challenging)

Orienteering, a scavenger hunt using topographic map and compass
urban club
serious club
a bunch of nuclear physics researchers in the north-west countryside of Rome

Giorgio Portinari is a "divulgatore" of the orienteering sport in Rome, and has created Mountain Bike Orienteering events in Villa Ada.

Stony ground

Northern-most cave, 3 meters high, West side

Tunnel, 4 meters high, West edge

Ruin

Building, eastern side

Bridge, under

Purchased 8 kg of flour in preparation for the event.

Festivus

2008-12-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

true and madeup trail

photo album

Pasqualino Settebellezze Hash

2008-11-25T06:34:00.001-08:00

photo album

Pasqualino, chase the hare...

In attendance were Moon, Whiff, Noah, Death Marshall, Toy Box, Pine
Nuts, Isis, Digger, Donkey-ho-te, Purple Princess, Flicker, Date the
Mason, Golden Showers, Buffalo Nut.

We started late since it was evident people were having a hard time
locating Hash Start, maybe for it being outside Allegheny County
(Westmoreland County). Moon received a cellphone message from Purple
Princess which apparently overshot the location on Route 22 by ALOT,
and went as far as Blairsville in Indiana County. Noah mentioned that
his GPS burbed out the message "you have reached your destination" but
didn't specify that there is a cement barrier median that he has to
over. And although the address came straight from the restaurant
printed menu, the hare maps.googled it and it couldn't be precisely
located. So chalk talk was at 3 PM, to give Purple Princess a chance
to return to more densely-populated areas.

At chalk talk, the hare dumped a hundred or so ties on the ground and
ordered all to take their pick. At the question "where did you get
these", the answer was the obvious "from a flea market, of course".
After a quick chalk talk, a necessary and ritual formality in the
absence of New Boots, off they were sent across Route 22 and on to
abandoned railroad tracks.

Human nature took its form and display soon, with Donkey-Ho-Te
following literally the blue chalk arrow and crossing Turtle Creek,
wetting his footwear, when the marking really meant a detour from the
boring RR tracks into the creekside shiggy.

... and not much later, Purple Princess did the same, this
creek-crossing even in winterish weather like this, must be contageous.

With Purple Princess now on the other side ot the creek, and a FRB
running also on the other side from the opposite direction for an
inevitable collision, the beer-searchers crowd soon found true trail
towards a steep hillside to reach a check on a trail above.

Donkey-Ho-Te went right and found a false. Moon went uphill, all the
others went left. Donkey-Ho-Te, returning from the false, decided to
FOLLOW MOON. The rest of the pack kept on the trail to find a check
and a back-check. In the meantime, Flicker was guided by the hare to
be FRB briefly, soon to followed by the rest of the pack that solved
the back-check mystery.

Towards the vicinity of the first beer stop, the hare, who was
sweeping trail with three stragglers, was surprised to see that none
of the FRB found the beer yet. Soon, the entire pack (not including
Moon, Donkey-Ho-Te, Whiff) was standing at the last check. "Did you
look down?", finally someone said and ventured, and soon B mark and B
bag were found.

Death Marshall was in love with the Mendocino Belgian Style beer, Toy
Box took note for Toy Camp 2009. Dave the Mason carried a bottle for
Flicker that stayed in high-altitude after finding out from the hare
that the trail will continue up and above the hillside.

At the beer stop discussion went about the name of the hash,
Pasqualino Settebellezze, a movie starring Giancarlo Giannini. It
turns out Buffalo Nut saw the movie, and the conversation went about
how the character, now in a WWII nazi labor camp, strategizes his
survival by seducing the german Wermacht guard, a 400-lbs woman.

At beer stop end, the hashers were sent off to the second leg, to
summit the hill and finding the first mark of the second leg, a V for
View. From there, marks crossed the park from one end to the other,
on trail, pipeline, on the edge of the hill, down to creekside on a
narrow slice of footwork overlooking a creek below, leading some to
think "I hope this doesn't turn into another Flicker".

Isis and Digger decide to quit the second leg and return on foot to
the apres location (it was getting dark). Flicker, Dave the Mason,
Purple Princess, were given a park map by the hare with the info on
were the beer stop was, but never showed up for lack of time (it was
really getting dark).

At the beer stop, Moon and Donkey-Ho-Te were waiting for an hour and a
half. Moon, in gaining the hillside at 15 minutes into the hash,
found a trail in the upper part of the park, that was used for the
second leg of hash-trail. Soon, he and Donkey-Ho-Te found blue chalk
marks and found the second beer stop thinking it was designated to be
the first beer stop. 45 minutes later, Whiff showed up. Apparently
he found the last false in the first leg, and instead of returning to
the last check, which was positioned just 100 ft from the first beer
stop, he blew the false and reached the hilltop with the first marks
of the second leg, and went on in doing the entire hash-trail by
himself, until he found two companion-hungry hashers on a
gasoline-smelling creekside yelling BEER HERE ! BEER HERE !!

Yeah, Moon and Donkey-Ho-Te, now under the intoxicating influence of
gasoline and other petroleum bi-products (there was a large gasoline
spill just 5 days earlier), where fantasizing and concocting all sorts
of conspiracy plots, like moving the beer stop. And they sensed
something was not right, as they waited and waited and nobody showed
up for a long time.

On-In was almost in total darkness, but Whiff, sensing a instinct from
previous experience of the hare's previous trails, brought with him a
LED flashlight, and soon the guiding light for a pack of hashers at
the end the trail, looking for a route back to hash-start-and-end.

Apres was at Pasqualino's restaurant, and Steelers game on one screen,
and My Cousin Vinny the movie on another screen, with the pivotal
moment of Marisa Tomey being dragged in court as an automotive expert
and explaining why a 1964 Chevy Skylark can't leave tire tracks the
way the prosecutor presented.

Soon, apres attrition took over, and at circle, only five were
remaining: Donkey-Ho-Te, Purple Princess, Whiff, Moon, Sherpes.
Accusations were who missed a beer stop (all). Who (unnecessarily)
crossed the creek.

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2420994

Wild Turkey Hash

2008-11-24T05:37:00.000-08:00

true trail

Eco-Friendly Green Hash

2008-11-17T05:28:00.000-08:00

true trail

Three beer stops
Shopping carts are guaranteed to withstand 300 lbs crush weight.
Dumpster Diving
Geo-Cache turns into a Ass-Cache
New boot is geocacher, looking forward to find Red Dress Run geocache
Death Marchall and Noah fooled by deceptive floating log when crossing creek

Mega Hash 2008

2008-10-20T05:38:00.001-07:00

The extended trail system was very creative, placing falses on true trail to facilitate the channeling of prey into the fisherman's net.

The extended trail continued the trail towards south to reach the powerline clearing (check mark), descend it a bit, then continue south to the western side of the Poets Corner apartments, managed by Union Real Estate, crossing a few deeply rutted ravines in typical hasher style, with markings were in white paint. Then, a second powerline, descending that, to the creek below and a big B mark on a tree, with cave nearby. Two black garbage bags with the loot. The extended trail then continued north following the creek, with several checks, and reconnected with the hares's true trail.

Curiously, Sherpes found the beer stop NOT by following its intended directionality, but backwards (small yellow dots). He was back from the pack, the FRB already ahead on the extended trail, then saw DJ returning back, and when Sherpes pointed to a False mark on a tree, DJ said "someone is f..ing with my trail. True trail goes that way...". A check below at trail intersection, and going straight down towards the creek, a second check. Sherpes and Hairy Squatter went left (south) traveling parallel to the creek, yelling On-On at every mark. Eventually, Hairy Squatter returned after hearing DJ's calling for Hash Back ("1" on map). At the intersection of the powerline and creek, Sherpes could see three hashers very high above hillside along powerline ("2" on map, red shirt suggests it was newboot geologist) and yelled "Check" to them, but never to see them again (they too were called back by DJ). Sherpes found the beer stop, small cavern on an overhanging cliff was the obvious spot to hide the staff, climbed up, and well hidden, two black bags, typical B stop, opened the garbage bags and displayed the loot, and waited waited waited for the others to arrive. (never happened). Then, trying to figure out what was happening, found trail marks on the other side of creek and followed it, finding the Poets Corner apartments, adjacent streets, top of two powerlines, recconecting with the hares's true trail, returned to mystery beer stop thinking by this time, the pack was there (wasn't), met ATVers, offered them a beer (they kindly refused), waited again, scouted trail and other falses, then, speculated a theory that the two falses (yellow "F" on map) were too close to each other and that basically the entire pack shortcutted the entire beer stop trail, and eventually decided it was time to move on, and found trail (and tons of falses) that lead to model airplane field.

That undeveloped area of South Park is called Sleepy Hollow, well known by one of the hares.

The eagle trail to the turkey rendezvous was 7.5 miles. From South Park, then into the southern area of Jefferson Memorial Park, went by an artificial turf soccer field, then reached the tallest cell tower on top of a hill.

The Turkey trail was 4.5 miles long

Pit stop from the 1950's

First beer stop

Abbandoned school

Ancient lone gravesite near the tallest cell tower

Second beer stop

Near the department of energy labs

Recconecting with the turkeys

Mystery beer stop

This is typically DJ's beer

Model Airplane field

South Park beer stop, but yinz didn't leave any bear

View of beer stop location with tortilla chips back carried from previous beer stop

Online photo album

Pod Camp

2008-10-17T11:00:00.001-07:00

Podcamp

Meet and schmooze with other PCPGH3 early birds while learning about AlphaLab, Pittsburgh’s newest startup incubator! Beverages provided by Erie Brewing Co.

About PodCamp
PodCamp is a community UnConference for new media enthusiasts
and professionals — bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers,
social networkers, and anyone curious about new media. The
first PodCamp was held September 8–10, 2006 in Boston,
Massachusetts...and, two months later, Pittsburgh hosted the
world’s second PodCamp. Since then, PodCamps have been
held around the world, from California to Sweden and Ireland
to South Africa.
Why “PodCamp”?
PodCamp follows the unique open-format tradition of Bar-
Camp, in which the attendees create the schedule. And, since
“podcasting” was the buzzword surrounding web audio and
video in 2006, it was applied to the event’s name. Despite this
grammatical limitation, all types of social media creators — including
bloggers, designers, photographers, programmers and
animators — benefit from PodCamp Pittsburgh.

Rules that Govern PodCamp
The PodCamp Foundation specifies 6 rules which govern
what may or may not be called a PodCamp:
1. All attendees must be treated equally.
Everyone is a rockstar.
2. All content created must be released under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license (a
copy of this license is provided on the next page).
3. All attendees must be allowed to participate (subject to
limitations of physical space, of course). Please be courteous
to attendees from all levels of social media experience,
and do not monopolize sessions.
4. All sessions must obey the Law of 2 Feet — if you’re not getting
what you want out of a session, you’re welcome to walk
out and do something else. It’s YOUR event! (Just be courteous
to others while exiting the session.)
5. The event must be new-media focused — blogging, audio
podcasting, video on the net, etc.
6. The financials of a PodCamp must be fully disclosed in an
open ledger, except for any donor/sponsor who wishes to
remain anonymous.

Day Zero

Friday, October 17: Meet-n-Greet!

WHERE: AlphaLab
WHEN: 6 - 8 PM
ADDRESS: 2325 East Carson Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203 (map)
PARKING: Street parking in the area
NOTES: Finger foods and drink available... Meet and schmooze with other PCPGH3 early birds while learning about AlphaLab, Pittsburgh's newest startup incubator!

Beverages provided by Erie Brewing Co.
[edit]
Day One

Saturday, October 18

WHERE: The Art Institute of Pittsburgh
WHEN: 9 AM - 4 PM
ADDRESS: 420 Boulevard of the Allies, Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (map)
PARKING: Street parking in the area

8:30 AM: DOORS OPEN

Light breakfast (coffee, juice and muffins / bagels) available. Bottled water provided by Sportsocracy

The Mentor Lounge (430) Will be open all day.

The WearPittsburgh Loungy Lounge (431) If you need to get away from the action for a few, chill out here (and enjoy the designs of local Pittsburgh t-artistes).
[edit]
Day One Sessions

9:00 - 9:50 AM: Opening Keynote/Welcome. Location: The HUB

Session Planners: Please keep your audiences in mind when planning your sessions. If you're leading a "basic" session, start from the ground up; if your audience is more advanced than you expected, you can always switch gears. Likewise, if you're leading an "advanced" session, make sure the information is well ahead of entry-level. Please label your session and give details in the description, to help attendees.

10:00 - 10:45
The HUB (440) — Social Media: Diversity & Activism We'll look at the different types of diversity in social media and see how they're best presented (with comparisons to conventional media). Also, best practices will be given for getting started in advocacy and activism in social media. Jason Cable
ROOM B (435) — Intro to Blogging: What IS a blog? How do you create one? How do you build and sustain an audience? What makes a great blog? Hosted by Cynthia Closkey and Mike Woycheck of Pittsburgh Bloggers (BASIC)
ROOM C (434) — Podcasting 101: Alex Landefeld
Podcasting is essentially having an interest in producing an audio or video recording of whatever level to be distributed digitally to audience members who use computers or portable audio/video devices to follow your show. Learn to identify an idea that can be produced episodically, learn how to produce that idea, and learn how to distribute your produced audio or video program. Like blogging and other forms of digital self-expression, you're never too old, too young, too experienced or too inexperienced to produce a podcast... all it takes is doing it! (BASIC)
ROOM D (421) — Memory Matters: Making Media That Sticks There are several principles of making things memorable. Jonny will go over those principles and will lead a discussion about ways to work with those principles to make your audio or video media memorable. Jonny Goldstein took second place in the North American Memory Competition in the playing card category and has been making memorable media since 1999.
ROOM E (420) —Making Social Media Visible Michael Munz (Blogs, Videos and Images) Find out how to make your efforts seen and optimized for search engines and consumers.'

11:00 - 11:45
The HUB (440) — Success! (Blogs, shows, podcasts): Justin Kownacki will moderate a panel of bloggers and podcasters discussing different criteria for success in new media, ways of measuring success and how to achieve it. Panelists include DJ G & John R. Carman of The G Spod, Rachel Butera of thatnight.net + Should I Drink That + Rich Westerfield, owner / blogger of Aldo Coffee and more.
ROOM B (435) — Blogging 201: Blogging Best Practices: For those who've been blogging a while (and beginners who want to see what's ahead). Is your blog as good as it can be? How can you attract more traffic? We'll count down the key features that every blog should have, and cover tips for getting readers and keeping them coming back. Presented by Cynthia Closkey (Big Big Design and My Brilliant Mistakes) and Mike Woycheck, co-founders of Pittsburgh Bloggers
ROOM C (434) — Branding Your Podcast: This session will cover how to create and maintain a brand for your podcast (or blog). Presented by Norman Huelsman who manages the visual communication for The Art Institute of Pittsburgh.
ROOM D (421) — Text-to-Voice software Discover how speech technology can generate on-demand podcasts and generally benefit any content by making it instantly available in audio format. Local company Cepstral will demo their new SaaS platform, VoiceForge and explain how TTS voices add value to dynamic applications, mash-ups, blogs, chat, mobile devices, and more.
ROOM E (420) — Meet/Share/Learn-o-Rama This session is designed for you to meet other PodCamp Pittsburg people, share your interests, skills, and questions. Facilitated by Jonny Goldstein

Noon - 12:45 PM: LUNCH

1:00 - 1:45
The HUB (440) — Social Media Business Plans: Aaron Tainter and Alan Veeck of Meakem Becker VC, Meredith Benedict of AlphaLab, Julie Morey of ElasticLab, more TBA
ROOM B (435) — Taking your Audio to the Next Level (Advanced): David Fisher presents tips and techniques to separate your Podcast from the rest of the pack in terms of audio fidelity and workflow.
ROOM C (434) — open
ROOM D (421) — Video Compression Best Practices with Dr. Dave Mansueto: Loveable media swashbuckler Dave Mansueto of Libsyn and Wizzard Media explains what to do (and not do) to make your video look better than anyone else's (except the people who also attend this session).
ROOM E (420) — Podsafe Music: DJ G & John R. Carman of The G Spod will explain what it means to be “podsafe”. Musical artists will learn how to increase their audience and sales by licensing their music as podsafe, and podcasters will learn how to use podsafe audio for free in their shows.

2:00 - 2:45
The HUB (440) — Wrestling Mayhem Show & Should I Drink ThatAfter the Mayhem that ensued last year, who knows what will go down this year as the two shows discuss their Grassroots beginnings and where it's taken them over the last couple years.
ROOM B (435) — Worth a Thousand Words: Photography 101: Michael Fulk covers how to take better pictures even without those fancy cameras (though it can't hurt to have one) and use them to give your blog some color.
ROOM C (434) — Using Analytics: Andy Quayle
ROOM D (421) — Optimizing Video for the Television Viewer: Mark Cavicchia, Founder/CEO of Pittsburgh's WhereverTV explains how to get your videos ready for the big screen, where average viewing sessions are measured in hours, not minutes.
ROOM E (420) — Feedback: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: Justin Kownacki tackles the ups, downs, pros and cons of comments, ratings, feedback and the trolls who make the web go round -- and how you can learn & benefit from them.

3:00 - 3:45
The HUB (440) — SEO and Social Media: Jeffrey Donenfeld of Morpheus Media
ROOM B (435) — Which Web 2.0 Tools to Use for What: John R. Carman will give you a “cheat sheet” of the best social media tools for different types of online communication.
ROOM C (434) — Making It On Your Own - Want to make a living producing new and/or social media? Speak with people who have done it themselves. Rob Blatt and Walt Ribeiro
ROOM D (421) — Blogging for Interaction with Family and Friends: Norman Huelsman If your family is like mine we are spread out all over the country. My nephew is in Indiana and we can't get enough photos, my youngest brother is in his first year of college and we need a way to keep tabs on him as well as track his athletics, and I'm here in PGH wondering how I'm going to make 20 phone calls a week to keep up to date. I'll share how I started a blog for my family and how we are using it to keep up with each other.
ROOM E (420) — Podcast Hosting and your Blog - Discuss media hosting options that work with your existing blog (Wordpress, MovableType, etc...). Session attendees encouraged to discuss how they host media with their blog. Session hosted by Angelo Mandato of RawVoice

04:00
The HUB (440) — Closing Remarks for Day 1

04:45: CLEAN-UP (Let's be good guests and pick up after ourselves!)

Saturday, October 18: Dinner

Location: Red Star Tavern
5:30 to 9 PM

Saturday, October 18: After-Party???

(All information TBD)
[edit]
Day Two

Sunday, October 19

WHERE: The Art Institute of Pittsburgh
WHEN: 9 AM - 4 PM
ADDRESS: 420 Boulevard of the Allies, Pittsburgh, PA 15219 (map)
PARKING: Street parking in the area

8:30 AM: DOORS OPEN

Light breakfast (coffee, juice and muffins / bagels) available. Bottled water provided by Sportsocracy

The Mentor Lounge (430) Will be open all day.

The WearPittsburgh Loungy Lounge (431) If you need to get away from the action, watch the Steelers game or enjoy an espresso from Aldo Coffee.
[edit]
Day Two Sessions

9:00 AM: Opening Keynote/Welcome

10:00 - 10:45
The HUB (440) — Panel: It's Not Better to Burn Out than Podfade Away (How to Avoid / Recover from Content Creation Burnout): Three of Pittsburgh's longest-running web shows, DJ G & John R. Carman of The G Spod + The Wrestling Mayhem Show + The cast of Something To Be Desired help you plan for long-term success and offer tips on getting back into production after a looooooong break. Plus, we'll be debuting the first episode of STBD's sixth (!) season, so come laugh with a live audience!
ROOM B (435) — LinkedIn 101: Get Started and Build Business Tim Hindes and Blake Imeson
ROOM C (434) — Usability and Utility. What are they, how are they related and why both are important to providing value. Presented by Carol Smith, Lead Consultant at Midwest Research and Joshua Smith, Lead Developer at Dix Communications.
ROOM D (421) — Taking Better Photos (entry to intermediate): David Fisher helps entry level photographers and bloggers overcome photo challenges through use of proper technique, settings and photo editing software.
ROOM E (420) — OPEN

11:00 - 11:45
The HUB (440) — Old + New, Unite! Using Social Media in The Arts: Panel feat. Mike Cuccaro of The Black Sheep Puppet Festival, Kim Chestney Harvey of The Pittsburgh Technology Council + TBA
ROOM B (435) — Social Networking/Media 101: Jennie Roth, Dawn Papuga and Missy Sorg
ROOM C (434) — Blogging on a Budget: How to Get Your Voice Distributed for Free: Alex Landefeld + TBA
ROOM D (421) — Building IRL (in Real Life) Communities w/ Virtual Tools Jason Head of Refresh Pittsburgh will talk about some of the online tools used to organize, manage and communicate with members of Refresh Pittsburgh, a local web design and development user group in Pittsburgh. With the exception of our in person meeting, all group management is done virtually.
ROOM E (420) — WordPress Session: John R. Carman will give an introduction to WordPress blogging software, explain the differences between WordPress.com & WordPress.org, and teach you how to get started with your own WordPress blog.

Noon - 12:45: LUNCH

1:00 - 1:45
The HUB (440) — Sports, Olympics and Running Mates: Mark Rauterkus
ROOM B (435) — Social Networking/Media 201 (ADVANCED): Jennie Roth, Dawn Papuga and Missy Sorg
ROOM C (434) — Constructing Blog Posts and Content: At Least How I Do It Chris Brogan. Step by step on how I am able to put up 2-5 blog posts a day consistently every day. (BASIC-ish)
ROOM D (421) — Live Streaming & Technicalities - building Sponsors, Community as F/T job [Walt Ribeiro http://www.WaltRibeiro.net] of Ustream and Revision 3 goes through the ins and outs of networking, building Community, Sponsors, technology, live streaming, and Viral Marketing. How I grew my online business Step by Step from the Bottom up
ROOM E (420) — Search-Engine-Friendly Blogging, or How to Be #1 in Pretty Hats: Basic search engine optimization (SEO) for WordPress, with applications for other blog tools as well. Want your site to be the number one search result in Google for "pretty hats"? I will tell you how I worked my magic. Key truths and misconceptions about SEO, plus five simple steps you can take to improve your site’s search ranking overall and for your most important searches. Presented by Cynthia Closkey (Big Big Design and My Brilliant Mistakes)

2:00 - 2:45
The HUB (440) — Rust-Belt Bloggers discussion: Panel discussion among anyone concerned with the economic development of the shrinking cities within the Rust Belt region. See also the Rust Belt Bloggers group. Featuring Jim Russell of BurghDiaspora. Facilitated by Cynthia Closkey (Big Big Design and My Brilliant Mistakes)
ROOM B (435) — OPEN
ROOM C (434) — Design: What can it do for you?: This session will discuss some basic design principles (with examples!) that you can use to help improve your site. We'll also talk about why design can make a difference for your site. No design experience required. Presented by Val Headthisisportable
ROOM D (421) — OPEN
ROOM E (420) — The Art Institutes: Social Networking Strategies - Jamie Sterling & Kimberly Blackstone, EDMC.

03:00 - 3:45
The HUB (440) — Revision 3 live taping with audience! [Walt Ribeiro http://www.WaltRibeiro.net] of Ustream and Revision 3 will record his Revision 3 show 'Your Weekly Music Lessons with Walt' live, and he invites any and all to join in and be a part!
ROOM B (435) — Political People, Process and Problem Fixes with a Wiki Tour and Tools: Mark Rauterkus
ROOM C (434) — Using Twitter in Business: Justin Kownacki outlines several ways you can maximize Twitter for promotion and conversation without coming across as Just Another Brand.
ROOM D (421) — OPEN
ROOM E (420) — OPEN

04:00
MAIN / PANEL ROOM (440) — CLOSING REMARKS (No other sessions will be scheduled)

04:45: CLEAN-UP (Let's be good guests and pick up after ourselves!)
[edit]
Want to Request a Session?

If you're interested in learning about something that ISN'T covered by a session already on the list, add it here!

And if you want to present but aren't sure what people are interested in, get ideas here! (If you do a session listed here, please remove it from the "Requested" list so no one duplicates your great idea!)

Desired Sessions:

"Open Source Content and Tools" including Creative Commons Copyrights
"Social Media in Higher Education"
"Moving from a Free Site to a Paid One"
"Grass Roots or Mobile Production (Audio/Podcasts/vlogs)"
"Media Press Kit Workshop"
"Panel: The Future of Social Media"
"New Media Successes in Collective and Individual Activism"
"What is RickRolling and So Can You"
"Starting Your Own Website From the Ground Up"
"What's the deal with Second Life?"

Just Nate's Birthday Hash

2008-10-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

Another fine day in the jungle of Wilkinsburg, on a trail 3.8 miles long, laid by Just Nate with the help of Finger Food. Online photo album.

Another day with the gang

True trail

Cardiac Hill road

Lunch

Those are not natural teeth

Hairy Squatter observes

20/20 peach flavored innercity's favorite beverage found

First Beer Stop

Les belles de l'arrêt de la bière

What do these two have in common ?

hint... hint...

Nutty Naughty

Angular Perspectives

Almost the last climb...

... but instead of beer, we found a nonchalant Whiff

Nobody saw this mark

The last beer stop

The head source of Pine Nuts's favorite creek
Norton said last time he was here was in 1951, "I was a thin boy, 11 years old, I could fit more easily then" ["where does it go?"] "What do I know? do you remember exactly what you did 50 years ago?"

Which are stagmites and which are stalactites?

Where to go?

Attempt to escape from Alcatraz ...

... but the prison guard and his dog await him !

A third of a mile long

Pittsburgh 250

2008-10-06T05:47:00.001-07:00

On saturday, riding bicycles were Cold Member and family, Dead Kennedy, Land O' Licks, Pile of Shit, Heinz 69. Playing instruments in period garb was Folker. Then, in the afternoon, bump into No Code.
On sunday, while walking the flea markets, met a guy with a "On-On" on his shirt, and found out he was Filthy Habits from Guangzhou, China, formerly from Brentwood, who was in town visiting his daughter. He was busy saturday and couldn't come to bito's hash.

Bitohoney Hash

2008-10-06T05:31:00.000-07:00

4.3 miles to the first beer stop

Chef Tell 25

2008-10-02T09:46:00.001-07:00

big festivities

Orgy Porgy Birthday Hash

2008-10-02T05:24:00.001-07:00

two miles to first beer stop A transplant named Vagina Vagina Vagina aka Triple V, showed up for the first time

Great Dirgrace Hash 2008

2008-09-29T06:02:00.001-07:00

Trail run at around 4 miles. Not sure where true trail was after mile 2.7 [shortcut here], probably went bordering at golf course and back.

photos of trail

Fallopia japonica

2008-09-29T05:47:00.000-07:00

Mt Washington Felt Hat Hash

2008-09-16T05:18:00.000-07:00

Felt Hat

a convoluted trail run looking for an elusive beer stop

Donkey Ho Te Virgin Hash

2008-09-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

shiggy and hash territory. Last beer stop was too close to Alias home.

A naming: Assphixiation (applause-meter turned down Les Be Friends, Butt Hole Bouquet)

true trail

Labor Day Hash

2008-09-02T05:32:00.001-07:00

true trail

Looking For Beer: the Hasher board game

2008-08-27T10:51:00.001-07:00

Image above reveals board with secret markings exposed. At start of came, each circle is covered with a flat circular disk, that gets uncovered when a player moves his/er piece on it. Hashers take turns at start, and off they go ! At each turn, they choose on which adjacent circle to go. Once moved their piece on the circle, they wait the beginning of their next turn to uncover the circle from the disk covering it. On-On reveals flour markings, aka possibly true trail leading to the beer, check indicates that trail can go in any direction, false means the trail dead-ends, and shiggy means unforeseen obstacles, slowing down the hasher to lose his next turn.

Object of the game is to find as many Beer stops.

Each hasher is given three RU cards. If a hasher is located adjacent to another hasher, and at the beginning of his turn he wishes to find out if that other hasher is on trail or not, he/she can play a RU card and force the adjacent hasher to uncover the circle of the other hasher.

... and add some chance cards, like

"you followed Moon. Lose two turns"

McAuley Falls, Kittaning

2008-08-21T13:04:00.001-07:00

hasher car

2008-08-20T09:29:00.001-07:00

Gooey Decimal and Caveman Coraopolis Hash

2008-08-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

true trail

Lawrenceville Full Moon

2008-08-18T05:22:00.001-07:00

Mayview Hash

2008-07-28T05:36:00.000-07:00

true trail
geocaches:
Linch Pond Lemonade
Escape from Mayview
Wedding Cachers (read the log for Jan 14 2007)
ravine park (that's why DJ finds families with little kiddies in this creek...)
more pictures...

the green X are geocaches

These shoes with holes on them came handy with all these stream crossing. Feet dried quickly.

NarcoPolo Trail from Venice to China

2008-07-22T05:33:00.000-07:00

true trail

NorthSide Pickup Hash

2008-07-15T05:31:00.000-07:00

true trail

Linbrook Park, Sewickley Heights

2008-07-14T11:14:00.000-07:00

true trail

Churchill Hash

2008-07-08T07:01:00.000-07:00

true trail

Beer stops at Speed Bump, K stop for Klondike ice cream.

Stuffed Animals at the Hash

2008-06-26T13:46:00.000-07:00

WMD said:

> Sherpes-
>
> Do you have anything to do with this? news1, news2

The AnthroCon is BACK !!! their site has a user named Sherpes, and look at the User Profile picture, it is the halloween costume with the 40 mini-flurries that Sherpes was wearing at last year's Halloween Hash.

Blackridge Hash

2008-06-24T05:57:00.000-07:00

true trail

Luke Fairy's Last Hash

2008-06-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

he's off to NYC... we will miss him...

trail up to Sugar Top and by Steel Toe Tony's house

Homestead Hash

2008-06-17T06:02:00.001-07:00

true trail

Return of the Prodigal Son and Daughter Hash

2008-05-20T06:52:00.000-07:00

Dead Kennedy and Land O' Licks hash

After four years since the last hash hared by Dead Kennedy, with emergency Hare Helper Land O' Licks intervening at that time with several trays of Sam's Club lasagna, the now married couple hared a trail to be remembered: steps from the getco, great houses on Marshall road fringing the park, falses galore between cemetery and debris drop-off point, Snyder's Point bluff, altimeter cardio-busting slopes on Riverview park, burrowing into Japanese weed stalks, secretive manicured gardens that appear on the fringes of woodlands, carved red dragons, a misterious fence on the perimeter of I-279, another dragon, ATV trails, water tanks on the highest point of city of Pittsburgh.

Trout, turkey, grilled carrots, watermelon, cheese board, and of course, great beer.

Trail went along Riverview Park and other ATV wasteland along I-279

Some sections were very similar to trail Moon and Sherpes laid a year ago.

Poison Hash in Verona by KGB

2008-05-13T06:37:00.000-07:00

nice trail

The Elliott Spitzer Beer Lovers Hash

2008-05-06T12:35:00.000-07:00

Death Marshall Hash in McKeesport

2008-04-30T05:41:00.000-07:00

True Trail was 7 miles.

Three beer stops. One of them was in the razed East Land mall area. Norton was spotted in the McDonald's on Route 30 near the Walmart on North Versailles. Second beer stop was in the ATVish slag area not far. Third beer stop was in an hungarian abbandoned cemetery.

The Sanctuary Much 420

2008-04-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

HASH The Sanctuary Much 420
HARE Sphinxxster
2PM Call to worship
2:30PM Prayer circle
Church of the Redeeming Panther Hollow trail soccer field parking lot, Schenley
Pk

Mass Agena: do penance - consume holy water - make true confession
Bring: prayer beads , mojos, gris gri, pentagrams ,amulets, censors, prayer
shawls, dijeridoos
Cant wait till " The Last Supper" to reach salivation ?
Fish your wish: receive abstinence, absolution , annullment and
algorithmick methodology from all your capital sins.

Some especially needy include naughty schoolgirls and altarboys, those
defrocked of the cloth, flagelatin' monks, nuns who
fell out of habit, mistresses of oblivion ,Maybe some will cum to seek proper
contrition , emission , exibition. Perhaps even PowerPump and /or her infamous
schpanking stick shall sow some disciplinany action .Remember: HLT is cumming,
look busy.

Hail Mabel, Black Label, full of froth
"There goes that call again...for the finest beer of all again."

http://heymabelblacklabel.com/id39.htm

Need a novena, or a tarot reading
Hare: 412 681 8387
cell 412 600 7047 (good luck)

Erections: Use Greenfield trail entrance off Saline St (off Greenfield Av) near
Big Jims to Panther Hollow trail soccer parking lot

or park at South Oakland entrance and walk. From 5th Av, take South Neville St
to its end at trail head / who said head / I'll have some of that.......

There is a geocache nearby... from the Hash Start ("P") to the cache ("G") it is about 400 meters. GPS coordinates: N 40° 26.040 W 079° 57.017

Firetruck Hash

2008-04-14T05:23:00.000-07:00

Just Gene had us start from the Ingram firestation, took us for a tour of all the houses that are under his firecode tutelage, and then back to a banquet in the firehouse.

trail

Duo Birthday Hash

2008-04-07T11:40:00.001-07:00

St Patrick Green Hash

2008-04-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

The Artist as Beer Drinker

2008-04-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, April 22- 4:30 PM
Baker Hall 154R
CAS Research Forum: Special guest speaker Frédérique Desbuissons, Associate Professor of Art History
Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France
Portrait of the Artist as Beer Drinker: Gustave Courbet
Reception to follow

Special guest speaker Frédérique Desbuissons, Associate Professor of Art History
Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France
Portrait of the Artist as Beer Drinker: Gustave Courbet
That Gustave Courbet (1821-76) drank beer would have had a minor, anecdotal value in the history of his artistic career if his contemporaries had not turned his taste for the drink into the crux of a cultural, perhaps even ethnic interpretation of Realism. When his sometime champion, the writer Francis Wey, attributed Courbet’s self-indulgence and the decadence of his painting to the artist’s acquaintance with Nordic barbarians who preferred beer, he brought to a head several decades of material and symbolic associations. Join us as Professor Desbuissons argues that what was at stake in Courbet’s painting and his consumption of beer were one and the same: the betrayal of French classicism.
Desbuissons is the author of several articles on the French artist Gustave Courbet, as well as the author of a forthcoming monograph. She is a participant in the international symposium organized by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris to coincide with the current exhibition of Courbet which will travel to New York to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2008.

FukStik Spring Hash

2008-03-31T07:54:00.000-07:00

Another fine trail by FukStik. When we left after the apres, he was slouched on the sofa with three women on his sides.

Garage Sale

2008-03-27T06:07:00.000-07:00

Hashers,
I'll be around this week and weekend working on cleaning out my house. Stop by and rid me of some of my stuff! CHEAP! CHEAP! CHEAP! I'[ve got furniture, tools, shovels, bolts of decorator fabric at the killer price of $2 per yard, lamps galore(they breed if you don't chaparone them) stemware, silver flatware and all kinds of interesting stuff you must have. call to make sure i'll be there 'round about the time you want to come over.

pokerhaunches

EXLUSIVE TO THE HASH AND FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY!
NOW 'TILL SUNDAY ANY PURCHASE OF MY STUFF OVER $25.00 QUALIFYS FOR A FREE 30
SECOND LEER AT MY BREASTS!
GET 'EM WHILE THERE HOT!

LEERS ONLY: $10.00 PER MIN. UP TO 30 MINS. $25.00 PER MIN THEREAFTER AS YOU
CLEARLY HAVE ISSUES I CAN EXPLOIT IF YOUR SPENDING THAT MUCH TIME LOOKING AT
BREASTS.

OFFER GOOD ONLY TILL SUNDAY!

pokerhaunches

Moon Birthday Hash

2008-03-24T06:08:00.000-07:00

true trail was 2.7 miles

Music in the Hash House Harriers

2008-03-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

Music in the Hash House Harriers
December 2, 2003
Jerry "Folker" Agin

The Hash House Harriers is a loosely-organized world-wide fraternity of runners and beer drinkers. Members refer to the group briefly as "the hash." "A hash" may refer either to a local chapter of the hash, such as the Pittsburgh Hash House Harriers, or a run conducted by a hash. The verb "to hash" means to participate in a hash event. "A hasher" is a member of a hash.

I have been a hasher since 1983. For about a year I ran about once a month or every month with the Laurel Highlands Hash House Harriers, a group consisting mostly of employees of the Westinghouse laboratory in Waltz Mill, PA. In 1984 I joined the Pittsburgh Hash House Harriers. Soon thereafter, Westinghouse closed the Waltz Mill facility, and the Laurel Highlands Hash died. I have been hashing with the Pittsburgh Hash ever since, and I attend an average of 40 hashes per year here. At different times I held the offices of Grand Master (president) and On-Sec (secretary), and I currently hold the position of Hare Raiser (run scheduler).

I have attended hashes in other American cities, sometimes when some other occasion takes me there, and sometimes for weekend events that are the main reason for my travel. I have been to numerous hashing conventions (called "Interhashes") both in the US and abroad, including Malaysia, Trinidad, Tasmania (Australia), and Costa Rica.

So I am my own principal informant. In researching this paper I recorded and partially transcribed "down-down circles" on five separate occasions, and one of these circles is described in detail below. I also conducted interviews with four people other than myself to augment my own opinions with some other perspectives.

The Hashing Tradition

Hashing got its start in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1938, when a group of mostly British expatriates got together weekly for exercise and conviviality [1]. One of the members would mark a running trail, and the others would try to follow the trail. Afterwards they would gather at the Royal Selangor Club for dinner and after-dinner drinks. The local name for the club was "the Hash House" due to its indifferent food, and the group became known as "The Hash House Harriers." ("Harrier" is a term for a cross-country runner.)

The club broke up during the Second World War, but was reconstituted following the War. Starting in the early 1960s, the Hash began spreading to other places as people left Kuala Lumpur, and founded new chapters where their new assignments took them. Today there are 1467 chapters in 159 countries of the world [2]. The Pittsburgh Hash was founded in 1980.

The harriers play a running game based on the old English schoolboys' game of Hare and Hounds. Originally trails were marked with shredded paper; today they're usually marked with more ecologically-friendly baking flour. Trails are generally marked in a deliberately confusing way, with checkpoints from which the trail might continue in any direction, and false trails. Originally trails were set by a "live hare," a runner given a 15-minute head start, and the checkpoints and false trails were intended to slow down the pack of hounds to keep the hare from getting caught. In Pittsburgh and many other chapters today, most trails are "pre-laid." The hare may have marked the trail the previous hour or the previous day, and he runs with the rest of the pack, helping stragglers find their way, and even giving hints when the front-runners are unable to solve the puzzle he's set up for them. For pre-laid trails, value is placed on markings that are just tricky enough to keep the pack together -- with the front-runners discovering "true trail" just about the time the slowest runners (and walkers) are catching up to the checkpoint.

Trails may traverse any kind of terrain. Although it's impossible to avoid some road running at times, it is mostly frowned on. The best trails are in wooded territory, either in the rural or suburban surroundings of the city, or in city parks. In an urban environment, much use can be made of railroad tracks, stairways, underground culverts, stairs, (including the stairs of the Cathedral of Learning) parking lots, shopping centers, etc. "Shiggy" refers to the obstacles that would deter ordinary runners: mud, steep hills, briars, uneven terrain, stream crossings, and the like. The most highly valued runs contain a good dose of shiggy.

Runs are non-competitive -- there is no "winner" as in a race. Solving the trail is a cooperative activity, and runners are expected to shout, "On, on," when they encounter trail markings to alert other runners where the true trail lies. The shout, "Are you?" is a request for any runners within earshot who are on trail to respond with "on, on." Other shouts keep the pack in constant communication while checkpoints, false trails, and other confusion points are negotiated.

But the actual run is only half the fun. Afterward the group gathers to eat, drink, and celebrate, to recount the trials and tribulations of the trail, and to reward or punish the participants.

The central ritual in the post-run activities is called the "down-down". In many chapters, runners gather in a circle immediately following the conclusion of the run. In other chapters (including Pittsburgh) runners retire to a home or restaurant, the down-downs are conducted after everyone has had a chance to eat. In the latter case, the gathering for down-downs is still called a circle, even though no physical circle is involved.

A down-down is a ceremonial chug-a-lug. One or more honorees (or victims) are brought forward, and reasons are given for the (dis)honor. There is no generally accepted term for the person called forward; I will use the term "drinker" here. The drinker is given a cup of beer. The assembled people then sing a song, ending with the repeated phrase, "down, down, down, down." As the singers get to the "down, down" part, the drinker must drink the beer as rapidly as possible, then invert the empty glass over his head to show it is empty. Protocol requires that if the drinker is unable to finish the beer quickly, the unfinished portion be poured over his head, but this is rarely observed in practice.

The songs sung for a down-down are varied. The texts are generally meant to insult or disparage the drinker. Songs are frequently chosen to suit the reason for the down-down.

Down-downs are led by a "Religious Advisor," or RA. The RA determines who will be called to drink, and chooses an appropriate song for each occasion. Much depends on the leading style of the RA, and different individuals bring different character to the role.

The down-down circle is the central, defining ritual of the hash, but singing happens at other places and times. This other singing I choose to label "free singing." Free singing tends to be spontaneous and leaderless. The repertoire has much in common with the bawdy songs sung at fraternity parties and rugby matches. The amount of free singing varies greatly from chapter to chapter, and in Pittsburgh it is not a regular feature of weekly runs. In the several weeks I've been gathering data for this paper, I observed only a single instance of free singing. The emphasis on this paper will be on the down-down songs.

Hashers call each other by nicknames called "hash names." Many names are double-entendres (or single-entendres). Hash names are awarded after a new recruit has attended a few hashes, and usually reflects some personal characteristic, or recalls some significant or trivial event. My own hash name is "Folker," reflecting my interest in folk dance and folk music. In referring to informants and participants for the purposes of this paper, I will use hash names.

There is no governing body for the hash worldwide. Hence, there can be a great variation in hashing traditions. However, hashers frequently travel to hash, and this tends to spread the culture and the songs around.

Most hash chapters have special events to which hashers from other chapters are invited. Pittsburgh's annual weekend is a three-day long campout that takes place in June and attracts several hundred outsiders. Multiple chapters may cooperate to put on a regional event such as the Pennsylvania Interhash or the Colorado Invihashional. Every odd-numbered year a North and South American convention is held. (Pittsburgh hosted the Americas Interhash in 1999, which attracted about 800 people.) And every even-numbered year there is a world convention.

Over the years various groups and individuals have attempted to maintain directories of hash chapters. Today this activity takes place mostly using the World Wide Web. There are several web sites that purport to list all of the known hash chapters in the world (or in a given region) with contact information and run schedules. Other web sites contain hash songs. See the "Web Resources" section of this paper following the Bibliography.

A DOWN-DOWN CIRCLE

In the course of researching this paper, I recorded and partially transcribed five different circles. The one on October 19, 2003 is probably the most representative of what typically goes on.

On an unseasonably warm, partly sunny Sunday about 25 hashers gather in the parking lot of a shopping center in North Versailles, PA. Ages of the participants range from the mid 20s to the early 60s, with the preponderance in their 40s. Males and females are about equally represented.

Toy Box and Thunder Chicken are the hares for this run. The initial part of their trail goes through some residential neighborhoods, but then it passes through a cemetery to a wooded area, and the rest of the run is in the woods. There is one stop for beer, water, and snacks in the woods. Several people manage to get themselves separated from the pack, but everyone is able to regroup at the beer stop. Then the trail returns to the parking lot from which it started. The run has taken a little over an hour and a half.

Toy Box hands out a sheet of driving directions to her house in a suburban neighborhood, and over the next 15 minutes people straggle there. She and her husband, Scott (who didn't attend the run), have prepared a buffet meal of jambalaya and salad, with pecan pie for dessert. A beer keg stands on the back deck, and soft drinks are in the refrigerator.

Spermit is the Religious Advisor, and it is his responsibility to lead the down-down circle. "Down-downs in five minutes," he yells. Ten minutes later, he repeats the same shout. Nobody pays much attention.

Down-downs will be on the back deck. The proceedings frequently involve spillage of beer, so they're conducted outdoors whenever possible. The deck measure perhaps 15 x 13 feet, and it communicates with the kitchen.

Finally we're ready to begin. For about the third time, Spermit yells, "Down-downs in five minutes," then he immediately segues into, "Who thinks the hares deserve a down-down?" The assembled crowd responds enthusiastically. Spermit follows with, "What did you think about that trail today?" People shout their responses: "The falses were too long." "The falses were too short." "Something smelled like vomit near the parking lot." "There were too many short-cutting opportunities." Other responses are inaudible. But no one has anything positive to say about the trail. Toy Box and Thunder Chicken are brought forward and each is handed a cup of beer. Spermit sings, "Aaaa," as if he were giving a starting pitch, and the crowd respond with, "Aaaa," but each singer finds his own pitch. Then disregarding his own starting pitch, he begins to sing, and the rest join in.

Here's to Hares[3]

When the singers get to the last line, Toy Box and Thunder Chicken drink their beers, and invert the empty cup over their head to show it is empty.

The singing style is hearty and not concerned with niceties. If the song is started in a key that people generally find easy to sing in, people will sing together. If not, then people may be singing in several different keys simultaneously. Deliberate harmonies are extremely rare.

The next people to be roasted are the "hare helpers." Toy Box's husband, Scott, is called forward, as well as Pine Nuts, who also apparently had some unexplained role in the food preparation. Although it is traditional to criticize the actual run, it is considered bad manners to find fault with the food.

They're the meanest, [4]
They suck the horse's penis,
They're the meanest, they're the horse's ass.
Ever since they found it,
All they do is pound it.
They're the meanest, they're the horse's ass.
Drink it down, down, down, down,... [5]

Scott is unfamiliar with hash tradition, and he drinks his beer before the song gets to the last line, but no one bothers to correct him. Pine Nuts has been casually holding his beer in one hand and a plate of pecan pie in the other hand, and nonchalantly goes back to eating his pie at the conclusion of the down-down.

Spermit announces that there was an article in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that lists the top 25 TV theme songs.[6] "So I figure we can hum or whistle all 25 of them." Number one on the list was "The Andy Griffith Show." So he calls up Anal Geezus, who hails from West Virginia. And since it's traditional for visitors to do down-downs, he calls the other two other visitors up.

Now someone from the crowd (Swamp Bitch) starts a chant, which others join in. (This is an instance where Spermit is yielding some amount of control of the situation to the crowd.)

(Chanted, not sung)
We call on the visitors to sing us a song [7]
We call on the visitors to sing us a song
So sing, you bastards, sing,
Or show us your ring,
But we don't want to see your ring,
So sing, you bastards, sing!

The three visitors begin singing "Country Roads," but are soon drowned out by catcalls. The catcalls soon change to, "Down, down, down down," and the visitors drink.

Usually down-down beer is served in paper cups, but Spermit has handed Anal Geezus "the pisspot," an antique enameled bed pan. Over the years the pisspot has acquired various decals and stickers, including a WYEP logo on the bottom. This particular bedpan has a curving vertical section of tubing, probably originally designed for emptying the bedpan. To drink from the pisspot is awkward, and if one is not careful, beer will slosh unexpectedly. Since there is only one pisspot and three drinkers, they must take turns. Anal Geezus manages to spill much of the beer down his chin and the front of his shirt, then passes the pisspot to the next visitor, who drinks and passes it to the last one. The proceeding takes longer than the crowd's patience, so the refrain, "Down, down, down down," changes to,

(To the tune of "Adeste Fideles")
Why are we waiting? [8]
We could be masturbating.
Oh why are we waiting so fucking long?

This continues until all three visitors have drunk and the pisspot is inverted empty over one person's head.

Spermit has committed a procedural error. Usually visitors are introduced prior to their down-downs, and someone points out that Spermit has neglected the introduction. So introductions begin. Anal Geezus, from Morgantown, WV, is a frequent enough visitor that introductions are hardly necessary. It turns out that the other visitors are Salsa, also from Morgantown, and Hill Frigger from Sir Walter's (Raleigh, NC).

The next person up for the circle is a "new boot," a person hashing for the first time. Spermit explains the procedure: wait until we sing, "Down, down," then drink the beer and hold the empty cup upside down over your head. Spermit asks, "What's your name?" even though he already knows her name. The new boot responds, "Renee," and the crowd shouts back, in unison, "Hi, Renee!" Spermit neglects to ask the usual follow-up question, which is "Who made you come?" Instead he goes directly into the song.

(To the tune of "Ach, Du Lieber Augustin")
Here's to new boots, to new boots, to new boots, [9]
Here's to new boots, they're with us tonight.
They eat it, they beat it, they really mistreat it.
Here's to new boots, they're with us tonight.
So down chug-a-lug, down chug-a-lug, down chug-a-lug, down chug-a-lug, etc. [10]

The next suggestion for a down-down comes from the crowd. "New shoes," they cry. Raspberry Bare-Ass purposely wore new shoes to the hash, knowing she would be required to drink beer from them. But Manstruation is called up, too. He protests, "These aren't new shoes. I've worn these for the past year." "Yes, but not to a hash, so they're new shoes." Manstruation knows he's been caught in an unfair Catch-22, but he acquiesces, removes his shoe, and goes forward.

(To the tune of "These Boots Were Made for Walking" by Nancy Sinatra)
These shoes are made for hashing, [11]
And that's just what they'll do.
I'm gonna drink a down-down out of this mother fucking shoe.
Down, down, down, down, etc.

A cup of beer is poured into one shoe of each, and Raspberry and Manstruation drink from their shoes.

However, Manstruation has committed an error. He has forgotten to remove his hat before drinking. This rates another down-down. The crowd insists that since the offense occurred while drinking out of his shoe, the punishment should be to drink from the other shoe.

(To the tune of "The Banana Boat Song" by Harry Bellefonte)
Drink IC, Gennessee, Molson Ice [12]
RA Come and you gotta drink beer.
Wear your hat and you drink it twice.
RA Come and you gotta drink beer.
Down, etc. [13]
RA Come and you gotta drink beer.

Spermit asks, "Are there any birthdays or anniversaries?" Pine Nuts and Manstruation step forward for their birthdays, and Swamp Bitch for "six years of bondage with her husband."

(To the tune of "Happy Birthday to You")
Happy birthday, fuck you. [14]
Happy birthday, fuck you.
Happy birthday, fuck yoooou.
Happy birthday, fuck you.

Down-downs allow certain "options." Instead of drinking, women may choose to bare their breasts. No comparable option is open to male hashers. Swamp Bitch chooses options, and takes her beer with her to finish at her leisure.

"Did anybody wear race stuff on trail?" Because the hash is supposed to be non-competitive, it is a hash crime to wear a T-shirt from a race, or sometimes even to mention the R-word. Golden Showers, Power Pump, and Anal Geezus are found guilty.

Why were they born so beautiful, [15]
Why were they born at all?
They're no fucking use to anyone
They're no fucking use at all.
They may be a joy to their mothers,
But they're a pain in the asshole to me.
Drink it down, down, down, down, etc.

At the words, "pain in the asshole to me", several people, including one woman, turn their backsides to the center and moon the drinkers.

Down-downs continue in this manner for quite a while. Further reasons for down-downs include the following:
• A group of people who went on a caving expedition together.
• People who were chatting in the kitchen instead of paying attention to the down-downs.
• A woman who writes for a local newspaper, and who needs to avoid a certain jurisdiction near where today's trail went, because of past negative reporting about the police.
• Someone suggests a down-down for another hasher, related to a trespassing violation. But the violation was over a year ago, and the trespasser had already done a down-down for the incident. So the accuser was made to do a down-down for a false accusation.
• "Prodigal boots," more-or-less regular hashers who haven't been to a hash in a while.
• People who took a spill or injured themselves on trail.
• Spermit assigns himself a down-down because he went hunting yesterday and didn't kill a damn thing.
• People who ran the same false trail on today's run twice.
• A hasher who went to Romania on business. He uses his time while he has everyone's attention to tell an amusing story about what happened to him there.

Spermit abruptly ends by declaring, "The hash is over, the circle is closed, may the hash go in peace." The crowd responds, "May the hash get a piece." Down-downs have lasted about 35 minutes.

Free Singing in the Hash

The other type of occasion for singing is what I'll call "free singing." Free singing is usually spontaneous and leaderless. Hash chapters differ in their propensity to do free singing, and Pittsburgh is less likely than many chapters to do it. In the time period of approximately a month that I have been closely observing the Pittsburgh hash for the purposes of writing this paper, I observed only one instance of free singing.

My own exposure to singing outside the down-down circle comes mainly when there are outsiders involved, either because outsiders come to special events in Pittsburgh, or because I've traveled to other cities to hash.

The situation where spontaneous singing is most likely to occur is during bus rides. (Bus rides are more likely to occur as part of a major special event or Interhash than with local weekly hashes, which may partially explain why I've observed it mainly in situations where outsiders are involved.) It can also take place at beer stops during a run, or at a post-run gathering, either before or after the down-downs.

The repertoire for free singing is similar to that for rugby players and fraternity members.[16] A favorite type of song is strophic, with individuals contributing verses and everyone joining in on the choruses. Examples include, "I Used to Work in Chicago," "Ai Yi Yi Yi'' (The Limerick Song), and "The S&M Man." Other songs are ballads that tell a story, such as the "Engineer's Song". In the web resources listed at the end of this paper, down-down songs constitute only a small portion of the repertoire. A down-down song must be short, and most of them are intended to deprecate or insult.

One crossover situation sometimes occurs during down-downs. It occurred in the circle described above, where Swamp Bitch, "... called on the visitors to sing us a song." While this happens only rarely in Pittsburgh, it is more frequent in other chapters. The drinker must choose a song to sing. He may choose his own down-down song, or he may choose any non-down-down song from the free singing repertoire.

The Role of the Religious Advisor

The Pittsburgh hash is led by a "Mismanagement Committee." The offices are:
• Grand Master: President. A female Grand Master is a Grand Mattress.
• Religious Advisor: Song leader
• On-Sec (plural is On-Sex): Secretary or Secretaries, responsible for publishing the weekly newsletter, called the HashTrash.
• Hare Raiser: Schedules runs
• Hash Cash: Treasurer
• Web Meister: Webmaster
• Haberdasher: Produces and sells hash T-shirts and other paraphernalia.
Terms of office are from the Annual Weekend in June until the next Annual Weekend. There are no elections. Each officer chooses his own replacement.

Spermit is presently Pittsburgh's Religious Advisor. He is a 44 year old highway designer. He joined the hash two and a half years ago as he was recovering from an extended period of feeling sorry for himself after a difficult domestic separation. He discovered a welcoming social group in the hash, and embraced it enthusiastically. Many weekends he travels to out-of-town special hash events.

Spermit was chosen RA in June, 2003. He said during an interview that he believes the reasons he was chosen were his enthusiasm and because he sang a lot. In his view, the RA position requires a commanding presence, knowledge of the song repertoire, and a sense of humor. He sees himself as akin to an entertainer, because of the need to keep everyone's attention when the circle may last a half hour or longer. When he first assumed the role he was apprehensive about his ability to carry this out, but he says he's getting more comfortable with it.

His first priority is to bring forward the people who deserve recognition. Certain of the down-downs are prescribed by tradition: hares, hare helpers, visitors, and new boots. "The rest are people who have achieved or underachieved in some way. We like to point out their silliness to the crowd. Some people deserve a good ribbing."

Spermit believes it is important to have a varied and interesting repertoire of songs. Many of the songs he learned simply from hearing them at Pittsburgh circles. But he also uses written sources, such as the internet or songbooks. When he travels, he says he listens for interesting songs to bring back to Pittsburgh with him. And he says he is beginning to introduce songs of his own, either songs he remembers from his days in the Marine Corps, or songs simply made up on the spot.

Another person I interviewed was Whiff, a 49 year old operations manager for a university research laboratory. Whiff has been hashing for 11 years, and he was Pittsburgh's Religious Advisor from 2000 until 2002. He met his wife through hashing.

Whiff is the creative force behind many of the songs being sung in the Pittsburgh hash. Probably his most widely known song is known as "The PittStones" or "The HashStones":

(Sung to the theme song from "The Flintstones")
Hashers, meet the Hashers, [17]
They're the biggest drunks in history.
From the town of Pittsburgh
They're the leaders in debauchery.
Half minds, trailing shiggy through the years,
Watch them as they down a lot of beers.
Down, down, down, down, down, down,
Down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down,
Down, down, down, down, down,
Down, down, down, down, down, down!

Diamond Jim thought up the first line of the song in January, 1994. Whiff fleshed it out, and presented the song at the next hash. The song was a success, and has slowly spread from Pittsburgh to other hash chapters. While hashers from Pittsburgh and nearby know Whiff wrote the song, many people from other regions may be unaware of its origin. I asked Whiff how he felt about this. He said that on one hand he got a kick out of it. On the other hand, when he saw the song printed in another chapter's songbook, with another city's name substituted for Pittsburgh, "as if they invented the song," he was annoyed. And he was particularly bothered by the idea that someone would print his song in a songbook and charge money for it, without any royalties or attribution. When I mentioned the idea of copyrighting his songs, he answered, "The hash is such a fluid group, we never think that way."

In 2002, Whiff produced an 18-page booklet, Songs in the Key of Beer, containing the words to 45 songs. Most of the songs are recent compositions (adaptations of new words to existing tunes) by Pittsburgh hashers. Authorship is acknowledged where it is known. 25 of the 45 songs were written or co-written by Whiff. Copies of the booklet were distributed at the Americas Interhash in Austin, TX, in 2002, which probably accounts for some of the spread of songs like the Pittstones to other hash chapters.

I asked Whiff his views about the function of the RA in the hash. His views are very similar to Spermit's. (Or, rather, it's the other way around. Since Spermit consciously tries to emulate Whiff, we should say Spermit's views are similar to Whiff's.) Whiff views his role when he is acting as RA as part entertainer, part spiritual advisor. It's his job to find people to honor for milestones or transgressions, to keep a mental catalog of a variety of songs, and above all to keep everybody's attention, to keep things moving along. And there's a bit of ham in Whiff; he enjoys performing. Sometimes Whiff's urge to perform and enjoy the limelight overrides his obligation to focus on people's milestones or transgressions.

Uses and Functions

People tend to cite two classes of reasons for participation in the hash. The first class is related to the run itself. People enjoy the exercise, although there are many more conventional running clubs that can provide a similar workout. More importantly, they enjoy the trails. The trail goes through terrain that would not be visited under other circumstances. They enjoy the puzzle-like quality of the checkpoints and false trails of the route. In a sense the runs may be described as a competition between the hare, who seeks to confound the runners, and the hounds, who seek to solve the checkpoints. (In the live-hare version, the competition is more explicit: the hounds try to catch the hare.) But within the pack, the atmosphere is cooperative, not competitive. The pack works together to solve the trail.

The other class of reasons relates to the social aspects. Many people who are not particularly athletic are attracted to the hash because the running is low-key. On the other hand, those who value exercise but are turned off by the irreverence, silliness, and obscenity of the hash usually don't stay with the hash for long.

Within the hash, the normal rules of polite society do not apply. Conventions are flouted and taboos broken. This creates a world apart from careers and families. And the circle is central to this other world.

People are called upon to do down-downs to recognize any situations or behavior that are out of the ordinary. This can be for positive achievements such as completing a race, buying a house, passing a test, or arriving at another birthday. It can also be for negative reasons, too, such as a minor injury, getting lost, or silly mistakes. A large number of down-downs are awarded for invented "hash crimes," such as failing to remove one's hat in the circle, wearing a race T-shirt, or forgetting the words to a song. And yes, once it became known I was writing a paper on the hash, I did a down-down for it.

Swamp Bitch tells the following story:
There was a woman born with only one eye. She showed up at the hash, and we looked at her, and we said, "We never name on the first hash, but we're naming you 'Spud'". And she started laughing and she said, "Finally, somebody just doesn't try and ignore and pretend."

A young woman in the Pittsburgh Hash recently underwent chemotherapy. She continued to attend the hash, although she wasn't always able to run. She did numerous down-downs as her therapy progressed, she lost her hair, the cancer was conquered, and her hair began to grow back. I didn't interview her for this paper, but I would guess that she kept attending the hash even though attention was called to her altered appearance, because it assured her that people were interested in her and her progress.

A down-down can be viewed either as a reward or a punishment. The size of the drink makes a difference. Quickly downing 12 or 16 ounces of beer can be a bit of a physical challenge, especially when the beer is ice-cold. Current practice in Pittsburgh is to keep the drink sizes to about 6 ounces, a much more manageable draft. On rare occasions, for particularly egregious infractions, the drinker will be required to bare his or her buttocks and sit on a block or bag of ice during down-downs. But mainly, when people object to doing a down-down (as Manstruation did when he was accused of wearing new shoes), the reason usually has more to do with fairness than with the difficulty of chugging a beer.

Although there is alcohol involved in the down-downs, the ceremony isn't basically about getting drunk. There are several recovering alcoholics in the hash, as well as a few who for other reasons refuse to drink alcohol. These people are cheerfully handed a cup of water or soft drink with which to do their down-downs. It appears to me that a significant proportion of the hash membership have a problem with alcohol abuse. But the majority are able to keep the drinking within moderation and to drive home afterward without undue fear of being stopped by the police.

Sex pervades the hash. The texts of many of the songs, particularly songs from the free singing repertoire, refer to seduction and fornication. Partial nudity occurs frequently in the form of mooning or breast-flashing. This may be seen more as an example of taboo breaking than of signaling sexual availability. To be sure, there is plenty of coupling going on, particularly among the younger, unmarried members, and particularly at out-of-town special events. But the ones doing the coupling are not necessarily the same ones flashing body parts. The situation at the hash is probably no different than at any other activity that involves out-of-town travel for recreational purposes.

Some of the hash traditions are a form of parody or role reversal. Clearly the very title "Religious Advisor" is a parody. The tradition that the RA is given the power to single people out, to reward and to punish may be a send-up of those in our society who seem to have arbitrary power over people's lives.

One clear example of role reversal is the Red Dress Run. Pittsburgh has held Red Dress Runs sporadically, but the Red Dress Runs in San Diego and Washington, DC attract thousands of participants annually (and usually some media coverage as well.) Men and women dress up in women's clothing to run a hash. The dresses and accessories usually are obtained at thrift stores. Whereas hash trails generally favor wooded environments, Red Dress Runs are almost always in an urban setting, the better to flaunt convention and be noticed by the non-hashing public. There is safety in numbers: men who wouldn't dare appear solo in women's clothing take pride and pleasure in running as part of a group that thumbs their noses at convention.

Some of the hash rituals fall under the category of initiation rites. The first such rite occurs when a person goes hashing for the first time. Such people are called "new boots" or "virgins". At the beginning of the run, the new boots are called forward for a "chalk talk", so that the trail markings can be explained. But first they must be introduced. The responsibility for the chalk talk and the introductions is the hare's. Usually the hare will ask the new boot, "What's your name?" When the new boot responds, "Joe," the crowd will call in unison, "Hi, Joe!" Then the hare will usually ask, "Who made you come?" The new boot may name a friend who brought him to the hash, or say he found the hash on the internet, or that he came by himself. Any answer will be met by general guffawing. Following this introduction, the hare will give a description of the trail markings, usually demonstrating by dropping flour on the ground.

During the circle after the run, the introduction ritual is repeated, this time by the Religious Advisor, in preparing for the new boot down-down. Down-downs for a new boot are no different from down-downs for any other occasion, except that the RA and the crowd are usually more tolerant of mistakes. Nonetheless, surviving one's first down-down gives one the feeling of having been initiated into an exclusive society. New boot down-downs are usually followed by handshakes and "Welcome to the hash."

The other initiation rite is the awarding of a hash name. There is no fixed time at which hash names are awarded. Some hashers may run with the hash for months before a name is bestowed, others may get their hash names the first or second time. Name proposals may come from anyone during the circle. Most proposals generate lively discussion and counter-proposals. During the discussion, the person being named may express objections or preferences, but these are generally ignored on the grounds the one is not supposed to like their hash name. Then the crowd will vote on one or more names. Frequently the outcome is to defer the naming, but sometimes a name is suggested that most people agree is appropriate. When the name is awarded the recipient does a down-down to complete the naming.

When the Hash House Harriers was founded in 1938, it was an all-male organization. Today there are still a few men-only hash chapters around the world, and a few women-only hashes as well, but the vast majority are mixed. Ed Cray observes a similar thing about singing bawdy songs, that men and women used to sing these songs in their separate segregated groups. Where men and women sing them together, the women are regarded as broadminded. [18]

Women have held all of the important posts on the Mismanagement Committee in Pittsburgh, except Religious Advisor. And in my travels, I have rarely seen down-downs led by a woman. I don't think there's any conscious discrimination going on. Rather I think there may be a perception that the kind of exaggerated bullying that the role requires calls for some attributes that few women possess.

It's clear that the function of the hash, the result of participation in the hash, whether intended or not, is the creation of a cohesive social group. The members of the Pittsburgh Hash are remarkably close. Individual are likely to get to get together spontaneously for non-hash related activities, such as bike rides, concerts, dinners, or art shows. An email distribution list has been set up on Yahoo Groups, and it is the vehicle for much lively discussion.

The group experience of cooperatively running the trail binds the group together. Knowledge of the many hash traditions translates to insider status. And the most significant of these traditions is the down-down circle, where people share their successes and their embarrassments.

Bibliography

Cray, Ed, editor. The Erotic Muse : American Bawdy Songs (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999). A 30 page introduction discusses the genre, attitudes toward it, and Cray's collection methodology. A compilation of about 160 songs follows. Most are presented in multiple versions, with notes as to where and how they were collected, scholarly analysis, and links to related songs.

Green, Michael. Why Was He Born So Beautiful, and other Rugby Songs (London: Sphere Books, Limited, 1967).

Johnson, Alice A. "Mad Rushin'". Half a Mind: Hashing, the Outrageous Running Sport (Camden, ME: Yankee Books, 1990).

Lloyd, Stu "The Colonel". Hare of the Dog: History, Humour and Hell-Raising from the Hash House Harriers (Sydney, Australia: Captions of Industry Pty Ltd, 2002). In a book of over 450 pages covering hashing history and traditions world-wide, only a scant 3 pages are devoted to the singing.

Merriam, Alan P. The Anthropology of Music (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1964).

Morgan, Harry. More Rugby Songs (London: Sphere Books, Limited, 1968).

Randolph, Vance; editor, with an introduction by G. Legman. Roll Me in Your Arms: Unprintable Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (Fayetteville : University of Arkansas Press, 1992). A rather lengthy introduction excoriates prudes who refuse to collect or publish material that might be deemed offensive, and academics who appear more interested in lengthy citations than in analysis of the meanings of the songs to the people singing them. 180 songs are presented, many in multiple versions, with extensive notes.

Schultz, Emily A. and Lavenda, Robert H. Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company). The text used for Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Songs in the Key of Beer: The Official Song Guide of the Pittsburgh Hash House Harriers. (Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh Hash House Harriers).

Vondas, Jerry, "Hash House Harriers: They Run for Fun, Health," The Pittsburgh Press, January 24, 1986, page C-1. A full-page feature article about the Pittsburgh Hash House Harriers, in the "Style" section.

Web Resources

The Digital Tradition. A huge archive of traditional music. Searching with a keyword of "bawdy" brings up about 300 songs.

Global Trash. Early hash history includes references to the 19th century Hare and Hounds game. Hash hymnal lists about 500 songs

Harrier.net. Includes a songbook of about 500 songs, with some midi files for the tunes. This website was the project of "Zippy", who died in May, 2003, so future maintenance is doubtful.

The Hash Heritage Foundation. The foundation is based in Kuala Lumpur. An excellent resource for the history of the hash.

Half Mind Catalog. Includes 741 songs in a hash hymnal as a downloadable zipped ASCII file.

Pittsburgh Hash House Harriers. Songbook includes 18 songs, mostly attributed to Whiff, and mostly also from Songs in the Key of Beer.

Additional Notes
[1] The most complete early history of the hash may be found in Lloyd.
[2] As of November 8, 2003, according to Global Trash (see Web Resources).
[3] This is the down-down song. In Pittsburgh in the mid-1980s it was the only song used for down-downs, and in many hash chapters today it is still the only down-down song in use. This song is listed in Global Trash as "Traditional Down Down Song," in Harrier.net as "Here's to the Bastard," in the Half-Mind Catalog as "Basic Down-Down Song," and in Songs in the Key of Beer as "Here's to Hares." I recall hearing it at fraternity parties at Lehigh University between 1959 and 1963.
[4] This song may be found in Global Trash, Harrier.net, the Half-Mind Catalog, and Songs in the Key of Beer.
[5] The last line of the text, "Down, down, down, down..." is sung to the last measure of "Here's to Hares." If the "down down" refrain is in a key incompatible with the key of the song to which it is attached, singers will abruptly change keys.
[6] Barbara Vancheri and Rob Owen, " Top 25 TV theme songs", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sunday, October 19, 2003.
[7] This song or chant appears in Global Trash and Harrier.net.
[8] This song may be found in Global Trash, Harrier.net, and the Half-Mind Catalog. I heard it in the film "Educating Rita" with Michael Caine and Julie Walters, as English university students awaited the arrrival of a tardy professor.
[9] Various versions of this song may be found in Global Trash, Harrier.net, the Half-Mind Catalog as "Here's to Brother Hasher". In Songs in the Key of Beer it's listed as "New Boots."
[10] This is one of the few cases where the "down-down" refrain is an integral part of the song rather than a borrowing from "Here's to Hares."
[11] This song appears only in Songs in the Key of Beer. I believe it must be a recent Pittsburgh creation.
[12] A longer version of this song appears in Songs in the Key of Beer, credited to Whiff.
[13] Here is another case where the "down-down" refrain is part of the song. I didn't want to write out 19 consecutive "downs".
[14] This song may be found in Global Trash and the Half-Mind Catalog.
[15] This would appear to be two separate songs grafted together. Why Was He Born So Beautiful is the title of a book by Green, and only the first part of the song appears there. When I have heard it sung in non-hash contexts, only the first half is sung. But it appears in Global Trash, Harrier.net, the Half-Mind Catalog, and Songs in the Key of Beer as I've transcribed it.
[16] Morgan, Green, Cray, Randolph.
[17] This song appears in Harrier.net, where it is credited to Whiff, and in the Half-Mind Catalog, where it is not credited. In Songs in the Key of Beer it is credited to Whiff and Diamond Jim.
[18] Cray, p. xxv.

Spermie and Too Loose Hash

2008-02-18T06:18:00.000-08:00

true trail

Valentine 2008 Hash

2008-02-10T11:17:00.001-08:00

5-mile trail around Coraopolis

Super Bowel Hash 2008

2008-02-04T07:02:00.001-08:00

another fine trail by Butt Wipe and Hand Job

S.O.S. (Snow On Sperm) Hash

2008-01-28T06:42:00.000-08:00

Rapunzel

Neighborhoods: Friendship, Bloomfield, North Oakland, Shadyside, CMU.
One inch of fresh snow topping on flour.

true and false trail

Oakland History Landmarks Hash

2008-01-28T06:37:00.000-08:00

MLK day, full moon, 6 PM.
Hare: Moon
Temperature: 18 F.
Beer stop by Panther Hollow pond (frozen), with Mexi-Pad skating.
Bunny in the Hat

true trail

Greenfield Hash

2008-01-14T06:17:00.000-08:00

geocache honoring the Riddler in Batman (with pictures of the grave)

geocache between first and second beer stop, "G" mark:

geocache at second beer stop

true trail

Moon's route to the second beer stop.

Chalk Talk with box of chalk sticks, outlines of people.

Homeless guy on trail, "living" under three colorful umbrellas.

Two new boots, female type.

Just Mike got named Wankle, for his "Ankle One, Ankle Two".

Isis makes it to the second beer stop after calling Hare and finding trail from antenna on top of the hill.

Boobs on trail. KGB flashes her chest to a motion-sensor activated stealth cam.

Dog rescue on trail. Norton carries Clancy down a cliff.

Conveyor belt beer stop.

Norton goes spelunking in the conveyor belt shaft.

Duke of Hurl, Hypno-Tits, and WMD miss the first beer stop, after doing the very very long false, and blew the false and found marks near intersection with Electric St in Hazelwood.

Brooms on trail. Hares sweep trail.

Finger Food inaugural hare hash

2008-01-07T08:28:00.000-08:00

From Aspinwall to Highland Park

New Year's Eve run

2008-01-06T18:47:00.001-08:00

From an overlook above Route 28 near Etna, the Beer Stop had champagne, and nearby we retrieved the Red Dress Run geocache, and donned the dress celebrating the run in red dress we did five years earlier.

Leave the sheep (real or inflatable) at home

2008-01-06T18:40:00.000-08:00

In response to WMD's party announcement that the West Virginians should "Leave the sheep (real or inflatable) at home" since WMD's neighborhood is a quiet family location, Sherpes brings out the best from his stuffed animal collection, and shows Lamb Chops.

Woman rider at Paris-Dakar

2008-01-03T08:55:00.001-08:00

She's from Grosseto, Italy, in an area also know as maremma. She is the first italian woman to compete in the Paris-Dakar. Her website.

Doggie Style Hash in South Hills

2007-12-26T08:15:00.000-08:00

true trail

Full Moon Hash - 21 Dec 2007

2007-12-22T10:46:00.001-08:00

Doggie Style
from Duke's Station at Baptist Rd, into South Park.

first beer stop, a collapsed shelter.
second beer stop, beer hops tavern in a shopping center.

true trail

Vintage shorts from the 70's

2007-12-21T08:50:00.000-08:00

Bouldering between Palena and Colledimacine, Abbruzzi, Italy, 1100 meters altitute, YMCA camp in 1979.

Dick-a-Day hash at PanHandle Trail trailhead

2007-12-17T07:43:00.000-08:00

In the first blast of winter of the year, three beerstops. Terrain was all in the woods, some slag, some pipeline, powerlines. Moon helped setting ribbons. Otherwise it was pink flouron trees.

True Trail

Flicker's hash in White Oak county park

2007-12-09T13:14:00.000-08:00

Started at 12 (noon) because of the Steelers came playing undefeated New England. We had one santa.
true trail

Festivus Hash 2007

2007-12-03T06:06:00.001-08:00

True trial

Evergreen Hash Nov 2007

2007-11-19T09:53:00.000-08:00

The trail took us on a catholic industrial complex, and there it was, in neat order, rows and rows of beautiful shining white marble tombstones of Sister this and Sister that served.

Kind of a reminder of the hash near LaRoche College, where the Halloween Hash took us near the nunnary cemetery:

... since we are collecting nun cemeteries now, let me add the satellite image of one that was found by chance while placing a geocache in Bellevue, site of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, visible on the right side of I-279 behind a long red brick wall while traveling north, wall at the base of which Moon, Norton, Swamp Bitch and Golden Showers emerged from a 20" high culvert as they scouted an orifice during Norton's inaugural hash as hare in 2005.

Pittsburgh 2007 Veteran's Day Hash

2007-11-13T06:56:00.000-08:00

hared by Whiff

Halloween 2007 Hash

2007-10-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

sh.t trail, awesome area 51 beer stop

I had no idea it was "Plush Animal Lover's Day". telepathy, i guess. some higher entity must be at play here to have made this happen...
I googled "Plush Animal Lover's Day" and all the hits came out as Oct
28, so by internet-applause- meter, it must be correct.

true trail

Megahash 2007

2007-10-15T05:42:00.000-07:00

11 mile route

megahash

2007-10-10T10:40:00.001-07:00

Buttwipe remembers the 1999 route.

Great Race runner analysis methodology

2007-10-02T08:45:00.000-07:00

Copied the results from the website, 100 runners at a time, and pasted them in an Excel spreadsheet. Saved the file in comma delimited format (.CSV). Then, used SQL Server 2000 to import the data.

Massaged and changed some of the data, as to replace NULL values in names, cities, states. Replaced single quotes with empty string.

update RunnerRaw set
Col004 = 'Unknown'
where Col004 IS NULL
go
update RunnerRaw set
Col005 = 'UK'
where Col005 IS NULL
go
update RunnerRaw set
Col008 = 'U'
where Col008 IS NULL
go
update RunnerRaw set
Col002 = (select replace(Col002,'''',''))

update RunnerRaw set
Col003 = (select replace(replace(Col003,'''',''),' ',''))

update RunnerRaw set
Col003 = (select replace(Col003,'Sr.',''))

update RunnerRaw set
Col003 = (select replace(Col003,'Jr.',''))

update RunnerRaw set
Col003 = (select replace(Col003,'St.','St. '))

update RunnerRaw set
Col004 = (select replace(replace(replace(Col004,'''',''),'.',''),',',''))

CREATE VIEW RunnerRawV
AS
select
CAST(Col001 as Integer) as 'Bib',
UPPER(Col002) as 'First',
UPPER(Col003) as 'Last',
UPPER(Col004) as 'City',
UPPER(Col005) as 'State',
UPPER(Col006) as 'Country',
CAST (Col007 as INTEGER) as 'Age',
UPPER(Col008) as 'Gender',
Col009 as 'ChipTime',
Col010 as 'ClockTime',
Cast(SubString (Col009, 1, 1) as Integer) * 3600 + CAST(SubString (Col009, 3, 2) as Integer) * 60 + CAST(SubString (Col009, 6, 2) as Integer) as 'TotalChipSeconds',
Cast(SubString (Col010, 1, 1) as Integer) * 3600 + CAST(SubString (Col010, 3, 2) as Integer) * 60 + CAST(SubString (Col010, 6, 2) as Integer) as 'TotalClockSeconds'
from RunnerRaw

CREATE Table Runner
(
Bib integer NOT NULL,
First varchar (20) NOT NULL,
Last varchar (30) NOT NULL,
City varchar (30) NOT NULL,
State char (2) NOT NULL,
Age Integer NOT NULL,
Gender char (1) NOT NULL,
ChipTime char (7) NOT NULL,
ClockTime char (7) not null,
TotalChipSeconds int not null,
TotalClockSeconds int not null
)

select 'INSERT INTO Runner (Bib, First, Last, City, State, Age, Gender, ChipTime, ClockTime, TotalChipSeconds, TotalClockSeconds) VALUES (' + CAST(Bib AS VARCHAR) + ',''' + LTRIM(RTRIM(First)) + ''',''' + LTRIM(RTRIM(Last)) + ''',''' + LTRIM(RTRIM(City)) + ''',''' + LTRIM(RTRIM(State)) + ''',' + CAST (Age AS VARCHAR) + ',''' + LTRIM(RTRIM(GENDER)) + ''',''' + LTRIM(RTRIM(ChipTime)) + ''',''' + LTRIM(RTRIM(ClockTime)) + ''',' + CAST (TotalChipSeconds AS VARCHAR) + ',' + CAST (TotalClockSeconds AS VARCHAR) + ')'
from RunnerRawV

select State, Replicate ('*', count(State) / 2)
from Runner
where State <> 'PA'
group by State
order by count(State) desc

select avg (totalclockseconds - totalchipseconds) from Runner

select count (First), First
from Runner
where Gender = 'F'
group by First
order by count(First) desc

select distinct First from Runner where Gender = 'F' and First in (select first from Runner where Gender = 'M')

select AVG (CAST (age as float)) from Runner where gender = 'F'

select totalclockseconds - totalchipseconds, *
from Runner
order by totalclockseconds - totalchipseconds desc

select TotalClockSeconds - TotalChipSeconds , * from Runner where TotalClockSeconds - TotalChipSeconds > 400
order by TotalClockSeconds - TotalChipSeconds desc