Tag: travel

Vacationing is hard work

Not really.  But getting ready to go on vacation is.  We spent two weeks on Oahu over Thanksgiving.  We’d been promising our daughter a trip to Hawaii when she finished high school, and this was it.  Since the budget process at UIC was in full swing in November, that meant that everything had to be done before I left, not to mention all the usual packing and getting the house ready for a prolonged absence issues.

We got back (with the whole unpacking/laundry extravaganza that meant), only to leave in a week for upstate New York to visit my family for the Christmas/New Year’s holidays.  That brought its own flurry of baking stollen to give in Barrow before I left, packing, Christmas shopping, etc.  There was also the travel to arrange for the conferences in Europe that Glenn & I are going to in January, which is almost done.

All this by way of explaining the lack of posts for the last little while.  I was on the computer so much for all of the above (except the baking, laundry & packing) that I really couldn’t face more screen time, even if there had been spare minutes.

Now we’re here after a 20+ hour trip fortunately unaffected by the bad weather happening across much of the country, so I should have a bit more time to write.

18th Arctic Conference–Part 1 (the scenic view of Bryn Mawr College).

I’m back from the 18th Arctic Conference in Bryn Mawr.  It was really busy, and the Wi-Fi at Wyndham, where I was staying and had downtime, was amazingly slow, so I didn’t try posting from there.  I’m pretty busy, since I’m only here for a week before we go on a family vacation in Hawaii, so I’m going to break this into small chunks.

We were really lucky to have great weather the whole time.  Apparently the weather has been rather awful this fall in SE Pennsylvania, but last weekend it was perfect.  Bluebird days, still some leaves on the trees, not too hot or muggy.  The campus looked lovely.

 

Taylor Hall, first building built at Bryn Mawr College, from Thomas Library steps.
Thomas Library

I went inside Thomas, which was the original College library.  It is a bit Hogwarts looking, I suppose.  There used to be a free coffee hour every day in Thomas Great Hall, where just about everyone on campus showed up.  It was very handy.

Thomas Great Hall (apparently set up for some sort of event)
Athena (actually a replica because the original was kidnapped and damaged) surrounded by offerings, holding what appears to be invitations to Lantern Night teas.
Cloisters of Thomas Library.
Back of Thomas Great Hall from the Cloisters.
Dalton Hall. The "lantern" was a recent addition to hold a staircase that met modern code.

Dalton Hall is where the meeting was held.  It is the home of the Anthropology Department, and other social sciences.  Dalton was built in 1892 as the first science laboratory dedicated to academics.  It underwent a major rehab, which came out really well.  The old building had central stairs, which weren’t up to code, so the “lantern” got stuck on to put the new stairs in.  The labs and lecture spaces are just great, way nicer than when I was doing my AB and my PhD coursework there.

 

A gorgeous fall day at Bryn Mawr

I’m in Bryn Mawr, PA for the 18th Arctic Conference.  The trip went well, with the biggest problem the 30+ minute taxi from the runway to the terminal here in Philadelphia.  I’m staying in Wyndham, the Bryn Mawr College Alumnae House, replete with antiques, oriental rugs, etc.  Rick Davis pretty much had everything in hand, so I had some free time to check out the 125th Anniversary exhibit in the Rare Book Room at Canaday Library, which was really pretty neat.  A First Folio (Shakespeare), a Nuremberg Chronicle, a Maria Martinez black-on-black pot, Ansel Adams prints, Northwest Coast basketry, Mary Cassatt, Japanese woodblock prints, some lovely Greek pottery (including a plate by the Bryn Mawr Painter!) all in the same small room.

Had a nice dinner with Rick and Rick Knecht, and now off to bed to try & catch up on sleep so I can get up at what my body thinks is 3:45 AM.

Finally starting to catch up

I’ve been insanely busy for the last several weeks.  I do now have a temporary admin assistant, Melinda Nayakik, who has been filing up a storm, which has been really helpful to get a handle on the office situation.  Fortunately, Susie Stine, who has tons of accounting experience and has filled in on UIC Science’s accounting side before also became available.  She’s helping Melinda learn the 2 (!) accounting systems and the paper-flow routines.  Susie has also been really  helpful as we work through moving billing to the main accounting folks.  A good thing, too, since I’ve had the first round of corporate budgets and two CRM reports to take care of.

The budget is in the hands of the higher-ups until the next round, although there are a mass of questions flying back and forth as usual.  One of the CRM reports is just waiting for a nicer background for the main map of this season’s work, assuming it is forthcoming soon, and the other has a couple of references that need to be added.

Other than that, the main thing that is urgent is the presentation for the 18th Arctic Conference in Bryn Mawr.  I leave Tuesday night (since it takes a couple of days to get anywhere that is not in Alaska), so it has to be more or less done by then.  I’ve got an outline, but I need to talk to a couple of whaling captain couples to make sure everything is correct, and I’d like some more pictures of current gear.  I was going to work on this today, and maybe go visit some folks, but I somehow wound up with a stomach bug & couldn’t go out.

I’ve been working on the travel for the Christmas holidays (in upstate NY) and one of the two conferences I’m going to early next year.  My husband & I are both giving papers at a conference in Munich in late January.  He’s going to a meeting at Abisko in Sweden in mid-January, and they’re willing to have me come too, so we’re trying to arrange it as one trip.  Less travel time, and it’ll keep the costs reasonable, I hope.  The organizers are reimbursing a good bit of it, but still, no point going crazy.  I’ve got to go to Tromsø in mid-February, so that travel needs to be figured out next.

Glenn & I may be the only folks at these meetings who actually think there’s a lot of daylight.  Nothing like meeting in the far North in the dead of winter:-).

Running to stand still

No, not on a treadmill, although it would be nice to have a bit of free time for that.  Actually, it’s where I’m at with work.  I’ve been thinking about archaeology and ways that it can inform things besides our knowledge of past lifeways.  For the past week or so, I’ve been running into lots of articles, posts, calls for white papers, and so on that connect to that in various ways.  Today I attended a seminar that brought up a number of issues that archaeology could play a part in addressing in a meaningful way.

However, to take these thoughts further means I need a bit of time to think and read, and then try to put thoughts into sensible words that can communicate with a variety of communities.  But the situation at work is still pretty stressful.  My boss has sent her admin assistant to help me out and get cross-trained on our stuff for a week or two.  Jennifer’s doing great, but it’s a really complex job, so she does have to ask me questions (which she does, instead of grinding to a halt, thank goodness) but I don’t actually know the filing system inside out (we’ve found 2 sets of files for some things where we would only expect one, and aren’t sure what the difference is yet) so sometimes it takes some time.

I am at least making progress on the reports, although ArcMap (the GIS program) decided to get weird this afternoon and refuse to import a bunch of STP (shovel test pit) locations I needed to finish a final map for one of the reports.  It should have taken less than half an hour to do the map, but several hours later, no joy.  Tomorrow (fingers crossed here).

I also have to finish assembling the PowerPoint for the Saturday Schoolyard talk this Saturday.  Trace sent me his  piece this evening (amazingly, he’d picked the same template & color scheme I was already using for my part, so that bit should be pretty easy.  Heather just found out she isn’t leaving for Fairbanks for the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) meetings until Saturday night, so she’s going to talk too.

Sunday and Monday (which is a holiday in Alaska, so we are off work, theoretically) I am making a quick trip to Anchorage.  Maybe I’ll get a little time to think on the plane…

Paris–Visit to Notre Dame

Matt Betts & I decided to go see Notre Dame on Friday morning.  We went right after we figured mass would be over, since tromping around during a service would be rude to say the least.  We didn’t get to go up the towers, because the lines were already a block long and we did want to get back to the conference to hear some papers.  Next time…

Notre Dame
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris, Portal of St. Stephen, South Rose Window

Notre Dame is a very old cathedral, construction having started in 1163, finishing some two hundred years later.  It had fallen into a state of some disrepair, thanks in part to its conversion to a “Temple of Reason” during the revolution, when Victor Hugo wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  That inspired calls for the restoration, which was completed in 1864.

Repair and restoration are ongoing processes here.  For example, the huge chandelier which normally hangs in the crossing was on the floor being worked on.

Chandelier on the floor for repairs.
Pieces of the cathedral stacked in the back yard.

Some of the side chapels had clearly been cleaned and had their painting restored, while others were completely black from the soot given off by candles which had been burned there over the centuries.

Side chapel, Notre Dame de Paris.
Soot-covered chapel wall and ceiling.

The interior is an amazing space.  The architects who first figured out how to build cathedrals were true geniuses.

Notre Dame. View from transept down nave to Portal of Last Judgement, great organ, and West Rose window.
Notre Dame. View up nave toward chancel & high altar.
Stained glass window, Notre Dame.
Rose Window, Notre Dame.

Paris–Visit to the Louvre

I promised a number of people I’d put some pictures from the trip to Paris up, so here goes.  I took these with my iPhone, which isn’t quite up to even my Optio S, let alone the Nikons, so the picture quality isn’t that great.

The first set is from the Louvre.  A few of us went to visit on Thursday, which the conference organizers had allowed as a day off.  This was a great idea, since day after day of papers can leave people sort of “conferenced out” and really not able to pay much attention to papers on the last day.  This avoided that syndrome.

Pyramid at the Louvre (the new entrance).
Winged Victory of Samothrace.

The Mona Lisa looks a little forlorn hanging by itself on a wall that is apparently also a protective vault.

Mona Lisa.

It looks much smaller than one expects, particularly since it is facing a really immense painting.

Opposite the Mona Lisa.

The room is really crowded, and it takes a while to get close enough to get a good picture.

The hordes in front of the Mona Lisa.

The Louvre itself was pretty amazing in terms of over-the-top interior decoration.  The craftsmanship was amazing.

Interior at the Louvre.
Wild boar mosaic on fireplace.
Leopard mosaic on the same fireplace.
Venus de Milo.
Another angle on the Venus de Milo.

Venus de Milo from the seldom-photographed back.

Back Home Again–Finally

The conference wound up on Saturday with a really interesting circumpolar archaeozoology session, organized by Max Friesen of the University of Toronto.  I’ll do another post about the papers; this one is about coming home.  A bunch of us went out to dinner at a restaurant on a little square up Rue Lacépéde from Rue Monge.

The next day I started home.  My flight was late in the day, so I had a while to hang around Charles De Gaulle (the airport), which resulted in spending money at the duty-free shops on chocolates (for Glenn) and perfume (for me).  The Air France flight had really good food, and was even a bit early into JFK.  Passport control and US customs were the usual slow lines winding around like snakes, but eventually I made my way (by train) to the place where the hotel shuttles stop and got to the room.  A few glitches with the card keys (apparently their machine is on its last legs and only one of 3 worked) and I was able to sleep.

I had to get up quite early Monday, which wasn’t such a chore since I was still on Paris time, since my flight was at 7AM.  While checking in, I discovered that what had appeared as a JFK-ANC flight actually stopped in Salt Lake City.  And that’s where the trouble started.

We arrived in a perfectly good plane, a bit early, and were told that we were going to change planes.  They re-boarded us an hour or so later on the new plane, closed the doors, and discovered that an engine light was on.  They replaced a part, took the jet-way away, tested the engine, put the jet-way back, did something else, took the jet-way away, tested the engine, put the jet-way back, went looking for some other parts, found them, started replacing them, decided that they should deplane us because one of the parts was hard to get at and it would take a while  (they didn’t know that until they started doing the work?  what kind of mechanics are these?),  but we could leave larger luggage on board to speed re-boarding.  They handed us $6 meal vouchers and told us not to leave the boarding area (where there was only one place to get food for 100+ people).  Several hours later, it was clear that I would not be making my connection in ANC to go to Barrow.

When I went up to get re-booked, they were not able to find me a seat from ANC to Barrow until Wednesday.  I had them book it anyway, so I didn’t wind up having to wait even longer.  Eventually, they had us go on the plane five at a time to get the stuff we’d left there, and then sent us to another gate with another plane.  We finally made it to ANC about 4.5 hours late.  A few of us were stuck overnight, but at least the large contingent of senior citizens from the Midwest heading for a cruise ship didn’t miss their sailing.

It took them quite a while working on my ticket, and in the end they took my email and emailed me the itinerary later.  I did wind up standing around so long that when it was time for hotel vouchers, I’d checked the room availability, and was able to get them to put me in the Millennium, which has a decent restaurant and a gift shop that sells T-shirts (which I needed since I didn’t want to do laundry), instead of the Puffin Inn.  I think the problem was that they managed to book me on a Tuesday flight to Fairbanks, with a layover until the Barrow flight arrived, but hadn’t canceled the Wednesday reservation, so the prices weren’t coming out right, and the poor fellow didn’t have a calculator and was having to do all the math by hand.  They handed me more meal vouchers (which didn’t go that far in ANC in the summer) and off I went to catch the shuttle.

The flights on Tuesday went smoothly, Glenn was there to meet the plane, and my bag was one of the first out, so it was only about a 45 minute wait.  We then went over to the library where there was a BASC-sponsored talk going on, to hear the rest of the program, and pick up our daughter and an archaeologist friend, Rick Reanier, who is in Barrow getting ready to do some survey for Shell Oil down the coast.

Naturally, the first couple of days back have been a zoo.  One client has a procedure where they need to get letters estimating how much you are likely to charge them until the end of the fiscal year (September 30) so they can move money around.  The person who does that is going on vacation, so they needed this done ASAP.  So I made those letters, only to have them discover they didn’t have enough money in the projects to do that, and they didn’t have time before the woman left to move the money.  So I had to rewrite the letters to fit their budget!  I really don’t know why they don’t just do it themselves…  That took most of the last 2 days.

In between rewrites, I had a group of Secretary Salazar’s staffers (he’s in Barrow holding a public hearing) tour my lab while touring the building.  Fortunately, they were busy so the tour was brief.  Then I had a regular teleconference with clients, which I got called out of to go and photograph a very large tooth for a local man, Matu.   We think it may be a saber-tooth cat.  Photos have been forwarded to various paleontologists & mammologists, and we await the verdict.