Read it and weep, you expert measurers!!
is that the one that claims a surveyor can't read a deed?
No, it is: "Math isn't the answer; it's the problem"
Snoop
Same guy, and I haven't read the whole article yet because my online subscription to POB sends me the magazine in such a small format that even zoomed in I need a magnifying glass to read it. I'll check it out on the POB website, I guess. I agree with the basic theme of what I have been able to read of it, though. We do (I do anyway) tend to get caught up in the math. I've been doing a retracement of a lot in an old 1945 subdivision where I have found a few original monuments that don't fit the map worth beans and I was trying to find a math solution holding various monuments to find the solution that fit the occupation lines the best. Finally, I just pulled a Schaut and held the original pipes up front and the fence posts in the back and voila, the fences are right on the lines.
From the article:
"Remember when you asked your fifth-grade teacher why you needed to learn math, and she said it was to keep you from becoming a ditch digger? Little did she know that if you eventually wanted to become a competent land surveyor, you were bringing up a legitimate point."
Jeff's 5th grade teacher must've went to the same National Teacher's Convention that my 6th grade teacher went because I distinctly remember being warned "get educated or become a ditch digger." She didn't tell us that "ditch diggers" generally use giant machines called "Excavators" and they get paid a lot more than the average teacher 🙂
Keith
did you need the definition of "transit", "tape" and "plumb bob" at the bottom of the article?
😉
Keith
lol Dave,
Nope, don't need a definition of my old tools!
Keith
I thought the sarcasm of including the definitions helped make his point about too many people ignoring field evidence. I'd rather see this than some of the insulting headlines his columns have used.
> "Remember when you asked your fifth-grade teacher why you needed to learn math, and she said it was to keep you from becoming a ditch digger?"
>
>
Yeah, and I believed her, too. So I got a bachelor's degree in math but I still ended up doing a lot of digging in a lot of strange and unpleasant places.
Keith
Ted Madson used the same technique. Make controversial statement to develop interest. But when you boil off the vapors, what's left is some very smooth shine that goes down easy once you understand that "it depends". The rules are clear, but applications will show the rule to be an arse in some cases. What the judge and jury think makes sense will typically prevail, regardless the book procedures.
Keith
> Ted Madson used the same technique. Make controversial statement to develop interest. But when you boil off the vapors, what's left is some very smooth shine that goes down easy once you understand that "it depends". The rules are clear, but applications will show the rule to be an arse in some cases. What the judge and jury think makes sense will typically prevail, regardless the book procedures.
My sentiments as well Tee Pee.
Keith
that reminds me-we are on our way over to the insurance agents office and I said to the wife the indian didn't have insurance if his tee pee burned down why like a manly man he just went and got another buffaloe's hide and made another tee pee.
Pale face stupid, Indian hunt, fish and fight every day (e.g. have fun) and no pay for insurance!
Keith
> Ted Madson used the same technique. Make controversial statement to develop interest. But when you boil off the vapors, what's left is some very smooth shine that goes down easy once you understand that "it depends". The rules are clear, but applications will show the rule to be an arse in some cases. What the judge and jury think makes sense will typically prevail, regardless the book procedures.
I could have spent the rest of my life without hearing that name again.
Insurance
I feel sorry for you, Dave. I hate going to the insurance guy. He makes all these expensive policies like long-term disability and such sound like such a good place to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars. You end up leaving his office like you've pushed your heirs overboard and squandered your nest egg by not paying the premiums on the ultimate insurance policy. I went for the umbrella thing a few years back, but I just plead poverty now.
How does this relate to Lucas' latest column, by the way?
Keith
Funny thing about this thread being about math getting in the way and Ted Madson. i believe he wrote the first surveying book I ever had called " The Mathematics of Surveying" It was a very useful book in the beginning of my career in the technician phase where weighing the evidence was most often left to the RLS and precise math was mostly my focus (staking roads ect..). lol Thank god I've had one hell of a mentor in the owner of my current company who has repeated the phrase "It's all about the evidence" just about daily since I've know him. :beer:
Talk about looking at the other side?
Here I am defending Lucas..........
Talk about looking at the other side?
I can see where Lucas may not have validity in many other states, but he makes some good points here in Alabama.
We have everything except recording of individual surveys and anything approaching original section corners. We have surveyors taught to go to the 1973 manual of instructions for retracement that are 5 generations removed from where that correctly applies, and then we have the expert measurers and deed stakers. Top that off with a hundred years of lowballers that should never (and some weren't) been registered, and welcome to our reality.
We come in to an area where peace and harmony existed, and leave with irate land owners and lawyers with dollar signs in their eyes. Lucas is trying to mitigate that situation, and give more credence IN SOME INSTANCES (why do we always want to find that magic 100% rule that suddenly makes everything fit??) to doing as little damage to both our client and the adjoiners as possible. He is an attorney, so he sees it from the other side of the fence as well.
I find it telling that he shares that with Madson and it just ticks off a certain mindset that actually has the original section corners to work with. If Alabama had adopted recording of all surveys as state law, no problem (or rather, a different set of problems) we have a chain to work with. Instead, we have title companies and realtors with great lobbying abilities and land law geared to favoring them.
If it wasn't for the legal profession's PAC, they would've done away with the requirements for surveys long ago. Wait, that's right, they did about 60 years ago, lending institutions require surveys, not the state.
