Archived News: 2002

	The Morse Maniacs Ski Team Gears Up for the Comming Season	(December 2002)
	The Massive EarthBall visits Morse Hall for GIS Day 2002!	(November 2002)
	CSRC Attends the 17th Annual NEARC Conference	(October 2002)
	The GIS Lab increases it's Documentation Holdings	(September 2002)
	The GIS Lab Canoes the White Waters of the Saco River	(August 2002)
	CSRC upgrades it's Digital Photography Capabilities	(July 2002)
	The GIS Lab Flies High at Six Flags New England	(June 2002)
	ArcGIS Training Scheduled for June	(May 2002)
	The Laboratory Goes Xeon!	(April 2002)
	GIS Thrill Seekers Ski into Spring like a Lion	(March 2002)
	The Laboratory Increases its Data Distribution Capabilities.	(February 2002)
	The Morse Maniacs Represent UNH in the Gunstock Corporate Ski League.	(January 2002)

This year the Morse Maniacs will hit the slopes of Gunstock ski area again to represent UNH in the Gunstock corporate ski league. This year's team roster consists of Jenny Boles, Jeremy Fontenault, George Hurtt, Jamie La Vigne, Michael Rawlins, Michael Routhier, Bill Salas, Alex (Sasha) Shiklomanov and Vincent Puleo. With all of the snow expected for the season this year's team should have plenty of powder to pull down some good wins for UNH. If you are interested in finding out more info about this year's team and race results check out the Morse Maniacs Ski Team web site.

On November 20th, 2002 the New Hampshire Space Grant consortium and Complex Systems Research Center hosted their fourth annual International GIS Day events at the institute for the Study of Earth Oceans and Space on the University of New Hampshire campus. Hosted guests included upwards of two hundred and fifty high school student and teachers from nine New Hampshire high schools during the morning sessions and about two hundred and fifty professional, university faculty, students and staff during the afternoon sessions. Attending high schools included Coe-Brown Academy (Northwood, NH), The Community School (South Tamworth, NH), Con Val Regional High School (Peterborough, NH), Lebanon High School (Lebanon, NH), Merrimack High School, (Merrimack, NH), Newmarket High School (Newmarket, NH), Oyster River High School (Durham, NH) and Souhegan High School (Amherst, NH). All attending guests were hosted to a very special exhibit of the world famous EarthBall globe. The EarthBall is an eleven foot diameter globe that displays a satellite image mosaic of the earth's surface as seen from space. All guests were all hosted to an extensive cartographic exhibition, college fair and vendor hall featuring over seventy five displays from approximately one hundred professionals from as far away as Washington State. Hosted students were also treated to a hands on tour of Complex Systems Research Center's GIS and Remote Sensing Laboratory and to a series of talks about the Geo-Spatial Sciences and the educational and career opportunities that they have to offer. Afternoon guests were were also hosted to a series of professional vendor presentations given by representatives from companies and organizations like ESRI, Clark Labs, the USGS, and the US Census bureau.

In an effort to further enhance geographic knowledge all students guests were provided with packets which included additional information about Geo-Spatial Science related technologies, career and educational opportunities in the Geo-Sciences, interesting earth facts, information about famous geographers and a geo-quiz. All students were also provided with a new Merriam Webster Notebook atlas and a series of souvenirs including pens, buttons, key chains and stickers. In total, throughout the day, the 30+ person GIS Day 2002 staff were able to give away over 400 atlases, 400 globes, 250 maps and posters and over 600 souvenirs to the GIS Day 2002 guests.

This November 3-6th several members of the CSRC GIS Staff attended the 17th annual North East ArcInfo User's Conference (NEARC) at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods New Hampshire. The attendees from Complex Systems included Anne Deely, Jennifer Lessard, Jennifer Merriam, Michael Routhier and Fay Rubin. All members were hosted to a series of professional talks and to a huge vendor hall featuring some of the GIS industry's top sellers and resellers of hardware, software and spatial data products.

This September the CSRC Laboratory for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis increased it's sofware documentation holdings by acquiring a series of new volumes to help with ArcGIS applications development. These volumes include "Exploring ArcObjects Vol I Applications and Cartography", Exploring ArcObjects Vol II Geographic Data Management", "ArcGIS Developer's Guide for VBA", "Developing GIS Solutions with MapObjects and Visual Basic", and "The ESRI Dictionary for GIS Terminology". Please see the laboratory manager if you would like to sign any of these volumes out.

Once again a brave crew of eight CSRC employees, family and friends faced the ferocious waters of the mighty Saco River. This adventure bound crew faced many challenges throughout their day of fun. The group had to fight against the brutal weather conditions, the grilling of hunger and the roar of the Saco's swells, whirlpools and undertows to conquer the unrelenting river, but in the end the crew was victorious in its quest. The small crew made it down the Saco in two canoes and four kayaks, stopping along the way for a hearty lunch, some fun stories and riddles and a few photo shots. After conquering the river the tired group relaxed with a great dinner and massive deserts at the Yankee Smoke House in Whittier, NH. If you're interested in joining the next adventurous group from CSRC on their next adventure keep your eyes on this web site for upcoming info.

Click to view more pictures!

Due to the increased use of digital photography for scientific field documentation and the creation of web pages, CSRC has recently purchased a Nikon COOLPX 995 digital camera. The COOLPIX is a 3.34 megapixel camera with a 4x zoom. The camera comes standard with an 8mb Flash memory card, but it was purchased with an additional 32mb and an 256mb flash card for larger storage capacity. The COOLPIX is for use by CSRC employees and can be signed out from Faith Sheridan in room 454.

On June 15th a small group of six GIS Lab thrill seekers and friends were flipped over, spun around and twisted at neck breaking speeds as they braved the best roller coasters that the Six Flags New England amusement park in Agawam Massachusetts had to offer. The small, brave and yet sometimes dizzy group members rode the newest and the oldest coasters in the park to get a full blend of all modern coaster innovations and yet still feel a nostalgia for the coasters of yesteryear. The triumph of the day was riding the 207 foot tall Superman roller coaster which reaches speeds of 77 miles per hour. This coaster hurls its riders down hills that feel like nothing less than a vertical drop. Superman also flips and spins its riders through three inverted loops and three spirals. Other than some less than cooperative weather, overall the day was a great success for all leaving everyone eager to go back to Agawam to once again fly like superman.

This June the GIS Lab will be holding training classes in ARC GIS 8.2. Classes are scheduled for every Tuesday and Thursday mornings in June and will be held from 9:00am to 12:00 noon in the GIS Lab. The current roster is full for the June training class, but due to a high demand for this training another training class will be held in August and possibly another this comming January. Watch the GIS Lab new page for further details.

In keeping up with current advances in Technology the Laboratory for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis has recently purchased two Dell 530 1.5 Ghz Xeon processor Workstations for advanced GIS and Image Processing applications processing. These newest generation systems are each equipped with 1gb of the latest RDRAM memory technology and 21 inch monitors for the most challenging of spatial analysis tasks. Each machine is also set up with the latest version of EXCEED X windows software which allows for efficient X windows communication with one of the two research center's powerful SGI, Origin 2000 series UNIX servers. This software accommodates each new workstation with both UNIX and MS windows capabilities on the same desktop.

On March 20th a team of ten GIS thrill seekers from the Laboratory for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis ushered in Spring on the slopes of Wildcat Mountainas Spring roared in like a lion. This adventurous group faced some of the harshest weather conditions that Pinkham Notch had to offer for it's own celebration to the start of Spring . Snow piled high as squalls pounded the slopes all day making for the best in fresh powder skiing seen this year. This group of adventurous weather hardened skiers took advantage of what Mother Nature had to dish out and went rip roaring down even the hardest of black diamonds that the mountain boasts, kicking up powder trails all the way to the base lodge. Other than a few misbehaving ski bindings and a pretty slow slippery drive home this group of power hounds had a ski good or eat wood, downhill, fun filled packed day. There's already talk about returning to the slopes next year for more fun in the snow. So keep your eyes pealed for more info about this and other laboratory excursions like the annual GIS lab summer canoe paddle down the Saco River.
View Ski 2002 Pictures!

This February the Laboratory for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis has once again expanded it's data distribution abilities by acquiring a new Hewlett-Packard hp dvd-writer dvd100i. This newest generation DVD+RW allows for 8x DVD burning and 12x12x32x CD reading and writing. Please see the laboratory manager to obtain access to the latest addition to the laboratory.

This January the Morse Maniacs have hit the slopes once again for their second year representing UNH in the Gunstock corporate ski league in Gilford NH. This year looks promising for the Maniacs as they take their memory of their first place finish for the last race of the 2001 season to the slopes for this year's races. Team captain Andy Mosedale's training tips are sure to bring this year's Maniacs to a top ranking against the thirty other teams from all over NH. This year's team is listed as follows: Ben Gorman, George Hurtt, Andy Mosedale, Michael Routhier, Bill Salas, Alexander Shiklomanov, Marcy Vozzella, and Spencer Walker. It's looking like this team of outstanding Maniacs will once again win big as they begin the season craving the downhill thrills of the Gunstock super G, but be assured that this team will stay hungry if they follow team captain Mosedale's advice... "Ski good or eat wood!"