This is fun... probably most everyone has seen the famous "Earth's City Lights" picture NASA had published a number of years ago: a composite of satellite imagery showing the amount of light being given off at night across the world. Very cool (makes a great screensaver, too).

Yesterday a user sent me a link to this YouTube video: "Cities at Night, an Orbital Tour Around the World". It's from some Saturday morning science show, apparently, and pretty much is what it says: shows various cities at night—rather, the "night light version" of the city. At 7:50 into the video, they show Bend:

"Bend, Oregon. Rural areas are interesting not from what is seen, but rather, what is not seen, at all."

I just like this because it's the only image of Bend of this kind that I've found that isn't just a giant blurry dot of light (as in the NASA photos).

No, I'm not kidding. This came through in my email today:

County Seeks New Name for Forest Service Road 40/45
Name Suggestions Due by Monday, December 31st

Following the recent reconstruction of Forest Service Road 40/45, (also known as the Sunriver to Mt. Bachelor road), Deschutes County Commissioners are asking the public for ideas on what to rename the road.

The County has assumed jurisdiction and road maintenance of Road 40/45. Under County code, all public and private roads are required to be named.

The Board of County Commissioners will consider ideas from the public and will decide on a new name in January.

All road name ideas may be emailed to annaj@deschutes.org before 5:00 p.m. on Monday, December 31.

No guarantee that the name you suggest will be picked, of course, but you never know.

It occurred to me as I'm writing this whole "Eastside Rocks" series that I've never defined what the east-west dividing line for Bend is exactly. For the record, the boundary is the Parkway (the old Division Street); everything east of the Parkway (including Third Street) is the "Eastside," and that's what I'm basing my criteria on.

For what it's worth, I generally consider the "Westside" to start at the river—that is, the Deschutes is the boundary, and Downtown and (now) the Old Mill District are their own separate geographic entities. (I would even be pedantic and carve out a separate "Old Town" section from the Downtown section.)

And north and south? The north section ("Northside") starts at the Third Street overpass where the Parkway, Third and Division all effectively intersect. The "Southside" boundary is right around where Third and Brosterhaus intersect, though it could be as north as Reed Market.

Keep in mind, all these boundary markers are all in my head and probably somewhat arbitrary. What do other people think of as Bend's geographic sections and dividing lines?

I whipped up a quick map graphic corresponding roughly to how I see it...

Click through to see my map