GIS Day

I spent Wednesday morning at the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base. Wednesday was GIS Day, a day intended to celebrate the role of GIS data and tools in many aspects of modern life.

I was one of many volunteers from the Delaware GIS community hosting fifth graders from three Delaware schools for a GIS Day field trip at the museum. We squired them through a series of learning stations including activities teaching about maps and map data, weather emergencies and emergency preparedness, and using GPS to help locate accident victims.

As a centerpiece, we had the Earth Balloon from the Delaware Children's Museum. This is a 19-foot inflatable globe into which kids can enter with an instructor to see all manner of geography from the inside.

Wednesday evening, the event was open to the public. I had to miss that; I had a Lewes Planning Commission meeting that night. It wasn't the only GIS day event; the City of Dover GIS folks hosted an for city staff to demonstrate the ,many uses of the technology in the capitol city.

I spent my Wednesday morning with 14 fifth graders from McVey Elementary School, in Newark, a very nice bunch of kids. Fifth grade is an interesting age. We had little tiny kids and boys who had shot up above their classmates and whose voices have dropped an octave. There were young ladies of great self-possession with bright, inquiring minds. They worked well together. They listened. They were a pleasure to work with.

I was also very pleased with the work done by the folks who created the event, led by Megan Nehrbas, of Sussex County government, with help from Miriam Pomilio, of the Delaware Geological Survey. They have created a new educational resource that I hope will continue in the years to come.

Such a Busy Week

This week has been Geography Awareness Week and Wednesday was GIS Day. It was a busy week for me, in my role as GIS Coordinator for Delaware.

On Wednesday, I volunteered as part of a large group of GIS professionals working with groups of fifth-grade students attending a geography field day at the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base.

A real hit was a new event for this year; a Geography Game Show presented by visiting artist Neal Nichols, Jr. He drew a large wall-map of the United States, by hand, used it as a fun teaching tool.

I took lots of photos of the kids, and had time to get some shots of the museum as well.

On Thursday, I spent the day at the University of Delaware for a Geospatial Research Day event in which there was a selection of presentations on research, using GIS and geospatial data, throughout the University. I took notes using twitter and turned those into the word cloud posted here.

I also wrote these events up for the DGDC News blog, which is a new blog I've been writing as a communications tool for the Delaware Geographic Data Committee. Between that and the NSGIC News blog that I try to keep up with for the national GIS coordination group, I've had less energy to write here.

It's been a busy, busy week. But fun. And interesting. And fulfilling.

Statewide GIS Conference

We are hosting a statewide conference for the users of GIS tools and geospatial data in Delaware this week. It is called Delaware GIS 2007: Serving Communities.

I should probably take a moment to explain GIS. The acronym stands for Geographic Information System, the combination of the map and the database. We use information about where things are to create what we refer to as "geospatially intelligent" information.

My job is to encourage the use and sharing of geospatial information in Delaware. The annual GIS conference is a big part of that.

Most of the credit for putting on this show, this year and every year, is due to the other folks on the Conference Planning Committee; but I get to play EmCee each year to all the state, local, academic, and private sector GIS folks in Delaware. It's a job I love.

The Conference started today with a series of technical workshops. While those were going on, we were getting ready for the main day of the conference and helping our exhibitors get set up. This evening, we hosted a social as a way of getting our exhibitors a bit more face-time with local GIS users.

Tomorrow we'll have about 200 attendees at the Dover Sheraton Inn. We start with a main session featuring awards and a Keynote address. We'll have workshops and presentations, a big lunch, more workshops and presentations, time with our exhibitors, and a closing session featuring another keynote and door prizes.

It will be exhausting, but during a long, long day I'll have a chance to catch-up with lots of folks doing great work. I'll see some of them honored by their peers. We'll inspire each other. We'll laugh and have fun.

I love my job sometimes.

The Old Folks at Home Work

I spend five days a week in an office in downtown Dover, working for the people of the state of Delaware and with some truly nice folks. I generally don't write about my job here; but now I want to make an exception. Instead of leaving cards on co-worker's desks this Christmas, I want to share some thoughts about those co-workers.

Connie Holland, the State Planning Coordinator, is my boss. Connie brought a determined "nice" to our office eight years ago when Gov. Minner appointed her to the job. We'd known Connie for many years as the Planning Director for Kent County. Her extensive experience in county government was a great help. Connie reminds us every day that whatever the issue or beef, we're all just folks. And Connie likes folks. It's catching.

Dorothy Morris joined the office shortly before I did more than ten years ago. Technically, she was an administrative staffer, but she's always been more than that. Dorothy is one of those "hold the whole thing together" types. She knows how to manage things and brings that knowledge to an office or a home. As a result, she has risen to the position of Planner and has taken on management of the PLUS process. She has taught herself to use GIS, taking over much of the technical work I had been doing and freeing me up to try other new things. One of the great joys of my professional life has been gossiping about everything from world events to raising teenagers with Dorothy.

When Dorothy and I arrived we found Herb Inden there before us. He was there when the Office of State Planning Coordination was re-created, helping Dave Hugg pull the thing together. Herb worked in City Planning in Wilmington and adds an urban view to things. He's like an older brother; funny, warm and a voice of experience.

Bryan Hall is our newest staff member. Bryan is a former forester who now works with county and municipal governments in Sussex. Bryan is a breath of pine-fresh air. He's a brusque, out-doorsy type who cuts right to the heart of matters and greets almost all challenges with a laugh. He's a little goofy, which I like.

Diane Dukes I have known longer than I've worked in the planning office. She starred in a Possum Point Players production of Wait Until Dark that I had a part in back in 1988. Then she worked at DNREC for a while when I was there. Then one day, she came to help us out with graphics and publications. Diane is good, I've learned a lot from her about making things readable and visually interesting. And we share an appreciation for what's twisted about the world around us.

Laura Simmons is also a recent(ish) addition to our office. She brings an understanding of politics and the people of Delaware government and has taught me how to start to see beyond the surface of what's happening. She has also jumped-in to learn GIS and take on some of the tasks I had been covering. In fact, she insists on learning new things. I respect that. And Laura has become my good friend. We share stories of our kids and our parenting challenges. And she and Dorothy are my sounding board for ideas for gifts for the Lovely Karen.

I've saved David Edgell for last. I wanted to book-end this list with Connie, who leads us, and Dave, who will be a leader some day. I tease him (it annoys him) that he'll be Governor some day. Dave doesn't seem to want the job, but I'd trust him with it. He is smart, steady, and mature beyond his years. And he has a sense of humor. I love to bounce ideas back and forth with David. His training and experience are very different from, but somehow complimentary to mine. I'm going to enjoy watching his career; I hope to stay near him.

These are some of the the people I spend my days with. They are my work family; the people I come back to after visiting friends and colleagues at many other agencies. I'm blessed to have gotten to know federal, state, county and local government people from all over. My work life is fascinating and wide ranging. I'm glad to have Connie, Dorothy, Herb, Bryan, Diane, Laura, and David to ground me.

Rainy Days in Rochester

It has been a rainy few days in Rochester. That makes no real difference, though. My world has shrunk to the Ballroom and meeting rooms, on the second floor, and my room on the 17th floor of the Hyatt Regency.

The annual NSGIC Conference really didn't start until this morning, but I was in meetings yesterday (Sunday) from 8:30 a.m. until 8:00 or 8:30 p.m. The official start was this morning at about 8:30. I left the final session early this evening. I was tired, so I called it quits at 10:00 p.m.


This is the plenary session this morning. The crowd will thin a bit each day until Friday morning when we finish-up with a closing Board meeting.

I hope to be in on that meeting. I am running for Board of Directors of NSGIC and had to stand up in this morning's meeting and ask for votes. I kept it light. I kept it short. I hope that works.

Tonight we heard a fascinating report from a County GIS manager from Ohio who spent time in Mississippi as a volunteer with the GIS Corps following Katrina. He was part of a team that went in to help local, state and federal officials respond by providing the kind of geo-enabled intelligence that only GIS can provide. GIS combines database information with maps to create pictures worth more than thousands of words.

We had also heard earlier in the day from a NASA staffer who lost his home in Louisiana in the storm and is dealing with most of his extended family having lost homes as well. He told us that this is his first trip back into civilization since the storm. He was still very raw and there is some anger there.

Now, it's late. I'd better get to bed. We start again first thing tomorrow.

Down Memory Lane: At The Air Mobility Command Museum

Six years ago today I visited the Air Mobility Command Museum, at Dover Air Force Base. With my camera. There's a large number of vintage aircraft there to wander among.



I was there for a planning meeting for the 2006 Delaware GIS Conference. It was my first visit to the museum. In later years, we started having GIS Day events there and I got to spend more time photographing the museum and all the airplanes.

Whew!

I am very tired this evening.

Today was the 2006 Delaware GIS Conference: Patterns of Change. I am, if only unofficially, the State GIS Coordinator for Delaware; I serve as host and emcee for this conference each year. I also serve on the Conference Planning Committee.

We started with a series of GIS workshops on Wednesday, followed by a Vendor's Reception/Conference Social Wednesday evening. It was nice to be able to have all the set-up done and have the vendors in place the night before the conference.

We had a bit more than 200 people registered and a nice crowd actually showed up. We had many interesting presentations and speakers and lots of great vendors.

It was great fun, but the few days before are always a time of great nervousness and spurts of work. The day of the conference itself is a marathon. My job is to be the public face of things, start the plenary session with a sense of energy, meet, greet, glad-hand and take photos.

By the end of the closing plenary I was dragging, but I think our event was once again a success.

So now I am worn out, but happy.

Have a Cookie

Christina made peanut butter chip cookies this morning. She's home sick with what I hope won't become a serious sore throat. I've taken a sick day to nurse her away from ill health. It doesn't take much; she's a sensible kid and knows when to chill out.

My work day was to be heavy with conference calls and on-line training. I've actually been able to take part in most of that, using my cellphone, a hands-free ear-piece, and the "mute" button.

I can report that the dozen or so state GIS coordinators who took part in training for the RAMONA GIS Inventory Tool were all jealous of these cookies during this morning's call.

Twenty-First Golf Game of 2009

This post is a week late; I have spent much of the last week not blogging.

Last week, I had a chance to play 18 holes with two friends out in Cleveland. We were all there for the annual NSGIC conference. We managed to get out one afternoon and were nearly the last group to get around the course.

We played at Sleepy Hollow Golf Course which is part of Cleveland Metroparks. Those folks do a great job; the course is in great shape and was great fun. It is about 90 years old and is a classic hill course. Each nine holes start at the top of the hill and go down and then back up.

It was not a day for me to break 100. I'm not at all used to a hilly course. I had some pretty poor holes, particularly on the front nine. I got better on the back nine and managed a pair of pars. I finished at 115. Not great.

Sandy played solidly; we play together fairly often and he is a good player. He ended at 100.

Our third was Michael, from the Boston area. He's a very good player, with a monster drive. His score -- 84 -- shows his skills. And he is a fellow Deadhead, so we enjoyed a pleasant afternoon of golf and reminisces about Dead shows.

We also talked GIS and geospatial data coordination, so it was like a continuation of the day's conference sessions.

Fourth Golf Game of 2006

I took a half-day's vacation today to play a round of golf with several friends at Delcastle Golf Course, between Wilmington and Newark. The game was an unofficial "Annual DGS Golf Outing" organized by Sandy Schenck, a geologist at the Delaware Geological Survey -- the DGS -- and my partner in crime in organizing the Delaware GIS Community. That's Sandy teeing off on a par 3 above.

We were joined by another DGS geologist and by two guys from the private sector part of the GIS world. We've all known each other for few years and always enjoy spending time together. We had some good golfers along. And me.

The new clubs Karen gave me worked well. They are well-balanced and feel suited to my swing. I'm starting to hit some shots that I'm proud of. I carded a 108; well over par but not bad for me. Sandy broke 100; he said it was the first time.

I liked Delcastle. It's an older, established course. Unlike many of the courses in my part of Sussex County. Also unlike the courses I most often play, Delcastle has topography. There are ups and downs and rolling fairways. Very nice.

Filed in:

• golf
• 2006

Blast from the Past

My friend Barney Krucoff knocked me back into the past a bit this weekend when he e-mailed me a link to a photo of the two of us back in the mid 1970s. This is from a reunion site for Camp Waredaca, where I was a camper from about the age of 8 through 14, which is I think the age I am here. I'm guessing this is from the summer of 1976.

That's me on the far left, with Barney in the middle. On the far right is Mark Binder, now a writer and storyteller in Rhode Island. I remember Mark more as a friend from high school than as a summer camp friend. We're still connected via Facebook and got together for Dogfish beers this summer in Rehoboth.

Barney Krucoff is now the GIS Coordinator for the District of Columbia. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) which is where we got to know each other as adults. We'd already made the Waredaca connection. He tells me that one of his kids found this while Googling the family name.

The Waredaca reunion site led me to a Shutterfly set of Waredaca pictures in which I spent at least an hour this morning, wading through the past.

There were no other pictures of me, but there were shots of kids I half-remember from my childhood. There was the pond we swam in, the cabins and tents we lived in, and the morning flag-raising ceremony that started the camp day.

I spotted guys I vaguely remembered hanging out with, and girls on whom I'm certain I had crushes.

And that one cowboy-ish counselor who used to always say, "We've got it to do, so let's do it, to it."

Seen From a Train

I took the train to Albany, New York, this afternoon for a two-day USGS-sponsored meeting of State GIS coordinators. The train was no more expensive than flying and it was easier and more comfortable to take the train from Wilmington than to drive to BWI or Philly and deal with the full airport drill.

The second part of the trip was a ride up the east side of the Hudson River. It was late afternoon and I had a nice view of the river and the many bridges that cross it between New York City and Albany.

Despite the dirtiness of the window I was next to, I decided to spend the trip grabbing what photos I could. There was a series of bridges, there were boats, a castle, and views of the river.

It was a very pleasant few hours.

Where the Hell Have I Been?

It looks like March 2008 won't be one of my more prolific blogging months, at least not on this site.

I spent Sunday through Wednesday of this week at the mid-year conference of the National States Geographic Information Council -- NSGIC -- in Annapolis. But that doesn't explain my absence since Wednesday of last week. I guess I just got caught up in real life for a while there.

The NSGIC meeting as a whirlwind of busy, as it is usually the case. We hold the mid-year each year at about this time at Annapolis, so I have an easy trip and can linger a bit on Sunday morning before heading over for the first meeting of the day. And, since I'm so close, I can be back home, if needed, in just a few hours.

As I've noted in the past, the NSGIC crowd are nuts. They (we, I guess), start early and go late when we get together to discuss state and federal coordination of GIS and geospatial data. We did take an evening to dine at Paul's, on the South River, a bit west of Annapolis. We crossed this sunset-lit bridge to get there and watched it darken as we ate.

I decided to take notes during the sessions of this conference directly in the Blogger editor and so was able to post summaries of each session as it ended. It was an efficient approach, but it meant that I had to stay through each. Some were fascinating. Some were not. A few were fairly boring. I tried to keep a record, though.

On Wednesday, we joined another industry group for a breakfast on Capital Hill to discuss common policy issues. After, we had a few minutes to wander downtown. I'll have some photos in a few days. I also took advantage of a somewhat bright afternoon's drive home to get a few more shots of Delaware's border and the stones placed by Mason and Dixon.

We're All In This Thing Together

There has been an interesting convergence of on-line collaboration this week that I think highlights the value of sharing our stuff out on the net. The internet provides a space in which a ridiculously large number of people can share, comment on, and react to a wide variety of ideas and works of art. And I think that is a good thing.

Here are a few examples, from my limited web-cruising, and from just this week.

Flickr has announced the formation of a Commons, in which they hope to facilitate a community-wide collective tagging and adding of attributes to publicly available photo collections. It has grown out of the ability of flickr users to add descriptive tags to other users' photos.

All that work that we've put in has contributed to making something greater than the sum of its parts: an organic information system, derived of descriptive words and phrases made entirely from individual contributions.

The Library of Congress has stepped up to the plate to help get things moving by posting about 3,000 photos from their archives and inviting users to add tags, descriptions, and further information. The project gives another window into the rich photographic history of the nation, and may just add a deep new understanding of the material in those collections.

From the Library’s perspective, this pilot project is a statement about the power of the Web and user communities to help people better acquire information, knowledge and—most importantly—wisdom. One of our goals, frankly, is to learn as much as we can about that power simply through the process of making constructive use of it.

The old-photos blog Shorpy (a favorite of mine) provides some moderately ironic proof of concept. Shorpy takes selected photographs from the Library of Congress' older site, which has traditionally offered thumbnail views and possible click-thrus to raw images, and prepares them for on-line viewing. In a sense, it has been a precursor to the new Library of Congress effort with flickr; it colleted information via blog-style commenting.

Yesterday, the same day as the flickr/Library of Congress announcement, Shorpy posted a photograph of the Drake Family, and father and two sons musical group, playing at a dance in Texas in 1942. The posting was spotted and commented-on by two daughters and a grand-daughter of the young men shown playing music so long ago. They added fascinating and personal details about the photo.

Meanwhile, in my professional life, I came across an announcement by the real-estate map service Zillow that they have released GIS data of the neighborhood boundaries that they use in their maps. Their intent, they said, was "to allow people to use and contribute to our growing database" by inviting users to add new neighborhoods, or suggest edits to those already in the collection. And users can post their work back to Zillow for eventual integration into Zillow's on-line offerings.

This is a form of on-line collaborative work that requires a bit more specialized software, but it follows the same pattern as the Flickr/Library of Congress and Shorpy models -- the collective knowledge and group energy of a web-full of regular folks can add a remarkable amount of knowledge to our culture.

Another Delaware Blogger in the News

Justin Kates, who blogs from the University of Delaware and about his avocation -- combining amateur radio and homeland security work -- is a subject of a story in the News Journal this morning.

The story, 19-year-old heads state's ham radio emergency corps, is part of a News Journal investigative series on Delaware's use of federal Homeland Security grants.

I am interested in this series. I do a fair amount of work with the state's Homeland Security agencies. Geospatial data is a key element in the information systems that support crime prevention and investigation, emergency management and Homeland Security. And it is the case that some of the federal grant funding that Delaware receives is helping to support the maintenance of important geospatial data sets.

In my view not enough federal Homeland Security grant funding is being used for geospatial data, of course, but that will be the subject for another day.

I was also interested in the story because I know Justin, not only as a fellow blogger but as a skinny, bright kid several years ahead of my eldest in school. I used to see him at school events and I still see his sister, who is between my two girls in age.

The News Journal questions why we have a 19-year old in charge of the Delaware Communications Corps. That may be a fair question. It is true that Justin Cates is a mature young man, and I have no doubt about his passion and intelligence. But it does seem unusual.

On the other hand, we do have a tradition of organizing ourselves on an ad-hoc basis. Our fire protection is handled (and very well) by a large number of mostly volunteer fire companies who carefully guard their autonomy, but generally work well together to help protect our safety.

My own Delaware Geographic Data Committee owes its existence in part to legislation that enables it, but more to the fact that I say, and a sufficient number of GIS leaders in state and local agencies say, that it exists.

This isn't necessarily a bad way to do some things. An informal, collegial organization can be quite effective. There does come a point, however, where that organization must become more formal in order to continue to be effective.

The question is: what parts of the Homeland Security effort have reached that point?

Delaware's Unique Border

A blog called Strange Maps has started looking at Delaware's rather unique border. There are two posts, so far. It's interesting to see the various oddities of my state's boundary discussed by an "outsider." I advise bringing along a pinch of salt to take when you read the Strange Maps posts, there are a few very minor mistakes.

My day-job involves mapping, geospatial data, and working with things like the border in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. I also work closely with my friend Sandy Schenck of the Delaware Geological Survey. Sandy's first job, many years ago, was finding and maintaining the 179 stone boundary monuments that mark the Delaware border. He wrote a wonderful monograph on the boundary. That's my authoritative source on these issues.

The images I've used in this post, by the way, were created using the Delaware Data Mapping and Integration Lab -- The DataMIL -- which provides a digital base map of Delaware, replacing the old paper topographic map series with a more frequently updated, web-based, topo map.

The first Strange Maps post is Where Delaware Met Pennsylvania (1): the Twelve Mile Circle. It looks at the odd border issues caused by the decree in colonial times that a circle with a radius of 12 miles, centered on the town of New Castle, be used as a boundary.

Strange Maps describes this as "the only US boundary that’s a true arc." That's sort-of true; it's the only one that is circular. It is not, in fact, a true arc. The chain used to measure the 12 miles and so to survey that part of the boundary, had to be stretched out over and over again. The links started to stretch, just a bit, throwing off the measurements. Somewhere along the line, the surveyors got themselves a fresh chain, at least once.

The result is a boundary that is a compound of degraded arc sections. Subtle, and maybe even silly. But true.

Strange Maps also points out that the boundary was described as everything within the 12 miles up to the shoreline of what is now New Jersey. The result of that, and of a 1930s Supreme Court decision, has been that the state boundary is, in fact, the mean-low water line as it existed in 1934. There are places where the shoreline on the Jersey side has filled-in and moved out, by accretion, to where it now lies within Delaware.

We try not to point this out too explicitly; it upsets our neighbors in New Jersey. That, and the fact that Delaware regulates what happens over the river bottom, which has so far stymied a proposed Liquid Natural Gas terminal in the Camden area.

The second "Where Delaware Met Pennsylvania" post looks at the "Wedge". This is a wedge-shaped bit of land that for a time was not in Delaware, not in Pennsylvania, and not in Maryland. It was another anomaly caused by the 12-mile circle and by a disconnect between what 17th-Century cartography expected to find and what 17th-Century surveying actually did find.

It's that bit beneath that "shelf" where the three states meet. Just above Newark.

I understand that it was briefly a haven for outlaws, who would flee there because no lawmen had jurisdiction. At least, until the states got together and decided to make it part of Delaware.

This almost forgotten bit of history lives on in some of the place names north of Newark like "Top of the Wedge" or "Wedge Hills."

These are just a few of the many strange truths about the Delaware border. For example, many of us in Delaware actually live east of the Mason-Dixon line. They drew our western boundary before turning west to create the part of the line that they are most known for.

Also, the Delaware boundary is the only one in the marked, in part, with boundary monuments made of stone from a different country. Mason and Dixon used a "light buff oolitic limestone cut on the Isle of Portland, Dorsetshire, England" to mark parts of the line.

The Delaware Geological Survey maintains a database of the boundary markers, some of which can be visited.