Newman Blog

Today I came across a quote by Earl Warren in an InfoWeek email bulletin: “Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for.”

Not really knowing who Earl Warren was I found out quickly he was Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969. One of the most influential men of his day he is largely responsible for the Miranda Warning, secured a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education, headed the Warren Commission that studied JFK’s assassination, affirmed inter-racial marriage, and interpreted the Sixth Amendment to require all criminal defendants to receive publicly funded counsel. Wow! Warren turned out to be a much more liberal justice than Eisenhower intended at the time of his appointment.

Other Earl Warren quotes of interest to me:

• To get what you want, STOP doing what isn’t working.
• The police must obey the law while enforcing the law.
• I feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more.

So, other than picking up a few quotes that affirm my personal preferences this little excursion into history makes me ask the following question: if the courts wield so much power why don’t we pay more attention to them? Why don’t we learn about Supreme Court Justices like we learn about past Presidents?

Catastrophic Failure!

<> Came across this photo on my phone…

This past weekend I had an excellent meeting with Matt Myers of SAMBA. We reviewed my trail mapping progress to date and did a significant amount of editing.

You can view the product of that meeting here. We’re still several steps away from a completed map but things are coming along quickly. Next steps include review of the map by the Ranger at Camp Mack and comign up with better symbology on the map to indicate single track vs vehicular trail etc.

I took time over my lunch hour today to trace the differences between Matt’s tracks and the trail ines I had already put on the map. At this point the maps shows all of the trail tracings and we need to pick which lines to keep, delete, and change.

I’ve marked on the map the areas that were significantly confusing in the track files that are going to require some extra clarification.

090227-updatedTrails.pdf (1.15 MB, Reader 9, georeferenced, layered)
This file is an 18×24 map at 1″ = 500′ to show allow you to zoom in on GPS point detail. Each black dot is a recorded point from a GPS track. The sections of trail that are updated are highlighted in orange.

I made a solid contact with Matt Myers of SAMBA today. We’re going to make our best effort to update the trail map. The division of labor will be pretty simple at first: I’ll  provide whatever mapping savvy I can and Matt will provide local knowledge. We’ll be working with Gary at Camp Mack and Mike at Green Mountain Cyclery to keep everything in perspective. We’ll add more folks as needed.

After viewing my ‘Square One’ map Matt noted some trails no longer exist, others have been moved and some additions as well. He sent me a bunch of GPS track files he had previously recorded this evening. I converted them from GDB format to CSv with GPS Babel and then imported the CSV into ArcMap as an X/Y event theme and then exported that X/Y data to an ArcMap SHP file.

You can see from the PDF file below that once I overlaid all of the themes simultaneously there are some areas where I was reeally close and others that are significantly ‘not right’. and then there is one area that is just a mass of craziness.

My next step is to resolve the point themes into linework, I’ll leave that for this weekend.

If you’re going riding up at Mack this weekend in the wet and snow make sure to tke your GPS and ride a trail that hasn’t already been GPS’d.

090226-matts_tracks.pdf (960 KB)

SPECIAL NOTE: This PDF is layered and georeferenced. If you open it in Acrobat 9 you can turn on and off the different GPS tracks individually (use Layers menu at the left) and also can use the Analysis toolbar (under view menu) to find latitude and longitude coordinates.

GPS Babel: http://www.gpsbabel.org/
GPS TrackMaker: http://www.gpstm.com/
DNR Garmin: http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mis/gis/tools/arcview/extensions/DNRGarmin/DNRGarmin.html
GPS Utility: http://www.gpsu.co.uk/

Camp Mack Mapping Project – Square One (PDF @ 3.25MB)

Preliminary tracing of trails at Camp J.E. Mack Scout Reservation. I estimate tracing to be approximately 75% complete. Trail locations were marked based on interpretation of 2005 PAMAP aerial photograph (shown in background) and a 1995 hand drawn map by PG Kutz.

Hopefully this can serve as the basis of a new camp map for Pennsylvania Dutch Council Scouts and SAMBA riders alike.