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I love maps. No... I'm serious. I really, really love maps. They are beauty and order; adventure and mystery; art and information. They appeal to every aspect of my personality. I think that, for me at least, they are the one perfect medium, the perfect thing.

Now you all may not be as freaky about maps as I am, though I'm sure some of you make me look hesitant by comparison, but I do know this: you all love maps. If you didn't, you wouldn't be reading this, and you probably wouldn't ...

When I was a little kid, about six or seven, my sister and I were home after school and my mom was at work. It was a different world, so we thought at least, and leaving your kids home alone at base housing didn't seem like child abuse then the way it does now. Of course, neither did drinking or smoking while you were pregnant. Who knew?

So we were home and we decided to do one of those things that kids do that make you question the wisdom of letting them stay home alone at a tender ...

Some of you who've bothered to read my blogs have probably wondered what, if anything, they have to do with cartography. I admit that oftentimes, any relationship I could come up with would seem tenuous at best. That's a shame in some ways, because cartography itself is a subject spanning all nations and all of recorded history. It is art and literature, biology, geography, geology, business, finance, science, mythology, history, lore, fantasy... I am hard-put to find a single aspect of human experience ...

Tags: cartographersguild.net, redirtest.acx

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Finding time. It sounds like a pursuit requiring a geeky-looking metal detector and a blue plastic bucket, wandering up and down the beach in flip-flops and a straw hat. I actually have the hat, but my metal detector is in the shop... meaning I haven't bought it yet.

I wish it were that easy, because I could use more of it. Between kids and softball and wives (present and ex) and the job and college and the weekly Pathfinder game and reading, it's a wonder I find time without a metal ...

When I was a teenager, I could have listed any number of desirable qualities in a person. In fact, I'm sure I did. Exhaustively. To anyone who would listen. One of those qualities was probably not "reliable" however. There were plenty of adjectives like "imaginative", "original" and "you've got to haggle", but "reliable" would have been reliably missing.

Now that I have surprisingly survived to the ancient age of seven-and-forty, I see things a bit differently. Part of wisdom is learning ...