A geospatial career journey
Yesterday was the 21st anniversary of 9/11. I tend to let that day go by without comment. My recollections of the day itself add nothing as I was 50 miles outside of DC at the time. Even that far away, the roads were filled with panicked people and the phone networks were crashing, but I … Continue reading Reflections, Twenty-One Years On
Tomorrow will officially end my streak of 100 consecutive days of running at least one mile per day. Most days, I've tried to make it at least three, but there have been a few "streak savers" in there. The most memorable one is when I ran a mile circling our parking bay during a thunderstorm … Continue reading 100 Days
When he was in the Air Force, my father served on Air Force One under four presidents - Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. He was on the engine crew and got to see a lot of the world over the course of those administrations. I grew up with Presidential memorabilia all through our home: signed … Continue reading QGIS and a Small Passion Project
Prior to my current role, I spent 25 years working in the federal contracting space. Almost all technology built in that world is one-off and designed for the specific needs of a customer. Often, those needs are complex and meeting them involves creating new technology. "Productizing" a solution is common trope around the Beltway among … Continue reading Services, Solutions, and Products
I've spent the last year or so doing very little with geospatial technology, but I find myself missing it tremendously. Of course "in my blood" and "how I'm wired" and similar aphorisms apply to how I'm feeling, but that's not what really has me missing geospatial. In a shocking (for me) turn of events, I … Continue reading Give Me a Standard, Any Standard
With my MBA program behind me, one of my goals has been to shake the rust off my coding and GIS skills. For this post, I thought I would start simply, just to make sure I remembered how to find my way around QGIS. We recently purchased a plug-in hybrid. It has a 17-mile range … Continue reading Simple Isochrone Analysis in QGIS
I finished my MBA work this week. Grades won't post until next week, which means my completion won't be finalized until next month sometime, but I am done. Approximately 18 months of graduate level work done all online, mostly during a pandemic, has come to an end. I have learned a lot that I will … Continue reading Life and How to Live It
For a long time now, I have tried to take a holistic approach to my day. I long ago seized upon the idea that time is the primary resource to manage and that all others, including money, are secondary. Show me a person who says "Time is money" and I will show you someone who … Continue reading Geography Matters Less
16 hours in Denver and a drive-by catch-up with some of the geo-people I miss so much. Reminding myself that my anger might make me feel better in the short term, but it's not worth the wreckage I'd leave in my wake. Taking down a poster for an old sales campaign at HQ from the … Continue reading Vignettes From a Month
To say that programming saved my life would be overly dramatic. Given that I started programming at an age where most of us are prone to drama based on the ebbs and flows of hormones, a dramatic reading of my first forays into programming would be forgivable. But, while programming didn't save my life, it … Continue reading A Programming Life