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1. It is a strange and disorienting experience to follow in a virtual manner one of the routes I take from office to house each day. The West Broad and North Robinson Street stretches seem to have been photographed toward dusk, perhaps on a weekend?

   I don’t see many people out on the sidewalks. The streets are deserted except for a few cars running with their headlights on.

   I register this emptiness when I’m enjoying my pedestrian pleasures. Why is it that I can saunter along several blocks and not see any one enjoying the bloom of spring on the bosky Fan streets?

   I am reminded of a blog some visiting Chinese students kept and a theme running through their observations was the lack of people in the streets–but compared to Shanghai, I guess Richmond would seem barren.

   Still, using this Google Maps view, I’m reminded of that “Omega Man” film with Heston, or maybe “28 Days Later.” Weird.

   A bicyclist here on Robinson, a woman talking on her cell phone near Floyd and Robinson, and on the street where I live, nary a soul stirring. Eerie — kind of like GoogleMaps itself.

   You can’t at a remove patrol Fan or Museum District alleyways, though, which is good–if nothing else for security reasons–but these are among the distinct aesthetic pleasures of living in these corners of R-town.

   I do wonder, though, if GoogleMaps will do this again in 10 years to reflect the changes in its chosen cities.

   — Harry | @