Working for my keep

I've been a terrible slacker lately. Well, I've been taking classes. And those have kept me pretty busy for the most part. But I haven't been able to keep up with my research. It's not my fault!

As you might know, I'm working on mapping invasive Tamarix spp. in Arizona. Problem is, my training data sucks. I only have 1 replicate for each of three species that I'm trying to detect. Which is hugely problematic, especially considering the difficulties that remote sensing of vegetation in arid areas is rife with. So while I have generated maps that are intuitively appealing, I'm not really placing much confidence in them, due to my paucity of training data. Those maps were generated last summer, and ever since I've just been twiddling my thumbs and taking classes, waiting to get more data.

The study that I'm working on is a project for the military, so all of the sites we're mapping are on military bases. The guy in charge of science at the base in Arizona has been saying for months now that he'll send someone out with a GPS to get more training data for me, but he never has. So we've decided that they should just send me to Arizona to get my data myself.

It's kind of exciting! Dave (a lab tech) and I are going next week! (At least, I hope we're going. I'm going to make our travel arrangements tomorrow. Today I faxed all our paperwork to the base so that we'll be allowed on and allowed to take pictures.) I've been staring at imagery of this area so much, it will be great to finally see it in person! And it'll be good to give me some work to do. I'm only taking 2 classes this quarter, which really isn't enough to keep me busy. And since I'm technically supposed to be working for Susan, since she's paying me, it will be good to have work to do!

So yeah, since we're not doing anything classified or anything, hopefully I'll be able to post pictures taken with the lab's digital camera! I hope I get to see a saguarro!