This is a cool new service from Google. It lets you search for things near a location. Very useful.

http://labs.google.com/location

Congratulations!

Dylan and Ben have a healthy sister named Ensley now! She entered this world at 12:34 PM EDT. She weighs 8 lbs 6 ounces, and is 20.5 inches long. Sunny is doing good. No complications with the surgery.

We were worried something was wrong because no one called, and no one was answering their phone.

I got this ruler at the NIU bookstore yesterday for only $2. It is the "Gaebel Series 631 Ad Agency Ruler". It goes for about $10 on the web. If you have to ask why, then you don't know me.

Never ascribe to maliciousness that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.

This is a picture of a stuffed dog! This is the web site of the company that does it.

The fish food I bought for the oscar today is from the same company, Omega Sea, that makes the flakes that I use for my regular fish. The company is based in Sitka, Alaska [map]. The food is also produced there. This is the ingredient list:

whole salmon
whole herring
halibut
krill
shrimp
octopus
wheat flour
wheat gluten
spirulina (algae)
fresh kelp
rosemary extract
a bunch of vitamins and minerals

The cool thing is that the price isn't too bad either. A 3.5 ounce can of pellets cost $5.19. That should last us about three or four months. They had a larger can that was less per ounce, but I wanted to make sure that he liked them first.

I called the Northern Illinois University immunization office to make sure that they received my updated records and that everything is OK. It is. Don't have to hassle with that any more.

I got a hair cut today. Picked up some fish food for our oscar. Got four yard waste stickers (at $1.35 per sticker) so I can get rid of some clippings. Stopped at Radio Shack for an ear phone for my night-time radio listening. Had a peanut butter and fat free mayo sandwich on light bread for a late lunch (6 or 7 points).

I am going to now cut the grass and use the string trimmer, take a shower, and then work on my two labs that are due tomorrow.

This 2-foot-long giant snakehead fish was caught in Wisconsin yesterday. They are afraid if this species establishes itself, it will eat all of the other native fish. [full story]

Today Congress voted 412 - 8 to approve the national do-not-call list, and overturn yesterday's ruling by a US District court, after less than 1 hour of deliberation. [full story]

I found the Weight Watcher's point range on the United States Patent and Trademark Office's website. [link to Weight Watcher's point patent] Here are the point ranges:

Less than 150 pounds
18-25
150 to 174 pounds
20-27
175 to 199 pounds
22-29
200 to 224 pounds
24-31
225 to 250 pounds
26-33
Over 250 pounds
28-35

This is a link to a site that has the Weight Watcher points for food items in 392 restaurants. I am going to use the Weight Watcher frame work to try and get from 260 to 240. We got a Weight Watcher calculator from our freind Beth that keeps track of your points for each day, as well as calculates points when you input calories, fat, and fiber. Beth is going to look up how many points I should be consuming and let me know tonight.

Up until now about the only time I had any major highway driving was the occasional trip to see family in other cities a few times a year. Commuting to DeKalb three times a week is giving me about 270 miles of highway time weekly now, and I am becoming more aware of how clueless too many drivers are.

The absolute worst ones are the drivers that just cruise along in the far left passing lane but are not passing anyone, blissfully unaware that a convey of a dozen vehicles behind them all just had to bleed off 20 MPH of speed because of them. Then, one by one, this moron forces all the cars behind him to pass them on the right. It's like no one ever told them about passing lanes and cruising lanes.

The second worst are the overly aggressive white knuckle drivers. They are constantly switching lanes, tailgating anyone that they can't immediately get around, and when they have a clear shot are the one's cannonballing over 80 and 90 MPH. These guys are not as bad to deal with most of the time because if you just stay out of the passing lane when you are not passing they won't bother you. There is also a benefit to these guys because they are the ones that clear the speed traps for the rest of us. I gladly let them pass me because they are the ones that will get targeted for a speeding ticket first.

My typical highway cruising speed is about 75 MPH.

The professor that I first had contact with at Northern, and who has been guiding me a little bit, left a voice mail for me today saying that he was in a car accident on Saturday and he is not having class this week or next. He also said he had to have knee surgery.

Illinois' most dangerous intersections. (No surprise that they are all in the Chicagoland area.)

   City                 Location 

1. Elmhurst             State Route 83 & North Avenue

2. Glendale Heights     Army Trail Road & Bloomingdale Road

3. Bridgeview-Burbank   79th Street & Harlem Avenue

4. Bolingbrook          State Route 53 & Boughton Road

                        (we cross this one at least twice a day)

5. Hanover              Park Barrington Road & Irving Park Road

Michigan's most dangerous intersections:

   City              Location

1. Sterling Heights  Van Dyke Avenue & 18 Mile Road

2. Clinton Township  Groesbeck Highway & 16 Mile Road

3. Clinton Township  Gratiot Avenue & 16 Mile Road

4. Sterling Heights  Hall Road & Hayes Road

5. Southfield        Telegraph Road & 12 Mile Road

6. Farmington Hills  Orchard Lake Road & 14 Mile Road

7. Chesterfield      Gratiot Avenue & 23 Mile Road

8. Farmington Hills  Orchard Lake Road & 12 Mile Road

9. Sterling Heights  Hall Road & Schoenherr Road

10. Troy             Big Beaver Road & Crooks Road

The five most dangerous intersections in Ohio, per State Farm Insurance, are all in Columbus and Toledo. They are:

   City      Location 

1. Columbus  Karl Road & Morse Road 

2. Toledo    Alexis Road & Lewis Avenue 

3. Columbus  Refugee Road & Winchester Pike 

4. Columbus  Hamilton Road & Livingston Avenue 

5. Toledo    Central Avenue & Secor Road

Drats! The federal do-not-call list is on hold because a U.S. court ruled the FTC overstepped its authority when it set up the list to block telemarketing calls. [full story]

I just received confirmation that I can use one of my geography classes I am taking now (which fortunately happens to be a graduate level class) to complete my MBA from Ashland! Yeah! I need about .75 of a credit hour to finish. The quarters I was taking at DePaul didn't transfer equally to semester hours at Ashland.

Everyone on campus was buzzing about whipping Alabama over the weekend. The entire front of the student newspaper was a full color picture of an NIU player holding up his helmet with the headline "Roll Fried". (Alabama's motto is Roll Tide.) The win actually put Northern into the top 25 (20th in the AP poll, and 22nd in the USA Today/ESPN Poll) and kicked the previously 21st ranked Alabama out. How cool is that?

Little ol' Northern Illinois University (that's where I am going) beat 21st ranked Alabama this weekend, 19 to 16!! Alabama was favored by 14 points!! I guess we rolled tide. Go Huskies!!

If you want to tighten up your writing, don't use the word "that". Almost every sentence you write with the word "that" will sound just as good, and usually better, by deleting "that". Try it.

We had a great weekend with Beth. She came in on Friday afternoon while I was at class,
Friday afternoon Sheri and Beth went to the mall and had lunch. Friday night we went to Lou Malnati's for Chicago-style pizza.

Saturday they saw a movie while I worked on my homework. Saturday night we tried to find a church pig roast we heard about, but we couldn't find it. We ended up going to a Chinese buffet, and then watched a movie at home. (more on movie below)

Today we went out for brunch, and then they dropped me off back at home so I could do more homework and they did some more shopping.

The co-worker she flew in with on Friday picked her up at our house to go back to the airport at about 6:30 PM tonight.

Last night we saw a movie I REALLY liked. It was Punch-Drunk Love. It starred Adam Sandler, but it was a totally different kind of role for him. It had a few spots that were a little weird, but nothing that got in the way of enjoying the film. Sandler's character had a lot of development, and you find yourself rooting for him almost from the beginning of the movie. I wouldn't call it a comedy, but there were a fair amount of chuckles in it. It got a lot of good reviews too.

I have all of my maps made and saved to my hard drive. The next step is to convert them to GIF images and load them, and the HTML, to the web. My eyes burn and I don't know if I will do it today. Our plan is to go to a Mexican pig roast for dinner. (There is a joke in there somewhere, but I am too tired to figure out what it is.) It is a fund-raiser for a local Mexican church.

The last map I am working on for my project is to map out Leaking Underground Storage Tanks in Illinois. The EPA actually uses the acronym LUST! Can you just imagine a big burly back hoe operator showing up on the job site asking where the LUST is?

We are thinking about getting a giant squid for a pet. They are actually quite friendly and enjoy lots of attention.

To the left is a picture of a city road worker taking a lunch break in the sun with his giant squid. He takes it to work everyday to keep him company.

He (whoever "he" is) doesn't deserve to wear the Scarlet and Gray.

Just got a voicemail from my doctor. My hemoglobin A1c went from 6.7 three months ago to 7.1 currently.
(Current recommendation is below 7, and it is going to be changed to below 6.5.)

I kind of expected it, though, because the first couple months after losing my job were characterized by a higher level of inactivity. Commuting to Chicago everday and walking back and forth from Union Station was healthy for me. My speed walks around campus trying to cover 3/4 of a mile in 10 minutes should help to bring my suger back down.

I think my birthday pedometer also helped with my good 6.7 reading last time. I tried to get 10,000 steps per day. At lunch sometimes I would just walk around downtown to get more steps.

If you want a nice map of Summit County (including Akron and Cuyahoga Falls) from the Summit County Engineer's Office, just fill out this quick form. I already received mine!

I forgot to mention that at my doctor appointment yesterday I also got tetanus, measles, mumps, and rubella boosters. State law says you have to have all of your immunizations current to attend a university that receives state funds.

Researchers have discovered a cool side effect of Botox injections; it dramatically reduces the severity and frequency of migraine headaches.

Had my three month diabetic doctor visit this morning. No protein or glucose in my urine. Good.

The gold standard test for diabetics is called the hemoglobin A1c. Currently the target for diabetics is to be under 7. My last test was 6.7. He told me today that the new standard coming out is to be 6.5 or under, so I have a little work to do there.

He also said the new standards for diabetics call for very aggressive treatment of blood pressure. He said if I were not a diabetic my blood pressure would great, but to avoid complications and heart disease, I have to get my bp even lower.

I think losing just a little weight by exercising more will take care of both the bp and get my A1c below 6.5. I have found that exercise makes a bigger difference in my blood sugar level than what I eat.

The pH of my urine was 5.5. This isn't a particularly important piece of information, I just thought you might like to know.

Chicago is getting 24 of the famous London taxis this month. They will have American Express advertising on them, but I don't know if it will just be on the doors like in this picture, or if the entire cab will be covered with their logo.

There is no boot (trunk). Any luggage goes next to the driver because there is no seat next to the driver. Five people can fit comfortably in the back. Three facing forward, and two facing rearward on jumpseats.

They cost more than the Crown Victorias that most taxi companies use, but the London taxis are famous for lasting a long time. Because of this, San Francisco is changing their law that says taxis must be replaced every three years to every seven years if it is a London taxi.

I love this picture.

Things are getting interesting over there.

I have said before that North Korea will be the big news story of 2003. It is getting late in the year, so I might have to readjust and say it will be the big news story of 2004. How would that affect the presidential election next year?

China Sends 150,000 Armed Soldiers to Monitor North Korean Border

More fun!

I just read that if you leave mercury exposed to the air, it will evaporate. Who would have thought?

I just got done taking a quiz in one of my classes. They can give quizzes on-line here. The professor allotted 20 minutes and said we could leave when were done. I was done and zipping up my bag after five minutes. I walked through the door and the professor came running after me asking if I took the right quiz. (There was also a short 10 question sample quiz.) I said yep and kept walking.

I got a perfect 25 out of 25. The class average was 18.94. (The results are viewable on-line too.)

My ArcView software was waiting for me when I got home from class yesterday. I just installed it and threw this quick map together. It is the Blackberry flood plane in Kane county, and a locator map in the lower left to give you an idea of where it is in the Chicago MSA. (Metropolitan Statistical Area)

Click for full sized map.

I just did a water-change on the fish tank and did some rearranging of plants and rocks.

The hurricane forecast map below already shows that Florida should be completely bypassed. Whew!

Once we get our cash flow back to normal, I want to get one of these for my growing map collection. The rack is about $200, and each individual clip is about $35. Each clip can hold 100 sheets or 20 pounds; which ever comes first. I think I would hang it in our front room with our bookcase, globe, etc. and make that my map room.

We are keeping our fingers crossed Dick and Linda!

Click for full-sized image.

This is a great link about about map projections and how they differ. Depending on what I want to use a map for would depend on what type of projection I would use.

There are five things that are affected by what projection is used for a map. They are:

1. Conformality (the appearance or shape)
2. Distance
3. Direction
4. Scale
5. Area

Each projection will preserve one of more of the above attributes while degrading the remaining attributes.

This is why Greenland always looks so huge on most world maps. If you were concerned about the actual size and shape of Greenland, you would select a different projection, and make sure that the projection intersects Greenland.

If you take the time to read only one thing this month, it should be this.

I am looking forward to this weekend. In part because of our orientation at the humane society, but I am also just looking forward to spending time with Sheri. Not that it has been a hard week at school or anything, I am just looking forward to it.

We should have fall-like temperatures, so we will be able to turn of the air conditioning and maybe do some cooking. I also want to spend some time on the shrubs in front of the house. They need their annual pruning. The grass will also probably be ready to be mowed. The fall lawn fertilizer is probably a good idea too.

If it wasn't for Sheri, I would not have gone back to school to pursue something that I love. I would have tried to land a job as soon as possible to pay the mortgage. Thank you Sheri. I love you.

There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.

If you don't get this, then you are of the latter type.

Yeah! I just placed my order for ArcView 8.3. It will arrive in three to five days.

I am currently take the classes that are underlined below. The following semester all I will have to take is Geography 459, which is one of the three required classes, and I will be done. I am going to try and get an internship once I am comfortable with using ArcView and GeoMedia. That would be very helpful on my resume.

Required Courses (9 hours)
GEOG 256, Maps and Mapping (3)
GEOG 359, Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (3)
GEOG 459,* Geographic Information Systems (3)

Course work chosen from the following with consent of adviser (6 hours)
GEOG 391E, Internship: Geographic Information Systems (3)
GEOG 455,* Land-Use Planning (3)
GEOG 460,* Remote Sensing of the Environment (3)
GEOG 464,* Location Analysis (3) OR
OMIS 379, Business Applications of GIS (3)
GEOG 467,* Workshop in Cartography/GIS (3-6)
GEOG 491,* Undergraduate Research in Geography (1-3)
GEOG 493,* Computer Methods and Modeling (1-3)
GEOG 498M,* Seminar in Current Problems: Methodology and Techniques (3)

*May be applied toward a graduate degree at NIU.

This is a link to the map I just made. After my last post, I added a query that said "Show any state that contains any of the counties that were selected on the buffer query."

Wisconsin River with a 25 mile buffer zone.

Why would this query be useful? Suppose the state discovered that toxic chemicals were being dumped into the river, and their geologists said it could affect ground water up to 25 miles away, and they wanted to notify the county governments so they could warn their citizens. Bingo, here you go. Now rather than telling the whole state and wasting a lot of people's time, just notify the counties that need to be concerned.

I promise that my maps will get more interesting as time goes on. Just stick with me for now though. ;-)

I created a spatial query in GeoMedia that highlighted any county that is within a 25 mile buffer zone around the Wisconsin river. Cool!

I faxed my school schedule to ESRI so that I can purchase ArcView for $250 under their student license program.

Don't ask why. It's just a "Brad" thing, but I want one of these, and I think it would make a great Christmas, Kwanzaa, GIS Day, etc. gift.

I want to do this. This company rents Segway's. I don't know if you can take them out in the city, or it is just on a closed track, but I want to try it. They are located about three hours north of us in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

Cool!

Intergraph is the publisher of the GeoMedia software that I just installed with the one year trial license. I was surprised to just find out they are based in Huntsville, Alabama.

This is a neat example of using GIS. I found it in an article about reducing the threat from wildfires in Anchorage on a GIS site called Directions Magazine.

The map below shows the areas with the highest probability of major wild-fires highlighted in red. To produce that they fed a bunch of different data into a GIS such as:

1. Areas of the forest that have mixed hardwood and conifer trees. This combination burns very well.
2. Areas that have an infestation of the spruce bark beetle. They kill spruce trees, and the resulting dead trees are excellent fire starters.
3. Areas that would take firefighters more than an hour to reach because of terrain and distance.
4. Lack of a water supply nearby.
5. Topography. Fire spreads much faster going up hill that across flat terrain. (This one in particular is interesting to me from a GIS perspective.)
6. Areas of dry foliage and dead grass.

Feed all of that to the GIS in just the right way, and you get this map to help the planners optimize where they should station their firefighters; where they should spend money on additional resources; where to post fire hazard warnings for campers, hikers, etc.

Part of the reason I am posting this kind of stuff here is that I don't have a good answer when friends and family ask what GIS is or what can you use it for. Having some real-world examples should help.

If any one has any type of mapping request, please let me know. It will help me learn quicker and better.

I am not so much interested in "give me a map of Dallas". That is easy. I have access to a lot of statistical data, so something like:

"how many cities with a population over 200,000 do not have a lake with a surface area greater than half a square mile within the city limits."

Hey, I just made that example up, but I think that would be a good one. I'll let you know if I can figure it out.

The scale on the last map is in kilometers. I just figured out how to display miles. I updated the link below so it shows the one with miles now.

I also forgot to point out that I rotated the county names so that they do not overlap and become unreadable. The ArcGIS software has more sophisticated algorithms for label names and automatically positions them so they don't overlap.

I did it! This links to a map that shows all counties within 100 miles of DuPage county. I have DuPage county grayed out in the middle. I couldn't figure out how to get the label for DuPage county to appear.

Now I can understand why the internships I applied for were not interested me. The software is much more complicated than I thought it would be. It would have been a waste of their money to have me stumbling around the software on their time. Who would have thought a simple map of county outlines would be so involved. I love it though!

I think I am going to go ahead and order the ArcGIS software for $250. That is the one that normally costs about $1,500, and is the main software used in the industry. The software that I just did the county maps on is the number 2 software in the industry and considerably cheaper. I have the free one year student licence for that right now.

This is a link to the first thing I ever created from my GIS software at home. It looks pretty simple, but there were a couple of queries I had to write, and figure out a few formatting issues.

I want it to keep by the weather radio. When they are describing storm paths, they always do it by county, and I have no idea where the counties are in relation to each other.

If any one wants me to create them a county map, just let me know. My next project for myself is to figure out how to outline all the counties from a given fixed point (only show the counties that are within a 150 radius of Chicago). This map is all the counties in Illinois and Indiana.

Here are two more pictures from our fishing trip. This is what the channel looks like that connects Grass Lake with Lake Marie. There are about 10 lakes that make up the Fox Chain O' Lakes, and they are all inter-connected with channels like these.

Looking north from the bow heading towards Lake Marie.


Looking south from the stern leaving Grass Lake. Grass Lake is the biggest lake on the chain, but also one of the shallowest. Therefore it is very cloudy and nobody does much fishing there. Notice we have the awning down. That is what you see all across the bottom of the picture.


This links to a map that shows our approximate position where I took these two pictures.

I don't know about the rest of the USA, but here in Chicago today's OSU game is only on pay-per-view for $15! I just looked at the score on-line, though, and it doesn't look good. We only won it by three points! I think were favored by 23 or something stupid like that. What happened? Did anyone see the game?

We both go in for an orientation session for volunteers at the humane society next Saturday morning. (9/13)

Remember on Tuesday this week I posted about an Indian car that I liked. I sent an e-mail to asking if they were being sold in the United States yet. This is the response I received this morning:

---

To : Mr. Brad
From : U Chakrabarty

Received your e-mail. First of all we thank you very much for your evincing interest in our products manufactured by Hindustan Motors Ltd. We, HM Export Ltd., are a wholly owned subsidiary of Hindustan Motors Ltd. and all products manufactured by Hindustan Motors Ltd. are exported through us.

We are yet to represent in USA. As such we are very keen to appoint a suitable distributor there. Since at present there is no distributor for our Ambassador cars, it may be difficult for us to provide after sales service and necessary parts back up. However, on specific requirement, we can supply you the parts. You can easily import any of the following products manufactured by Hindustan Motors Ltd. directly from us.

1. Ambassador cars: Petrol, diesel and CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) versions.
2. Contessa Classic: Petrol, diesel and CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) versions.
3. HM Trekker: Diesel versions. (carrying up to 10 passengers)
4. HM Pushpak: Diesel versions. (carrying up to 10 passengers)
5. HM Porter: Diesel versions, Load carrier
6. RTV (Rural Transport Vehicle): Different applications, like load carrier, passenger carrier, School bus, Ambulance, Distribution Van, etc.

All the above mentioned products have Right Hand Drive steering control system except RTV. RTVs are available with both Left Hand Drive and Right Hand Drive steering control system. Here we would like to mention that the unique feature of RTV is that it can be used in different terrain as well as on highways. This is an ideal vehicle for various applications such as distribution van, school bus, Ambulance, Passenger carrier, Load Carrier, etc.

Left Hand Drive version of Ambassador car is under development. Kindly let us know in which model you are interested. On receipt of your choice of model, we will let you know the price as well as send you the product catalogue.

Here we would like to mention that our cars, in its present form, meet the “Bharat Stage II” emission norms, which is more or less equivalent to Euro-II emission norms.

Looking forward to receiving your immediate reply. Thanking you once again and assuring you of our best services and attention at all times.

With kind regards,

U Chakrabarty

In case you didn't know, the first three things you should always look at first on a map are:

1. datum
2. projection
3. scale

We got this Labtec optical mouse for $15 at Meijer last night, and I love it! There is no ball in it to get gunked up. There is just a little red light and a photo sensor on the bottom. It somehow can look at the surface image of whatever it is on and knows which way it is being moved. It is much more sensitive and accurate than the traditional ball mouse. Highly recommended.

This is an Indian car called the Ambassador and is made by Hindustan Motors.

I would love to own one because it has a great retro look, except it would be near impossible to get parts and service for it in the States, and it probably doesn't meet our emission standards. They are in the $8,000 to $10,000 range.

This is a view on the pontoon boat from near the rear looking forward. The plastic tackle box on the bench is mine, and the brown metal one on the deck is Dads.

We tried to work mostly along the shoreline, that is why you see the docks in the background. The pontoon boat made it very easy to do that. We would just get into position up-wind and cut the engine. We would fish as we drifted along. When we were about to blow into something we would just pull up our lines, turn the ignition key, and motor back up wind or go try a different spot on the lake. We also tried anchoring in a couple of spots too.

Notice all of the bench space and floor room? Very comfortable. Sheri and I definitely plan on going there next year for a day. I will of course do a little fishing, but also anchor and swim, and do more sightseeing along all of the channels and inlets.

This is another view of Davis Hall. The dome on the top is a telescope.

This is the building that the department of geography is in on the NIU campus. It is also where the map library is. I love the map library. I can check out maps for two weeks!

I just got off the phone from a nice 65 minute phone call with Mom and Dad.

I took along the digital camera on our fishing trip last week and came up with a few keepers. I will post them one at a time.

This picture was from the first thing in the morning; probably about 7:45 AM. That is Dad working from the back of the boat. The thing right in front of him is the helm, where you steer the boat.

It takes between 10 and 15 pony tails of human hair to make a Locks of Love prosthesis.

Locks of Love before and after pictures.

One day, many days from now, when I do not have to worry about what corporate America thinks about me, I want to grow my hair very very long for the express purpose of cutting it off for Locks of Love.

In 1997 in Illinois, there were 129,204 employees in the IT industry, with a total payroll of $5,488,016,000.

Doing the math means that the average IT salary was $42,476. Assuming an average 3% increase each year over the last six years would mean the current average IT salary is $50,718. I think if you just looked at the Chicago area it would be a lot higher.

source: U.S. Census Bureau

I predict that you will begin to see more demographic and statistical information from me here. That is a large part of GIS. The US gubmint has tons of GIS-ready information on the web, free for the downloading.

When I finally get a job, if it is in the private sector there is a good chance it will be in a marketing department. They are big users of GIS professionals.