LUXEMBURG, Wisconsin (AP) — Stacy Martin needed a bird’s eye view to see her boyfriend’s marriage proposal.

Brian Rueckl’s proposal came as a 40,000-square-foot message, “Stacy will you marry me?” tilled in a cornfield near the Manitowoc and Kewaunee county line.“At first I was in shock and forgot to say, ‘yes,”‘ Martin said.Rueckl, an employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency, persuaded Martin to take an airplane ride with him Monday to take pictures of the land.

The proposal came after a year of planning and 40 hours of work. Rueckl, 23, tilled the message, which included two intersecting hearts, on a farm owned by his boss. Full article here:

Where businesses take wing
By Deborah Gates
Staff Writer

SALISBURY — A European company specializing in solutions to monitor temperatures in refrigerated haulers picked a good time to birth a North American offspring, at least in Wicomico County.

Not only is vehicle tracking a growing market, but renovations have just been completed on the old terminal building at the Salisbury-Ocean City:Wicomico Regional Airport, readying the county’s first “business incubator” for new or expanding business tenants.

The first start-up to land in the renovated structure is Ameriscan, the new North American headquarters of the Bonn, Germany-based firm that specializes in vehicle monitoring… Full Article Here:

Aside from the fact that this guy is as “good looking” as I am (read: smooth on top), what does this entry possibly have to do with GPS Tracking?

The first thing that caught my eye was the overall theme of the article and the picture. My city, Colorado Springs (KCOS) built a new airport terminal a few years back. It’s one of the few tax initiatives I ever voted for in my quarter-century plus in this burg … we needed it, even though traffic levels at that time hardly seemed to warrant it. Left behind, however, was a well-built two-level terminal in an excellent location … directly adjacent to motels, restaurants, what passes for eat-west and north-south traffic arteries and some major aerospace corporate office. The old terminal was also in sight of Air Force Space Command, Army Space Command and US Northcom’s shiny new headquarter buildings on Peterson Air Force Base … a not bad real estate location as real estate locations go. Oh, and hundreds of parking spaces, well-built access ramps and executive aircraft hangars and fixed base operators … just in case a prospective business wanted to use their own aircraft. So what did our brilliant city leaders do? Bulldozed the building flat … according to rumor because the rental rates at the new terminal were way too high for many airlines and they were afraid the old terminal would somehow go back into airline service. The capacity for human cluelessness never ceases to amaze me. The city owned the building and owns the airport. So they couldn’t control what tenants went in the building and what aviation-related activities they engaged in? The building was in good to excellent shape and already fully amortized. thousands of square feet of prime business-oriented property flattened and trucked to the landfill. Sad.

(the parking lot currently serves the families of arriving and departing Fort Carson troops on their endless deployments to Iraq … the city doesn’t want troops in he terminal letting people see uniforms, guns and wounds … this war is for the underclass to deal with … they board their charter flights up and down a ladder in the rain while the Broadmoor visitors come and go in the new terminal, untroubled by reality … money has its privileges … but I guess that’s a subject for a different blog)

Back to my original subject, Wicomic County and Salisbury/Ocean City Maryland had a similar problem on their hands … a surplus airport terminal. So, did they bulldoze it? Nope, a little smarter than the city fathers here … a whole lot smarter. They took the excellent location and looked for businesses worth having. Ameriscan, the company feature here looks like someone to watch. There are goodness knows how many companies willing to track your truck, not as many who track your rail car or multimode container, but how many are there who actually care about your shipment … the whole reason the carrier is moving in the first place. I’m glad to see a company like Ameriscan bringing actual business-related services to the world of GPS Tracking, and I love the intelligence behind their new home.

Tags: gps, gps tracking, airports, real estate, business starups

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Driver hours warning issued to car and LCV fleets after successful company prosecution

05/07/2006 09:36:00
A warning to companies that they must start tracking the working hours of their drivers is being issued to car and light commercial vehicle fleets after the first successful UK health and safety prosecution of its type.

The Produce Connection was fined £30,000 after one of its employees died when his vehicle drifted into the path of an oncoming lorry. He had worked 76 hours in the previous four days and chronic fatigue is believed to be a major factor… Rest of Article Here:

Well there goes old Dave again, rambling on about those “furrriner” issues, when we here in the good old USA don’t have a care.

Well, first of all, this blog has a good few UK readers (thanks guys and gals) but much more importantly this recent decision from the UK has both legal and moral significance here in the USA … so don’t think the fact you’ve lived your life without needing a passport exempts you. In the referenced article, which I suggest you read, a delivery company was fined more than $55,000 for letting their driver work too many hours. The driver wasn’t even on the clock when he had the accident, but the company, in addition to the fine is now greatly exposed to other liabilities with this black mark on their record.

Here’s a little snapshot of the current Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations:

Have you noticed anything there in that quote? Notice it applies to commercial vehicle that do not require CDL (Commercial Driver License), that is vehicles that 26001 GVW and not carrying hazardous materials. In short, almost every vehicle you thought didn’t need to have their mileage and hours of service tracked.

So you go about your business, fat, dumb and happy as they say until that dreadful day there’s an accident. and an inspector comes and says “may I please see your required time records for the last 6 months”?

You can live dangerously and not worry, until you get nabbed … or you can equip your vehicles with an intelligent, no monthly cost “black box” and fool proof driver identification devices so that these records are always available for call up when ever you might need them.

In addition to covering your legal nether regions, wouldn’t actually protecting your drivers and the traveling public be worth something? It’s your thought for the day, you make the call.

Tags: gps tracking, hours of service, CDL

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OK, here’s another helping of GPS tracking eye candy.  NASA made a great Fourth of July firework for us by launching discovery … and here’s a nicely implemented tool to track the shuttle or nay other satellite you may be interested in.

Notice it’s another well thought out implementation of Google Maps … complete with IP locations of those connecting to the site and many other useful features.

this is the most exciting aspect of this business to me … demystifying the technology and getting it out of the operations center or back room and into the hands of users.  Highly recommended.

Tags: gps, gps tracking, satellites, space shuttle

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I know, I know, we had a long weekend and no Eye Candy. Well, you were _supposed_ to be looking at the eye candy in the sky last night … hope everyone enjoyed their 4th in the USA, all my Canadian friends had a happy Canada day and those of you in the ROW (Rest Of The World) enjoyed the peace and quiet.

If you were missing the eye candy, then take a look here for the best public implementation of tracking and telemetry I’ve seen.

Highlight a rider’s name and get all the data on him, watch him on the map, overhead imagery or hybrid form. This is where the industry is going, and rapidly. Those firms tracking vehicles and people half-heartedly on made up maps of their own, when Google Maps and Google Earth are around had better wake up and smell the coffee.

Tags: gps, gps tracking, tour de france, bikes, bicycle racing

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