Where the streets have no names

As with many other places, roadways in this part of the world more often than not have names. Some in particular - notably State Routes, U.S. Highways and Interstate Highways- are generally identified by numerals. In our little corner though, we often have roads that change names as one travels from town to town, or suburb to suburb. What's interesting about the particular road the title refers to is that while their names may change, their numbers do not.

To illustrate, I had interviews at a pair of staffing agencies this past week, one to the south and one to the northwest. The one to the south (and slightly west) was ~15.2 miles (33.4 km) according to Google Maps, and the one to the northwest was about 16.6 miles (36.5 km), also according to Google Maps. What makes these trips related are the purposes and the streets involved. On Tuesday, I used Higgins Road (Illinois Route 83), traveling south to Butterfield Road (Illinois Route 56), which I took to my destination near the intersection of Butterfield and 22nd St (which is also known both as Illinois Route 38 and Cermak Road). On Wednesday, I took Higgins north all the way to my destination.

What I find most fascinating about all of this is the relatively illogical naming conventions of roadways. Here is where Jennifer and I often have discussions about Chicago, where I grew up. These discussions generally end up with her saying something to the effect of, "Streets in Chicago don't make any sense." Which I don't really understand... then again, she didn't grow up in a big city. The thing that makes it all so interesting is that neither of us gets what the other one doesn't get... and we've been married for over twenty-five years!

I was going to wax eloquently and at great length here about the Chicago grid system, but in truth the information I found would be boring- even by my standards. So, I'll just leave it alone, save for this explanation: to tell someone ( a fellow Chicagoan) where I used to live in Chicago would have taken (at most) seven words: twenty-five hundred north and fifty-six hundred west. Where I currently live, a short paragraph would work... IF you knew the neighborhood. 'Nuff said.

I started writing this several days ago, and have been trying to publish it all week. I think I've mentioned before that my sporadic work hours can be bursty at times- this week, I had an unexpected Tuesday night, followed by consecutive ten hour nights when I came home at 0500 on Wednesday, and 0600 on Thursday (*actually 0500 Thursday and 0600 Friday morning!)

I've been looking for a foundational database design book, and the one pictured I found at our library. It's ancient as far as I.T. books go (copyright 1987). I'm fairly certain that I will not finish it: even though it has some pretty good design information, the terminology is not up to current standards (the author seemed to like the term "enterprise", but it does not seem to mean what "enterprise" means in the twenty-first century.

I need to wrap this up- it's nearly a week past due, even by my lax standards. I took a picture of our roses of sharon in our yard this past week... they're a poor substitute for data, but they look nice.  

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.