Hiatus

The WI highway beer project has been put on a (temporary?) hiatus for an indeterminate amount of time. Since my last foray into the field, there has been an increase in Madison-based work for the Historical Society. We've also hired a bunch of new archaeologists, so I've been hanging out downtown for the last couple of weeks. I don't find a lot of empty beer cans on the sides of hallways down in the basement, so the project has been shelved. For now.

2010 Field Season Beer Project

No, I haven't decided to drink through the entire field season - although I did find some of New Glarus Brewery's Unplugged Old English Porter this week in West Bend. This project revolves around highway survey and the discarded beer cans/bottles we find along the side of the road.

Walking along the side of a highway in Washington County (or Burnett, or Douglas, or Fond du Lac, or Brown, or...) can be a mind-numbing way to spend a work week. My mind tends to wander a bit during these surveys, especially when there is a decided lack of artifacts being found.

One of the questions my brain decides to ponder on these surveys is why there are so many empty beer cans along the side of highways. I'd like to give Joe West Bend the benefit of the doubt and say that a piece of gravel kicked up from the shoulder and tore a hole in one of the can-filled plastic bags in the bed of his truck on his way to the local recycling center, but this is Wisconsin. Joe was drinking beer while driving, and then decided to throw the can out his window.

I'll be keeping a running tab of the brands/styles of beer that I find on the side of the road and listing them here. Open a cold one and enjoy (from the safety of your house).

Closer to Home

Hope everybody's Labor Day Weekend was as enjoyable as mine - could the weather have been any nicer?

Last week saw me exploring a Wisconsin roadside in Clark/Jackson Counties...now I'm back making maps in the basement. I got to see most of my coworkers on Tuesday morning though for a company photograph. Since I hadn't seen most of them for any length of time in months, it basically was a barrage of jokes...mostly at my expense. Whatever. It's nice to see you guys again.

Since I'm on a work theme, I thought I'd do a pro/con list of being in the field (although, as you will see eventually, it's just an excuse for a video at the end)

Pros:

per diem!

pools/hot tubs

doing, you know, actual archaeology

finding artifacts (occasionally)

hearing Afternoon Delight rewritten about orthoquartzite

seeing the sun

the myriad interesting aspects of rural Wisconsin

Cons:

living in a hotel

having to pack clothes, and then eventually unpack those clothes

sunburn/bugbites/blisters

not finding artifacts (often)

there is never a piano around

it's a lot harder to cook

how interesting is rural Wisconsin, really?

I'll keep it at 7 and 7 for now. There's both good and bad about being near and far from home...

Tuesday Notes from the Road

What? The road?

Yeah, I'm out of Madison for the week. It's a little strange traveling again, and I have a hunch that it's not going to last for very long. For this week, anyway, I'm up in Black River Falls doing some archaeology with Norm, Susan, Rodney and Kevin. Here are some things we found/saw/learned today:

1. Surprising nobody, I got sunburned.
1a. Despite my best efforts, glove tans are probably not going to ever get cool.
2. A bunch of taconite pellets in a fill off the side of the road.
3. More evidence against my skill as a word creator - after seeing a jeep/truck mutt thing at the diner during lunch, my suggestions of either 'treep' or 'juck' were...not received well.
4. The Holiday Inn Express in Black River Falls has 17 steps, which is bad, and eight (8!) pillows in my room. That's good.
5. The Orange Moose Bar and Grill has a piano! I never find pianos on the road - it would be fun to go over there and play some night. Unfortunately, I tried it briefly and...nope. It's not anywhere near being in tune.


I'll end with this gem of a song:

Resumé

I have had an epiphany this week up here in Green Bay. If (when) this archaeology thing doesn't pan out, I believe I may have found my next line of work - but it's more than that. It might be my calling.

While Krysta and I wait for Rodney to put his boots on, or check the map, or mess with the key or something, I have begun to practice balancing my shovel on my boots. It's way more fun than it deserves to be. Anyway, so far my personal longest time balanced is 9ish seconds - and it was really windy today! Given that I'm feeling a little uncertain in my job security at the moment, I naturally began to wonder if this newfound skill was something that could be translated into income...and it dawned on me. I could TOTALLY join a circus!

Think about it. I am developing a circus-like skill (shovel-balancing...possibly able to balance other objects), have plenty of experience painting my face for sports events, don't really have a problem with people laughing at me, I'm already on the road much of the year, and here's the kicker - I HAVE PRIOR CIRCUS EXPERIENCE!

Admittedly, I can't imagine too many troupes would be looking for me to reprise my role as "Elephant" from Ms. Morgan's Red Kindergarten Circus Day, but you never know. On a side note - really, Ms. Morgan? Really? I was an elephant? I was tiny in kindergarten! I know I had good arm-trunk swinging form, but seriously - I was almost assuredly the smallest kid at school! Strange decision, whoever made it.

Back to the matter at hand. If you are driving around the state and see a guy in a safety vest trying to balance a shovel on his foot...honk. That's probably me, practicing for my next endeavor.