Whirlwind has dropped me in California

So the past month has been rather busy. Besides starting full time work on my RA project through OSU creating a online web map for Wisconsin, starting my thesis project, and traveling to visit family in Ohio and than the user conference in San Diego, I haven't had the time to land! But, directly after the user conference, I flew back to Oregon (on a plane...) visited with David's family, packed and said goodbye to my hubby and cat and made the drive down to Redlands, CA for my summer internship with Esri. I'm still getting settled and adjusted to my new room, town and job, but I will  keep you posted. I just finished my second day, day one was spent in a training class and day two involved an orientation for all 50 esri summer interns (most who have already been there for a few weeks if not a month), a meeting with Jack Dangermond (the president of esri... I totally felt star stuck, does that make me a geo geek?), and of course meeting my new coworkers on the ocean basemap team and learning the ropes of the job. Tomorrow I should actually start working on the project, so I promise to keep you up to date. Otherwise, good night everyone, I'm exhausted!

San Diego and geo geeks!

San Diego!

So after a nice, and mostly relaxing family vacation (just being honest... family vacays are NOT 100% relaxing, sorry Mom) I had a couple of days to prepare for my week long trip to San Diego for my student assistantship for the Esri User Conference. For those unfamiliar, Esri is a company that makes software and maps, think of the awesomeness that is google maps than multiple it by 50 and that would be equivalent to the capabilities of esri maps. So, basically their software allows user to make really cool maps and preform lots of spatial analyses, which is incredibly useful in so many fields (can you tell I've been drinking the kool-aid?).
It was a long, but fun week filled with multiple conference tasks, but also filled with great people, the San Diego Zoo, meeting lots of people in the field I will be looking for a job in next year, and also good mexican food and margaritas (which are hard to come by in Corvallis!). Here are some pics from the conference, enjoy!

All of the student assistants!

The Plenary Session, with over 15,000 people! People even ran for the stage!

The fliers we had to place on every seat!

       

The President of Esri, Jack Dangermond!

Fourth of July fun in Ohio!

OK, so I promised pics, so here they are! (p.s. aren't my nephews so cute?!)

Nephew Aidan

My Sister, Alicia, and I playing with the jet ski!

Myself, Aidan and my brothers new puppy, Bella

David and nephews Alexander and Nolan

Can I get a vacation to recover from my vacation?

I know everyone has felt this way, especially when a vacation involves family. David and I headed up to Ohio to visit my family over the fourth. We had great laughs, plenty of time to play with my nephews, fireworks, and a jet ski and boat to play on, and down time where I was finally able to pick up a book I wanted to read. I love my family, and I was great to see all of them and I really did have a great time, they are not the exhausting ones. Traveling was exhausting. Running through Denver's airport and getting in last night at 1:30 am (which felt like 4:30 am since we had adjusted to eastern time) just sucked. But perhaps the reason I feel like I want another vacation is because I'm trying to put off the inevitable. Early Friday morning, I get to head back to the airport to head to San Diego to attend the Esri User Conference, and when I get back I have to head down to California again for my 9 week internship with Esri. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for both, but I am feeling underprepared and wondering when I will have the time to get packed! Well, I guess it's "make it work" time, wish me luck! I hope that everyone had a great holiday weekend!