Where in the hell am I?

I have moved

2009-01-27T22:06:00.000-08:00

Colleen convinced me to switch hosts. So from now on, go here:
http://whereinthehellami.wordpress.com/
And update your links and stuff. Word.

Look, it's a site!

2009-01-21T20:39:00.001-08:00

16DS277 site extension overview
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

That's me sitting on a nice sandy ridge that surely contains some awesome buried deposits related to site 16DS277. The photo was taken from the pipeline corridor, in the location that the site was originally documented. The recorder noted that the site likely continued onto this nice ridge, however, he was limited by the APE. One of our primary goals during the survey in Louisiana was to try and ground truth the site boundaries for the potentially significant sites. Many recorded sites have indeterminate boundaries because of the survey limits, but this isn't necessarily reflected on the topographic quad maps that are used by state agencies to record site locations.
In our case, our main limitation as far as chasing sites was the property boundaries and permitted areas. However, the restriction placed by the "no shovel test" rule, combined with the thick pine needle and oak leaf litter ground cover, meant that we couldn't really ground truth sites very well. This site was an exception because, as you see, it's been cleared and is used as pasture. In the background, however, you will notice a wall of short trees that is a pine timber farm. The site likely extends back there as well, as the ridge continues, but we had zero visibility. I used the fence line as my new site boundary on the GPS.
We actually found some artifacts here as well (photos on the Flickr page or just click below). The area along the fence line had undergone some erosion, which left a narrow linear exposure. I found a small, brushed, sand-tempered ceramic sherd and a tested petrified wood cobble in this area. There were also extensive gopher mounds on the ridge, and I found a grog-tempered, incised ceramic sherd on one of those. That doubled the artifact count from the week of survey.
Last Friday ended up being the last field day, due to limited access to two of our HPAs and two of our sites. We even got done a little early and grabbed some lunch at a gas station/cafe in Keatchie (rhymes with Peach Guy). The lady at the cash register asked if we were with the pipeline, and I told her that we were with the seismic survey. She replied, "Oh, the intellectuals" and laughed, and I smiled and nodded. She mentioned that they were glad to have us out there, because we were helping a lot of people out. That made me feel really good after all of the other nonsense involving landowners.

On a totally unrelated note, I was looking at a link on Colleen's awesome blog (and if you read mine, you probably already read hers, and probably read it first. If you don't, read it because she's out on the academic forefront of archaeology and technology). Turns out that I made a Top 100 Anthro Blog list. I'm sometimes interesting! I'm inclined to agree. Thanks for the kudos!

There will be blood

2009-01-15T18:50:00.000-08:00

Surveying always means lots of scratches and cuts. You're dealing with briar, barbed wire, cactus, mesquite, juniper, (insert your own regional thorny thing here), etc. I have a scratch on my stomach from something that passed through four layers of clothing.
But I have never had a field nick that bled like the one I currently have on my neck. It is the tiniest little puncture wound you can imagine. The scab is about the size of a poppy seed. But I guess it's right on top of a major artery, because when it comes off the blood literally runs down my neck. I've had much larger, more painful cuts that haven't bled a tenth of what this little prick will.
Speaking of "These things will happen", that was precisely the response I got for the land agent and the drill crew project manager about our landowner incidents. I was stunned, until the drill crew guy followed it up with, "Well, it's was not the fault of anyone in this office."
I now know the sound of six jaws dropping simultaneously.
It was truly amazing how minor they seemed to think the situation was, and how pissed off they seemed to be that we were making a big deal out of it. What made me angrier still was that I was in part trying to do them a favor by making them aware of potential access issues. I was also legitimately concerned for the safety of my crew. Their guys are out on humongous drill trucks. We're out walking around. The landowners know that there will be huge trucks rumbling on their land at some point, but probably aren't expecting 2-3 people in safety vests out on the back forty.
Anyway, I went in after a short field day yesterday and found someone who would help me, and got all the information I'd asked for on Monday morning (and should have had before then) within an hour. Now I know every property ID, and the permit status of every property as of January 14th, and have it on a map. This doesn't mean more incidents won't happen, but I've now made every effort to get the permit information to the land agent...so next time, there's no way it's our fault. Plus, we're almost done.

With great responsibility...

2009-01-13T19:12:00.000-08:00

These last two days have been a heaping spoonful of what it's like to be field director. All of the times that I said to someone, "I'm sorry you have to deal with that, but I'm glad it's not me" are coming back to haunt me.
Yesterday, we met with our client's field rep, the drill crew project manager, and a land agent for almost 2 hours. I don't think the crew minded too much, as they got to sit in an office and read. I had to try and figure out what info the other people wanted, then try and find it, and try and get some things I needed from them, all while making sure I didn't say anything to make things even more difficult. Eventually, they gave me a map with all of the property tracts on it, with markings to distinguish between "clear" and "not clear" properties. This way, we wouldn't be trespassing. Last night, I spent a good two to three hours marking all of our field maps with permanent marker to make sure that the no access properties were obvious.
So today, I send out one of my crews to revisit three previously recorded sites while I took a crew to an HPA that was near the drilling. Before we left the field office, we talked with our land agent who said everything was good. At the very first site, the crew was met by an unhappy landowner, who told them that his access was on a "pay-per-entry" basis and that the land agents knew that. He wasn't angry with them, but all the same, they were asked to leave, but not before he told them about all the stuff he had found. I had them call the land agent to tell him the situation.
After revisiting the second site, they drove to the third site, which had limited access. I had them call the land agent to check on possible access roads, since they would be crossing an area that wasn't marked on the field map. Apparently, they talked to a different agent as our guy was out on another job! That person told them to follow a gated driveway that became a farm road. As they're at the gate, the landowner drove up and was very unhappy. Apparently, he's never been paid for the access he granted, and was supposed to have been paid in November. Again, he wasn't really angry at the crew, just at the project (not sure who is in charge of that aspect). Eventually, he even allowed them to survey the site area, but also told them to pass the word along that there would be no more access until he got paid.
So, work an eight-hour day that involves walking for miles and looking for sites while NOT digging shovel tests in meter-plus deep sandy soils beneath 5-10 centimeters of pine needles and leaf litter (as we say "looking for a piece of hay in a needle stack"). Then, come home and put out small fires and apologize to crew members who got yelled at TWICE and let the clients know what we did today and plan out the next days work. Yeah, I have time to blog about it, but it's exhausting!
On the plus side, I did actually find a pretty nice dart point base in a dirt road.

Another state of mind

2009-01-11T19:41:00.000-08:00

So I drove up to Shreveport, Louisiana today for a weeklong reconnaissance survey project. This is my first time actually doing fieldwork in Louisiana, although I've been to Baton Rouge a couple of times to do background research.
Not only is this my first time working in Louisiana, but I am actually the field director for this job, overseeing 5 crew members. This is my first time as a field director, so I'm a little nervous. OK, very nervous, as this is something of a test. This isn't exactly a normal project, although now that I think about it I'm not exactly sure what a normal project is. It's going to require a lot of flexibility and improvisation. Fortunately, the months spent on the Keystone pipeline project definitely required plenty of those things.
The work is being done for a seismic survey. Their project area is 165,000 acres. We did a background review which identified all of the previously recorded sites in the area. We also identified the High Probability Areas based on the sites, soils, geology and drainages in the area. We gave this to the client to develop an avoidance plan. Unfortunately, there were still 20,000+ acres of HPA, which was too much for the client to avoid impacts, and too big to survey effectively. The Louisiana SHPO wasn't very specific about what to do, so we worked with the client to develop a workable plan. We identified 10 areas within the HPAs that had the highest probability of having significant sites (basically, the areas most likely to have Caddo sites), and will survey those. We will also revisit the potentially significant previously recorded sites to make sure that the recorded site boundaries are correct, to assist in avoidance.
Now, the kicker. There's some obstructionist contractors (I guess with at least some say over how work is conducted) who have been very difficult. They freaked out at the idea of shovel testing. I don't exactly understand why, something about landowners withdrawing their access (I can't remember if I've blogged before about landowners misunderstanding of cultural resources laws, who fear that the government will take their land if we find a site). So we're not doing any shovel tests, only examining ground surface and exposures. They also are uncomfortable with the concept of the HPAs. However, somehow, they were cool with everything when it was explained as "places where sites were found but not properly recorded." So that's how we're selling that.
Honestly, this isn't really how cultural resources management should be done, and none of us are really comfortable with the process. On the other hand, it makes for very easy field work if one can compartmentalize and look at it as "At least we're doing something."
Oh, last thing to mention before I turn in for the night. Almost all of this has happened (except the original background review and avoidance plan) since last Wednesday.

A first for me

2008-12-16T18:45:00.000-08:00

Today, after multiple false starts trying to get a backhoe out to our survey area (much of which was badly rutted and partly underwater), we finally used a roundabout way to get to a nice upland ridge overlooking a creek. Theoretically, this area had already been surveyed and would not have such deep deposits that a backhoe was required (basically, a shovel test can only get you about a meter below the surface). But, it was a nice spot and it was actually dry, unlike the floodplains. SO I have our driver pop in a backhoe trench. It has about 60-70 centimeters of a nice brown sandy loam, and then a very strong yellowish-red clay layer (which would be very old and predating the presence of humans in Texas or the Americas). I'm out there partly to show a bunch of newbies and rusties how we examine and record a backhoe trench. So I start cleaning an area of the trench wall with a shovel, showing the actual clean profile. I go over the different strats and call out depths and such.
Then I start cleaning the whole trench wall. You're pretty much supposed to do this anyway, but depending on time considerations and probabilities and such, I don't always do this. Nothing was obvious in the backdirt and there was nothing in the small area I had cleared. Plus, it had already been surveyed.
As I'm going along, having cleared maybe another foot of wall, I see a cool ferrous concretion in the wall and try to knock it out. When I bend over to try and find it, I notice a piece of what looks like chert sitting on top of the dirt I had just cleared off the wall. "Interesting," I thought and take a look at what I figured was a small gravel. I realize it's an artifact of some kind, look at it again, and "Holy shit, I just found a point!" It's an ugly little Gary point, but it counts. I've never found a point in a backhoe trench (or a shovel test) that was not on a known site. Plus, I had eight people watching when it happened.
We end up doing another trench and a series of shovel tests, mostly just trying to find the site boundaries. We also did a column sample (a small test unit) on the original trench and screened the trench backdirt. All in all, we found 6 more flakes in the original trench, had 3 positive shovel tests that found 4 more flakes, 3 pieces of prehistoric pottery, and a possible point base. I also found 3 more pieces of pottery in a gopher mound, including an incised sherd and a very nice rim sherd. It ended up being a decent site, and we've recommended avoidance due to potentially significant, intact deposits.
So yesterday I talk about the high possiblity area, and sure enough, it produced! It took some looking, but it was there alright. It made up for the freezing mist we had to work in all day.
Tomorrow we head to the South Sulphur River for more backhoe trenching. We're also going to do some more shovel testing on a very large Caddo site that was found earlier this year. It's a lot of hard work, but it's really exciting! I'll try and post some pictures tomorrow.

Baby, it's cold outside!

2008-12-15T18:50:00.001-08:00

People sometimes wonder why we do so much of our archaeological work in the summer here in Texas, where it's regularly over 100 degrees and often 80+% humidity. I've been known to gripe about it myself from time to time, when I'm covered in Ivy Block, sun screen, long pants and a long sleeved shirt walking through greenbriar and sweating my ass off.
Well, right now it's about 20 degrees outside in Tyler, Texas. I drove up here today from Austin, where the temperature dropped from 68 degrees at 10pm to 40 degrees at 10 am. The crews here were working in far northeast Texas, near Paris, where they had to deal with sleet and freezing rain and weather in the high 20s. The trucks still have some ice on them. Tomorrow promises to be just about as cold, and I can only hope it stays dry.
On the plus side, the poison ivy is dead, the snakes are hibernating, most of the vegetation is brown and dry (although the greenbriar is still green and sharp). And we're digging backhoe trenches in some of the highest probability areas we've had on this whole project, right in the western part of the Caddo heartland. One of the crews delineated a site today that included an incised ceramic sherd, which is almost definitely a Caddo artifact.
All the same, I'm going to be wrapped in layers of all my warmest field clothes! I bought a lot of stuff at the REI clearance last year for just such an occasion.

I walk the line again

2008-12-03T19:20:00.000-08:00

Well, sort of. So far I've done some backhoe trenching and some access roads. It's not like the early days in Oklahoma, but somehow it still has been leading to 11 hour days including the post-field work. It seems like there's twice as many forms now, although it's really just that crew chiefs are now doing some of the paperwork that the field director was doing for us before.
Yesterday, I got to be an official Competent Person for the trench excavations, even though I haven't gotten my certificate yet (and I'm really excited about it). I used the tensometer and rated the soils and everything. It really isn't all that exciting. Mostly, as I may have said elsewhere, we've lost our plausible deniability because we know all of the safety issues and standards involved in open excavations.
I haven't seen any Caddo stuff yet, although we're in the Caddo area of Texas. In fact, there's been no cultural materials for my crew so far. Just a lot of walking and driving, and paperwork. Tomorrow will be more of the same, across three counties.
On the other hand, I'm almost in to overtime already, and it beats being in the office! Plus, the hotel room has an LCD TV and lots of cable.

Work is crazy busy

2008-11-25T20:47:00.000-08:00

I finished analyzing the projectile points last Friday, all 281 of them! They were really starting to run together for a while. As I may have mentioned, there's really more like a continuum between point types. Some specimens are the "classic" type that matches the pictures and descriptions. But more fall somewhere between types, having attributes of more than one type. This seems particularly true for some of the less well-defined point types. The reason we do metrics along with nominal traits is to do statistical analysis, and I think a scatter plot of the three main Transitional Archaic types from our site (Frio, Fairland and Ensor) will show a lot of clustering and bleedover.
Since finishing, I've written another short TxDOT report and done a quick background review and started two reports for upcoming San Antonio projects. The client actually wanted my boss to send people out this weekend to do surveys so that they could have their report by next Friday. Note that we JUST received the signed contract and good project area maps this Monday. As it is, I'm going out with Tina and one other person tomorrow to survey the smaller area and as much of the larger area as we can get done in a day. I was really hoping to take tomorrow off, too.
After Thanksgiving, I finally get back on the big pipeline job, for the first time in almost 5 months! We'll be in Sulphur Springs, doing some backhoe trenching and surveying some temporary restraining order properties. I get to use my new backhoe excavation competency training! I also get to train someone in crew chiefing, and then I have to come back to Austin because there's a million other things they need me to do.
I am definitely looking forward to this long weekend.

What's the point?

2008-11-17T21:07:00.001-08:00

So I've spent the better part of the last two weeks at work analyzing projectile points from the Siren site in Williamson County. These are what are commonly referred to as arrowheads. However, while all arrowheads are projectile points, not all projectile points are arrowheads. Until around 600AD in Texas (give or take, and the numbers have been moving older) projectiles were darts, thrown with an atlatl. Then, the bow and arrow technology was introduced and adopted (some say rapidly, some say gradually).
On a tangent, not all projectile points are really projectile points either, as usewear studies have shown that many points were either also used as cutting tool, or only used as cutting tools.
Back to the point (sadly, pun intended), my analysis is partly quantitative (a number of standard dimension metrics) and partly qualitative. This includes things like trying to determine if the point has been thermally altered, and if so, was it intentional. That one is pretty easy, and the most common chert from the site takes on a very distinctive color and lustre and a waxy feel when it's been intentionally heat treated. Other elements include reworking (basically, rejuvenating a worn or broken tool), beveling (which is often a sign of reworking), location of notches, and type of shoulder. In some cases, like basal margin, options include "shallow concave" and "deep concave", with no set definition of the distinction. Since I'm still a relatively junior lithic analyst, this can be hard and at times a bit frustrating. I'm proud that my bosses think I'm capable of this level of work, but I'm still afraid sometimes that I'm doing things wrong. On the other hand, I've already been told that there's not exactly one right way and that 5 different people will look at the same point as many as 5 different ways.
Right now, I've been working on the dart points (although I did change one to an arrow point). I'm about to get into the "Untyped" category, which means I get a crack at trying to identify them as well as analyze them. Nothing like questioning your superiors! Then, the arrowpoints. There's somewhere between 250-300 total points, and I've analyzed 190-odd so far. After that, the 500+ bifaces. And maybe, just maybe, I'll get to spend some time in the field again!

The TAS meetings

2008-11-03T20:37:00.001-08:00

So I said I would blog about this, and it's been a couple weeks. There's nothing else going on in the world, right?
The drive up was eventful. We took SH 71 for the first part, which takes you through Llano. So we get to the bridge across the Llano River, and there's a few emergency vehicles blocking the bridge and diverting traffic. We get close and I notice there's a woman standing on the wrong side of the bridge, and two men are talking to her. We ask the cop if there's another way across the river, and he says "Bridge is closed, you'll have to wait." This is only an hour or so into a 6 hour drive, so waiting was not on our minds. We pulled out our atlas and found a way across. It turned out to be an absolutely amazing road that takes you on this little bridge/low-water crossing west of town. Basically, take RM 152 west until you hit County Road 102. Turn right on CR 102, and that'll take you across the river.
I'll also say that the climb up onto the Llano Estacado through the Caprock Canyonlands was pretty beautiful also. We also got to see some of the wind turbines we surveyed for south of Sweetwater.
Once in Lubbock, we check into the hotel and start drinking, first in our room and then at the hotel bar. Again, this was an archaeological conference, so that's where the action was as far as networking and catching up was. Also checked into the book room and the silent auction room. I picked up a couple of older journals with classic articles. Tina bought a book on cannibalism and got some earrings at the silent auction.
Saturday I caught a few papers. One was by someone I worked with this summer, and it was a good talk. A couple were by my bosses, presenting the final results of the analysis from the dig in Kerrville back in 2004. The wheels of archaeology turn slow! One interesting paper was about a possible source of tektites around Cuero. I think I might have blogged about tektites in Texas before. What was interesting about this was that the dates from the source in Cuero are not the dates for the known strewn field in Texas that is a result of the meteor that created a huge creater in the Chesapeake Bay.
Two other papers have some relations to work I've done or will be doing soon.
One was an experimental archaeological project testing the ability of a bow and arrow to penetrate a medium (deer) or large (bison) animal. They tested 3 different weights of projectile points and 3 different amounts of force, and found that a single hunter would require a relatively heavy projectile being shot with a lot of force to kill a deer with a typical prehistoric Texas bow and arrow, from a set distance. This suggests that in order to kill larger animals (like bison), various hunting strategies would have been necessary. The Perdiz point is associated with large-scale hunting of bison in Texas from 1300AD to 1600AD (known as the Toyah phase), and at the site we dug in Junction we focused on the Toyah phase occupation(s). Pretty soon, I'll be doing the metrics and analyzing the artifacts from that site.
The other paper had to do with tool-stone associated with a specific geologic formation that stretches across parts of Northern Texas and Central Oklahoma. This formation (the Antlers Formation, and I couldn't find any really good links on Google) was actually once the ancient shoreline of North America, hundreds of millions of years ago. The huge Keystone pipeline survey crossed a portion of this formation, and we had a string of sites with lots of lithic artifacts in this area.
So yeah, I got to drink a lot of beer, meet some new people and catch up with some old friends, and I learned stuff! I also found out that Lubbock is really boring and ate almost no vegetables all weekend.

A super quick update

2008-10-30T21:13:00.000-07:00

Work = busy.
Home = preparing for Halloween party.
I got to look at some rocks this week.
I got a raise and a very glowing appraisal from my bosses. And it's not even my annual review.
More this weekend.

More of the same

2008-10-23T20:44:00.001-07:00

I spent all week working on reports. Two of the impact evaluation reports are due tomorrow, including one covering four bridges. Since I'm leaving tomorrow for the Texas Archaeological Society annual meeting in Lubbock, it meant they were due today.
I think my boss was under the impression I had written these before. I've done similar things, but not an actual impact evaluation for TxDOT. I had a template to go by, but I was basically on my own. It was pretty stressful, mostly because of the time constraint. It's also not easy to describe how an area looks and all the pros and cons as far as the archaeological potential. Of the five recommendations I made, three of them got kicked back by my reviewer. The comment on one was basically "this is really well-written and you do an excellent job of detailing why there is no need to survey the area, and then you recommend surveying the area." I thought there might be some potential for a historic site, so I was mostly trying to cover my ass.
So yeah, this weekend I get to challenge my spatial perception by visiting Lubbock. I don't know that I'll be doing much but listening to some papers and drinking beer with my fellow archaeologists. I do know a couple of people up there, so maybe I'll get out and see some stuff (if there's stuff to see). I'm going mainly for networking and to support people I know giving papers. I've been very gung-ho junior exec-type guy lately, partly because I asked for a raise (which I haven't heard anything about yet).
Next week: more impact evaluation reports. Joy. I guess I better blog about the TAs meeting since it's at least something different.

Evaluating impacts

2008-10-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

It's kind of funny to be spending my week looking at bridges that are to be replaced and evaluating the potential for archaeological deposits within the area of potential effects (APE)(which we never say as "ape" but as a.p.e.). In some ways, it's what some would call a reconnaissance survey, where you don't dig but merely inspect the ground surface for artifacts. But in a lot of states, that's pretty much all one does. If there's enough stuff and it looks like there might be features, then you go to test excavations. In our case, even if we don't see artifacts, that doesn't mean that the work is done. We also have to assess the area for levels of disturbance, soils, and other factors that would preclude the APE having the potential for buried archaeological deposits. Ideally, intact, significant archaeological deposits but that's a little more difficult to assess.
Today, for example, we examined three bridges at tributaries or back/flood channels of the Colorado River, in Matagorda County. Two of them were basically built on floodplains with extensive wetland areas, and the entire APE, which consists of the existing highway right-of-way (ROW, which we do say as "row"), was built entirely on imported roadfill. This is to avoid flooding of the roadway. In these cases, it's easy to say "There is no potential for the APE to contain intact archaeological deposits." It's as much as 12 feet of road fill, and the surrounding area is basically marshland and not a preferred setting for human settlement (Western Louisiana not withstanding). One of the crossings, however, crossed a relict terrace of the Colorado River and was situated well above the drainage floodplain. Furthermore, the portion of the road on this terrace did not have a major fill section (it's basically above the normal high water mark). Finally, the ROW was pretty wide in this area, meaning that some portion of the ROW appeared to be intact natural soils that had not been totally disturbed by road construction. Of course, it was blanketed in poison ivy, so I couldn't really examine the ground surface for artifacts. But in my report, I'll have to say that at least a small portion of that bridge project contains at least some potential for buried cultural materials. It's up to the client whether to have a survey done on this minor area or recommend that construction activities in this area avoid the potentially intact ground.
Reading that is about as exciting as doing it, but I've gotten to see a lot of new parts of southeast Texas, for better or worse.

Writing and editing and grey literature

2008-10-09T18:27:00.000-07:00

But really, there hasn't been much exciting archaeological stuff going on in my life. I've been spending much of my time editing our huge Oklahoma survey report. Basically, this entailed addressing the comments that the client's lead archaeologists made, and accepting or rejecting their changes. It actually took a really long time, because the readers had a lot of comments and changes. Among other things, some of the actual project terminology changed after the draft report was written, and so every instance of that was changed. Apparently, "corridor" is a big no-no in the world of pipelines. There is also the matter of one of the readers basically rewriting huge sections of the results chapter and getting the information wrong. She also isn't the strongest writer in the world, and she uses some archaic grammatical rules as well.
I've actually been asked to edit reports a lot recently. I was editor for the entertainment section of the UT newspaper years ago, and I guess I still have some of that in me. I hate run-on sentences (well, at least in professional reports). I don't like when sentences are split. In some of our reports, this happens frequently (note: that was an example). I'm also not a big fan of starting sentences with "Also", "In addition", or "However".
During my time at TxDOT, I got to read a ton of reports, from small surveys to large, multi-volume excavation reports. It's amazing how many of them are poorly written and edited, particularly since many of them are authored by people with graduate degrees. My company's reports are better than most, although we've had some people (who are no longer with us) who made me cringe.
I think it's important for the grey literature of archaeology to be more widely read and distributed. At the same time, I'm not sure that much of it is ready for widespread scrutiny.

On a tangentially related note, I've received my diploma. My thesis is also listed in the UT Library Online Catalog.

So now what?

2008-08-26T20:29:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to decide if the best song to use as the theme for this is Slack Motherfucker by Superchunk or I Don't Know What to Do With My Life by The Buzzcocks.
I finished, almost two weeks ago. I graduated last Monday officially, although my status hasn't changed online and I don't get a diploma for a few more weeks. My mom was here for the weekend that I was done, and she took me out to dinner at The Belmont to celebrate (by the way, very good food and a nice atmosphere and not all that expensive for what it is. Try it!). We also went to Dan's for a get-together and a birthday party for some co-workers. Since then, I basically spent a good week working, drinking beer and watching the Olympics until bedtime. I played some video games. I did go to Dan and Chad's for dinner and some movies, which was good because I think I was needing some company but was not making the effort. I also have finally peeled myself off the couch/computer to work out a couple of time.
Not having something to do, even though I spent a LOT of time not doing, feels uncomfortable. I'm almost chafing at the feeling of freedom, missing the little feeling of guilty mischief I felt doing things that weren't my thesis. A part of me wanted to go on an epic drunk, like I always thought I would do back in college when I was really into Barfly. I can't exactly say why I didn't, except that I think I was feeling too much ennui to do it.
I think part of the problem is that Tina has been gone since I've finished. I think having someone around to talk to makes you feel like you're doing something even when you're doing nothing. I guess there's also more things to do when you have someone to do them with.
It really would have been nice to be out in the field right now, but I've been office bound. Unfortuntely, now that I have the advanced degree (and I'll soon be turning in official change of status forms and bucking for a raise/promotion) I'll be spending more time in the office writing and less time in the field digging. Maybe not, they're going to be pulling me out of TxDOT soon, which means I can go on multiple week projects again. I missed out on a lot of money because of the TxDOT gig this summer.
I realized recently (and maybe I mentioned it here before) that in many ways I'm almost back where I was 5 years ago: working all day staring at a computer in a windowless cubicle. One of the reasons I love archaeology so much is because it's such a change from that soul-sucking existence. It's certainly a hell of a lot better sitting at a desk at SWCA working on a report and getting a co-author credit than it was sitting at the Texan slapping together ads. But it's almost like a phantom limb. Sometimes I get a sensation of something that's no longer there, but I still feel it very deeply.
That's where I stand right now. I'm sure I'll figure something to do before too long. I also hear I might be back in Oklahoma next week. Who would have thought I'd be excited about the possibility of going to Oklahoma!

Consider it defended!

2008-08-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

I said I would try and keep up this week with updates on the thesis countdown.
The defense went very smoothly. I ended up presenting for at least 20 minutes and maybe closer to 30 (those who know me know how I can ramble). I only had a few simple questions, and my advisor had already tipped me off about his. Both professors had a lot of praise for me, which felt great.
Funny thing: I was way more nervous before my Spanish oral exam earlier this year.
I now have all the signatures on all the forms as far as I can tell. I'm about to print my abstract to the 25% cotton bond paper. Tomorrow, I'll make the minor edits suggested by my second reader (and they're very small, which is why I'm going to do it tomorrow). I'll make a pdf file and burn it to a CD, and sometime tomorrow late morning or early afternoon I'm going to turn it all in. That leaves me 2 full days to take care of anything I somehow missed.
I'm still pretty full of nervous energy. I think I'm going to be pretty exhausted by the time my mom gets here this weekend.

Another step closer

2008-08-11T21:50:00.001-07:00

Met with my advisor today, and went over my draft thesis. He only made minor edits, almost all involving consistency errors in using numerals versus words (as in 5 times in three pages I switched back and forth). He said the content is good. I actually made all of the corrections and edits in about 45 minutes.
So I defend at 2:00 tomorrow/today (Tuesday). I have to prepare a 10-20 minute presentation, and then take a few simple questions. My other reader will also give my his comments, which he says are minor. Conceivably, I'll have this ready to turn in on Wednesday...
I decided to be lazy and watch the Olympics tonight. If only they could have started one week later! The mens 4x100 freestyle relay had to have been the greatest swim race of all time. If you missed it, you have to track it down online NOW. I was on my feet yelling and cheering for the last 25 meters. It's also a treat watching the merman Michael Phelps just destroy record after record. I know I'm cynical about politics and not a rah-rah patriotic guy, but I do love the Olympics, and I cheer for my country.
Time to work on the Power Point. I'll probably end up using a vacation day tomorrow at this point. Maybe not a bad idea, just to make sure everything is 100% ready to go.

The Kinks said it best

2008-08-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

Oh so, tired of waiting...
My professors are getting back into Austin this weekend, and next week I will finally receive my edits and comments, have my thesis defense, get my signatures and finish the thesis once and for all! This week has been sitting on pins and needles, feeling like there should be something I can do but knowing that there really is not, that it's completely out of my hands at the moment.
We had a handyman come in and fix the leak in the porch roof and replace some water-stained drywall. It was not cheap, but once I saw what the roof looked like from up top and how close the small leak was to becoming a big hole, I was glad. I'm just about out of sick hours, and have even been taking work home to try and make up some hours.
The field crews are going back to Oklahoma on Monday. Tina is going with them, and will likely be gone for three weeks. I wish I was going too, not just to be with her but because I actually miss being in the field with those guys. I miss the exercise, and I definitely miss the money. Writing about the Oklahoma survey (which is what I've been doing this week) is not nearly the same.
I've been able to spend some time hanging out with friends, basically just drinking beer and relaxing. I also caught The Dark Knight, which was indeed great. I think I'd like to see it again. I must admit that I was actually a little more blown away by The Watchmen trailer. I do have a bit of comic book fanboy in me.
Saturday I'm heading to Dallas with Tina, Dan and Staci to Ozzfest. We're getting in courtesy of The Sword and Metallica. Yeah, I'm on Metallica's guest list. I don't even know or care about most of the bands on the bill, but I'm excited to see Ozzy and Metallica finally and it'll be superfun people watching.
That's about it. I'm sure there'll be some updates next week as the ball starts rolling again and the clock counts down to zero hour.

New photos on Flickr

2008-08-02T13:24:00.001-07:00

site 3 overview
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

So I've been at somewhat of a loss what to do with myself since I turned in my thesis draft. I cleared two major bureaucratic hurdles, I went through my draft and fixed all the dumb little mistakes, I even cleaned up one of my figures.
Today, I got my car's A/C fixed (it's been tough driving the last couple weeks!) and did some cleaning. Plus, I finally got around to posting some of the photos I took during the Hill Country survey I did two weeks ago. So check them out and stay tuned for more news about my thesis!

My life as a Spaghetti Western

2008-07-28T21:49:00.001-07:00

The good: I just emailed the complete draft of my thesis to my readers. Took a day off from work to finish it, but I had some hours saved from last week, so it was mostly billable.
The bad: There are still formatting issues, MAJOR bureaucratic hurdles and hoops to jump, and only a short amount of time to do it all.
The ugly: My eating habits, my stress level, the heat outside.

It'll all be worth it for a few dollars more...

Back!

2008-07-25T17:10:00.001-07:00

And it's no secret. I was tooling around the Hill Country the last couple of days, staying in hotels which did not have internet access (which wouldn't bother John McCain, as he doesn't use computers), eating lots of good homestyle food. We lost a few hours yesterday to Hurricane Dolly, which basically had one of it's massive bands of rain going over Bandera County for hours and hours.
By the way, if you haven't been to Bandera County, it's absolutely beautiful. I think Bandera is a pretty fun little town to stay in, as they try and maintain a sort of outlaw country feel to the place. Today we were surveying around Tarpley, which has some really great hill peaks to go with the regular stunning hill country scenery. We also found a pretty cool little site there.
Anyhow, I ended up working a few extra hours this week, and since there's not overtime for this job, I can pool my hours for next week. I know it's not exactly right or fair, but that's how it is. So I'll be able to take a day off next week (after working a few more hours tomorrow to wrap stuff up) and finish the thesis. This weekend is pretty much out as Tina is finally back from East Texas and I'm going to hang out with friends I haven't seen for a while. And, at some point, add some entries to the food blog.

Laying low

2008-07-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

So I've secretly (or maybe not) been back in Austin since last Wednesday afternoon. I've been pretty much a home/workbody since then, with a couple of exceptions. I went to a "last day of work" Happy Hour for my friend Carolyn, and a housewarming party for my friends Shelly and Kirsten (all of the above are fellow archaeologists and/or archaeology students). I also went to lunch with Carolyn at Roaring Fork (good, but pricy) to help her rate the food for a restaurant review. Other than that (and I guess it sounds like a lot), I've only been out to do errands.
I'm not really used to being in the afternoon heat. I know it sounds funny with my job and all, but we were working really early so that we could be done by 3 at the latest (with a couple of exceptions), and the time in East Texas was marked by even earlier departures most days. By the time the full heat of the day was in effect, I was in a hotel room, showered, drinking beer and working on paperwork or watching TV. I guess it makes sense that even though I'm here now, that's all I pretty much want to do after work as well. The a/c in my car also needs a tuneup, so it's almost unbearably hot being in there unless I'm on the highway. I guess I should take it in.
I can't say that I've gotten much accomplished besides some cleaning, some laundry, and getting through most of a tremendous backlog of magazines. I listened to some of the albums I bought when I was here last. I've given my cat a lot of attention, although I still don't know that it's enough for her or that it makes up for all the time I've been gone.
Tonight, though, I got to a point where the ennui was getting stifling and I realized I need to get my shit together because time is getting tight for the thesis. One good thing about the housewarming was talking with people who worked on the project and have worked there since. Not only did I get a chance to share some ideas, but I also learned that my understanding of the location of some of the later excavations was not correct. Now I have a chance to fix that before I submit the draft, and it doesn't really affect my argument at all. (EDIT: I just looked and I actually had it right already!)
Wednesday I get to go survey in the Hill Country for a couple of days. Wednesday night we stay in Comfort (Texas, that is), and Thursday is Bandera, which is a pretty cool little town. Even if it's hot (and restricted to the side of the highway right-of-way), I'll always enjoy getting paid to hike around the Hill Country.
So where in the hell am I? Austin, by god, Texas, sitting at my desk with my kitty curled up in the spot she sits while I'm writing on the computer, listening to classical music and eating ginger snaps.

I know, I know

2008-07-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

But if YOU knew how busy I've been...
Like, for example, I'm now in Oklahoma.
I worked a 13 hour field day today, and am only taking a break from working on the office portion.
I didn't eat dinner because I didn't want to once again eat a big heavy meal at 9pm and turn into a big heavy me.
This project is just mayhem at this point. I get nervous when things go smoothly, because we're basically operating in near-crisis mode as the norm.
I get to be in TxDOT Thursday and Friday and it's going to feel like a working vacation.
And I fear that I'll be right back out on Sunday.
My bank account is happy, my tummy is sad, our kitty probably hates us, I'm happy because I'm doing a really good job at my first big test, I'm worried because this schedule doesn't leave much time for a thesis or a thesis defense, and I miss my friends and my city.
Sorry, break is over.

Oh, Beaumont

2008-07-07T19:03:00.000-07:00

How I missed thee so...
Today we tried to go into the field, but the GPS machines weren't set up right. Normally, this would be something to freak out about, but for this project, it's just another typical snafu, in the true sense of the word.
Tomorrow, my crew is doing a section in Port Arthur, pretty much right at the end of the 1250 mile pipeline. The civil survey crew apparently spotted some gators on our line, which makes things, um, interesting I guess?
Beaumont has a nice, big HEB Plus. I couldn't understand a damn thing the checkout people were saying to me, but the store was pretty nice. It also has a lot of fast food places but not many local joints that we could find. It also has one of the worst Mexican food restaurants I've ever had the misfortune of eating at. I'll write about that on the food blog sometime in the next couple days. I have to start winding down since we're leaving for a safety meeting at 6:15 am.

Time is flying

2008-07-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

So I've been back from Oklahoma for about a week now. Worked 4 days in the office dealing with site forms and logistics for the Texas portion we're about to do. I was under the impression all week that I would be staying in Austin to do my stints at TxDOT. That was until around noon yesterday, when my boss managed to convince them to change my times there. So now I'm heading out to Beaumont on Monday to survey for 10 days. It's good money, but I've been in Beaumont in July before and it's pretty brutal. And that's WITHOUT steel toed boots and the brain broiler helmets.
I have enjoyed my time back. I've gotten to relax a lot, spend quality time with the kitty, hang out with friends, eat good food and drink a lot of Lone Star. We went and saw Wall-E on Wednesday, and it was a very good movie with a super cute main character. Then again, I'm a sucker for robots. Pixar has made some great, sly liberal agit-prop movies. Wall-E was a kinder, gentler Idiocracy.
Today I get to enjoy one of my favorite holidays, because it's time for Dan's BBQ! I think this is the 7th consecutive year. Meat will be grilled and much beer will be imbibed!
Tomorrow, if you're not already planning on it or involved in it, go to the Friendly Friends Fantasically Farraginous Fest at End of an Ear. I think I'm going swimming at someone's subdivision pool first.
Oh yeah, I saw a copperhead in Oklahoma! I imagine I'll need more than two hands to count all the water moccasins in East Texas, but that's for a future post.

Home again soon, briefly

2008-06-22T11:13:00.000-07:00

The good news is that we're almost finished with the initial part of the Oklahoma survey! Barring anything crazy happening (which is probably jinxing myself, but it includes finding lots of sites so that would be okay), we'll be heading back to Austin on Friday. This is much earlier than we originally anticipated.
The bad news (well, sort of) is that we picked up three counties of the Texas portion of the survey, plus a lateral off the pipeline. They want us to start on this July 7. So I'll be heading back to good ol' East Texas in a couple of weeks. Or maybe back to Oklahoma for backhoe trenching. Either way, I'll only be back for 10 days or so.
I'm excited because now I'll be back for July 4th weekend, which is one of my favorite holidays just because my friends always manage to have a kickass BBQ and there's an art show added on this time.
Anyway, I'm tired of sitting in the hotel lobby and want to get over to Sherman (yay, Texas!) for a while. Hopefully they'll have the broken wireless fixed soon.

Lots of walking today

2008-06-19T16:44:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking, Oklahoma is very linear. There are county roads running north to south and east to west almost every mile. When you are doing a very long linear survey, this is helpful. You can break your survey stretches up into small, manageable chunks and often arrange it so that you are always walking towards an awaiting vehicle. Sometimes, there's creeks that are impassable or reticent landowners and you have to do a "walk-in, walk-out".
Today, there were simply no roads. It was a stretch leading up to the Little River (and yes, some of us older folks made Little River Band jokes, and coincidentally, they played a show at a casino here last week!) across a stretch without all the county roads. Because of access issues, the nearest entry point was about 2.8 miles along the pipeline route from the Little River. We were able to score a ride on an ATV part of the way with one of the civil survey crews (they basically stake the line), but it wasn't quite half way there. My crew was chosen to walk the rest of the way to the river, THEN turn around and start surveying back. We would meet up somewhere in the middle with a second crew who was surveying towards us from the drop-off point. A third (very lucky) crew got to survey to the road from the drop-off point.
So, in summary, get dropped off and then walk almost a mile and a half to the river. Start surveying. When you meet the other crew, walk the rest of the distance back to the road. Total miles covered: roughly 4.3. Actual miles surveyed by my crew: .6. Oh yeah, and it was in an undulating terrains, which means lots of little up and downs into creek tributaries. And the grass was knee-to-waist high.
We did find a site, pretty much where we expected one to be. Nothing exciting, just a bunch of flakes and a bit of burned sandstone. It almost made up for the hike.
The amazing thing is that we covered all this terrain in around 5.5 hours of actual field time. We actually got done early, and decided to just call it a day. Tonight we're having a full crew dinner at a BBQ joint, then tomorrow we're moving down to Durant for the final stretch.

Oh, I do have to add...I did almost ask my boss to "Take it Easy on Me"

Another rain day

2008-06-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

It rained here in Ada (and central OK in general) all morning. It's clearing up now, but it was pouring for a while so we scrapped going out for the day. Too bad, as it's in the mid-60s outside. If we can make it through the rest of the day with no rain, it may be a pleasant day for survey tomorrow.
Considering the crazy weather of the last couple of months, the fact that we've only lost 2.5 days of work to rain over a month is really good. With the exception of last Monday and today, the worst storms either dodge us or pass through in the night.
Spent most of last week in Austin, sweating my butt off and spending money like a sailor on leave. Got to hang out with a lot of people, which was very nice. I also saw Afrika Bambataa at my friend's record store! And ate breakfast tacos on more than one occasion.
The Oklahoma survey is proceeding rapidly. We've made it up to milepost 110 out of a total 158. Of course, there are a number of gaps in there where the landowners have denied access, but we've still surveyed at least 80 total miles. After this week, they're probably going to reduce our group by one full crew. We have a couple of people leaving for field school in Belize, so it really only means that one crew member and one crew chief will be leaving, and there's plenty of other work waiting at the office. If I'm sent home, I'll probably be in Louisiana before too long, wading through the bayou.
Now, to work on my thesis for a while.

Movin' on up!

2008-06-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the last night in Stroud. We're driving almost 50 miles to get to our survey area right now, which means that 2 hours each day is devoted to drive time. So we're moving down to Ada, which is pretty well centered for the next 50 miles or so of survey. It's also a much bigger town, with a movie theater very close to the hotel. We'll also have microwaves and refrigerators, which means I can get a little bit closer to my regular dietary routine.
I did find out something interesting about Stroud tonight. There's a huge concrete foundation behind our hotel, just up a small hill. It's visible on Google Maps. Apparently, this was the location of a huge outlet mall which was completely flattened by tornado some years back. There've been a number of tornado watches and warnings north and west of here the last few weeks, and the tornado watch siren went off the second or third night we were here. I know this has already been a crazy year for severe weather (Bruce Sterling's Heavy Weather, maybe?), and Oklahoma seems to be right in the path of it all. So maybe there's another positive to moving 60 miles to the south.
We found a site today, by Wewoka Creek. Not sure how big it is yet, so far it's just two surface finds and a positive shovel test on a nice little sandy rise. I didn't see the whole shovel test, as I was setting up other people's spots, but there was apparently a lot of burned sandstone at one point, suggesting there may be a hearth or other burned rock feature. I don't know how much of it we'll dig up, though, probably just enough to know the site extents and whether it's significant enough to avoid. Such is the nature of most pipeline surveys.
Not much else is new. Still lots of ticks and poison ivy out there. Saw some deer today. Oh yeah, I also put some new pictures up on Flickr, including a great portrait of me in action.

Survey machines

2008-06-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

Today my crew covered 3.5 miles, AND we finished early. Most of it was through hayfields and pastures, and we only needed a few shovel tests each mile. Best of all, we didn't find anything. I know that sounds funny coming from an archaeologist, but some days you'd rather find nothing instead of having to spend a lot of time recording a minor trash scatter (or even a non-diagnostic prehistoric lithic scatter).
Yesterday, we did go back and record the two sites we found on Saturday. One of them was nothing, and I would have been okay to just call it a mistake, as the artifacts were questionable, but we had forms started and then someone found some historic glass nearby and so we had to go through with it. The site closer to the river was better, as we turned up a couple more chipped stone tools (nothing too nice and not diagnostic) and a couple of groundstone tools as well. Still not a major site, but it was a nice change of pace.
The other crew found a late-19th and early 20th century cemetery. It was covered in brush and poison ivy and had apparently been partially bulldozed. It's possible that there's more burial than there are markers left. I also heard it may be Native American, but I really don't know, as it wasn't on one of our stretches.
Tomorrow we've got a major challenge. My crew is going out on a one-mile stretch with a crew of biologists and one of the general survey crews. We only have access to this for one day, so if we find any sites, we have to record them and keep going. It's also a walk-in, walk-out, so that it's actually a two-mile walk. If we're lucky, we don't find anything or just a small site. But it's a nice sandy stretch by a major river, so it's possible that we'll be very busy. I'm going to have my crew spend some time in the morning filling out a lot of the information on their forms, to save as much time as possible.
I'm definitely looking forward to my break.

Day off

2008-06-01T09:26:00.000-07:00

And I need it. Despite it being S-A-T-UR-DAY NIGHT last night, I was asleep by about 10:30. I even had a 6-pack of Lone Star (an import up here!) chilling in my cooler. Woke up on my own about 7:40, feeling rather refreshed. Went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast (2 eggs, hashbrowns, thick-cut bacon and toast for $2.99), then to the laundromat to wash the stinky, poison-ivy covered field clothes. A lot of folks are headed to Tulsa for the day, to check out a museum or just do some shopping at a real grocery store and maybe catch a movie.
I, on the other hand, am going to Oklahoma City to pick up one of my crew members at the airport. I'm also shopping for some snake guards (for the crew), field pants (for me), and groceries at the health food store and the Super Target. I'm hoping to maybe find a thrift store and pick up a cheap microwave. They're 30 bucks at the pawn shop here in Stroud.
Yesterday was a good day. It was mostly open prairie, and while it was really hot it was also pretty dry. I found a projectile point in the two-track road almost immediately, pretty much right where we predicted there would be a site. We didn't spend much time there, since our goal for the day was miles and not sites, but we'll be back. Also found a second site about half a mile in, along a small creek. We finished that 2.1 mile stretch 30 minutes before the anticipated time, so we drove a few miles down the road to survey another stretch. This was a hilly stretch with a lot of wooded areas. Even though it was only 1.25 miles, it was a lot harder because of the dense understory. Lots of thorny plants. All told, we covered 3.35 miles in a day, which was our best day so far.
I have a small patch of poison ivy on my right arm. I figured out it was from resting my arm on my pants while crouching after taking off my long sleeved shirt. Doh! My main nemesis these days is the biting gnats which swarm in the wooded areas. Both of my ears are red and slightly cauliflowered from gnat bites. I look like I just got done with a rugby game or boxing match.
I'm definitely looking forward to my break in Austin in 10 days. I need to eat some healthy, home-cooked meals!

Long weeks

2008-05-30T18:39:00.001-07:00

Ten hours a day, six days a week is very tiring. Today our actual field time was only a little over 6 hours. During that time, we covered 2.1 miles of survey corridor, which was mostly going up and down small hills. There was also the usual poison ivy, ticks, chiggers, and biting gnats. My crew also had their first snake spotting (not me personally) and someone was almost chased by an aggressive, protective mother cow.
Our two crews have surveyed roughly 25 miles of the 180 total. We've recorded 5 or 6 archaeological sites and 3 or 4 historic-aged standing structures. My crew has also recorded a stretch of old Route 66 (mentioned in the last post) and foundation remains and artifacts related to an abandoned oil boom town that was originally an early 20th century black community.
We've been earning our OT. I think we're all tired and sore. We all have various bug bites, rashes, blisters or tender spots. Actually, one of our techs has been out all week with severe blisters on her ankles and achilles. The doctor even gave her antibiotics.
So tomorrow my crew is doing two miles just south of the North Fork of the Canadian River. The other crew found 3 prehistoric sites in the same setting to the north, so we're hopeful to find something cool and interesting. Either way, it will be a long hot day.

Go here for some kicks

2008-05-28T08:02:00.001-07:00

old Rte 66 roadbed
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

A portion of the old Route 66 roadbed crosses our survey corridor. Interestingly, it shows up on Google Maps, even though it's not an active road and a lot of it it destroyed and overgrown. We recorded the location for the client and took a few photos.
I uploaded a few more pictures from the project so far onto my Flickr page.
Woke up this morning to heavy rain and thunderstorms. Right now it's sunny, but we're waiting until noon to give all the storms a chance to pass or break up before we try and go into the field. I drank too much coffee to take a nap, so I'm finally getting to catch up a bit on photos and blog. I'll probably even tap on my thesis a little bit. And this is all at least partially on the clock.
I don't think I mentioned that I got a performance review right before we left for Oklahoma, where I got a bit of a promotion and a small raise. I'm now officially a crew-chief level archaeologist, rather than a senior field tech. A lot of added responsibilities, but I'm happy.

So busy

2008-05-27T19:55:00.000-07:00

I've been working like 12 hours a day. Throw in showers and eating and just keeping up with basic day-to-day online stuff and phone calls, and it doesn't leave much time to get a good night's sleep. Especially if the tornado watch alarm goes off in the middle of the night again. Last night was actually the first time we've gotten any of the rain and storms that have been pounding Oklahoma, as they've been passing to the north or breaking up before they get here.
I've been walking somewhere between 4-6 miles a day. My legs and feet are a little sore, but only my left big toe has been suffering in the steel toed boots so far. They're actually rather comfortable and only feel heavy late in the afternoon.
We haven't found much yet. One small 1940s-50s trash dump in the middle of the woods, one recently abandoned 1930s house, and one area that may be the remains of a 1940s WPA workcamp. That one we're not sure of yet. Nothing prehistoric in the slightest.
Last weekend we stayed at the worst hotel I've ever spent the night in outside of Mexico. Some of the well-seasoned field techs who've been doing CRM work for years and years said it's the worst place they've ever seen. So if you somehow end up in Shawnee, Oklahoma, DO NOT stay at the Cinderella Inn. Keep driving, sleep in your car in a better part of town, or something.
I'll try and expound and get some more photos up tomorrow, as the Benadryl is starting to kick in.
Where in the hell am I? Stroud, Oklahoma. For 2 more weeks...

Dressed for success

2008-05-21T20:33:00.001-07:00

Oklahoma survey gear
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

So this is me in all my safety gear (aka Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE). The hard hat has a styrofoam insert inside so that it resists side impacts as well. It also makes it heavier and more uncomfortable. I'm glad I went ahead and got prescription safety glasses, although the side shields mess with my peripheral vision a little bit. My boots (not in the picture) are about as comfortable as one would expect from tall, steel-toed boots that aren't really meant for hiking around in. The fishing shirts are nice, and I don't know why I didn't get some of those sooner.
Still trying to learn the ropes and get the hang of all the new protocols here. Had a short field day today and only got a small section done. Apparently, access issues have been a big problem, as most landowners would like 48 hours notice before we survey on their land. This is a little more advance planning than normal, but we'll adjust as best as possible.
Making this short to try and get some sleep, but there will be some interesting stuff soon...

Oklahoma or bust

2008-05-19T21:00:00.000-07:00

Well, we got the go-ahead to go to Oklahoma, starting tomorrow. It has been an insanely stressful insanely busy last couple of weeks, and that's without even dwelling on my thesis. Right now, I'm waiting for the last of my new lightweight, wicking, long-sleeve field shirts to dry. I bought 4 of them, since I'll probably be needing to wear a new one every day because of poison ivy. I also bought a kick-ass pair of waterproof, steel-toed boots (which I can't find on the Red Wing site to link to), and prescription safety glasses. It's all stuff I will need again in the future, and we got a stipend towards the boots.
Looks like we'll be staying in small towns as close to the pipeline corridor as possible. I think the only requirement is that the hotel has internet access. I'm not so excited about this, as I was hoping we could stay at one central spot (preferably one in a decent-sized town with a real grocery store and a movie theater).
I have not had time to review our standard operating procedure documents, so I'll probably be doing that on the trip up tomorrow and in the hotel room later. The client is very specific about how they want things done as far as recording things.
Anyway, there will be some updates from Oklahoma, although they'll probably be pretty brief. I'll be trying to finish my thesis on our Sundays off, and maybe if I can squeeze in an hour here or there. And I'll be in Austin for a week in mid-June for a break.

Crazy already

2008-05-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

We're not actually going to Oklahoma until next week, and it's already crazy. We endured 2 days of safety meetings last Thursday and Friday. They fed us well and we got some overtime for the drive back, so I can't complain too much. This week, there's lots of logistical things and practicing with the fancy GPS units that we won't even get until tomorrow afternoon and trying to get everything that's pending done before half our office leaves. And I still have to go to Louisiana and back, which will eat up all of Wednesday and Thursday.
Plus the thesis, which is not going to be done by this Friday. And my poor kitty has a urinary tract infection so we have to watch her closely and give her special food so we can sneak in the medicine. She's in the painful "working it out" stage so she's trying to go to the bathroom like every 15 minutes and not drinking much water. I ended up buying some low-sodium chicken broth (and watering it down) to get some liquids in her.
This weekend, we went straight from Houston to a co-worker's wedding weekend at the Canyon of the Eagles lodge and nature park. It was a nice place to spend a weekend with a bunch of people, although all I really did was drink a lot of beer and go to the wedding and reception. The park was nice and there's a place to take a cruise or do kayaking. I will try and get out there again sometime.
So this weekend I need to spend time with my wife (who is currently out of town again), try and hang out with my friends, go to Chaos in Tejas on Saturday night, see Prince Caspian with said wifey before I leave. Oh, and pack for a long trip.
I also need to buy some long-sleeve wicking shirts and fancy steel-toed boots, and maybe try and get some prescription side-shield safety glasses. But I might try and find some time for that during the week. Too bad I can 't get those at some place open past 9.
I don't know if it makes you tired and stressed out, but just writing this made my shoulders tighten.

It's getting closer

2008-05-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we head to Houston in the afternoon so that we can start our two-day safety seminar and kick-off meeting for the big Oklahoma pipeline job (I'll be calling you, St. Murse) . They're putting us up in the Renaissance Hotel near the Galleria and feeding us breakfast and lunch. I think we might even have to get paid overtime for our drive back Friday afternoon. I'm definitely going to be one of the three crew chiefs, overseeing 3 people on my crew. I apparently have to take an online CPR class at some point in the next couple of weeks (paid, of course).
We may be leaving as soon as the 19th. I was told there's going to be a rotation of 2 weeks on, 1 week off to prevent burnout. Of course, this means one crew will work the first 4 weeks. That might also change if we somehow are unable to field enough crew members to have a 4th team.
So yeah, I'll be summering in Oklahoma, very soon. There might be a BBQ before I go.
Did a short survey today in San Antonio. I think it took longer to drive there and back than it did for the actual survey. In addition to the usual golf balls (I think I might have blogged about this before) I found a golf club today. So we gathered up a bunch of the golf balls and smacked a few of them off the top of the hill. I actually got a couple of pretty good shots, but I think the extent of my golfing career will be limited to mini golf and the occasional driving practice in the field with found golf balls (I kept the 4-iron)

Peek a boo!

2008-05-01T21:14:00.001-07:00

gator
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

Yeah, we finally saw a gator Wednesday. We knew it was a possibility, but it was pretty exciting when we finally saw one. Definitely glad that there was a 5-foot high levee between us.
Later on that night, I went and ate one of his kin. First time I've had alligator. It was pretty yummy, kind of like a chewy chicken with just a hint of fishy flavor. The restaurant we ate at was good, but I'll blog on the food blog about that some other time.
We've already worked a 40 hour week, and still have a long day tomorrow (since we decided to just go ahead and drive back tomorrow after work). Haven't found a damn thing. Lots of driving, too. The truck has satellite radio, so it's not bad at all.

Spacebeer's meme

2008-04-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
This is the kind of meme I can be down with, even if it buries my snake picture.
This is a list of the top 106 books tagged "unread" on Librarything.
Here is the plan:
Bold = I've read it for fun
Underline = I read it for school
Italics = I started it but didn't finish
Asterisk = I own it, but haven't read it

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights (I've heard the Kate Bush song a thousand times, does that count?)
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick*
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov*
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged (I think they might have tried to make me read this in school)
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian: a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera (I might have read this, I don't remember)
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula [actually reading right now] (I copied this from Kristy and don't have to change it!)
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury (Ohhh, it was a struggle to finish too)
Angela’s Ashes: a memoir* (He was a teacher at my high school)
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States: 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter*
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: a novel
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye (Don't get me started...)
On The Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In Cold Blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Ha, I'm not well read in the classics or in "modern literature", which is funny because I read all the time.

Is to mock a sin?

2008-04-29T19:06:00.001-07:00

water moccasin
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

If I told you how close we were to this snake without noticing, and for how long, you'd be freaked out (no more than 15 feet, for at least 5 minutes, and we actually had walked right past it). Tina was wearing snake boots and I had my snake guards on, but this snake was resting after eating something, maybe some eggs. Tina thought it was dead, so I poked at it with my shovel handle, and it didn't move. Then I tossed a piece of bark at it, and it twitched, so we knew it was alive. Then, suddenly, it turned 90 degrees and took off in the other direction. I always think that I could react in time if I noticed a snake coming at me (as opposed to being blindsided like the damn rattler), but that sucker was really fast and I think it would have been a close call.
The main highlights of this job have been shallow shovel tests, long hours (meaning overtime), seeing Tina again, and FRESH BLACKBERRIES! There are blackberry bushes all over the place in our survey areas, and they are big and ripe and delicious. Yesterday, my afternoon snack consisted of a bunch of blackberries. We're thinking about filling a plastic container or two the day before we leave so we can take them back to Austin and make cobbler.
Not finding a lot of time to work on the thesis (although I'm working on it right now while Tina watches some horrific chick flick on HBO) but i should have Chapter 2 finally finished by the end of the week.

mr. nice guy

2008-04-24T21:18:00.001-07:00

So one of my sources (which I'm currently discussing in the work-in-progress) is a master's thesis by someone I don't know, but who is friends with friends of mine at UT. Her work is directly relevant to my thesis, and the excavation actually took place the summer of 2004, after I left Belize for Texas and CRM.
I'm trying to be very nice in my discussion of it, but the thing is...it's not a very good thesis, and I don't really agree with her interpretation of the excavation results. I'm trying to dance around this in the text, because I can fully relate to the time issues she experienced, but I don't think that's the ultimate issue.
I'm not trying to rock any boats with this thesis, because it's honestly not a subject I'm interested in at all, and therefore I have no desire to be pulled into the debates. I also know that there are some pretty big weaknesses in my own work that I can't fix due to data issues.
I just feel like this person had a fixed idea of what they were looking at and interpreted their limited data set to demonstrate that their idea was right. I'm going to have to make a least a passing mention of my problems with the interpretations of the data, because otherwise I'd feel like I was tacitly endorsing it.
And hope it doesn't come back to bite me in the ass.

Oh yeah, almost 2 pages written today during slow times at work, plus the image fixes. Of course, I then waited until almost 10 to get back at it...

...and one

2008-04-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

Yep, met my goal, plus a page, plus I dropped in a figure and cleaned up a little bit of the introduction (which I think still needs just a little more work). Including figures and tables (and not counting 2 full page figures) I'm almost at 45 pages.
I think I might be able to sneak in a little time at work tomorrow to resize those full page images to a suitable dimensions to be added to the formatted document. Probably not time for much else, as the new every-other-week schedule at TxDOT keeps me a lot busier while I'm there.
I'm finding that I have to really really push myself to write while it's light out. I'm not going to totally stop trying (because I can't stay up past 2am every night) but I'm also not going to feel really guilty if I decide to read a magazine for a while instead, or sit with Kit Kat.
My goal for tomorrow is 4 pages. I'll have to tape my shows, but that saves me even more time in the long run. If I hit that goal, I think I'll be pretty close to having Chapter 2 completed!

Slackass

2008-04-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

So I haven't been up to working lately. Well, yesterday I did about a page and a half, but considering I took the day off from work (it was a state holiday so TxDOT was empty) that's not really good. I'm up to 11 pages in Chapter 2, which is longer than I thought it would be when I started. When all is said and done, it might be as long as 20. It's an important chapter, as it lays the groundwork for the layout and the analysis of the excavations. It also is important to demonstrate a familiarity with major sources related to my project. On the other hand, there are some things in the chapter that are only peripherally related that might be trimmed out in rewrite.
Had a great day on the party boat Saturday. The weather was perfect, the boat was decent, and there was lots of beer and nice people. Didn't get the tan I was hoping for, but that's the only downside.
I'm setting a 2-page goal for tomorrow.

Productive day

2008-04-18T22:16:00.000-07:00

I was finally able to get a day off from work today. I finished my draft report and FedEx'd it off to the client before leaving on Thursday. It took all day to get it wrapped up, which was unfortunate because I was really hoping to only work a couple of hours. It also drained me, and the Screwdriver I had to calm down when I got home went straight to my head. So I didn't really get anything done Thursday night, even though Tina had gone out so I could be alone to write.
Today, however, was a good day. I only slept in until a little after 8, took a shower, ate some breakfast, and got to it. I took breaks to eat lunch, to wash some dishes, and to put away laundry that was left in the dryer overnight and make the bed. By the time Tina got home, a little after 5, I had written about 5 and a half pages! Those are all text, 1.5 spaces with the exception of the numerous single spaced block quotes.
I took a few hours after to hang out with Tina. I drank some beers and we ate dinner and watched the Thursday NBC shows that I taped and The L Word on DVD. I got back to work around 10:30, and finished up the half page. So 6 pages today, a little over 9 pages in Chapter 2 and notes on where to proceed.
Weekend looks full, though. My friend Carolyn called to invite Tina and I on a party boat tomorrow afternoon. Since drinking and sun will be involved, I'd say the odds of me working afterwards are slim. Sunday Tina and I will celebrate our 2-year anniversary a day early, as she's going out of town on Monday (the actual day). Brunch reservations at Chez Zee, then seeing Forgetting Sarah Marshall at the Alamo Drafthouse.
Next week I'm at TxDOT and Tina is out of town (as mentioned above). I'd say the odds are terrific for finishing Chapter 2 and making a lot of headway on Chapter 4. It's not out of the realm of possibility that I actually finish it up next week. The deadline to get all my shit in for spring graduation is May 2, which would be cutting it extremely close, and I'm not getting any sort of hopes up for that.

Beware of HPOs

2008-04-16T21:21:00.000-07:00

I've been writing a survey report at work all week. I finished my draft yesterday before leaving work, hoping to make a few quick edits this morning and be done with it. Once I get the final draft approved and ready to be sent to the client, I can take the rest of the week off and grind away at the thesis (which I'm taking a short break from right now). Unfortunately, my boss wanted me to make a few additions.
See, a CRM report is not really for the client but for the regulatory or permitting agency requiring the work. I had failed to give explicit reasons why the sites were not significant and would require no further work. Secondly, this particular work was required by the city of San Antonio Historic Preservation Officer (HPO, pronounced "hippo") who is a historian. There's a tendency among Texas archaeologists (myself included) to downplay or even ignore very minor historic sites. Really, a dozen pieces of chert debitage and scattered burned limestone are equivalent to a dozen clear glass shards and scattered brick fragments, but I guess a lot of people don't think that way because they could probably find the latter assemblage in your average vacant lot.
Anyway, we had encountered a small concrete foundation, a bored-hole well, a small limestone block tank and a huge linear pile of bricks. These were located in an area where two structures were depicted on our topo map (compiled in 1953, updated in the 80s). The only artifacts were some clear glass shards. The bricks had 3 different manufacturer's marks, which can be diagnostic. Unfortunately, while each mark was first registered in the early 20th century, all of the marks continued in use for a very long time (and one might be in use today). So, the brocks could be 60 years old, or 20. I took photos and talked to our historic archaeologist and tried to find as many ways as I could to not call this a site. But my boss figured that the HPO, being a historian, would almost definitely come back with a lot of questions about the non-site. So I had to add some more description and conduct some additional archival research, then convert it all into the proper language to justify why the site was not significant. Honestly, I should have just gone ahead and called it a site to begin with,
Yeah, it was about as fun as it sounds, although I did learn that the PCL library at UT has a lot of older topographic and general maps online.

Procrastinating, again

2008-04-12T22:17:00.000-07:00

Can you say that you're taking a break from work when you've done more breaking than working?
I did get to dig on Monday and Tuesday. I didn't find anything noteworthy at all, just some lithic debitage and very small burned limestone pieces. I also forgot my gloves, so I started getting blisters, although they've already hardened into calluses.
Wednesday I finished a survey in a different part of San Antonio, which I started writing about on Thursday and Friday. I'll finish that report on Monday or Tuesday. I'm hoping that maybe, just maybe, they can spare me the rest of the week and I can stay home and write.
Got word on the Oklahoma survey. Starts in mid-May. We'll be working 6 days a week, 10 hour days. That means lots of overtime. It also means I'll be out of town for a month, unless they do some kind of rotation (which I'd rather not do, since I'd really like as much OT and per diem as possible). The client is being super-hardcore about safety, which means I'll need to get a pair of steel-toed boots and some lightweight long sleeve shirts (since getting poison ivy is considered an "incident"). I think we might even have to wear safety glasses in addition to hard hats, safety vests and steel-toed boots.
Other than all that, Tina's best friend Kensey is in town for the weekend and last night was Dan's birthday party. I watched some Japanese women's wrestling earlier this evening. I've written maybe 3 pages the past week.

No way! Digging?

2008-04-06T20:53:00.000-07:00

I actually get to dig tomorrow and Tuesday. They're extending the golf course mitigation in San Antonio and I asked if I could go. I actually visited the site on Thursday, and found a point on the (stripped) surface within 5 minutes. Yep, still got it. I hear that I'll be working in the area where some Paleoindian points were found during the monitoring. That would be the oldest stuff I've worked on (besides the mammoth).
The thesis has not progressed the last few days. I sent a chapter to my main reader and have gotten no response yet. I just sent that chapter and the introduction to my second reader, hoping for some kind of feedback. I'm beginning to lose hope of graduating in the spring, but I'm planning on having my part done.
Looks like I might be spending the better part of two months in Oklahoma soon. More on that when I know better.

Writer's block

2008-04-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

So yeah, I think I spent a good 2.5 hours or so in front of my computer, trying to make myself write something, then finding something important to distract myself with (like Google's awesome April Fools Joke, or Ric Flair's farewell speech and tribute), then staring again and trying to make something happen...so I finally gave up. I spent pretty much all day the last two days at work reading site forms and writing background reviews and project overviews, and I just can't spend another 5 hours tonight writing about archaeology, or even caring about archaeology.
Tomorrow I get to walk around in the woods in northwest San Antonio. Then, Thursday and Friday I get to go back to a different part of northwest San Antonio and walk around in woods (and pasture). I might even get to do some metal detecting. I think the fresh air will do me good.
I'm going to go to bed early and read Dracula until I fall asleep, and try this all again tomorrow.

Indispensable

2008-03-31T23:28:00.000-07:00

I asked my supervisor today if I might be able to take off a couple of days this week to work on my thesis. He asked our boss, who said that they had a lot of stuff for me to do this week and couldn't spare me. I'll be doing at least one day survey in San Antonio on Wednesday, and probably at least one more on Thursday or Friday. While it's nice to go out in the field and help write reports and such, I must admit I was really hoping to be able to work at home for a couple of full days.
The classical radio station I listen to while writing (KMFA) is having their spring fund drive right now. It's not so bad late at night, as they only mention it once or twice an hour, briefly, and then get back to the music. During the day, they play a lot of shorter pieces and have two hosts chattering back and forth for a few minutes between each song. It's not as bad as the KUT fund drive (which starts Wednesday) but I listen to KMFA because of the long stretches of background music with minimal interruptions. They did almost get me last week, though. First, they talked a couple of times about how a lot of students use it as study music while writing. Then, they played the Theme from Indiana Jones. I do plan on giving some money once I finish (and get my tax return).
Only 2.5 pages this evening, relatively minor in that it was about a specific unique artifact rather than the overarching research questions. Also spent an hour getting the format just right for the finished chapter, which was a pain because of the pictures not wanting to cooperate. The formatting did add a page, though (I had to make my top and bottom margins bigger).
Still not sure I'm going to get all this done on time, but I'm gonna try my damnedest

One down, 3 to go?

2008-03-27T22:48:00.000-07:00

I just finished one chapter of my draft thesis, complete with tables and photos. I'll probably end up putting a few relevant drawings in a different chapter, since I won't really have good copies of them until next week. I doubt I could actually get away with an archaeology report that did not include any stupid profile and plan map drawings.
I think I'll work on the project and area background chapter next. A lot of that will be citations from other sources that I've already typed in, so I just need to start stringing them together in a coherent and meaningful fashion. I've already got a small part of that started anyway. I've also got a few pieces of the discussion chapter started, although they're not the most important parts.
Not tonight, though. I'm spent, and I can't take off work again tomorrow. I'm hoping to save a few days for when it's absolute crunch time. Like maybe next week.

No fun

2008-03-26T19:57:00.001-07:00

So yeah, some real archaeology (as in something like what you would see on TV) is going on now in San Antonio. Tina is there. I'm not. I'm filing like a mofo at TxDOT again. I thought I might want to be around to take care of some business on campus, but it turns out my prof is out of town this week. Oh well, Kit Kat is happy, and I do get more writing done when I'm at home and Tina is out of town. Unfortunately, I'm far enough behind that I can't justify going to see The Dirtbombs tomorrow. I'm hoping to stay up late tonight and stay home tomorrow so that maybe, just maybe, I'll get enough done to sneak out and rock out. Oh, the places I will go once I finally get this monkey off my back!

Another easy day

2008-03-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

Today was more like "real" monitoring, in that I mostly sat around in the truck doing stuff for my thesis, occasionally checking on two different drill crews. I did walk through some swamp first thing in the morning, but my waders actually do a pretty decent job of insulating against cold water. The cold also meant that any snakes would be sluggish. But I didn't see any.
Tina sent me a text around 11:30 saying that she had just almost stepped on a water moccasin, and then 5 minutes later Laura (the other person with her in Baytown right now) almost stepped on another one. Tina's apparently just moved a little, which got her attention and she screamed and ran. Laura's actually drew back its head and opened it's mouth as if to strike. I think we're all about done with swamps for now, even though it's likely to be a long, marshy summer of work.
Speaking of snakes, the snake I saw yesterday was a Broad Banded Water Snake. I don't know if it was a nice snake or not, it was really just lying there and didn't move an inch. So I guess it wasn't mean, anyway, unless you're a frog or mouse or some other prey.
Speaking of snakes and prey, I saw the coolest thing today. I was driving and noticed something reddish flailing around one of the house lots. I slowed down and noticed that it was a hawk. I was digging around trying to find my camera when he flew up a bit and I noticed that it had A SNAKE in it's talons that was still squirming. It flew maybe 50 feet further back from the road and landed, and started trying to kill the snake with its beak. By the time I found the camera, it was gone.
Raptor, snake, water...almost like the Aztec myth regarding the founding of Tenochtitlan!
Tomorrow I get to go back to Austin. I was originally hoping to get everything done today and then leave tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, the person who had the map I needed for the remaining points took today off and did not leave a map for me. So tomorrow I have to get up early, put on field clothes, pack the truck and check out, go to the 7:30 am safety meeting, and go clear 10 drill locations (probably in some overgrown shit too, but I have my fingers crossed), then I can drive home. It's all overtime at this point, so I'm okay with it (except waking up early).
Next week, I might actually get to work on some cool stuff, in a much nicer location!

Another snake

2008-03-19T19:55:00.001-07:00

Water Snake
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

I saw another snake today, hanging out in a puddle formed by a tire rut. I was probably two steps away from it when I noticed (the photo is a zoom in). I have no idea what kind of snake it is, just that it's not venomous. I suppose I should look these things up. Maybe I should find a volunteer research associate.
It was not nearly as wet as I expected. I guess the Rosharon area only got around a tenth of an inch of rain. I still wore my waders, which was good because I hit some wet areas, but nothing higher than my ankles.
Nothing to report archaeologically yet. It's probably just as well, as the client would rather not have any more sites and I'd rather not record anther crappy early 20th century trash scatter.
Speaking of, I put some photos up on my Flickr of the cistern and some of the bottles I found at the site in Fort Bend County last time I was out here. There's also pictures of an owl I saw yesterday. Check them out!

Back in Alvin again

2008-03-18T19:32:00.000-07:00

Not staying at the Best Western this time, so no HDTV with 100 channels. Decided to stay next door at Comfort Inn, to distribute my hotel points around. From what I've been hearing about the potential work schedule for the rest of the year, hotel points shouldn't be a problem unless we stay in places without the "name" hotels.
Out here by myself (and the drillers), taking care of a bunch of drill holes in a huge subdivision that looks to be suffering heavily from the housing slump. Most of the lots are undeveloped, there's a few empty houses for sale, and even a couple of the occupied homes (which are no more than 20% of the total lots) are for sale. I'm sure there's lots of nice things about Brazoria County, but I can't see buying a home and a couple of acres in an area that has such bad drainage issues. Sure, you can elevate the house, but you'd have to add a good 6-8 inches of fill dirt to a yard to make sure it wasn't a mucky mess most of the time.
Today the severe storms were a major concern, but they seemed to have missed this area. It didn't even start sprinkling until 2, and didn't get really heavy until 4 or so. I never heard any thunder or saw any lightning either. We are in a tornado watch right now, so I suppose some bad stuff can still happen. But mostly, I think I'll just have to deal with another inch or so of rain on the already saturated ground. Thus far, nothing archaeological at all. The highlights have been seeing an owl and the awesome soul and R&B station in Houston (Magic 102.1).
I've heard that I might be out in the field for the better parts of April, May, and June. I'm sure I'll blog about it when I know for sure. Kind of makes getting the thesis read and defended and graduating a little more challenging...

Not tonight, baby

2008-03-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

I just couldn't get cracking on the thesis tonight. I was up until 3am yesterday, and I did a bunch of bibliography and scanning stuff today during slow times at work. I decided to work out instead (I have been really lazy and it showed), drink some herbal tea and read.
Unfortunately, tomorrow starts the SXSW mayhem. I actually have a light schedule planned out for tomorrow, which will leave me time to write tomorrow night. But Thursday through Saturday will likely be washes as far as getting work done, although I may try and read some articles on the bus.
After that, I have somewhere around 3 weeks to get a complete rough draft to my readers so they can edit and prepare for the thesis defense. Sigh...

Yawn redux

2008-03-06T23:48:00.000-08:00

Okay, I definitely accomplished more today, but it is a constant struggle to try and rectify my notes, field forms and drawings, and photos and make a cohesive and thorough excavation narrative out of them. There are so many gaps in the information that I simply can't fill, that aren't crucial but are going to bug me long after this thing is finished.
I want to not care, but this is going to have my name on it and be in the library and probably online. It's going to be on my resume and future employers may want to take a look at it.
In my field notes (and I think in my old LJ) I spend a lot of time near the end of the project upset and frustrated. Trying to make sense of all the information (and lack thereof) brings all that right back, so I'm basically nodding my head when I read a section where I'm venting or on the verge of a breakdown.
Anyway, I know I've learned a lot since then and I can't do anything about what was done but try and explain what I can and hope I can get away with ignoring the rest. I miss digging in Belize, but I'm sure not going to miss writing about it!

Yawn

2008-03-05T23:34:00.000-08:00

I'm actually up late working on the damn thesis. Didn't get a whole lot of words on the page, but it was a start. I had to spend a lot of time cross-referencing my notes with field forms and photos. I also started on the most complicated unit to describe in a lot of ways. Tomorrow I hope to get a lot more actually written.
March is going to be a long, boring, painful, low sleep month for the most part (except the big wedding this Saturday and then the big festival next week).

Oh yeah, still somehow managed not to vote for the winner. I think I know my strategy for the next primary...

Caucusing

2008-03-04T18:35:00.000-08:00

I just got back from the sign-in for the precinct caucus. I knew it would take a while and there'd be a lot of people there, since this is Austin and it's the first time we've mattered in a while on a national level. Still, I've never seen that many people standing around in one place that didn't involve live music or free beer. It was like a practice run for next week (SXSW). I'd say there were 400-500 people there for the Democratic caucus. I didn't even know there were that many Democrats in my neighborhood. Up until the last 3-4 days, all you saw was R-- P--- signs (then again, I was also out of town for most of early voting).
People were, for the most part, pretty patient. I guess we've waited 7 years, we can wait another 90 minutes. I imagine the actual caucusing will start around 9pm. I'd say Obama is getting at least 2/3 of the delegates from my precinct. It was a real mix of young and old, all ethnicities, aging hippies, punks and cool kids, mainstream mommies. Hillary definitely was winning the hottie vote.
All in all, I was glad to be a part of it, since I doubt it will ever happen again. I'm still a little surprised that I actually got involved in one of the major party's political process. Wonder what it feels like to actually vote for a winner?

True Texan

2008-02-26T18:25:00.001-08:00

True Texan
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

I've always been secretly a little envious when I see trucks with waders tucked in the back. I have no idea why. One of the first things I thought about when I bought my waders was that I could tuck them behind the truck! Now I really wish I had picked up that cow skull.
I really like driving this Super Duty F250. It handles really well and has a good suspension. I haven't really tested the 4-wheel drive since the tires aren't really the right kind of off-road driving (especially the mudding I would be doing around here).
I avoided the really deep water today. The drill crew took pity on me and told me to go back once the water got knee-high. I was not looking forward to spending hours in thigh-high swamp water, walking in ankle-high muck, trying not to trip over submerged roots while keeping one eye out for water moccasins and the other for alligators. As it was, I slid into one of the wheel ruts and topped my right boot. Fortunately, I had a change of socks and boots in the truck.
Looks like I'll be heading back to Austin Thursday or Friday. I'm loving the money, but I'm ready to be home. I'm ready to have a full weekend again!

Exhausted

2008-02-25T18:38:00.000-08:00

I've been working 10-11 hour days on this monitoring project, and I'm starting to get worn out. My knee waders do a great job of keeping my feet from getting wet, but they're not comfortable for walking 2-3 miles a day. It's also really hard to walk through water and muck, even if you're not getting wet. I've also been carrying water and lunch and a small wooden screen everywhere. At least I haven't had to carry my shovel or dig a hole.
Tomorrow, the area I'm supposed to be in is apparently under almost 2 feet of water. The driller recommended bringing hip waders. My options in this area are limited, and ultimately I determined that I would have to drive 30 minutes to Bass Pro Shop and spend $60 plus tax. I decided I was too tired and that it wasn't worth it for something I will almost never use. My plan is to put plastic bags over my socks, then my knee waders, then my snakeguards and hope that forms a pretty watertight seal. If not, well, it's not like I wasn't completely soaked through several days already.
More pictures tomorrow...if I make it.

Welcome to Texas

2008-02-21T19:54:00.001-08:00

Welcome to Texas
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

I uploaded a few pictures from the field here in Brazoria County, mostly fun shots and animals. I really wanted to keep this, but I was more than a mile from my truck.
I've already worked 47.5 hours this week. Tomorrow is likely another 11 hour day, and Saturday may be a full day plus a drive back to Austin. I'm banking right now.
Today I spent the day monitoring the drill crew. It was a little boring (no pun intended), but at least I didn't have to walk all over the place and got a ride across most of the wettest stuff. I think I'll be back with them tomorrow, when they actually drill near/in some sites.
That's about it. I find out tomorrow if I'm here for the long haul or going back on Saturday. I'll miss the HD-TV!

Snakebite! Part 2

2008-02-20T19:22:00.001-08:00

DCP_0206
Originally uploaded by Miss_Colleen

So I had just gotten to the hospital and into the emergency room. I got into my gown and got into bed. Some of the nurses came in and did the usual tests, then they drew a line on my leg (visible in both pictures) so they could track the swelling. The doctor came in and ordered me up some antibiotic and antivenom. They hooked me up to an IV bag on oen arm and some antibiotic (because snake fangs are apparently very dirty) on the other, gave me a tetanus shot, and offered me morphine. I declined, because it didn't hurt too much yet and I had just lost an acquaintance to an OD.
It was at this point that people were allowed in to see me, including Tina and Colleen (who took the pictures of me). They were worried, but figured I'd be out in a few hours. One of the nurses then told us that I'd be on the antivenom for 24 hours, then I'd be monitored for my recovery.
The visitors had to leave shortly as it was time for more exams. They measured my swelling and asked me how I was feeling. I could feel the pain moving up my leg, tracking to the inside of my thigh. I could see that I was still swelling, that it was moving up my leg, and that one my veins was bruising. I asked where the swelling would stop and they said they didn't know. I was then informed that it was possible that my goods could swell, possible pretty badly. I was not excited at this prospect. I then asked when they were going to draw the venom out. I was told they don't do that anymore, because rattlesnake venom is a hemotoxin (affects the blood) and that cutting open the bite can cause massive bleeding. One should only do that if they're a long way from proper medical treatment, and then only very carefully.
At this point, my leg was really starting to hurt. Imagine the worst charlie horse you've ever had. Now imagine your entire leg feeling like that. So I broke down and asked for some morphine. However, all their patient-controlled drips were in use (or so they say, I think we just made one too many jokes about it). Let me just say that, while it did relieve my pain, the first 2 minutes of the drip were sheer hell. I could feel it go cold into my arm and move up into my chest, which would tighten. My stomach would go queasy for a few seconds. Then it would hit my head and I'd be dizzy for a couple of minutes. Eventually, the pain would subside and I'd feel a little loopy and generally fall asleep within an hour.
Not much later, the nurse (a very nice male nurse, like my friend St. Denis) came in with the antivenom. Apparently, it is kept in a refrigerator and needs to be agitated before being given to the patient. But it can't be shaken. It needs to be slowly swirled for 20 minutes. My nurses would pick up the dose and carry them around and check on a couple of patients before dropping in.
The regimen for the antivenom required 12 doses in a 24-hour period. I was given 6 doses initially, then 2 more doses every 6 hours until they were done. I might also mention that one dose of antivenom costs four thousand dollars (so don't get bitten if you're not insured or on the job! On second thought, don't get bitten period!). I swear that I could feel the antivenom working when the first doses got to my leg. It was similar to the feeling of putting hydrogen peroxide on a scrape, only inside.
I forgot to mention the cardiac monitor. I was hooked up to some machines (complete with sensors stuck on my chest) to monitor my heart rate (I don't think it was an actual EKG. It's in the background of the photo). Since rattlesnake venom is a hemotoxin, the antivenom effectively thickens your blood as part of it's magic. This leads to the possibility of a heart attack, stroke and/or blood clot.
I was supposed to spend my first 24 hours in the Cardiac Care Unit, but there were no empty beds (February in Brownsville = lots of winter Texan retirees). So I spend the night in the ER. It was pretty calm most of the time, although I was asleep for a lot of it. In the middle of the night, someone came in who was in a bad car accident and they were screaming and moaning loudly, which freaked me out. I also got peeked in on by pretty much every intern and most of the doctors in the hospital!
Somewhere in there, I was asked if I needed to use the bathroom. I had no intention of using a bedpan, so I kept telling them I didn't need to go, trying to hold out for a toilet. Eventually, I was informed that I had more than a gallon of fluids in me (I didn't even think about the fact that IVs are fluids!) and if I didn't need to go then there might be nerve damage and they'd have to get a catheter. Needless to say, I caved and they brought in a jug for me to pee in. I filled it and needed a second one. On a tangent, IVs are also chock-full of calories; I figure I had 5,000+ calories a day while I was laid up!
The next afternoon, I was checked in to a regular room. I was still hooked to an IV with regular antibiotic doses. One of the first things I did was ask to use the bathroom. They brought me crutches and I stood up for the first time in 25 hours. I was immediately struck by a case of pins and needles that was probably equal to every previous time in my entire life! Eventually, I hobbled my way 15 feet to the bathroom and got down to business.
The doctor would check on me every few hours during the day and tell me I was improving. However, he refused to tell me when I might be able to leave, saying it could be a couple of weeks. As I had a trip to Mexico scheduled for the next week, I was a little freaked out.
A physical therapist came by to show me how to use my crutches and help me walk around the hospital wing a little bit. It was pretty easy, and I was glad to be mobile. I was also easily worn out, and my left leg would still tingle really badly for a couple of minutes when I stood up. Eventually, I got to take a shower. This was wonderful, as I had been very sweaty and covered in sunscreen from the field for 36+ hours. No sponge bath for me!
I got to where I could hobble around without the crutches, occasionally using my IV for support. The swelling was down. 73 hours after first checking in, with no hints, the doctor examined me one more time and told me I was ready to check out! I called rlb, since everyone else was out in the field, and he came to get me. We swung by the project area so I could surprise everyone, then I went to the pharmacy to get my prescription for antibiotics and heavy-duty pain relievers filled.
What was the damage? As I said yesterday, I can find no physical scars. I'm pretty freaked out by snakes, but I've come in contact with rattlers since and not freaked out. I do watch my step a little more closely, and I always wear snake guards on surveys and in heavy brush (which makes me a step slower than most people). The bill was $65,000, of which 48k was for the antivenom. Workers comp took care of it all, thank goodness. I was the first blemish on our safety record in 3 years. I made it to Mexico and climbed the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan 10 days after being bitten!

3 years ago today!

2008-02-19T18:43:00.001-08:00

DCP_0204
Originally uploaded by Miss_Colleen

Hard to believe it, but it was 3 years ago today that I was bitten by a rattlesnake. Colleen took this photo of the bite area in the hospital, about an hour after it happened. The bite itself is where the blood streaks meet. From what I can tell, there's no scar there now and I can't even feel any marks. I think this is the first time I've written the story out.
We were doing a metal detector survey along FM 511 outside Brownsville. The road runs along the Palo Alto Battlefield National Park, so we were looking for artifacts from the Texas Revolution. It was an unusually hot Saturday in February (over 80 degrees), and the area had been mowed in the last 3-4 days to prepare for the metal detecting. These help explain how I was bit by a snake in the middle of winter, when they're normally hibernating or sluggish.
It was lunchtime, and Tina and Colleen went with Rigden down the road to a gas station to use the bathroom. I decided to walk down a two-track along the railroad, far enough from the road to pee in private. While walking back, I noticed some stuff lying under a prickly pear cactus and decided to check it out (it was a pile of clothes).
Suddenly, several things happened at once. I felt a sharp, burning pain in my left ankle. I heard a rattle. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw a rattlesnake, mouth open, retreating from a bite. I realized that I was in mid-air, jumping sideways away from the snake, totally subconsciously. And then it hit me: I had just been bitten by a rattlesnake!
My first reaction was to scamper away from the snake, hopping on one foot as much as possible. Then I told myself not to panic, to keep my blood flow down. I started yelling at my coworker Josh, who was on the phone by the highway. I limped along until I was finally in earshot, and Josh and Mindy came out to help me to the truck.
I knew where the nearest hospital was, as we had driven by it the past 4 days. So I put my head as far down towards my knees as possible, breathed slowly, and told Mindy how to get there. I tried calling Tina, but she had left her phone in the other vehicle, and Colleen left hers in her room. They would find out when they got back to the project area and saw that only one truck was there.
I walked into the hospital within 20-25 minutes of the bite. I went to the window and told them what happened, and I was sent straight into the emergency room.
Stay tuned tomorrow for part 2 of the saga: the hospital!

Slogging along

2008-02-18T18:54:00.001-08:00

So I'm in Alvin, Texas right now. It's the hometown of Nolan Ryan, legendary baseball player. It also seems to be just beyond the southern suburban limits of Houston, although that will likely change. The project area is in Rosharon, Texas about 15 miles west. They're doing drill holes for setting explosive charges, which will use seismic readings to look for oil (or something like that).
So basically, we have maps with all of the drill locations and we have to check these areas out prior to drilling. We also have to walk along the route the drill crew will take. Not too hard, although there's a lot of walking.
The problem is that it's been raining here a lot (including a couple of inches Saturday) and so much of the project area is inundated. I spent almost all morning walking through water anywhere from a half-inch to 4 inches deep. I'm told I'm lucky, because elsewhere there's areas up to your knees, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. But nobody likes wet feet, much less for 8 hours! Plus, you have to keep an eye out for water moccasins (which apparently stink, so I guess you can keep a nose out too). On the other hand, you don't have to dig in saturated soils!
Speaking of snakes, tomorrow is an anniversary, so stay tuned!

36 hours in Austin

2008-02-16T20:18:00.001-08:00

That's how long I'll have been here, more or less, before leaving again for the field. I was supposed to leave Monday late in the morning for a monitoring job outside of Alvin, but I got a call around 6pm asking if I could come Sunday late morning instead. It's a lot of extra money, so of course I said I could.
During my brief time here, I got to see my friends at End of An Ear as we posed for photos for a website. We were also supposed to hang out tonight, but unfortunately work intervened (I didn't want to drive for 2.5-3 hours and then work with a hangover and without a good night's sleep). With the rest of my time, I did 3 loads of laundry, grilled some salmon and steak, went to the grocery store and spent some quality time with the kitty.
I'll be back sometime around the 27th (depending on the weather and the job progress), and if I'm not headed to The Woodlands that weekend I plan on doing some major hanging out!
By the way, if for some reason you want to see the Rushmore 5-minute remake on the big screen, it'll be showing at the Alamo South Lamar on Tuesday night. I guess there's an audience favorite prize at stake, but honestly I'm just happy if you see the film online and leave a nice comment here (or on the Filmmaking Frenzy website). And consider me for your next project.

Long week...

2008-02-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

So it's Wednesday and I've already worked 38.5 hours. By the time I get home on Friday (around 9:30 pm or so) I'll be up to around 66 hours. The client expects us to work from 7-5 everyday, and the nearest hotels are 40 minutes away, so it's an 11.5 hour day.
The work has been pretty fun so far. Lots and lots of driving. The project area is in a remote part of a rather remote ranch in a somewhat remote part of Texas. We've been riding 4-wheelers to get to the site locations (a perk of doing biological work rather than archaeological work). Some areas have 3-4 foot tall Spartina plants, which are a serious hazard. If you try and ride on the side of them, you come close to tipping over. If you try and go over them, you can fly forward or just end up high-topped. When that happens, you basically have to lift the 4-wheeler until you get the tires in contact with something they can get traction on. I got stuck 5 or 6 times and almost got thrown at least that often. Still, it's pretty fun and another one of those things where I get paid to do things other people pay good money to do.
On the other hand, waking up at 5:45 am and going to bed by 9:30 doesn't leave a whole lot of time to do anything but eat, shower and sleep.

Look, I'm famous again!

2008-02-11T18:51:00.000-08:00

And so is Dan. And Staci. And Katherine and John!
One of my friends (Kensey) tipped me off that they saw my picture on some website, from the last Okay Mountain art show. I went mostly to see If Bricks Had Wings, plus check out some art and drink some beer and see some friends. I wasn't actually very impressed with most of the art. I was very impressed with If Bricks Had Wings, although it would have been better if people had SHUT THE FUCK UP and listened to the band instead of talking!!!
So go here and scroll down past all the cool kids and check us out! And go see If Bricks Had Wings (Tim Kerr and some people I don't know doing old-timey country and bluegrass) next time they play (I think during SXSW at an art show).

How I spent last Sunday

2008-02-10T12:41:00.000-08:00

I helped my friends make a movie for the Rewind Kindly film festival at the Alamo Drafthouse. The idea was to do a 5 minute-long remake of a movie, like in Be Kind Rewind. Our team did Rushmore, because they knew someone who was an extra in the original. I was Max Fischer, because I kind of look like him.
You can view the film here!
I think it turned out pretty well, but we're not doing very well in the voting. Oh well, it was fun to do! If you're so inclined, please create a account and vote/comment!
Tina and I are heading to Kingsville tonight so we can be in Kenedy County bright and early tomorrow morning for work. We'll be delineating and flagging wetlands. Not archaeology, but Tina got 20 hours of overtime last week, and you get to ride 4-wheelers, so I'm looking forward to it. We'll be back Friday afternoon or evening.

Straightening up

2008-02-06T18:48:00.000-08:00

Nothing makes for a clean house like having something important to work on (such as, say, writing a thesis). Add to that misplacing a library book, and you have a lot of newly cleared surfaces and a lot of piles from the floor put away in the proper place. It turns out that the library book was actually in my field backpack, in the trunk of my car. Which I also need to clean, but it's dark.
I really like my new record shelves from The Bookcase Store. Not only are they sharp, but they're very roomy. My old shelf wasn't big enough for all my records, so they were crammed in. This discourages listening to music. Now, it's very easy to flip through and find just what I'm in the mood for (although this Marvin Gaye semi-disco/slow jams album isn't really suited for being home alone).
So it looks like the Texas primaries are actually going to matter for the first time since I moved here in 1993. I've never voted in one, preferring to be available to sign a third-party petition. I may still do that this year, but I'm definitely weighing my options. I'm hoping to start talking to my friends and seeing what they think.
One thing that's pretty much a certainty is that I'll be voting for a major party candidate for President for the first time ever. Damn, I must be getting old.

Catching up

2008-02-04T19:58:00.000-08:00

So Thursday (where we left off), the morning started with a heavy thunderstorm blowing through. This delayed our departure by an hour, but I didn't go back to sleep. We got to the project area around 9:30 to a light drizzle and a rapidly dropping temperature. By the time we finished the first mile stretch (11 am) the sky had cleared and the thermometer read 39 degrees. I was having horrible chills in my chest and coughing up all sorts of gross stuff. Walked a little more, then around noon my co-worker made me take a break in the truck. I really needed it, as i was fading and really hurting. She finished up the part we had started, and then we drove over to the "easy" part. It was easy mostly because it was already cleared for overhead power lines, so all we really had to do was walk. Unfortunately, both segments would have to be done as a "walk in/walk out" because the access roads were too muddy to drive.But I soldiered on. Sure, I sat on my screen a few times to catch my wind, and I didn't carry a shovel, but I did over 2 miles on that second segment, and we got it all done. And then I went to the hotel, took some nyquil, and stayed in bed for the rest of the evening!
So the sherd we found on the surface was not alone. All told, we found 7 sherds (including the original) in 5 shovel tests across 60 meters. That's actually a pretty low recovery, and suggests that the site is fairly insubstantial, at least within the narrow corridor where the pipeline is going. But it was something new and different, so I was pretty excited.
On Friday, we drove back and then I cleaned up the sherds so that Mary Jo might identify them. Then I came home, took Nyquil, and watched TV for the rest of the night. Tina went out with work folks and crashed at someone's house. Saturday, we sat together in misery on the sofa. I also went and picked up my new glasses (you can see them on my Facebook and Myspace pages). Not exactly what I wanted, but I'm getting used to them. Need to get them tightened.
Yesterday, I spent most of the day working on a secret project that I'll talk more about once it's finished! I might be slightly more Austin famous after this. Then I watched the NEW YORK GIANTS shock the world and humble the smug New England Patriots. If it couldn't be my beloved Packers, then I'm glad it was the Giants.
This week is back to the TxDOT grind, while Tina does biological survey work in Kenedy County. I'll use my time wisely, I promise, and I'll talk more about the project soon.

The day in review

2008-01-30T18:07:00.001-08:00

I saw a water moccasin. It's 50 freaking degrees out and there was a water moccasin all stretched out along a small creek. Mary Jo saw it when it moved it's head and opened it's mouth. We found another way across.
A Caddoan ceramic sherd (my first). Exposed in a tire track along an overhead power line corridor. Unfortunately, we weren't really prepared to dig holes, we were just checking out access points and the project area. So we brought it home and I cleaned it up for pictures and identification, and tomorrow we'll take it back and check out the area more thoroughly. I don't know what type it is, just that it's grog-tempered plain ware with blackening on the inside
I'm pretty sick. I alternate between chills and sweats, and have a pretty nasty cough. Makes it hard to get comfortable. Tomorrow should be interesting, as we'll be working a long day, walking 2-4 miles and digging shovel tests. It might rain, too. Hope we find some cool stuff in our 30-foot wide corridor. And it sure is nice to be doing archaeology again!
Where in the hell am I? A Quality Inn in Marshall, Texas.
PS: I started a second blog to review restaurants from a field tech perspective. Here's the link:
http://texasfieldeats.blogspot.com/

Ouchie

2008-01-28T21:40:00.000-08:00

I am battered and bruised all over from digging in the cave. Those rock walls are hard and craggy, and even the slightest bump seemed to leave at least a little red mark on me. Plus, today I was using a demolition hammer (which is like a small jackhammer). Unfortunately, if you don't hold it at the right angle, or if it hits a really solid piece of rock, the chisel bit slips. The end result was usually me bashing my arm or elbow into one of the many hard (and sometimes pointy) walls. After smashing out a whole lot of limestone, it turns out that the cave doesn't really extend as far back as we thought. Oh well.
I never did get around to bringing my camera out, so the cellphone picture will have to be it. Wednesday, I get to go do some actual archaeology!!!! Of course, it's in Longview, but it's still archaeological work and will involve some per diem, which is excellent because I am pretty damned broke right now. I'm not sure if we'lll be back on Thursday or Friday. I'm hoping for Friday, since that means extra money (and a day between 5-hour drives!)
Don't know if anyone has read this already, but THIS is where my office is located. The church converted one whole office building into their sanctuary, and has offices in the other. Frankly, it's a little embarrassing that our environmental services company, who won the Austin Kill-A-Watt Challenge for energy reduction last summer (in the business category), is even tangentially attached to this. We, of course, have nothing to do with it and no control over it whatsoever, but it's still a bit maddening. But that's megachurches for ya...
(disclaimer: I speak only for myself, these are only my opinions and not those of my employer, nor should they be viewed as representing in any way the views of my employer).

Finding caves, or making them?

2008-01-25T18:24:00.001-08:00

Tini in a hole
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

That's Tini digging in a karst feature out off RM 620 in Round Rock. A bunch of dirt and rocks were cleared out to expose the opening, roughly 8 feet below ground surface. We're now a good 9 feet down, and digging off to the sides well beyond the narrow opening. I had to use my camera phone, because the weather has been pretty misty and I didn't want to bring my real camera out. Next week, nice weather and better pictures, and maybe we'll find the cave that's hidden under here!!

Hurts so good

2008-01-23T18:45:00.000-08:00

Thank you, John Cougar Mellencamp.
Despite the gray, misty weather, I have actually been working outside the last 2 days and it makes me very happy. It's not archaeology, but it's still digging and my back and shoulders hurt in a way they haven't hurt in months. I'm helping dig out karst features to see if they might be caves. If they're caves, then we'll try and see if there are endangered insects in them. If there are, well, I guess Williamson County will have to do some form of mitigation if they want the road widened.
Tina and I were partners today, trying to make headway in a pretty deep feature. I'd say we're about 8 feet below ground, making our way down on big slabs of limestone bedrock. The opening to the actual work space was so narrow that you had to have your body sideways while bending down. Then, you had just about enough room under those rocks to lie on your side or lean forward on your knees (like some kind of yoga move). So the clearing of dirt was pretty slow. Near the end of the day, however, Tini realized that one of the huge rocks forming the narrow crevice was loose. I had assumed it was part of the bedrock. So she wiggled it around and got it loose enough to try and get it out. But it was too unwieldy. So we went after it with a small sledgehammer/mallet and a small rockbar, and smacked 3 huge chunks off the main boulder. What was left was still at least a foot wide and a foot thick, and weighed at least 100 pounds. We hauled it up using a rope and all the strength we had left.
Tomorrow, I get to go back and keep working in there, with a lot more room to maneuver. I'll also be taking my camera.
Oh yeah, I also smashed my finger yesterday and peeled off a big chunk of skin. It's really gross looking!

What a week

2008-01-18T15:48:00.000-08:00

Very busy being a document manager (read: file clerk) at TxDOT. Lots of paper cuts and dry hands (from all the manila folders). Also good exercise as I was carrying 10 pounds of files to my desk, and then to the rolling file shelves at least 30 times a day. Not fun at all, though.
Today is just a rotten day. Grey, cold, windy. Perfect day for the bus home to be 15 minutes late!! And it was crowded, and there was a fat, smelly "special needs" person who kept staring at me and pointing at the Misfits patch on my bag. I need to blog about riding the #16 one of these days.
Then there was finding out that most, if not all, of my company's projects that were in a holding pattern at TxDOT won't be funded for at least 2 years. There goes most of what I was going to be working on for, oh, the next year or so. Or at least the interesting stuff (artifact analysis, writing).
I wish I had good things to say about archaeology right now. It just hasn't been fun for the last month or so.
Things I'm looking forward to:
The Packers game on Sunday.
Long weekend.
Going out to dig caves next week.
Being done with my thesis.
Tina bringing beer home from work.

Enchanted Rock

2008-01-10T21:47:00.001-08:00

zoom on enchanted rock from parking lot
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

I'll talk about the trip tomorrow, but for now there's pictures on Flickr you can check out!

Tired

2008-01-07T17:20:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 4:30 this morning (went to sleep around 11:30). Finally gave up trying and spent some time working on my thesis. Probably not the best time of day to be doing it, but I figured it's an hour or two I wasn't counting on having so why not?
Work is boring. Looks like we might get busy once it starts to get really hot. Of course. At least the jobs might be interesting.
More next time about Saturday's big excursion to Enchanted Rock and Kerrville. Just letting you know I'm still alive, if soaked in ennui.

And there it goes

2007-12-31T14:13:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe this year is done already.
Archaeologically, it has not been a very exciting year for me. I began the year working on artifacts from a data recovery and then spending 2 weeks in the field finishing the dig. I ended the year being told not to come in to work for the last 3 days because there's nothing to do. Several projects are awaiting funding which may no longer be available.
Outside of that two week period digging on 41KM226, aka the Little Paint site, the only substantial excavations I did was at a site outside of San Antonio that I still can't say much about (although there's an article about someone else's excavations there in the current Bulletin of the Texas Archaeological Society). Much of this year was spent on short surveys and doing menial work at TxDOT. Not exactly exciting stuff, although it's always nice to get out in the field and walk around nature (except in swampy far east Texas). And at least it was work.
The outlook for the upcoming year is cloudy (isn't that what the Magic 8-Ball says?). One of our major project sponsors (TxDOT) is facing major budgetary cutbacks and an order to reduce the use of consultants. Plus, the contract for the in-house assistant job I've been sharing ends in March (mixed blessing for sure). On the other hand, the high price of oil and natural gas means there's lots of energy work to be had, and we're hoping to get several long survey projects. The downside is that these type of jobs usually involve avoidance of sites, rather than mitigation through excavation. So even if we find some kick ass sites, it mostly means that the lines will go around them.
Regardless, I will be very busy trying to make a jumble of notes, photos, drawings and references into an acceptable thesis. I'm going to be in archaeology up to my ears one way or another.
Happy New Year!

calendar boy

2007-12-14T13:25:00.001-08:00

calendar boy
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

I'm a pin-up! This photo of me is in the TxDOT Environmental Affairs Division calendar for 2008. I have no idea how many copies there are, but I know it's internally distributed and should be in various offices around the state.
I didn't even know until someone at the office asked me how it felt to be famous. I asked them what I did this time (since a lot of people know me as the rattlesnake guy). After seeing it, I joked that I would be haunting them after I'm gone.

I almost hit a deer

2007-12-13T20:42:00.000-08:00

Well within the Austin city limits (well, I think Sunset Valley might technically be it's own municipality), but still. We were on Ernest Robles Way, behind the Kohls and heading towards Brodie Lane. There's still a little bit of open land there, and then the riparian zone along Williamson Creek, but it's mostly department stores and a huge subdivision. Certainly not a place where one would expect to have a deer dash out in front of you. Glad I was the only car on the road.
This is actually the second time I've almost hit a deer within the Austin metropolitan area. The first time was on Bee Caves Rd. in Westlake (on the way to Breed and Co) late on a Sunday morning. It was right after a blind curve and all of sudden 5-6 deer run down from a hill and cross a busy road. Amazingly, none of them got hit, and no cars collided.
In other news, TxDOT budgetary cutbacks are going to hurt archaeology companies in the state for the next couple of years. Our company Xmas party is tomorrow. Tini and I are leaving for Ohio on the 20th.

Check out my new ride

2007-12-06T18:49:00.001-08:00

I got to drive this in the field today. It was awesome. We drove across creeks and down a really steep hill. We used it to get to the start of our line and then took turns leapfrogging and driving ahead, so we got a lot more done than we expected. We could also haul extra water and our shovels. I wish we could use one of these every time.
We also found a site!!! A real live archaeological site. As we were approaching the creek, there was a really nice cut by the two-track road and a perfect basin shaped, slab-lined hearth exposed in the cut (sort of like this, with much less rock). Tina also found a flake by her shovel test, and considering there's no good rock for knapping tools within a couple of miles of the spot, it was definitely brought there by people in the past.
I also got lost briefly when I had to try and survey an area not well marked, but that's neither here nor there.
I'll try and have some pictures up soon. The Glen Rose area is really pretty. Some day I hope to have some time to check out the dinosaur tracks.

I was right

2007-11-29T20:35:00.001-08:00

So we found absolutely nothing on the survey. It wasn't all flat, but there was nothing there. No alibates, no Antelope Creek, not a single artifact. Before we got here, there was a concern that we might not finish in two 10-hour days. I think we might have finished it in 12 hours total, plus some drive time.
Unfortunately, there is nothing in Shamrock. We drove through the town and the only thing was a 1 room museum, which we skipped. If we had finished a little earlier, we could have gone to the Alibates National Monument.
So I spent most of the afternoon today playing Neverwinter Nights and Text Twist while Tina napped and then worked out. I know, I should've worked on my thesis...
Went to dinner at Mitchell's Family Restaurant, which is next door to the hotel. Every time we went outside, we could smell the delicious frying grease. Upon entering, I was struck by the fact that they had a smoking section and a non-smoking section, with the only divider being the meager salad bar. I've gotten totally used to no smoking allowed inside restaurants, that I forget that not every place is like that. Most of the people were on that side, and smoking, which was pretty gross. I think I smelled worse leaving the restaurant than I used to leaving Beerland. The food was good enough; the chicken fried steak was a little tough but it was definitely homemade, and they had some homemade salads on the salad bar in addition to the iceberg lettuce and shredded carrots. If you're driving on I-40 or US 83 and happen to pass through Shamrock, and you can stand the smoke, and you're not a vegetarian or a total health food nut, then give Mitchells a try.
One of these days, maybe we'll actually find a site in survey!

I PASSED!!!!!

2007-11-27T18:24:00.001-08:00

I just found out that I passed my Spanish oral examination required for my masters degree. I failed the one time that I took it, 5 years ago. I celebrated by jumping all around the hotel room and doing a karate kick.
I imagine that I probably just squeaked by, but it doesn't matter, because I passed. So now all I have to do is finish the thesis. Piece of cake...

I know, I know

2007-11-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

I always intended for this to be a blog about me doing archaeology, rather than just me (although I did a fair bit of garden blogging). Well, I haven't done anything interesting archaeology wise in months. I got to wash and look at rocks briefly, got to write a bunch of very basic "cut-paste-change the name and numbers" reports, spent one day digging on a cave. The highlight of all of that was seeing an enormous wild pig about 20 feet away from me.
This week, however, I'll be heading up to Shamrock, Texas. That's in the Panhandle. It's on US 40, which is the old Route 66. Other than that, I don't know much about it. This will be my first time in the Panhandle, though.
Archaeologically, there's not many sites in Wheeler County, but there hasn't been much work either. The possibility exists of finding some Antelope Creek village sites or hamlets, which would be really cool. There also might be some Alibates stone tools. I need to not get my hopes up, because more than likely there'll be not much of anything but long, flat stretches of land.

dammit

2007-10-31T23:04:00.001-07:00

it's late and i'm still awake and kinda drunk and kinda cranky. that's about it.

Same old same old.

2007-10-23T20:06:00.000-07:00

It's been very slow lately. Just going through every day life. Don't want to be a weather blogger (although having the windows open has been very nice and eco-friendly).
A couple of weeks ago (well, almost a month, actually) Tina's car got rear-ended, and it ended up being totaled. We turned the rental in on Saturday, so we're a one car family. It's only a problem during my TxDOT rotation. So tomorrow, for the first time since 2004, I'll be taking the bus to work. Unlike when I lived on Woodrow and worked at the Texan, I'll have to walk a few blocks to get to the bus, and then to get to my work. I'm tempted to bike, but it's uphill both ways. Granted, I'm in better shape now than I was when I used to bike a lot, but 5 miles with big hills on a BMX is a bit daunting first thing in the morning. So is dealing with the traffic on South First or South Congress.
Definitely looking forward to Fun Fun Fun Fest. That'll make up for Halloween being on Wednesday, meaning that no one wants to have a party the weekend before because it's too far off. Next year, it's a Friday and a costume party will happen.

Froggies

2007-10-11T22:22:00.001-07:00

Froggies
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

I had a much nicer encounter with Texas reptiles today. After finishing up our reconnaissance (and racing a huge storm system), we drove up to Ranger, Texas to check out a bridge replacement project. These frogs were everywhere, hopping around. At first, I thought it was just grasshoppers or water bugs, but then I finally saw them. They're really tiny, maybe an inch big and all legs.
I also saw a turtle that must have hurt his hind legs. It was practically vertical in the creek bed, and I thought maybe the rock he was against was just too steep to climb up. So I grabbed a stick and used it to scoot him up the rock, but then it just slid forward again and seemed stuck again. A few minutes later I had my shovel and picked the turtle up and looked at the back of his shell, and I couldn't see the feet or claws, and it never extended the hind legs. Eventually, I put it up on a more level surface and it scooted itself along using its front legs. I didn't really know what else to do.
This week has been pretty easy, even with walking almost 8 miles yesterday. We didn't find a damn thing, though, and the bridge we're checking out tomorrow before driving back to Austin seems like a low probability too.
I've had that damn "Crank Dat (Soulja Boy)" song stuck in my head for a couple of days now. The beat is catchy, but the rap is just horrible and the dance is pretty dumb. And yet, I find myself doing the Superman part randomly, for no reason.

Snake!!!

2007-10-10T16:33:00.001-07:00

rattler
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

So while doing a reconnaissance survey (meaning no shovel tests) today, I stopped for some shade under a big oak tree. I was standing there cooling off and wondering if I was hidden from the road well enough to pee. All of a sudden, I notice this little bugger out of the corner of my eye. Of course, I exclaimed "Oh Shit" and ran about 10 feet away, heart pounding. He didn't move a muscle. I don't know how I finally noticed him, as he's pretty well camoflauged. For a few seconds, I thought about killing it (there were some big rocks nearby). Every time someone tells me they saw a rattler in the field, I ask them if they killed it. But it didn't seem right, since it wasn't aggressive to me. So I took a picture (using the full zoom lens) and went on my way. I paid a lot more attention to my feet while under tree from that point on!

A deadline, at last

2007-10-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

Friday my mom wanted to go to campus to look at some journals in the libraries, so I took advantage of the visit to check on my academic status. Amazingly, even though it's been at least 2 tears since I last darkened her office, the person who is the guru of Latin American Studies remembered my name. I found out that if I don't graduate by the Summer semester of '08, I'll lose a year's worth of credits (24, almost my entire coursework). I also need to take the Spanish oral exam on November 18th or 19th. I might just have to drive to the border the weekend before the test and do some language immersion.
While I'm a bit freaked out, having a deadline is the best thing that could have happened to me, because I work best under the wire. So tomorrow it gets real. I talked to my second reader (not my main advisor, who I need to email) and he told me what he's expecting, which is maybe even a little less than what I was planning. I think everybody just wants me to finish, on a good note.
The Spanish exam might be the toughie. I know I can pass, but I haven't spoken much lately and I have a weird problem speaking Spanish to someone who I know speaks English. I sure hope that they'll let me try again in the spring if I don't pass next month. I wish I could afford to fly back down to Mexico City for a few days.
When I finally finish, I'm going to have a humongous party.

Slow and low

2007-09-30T16:53:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2007-09-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

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

Or maybe not...

2007-09-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-08T18:06:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

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.

Hey, a back yard blog!

2007-08-27T20:05:00.001-07:00

Jack's acorns
Originally uploaded by texasrobo

The archaeology hasn't been very exciting lately, but I did take some photos a few days ago of some of the latest happenings in the wilds of our backyard. The highlight is that Jack the Live Oak finally grew some nuts! Yep, he's covered in acorns. We also have some marigolds and the fishhook cactus is blooming again. All the pictures are on my Flickr photostream.
The tomato plants keep on going. It's a race against bugs these days, and probably half of the ripe maters are ruined by the bugs before I get to them. Of course, when I do get to them I don't always use them in time, but the Sweet 100s have been very delicious on salads. The basil is flowering like crazy and covered in bees. The zucchini are totally dead, and the new zucchini and squash I planted haven't sprouted from what I can tell.
Going to Spring, Texas to survey for a couple of days. SInce that's next to The Woodlands, we'll be dropping by the in-laws for a birthday dinner tomorrow (Tina's mom) and going out with some of Tini's friends for dinner on Wednesday. Much better than East Texas!

Fun weekend

2007-08-20T18:22:00.000-07:00

It all started when we had a work meeting at 3pm. With beer. I had 3, and grabbed another bottle to bring home. Went out at 8 to Rio Grande (lame place but it was for someone's birthday) and had a couple of the Saint Arnold's IPA (not great, not bad), then to Six (lame place, etc.). Paced myself pretty well since I knew I would be driving us home.
Saturday I went to the outlet mall in Round Rock with Dan so he could get some clothes for his high school reunion. It was no sales tax weekend, so I was expecting mayhem, but it wasn't bad at all. I scored myself 2 pairs of Vans for $30 total!! Later that evening Eric and Joolie had a BBQ, where I ate and drank in full-on glutton style. Beerfest was on in the background, so we tried to get some drinking games going briefly, and I chugged a couple of beers. I just can't shotgun a beer! Tini drove us home that night!
Sunday I went shopping with Tini (didn't buy anything for myself this time), and then we stopped by Austin's Pizza on South Lamar and had a basil and garlic pizza. I drank a pint of Firemans 4. Then home briefly, then I went to Sound on Sound for the final Storm the Tower show. Drank a few Lone Stars, plus Billy's orphans and scammed a slice of pizza too. Storm the Tower was great as always, even had Mark sing a song and Ben Snakepit did a Misfits cover to close it down. They were probably my favorite local band for a while, but I admit that I hadn't seen them much lately (nor did they really play much anymore).
This week looks like it may be a boring week in the TxDOT office. Yawn.

This stock market nonsense

2007-08-16T18:54:00.001-07:00

It sucks because my work has a 401k retirement plan, like most companies these days. I don't have much money in there yet, which is probably a good thing because the way things are going I could lose a good chunk of it. It seems stupid that I'm putting money into an "account" which really isn't because if the market goes belly-up then bye-bye "retirement savings". They always show you how much money you'll get when you retire, based on this high rate of return that requires more risky investing. I guess I could just put the money into bonds and keep it safe. For a while, the one socially responsible fund was performing well, and I felt that lazy liberal goodness by having a good bit of my money in there, but even it is down now. I hate that I even have to pay attention to it. On the other hand, it seems like it's going to take a major stock market downturn to finally get the media and the politicians to realize what the average working person has known for a couple of years now: no, the economy isn't going strong, and it's not getting any better.
Ultimately, it could be bad for my livelihood because it would likely mean that less pipelines and subdivisions will be built. Then again, it looks like maybe the federal government is going to pay attention to our crumbling infrastructure.
I feel truly morbid and ugly thinking about how disasters and financial collapses might help or hurt business. "Hey, massive bridge collapse! Looks like there's gonna be a bunch of new bridge replacements!"
Speaking of indirectly, spent a couple days surveying for some fancy new lakehouses on Lake Conroe. Some pretty land, maybe they'll even keep some of the big loblolly pines and elms. We even found a site! I haven't found a site on a survey in months, although this one wasn't impressive. Some lithic debitage mixed amongst a lot of siliceous gravels. Literally, 1 flake for every 70-100 pebbles. But it was a site, dammit! Sometime (or maybe several times) from 400-11,000 years ago, people sat there and banged some rocks together trying to make some tools, and in the year 2007, I found some of their trash on my screen! Hooray for 41MX215 (or something in that range)!!