Building Blocks

Blocks are nice and solid. They are the foundation of buildings, learning, and measurement. In even the most unsquare of cities (Boston, I'm talking to you) they measure distance. In every city in America, so many blocks equal a mile. It's seven large blocks in Salt Lake City. Some sources say it's twenty (20??) in New York City. Regardless of how many blocks it takes to make a mile, American's know that they can say "Such-n-Such is three blocks away" and we all know what is meant.

Here in Cheltenham (I don't know if this applies to all of the UK) people do not use blocks as a measurement. I haven't actually figured out exactly what they use. Mostly it's something like "It's close to the end of the upper High Street." or "Go towards Montpellier". The town is small enough that once you've lived here long enough that seems to work. But try giving directions to out-of-towners.

We could use time. "It takes 10 minutes to get to point B" but I'm a fast walker so do I bump up the minutes for average walkers? And I don't think that many people have a very good internal sense of time. Are you talking as you walk? Are you browsing at store fronts along the way? Are you rewriting your thesis paper?

Many listen to music as they walk. Could we use songs as measurement? It takes four songs to get to the bookstore. Except I listen to mostly classical. It takes one good concerto for me to get from my house to the Park Campus.

I guess the only real solution is just to get a map.