where I've lived

[low_delta]

Here is a picture showing almost all the places I've lived.



Number one is the apartment complex that I lived in until I was 6 or so. We moved just after first grade had ended. Number two is not on the map. We moved to a city in the next county. I spent most of second grade there - we moved back to Grafton the following May, I believe. I lived at number 3 from 1976 to 1993. At that time, I moved out of my mom's house and into my own apartment (#4). Exactly four years later, I bought the duplex (#5), and moved 300 feet away. Seven and a half years after that, Cindy and I bought our current home (#6). Which looks like this:


Also, The "B" shows where I work. The "A" shows where I used to work - same company, different location - when I lived at "3".

Comments

[hinterland.livejournal.com]

extraordinary. with the exception of number two, your whole life is literally flashing before you at a single glance.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I just made a post showing most of the places I've worked, so, yeah!

[banana.livejournal.com]

The first thing to strike me is the rectilinearity. That never happens here. The only grid pattern town I ever saw was Glasgow, and it felt weird. Counter-intuitively, I had a lot of trouble figuring out which way was which. Even in the fens, the flattest part of England, the roads ignore the points of the compass and go from one place to another by the shortest route (with meanders for obstacles).

But enough about me. I'm curious if you ever thought of moving away. There's a whole lot of America you haven't lived in. If I did a map like this for my life, I'd need a bigger picture. Oops - it's still all about me, isn't it? ;~)

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

The oldest roads were more-or-less straight routes between settlements. At some point, the government went through and laid out the roads in one-mile grids. One of the oldest roads in the state, is Green Bay road, which runs from chicago to Green Bay. It's the S-shaped line in the lower right. It curves to avoid terrain features. The subdivision in the upper left corner was laid out in the sixties. The one just above center was from the eighties. People got tired of living on a grid.

It's easier to tell direction on a grid because you only have four directions to choose from. But off the grid, you're always aware that nothing is certain. So on the grid, if you're wrong, you're probably less likely to realize that.

I like Wisconsin. I have very little desire to live somewhere else, but I do want to see it all. I also have no desire to move to someplace that's not very far away. I like it here. And the parts of here that I dislike are also in other places. Secondly, my job is nearby, so I wouldn't leave here until I didn't need to work there anymore.

[banana.livejournal.com]

I suppose that I'm used to orienting myself by having a mental map. I know what's near where. A grid feels a bit like an empty map.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

It looks rather rectilinear, and in places it is, but there are a lot of missing segments in the grid. There are rivers breaking things up and there are the old roads cutting things off at odd angles. So you do have to know where you're going.

Got nothing against the big town.

[eideteker.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, man. You ARE Johnny Cougar's "Small Town". I'll bet your parents and friends still live in the same small town!

I live exactly (according to maps.google) 1,300 miles from where I was born. And I'm about to move another 250.