PhotoBlahg II

Preparations continue...these were all taken around noon today. Click to enlarge if you are so inclined.

More trucks and equipment in the park.

Closer look. I didn't notice while I was there that I was interrupting the game. Hello, boys.

Still closer look. The stage on the right is the one I took a picture of from the other side yesterday.

And of course the most important item from the previous picture...

A view of the beloved Old Cap from the park. You can see the dome above the trees. Normally there is just an American flag, but this weekend is a little special.

And this one is for the good Reverend:

...because I do keep my promises. And it's not Christmas yet.

Unfortunately, I won't have pics of the actual festivities, because I work during the actual festivities. Sucks to be me.

PhotoBlahg

Click for larger versions if you are so inclined...

This is a shot of someone taking a shot of a stage. This is the park where most Friday and early Saturday festivities will occur.

And from the opposite corner of the park...

These next three are at the stadium. It's a night game, so they have extra lights. You can see one high up in the foreground, and you can see the lit one at the other end if you look closely. I'm guessing the platforms are for cameramen. Also, take note that the hospital is right across the street from the stadium. Back in the day, we'd cut through the hospital en masse to get back to downtown. I don't know if they still allow that.

This is a gate on the south side of the stadium. If you enlarge, you can see the hospital sign right above the seats of the far side, as well as the light above the water tower. And you can't really tell, but the field is sunk into the ground. So you enter about halfway up the stands and walk down to the front seats. If you have front row seats.

And this is the new press box side of the stadium. If you enlarge, you'll see the cornerstone with the year on it (lower right corner). Also, look at the brick columns behind the front gates. That is where the former outside wall of the stadium was located.

I would have taken a picture on the other side looking into the stadium and the south end with the ginormous new scoreboard, but football practice was letting out* and taking pictures of the players made me feel stalkerish. Besides, I doubt any of you care about the new scoreboard anyway. And if you do, I'll get a pic of it later. Or you can just watch the game on Saturday night.

* Their practice facilities are across the street from the north side of the stadium, and some of them were milling around the north gate at the time.

Football

Football, football, football. There can be talk of little else.

You'd think the #1 ranked team was coming to town or something. Oh, wait. Check out the "3 Games Worth Tivoing". (I highly recommend the first game on that list. The second? Not so much. Heh.)

Oh, well. If it brings Kirk Herbstreit to town, I won't complain. Hi, Kirk.

And Now We Dance

I had an exam today, and it was not only in my major, but in my major concentration. I was determined to get an "A". And not your run-of-the-mill 92-94 "A". Oh, no. I was shooting for the 98-100 "A". A 95 or lower will make me consider lying down on the train tracks, 96 or 97 will be acceptable, but 98-100 is what I wanted.

I think I got what I wanted.

Plus a hand cramp. Essay tests, you know.

Nectar of the Gods

For someone who generally claims not to like coffee, I sure have been drinking a lot of it lately. Lovely cup of Belgian Hazelnut resting above my keyboard right now, poised to ruin my keyboard.

I'm a big fan of the caffeine.

Big.

Fan.

Okay, not so much a fan as an addict, but I don't judge you. Don't judge me.

Have an exam tomorrow and mucho reading to do after work tonight, so methinks coffee is going to be my best friend.

That's all. Just thought I should post something. Carry on.
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Oh, and for those keeping track at home, I did not get a talking-to about telling a customer to play in traffic. I was just told not to do it again. What do I have to do to get in trouble around here?

But It Saves My Keyboard from Wear and Tear

The thing about 900-year-old history professors is they don't like to grade papers. So they just have tests.

The problem with that is, I have to submit 3 good research papers in a portfolio in order to graduate.

So I have one (non-900 y.o.) professor who makes us write two papers a semester, but they're just analysis of a single source (glorified book report), and I have another (900 y.o.) professor who doesn't make us write anything.

These people are not helping me.

Wandering Around Campus

I have a break on Tuesdays from 10:20 to 1:05, so I took the scenic route to the library where I did some reading between classes. Along the way, I saw a guy dressed up like a pirate, yelling piratey things to let everyone know about "Talk Like a Pirate Day". He had a pirate wench with him, who was writing on the sidewalk in chalk about pirates' booty. Pirates get the booty. Get it?

From there, I saw a guy randomly opening up a fire hydrant. He didn't seem to be uniformed or name-tagged to indicate his employment with the university facilities management...so I don't know what that was about. The flood of water rushing down the hill accompanied me as I walked down to the library. When I came out a little over an hour later, it had dried up. And he might have been arrested. I'll have to remember to check the student newspaper tomorrow.

Right before class, I wandered back up the hill and into a book store, where I bought a couple books and a Mad Libs. I haven't done those in a hundred years, but I need a little stress-reduction in my life. Preferably before I get fired for telling customers to go play in traffic. (Something that happened yesterday, actually, so I may be in for a talking-to tomorrow.)

What else is going on? Oh, got my contract for my writing thing. Very exciting. Now I just need to research and write the thing. I can't be more detailed than that on the blog.

I'm also considering turning into a joiner now that I'm in the home stretch of my educamation. I already do community service stuff, but I think I may have to network and schmooze in my areas of study. Make relationships with people who can write recommendation letters for me. That sort of thing.

I just don't really have a lot of spare time. So I'm getting a little stressed.

Throwing Off the Curve

Just kidding. There is no curve.

Guess who got an "A" on her Latin exam. And not just a low "A" that I sort of thought was within reason to get. A high "A".

Look at me and my bad self.
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In other news, I tanked on the osteology exam. But that one is curved, which gives me hope. It's totally not fair, because if you show me any bone in the body (no commentary from you, Shank), I can tell you what it is. But if you point to some random barely detectable lump on that bone, we might have problems. Not because I don't recognize it, necessarily, but probably because I can't conjure up the name for it out of my brain. If you, say, gave me a list of four choices...I could probably name it. But the test wasn't multiple choice.

Stupid bones and their stupid random tuberosities and stuff.

I'm guessing a "C" unless everyone else sucks, and then a "B".

Now that section is over and we can all move on with life.

I always have Latin to make me feel good about myself.

Yeah, So?

Gmail has that nifty excerpt feature that lets you read the first few words of an e-mail without even opening it.

Such as the following excerpt from "Jose" the spammer...

"My penis has gone from 3.5 inches to 6 inches and it's still growing!"

Yeah, Jose, it's called an erection, and it's not that magical.

/delete

Inexplicable

The grades for the Latin exam have not been posted yet. This annoys me greatly.

Magnus, magna, magnum.

By the way, it's all trendy and stuff to have some pretentious Latin motto on one's blog. Like mine? It's up there at the top. No, higher.

Worship me, for I am your goddess. "Your" in the plural form.

Really, do I need to know any more Latin than that?

I Try. Really, I Do

I try to be a nice person. That is the only reason I am not at this minute composing a nice "go eff yourself, your mother, and your dog" e-mail to someone who I'm not even sure why I try to maintain a relationship with in the first place. The only reason I can come up with is that trying to be a nice person thing.

The trying to be a nice person thing is waging a fierce battle with the true bitch that lives within. They're duking it out somewhere near my stomach right now.
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Anyway, the Latin exam went okay. I'll know later how okay...I plan to obsessively check the online grade system until the score appears.
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The freaks are out in full force. The big in-state rivalry game is this weekend. I can't wait to work this afternoon. Hopefully the true bitch that lives within me will be subdued by then.
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Thanks, everyone who wished me a happy birthday. It was the most boring birthday ever, but I guess I should be over birthdays by now anyway. Should probably be denying them, too.

My Grandma is Cooler Than You

All the cool people already wished me a happy birthday. The rest of you have twelve hours.

For my birthday lunch, I enjoyed a Blimpie's Best on wheat with a small bag of Doritos and a diet Pepsi. For my birthday dinner, I will be in my night class, so will have to wait until late to eat. At which point I will probably enjoy the half of the Blimpie's Best that I did not finish.

And then I will study Latin because I have an exam tomorrow morning.

I am a wild, wild woman.

(And it's the Magic Johnson of birthdays, for those keeping track at home.)

Freedom

The male sibling has been released. He has to do rehab and probably pay some fines and whatnot. I don't know if he has a place to live, so I'll be keeping my door locked.

Genius!

Caffeinated apple juice. Can you believe it? I loves the apple juice, I loves the caffeine. Now they're together. I don't have to drink my morning apple juice and then find another way to consume caffeine.

This is the best thing that ever happened to me. Right now.
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What else was I going to talk about? Oh, yes. Lotion. I have eczema, and I need my moisturizer. Now, way back in the day, I used something called Wondra. Wondra ceased to exist, and a lengthy quest began to find a suitable replacement. Finally Curel was deemed worthy of my sensitive, dry skin. Now Curel has lost their mind and replaced their product with some extra super better product that is *not* better and actually irritates my skin. It irritates me in general as well, but that's why you're subjected to this post.

So now begins a new quest. I have purchased two possible replacements for Curel. No small task finding a replacement, as most lotions have mineral oil, and I am allergic to mineral oil. One of the possibilities is a new Vaseline that will not be on the market forever, but if it works I can stock up on it. (I wish I'd known Curel would betray me; I'd have bought cases of it.) Vaseline usually has mineral oil, but this particular one does not. It does have fragrance, however, so I don't have high hopes. The other is a Suave for sensitive skin. In the past, Suave has failed me, but this one might be okay. Don't care a whole lot for the texture, though, as I think it may leave my skin feeling too dry.

But we shall see. If neither work, I will move on to other options. In the meantime, I will try not to claw my skin off.

Yawn

Going home for the weekend really cut into my study time. 1 a.m. the last two nights has found me doing my Latin homework. I am hoping to reverse the trend.

1 a.m. tonight should find me studying osteology instead.
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There were a couple guys holding court on campus today; they had signs with religious quotes, and one of them was preaching loudly about the sin of homosexuality. They attracted a large crowd, but if there were any supporters, they were a silent minority. This county is one of the most heavily Democratic counties in America, and there is a large gay and lesbian community in town. So the guys weren't making many friends with their display.

It amazes me that supposedly Christian men have the presumption to judge others on behalf of God. If anyone is going to do the judging, let it be Him. Worry about your own soul in the meantime. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I didn't come up with that one. JC did.

I Love My Mom

Just so we're all clear, I do love my mother, and I do actually get along with her really well. We do things together and all that. But like most mothers, she can drive me crazy. That's what mothers do. Mine, anyway. She's one of the closest people to me, and every little disapproval or comment or whatever is magnified by my perception because I only want both my parents to love me unconditionally.

What she wants is for me to be happy and securely ensconced in a marriage with someone of the means to take care of me. If it's someone with the means to outdo her rich sister who married very well, all the better. From her perspective, thin equals beauty equals snagging a good man.

Still Standing

We may not be as united as we were five years ago, but we're still standing. We are strong and we shall keep freedom alive.

Almost Perfect

Well, that was fun.

My mom has hit upon a solution to the problem with my brother. We give him up as a wash, and if his drug rehab takes and he becomes a productive and responsible member of society, we'll be pleasantly surprised. But we assume that won't happen.

Step two, we make her first child into a perfect testimony to her mad parenting skillz.

This will be accomplished by:
a.) Her eldest daughter wearing a size 2.
b.) Her eldest daughter getting married and having children.
c.) Her eldest daughter getting a Ph.D. so that after telling people about the son, she can say, "But my daughter has a doctorate in history and is a professor at (insert any college name here)."

My self-esteem is pretty battered right now. Par for the course after visiting the folks, really. But now the pressure to make up for the white trashiness of my brother has increased dramatically.

Maternal Resolve Crumbling

We are now entering Week Two of White Trash Brother: Incarceration v.5.0. I can feel my mother starting to cave in about the bail. Not based on anything specific that she's said, but I know her and I know her behavior. She is depressed. She is dwelling but not talking about it.

She is not answering my damned e-mails. This is the woman who whines and carries on if I don't e-mail her, and now I'm getting crap short-answer responses to my e-mail, if any response at all. The latest? "Will talk tomorrow."

I wasn't even e-mailing about the brother. I was e-mailing about my history writing/getting published/good for the resume thing. And the response? "Will talk tomorrow."

Bleh. I am so excited to visit them tomorrow night. Stupid family. Stupid drama.

Best Pilot Ever Saw, So On And So Forth...

I saw Gordon Cooper's Mercury flight helmet and watch today and you didn't. Nyah nyah.

Fighting Dirty

Because of a recent physical altercation involving a boy and a girl, self defense has been a frequent topic of conversation in my circle. I really think every female should take a self-defense course, even if it's just for an hour. (But not just me showing you how to throw a punch or break a wrist.)

If you are attacked, you need to fight back as if your life depends on it. Because it might. Fight to injure, maim, or whatever you have to do to have time to get away. "Whatever you have to do" means killing if it comes to that.

Know how to throw a punch. First, know how to make a fist. If your thumb is under your fingers, you'll hurt yourself. Bring your fingers in tightly against your palm, then wrap your thumb across them. Lead with your first knuckle and try to punch downwards for more force. The nose and stomach are good places to aim for, and if landed well will probably give you time to run away.

Kicking the sensitive areas are perfectly acceptable. Twice, if possible.

Scratching the eyes is also perfectly acceptable. Keys and pens are useful for that, too. While you have your keys or pen handy, remember that the side of the ribcage is pretty sensitive.

If your attacker has an earring, take it out. To be perfectly clear on this, rip the earring from the earlobe....the facial piercing from the lip, brow, whatever.

If a person physically threatens you and there is no escape route, you need to act decisively. You need to assume he means to seriously injure or even kill you. Don't be squeamish about hurting another person, because he won't be squeamish about hurting you.

Worship Me, Bitches

I am going to be a contributor to a biographical dictionary listing people of historical import.

Said biographical dictionary is being published by a history periodical.

And I didn't even get this opportunity through the history department. Go figure.

Why History is a Cool Field of Study

One reason, anyway.

UPDATE: Hrm. That link died a premature death. Here's another one. I'll post it in the extended in case it goes away too.
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I recommend for those interested in New World exploration...this book. It reads really quickly, and is interesting on several levels. Covey does an excellent job of putting it into geographical context that the modern-day reader understands.
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Oh, and for those keeping score at home, the male sibling is still in jail. The female sibling predicts he will remain so until sentencing, where he will get time served but additional time as well. She is more expert in such matters than I am, because she knows more people who have been in similar predicaments...so I shall defer to her judgment.

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Va.'s first slaves: 400 years later, a mystery unlocked
By Lisa Rein, The Washington Post

JAMESTOWN, Va. — They were known as the "20 and odd," the first African slaves to set foot in North America at the English colony settled in 1607.
For nearly 400 years, historians believed they were brought to Virginia from the West Indies on a Dutch warship. Little else was known of the Africans, who left no traces.

Now, new scholarship and transatlantic detective work have solved the puzzle of who they were and where their forced journey across the Atlantic Ocean began.
The slaves were herded onto a Portuguese slave ship in the southwest African country of Angola. The ship was seized by the British on the high seas — not brought to Virginia after a period of time in the Caribbean. They represented one ethnic group, not many, as historians first believed.

The discovery has tapped a rich vein of history that will go on public view next month at the Jamestown Settlement museum. It will commemorate the 400th anniversary of Jamestown's founding by revamping the exhibits and artifacts — as well as the story of the settlement itself.

Although historians have thoroughly documented the direct slave trade from Africa starting in the 1700s, little was known of the first blacks who arrived in Virginia and other colonies a century earlier. A story of memory and cultural connections between Africa and the early New World is being unearthed in a state whose plantation economy set the course for the Civil War.

"We went entirely back to the drawing board," said Tom Davidson, senior curator of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation."The problem has always been that all of the things that make for a human story (of the Africans) were missing. ... Now we can talk about the Africans with the same richness we talk about the English and the Powhatans."

Behind him, an Angolan man stripped bark from a baobab tree in a re-created village featured in the museum's new 30,000-square-foot gallery, which will open Oct. 16. It's double the space of the previous one, to cover a long span of the 17th century and the African story, which was barely featured before.

How the story of the charter generation of Africans in Virginia has come to life in a new $25 million museum wing is a tale of two scholars who helped connect two coasts of the Atlantic Ocean.

The early 1600s were a time of war and empire-building in southwest Africa; Portuguese traders under the rule of the king of Spain had established the colony of Angola. The exporting of slaves to the Spanish New World was a profitable enterprise. The Portuguese waged war against the kingdoms of Ndongo and Kongo to the north, capturing and deporting thousands of men and women. They passed through a slave fortress at the port city of Luanda, still Angola's capital.

At Jamestown, tobacco was on the verge of a boom after the British had failed at several industries. Indentured servants from England were common in the settlement, now close to 1,000 people strong.

John Rolfe, Virginia's first tobacco planter and husband of the Indian princess Pocahontas, wrote the widely held account of the African landing in a letter to the Virginia Company of London. The captain of a Dutch warship that arrived in Jamestown in August 1619 "brought not any thing but 20 and odd Negroes, wch the Governor and Cape Marchant bought for victuale ... at the best and easyest rate they could." Rolfe explained that the ship and another called the Treasurer had embarked from the West Indies.

A retired University of California at Berkeley historian, Engel Sluiter, made a startling discovery in the Spanish national archives in the late 1990s as he did research for a book on Spanish America. A colonial shipping document he uncovered in an account book identified a Portuguese slave ship called the San Juan Bautista. About 350 slaves were bound for Veracruz, on the east coast of modern-day Mexico, when the ship was robbed of its human cargo off the coast of Mexico in 1619 by two unidentified pirate ships, the record said.

Sluiter, who died in 2001, published his discovery in the William and Mary Quarterly. It caught the eye of historian John Thornton, an expert on the Portuguese colonies in Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries.
The outlines of the other half of the story took shape.

"I said, 'I can figure out how these people were enslaved,'" said Thornton, a Boston University professor who, with his wife, historian Linda Heywood, is publishing a book on the slave trade between Angola and the North American colonies. Previous scholarship has documented the slave trade from Ghana, Senegal and other parts of West Africa. "We know Angola was a big exporter of slaves to Brazil and the Spanish colonies, but now we know that they showed up here," Thornton said.

Through records of a legal dispute between the pirate ships, Thornton identified the vessels as the British-owned Treasurer and the the Dutch White Lion. Each took 20 to 30 slaves before the San Juan Bautista continued to Veracruz. They landed at Jamestown within four days of each other and traded the Africans for provisions. The Treasurer then sailed to Bermuda, dropping off more slaves, and returned to Virginia a few months later, trading the final nine or 10 more.
Many Angolans followed — not just to Virginia, but to New York and New England, say Thornton and Heywood, who are consultants to the Jamestown Settlement. Their research draws a portrait of the first Africans as urban people connected by common languages, who had had contact with Europeans for many years.

Virginia's first Africans spoke Bantu languages called Kimbundu and Kikongo. Their homelands were the kingdoms of Ndongo and Kongo, regions of modern-day Angola and coastal regions of Congo. Both were conquered by the Portuguese in the 1500s. The Africans mined tar and rock salt, used shells as money and highly valued their children, holding initiation ceremonies to prepare them for adulthood.

And they most likely had been baptized as Christians, because the Kingdom of Ngondo converted to Christianity in 1490. Many were literate. This background may be one reason some of Virginia's first Africans won their freedom after years as indentured servants, the historians said.

The Portuguese and Catholic roots figure prominently on a glass wall in the new gallery at the Jamestown Settlement. Mareo, Christian, Nando, Acquera, Palmena, Cuba, Salvo — they are among 400 African names engraved on the wall, one for each anniversary year.

One is Angelo, whose name appears on a 1624 census of the colony discovered in the past decade. She is listed as a "Negro woman" who came on the Treasurer and worked as a servant in the home of Capt. William Pierce and his wife, June. Historians assume the slave's name was Angela.

It is Angela, played by a young Angolan actress, who stars in the new introductory film visitors will see as they watch the new story of Jamestown unfold. The 23-minute movie was filmed on a beach in Luanda in 2004, when museum curators traveled there for research.

The film will replace a 15-year-old version that gives the first Africans only a passing glance. Now visitors will be transported to a Portuguese cathedral in Luanda, where a Jesuit priest breaks bread with the captains of the San Juan Bautista. They discuss the souls to be saved and riches to be made from the continued shipment of slaves from Massangano, an inland city. The film cuts to a hut on the shore of the Kwanza River, where Angela, a young woman in her 20s, pounds grain and smiles. Then she and thousands of others are captured and taken to a beach at Luanda. A Jesuit priest asks her if she has been baptized, and she answers yes.

"That she is a child of God. When she dies she will go to heaven," the priest says. And the slave ships sets sail against the evening sun.

Jail is Fun

It must be. My brother seems to like it. Good thing, too, because everyone is finally letting him stay there instead of bailing him out.

He's an addict, but not to hear him tell it. See, The Man is just trying to keep him down, man. Or something similar.

Cops are picking on him. He just likes to have a little fun. His documented fun that I know of includes driving while intoxicated 3 times, marijuana one time, and meth one time. It's all just bad luck that he gets picked up...because total geniuses keep a joint in their vehicle ashtray while driving intoxicated in a small town with no traffic and a cop with nothing to do. Three nights after your last DUI arrest.

Total geniuses drive around without a license, get picked up for driving without a license, then continue driving without a license and without a seatbelt with meth and a pipe in their vehicle. In a smallish town where the cops tend to remember you...and remember arresting the driver of that crap truck two weeks ago for driving without a license.

Total geniuses never think, hey, maybe the whole world isn't against me and maybe all these alcohol and drug arrests mean I have a problem.

Total geniuses think their drunk-ass uncle who starts drinking at 8 am to control the shakes is totally cool...instead of really sad.

My brother, the total genius, is ruining the tattered remains of his life and there isn't anything anyone can do to stop him. Except maybe leave him in jail long enough for him to realize he has a problem. Eventually he's got to find a judge who goes with that.

Preferrably before he kills anyone--or himself.