On Aug 30, 2009, at 6:04 PM, Jenny Thrasher wrote:
> Why are you so surprised, Tom? Why have to think about nautical > directions when you can go spend a bunch of money on a GPS system > and let it just tell you where to go and when to turn? If people > weren't so willing of late to check out and let someone else take > care of everything FOR them, we wouldn't be planning this excursion > in the first place. I hate GPS systems and all that. They always tell me "You should have just turned a moment ago you schmuck!" I cannot really navigate around an area until I spend the time to get properly lost in it, take a few wrong turns and so forth. I get the best feel for an area if I walk or bike it (which doesn't happen as much as I like these days). I navigate by landmarks, not streets. My Dad taught me to look up while trying to get somewhere and notice prominent features in the distance, such as church spires, near where you want to go. If you can focus on those features you can always spiral in to your target even if you do not know the streets at all. And wandering around may not get you to where you wanted to go very quickly but you discover lots of interesting things and perhaps it takes you to where you should be going. Quite a few years ago I was walking from the Marina in DC with my fiancé at the time. I wanted to see how things connected to the section of monuments on the river to the North. I had seen it on a map but did not have a good physical grasp of the layout. Very shortly I was "lost". My fiancé became increasingly agitated at this, especially as we cut through a section of slums off of the Red Line there. We got asked several times if we had drugs to sell: Why else would a a couple of well-dressed white folks be walking through there? We walked purposely through and I was at least lightly armed, so we were not bothered much. My fiancé did not understand until quite a bit later that being lost was not a problem and that it had, in fact, been my goal of setting out in that direction. We had an interesting argument... Afterward I had a physical appreciation of exactly how the city was laid out... and the fact that my liberal, tolerant, open- minded fiancé did not want to see poor black people that closely. It was much easier to appreciate their plight from a distance. Sincerely, Eric Vought "Faith does not absolve us from trying to understand our world and make moral distinctions with the eyes and brain given us. Religion is as much responsibility as direction: Duty not Distinction." --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ This is a Free Speech forum. The owner of this list assumes no responsibility for the intellectual or emotional maturity of its members. If you do not like what is being said here, filter it to trash, ignore it or leave. If you leave, learn how to do this for yourself. If you do not, you will be here forever. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
