It's cruel to mock the stupid
Feb. 19th, 2008 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumWhich is why I am not linking to this, but it's an amazing moment of WTF!?!, and I can't keep it to myself (I'm not always the nicest of people).
Today I’m on a flight to San Jose, CA. Well, two flights. Couldn’t find a direct flight.
It was yesterday that I discovered LA and SF were not in the same location… See, I don’t know CA very well and I’m actually headed to Palo Alto. So I mistakenly assumed that LA was pretty much right there, too.
I think the confusion came from last time I was in CA, I flew into SF and out of Oakland, so I had this impression of all the cities being close to each other.
I'm croggled. Not so much that a grown man, and an american citizen, might not know LA and SF are 400 miles apart from each other, but that he would look at a state the size of California, and assume all the metropli are adjacent because two of them were so colocated the last time he was here.
That's the first bit.
The second is that he admits it, with a sense of blasé delivery which implies he thinks this a reasonable mistake to make.
Today I’m on a flight to San Jose, CA. Well, two flights. Couldn’t find a direct flight.
It was yesterday that I discovered LA and SF were not in the same location… See, I don’t know CA very well and I’m actually headed to Palo Alto. So I mistakenly assumed that LA was pretty much right there, too.
I think the confusion came from last time I was in CA, I flew into SF and out of Oakland, so I had this impression of all the cities being close to each other.
I'm croggled. Not so much that a grown man, and an american citizen, might not know LA and SF are 400 miles apart from each other, but that he would look at a state the size of California, and assume all the metropli are adjacent because two of them were so colocated the last time he was here.
That's the first bit.
The second is that he admits it, with a sense of blasé delivery which implies he thinks this a reasonable mistake to make.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-20 02:15 pm (UTC)One of my first things I get when hitting the ground in a new city or place is a map. Whether it's a big map of the state, or a small map of where things are near my hotel, I must have that map. I then 'imprint' it on my mind, and become 'lost-proof'. This was a real asset when I was stationed in Germany, and we went on deployments to the boonies. My crewmates used to fight over who would get me as 'shotgun' because I didn't get lost. I simply must know where I am, in relationship to everything else. This is my form of 'situational awareness', which has kept me safe and out of trouble and Not Lost for my entire adult life.
Living overseas as both a child and an adult instilled in me the desire to know where I was, and where it was in relation to everything else. I was- and still am- pretty well able to pick out places on a map, and I love maps. I can pore over them for hours. I can tell you that it is not a good idea to land in Knoxville and decide to rent a car to go to Memphis, unless you want to drive for five hours. Or that it's faster to fly to Dallas from Little Rock rather than drive. Or that it'll take you two days to get to Santa Fe from Little Rock- if the weather holds.
It's all about attention and awareness. Maybe the person mentioned in the OP had too much else on his or her mind. Or didn't have someone to correct his or her error in planning. But I'll bet that he or she won't make that mistake again!