I am haunted by a few nautical images that I have seen in movies; seascapes in Master and Commander, and the old version Moby Dick, (with Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab, chasing the great white whale around the globe) are two that rush to mind. Also there is a line from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean

where Captn’ Jack Sparrow is waxing poetic about what a ship is.

“That’s what a ship is, you know. It’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that’s what a ship needs, but what a ship is… what the Black Pearl really is… is freedom.”

My reaction to these tells me that in another time, I may have been lured to a life on the sea (when the occupation of GIS/CAD professional was not so viable). To me there is something compelling about the geography of the globe that can be traveled by the Oceans and although it is a unpredictable and ominous path, it connects the whole world.

Here is a link to a recent interview for GIS Weekly I gave regarding the newly released ArcGIS for AutoCAD: “What Do CAD Users Want to Do With GIS?”