Another Denver Snow Storm

November 15, 2009

It started to snow around 4pm on Saturday and kept snowing until Sunday afternoon. I was out of town for the first big Denver snow storm of the year but this time I wasn't so lucky. Attached is a photo I took from my porch...not the best photo but it shows about 7 inches. It was still snowing when I took that photo. I guess November is Denver's 2nd snowiest month. I'm sure all of this snow will be melted in a couple of days. That is one great thing about Denver's weather, if you don't like it wait a few hours.

Friday the 13th

November 13, 2009
So I made it through most of the day not really realizing that it was "Friday the 13th". I got home and was grabbing a glass out of the cupboard and as I grab one another one falls out! Yep, into pieces on the counter and on the floor. It is rare that I break a glass but I'll leave it to my luck to happen on Friday the 13th!

In The Office

Road Log Example:

176.528 - INTERSECTION - PAVED ROUTE (VA ROUTE 603 / NON NPS) - L

October 11, 2009

Many people have asked me now that I'm home what do I do. Well, I still have to work...in the office. Then the response is "OK, so what do you do". I decided to let everyone know a little about what I do when I'm in the office. One task that takes up a lot of my time is going through something called "road logs". It is basically a log of all intersections, parking lots, bridges and overpasses that we come across when we drive the route. After we collect the route I have to watch all of the video and update the road logs. I make sure all of the intersections are there and in proper order, I make sure the entries fit our program's format, and most importantly I add the updated mileage. I posted one entry above as an example.....imagine a whole .xls list of these and on a 500 mile long route (like Blue Ridge Parkway) can take up a lot of time. While I'm doing this I also look at the GPS we collect with the truck and compare that with the parking lot shapes our program collects (image of GPS is above). Oh, and if you were wondering...YES it is boring, but the pay check is always nice :). I also do other things in the office but I'll save that for another post.

Funny Sign

November 6, 2009

Today I was watching some video from when we were working in Blue Ridge. I came across this sign. It is a pretty funny sign. If you are on blue ridge parkway be careful because if you take a curve too fast you might fly off your bike with your arms up in the air! Ha! A park service guy told us that people steal those signs all of the time so they started selling something similar at their visitor center and they also put the image on t-shirts.

So Many Miles

November 3, 2009
Today I tried to find the truck mileage from when I first started this job. I found something close to when I started. Over the past 5 years and 3 months I've been in the truck for approximately 131,500 miles! What a journey. That is a lot of miles and a lot of parks. Not all have been easy, as you have read the truck has put up a pretty big fight over the years. I'm glad the truck is going into hibernation for a few months. We will take that truck out one last time in February but from then on everything will be collected with a brand new truck.