An Epic Journey West, and Back Again

A week ago I returned from a month-long road trip, whose primary purpose was to bring my friend Rachman and I to the Burning Man festival in Nevada, but whose secondary purpose was to see as much of the country and friends as possible along the way. Therefore, we chose a Northern route outbound, and a Southern route inbound, not necessarily the most efficient but certainly the most interesting. I had only been "Out West" once with my family when I was much younger, in an RV we affectionately called by its brand name Lindy. Seeing some of these sights for the second time with adult eyes was very rewarding, and seeing plenty of new ones as well. We toted our laptops, an mp3 player loaded with audiobooks and hour-long mixes from our favorite artists, a very handy GPS, and one printed guidebook. Our unplanned stops involved coffee, WiFi, restroom breaks, and tips from the local business owners. Our planned stops are mapped out below!

The route out...

View The Road to Burning Man in a larger map

The route home...

View Roadtrip Back to New Jersey in a larger map

In total, we drove about 7,156 mi, or about 5 days 2 hours (over a 4-week period). Our longest nonstop leg was roughly 18 hours, when we *ahem - Rachman* decided to forego Salt Lake City, UT and get right to Reno, NV where friends were waiting. He took the wheel overnight and we got to Reno at about 10 am on Thursday before Burning Man, leaving us plenty of time to explore Lake Tahoe, "float the river," and purchase camping supplies from the local Walmart. It was certainly the experience of a lifetime but, with any luck, I'll have another one soon!

Around the World in 10 Days

I didn't actually get to post about my trip to the Dominican Republic in August but I have another adventure to write about now. I had planned a three-day-weekend trip to San Francisco since I've always wanted to visit California, and then got assigned to a project abroad for work shortly thereafter. I somehow managed to fit both endeavors in to a small window of time and enjoyed every moment. The amount of planes I have taken in the past 10 days is just ridiculous though! I will try to post some pictures later if I have the chance, but for now I am very jet lagged and must get ready for a new week on the job...

View Around the World in 10 Days in a larger map

illy near Philly

Starting to miss Rome a bit as I realize I have to start this new semester in Philly on Tuesday. It's almost like I feel I should be going back abroad instead. Gosh I have done so much moving around in these past few years. I've had 5 semi-permanent homes in 2 different states and 2 different countries, and even had to speak 2 different languages, over the course of 3 years.

What will I do without my espresso every morning?

Which, by the way, I just ran out of. Time to find a US-based Italian espresso producer! Luckily I was able to get these locations for illy near Philly:

1. 
   WHOLE FOODS-PENN. AVE 2001 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE PHILADELPHIA,PA 19130 Distance: 1.79 miles
2. 
   WILLIAMS-SONOMA, INC. 200 S. BROAD STREET PHILADELPHIA, PA 19102 Distance: 2.45 miles
3. 
   KITCHEN KAPERS 213 SOUTH 17TH STREET PHILADELPHIA,PA 19103 Distance: 2.49 miles

Thank goodness I will still be able to get my morning espresso boost, even if I can't enjoy it in my red-and-white cucina italiana.

Internship Project

So I'm working on a marketing plan for my internship, which I am finally able to get back to now that summer classes and my birthday are over. By the way the party was a great time and I am soooo happy to have a social life again now that I am 21! Haha. Anyway I'm working on identifying the target market for Tri-State's future marketing efforts based on a bunch of membership data in an Excel spreadsheet. I wanted to post the Google map I made to see if it works, and looks like it does! This shows all the current member locations (zip codes, not exact addresses):

My marketing plan is gonna be hot hot hot. Gotta love Google!

Come to think of it, this automatically-generated map saves a lottt of time compared to when I had to make a Photoshop version to update the marketing materials for my internship at Vollmer a few years back. Even though it took me a while to enter in all the data for the cities and zipcodes on Google, you can always add or delete points easily and the map is totally interactive. If we had a database with exact office addresses, there is even a tool to turn the Excel spreadsheet right into a format Google can recognize. It didn't work with just the zipcodes but imagine the possibilities... what if people wanted to upload their own office information to the Tri-State map, so others could easily find them? Their privacy might be kaput but hey, who needs privacy anymore... read my entry "I See Hooters" for more.

I See Hooters

In trying to find the location of the Bensalem Hooters for a roommate dinner we are planning for tonight, I came across this interesting new technology... "Bird's Eye View" of the map, an improvement on the aerial maps now used by Google and MapQuest. An even more interestingly is the fact that this map was on Windows Live Search, which I was using by accident through the toolbar at the Tech Center, thinking it was Google. Imagine that - a Microsoft product beating out Google in technology? I had to investigate. Here is the bird's eye view from "Microsoft Virtual Earth." If you zoom in, you can even see the Hooters sign!

So of course I had to go to Google and see if maybe I was missing something in the mapping world. Apparently I was... but a different technology called "Street View." Different from Birds Eye View? Let's see.

There it is, in all its wonderful glory. The only problem with Street view is that it's harder to navigate, these funny yellow lines are always following the road, it's slightly counter-intuitive, and it's VERY limited. Mostly major cities and some major highways. My area in NJ had none although I explored 287 a bit to see if I would get hit by a virtual car. Somehow Google doesn't let that happen - your lane changes or the car does, it's kind of weird technologically speaking. Nevermind philosophically speaking. This bring up some new Second-Life-esque issues. Even creepier, I found this image near Temple...

Note the Temple vs. Navy banner, which from my deductive reasoning tells me this must be sometime in August. Which also explains why the campus isn't poppin. I wonder who that guy is, and if he knows that he is now online for all the world to see, because at that very instant he happened to begin crossing the street and a satellite somewhere was taking his picture. Is someone watching me.... or you?

When aerial images first came out, it was cool to see a mini-pic of your house, your neighborhood, your friend's house. Your enemy's house, even? Now it's like, "aerial" images are not enough. We have to have "bird's eye" or even "street" view. Of course. So here is my hood:

Let the creepiness continue!

A real bird's eye view...

© Astra Ravenscroft Used with permission.