Entries this day: Laundry_day Plan_for_navigation Test_mapbuilder_code

Laundry day

6:23pm IST Sunday 13 November 2005

Suzanne asked if anyone had a bit of laundry to add to her bit of laundry. Ben and I put our laundry together and came up with a full load, and I offered to walk with Suzanne to the laundry place in the old city. I couldn't bear to imagine letting her do my laundry for me; I don't know her well enough for all that.

Turns out the laundry place is Mike's Center, where Rochelle and Serena went for internet access. It's a convenience/service center: laundry, drinks, internet, international calls, optical mice and computer keyboards, and taxi service to Ben Gurion Airport for 50 NIS per person.

We dropped off our loads and headed toward Jaffa Gate and arced around to the outskirts of the old city, and found half a tunnel, while I fabricated a story of how I met Francois. We came out the other side near Zion Gate, headed down into the valley of the Mount of Olives, walked down into the East Jerusalem Palestinian slum of a neighborhood and then back up toward old city, back into Zion Gate, and to her favorite sunset watching area.

It was filled with teens and the opposite of quiet, so we walked a randomish direction and ended up on the rooftops that would make an awesome yet rough skate park terrain that had all variety of obstacles from walls and rooftops to benches and playground equipment. We discovered a white cat with one blue eye and one green eye and discovered ourselves on top of where we had been previously on the way to Jaffa Gate after Mike's Center, but with no way to get down.

Backtracked until we found some steps off the rooftops and walked to a restaurant she knew where she treated me to a lovely dinner of falafels and pitas and several sauces during which time I conceived a plan for navigation on my website for geocoding pictures and journal entries.

At the bottom of the restaurant building were two postcard racks with old postcards, many of which seemed dusty and warped with age. I had been tempted to grab one on the way up the stairs, and was tempted again on the way down. I chose one conveniently located by my hand with the intention of letting the card tell me if I could have it.

                Mount of Temptation

it read. Fair enough; I put it in my pocket.

Headed back to Mike's Center and found her laundry done and she paid. I gave him 100 NIS note to pay for mine, but he was like, "slow down; it isn't ready yet; wait until it's finished." and we checked the load in the dryer, but it was still a bit damp, so Suzanne and I shared stories for about 20 minutes and then I checked again. They were fine, so we put Ben's into a bag and mine into my laundry bag and Ben's bag into my laundry bag and headed out.

Without paying.

I noticed soon thereafter, but didn't say anything and accepted the gift as a blessing. Told Ben about the good fortune and he said I could have gotten 22.5 NIS from him and made money overall. Yes; that's true, but no.

Plan for navigation

6:55pm IST Sunday 13 November 2005

Given a journal entry or image, have "where" link associated with it. Clicking the link brings up a map with a flag indicating the location. And there may be other flags depending on the size/scale of the map... clicking a flag on the map can bring up a list of entries or images (not sure how to decide which or combine the results) based on location.

Now, granted, this is very close to what geoblogger does, but
1) I came up with it myself
2) I plan to not crowd the map with flags: if there are 500 images / entries for a region, just have one flag.
3) I have a sense of how it will work.

Test mapbuilder code