Somehow This Just Looks Wrong

I guess I just don't see this "mag-wheel" look (If that's the right terminology) on this car. Just strikes me as the wrong choice.

My Niece Will be Living in Usti nad Orlici!­

My niece Isabel is moving to Usti nad Orlici­, a town in the Czech Republic. (My best guess pronunciation is ooosh-tee nod or-LI-chee)

Isabel is a year or so out of college. She's been casting about for the right way to share her gifts with the world and has decided to teach in the Czech Republic. I think she will be teaching English; she'll be learning Czech. She wrote recently to say she has almost finished her training in Prague and is looking forward to the "lovely flat" that she gets as part of her payment for teaching in Usti nad Orlici.

I think she'll do well. Isabel is an open, friendly, very likeable young woman. Her's is a good face for the US to present to the world.

Once She learns Czech, maybe Isabel can translate the rest of the Usti nad Orlici web site for us?

A Trip to Niagara Falls

The major social event of this year's NSGIC Conference was a trip to Niagara Falls on Wednesday afternoon.

We took buses from Rochester to the big bridge just below the falls and into Canada. We spent a few hours wandering along the Canadian side, down into the tunnels below the falls, and out into the mist on the Maid of the Mist. We had a wonderful meal and then came back to Rochester.

The NSGIC Conference came to an end this afternoon. It has been a busy week and I've had little time to get online and blog. We started with meetings Sunday morning and have been going strong ever since, with only a few breaks like the Niagara Falls trip.

I'm pleased to report that I was elected to the NSGIC Board of Directors earlier this week. That means I will have another morning of meetings tomorrow before I fly home. I'll have regular teleconference over the next two years and may be called on to go into DC for meetings from time to time. I expect that being on the Board will mean a good deal of work, but it will be exciting and challenging and I am looking forward to it.

Picture Time

An annual feature of the NSGIC Conference is the group photo. Everyone in attendance is asked to gather in some spot chosen as large enough to hold them all. Each is given a sheet of paper with a number printed in large font. We write our name on that paper and hold it in front of our face for the first few exposures. Then we hide the papers and smile nice for the camera.

Rick Memmel, long the GIS coordinator for the state of Wyoming, is the trail boss of the conference as a whole and the group photo in particular. Rick knows how to tell large groups what to do. Above, he's giving us our orders while, on the ladder behind him, the photographer focuses.

After a few days of rain, today dawned bright and sunny. It was perfect for our photo. Afterwards, Sandy Schenck and I had a chance for a short walk around downtown.


There is some great architecture in Rochester. Some of it is going to waste, but there is still some to be seen.

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.

I Love Things Like This

News Journal Columnist Al Mascitti tells a story in his column today -- Grass-roots activist puts his finger on problems for government officials -- that reminds me what I love about people, and what I like about my State's Governor.

The column tells about Richard Schneider, a new-comer to the ranks of Delaware environmental activists, who got himself onto the schedule of Governor Ruth Ann Minner's "Open Door" sessions in which she does quick meetings with anyone who signs up for the available time slots.

He had quite an ice-breaker.

"I had my right hand all bandaged after I got my [index] finger smashed at work," Schneider recalled. "She asked me what happened, and I told her I was going to have to have it amputated." Minner became so concerned, Schneider said, that he wanted to ease her mind. "So I took my left hand and stuck my index finger up my nose and said, 'Don't worry, I can still do this.' She was just rolling. I'm pretty sure she won't forget me."

I can see Governor Minner have a hearty laugh at this. She's a real person. Yes, she is the Governor. Yes, she is a powerful politician. But she's also a real person; one who still remembers what fun can be had with the absurdities of life.

I like that.

And Here I Am In Rochester

The flight into the airport at Rochester, New York, can be very pretty. The landing glide-path, at least as I experienced it, is over rolling farmland with quilt-like patches of farm fields, barns and homes, villages and small towns. The afternoon sun was shading into evening, throwing long shadows that set the landscape in sharp relief.

This was at the end of a brief, pleasant flight on an under-crowded plane. An hour’s flight is just right. Long enough to foster that wonder and joy that comes when you realize that you are flying, but short enough to avoid the tedium and discomfort of today’s cramped, coach-class airline flights.

I flew-in yesterday afternoon for the annual conference of the National States Geographic Information Council, known as NSGIC. The conference doesn’t start until later this afternoon, but we’ve just finished the 8:30 a.m. session and are on a short break before the next session. This group will meet constantly for the whole of this week. There will early morning and late evening meetings and a great deal of policy and ideas will be tossed around.

I have WiFi here and will blog during breaks. I hope to get some good pictures, especially as we’re going to visit Niagara Falls later in the week.

We’re in a Hyatt Regency in downtown Rochester. The Daughters of the American Revolution are across the way in the large ballroom. I assume they’ll wrap-up today and we’ll move into that room in the morning when the main body of our conference arrives.

I proposed that we try to join up with them as the “Bastard Step-Children of the American Revolution,” but there were no takers.

There's Irony Here. Is it Intentional?

I've noticed some puzzling stickers on the back windows of cars here in Sussex County lately.

You know the type: oval stickers with initials on a plain background that mark your pride in something. Our friends Andy and Lynn have a green oval with "VT" on their car, symbolizing their annual vacation to Vermont. Sometimes you see "UK" for Anglophiles, or "FR" for Francophiles.

Here's one that I've noticed on several cars lately:


At this scale, it's clear that these stickers reflect pride in living in "Lower Slower Delaware." But when you see this from a car-length back, at 25-, 35-, 45-miles per hour or faster, there's a certain level of double-take involved.

"LSD? Isn't that illegal?"

"Watch the road, honey. Never mind the stickers."

I had heard in the past about "Slower Lower Delaware." I think there were tee-shirts to that effect.

Why the change of word order? Is there a copyright issue? Or is someone combining pride in place, the profit motive, and a small amount of subversive hinting?

Update: Thanks to chrisubus who Googled-up a link with more background. I thought I had pretty good Google-skills, but I didn't find this. Looks like it was a copyright issue.

Here, from the linked discussion, is a phrase you don't hear/see around here very often:

My company owns the trademark on "LSD"...

So Much "Delaware-ness"

Harbor of Refuge (South) Breakwater Lighthouse
Originally uploaded by peggyt.

Peggy Tatnall, of Newark, posted this wonderful photo on Fickr as part of her great photostream. It's one of an impressive group she's taken at Cape Henlopen State Park lately.

This one seems to catch so many facets of the Cape; swimmers, surf-fishers, dogs on the beach, the Harbor of Refuge, and an oil tanker.

All together right there where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean.

Tenth Golf Game of 2005

I was glad to be back on the golf course this afternoon. I played with members of Epworth United Methodist Church for their annual fellowship golf scramble.


I played with Ken and Evelyn. We played a scramble format, in which we each played from the point of the best shot among the three of us. We kept one score per hole for the group. As a group, we had to use at least five drives from each of us.

We weren't great, we weren't horrible. Ken is a steady player and Evelyn, though she doesn't hit very far, always hits very straight. I am still not hitting them the way I would like, but I had a few decent shots.

I think we ended the day about 4 over par. But we had a very nice time.