just saying hi

Not a lot to say right now, I'll check in later. It's getting kind of cold out tonight, we all knew it would do this. There is no fall anymore, just summer and then winter.
I'm working on a site to put all my pictures from my archaeology trips on line. It's coming along good, I'll have an address for it soon.
I'm still busy at work, apparently my boss thinks that being management means getting someone else (me) to do all the work that a manager should do. I still don't know what he does all day, I'm not sure anyone else knows either. Oh well, whats 70,000 bucks here or there.
We got asked to sing at the winter gathering instead of Eagle Ridge, I don't quite know whats going on with this, but we'll do the best we can.

6 month roller coaster ride

It's been six months today I've had my new supervisor job. A lot of times I never thought I'd make it this long (and I still am not sure I'll make it a year).
It's been up and down, nonstop, just when things look better something happens, or someone does something, and I'm back to losing sleep. My bosses, who I should be able to rely on for support, sometimes seem to be trying to make things tougher for me.
Just a couple of days ago one of my key people said he might leave for another job, which would mean no vacations or days off for me until I trained someone else. Now it looks like he's staying (I really hope), but the big bosses have played with him like all of us.
I've never been into doing sweats, but maybe it would help with the stress.
Things are looking better right now, but I'll wait and see. I've been there before.

more from out west

I guess I better finish up on my trip to Colorado.
My digging this year wasn't as exciting as is has been, I mostly moved rocks.
I was in a unit which was just outside a major ceremonial structure, a triwalled structure. There aren't many of these in the southwest, but one just like it is at Sand Canyon ruins a few miles away. At just this point at Sand Canyon there is a small kiva outside the tri walled structure, no one knows quite why it's there. If the archaeologists are right and Goodman Point is related somehow to Sand Canyon, there might be a kiva here too.
Well, they put a test pit here, and ran into the top of a curved wall. The idea of this unit was to follow the wall down and see if it is indeed a kiva.
I mostly moved wallfall. When these ruins decay, the roof falls in first, then the walls fall on top. This is called deposition. So you have to remove all the masonry blocks from the walls, then you remove the wooden beams and adobe from the roof, then you get to the hearth, bench, floor,etc., basically the good stuff. But first you have to carefully (very carefully) take out all the wall blocks. I have over many years become kind of an expert at this, so that's what I did. You don't find many artifacts, it's not glamorous (it sure ain't Indiana Jones), but it's an important part of modern archaeology.
That's about it for the trip,I just came home.
Well, except for friday night at the Dolores Brewpub. One of the hottest new spots in Colorado (and if the locals find out I put this on the web, they'll kill me).

more on my trip

After the weekend in Aspen, I headed on to Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, Colorado for a week of excavating and other work.
The first thing I found out was that my roommate in the cabin was the same person I shared a cabin with two years ago. This was pure luck, the people who assign cabins had no idea. That evening at introductions I found that two ladies there for the week were from the quad cities,only an hour or so away from me. And one of them was a nun!
There were also a couple of other people I had been there with before, but then there usually are.
The next day, monday, those of us who had experience at Crow Canyon (alumni) went out to the area of the dig to work. Instead of digging, though, we did cross section mapping of prehistoric trails, or what we hope were prehistoric trails. This consisted of setting lines across the trail at regular intervals and measuring from the line down to the ground every couple of inches (10 centimeters to be exact).
This gave us a cross section of the trail all along it, probably a quarter of a mile or more. By putting these measures from a number of trails into a database, the archaeologists hope to develop a method of determining if a trail is an old human trail, or a new or animal trail.
Actually, a lot of modern archaeology is like this, studying the landscape and area of use of ancient people. It's not Indiana Jones, but we learn a lot.
Next time I'll get to my actual excavation, but be forewarned, I didn't dig up a lot of artifacts, just a lot of rocks.