more blabbering

Part II

Most CRM firms (Cultural Resource Management) are private for profit companies. There are some large ones out there, but they are usually environmental firms with an Archaeology branch. Even some large construction companies have their own archaeologists. Cal-Trans has their own in house archaeologists, however, most are paper pushers (get stuck writing proposals and grants and reports). CRM companies contract themselves out to other companies/agencies. We bid on projects and either win them or not. It helps to “know” the right people.

The company I work for has several offices (Santa Cruz – where I am, Berkeley, Cameron Park – Sacramento, Chico, Lancaster, and two offices in Hawaii [Maui and Kailua]). Each office tends to specialize in a particular area and/or field. We at Santa Cruz get a lot of jobs with a particular power agency and Oil agencies in the central valley. We spend most of our time either in the Sierra Mountains or in the Central Valley. The Cameron Park office gets a lot of Cal-Trans jobs and they tend to work on the east side of the Sierra’s. Berkeley tends to get university gigs (USCS, Stanford) and city gigs (City of Monterey, San Jose, St. Helena, and San Francisco). Our Chico office was set up to run our projects in Nevada, and the Lancaster office was set up to run a large (many many many years to come) power project. We also have labs at our Berkeley and Cameron Park offices (we have one at Santa Cruz, but never get to use it for some reason), and we have specialists, i.e. Osteologists, Lab people who can do Obsidian Hydration (a form of dating), Historic archaeologists, pre-historic archaeologists, ethnographers, GIS specialists (stands for Geographic Information Systems), lithic specialists – like my boss who can look at an obsidian point (arrowhead) and tell you where the glass came from (what mountain it erupted from) type of point it is (style of the point), and which group of people made it and when. Also there is botany, geology, geography, and biology involved in what we do.

We need to know a little about everything, and it helps to know a lot about something. I’m working on that. I know an iddy biddy bit about a lot of things, and not much of anything else. I don’t have a specialty. If I did, then I would be more worthwhile to hang on to. But then again, if all you know is a lot about one thing and nothing else… then you aren’t worth much either. I get sent out to a variety of places and extremes; it helps to be well rounded. I know a bit about plants, trees, and animals (biology), I know a bit about rock types and formations (geology), I know a bit about landscapes and how they change over time (geography), I can tell the difference between human and animal bones, fish, and birds (osteology), I know a bit about historic and prehistoric (Spanish, European, Indian), mapping skills… you get the idea. Also to make yourself more appealing, you need to know your office skills, (word, excel, graphics programs like adobe illustrator, and photoshop), write reports, know about the laws and regulations about the field (Cultural and Environmental – these keep us employed). And skills with a GPS device (how to use them in the field, and once back in the office). I guess you can say that archaeologists in general have to know a lot about everything. I don’t think regular Joe people realize what all goes into making a good archaeologist, or how much we need to know about other fields to do our job right.

What I do Part 1

I’ve come to realize that I have not really explained what I do… to make an iddy biddy amount of money. I went to school and got my B.A. in English Literature. That only took 6 years, and has not come in very handy, except I can produce words on a page that can bore the pants off of anybody. I then came running home to mommy and daddy, and they let me back, had to change rooms though. I then had to decide what to do next, because I did not get into the MFA program I applied for at San Jose State. Looking back on it now, running home and not getting accepted was the best thing that ever happened to me. I got a job at a bookstore and started taking anthropology classes at a local junior college. I applied for a summer field school in Archaeology, and got accepted. That was a long 9 weeks, but also an amazing experience. I knew absolutely nothing about “real” archaeology and came out with shoulders of steel, a giant freckle (they all merged), immunity to poison oak (THANK GOD), and a new passion. I applied to graduate school while in the field school, and was accepted to Cal State Hayward (now known as Cal State East Bay – can you get any more ghetto than that?). I finished the Masters program in 1.5 years. I’ll be honest, Hayward isn’t the best school, and my degree is a glorified B.A. in my opinion. To make a long story short, I was driving in my car a lot (from home to work to school to back home), ate a lot of fast food, had no social life…. Oh wait, I still don’t, and was able to only be in college for 9 years of my life. But I have 2 degrees to show for it. Yeah.

During my time at Ghetto school 101, I got hired at my current company. I got lucky. They liked me, and was ok with me going to school. After I graduated, I was hired on full-time, and apparently put on the fast track (I didn’t know we had one). I became a “supervisor in training” by the following year. Sometime between then and now the training wheels have come off, but I couldn’t tell you when that happened. I don’t get the complicated projects or big projects… I don’t have the experience. But I got a company credit card – sweet, and health insurance, and a 401k. Let me tell you how cool that is. In this profession, about 70% of the people who work for/at companies like mine, are part-timers who hop from one job to the next working for any company that will hire them for a job (no health care, benefits, no nothing). Dig bums or shovel bums. There are several websites just for companies to post jobs for dig bums. (shovelbums.org) But most of these people have traveled the U.S. and the world working at amazing places and have more knowledge than I can ever imagine and are some of the happiest people I have met, so don’t feel bad.

Now, all that explains… uh… not much. This is not Indiana Jones or Lara Croft. I do not wear a fedora or spandex with .45’s strapped to my thighs. Although many people have told me I should be “packing heat”. I don’t. I would probably get into more trouble than I already do. The last thing I need is to have some uptight hunter or property owner with weapon in head, see that I have one too. No thank you!

Sorry, I keep distracting myself. There are two worlds in the Archaeology life. Academia and what we call CRM, stands for Cultural Resource management. The academia types are the ones you hear about in the news every once in a while. Some PhD know it all and his/her Graduate students off in the Amazon or Guatemala on some ginormous grant money found a new temple or some such thing. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, I’m just jealous. My boss actually goes on “vacation” to do research in either Mongolia or Easter Island (Rapa Nui), and another co-worker/boss lady is an osteologist who goes to Turkey every year to dig up some of the first Homo Sapiens (or Cro Magnon) who made it into Europe at Chatelhuik. Flip the coin over and you have CRM. That’s what I do. And the name fits, we help manage cultural resources. What are cultural resources? Pretty much anything made by/from human hands that is over 50 years old. This includes Indian sites, Spanish (remember, I’m in California), Gold rush (Chinese immigrants), mining, ranching, plantations, agriculture, buildings, houses, even infrastructure (roads, highways, trails, utilities [gas, electric, hydro]). But not just any “old” thing will do. My mother is over 50 years old, but is she “significant”? There has to be something about the “thing” or place to make it “worth saving”. For example, Cannery Row in Monterey. It is historically significant because of the canning industry that was there, the architecture of the buildings are unique or designed by some so and so, and to top it off, a famous author wrote about the place in his novels (anyone heard of John Steinbeck?).

more later... this is getting long

And so I say again, it's been a while my friends

Just a pic of me hugging a huge marble, really it's marble... from about two years ago at Florence Lake, California.

It seems I say this every time…. It has been way too long since the last time I wrote. I keep thinking about it, but then I never do just sit down and write an update. A lot has happened since the last time. My sister and I bought a house together. And we are actually enjoying each other’s company. I never thought I would live with my sister and her two teenage sons, but I am happy being with them. There are a lot of “home improvement” projects, many are done, there are plenty more to do. I’m trying to build a bookcase; it’s not going so well. But I really want it, and well, what I want, I have to build myself because there is nothing like it out there. I fell in love with it when I saw it on TV. If anyone (and I know who you are) ever saw the show Moonlight last year (only one season) the main character, Mick, had the most awesome bookcase in his apartment. So I am trying to replicate it to fit my bedroom.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and that can be very dangerous. Actually it gives me anxiety attacks. (Thanks dad) The things I’ve been thinking about give me these lovely heart pounding, I don’t want to puke feelings because they are things I don’t have answers too, and I will never really know the answers ever, because well… the questions are open ended… and can have many answers or none at all. Why do I think such things in the first place?? I love torturing myself apparently. I’m going to keep thinking about them until I finally face them, really think about them, and answer them truthfully to the best of my knowledge, and where I am in my life right now.

On a brighter note, my 31st birthday was one of the best birthdays of my life… ever! I spent it with my family. And my two nephews, my sister’s boyfriend, and myself went indoor skydiving. One of the coolest experiences of my life. Don’t know what else to really say about it, but woo hoo! Here is their website: iflysfbay.com

Now, on with the archaeology. I’ve been working a lot in the foothills east of Fresno lately. That’s where I am right now, actually. In a hotel in Fresno. The only good thing about Fresno is that it has a lot of good restaurants, and that it is close to the beautiful foothills and Sierra Mountains. Other than that, there isn’t much to see here. We’ve been doing survey work and recording (documenting) sites near and under the transmission lines (power) that feed Los Angeles, on private property. It has been a… well… interesting experience. Being on private property automatically puts me out of my comfort zone. Our client (who we are working for) was supposed to notify the property owners that we would be on their lands. Well, that never happened. So since I am the project supervisor, I am the one who has to “talk” to these owners when they see us on their land. Several things have happened. 1. Owner comes up in big truck with big hunting dogs and loaded rifles. I about shit my pants. “Who are you and what are you doing?” I explain. Then he lightens up a bit… he thought we were illegally hunting on his property. He said he had caught hunters earlier in the day nearby. Then he said that there are 3 mountain lions nearby as well, a mother and 2 young adolescents. Oh wonderful. 2. Owner comes up on his horse, asks “who are you and what are you doing?’ I sense a theme. I explain… he is concerned that we stay only where we are suppose to stay… which is only in the “right-of-way” i.e. 300 feet on either side of the transmission lines. I say, no problem. 3. Property owner comes up in big truck; stares you down like he wants to kill you with his eyes. (I had a headache that day… turned into a three-day event). He was not happy, at all. He asked for proof of who we were. So I gave him phone numbers of our client. He calls them right then and there. He’s not happy. He doesn’t like our client, never did. He doesn’t like us, or what we do. He doesn’t want anyone on his property. He doesn’t want the Indian people to know about what is on his property. (He thinks, if they did know, that they would somehow get access – that’s not how it works, by the way). He thought we would “loot”. It was just all negative, negative, negative. Seriously, if he could kill with his eyes… geesh. I said, hey, if you want us to leave, we will. He finally said, well you’re almost done, you might as well finish. So the next day, we worked like a bee was up our ass, and got the hell out of Dodge! 4. Meet the leasers of the property and/or owners and they are chill, don’t care that we are there, or they are ecstatic and do whatever they can to help. I like these people. I’ve been having phone conversations with one in particular who is so ecstatic about what is on his property that, after we had finished with his property, he has gone back out and found more features and wants to send me pictures, and wants to know all about it. He’s pumping me for any information he can get. I’ll say again, I like these people. So this project has brought me tons of stress and I’m sure more grey hairs; it is the project that never seems to end; but also a lot of satisfaction and joy. I am learning a lot about the cultures that were here before the cattle ranching and citrus orchards. i.e. the Armenian immigrants and the Yokut Indians. This is the first time that I have worked on a project where we have found pictographs and mortars 35 centimeters in diameter and as deep as my entire arm. These sites are amazing.

High Five

You gotta love highway art! I pass this thing every time I go to the Sierra’s for work. And I always say, “oh yeah, I need to get a picture of that”. Well, I finally did.

Today is a rare day off for me, and I’m actually spending it up here in the Sierra’s. Shaver Lake to be exact. I had a meeting yesterday (Monday) in Fresno at 7:45 am. So I drove down to Fresno Sunday night. Tried not to fall asleep in the meeting, and then we were all off for what SCE calls a job-walk. SCE is replacing the “skyline” (the uppermost wire/cable on the transmission towers [the big steel ones]) with a Fiber Optic cable. This is suppose to help improve the communications that will travel this cable. SCE is replacing this on three of their transmission lines. Of course they told me this only on Wednesday, last. Anyway, they invited four companies to submit bids on the project. (SCE outsources most of their construction work now). So this meeting was for them. Me, the archaeologist and JJ (that’s what I’ll call him) the Biologist were invited just to help give them an idea of what they will be encountering and what types of “things” they will have to avoid. So after the boring meeting that had nothing to do with me, we all got in our trucks and drove off to some of the locations that they will have issues with, i.e. difficult terrain, cultural/bio issues, access (some of the towers they need to get to are in citrus groves and trucks don’t fit). One funny thing, well, it’s funny now was that I was the only one who didn’t have 4-wheel drive. *grumbles and swears about how the rental company continuously screws me over* Anyway, I didn’t have any real problems but since everyone else did have 4-wheel drive, they were driving up the freshly graded dirt roads with lots of rocks and loose soil quite slow. Now if any of you know about 4-wheel driving… when you don’t have 4-wheel drive and have not quite bald yet highway tires…. You need to have momentum to get uphill on loose soil. Needless to say, I think I scared the crap out of the guys in the truck behind me. JJ was in the rental crap mobile with me, so we were having a grand ole time thinking about those guys behind us getting the dirt storm of the century from my constantly spinning wheels and having me stop and wait for the trucks ahead to get farther ahead so I could floor it up the hills. So our day ended in the orange groves east of Fresno, and I then drove up here to Shaver Lake.

Because I technically worked on Saturday (picked up the rental crap mobile), Sunday (driving down to Fresno) and Monday, I have today off, mostly because I will be working up here Wednesday straight through to next Thursday.

So here I am, with a day off in a tiny resort town in the mountains. So what did I do? I slept in till 10:30 of course. I went to the little museum in Camp Edison, which was just built last year. Of course it was closed. Only open from Thursday-Sunday from 11-3. So I decided to drive up to the lake. Parked in the overflow/turn out area and walked around the lake. Well, not very far, the lake is HUGE! I tried to find a spot that didn’t have any garbage nearby, or people. That was an impossible task. My word, there is a lot of trash around the lake, it’s disgusting. You can smell it rotting, yuck! I sat down near the water on a rock and tried to read a book for a while. But then the afternoon clouds came in and I got cold. So I drove back into town and ordered a pizza for lunch (and dinner), and now I am sitting outside at the little coffee shop drinking an iced chai and eating pizza. The lady who owns the coffee shop also owns the little grocery store and wood carving shop that are all connected to each other. I am sitting on the coolest wood patio table. They have some pretty cool outdoor furniture, to bad my sister and I have no money to buy some of it. Her boyfriend owns the restaurant across the street (really good food). Anyway, this is the only place with wireless Internet… I think the only internet in town. So here I am. Not sure what to do with the rest of the day… If I wasn’t by myself it would have been nice to rent a canoe/kayak and go play on the lake. But I didn’t want to go out there by myself.

Tomorrow will be all work and no play till next Thursday, so I best be off to enjoy the rest of the day.

No really, I love construction workers

So I'm sitting here in my car at 11:12am writing this (sort of, typing it up later obviously). I'm at the Monterey Presidio, it is one of the language schools for the U.S. military now (Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center). Monitoring here is always an interesting experience, most of the time quite boring. Like now, waiting for them to start digging again.

Getting on base is always interesting too. They have a little gate booth looking thing with two guards and a turn out/parking lot with a trailer (now upgraded to a more permanent trailer) with a lovely port-o-potty. I have to go to the turn out/ parking thing and get a blue pass before I can go up to the guards in the little gate booth thingy. They need to see my drivers license, car insurance, and registration. I usually have to explain to the guard in this trailer/hut thing who I am, what I do, why I'm there, who my supervisor is (which when working on the Presidio is the City of Monterey - and who ever the lead engineer is for the particular project). I've met most of the city people and they are all pretty nice.

Anyway, as I was saying earlier......... What was I saying? Oh dear. Once the guard in the hut thing gives me my blue pass (it really is blue) which has all my incriminating evidence on it (I'm sure if they could put my SS# on there, they would). This card has my name, phone number, supervisor, their phone number, make, model, and color of my car, which bldg I'll be at, who gave the pass to me, and how long it's good for (24 hours). I then finally drive up to the two guards in their gate booth thingy and show them my blue pass and my DL, which they look at, then look at me, then back at my DL, then the blue card, then back at me, etc. And finally shoo me away, and I drive onto the base and immediately get lost. This place is a maze. Today was easy though, in that they are working on the main road into the base, so I was already on it! But finding parking, well... let's just say I'm on the dead grass lawn next to the bus route side road. Yeah, I'm parked illegally on a military base.

So, why am I here and why do I love construction workers? Well this is a Presidio which means there is a lot of history here. 1. this is Monterey and indians were everywhere here (still are). 2. The Spanish built the original Presidio (a military outpost) here in around 1768. It's full name was El Presidio Real de San Carlos de Monterey. And 3. the U.S. military took over around 1846. So there is a lot of stuff lying around. The military has a contract with the City of Monterey that basically says when the city is going to do any maintenance/ ground disturbing on the base, they need to have a monitor. And well, we have an open contract with the city, so here I am. We usually get the frantic phone calls at 7am, "oh crap, the sewer line just busted, can you be here 10 minutes ago?" or "oh crap, can you be here tomorrow morning?"

So today this crew hired by the city to fix the road on the base where some cypress tree roots have done a number to the pavement. They are removing the bad sections and repaving. Oh fun. These guys are cool. The crew is usually all spanish speakers. of a crew of about 8 , there is one white chick (happens to have the loudest mouth), one white dude (the foreman and operator), one black guy who talked with me quite a bit, and the rest were latino. They all spoke very good english though, I was surprised. Today's comment was "has anyone told you lately how beautiful your eyes are?" (I'm trying not to roll my eyes here). And then there was the "how do I get a job like hers?" The response from the foreman was, "It's this place called college". I also love how they try to clean up their language as if I have fragile virgin ears. And their idea of cleaning up their language is either saying it in Spanish or not yelling it every third word right in front of me (they do it across the street instead). You can learn a lot just hanging out with these guys for a day.

And I didn't bring a lunch. I should have known better, but usually my job here is done by noon and so I just drive back up to the office. But today, all I have is a small bag of pretzels I grabbed from home and an old bag of Honey Roasted Peanuts from Southwest Airlines that I found in my backpack. Well, it is now 12:00pm and lunch is over, but I'm still sitting on my ass because they are not digging. They have to pave over one side of the road before they can dig up the other side. Oh... I think it's time to get off my ass...

*note that I finally typed this up a week later, and I ended up staying there till after 5pm, ended up being a 11.5 hour day (and only got paid for 8 - sucks being a supervisor sometimes - no overtime pay)

Oops, so sorry

So I guess I should tell you all, I didn't go to Nevada. I was pulled off the project by my boss, who said I was needed here (in California) instead. I was bummed at first, but I got over it. I had already bought my tent, camping stove and gas canisters, and lost 8 pounds by jogging and other exercises. Oh well, needed that anyway I suppose.

So instead of being in Nevada (which a report I got from a buddy who is on the project said that it is cold, windy, and other things I should not say) I am spending my summer here:
I'm back in the Sierra Mountains. It seems to be my home away from home. I have noticed that just like everywhere else, the towns here are suffering the recession, just like the rest of us. There are more for sale signs here than I have ever seen here before. The winter season was bad, and the summer season looks to be just as bad. Many of the restaurants in town are for sale, and lots of cabins. The towns up here survive on the tourists and us workers. The reservoirs are at the lowest I have ever seen them, and the fish populations are down as well. It is sad to see. It is such a beautiful place... but maybe the lack of people will be a good thing (for nature anyway).

I'm going back up on Monday (June 9th). I will most likely be up there the rest of June and July. I hope to be able to finish the field work for at least one of my projects... I have two other Sierra Mountain projects waiting for me.

To update you on what I've been doing since the desert experience... let me see... i went to southern San Benito County for a day to survey a creek bed, went back to the Sierra's a few times, did some survey and recording in the Kettleman Hills (cow country) in the oil fields. Had to take an 8 hour class on the thousands of ways I can die in the oil fields. (it wasn't called that of course but that is basically the gist of it) And when I wasn't out, I was in the office typing away and making maps and generally trying to stay out of trouble.

Meanwhile back at the ranch

I’m here in the California desert. Outside of Lancaster and Palmdale (yes, I said Palmdale). The wildflower season was at its peek last week, but it is still quite beautiful and amazing. There are still poppies everywhere, but they are on their last hurray. I’m down here for a ten-day rotation, surveying dirt roads and soon to be dirt roads that will access a new power transmission line (those big steel towers) that will of coarse go to feed Los Angeles. But at least it is wind power; they are bringing power from a wind farm in Tehachapi.

It is only day four, have six more to go. But I have already seen some pretty cool stuff. Tomorrow will be the “jaw dropping” day. We will be visiting and mapping and whatnot at this HUGE village site. It spans more than three miles!!! WOO HOO. Lots of cool things to see.

Here is what I have seen so far… lots of wildflowers, poppies, thistle, linear golden bush, blue dicks (I kid you not, that is there name), forget-me-nots, chia, and many many others. My survey buddy is a botanical nut, so I keep asking her, “what’s this?”

Also, lots of lizards, stink bugs (do not squish them!), snakes (picture is of a Mojave Green – very poisonous), horny toad, and coyotes (one live one jogging amongst the cows, and one dead – most likely hit by a car, his back leg was broken).

The days have been going by fast. The hikes are not too bad. We are in the high desert, so the wind blows constantly (which is good and bad). Good because it keeps the temperatures down, and bad because it keeps the temperatures down. HA! It’s cold in the mornings and evenings, and hot during the day. But this is a good time to visit the desert, not too hot. It will get into the 90’s this weekend, but that isn’t too bad.

Two things I have noticed. Way to many people are moving into the desert. Lancaster and Palmdale blend into each other now. No distinction between the two cities. Suburban sprawl is killing the desert. And there is garbage EVERYWHERE!!!!! People have no respect for the desert; they just drive their crap out there and dump it!!!! WTF? (sorry, really irks me). It is so sad! I usually try to pick up trash I see, but you can’t do that out here unless you have a dump truck following you. My survey buddy and I did pick up some stuff today; someone had dumped chlorine tablets, (you know – urinal cakes). Those are toxic!!!!!!! We put them in a plastic garbage bag I had in my pack and took them to a dumpster. How hard it is to dump stuff in a dumpster. Lazy bastards.

Other than that little rant, I’m having a great time. Wish I had a better internet connection but, oh well. We will see if I can get this to post tonight. Here’s hoping!