Trying to Make the Driving World a Little Less Annoying

Tag: geotagging

8 Mile Road

The story starts off in Italy back in May 1999. My friend Luca invited me to drive from Regensburg, Germany down to Genoa, Italy with him to visit some of his relatives there. I said sure, as long as we could swing by Maranello and visit the Ferrari factory (another mediocre story for another time). So armed with my little point and shoot camera, I started snapping pictures out the car window at the landscape.

Fast forward twenty-one years later to May 2020 and I’m locked down in a pandemic. I don’t bake bread or plant gardens, so I’m in my basement scanning film negatives instead. That’s when I re-discovered my pictures from Italy on that trip.

If I Had My Rutters

Years ago my sister told me what a “rutter” was after she had read James Clavell’s Shōgun. A rutter was what the pilots and navigators used as guides as they sailed around the world. Countries such as Portugal guarded these rutters (roteiros) as national secrets to prevent others from finding their trade routes.

Inspired by these rutters (but not by the colonialism that accompanied them), I decided to keep a roteiro for my own journeys. I think in old-timey English this translates to “trip logbook.”

Google Eyes

Sometimes I have too much time on my hands. This can be easily achieved by neglecting things like eating, sleeping and family. Generally this means I’m obsessing over something trivial. Such was the case last year when I virtually re-lived a vacation I took 15 years ago, thanks to Google.

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