FANTOM PLANET

That time of year is fast approaching as the largest gathering of GIS folks happens. That means it’s time for the ESRI Users Conference Geoblogger Meet-up. Google has graciously offered to sponsor again this year. So, I have a few questions for you.

1. 1. Is anyone going?
   2. If you are, have any suggestions for a venue in San Dog?
   3. Does Tuesday night work for you? (I know you’re all big on the Tennis Tournament.)

Let me know via the comments.

I just got home from Palm Springs. No. I live in Redlands these days and I wasn’t kicked out. I was low on Kool-Aid.

I was at the ESRI DevSummit and Business Partners Conference, mostly hanging with Bill Dobbins and James Fee, and made it to the geoblogger meetup. It was a good time and there were some great people there—with James being the exception. Other than your typical blogger-types, Don Cooke from TeleAtlas made a visit, as did Scott Morehouse and a number of the ArcGIS Server Team members. As one could expect, we ended up talking mostly about the Server and the REST and JavaScript APIs.

James gave me crap for being remotely interested in the Flex API. He said something about ColdFusion being dead, VGI is a scam, and that Wikipedia is broken too. It was just James being, well, James.

What may have been the best story of the night though, is the story Don Cooke told James, Bill, Ed Katibah, and myself. I’m not sure if I should print it, but it has to do with the title of this blog post and an event at the first UC. James says he won’t look at the person who I’ve quoted in the same light again. Somehow, I think I could see that person being in that situation and having a little fun.

Still, the best part of the story was when the valet got the driver’s golf clubs out of the trunk.

Since it is that time of year and since everyone is doing it. I might as well list my top ten dumbest predictions about our world for 2008. If they become true, I’m heading to Vegas with Dave Bouwman’s profits this time next year.

10) Election Maps. It’s election year in the States and once again we’ll be hosed with “red vs. blue” thematic maps. These maps will polarize the country early on with predicted areas of support for candidates and bringing out the nastiness of who’s right, wrong, left, up, and down.There will also be a few mashups of election supporters with breakdowns of where obese folks, intelligent designers, and Oprah/NASCAR moms are.

9) OSHA. OSHA will step in to ban the Wii and GIS. Especially after James Fee has his Wii Bowling accident before Where 2.0 and becomes unable to spell GIS anymore, let alone blog about it. GIS is banned because is causes blindness and hairy palms.

8) Maps is bad. Once the non-western world melts down during the spring thaw, a number of baddies use [Google] maps for no good. Causing knee-jerk reaction by a number of governments to ban or highly regulate mapping. Especially China, who takes out WorldView-2 right after launch.

7) WorldView-2 Stuns GeoEye’s New Bird. Months after China whacks WV-2, WV-2 parts whack GeoEye’s new bird by having it’s debris scratch GE-1’s lens. Bill Gates secretly de-orbits GE-1 onto Sergey’s secret island Googleplex.

6) FOSS4G and the ESRI UC announce plans to combine in 2010. That’s after a prisoner exchange during a TC211 meeting.

5) Jeff Thurston discovers that GLONASS is really a space weapons system. Only because he watched a special on TV, then formed a rescue party that rescued a number of GLONASS engineers from captivity in Siberia. If he would only do that for Manifold users too

4) GooglePhone knows more about you than you do. Google releases the GPhone with its partners and eerily signs you up, books your car, room, and flight to attend Where 2.0 even before you own your GPhone. On a sad note, Glenn is tasered by his N95 when it discovers he decides to think about writing a comparison piece between N95 and GPhone.

3) Acronym soup! VGI, SDI, ESRI, FOSS4G, WTF? 2008 is the year we get acronym’d to death. It starts in DC with the ESRI FedUC and ends when SlashGeo stops with its sloppy seconds.

2) Surveyors reclaim the Earth—only because the lawyers let them. Dusting off the old chains, someone lobbies in DC hard enough to enact licensing for all geo professionals after a rash of high profile court cases that affect senators and representatives and the earmarked buildings, parks, and bridges named after them.

1) Nom de plumes. From me, to the Fake Steve Coast, to Fake Ed Parsons and the soon to be Fake James Fee. The fakes get unmasked; I stop posting b/c too many folks know who I am—and, yes, I will have to kill you; and everyone starts fake <insert name here> blog. On the bright side, in August, the Fake Jack Dangermond hosts the Fake ESRI UC and gives me my fake grad skool diploma.

Didn’t I mention this was a bad list?

Sorry about hardly posting anything. I’ve been running around to meetings, presenting, and having more meetings, but. . .

The Geoblogger Meetup rocked! I just wanted to say thank you to Rob Painter, the Google Earth Federal manager for sponsoring the event. I also would like to thank Mister Tiki for being great hosts.

So, who showed up? Peter Batty, Dave Bouwman, Dave Smith, The Very Spatial team (Frank-Sue-Jesse), the SketchUp Team, other Googlers, Jermey from ArcGIS Server Development Blog, and a few PlanetGS readers.  It was a little less than we had last year, but I think there’s an explanation to that: Early UC and the Dev Summit.

It was still great to get to talk to a number of bloggers. Peter, the man without a [GIS] country, and the SketchUp team were reminiscing about Denver.  I know I was in a conversation about environmental pollutants with Dave Smith and a reader (sorry, forgot your name) that was interesting.  Even Rob said he had a great time chatting people up and offered to sponsor us again next year.

As for next year. . .

Rob and I had an idea: why not make it a little more than just a meetup?  Perhaps we could get someone like Michael Jones to come and have some short talks about our community and what we could do together. There’s an thought that we can do more to bridge the GIS–neogeography gap.  Heck, Jack in his planary was pretty much talking about neogeography, but called it the “geographic approach.”  So, we may add just a bit of structure next year, some eats, and start something new.

Feel free to share your thoughts on the Meetup for next year.

The UC next year starts 4 August, so start making plans for the Dev Summit and the UC.  Try to get both.  I’ll probably be able to make it to the Dev Summit next year.  I just got into the University of Redland’s Master’s in Geographic Information Science, so I’ll be nearby.  (More on this next).

I was recently faced with a serious dilemma the other day: Choose between a vendor yacht cruise or the Geoblogger Meetup.  (Tuesday 19 June, 8pm, Mr. Tiki)

This. . . was. . . a. . . hard. . . one. . . 

As much as I like going to sea and all, and hammin’ it up with business partners, facetime with geobloggers at the UC is much more important.   I like everyone and it’s hard to turn down free booze from a vendor, but the conversation with you guys is much more lively

It’s too bad the Chuck Norris of geoblogging isn’t going to be there.

By the way. I made a map.  Includes Mr. Tiki, the convention center, and the course of the Yacht Cruise with video.

Tiki! Tiki! Tiki!
Originally uploaded by Fantom Planet.

I found a place!

Place: Mister Tiki Mai Tai Lounge
801 5th Ave, San Diego, CA
(619) 233-1183

Time: 8pm, 19 June

We’re rehashing Mr. Tiki for this year’s ESRI UC’s Geoblogger Meetup.  I’m not sure how many of us there will be. So, RSVP via the comment section

The Mr. Tiki tiki photo is geotagged.

Over on Sean’s blog, he notes something about book authors in our business not getting their information out on the web. This made me realize my poor blogging schedule and that I have also become a GIS shut-in. My day job has got the best of me lately and I haven’t had much good information to post. Sure, I could tell you that ArcMap crashed on me every once in a while, but that happens to everybody, right?

Otherwise there wouldn’t be a F*ck ArcMap group in Facebook.

Actually, the day job is pretty good, but exhausting. It’s the paperwork that kills me. . . Oh, and the political b.s. that accompanies change in a bureaucracy.
On another note still working out details for the UC Geoblogger Meetup. Just reserve Tuesday night for the event.

Ok, I’m lay-z.

I’m thinking a repeat of Mr. Tiki on Tuesday is going to be it.  But before I finalize the date and call Mr. Tiki, I want one final “coolness” check with you guys.

I’m still alive, contrary to those rumors running around how I’ve survived an early death.

So, it’s March and Where 2.0.3 and the ESRI UC are going on in, oh . . . 2 . . . 3 months from now. Which means it’s time to start planning ahead for Geoblogger Meetups!

Here’s the deal:

• I assume that something’s gonna happen at the ESRI Dev Summit next week.
• Jesse noted that there’s going to be one at AAG next month.
• Is anyone else going to ASPRS or not?
• I  may or may not make it to Where, but hopefully I do.
• The Google Earth Team asked me today, “Shouldn’t we be sponsoring your Geoblogger meetup at ESRI soon?”
• FOSS4G is on at the end of September.  Whew.  A break.

Busy geo-events going on.  Now’s the time to start recommending ideas for the old Meetups!  I know I’m on the hook for ESRI.  Anyone else have any ideas?  Can we even have a geoblogger meetup at Where?  Will anyone attend ASPRS, or has my boss sent me to the wrong conference again?