In Reply to: This makes me want to cry. posted by SteelersFan on March 9, 2002 at 12:13 PM:
Gee, I'd irrationally mis-read the URL for the site - I could have SWORN it was "wheresgeorge" rather than "whensgeorge"........
The first thing one encounters on the WheresGeorge home page is the following: "Do you ever wonder where that paper money in your pocket has been, or where it will go next? This is the place to find out."
By entering a bill with the zip code of where I got it, I believe that LOGICALLY I'm more in keeping with the intent and spirit of WheresGeorge - documenting WHERE the bill has been. The alternative, of course, is to rely on the user-entered notes - and I'm certain everyone else would shudder if I suggested that this is how we SHOULD be documenting things. We all have our "user notes" horror stories, if we've gotten anything more than a small handful of hits.
I WILL log a bill in from a remote site IF I have computer access, but otherwise it goes into a "non-spendable" pocket or my briefcase, and travels with me. (If it's from change I got, I'll also keep the receipt with it, so I can enter the PRECISE place where I got it, and when, in the user notes. I carry envelopes specifically for this purpose.) When I travel, I simply do not have the time to find a library or other source for Internet access - I'm quite honestly very busy on most such trips. But, I'll then enter the bill as soon as I can, and almost invariably in the evening before going to sleep, whether with a laptop I'm carrying with me or once I get home.
It is also EXTREMELY rare that I enter ANY bills and go right out and spend them. It's far more common for me to log them in, stamp them, and then put them in the "kitty" at home, from which I draw as cash becomes needed, since I rarely carry over $20 on my person unless I have specific buying plans when I leave the house in the morning. Bills in the "kitty" are usually there for a minimum of a week, and may sit there for as much as a month. Thus, the likelihood of one of my bills getting an "unnatural" travel speed is extremely remote. The fastest hit I've ever had was about 2 hours, on one of those rare occasions when I needed to go to the bank for lunch money, and one of the bills I entered and then spent on lunch was re-entered almost before I got back to my office. Most of my bills are out there a month or two before getting hits - right now, most are coming in on bills spent in January and early February.
My bank is not in the town in which I live. So all bills I get from my own bank, I enter with the zip of the town where the bank is located. But most get spent in the town where I live, or elsewhere - few in the town where I get them, because there are precious few stores in that town. (I just don't like the BIG bank branch in my own town, and have had the account in the other much smaller bank branch for 20 years, since I actually used to LIVE there.) But, I've not changed my basic spending patterns at all for WG, and as I pointed out in an earlier post - somewhere - I've always preferred small bills. (The bank tellers have for years known me as "no twenties Bob.")
I'd also still think that for a computer-savvy 12-year-old in rural Maine to log in a marked WG bill and see it was last entered in Ithaca, NY, it will provide both more excitement and education of the type WG encourages, than seeing that it was initially entered in the next town over from where she/he lives. I won't enter remote zips on bills that I get here - that would be totally unethical and inconsistent - because bills I get here, I enter here. (I got nine bills in change this morning after getting lunch, a couple gifts and cards, and some envelopes - and they, too, were all entered with the zip code of the town where I was shopping - which happens to be the same town as that in which my computer resides. They're all also in the "kitty" and probably won't get pulled out until next week some time.)
I'd also note that not long ago, someone reported a bill that was red-flagged for a speed of over 150 mph between Brooklyn and Hawai'i .... but the Georger had entered the bill in New York, took it with him/her on vacation to Hawaii, and given it as a tip. The tipee then entered it almost immediately. Valid entry. No problem.
For those who wish to cite chapter and verse from the WheresGeorge guidelines, though ---- how many of YOU were out there spending only piles of ones before discovering WG, or even paying cash for most purchases like gas, groceries, and such? And what SANE person would EVER have gone to a bank and request $1000 in uncirculated Treasury-wrapped bills? Yet this happens in the WG community without question or censure. In fact, someone jokingly complained recently, in either this forum or the General Forum, about how much time WG took, providing a photo of precisely such a stack of bills. NO ONE complained that this was in violation of the rule about "normal circulation", which in pre-WG days meant that about the only people who ever broke the seals on those uncirculated bills were bank employees.
There's a LOT of bending and breaking of basic WG rules by a lot of people here, though I'm not going to go back through previous posts to try to document who is doing what. But as I said at the outset, I DO believe that what I'm doing is far more in the spirit of what WG is all about than some would believe at first glance. It's documenting WHERE the bills have been. Anything beyond that in documentation is frosting, but not the basic cake.
If HANK wants to wade into this and tell me that I'm misbehaving from HIS perspective (as the ultimate arbiter), I'll change my ways.
Still love you all. Happy Georging - whatever color you want to use for your stamps..........