TREES!!!

I love the forested mountains. I love the ocean. There is something magical about these places. No matter what is going on or how I am feeling, either of these places, here or there, near or far away, can calm me – allow me to just breathe.

Recently, as in earlier this week, I got to work in the Sierra Mountains east of Fresno, California. I got to stay in a little mountain town of a little over 1,000 people in a hotel with 8 rooms each of which has a theme. I had the duck room. I, the lucky one, got to go to sleep with stuffed ducks mounted over my oak bed. I got to wake up and see the ass of a duck. Scary as that sounds, it’s better than the fish room. That one just gives me the creeps.

Me and a co-worker, I’ll call him Bubba Joe Forsythe (because I can) surveyed around a historic dam and a wooden distribution line (wood pole utility line). We got to drive around on the back roads (limited access) and look at dilapidated corrugated metal sheds and walk down a mountain. And we got a peek at a working hydroelectric powerhouse (with the help of our escort). Sometimes human engineering just boggles my mind.

Now I mentioned walking down a mountain, and I meant it. We dropped 2,000 feet in a distance of maybe 500 feet. That’s STEEP! It took Bubba Joe Forsythe and I 3 hours to get down. Normally we could have just written it off as too steep to survey, but I knew we could do it safely and construction crews back in the 1910’s and later in the 1930’s built a railroad up this mountain and installed the utility line. So if they can build a railroad on this mountainside, then by golly, we can walk down it in 2010. We hung onto the poles, slid down a wash, and decided the mangle of manzanita was better to trapes through rather than the slippery loose gravel of the wash. I never felt like we shouldn’t have done it. And I’m glad we did. We saw some cool engineering and what 70 years of just brush clearing does to a railroad.

I hope these pictures can give you all an idea. And just so you know, I am walking like a 90 year old now because I am so sore!!
The very beginning














What happens to a railroad on a mountainside














Our ending point is that town














looking back up

I highly recommend getting married…

… in Hawaii. I actually don’t ever see myself getting married, much to the chagrin of my mother who has been hopelessly hoping for girl grandchildren. I don’t think I should be a parent. Being an aunt is enough “parental” responsibility. However, my sister just got married on Maui, and I got to go too. I was her maid of honor and teenage-sitter for her two sons. I had never been to Maui before, never been to any of the Hawaiian Islands. So I was excited to go. Only had 4 days on the island, one of which was taken by the wedding ceremony and reception. But still 4 days is better than no days.

It reminded me a lot of New Zealand, but the water is much warmer, it only rained once and even the rain was more like mist, and the temperature is warmer too. Never had to wear my jeans or sweatshirt. It was perfectly acceptable to wear your bathing suit to a restaurant (flip-flops were optional attire). Everyone was very nice and polite, and was happy to see us spending money. Even the homeless people were nice.

Highlights: Crystal clear aqua blue water (warm enough to swim in at 8pm).
Beautiful fishies while snorkeling.
Seeing my mom conquer her fear of water and going snorkeling with us.
Finding the black sand beach, then realizing it had tide pools.
Watching me nephews drinking their first (and probably last) coconuts.


Good times were had by all. I didn’t want to come home, as per usual when I go on an awesome vacation. I wanted it to last longer… isn’t that always the case?

distraction

This past Saturday I took my dad to the Watsonville Fly-in and Airshow. Awesome. I needed a distraction from the chaos at work, and I know that my dad loves planes... and so do I. I can't name them or anything like that, but he can. So we walked down all the rows of planes and read all the funny signs that the owners/pilots said about their planes. We watched some of the stunt plane acts. That was fun. Helped me remember why I used to want to be a pilot. Don't think my stomach could handle all that though, even if I was the one doing the barrel rolls. It does seem like something one of my nephews would find fun to do. There was one pilot that just blew us both away. A guy by the name of Bill Stine in his Edge 540. I've never seen anything like it. He was able to put his plane end over end. Tail over nose, again and again. It was just amazing to watch. We looked at all the WWII planes and the B-25 Bomber. It isn't a large plane but it is packed to the gills full of machine guns. We stood there and said, well, there would be at least seven guys manning the guns, a pilot and co-pilot, and navigator. That's a lot of guys packed into a small plane full of bombs. Just makes you think, you know?

I had a good time, and I think my dad did too.

I don't know, and I don't care

I still have a job. I just don’t know if I want it. The Santa Cruz branch of the company (where I work) will be closing its doors permanently at the end of September. The company will also be closing our Chico branch as well. The company wants to keep the three of us supervisors from the Santa Cruz branch. However, we will be working out of the Lancaster branch. If you have ever been to Lancaster, you know it is not a very fun place. It’s better than Taft, but still miserable. We will be what our client calls “lead monitors”. We will work 6 days a week up to 11 hours a day and basically be on-call, 24-7. It will not be a fun experience, very high stress and frustrating, and an all around logistical nightmare. I’m painting a very lovely image aren’t I? Now, if this project is running at full steam then the three of us who used to work in Santa Cruz will be fully employed round the clock. However, this is not the case right now. There will be times when nothing is going on… and then what? I stick my thumb up my butt and wonder why someone thought it was a good idea to create a drug that rots your teeth? The “boss man” said when this particular project is not running full steam ahead, or we don’t need to be on the ground down yonder, we can work from home… but then he can’t guarantee us work. But this is archaeology and CRM where there really is no job security ever, and we are at the whim of the people, government agencies, and corporations that hire us. There never was job security, I just got lazy and didn’t think this would happen.

So the elephant in the room is this: Do I continue on here and basically relocate to Lancaster and go prematurely grey? Or do I start looking for another job in Archaeology? Or, do I look for another job elsewhere?

I’ll say one thing: I won’t miss the hour commute it takes just to get to the office in the morning. I will miss my co-workers though. How many of you can say that you would actually enjoy hanging out with your co-workers outside of work, or understand each others humor? I consider these people my friends.

I used to like this company. I was proud to work here. I was proud of the products we produced and the quality of our work. Now I feel like a pawn being carelessly strewn around the chessboard with no regard to my feelings, worth, or well-being. I almost threw in the towel today and walked away. But my co-worker who is also getting tossed about said not to make any rush or rash decisions, that we needed to let this stew a bit. It’s still fresh… it needs to fester first, I suppose.

So, I know now that I will quit. I just haven’t decided when. I feel like I need to have at least some semblance of a plan first, perhaps another job lined up so that I’m not without. Then again, I am a saver, and have been since I was a kid and my older siblings would borrow money from me. I can survive and still pay my mortgage and expenses for about 4 months with no income. And because the “boss man” won’t just lay me off, I do not qualify for unemployment.

I’m angry. I’ve given this company 5 years of my life and even caught a deadly fungus that has permanently scared my lungs for life while working for them. I’ve done great things for them, and they don’t see it! They never do. It has happened time and again, that they loose great employees because they don’t treat us right. They push, they shove, they take take take. I had a hellish year last year and ended up taking a long vacation this past December. The job was better at first when I came back. We do this job because we love archaeology. It’s not for the glamor, fame, or money because those things don’t exists in this field. But it wasn’t fun anymore. I’ve become very bitter, battered, bruised, and burnt out.

Kia ora, and perhaps it is time for this *koru to unfurl.



*Koru is a Maori word, which is a new unfurling fern frond and symbolizes new life, growth, strength and peace.

Anxiety bound

Instead of listening to the pile of CD’s my co-worker gave me today, I’m listening to this: Iron and Wine’s Sunset Soon Forgotten on his Our Endless Numbered Days Album. Why? Because I may, or may not, have a job by the end of tomorrow. And so my anxiety level is a bit raised. The “boss man” is coming to the office to “discuss the future” of the company. We’ve been in slow, tight spots before… but never this bad. Last week I had to let go two of my favorite minions, and my only minions. And now, as of tomorrow, I have no work. Now don’t panic! It’s just the end of the world. Worst case scenario is that I get laid off. When I really think about it though, I don’t really think that will happen. We’ve been speculating all day about possible scenarios. Our contract manager thinks she will get laid off. The rest of us (all 3 of us) are thinking that we will be “asked” to take our PTO for a week or two or longer, or go to a 32 hour work week until the work picks up, or take leave without pay. We just don’t know from the cryptic email from the “boss man”. His emails are always cryptic and we have spent years trying to decipher the “code” with no avail.

So, I think I will polish up the resume, just in case. Can’t hurt. This has also started my brain churning the idea’s that I’ve been avoiding asking. Which are: what do I want to do? What kind of job do I want after this one? Because I won’t be here forever. Do I want to stay in archaeology? What came to mind on the drive home today was trail maintenance. Apparently I want to do some hard labor. And a kayaking guide, which isn’t really realistic since I don’t even know how to kayak. And I’ve only been in one twice in my life. Then I thought well, maybe it’s a good time to go back to school. Then I also run the risk of having too much education, and being over-qualified. Why can’t it just be easy!! Whaaaaaaaaaaa! If I do chose to go back to school however, what would I take? What interests me doesn’t necessarily equate to jobs that pay money. Geology, geography, botany, forensic anthropology, and set building (i.e. movie and tv show sets). Yeah, who knew. I could try and get a pilots license or motorcycle license, but I don’t have a plane or a motorcycle. Too bad I can’t get paid to pull the weeds in my backyard or sit on my ass and read books (that I want to read). It would be cool if I could get a job where all I do is do archaeological surveys of county, regional, state, and national parks! Come on USDA, I just know you are itching to give me a job like that. Then I thought I could live out one of the other jobs I’ve always wanted to do. Fire fighting, but for the Forest Service. Hot Shots or CDF, CalFire. But that is mostly seasonal.

So, the world is always in flux and will be a mystery… until tomorrow.

Oh the wonders of Summer

The months have been flying by it seems. It’s almost August and I have yet to complete my farmer tan and uber freckle. April and May were spent in the office for the most part producing the report that I did all that field work for in Taft last year *shudders*. Mind you this was only the draft report. We now have to wait for responses from the client and the governing agency which is the Bureau of Land Management. It ended up being over 8,000 pages long with over 570 archaeological sites, 270 of which were newly identified by us. However most of those “sites” are quite boring, having to do with the oil industry. The client (who will remain nameless) were complaining about all the stuff we were finding. My answer is this: Well, if you had only picked up after yourselves to begin with, we wouldn’t be here right now spending all your precious money. I didn’t dare say that though. But it is true. Leaving a trail of trash and oozing contaminated soils seems to be a theme in the oil industry. These archaeological sites are trash dumps and left over debris from oil workers and abandoned wells dating back to the late 19th century. If these people had, I don’t know, thrown their used sardine tins in the trash instead of out in the field, well then, a dump of tin cans in the middle of an oil field in the middle of a desert would be non-existent. Unfortunately, it seems that everyone dumps their garbage out there. I do not understand the logic of loading up your pick-up truck full of couches, baby toys, and used car parts and driving it miles and miles and miles only to dump it illegally on public lands (lands we tax payers pay to keep public) when the city dump is only 2 miles outside of town and has FREE dump days! While I’m on the subject, I also hate people who throw their trash into the back of their trucks and then proceed to drive down the freeway oblivious to the fact that their trash is now hitting my windshield. Those people have no right to complain about how “dirty” our highways are.
I spent a few months (January, February and March) down in Lancaster and Los Angeles doing survey work. Now I am working on that same project, only doing the anal OCD nightmare of the “records search”. And I volunteered for this! All of the California Archaeological Sites and other related reports and data (such as the National Historical Landmarks, buildings, places, maps, land grants, etc) are housed in 12 Information Centers spread across the state. A regular Joe Shmoe cannot walk into one and look at stuff. Well you can walk into one, but they will politely kick you back out. There are also “info centers” at each U.S. Forest run by the USDA (so that’s Tahoe National Forest, Sierra National Forest, etc) Some of these are quite large and are broken up into districts. And guess what, that’s right, each district has its own “info center”. Basically any governing agency that owns and manages land… and sea in California will have such a place. Whether they keep it current is another story. All that said, I get to go to 3 of the State run Info centers, the Angeles National Forest, and the clients very own house to do the records search I am tasked with. That means I will be going to Bakersfield, Fullerton, Rosemead, San Bernardino, and the 4 districts making up the Angeles National Forest (three of which are Saugus, San Fernando, and Glendora). Road trip!! I’m actually glad I get to do this, because I have the chance to really organize and streamline this huge project. And I mean huge. This is 11 transmission lines (steal towers) running from the Tehachapi Mountains down into LA and over to San Bernardino. That’s about… eh… 300+ square miles as the crow flies. On the ground, on foot, it is over ……… a lot.

It may not look like much

But this little guy here with the help of a rhyolite flake, a couple mano's, and some FAR just put the breaks on a construction job*. This little rock is a bowl fragment. We think it is the bottom piece of a bowl anyway. This find was very unexpected. The rhyolite flake was imported because there is no source anywhere nearby. And when I say nearby, I mean within a 50 mile radius at least. The mano's (hand stones: formed to fit the hand and has "use" wear, i.e. used to pound and scrape the crap out of stuff)and FAR (fire affected rock, i.e. placed in a hearth to cook the crap out of stuff) was probably local material, but was found in a most unusual place. A shooting range. And a shooting range with people... shooting the crap out of clay pigeons (they never had a chance), and bow-and-arrow! This shooting range is in the middle of El Monte, population 115,965 as of 2000. And next to a major highway. Amazing that even with all the development, a little piece of prehistory is still there.

We found this on my second visit to the shooting range (we had previously surveyed the area twice). We came back at the request of our boss, and with a little more intensive searching, wa la, a site. The site started out as an historic one (European - old glass and ceramics [plates and cups]) and while we were sitting down for break under the transmission tower... "hey that looks like an interesting rock"... "oh wow, is that what I think it is?"... "the client is going to squirt their shorts!"...

And they did. What made it interesting is that this little prehistoric concentration was in the berm of the dirt access road that goes around the transmission tower (big steel electric towers), and this road gets graded probably yearly if not more. So by grading this road over and over and over, eventually exposed this concentration. We will now get to answer the questions of is this just an isolated hearth? Was it all imported and dropped? Is there more beneath the surface? Will I get shot in the ass by a rogue arrow? All will be revealed.

*I feel I need to explain a bit more here. The project in question is a transmission line. The client (who we were hired by) will be dismantling an old transmission line and towers and will be erecting (I knew I could get that word in somewhere) new bigger and shinier ones with more power. They have a right-of-way or easement, in some places. Which means that anything we find within that right-of-way, they have to deal with and manage. Even if it is on private property. The client, not the actual property owners have to mitigate what we have found. Our client has decided that they will replace said tower anyway, so to off-set the fact that they will obliterate the site during construction, we go in ahead of them and do it for them (excavation). This is a state and federal government issue and so the client has to fulfill certain requirements by law (state and federal).

Many people have the misconception that if they have any archaeological site on their property (Indian or otherwise) that if the government or Indians find out about it, that it will get taken away. Not so, peeps. Private property means exactly that, private. I've worked on private property before and I've documented sites on private property. All I have the power to do is make life miserable for those who have an easement or right-of-way through said property. It means an agency/company/whoever won't be able to put a cell tower or road or utility pole in the site. They will now have to find a way around it, or change their plans to avoid it. But the property owner can do whatever they want (nothing, graze cows, blast it to smithereens). Also, if the site is one of a kind or pretty darn cool, then the owners can actually get money from the government (state and/or federal) to protect/preserve it. Pretty sweet, eh?