One of the things he enjoys doing is research. He'll travel all over the Pacific Northwest to dig through some one's file cabinets (or boxes in a store room) for documents. He's quite proud to carry a "Researcher ID" for the National Archives (there's one based in Seattle). He will happily spend hours digging through records looking for one piece of information about the land. Click here for a previous post about his research on a section corner
Another of the things Dode enjoys is "going out in the field". Miriam really wants to visit him at work someday so she can see this allusive field. I think she'd be disappointed to know that all that means is "working outside". All that research he does is followed by him getting into his trusty survey rig (a drug seizure vehicle) and trying to find the things he researched hidden away on the reservation. Each trip to the field is like a treasure hunt. Just like geocaching, but instead of finding the cache at the end, he finds survey monuments.
These are the kinds of things he's looking for
Nothing is more exciting for him than finding an original monument, set when the land was divided for the very first time.
Original witness tree set in 1859.
It helps surveyors find the corner.
There is a lot of undeveloped land left on the reservation. Getting to the area where the survey markers are supposed to be is sometimes an adventure. He's been to areas where he's sure that he has got to be the first person to step foot there in 150 years, and then he'll look down and see a fresh beer can. He's always finding golf balls in the craziest places.
Here he is headed down an old logging road in his survey rig.
Obviously it doesn't see much traffic!
One of the things a surveyor does is leave tracks for those who will come behind him. Dode puts out these orange plastic posts to give the next surveyor a hand. Here he is marking the location with his GPS.
Success! He's got a machete in hand to clear the area around the monument.
Dode's boss is a tiny Japanese lady. She doesn't like him to go out in the field by himself for safety reasons. Dode's two other coworkers are pretty burned out on trekking through the woods. Sometimes he can find someone from the Forestry or Natural Resource Departments to go with him. Eiko (his boss) came along on this adventure because there wouldn't be any bush whacking. She was pretty impressed with all the back roads and gates they went through to get there. Dode heads out in the same clothes he wears to work. Eiko changed into the outfit above to protect her professional clothes. She's got a metal detector in her hand.
Sometimes Dode finds other interesting things in the field.
This moth was sitting on the monument he went out to find.
He'd been trying to get to Ross Lake on the reservation for a long time. This lake is tiny compared to the Ross Lake in the North Cascades.
Something else he enjoys is the emphasis on continuing education. I don't think many weeks go by that Dode doesn't have a webinar, class, or training to attend. He's constantly learning new things. Exciting classes like, "Taming the Wild Loxodrome" which taught "pitfalls to avoid when applying plane surveying computations to the solution of astro-geodetic based PLSS corner restoration computations." Dode says that's always helpful when he's doing cadastral work. What? Another training this year, Update on Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum. I've learned that when I ask him about his trainings, I don't ask what training he attended. I ask what he learned and how it will help him be a better surveyor.
His job isn't perfect (what job is?). He doesn't like the inflexibility of working for a government. There's no way to work through lunch and get off early. He has to log in and log out each day within a five minute window. If he gets to work 10 minutes early, he has to wait until it's 5 minutes before starting time or he won't be able to log in. If he's involved in something, he has a hard time remembering to stop and log in. Then, his boss has to go in and fix his time card. He doesn't like the paperwork that is involved in a bureaucracy. Say he wants to buy a shovel. First he has to go over to Home Depot and pick out the one he wants. Then, he needs to go complete the paperwork to buy it. Then back for the purchase. Then, more paperwork after the purchase. It's the same when he takes a training. Paperwork before to say why he should get to go. Paperwork after to say how the tribe will benefit from what he learned. The pay also isn't the best. Dode's boss has tried to get him a raise several times. The raise requests have been approved by her boss but her boss' boss has vetoed them. Oh how fun to work for a government! But we're happy to have a job in this economy, especially one where Dode can continue to use his surveying skills and add to his knowledge base.
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