I live and work in Bellingham. The city owns a parking garage that happens to be across the street from Logos, so that's where I park (thanks again to Logos for footing employee's parking bills!).

The parking garage (called the Parkade) is a five-story concrete structure. Each floor is divided into two parts (north and south, let's say), and the floors spiral (er, sort of) up.

Ever since Logos has been in Bellingham, I've had problems remembering where I park inside the parkade. It led to establishing the practice of always parking on the north side of the building, whether I was on floor 2, 3 or 4. I could generally remember which floor I was on, but not the side of the floor.

Am I getting old? I don't know, but I think intelligence lies in realizing one's limitations and working within them.

In the past month or so, I've realized that I can remember both floor and garage side I park in if I go home for lunch. That is, I can remember floor and side (say, 3 south, where I just parked) for either the time of morning to lunch, or lunch to evening — but I have problems remembering both items all day long. As I go home for lunch on most days to see my sweetie, this means I have effectively been opened up to park in the whole parkade instead of just half of it!

This was driven home (pun intended) to me in the past week when I didn't go home for lunch. At the end of the day, I had forgotten which floor I parked on. I went up one flight of stairs too many and had to backtrack downstairs to the previous floor.

By the time I'm to the office, my mind has usually started on a problem or two so I don't think too much about where I parked, specifically. I guess the marginal utility of parking location decreases because, if I forget, I can always figure out where I parked with a little effort up or down the stairs.

Of course, if I start forgetting that I actually parked in the garage, then we know things have gotten real bad. Hopefully that's a long way off.