I traveled to Raleigh, NC this week for work. It seemed like a really nice city. Very clean and welcoming from what I could tell. The travel down there kind of turned into a nightmare. I was supposed to leave LEX @ 4 go through CLT and get to RDU @ 7. So I got to the airport a little after 3 and checked in around 3.30 and they said the flight was delayed. Enough so that I would miss my connection in CLT. So I got rerouted through ATL, but that flight didn't leave until 6. By the time it all got figured out, it was around 4 and I didn't feel like leaving the airport for an hour just to have to come back. So I stayed. Then, my ATL flight got delayed another 1/2 hr, but by that time I had already got a book and was over it... (In the spirit of the blog and improving communication, it was a book about merging the personalities of you and your wife by the Parrotts). The descent into ATL felt like the back seat of a wooden roller-coaster and almost made me hurl. After a reroute around bad weather, I finally made it into RDU after 11 and the hotel around 12. So I could have driven in a shorter time!
Anyway, I went down to get some training on using our survey grade GPS while helping with a baseline monitoring survey for a stream. I'll try to explain that... Some other firm designed and oversaw the construction of a stream. Now we have to monitor the site for several years to make sure it stays reasonably stable.
In the past, we have surveyed with a total station, which is what you have probably seen surveyors looking through on the side of the road at some time. It's an instrument that shoots a laser at a prism that send it back and it can tell how far away it is and what angle up, down, or sideways. That is much better than stretching a tape and using a level and rod, which takes forever and is not very accurate at best. Well, now we can use a GPS (sort of like what is in your car) and just walk to whatever point we want and hit a button and it will get your position and elevation extremely accurately. So, I learned how to use that, while driving an ATV around the two mile site. When not on the ATV, we walked about 5 miles a day surveying and assessing the newly constructed stream and the veg monitoring plots around the site (we have to monitor planted tree survival). Below is a sample of what it looked like.
Anyway, I went down to get some training on using our survey grade GPS while helping with a baseline monitoring survey for a stream. I'll try to explain that... Some other firm designed and oversaw the construction of a stream. Now we have to monitor the site for several years to make sure it stays reasonably stable.
In the past, we have surveyed with a total station, which is what you have probably seen surveyors looking through on the side of the road at some time. It's an instrument that shoots a laser at a prism that send it back and it can tell how far away it is and what angle up, down, or sideways. That is much better than stretching a tape and using a level and rod, which takes forever and is not very accurate at best. Well, now we can use a GPS (sort of like what is in your car) and just walk to whatever point we want and hit a button and it will get your position and elevation extremely accurately. So, I learned how to use that, while driving an ATV around the two mile site. When not on the ATV, we walked about 5 miles a day surveying and assessing the newly constructed stream and the veg monitoring plots around the site (we have to monitor planted tree survival). Below is a sample of what it looked like.
That was the first I have been out in the field since the turn of the year, so it felt really good to get out, even though the travel wasn't the greatest. I missed KC and LK.
The next post I will talk a little about the book I read during my travels.
No comments:
Post a Comment