A Computerized Gaggle Search

Craig Nansen
Director of Technology
Minot Public Schools

Minot, ND 58701

craig.nansen@minot.k12.nd.us

Twitter: @cnansen

On Easter Monday, April 12, 2004, I took off from Minot, ND to go to Dunseith, ND to do some consulting work with their school district. I made several phone calls on my way there. Leaving Dunseith after spending the day at their elementary school and high school I noticed my cell phone was missing.

I figured that the phone was left at one of the schools, at a gas station I had stopped at in Rugby on the way there, or on the ground at one of those places where I had gotten out of my vehicle. I stopped at the gas station on my way back, looked around the area where I had parked, and asked to see if anyone had turned it in. The next day I called both schools and had them check in the areas we had been and also where my car had been parked. Nothing.

I checked with my Verizon dealer, and a replacement phone was over $200. Looked like an expensive trip.

Then I remembered one more stop I had made. On the way there, between Towner and Rugby (a 20 mile stretch of road) I had seen a field that had so many geese in it that it looked like it still had a snow cover. I had turned around and driven back, getting out of my car to take pictures of the geese.

This picture just shows some of the geese! I figure there had to be 5,000 or more geese in this area.

But... my phone was someplace in a ditch along a 20 mile stretch of road.

Looking at another one of the pictures

I noticed a farm on the right hand side of the picture. Since the picture was taken with a 6 Megapixel Cannon D60, I had enough quality to blow the picture up to this.

Figuring that I could find this farm, I took off for Rugby at 6:30 am to try and find my phone before work.

I am an optimist! I fully expected to be able to find the farm, figure out where I had turned around, and then walk the ditch like I would looking for a golf ball in the rough (I get a lot of practice at doing that, I am seldom in the fairway).

Taking my laptop along so that I could look at the photos on the screen using iPhoto, I was truly doing a "computer search."

Once I found the farm, I went to this picture to help me narrow down the search.

I noticed the objects in the ditch, and drove along until I found them. Then I drove along until I had them lined up in the ditch just as they were in the photo.

Opened up my door, and there was the cell phone laying right there!

When telling about this experience, someone suggested that I refer to it as a "Gaggle Search." :-)