Map Collecting Newbie Here: Greetings From Raleigh & Charlotte!

[davidals]

I can't say precisely how exactly I came across this forum, but it's been awfully interesting looking around.

I've been a roadgeek since birth - roughly between the ages of 18 and 35 I played bass and electric guitar in a series of indie rock bands that went nowhere, professionally speaking - a coupla showcase gigs for major labels that went egad when we finished, a blurb in Billboard that got us one form letter from MCA (Music Cemetary of America) Records.  But I did have the opportunity to play with a handful of great groups, in the insular world of indie rock, and the opportunity to do quite a lot of traveling around was amazing beyond words.  I developed a marked preference for the non-interstate method of getting from A to B whenever time permitted, and have found beauty everywhere from rural West Virginia to the concrete canyons of Manhattan, watching the flying tail lights of yellow cabs from the stoop of a rock club in the East Village at 2 A.M.

Between rock & roll, and family (mom's family:  East Coast people, dad's family:  West Coast people) and friends I've seen both coasts in quite a bit of detail - lots and lots of amazing cities and very interesting small towns.  I have yet to see most of what lies in between.  It's on the list.

I was born and raised in Charlotte, spent 12 years living in Boone NC, up in the Appalachian part of the state (ferocious winters; unlike anything you will encounter elsewhere in NC), and moved to the greater Raleigh-Durham area in 1999.  Over the last few years I've been waging war against cancer, which has certainly put a dent in travel anywhere, both for health and financial reasons, but health-wise, it's looking like we're going to win the war.  So we'll call the health issues a detour, not a dead-end for sure.

With family on both coasts, I grew up familiar with Georgia-to-New York, and California and Washington, and started, when I was 12 or so (I am 43 now), buying a street map of every city I visited.  This started as a simple kid-looking-for-a-souvenir thing - I wasn't into snow globes or teddy bears with the words El Lay (plus a heart) on their polyester chest.  And before long, the collecting thing quickly went somewhat out of control; at this point I've amassed a collection of approximately 1000 street maps (mostly) of cities all over the US, dating from the 1920s to the present day, issued by dozens of publishers.  In a college-era move I lost about 400 or so  or that number would be higher.  There's a smattering of road maps (not so much of a focus), and very few road atlases from random years.  A few Canadian, Mexican, Japanese, and UK city street maps mixed in as well.  It's an odd hobby for sure, but I've never lost my enjoyment of it.  And when one has to stare down a serious illness, and endure things like chemotheraputic drugs made from obscure heavy metals, inventing a project to take one's mind off things - like cataloging it all - is rather useful in ways far beyond the obvious.

And that, perhaps, is what brought me here.

Other interests for those who might care to know:  kicking cancer's butt, international and classic movies (Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu are major heroes of mine), good global literature (Latin America, the Russians, China and Japan have yet to let me down), civil rights history (as a child, I had a neighbor who was one of the four students who launched the Feb 1960 Greensboro sit-ins and have a distant cousin who launched a career as a painter at the tail end of the Harlem Renaissance); and last but not least, music that other people find strange - discombobulated jazz, post punk noisy people, 70s one-hit-wonders, outlaw country, 60s garage bands from places like Peru and India, torch singers, Japanese indie rock...

[bugo]

What kind of guitars do you play?  I mostly play Fenders.  I just got a new Tele a couple of weeks ago.

[Takumi]

Welcome from the state just north of you. I visit NC fairly often, but most of my experience has been with the Triad (as you may be able to tell by my avatar), as my dad briefly lived in Greensboro about 10 years ago; and the Outer Banks, where I have family. Glad to have you here.

[CentralCAroadgeek]

Welcome from the Golden State of California! I see you live in NorCaro (my nickname for NC [Do you like it?]).

On a topic of license plates, the fact that NorCaro produced license plates in the "WTF" series just amuses me.

[davidals]

What kind of guitars do you play?  I mostly play Fenders.  I just got a new Tele a couple of weeks ago.

A tele, an Ibanez bass and a Fender bass.  I've been playing bass since I was 17, so I'm much better at that, but with guitar I've only been playing really since around 28 or 30, and totally self taught with that, so my 6-string abilities are more punk/noise, whereas I can do other things, like r&b and classic rock and some jazz on bass.

[davidals]

Welcome from the state just north of you. I visit NC fairly often, but most of my experience has been with the Triad (as you may be able to tell by my avatar), as my dad briefly lived in Greensboro about 10 years ago; and the Outer Banks, where I have family. Glad to have you here.

Not far at all.  I have friends in Richmond, so I've hung out there often over the years.  that city has certainly gone through a lot of transformations over the years.  To me it's always felt like as good of a cross between a "Northern" and a "southern" city as you're likely to find.

I know the Hampton Roads area well, and I went to college in Boone NC, which is close to Galax and Wytheville, and a couple hours or so from the Blacksburg area.

[davidals]

Welcome from the Golden State of California! I see you live in NorCaro (my nickname for NC [Do you like it?]).

On a topic of license plates, the fact that NorCaro produced license plates in the "WTF" series just amuses me.

Yep - a sign of sheer desperation methinks.  They keep running out of combinations, so the blue lettering was changed to red, and then back to blue.  But the biplane design is really getting old - they started phasing it in in 1982, so the only state that's gone longer than NC without a design change on the plates in Delaware.

I'm as patriotic as anyone, but since what - something like half the states have a red-white-blue combination of some kind on their plates, I think NC should switch the design up - go for a non-white background color, something like yellow, or a dark background with light-colored text.  Pine green (state tree - longleaf pine) and gold (the first gold discovery in the US, shortly after the Revolutionary War, in an area just east of Charlotte) are two colors with some symbolic history in the state - they maybe they should go that route.

[CentralCAroadgeek]

Welcome from the Golden State of California! I see you live in NorCaro (my nickname for NC [Do you like it?]).

On a topic of license plates, the fact that NorCaro produced license plates in the "WTF" series just amuses me.

Yep - a sign of sheer desperation methinks.  They keep running out of combinations, so the blue lettering was changed to red, and then back to blue.  But the biplane design is really getting old - they started phasing it in in 1982, so the only state that's gone longer than NC without a design change on the plates in Delaware.

I'm as patriotic as anyone, but since what - something like half the states have a red-white-blue combination of some kind on their plates, I think NC should switch the design up - go for a non-white background color, something like yellow, or a dark background with light-colored text.  Pine green (state tree - longleaf pine) and gold (the first gold discovery in the US, shortly after the Revolutionary War, in an area just east of Charlotte) are two colors with some symbolic history in the state - they maybe they should go that route.

I would try to draw up a design with your suggestion. Thanks!

[Takumi]

Not far at all.  I have friends in Richmond, so I've hung out there often over the years.  that city has certainly gone through a lot of transformations over the years.  To me it's always felt like as good of a cross between a "Northern" and a "southern" city as you're likely to find.

I agree with that assessment. I think its location is the transition point between north and south; once you get north of Richmond you start seeing characteristics of the northeast and vice versa. Interestingly, an ex-girlfriend who was originally from Washington state once said that it reminded her of a city in the Pacific Northwest, something I can definitely see now with the increasing number of hipsters there.

[bugo]

What kind of guitars do you play?  I mostly play Fenders.  I just got a new Tele a couple of weeks ago.

A tele, an Ibanez bass and a Fender bass.  I've been playing bass since I was 17, so I'm much better at that, but with guitar I've only been playing really since around 28 or 30, and totally self taught with that, so my 6-string abilities are more punk/noise, whereas I can do other things, like r&b and classic rock and some jazz on bass.

What kind of Tele?  I have a candy apple red Mexican Standard and a butterscotch blonde '80s Japanese '52 reissue.  I also have 4 Strats, 2 acoustics, a Fender Marauder, and an old Teisco from the '60s.

I've been playing about 20 years, but I'm not that good.  I'm sloppy and sometimes play out of time.  But it's fun and I still am trying to get better.

Here's a link to some pictures of my guitars.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/watuzi/sets/72157629543646673/