left turn at albuquerque (part 2)

so i changed my major to geographic techniques. I was totally clueless when i took my first gis class. i thought it was totally stupid. i couldn't understand why someone would get paid to do this. it took a long time to really gasp the idea of gis. a geographic information system (gis) is a collection of computer, software, and geographic data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information. that made little sense to me until i saw gis in use to solve a problem. so i actually started enjoying my classes. i eventually took classes in mapping and cartography. so during my last semester in college, my friend ask me to do him a favor. he wanted a job working in the tax office for the county. he could only work have a week because of school and he wanted me to work the rest of the week. i didn't really want to but i did need some experience. as soon as he found out that we were just clerks, he quit. but i stayed on working. i used ESRI arcview a little but not at all as an analytical tool. i just searched for owners names and that was about it. working there, i also got better at reading maps. i learned about section township and ranges. i also learned to read a legal description of a deed. i know that sounds easy but reading a deed was really difficult at first.

left turn at albuquerque (part 1)

i think i should have taken a left at albuquerque..... i never had any intention in becoming a cartographer. i also wanted to be a school teacher. when i first applied for the school of education at jsu, i was told that i had to declare two major to teach. for instance, like science and math. well i loved history and i wanted to teach nothing but history. i didn't want to get stuck teaching anything else so i didn't know what to do. my advisor told me that i could declare social sciences and that would count as two majors. i was a bit reluctant but i didn't know what else to do. i remember my first geography class and was totally confused. i met alot of people in class that were straight geography majors. i asked them what they were going to do after college. i asked if they were going to be high school teachers. they all laughed. i asked them what else could you do with a geography degree. a few said that they were going to work with oil companies and a few said they were going to do gis. that was the first time that i ever heard the word gis. the next semester in a geography class, dr k was telling the class of all the jobs in the gis field. so after class, i went up and asked him more about gis. he told me briefly what a geographic information system was. he told me to go talk to the geography department head for more info. so i went to dr johnson the next day. dr johnson was very optimistic about the field of gis. i was hooked. i changed my major that day to geographic techniques.

my first post

i know that no one is reading but this is my first post. i had a blog a few years ago (6 years that is) but i never had anything to say. well i now have something to write about. first i want to promote my hometown. i grew up in the wonderful town of hokes bluff alabama. i moved to gadsden when i was 12 years old. but i have recently moved back and i love this place so much. it's the perfect place for my family and i. also, i want to discuss what i do for a living. i am a cartographer. if you don't know what that is, look it up on wikipedia or just google it. so please forgive my misspelling because i rarely use spellcheck. and also, please forgive my rambling because i tend to ramble a bit.

casey