John Boyd Thacher State Park, is situated along the Helderberg Escarpment, one of the richest fossil-bearing formations in the world. Even as it safeguards six miles of limestone cliff-face, rock-strewn slopes, woodland and open fields, the park provides a marvelous panorama of the Hudson-Mohawk Valleys and the Adirondack and Green Mountains. The park has volleyball courts, playgrounds, ball fields and numerous picnic areas with nine reservable shelters. Interpretive programs are offered year-round, including guided tours of the famous Indian Ladder Trail. There are over 25 additional miles of trails for summer hiking and mountain biking, and winter cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, and snowmobiling.
But you really forget how much noise those motorcycles, cars with fart pipes, big ol’ diesel trucks and just tires make on the road. I live relatively close to a busy intersection. Over time the noise kind of gets drowned out of your mind, and I certainly like the fresh air, it can be kind of a minor annoyance at first.
It’s also nice that the birds are back and are chirping.
I’ve always been a big fan of Blood Sweat and Tears’ 1968 hit, “And When I Die“,which actually was put out first by Peter, Paul and Mary on their their sixth studio album “The Peter, Paul and Mary Album”.
And when I die and when I’m dead, dead and gone, There’ll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on
I think those lyrics make a good point. Human life is inherently reproducible — it’s not steel or oil that gets used up. Just like livestock and all other animals, humans can and do breed to produce babies, most of which become children then adults. While each human has a personality – as do many animals – humans really just are masses of carbon-based cells and water. Raising a human life is an expensive proposition for sure, and their raising and life consumes a lot of resources, there is nothing really that special about human life.
Most humans only live about 70-80 years, and while they contribute to their families and communities in innumerable ways, their personal impact on the larger world over time is fairly minimal. While It’s sad to see a loved one or a friend leave this world, but realistically their just one of millions, one whose life will be reproduced like any other commodity at the factory. Rather then focus on life itself, we should focus on personal enjoyment, human freedom, and dignity.
While life on it’s own may not be valuable or even noteworthy, experience and human freedom is something worth preserving. Meaningful time in one’s life is short, it’s essential one gets out and enjoys it. We should do everything in this world to maximize the enjoyment of our own lives and those of fellow citizens, stop celebrating life alone — as life without experience is meaningless. It’s not meaningful or even significant that we have preserved life, when what really matters, is that we are giving individuals a chance to enjoy a meaningful life and a better tomorrow.
I have no formal GIS training, as things were still pretty primitive back when I was in college in the early 2000s especially when it came to web services, online data and open source software. Computers where a lot less powerful back then. I remember vaguely hearing a bit about Remote Sensing when I was involved in the Environmental Science Club in college, but it wasn’t something I ever used.
I picked up QGIS in 2010, as I was looking for a way to make my own topographic maps, as I wasn’t happy with what you could get on the Internet. I learned I could FOIL the Primitive Campsite Shapefile from the DEC and get data from there to help find campsites. I was pretty good at map and compass stuff from my years in Boy Scouts. Over time, I’ve branched out into other GIS areas. I’m always been very interested in land use but also demographics.
More recently I’ve been doing more automation of processes, using Python and R statistical language to do some map plotting and a lot of Census data gathering and processing. I like working with R it’s fast and easy to implement code in. I’ve also lately been doing a lot more with Leaflet and web services more generally.
I don’t do anything professionally with maps, it’s just a hobby.
