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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Shaking my fist at that got-dern Google Van!!

I'm not living in the wilderness out here.  We're in farm country, all set out in little 50-acre and 100-acre lots, with neighbours in view but just far enough away.  We can get to a Tim Horton's for Jethro's daily coffee fix in less than ten minutes.

So we're not isolated and cut off from the world.  But the world is encroaching!!

Some of you may have heard of a thing called Google Street View.  It's a great party trick. Hey, look up the house you grew up in and see what it looks like now!  Wow, check it out, that's the variety store we buy our People magazine at!

Well that's fun and all, but then you realize that this is for real, and holy heck, this is kinda CREEPY!

Zoom in -- you can see folks hanging around on their porches with their faces blurred.  Their cars are parked out front with blurry licence plates.  You can see who's got their curtains open and what kind of plants are parked on the windowsills.

Wow.  As if living in town wasn't nosy enough already.  I say this as someone who lived in town for most of my adult life and sort of didn't really get the whole curtain thing.  Apparently they're supposed to be closed.  My bedroom now only gets the curtain pulled when Jethro wants to sleep in.

Good thing Street View doesn't extend its creepy lurking presence out here in the land of fields and farms, eh?

I mean, they don't even have that satellite view in detail this far out of the big urban centres.  In town people can zoom in and see the bubbles in their hot tubs, but we can't see much more than blobs for trees and boxes for buildings.  That's okay; we ooo and aww and remark on the shape of our property, giggle over the two white grains of rice in the field that represent our horses, and then we're done.

Ha, not quite!

Imagine our shock when we discovered on Sunday evening that the Google Van happened to meander past our place on its way from one small town to the next.

Seriously, there's the farm.  Right there.  On the screen.  Yikes.

To our credit, the place looks great.  Green grass, Mom's flowers blooming beside the house, nicely trimmed lawn, straight fences.

However, any place has its blemishes, and sure enough, we got our blemishes.  Yep, the spittoon on the front porch, undergarments flappin' on the washline, dog lickin' himself, it's all there!

I'm kidding.  We don't have a spittoon.

What irritated me was the unfinished project on the barn bank.  I'd pulled a few pieces of *ahem* lawn equipment out of the barn to return it to its rightful owner, who'd likely forgotten this stuff even existed.  So there it is, right out on display.  Hey world, check out the junk.

And my ol' man had a few unfinished projects down by the garage.  Well that's just ongoing.  It's a constantly evolving project down there.  See, it's just that now, people don't have to actually drive past to see how the projects are coming along.


I guess I shouldn't be too vexed about it.  Just last week I was riding my horse  in the corral when a particularly loud small plane flew overhead.  Phoenix had to look up and watch it.  Days later, we got a notice in the mail from the aerial photography people.  They'll be knocking on our door soon to show off a nice bird's eye view of the farm and try to talk us into buying one.

Good thing I combed my hair before I went out for a ride that day...

10 comments:

DILLIGAF said...

I was rather disappointed not to be told in advance when the Google Van was coming. I wanted to stand at my window and moon at them. No fun.

Biddie said...

When the van came to K town we were forewarned..The house on Duke street has the porch swing on it and a wee person sitting is sitting on it. Must be Jess. The dead red car was still in the driveway too.
I think that I'm gonna look up the farm. Haha :)
I am SO happy to beback online!

Heidi the Hick said...

Oh that would be great! But you know if Google blurs faces (presumably for privacy, doncha know) they'd blur your butt.

Haha, blurry butt.

I wonder how they sneak past without anybody seeing them? I kind of wished I'd been there so I could wave maniacally!

Heidi the Hick said...

Bid, you knew they were coming?? Did you see them?

Did you moon them too?

Unknown said...

10 minutes to Tim Hortons! Why I outta!

It's 20-45 for me D:

Unknown said...

It's kind of creepy, but really, anyone can drive by your house any old time they want, and random internet people from far and wide, well, they don't even know you exist or where to look, and probably have better things to do anyway. That's what I'm telling myself anyway. :)

Basmati Rice said...

hahaha... thats great you said... blurry butt...

Heidi the Hick said...

haha yeah that's great wtf

?????

Paul Tee said...

The stupid bugger came down my driveway, down, down into the valley, and where the creek crosses undertneat, got stuck in the mud. I heard the tires spinning, making butter out of the muck, digging in deeper. He sank clear up to the axle. Needed two tow trucks to pull him out.

But that wasn't the Google van, it was the Sears Delivery truck.

So it's not enough for Google to peek from above, they are sending in ground troops to get close ups?

Heidi Willis said...

So I just read this and can't help thinking I would have enjoyed it so much more if I'd read it yesterday, before your farm hit the news.

Makes the google van look tame.

Sending lots of hugs, and hoping all the green grass and pretty flowers are still the thing you notice most.