FANTOM PLANET

It’s MIP, or final paper, season here at Redlands. I’m just taking a break to check in with the crew. I just wanted to point out the courtyard of our building on campus, Lewis Hall, has become a wildlife refuge this past spring. First there was the fox. Then the bird with the broken wing. And now the attack of the ants.

Here are some LOLZ:

How that fox got up there on the hanging slabs in the courtyard? I’ll never know. But srsly. The ants, if you piled them all up, they would be about the mass of those three in the picture.

There’s a blog called “MFR” from my hometown that reviews popular unpopular music. I recently made a playlist with songs that had related themes to the year I’ve spent here in Redlands. Some folks may get them, but then again, most of you won’t.

Men’s Health has a map up on their website citing the most and least drunk cities in America.

• Denver ranks first in the most drunk category. Home to DigitalGlobe, Peter Batty, and a number of other geo-related bloggers and companies.
• Durham, NC, is the least drunk. Must be why Sean can get so much done?
• Washington, DC, led in DUI’s. Even though I left, I guess our representatives are keeping it at a steady mark.

Update: Sean doesn’t live in NC. He lives at the New Belgium Brewery!

Today my MSGIS class here at the University of Redlands had our first trip to ESRI HQ with tour and overview provided by David Maguire and Mike Phoenix. It was a good tour and overview of ESRI and what its staff has accomplished over the pass couple of decades. It gave us a good insight into how they operate and view their position in the world as placing doing good before making a profit. After a whirlwind tour we were given company badges as part of our program. I guess we’ll be having some more training at ESRI HQ (EHQ) later on in the program, but from the ESRI staff that has been coming over to present themselves as possible clients for our Major Individual Projects (MIPs), it looks like a lot of us might actually be in and out of EHQ quite a bit for projects, support, and mentoring.

And I think that it’s a good thing because there aren’t too many programs where that’s going to happen either. 

I’m actually pretty excited to use the resources ESRI is willing to provide for my project. Although, I’m still aware there are other tools out there—so don’t go off on a Kool-Aid to candy rant.  

I haven’t written in a few weeks, but this whole fiasco has prompted me to post something:

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).

See you guys at 8pm at Mister Tiki on the corner of 5th and F.

For those of you going on the DigitalGlobe Dinner Cruise, take a life jacket. (See map.)

About 160+ feet actually. . .

Robbie Bina, from my old haunts, dumps a puck down the ice to score against their rivals at the University of Minnesota (MapServer.)

Priceless.

So, I’ve been trying to work on some ESRI Virtual Campus courses this weekend. Trying in terms of trying to get a friggin’ page to load. My problem is that when I advance to the next page I get an error saying that ESRI’s servers are unable to recover from an error.

Geez?

Anyway, I’m not angry yet. These things happen, but I sent an email to ESRI’s training people to give them a heads up. Plus, I said that I’m not seriously complaining yet. I’m just growing slightly frustrated.

I happened to come in to a copy of A to Z GIS (ISBN 978-1-58948-140-4), by ESRI. It’s a nice pocket-sized book that tells you all the definitions and concepts of (ESRI) GIS. I like it because, even though I know a lot, I sure don’t apply or remember everything about GIS. This is a handy reference guide not only for GIS beginners, but also for those of us long in the GIS tooth.