North River Geographic Systems Inc

Spatial Problem Solving

Rambling

10 Years What?

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I do these small anniversary posts occasionally. I’ve been walking around for like a month with small things picking at me. This last week I lost my check card twice, my keys three times, and drove around one night for an hour not knowing where I wanted to eat. It took me until yesterday morning to go “Ohhhhhhhhh that’s why”.

So 10 years ago this week you had this grouchy (grouchier than I am now) guy working for the Federal Government – Tennessee Valley Authority to be precise. I had been there 16 years at that point. If you flashed back about 7 or 8 I had made a half-hearted attempt to leave my job and that didn’t pan out due to several factors. If you were watching me in 2006 I was getting more and more unhappy with work. As I’ve learned part of it was “just me expecting too much” and part was the job was literally going no where. I wasn’t going to be laid off like so many of my friends had been. There was no incentive for me to do anything better than I was doing. It was misery all the way around and I was taking it out on everyone. I had some hobbies outside of work but there was a general “I hate everything” that permeated my life.

I worked here – not in the 40’s. I’m not that old.

So in 2006 I started moonlighting and taking on contract work. In about a year or so I had become an ESRI business partner and Certified Trainer. All while maintaining my day job. It was a bit nerve wracking. Some people knew what I was doing and had it really become public knowledge I would have been fired on the spot. So one fateful day in 2008 I walked into my boss’s office and went “I gotta go”. Three weeks later I went. I found out some time later my job had “ended” as no one picked it up – they just contracted it out.  That made me sad but it just re-enforced the notion I wasn’t doing anything worthwhile.

Flash Forward 2 years and things sorta sucked on the consulting front. This isn’t an easy gig by any stretch. Work  never appeared with any normalcy. Some days no work and some days it was 18 hours with 6 hours of sleep and more work until it went away.

Working and running a booth at a conference circa 2010

Flash Forward 2 more years and I was gearing up for a swan song in the Caribbean as I had decided “I’m done”.  I didn’t have a plan but I figured I’d have one when I came back.  Oh how things changed in the Caribbean. I ended up dropping out of the ESRI BP program as I wasn’t a good fit. I did my last ArcGIS class late in 2013.

It’s a Pirate’s Life for me in 2013.

Two years after that……. I had grown and shrunk as a business. I gained employee and the employee left due to work being non-existent. I found myself ready to move yet again. Work was more miss than hit for over a year mostly thanks to partnerships that didn’t pan out.  Having an employee isn’t easy by any stretch. So many things I did wrong during that time period – which in general seems to be how I exist in life most days. Someone made the mistake of asking me “How do you run a small business?” the other day and two days later I finished my rant.

Flash forward to now and it’s a good existence. Not Glamorous – but work is up as clients find me and I dance on the open source side of life. I accidentally looked at my books this weekend and I so far have “broken even” and it appears I’ll end the year in the black. Which is a mighty accomplishment for me. No 100k contracts or limos or clients where money isn’t an issue though – if you are one gimme a shout. I did turn into a raging capitalist with no being my favorite word of the day.

Partnerships have come and gone. I can’t count the number I’ve had…..5 or 6…maybe 8. Everyone wants to “help” and in general help is lacking in a partnership. I’ve one business partnership currently. I’m good with that amount. I’ve relegated myself to FOSS4G conferences as a creative outlet.

FoSS4G 2017 in Boston

On the personal side of life – Oh the things I have learned and continue to learn. The Phrase “It’s not personal – it’s just business” doesn’t exist for me. It’s all personal. I did find that my body doesn’t handle stress well – water is the key. So I drink water constantly. Working from home can be murder on a diet – so I’ve learned to watch what I eat. I rediscovered a love of canoeing. I rediscovered how much I like ridding a bike again. I’m going camping before the end of the year on the coast. Don’t know where yet.

Occasionally I do think “It’s time to do something else” and maybe I will at some point. For right now the work I do is full filling so I’ll keep moving in this direction.  I do wonder at time “what if I had stayed….” and I have no doubt a heart attack or stroke would have taken me out.

So yeah – 10 years. To all of you I’ve ticked off in the last 10 – I’m sorry. To all of you I’ve tried to help – I hope I did. To all of you who have been a client – thank you. To all that have helped me – the biggest thank you is reserved for you, that person there, the other person over there, and you over in the back.

Do it this way

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The nice thing about having a “blog” besides the occasional ridicule that blogging is so 90’s…or was it 2000s….is no one in my family reads it. Heh. We are an internet phobic group with Dad possibly being the more active user besides me.

Anyway – It’s Fathers Day. I’m not a father through a twist of fate…or a twist of my winning personality. Anyway – Yesterday I finally FINALLY got my jeep back on the road. I bought it in 2000. For the last 2 or 3 years it’s not been in great shape so I’ve not went far in it. Yesterday I finished getting new tires and a new soft top and a tuneup. I’ve another small list of things to do but overall I drove it all day yesterday for no other reason than I could. About 10 years ago I put an overhead cargo rack believing that it wold be pretty awesome if I ever got to Africa in it. I could sit up there and take pics of elephants and rhinos and be safely 10 feet off the ground. What that did was prevent me from taking the soft top off….well actually it didn’t. For several years I followed the directions on how to do it. I lost the directions. Then for 7 years I didn’t. That left me needing 4 hands vs 2 yesterday. So I called Dad.

I think Dad probably thinks I’m horribly incompetent – but what I’ve found is the one thing we can both get together on is car repair. So when a good friend died and his car decided to stop working on his girlfriend off we went. Turns out it was a starter issue. 3 hours to figure out the starter had been rigged into place vs replaced properly. We replaced it properly…well he did:

When I couldn’t get the jeep top on yesterday:

 

If you trace back to when I was 18 it was a need – I had to get him involved in any car repair project as most of my cars early on were pretty bad. I don’t have that skill set. I sorta have it now – BUT – it’s fun to get him involved because to watch his problem solving on a bolt that won’t come loose or a “thingamajig” isn’t “clunking right”. So it’s more of a learning experience on watching him at 75 still trouble shoot a problem. It’s not horribly different than watching me work through a Geo problem.

Oh yeah – and the lawnmower died. So I got a 2011 motor on a 1973 Body:

So today if it all works we’re grilling burgers out. Knowing him I’ll show up to do it and he’ll do it to keep me away from the grill. Which will give me more time to go break something on my car to get his advice on fixing it.

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.

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