I Finally Found Something

So Athens, Georgia was a good time last weekend. The roasted pig was delicious and so was the Georgia peach pie. I met someone who took and anthropology class with my second cousin. That was crazy. It was also cool to meet some of the archaeologists at the Museum of Natural History in New York where two of my coworkers interned. Now when they talk about those people I can picture them in my head.

Last weekend was Ath Fest (or Athfest?) in Athens so they had a bunch of live music at night. A couple of us from the party wandered over there shortly after midnight. I was talking to a guy about how I thought the bands we were listening to were pretty good. He said Athens had a good music scene and was really pumped that I, an outsider, was showing interest. He said he would burn me some CDs of local bands and send them to me. He was drunk at the time, however, so I'm not sure if he'll remember to do it.

Today it was back to digging shovel tests. At the end of the day I found my first artifact this summer. It was a flake 40 - 50 cm below the surface. For anyone who doesn't know, a flake is a piece of rock that gets chipped off while making stone tools. Sometimes flakes are even used as tools. At first I was bummed because my find means we have to dig six extra holes around the positive shovel test pit (a.k.a. STP - does that make anyone else think of Stone Temple Pilots?). Then I got excited because I remembered the reason I took this job and the reason I am in archaeology - so I can find artifacts that shed light on the past. One tends to forget this when you dig too many holes without finding anything but sand and palmetto roots.

Update from Florida

Something I am putting on my skin is taking the paint off my watch. I'm thinking it's the sunblock. Weird. I wonder if this has ever happend to anyone else.

Two of my coworkers, Quinn and Lauren, have written a horror film script with the all the crew members as characters in the story. I have not read the final draft, but I hear I am one of the killers. The other killer is Dave, who is a crew chief. Apparently we want to steal everyone's per diem so we can go to Reno, NV to get married. For those of you that know my love of pears (hmmm ... that's probably everyone), in one scene I give one crew member, Mika, a poisonous pear. Thrilling. They talked about trying to sell it to a production company so look for a horror film about archaeologists in the future.

Tomorrow marks the seventh day of work for me this week. My wrists and forearms are really starting to hurt. Advil has become a good friend. This weekend I might head to Georgia with Lauren and Quinn. They are driving eight hours just to go to a party in Athens on Saturday night with some people from the Museum on Natural History in NYC. An eight hour road trip just for a party - sounds like fun to me.

Tonight, we are celebrating Kat's birthday (another crew member who can't stop talking about sex - a little shocking at first, but now I'm used to it). The motel is letting us use their grill by the pool so we will have a cookout. I'm pretty pumped about a hot dog right about now.

Avon Park

This place where I am working, Avon Park, is a bizarre juxtaposition of federal land use. Most of it is an airforce bombing range, but there are quite a few other things going on here. Some land is devoted to a wildlife refuge/conservation area. Other tracts here and there are rented out to cattle farmers as grazing land. When you first get past the entry gate there is a park area with campsites and lake access. Right after the camping area lies the juvenile detention facility on the north side of the road and the adult correctional facility to the south. I'm not so sure all those things logically go together or belong in the same place. It's kind of like the goverment had an all purpose chunk of land in the middle of Florida where it's hot and not very scenic (except by the lake) and they decided to use it in as many ways as possible.

Yesterday, during a downpour over lunch, we visited the juvenile delinquent staffed bowling alley / cafeteria. Most of us got our lunch there. It was actually pretty good and they even had a fresh salad bar.

Today and tomorrow have become our weekend because some bombing exercises prohibit us working on the range. It is nice to have a couple days off, but to make up for it we are working seven days in a row next week. Yummy.

Another Rain Day

The effects of Alberto have been moving over Sebring and Avon Park. It's really not that bad, just light to heavy rain off and on. Yesterday we quit work at noon because it started raining too much. Today we went out there and waited in the trucks for a while. Then we tried to find our next project area. We went down a road called "Blood Trail" and ended up in a place titled "Tick Island." Yep, those names sound appetizing. We spent the whole time in the trucks and in an administration office break room then came home after noon again. I wonder how much of the summer will be like this. I like the time off, but I'm getting used to not working. Going back to digging holes in the hot sun could be painful.

Javers' Fed-ex buddy probably sent my bike yesterday so hopefully I will get that soon. How exciting.

Gatorade

I found out yesterday that Gatorade was invented in Florida. I'm glad because I drank it on Friday and today and I think it really helped my energy level (or maybe I just tricked myself into thinking I had more energy).

This job is crazy. All day I dig a holes with a shovel. When I accepted this job I thought I was going to be more pedestrian survey, which is mostly walking. This is mostly digging holes and a little walking. Usually, I'm by myself working on a transect - a line of holes to be dug - so I'm really glad I bought an mp3 player before I came. The first couple days I didn't bring my mp3 player out in the field and when I spend that much time by myself doing manual labor all kinds of crazy thoughts go through my head. The music is certainly a nice distraction. Most of the mp3s are off Javers' computer so I'm listening to a lot of 311 right now. I'm also liking his Weezer and Linkin Park/Jay-Z collections. Has anybody heard of Heather Nova? She is also good times. Listening to all his music kinda makes me miss ol' Jeremy too.

Last weekend I rode Amtrak to Tampa to see Uncle John and Aunt Sara. On Saturday we went to an aquarium and a strange, but amazing, exhibit at a science center called "Bodies." Whoever made the exhibit took real human bodies, soaked them in acetone then used a vacuum to replace cellular material with silicone rubber. At some point during the process the bodies were sliced various ways or divided up to expose the different bodily systems (i.e. muscular, nervous, endocrine, etc.). One of the most interesting for me was the circulatory system. They took away all the bones, muscles, organs and nerves. All that was left was the mass of fluffy red vessels in the shape of a whole person and specific parts of the body. Crazy.

On Sunday John and Sara drove me back to Sebring via a college campus with some neat Frank Lloyd Wright buildings and the Bok Conservatory, which has nice gardens and a big tower that plays songs on bells. I'm glad I have some time on the weekends to take in the local sights down here. Next weekend I think I might rent a car and do something with some of the other crew members. Does anyone have suggestions?

Off to Florida

I finished the pre-session course I took on Friday. It was all about biological anthropology which studies human/primate variation today and in the past (a.k.a. human evolution). We spent quite a bit of time in class looking at skulls - skulls of modern humans and great apes and skulls of early hominids - and learning the differences between features. Yesterday afternoon, as I on a plane to Memphis, I kept looking out the window and seeing the skulls of Homo erectus and Australopithicus and gorillas in the clouds. Who would have guessed that class would have such an impact? I think I should tell Dr. Moore-Jansen about it when I get back to score some brownie points ... or maybe they would just be nerd points.


What is my problem with packing sharp objects in my carry-on luggage? Does anyone besides Joe Dick remember when I tried to pass a few large J.A. Henckels kitchen knives through security in Frankfurt, Germany. Yep, the language barrier didn't help the situation either. This time I tried to bring my 10 in. metal file (for filing shovels and trowels, not nails) on board. I must have looked innocent because the lady told me with great regret she would have to keep it at the airport. Oh, well.


Now I am here in Lakeview, FL or Avon Park, or whatever the name of this town is. The motel is pretty cool, it's old and the rooms have neat little closets and old-school sinks. There's lots of good woodwork too. We just had an orientation meeting so I met the other people I will be working with. Apparently, we have to dig at least eighteen circular shovel test pits a day (spaced according to the field supervisor) that are 1 m deep and 50 cm in diamter. Sounds like a lot of work to me. At least the soil is sandy.