October 2008 – Page 2 – Random Connections

Winnie, One Year Later

October 16, 2008 Tom No Comments

Miscellaneous

This time last year we thought we had lost our little cat, Winnie. A trip to the vet in August of 2007 gave us the bad news – she had a large mass in her abdomen, possibly malignant. In September of that year she went missing and we thought she was gone for good. Then … Read More “Winnie, One Year Later” »

Dinner and a Show

October 15, 2008 Tom 4 Comments

Restaurants, Weirdness

For it to be her birthday, Laura certainly had a rough start to the day. It began with her fighting off the beginnings of a cold and went downhill from there. When she got to the office, water started pouring from an overhead pipe and flooded their new offices. The rest of the day was … Read More “Dinner and a Show” »

Scuppernongs

October 14, 2008 Tom 2 Comments

Miscellaneous

There are few foods that evoke such intense memories – the warm days of early autumn, climbing under the vines to find the ripe fruit, feeling as much as tasting the sweet juice and ripe pulp. My Grandmother Ellenberg had huge scuppernong vines growing on her farm. I can just barely remember them, but I … Read More “Scuppernongs” »

Rio Grille Reflections

October 13, 2008 Tom No Comments

Local, Restaurants

Our reunion dinner was at Rio Grille in the West End of Greenville. Since this is part of a chain, and since the circumstances of our visit were out of the ordinary, I won’t do a formal review, but I thought I’d reflect on the experience, none-the-less. First there was the salad bar. This alone … Read More “Rio Grille Reflections” »

Class of ’83 25th Reunion

October 13, 2008 Tom No Comments

Miscellaneous

It’s hard to believe the years have passed so quickly. This weekend was Homecoming at Furman, and my 25th Reunion. There seems to be a core group of my classmates that attend these reunions. This wasn’t really the group I hung out with while at Furman, and my friends have been spread out over several years, so we have tended to do our own thing at various Homecoming reunions.

Since this was a biggie, though, Laura and I decided to do the entire thing, and had tickets for a cookout Friday night, breakfast Saturday morning, a luncheon, then a reunion dinner in the evening. My friend Dwight was coming up Friday to spend the night with us and join in the activities. In addition to our 25th reunion, this year marks 50 years that Furman has been located on its present campus. There was much to celebrate, and lots of events planned.

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Elements at Furman

October 12, 2008 Tom 2 Comments

Photography

My photo collage, Elements, was hung in the Furman Chemistry offices just in time for the Homecoming weekend. It turned out very well, and black and white was the appropriate choice for the rich red wall on which it’s hanging. We had a time getting this thing framed. Each of the photos is 13″ X … Read More “Elements at Furman” »

Ghosts of the South Carolina Midlands

October 8, 2008 Tom No Comments

Entertainment, Local

I added yet another book to my growing collection of South Carolina ghost lore. Tally Johnson has a book out entitled “Ghosts of the South Carolina Midlands.” While the subject itself was of interest to me, what sealed the deal as far as my purchasing the book was the dedication in the Acknowledgments section: To … Read More “Ghosts of the South Carolina Midlands” »

The Passing of Two Musicians

October 7, 2008 Tom No Comments

Local, Music

The music world of Greenville is a little quieter this week, and that’s not a good thing. Two long-time musicians in the area, Mike Shankle (78) and Tod Cyrus (90) both passed away on October 4th. I first met Mike many years ago when I was teaching at Brushy Creek Elementary. At the time Mike … Read More “The Passing of Two Musicians” »

Secrets Revealed in ArcGIS Explorer

October 2, 2008 Tom 8 Comments

Geocaching and Maps

Long

Long before Google Earth came on the scene there was ArcGIS from ESRI. There are two (actually, multiple) flavors of this. There were the professional GIS versions consisting of ArcMAP and ArcServer, and a free viewer, ArcExplorer. I attended a couple of workshops on ArcExplorer, was impressed by its potential for the classroom, but never really got into it. Along came Terraserver making free satellite imagery available, then Google Earth took the world by storm, somewhat obscuring these previous free mapping services.

While working on another project I needed to check out ArcGIS Explorer once again, and was surprised to find that it now looks very much like Google Earth with a similar user interface. Navigation is essentially the same – you can zoom in, tilt, and pan just like in GE. There are search functions and you and create placemarks. While Explorer will open KML files, it’s designed to be more compatible with ArcGIS data.

Google Earth has a much larger user-contributed base. However, there is much more accurate GIS data available for Explorer from various GIS organizations around the world. When comparing the free versions of these programs, you could think of Google Earth as being more populist, and ArcGIS Explorer as more professional.

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