Blog entries will most likely be few and far between. I’ve started a full time job: a three month grant position working at
TriMet. Until November 4th I’m a GIS Technician, one of three interns here in the GIS department. I think it’s a pretty neat position, but I definitely wouldn’t be able to do this for longer than three months with the current project I’m working on. It’s tedious and I have to stare at a computer screen all day. But there are some perks: my coworkers are a lot of fun, I get to decorate my workspace with a lot of maps (right now I have two USGS Alaska maps on the wall that I’ve hung up—one physical map with all the villages located, and one geologic map of the state), the pay is pretty good, and I get a picture identification keycard that lets me have access to the building (making me feel special) and gives me FREE RIDES everywhere with TriMet! :o)
My job is pretty simple, but I find it interesting so far. I’m geocoding the 2004 TriMet Ridership Survey. Around 9,000 people filled it out indicating a lot of information including where they came from, where they picked up the bus, where they got off the bus, and where they’re headed. Now my task is to take this data (it’s already been entered into a database file), clean it (making sure all the streetnames are spelled correctly and addresses are mostly valid, locating landmarks that might have x, y coordinates already and filling those in), and then geocode the rest so that the locations may be matched up with the map. Then marketing will do a big analysis on it. I'm trying to work hard on getting done with the project as soon as possible, that way, I can spend some time at the end on making maps & other analysis aspects.
I know Portland pretty well, but I’m also learning a lot about the surrounding areas and tons of new streetnames. On Sunday, Paul and I biked around Portland as we participated in the annual Bridge Pedal (24 miles). While we were biking north up to St. Johns we passed Chautauqua Street and I was so excited to recognize it and find out exactly where it was located. Today I looked it up to find the etymology of the word and also learned some history about the
Chautauqua Movement.
Really:
*If you ever want to know where your bus/train/streetcar/trolley is I have a birds-eye view with real time GPS tracking
*GIS is so awesome. And TriMet has so many amazing datalayers. I can look at aerial photos of the entire metropolitan area, I have shapefiles of all the schools, employer data, and any kind of boundary you’d ever want.
*I get to laugh at stupid streetnames, such as “Beef Bend”
*Please don't put your location as "The Bar" or some vague place if you ever fill out a survey, at least make something up that's a little more humorous if you're going to actually fill it out.
Questions of the Week
1.) If you could name a street, what would you call it?
2.) What are some of your favorite street names?
