Land Muncher

"Your problem is that you're precise but not accurate." Now, the problem, for us, was that the civil engineer who was speaking made that statement with a very matter-of-fact tone of voice.  Sonny (our FCOP International President) and I had just returned from surveying most of our 500 acres of rice land in Balang. We looked at each other, and in unison scratched our heads and said, "What in the world does that mean?" We had five decimal points of accuracy on both latitude and longitude from our GPS. We checked it out on Google! That meant we were within about one meter of 'spot on'. What kind of double talk was this?"Well," explained our engineer friend, "you only have one satellite in a good position, and the other is at about ten degrees off the horizon, so, though your readings are very precise, your accuracy could be off by five meters." We just groaned. Sonny was close to needing a kidney transplant after bouncing over paddy dikes for three days. But, with all that work, we were determined to see the results, regardless of how accurate they were! At least our laser level readings would be precise!So we paid him to feed our data into his computer. By imposing his plots over "Google earth" maps we were able to maneuver our data over the photos, and come up with some decent drawings. Surprise! Our flat land was not as flat as it looked, but at least we knew what we had. The problem is our "Hercules" (our land munching, leveling hero) is being held hostage! After 30 days the government still won't sign off on its release. Please pray!