Most of you know that a large portion of my job involves exploring the past and present historical uses of a property. This typically involves staring at aerial photographs for hours on end. For example: A historical photo from the 1940s might indicate that the property was used for agricultural purposes and thus trace remnants of pesticides might remain in the soil. Or, if it was next to a gas station, a leaking underground storage tank might have released hydrocarbons into the soil and groundwater and contaminated the property. Right, so that's my job. And it's a great job because I like looking at aerial photos. You can learn a lot from a property by looking at it's past. With that in mind, you'll understand when I tell you how much I love Google Earth. Chris installed it several months ago but we never really played around with until last December when I needed an alternate view of a property that our traditional aerial photos couldn't provide us with. I think my favorite part is when it swoops down to your area and everything comes sharply into focus. It's fantastic. And, it's free! Download it at: www.google.earth.com/ . Honestly, if you've never tried it, test it out once, just for me. It's fun and amazing. Of course, it's not perfect; some of the photos are pretty old and places outside of large cities don't have great resolution. But it's still fun to use. Look at all the places that I traveled to on my lunch break today:
