Where has the summer gone?!?! I can’t believe it! My summer days of fun have come to an end already. There have gone the days when I can sleep in and stay in my PJs ALL DAY LONG! 🙁
Today I start my GIS Internship at Story County Assessor’s Office! I have worked here last summer as a volunteer internship, but my efforts of working with them have finally paid off and I’m getting paid this summer! I look forward to finally getting a co-worker in my office (my boss). Last summer, I was working in the Assessor’s Office conference room. I’m most looking forward to the dual monitor setup this year. Last year I had only a single monitor, and that was a real pain working on my projects that I did.
This summer I’m looking forward to finally finishing the Countywide Building Footprint layer that will be implemented with the E-911 system and other maps that I started last summer and the intern before me worked some more on.
I won’t ever complain about this job (except maybe for the dress code) because I’m doing something I’m PASSIONATE about, I’m making the world a BETTER PLACE one MAP at a time, and I’m paying it forward for my future career paths. I’ll try to update about all the fun projects I’m working on throughout my internship.
Today is the day. The day my cousin’s dad learns his fate. He has had a struggle with cancer for over 20 years now. He got diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and the doctors only gave him ~10 years to live. That was 20 years ago. in 2010, he got diagnosed again with cancer. He went through many treatments and got his last treatment in June 2011. Recently, he got some bad news during a checkup. Doctors noticed a tumor growing in his brain, and they are concerned it’s growing into the inoperable area of his brain. Please pray for Mike today. He and his family need all your prayers. Thank You!
Also, I’ve made up a Facebook Cover of all the people who I wear my wristbands for. I’m always thinking about them.
Eli Horn was a 7 year old boy fighting for his life that lived right here in Nevada. I didn’t know that he lived here until it was too late. I was following Eli since right around the beginning of January, after I saw something about him. Anyway, his life was cut too short on Wednesday morning (1/18/12 at 5:30 ET), when he died in his hospital room in NYC. Eli was fighting a deadly childhood cancer called Neuroblastoma, which he lost. He has a visitation tomorrow at Cornerstone over in Ames, followed by a funeral on Monday. Check out his blog and also his Facebook page. Feel free to also tweet them @elihorn with the hashtag #ElisArmy. Let’s try to trend #ElisArmy on Monday in his honor, because he was such an amazing boy.
I don’t know how many of you tweeted about 18yo Dyamond Ott who died on the 11th in Omaha while in surgery with the hash tag #diamondsliveforever, but this really touched me in many ways more then you, I’m sure. Any loss b/c of cancer is HUGE. I have already lost many friends and family to cancer, and I have an aunt currently battling breast cancer. And the loss of an 18yo girl who really suffered all her life from cancer treatments, tiredness, and sickness and who wasn’t able to really explore this vast world shouldn’t have died this early. Heck, no one deserves to die this early. And the way she died too. That wasn’t the outcome they were expecting from the surgery, but clearly God had other plans for her. Maybe it was for the best though, as she isn’t in pain anymore and the outcome is much more greater then it usually is, as Dyamond had a goal that was great and hopefully she is well on the path to achieve her goal of getting more organ donors to save many lives like hers. She too was an organ donor that was saved with a liver transplant a few years earlier, and now she is transfering part of herself to a boy in Iowa City. Dyamond’s death also united 2 rivals, Ankeny and SE Polk, which I think might be one of the most amazing things ever, bringing 2 rivals together for a common goal of community betterment. I was lucky enough to talk to one of her friends who said she was the bravest and strongest person they knew. I believe anyone who fights a deadly disease like this is easily 100 times, if not 1000x, stronger then a heavyweight. It is awesome the support that the community is giving her friends and family at a time like this. This might be a sad time this year, but I think it will be a sad time the next few Christmas seasons as well. God bless her, her friends and family, and all other cancer surviors, people lost to cancer, and those who are currently battling it. You will be missed Dyamond. I think Dyamond’s story shows you how fortunate you really are, not to take everyday for granted, and to live every day as your last because you never know when God will bring you to heaven.
Please remember Dyamond as she is laid to rest for the final time this afternoon. Also, please consider becoming an organ donor to help save lives when you are gone – FAQ. Also, please tweet this if you want to share with your friends and remember Dyamond.
FLL was my life a few years ago around this time of year. This year, my school had 3 FLL teams and our county 4-H program had a team. I mentored 2 of our schools teams. It brought back so many good memories, making me a bit sad I still couldn’t play with the awesome LEGO bricks at the same time. I wish US FIRST would still host FLL at the high school level. Anyways, Iowa FLL is making it a bit more challenging for teams, since they implemented regionals at multiple locations through out the state that happened last weekend and this weekend. This weekend however is special for me, as the 4 teams I know are battling it out over in Marshalltown. I think they should be arriving back in town any minute now…
I was in FLL for 2 years. I first got interested in it when I saw Ocean Odyssey in 2005. I got together a team as part of my 4-H club in 2006 (Nano Quest), which we did extremely well in. In fact, we got 1st place for Robot Performance (Highest Score) and 1st place for Programming. I think we only did so well, because I put in a LOT of long nights and weekends at my mentor’s garage the last couple of weekends before the state tournament. I also used a concept that I thought saved us a TON of time as well. We only had 1 program with all the missions in it (as My Blocks) and we had a set order of FLL missions we were going to complete. To transition from each mission, we just tapped the touch sensor after we had the robot lined up. I believe this helped us a lot, because if you watch kids, they fiddle through all their programs, wasting valuable time. After 2006, we participated in Power Puzzle, which was our last year. Luckly, I got my school’s TAG teacher involved and she started 3 teams at the middle school level, and has been going ever since.
I just registered to volunteer with this year’s state tournament which happens January 14th, 2012 to take photos or help out on the tech crew (we livestream ours with Extension’s Adobe Connect service). — Click here to find a link to the livestream if you are interested in watching as it gets closer.
Have you been involved with FLL? Do you have an interesting story?? Let me know!
-Pre-marked at-risk buildings
-Quick turnaround time (3-4 days)
-Measured depths at each structure and mapped them
-Heavily used Pictometry to evaluate buildings, specifically the foundations and for measuring # of stories
-Final economic loss estimated $125 million damage to residential and $30 million damage to commercial
-Geoeye captured Minot, ND and is on the ND Flex Site, with more data coming soon.
I am lucky enough to attend the esri UC this year, thanks to the City of Ames who graciously gave me one of their registrations. I am looking forward to attending the technical sessions and learning more about ArcGIS for Android and ArcGIS 10.1. I entered 2 maps in the Map Gallery (Panels 1185 & 1286), so feel free to look at those. Stay tuned here for more updates from the UC. To see a livestream click HERE (Note: I won’t be streaming live all the time, so you might catch a pre-recording)
Also, I have been on summer vacation since last Saturday, enjoying the sights and sounds here in San Diego. I have been a freak and have taken a TON of photos, and am SLOWLY trying to weed down some photos to post online.
