April 28, 2008
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Google Maps error causes me a bit of consternation
I arrived in Liberal, Kansas after dark, Googled the location of Wal-Mart where I hoped to spend the night, drove there - and found no Wal-Mart. It took a few minutes, but I found it lurking a few blocks over. I only recently started using Google Maps to locate businesses and now wonder how often this kind of thing happens.
Night camp:
Wal-Mart parking lot, Liberal, Kansas
More Toward Realism than Fantasy
I've always been drawn more toward realism than fantasy, because it seems to me that realism is endlessly interesting and finally indeterminable. Realism is a species of fantasy that's much more integrated and hard-core than fantasy itself, but if you are ready to come to grips with the inevitable slipperiness of most available facts, you come to recognize that realism is not a direct approach to the truth so much as it is the most concentrated form of fantasy.
Birds and Lions, Norman Mailer, the New Yorker, December 23 & 30, 2002