Notes from the Dark-Ages

Friday night (November 28, 2008) Linda and I were discussing the merits of a GPS navigation system.

The GPS navigation display on my cellphone, displaying our location. (I tried, people; but the display is not bright enough to register.) (Epson 10000 XL.)

I’m not a slave of technology for technology’s sake; but we used recent technology to locate three things:
—1) Linda’s mother’s abode in northern Floridy;
—2) The Orchard Park Veterinary near Buffalo for Killian, and;
—3) the location of a meet-and-greet in Buffalo where we picked up Scarlett.
RE: -1) Linda’s mother was with MapQuest maps to get to De Land. (The MapQuest directions were actually to Linda’s mother’s apartment, but got tossed into the back seat of our rental when they had me turning the wrong way up a one-way street.)
Our goal was to get to New York Ave., which The Keed could do without MapQuest directions.
RE: -2) Orchard Park Veterinary has a web-site, so I could see what their building looked like.
But Google-maps got me to the right road.
RE: -3) The Buffalo meet-and-greet added Google Street-Views, which gave an idea what the neighborhood would look like.
Our Google-maps were a bit deceptive, so I had to rely on the Old Directions Jones.
We ended up inadvertently following directions someone gave us over the phone.
And, of course, the actual house Google Street-Views displayed as the address we wanted was off.
Apply Old Directions Jones.
The other night I Googled “Sticky Fingers Barbecue” in Canandaigua, and got a locating map that had it way down the street — not at the corner it’s actually at.
I suppose that’s close enough for a REPUBLICAN, but it was almost a block off.
The old ‘pyooter mapping imprecision was at work; the bit where so many feet equal a step up in house number.
The Messenger had a ‘pyooter map that still had the storied Peanut Line.
“That railroad shouldn’t be there,” I said. “It was abandoned in the early ‘70s.”
One time a reporter noted a disputed landfill next to the Conrail mainline.
“It is not!” I said. “It’s now CSX. Conrail was sold and broken up a few years ago — the line across New York state, the one you’re reporting, went to CSX.”
And the Messenger map has the old Auburn through Canandaigua as New York Central, which it long ago was. But New York Central went into Penn-Central in 1968, and PC went bankrupt not too long after that. (It eventually went kaput.)
After which the Auburn became part of Conrail, and was partly abandoned.
What remains of the Auburn is now operated by Finger Lakes Railway.
But the Messenger map doesn’t have it marked that way. They still have it as New York Central — and the Peanut, though long abandoned, still exists.

If I am correct, a GPS navigation system links GPS locating with a ‘pyooterized map database.
That first attribute is very attractive to me — locating exactly where I am, and displaying it on a map. Like if I’m lost.
But I don’t want it telling me where to go; e.g. the wrong way up a one-way street.
After all, I’m the driver, not the GPS.
Storing maps electronically for display on a video-screen makes more sense than carrying an atlas.
Add a GPS locator and you’ve just scotched the dreaded pinpoint function in an atlas that took so long.
But my cellphone does all this stuff already.
It’s already a GPS locator (as most cellphones are nowadays, by law), and it gets the Internet from the satellite, or at least VZ-Navigator®; a downloadable GPS navigation system via the satellite.
I got it mainly to render coordinates for my weather-site; e.g. the mighty Mezz and the mighty Curve. Also our house.
But it’s also a GPS navigation system; the same as a GPS navigation system in a car. Plus it has access to a complete map database; i.e. ya ain’t loadin’ 89 bazilyun maps into your Tom-Tom.
So I turned it on this morning at our house, and it displayed what is pictured: our location on “Ontario St.”
We took the dog to Baker Park 15 miles away in Canandaigua, so I fired it up there.
VIOLA! There we are in Baker Park near Buffalo St.
I turned it on again behind the woods in the rear of the park.
There we are again; different map of Baker Park, and it has us behind the woods on the path along the fence.
Well, this is just great. Makes sense to me if a GPS locator can locate where I am on a map.
But I’m not having it talk to me. I’m drivin’!

I should say something about “Ontario St.” It’s actually Route 65; Ontario St. ends in Honeoye Falls.
Linda reports a post-office customer complains that his GPS has him living on Ontario St., when he actually lives on Route 65.
Drive out Ontario St. and it becomes only Route 65 at the Honeoye Falls line. Ontario St. is also Route 65 in Honeoye Falls, but becomes just Route 65 at the Honeoye Falls line.
Funny, it’s also Route 65, but the segment we live on is actually Pittsford-West Bloomfield Road.

RE: “Dark-Ages......” —My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, claims I live in the dark ages, because I don’t have a GPS navigation system in my car. It’s a put-down.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. She works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office.

“Killian” was our previous Irish-Setter, a rescue-dog. He died last May of lymphomic cancer at over 10 years. “Scarlett” is our current dog; another rescue Irish-Setter. She’s three-plus, and is our sixth Irish-Setter.

Killian was treated for cancer at “Orchard Park Veterinary” near Buffalo.

“The Keed,” of course, is me.

The “Old Directions Jones” is my sense of direction, which works very well.

“Google Street-Views” is actual video display of the buildings (and addresses) on a street.

I wrote a short story about “Sticky Fingers Barbecue in Canandaigua” for my family’s web-site. They deliver with a Hummer (called the “Sticky Fingers Hummer”) that has a bumper-sticker on the back which says “I waste gas and run over children.”

The “Peanut Line” is the original independently-built Canandaigua & Niagara Falls Railroad, eventually merged into New York Central Railroad. It was called a “peanut” by a New York Central executive because it was so tiny compared to NYC’s mainline. It is now entirely abandoned, although a short stub out of Canandaigua to Holcomb remained in service until the ‘70s.

My siblings are all tub-thumping REPUBLICANS, and I’m not, so I’m reprehensible and stupid.

The “Messenger” (the “mighty Mezz”) is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired three years ago. Best job I ever had.

“Conrail” is a government amalgamation of east-coast railroads that went bankrupt pretty much at the same time as Penn-Central, a merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central. Conrail included other bankrupt east-coast railroads, like Erie-Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley; but eventually went private as it became more successful. Conrail has since been broken up, sold to CSX Transportation Industries (railroad) and Norfolk Southern railroad. CSX got mainly the old New York Central routes, and NS got the old PRR routes.

The “Auburn”-Road was the first railroad across the state into Rochester. It took a rather circuitous route, and is now partly abandoned. A more direct railroad was built east from Rochester to Syracuse, so the Auburn (via Auburn) became a detour bypass. The direct route became the mainline of the New York Central Railroad, but NYC also owned the Auburn. (The direct route is now CSX Transportation.) The Auburn served many small farming communities (including Canandaigua), but became moribund. What remains is now operated by independent shortline Finger Lakes Railway, but the line into Rochester is gone.

“‘Pyooter” is computer.

The “mighty Curve” (“Horseshoe Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.)

“Tom-Tom” is a brand of GPS navigation system.

“Buffalo St.” is the street in Canandaigua the mighty Mezz is on. Baker Park is also on it.

“Honeoye Falls” is small village we live near — about five miles away.