neurotwitch

stumbled-upon websites

I found this link a while ago when I was looking for aerial maps (I don't remember why): HomeTownLocator Gazetteer: Census Info, Physical and Cultural Features, Aerial Photos, Maps, Zip Code Data. It's a great collection of sources for information about places in the USA, including census data. It's through this site I found the aerial map, from TerraServer to be precise. Here is what I found (though they're really old):


This is a view of our house on April 12, 1991. That big blob in the middle, next to the red dot, is Stanley's acre. It is now Stanley's half acre, and there are two built-fast-to-sell-fast houses on the south half acre. It looks like an image taken after a neutron bomb was dropped or something as even back in 1991, there was too much traffic on Strawberry Hill Avenue. This shows NO cars. And this date was a Friday, so it show cars bumper-to-bumper. Funny how this view shows how much land a couple of tennis courts take up.


This is a topological map done in 1986. The arrow is pointing to the dot that is our house. See, I'm not kidding when I say we live right next door to a school! Stanley says our house is on one of the highest points in Norwalk (though we can't see the Sound unless, I'm told, we go on the roof). When Norwalk flooded in 1955 (the year of horrific flooding in Connecticut) and destroyed quite a bit of downtown Norwalk, Stanley said the water only came up to near the top of the cellar steps. He said he remembers sitting on the top step looking at it. (We live very, very close to the Norwalk River, which is where downtown Norwalk is located -- if there IS a downtown Norwalk anymore.)

Interesting stuff. Well, look up your own house ... that should be interesting to you ...

NEXT UP
From those whimsical people at the National Library of Medicine, we have Dream Anatomy says: "Drawn mainly from the collections of the National Library of Medicine, Dream Anatomy shows off the anatomical imagination in some of its most astonishing incarnations, from 1500 to the present." An interesting look through one of those "who woulda thunk" collections. If this is not enough, check out Smallpox: A Great and Terrible Scourge.

SSSHHH ...
Find out what Nurse Jones has to say.

COMMERCIAL REMUDDLINGS?
What can you do with a Taco Bell that's gone bust? How about an IHOP? Find out here, at Not Fooling Anybody. Dontcha wonder why people devote so much time and effort to sites like this? Whatever. I'm glad they do, because they're fun.

REVISIT
One of my favorite stumbled-upon sites is the Library of Congress. I just found this exhibit (again?): American Memory. Check out this movie of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. If you spend even a little time going through these archives, you will realize what an amazing amount of dedication and work assembling these collections online has taken. And the two collections mentioned in this entry (the National Library of Medicine Exhibits from above) are just snippets of what's out there just on government sites alone. I am in awe.

Time to go grocery shopping ...

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