I was relegated to giving out water this year, but there was a good crowd at 7 am near the convention center. I saw lots of ESRI folks in the mix. The top man came in at 16:23, Robert Berger. Alexandra Gazewski led the women at 19:03.

A few nods to "friends of Directions" who take home age group medals:

Ben Yetman - Pen Bay Media (3)
Jeff Jackson - ESRI (2)
Mark Newell - USGS (2)
Karen Capria - ESRI (2)
Joe Francica - Directions (2)

And, a special shout out to the nice woman I met who was running her very first road race here in San Diego today. Welcome aboard fellow runner!

I was just in the press room trying to finish up some articles for tomorrow's newsletter and got the tug from ESRI's Clem Henrickson. "You need to see this!" He showed me two maps just posted to the ESRI UC website.

First off a 3D router to get between rooms in the convention center and/or the Marriott next door. It's multi-modal since you take stairs, escalators, elevators. Further it provides distance and expected time to reach the destination. Oh, yes, and the interface is built using Flex.

Second, is a map of attendees. He noted everyone was busy prepping for UC so it's not as slick as it might be with more support. Still, I learned there are seven people here from my City of Somerville. I had no idea!

"Most experts say the maker of GPS-based navigation systems has been confusing customers, lowering buyer satisfaction and taxing the company's operations by offering 30 models of its "Nuvi" car navigation systems that range from $200 to $1,000 in price."

- The Street

The National Geospatial Advisory Committee, NGAC, held a meeting at the ESRI conference on Tuesday night. Many of the 28 members were in attendance. NGAC is tasked with providing advice and recommendation on federal GIS efforts and policy representing non-federal interests and stakeholders. Anne Hale Miglarese chaired the meeting and outlined the current activities. Most interesting were the questions and suggestions to the committee.

I've not heard from Skyline for a while, so it was nice to see a "3D GIS for our town" article today. The implementation is from Albany-based IAGT (The Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology) and was done for free as a pilot. I met the IAGT folks at the NY GIS/SIG earlier this year. Also of note: the 3D data builds on some LiDAR from Pictometry.

- MPNNow.com

The new organization of geo organizations, Coalition of Geospatial Organizations (COGO) voted itself into existence at a meeting held here in San Diego. The news comes via the NSGIC blog, via BlinkGeo and its "feed blend." Hopefully, the new organization will have its own communications solution in the coming weeks.

The officers are:

Chair: Cy Smith (NSGIC)
Chair-Elect: Curt Sumner (ACSM)
Secretary: George Donatello (IAAO) - International Association of Assessing Officers

The vote confirms that acclamation is required for actions to proceed that is, everyone must vote yes. "COGO shall undertake legal or advocacy action only through unanimous agreement of all of the Delegates in accordance with its purposes on behalf of the Member Organizations." There was some skepticism about that at last night's NGAC meeting. We'll have to see how that works out.