West Palm Beach

My training session with ESRI ended Friday afternoon in West Palm Beach, Florida.  I enjoyed the class and received a wealth of knowledge.  If any of you are interested in learning some fine tuning methods for ArcSDE in SQL, I recommend the class.  It rained every day I was in Florida.  Friday I went to Juno beach until it rained.  Here are some photographs:

 

not that easy…

I have to say that previously to working in GIS my profession was in networking support for a local ISP.  This place I used to call home had such a unique group of people.  The best part was….we all got along pretty well.  It was definitely a family atmosphere and those people are still very much apart of my life.  It doesn’t matter how much time passes since the last time we have spoken…it’s like I never left.  I care for them all dearly and I miss that job sometimes.

We all have to find that important role in life that takes us from a job to a career.  When I left the ISP….that was me taking a gigantic leap to my future in map making.  I was very unsure about leaving the comfortable home I had come to know.  I had a little push in the right direction from the individuals I now refer to as “Mom”.  I could never thank them enough for the encouragement to pursue bigger and better dreams.

I really love my job.  The best part is I have always had a desire to connect the world.  Now that I make digital maps with information linked together…it’s like I connected my brain to my heart.

There is downside to my office situation.  In our firm, there is a married couple.  The husband is a geologist and does most of our report writing dealing with drilling/remediation.  The wife is a chemist who analyzes the data from the drilling/remediation.  Wow, these two people are definitely a piece of work.  I believe there is no one in the world better for each other than the two of them.  They have a condescending way of speaking to everyone with their superior attitudes.  Some days, it is very hard to bare.  I, too, have found myself questioning my place in the firm.  It wasn’t until I discovered I was not alone did the feelings subside.

I have a new friend at the firm.  He is our draftsman.  He is a really nice guy and is closest in age to me.  We both work with maps and have to collaborate frequently on projects.  He is going through a divorce as of Sunday.  Today, he wasn’t quite himself and was having trouble concentrating on his current projects.  He is collaborating with our geologist on this project.  Needless to say, the geologist was his normal self.  On a day like today for him (the draftsman), it was the straw that broke the camels back.  He called his previous employer and they are going to match his current salary for him to return to work for them.

I hate to see him go.  We work very well together, but he feels things will never get better.  The couple has had it out for him since he started.  They do this quite frequently.  They focus on someone they are going to make miserable.  We have a hydro-geologist and they did the same thing to him.  He considered quitting too.

Lately, I’ve been having individual projects and have not had to work with either of them.  I know, that a career often requires dealing with these kinds of people.  I know that everything has a way of working itself out.  I know that soon something will happen that will show my boss this couples true colors.  I hope I’m here to see it.  I’ve been hanging in there….

but sometimes…it’s not easy.

rains, planes, and car rentals

My Detour....

I left MAF a little before 9 to DFW.  My flight was scheduled to land at PBI in West Palm Beach a little before 6pm.  Well, as my lack of luck would have it…I didn’t get checked into my hotel until 12:30AM.  Before my flight left DFW we had an hour delay due to technical difficulties with the weather radar.  Soon, we were finally on our way.  After almost two hours, the pilot comes on and says the weather radar is out again and we are turning back to DFW.  At this point we just passed Mississippi and we can see storms in the horizon.  We get back to DFW and they rush us saying we are going to hop on another flight to go back to FL.  An hour and a half later we are boarding AGAIN.  We are on the runway and the pilot comes on saying DFW has just been shut down to a lightning strike and we are grounded until further notice.  WTF?  An hour later…we are 7th in line to leave the runway.  I was so tired when we got to FL.  It was so dark so I didn’t even get to see anything.

Today, is much much better.  I am really liking my SQL class so far and lunch was great.  I had some delicious tacos from Rocco’s Taco’s on Clematis, which is downtown.  I took some photos of the fountains and the kids playing in the water.

When class lets out I’m going to watch The Dark Knight at the IMAX a few blocks away.  I am soooo excited.  Also, they have some local bands playing on Clematis tonight!  Those are the plans!

I’ll post some pics tonight!

 

p.s.:  apparently, i was looking pretty good yesterday admist the chaos.  the starkbucks guy at DFW hit on me then upgraded my venti to a grande for free.  then, at PBI the budget guy upgraded me from a compact car to premium.  wow.

Beach, Maps, and Code

Tomorrow I will be waving goodbye to West Texas and welcoming the moist air of Florida’s West Palm Beach.  I have spent the last week in the desert of New Mexico.  It was a nice adventure.  Me and my new client mapped a small pipeline system using Trimble’s new GeoXT with Zephyr Antenna.  Our points, lines, and polygons look great!  When I return we will start post processing and I’ll begin teaching them how to add attribute tables to the features we have collected.  My flight leaves at 9:00 AM and I have a 3 hr wait at DFW.  I don’t mind waiting at DFW because it’s a very interesting place.  I’m looking forward to sipping some coffee and really diving into my new book “Middlesex.”  My flight lands at Palm Beach International a little after 5pm.  I figured I could check into my hotel and find my way to an eatery off the beach!!!  It is supposed to be raining, but I’m being optimistic.

My class at ESRI is for ArcGIS Server Enterprise Configuration and Tuning for SQL Server.  I hope that it’s helpful for the deployment of ArcServer!!!

The Beach!