What were we doing in San Diego?

You must be thinking we were in San Diego for family fun.
It was full of both those things, but we actually went down to the sunny little spot for work.



We spent the bulk of our week in the beautiful San Diego Conference center.
I love this building and this view from the escalator just doesn't get old.

 

My husband and I are both geographers by training and trade. We make our living with the creation of maps and databases. Annually, there is an international user conference held by the leading company in GIS (geographic information systems), ESRI and this year we were lucky enough to be sent down to participate.

 

Imagine 15-20,000 people all in one place discussing maps, apps, servers, databases, editing, analysis, websites, and all sorts of other geeky stuff. The use of this technology is wide. I spent the first nine years of my career mapping people, now I use it to map water and waste water systems.

The first day of the conference is always 2 parts exciting and 2 parts overwhelming; with a dash of awe and inspiration mixed in to the bowl. 

I love how you can't pin-hole a person who does GIS. There is a great mix of suits and Berinstocks, military uniforms and mohawks.

I some times wonder just how I got into such a technologically rich line of work. But really, using GIS allows me to be creative and technical all at once. I like that it has a good mix of left and right brain. 

I am slowly, slowly working through all of the photos I took of the week.



And now that I have the internet at home again, I will be able to actually post them!