Where in the world is Bad Penguin?

I’m not sure if I’ve ever written about this particular quirk of mine before, so I may be about to make myself look even geekier than you already thought I did. Ha! Bloggers in the mirror may be geekier than they appear. But I digress. Anyway, I love maps. I always have. When I was a kid, I used to sit and pour over the atlas my parents had, making up stories, planning imaginary trips, figuring out how places fit together. They had a historical atlas too, which was even better because it showed how the world changed over time, and included stories with the maps.

I still love them. If I’m bored, or curious about something, I’ll pull out a map or look one up online, and then I’ll get sucked in. And I may have recently come home with a globe from Target. I didn’t need a globe, but I was unable to resist the pull of the low-priced, old fashioned style globe they had on display. Just a couple of months ago I discovered the satellite maps available on Google local and Google Earth. I bet I spent a good hour or two typing in addresses and poking around the satellite photos, scrolling up and down, seeing what happened if I clicked to pull back or zoom in. The Internet can be very cool. And useful.

Well, it all came together perfectly today when I was trying to tell a co-worker who is new to the area how close his house is to this dam that they are worried is going to burst. I was explaining in my vague and not terribly helpful way that I thought that a house at the very back of his neighborhood might be somewhat close, although I wasn’t sure how deep his neighborhood went, but I thought his house would ok. And then it hit me – show him the satellite map! It was perfect. Perfect, I tell you! He could see where his house was and where the lake and the dam were in relation to it, and be reassured. Even better, he was almost as enthusiastic about the satellite maps as I was.