Gary's List Of Unfinished Projects GLOUP

Introduction: First of all, this is a draft and not a polished or thorough list that is subject to updating and corrections. I welcome your feedback or donations of time or funding to expand and improve these subjects. Note the date of this and other subject writings. This subject and ideas relating to them began many years prior to this summary writing of 11/17/2011 (date code 20111117). I am just throwing these subjects out there in hopes of some benefits for myself and others who might share the care. -------------------------- Subject: TRS Documentation & Internet (Online) Availability. All the Land Surveys, Section by Section, especially the ones completed near 1965 in the Keystone Reservoir, need to be indexed and available online. Other than the massive Township Range Section (TRS) folder-file system that I have built over the last 20 years, there are two outfits that can backup TRS data. Hubtack & Land Surveyor's United (AKA Land Surveyors University) (LSU) are the other two resources for management of TRS data. Hubtack has specialized in picking up where the "State" systems have left off by scanning and mapping the corner records that are part of the essential evidence needed for land title, legal descriptions, and other land surveying related projects. The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) AKA Corps of Engineers (COE) contracted out large areas of land adjacent to lakes and rivers to be surveyed related to government boundaries back in the 1960's & 1970's I am guessing (details of which are limited by my local experience). Research is needed to index those projects and the details as to TRS information. None of that information to my knowledge at that time was filed at the County Clerk's Offices as would be proper to preserve that valuable information as with other Plats of Survey (POS) to my knowledge. Prior to 1980 I estimate, the age of government funding for the maintenance of Land Surveying related documentation disappeared. The funding, necessary for the inventory and management of that very critical and valuable evidence was all but forgotten. Today you rarely hear the title of "County Land Surveyor" or "County Land Surveying Department" come up except for the old timers like myself who remember them as a valuable source of information. There are a few "County Engineers" still out there who may have the foresight and funding to maintain and modernize that essential data. People just do not understand how important that data is to our economic health and the cost of "re-creating the wheel" for projects. Funding needs to be set aside again so that land can be developed and improved for the benefit of all. It creates productive jobs and results that help the economy more than any welfare program. A modern day WPA that would put surveyors back to work doing what they do best would help us all in the recovery of our economy. Healthy, productive, projects to modernize and make this Land Survey Evidence easy to obtain saves us all much work and will help eliminate the waste that has accumulated. Countries like China understand this have looked ahead and planned such that they are efficient and are leaving us behind. Poor management of the TRS system causes waste of time and paperwork caused by legal problems and misunderstandings. Better management of the TRS resources will put us back to productive work building things instead of shuffling papers and working with expensive and poor or no data at a much higher cost and less reliable. The cost of poor data is higher costs for insurance and legal expenses instead of using that money to build things that will advance and help our economy. Why should we have to worry about having reliable data or risking our jobs for misunderstandings that are generated by a lack of focus on helping others find and use resources that we already have (somewhere). I have heard stories of data in the form of field books, plats, and maps that have been piled into closets of County Clerk's Offices or thrown away due to ignorance in Oklahoma. Such waste is a product of ignorance and education partially cause by agencies that have their focus on aimless and many rules and penalties instead of their focus on resources and helping the land surveyor solve problems and grow as a team from the solutions. I am making progress locally by obtaining the USACE Partial Boundary Plats. It takes a lot of time to build indexes, folders, and files to store them in a somewhat organized TRS system. More later maybe........................ --------------------------------- Subject: Recovery & Better Drawings of Cistern Well Water Pumps. Recently I decided to look for a Cistern Hand Operated lever water well Pump (CHOP) part and found it time consuming and difficult to find and verify what I needed to fix my pump. I took a chance, ordered what I thought was the part I needed and fixed it. There is a lack of information for the CHOP. I started to hand sketch and measure the parts along with taking pictures and drawing the part in CAD. I did not finish the project, like most of my inspiration projects. I am not sure any project of that type is ever finished due to the room for improvements and available ways to display the information on the web. I want the time and the funds to continue with these types of projects and welcome your help. More later maybe........................ ------------------------------ Subject: Solar Panels Grid Tie or Battery Bank System - Payback Pursuit Ever since the 1960's I have been fascinated with the advent of having a solar system that would provide enough utility to pay for itself in savings over conventional utilities. I have found other people with similar interests lately and it looks like there is still a chance that solar panels may be available that will have a payback of less than 5 years if they can be obtained at a low enough price and put into service quickly as a grid tie to slow down or reverse that electric meter. It probably will not happen soon for my place but my buddy tells me that he may have them soon. Meanwhile I have taken all my small solar yard lights apart because they quit working to work on combining them into a mini panel to see if I can get a mini system working to refresh my knowledge of electronics and testing of the old tiny panels. After testing about 12 cells, I was surprised how durable they are and how well they still worked. It was that battery they provide for the yard light that was the weakest link. The cells, even the ugly ones with the clear coating all yellowed and cracked that still put out as good as the clear newer ones. Learning a lot and hope to have something of value to save on energy usage someday soon. More later maybe........................ --------------------------------- Subject: Landscape Efficiency. I took my otherwise nice moderately smooth and sloped back yard (about 2/3 of an acre) and started digging contour based ditches and ponding areas last year. It was a good year to do that since we had record hot dry weather. I did not capture a lot of water that would otherwise run off due the the drought but I am now seeing improvement in water collection with the recent fall rains. It is a good use of exercise activity to hand dig ditches and ridges to capture rain and put it back into the ground water or hold it to soak the garden better. I used to have to resist the tendency to buy things to do yard work for gardening and related projects, but now I have no problem with that due to lack of funds. I use my exercise time when not out in the field doing billable work (been a long time) to dig and wheel barrow my soil around to better use the rainfall resource. I even dug a hole 9' down in the low area to see if I could find water. I recall finding water at 4-8 feet about 35 years ago in that area or further west or north of my place. I found much more clay than I recall but a good 3 feet of topsoil and layers that indicated ancient deposits of topsoil between layers of clay. I recall that there was sand about 4 feet down that is part of the Arkansas River bed. Together with my cistern system, I want to make improvements to my place to better use the rain resource rather than see that water run off to the Tulsa Boy's Home (swamp) and the Arkansas River. If more of us would do that, we would have less flooding and better use of water resources. More later maybe........................ --------------------------------- Gary Breisch Land Surveyor's United (LSU) Member Map Administrator (MMA) gary@gbreisch.com www.gbreisch.com 918-948-5263 cell 918-401-0061 Google tel 3001 S. 137th W. Ave. Sand Springs, OK 74063 Surveying and Related Services Since 1965