Maps:

Sat. Nov 17th, 2007

Friday's lab was a much needed refresher. It was frustrating downloading the parcels data (took an hour). I had my map nearly completed in class but when I got it home to was almost completely screwed up and required several frustrating hours of re-work. Things work much differently from the flash drive than than do in class. It shouldn't be the case because I was working strictly from my flashdrive in class and had all the data save there but all I got initially were red exlamation points next to my layers at first.

I was impressed by how much work was devoted to GIS day and I thought it went off very well. However, I found it discouraging as far as the prospects of employment in Asheville. From speaking with a young woman from the NCDC, I found out that most people there are hired from UNCA's Masters in Meteorology program. I'm sure there are jobs around the nation but few locally. I spoke with Jason Mann, from MapAsheville, and he said they had increased employment by 200% in the past year....they had gone from zero to two GIS employees. That was meant to be funny but I found it somewhat pitiful. He also told me that they had still not hired anyone for the job posted last summer. The pay was only $29K and yet people with PhD's had applied, and some from as far away as England. About 150 people applied.

I forgot to post my map from the week before GIS day, so I'll post that now too.