"The Arc of My GIS Career"

The Arc of GIS career has brought me to some exciting places. Back in college, Grass was my gateway. I partook of it happily in the warm (Unix) Sun and was hooked. Alas, I eventually got distracted by the flashy look of Idrisi. This didn’t last too long as I soon ran off with a Surfer. Eventually fate brought me the opportunity to hop aboard a big ship called ESRI for a good ten years. I have to say it was generally pretty smooth sailing with loads of amenities, however, I still ran across more than a few of those darn stowaway bugs on board.

Older and wiser, I’m now expanding my horizons some more. The recession has brought me Manifold reasons for discovering new territory, not the least of which is cost of (ahem) living. And since the internet is really the best place to be anymore (forget fixed coordinates, I can be everywhere!), I’m taking a Quantum leap, an OpenJUMP into becoming an online MapServer, GeoServer and MapBender. Got any favorite 'places' you recommend I visit? I'd love to hear about them! Hope to see you along my route – I’ll be delivering lots of MapInfo on the Interwebs...

Bon Voyage and Amein!
Kelly Sparks, GIS Guru and Certified Map Geek

You need to study more geography if you think...

Andes is an after dinner mint
The Balkans are an alien people on Star Trek
The English Channel is a TV sitcom about Charles and Di
The United Kingdom is a cultural theme park
Butte Montana is Joe's new girlfriend
Reno Nevada is what you get for being Attorney General
The Tropic of Cancer is a sunscreen lotion
The $10,000 Pyramid is in Egypt
The Gaza Strip is a Middle Eastern folk dance
The Ring of Fire is the center ring of Barnum and Bailey's Circus
The Bermuda Triangle is a percussion instrument in a reggae band
The Cumberland Gap gives out a pair of clogs with every set of jeans sold
The International Dateline is a new cable TV network
The Equator is a cartoon action figure
The Continental Shelf is a specialty section of the supermarket
An archipelago is a food stabilizer
The Dust Bowl is Granny's old favorite dish
A fault is what you find in other people
A fjord is a Norwegian car
A mantle is what goes over your fireplace
Tide is a laundry detergent
You can do a research paper to find out who killed the Dead Sea
Minnesotans
How do Minnesotans decide where to retire?
They tie a snowshovel to the back of their RV, drive south, and when people start asking "What's that thing?" they know they've gone far enough!

A Hundred Map Jokes (some of them very corny)

Q. What do you call a map guide to Alcatraz?A. A con-tour map.
Q. Why didn't the map have any meridians?A. It was a map of a parallel universe.
Q. What is the tidiest element on a map?A. The neatline.
Q. Why did the cartographer put a band-aid on the map?A. Because it had a bleeding edge.
Q. What do John Wayne and a map key have in common?A. Both are legends.
Q. Why was longitude boiling mad?A. Because it was 360 degrees.
Q. Why was the map gesturing wildly?A. It was an animated map.
Q. Why are maps like fish?A. Both have scales.
Q. Where to lines of equal pressure go to relax?A. In ISO - bars (In Search Of isobars)
Q. Why do senior military officials like small scale maps?A. Because they have been GENERAL-ized.
Q. What projection is used to map the distribution of chocolate lovers?A. The Bonne-Bonne (bon bon) projection.
Q. What is smarter, longitude or latitude?A. Longitude, because it has 360 degrees
Q. What do you call a map showing the heights of leafy-stemmed perennial herbs measured in centimeters?A. A daisy metric map
Q. Why do paper maps never win at poker?A. Because they always fold.
Q. What kind of projection do 3 out of 4 ear, nose, and throat specialists prefer?A. A sinus-oidal map projection.
Q. What do you get when you cross a cowboy with a mapmaker?A. A cow-tographer.
Q. Why didn’t true north date magnetic north?A. She didn’t like his bearing.
Q. Why does west longitude need to be cheered up?A. Because it is always negative.
Q. What do a row of Bacardi bottles and a loxodrome have in common?A. Both are rum (rhumb) lines.
Q. Why did the equator win the MVP (most valuable parallel) award at the Latitude Super Bowl?A. Because it was a great circle.
Q. What did the mapmaker send his sweetheart on Valentine’s Day?A. A dozen compass roses.
Q. Why did the dot go to college?A. Because it wanted to be a graduated symbol.
Q. Why weren’t there any parallels on the map?A. Because the cartographer didn’t have any latitude in his map design.
Q. What do you call a USGS quadrangle with green water, blue forests, and all the names spelled backwards?A. A topo-illogical map.
Q. What kind of sunglasses do physical relief maps wear?A. Hypsometric tints.
Q. Why couldn't Mark McGwire reach first after hitting his 62nd home run?A. He didn't have a base map.
Q. What do you call a map of outhouses in the woods?A. A shaded relief map.
Q. How can you tell if a map was made by a troll?A. It is in the gnome-onic (gnomonic) projection.
Q. What kind of maps do spiders make?A. Web-based maps.
Q. What do you call the queue of foreign couples outside the Hard Rock Cafe?A. The international date line.
Q. Why didn't the map projection finish his speech?A. He was interrupted.
Q. A Mercator, Lambert Conformal, and Homolosine projection met Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. Only the Homolsine Projection went on to heaven. Why?A. It was the only Good(e) projection.
Q. Why do soldiers study their maps at stop lights?A. Because their maps are red-light readable.
Q. How do maps get around London?A. They take the map tube.
Q. How do you clean a nautical chart?A. You give it an iso-bath (isobath).
Q. Why did the cartographer put the projection in a hangar?A. It was a plane projection.
Q. What map element plays in the band?A. The symbols (cymbals).
Q. Did you hear about the map that was mugged?A. It was rolled by the map librarian.
Q. What is a nautical chart's best pitch?A. The depth curve.
Q. Why was the map twitching?A. It had a nervous tic.
Q. Why did the map crash?A. It lost its control.
Q. What projection do birds use to track their migration?A. A robins-son (Robinson) projection.
Q. What kind of map plays CD's?A. A stereo map.
Q. Why is a lifeguard like a polar stereographic projection?A. The lifeguard is a tan gent and the polar stereographic projection is tangent.
Q: Why did the innocent map go to jail? A: It was framed by the neatline.
Q: What projection do lost sheep use to find their way home? A: The Lamb-ert Conic Conformal projection.
Q: Why don't cartography librarians wear high heels? A: They prefer map flats.
Q: What is the difference between a tub full of freezing water and a depth contour? A: One is an icy bath and the other is an isobath.
Q: How do maps comb their hair? A: They use a geographic brush.
Q: Why is the Jenks classification system like an orthopedic surgeon? A: They both deal with natural breaks.
Q: Why didn't the marginalia go to the dance?A: It didn't have a date.
Q: Why was the globe rated "R"?A: Because of its gore. (In earlier times, a map that was pasted on the globe consisted of a number of tapered strips, called gores.)
Q: What is the difference between a black tie dinner for prisoners and a projection showing true shape? A: One is a con formal and the other is conformal.
Q: What kind of contours can see in the dark? A: Illuminated contours.

“The Shepherd and the Consultant”

Once upon a time there was a sheepherder tending his sheep at the edge of a country road in rural Wyoming. A brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee screeched to a halt next to him. The driver, a young man dressed in a Brioni suit, Cerrutti shoes, Ray-Ban glasses, Jovial Swiss wristwatch and a BHS tie, jumped out and asked the herder "If I guess how many sheep you have, will you give me one of them?" The herder looked at the young man, then looked at the sprawling herd of grazing sheep and said "Okay." The young man parked the SUV, connected his notebook and wireless modem, entered a NASA site, scanned the ground using satellite imagry and a GPS, opened a database and 60 Excel tables filled with algorithms, then printed a 150-page report on his high-tech mini-printer. He turned to the herder and said "You have exactly 1,586 sheep here." The herder answered "Say, you are right. Pick out a sheep." The young man took one of the animals and put it in the back of his vehicle. As he was preparing to drive away, the herder looked at him and asked "Now, if I guess your profession, will you pay me back in kind?" The young man answered "Sure." The herder said immediately "You are a consultant." "Exactly! How did you know?" asked the young man. "Very simple," replied the herder. "First you came here without being invited. Secondly, you charged me a fee to tell me something I already knew. Thirdly, you do not understand anything about my business, and I'd really like to have my dog back."
As seen at www.GISNuts.com and www.mainstreetgis.com