I’ve always loved looking down from planes and spotting stuff on the ground I recognize, or think I recognize. Taking off out of Oakland yesterday, I brought my little 3 megapixel digital camera. When we made our big loop out over San Francisco Bay, then headed east, we happened to be right over Berkeley. I recognized a school in our neighborhood and snapped a couple of quick pictures through the window without being sure if anything would show up. Looking at them tonight on my computer at my dad’s place in Chicago, I can see I got a nice detailed look at our neighborhood. The dramatically blown-up image is of our block; I can even make out the addition we just built behind our house and our salmon-pink shed (they’re near the right margin of the image, roughly, and a little more than a third of the way up from the bottom edge of the picture). Don’t know why I’m so amazed, but I’m blown away by the detail.
"You want it to be one way. But it's the other way."