The personal writings and photos of Jonathan Smith.

Several years ago one of of my aunts was moving. While I was helping her move she gave me this old canvas map. I haven’t even unrolled it until recently. It always made me nervous touching it or moving it because pieces would flake off.

She told me it was an old map of Perry County, Pennsylvania. I’ve seen plenty of old maps of Perry County before. But they were always old paper maps. This map is made of canvas. As I unrolled it I finally saw how large this map is. It measures approximately 5′ x 5′. Then after closer inspection I saw the date of the map, 1863. This map dates back to the American Civil War (1861 to 1865)! What an awesome piece of history I have in front of me!

I just don’t know what to do with it though. I love history and this map is very cool, but it’s in very bad shape. I’d like to find a way to preserve it.

You can view more photos of this map on my Flickr set.

Back in June I was kind enough to host Questor and Motoadventuregal as the travelled from Connecticut to Tennessee where they would start their journey on the Trans America Trail. I just recently received a post card from them thanking me for the accommodations. Here’s the entire post from Questor with photos detailing their entire journey.

It’s gotten so bad lately that you can look at a magazine cover and immediately say, “airbrushed, lightened, clone-patched…” It seems everybody in print is digitally manipulating their photographs that nobody looks human anymore. Skin is too perfectly smooth, teeth too white, eyes too big, thighs too small, and other parts… enhanced…

I must order the Photoshop Magnet Kit from ThinkGeek soon. It’s just too cool not to have.