I navigate by the Pacific Ocean.

Ever since I moved to LA, I've always known what direction I was facing by my orientation to the Pacific Ocean.

And it still works here in Michigan.

Which weirds some of my friends right out.

When I'm on the West Coast the ocean feels like its on the wrong side. I realize this sounds insane, but it really really does.

Imagine my disorientation living in Spain with the Atlantic ocean to my left instead of the Pacific. My sense of direction was totally discombobulated for a while.

I know I prefer living near water. I think I could be quite happy living near mountains, without water (such as the Denver area.) I loved living in San Diego because the beach and the mountains were nearly equidistant to most of the 'burbs I lived in. I could have 65-70 and sunny on the beach or 35 and snowy in the mountains, at the same time. Turn left or turn right, nothing more than an hour drive to either.

I never know which direction I am heading. We're not built on a grid, so it does not matter.

Also, I am on a peninsula, and an never anymore than a couple of kilometers from water.

Chicago is a very griddy city, so finding your way around is easy....

Chicago is a very griddy city, so finding your way around is easy....

Miami's the same way. Jacksonville, NSM. And it's so damned sprawly. The only thing that really helps with Jax is to know where you are with respect to the St. John's River.

Fans mob BBC news reporter Steve Parry, thinking he is Michael Phelps. Funniest Olympic moment I've seen so far!

When I first moved to Los Angeles, I lived in the Valley, which is an especially griddy part of the city. It made it very easy to get around, *except* when I would have to go somewhere in Burbank. When the grid hits the Burbank city limits, everything takes a 45 degree twist. There were several times that I would hit Burbank, get horribly turned around, and find myself in Silver Lake or Glendale when I got out.

OMG, I'm going to kill somebody. I have to send a proposal to the feds by 4pm, but I just realized I have to download a program in order to do it, and of course the install doesn't work, and then tech support was completely unhelpful. Turns out, I had called the wrong tech support, but I don't know why she didn't just say that in the first place!

Whatever, I'm STILL pissed about that when I come out of a downtown subway stop that's not my usual.

You're right, dammit, we're New Yorkers and should be pissy about this.

I went to a club in Soho and when I tried to give a friend directions to meet me there I had NO IDEA if I had walked uptown or downtown from the subway. I felt like a tourist. Fuckin' Al Qaida.

I grew up with the Atlantic Ocean, it is deffinately like breathing to me. The Gulf of Mexico never seemed like it was on the wrong side since they are so different from one another.

I also grew up in the woods.

My mountains are the rolling Appalachains, but the Andes and the Rockies and the Alps felt like home as soon as I saw each of them.

I live right by the Hudson and make sure I cast my eyes on it every day -- its easy to just see the bridge and I want to remember the big hunk of nature wrapped around my city. Sometimes during storms I'll taste sea water or I'll pass road work and see seashells and remember that the Atlantic and the Hudson are very much merged.

Portland confused me a little becuase I felt like I should be near the ocean but it was very far away.

I thought I would hate the desert but I was so wrong. I've only been there once but sometimes I'll pine for it.

Imagine my disorientation living in Spain with the Atlantic ocean to my left instead of the Pacific. My sense of direction was totally discombobulated for a while.

When I was in France I just pretended it was the Pacific, but I only had to delude myself for a couple of days.

Tech ~ma to Jesse...

(And a cluesticking for the techsupport idjit)