getmygoat

Hop on over to Google Maps and type in your address.  Do you see the little arrow pointing at your house with an information box next to it?  I’ve never paid much attention to it, but I see that I can get directions to and from my house, save it to my maps, and search other nearby locations.  Do you also see the picture in the upper right corner of the box?  I noticed this feature today; I do not know how long it’s been there.

If you click on the picture, it shows you your location.  In the particular instance of my house, Google Maps is wrong, and the picture is of an empty, wooded lot one quarter mile east of my house.  But if I use that nifty panoramic tool, I can “walk” west on my street until I am in front of my house (about a year ago, based on the vehicles in the front yard).

I have mixed feelings about this.  It’s a good idea to have a picture of your final location so you know what to look for while you’re driving - a moot point in the case of my residence, since the marker tag is wrong.  I also think it’s really neat that I can move the viewpoint around in the picture to see what other landmarks are nearby.  On the other hand, I’m somewhat freaked out at the prospect of having photographs of my house on the internet, specifically photographs that I did not consent to publish.  I suppose it’s nothing new; I remember looking at satellite images of my house on Terraserver years before I’d ever even heard of Google Earth.  I’ll also admit that I find consolation in the fact that these are old pictures, not real-time footage of my front yard.  I won’t get too paranoid about people watching me, but I must convey the shock involved in finding public pictures of my dwelling that I didn’t even know existed.

I am also curious about the process of taking all these pictures.  How long did it take for Google to send people around even the most rural areas to take these in-depth photographs?  And what types of technology did they use to create this resource?  How frequently does Google intend to update this footage?  Keeping in mind that nothing can be completely good or bad, how do you feel about having your residence online for all to see?

I’m really curious about what others have to say about this, so please tell the goat what you think.  Also, I’m curious about how accurate - or not - Google Maps really is, so let me know if you actually see your house or just an unpopulated wooded setting like I did.

Once again, my quiet little Podunk town of Milton, Florida is making headlines with death and disaster. Or is it?

Sunday night around 10 PM I received a panicked telephone call from a friend. Since downtown Milton was finished burning down (there was a flare-up on Thursday morning, but there’s really nothing left to burn at this point), I wondered what the latest problem could be. She asked me if I could hear low-flying aircraft. Of course I could - I live near a military flight training base - but they did indeed seem lower than usual.

We checked with our various local sources (including but not limited to police dispatchers, friends who work on the aforementioned military base, and the local news) to discover that a plane had in fact gone down, and our locally stationed service people were looking for the pilot. Apparently two military planes had seen the other aircraft (originally presumed to be a U. S. Customs or Border Control plane) go down, but the pilot had not been located.

Two days later, the story has national coverage. [I tried to embed the video coverage here, but for some reason I just can’t get it together.]

I’m sure that most moral and ethical codes bear some objection to faking one’s death to avoid debt, then attempt suicide several days later, but I’m not going to touch that issue today. Whether or not there is any redemption after suicide is too big a question for the goat and I, so we’ll stick to what we know.

We know that the pilot, Marcus Schrenker, displayed a gross disregard for human life and property when he quite selfishly crashed a plane in my rural town. Sure, he chose a “safe” marshy area as his crash pad, but he didn’t know when he bailed out of that plane whether or not my fellow Miltonians would be out enjoying a late night boat ride or some other foolishness that does NOT warrant a death sentence. In the end, no one was hurt, but I can imagine there was plenty of jet fuel spilled in the Blackwater River. And I know for a fact that he wasted the time not only of the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Department, but also that of the pilots who rushed to the scene to escort his plane out of an emergency that didn’t exist. Waste frustrates me, and Mr. Schrenker acted very selfishly when he destroyed a small patch of East Milton to run away from his problems in Indiana.

I come from a small town in Northwest Florida. You’ve probably never heard of Milton; you’re more familiar with tourist towns like Panama City, Destin, and Pensacola. Milton is an hour or so west of Destin and half an hour east from Pensacola. It’s a relatively quiet, rural town with lots of Baptist churches and goat fields. I’ve lived here most of my life.

As a young person I struggle with my relationship to my home town. I left to go to college, but after I obtained my degree I moved back. Now I’m working on another degree, and I’m sure I’ll move again. But as certain as I am that I’ll leave the area, I know I will come back again and again. As stifling as it is, I just can’t stay away.

One source of my pride in Milton comes from its rich history. While many of the things that have happened here are unpleasant (slave ownership and stripping of natural resources leap to mind), the journey is important, and there is much to be learned from one’s history.

Milton has burned down at least three times. One fire started at the mills. The Great Fire of 1909 (we’re just weeks away from its anniversary) started in a local church. The most recent one happened last night, in the historical district. It started shortly before 7 PM, and the high winds outside whipped it into a frenzy. The fire fighters managed to save the Imogene Theater, for the most part (it may not be structurally sound after all the water damage from containing the fire). Several lawyers lost their offices, and the Professional Mall building across from the courthouse is completely destroyed. Mercifully the only injury was a fireman’s heat exhaustion, and he is expected to recover in due time.

Fire is a thorough and devastating force. It’s tragic that it consumed the most delightful part of my town, especially in the midst of the recent revival in the area. But we can rebuild the buildings that are gone. And hopefully the Imogene (formerly the Milton Opera House, established in 1912 for vaudeville acts) will withstand this disaster with minimal refurbishment.

What really gets my goat is not the fire, but the reaction to it. It’s bad enough that the ghouls all crawled out of the woodwork to watch the flames and take pictures as a hundred years of history went up in smoke. Morbidity sickens me, but it’s not the first time I’ve seen it. No, the people who say that the fire was a good thing are the ones who upset me the most. Someone actually sent in an electronic editorial to the Pensacola News Journal saying that it’s about time we knocked down those old buildings so we could widen the highway.

Yes, these historical buildings abut a two-lane street, and yes, during rush hour, things get kind of slow there. This is a small town, and braving a little traffic, honestly, is a lot less important to me than maintaining a point of pride in Milton. I love the little restaurants and shops downtown, and I love that they can exist inside the brick buildings that stood here one hundred years ago. Four-lanes of traffic aren’t nearly as picturesque.

The fire fighters and the storm last night managed to subdue the fire. That part is over. All that is left now is to side-step the naysayers and rebuild, restore, refurbish, and move on. If you need us, the goat and I will be downtown with hammers.

This year for Christmas I received a PedEgg in my stocking (foot products in a foot-shaped container - genius, I know). I’ve seen the ads on television, and as a woman looking to maintain sandal-worthy feet, I had to try it. Now I have, and I figured I should pass on my new PedEgg knowledge to others interested in this product.

I find that it works best to sand down one’s heels, but it was too abrasive to use on the balls of my feet. I ended up with sensitive spots near my toes, but the Egg did wonders on my heels. This could be a personal thing, but I suspect that the closeness of the bones to the skin on the balls of my feet contributed to how quickly I ended up in the Pedicure Danger Zone.

I also noticed that the waste does not stay inside the egg as well as it appears to on television; it really is a good idea to put a towel under your feet or something before you start. Again, it appears to work better on the heels; the angle for using it on the heel allows the foot waste to fall into the egg better than the angles one would use while sanding other parts of the foot.

All in all, I’d say the PedEgg is a good product, and I will continue to use mine for a very long time. I would rate it 8.5 out of 10 because it wasn’t quite what the advertisement said it would be, but it also transformed my feet with relatively little effort. After a few more uses I’ll be ready for warm weather and sandals.

My goat would like me to note here that the PedEgg does not work on hooves.