For the love of maps

When I was 10 years old, I asked Santa for the National Geographic Atlas of the World. Eighteen years later, maps still get me all excited. I bought these maps at an independent Seattle poster shop, and before hanging them up, I literally slept with them next to my bed for a few nights. Their existence is surprisingly comforting to me.

I haven't quite figured out The Psychology of Map Loving yet (warning, this is about to get super nerdy), but I think it has something to do with how they parcel and simplify something really complicated - space. They allow us to position ourselves within a geography that we can digest in one glance while simultaneously showing everywhere else we could be. Other hypotheses, please? I think that these maps are particularly wonderful because of their moderny graphics.

In the spirit of "positioning," in Manhattan, I lived in the neighborhoods of Inwood (on the tip top) and Hamilton Heights (West of Harlem). In Seattle, I live in Roosevelt, just North of the University District and East of Greenlake. (I think you can click on the maps to make them bigger.)

This printing company make maps of other interesting cities. But before you get trigger happy, be forewarned that if your city is represented, I might be sharing the joy and getting you one of these maps as a gift!

Oh, Elder Nuckols

My little brother Steven has been on a mission in Moscow, Russia for the past 5 months and is revealing his unique sense of humor in his letters home. Here are some of the highlights:

• On one of their investigators: "He is Emo, so he is a cutter. We figured the lesson would go something like this: 'So we don't drink, or smoke, and also we don't cut our wrists.'
• "The mullet is back!! 1 in every 5 guys has a mullet. There are some very, very dirty mullets going on here."
• On a 19-year-old investigator: "She would not stop flirting with every single one of us, and kept on taking pictures of us. She even started waving an American flag in the middle of the park!!!! As if people don't want to kill us already!"
• "We have been taking cold showers the last few days. It is horrible! I didn't know tap water could be that cold! I had an ice cream headache for a half an hour afterward. It seriously is beyond cold and hits deep into painful territory."
• "It was good to hear about Michael Jackson. McDonald's Play Places around the world are now safe."
  

On the MTC:

• "Some of our district ate an entire cereal hopper of fruit loops. We had to eat the 56 bowls of cereal in ten minutes before the workers refilled it. We felt sick and our rooves of our mouths were bleeding, but it was definitely worth it."
• "The only bread they gave us for sacrament this week was stale. Really stale. Literally rock hard. We had to use it, and it was funny to watch everyone's faces as they took the sacrament."
• On the man they talked to in the lobby: "About 30 seconds later, Elder Harrison and I looked at each other and said,'That was Donnie Osmand!' It was! It was super random, but awesome. He was probably offended that we didn't recognize him. He probably feels old. So I've seen Thurl Bailey and Donnie Osmand on my mission. At this rate, I will definitely run into Ivan Drago in Russia."