Looking into the Atavachron

When the Aussie Askew recently blogged about Microsoft's new Windows Live mapping service -- in particular, the Bird's Eye View images -- I promptly whiled away several hours looking for places I have lived. The only locale with the spectacular bird's eye views was the Tidewater area, where I have lived in three different places during the last four years.

My first search, of course, was for my current abode (at the end of the green arrow). This image, looking north, was the best (there are images looking N, S, E, and W), because that tree behind the house obscures the view looking west or south, and the neighbor's house blocks the view looking east. Click on the thumbnail to see an upsized view.

Very cool, though I was somewhat disappointed that my car wasn't in the driveway. Then I scrutinized some of the details and realized that this image had to have been taken before I bought the house. Yes, the detail is that good. The tipoffs? Well, for one thing, I can see that the fence is the old short one that I have replaced, and the little dark blob to the right of the garage door is a holly shrub that I decapitated a year and a half ago. Neither is definitive, though. The real clue is the mailbox. Just to the left of the driveway is a light-colored blob. This is the old flat wooden mailbox (shaped kind of like a lap desk), painted beige, that I inherited from the previous owners. I replaced it during my first winter in the house, with a black aluminum box. And when I replaced it, my old blue station wagon would have been parked on the street to the right of the driveway, where it had been since I moved in. Ergo, this photo pre-dates my house closing (September 2003).

But the most startling find was a shot of the house where I lived for my first 15 months in Virginia Beach. The initial view (looking at the front of the house from the street) wasn't all that clear, but this angle blew me away. Why? Well, take a good look at those cars in the driveway. They're mine, both of them -- the silver PT Cruiser parked in back of the blue Colt Vista wagon. It was an eery look into the past, as if I had walked through the Atavachron, or maybe a Wayback Machine.


Interestingly, I was able to pinpoint the time frame for this image much closer than the one of my current home. I can state definitively that it's 2002, between August 17 (the day I bought the PT Cruiser) and December 31 (when I moved to an apartment). And judging by the lack of foliage on the trees and the still-green grass, I'd say it was about October.

While I have always taken pictures of every other place I have lived, for some reason I neglected to do so at this house, and I kind of regretted that oversight. But thanks to Microsoft's Atavachron, I now have bird's-eye views of the place I called home for 15 months, taken while I was there. Fascinating.