Retired and Congratulation to Bill

As some of you may know, I'm now retired as Santa Clara County Surveyor.  The thrills of Santa Clara County Surveyor now belongs to Bill Slepnikoff who served as Deputy County Surveyor for several years.  Please give him a big hooray and wish him well. (I know he will do good)

Most of you may know that I only left the "day" job and now have time to focus on the things I enjoy doing like teaching, getting involved with new technology and doing activities that keep my mind sharp.  I do spend more time with my kitties who still dress up on Halloween.

So I will figure out how to update this Blog and find out how this can still be of some use rather then just me ranting on.

TTFN -
So perhaps now I will have more time to do this kind of stuff.

Gwen

Finally, take a look!

Well, coming back to posting now.  I hope my lapse will be worth taking a read at this post.

A picture aka image is always worth many words.  We have finally come up with a way to view maps from our Record Map Index.  They are know as "Counter Maps".  Counter Maps are what we use to index maps.

Go to this link
County Surveyor Counter Maps

Now enter a Book and Page for example Book 880 and Page 48

Now try Page 49

We will be adding more as time allows.

That's all folks.

A big thank you to my staff to made it all possible.

GIS Record Map Index (and CR index)

Happy April showers, may it help us with the drought.


Here a quick snip of the next "phase" of our indexes being converted into a GIS format.
I think a picture (or snippet) is worth lots of words.

Give the link below a try....

http://sccplanning.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=bc21a949580746968cb7139386996978


Hopefully it will make you smile.
G

Corner Record searching on GIS

Oh how time flies!  I'm back to posting again.  And I've got something to share!

Here's a new handy tool to use for searching for Corner Records in Santa Clara County.
First, here's a glimpse...

As you can see, the County GIS is the background.  The purple squares represent Corner Records that have been filed.  Once you zoom in close enough, a pop-up will allow you to "Click for Corner Record" for viewing the actual Corner Record. 

If you zoom out to this view, you can pan around to an area of interest.  If see this pop-up, you can "Click for Cadastral Map Image" and voila, a Cadastral Map will appear.  Even though these are dated, they are good for finding older recorded maps and vault maps.  For the old-timers, you know what I mean.

So if you like this preview, then keep an eye on our website for this new feature.

www.sccgov.org/sccsurveyor


...until next time have a good time.



Gwen

Time flies....

Yes, I have missed posting for a few months, broke my goal of posting once a month.  Which means I owe a nice long post or a few quick posts to catch up.  From my previous post, it will be hard to top that off!

The economy seems to have recovered.  We are busy in the County Surveyor's Office.   I hear of people getting hired in surveying positions.  I got some calls from land surveyors looking for people to hire.  So it is a very active time.  A great welcome to our profession.

Sometimes it's just being in the right place at the right time.  The decisions we made in the past puts us in positions for opportunities when they knock on our door.

So here's a small world story.  A long time ago I worked a summer job at Inyo National Forest on a survey crew.   We were a mighty 6 person crew, a few from colleges, a couple making job transitions and my boss.
Making a long story short and sweet, that was a great job.  It was my very first surveying job and I learned so much.  Well, a couple of decades later, 33 years if you want numbers, I meet up with this guy Doug.  After a few questions to jog the memory I shout "Cowboy Doug?"  Yup, he and worked on this one survey crew, one summer 33 years ago.  Wow!  And to top that off, he is now County Surveyor for San Luis Obispo.  Now you math gurus, what is the chance that TWO people from this summer survey crew would BOTH end up as County Surveyors.

Amazing!  Now I really believe in that 7-degrees of freedom theory (aka the Kevin Bacon theory)

Valley Of the Hearts Delight

Ah, yes, finally a time to pause and get back to this Blog.  It's good to see things get busy in the area.  As we see things change from the past, say 50+ years ago, when we get a moment to ponder.  We think about what this valley looked like years ago.  I get to ponder quite a bit as I am force to slow my pace down as I commute in traffic.  Well that's the plus side of a slow commute.  Our ISD - Information Services Department put together an online historical map.  A big thanks goes to Doug S. who has been a great help and inspiration to us in expanding more into the GIS world.  (GIS = Geographical Information System)
And a big thanks to Brad B., PLS who stitched the map together and shared it with us.

Here's a preview to get you interested.

First we have the big screen picture....a couple of views....

Now zoom with the "circle" or "loupe" aka magnifier....

Zoom in closer and see....

So what you are seeing in the background is the County GIS layer so you can relate to what it looks like today.

To see what potential this has, zoom to Mt View and you will see....

now you say, what the....is that?  It's an old map of Mt View that you can view along with the background.

So check it out the webmap, play around with it and  have some fun.

Here's the link:

http://bit.ly/valleyofheartsdelight

And remember to have some pie today for it's Pi day!

Thanks for 2013

Just a moment to say "thanks" to all who have gave us support throughout the year.  You gave us patience when we are short staffed, constructive comments when we are looking to improve, humor to keep our chins up, and most of all, your professionalism.  I would like to thank my staff for their patience and motivation to do a "good" job.  Even though we all work for that paycheck, what brings us to a higher level is that we like what we do and that is land surveying.  There are so many careers to choose from and many which make a lot more money, yet some of the most dedicated people are those in land surveying.  Perhaps it is a calling to us that complements our own persona.  Like a favorite pair of jeans, an old T-shirt we always wear, it just feels right and good at the same time.

I would also like to thank the many people who have been a part of my surveying career.  Recently, I received CEAC - County Engineers Association of California award for County Surveyor of the Year.  This is a great honor and quite a pleasant surprise.  This would not have been possible without the dedicated staff who work in the County Surveyor's Office here.  They have taken on various "hats" and used their hidden talents to help make this Office better, for the public at large and for the internal and external customers alike.
All while facing the difficulties and challenges of working in a governmental institution.  So I share this honor with my dedicated County Surveyor staff.

It takes a special kind of person to perform public service and truly be effective, and at the same time content to work in such an environment.

"Success is no accident.  It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing." - Pete

Happy New Year 2014 to you all.
   - Gwen