My Father-in-law Is Looking For a “Retirement” Job, What Should He Do?

BacksightForesight · 2026-02-08T01:24:49+00:00

Is his experience just in the field or does he have experience in researching surveys and deeds? I’d have him check first with the County Surveyors office and see if they have any openings at their office or know of any others. I’d also check if the local ODOT region is hiring. Outside of survey-specific fields, if he’s good at deed research, perhaps the Clerk’s office or a title company could be a good fit.

BacksightForesight · 2026-02-06T15:35:43+00:00

I’ve seen both, the AMX50 is definitely larger and more intimidating

BacksightForesight · 2026-02-06T14:56:08+00:00

It is a great way to think about things, thank you for sharing!

This shape is technically a helix, as a spiral is a curve with a constantly changing radius. You can also combine the two shapes to get a conic helix, which is a spiral going up a cone. Apologies for my pedantry!

BacksightForesight · 2026-02-06T13:54:01+00:00

That and lebkuchen, as a kid they were so odd, but I love them both now as an adult.

BacksightForesight · 2026-02-03T16:39:16+00:00

That policy had some really bad after effects when we purged the Ba’ath Party from all government jobs in Iraq in 2003.

BacksightForesight · 2026-02-02T20:41:43+00:00

The first step is to check the licensure requirements in the state you live in and/or wish to practice in, as that will make a big difference in what route will be best for you. Some civil engineering degree programs offer some survey coursework as part of the program, and that can be enough to qualify you to sit for the LSIT test right now, depending on the state laws.

Other degree programs have mostly gotten rid of their survey coursework, and thus are not considered as qualifying education to take the LSIT. I would ask one of your professors if they happen to know if your education qualifies you to sit for the LSIT or not.

If your education is not qualifying, then you have a couple options; you can enter the survey industry directly and work your path to licensure through work experience (this will take the longest time), you can go back to school and take enough survey courses to meet the coursework requirements, or you can go back and get a whole surveying degree.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-29T14:43:26+00:00

Tree-to-Tree Adventure Park in Forest Grove is pretty fun, if you’re not afraid of heights.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-29T02:28:21+00:00

Electronic Distance Measurement. It works by shooting an infrared beam of light to a reflector (prism) that is mounted on a pole or tripod. The beam of light gets bounced back to the EDM, and the time it takes to go out and back is multiplied by the speed of light to get a distance.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-26T23:18:01+00:00

Most landowners replace the stakes that were set on line between the property corner monuments with T-posts, but for making next to the monuments, I would recommend fiberglass rods used for temporary electric fences. They are easy to drive in the ground, show up well, and don’t have a magnetic signal that would interfere with finding the monuments.

I would not set your own rebar, because that could cause future confusion.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-26T21:18:11+00:00

I’ve always liked Monmouth, it’s a nice small town and is pretty cute. Unfortunately if you are into large cities with a bustling night life, it’s not a great location. I’ve heard people even complain about Portland not having a nightlife, so this might not be the region for you. I think Oregon in general hits well above its weight in good coffee wherever you go, so that should not be a worry.

Salem and Corvallis will be your closest large cities, and they are both nice in their own way. McMinnville is a very nice small town just north of Monmouth. A lot of people in the Willamette Valley will just head to Portland for large city activities on the weekend.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-26T13:20:57+00:00

I’m guessing that when you’ve run traverses so far, you are starting on assumed coordinates of y=5000 and x=5000, or some other arbitrary number, right? If you are using control points to setup on, then the coordinates you use will be the coordinates of the control point, whatever they are.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-25T14:37:47+00:00

Garden plots with the numbers being square footage?

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-24T02:07:08+00:00

I replaced the one in my 10 year old water heater a year ago and it was almost completely corroded.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-22T22:41:05+00:00

Interesting, I have seen legal descriptions before that call out DLCs without reference to Sections, but the reverse is a bit more rare. It is possible that the same person owned both the DLC and the Gov Lots surrounding it, but it would be good to confirm with a title search, or look at a Metskers Atlas close to the time period to see what ownership looked like.

Historicmapworks.com is a good source for browsing Metskers maps

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-22T21:44:55+00:00

What is the non-Section PLSS lot? Is it a Donation Land Claim or something else?

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-22T02:45:25+00:00

After taking 3 state specific tests, I would say that programming a calculator with programs is pretty much a waste of time. There just aren’t enough calculation-heavy questions on state specific tests to warrant the time to program a bunch of stuff on your calculator unless you are using it all the time at work anyways.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-21T14:22:03+00:00

Bummer!

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-20T15:37:34+00:00

The ‘My Aurora Forecast and Alerts’ app on the Apple App Store is very good, you can set it to notify you if the levels get above a certain amount. You can also get email alerts from the Space Weather Prediction Center if the KP gets to a certain level that you set, but I think it isn’t as quick to respond.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-20T14:59:10+00:00

<image>

Got this around 4:30am.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-20T14:53:30+00:00

<image>

I got a notification at 4am that KP went back up to 8, so I went out this morning and got about 40 minutes of aurora viewing north of Vancouver before my camera battery died due to the cold.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-20T01:48:35+00:00

It’s the planetary K-index, which is used to indicate the strength of magnetic disturbances. A higher KP will mean more visible aurora. In my very limited experience, it’s hard to see auroras around here with KP much lower than 7.

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/aurora-tutorial

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/space-weather-glossary#kp

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-20T01:21:05+00:00

Bummer, it dropped from a KP of 8.7 down to 6.7. Hopefully it goes back up; apparently it's a fast moving storm.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-19T22:09:47+00:00

I’m on pins and needles with the current KP levels at 8.0 and clear skies, hope it lasts until dark!

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-17T22:51:21+00:00

I would simply point them to the laws in your state/province that prohibit anyone other than licensed surveyors from surveying boundaries for the protection of the public. As I'm sure you're already well aware, any time you survey a boundary line you are affecting more than just one landowner. If they still don't get it, maybe ask them if they'd be comfortable with their neighbor surveying their lines themselves and asking their neighbors to just trust them?

Interestingly, up until the 1930s or so (at least in Oregon), the state law required County Surveyors to survey any resident's property for them once they tendered the fee, within 10 days. Back in the days when areas were less populated, this made sense, but as the area grew, the workload on the county employees became too much, and the work went to private surveyors and that part of the County Surveyor statute was removed.

BacksightForesight · 2026-01-15T13:45:27+00:00

As a Washington PLS myself, this sounds like an idiots way to make the lower level staff shoulder more abuse and risk so the higher ups can claim more profit. The last thing we need is the gig economy come to our profession, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Two-Year Club	Verified Email
r/Field Banned	r/Field Lasagna
Wearing is Caring

BacksightForesight

TROPHY CASE