North River Geographic Systems Inc

Spatial Problem Solving

Rambling

Prayers and Hay

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I know – it’s been a while. I’ve been busy.

I think this first quarter of small business has been the best I’ve had in quite a while. I could point to a lot of things on why I think this has happened but I often find it’s just guessing. When you’re a one man show running off services and support there’s nothing tangible like product sales or earning reports that make sense. Some months you’re busier than others. Some months you aren’t. You form business partnerships and sometimes those fade. Sometimes they get better.

It’s a dance on what you can/can’t do and learning what jobs you enjoy and what jobs you don’t. One thing I have noticed is QGIS and “being different” has taken me more and more into the backwaters of what I consider my service area. When a small municipality/company is faced with the juggernaut of changing software and ever climbing support agreements the whole idea of different sells itself. I have entered several “one stop light towns” to discuss open source software. It’s towns the big guys can’t touch and won’t. I’m OK with this. Sometimes good things happen and sometimes they don’t.

Consulting is sometimes more stressful than it needs to be. I’ve been known for getting agitated so I do my best to not let things bother me these days. Church is also stressful for me. When you grow up in the south you get dragged to church more often than not. I spent my fair amount of time in a church setting singing hymns and worrying over your position in the Universe. I tend to find a lot of humor in religion. I may poke at things like Christmas and Easter in jest – but there is a cut off line and I try to not cross it. When I was 2000 miles south working at the equator that turned into a thing you had to constantly be aware of. Sacred cows make the best hamburger – BUT – there’s a time and place for joking.

I noticed the other day  was getting prayed over a lot. I go to lunch  at a clients location and someone blesses the meal. Sometimes I get thrown in for good measure. I say afterwards “thanks I can use all the help I can get”. It’s interesting. Usually I wouldn’t think twice about it but I was at a clients location and they had easter eggs out. I grabbed one. It was an invite to the biggest church in town for Sunday morning service. Sunrise service followed with regular service and dinner. I will say fried chicken in a church setting is probably some of the best fried chicken you can get.

Not even thinking I opened the egg and there was not chocolate.

Me: Oh man.
Employee: What’s wrong?
Me: I was hoping for chocolate.
Employee: Better than chocolate it’s an invite to church – you shouldn’t miss church!
Me: <thinking Crap> Hey – I might show up. Thanks. I was just overly hungry this morning and looking for a snack.

I think in February every meal I ate with clients was prayed over. The first half of the month I didn’t notice. The last half I was wondering if the streak would continue. Which shouldn’t be a worry – but I like averages. Last week I was driving back from a client meeting and thought “You know I wouldn’t even be here except for the community effort of open source. The only reason I’m here is ripping out ArcGIS and replacing it with QGIS/PostGIS.” Business is dragging me back into a setting from which I’ve disappeared.

Not that I’m looking to dive back into an organized religious setting. For those of you outside the US – if you haven’t noticed it’s stressful times for some of us over here. Maybe not for all – but it is for me. So – I’ve decided to turn these meetings into my own “Peace Love and GIS” type of outreach. Don’t stress and don’t worry about politics. “Hey maaaaan do your thing and I’m doing mine over here. Hey lets talk about your data.” Last week I learned what “tractor and hay bale making machine worked better than another tractor hay bale making machine”.  Which had squat to do with Geo – but it was a conversation that started out of “Can you make a layout in QGIS for me?”. The client enjoyed telling me and I enjoyed hearing about it. We talked about church. We talked about sewer lines. We talked about dump trucks. We talked about his kids and vacations.

Anyway – I know this is just a rambling post BUT – it’s more stories I seem to build up from this small business gig these days. A few years ago I found myself standing at a small town corner thinking “I don’t have time for this”. These days I don’t spend enough time standing still so I’ll spend 5 extra minutes taking it all in today. Maybe 10 and I might find some random person to talk to for a bit. Maybe I’ll eat lunch there but I’m not spending all day standing around talking. I have things to do and people to worry over.

I will most likely sleep in on Sunday. For those of you not and heading out with your family – Enjoy the day!

Floatsam and Jetsam

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Here’s my random Blog post ….

I think I have 4 usable computers in my office. Two are running Ubuntu as a Desktop, one is running Ubuntu server, one is running Windows 10 (and I’m surprised that laptop still runs). My two main machines are running Ubuntu 17.04. I’ve jumped all over the place with desktops. The run has been Gnome 2, XFCE, Mate and I’ve just jumped to Gnome 3. For a few months I was on the fluxbox side of life.

Why Gnome 3?  I haven’t run “stock Ubuntu” since the Unity desktop. With the announcement that Ubuntu was back to Gnome 3 I decided maybe it was time to give it a another run. I love Mate. I love XFCE – but I needed a change. So – a change. Overall – it’s not half bad. I remember When Gnome 3 first made an appearance I hated it – I’m appreciating the keyboard centric approach now. Unity was keyboard centric – but too locked for my enjoyment. My only hate – the amount of RAM consumed. I need to up the RAM on my workstation. Not solely because of Gnome – but just because I do a lot and I think it’s time for an upgrade.

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I started running Ubuntu full-time in 2013 when I had to work in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Hurricane Irma reminded me of the craziness of working there. After being down there for 4 or 5 months I became somewhat obsessed with portability. That was my first jump into open source with QGIS and PostGIS. There were many days where the internet wasn’t available. I remember one day where two of us were carrying 2 laptops, two power strips, a 50 foot extension cord, and a printer. We made a wrong turn walking from a seaport and wandered aimlessly for about an hour looking for the car rental agency. One night I was sitting on a porch stealing internet from someone almost out of range trying to download/upload data. I became weird about leaving with my laptop for a walk on the island. If I happen to hit “free internet” I stopped and worked. Better yet if I could recharge it.

I’ve wondered for the better part of a week how I would work post hurricane with scarce electricity and almost no internet. On a good day back in 2013 the internet was scarce. I would get a call or email and ask me to download a 4gb file and you might as well have asked me to fly on those days. One of my friends called from St Thomas and he’s working his way through GIS data on a desktop. My laptops usually get about 4.5 hours off a full charge. If I’m working toss that back to three hours. The longest I’ve ever went without electricity was a week back in 2011. I borrowed a friend’s generator to get my desktop running to move data to my laptop and then head to the nearest coffee shop to work.

This week I wondered if I could get a 56K modem back “online” if I had to. Then I realized my current rental doesn’t even have intact phone lines. Hah.

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I was at FOSS4G in Boston over a month ago. It doesn’t feel like a month. Ran into one of the volunteers who is a PhD Candidate at Columbia U. One thing led to another and we start discussing his dissertation. I have threatened over the last bit to do a PostGIS class. I keep backing off because “How well do I actually know this piece of software?”. I get by. I enjoy it. I don’t know if I could teach it. So – I started randomly answering questions on data analysis.

He offered to pay me. I refused. This year I’ve been a “smart” capitalist. I would say raging but that’s not entirely true. I cut all volunteer jobs down to 1. I give consistent estimates. I don’t chase work nor am I getting into “low bid” situations where my throat is getting cut. It is what it is – I will get what you want done as quickly as possible and correct. So – the Q & A on PostGIS and data is sorta nice. I guess I can still yell “it’s still not 100% about the money” a bit as I run this business and look at ways to increase efficiency and work. I’m learning a few things as this person isn’t primarily a GIS guy – it’s a tool. I’m helping him build out his toolbox of data tricks.

Anyway….back to work…..

 

 

 

Practicality

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My family has a terrible practicality to all things regarding death and dying.

As a kid remember one of my parents going “Well – Person A ain’t doing good.” Depending on how it was said or how it was phrased you could guess one of two outcomes. One year when I was 17 or 19 or something I spent a large amount of time at funeral homes. I counted and I think I was over 10 or 11 visits. My parents were in their mid to late 40’s plus we went to church regularly – and it seems that time period a lot of the older folks started passing away. Plus I chalk it up to “livin’ in the south”. We do like our funerals.

When my friend’s Mom passed away 10 years ago he asked me to be a pall bearer. That was my second time helping someone on their final trip. Maybe third. I really can’t remember.

It can turn into a joking point. A few years ago my neighbor had his appendix rupture. He kept getting sicker and sicker and didn’t want to go to a Doctor. He looked so bad at one point I started calling him up and going “Hey – are you dead yet?”. Once he had his appendix removed it turned into a joking point. I’d get sick and “Hey are you dead yet?”. Back and Forth and we did this for years. So much so people would get mad at us for even saying it.

Another family member popped up sick this month. A relatively mundane surgery cropped up a larger problem. A possible larger problem. The discussion went more or less “This diagnosis is a bit “gray””. The only way to make it “not an issue” is more surgery. Which as the discussion continued we ended up on death. What would you do? Cremation? Funeral? Body to Science? It was less of an alarming conversation than I expected. It was exceedingly practical. Dead is dead we said. Might as well not get that upset about it.

Right about the time this happened my neighbor died. In his sleep. I had called him and he didn’t answer. Several called. He wasn’t feeling great but no one had any idea he was that sick. Dead. Memorial Service is Friday. I’m speaking. Which is something I haven’t done. The entire process was pretty brutal. You Die. Police are called. Natural causes is the verdict. At that point it’s up to you and the police step away. We made a call to a funeral home. I called my Mom to inform her. She immediately sounded an alarm of “that funeral home is too expensive – move him”. Move him? Well – you can move him. We did. Overall – we budget shopped for cremation within 24 hours of death. I’m not family – just a friend. It was actually an honor to help.

Back to the family member – more discussion and more “what ifs”. The prognosis for this person isn’t half bad to be honest. Much better than “dead” actually. Except for being old it’s pretty good.

Many years ago my grandmother died. She lived out in the country. Died only miles from where she was born. So the funeral was quite an event. Food. One night of Visitation. Part of the family even stayed to “sit with the dead” overnight. It’s not good manners to just leave a dead family member alone in a funeral home. Anyway – I had a total of four grandparents and she was the first to pass away.

At the funeral home I was sitting with my grandfather, his brother, and my Aunt Bee out front. My Great Aunt Lois was busy taking pics of the casket and the flowers and I didn’t want to be in any pics. My grandfather had a whole set of nieces and nephews I had never met. I guess as I sit here that would have been Dad’s Cousins and my second cousins(?). The kids from my grandfather’s oldest brother were quite large. I chalk it up to genes vs environment.  One of the family members from that side of the family came to the funeral home. A broken foot had confined her to a walker for support. Her weight wasn’t helping the break and from all indications the walker was a permanent addition to her life.

“You let me fall” she yelled at her husband. He was as skinny as she was wide. “I didn’t mean for you to” he replied quietly and that just elicited more yelling as she made her way into the funeral home. “You let me fall though the porch…..” she screamed. Walker clutched tightly with a bible perched in a basket on the front.

My grandfather looked up as did his younger brother.

“Shoooooooo. Boy she is faaaaaat” My grandfather muttered.

“She is a big woman” Tommy replied.

“How much do you think she weighs” my grandfather asked. I stood there with my mouth hanging open not quite believing this conversation was occurring.

“I don’t think we could get her on a scale to check.” Tommy replied. At that point my Aunt’s ears perked as she heard the words “fat” and “scale” used within seconds of each other.

“I bet she’s a good 300 lbs – maybe more….you wanna bet she’d…..” and the rolled up newspaper caught him. “You shut up and Tommy you don’t say another word” my aunt said in a tone that wasn’t yelling but wasn’t her normal speaking voice. She glared at me and I just stood there still not quite believing what had happened. I went back into the main room to see if my Great Aunt Lois was finished with her photography.

It takes me 2 weeks to process an event. It’s been 3 weeks since my friend passed. It’s terribly hard believing he is gone – but he is. I regret deleting his last voicemail of “Hey Douchebag – Call me back”. I remember my dad at 45 or 50 going “I’m getting old”. Granted I’m not as old as some – but it does weigh on me these days. I don’t want to talk on Friday – but I will.

The week that was – The business that is

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It was a crazy week.

I’m right at one year when I moved back to Chattanooga. I’m bad about anniversary dates – as in the small things will stick with me at times bigger than the big dates. Something will be bothering me and if I think long enough – there’s a small bookmark in my life I’m approaching. Anyway – one year ago I moved into this crazy neighborhood much to the dismay of my family.  Change is good. Life is Change.

A year ago I decided I was going to make some much needed business changes – and that started and overall it’s been a pretty decent change. The changes made me a bit more hopeful for the future and I don’t feel like I’m in this strictly for the money – BUT – money did move up a few notches on the list thanks to a lot of advice.

Anyway – Monday started out with me learning more on PostGIS/PostgreSQL. A job with a client is going well – we just couldn’t get one thing to work. Figured it out. I took that victory to then decide to go talk at the North East Tennessee GIS Meeting. What was I going to talk about? This move out of ESRI for a utility client into QGIS/PostGIS/Fulcrum.  So I started writing…

My presentations tend to take 2 forms: They are terrible or pretty decent. I’ve done terrible ones. I’ve done awesome ones. I’ve learned more from the bad ones than the good ones. I had 20 minutes so I made 10 slides. No graphics. Decided to do more demos than presentations. Which is awesome I think – as long as you have internet……

I dove back into Geohipster on Monday and got one interview done with Regina Obe – the fastest interview I’ve ever done by the way. That was a fun email exchange. Anyway – look for that on geohipster.com on Monday.

Things started getting weird on Wednesday – a new potential client popped up and they are neck deep in ESRI – server, mobile, etc. Which is fine – they need help so we started the discussion. With the changes in business my decision to either help them or not is easier – there are things I like doing and things I don’t. I’m in the middle of researching their problems. I can give them a yes or no and be happy with decision.

NetGIS meets in Kingsport TN – it’s a nice drive 90% of the time. The area is beautiful. I had decided to leave early and goof off. I didn’t leave early. The time for the meeting also bumped back just a hair. I made it though…..45 minutes before the meeting started and in I walked. I also spent the time in the car listening to Pandora. What do I listen to?

On the drive up I received word a GIS Peer had passed away. I knew Leonard Slote well enough to go have a beer with him and talk smack about software. He was out riding his bike and was hit by a careless driver. Probably dead at the scene but he was declared dead after they arrived at the hospital. Life is so short. I went canoeing on Wednesday and with one careless goof I dropped my paddle and just about tipped over in some unfriendly water. I served with Leonard on a GIS Conference Committee. Which also made me think about how many Boards and Committees I’m on now.

None. That’s how many. It’s incredibly nice. How can you be a guy who is contributing and shaping the Geo World if you aren’t on any boards? I think the Geo world is getting along quite well without me being anywhere in the mix. I left all the boards and obligations a while back. I do a few things for fun currently – but they are insignificant in the greater scheme of things. I might start integrating myself back in slowly. Maybe. I haven’t quite decided if it’s worth the effort.

Live Demo’s are awesome as long as you have internet. Which I didn’t have. Well…….Scrub the Fulcrum one because I didn’t plan for anything but a live demo. Which is fine I’ve got another 11 or so slides and I can show a few things on Fulcrum to make it more interesting.

My slide show started out with a brief intro and going “I’m not on any boards” – but then I realized 2 or 3 people at the meeting had been with me on a board and – eh – I probably shouldn’t point out I left the board I was with them on so – no worry I’ve got 10 or so slides. I started second guessing my presentation and went down to 9 slides. For the final slide I actually went so far as to mock up a budget on the Full ESRI deployment vs a Hybrid Open Source/ESRI deployment. The problem with that is when you show someone two numbers (60k vs 5k) that are so wildly different people immediately start questioning WHY….the explanation when you’re in room full of ESRI software users and people who worry with budgets is interesting. I glossed over that one – It’s a good slide – it’s just a hard pill to swallow. I’m going to rework it and present it differently. The numbers stand on their own – it’s just hard for a lot of people to see the numbers. Overall my presentation was sorta Meh. It will get better.

So the big deal – there were 4 presentations at the meeting. 3 of which inadvertently mentioned QGIS. One from a vendor (our data can be pulled into QGIS), one from a student (I did my entire project in QGIS), and mine (I’m rolling out a full QGIS PostGIS Deployment for a water utility). A few years ago that wouldn’t have happened. The other presentation covered LIDAR in the state of Tennessee and I had the chance to reference this discussion in front of a guy who can help in the process. Right now I’m building a brief tutorial of processing LIDAR in GRASS.

A Meeting with no plan on a theme in heavy ESRI territory had 4 mentions on FOSS4G. FOSS4G is making a dent in the world of GIS. You could go so far as to say “I’m in the middle of nowhere TN and we had 4 mentions of Free and Open Source Software for GIS”. On the drive back I received a conference announcement where their entire workshop offerings are ESRI based. If you’re planning a conference – seriously PUT SOME FOSS4G IN IT. It’s 2016. You do your conference and yourselves a dis-service if you don’t. Period. Change is good.

Friday I was just sitting here going “It’s been a weird week and I’m tired” and my email beeped “Can you come talk at our meeting?”. Yes – what do you want me to talk about? “Anything you want”. Heh. Will I have internet access?

Thoughts on Eating and Sleeping

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As the readers know – I do vent from time to time up here.

Business is a tricky thing. I’m not that great at it. For a while I ran the business with less worry on income and more on “doing good things”. As in money wasn’t the primary motivation. That changed two years ago through one particularly nasty stint where I found I needed to “eat” and do things like “sleep”. So I took a bit more of a smarter thought process to work and wrote some business practices down, stabilized my hourly rate, and got incredible consistent with estimates. I can’t do good things if I’m broke.

It’s helped. Immensely. Plus I felt at that point I was becoming more reliable as an entity. If you need something I can do THIS THING HERE and NOT THIS THING OVER HERE. That’s why I have business associates. I will pass you along if I can’t do the work.

Yesterday I spent half the day invoicing people. I have a time sheet – and somehow I had managed to delete one column of data from it. I spent a great deal of time fixing that column yesterday so I could get paid. Truth be told the client came out on the better end of things. I sent the invoice and we discussed a few charges. I shuffled time around and ended up dropping one charge I couldn’t adequately figure out what had happened. I had written it down – then deleted it in the “great Timesheet Debacle of May”. Yeah I know – One man company. How much was the charge? $50. I know. I know.

Earlier this week I ended up sending what amounted to a third invoice to some folks who had taken a class from me. They promptly informed me since they were unhappy with the class they weren’t paying for it. That didn’t stop them from taking it. Just from paying. I developed an inner voice after starting business. I’ve called it everything from “Voice in my head” to “my business associate”.  It can smell BS a mile off. I detected it with this group but let them take a class. Heated emails have been flying. I’m almost at the point of saying “Forget it”. Almost. Maybe we will all get calmed down and fix it. Maybe not.

I fired a client one time. We had reached an impasse and the relationship was getting toxic. Neither of us were happy so I walked away and wished them the best and made suggestions as to who could fix their problems. I had one client propose a job – I bid on it – and found out the client pulled some shenanigans with the bid and quickly found with the work. I completed it and I probably should have went “this wasn’t what I said I’d do”. Once again – bidding them a fond farewell and suggestions for moving forward.

I probably shouldn’t have done it but I told the “training folk” from above they were about to get fired as we’ve had other interactions through the years. Nothing profitable but it went back to the “Do good things” thought from above. Ultimately I’ll probably get paid BUT my interaction will cease as soon as I send that 0 balance email. The relationship is getting toxic. As I always do they will get pointed to other resources and I will wish them well. They do good things – but life is short and I have a business to run.

Wow you have a lot of unhappy clients! You must suck. Actually I have a lot of happy clients. Forestry, Utility, Planning, etc…….The majority of people I work with actually have a good experience. I would say great but I am not one to go “I AM AWESOME”. I’m not – I’m just good at what I do or at least I try to be. How do I know I’m good? Because I know when I haven’t been and that isn’t something I attempt to repeat. Ever. The bad experiences do stick with you.

Anyway the client that has taken the QGIS workshop class and won’t pay has changed the basic way I’m doing classes. I knew at some point it would happen – someone would take a class and go “I’m not paying”. All my good GIS Friends said “Dude make them pay up front”.  This was the one thing I was running loose with because I still think it’s more of an outreach than a money maker. So from here forward you’re going to have to pre-pay to take it. I’m also going to do a quick mental health check on the student. You may be thinking “what sort of person takes a class then refuses to pay”. Highly Educated ones. So if you start discussing this class going “This is beneath me but I’ll take it anyway” – guess what – No. I will forward you to some other online offerings from different people. I don’t want your money…and I like having money as it helps me eat and sleep.

I like all my clients past and present. Granted I may not understand what they do at first: “Oh that’s an Oak tree…No A Hickory….Wait….Winged Elm?!!? No….well…..you know what it is? A point on the ground right here”. The focus on data issues has helped vs “I LIKE SOFTWARE”. I like software – but it’s not something I try to force on anyone. I would prefer to spend that one extra hour discussing data and processes vs “Welp you need to buy new equipment”. Maybe they will have to – but with my current tool set anything will work for a bit – but it can be a longer conversation than “OMG you need 8 gigglebits of Ram with an upgraded zorp card for processing all the things” that we have to have before work starts.

Anyway – rambling for your Friday. Some of you may be going “OMG I’ve got Long term Gov’t contracts and million dollar things”. I know – I try. Maybe at some point. Until then – bring me your tired and your poor (but not too poor) huddled masses yearning for GIS and I will set you free….but not for free – because I need to eat and sleep.

Good People –  Knock off early today. Life is short.

 

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