Hi Michelle,
My name is Jim Ouimette (pronounced "wee-met"). I just purchased ArcGIS for Personal Users yesterday. I'm a retired research engineer with a love for maps but very little experience creating them. I remember when ESRI first got started back in the 1970s I think. Your headquarters are just a few blocks from where my 91 year old mother lives in Redlands, so i think of you often, even though I have little experience with your products and services. I bought ArcGIS for Personal Users because it is in my price range and I want to learn.
I live in a over 55 active senior community in Sonoma County, California. I have been making maps for our Oakmont Village Association as an unpaid volunteer using Maptitude software that the Association purchased. I really like Maptitude, but it doesn't belong to me, and the products that I make for the Association are their intellectual property, as it should be. The maps I make focus on detail down to the individual property parcels in our 3200-unit association. I tend to start with Excel spreadsheets from the County assessors office which provide parcel numbers, site addresses, property type, etc. I augment this info with proprietary info from our association such as what HOA the unit is in, when purchased by whom, ages of purchasers, rental or owned, etc. I love it. Our City Planning staff provided me ESRI shapefiles and associated files to create these cool parcel maps that I can overlay extra info, such as Google satellite images.
So I'm an old guy wanting to learn new tricks working at a parcel scale in a small community. I probably have more to learn than to contribute currently.
My favorite location is anywhere my motorhome and Jeep. takes my wonderful wife and labradoodle - - usually out to the boondocks bewteen death Valley and Area 51. I'm not providing coordinates!
Regards,
Jim