Old Irish Blessing

YouTube - uploaded by Chan0the0Man on Feb 7, 2008 .
"Old Irish Blessing" by Denes Agay.

A Young Boy's Summer Vacation

Floating this evening in our pond contemplating the twilight sky as a bat, lightning bugs and the fleeting half-moon take turns making their separate journeys above and beyond me. It is a beautiful evening albeit warm and humid. But how do I love the fresh water feel and smell...

It has been many a day since as a young boy of ten or twelve I fished for trout in Beaver Creek, near Know, Pennyslvania. An idyllic setting for a city boy, a Pittsburgher, to have the opportunity to spend at least one week during the summer at our shared hunting cabin, "Cabin in the Pines." My father and his circle of friends built the Cabin in 1942, shortly before they set off for war. A meadow and hemlocks circle the Cabin with just enough room for badminton and whiffle ball or even a tight practice field for baseball. The campfire would be built every evening with hot dogs and marshmallows and we would look at stars, play cards, or simply tell stories or relate the day's events. Yet it is the trout fishing that I remember best. I would grab whatever bait was available be it a worm or supper fare like a hot dog or corn and head up or down stream. My fishing bait really didn't matter that much though. I usually could catch a minnow on just about anything, but it was the spring-stocked trout that I was after. Usually by June or July the trout had had a chance to acclimate themselves to the water so they weren't quite as reckless in their feeding habits. 

So it was one twilight evening that I grabbed a hot dog and sped off upstream to a hole that I knew harbored trout. That particular evening the trout decided to take advantage of my offerings. In a short time I caught a 12 or so inch rainbow and a 17 inch brown trout. I was one happy boy when I returned to the Cabin with my catch. We cooked the two trout up almost immediately. They tasted great and I will never forget the sense of that evening in the place, the family and the fish...

All good things though seem to end. Within a year or two after that construction on Interstate 80 began. I can remember that my Father anxiously waited for the opening of the I-80 as he knew that it would shorten travel times from Pittsburgh, but also to points (i.e., hunting grounds) further north and west. Little did we know though but that one day when we arrived at the Cabin, Beaver Creek had turned orange. Turns out that the highway construction had opened an old mine and released acid mine drainage into Beaver Creek just upstream from our Cabin and just upstream to my favorite fishing hole. If my memory serves me right my Father wrote to Dr. Roger Latham about the drainage and impact on Beaver Creek. Dr. Latham was the outdoor editor for the Pittsburgh Press at the time.  He subsequently had an article in the Press about the acid mine drainage.

I was devastated at the time. How do you take a clear stream, one that you swim and fish in, and then turn it orange. We had absolutely no control over what had happened. That lesson of long ago has never left me. How do you reconcile societal needs and demands with the natural environment which we so often take for granted. Some how and some way we must understand and better track the impacts, really the potential impacts of everything that we do. Yet I fear that the lesson we must learn is one that will only be lived and learned the hard way. For that I would guess we must say our prayers that we will survive what is to come...

A John Milton Sonnet

On His Blindness

"When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts: who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

John Milton

Brief Passage in Time

Historic Philadelphia, the contemporary one, captures perhaps 300 years as a period piece from the past.   This photo was shot on Clinton (link to upcoming movie that has a set here), outside our bed and breakfest, near 11th and Spruce this past weekend.  We were in town for a graduation ceremony at the University of Pennsylvania. I missed the school's 254th commencement on Monday. I did make the College of Arts and Sciences graduation at Franklin Field last Sunday though.  George Smith, the co-inventor of the charge-coupled device spoke at the ceremony. I much appreciated his speech and his reference that "specialization is for insects."  [My daughter pointed out that this was a quote from one of Heinlein's books...]

How do you package one daughter's life into a ceremony for so many lives that are just beginning in a very rich world undergoing significant, if not transformational change. All the memories and that hope you have sent off with your child into the world.

Alas, travel back in time. Watched the movie, "Robin Hood" last night. The Lady and the Knight. Can't help, but like Cate and Russell Crowe both in their own way. And the story, well, I did like the movie and I have always liked the story.  I guess, based on a visit to Britain some years ago, I have always been fascinated by the Magna Carta and the late 12th century or so. Connections to the past both on a personal level and really for the America society I would guess are still pretty strong. And I liked the quote you know: "Rise and Rise Again Until Lambs Become Lions."

Tempting to think that modern society is that much more civilized. Only time will tell I suppose in many ways. 

Rising Water

Parked outside late tonight. Water is almost over the bridge.  There is too much snow on the ground. We have just about a foot of snow in the woods left, but I can imagine the snowpack is that much higher in the high country. This weekend could get ugly if we receive even an inch of rain - timing and amount will be critical.  Our road may end up downstream...

This morning I went out to the car right around 6 am. Just as I opened the car door I heard a plaintive cry of what I imagined to be a Canadian goose.  I stood there for a minute staring upward into the darkened, morning sky trying to pick out that familiar shape.  The light just hadn't made enough headway over the eastern mountain.  Again, that same call echoed across the valley.  Again, the call faded off into the distance, but not before I hesitated, a bit ill-at-ease with what I had just heard.  It isn't hard for me to latch on to an Aboriginal perspective, if I should even know or sense what that is.  But for a few seconds, then down the half-mile lane and off to town, just shy of fifteen minutes as the car flies - to work.

Back home this evening, close to 6 pm.  Snow has had a chance to melt a bit today with the temperature in the 40s (degree Fahrenheit). The water still has maybe two feet to rise before making it to the bridge deck.  But, I decide to park the car on the other side of the bridge tonight.  The last thing we need is to be marooned without a vehicle on the outside. I wait until 9:30 pm or so before I head back into town to pick up milk and other odds and ends just in case. As I head down our lane I bump into a furry, black butt ambling down the road.  The deep snow channels most furry friends along the same paths and this neighborly skunk is doing the same.  He steps up his pace as he realizes someone is tailgating him. This lasts for twenty yards or so when Mr. Skunk reaches the bridge.  He discovers he has reached the bridge just in time to encounter a fellow night critter, an oppossum.  I smile as I watch Mr. Oppossum and Mr. Skunk apparently discover they had no intent on meeting tonight.  Mr. Oppossum bares his teeth at Mr. Skunk and that is enough to send our furry friend along his way - still along the road.  Given that our friends met on the bridge I gently nudge Mr. Oppossum along and out of my way as he finally stumbles off the maintained road into the crusted and wet snow.  His trail isn't quite so comfortable now.

The trip into town takes a bit of time, but eventually I make my way back home and realize the water is rising faster than I had thought earlier.  I had hoped the slowly dropping temperature might allay the water level from rising any further.  No such luck.  I drop off the milk at the house (but not before chasing a red fox up our lane) and return to the main road to park my car.

It is on the walk back that I remember the day.  The goose above in the night sky, the skunk and oppossum settled on their man-made paths, the red fox dashing off ahead of me, and the deer off in the distance (that I did not mention that started their evening meal early tonight as they often do before an approaching storm). The dark ribbon winding its half-mile way back back to our home obligingly contrasts with the plowed-high berms and the surrounding blanket of snow. Flickering stars in a clouded sky beckon. How many others share this same sky...

Geographic Landscapes

Watched the TED talk by Murray Gell-Mann a bit ago. It brought back long ago memories of the Santa fe Insitute, its intriguing focus, and the beautiful southwestern view falling away from its doorstep. Complexity science and a very, human quest to push the envelope on understanding the world about us. But part of my need I suppose in thinking a bit further on this is that geographic landscapes hold a particularly strong attraction for me. Growing up in the wooded hills of Pittsburgh and my walks with Sal (a half German short-hair pointer and black lab), or the short Robin Hood forays with my recurve bow, or the days when I pushed myself to overcome an injury that I suffered in high school as I immersed myself in the nooks and crannys surrounding our home there in Lincoln Place. Pittsburgh, albeit not as glamorous as the polished, sandy Southwest carries a steadfast, storied landscape carved into southwestern Pennsylvania and etched by the three rivers.  So too, consider two years into a Guatemalan land of tropical sun and sand, two years into a high Sonoran desert, another six or seven years in a transitional boreal forest along the international boundary with Canada, or the present home in east-central West Virginia. It makes me smile because I know the twists and turns of my life are leading me on.  And as our children emerge from our oft-times, too close hold on their paths, they too will engage themselves into a world that is more diverse than one can really imagine.  It is that world out there that may engage you or your loved ones in an intricate dance with life that may only be understood in passing. It is a venture that I would suggest that you must volunteer yourself and allow yourself to play across the providential winds that blow. The first photograph that I added to this post is of bear grass, found within the ancestral grounds of Apache clans in the southwest.  The grass of yesterday was used for many uses. I spent a couple of years working with San Carlos Apache Nation. I do not easily forget the people or the land.

I think if I were gifted as a Bard of old I might regal you with tales of the past, but perhaps over time I can reveal something of those lands that might engage your curiosity...

_____________________________________________________

In honor of those many individuals across the world that in normal times, from Guatemala to Ethiopia, struggle to simply survive. And then too to those in Haiti and Chile, those who are now arising with the morning sun and praying for a hopeful day.  Toward...

2010 ESRI Federal User Conference

February 16 - 18, 2010

Washington DC Convention Center

Conference Online Videos

Historical Context:

Over three thousand people have registered for this year's three-day conference. This is the fifteenth year for the conference that originally started with a small group of individuals at the National Geographic Society. The conference has been sponsored by ESRI and other GIS-industry companies down through the years.

Highlights:
Jack Dangermond characterized this year’s conference as “The Geographic Approach for the Nation.” He captured the GIS past in pictures with music in telling a story as to the contemporary context for applying GIS today. As always his message is one tinged in hope of being able to surmount the many cultural and societal obstacles in our day by using and applying geographic-based tools. He cited a multitude of applications across a seemingly widening array of military, business and natural resource fields. Jack drilled into a number of applications during his talk on natural resources, homeland security, facility management, military applications and law enforcement to name just a few.

The conference plenary speaker, Dr. John Holdren (President Obama’s Science and Technology Advisor and the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy), gave an effective and professional presentation on this Administration’s policies toward Science and Technology. I came away from his talk impressed. Editorializing on my own, “Science is too important not to have someone of Dr. Holdren’s stature in an advisory role to the President.”

ESRI web information on Dr. Holdren – Trained in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, he is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a foreign member of the Royal Society of London and a former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Dr. Holdren was a professor in both the Kennedy School of Government and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University, as well as Director of the independent, non-profit Woods Hole Research Center. From 1973 to 1996 he was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he co-founded and co-led the interdisciplinary graduate-degree program in energy and resources.

Finally, every year Jack selects an individual in the Federal government who epitomizes the public servant who applies GIS in real world contexts. This year Jack honored Tim Trainor, Chief of the Geography Division, in the US Census Bureau for his work over the years.

Workshops (1 ½ hour sessions):
I personally attended workshops on ArcGIS Explorer–More than an Introduction with Brian Szukalski, Geodatabase Essentials Part 2–An Introduction to to ArcSDE Geodatabase with Tim Clark, Concepts of Geographic Analysis with Mike Sweeney, GeoMedicine with Bill Davenhall, and Using Spatial Statistics and Regression Analysis in ArcGIS with Laura Rosenshein.

ArcGIS Explorer – Brian focused on the new features coming out in March as part of the 1200 Build (a Silverlight Build will be released in April and a second Build 1500 will appear with the ArcGIS 10 summer release). This is a “connected application” that, because of its ability to be customized (as part of an Application Configuration Manager or ACM), holds potential as an enterprise-wide application for “the masses.” Brian discussed ArcGIS Explorer’s use of Microsoft’s ribbon interface. He also demonstrated the use layer packages and the ability to encapsulate data and symbology (recommended). The ArcGIS Explorer projection utilizes the Web Mercator auxiliary sphere that is used by Google. It is a 256 x 256 tiling scheme that is easy for mashing. The basemap gallery has also been updated for the new release. There was way too much information presented to cover here, but go to ESRI’s Resource Center for more information.

ArcSDE Geodatabases – Tim Clark covered a lot of ground that many of you are probably already familiar with. I won’t go into any details, but you can navigate to the ESRI web site for more information.

Concepts of Geographic Analysis – Mike Sweeney’s talk was focused on the basics for doing geographic analysis. Since all of us use geographic analysis on a regular basis through ArcGIS Toolbox I won’t mention the basics of his presentation. It is good to know though that there are a plethora of resources through the web (for example, ESRI’s help resources have improved over the years), in books (ESRI’s especially and including ESRI’s library), or at various governmental agencies (such as USGS, etc). Simply google/yahoo/search the web and read to your heart’s content. And don’t forget some of the blogs that are out there. They are excellent resources. In terms of blogs check out these – ESRI, James Fee, Michalis Avraam, Lizard Tech, and the Geo-Jobe blog to name just a few.

GeoMedicine –Bill Davenhall (see TEDMED talk) covered a lot of ground in emphasizing the importance of geography to your personal health. For more information, and to create your own map, go to the ESRI web site on GeoMedicine.

Using Spatial Statistics and Regression Analysis in ArcGIS – Laura Rosenshein gave two 1 ½ hour sessions on “Using Spatial Statistics” and “Regression Analysis in ArcGIS,” respectively. They were excellent session that I particularly had an interest in. What made the sessions even better is that she used ArcGIS 9.3.1 and ArcToolbox the whole time. In the Spatial Statistics session Laura focused on first, descriptive then inferential statistics. You can access here her Powerpoint on Spatial Statistics in a health care context for a good idea in terms of what she presented in the workshop. The second workshop was devoted to Regression Analysis in ArcGIS. Here is a link to an ESRI tutorial on Regression Analysis. Laura also demonstrated the use of Group Animation. She made it look easy (recommended). [As an aside click here for an interesting read in Directions Magazine about Laura and her career choice. Another aside, Laura mentioned she had someone ask her how fast of a computer do you need to run ArcGIS Desktop. Laura said it “depends on how fast you want ArcMap to work.”]

Reception:
The annual Fed User Thursday evening reception was held at the National Building Museum in DC. Sponsored by ESRI and other “GIS firms,” the reception was an incredible way to network in a beautiful venue. Regretfully, I missed my opportunity to meet the WWII Navajo Code Talkers who happened to be there for another meeting.

Geographic Serendipity:
As always there is some geographic serendipitous occurrence during the three day conference. My choice for 2010 is of a friend who wanted to go on a White House Tour. The day before he was to leave for DC from his Minnesota home and workplace he received an email from his Congressman that yes, indeed he would be able to go on a White House tour the next day (after he had been turned down). As luck would have it, my friend, happened to notice that the Dalai Lama was on the other side of the roped off area enjoying a White House tour with a staffer at the same time that his tour group entered the room.

Closing Session:
Damian Spangrud emceed the closing session in talking about Mobile GIS and Imagery with the help of demonstrations (including one using an iPhone).

Following Damian, Jack gave his customary closing for the conference as he interacted with participants and asked for input on the 2011 conference (slated for February 2nd through the 4th).
It was a great conference and I am already looking forward to next year and the glorious evening reception that Jack has made into a “Where’s Waldo…” Highly recommended for all GIS users!