What a great day again back in the workforce. Got an email yesterday from a friend and former Fire Chief who is now a State Senator asking for some help with maps. Yes, everyone knows where to call for help with maps. Dug up the information last night and printed it all out and he stopped by early to pick them up. Don is looking good and on several committees related to safety so I hope to be able to help him more in the coming years. I love working on E911 issues and anything related to disaster management. And anything that helps my Oklahoma is good in my opinion.
I got there pretty early this morning. It's like a madhouse just before 7:00 with all the public works guys flying in to make it on time. Much simpler to get to the office with a cup of joe, boot up the computer, change from tennis shoes to field boots and be all ready to go when the buzzer rings at 7:00 am.
Plus I thought we might be going back to the lake today and using our GPS. There was a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) that was due to hit earth today and it impacts our equipment. Oh, a CME is basically a sunspot that is erupting and sending a huge wave of electrons our way. Mucks with our GPS, cell phones and other electronic equipment. So I got on SpaceWeather to check out the kp (planetary index) and was watching in real time and then looking at the predicted index for the rest of the day. And you just thought surveyors looked through that camera thingy for pretty girls. It's a bit more complicated now days.
Plotted some historical aerials for Michael around the trouble spot and he went over to visit with the big boss on a plan of action. I just knew we were heading back to the lakes. Woohoo!. Michael came back to the office and called my cell. "Where are you?" . I said "I'm in the van, equipment is loaded and I'm ready to go". Too funny.
The GPS was a bit wonky today and at times I had to wait on it to settle down with all the waves of noise in the signals from the CME. I profiled a couple of miles of line down some existing channels leading into the lake. Wildlife tracks everywhere in the ground and one time while the GPS was having a bit of a hard time I had to hold the rod (the one with the GPS on it) for about 10 minutes. Standing perfectly still and watching the screen with the statistics and two deer nearly ran into me crossing the creek. Two nice does. I reached for the camera very slowly but it's in a zippered case and they heard the sound and bolted on off into the woods.
No phones, no radios and a nice walk in the woods with pay. It's just don't better than this. I can't wait to download the data in the morning and begin analyzing today's against some historical data from 1997 (also my data). I'm loving this.
My post after work today on Facebook but I think it still works on Surveyor Connect.
Wouldn't you know it. Still hunting beaver.
Lot's of tracks up at the lake walk about today. Beavers, deer, racoons, wild pigs and even elephant tracks. Never mind, the the last ones were just mine sinking into the silt. They sorta looked like elephant tracks though.
Out to shoot the waters edge, about a mile from the normal top bank at this point. Even the silk has cracks from the lack of rain. It's really sad to see this.
I'm starting to get my survey legs back and was hammering it today as long as the GPS was working.
And this was upstream from the beaver dam on the creek. Taking some shots around a boat landing and just jamming away. The water can't get from here to the lake because of all the debris and beaver dams. Not sure how they will solve this but I just gather data now and let the ones above my pay grade decide. Great day though and now rain and hail at the house.
I love my job.
I love my job.
I love my job.
Deral
Do you suppose your GPS difficulties were a result of the solar flare?
John
> Deral
> Do you suppose your GPS difficulties were a result of the solar flare?
> John
I think his GPS difficulties were a result of the size of sleeves on that safety "vest".
Brad
Your response reminded me of a conversation earlier today with a county road supervisor. We were riding together back from a meeting on a significant bridge project when we passed a crew of workers. Each worker was digging around a power pole with a long handled shovel down to a specific depth, installing a material wrap for longterm protection of the wood, then refilling and tamping the hole before moving on to another pole. This is what the crew does all day, every day.
My comment to the road supervisor was, "No matter how bad you think your job s***s on any given day, be thankful for the job you don't have." His comment was, "I love my job. I love my job. I love my job."
Hey Deral, great to see the Lawton Blog back!
I think you could catch more beavers if your clothing fit a little better, see of Lawton can trade your XXL vest for a medium.
> I think his GPS difficulties were a result of the size of sleeves on that safety "vest".
I thought it was a safety "dashiki"...;-)
I thought it was a safety "Snuggie"...
The size of the vest is a direct result of some new safety rule and the amount of square inches required. The vest itself is really not all that large but the arms are 10 times the size needed. They will be leaving the vest shortly as they make it seem like it's always want to fall off when it's really not.
As to the GPS working sporadically we had over 10 birds, nicely spaced, all afternoon and the radio link was at 100%. I think the inability to fix was directly related to noise in the air from the recent CME. Spaceweather showed the kp index over 5 and that is generally problematic for GPS, cell phones, and other things that rely on communications. Yesterday was probably like trying to work when LightSquared comes on line. 🙁
Just a little reminder to those [myself included] that might call him,
he's a working guy again. I got busted yesterday, maybe the day before.
The workin man can't hit the phone at all times.
My bad. I completely forgot. My apologies.
> I thought it was a safety "Snuggie"...
A safety muumuu?
No worries at all Big E.
I was thinking the same thing...