Bethlehems!

Today a friend inquired about where the city of Bethlehem ends and Bethlehem Township begins. Naturally, I went to census.gov, found an applicable shapefile, and pulled out the information I needed. Census.gov has some pretty great data, such as the shapefile I used for this, which was a breakdown of every municipality in the state. Woo!

So, here's the map:

View The Bethlehems of Pennsylvania in a larger map


Also note that the city is spread across two counties, so it gets two entries here.

And another thing, I'm doing this on my phone, so if it doesn't work, give me a few hours and I'll fix it tonight. :)

Lehigh Valley Bike Trails!

Remember June of last year, when I posted a map I made of bike trails in the Lehigh Valley? Well, I finally got around to mapping bike trails at Jacobsburg Park, Lake Nockamixon and Lock Ridge Park!

Updated Map!

View Bike Trails [Lehigh Valley] in a larger map

I based the trails at Nockamixon and Lock Ridge off of my GPS tracks from recent rides there. My GPS isn't the most accurate device ever, but it does a decent job, especially considering its price tag.

Anyone know of any cool trails in the LV that I'm missing?

Natural Gas Usage in the United States

My most recent mapping endeavor stems from my curiosity over which states consume the most natural gas. After searching for a map presenting this information to no avail, I decided that I'd put something together.

The Energy Information Administration had all of the information I needed, broken down by end use, State, Month/Year, etc. I am mainly interested in 2008 data about Residential, Commercial, and Industrial usage, so I didn't make a map for Vehicle Fuel or Electric Power usage, although that data is available as well.

I present to you my results:
Drumroll, please!

2008 Residential Natural Gas Usage
2008 Commercial Natural Gas Usage
2008 Industrial Natural Gas Usage
2008 Total Natural Gas Usage

A few notes:
After you load these files in Google Earth, you can drill down to the state polygons in the Places panel. When you double-click a polygon, it will zoom to that state and display a bubble with usage information and rank.

All natural gas quantities are measured in MMcf.

For quick/simple viewing, use the web version!

• Residential
• Commercial
• Industrial
• Total
  

Tea Time: Blueberry Lemon Black Tea

I drink way too much tea to not have a recurring category about it in this blog. I have creatively decided to name it "Tea Time".
[Why don't I get paid to blog, again??]

The tea aisle in The Weg is quite a magnificent place. They have a great selection of prepackaged and loose tea, and if you get there early enough, they even have some samples!

One day, while lost in said aisle, I came across their selection of Eastern Shore Teas. After much deliberation, I opted for black tea with blueberry and lemon. It is AMAZING. Usually blueberry teas are too blueberry-ful for me, but the lemon in here balances it out nicely.


I've tried various other Eastern Shore Teas, and they've all been good, but this one ranks among my favorite teas ever. Though sometimes hard to find, it's definitely worth the wait. And if there isn't a Wegmans near you, then maybe you should just buy it online?

US Airport Map

To say I like to travel is a pretty big understatement. I seem to spend all of my non-travel time thinking about where I'll go next. Sometimes my trips are off the beaten path or in the middle of nowhere, so it can be a challenge to figure out the nearest airports for some ticket comparison shopping. No longer! My latest creation is a map of all US airports with commercial service! I know what you're thinking, "Christine, why don't you do useful things with your time?!" I actually think a lot of people will find this useful; at least hopefully.


View Larger Map

Directions
For those not too familiar with Google Maps, I think the following is a good way of using this overlay.

• Log in to Google


• Go to the map


• Click "Save to My Maps" in the upper right corner of the Left-hand panel


• Click the checkbox next to "Airports - US"


• Search for your destination


• Zoom out to see the nearest airports

Hopefully that'll work for everyone. If you don't have a Google account... well, you should get one, because Gmail rocks.
If you have any comments, suggestions, corrections, etc, leave me a comment!
Enjoy and happy travels!

The Case of the iPod

If you've ever met me you probably know that I love my iPod. I know, I know, it's an annoying trend and there are better devices out there, whatever. I bought the iPod because it syncs easily with iTunes (I hate the Windows version, but it's better than most alternatives) and because of the storage capacity. At 160GB I can carry my entire music library with me at all times.

If you've ever met me you probably also know that, while I'm not a total disaster, I'm pretty hard on my stuff. My electronic devices get used hard, and this sometimes means accidentally dropping things like my cell phone, iPod, external hard drive, etc.

The Dilemma: iPods are kind of fragile. I have a 160GB Classic, so it's an actual hard drive, not a solid state.

The Solution: the ArmorSkin Case by Speck!


The Test: I accidentally dropped my iPod down a flight of steel stairs. While I wouldn't try this test often, my iPod still works and there's only a small scrape in the side bevel of the case's front cover. Yay!

The case is available in black or clear and is nice and grippy so your iPod doesn't slide out of your hands or pocket and onto the concrete or into a lake. :-P

Before I got this case, I kept my iPod in a sock. Not an actual "iPod sock" but a sock from my sock drawer. This is definitely a much better case!

Also, Speck has a cool logo and their slogan is punny.