Making the most of a bad situation

14-20 October 2013

There was even a (Muslim) public holiday on Tuesday, so the week was quiet in the scheme of things.  As we all know, Halloween is at the end of the month, this sort of pagan celebration is lost in a tropical place such TL, none of the Halloween creatures seem to be dressed for the tropics, unless you consider more the hairier creatures.  Come to think to think of it, I have not seen a pumpkin in the beach side market either although it is claimed that pumpkins are a plenty here.

I promised that I would let you know about how my survey would go in Aimerahun – it was an utter failure!  A number of things conspired against us: weather, tree cover and most disappointing of all, one of the Differential GPS units was not properly set up so it could not process the satellite signals properly.  

So the remaining DGPS unit did not work as expected – at one stage the elevation increased by 24 metres in 45 min period even though the DGPS was sitting in the same place.  This sort of error would have been “cancelled” out by the other (not functioning) DGPS unit through processing back in the office or tying it back to a verified point nearby.  

I remembered a saying during the week from a previous job, “for every complex problem, there is a simple solution that doesn’t work”.  An appropriate saying considering the complexity of differential surveying.  As I discovered later, it turned out to be a simple fix - all I had to do was to reset the DGPS units and voila! It found all of the satellites in the sky instead of just the Russian ones (Glonass).  I think I managed to iron all of the wrinkles with the DGPS units so I can start surveying the Bonbonaro District next week.  

The only positive from the survey was watching a butterfly while waiting for the GPS to do its magic.  The butterfly’s wingspan was about 10 cms across and was largely black except for when it had the sun shining through its wings – the back wings glow this amazing yellow/gold colour.  It danced around for many minutes with another butterfly of similar size but brown in colour (was this the girl butterfly?).  It seemed that I was the only one that was in entranced by the display.  I hope to see more of the natural side during my time here - it is hard to find.

The weekend was spent watching Australia’s butter-fingered performance against NZ in the Bledisloe Cup, which is novel thing for a Vicwegan/Mexican from the country where it’s AFL, AFL and more AFL…  Sunday was a busy day with lunch at the Hotel Esplanada, finalising the new housing arrangements at the palacio in Santa Cruz and swapping books.  Finding a good book to read is hard here.  A lot of people use electronic books.  Call me old fashioned but I stare at a computer screen for most of the day so a book is a welcome relief for these dimming eyes!

I better get ready for the week ahead and wish me luck for the surveying foray in Bonbonaro.

Adeus