I've always called it "map brain," and am fascinated to watch people who don't have that ability.
For example, my husband has been to the library and he has been to the grocery store. From home, he can get to either without any trouble. But if he's at the grocery store and needs to go to the library? He'll need to go home first. He just can't visualize the steps if it's a new path. He's a brilliant guy, but he has a foggy brain map.
I'm pretty much the opposite, but what I love about GPS is that they'll tell you which lane is optimal for the next exit. If it's a new route, that's super helpful.
That would be ideal. I've also seen a few with weirdly discrete foot pedals. I like that idea, although the ones I've encountered haven't exactly nailed the design.
I unintentionally pissed off a bully during a floor hockey match in high school PE class. Long story, but I did something to make her angry - still no idea what it was - and in that moment she was screaming at me to apologize. I just recall her screaming "SORRY!!! SORRY!!!" at me during a game.
I didn't realize I had done anything wrong. I was definitely not trying to be competitive or aggressive at a PE game, so WTF? But apparently, "It's OK. Apology accepted" was not the answer she wanted. She lost her shit and I gained an enemy for the rest of senior year.
Fortunately - and this is the good outcome - she was the most incompetent bully I've ever encountered. Sure, she was mad AF and willing to hold a grudge in the way that only 17 year-old girls can do. But I had emerged from a hot crucible of actual fucking competent bullies years before this.
I was captain of the fucking Math Team, bitch. You think calling me "Nerd" is going to hit? Hell no. I own that.
Years earlier, I fought two of my former besties on a snow covered hill in the local park and my only regret was that I was wearing mittens that mitigated the damage to their faces. I'd do that again if I had to.
Point being - she couldn't do me any harm. Laughing at her made her madder. That was the best part.
tl/dr: I accepted an apology from someone who wanted me to apologize to her, and I gained the most incompetent bully ever. It added some needed comedic relief to me and my friends during a stressful final year of high school.
This advice always gets downvoted, but it works for me. I'll offer it for what it is.
When I lose something I'll take a moment and politely ask the thieving house elves to give it back. Then I stop thinking or stressing about it. I usually find it within a day.
Sure. Late '80s. It was pitch back, triangular, small, slow, and quiet. My mother was driving and we were on our way to an astronomy meeting. Which is to humble-brag that we had both spent a fair amount of time staring at the night sky and could identify most aircraft/stars/planets/meteors etc.
It moved in a truly bizarre fashion.
I think I noticed it first because it was a super slow set of lights. Our car was going about 45 mph and we seemed to be outpacing it easily on a parallel path. I could see trees on the edge of a farmer's field and it was lower than the tops of the trees. That was the point of reference. It was absolutely out of the ordinary. Although we were outpacing it, my mom made a wrong turn at the next intersection. It was actually fortuitous because this put is directly in the flight path and I was super curious to ID it.
When my mom saw it I just remember her saying over and over - "ArtieShaw? ArtieShaw, what is that? What is that???"
When I realized that she was equally weirded out, one of us clicked off the car radio and one of us lowered the windows. That's when we realized that it wasn't just quiet, but completely silent and flying maybe 25 feet above the ground. There were lights on it, but they didn't illuminate the aircraft at all.
After passing under it, she needed to re-route the car. And the next bit is probably the part the freaked me out the most. It followed us.
I was able to keep eyes on it for the entire time because I wasn't driving. In fact, I was partially out the window of the passenger seat. When we got back to the main road, she pulled over in the dirt lot of a farmer's market stand on the corner.
It flew over us again and we agreed that we couldn't see more detail beyond "small, unbelievably black triangle." She got her shit together well enough to drive, and we went on to the astronomy meet.
The amateur astronomer friends were very skeptical about what we saw. And we were clearly rattled, so they were kind about trying to provide rational explanations. I remember drawing a diagram of the shape in the dirt with my generic Keds sneakers. But as the night wore on, many of them shared similar stories. The one I remember best is from a person who was camping in the inter-mountain desert who saw the exact same object, but that it was so large that it blotted out a good portion of the sky. They also claimed to have chased it for about an hour.
I heard a version of this sentiment in 2016. I was sitting near a well-dressed elderly couple at the regional airport. The woman was on her phone, explaining her support for Trump. I'll paraphrase.
"He knows so many rich people! He'll appoint them to the government, and they won't steal from it because they've already got so much money they won't want to."
I disagree with that statement for so many reasons, but that's what she expressed. This opinion was boggling enough at the time that it stuck with me almost ten years later.
Right? I recently read a book by an author who appeared to be confused to the point of paranoia by how many of the 1960s rock musicians from California (Topanga Canyon scene) were from wealthy or politically connected families.
Although it started out pretty entertaining, I didn't make it all the way to the end of the book. I mean - has he never met that type of kid? There's no conspiracy beyond wealth and connections. Banal to the point of boredom.
It's honestly not that bad, assuming the power doesn't go out. Or that it's not followed up by freezing rain.
No one goes to work or school for a couple of days. People usually stock up on essentials in the days before the storm. (Milk, bread, butter, eggs... the old joke is that everyone has a sudden urge to eat French Toast.)
Plows usually start early, while the snow is still falling. Plow and salt crews work night and day. They're on call (and paid a stipend) during winter for this exact reason. The main streets are prioritized. Residential streets are going to wait a couple of days before they're clear. With nothing else to do, the adults start digging themselves out and helping their neighbors dig out. It's a hell of a workout and a good reason to check on elderly neighbors.
Basically, you wake up, say "fuck this shit," call in (or not, because your boss isn't at work), and go back to sleep for another few hours. Then you start digging.
A city that doesn't get that much snow can get overwhelmed, though. Mayor Mel famously called in the military to clear snow from Toronto back in 1998-ish. That was only a meter, but the city didn't have the resources to clear it - or more importantly - any free space to put it.
Buffalo though? Buffalo has their snow systems down.
Pretty much. Buffalo routinely gets hosed by blizzard conditions that don't usually affect the cities on the northern side of the same lake (Toronto, Mississauga, etc). It's feature of being on the south side of one of the Great Lakes.
I remember hearing about one year where Buffalo got 6 feet overnight, or some other complete bullshit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammy_Faye_Messner
Some people just like to fuck their shit up.