Eric D. Colburn, PLS

Professional Land Surveyor Links This Week:

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  Surveying: It’s official: Mt. Rainier is still as tall as we thought | KOMO News |

  komonews.com — An expedition used new GPS technology to fine-tune measurements of our area’s largest mountain and confirmed Mt. Rainier is indeed 14,411 feet tall. more…

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  Surveying: High cost in land survey to blame for farmers’ poverty

  thecitizen.co.tz — Tanzania News: By Anthony Kayanda, Kigoma High cost in land survey has been termed as an impediment to farmers’ economic development in the country. Speaking during a meeting with agricultural stakeholders in Kigoma on Thursday, the chairman of Kanyovu Cooperative Union of coffee farmers from Kigoma and Kasulu districts, Mr Yahaya Mahwisa, said most farmers in the country could not afford the cost and are therefore left out from the current means of raising capital. more…

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  Other: GIS, RPLS, geospatial, land surveying, profession | GPS World

  gpsworld.com — This is a question that has been tossed around a lot in the past few years. I hear it both from GIS folks and from land surveyors. Are you a professional? What constitutes a professional? Do you refer to yourself as a professional? If so, why? more…

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  AutoCAD: AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 for Land Surveyors: Curve Calculator

  youtube.com — This video shows how to find and use the Curve Calculator in AutoCAD Civil 3D 2010 and is brought to you by http://www.EricColburn.com Professional Land Surveyor Source. more…

• 
  News: The Government’s New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS – TIME

  time.com — A controversial ruling could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell more…

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Twitter #FollowFriday Professional Land Surveyor Recommendations

Here are this week’s Twitter #FollowFriday Professional Land Surveyor Recommendations:

@Lyme_Warrior – Misdiagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis for 10-years, Jo-Ann reassessed her condition, care, and treatment, taking the bold step of questioning her supposed “health care” and sought alternate (but logical) explanations for what was happening to her. Long story short, Jo-Ann has recently been diagnosed with Lyme Disease, rather than Rheumatoid Arthritis. Now she is a Lyme Warrior and the driving force behind the new and innovative LymeWarriors.com, an informative website, social network, forum, and support network for all Lyme Warriors.

@artpetty – Arts Twitter Bio says,  ”I help professionals develop as senior contributors & I help firms solve vexing problems in marketing & strategy. Management & Leadership author/blogger/mentor”. This week I read a brilliant article Art wrote and posted a linkt to his article here: Leadership Caffeine-Give Your People Room to Run | Management Excellence.

@CADRelations – CAD Relations website is an “Engineers Online Portal” for CAD, Engineering, Architecture, Community, Motorsports and Design, including Autodesk and Bentley software, which they proudly shout from the rafters “that is what we love and live for!!” I love the passion that they bring to the industry. Check out their AutoCAD Back to the Basics: Opening drawings by Drag’n Drop post.

@wkfd – WKFD is the Twitter account for the Kung Fu Drafter blog. They are drafters and geeks trying to share information with people with similar interests. I highly recommend visiting The Kung Fu Drafter blog, as it is a fun site and full of information too! It’s an older post, but a good one, so visit The Kung Fu Drafter to read the CAD: Untie Your Favorite Commands from the Map 3D 2010 Ribbon … blog post.

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Professional Land Surveyor Links This Week:

Surveying: New surveying business finds perfect niche near courthouse

wpcva.com – The Aaron A. Dooley Land Surveying office in Rustburg has found the perfect home in the old drugstore building across from Campbell County Court House. “I thought it would do well in Rustburg since it’s close to where everybody comes for building permits or looking for plats at the court house. It seemed like a good location for a surveyor,” Dooley explained about his decision to set up in the county seat in February 2010 more…

Surveying: In the Know: Many Naples area roads named for land surveyors » Naples Daily News

naplesnews.com – Q: Who is Thomasson Drive named after? I was told that it was named after Ed Thomasson, a surveyor, from whom I bought the house I used to live in. more…

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Spotty The Spotted Turtle

Yesterday I was cutting line for a roughly 40 acre survey I’m working on when I came across this Spotted Turtle. He or she – we really didn’t get to know each other that well in the short time we visited together – turned out to be the shy type.

Spotty can’t be blamed for being defensive and shy; a six foot tall humanoid carrying a machete would be reason enough. Two woods travelers crossing paths, a few words exchanged, a couple of pictures snapped, and then we parted ways. OK, so I did all the talking, but I could tell that Spotty was warming up to me and was just about ready to open up.

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Twitter #FollowFriday Professional Land Surveyor Recommendations

Here are this week’s Twitter #FollowFriday Professional Land Surveyor Recommendations:

@wkfd – WKFD is the Twitter account for the Kung Fu Drafter blog. They are drafters and geeks trying to share information with people with similar interests. I highly recommend visiting The Kung Fu Drafter blog, as it is a fun site and full of information too! If you get a chance read the CAD: Leap Over the Bar of System Requirements … blog post.

@iPinda – Edward’s Twitter bio says “CAD specialist, AutoCAD trainer and Civil 3D addict” and if you visit his Civil 3D Peanuts blog, you’ll discover that he’s also a part-time freelance AutoCAD trainer and full time CAD application administrator for an international AEC company. If you get a chance, read his Bentley’s SELECTseries 1 reading Civil 3D DWG blog post.

@CADRelations – CAD Relations website is an “Engineers Online Portal” for CAD, Engineering, Architecture, Community, Motorsports and Design, including Autodesk and Bentley software, which they proudly shout from the rafters “that is what we love and live for!!” I love the passion that they bring to the industry. Check out their Applications for Autodesk solutions post.

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Here’s a neat video I came across showing Microsoft Street Slide browsing of street-level imagery.

The Microsoft Research YouTube Channel has this to say about this video:

“Street Slide is a novel browsing interface for street-level imagery that combines the best aspects of the immersive nature of “bubbles” with the overview provided by multiperspective strip panoramas, figures to attract significant interest, in large part because of the ingenious way in which Microsoft Researchers tackle problems with current street-side imagery on the web.”

After the Jump, Watch the Video and Read the rest of this entry →

Land surveyor Greg Bernal recently caught a possible world record 130-pound catfish in the Missouri River. Wow! His catch is six pounds heavier than the world’s record landed about four years ago.

As fantastic as that is, it is reported that 20 years ago he caught the Mississippi state record with a 103-pound catfish he caught in the Mississippi River. I’m going to take fishing (catching) lessons from Greg!

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PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYOR SURVEY

In this week’s Professional Land Surveyor Survey, I’m asking the question:

So, is it the Heat or the Humidity that’s worse?

With it being in the Dog Days of Summer here in the northern hemisphere I’ve been seeing a lot of weather related talk about the heat and humidity – hence this weeks Professional Land Surveyor Survey.

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It really wasn’t a bad day today, but now it’s 11:00 pm, I’m tired, and thinking about the day that was. So, here are the top 10 reasons that I’m so done with today:

10 – Getting up at 4:45 am after working until midnight is not as fun as you might think.

9 – Working for 12 hours on 3 different projects, both in the office and in the field, while making great progress on all three projects, still sucks when at the end of the day not one of them is totally done.

8 – Working next to a homeless shelter sure makes you appreciate all the blessings you have in your life, but at the end of the day it’s still so sad that we don’t take care of our own as well as we could.

7 – AutoCAD Civil 3D; while I think that it is a great piece of software for much of what it can do, it is still pretty lacking in many day to day basic functions resulting in it sometimes being more of a burden than a productivity tool.

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Seeing is Deceiving

Today I wanted to talk with you about this site and a few changes that I have in the works. While nothing that I’m proposing to do is either earth shattering or overly revolutionary, I thought that in giving you a heads up you would, therefore, not be surprised. I’d also be very interested in getting your feedback, too.

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