Slow and low

That's how it's been, that's been my profile. I've been remiss about posting, then again summer ended on the 21st! Work has been boring at a level not previously attained. I learned, through much trial and error, to make tagged, accessible PDFS for the visually impaired.
Other than that, I've been working out a lot, cutting tremendously back on my drinking, eating much less red meat, and reading about karst geology and His Dark Materials.
My mom is in town for the week, she actually got in Friday evening. Yesterday we drove over to Bastrop State Park to hike around and so I could see more of the stuff I didn't really get to see back in March when we surveyed portions of it. It's really a pretty place and has some nice hikes. and the Civilian Conservation Corps buildings are very interesting. We also did a quick drive through the historic district of Bastrop, whose only real highlight is the old county jail. On the way there, we stopped by the Hyatt Lost Pines resort so we could check out the display of the archaeological site we worked on there. Kind of pitiful, but there's a huge picture of Colleen and the resort itself is very impressive (and way out of my price range: 6.50 for a Shiner Bock!!).
Thursday Mom and I are going to San Antonio to see the Missions and stop by the Museum of Art to see a bunch of photos by Allen Ginsburg. We might head out to Kerrville on Friday for an overnight visit, or maybe just make a long day trip out of it on Saturday. Hell, if we went to Georgetown then Mom would get to see 3 of the 4 big sites that Tini and I dug on in Texas.

In the zone

For a while there. I got almost 2 pages written last night. Did a bunch of reading while scanning stuff at work. Even started to figure out the whole "tagged, accessible .pdf" problem that has been vexing me all week. After work, went to the gym. Quite a nice roll, but I think it's slowing down. Not sure where to start today, and I'm getting a little tired already.
Maybe I'll play with Google Scholar for a while, see if I can track down some references. I'm going to need to figure out how a non-geologist archaeologist can explain the importance of understanding karst geology to other non-geologist archaeologists. I do think I'm going to see if I can get away with calling limestone "the building block of Lowland Maya civilization." Puns are good things to have in a thesis, right?

No way!!!

I'm actually working on my thesis! Wow! I need to drink a few rum and cokes at 9pm every night.

Or maybe not...

Got a call at 7am that they cancelled a bunch of the holes they wre going to drill, so the project is ending early and I don't need to go out. Good thing I didn't piss away ALL of the projected overtime and per diem. Other than losing the extra scratch, I'm perfectly fine with not being in East Texas.

Long week ahead

I'm leaving at 8am tomorrow morning for Lumberton, which is north of Beaumont, which is far east Texas. We've been doing some sort of monitoring job in the Big Thicket National Preserve. It's apparently pretty easy work (if a little boring). I've been wanting to go out there for a while, since they're working 11 hour days, 7 days a week, which means hella overtime. As it is, I'll be there for 6 days, which is only hecka overtime. There's also per diem. I'll also be back in time for Tini's cocktail birthday party, which she's very happy about (I am too). I can't say that I'm looking forward to the 5-hour drivc by myself tomorrow morning.
I will work on my thesis this week...

More nostalgia

I've been lax. Not a lot to talk about, really. Did the survey in Spring, didn't find a damn thing (it rhymes!). Spent a couple of days this week writing the report, and put finishing touches on an earlier survey report. So that's a couple of writing credits, including one with me as sole author. Had my fantasy football draft, got Vince Young, so I'm happy enough. Saw Superbad, which was totally hilarious and I'll definitely be buying it, but I liked Knocked Up a little better overall.
I just realized that I had a dream the other night about my best friend in high school, probably inspired by Superbad. We weren't really like that. We were definitely a smarter version of Bill and Ted, which came out our senior year, and we went to see it after school the day it opened and got free posters, which I lost long ago (along with my old Sid Vicious and Morrissey posters, and my 7 Seconds t-shirt...). I lost touch with him after our freshman year of college. He went to SUNY-Binghamton and joined a Chinese-American fraternity. I went to Juniata and got into radio. I've tried tracking him down using Google, looked on Myspace and Facebook, my high school alumni website, but no luck. If anyone knows a dude named Chris Yuen who is 35-36 and went to Stuyvesant High School in New York City (class of '89 holla!), tell him his old friend John wants to catch up.
Choo told me someone we used to know peripherally OD'd a while back. I met this girl at a garage rock show, or maybe a party back in '96, maybe early '97. Nothing beyond chit-chat, barely remembered her name. Sometime in early '97 I caught a ride to Houston with The Peechees to see them play at Sound Exchange and Mary Janes. I had no way of getting back, assumed I'd figure something out. I ran into Billy Bishop there, but he also had no way of getting back. Anyway, this girl was also there for the show with her friend, and having only met me the one time, gives both Billy and myself (both of us pretty drunk) a ride back. Even though I never brought it up to her again during the occassions that we would be at the same party or potluck, I never forgot that kindness. So I'm sharing that story with y'all.