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Have you ever taken a drive on Google street view

ProfilePosted byOptionsPost Date

JoonieCloonie

JoonieCloonie Report 26 Jun 2023 22:09

and seen yourself? That's what my little sister asked us in an email back in 2015, when my mum was still with us.

Ya can't tell from my avatar picture (changed temporarily to the streetview shot), or even from the big version on streetview -- but that's my mum driving her Caravan and little sister in the passenger seat ... no, no, it's sister driving, with her hand on the wheel, and mum looking out the passenger window. Oh, I can't tell. But she assured us it was them! They had just dropped her girls off at school.

Anyway -- last week, No.1 and I were taking our coffee on the veranda, him sitting in the doorway on his wheelie chair and me sort of slumped forward on a folding chair off to the side, and what did I see going by but -- the Google car! I can't imagine it would have been wasting time driving around and not filming, so fingers crossed, in 3 months ... or a year ... we'll see ourselves on streetview.

It's about d*ed time; the last time our block was filmed was July 2014, the year we first came to view the house before buying it. There's a For Sale sign and not much else on the front lawn. Now, there's a giant lilac, a rose of Sharon, a gorgeous stand of ferns that volunteered to fill a space (we face north, so flowering perennials don't do too well, except my peony that does keep coming back), and the predictable pyramid cedars flanking the veranda and the steps, plus the hostas we inherited. The view on the street has been much improved by moi, and streetview will now show it! And it wasn't even garbage day when the car came by, as it always seems to have been when you look at the site.

So there's something new this millennium for the illustrated family tree!

Anybody else been immortalized on Google?

Gwyn in Kent

Gwyn in Kent Report 26 Jun 2023 22:42

Yes Google caught me once when I had spent most of the day indoors sorting out the depths of a cupboard. I was dressed in a jumper that had previously belonged to my daughter and by the end of the day... and much kneeling down, my trousers had their own quirky knee shape.... very glam.!
I popped outside to put some of my finds in the bin and at that very moment Google street car went by.
My face was blurred in the actual 'view', but it was fairly obvious that it was me.

I think the pictures have been updated a couple of times since then, one fairly recently.

I'm sure you would have been much better dressed!

I viewed our area on Streetview recently after friends and I were discussing a nearby flower bed.
Interestingly, that area, just a few streets away has a really old view, at least 10 years or more, which made me look at roads in between. Most were updated, but the front gate of a school is shown as it was about 12 years ago, so I don't know the criteria for updates, as it seems rather random.

Caroline

Caroline Report 27 Jun 2023 04:52

I was caught a number of times as I walked to school as the car drove around the neighbourhood once. Much better than a friend filmed bending over to pick up her dogs little present.

nameslessone

nameslessone Report 27 Jun 2023 08:48

OMG! Twice.
First time a glorious view of my backside as I leant into the car boot to get my shopping bags. Then it has been done again and they caught me on my hands and knees weeding and I look as though I’m crawling through the shrubs to get to the pavement.

Maybe I should stop checking my address out. ;-)

ArgyllGran

ArgyllGran Report 27 Jun 2023 10:45

Yes - although having now trawled all the visible images (2009 onwards) of the particular stretch of road, I can't find it now. Perhaps it was longer ago than I thought, and has been removed. Does Streetview remove old images?

I'm pretty sure it was on the image from July 2011, as I was wearing a lightweight jacket, and I know I passed two girls without jackets, who are now also missing from all the images.
All the other images were taken in Oct/Nov/March of the various years, when we would have been wearing warmer clothes.

I was walking along the side of the road not far from my house, looking round-shouldered and depressed - though I wasn't!

maggiewinchester

maggiewinchester Report 27 Jun 2023 11:19

My previous address has images for 2009, 2014, 2015 and 2023.
My current address only has images for 2009 and 2023.

Pleased to say, I'm not on any of them!
However, they did pass by my current address just after my daughter and I had dug over the edges of the front garden - so it looks a mess.
However, I must say, my blinds look nice, and Gavin the large and very heavy Grotesque (given to me, by my ex, as a birthday present about 15 years after our divorce) looks imposing, in his position by the front door :-D

JoonieCloonie

JoonieCloonie Report 28 Jun 2023 02:44

These are all so neat-o! I had no idea so many people out of a fairly small sample (anybody reading this site/board/post) would have had this happen -- let alone twice or more!

The only other person visible on my entire block, and farther, is the cretin right next door who was out at the back of his driveway mucking about as usual with some hulk of a junker jalopy for some local stock car race driver. So far this year there hasn't been a Sunday afternoon ruined by hours of his revving and fume-belching 20 feet from our family room window and cops saying "well what do you want us to do?" at least. :-|

I apologise for being tardy as usual. I get busy during the day, then when it's my suppertime, you are all in bed. So I think: I'll do it tomorrow. And then ...

(Speaking of which, recycle and garbage ... I'll do them later ... and now it's nearly 10 p.m. on recycle/garbage night.)

Meanwhile, after posting this, I went and checked google, knowing it would be way too soon since it was only 2 weeks since we'd seen the google car, but thinking I may as well start checking weekly, or daily ... and wouldn't you know it, the new streetview had been posted already and there we are.

Well, there's me, looking like a big jade-green balloon with the air gone out, face a blur of course, with my hand visible because I'm holding a bright white paper cup. (They're compostable. Some time ago, I rebelled against all the dish-doing, once No.1 became incapable, and started buying paper cups and plates. Works for me.)

Sadly, the shots of the house are from the left, from in front, and from the right -- but the one from in front isn't dead centre, and the car had gone far enough past the house that the cedar beside the central steps to the veranda covers No.1. I think I've made out his face and hand too, though, but I doubt anybody else could. The big problem is that we're on the north side and the whole front of the house, especially inside the covered veranda, is just dark.

And of course even though it wasn't garbage day, I was just taking a break from clearing junk off the veranda -- our groceries had been getting delivered in boxes for a year, when the grocery chain finally abandoned plastic bags 50 years after I did, but because we need delivery, I couldn't use my own reusable bags anymore -- and while I was able to give away batches of good boxes on the local equivalent of gumtree every couple of months, I ended up with useless produce flats and other odd boxes that had been piling up waiting for me to put them out to recycle, which is only every two weeks. So my bashed up recycle bins (I have actually watched the collectors in two cities smash them forcefully upside down on the ground after emptying them) and a bag of potting soil and the like are front and centre, instead of the lovely flower pots hanging down and flanking the steps.

I like to think of my front garden as "mature" and "naturalized". I see that it just looks kind of messy. The funny thing is the stand of ferns -- a gust of wind must have just hit, and they are all leaning over in unison.

Anyway, I'm going to get a screenshot and what I'll do is open a FB account in this name and post it there so everybody can point and laugh. ;-)

Meanwhile, keep the stories coming, if anybody else has any. I loved all of them!

JoonieCloonie

JoonieCloonie Report 6 Jul 2023 18:38

I know you've all been waiting with bated breath. :-D

FB didn't want to let Joonie have an account, so I've dug up an old one from ages ago that never got used.

https://www.facebook.com/pitsy.patsy

The only thing there is the time lapse photography thread - look at the replies and the last one is the Google Streetview shot from last month, and there's my vague greenish self surveying the mess I have made on the front walk after I piled up all the recycle and compost bins and general trash just in time for the Google car to go by, after 9 years of waiting for it.

Anybody else want to display a pic of their abode?

Nobody can tell from an online photo where it is, or even who it belongs to, if it's a GR name.

If you do, send me a photo via here and I'll stick it up on Pitsy Patsy's page.

(That's me in my avatar now, but you can't tell!)