#929 Street Smarts

Humans can be so smart and so dumb.
Case in point: The other day I had to go up to Seattle to see my son’s band play. The band is called The Tailenders and they were playing at a club in Seattle known as the High Dive. Normally I resist going to drinking establishments with the term “Dive” in them but sometimes parental love transcends ordinary prudence.
The Dive in question was in the Fremont area and, unfamiliar as I am with Seattle, I first used Mapquest to help me find my way.
Let me also say at the outset that I don’t have one of those newfangled navigator ladies in my dashboard to tell me when to hang a left.
Having determined the basics of the route, I used Google maps to get a satellite overview of the terrain. It’s all well and good to say turn right and turn left. You’re much more prepared when you know to get immediately in the left lane to turn left then jog instantly to the right lane to prepare for a merger with another major thoroughfare.
So far so good. I then used Google’s new Streetview to get an on-the-ground actual picture of the battleground. You can also use it to zoom in on the place you’re going to and get direct visuals of problematic intersections.
Your memory remembers stuff like this better than black and white verbal directions too. Google Streetview gives you an actual view, so when you drive it later you have kind of a deja view.
My next problem was parking. So I used Steetview to scope out nearby streets. I actually found a group of back-in slots but wondered if they were public parking or just for the apartment building in front of which they appeared to be. In the picture, I saw a little green sign next to the curb and was actually able to zoom in close enough to read it. It said “Free Parking.”
So, technologically prepared by Google, I drove to the place without a mistake, went right to the parking area and ended up parking parallel in a strangely empty slot across the street. Next to a sign that said, “Do not park West of this sign.”
Which totally freaked me out.
What the hell’s the city of Seattle thinking? To those of us who are compass challenged wouldn’t it have been better for the sign to say do not park in front of or do not park beyond this sign?
I had no idea which way West was. Where’s the sun when you need it? Best laid plans of mice, men, and Google.
Using the most sophisticated technology to get here and then being undone by a single stupidly-planned primitive metal sign.
America, ya gotta love it.