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So last year at this time, I gave Santa my geoengineer’s Christmas list, but apparently I wasn’t good enough to get everything. I did get two things off my list, the new FHWA Drilled Shaft Manual, and the New FHWA MSE Wall Manual, but that’s about it. That’s like getting pink bunny PJ’s as a kid! So over the last year, I tried to be REALLY good, and this year I’ll just let last year’s list roll over with two additions:
An iPad
This year’s hottest gift would be great for reading my growing library of geotechnical papers, manuals, reports and books in PDF format. I like the iBook app on my iPhone, especially being able to highlight and make notes and bookmarks. And you can read an eBook allright, but try reading a scanned PDF report or paper on that little screen, doesn’t work too well. I like the idea of having my entire library of technical papers, books and reports available at my fingertips!
And the coolest goodie on my list, the one I really want...
My own personal Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)!
The SenseFly swinglet CAM UAV has a 12 mega-pixel camera mounted on a lightweight aerial frame that requires no piloting skills. You connect the ground station to your laptop via USB and provide waypoints for the vehicle to fly, taking pictures at designated intervals. It can land on its own, and you can provide updated instructions on the fly. If it loses contact for some reason, it will just orbit on the flight path. In the absolute worst case, it circle down and land at its slowest speed. The package runs about $10,000 (US) according to the Google Earth Blog. But it includes everything you need to fly minus the laptop.
So last year at this time, 
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