Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Keeping the Faith

It's 4 something and I can't sleep as usual. Usually I try to stay away from the Internet when I've taken a sleep aid, but here goes. Donna recently called me out about not blogging, so this one is another attempt at keeping up with this. Geographic thought. Hmm, well right now bed sounds pretty sweet, but I know that won't work yet.

School has proven very testing for me, and I must admit, I can't wait for it to be over. Core Humanities? What the hell does that even mean? I don't enjoy faith/religion being spoon fed to me. I got "confirmed" in the Catholic Church and that was enough for me. The title of the class says a lot to me. Like, this is going to be a complete waste of your time and money.

But I have enjoyed my classes in the Geography department, and I'm not kissing ass when I say that. Many who read this, know of the ups and downs I had while being a student here. I think this program is great and I would never have seen half of the things in this region if it weren't for Field Methods, Mountain Geography, etc. But now after this class I'm stuck with the humanities and Spanish. Lame.

Perhaps you are wondering what the significance of the picture on the top of this entry is? The dog in the picture is my little Sierra, and she keeps getting out of her bed, giving a loud sigh and nudging the door to my study area open with her nose to see what the hell I'm doing at 5 am. Also, that happened to be one of the best sun sets of my life, so far.

Yesterday I found out I will be going to the far reaches of Quebec, near the tundra, where it will be light out for 21 hours of the day. It will be for work and should be really cool (no pun intended). That should also make for some interesting cultural geography, which will probably be influenced by not freezing your ass off.

Well, the sleep aids are somewhat taking effect. I would say good night, but instead I'll say good morning and I hope all that read this have a good Friday. Yes that means especially you, Donna!

Like A True Natures Child

I know I've been slacking on this, so I'm sorry for the hiatus. In watching the French movie in class today, Jean de Florette, I realized how movies can be great geographical tools. The other day I watched Easy Rider for the first time in a while. While watching it, I couldn't help but notice how great it is, but also the fact that it is almost a cultural geography documentary. One can't forget the classic "happy wonderer" characters and the prejudice they encounter. Jack Nicholson's character is of course notable in other films as well, my favorite of which is...

There are other stories of a fish (or Hipo) out of water, that are also great and show a cultural and geographical change for the characters. Many of which happen in the "Big Apple", but then there is always someone that has spent to much time in New York City, or in Nebraska, like this goofball. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the Flight of the Conchords, it is a perfect blend of cultures colliding and humor.

I also wanted to point out this book, put out by "The Onion". It is a fantastic atlas of the planet, full of excellent sarcasm. I will no doubt be quoting it often on this blog, so keep a lookout. Here's a little sample that I picked because the vineyards of CA are what I am going to do my term paper on and I thought this was a funny quote. "The state's region is known for its vineyards, where immigrant workers spend years cultivating the finest wine in the country so people can spit it out into a bucket" (The Onion, pg 22).

Southern Hospitality!

In trying to figure out where exactly "the South" starts in this constantly changing country of ours, I came upon this map on one of my favorite map grabs, Strange Maps. You can find the whole story here. But that is someone else's Oprah. What I am looking for goes much deeper. However, one can't help but notice that there is a category of religion actually called "Southern Baptist", which seems to be a fairly well defined border on the map above. As Wilbur Zelinsky explains in his piece, Where the South Begins: The Northern Limit of the Cis-Appalachian South in Terms of Settlement Landscape, "The abnormal relegation of ordinary urban functions to the country: the high incidence of the rural school, church, and cemetery, and the cross-roads store and postoffice" (173).

Religion can certainly help define an area, but as Peirce Lewis notes speaking about Zalinsky, "Here was a man who was willing to go outdoors, use his eyes, and then return to the library and sort through a mass of data to find a match between statistics and landscape" (Wilbur as Icon*). I think this is a good point to think about. In these days of the www, it is imperative to test and "match between statistics and landscape". The illustration at the top is a great visual aid to help map statistics, but in order to really find where this region begins, you have to go there and document everything you see.

Grady Clay's term, "turf" comes to mind when I think of the fieldwork that I have done in Tennessee and West Virginia. Driving through the mountains trying to find a dirt road rumored to be there, in a Land Rover Discovery with New York plates, I discovered what being a stranger in a strange land can feel like. Most of the locals would greet us with a shotgun. On the other hand, it is always a good thing to witness firsthand southern hospitality, which features cuisines that are some of the best I have ever had. And of course a friendly, genuine, courtesy that I have come to define as southern hospitality, which is where I consider the south to begin.

Neighborhood Numb Nuts

Before I start this portion of my blog with regards to a new class I'm taking called Geographic Thought, I wanted to help spread the word and description of a freak that appears to be located in my neighborhood (yes, only a few blocks away). There is a girl that is still missing after a week and I feel it would be best for this fruitcake that has been tied to 2 other attacks near campus, is in need of getting caught or catching a few to the chest if he invades my home. Anyway, sorry for the downer to start off with, but Paul mentioned things in the news we felt strongly about, so here is a link to the description and I hope this guy gets caught soon. Be safe all who read this.

Xtreme Cartage!

I know this guy down in the Yucatan, Mexico that is a pretty Xtreme mapper. Sam Meacham is a cave diver by trade, but has recently gotten into education. He is trying to prove to the powers that be (government, etc...) down there in Playa del Carmon, that pollutants that are dumped into these sunken pools ("Cenotes", Mayan word for "well") is eventually deposited out into the ocean, because much of the Yucatan is connected under ground by a vast underwater cave system. So he is trying to map these underwater caves and map how and where they connect. If you ever have the time and the space, download BBC/Discovery Channel show, "Secrets of the Maya Underworld"(this link will bring you to a page to download the movie). It is well worth the download and has some spectacular underwater filming. Though I should warn you, it is not for the squeamish/claustrophobic. There are a few scenes in which he gets stuck in a pinch.


I worked with Sam down in the Yucatan with all kinds of funky wildlife, such as pumas, scorpions and many fun poisonous snakes. And then there was the plant life, many kinds of things that cause a lot of pain and itchiness. Sam dives into one cenote and then surfaces at another mapping and gathering GPS points to create a map of underground currents that feed out to the ocean.

Techno Mapping

Sensing Things Remotely

Mapping technology is a very fast growing industry using 3D maps, satellite imagery, and many different instruments and sensors that measure all kinds of things. We call this Remote Sensing. These sensors can measure heat, light, radiation wavelengths and much more. Much of what we use in today's mapping techniques are made possible by remote sensing.

I used to work with an instrument (in the picture above) that was used for analyzing the health of different kinds of vegetation. I analyzed white pine (Pinus strobus) for the most part, in an attempt to gather data on air quality in the New England region. The instrument is called the VIRIS (Visible InfRed Intelligent Spectrometer). Basically, it measured water content in the pine needles and graphed it to look like the graph below:

I also used the instrument down in the Yucatan, Mexico. It is never easy bringing anything called a VIRIS across any border and I don't recommend it. The instrument also requires total darkness, except for the light source which is very hot (basically recreating the sun). And when it is stiflingly hot, like in the Yucatan, it is not very pleasant to work around. Below is a picture of us working in a scorpion infested shed.


And no, I wasn't kidding about the scorpions (beer cap for size purposes only, this is science! Right?)...