The Google Earth Guide to GTPlanet

Introduction:

Using Google Earth, tell us a bit about where you live and/or where you've been or where you come from. Use the 'Prt Scr' button to do a screen grab and use an image-editting program like Photoshop or GIMP (free) or even MS Paint to save the images. Upload them to an image hosting site (such as Imageshack) and post the thumbnails only please (although you can include images of up to 400 pixels in the biggest dimension).

You might want to include:

• Where you are now and why...
• Where you went to school/university
• Your workplaces
• A holiday, trip, year abroad, proposed holiday...
• A story about a significant period in your past
• Where you see yourself in the future
• Where your family lives
  

Take your time and be as creative as you want!

Tips:

You may want to use the "Add Placemark" function to highlight points on your pics:


To get rid of text overlaying the image, simply uncheck the boxes in the menus on the left-hand side of the Google Earth window.

Important Note: You might want to avoid showing actual addresses, postcodes etc., esp. if you mention someone else - they would probably not thank you for revealing private details about them on the web, without permission anyway!


Useful links:- Google Earth, Imageshack, GIMP

Props to Omnis for help with Photoshop 👍

This is the area where I lived between when I was 16 and 22, and then from 25 to 27. It's my mum's place in Caracas, Venezuela. Before 16 I lived in some other area close to this one, but when I think of my house, it's this one (marked by the red dot)



And this is a higher view of that area of the city. The city itself has around 9 million people; this image takes up less than 1 million. The red dot is where my house is in all that mess.



This is where I went to college, in Buffalo, NY.- They've apparently got a new pic of Bflo, since last time it was snowy and gray. In this pic it looks alright, as long as you don't wander around... freakin' houses a-la ghetto area. Anyhow, the college was next to a huge cementery, with graves going back as far as the mid 1800s, and it was always fun to go at dusk and take pictures of the area during the fall season.



This is where I used to live in NYC. It was awesome, York River about a block away, Central Park around a 10 minute walk, everything close by and life was great back then. I moved there in May 2001, and lived there until Sept. 2001... Sept 20th or so... thanks to 9/11 I lost my job (job freeze) and had to subsequently leave NY.



And from there I moved to Miami. I know, Miami is awesome, and it'sa nice enough place to live in. But I was living with my grandma, after living on my own the previous 4 years, so it wasn't very comfortable.



After that I went back home in 2002, got married and eventually moved out of the country due to extenuating circumstances. And this is where I've been living for the past 3 years.

^ Harrogate - where i was born and bred.
A nice little town in North Yorkshire. A good place to grow up.



^ The Family Home - lived here for about 15 years before my parents split up and i went away to University.



^ My Old School - spent about six years at this place, felt like a lifetime.



^ Hornsea - sleepy little seaside town where i lived for a year or so whilst aged 4-5. Not got too many memories of this place, except for our house burning down



^ Derby - Where i went to University. The Bell is where i spent most of my time whilst at University


....to be continued

1: the location of Belgium in Europe
2: the location of the province i live in, Limburg
3: the location of my hometown
4: hometown enlarged
5: my home

not much else to say really

I had this idea and was ready to make this thread right now 👍

Gradually zooming to my house.

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Oooooh! Get you lot wi' yer high falutin' high resolution maps!

Drat! Monthly clean-up at work...re-downloading!

Can we use the 2D version of http://maps.google.com for those of us with no-download policies?

This is Wales. Birthplace of Catherine Zeta Jones, Tom Jones, Stephen Jones and lots of other Jones'. Also, Lost Prophets, The Automatic, Bullet for My Vallentine, Funeral for a Friend and you may have heard of the Manic Treet Preachers.

Known for our sheep aswell, can't forget those.

This is a picture of Swansea and the Gower Peninsula. Isn't it pretty?

The Gower is b-e-a-utiful. Some of the nicest beaches (There's polls to back it up) and great surf. Shame I live the wrong side of town for it. The City is on the banks of a natural harbour that made it an ideal harbour back-in-the-day for the Copper and tin industry. Also handy for Cockles, but I'm personally not a fan.


Here's a slightly closer view of Swanea. It's a pretty ugly city as it was flattened in WW2, and is full of quick-build concrete blocks from the post-war period. Yay. However, lots of new development. And it you follow the river up (The Tawe, that's said t-ow-ee.) you should see a nice white square, that's our new football/rugby/concert stadium. It's nice, if not all that big.


Everything to the east of that road (That's the M4 snaking it's way past, or "that cart track to Cardiff" as I think Famine once referred to it. ) is Birchgrove, the village I live in. We boast a comprehensive school with no playing fields (Wooo childhood obesity), 5 pubs, 2 shops owned by asian families, and lots of old mining tunnels. That no one is particulary sure of the location of, hell my house is within a hunded yards of an old mine shaft, wouldn't surprise me if the land beneath was hollow.


Here's a picture showing all the pubs. No more that 10-15 mins from the one at the furthest right to the one furthest east.


Here's a closer view of my house, not going to be too precise. Lots of fields means lots of noisy (scary) cows and lots of sheep to sh.... play with. You probably can't tell but I live on a fairly steep hill, rising sea levels, ha, I mock thee.

Yes, it’s in the middle of nowhere. The last pic shows you the kind of mountainous terrain there is.

Great stuff, EE 👍 I'm on my PS3 at the moment and editting posts is slightly difficult, so I'll add a link to the Index in Post #1 later.

@ Pupik, anything you can do is fine - infact, it was looking at your signature that gave me the idea to make this thread.... the Wikimapia thing is very cool, although I did find a few dodgy things when I was looking at Glasgow!

and there goes my places

A brief tour of my life...


The Point of Entry: Evergreen Medical Center, Kirkland, WA
The hospital has greatly expanded in the last 20 years. When I was born there, it was a shed/barn with no running water or electricity. Needless to say, my mother did not have the luxury of an epidural:


The formative years: 1984-2002, Woodinville, WA
This is the house where I spent my childhood. With over an acre, and a very large backyard, I had beautful scenery to look at while I layed on the couch and watched TV:


The college years: 2002-2006, Seattle, WA
Against my better judgement, I moved to the city in 2002 to pursue an "education". I lived in the dorms on campus for three years, then moved into a tiny, crappy, overpriced apartment. Adulthood is harsh.


The deceptive post-graduate year: 2006-2007, ChemPoint, Bellevue, WA
After getting a degree in chemical engineering, I was then prepared to tackle the world of customer service. Thank goodness for the degree, or otherwise I would have had trouble transferring calls and bending over while customers verbally sodomized me and the company.


The light at the end of the tunnel: 2007-???, Elma, WA
After eight months of unsatisfying work, and even less-satisfying pay, I got a job as a process engineer at Rohm and Haas in Elma. The air is clean, the trees are green, and my 30-mile commute takes 26 minutes on rural Highway 8. Isn't that a lot of money spent on gas? Probably, but the beauty is that I no longer have to care. By the way, Google Earth is not too familiar with Elma:


The Bachelor's Palace: 2007-???, Tumwater, WA
New job meant it was time to move to the Olympia area. The great thing about moving from the city to more rural areas is that the cost of living is much, much cheaper. Let's compare:

Seattle, WA:
-484 square feet
-noisy street
-view of garbage dumpsters and parking lots
-washer and dryer are down three flights of stairs and require 9 quarters per load
-parking costs extra
-Total cost: $766 plus electricity

Tumwater, WA:
-800 square feet (including private deck)
-dull roar of freeway is audible off in distance
-view of trees, hills, Mt. Rainier, and Puget Sound
-washer and dryer are 3 feet from closet and require no quarters
-covered parking is included in the rent cost
-Total cost: $830 plus electricity
-Added bonus: no crazy bums roaming streets outside

Home sweet home. Google Earth only makes it to Tumwater on cloudy days apparently:

Just simple, school and house (house 3D)

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1. School
2. House, street
3. House, street, perspective of terrain

EDIT: White cars in driveway from top to bottom: 2006 Toyota Highlander Hybrid, 2005 Dodge SRT4

My country (USA)


My state (Colorado)


My city (Northglenn)


My house (With My four car garage...all 862 square feet of it)


My work (Where I am online most of the time)


My home golf course (Links style with grass as tall as I am! Keep it in the fairway here.)


My favorite place to see a concert(Red Rocks)


Colorado Rockies home


Denver Broncos home...dressed up as a soccer field



Our amusement park



Two sections of road that my motorcycle and I love to travel (I should have done these in 3D to show the elevation changes.)


I'll do my best to update somethings as we go along.

Nice work everybody 👍 Some really interesting stuff already

I've updated the thread slightly... I've now added a gallery and an index at the top of the thread (Post #2).

1. Where I am: I live and work in the East End of London, England, within walking distance of the River Thames. In this first picture you can see the (in)famous Millennium Dome, just to the right of the 'U' bend in the Thames. To the left of that you can see the tall shadows of Canary Wharf, which hosts the UK's tallest habitable building, 'One Canada Square'.
   
   
2. A closer look: I walk to work everyday through Mile End Park. I've almost been killed a couple of times on a zebra crossing I refer to as 'Deathtrap Crossing' - I have even been hit by a car once there. I walk down by the canal-side every morning - Regent's Canal extends from the Thames in the South all the way up to Camden Town and London Zoo in the North.
   
   My three principal drinking venues are the staff bar at my work, JD Wetherspoons on Mile End Road (when I'm skint!) and one of East London's finest pubs, The Palm Tree Bar in Mile End Park. A choice of fine dining establishments, like Perfect Fried Chicken (a rare triple-misnomer!) and the Golden Fryer chippy await the dregs that spill out of a variety of pubs.
   
   
3. My real home: I am originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, and I frequently return home to visit my family there. It only takes 55 minutes in a plane to get from London to Edinburgh, otherwise it is a 5-hour train journey, or a 18-day walk. Although I am from Edinburgh, I spent my 'formative' years as an undergraduate student and then as a Ph.D student in Glasgow, about 1-hour from Edinburgh.
   
   
4. Edinburgh: A beautiful and historic city, Edinburgh is surprisingly small. It's fast becoming one of the most desirable locations to live in the UK, and as such, property prices have shot up in recent years, meaning that my "grand-plan" to return to Edinburgh to settle (after having made my 'fortune' here in London) may be harder than I anticipated To get from our house to the city centre (where Edinburgh Castle is marked) takes only 25 minutes on a bus, passing the extinct volcano "Arthur's Seat" on the way. I used to work in the shadow of this volcano at The Scottish Widows, a life assurance and pensions company and NOT an escort agency as many Japanese tourists arriving at Heathrow seem to think it is!! (Based on actual phonecalls received by people in the Call Centre that I used to work with!)
   
   
5. The obligatory 'I can see our car!' shot: Bang slap in the middle of this pic, my Mum's car. Directly above, and parked at right angles to each other, are her neighbour's BMW 5-series (in the driveway) and Nissan 350Z. Given the shape of the road, it's a fairly silly place to leave it!!
   
   
   

My next update: Mars in Australia!

Brian works at a huge trailer!

This is where I lived the first half of my life.

Then for a brief 2 1/2 years of my life I lived in sunny Scotland.

Been living in Adelaide since 1985. Of course these last pictures are also places where Jack has spent pretty much all his life. As you can see from the last pic, we didnt move very far on the last move. Jay's house is probably somewhere in there too. No idea where, I think he is scared I might stalk him if I knew where he lived.

Interesting thread. I’ll put something together in the next week or so.

Here is mine:

The UK.


The South East of England.


Buckinghamshire, The Chilterns, Some of the Thames Valley and probably a bit of Hertfordshire and Berkshire too.


High Wycombe, pretty cool town, lots of different areas.


The village of Downley.


The road I live on, house just left of the green arrow (second one in on the left of the arrow).

Windsor

My home town, Windsor. A pretty cool place: there's the Castle where the Queen sometimes lives; the race course; Legoland; and Eton where the Princes went to school.

Situated just west of London (no not in west London, it's outside the M25), just off the M4 in the county of Berkshire:

Click to get full viewage



Windsor has lots of places to visit:



There's the Castle:



The race course:



Legoland, where almost every young person in Windsor has worked at some point (i worked in one of the restaurants):



Eton. A small town just the otherside of the River Thames where Eton College is and where i had the pleasure of spying a young Prince Harry walking down the high street:



And finally, my house. 2 miles out of the town centre, it's nice and quiet and just 10 mins walk from the back of Legoland (They put on huge fireworks displays all the time... 👍):

-Diego-

Brian works at a huge trailer!

Click to expand...

Extremely sad isn't it. Our company does on average between 70 and 100 million a year worth of work and I for the last 13 years have been driving a dirt road to a 25 year old trailer! That's ok in the end because my yearly bonus is often in the five figure range so poo poo on you!

I liked that picture of the Red Rocks concert venue in Colorado... 👍 I've only been to the US once and it was to Aspen (well, Snowmass Village to be precise) for a conference a few years back... very nice part of the world, but something tells me Aspen is not exactly representative of your typical US town/city...

I'll be posting a pic of where I work, just for poo poo on Brian

Touring Mars

I liked that picture of the Red Rocks concert venue in Colorado... 👍 I've only been to the US once and it was to Aspen (well, Snowmass Village to be precise) for a conference a few years back... very nice part of the world, but something tells me Aspen is not exactly representative of your typical US town/city...

Click to expand...

Hardly... But then again, each city and town varies quite a bit do to the size of this place. From the mountains, where homes have to be built with snowloads in mind, roads are rough from plows, and driving 25 miles to go shopping at a decent store isn't odd; to the Warm areas where houses don't have insulation (well, much) flat roofs, and the roads are smooth and pristine.

Heck, my home town was at the edge of the Rocky Mountains. So driving southwest for about an hour put me in an arid desert area, and driving north 30 minutes put me in the mountains. I can still see snow on the Cascades when I visit my wife's family. I'll get some shots up later, probably this weekend.

Oh, and some fun dirt roads around my hometown, thanks to all the remote houses and such in the hills.

There you go Brian... I work in an industrial area next to the highway! Not going to talk about my pay, since I don't like getting into sad matters



It's one of the hottest places temperature-wise on the island. Just today it was 33ºC, and median summer temp is around 42ºC, oh and we donpt have A/c... I swear my PC at work is surely going to melt...

How abouts a tour of my neck of the woods?



So, I live in Michigan, probably one of the best States in all the union. Home to Detroit, Grand Rapids, the Great Lakes, and so many other secret pleasures, its one helluva State.

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I live in Kent County, Michigan, which I believe is the second-wealthiest county in the State of Michigan. For example, the median income is about $46,000 a year, and less than 9% of the population lives below poverty (that being those who make less than $12K and change). With roughly 600,000 people living in Kent County, this can get cramped in certain parts of the area, but the overall majority of the county is now considered to be part of Grand Rapids, the city in which I live.



This is downtown Grand Rapids, not where I live, but indeed the cultural center of West Michigan. The big black box there is the Van Andel Arena, home of the Grand Rapids Griffins (hockey) and Grand Rapids Rampage (Arena Football), as well as a slew of concert venues throughout the year. Just up the street (eastbound) is the studio in which the nationally-syndicated Free Beer and Hot Wings Morning Show is recorded. Producer Joe roams the streets of Grand Rapids every weekday morning, and I've always meant to go down and say hi... Other famous people from Grand Rapids:

Gillian Anderson (X-Files)
Johnny Benson Jr (NASCAR Bush Series 1995 Champion, Currently in Craftsman Trucks)
Rodger B. Chaffee (Died in Apollo 1 accident)
DeVos and VanAndel families (Founders of Amway Corporation)
Fred Meijer (Founder of the Meijer Corporation)
Gerald R. Ford (Former US President)
Anthony Kiedis (Lead singer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Floyd Mayweather Jr. (Champion Boxer)
Chris Van Allsburg (Writer of Jumanji, Polar Express, Zathura)

...among others...



I live on the southeast side of Grand Rapids in a place called Gaines Township. Not too long ago, this was all a cornfield for the most part, and only recently has development sprung up. The two huge white buildings are a Meijer and Target/Staples strip mall, and other nearby venues include a Wendy's, Applebee's, Panera Bread, Little Caesar's Pizza, Celebration Cinema movie theater, Steak and Shake, and your standard assortment of banks, grocery stores, and other small business. Oh, and East Kentwood High School...



A closer view of my neighborhood, and the high school nearby. I've got everything pretty close, including a Wal Greens and a strip mall with a Quiznos and Little Caesar's. The stadium over there is that of East Kentwood's, with enough lights to light up the sky for miles during the football season, it is considered to be one of the best High School stadiums in the State.



I work here on the back-side of Centerpointe Mall at Steve and Barry's. Nothing too special, but it pays well, and I can't complain much...



This is the big block of auto dealers in Grand Rapids, containing no less than eight dealers (with assorted brands) within about a quarter mile of each other. The infamous Berger Chevrolet is there on the left, and the neighborhood includes Infiniti, Toyota, Lexus, Cadillac, Hummer, Saturn, Pontiac, GMC, Buick, Lincoln, and Mercury.



Thats my VW/Volvo/Mercedes dealer that I usually go to, but thats an old photo from when they were building it there on the left. Otherwise, there is a small shop out in Hudsonville that I usually go to...



This is where I went to High School, the infamous Forest Hills Central High. Basically, its a bunch of upper-middle-class kids dicking around with nothing better to do. Many of the students have so much money they don't know what to do with it, and other kids like me, wish they had a bit more. We just built a new soccer field behind the stadium, and we're adding another tennis court I believe. I still miss going there, and I hope that I could teach there some day...



This is Aquinas College, where I'm going to be a Junior this fall. I attempted to get the entire campus in the window, but it is a pretty big school. The big building in the center is the academic building, and north of there is the parking lot that I'm in almost every day. The new Library is due east of the academic building, about a 10 minute walk across campus. Going from one end to the other, depending on walking speed, is about 15 to 20 minutes. Good thing the campus is pretty...

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So, thats it!

If I think of more, I'll add later!

Good work, Brad! Interesting post, lots of info 👍

YSSMAN

If I think of more, I'll add later!

Click to expand...

You can always add to your post, but you can also create another post in the future, if you so desire. I'll add links to each separate post in the Index (post #2) - this gives people the opportunity to tell us about more than one aspect of their lives, if they so desire!