Consider this fundamental difference between Texas and PLSSia. In Texas, when we photograph courthouses, the time of day and the light casting shadows must be taken in to proper account. Here, for example, is the Colorado County Courthouse at around 4:30 PM today. 
Unlike Texas, in PLSSia, a pallid, washed-out photo would suffice because all viewers would have access to the original plan to which the courthouse was built.
I think it's obvious to most of us now that Texas is by far a better place to survey than any Public Lands or Colonial state...but it makes me wonder, or dream, really. I wonder if, in this great big world, there is a better place to survey than Texas. Could such a place exist? Imagine the impossible grandness of the land tenure records and courthouses, the virtue of the people, the Einsteinian intellect and skill of its surveyors, the staggering comprehensiveness of its PLS exam!
Kent McMillan, post: 426279, member: 3 wrote: Well, Texas is the equivalent of four or five different states all mashed together, each with its own little story. The real question is why anyone would want a license to survey in some other state if they were qualified to survey in Texas. I am, for example, licensed to survey in:
- Central Texas,
- South Texas,
- West Texas,
- Far West Texas,
- the Llano Estacado,
- the Panhandle,
- North Texas,
- Northeast Texas,
- East Texas, and
- Southeast Texas.
By your logic I'm licensed in 58 places (counties). (I know Texas has more counties, but that's because they needed to build all those court houses with jails.)
We have Ranchos, PLSS-ia, metes and bounds, subdivisions, water boundaries (besides two big rivers), and tidal lands.
I lived in Texas when I was a little kid (Corpus Christi), but I'm OK now.
Lucky we moved to Oklahoma (Duncan) for my sister to start school, and then to California for me to start school (Willard Elementary, Long Beach, rah!)
FrozenNorth, post: 426415, member: 10219 wrote: I think it's obvious to most of us now that Texas is by far a better place to survey than any Public Lands or Colonial state...but it makes me wonder, or dream, really. I wonder if, in this great big world, there is a better place to survey than Texas. Could such a place exist?
My best guess would be that if a more interesting place to survey than Texas exists, it is probably in some box with Erwin Schr̦dinger's cat and who really wants to be working there?
Dave Lindell, post: 426418, member: 55 wrote: By your logic I'm licensed in 58 places (counties).
If you don't need CEUs for all those 58 licenses, I rest my case as to the common simplicity of the PLSS.
Kent McMillan, post: 426419, member: 3 wrote: My best guess would be that if a more interesting place to survey than Texas exists, it is probably in some box with Erwin Schr̦dinger's cat and who really wants to be working there?
I mean, it's completely dark, there is only a 0.50 probability that there is even cat litter in the box, and a 0.50 probability that the cat is dead, anyway.
Kent McMillan, post: 426414, member: 3 wrote: Consider this fundamental difference between Texas and PLSSia. In Texas, when we photograph courthouses, the time of day and the light casting shadows must be taken in to proper account. Here, for example, is the Colorado County Courthouse at around 4:30 PM today.
Unlike Texas, in PLSSia, a pallid, washed-out photo would suffice because all viewers would have access to the original plan to which the courthouse was built.
Speaking of a pallid, washed-out photo of the back of a Texas county courthouse. Either both photos were taken at 4:05 p.m. or the clocks are right twice a day. 🙂
This undated photo was obviously before the 2009 restoration.
Texas Historical Commission. [Colorado County Courthouse], photograph, Date Unknown
University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Commission.
Gene Kooper, post: 426426, member: 9850 wrote: Speaking of a pallid, washed-out photo of the back of a Texas county courthouse. Either both photos were taken at 4:07 p.m. or the clocks are right twice a day.
Actually, my iPhone 6+ (which paden cash has informed me is not yet not available in Oklahoma) tells me that the photo was taken at 4:03 PM. I'd think that to be authoritative, but I can appreciate that if the County Surveyor's clock says something else, you might think that controlling. I mean, you're just a surveyor, right?
Kent McMillan, post: 426408, member: 3 wrote: ...that a deep history needs to be excavated in order to get close to a defensible answer in many boundary determinations...
Oh I think we're all well aware that the McMillan Method of surveying in Texas requires "excavation"; possibly with a clothes pin for the nose and waders. But throwing armadillo scat everywhere to make it appear as though you've been thorough hardly makes retracements in Texas any more difficult than anywhere else. You and I are both similar to a lot of the members here. We not only share similar ages, but a good number of us are still just non-degreed licensed professional practitioners with too many years under our belt. No need to go inflating your ego just because you were only able to obtain licensure in one state. It doesn't bother me a bit that I know nothing about surveying in other states; but I will at least admit it....Kent....;)
But I'm still not buying your basic logic that poorly kept obscure records, ambiguously described locations and lack of a standard unit of measure somehow glorifies surveying in Texas. I'm sure it's a bitch, but that's an indication of a systemic failure of the Texas system and not the fault of the systems of other states. I'm guessing multiple corners with gores and hiatuses is standard procedure. But then that allows Texas surveyors to go ahead and place yet another number of monuments on their "true" boundary (that have been pulled from their nether regions) without hardly raising an eyebrow.
If surveying under such decrepit conditions somehow tempers one into a super-surveyor then the state should be overflowing with surveyors that could walk on water..if they could find any. Your arguments fail to convince me that the plethora of pitfalls one probably endures merely attempting a boundary reconstruction in Texas somehow magically produces superior results. A fact of the physical universe is that the more problems and variables one deals with only produces results that are more prone to be affected by those problematic variables. Hence here in the 21st. century you all down there still cannot agree on the location of corners, some by hundreds of feet. Yep, that's a pretty snappy system y'all got down there. Please keep it there.
And keep "excavating"...with everything you've already dug out and thrown about there is sure to be a good horse down there somewhere...;)
Kent's reply's reminds me of an old story my Grandfather told me. Did you hear about the (insert the State of your choice here) mountain lion that ventured to Texas to visit his cousin? When he arrived, his Texas cousin asked how he was doing? The visitor replied fine, but I am kind of hungry! The Texan M.lion says no problem, go down the road to the tree on the bend, climb it and wait, there will be a Texan coming along soon! The visitor did as he was told, and sure enough along comes an unlucky hiker. The visiting lion lets out a loud roar and pounces on the unlucky traveler and eats him up! He saunters back to his Texas cousin, who asks, well how was it? Pretty good, says the visitor, but I am still kind of hungry! The Texan says well, just go down to the tree again and wait, but remember when you roared you scared the s--- out of him, and when you pounced on him you knocked the hot air out of him, and when you take that away from a Texan there is not a lot left!!
paden cash, post: 426429, member: 20 wrote: Oh I think we're all well aware that the McMillan Method of surveying in Texas requires "excavation"; possibly with a clothes pin for the nose and waders. But throwing armadillo scat everywhere to make it appear as though you've been thorough hardly makes retracements in Texas any more difficult than anywhere else. You and I are both similar to a lot of the members here. We not only share similar ages, but a good number of us are still just non-degreed licensed professional practitioners with too many years under our belt. No need to go inflating your ego just because you were only able to obtain licensure in one state.
Oddly, it has never occurred to me that multiple licensures were other than a sort of escape clause. Once I began to read the posts from PLSSia, I realized that the differences from state to state there are so negliglible that it might be thought to be an asset to have licenses in as many different states as a person could possibly send a field crew to. It would be understood that the licensee would be sitting in a nice office chair somewhere else, of course, but he or she would have the option of selling surveys all over creation (until something happened, such as someone actually noticing what the quality of the work really was).
CA only, due to nature of business get exposed to a few other markets, Texas freaks me out, as a CA guy have a hard time wrapping my head around writing a new description of a property every time its measured. End of day, understand the concept.
Kent McMillan, post: 426279, member: 3 wrote: Well, Texas is the equivalent of four or five different states all mashed together, each with its own little story. The real question is why anyone would want a license to survey in some other state if they were qualified to survey in Texas. I am, for example, licensed to survey in:
- Central Texas,
- South Texas,
- West Texas,
- Far West Texas,
- the Llano Estacado,
- the Panhandle,
- North Texas,
- Northeast Texas,
- East Texas, and
- Southeast Texas.I suppose that if a person were on the run, and If there were a shortage of qualified surveyors in some remote hell hole outside of Texas, it might make sense in the short run, as well. However, In the long run, it seems an admission of failure or desperation to collect licenses from places outside of Texas like multiple passports from Third World countries where one would never really want to live.
I know that I'm getting long in the tooth, but I distinctly remember you saying many moons ago that you had one of those extra rare Texas Vise Grips license. You know, the one that allows you to nudge over other surveyors' junior pins not exactly on the senior line. I just can't recall if you mentioned whether it permitted you to weed out two-bit rebar set slapdashedly by those dastardly quickie-dickie, fixed-fee surveyors (or if that was just wishful thinking on your part). 😉
Kent McMillan, post: 426428, member: 3 wrote: Actually, my iPhone 6+ (which paden cash has informed me is not yet not available in Oklahoma) tells me that the photo was taken at 4:03 PM. I'd think that to be authoritative, but I can appreciate that if the County Surveyor's clock says something else, you might think that controlling. I mean, you're just a surveyor, right?
Actually, I've never met the current county surveyor. After all, there are only 43 mineral surveys in the county. As for a time piece, I own a Casio atomic watch that is periodically set by the atomic clock in Ft. Collins. Comes in handy for the occasional solar observation.
Gene Kooper, post: 426435, member: 9850 wrote: I know that I'm getting long in the tooth, but I distinctly remember you saying many moons ago that you had one of those extra rare Texas Vise Grips license.
Fortunately, we do not have US Mineral Surveyors running around loose in Texas with the idea that just because some surveyor erroneously set a marker on what was supposed to be the line of a senior grant that that automagically *moved* the line to some newly created angle point. Once you recognize that, the rest follows.
Gene Kooper, post: 426436, member: 9850 wrote: Actually, I've never met the current county surveyor.
So, he or she doesn't return your calls? This might be a good topic for a separate thread in the Emily Post vein.
BK9196, post: 426434, member: 12217 wrote: CA only, due to nature of business get exposed to a few other markets, Texas freaks me out, as a CA guy have a hard time wrapping my head around writing a new description of a property every time its measured.
Yes, in Texas, one takes it for granted that a new, more refined description of the actual boundaries would be useful, instead of forever conveying land mentioning monuments that long ago have mostly been obliterated connected by course and distances that probably never did reflect the real situation in a reproducible manner. The revision of descriptions is an easy way to preserve the chain of evidence by which boundaries are proven, particularly in a metes and bounds system devoid of the indexing simplicity of PLSSia.
Kent McMillan, post: 426433, member: 3 wrote: Oddly, it has never occurred to me that multiple licensures were other than a sort of escape clause. Once I began to read the posts from PLSSia, I realized that the differences from state to state there are so negliglible that it might be thought to be an asset to have licenses in as many different states as a person could possibly send a field crew to. It would be understood that the licensee would be sitting in a nice office chair somewhere else, of course, but he or she would have the option of selling surveys all over creation (until something happened, such as someone actually noticing what the quality of the work really was).
If you were attempting humor your ignorance would almost be funny. Explain to me how tidelands law in Oregon is the same in let's say, Nevada? It takes a real Texas Surveyor to trash on the ethics of half the Surveyors in the country based solely on where they live.
Every post you make confirms that putting that rathole in my rearview was the best decision I ever made. You truly are the epitome of the all hat no cattle crowd.
thebionicman, post: 426440, member: 8136 wrote: If you were attempting humor your ignorance would almost be funny. Explain to me how tidelands law in Oregon is the same in let's say, Nevada?
So, your point is that one doesn't need to know as much to be licensed in the inland states of PLSSia? That would seem to make perfect sense.
Gene Kooper, post: 426435, member: 9850 wrote: I know that I'm getting long in the tooth, but I distinctly remember you saying many moons ago that you had one of those extra rare Texas Vise Grips license. You know, the one that allows you to nudge over other surveyors' junior pins not exactly on the senior line. I just can't recall if you mentioned whether it permitted you to weed out two-bit rebar set slapdashedly by those dastardly quickie-dickie, fixed-fee surveyors (or if that was just wishful thinking on your part). 😉
Don't forget the center punch that goes with the Texas Kit in case the bar can't be nudged over and just needs a new revised punch mark. Heck, maybe Texas Vise Grips come with that built in! Great for TxDOT markers.