Planes, Trains, and Laser Scanners

A geomatics professional’s reflections on life’s tests, trials, tribulations, travel and triumphs

Years ago… 0300 (yes, a.m.) in the woods of Fort Benning, Georgia. It’s that time of year when the morning rain is turning last night’s snow into a despair-flavored slushy. A raging bonfire is going, and in a circle just outside its warmth is a 21-year-old kid among 15 to 20 other peers.

This kid is steadily moving forward, crawling on his belly. He’s keeping his face just high enough off the ground to avoid swallowing the half-melted snow, but not so high as to draw the attention of the behemoth of a man in the tan beret standing above him. All the kid can smell is the acidic aroma of his body eating its own muscle because there are no more calories for it to consume. He’s cold to the bone and ran out of the ability to shiver a long time ago.

The kid doesn’t quite hear what the man in the tan beret is yelling at him, but he’s sure it’s probably a colorful commentary on the kid’s mother’s promiscuous behavior. The kid knows not to listen because he understands that it’s the man’s job to try and make him quit, and it’s his job not to quit.

Besides, the kid sees his saving grace coming his way. With the one eye that wasn’t submerged in the slush, he could see Doc coming his way. For those of you not in the military, the medic, AKA Doc, is a hero’s hero. Doc is the kind of person that will patch you up and then fight by your side till the end. They’re a saint to their friends and a demon to their foes.

Doc beelines right towards the kid, leans over with a concerned voice, and says, “You look too cold. You look too hungry. Why don’t you go join the guys by the fire?”

The kid understands immediately what Doc means. Around the fire sat all the kids who quit that night. Wrapped in blankets and warming their hands on the raging bonfire. Betrayed by the medic! With more resolve resonating from me than ever before, I knew there was no way I was ever going to join those quitters.

That’s when Doc gave me the ultimate test. He looked up at the headlights heading our way and said, “Oh good, the pizzas are here.” There would be no rest, warmth, or pizza for me that night.

Four days later, me and about 15 of the original 150 soldiers emerged from the forest, knowing that we were ready to take on our next challenge, joining the ranks of SOCOM as U.S. Army Rangers.

Life has a way of testing us. The universe just wants to make sure that we are ready for what comes next. Almost exactly 20 years later, as I finish up a set of demos that more closely resemble a modern-day “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” than a professional road trip, I can’t help but feel like this last week, although not as extreme, has been a test to make sure I can handle what’s next.

As I lay out this timeline, you can be the judge of whether the universe is testing me or if I’m just a victim of my own hubris.

The Series of Unfortunate Events – Present Day

Monday, December 9th, 1300: The plan is simple. I have three customers around the Los Angeles (LA) area of California that want to see some products that I offer. I will fly into the Palm Springs area, meet with the first customer, spend the night, and drive to downtown LA the next day. The last customer is actually coming in from Flagstaff, AZ, and I will decide where I’m staying the night before meeting them when I find out where they are staying. Everything should go off without a hitch.

Monday, December 9th, 1500: I go to check in online for my flight at 1800, and the app tells me I’m too early to check in. I immediately know something’s wrong because the flight is in just a few hours, and you can check in 24 hours before. So I go to the website, and dread sets in as I realize that my flight is scheduled for four weeks from now.

I take full blame for this one, as I was the one who scheduled the flights. Although, I have gone back to where I scheduled the flights, and every time I go back, it takes me a month from the day that it currently is, which I think is a flaw.

I spent the next few hours trying to get refunds from hotels, rental cars, and airlines. I also called each customer to apologize and own up to my bone headedness. Fortunately for me, my customers are some of the nicest people. They understand, and we reschedule everything for next week. I will make sure that next week will have no issues whatsoever….

Sunday, December 16th: Alright, there’s nothing that can go wrong with this new plan. See, changing flights would have cost me considerably more, and I still would have had to get a rental car. But I have found a rental car that will let me rent an electric car with unlimited miles. I estimate that the trip to LA and back will cost me about $40 each way in electricity at recharge stations. I am incredibly happy with this new decision because I actually really enjoy driving across this country.

Now, I chose to rent the car in Tacoma, but the app changes the pickup location to SeaTac. This isn’t that big of a deal, maybe a 15-minute difference. So, I had my good friend drive me up to SeaTac and drop me off, as they were already heading that way, and it saved my wife from making that trip. She had plans with her friends anyway.

As I walk up to the rental car desk, still very proud of my new decision and sure nothing could go wrong, I make it about 10 minutes into the conversation with the gentleman, and he informs me that if you rent from anywhere around an airport, you have to have a return flight plane ticket to rent a car. Nowhere in any agreement did it say this, and I go into full panic mode. I call the booking agent and complain. They do their research and come back and say that this, in fact, is the case, and the best they can do is give me a refund.

So here I am, an hour and a half away from my house, with no car, and I know my wife won’t answer because she’s out with her friends. One train, one bus, and one niece later, I am at home throwing everything into my vehicle. While I do love my car, it is quite the opposite of an electric car, getting 14 to 16 miles per gallon on a good day going downhill. I know that I am not going to get that $80.00 round trip that I was so proud of.

Monday, December 17th, 0300: I load up my car and head to the gym for my usual 3:30 workout. I’m anxious enough about this trip already that I only make it about halfway through my workout, and at 4:30, I’m back in my car heading south.

Once I hit just north of Portland, I got a call from a good customer saying that they have captured the controlled network that we needed to process the data that I collected the day before for them. His bosses are anxious to get this processed, and I know that if it goes well, they’ll be looking at making a purchase.

I had already kind of guessed how this trip might go, so I built in quite a bit of extra time. So I stopped at the first Starbucks I could find and started processing data. Now, I have hand-picked the products that I offer, and one of my criteria is easy processing, and the product doesn’t disappoint. Within an hour, maybe an hour and a half, the point clouds are ready to ship to the client. I open up my transfer program and hit send. That’s when it tells me the estimated time of 300 hours, and I realize that although this is a great-looking Starbucks, their internet is straight garbage.

This is still no problem. I called the client and let him know that I am going on a hunt for better Wi-Fi, and over the next 7 to 8 hours, I either find good internet with no outlet for my computer or an outlet with no good internet. I suddenly realize that I am at hour 10 of my road trip and only two hours away from my house.

The decision is made to start driving south again, and I will transfer the data as soon as I find a good place to do so. Shortly south of Portland, I came into unreasonably hard rain. Now, the Pacific Northwest is no stranger to water falling from the sky, but rarely ever does it rain hard. Over the rest of the night and into the morning, the rain comes down so hard in this winter storm that the majority of everybody on the road goes well under the speed limit.

I am super angry and really tired at this point, but here comes a ray of hope. The rain clears up for about 10 minutes, and I think I finally made it through the storm. And that’s when I notice the first couple of drops of snowflakes.

I’d like to make my way through the rest of Northern California. I am plagued by a downfall of snow that is forcing everybody to drive even slower than the rain.

Tuesday, December 18th, 1130 – Having long passed the snow and trying to make up as much time as possible, I finally make it into downtown LA. Part of me is really happy that I scheduled the customer for noon. The other part of me is really sad because I gave myself 24 hours to make a 12-hour trip. I’m rocking about zero hours of sleep since I left for the gym the previous day at 3:00 AM.

All in all, the time with the client went really well. I had a great time, and yes, a few mistakes were made. I lost my micro-SD card, but I had a backup, and I may have left my credit card at the restaurant, but I did find a restaurant that allowed me to set up my computer and transfer the data from the day before.

The demo went so well that the customer and I ended up chatting and looking at different products until about 1800. As I walk back to my car, I’m still pretty happy because I know I only have to make it to Palm Springs and then I can lay my head down.

This is where I made the other mistake that I should take full accountability for. See, growing up in Arizona as a kid, I would pass by the sign for Palm Springs all the time on my way to San Diego or LA. In my mind, Palm Springs and LA were essentially the same city and maybe 40 minutes apart. When I typed in the location of my hotel, my gut sank after three hours.

For most people, getting to the hotel at 2100 is still plenty of time to sleep and then meet your next customer at 1300. I know then it doesn’t matter if I go to bed at 0200, my body will wake me up at 0300. I don’t go to the gym at 0330 because I think it’s some cool 4:00 AM club to be part of. I go because it’s about the only healthy thing you can do at 3:30 AM.

Wednesday, December 19th, 1300: I don’t believe this demo went too bad, although I can fully admit that meeting with a group of retired police officers on just a few hours of sleep with nothing but pre-workout and a small breakfast in your stomach, not to mention being a Northwesterner on an 80° day, is probably not the best look. Again, the customers were great, and I look forward to working with them a lot more, and there wasn’t even any forgotten cards this time.

Now, my third customer from Flagstaff couldn’t make it this week, so I was actually pretty excited that it was, in fact, over because I know that Saturday my oldest daughter will be performing in The Nutcracker, and I have never missed one of her performances in the 13 years that she’s been doing them. I type in “home” on the GPS, and it comes up with 17 hours. After the last couple of days, I’m happy that this is all that is between me and home.

I should have knocked on wood, but I started driving down the road. It was then that I hear the notification of a text message. I’m glad I looked at it because it was my sister in Arizona saying that my mom was in the hospital. Ironically enough, Palm Springs is probably closer to my hometown in Arizona that I had been in months. I look it up on maps, and I can be at that hospital in 4 1/2 hours. I relay that message to my sisters and start going.

Thursday, December 20th, 1200: We’ve gotten the MRI results, and they came back with no bleeding of the brain. I’m listening to the doctor ask my mom follow-up questions, and one of them is, “Have you fallen lately?”

I’m not sure if any of you have any 70-something-year-old ranchers daughter for a mother, but her answer was a quick “No.” Then I think back to a photo that she sent me two weeks prior of her boots trapped under a hay bale out the top of the stack of hay bales. She thought it was the funniest thing in the world that one of them fell on her and knocked her right out of her boots onto the ground.

I remind her of this, and when the doctor asked her if she hit her head on this fall, she admits that yes, quite hard actually, and we all realize that she has a concussion and has had one for two weeks. Knowing now what is going on with my mom, the doctors decide that they can release her, and I realize with the customer I was going to meet from Flagstaff is only a few hours north of me.

It looks like something might finally be going my way, as I can meet with them on my way home. I might even be able to get out there this day and get on the road tonight. I don’t know how familiar you guys are with checking out of a hospital, but I have a feeling it might be easier to check out of prison. At one point, I actually have to stop my mom from just walking out the door, and I inform the nurse that if the doctor doesn’t hurry, I won’t be able to stop her for long.

Thursday, December 20th, 1800: Start driving the hour south to my mom’s house to make sure she gets home and that my sister is there to watch her. I say a quick hello to the dogs and goodbye to my mom, and I start heading north to get to Flagstaff, where I will meet the customer for a drink tonight and then a demo tomorrow.

Friday, December 21st, 1230: The customer shows up at a nondescript location on the side of a road in the middle of the forest in Flagstaff, AZ. This demo should go great. He’s interested in a great product. I got a night full of sleep and a great hotel, and it’s beautiful weather, nice and cold like a Pacific Northwesterner likes.

The demo goes okay. The scanner stopped twice unexpectedly, but sometimes electronics are just electronics, and they do what they want. We get it finished, and we even do a follow-up scan. We chitchat for a little while, and I apologize that I will not be able to process the data that day, but I will send it to him as soon as I can, as I have a Nutcracker performance to get to.

As I get into my car and look at maps, I see that I have 22 hours to make it to a performance that starts in 24. I do some calculations and realized that with gas stops, a little bit of food and some flexible adherence to speed limits I can make it.

As I sit here watching a giant mouse and her babies dance around sugar plum fairies, and a “woman” with 15 children hidden under her dress, I can’t help but to wonder if I actually made it or if I’m asleep on the side of the road somewhere.

This series of tests may not be as extreme as the frozen woods of Fort Benning Georgia and some of these challenges were self-imposed but am confident that there is nothing the universe can do to stop me from succeeding at whatever comes next. As we enter a new year and hopefully a new stage I hope you are as excited as I am to take on the next bit of challenges.  Always remember that the fire might be warm and the Pizza delicious, but nothing feels as good as success!