Anyone else able to stare at maps for hours?

[HEyHEY]

When I'm bored, I can seriously crack an atlas and stare at it for hours on end. Anyone else?

[Screaming Lord Bob]

1. yes.

I can stare at the water parts - and look at all the different depths all over the place...

[tcfrogs]

2. Strangely enough, yes

I don't know why, though.

[JimmyJazz]

3. Absolutely! I love to do that. During the Olympics, My daughter

and I would find out where an athlete was from and then look up tha country in the atlas.

[Lancer]

13. That it is so great to hear!

Start 'em young!

I love maps. I am never without an atlas handy. Cannot STAND not knowing where something is. Been looking a lot at maps of Florida for the last six weeks. Somewhere there's a picture of me when I was 5, Road Atlas spread out in my lap, pointing my finger at something.

In my next house, I am going to decorate one wall with nautical maps.

[skypilot]

4. Yes...

...trying to figure out where the hell I am.

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

5. I'm a doctoral candidate in geography

I stare at maps, keep maps by the toilet, draw routes on maps and then drive them, and in my spare time, I draw maps of fantasy worlds.

[Lisa]

41. what's your dissertation on?

I'm a geographer too (just got my PhD a couple of years ago).

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

42. Working on homelessness in Sacramento

Kind of a new topic for the discipline--it's pretty fascinating. I'm making a huge map of where I find people/camps in the whole city.

[Lisa]

49. good luck!

Sounds like a fascinating topic. One of the guys in my department did his Master's on homeless youth (DU-mail me if you want me to see about getting you a copy of his thesis). And there was Symanski's work on hobos a while back, and Gould and White's mental mapping projects (I don't think they did homeless people though, just various socio-economic groupings) -- but as you say, it hasn't attracted a lot of geographical interest. Are you looking at it from a quantitative or more of a phenomenological/ethnographic perspective?

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

51. A little of both

I'm excited about mapping my data and finding the correlates with census demographics, businesses like check cashers and liquor stores, transit hubs, date of construction, etc. But my background is humanities, so right now the project is kind of divided into "Homelessness and Space" and "Homelessness and Place".

Jen Wolch at USC has done some GIS-based work on the topic, other than that, there are the usual useless Foucauldian theory pieces and an article here and there. There's been more presentations at recent AAG meetings, though.

Are you teaching now, or what?

[skygazer]

6. I love maps

Any maps. Road atlases. Topographical maps. But especially old maps. A friend has a map of Vermont from the early 1800's which is really neat. I also love the old maps from the early sailing days which had nifty drawing of sea monsters and ships on them. Very cool.

[Wat_Tyler]

7. Absolutely. Particularly of Western Canada.

Even though I live here, I'll never see half of it.

[bif]

8. I love to look at maps

One of my favorites is an Ordinance Survey map book of England. It's incredibly detailed so you can see old Roman roads and forts and cool features like that.

[NV Whino]

9. yep.

Topos are my favorites.

[mairceridwen]

10. ohmygoodness

YES!!!

I long for one of those huge, leather bound atlases

On road trips I hog the randmacnally when i'm not driving.


I thought I was the only one.

well, not really...but you know what I mean.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

liontamer does.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

11. liontamer does.

[liontamer]

45. Hey!

tattle tale

[YellowRubberDuckie]

12. Skip loves to do that too...

but when we go on trips, I'm navigator. Even if I'm driving. LOL
Duckie

[disgruntled_goat]

14. i love maps

i like topo detail maps, geopoli maps, ocean floor maps, you name it.

i dont know why, although as a schoolboy, i was the king of geography (state and world capitals etc etc).

I'm now pushing 40, but i still get this familiar creepy feeling when i see maps from certain perspectives, like REALLY high up and showing a lot of water. brr. anyone else? no? just me? allrighty then.

[politicat]

15. yep. I adore maps.

I'm sitting next to the big topo I built for my fantasy universe and staring at the big geopolitical of the world on the opposite wall....

Pcat

[nutsnberries]

16. yep.

maps!

got a big laminated map o' the world next to the kitchen table. sometimes i enjoy getting lost while i'm eating different cuisines and the map helps me find my way back when i'm ready.

who doesn't love a good map? :)

[sui generis]

17. I have been to this guy's store in Tennessee

http://www.murrayhudson.com/

I have 16th century maps and 18th century globes I've bought from him - he has a truly amazing collection. I even found a signed sketch by Winslow Homer while poking through dusty piles of maps and books.

Ask him anything.

[Pithlet]

29. I would love to see this one in person

http://www.murrayhudson.com/ivory_globe.htm I wonder where he found that?

[sui generis]

52. If you are a collector he is a must see

I forget how many thousands of globes he has - plus he was a professor of cartography at some point so he can tell you the most excruciatingly detailed histories about some of the pieces.

He has a section of "captain's logs" too which make interesting reading if you read 18th century french, portuguese, spanish, italian, german and british (nearly a different language), and signed first editions of notables like Lewis & Clark's published expeditions. It's like being in Aladdin's cave when you go.

[catmandu57]

18. Yes, there are several at hand now

and a large box of mostly national geographics I get
out to look at also. My atlas just took a hell of a beating, it'll have to be retired now.

[DelawareValleyDem]

19. I did once when I was lost

Then I turned it right side up.

[KamaAina]

20. How do you think I learned so much about obscure B.C. towns?

and elsewhere, too...

I have run through paperback atlases until they actually fell apart.

[cmf]

21. Yes, so does my husband

we love to take out the atlas and just look at places.

[Swede]

22. I sure do.

Ask me where Moldova is. Go ahead,ask me.

[LDS Jock]

35. Where is Moldova?

I took your dare!

[Swede]

47. It's way over there.

Next.

[annabanana]

23. I just KNEW that DU was my natural home!

This thread has confirmed it. I thought it was just me and my Dad. Are we "topophiles?" "graphiacs"?

[HEIL PRESIDENT GOD]

38. Not topophiles, technically

Topophilia means "love of place" (term invented by geographer Yi-Fu Tuan). In the discipline it's kind of a counterpole to the obsession with mapping--focus on the non-physical "spirit" of places.

Cartophiliac is more like it.

[LSK]

24. Yes

I went through a phase of having to collect National Forest Maps and National Park maps.

[Champ]

25. Yes

I have been ever since I was 4.

[ikojo]

26. I love looking at maps and wondering where a particular

road or highway leads.

[miss_kitty]

27. yes. I love maps

My mom was a Cartographer. her map work is part of the congressional record, too. :)

[blindpig]

28. topo maps get me off!

Got SC, NC, GA topo's on disk, what fun! Like to try to figure out where the good habitat remains for birding & reptile hunting.

[pmbryant]

30. I'm clearly not alone.

Good to hear.

:thumbsup:

Yes, a good map can be endlessly fascinating.

Peter

[MisterP]

31. like a chess player;

resources, routes, society, regimes, culture (Vancouver and Seoul make cartoons)
a planet's worth of information!

[Nikia]

32. I did when I was younger

I knew all the state capitals of the U.S., capitals of the privinces in Canada, and most of the world's nations and their capitals by the time I was 8. I liked looking at maps well into my teen years. I haven't stared at maps for a while, but may start again as I have forgotten a few of the capitals and there are a couple new countries. Strangely, despite my knowledge of world geography, I have a horrible time following a road map.

[LDS Jock]

33. I thought it was just me

I actually wear out my atlases. I have Delorme to play around with maps on my computer. Individual maps of cities and states to look at. I have maps of everything.. Canada, Germany, Israel, Australia. In my mind I kinda travel while I look at the maps. And any time there is a place in the news, such as with the hurricanes hitting Florida I look up the places impacted by it. Earthquake in California? I have to look up the epicenter. Snowstorm in the Rockies? Lemme look up the place with the greatest amount. I'm a map nerd!

[tjdee]

34. Aww man, got the globe with the USSR on it...

I especially love to look at different maps to see what changed....with your Yugoslavia and such. So many different places in the world....

I don't think freepers do this. They still operate on the "America is the center of the world, and Greenland IS bigger than the entire continent of Africa!" scale, I'm sure.

[redqueen]

36. Yes

especially if they have more than one kind... like one topographical, and one with borders... for comparison. Or various borders with all the changes that have occurred over time indicated.

Fascinating.

[JVS]

37. I keep plotting on how to seize it all!

[supernova]

39. I have a map habit

:-)

I especially love historical and antique maps. I find it relaxing, oddly.

[Lisa]

40. that's part of my job!

Also, geographers do a bunch more things besides that (my current project involves teaching 60 kids to see photos in stereo without using the special viewers).

p.s. in our lab, we have a collection of state-shaped fridge magnets on the whiteboard (every time I go to Seattle I bring a few back). One of our "things" is to put some of the states up in the wrong location, and see who notices this.

[donheld]

43. yes i do too

you can learn a lot from maps

[yardwork]

44. Yes - What a great thread!

I love DU

[Lydia Leftcoast]

46. Yes, when I was a teenager

I used to take an old paperback pocket atlas and trace out trips I wanted to take some day.

I've never taken any of them.

[fishnfla]

48. Yep. maps and charts too

I memorize waterways. try and figure out good fishing areas.

Like to look at maps of all types

[ironflange]

50. Yes, maps are great

For Father's Day, Mrs. Ironflange gave me a cd-rom holding all the topo maps of SW Alberta. Keeps me happy for hours.

[mac56]

53. Me too.

Especially local "street atlases" for whatever town I happen to be in.

Did you read the dictionary as a kid too?