I saw a meme the other day that said the year 2022 is pronounced the same as 2020 too. Hope it won't be a repeat of 2020! I was feeling a bit down, but then the snow fell and Tomahawk transformed into a beautiful winter wonderland, the angst and stress of 2021 melted away and I felt happy, hopeful, and excited for the upcoming holidays.

Harmful algae blooms (HABs) are occurring more and more frequently in lakes, rivers, streams and coastal areas across the United States. Further, HABs are occurring where they were never found in the past. View a map from the Natural Resources Defense Council that tracks HABs across the United States.

Did you ever wonder why men wore those white wigs back in colonial times? Turns out those wigs weren’t all white, but they were all about looking classy – as in economic class, that is. Apparently the color of the wig reflected status. Professionals went with gray, tradesmen wore brown, and white wigs were reserved for judges and military officers. Men could also don white wigs for special occasions – they went well with the ruffles around the wrist which were also part of the whole look.

Most people don’t really think about how geographic information provides the framework for our entire existence. We exist as living organisms in time and space. Our minds may be occupied with far-way thoughts, but our memories are inextricably tied to the place where they were created. As long as we live and breathe, we always have a location. Shakespeare’s Hamlet said “To be or not to be, that is the question.” Surveyors say, “To be is to occupy a position relative to two axes.”

Roger Sherman He was descended from the Shermans of Yaxley, in the county of Suffolk, England, who were landed gentry who had helped to frame the British Constitution. Born in 1721, the second of seven children of William and Mehatabel Sherman, Roger became farmer and a cordwainer (a person who makes shoes and other items from leather) like his Puritan father.

Berntsen International, maker of InfraMarker® Connected RFID™, announces a new release of the InfraMarker Mobile App, the field data collection component of the popular InfraMarker Connected RFID solution.

I’m a real history buff and I will use almost any excuse to dig into the past and learn something new. So guess what? Earlier this month we celebrated Columbus Day, which is increasingly being celebrated as Native American Day, which leads me to a related surveying question – How are Indian Trust Lands surveyed?

I was recently invited to speak at the Wisconsin Society of Land Surveyors (WSLS) annual summer meeting. I decided to delve into the history of my own county here in Wisconsin - Marathon County - where I spent 13 years of my surveying career. I thought I knew a bit about its history, but I had no idea how interesting it was. I’ve already blogged about the importance of surveying in colonial times, and my “Marathon” research underscores the importance of surveying in laying out the foundation for organized economic development in Wisconsin.

I actually didn’t know that September is National Wilderness Month, but I love the outdoors, though some of the wilderness I’ve experienced has been a bit too real.

A week ago today, National 811 Day was commemorated. It’s a national awareness campaign to highlight the need to call 811 before digging – in our yards or at a construction site. Many organizations in charge of utility assets use this day to promote the importance of calling 811 BEFORE digging. For example, The Southern Gas Company created this “No Diggity” video to help promote awareness.

Since I was vacationing in a few of our national parks on August 11, I didn’t get a chance to add my voice on that day. But the “Call 811” message is relevant every day for everyone who is planning to dig. It doesn’t matter where you are in the United States, you can go to call811.com or simply call 811 to “Know What’s Below” before you dig. The service is required to respond quickly, usually 24 hours in most states.

Today, I’m covering two days of thrilling (and hot) outdoor activities in our National Parks. The first day, we were “living on the edge” at Kanab Utah. This is the site of the Moqui Caves, which features a roadside museum that started as a local tavern and dance hall.

As promised in my National Parks Month blog, I said I’d be posting from my vacation to tour just a few of our national treasures. We finished a great time at Mount Rushmore, and then we visited Zion National Park.

The Oxford Dictionary defines "breathtaking" as: astonishing or awe-inspiring in quality, so as to take one's breath away.

To say Zion National Park is breathtaking is an understatement. Words just cannot describe and pictures just don't do it justice. I’ll try with a few, though – sublime, magnificent, glorious, mind-blowing , splendid, and my favorite – divine!

Do you know what a Hedonometer is? Yeah, me neither until just recently. No, it’s not another ancient surveying tool – it’s actually an analysis that determines how happy people are by their tweets.

The Vermont Complex Systems Center analyzes 50 million tweets per day, scoring happiness based on the categories of words that people use. It turns out that the pandemic produced the deepest and longest period of national malaise since the Hedonometer started in 2008. Fortunately, things are trending up as the pandemic is easing in most parts of the country.

Surveyors have been doing their job for millennia, and the ingenuity (and accuracy) of ancient instruments is mind-boggling. My last blog was focused on the surveyors of ancient Egypt, who were responsible for laying out temples, palaces, pyramids, boundaries for the Pharaoh to be able to levy taxes accurately.

As most surveyors know, Egypt potentially produced the first known surveyors, known as “Rope-Stretchers” [harpedonaptae in Greek]. They earned that name because one of the tools used in surveying was a calibrated rope. These ropes were specially-treated to hold their length by being stretched out taut between stakes and then rubbed with a mixture of beeswax and resin. They were graduated by 13 knots tied at equal intervals (small or large, depending on the intended use).

After the heady celebrations of National Infrastructure Week, we’re sliding right into National Public Works Week. Ok, I’m being a bit silly here, but it is certainly true that things are looking up for our infrastructure and those involved in building and maintaining the structure that undergirds our modern way of life.

Urban flooding results in more than $9 billion in damages annually, while federal funding to support stormwater maintenance/upgrades averages about $250 million annually. It’s not surprising that stormwater infrastructure is in bad shape and has earned a grade of “D” from the ASCE.

The United Nations passed a resolution creating this day to celebrate the creative economy, which actually makes a lot of sense, considering the entire world is just beginning to come out of a pandemic that really forced us all to get creative just to do our jobs.

Fortunately, surveyors have made creativity a way of life. It seems like we have a pretty straightforward job – use our tools to verify property lines, monitor structures for movement over time, lay out the lines for construction, etc.

In the US, everybody knows a little bit about the Declaration of Independence. This document was the formal announcement of the split between the Colonies and the British Crown – ultimately creating the United States of America.

Berntsen International, the leader in infrastructure marking solutions, announces that it has earned the Esri Release Ready Specialty status. This designation recognizes companies, products and solutions that integrate with Esri technology and are created by partners with expertise in leveraging Esri solutions and software.