Thanks to Jim for his analysis and for letting me use his findings for this post. If you would like to perform your own analysis on the location of Margarittaville, click this link to open to Google Earth file. If you do not have GoogleEarth, download it here.

One of the things I really enjoyed about teaching was students with good ideas and the passion to pursue them. Along came Jim, a former student and current friend, who came up with the best Geography projects I saw during my short tenure. I think what made this project special was innovative use of technology, in this case GoogleEarth, coupled with his personal passion.

ACADEMIC ADVICE: Research papers don’t have to boring. Pick a topic thats interesting and execute your research with passion and innovation. Consider Jim as your case study. Jim is a self-described ParrotHead; a Jimmy Buffet fan. As a fan of Buffet’s entire catalog, he began to note the geographical nature of the lyrics and titles of the songs. So, for his project, he gathered latitudes and longitudes for each mention of a place in a Jimmy Buffet song. In doing so, though he was not able to pinpoint the exact location of MargarittaVille, he was able to identify the general area. Even though this was something of personal interest to him, he pursued the topic like an academic. Below are some results:

Update: Frank at the Google Earth Blog sent a few comments.

It’s certainly a cool concept. I am a bit of a Buffet fan myself. Although the list of placemarks is lengthy – I think he should open up the collection for input from other Parrotheads. For example, “Volcano” is all about Montserrat – and he didn’t placemark it. And, “Three Mile Island” is specifically mentioned in that song – and it isn’t marked. It would be neat to post the collection at the Google Earth Community and see if folks would add to it. Another thing that could be done is to add audio clips, or even video clips to placemark descriptions.