Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

I’m learning more and more that I’m a bit Old School when it comes to certain things, but I remember the days before iPhones and GPS units for cars (man I’m starting to sound like a grandpa here) and having a map to get you from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ even in this day of electronic wizardry can still save your bacon if the electronics fail you…

I’ll admit that I’m a bit late to the party when it comes to having this navigation thing sorted out and I’ll also admit that I’ve always been fond of maps… I think this goes back to the time when I was about 10-year’s old on a family trip. We were in Los Angeles having arrived late morning and my mom thrust a map into my hands and said… If you can navigate our way to the hotel and we’ve got time in the afternoon after we’ve checked in, I’ll take you and your brother to Knott’s Berry Farm. Never had a kid had such a good incentive to take an interest in reading and using a map and I’ve been a fan ever since.

Doing the show is the fun part of the gig, the lead up, the getting your crap in the car, to the venue, into the venue, set up etc. All that, that’s that’s the work. The last thing you need is to not be able to find your way to the gig or find yourself lost…

Years ago (well before the modern age you kids live in) I totally screwed up getting to a gig because although I had directions, I didn’t have a map and hadn’t looked at a map. This had the compound effect of me not really knowing where I was going and also not really having a sense of how long it was going to take for me to get there… I ended up arriving right as my show was supposed to be starting as opposed to the 45 minutes early that I typically like (time to get loaded in and set up etc). When I did arrive it turned out that the client had also misjudged what the start time of my show should have been and the crowds that had been there forty-five minutes earlier were now gone. The show was cancelled, I got back in my car and drove home very frustrated.

Now, in the last few weeks I’ve received a TomTom car navigator (a lovely GGOL from one of the performers who played at Robson Square during the Olympics) and also recently bought an iPhone. I’m becoming quite a fan of the TomTom navigator because not only does it plan the best route to get me to where I’m going, it also gives me a sense of how long it’s going to take to get there. This is AWESOME! I should have invested in one of these things ages ago!

I’m headed down to Seattle this weekend to perform at Moisture Festival and took some time today to program in a few key addresses so I don’t have to fumble with the unit when I get to town. I programmed the address where I’m staying, the theatre where I’m performing and the house of a friend who I’m going to visit. With all of these plugged into the navigator I should be good to go, but I still took the time to head over to Google Maps and print a couple of maps out as well just as a back up. I likely won’t need or use them, but what can I say… Old habits die hard…