Discover Prompt, Day 18: New

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Today’s prompt urges me to do or say something new.  New as in format; new as in never written about before; new as in new friends; etc.  The biggest, baddest, “NEW” in my life is my granddaughter, Luna Sofia Campbell-Hoogendyk.  She’s right at two months now, and because we came to visit her when she came home from the hospital, we’ve been with her the entire time.  That’s because of the Coronavirus. When we traveled to see her, we ended up being self-quarantined for awhile in order to protect her – then stuck at her home due to travel restrictions.

Luna-Sofia, Age: 2 Months

Luna-Sofia, Luna for short, spends all her time nursing, sleeping, crying and pooping. Once in awhile, she spends half and hour pleasantly enjoying her surroundings, moving her head left to look at this and then right to look at that. She doesn’t yet have control of her arms, which tend to jerk all over the place.

She pretty much is on a 3 hour sleep and 30-60 minute nursing schedule, 24 hours a day. That requires some teamwork in terms of her parents, grandparents and Aunt Carly, who is visiting from NYC until the quarantine is lifted. Grandpa Mike and Nana Jill typically spend the 10pm to 6am hours with Luna unless she is nursing. Her parents, Zac and Kasey spend most of the 6am until early afternoon hours with her. Grandpa Bruce and Grandma Deanna come over most afternoon and evenings to hold Luna and have supper with the family.

Luna with Grandpa Mike

Luna and her parents on an outing to the park

Luna snuggling to her mom

Grandma Jill (Nana) (or Dad Mom) with Luna

Sleep Time

Peek-a-Boo

Chillin’ Out with Dad

Hiking with Mom and Dad

Picnic with Mom and Dad

Aunt Carly Time is Special Time

Bath Times are Fun Times

Car Seat Time means More Sleep Time

As you can see from the photos, our new granddaughter, Luna-Sofia has really been getting around. Several hikes, several car trips (especially to her routine doctor appointments) and one awesome picnic. All first-time, new experiences.

Discover Prompts, Day 17: Distance

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Distance.  In the United States we typically measure it in terms of feet, yards, miles, etc. Most of the rest of the world uses meters and kilometers (KMs), referred to as the Metric System. One of the exceptions in the United States is large segments of the scientific world.  For example, a scientific field in which I am an avocationalist is archaeology.  Everytime we measure a site, or we record distances hiked, we use the metric system.

We recently documented a prehistoric site on the Agua National Monument. It was comprised of two habitation structures, nine grinding slicks, 30 Petroglyph boulders and several hundred artifacts like pottery sherds, lithic debitage, metates and manos. The site itself was over 100 meters long and 30 meters wide oriented on a NW/SE axis. It was located 2.1 KMs north of another well known reference point. (I’ve described it this way to avoid telling anyone exactly where it was located.)

One of the thirty Petroglyph boulders

Within the site the two habitation structures were located about sixty meters apart and the wall fall from each of the structures covered an area about 6 x 8 meters in size. The two major artifact scatters around the structures were around 25 to 30 meters in diameter. The individual pottery sherds probably averaged 3 to 5 centimeters in size.

My walks on the monument have all be recorded in KMs. So far I have walked around 1,700 KMs – mostly in wandering patterns much like the trail of an ant would create. I think the amount I’ve walked would have covered the distance from Phoenix to north of the Golden Gate Bridge in California. Impressive, but when you break it down into almost 400 walks or hikes over a dozen years, it really isn’t.

View looking south across a portion of the Agua Fria National Monument

That gives you an idea of measuring distance on several different scales and with several methods. And it completes my short blog for the day.

Discover Prompts, Day 16: Slow

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Today’s word to prompt blogging is “Slow”.

So… slowly… slowly… I… will… begin… writing… about… the… word, … … S. L. O. W.

Talking fast, like you were from NYC or someone in your teens or twenties, has never been my talent. I grew up in Englewood, CO and I thought everyone talked slower. Not with a drawl, but just slower. When I listen to some New Yorkers blather on at hyper speed about this, that and the other, I get left in the verbal dust. I start thinking about how fast they are talking, not what they are saying.

There was a point in my life where I felt as though my mental accuity was lacking. That people who talked fast were smarter. And that people who talked fast, who were smarter, looked at me and thought that I was a slow, dim-witted country bumpkin. No longer is that a problem for me.

Many years ago I came to the realization that one of my traits was that I was persistent. That I stayed with a project or a subject until it was finished – even if it took longer for me than for others. I might be slow, but I stayed with things longer than other people. That can be a tremendously valuable trait. If you work on a project for six months to a year (and others have finished in a week or a month), you have much more opportunity to think things through. To develop new ideas. To come across new data. To polish the product. And when you are done, you have something much better than if you had finished quickly.

So. Slow. That’s a good thing. Kinda like a slow cooked dish which has a long time to develop it’s flavor.

Discover Prompts, Day 15: Scent

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Today’s suggested WordPress word on Discover Prompts is… “Scent”.

Now, my olefactory sense is not the best. Right up there with my sense of taste – which is pretty crappy. So you are not going to read in this blog about a lot of my personal experiences with scent. Except possibly the odor of fire. Somehow, at least earlier in my life, I could wake up smelling smoke from a small dumpster fire a block away, or a mattress in the barracks smoldering due to a cigarette from some airman that fell asleep smoking.

One smell that is at this moment a topic of conversation with our family as we are self-isolated at my Son’s house is… wait for it… baby poop! I have a new grand daughter who is almost two months old, nursing and not yet on any food other than milk from her mother. And, big surprise, baby poop doesn’t really have a strong, unfavorable smell until they start food other than mother’s milk. Not sure why that happens, but the worst thing so far is just the sight of baby poop that has leaked out of the diaper, through the swaddling blanket and formed a small cake on the front of my shirt around midnight.

The Discover Prompt suggests writing about the smell of wild flowers. Again, I’ve gone out and searched for Spring wildflowers in the Arizona desert everytime I’ve had a chance. But, I’ve never smelled them. I’ve also spent three hours over the past two days looking through my iPad and iPhone for photos I took of those flowers. A visual depiction of the vibrant colors of desert wildflowers found in the hills north of Phoenix would do wonders in describing for you what I found, but didn’t really smell. No scents nonsense, as it were.

Anyway, no luck with the flower photos. So – done for today and on to the next Discover Prompt.

Discover Prompts, Day 14: Book

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Book. Books. Reading. Coronavirus lockdown. 2020.

I would suspect that more books have been read so far this year during the Coronavirus lockdown than were read during the same period last year. You can probably say he same thing about jig saw puzzles completed.

Personally, I have wanted for a long time to read the books by Craig Childs. I’ve heard him talk. My friends are really into his books. So – the lockdown has given me the opportunity to do just that. I’m reading them in the order they were written – at least so far as I can tell from Google and Amazon.com.

http://www.houseofrain.com

The first book I read as a paperback – The Secret Knowledge of Water. The Way Out, House of Rain and Atlas of a Lost World followed on Kindle. Not done with the last one yet.

Speaking of books, I have a new granddaughter. During our self-isolation with her one of the things I’ve learned relates to a baby’s developing eyesight during the first couple of months. They supposedly are able to see contrasty black and white objects easier than others. As a result, there is a small soft cover book for entertaining them.

I also noticed that the one visual thing she fixates on is a large ceiling fan in the living room. While I am carrying her in my arms walking her, everytime I walk under the ceiling fan she stops squirming or crying or whatever, her eyes get big as she spots the fan and her head swivels so that her eyes can follow it. I’ll stop for a moment and she just stares at it in amazement.

Anyway, today has been a tough day. Got to bed at 7:00am after grandparenting the baby overnight. Up at noon for breakfast cooked by my amazing wife, Jill. Took a nap from 2:00pm until 4:30pm. Blogged for awhile. Ate my late afternoon lunch snack and am now writing this. I think I’m done.

So long for today.

Discover Prompts, Day 13: Teach

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If there is one thing that should be taught in school it is how to learn. How to read, question, research and make decisions based on scientific fact. Students should have inquisitive minds and understand how to follow their interests. If that process is taught, there is no limit to what knowledge a student can develop. Given limitless knowledge, who knows what an individual can accomplish.

Learning, and as an extension, teaching, should never stop. One should understand that schooling can and should continue for your whole life. And having accumulated knowledge at various levels, that knowledge should be taught.

I once took the same semester-long photography class (Large Format Photography) over and over at a local Junior College for about fifteen times. Many in the class were doing the same thing. Every semester you learned new techniques, were exposed to more expert photographers, and gained more expertise. Over time the class became almost a club. Some members came and stayed. Others came and went.

Below are some digital (non large format) photos I took during the class – mainly with the camera that came with an early cell phone.

Rod Klukas (dark shirt with back to camera) was the instructor.
Walt Muller (since deceased) was one of the students.
In addition to lecture, field trips, sharing of photographs and talks by various professional photographers, there was in-class practice.
Some of these classes I took were in the late 1990s and early 2000s. And many of the students became friends and are still friends today. Joyce Bealer on far left. Jeff Ivens in black shirt.
The blurry white thing is a “Dark Cloth” which Rod is either flipping on or flipping off. Frank Ayala is paying more attention to me than to Rod.
N is for “Near focus”. F is for “Far focus”. Rick Polhamus in plaid shirt. Marilyn Ticknor (R) with back to camera.

Eventually I began taking images of archaeological features using my large format camera. Rod taught us that you will take better photographs if you study your subject matter. So, I started studying archaeology and am still studying that subject matter today. Maybe someday I will know enough about it that I can teach others.

This is a Petroglyph in Agua Fria National Monument. It is thought to be a representation of the 1054 AD super nova.
A prehistoric fortified hill top site in Agua Fria National Monument.

It doesn’t matter what the subject is. Keep studying. Keep learning. Expand your knowledge. Then teach others. Rod did.

Discover Prompts, Day 12: Light

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I used to take large format photos. 4×5 negatives. Black and white.

The idea was to capture the effect of light. Don’t over expose the highlights. Capture enough to be able to show detail in the dark areas. Beyond that, look for subjects which were interesting and different. Hopefully, whatever I managed to capture would have lots of detail and allow you to study it for longer than just a cursory glance.

The walkway above, which takes foot traffic over a busy expressway, is something that many people saw for its utilitarian purpose rather than as an artistic feature. I was gobsmacked when I first observed it. Went home, got the camera and tripod and was quickly back to record it.

It always took me at least 45 minutes to set up my tripod, mount the camera, focus and adjust settings while under a dark cloth, insert a negative holder and take the image. In this case, my tripod and camera were obstructions to the normal pedestrian flow. Several passers by wondered out loud what I was doing. One even came back later with his own 35mm camera to try and quickly capture himself what the obviously professional photographer was laboring to accomplish.

In the Arizona mid-day sunlight, shadows were cast which you can see flooding across the walkway itself. They mirror the pattern in the latticework above and on the sides, making a tunnel of thousands of small pieces – all connected somehow by engineers and builders. One wonders if the architect visualized not just the patterns on the wall and ceiling, but also those cast on the pathway.

After I shot the image and printed it, I realized that the perspective beyond, the street on the other side of the tunnel, seemed to move upwards into the distance. Barely visible on the upper left of it are shapes and shadows of cars parked along the side of the street. Hidden in the dark on the right side of the pathway is a small amount of litter. I suppose I should have picked it up. I didn’t. It is still there today. In the photo I took.

Light always amazed me. This picture was and still is, rewarding to me. It is one of the first I took as I was learning to do large format photography. And it was the first that I traded to another photographer that I really admired and who is no longer with us today. He told me he was amazed by it and offered to give me in trade any photo of his that I liked. I did so and that photo of his is hanging in my office today.

Discover Prompts, Day 11: Bite

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Sure, I’ll bite! You want me to blog about “Bite”? I can do that… as he finishes off the last bites of his Giant size, Hershey’s Milk Chocolate with Almonds bar.

Aside from being visually oriented, one of the next fascinations I have is with bites. A bite of this and a bite of that. I don’t need to have a huge helping of something, I need to have a bite of everything. A plethora of tastes is my first priority, and a buffet is the best place to get that.

We go out to brunch just about every Sunday, at least we did until the Coronavirus lockdown. Our favorite brunch location is the Talking Stick Resort’s Wandering Horse buffet in Scottsdale, Arizona. We’ve been going there for years. There is another buffet at the Casino Arizona just south of there that has been our backup. Talking Stick was shut down for a while over a year ago due to flooding and the resulting damage to their facility. We went to Casino Arizona for a few weeks and found some of the regular patrons doing the same. Even some of the staff were able to transfer down there during that time.

Here’s a link: https://www.talkingstickresort.com/dining/wandering-horse-buffet-scottsdale/

Many, many years ago a guy I worked with in Florida told me there is a specific order in which you should approach a buffet. You go first for a little of the light stuff: salads, etc. Then you get the heavy hot things: fish, meat, potatoes, etc. Afterwards you get deserts. Doesn’t sound that intellectually difficult all these years later, but I have added some of my own rules. Don’t select foods that you can get any day of the week. Stay away from starchy or carbohydrate heavy foods like breads and pizza. Do pick foods that are expensive or rare: Alaskan King Crab legs, prime rib, sushi, etc. Specially prepared items like Jalapeño bacon are good, too. And don’t forget – all of those require a “bite”. (See how I did that?)

I would like to have posted a picture of a buffet which I took personally. After an hour of searching old photos on my iPad, I gave up and posted a link to the Wandering Horse Buffet site instead. Sorry about that. Seems like the Internet took a bite out of my old photos. Images of the shrimp/crab leg/crab claw display are gone from my files.

Have a good day. Get some sleep. And don’t let the bed bugs bite!

Discover Prompts, Day 10: Orchestrate

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I’ve been, after the fact, blogging daily in response to an April challenge on WordPress. The next paragraph is the opening bit of the challenge. Clicking on the link should take you to the page which shows the daily subjects. Have fun!

“Welcome to Discover Prompts! Throughout April, we’re sharing a daily prompt to help you keep or regain your writing rhythm. Not sure how to participate? Read on.”

Now that we’ve covered that, on to today’s word; “Orchestrate”. One definition is to “arrange or direct the elements of (a situation) to produce a desired effect, especially surreptitiously.” I really like that last word, surreptitiously. It’s almost like you get to quietly sneak around doing “this” to see if you can get “that” to happen.

There are lots of “that’s” I’d LIKE to orchestrate. For one, I’d love to do whatever I can to contribute to the defeat of Donald Trump in the presidential election this coming November. And it doesn’t have to be surreptitiously. So far I’ve contributed to the DNC, contributed to my local Legislative District 20 (LD20) on a monthly basis, written postcards to potential voters prodding them to register to vote and go to the polls in November, tweeted like crazy in support of anything not Trump, donated art work to silent auctions raising money to support Democratic candidates, joined “Indivisible” (a nonprofit political organization), attended meetings of LD20 on a monthly basis (prior to the Coronavirus lockdown), and much more.

Other “effects” I’d like to orchestrate are support for public education, re-establishment to their original boundaries the national monuments that were illegally shrunk by the Republican administration since Obama left office, more funding and staff for existing national parks and monuments, and an increased public awareness of the importance of science – especially as it relates to global warming and the environment. Most of these desires on my part do much to brand me as a flaming liberal. But, I’m proud of that.

On a non-political basis, orchestration of various activities related to my interest in archaeology and photography will probably be a part of my energy expenditures over the next few years. There are many prehistoric sites on Agua Fria National Monument and Perry Mesa in central Arizona that need to be documented. I’ve worked on three so far: a site called Wagon Wheel, another called Sleepy Hollow and a third called 30 Boulders. There are at least three other sites I’d like to get documented before I’m no longer able to get out and about. All three have plenty of petroglyphs and two of them include habitation structures, food processing stations and more.

Once I get out of this Coronavirus lock-down, those are all projects that will be on my “To Do” list. Projects that will require orchestration on my part.

Discover Prompts, Day 9: Pairs

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Pairs exist in nature as a tool for reproduction. Male and female. Two birds of a specific species, the male with different colorings than the female, many times bonded for life. Same with humans. Most of the time the male provides the sperm and the female provides an egg. Or two. Or three or more.

As an a vocational archaeologist I know of other “pairs”. As I’ve wandered around Agua Fria National Monument for the past 16 years or more, pairs of prehistoric dwellings have come to my attention. Some of them larger Pueblo’s (multi-room; sometimes multi-story). Others, smaller field houses with one to five rooms.

There could be many reasons for these prehistoric dwelling pairs. One might be that one group of people build a home and live there for awhile. Then another group comes along and gets permission to build next to them. Or as their family grows some of the younger people split off and build a second building next door.

Another reason could be that there are two polities or clans living side by side. Maybe one is oriented toward summer or daytime activities; the other toward winter or nighttime activities.

It’s also possible that a dwelling just got older and in need of too many repairs. So you build a newer and better building next door and move into it.

Some of the field houses are obviously small shelters built out near farm fields away from the larger pueblos. They are dwellings where you can take shelter from inclement weather; dwellings where you can stay overnight without going back to your main pueblo. If you build a field house at the beginning of a growing season and stay there to work the fields and protect your crop from pests, maybe you abandon it at the end of the growing season. When you come back next year you have the option to repair it for the new season – or simply start anew with a new field house for the new season. Thus creating a “pair” in the archaeological record.

In the image below you can see three larger pairs. The red is actually a greatly magnified view of track lines created around the rock fall of each dwelling by my handheld Garmin GPS as I walked around the remnants of the dwelling. NA13477 and the other numbers are site numbers applied archaeologists as the sites are recorded. For some reason, the two dwellings in the lower left were never formally recorded. NA13477, which in my faulty memory and in the absence of my records as I write this could have about 75-100 rooms, actually has a small area in between the upper and lower structures big enough to walk between them. The unrecorded dwellings have a Jeep trail that goes right between them. Some people might not feel that 01-34 and 01-35 are actually a pair. There may be too much space between them to qualify, both spatially and temporally.

Remember, I’m an avocational archaeologist, not a professional. I don’t have all the training, study and experience of the professionals – or the ethnographic info passed down generation to generation by today’s native Americans. So, I’m presenting reasons for the pairs which are based on snippets of information I’ve gleaned from seminars, readings and word-of-mouth. But, hey! They sound good, right?