fool for the process

...that I'd rather write a dissertation than do another Section 106 by myself. I guess that's good, in a way. 0_o

Again, I'm remind of some of the reasons I like being a high desert archaeologist. When I come up through the pass and over the summit and see the landscape and mountains spread out all around me, it just feels "right." It can be 8-10 degrees warmer up here but still feel cooler than down in the pressure-cooker valleys. The beach is always nice. I do have to say that. But I wasn't working at the beach I was sweating in a valley city. I'm the last one to say to anyone "it's not the heat, it's the humidity," because sometimes dammit it IS the heat..But yesterday it was definitely the humidity.

I defense of urban archaeology I will say I like climbing large piles of tires to get the right photo. That was big fun. I like chatting with people who come by for a moment. I like walking down a block, looking for a good entrance to an alleyway that's closed off here and closed off there and finding an ice cream parlor right next to a very good looking Mexican restaurant. I wasn't ready for lunch but that would have been the place. Also, I found an old shed. :-)

My friend was up in the desert and she found a lithic scatter and a groundstone and something else which I've forgotten. I was jealous at first, but hey, whatever. Her job means some excavation, most likely.

The upcoming Phase II near the Colorado River, I can wait on. Spoiled me. It's so hot there right now. Elevation 600-some feet and temperatures still hovering around 110 or so. I know we will not go there until some of us get our classes rolling next week. That means weekend work, most likely on that job.

I've got papers due soon. It's begun. I've gotten myself into this, now, haven't I? Ha.

So, there's an underground oilfield burning away in the Los Padres Nat'l Forest. There's a cool photo of the territory up there in the LA Times article. Weird things sometimes happen underground. Along stretches of the Mojave River after a fire - when they think it's been put out -  the interconnected roots of the cottonwoods and brushy things smolder away, hidden, and then erupt into flame.  I conducted a survey along 70 acres of the river a while ago with a friend and kept looking for telltale smoke. Didn't find any. ;-)

Just a quick update and a big thank you to those of you who've taken the CRM survey. I'm leaving it up because I want to hear from as many people as I can. A few interesting points - out of all the people who have taken it, even those working full time in CRM, 50% of you have a second job and most of you do work full time in the biz. That says a lot to me.

People's comments have been enlightening. I wish that we could all gather around the same table and talk these work-related issues out. Everyone has obviously spent time thinking about the current state of CRM. People want to do good work. People want equitable reimbursement, which almost none of us are receiving. People want to see our so-called gray literature get the exposure it deserves as research. Of course that would require better training of everyone involved. We can't do shoddy work and hope to have it taken seriously as research. And. There are people doing good work whose research is lost to other archaeologists, to say nothing of the public. People are concerned with our standards and with our ability to reach the public - as in - is our work relevant and how? There are some amazingly astute ideas about how to improve our practice. The divide between academics and applied practitioners still exists and it is a problem for almost all of us.

I'm considering putting up another survey about our positioning in CRM and how it affects us. What I'd like to look at next is whether people who are independent consultants (as in self-employed free agents) feel differently from those who are salaried employees from those who are field techs or crew chiefs from those who are PDs from those in private companies from those in government work, etc. This survey has given me a feel for some of this because most of you have been forthcoming about how and for whom you work.

I hear some of the same responses locally as I work that I've seen on the survey, so my question about "how much of this is local" is being answered.

Thanks again.

I've been thinking. I know, bad idea.

The hamsters in the brain won't get off this particular wheel, though. I went to surveymonkey.com and set up a quick and dirty survey for you all, if you're willing. I don't know about surveymonkey. Don't know if it will work, but it reminds me of yahoo, so it should do something...If you are not currently working in CRM but have in the past and feel like you have something to say, please go ahead and answer the questions. I want to hear it all.

I'm posting the website link they gave me, hope it works .

Here ya go:

Click Here to take survey

Thanks!

I'll probably cross-post this in a few related communities.

The Great Lakes for sale...not a new concept, exactly, but things are heating up back there again. Water is not "the oil of the 21st century," it's going to be way more than that. When I lived on the Lakes, back in the land of green, farms outside all of our back doors, water falling from the sky in abundance, back in the day I lacked the experience of what was happening in the West. What we've done here in the West is turning into the story around the world. We just don't have enough water to carry on the way we have been. We can develop alternative fuel technologies. We may wait until there's no other choice...but we could do it. We could power the Desert West on the sun and the wind. People in the high desert are beginning to use biodiesel.  Across the board, maybe we'll just let it all go to hell. Maybe there's no way back. I prefer to think we'll wise up and make some choices that work. (See me in my rosy glasses this evening?) I'm way less worried about fuel than about water.

.

Here I am...

I just decided to do some late-night lab grading and went out into the desert night to my car/office to get my bag. I know there's a hundred-acre uncontained wildfire quite close to the south but there hasn't been a concern with buildings, residences, etc. Off to the north I can see ridgelines outlined in flame glow. The Dept of Forestry website shows a new fire in Kern County, couple thousand acres. A bit further north there's a fire about ten times that size, west of Death Valley, the Clover Fire. I'm not even sure which fire I'm looking at. Next county over, smaller; two counties away, bigger?

Sustainability education gets talked about all over the place. It is being talked about at our community college, among other places, including like local businesses, etc. It's the buzzword on everyone's lips. But, honestly, it sure doesn't get the love. Decide you're going to go that direction and 90% of your associates will think you're nuts.

However. This is not a new experience for me. Most steps of the way, most of the people around me have thought I was nuts. A few years later, in some cases they changed their minds. Some elements of my life will always brand me as nuts. I can live with that.

Just in case.

Give me a list of all the advantages of renting. I sure need to hear those. Time's drawing nigh and things are looking worse.

What do you all know about rent-to-own deals?

One of two things happened here on this 2-3 acres of Mojave Desert.

(1) The Joshua "bark" has been stripped, effectively girdling the tree. Well, not really a tree, a yucca, so technically you can't girdle it. I have a friend who has been observing this happening several miles to the north of here, though. If you remove a portion of the "bark" they die. She's been watching it happen for a few years, After they die, the developers come in, skirting the regulations concerning Joshuas, since the only Joshuas are lying in dead heaps on the ground.

(2) The trees have been set afire. One looked like it had been set fire and then kicked down. Almost two years ago, there was a brush fire on a nearby parcel. Right now there is a nice, new house going up on that parcel.

All but one of the Joshuas on this property have been affected.

This is just too sad. I've been teary all day. Nader's work has informed so very much of my own thinking about sustainable housing. To say he was a visionary doesn't begin to cover it. Several years ago, we lived a few blocks behind Cal-Earth. Here's the kind of man Nader was: one of my sons and his friend were riding their bikes back there, looking at the domes, and Nader happened to be there. He hailed them, gave them a tour and talked to them about earth-friendly, affordable housing. A couple of kids, maybe 12 years old. He addressed them respectfully, informatively, and they left thinking he was one cool dude. Well, he was.

We have talked for years about building one of the eco-domes. The time was just never right. Nader was so vital, so engaged, it never hit me that there might be  reason to hurry. Recently, but before Nader's death,  I was talking to someone from Cal-Earth who said that zoning for the eco-domes had been granted, not just in Hesperia, but eastward, out into the desert as far as Johnson Valley. They were moving along. I don't  know that this end of the big valley would zone for the structures, but I had always hoped that day might come. We had talked about putting a small one up on this property with the kids and using it as a retreat zone. People put all kinds of oddball structures up out here that don't have to pass code - why not put a small, beautiful eco-dome up and use it for whatever we wanted to. A studio, tiny meditation hall, anything.

Oddness in the L A Times, talking about the buildings not meeting standards. The Times just didn't do their homework.  Granted, so many more people want cookie cutter homes from the :::Mumblemumble::: Nation Builders.

More:

http://archinect.com/news/article.php?id=72321_0_24_0_C

 

http://www.calearth.org/burial.html

 

http://www.calearth.org/whatnew.htm

And to top off the day, in my morning class I found out one of my wonderful students, an anthro major, a budding primatologist who is incredibly self-motivated, just one of those students...is being deployed before the elections. He's only 20. He's in the Reserves. I almost cried in class. I told him that I wanted him to email me at some point, letting me know he's okay. I've got to stop feeling like everyone's fuckin mother. It's a hard habit to break especially with certain students.

I let go of the religion of my family a long time ago. Sometimes, though, all I can think of is to pray.When situations just get that overwhelming...One of my daughters told me not to pray but to "do something." I've been doing all of the somethings I can manage to do for a long time. I'm back to lighting candles again.  What an odd day.

I received this link from another adjunct, just to lighten life up. I think you'll see why this particular trailer near the end of it. *big grin*

And yeahyeah, I know Indy's a treasure-hunter. But oh he's Indy. Not too much the worse for wear either, in fact. Maybe you younger sprouts won't agree. Maybe he'll look like your grampa...but he's still Indy.

taken from egretplume








take the WHAT BAD BOOK ARE YOU test.


and go to mewing.net. not as good as reading a good book, but way better than a bad one.



I don't know what to say.

One more epoch for my students to be tortured with remember...

And for those of you who love DIRT like I love dirt...what we've done to it.

None of this is really news, none of it surprising. Some people will write books, some will give presentations, some chosen academics will maybe make some money off of the misfortunes of dirt. Maybe a handful will offer some creative ideas. We can hope. Kinda makes me wish I were a decade or so younger and could trek up to UC Davis for another degree. I think a few useful ideas might be produced there.  Or ought to be.


P.S. Ever the farmer's niece, great-niece, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, great-great granddaughter, x-great g/d, all the way back as far as our family knows...not the farmer's daughter, however. Momma and Daddy left the farm, boy...while a few relatives who also left the farm tunneled into the dirt and into the rock. I come by digging holes honestly, it would appear. I've gardened since I was 8 or 9 and now earn some extra money digging holes for other people (not to mention for my own peculiar satisfaction as well)..

Farmers to sell their water...

Not that this would be news to most of you. Water will become the new oil. If nothing changes, nothing changes.

Here in California, whenever we have a Republican in the governor's mansion we can expect one more effort to gut the community college system.  Current occupant no exception.

Big Happy Birthday Wishes going out to gillyp today!!!!!

All I can say is my two winter classes rawk!  They are some of the most interactive, questioning, willing-to-stick-their-necks-out to learn students I've had. I'm teaching intro to physical anth and the lab that goes with it. Most of my lab students are in the lecture class.  The two classes contain some students who are "opposed to evolution" but they are open enough to listen and talk about it. No one has walked out this term due to evolution-resistance. The winter session is intense - it compacts a full semester into six weeks. This winter term has been made particularly intense due to whichever individuals organized it into five weeks and two days as opposed to a full six weeks.  It will not be a huge problem to cover the material in the lecture, but the lab class will be tough. They have to learn a lot of bones and basic bone-related forensic techniques in such a short time. Plus the usual lab stuff.

to suenechica!!!!

I hope this is a beautiful year for you!

And I ate too much chocolate chip brownie thing...

For some reason, our newspaper hasn't been delivered most of this week (hopefully the deliverer hasn't been sick) but it did come today. We've got some lovely cottonwood for the woodstove thanks to suenechica but having used up all our old paper we've let the stove go cold for a couple of days. Today a couple of the younger kids offered their old, used  "Key To" math workbooks. Ha! Why not? They are all newsprint and the concepts are in the kids' heads (we hope).  "Let's recycle the math lessons! Yay!"

I really like the way cottonwood burns. It burns at a nice temp, faster than a hardwood, but it's...light. Some woods have strong smoke - some smell nice and some not so great but cottonwood is simply warm and almost smokeless. At least it seems almost smokeless. It is giving us a beautiful fire in the blustery night. And we all felt just a little bit...wicked...burning up math lessons.