So on vacation, lots of hiking, running and sightseeing. But, I still seem to look for survey stuff, and almost involuntarily pull out the phone to take a picture of this:
SWMBO looks at me, gives me the eye roll. I find myself seeing stakes along the highways, pins along our walks, I think it's a kind of sickness;-)
It is and I am similarly afflicted.
Better than taking guardrail pictures while driving down the road, in front of the majestic vistas of detention basins or other engineering wonders.
When my children were little they'd have a competition among themselves to see who could find one for Daddy the first. I thought it was cute, the wife thought it was nuts.
I think it is nuts, there were some disks along the parking lane of a new highway, looked like some kind of marker or maybe even water valves, but I couldn't see a reason for a water line in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to pull over and look, but, I stopped myself, told myself to just move along!!! 🙂
You clearly suffer from GMS, a.k.a. Geometres Monumentum Syndrome, a common disease among Land Surveyors.
Yet it still weighs on your mind...:-P should've just stopped and looked.:-D
lol, yeah, but there were so many of them, had to stop myself, stake over there, property monument over there, concrete marker of some kind off to the right. Heck I drive along the highway checking fence lines, and try to figure out township and range lines:-(
If I kept stopping I wouldn't get anywhere!!
But don't you worry Moe, you are not alone. There are many that struggle with this 'obsession', and there is hope. You will find a support group here who understands and shares your compulsion. Others may not understand and treat this as a sickness, but they simply don't understand. We do. We are there for you.
Backpacking the Chilkoot Trail of the Gold Rush a few years back, I couldn't help myself...
'Penalty for Removal - 7 years'. Now we're talking. Hard time of course.
I know what you mean. A year ago after visiting Kent in Texas while driving to Austin I noticed these regularly spaced concrete monuments. I finally had to stop and take a picture. I don't remember if they had any identifying markings.
Aloha, MM:
You know there is 12 steps program for this right? 😀 😀
You are surveyor at heart!
> I know what you mean. A year ago after visiting Kent in Texas while driving to Austin I noticed these regularly spaced concrete monuments. I finally had to stop and take a picture. I don't remember if they had any identifying markings.
Typically those conmons do not have any markings. They are usually found at PTs and PCs of the ROW. You are supposed to just know what these are. Those things are typically 3 foot in length, the majority of it buried. I don't know how many I've found out in the hill country. The bad thing is there isn't a dimple one on any of them. The one you found looks like it was in great condition compared to most I've had to use.
Normal people on vacation are always looking up or out at a vista or intersting structure or site.
Surveyors on vacation look down, pointing at some little disc in the ground.
ww CO PLS
- Have a nice day! Or, may your monument prevail over some guy's touchscreen.
"The bad thing is there isn't a dimple one on any of them. "
The good thing is there isn't a dimple on any one of them. If it hits - it fits.
Ours in Ca have a brass or copper wire cast into the center, not that it makes them fit any better.
Generally they are buried far enough into the ground that you can dig around and find the broken base if you take your time. Not everyone does that.
Mahalo yswami, that disk is in your area, a few hundred miles southeast.
Most people were taking pictures of the crater and I'm taking pictures of a brass disk.
Although, I will say there were about ten tourists gathered around it pointing and talking about it. I can't imagine it's very stable at that location, and I wonder how much it's shifted over the years. 😉
I hope you enjoyed your vacation here!
This is Hawaii...couple feet? No problem:-D You'll never witness a debate over 0.04ft pincushion here. 😛 Many pincushions are a foot or more a part!!B-)
I know what you mean. I was recouping after a medical problem so we went down to see the battle field at Shiloh. A group of school kids was there and they were a discussing what a USGS disk meant, it had been set in one of the bases of a monument to one of the states. I wasn't talking real fast so I was just sitting back smiling to myself as they came up with all sorts of wild guesses. My wife finally said I should explain it to them so I spoke up. Spent most of an hour talking to them, they were more interested in that disk than the other monuments. When I was a kid, I'd have loved to go to battle field sites on field trips and wouldn't have given two craps about the disk. Yes, before the kids showed up I got a picture of the disk.
Steven
Thanks for the information.
I have my wife trained to do it. She recently went to San Francisco and kept sending me pics of survey markers.
I am the same way, but with road side outcrops. Two weeks ago I was in the Pearshall, Tx area for some meetings and field work. I had some time to kill one afternoon so I went driving and low-n-behold. I find a few outcrops:
I even found a little trace fossil:
It is the geologist in me from a previous life. I just can't help it. Drives my wife crazy when we take road trips outside of LA. Texas hill country trips are the worst.
