d-burgs finest

Oh my frickin' God did I find.. well.. the best frickin' stomping grounds web page ever.

Seriously.

Before I tell you more I've got to mention how I found it first. You'll get a good laugh out of this.

I was my modifying a POI database for my GPS (as I mentioned in a previous post) and was trying to put every location in there that I could remember from where I grew up.

There is a local crappy theater at the stomping grounds called Killingly Cinemas 3. It has changed ownership about 10,000 times and been renamed to something else each time. But no matter how many times it changes it will always be the Killingly Cinemas 3.

The KC3 literally does not have a physical address in Google Earth. Or Google Maps. Or even my GPS. But the building is still there, physically exists (obviously) and still operates as a movie theater as far as I know.

But I was thinking OH COME ON.. this has got to be listed somewhere!

So I did a Google search..

..and I found a MySpace page called D-Burgs Finest. It had KC3 listed in its description which it why it showed up in a 'net search.

I pray this MySpace page stays up forever. It is.. just.. one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

The author of the page chooses to remain anonymous.

WISE CHOICE.. hehe 🙂 I'm sure there are more than a few locals that want to kick that guy's ass for saying the bitter truth about the stomping grounds, but I personally find it hilarious because it's all 100% true.

All of it.

"D-Burg"?

D-Burg is slang for the Danielson Burroughs. You only know what this means if you live(d) there. If not, don't ask. The way towns, burroughs and villages (yes, villages) are defined there is just messed up.

This is evidently a new term to describe the area because no one I knew called it that when I was living there.

Dr. Finest

The guy (I assume it's a guy) that runs the site is a smart dude. Moreover he's an idiot but in the best possible way. He basically operates the same way I do, that being "I'm nice to you until you cross me, then you're a piece of crap as far as I'm concerned". That is classic D-Burg attitude.

"D&Z Soda King forever"

This phrase is mentioned on that page. It's a small convenience store in a "busy" intersection of Brooklyn. Before I left the area it still had creaky wooden floors and the place looked like it would just implode at any moment. It's not called D&Z anymore but something else.

Maybe it has those same creaky sunken wooden floors still? I have no idea.

From the author himself:

A quote from the description:

You may not be in D-Burg anymore, and you may never be coming back. Some are here and never going away, but I would like to think regardless of your current state that there is a little bit of D-Burgs Finest in all of us.

Generally speaking there are only two kinds of folks up that way. Those that stay forever and those that leave and never return.

I'm going to make it a point to drive thru the area when I go on my leaf-peeper trip that will hopefully happen next October. Even though I know the area sucks and I know it will never change.. experiencing the sucky-ness is just something you can't pass up.

It makes you feel just that much happier when you leave. 🙂

080129

Garmin POI 50-waypoint limit workarounds

Recently I had to create a POI file that had close to 200 waypoints in it. For those that are interested, it's a POI database that has all Tampa Parks, Rec Centers, Playgrounds, Beach Parks and anything else in Tampa that's officially listed as a park. I made the database because I'm a photo bug and outdoor scenery is usually at its best in a park.

So anyway I get my database all set up and ready to rock. I use the Garmin POI Loader to send to my StreetPilot c580. Everything goes fine.

I fire up the c580 to inspect all my newly uploaded POIs.

Only 50 of them show up.

Huh?

I was confused.

After I did some quick research, this is what I found out:

If you upload a POI with more than 50 waypoints in it, only the first 50 closest to your current location will show up. All the waypoints are in there; none of them got missed.

So how do you find the ones that don't show up?

You can do this in one of three ways.

1. Open the POI category and tap "Spell"

Spell out the name of the waypoint and it will appear. You can then tap it and go.

For example, several Tampa Parks have the word Springs in it. I just spell out the word and the StreetPilot finds all the waypoints in the POI db with that word in it - just like Favorites.

Like this (I typed in "spr" for spring and the list popped up):

2. Choose "A Different City" before going to the POI db

My Tampa Parks database only covers one city (obviously). But if they covered multiple cities I could choose a different one to find locations in the POI db near somewhere else.

Like this:

3. Break up the POI db into smaller db's of not more than 50 waypoints each

This is what I ultimately decided to do for fastest access. I broke up the large db into smaller ones based on alphabetical title order.

Like this:

I also left in the single big POI db as a separate category just in case I needed it for whatever reason.

Have POI db's of not more than 50 waypoints will ensure all will show up whenever you bring up the waypoint list.

. . .

POI db's in the future are going to be easier to manage, but at the present time this is still a very new thing and yes there are limitations; GPS enthusiasts like myself find workarounds for this stuff.

But make no mistake, it's nothing short of super-cool that the ability exists to trade waypoints as POI db's, even for GPS units not made by Garmin, with relative ease.

080128

for future reference

I programmed something into my GPS that I don't know why I didn't do sooner. That something was a POI list of all the old places I remember from the stomping grounds.

The most interesting thing out of the experience was the realization that I never knew what the physical addresses were for either of my grandparents' houses.

I had been to both countless times but I never knew the exact address for either. Mom (R.I.P.) always took care of stuff like sending Christmas cards and so on, so I never needed the information. In the times that I drove to these places I did it by memory and never paid attention to the street signs. Why would I if I already knew how to get there?

But this was close to a decade before GPS back then.

Being that I'll possibly be heading to the stomping grounds for a visit come next autumn, I hatched the idea came about I should set these locations now in the GPS while I still remember them.

Now you may be wondering:

Okay Rich, if you never knew the physical addresses of the locations, how in the blazes are you going to program them in a GPS?

I'll answer that in a moment.

One would think that knowing your way around a place is like riding a bicycle, i.e. you never forget.

This only applies if you still live in the same place.

If you're far away from where you grew up (as I am), memories fade. In addition to that, the place where you were changes. Maybe a new road or two is built along with some new houses, while other buildings are torn down and so on. Things change.

All non-GPS users drive by sight alone. You may read street signs here and there but it's most likely true that you go to most places "on automatic".

You know you're on automatic when you drive somewhere and absolutely cannot remember any of the trip. Your brain goes into a highway hypnosis state and seemingly blanks out during the journey, only to "wake up" again when you arrive at wherever you went.

And I'm sure you or someone you know has said "I can't tell you how to get there but I can drive there easily" or something to that effect. That's also going on automatic.

But I digress.

Even though I'm not at the stomping grounds anymore I still remember driving to specific places and what to look for to get where I needed to go.

So what could I use as a visual reference?

Google Earth.

I plotted in my old house address and virtually "drove" using the way I knew to get to my grandparents' houses. And ta-da, I found the houses I was looking for. I then marked the locations, copied the coordinate information into my mapping program, made my POI thing and transferred to my GPS.

Pretty cool, eh?

I thought it was.

I was able to mark the places I one knew via Google Earth and then put those in the GPS. Now whenever I want to go there, I can just tap the screen on the unit and away I go...

...even if the landscape changes a little or a lot. 🙂

080126