Welcome Summer Interns

We wish a belated welcome to the summer interns: Claire Hart and William Cutchen.

Claire, a native of Birmingham, is currently in her first year as an MBA student at UAB. She received her undergraduate degree in Communication Studies from Huntington College in 2006. After serving in an interim role as the manager of a residential association in Montgomery, she moved back to Birmingham to accept an internship in marketing at Motion Industries. Later, Claire was the Director of the Pepper Place Farmers Market, before leaving to go back to school at UAB. She hopes to finish her MBA by May 2010, and further pursue her career in Business Development, Marketing and/or Commercial Real Estate. Claire's interests and hobbies include her mixed breed black lab - Bella, running, climbing, music and exploring everything Birmingham has to offer.


Will is attending Auburn University and will be graduating in December. He is majoring in chemical engineering with a biomedical specialization and minoring in business. He is a member of the social fraternity Phi Gamma Delta. He also belongs to several honor societies: Tau Beta Pi, Omega Chi Epsilon, Phi Lambda Upsilon, and Delta Epsilon Iota. He is originally from Birmingham, and graduated from Hoover High School in 2005. He enjoys watching and playing sports in his free time.

Sorry for the lateness. By the time I get home Friday, I will have driven nearly 1000 miles in this 4 day work week.

Gary Johnson

MCA Golf Scramble

On May 21, 2009, Dr. Raymond Thompson and I were invited guests of HSA Engineers and Scientists at the annual Montgomery Claims Association Golf Outing. The tournament was held at the new Tallapoosa Lakes golf course in Montgomery. It was a scramble format with our team finishing a respectable 5 under par 67. A portion of the proceeds were donated to a local charity. Pictured from left to right are: Billy Jett of AlaMed, Dr. Raymond Thompson of Vista Engineering, Gary Johnson of Vear, and Keith Honeycutt of HSA.

Dr. Thompson and Camie Schraner of HSA. We had to make a beeline back to Birmingham after the tournament because Vista was hosting an ASM meeting that evening. Work, work, work....
Gary Johnson

Dirt Roads...........

Yesterday we used our Sokkia SET 530R3 total station to map nearly 2500 feet of a dirt road with a change in elevation of nearly 75 feet. That's an average grade of 3% - pretty good. This required one traverse. I've decided I'd rather map a mile of interstate than 1/2 mile of dirt road: no stripes, hard to discern road edge, just a transition into a ditch on both sides. It could have been dustier though. The weather around here has been reminding me of the 4 years I spent in Seattle. Back to the dirt road: There's about 15 elevations that could be mapped across the road for any given cross section: tree/grass edge, outter top edge of ditch, outside bottom of ditch, inside bottom of ditch, inner top edge of ditch, road edge, wheel trough, and center line gets you half way. If you do that every 100 feet for 2500 feet, that's 375 points not counting accident viscinity evidence like debris, tire marks, gouges, etc. And then the school buses started going by......
Gary Johnson

So You Want To Do Accident Reconstruction?

Be ready for your vehicle to look like this. The necessities: mobile email, gps, and satellite radio. In my case, Blackberry, Garmin Nuvi, and Sirius. My truck had factory XM radio, but thanks to the Chevrolet Avalanche forum, the Sirius radio (with a Tivo like buffer) is hacked into the XM input on the factory radio, hence the "Preview." This eliminates the need to use the anemic FM transmitter in the Sirius unit, and the sound quality is great. Also, below the Sirius unit is a 1/8 inch stereo plug from Radio Shack hacked into the satellite radio that interrups that, so I can plug in my iPod. I drive a 2004 Chevrolet Avalanche, but you can really drive what you want. I'll do a later post addressing the most common question I hear: "How do you get started in accident reconstruciton?"
Gary Johnson

Work Trip in the Smokies

Here's the best I could do.

Gary Johnson

Why Am I Blogging On Friday Afternoon?

Because I am headed to a site in the Great Smokey Mountains tomorrow morning. I'm sure there will be a photo op sometime between here and there (I'm not driving). We'll see.
Gary Johnson

Old B-17

My dad sent me this today. I had actually played on that one when it was parked at the old Wheelless Airport in Dothan, AL in the early 1970's. They had been converted to crop dusters and then just parked. Unfortunately, this one crashed in May of 1976 when an engine caught fire. Here is a link to the site; lots of interesting images of old warbirds.

A little history of Wheelless Airport: The Whelless' donated the land to the city of Dothan so they could build a golf course on it, but the Wheelless' kept the rights to the surrounding properties, so they could build houses adjacent to the golf course. Click here for a Google map. Note the "Brannon Stand" intersection in the old and new maps.
Gary Johnson

Moooooo

 

Somewhere in Chilton County, Alabama 5-5-09.

Caption contest, anyone?

Suggestions from the cast:

1)There's gotta be a Cinco de Mayo party around here somewhere.

2) The grass may not be greener, but there's more of it.

3) How am I suposed to hitchhike without thumbs?

TTFN

Gary Johnson

Pedigree

My screen saver is really just a slide show of all of the pictures in "My Pictures." This popped up yesterday while I was reading a deposition. It(the picture, not the deposition) was taken around 1960. This was a franchise Goodyear tire store in Dothan, Alabama that my grandfather founded in 1948. It's also the reason that I have been able to do my own brake work. I've never paid for any brake work on any vehicle I've ever owned. I just wish I could afford the equipment to mount and balance my own tires. I've had less than pleasant experiences at several of the local franchise tire places. Gotta run.

Gary Johnson

Is "data" singular or plural?

I know it's the plural of datum, but it just doesn't sound right sandwiched between "these" and "are." Like, "These data are." Here is what Oxford says. Basically, it's on the way out. It's still the preferred usage in Britain, but here in the colonies I vote for identifying it as an "uncountable noun" as in the word "information." There is no such word as "informations." "These information" sounds just as bad. I say forget proper and let's go with what sounds right. Here are some of my favorite examples of the inconsistency of the English language:

laughter -daughter
good - food
I could go on...

I'll dedicate this one to Kevin Ruggiero, who talked me out of doing it the right way.

Gary Johnson

We should all be here:

Going on right now at Barber Motorsports Park. But, we've got people mapping a site where the police paint is probably still wet, and I have a shareholder meeting at 1. Now there's something I thought I'd never say.
Gary Johnson

Vear, Inc. Sponsors Hoover East, Southern League Nationals

April 2009: Some of this is going to be older information. I have been wanting to do a blog for a long time, but as Dr. Robinson says, "We have a lot of straight to-its and right to-its around here but not many round to-its." (My phone rang twice while typing this).

The Nationals (machine pitch) finished the regular season in 2nd place with a record of 10-1-1. They started pool play as Team A in pool #2. The one regular season loss was by an unheard of (at this level) score of 2-1. They won their first pool play game while the #1 team lost theirs in pool #1. Go Nationals!
Gary Johnson