I don't know if surveying helped, or if it's innate, but I seem to have a better handle on cardinal directions that most people I deal with.?ÿ
I was in a meeting with two clients and an architect yesterday. I had the property and the one house that was on it showing on a 24x36 drawing in the conference room and we were sitting around it trying to best plan a shared driveway that will access the extension on the existing house for client No.1 and to the new planned house for client No.2. The two parcels are bordered on the east, north and west by a strongly curved road that turns around the nose of a ridge where the two properties lay. Anyway across the road on the north near the apex of the big curve is a new house being built. It's in extreme contoured land as the ridge continues to slope away from the road and I pointed out on the map about where it is and asked just who is doing such an extreme build.?ÿ
Well that got the other three really going and they all three pointed to a spot on the map about 300' southeast of the house construction.?ÿ
I began to argue that it wasn't there, but where I pointed and they weren't having it.?ÿ
Finally, I gave up.?ÿ
Who do you think would know the map better of the four of us?
Jeesh!!!
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3 strong egos. ?ÿ1 humble guy.
Well duh..
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The artichoke of course.....
North arrows solve a lot of problems.?ÿ ?????ÿ
@bstrand?ÿ
For sure, plus orienting the map during review. I have found if you are not on site, orientation doesn't matter too much, but if you are located somewhere on that map, everyone will start looking over their shoulders and off into the distance trying to visualize things, and having the map turned the wrong way causes problems.
having the map turned the wrong way causes problems.
In my mind, North around my home town and North in the city where I now live feel like two different directions, which I have learned to live with.?ÿ I blame it on the US map in my first schoolroom being on the wrong wall.
@bill93?ÿ
I will set a NORTH anywhere if I have no way of knowing which is the true north.?ÿ Before I was old enough to go to school I had done this in three buildings that I was in regularly.?ÿ In every case the west wall was my NORTH.?ÿ As soon as I left the building the world would rotate back to my NORTH being north.
I usually am very good at keeping track of north so long as I am outside, sun or no sun.
Recall waking up in a motel in Moline, IL one morning to discover the Sun was coming up in the southwest.?ÿ I had arrived long after dark, so had set my NORTH as I had entered the building.
Being primarily a rectangular system surveyor I automatically assume all roads are on cardinal directions as most usually are. (there's probably a thousand "Range Line Roads" in FL. alone.) Works real good until you get inside a PUD designed with french curves, then forget it, I'm totally disoriented, confused, and mildly pissed. Anywhere outside a rectangular state means I'm on a road trip with SWMBO who is the self assigned navigator, safety officer, speedometer monitor, stop to pee authority, and full time announcer of what I am doing wrong every 15 seconds.?ÿ ?????ÿ
@flga-2-2 With my family you don't use cardinal directions.?ÿ "You go down the road past where the old dairy was, turn left towards Uncle Joe's old house, go past Aunt Dorothy's house to the road to the river, turn right past the beaver pond and go to the place where the windmill once stood."
And if you're in town you use stores or restaurants as landmarks.
Andy
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I understand that.?ÿ It doesn't apply anywhere close to home, but, it sure comes in handy in cities that are laid out every which way (or however that is spelled). Roads that run something like northeast to southwest, for example, try to screw up my NORTH.?ÿ The bendy, curvy ones are even worse.?ÿ You might hit any azimuth at some point in a five mile trip from Point A to Point B.?ÿ A trip on the backroads of the Ozarks is very frustrating.?ÿ You know you want to be 3 miles from where you started but it takes 15 miles of roadway at an average speed of 12 mph to get there.?ÿ Thus, the old story of the semi-driver following a set of tail lights in dense fog only to discover they were his own tail lights.
There is a high school that I have visited a few times that is a circle on the outside.?ÿ There is one main hallway, also a circle, surrounding the gymnasium and some oddly shaped classrooms and storage areas.?ÿ Almost everything between the hallway and the outer edge of the building is a classroom or administrative office.
@bill93?ÿ
I will set a NORTH anywhere if I have no way of knowing which is the true north.?ÿ Before I was old enough to go to school I had done this in three buildings that I was in regularly.?ÿ In every case the west wall was my NORTH.?ÿ As soon as I left the building the world would rotate back to my NORTH being north.
When I go into a large store, I forget about world directions and just navigate by reference to the front and back of the store. It's a mental exercise to recall how the store is oriented in the world.
I usually am very good at keeping track of north so long as I am outside, sun or no sun.
That's a whole lot easier in states where the roads mostly follow section lines.
Sounds like directions to my deceased father-in-laws farm in Whigham from Thomasville. ?????ÿ
@rover83 Map & Compass Orienteering Rule #1.?ÿ Place the map flat, then place your Silva compass with its edge on the magnetic North compass rose line, then rotate map and compass together until the compass needle lines up with 0?ø/North.
@flga-2-2
Right, grew up in North Dakota and the entire state is a giant checkerboard, so definitely spoiled...
Then moved to Colorado and lived along the front range, which is home to probably one of the bigger natural compasses in North America.
Now in Idaho and it's interesting... away from the mountains it's pretty easy but once in the hills it's game over.
I have made it a point to never be in Atlanta, Georgia.?ÿ Not even at the airport.
A clip from Wikipedia:
The Peachtree name is common throughout the Atlanta area. In fact, it is often joked by natives that half of the streets in Atlanta are named Peachtree, and the other half have five names to make up for it.[citation needed]?ÿWhile ??Peachtree? alone almost always refers to this street or its continuations, there are 71 streets in Atlanta with a variant of ??Peachtree? in their name.[9]?ÿSome include:
- Peachtree Creek?ÿRoad
- Peachtree Lane
- Peachtree Avenue
- Peachtree Circle
- Peachtree Place
- Peachtree Drive
- Peachtree Plaza
- Peachtree Way
- Peachtree Memorial Drive
- New Peachtree Road
- Peachtree Walk
- Peachtree Park Drive
- Peachtree Parkway
- Peachtree Valley Road
- Peachtree Battle Avenue (commemorating the?ÿBattle of Peachtree Creek)
- Peachtree Dunwoody Road (running between Peachtree Street and?ÿDunwoody, Georgia)
- Old Peachtree Road (traces part of the route of the original Peachtree Trail for which the road is named; in?ÿGwinnett County.)
@flga-2-2?ÿ
A long-departed friend was driving in circles on a trip out west with his wife.
She said, "Bob K, you're lost!!"
He replied, "I am not! I:m right here!"
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If he was long-departed what the heck we he doing behind the wheel to start with?????
It's a question of order. He found himself out west and departed this world many years later.
A really good fellow, a bit eccentric, but aren't we all?
My wife is in need of an "industrial strength" fly swatter.?ÿ So I was sent to the "gettin place" last evening on her behalf.?ÿ I walked down every aisle very slowly, carefully soaking in the 30,000 different items they carry.?ÿ No flyswatter to be found.?ÿ Would I stop and ask an employee for guidance.?ÿ Of course not, I'm a man.